"Against the odds, against the grain we lean, like gardens toward light.
We reach with all of our might for such a noble aim as love."
We reach with all of our might for such a noble aim as love."
It was such a simple thing, the pair standing there side by side. From a distance they might appear just as a couple partaking in each other’s company. But the feelings roiling underneath their skin. the stresses bearing down on their shoulders, were so much more complex than that. They were ghosts of the past and worries of the future, and the pressure to do right and good. They stood among the fireflies and the dry summer grasses but they were both far away from this night. They might be wading through their own troubles, but those struggles had brought them here, together.
Somnus reached his muzzle out to her and Eulalie closed her eyes at the velvet touch of his nose against hers, a soft smile shaping her lips. It was like a warmth inside her, a flowing, electric thing that ran through her veins. She returned the gesture, turning her head to press her muzzle gently against his in a caress of ivory and golden skin. “I believe you,” the woman breathed, once more finding comfort in his place at her side, at his promise spoken to her upon the summer air, “I trust you.” And she did, she realized, though that statement slipped off her tongue without intention. Of everything the golden man had showed her, given her, a reason not to have faith in him was not one of them.
He sighed, and her earth eyes searched his face again, hearing the weight that was sitting heavily upon him, rather than simply seeing or feeling it. “Tell me,” she encouraged him, knowing it would ease him as much as it would allow her to aid in whatever way she could, and tell her he did. Eulalie listened to Somnus’ confession of how he was feeling and though she could not understand the pressures of leading a kingdom, nor the ways it could eat away at someone, she could empathize. One thing she did understand was the feeling of not being adequate or doing a sufficient job, but, “You are so much more than you can see,” she said, recalling the words with fondness as she had spoken them to him the first day they had met. She felt they were more true now than ever. “Everything that you do for the court is enough, and your people love you.”
The ivory and sunshine woman reached out to him, and if he would let her, she would gently touch her head against the curve of his neck. Eulalie closed her eyes and breathed in, and Somnus’ smell surrounded her, enveloped her. Her heart raced, but it was a different feeling than either that had set it to the hummingbird pace it had reached so far. It pushed passed the panic and the darkness that wanted so much to settle within her heart. It was a need she felt deep within her, a longing to feel a connection to another, beyond any she had so far. She whispered, “Let me take some of the weight from you.”
@Somnus
