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09-22-2015, 11:32 PM
She clung to him— at first he thought of out fear. But as her hold increased in its intensity, and she began to speak of foals… He realized that her own demons were clawing through her mind just as his were in the wake of the inferno. As she mentions her previous dishonesty, he cannot help the rigidity and flare of anger that passes through him— despite her smile. For that wound, though paling in the comparison of the gaping hole losing Rexanna would cause, was still fresh and not quite healed. But the temper passed, fading into insignificance as her voice softly sounded against him. The floodgates had opened. Calmly, comfortingly he stands in silence, holding her as she tells her past. Discomfort radiates from her, vibrating into his hide as she tells of her true mother. And her lamentable death. ”I was – absolutely – innocent.” He listened, nodded, hearing anger beneath the layers of confusion and sadness in her words. Absentmindedly, he ran his massive, loosely spiraled horn against her slender, tightly spiraled one as she spoke of it. It made a gentle clinking noise as the golden chain he had collected and wrapped tightly around it’s length contacted the rounded ridges of her golden spear. The motion was unconscious, yet meant to be comforting. Wordlessly saying that he found her horn lovely, perfect even, despite its darkly traumatic entry to life. He cocked his head ever so slightly as she compared her Northern Land to the Basin. Why would she wish to be in the Basin, then? If it was so like this the North of her past, that she escaped? Once again, the familiar feeling of betrayal stirred in him, as he was reminded that she chose the Basin over him. But it was easily tamped down in the face of her opening up to him. Opening up once more. Like a flower to the sun. Again, he was the sun to his Rexanna. He had been so many things in his life— manipulator, politician, pawn, brute strength— but only once before Helovia had he been a force of good. Of growth. That had been to his family, to his mare and son. He abruptly stopped emanating comfort as she spoke of a foal. She had said before that she hadn’t had a foal. He took a step backwards, needing to watch her, see her, study her face. To see the truth she spoke, see her face. Perhaps it was slightly masochistic, for he could recognize a mirrored loss in one’s soul. The loss of a child weighs so heavily. Then as she spoke of the northern prince’s powers, he grew rigid, muscles taut. That power… It was Tembovu’s greatest nightmare. For his own mind often trapped him in his past. For someone to have the power to do it at a whim? A great shudder passed through the massive stallion. He reached out, pressed the side of his muzzle against hers. To soothe her, to comfort himself. He closes his eyes. She lost her child, as he had seen in her eyes as he studied her. “Rexanna,” he pauses, breaking his long stretch of silence, “You cannot, must not, blame yourself for the death of your son. It is a dark and dangerous path, without light or help,” he stops himself, for even at the mere mention of that road, he can feel its pull. He can feel the snake in his barrel start to uncoil, stretching lazily. Who will we destroy today? He pushes it down, into the hole where his dark, painful memories live. “And you are so much more than ‘half a princess’,” he rumbles, stepping into her once again as her pale, elegantly lined face brushes against the hard blackness of his chest. “To have survived that— to have moved past and thrived in a new land. Without vengeance or revenge,” he held her tighter, “That is the mark of a worthy, deserving soul.” Quietly he finishes, a pregnant pause loading the air as he sighs a deep breath. “I have felt your loss. Our loss. I followed it to destruction. Used it as a vendetta to destroy an empire. Yes, I brought down those responsible for the death of Mara and Faxr,” his eyes blaze against the black markings, for he had not spoken their names aloud in so very long, “But to what end? I destroyed lives. Lives of greedy, corrupt leaders. But also lives of innocents. And what did I honor in my crusade of justice? Was that honoring their memory? Would they be happy to see the ruins of an empire, its citizens left in the wreckage?” His angry, broken tirade ended as his emotions caught up with his throat, closing it for a few moments. “So, I think you are a much better being than I, for how you handled this… this indescribable loss,” the emotion has quieted out of his voice now. He is moving his head, slowly unwrapping the glittering chain from his the thickness of his horn, “You are the rose to my thorn,” a slight amount of humor enters his eyes, his face, as he continues with his task. It is not an easy feat, for the loops of chain are twisted and tangled. He finally manages to remove it, and it slides down his broad face into the grass at his feet. He looks deeply into her lovely teal gaze. “So my golden princess, I give you this befitting golden chain,” he picks it up shockingly delicately into his lips. Ever so gently, he hooks it into her forelock, tangling it into the long strands. His lips brush the thin, delicate skin behind her ears with care. He finishes, and pulls back to see his handiwork, “To remind you that, within yourself, You can be honest. You are precious. You are loved.” |
- table by Niki -
@Rexanna
Please tag Tembovu.
