Raglan
may the bridges i burn light the way
When you are young, most assume you know nothing. You are but a babe, a child, a mere stripling with no life lived; they would take your precious experiences, those shining and lovely creations built from new eyes and fresh minds, and crush them flat beneath the sharp edges and right angles of their own limitations. It would be better to turn what was once colorful and abstract into slate, they say, if only to continue the status quo. Yet, each youth was brought into the world cradled in arms of starlight and infinity, with the truths of the universe dripping from a graceless tongue.
If babes could speak, if their voices could be made into words and poetry and song, they would sing as angels sing, croon as cherubs croon, speak as Gods speak.
There is no stronger truth than what is found in the eyes of the untested and the unknowing — their greenness nurtured in springtide ignorance, perceptions not yet clipped into orderly rows. If they could, babes would speak gospel, they would speak milk and honey and holiness and painful, painful Truth.
Would that they used their voices to define the undercurrents tracing the outline of existence — all to become, all to dissolve, all to be forgotten amid the tumultuous waves of time, and all that would weigh the destinies of the future. Would that Raglan had known just what the universe had written for him, just how the twisting of a single thread in that grand tapestry of Fate could wrench he and his ilk so violently from one another.
If he had been a crueler sort, maybe the winged stallion would have stood upon Veneror lashing at their damned temple, would have sent his rage skyward and flung the Gods’ betrayal at their celestial feet; a gauntlet, a challenge to give back what had been stolen from him. Maybe they would have answered, maybe if they knew what they had done, what shockwaves their petty rivalries had sent down into the bedrock of his inconsequential mortal life — maybe they wouldn’t have left him so alone.
And yet?
And yet.
He glanced again to the gold flecked stranger that stood by his side, a solid and unwavering comfort, an ally for the war each mortal unwittingly waged against the lurking and endless Dark. That he was of the Night made no difference, born in smoke and shadow, the grandness of death was still something he feared in his animal heart. Indeed, eventide was not the same as True Dark, for no matter how small their shining, stars were still made of light.
Silvery eyes lingered on the maiden’s own twin pools of blazing gold, Raglan’s gaze drifting over tear stained cheeks and the memory of the smile she had offered him — a flitting glimpse at sunshine through clouds filled with rain. It occurred to him then, that she was his match in whatever way it meant to the cosmos. To whatever end, amid the labyrinthine plans of the Gods, this night smeared stranger had been brought here by their wretched, terrible, graceful hands. They had presented the exile with the other, brighter half, to his brilliant and tarnished coin.
”Perhaps it shall, for both of us.”
Her voice was soft as the downy feathers that underlined Raglan’s massive wings, and the stallion couldn’t help but watch her just as she watched him. She was painted with subtle splendor, flawless sunlight skin fading to dark and back again, as if she wore the passage of days as her raiment. Serene and careful, yet powerful in her presence, he wondered what it would be to pass days as peaceful as she. The Silvertongue’s vision snagged on the little snatch of dusk nestled beneath her neck, a careful brush of plum cradled against her breast, and a flush rushed through him to be staring so openly at her body. Quickly, he flicked opal eyes back to her face, praying she would understand that his gaze had not been lustful.
Raglan was thankful for the earth in that moment; for it’s unyielding solidity, for reminding him that he had hit the ground, and could fall no further.
”Who are you, to have such exquisite timing as to save me from the memories that would devour me?”
The twist to his lips was wry, the words playful as they slipped into the beckoning darkness, but there was a note of genuine curiosity there — Where had she come from, if not from his own desperate need? And how had she felt so much pain, to have looked at him and known?
Two beats of his heart and understanding cracked through his bones and into the sand at his hooves.
Raglan loved her; beneath the eyes of gods old and new, amid a battleborn and battlebred nation, he swore he loved her. The knowledge swept over him with a sudden and blazing ferocity — she owed him nothing, this stranger who had seen whatever weight he bore and shouldered it without a second thought; this unnamed woman who looked at the Crow’s cracking resolve and wept for him and all he had lost. She owed him nothing and still stood at his side, still offered her hand to a drowning man.
Fear rose in him at this realization; the abject and absolute terror driving the urge to flee her presence, rid himself of those too-honest eyes, was overwhelming. However, the idea of leaving her to stand alone beneath the blanket of Night was just as painful. The Crow could not stomach abandoning a friend again, no matter how newly forged their bond, not after he lost his brothers and sisters and home, not after he lost his Orphan King. So he stayed, a sudden and strange sense of loyalty girding his spine. Leaning a bit closer, he didn’t look away from that depthless golden gaze, even has he felt feathers brush against her rib cage and shoulder.
”You can call me Raglan.”
"Talk"
@Nefertari oops he fell in what he thinks is platonic love. THINK AGAIN IDIOT. (Shout out to my Sylvia Plath homies if you caught the referenceeee) also im sorry... that this is so long????? I dont know what happened.
