two lovers went hand in hand;
Everything watches as girl hugs girl, heart opening and bleeding and bending and twisting, and time nearly passes too quickly as the phoenix ushers Bexley in. Broken words form in a broken throat, a thousand suns shoved into her mouth, a million eclipses darkening Bexley’s world. But words cannot change what has happened, cannot undo that which neither could stop.
And there is sadness in the way Moira shushes the sun-girl, the daybright child. A comforting humm, a quieting coo. Even Neerja, oft so forward and ready to stand between her strange winged cub with any who dared approach, keeps a distance and pushes back servants and observers.
Workers rush back to their duties with a cold glare from the tiger and the irritable flick of her tail.
Ahead, the Tonnerre girl tucks Bexley to her side. "The time for words will come, you need not force it here. Let’s wrap your wounds bit by bit together, no?” Shoulder brushes shoulder, red and gold mingling until a bright orange is all that can be seen from above where their skin touches and hair mingles. Golden eyes, honeyed eyes, wear no pity in their depths, only the sorrow that is bone-deep, burning her marrow until ashes and cracks are all that can be found.
She prays she never knows what it is to lose love like that, and for a moment a brown-eyed man flashes across her memory.
His star-bright smile, his midnight laugh. All mingle and twine together until Moira feels as though her heart could burst. The thought of him gone, of a world where he is not there and she is not there and they are not there… All of it threatens to stop her dead in her tracks.
But this is not a sorrow that is hers.
So she leaves the uncertainty of the future in the hands of fate for a moment just as she leads Bexley Briar into the bowels of the castle. There, hot cocoa comes steaming on a tray with hints of vanilla and cinnamon. Fruits piled high are presented between them on a silver platter. Blankets and pillows where once Moira and Isra lay together, side by side in a world of promises and new bonds, are once more on the floor before a great and burning fire. It is here that Moira finally rests, indicating that Bexley could join her, should join her. When gold is once more near, the pegasus moves closer. Here, her nose goes to Bexley’s neck, tracing her own grief into hairline and whispering apologies into her ear. "Sometimes, I wish time would stop and that we could freeze a moment forever.” She confides at last. Honesty drips like the honey of her smoky voice into the darkness of galaxies and cosmos between them.
