The whole of Denocte shines in moonlight. Bexley cannot be sure if it’s meant to look like that or if it's simply a trick of the night, but something in the stone reflects the silver as pure as water and washes it into the street. Even where the lamps shine from their sconces, the light is… cold, somehow wrong. Though the night is warm, the Solterran shudders; her pulse ratchets high, quick and loud in the depths of her chest, and turns her blood black in her head so that she almost can’t see where she’s going.
Her steps are unsteady on the pavement, and each stride sways. The strangers in the street glance at her up and down with derision — is she drunk? Ah, if only. Bexley’s dark ears are pressed flat against her skull as she lowers her head and goes slinking through Denocte’s narrow alleys. She moves like a snake, quick and quiet, and the cloud of pure white hair that is her tail goes snap, snap snapping against her back legs in a warning. She is a formidable sight, Solterra’s golden girl.
(Not much longer.)
Moira, Moira, Moira. The girl’s face plays in her head over and over, like a perfect, terrible mirage. No matter what Bexley does she only thinks of Moira and all the ways she needs to be fixed — all the ways the world has broken her since the day she met Moira that night at the festival and all the new cracks she sports like scars. Nothing is the same. Nothing will be the same. And of course Bexley is old enough to know this is only the way of the world, but that does not make it hurt any less.
The streets are perfectly quiet. It is deep-dark, so that the stars shine with all the light in the world, and Bexley’s heart aches and aches and aches as she remembers the last time she was here and the reason for the path she walked. Her ears ring with the sound of his voice. Moira, she scolds herself, Don’t think about him, think about Moira. Think about Isra. Think about how you’re going to get your life back.
Think about how you’ll get to kill Raum.
And her lips twist into some ugly facsimile of a smile, just barely. Finally the citadel rises up above her, looming ominously tall and close with all its windows woefully dark but one. In her eyes shines the pure dead of a girl with nothing else to lose. Her face is beautiful in stone, Grecian as ever, but something in it is — incorrect, unsettling.
She knocks on the door of the keep.
Bexley and love doubled is madness
06-18-2019, 06:54 PM - This post was last modified: 06-18-2019, 06:56 PM by Bexley
in a lovely garden walking two lovers went hand in hand;
The world is slow and soft, sighing with the rhythm of the tigress' heart as she purrs beside the heap of feathers and wings and paints. Browns and purples and silvers dot Moira Tonnerre, speckling her and drying as she rests. Days of sleeplessness, unease, a restless tension have passed. (When had she last slept?) The phoenix does not remember, and her companion would never tell such private details. Idly, striped tail runs along the curve of the pegasus' hip, dipping into the delicate concave drooping of her long, darkening legs. Up it goes, up with the sound of Moira's breaths.
A frown mars her face, turning red lips down and drawing brows into a furrow. They sit heavily there, golden eyes dark and brooding. So many nights were once spent concentrating as she does now - away from her art (his face is slathered there, in every crevice of those canvases, in every star she looks at when the moon is darkest) and away from that mirror pool that once was a retreat when her library could not be. She is a bell, chiming and loud and bright, but a crack found its way in. Disrupted, disturbed, conflict rages within her stone-faced heart. But she's made a promise, a silent vow (or had she told him aloud how she would count the ways he was wrong and show him how right they could be?) and she will die (or be reborn again, and again, and again) until that is fulfilled.
She is a healer, a medic.
A regent.
The phoenix is not raised by gentle hands to plant a garden and watch the flowers grow. To be a lover had never been in her future, her destiny. There were no dreams of a husband, of children, of a life beyond the walls of the medical bay to help other's children, husbands and wives... Until now.
Now, hope and desire are a crackling fire that sear her ribs, running dancing fingers meant for pianos and passionate nights along her galloping heart. How do people live with it in their throats like this?
Frustration feasts upon her. Neerja's purring stops as a growl (as a scream) slips out. Delicate ears pin back as the cat hisses, swatting the painted girl. 'You should not screech, you'll wake the dead.' And how she bares her teeth then!
Moira could be a beast if she wanted...
But they are interrupted, the hunter and her cub, with a knock on the door and a wide-eyed courier hurrying to tell her there is a girl at the doors and Isra was out. There is no time to waste, no thoughts to be given to the starry eyed man a court away, when duty calls her name. Rising like a wave, like a breeze, she pulls herself from the masses of feather pillows and golden duvet. Lightly, Neerja hops down beside the winged Regent, prowling nearer the boy and hissing until he goes skittering ahead of them. Far enough so that the tiger cannot have a meal so fresh. A wing hits the tiger's head, a golden eye slanting sideways as the phoenix sighs.
"You can't eat everyone," Moira says. 'But I can try,' retorts the tigress.
Together they approach the door, nodding to the guards posted to open the Keep. When they do, it is not who Moira expected, but she is not disappointed. A squeal slips past red lips, a half sob choking her. Mindless release, unthinkingly, she throws herself upon the golden girl with white hair. Dark nose buries in ivory strands, curls protectively over the edge of a straight neck that has seen and carried too much (far too much), she thinks. "Bexley!" and her name is a hiccup, half amazement half sorrow, as it explodes from Moira. "Get out of the cold, you need food." And so she pulls her in, bobbed bangs flying up, bobbed tail almost wagging excitedly like some hound's would. But not quite, oh no. Too much has happened, too many words that can't quite come out.
But they will... With time (and treats), they will.
There is a moment, standing in the cool silence outside the door, that Bexley feels — alive. Herself again.
It rises in her like a wild thing, snarling and growling; it claws at the inside edges of her chest and throat; she blinks and suddenly she is a girl again and cannot feel the constant burning of her scar against her cheek, she is a girl again who does not know tragedy, she is a girl again remembering how to smile and it completely overtakes her. Her heart races. She feels blood pooling in the corners of her mouth. Her whole body trembles with excitement, with electricity, and every sensation (the kiss of the wind, the sound of far away movement) is amplified a thousand times until it is all roaring in her ears like the crashing of a wave. She can hear the moon in the sky. The sizzle of glitter swirling on her skin. The whole universe seems to narrow to the inch that separates Bexley from the inside of the citadel, undulating in a dark mirage, and just at the moment she thinks she might faint for the way her blood rushes into her head —
The door opens, and Moira steps out.
Bexley exhales a sharp breath she didn’t know she was holding. A wave of relief rushes in to replace it. “Moira — “ When they collide, Bexley chokes out a noise that is half laugh, half sob, torn out of the place where her heart is broken. She hates herself for the way tears brim in her eyes so easily but cannot hold them in. How long has it been since they’ve seen each other, and Moira has not changed a bit but for the length of the hair — still her eyes gleam and her coat shines that pure, perfect red, and still she smiles when she sees Bexley, as if the golden girl is not a monster. Bexley’s whole body throbs with the force of her heart, bleeding in relief.
“I…” She fishes for something to say that would encapsulate even a hundredth of the emotions that roar through her, so loud she cannot hear her own thoughts. Her ivory lips fall foolishly open. Something bubbles up in the back of her throat, a bile, a word that begs to be released, but she cannot find it. She follows Moira meekly into the keep.
The last time she was here — well — the last time she was here had been two kings ago, and she had been practically a child then, beautiful and perfectly ignorant. She had not known the trouble that would follow her or any of the million small deaths she would have suffered. Now the keep is something like a prison. Its cobbled walls press in on her, and the light streaming from the lanterns is not quite bright enough to push her fears away.
in a lovely garden walking two lovers went hand in hand;
When doors open and golden girl pushes air from her lungs (air, held so long and so hard and so tightly, that shimmers and shines and demands to be seen and heard) the world sighs, too. Soft breeze brushes golden hair towards dark strands. The fire behind them glows a little brighter.
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.
There are no words, for any of it. Even if there were, Bexley doesn’t think she’d want to use them.
Instead she meets Moira’s eyes, molten gold against icy blue, and blinks hard to hold back the tears that threaten to spill over her sharp cheeks. Oh, how can someone love so much? She knew, she used to know. Now she sees it in the way Moira looks at her, warm and sorrowful, and it almost makes her sick to think she used to feel that way. Sick-guilty. Sick-heartbroken.
Bexley listens to the stupid, arrogant brag of her heart, bum-bum, bum-bum, and hears the way her breath trembles against her clenched teeth, and the sound of living is so loud she almost doesn’t hear the way Moira shushes her, not patronizing, but genuinely sweet. The darkness changes a degree as they pass through the doorway. It ripples and shudders from blue to bruised yellow; the cold outside air rushes away, replaced by a stagnant warmth that smells vaguely of cinnamon. She blinks against the light as it threatens her pale lashes, dazzled, for a moment, by the re-introduction of candles and lanterns to her narrow world, and she feels so off-centered by it that she thinks it might have her hallucinating a tiger.
No, not hallucinating. Workers scatter as the huge, pretty thing flicks its tail at them, and when Bexley meets its eyes, almost the same cold blue as hers, she is surprised to see that it looks back at her with a fierce intelligence. Surprised and not a little relieved.
They move deeper into the castle. Bexley follows Moira, and it is the first she has followed someone in a long, long time.
Underfoot the cobblestone is softened by intricately woven, plush rugs; though it is the dead of night people go rushing by carrying platters of food, bundles of herbs, rolls of silk slung over their backs; they push through an ornately carved, heavy door and into a room where a fire roars and spits high into the air, where blankets and pillows are piled together in a perfectly messy nest. As soon as Moira takes a seat, servants with trays come streaming in—hot chocolate with spices that tickle at the inside of Bexley’s nostrils, figs and dates cornered by silver spoons. She stands for a moment just outside the circle of pillows, as if debating whether to join, then finally, carefully, drops each knee to take a seat.
There is but a moment of silence before Moira’s lips meet her neck, and—
What is she supposed to feel?
There is a grinding and clicking in her chest. Pure confusion. Bexley can’t move, even if she wanted to, and anyway she doesn’t. Her limbs are frozen, and her pulse thrashes against the inside of her mouth. The fire threatens her like a beast from its place in the wall. Oh, her heart hurts, it aches and falls apart like a black dahlia; she feels so many petals swirling to the bottom of her chest, and for a moment her mouth is filled with the taste of bitter greenery, oh, I still love him, but involuntarily she shudders as she feels the whisper in her hairline. Involuntarily she leans closer. Involuntarily her little monster-mouth says we want a kiss.
Involuntarily.
“I know what you mean,” Bexley mumbles. Her voice is raspy but pure, and she swears she can feel it physically as it leaves her mouth. She doesn’t want to cry anymore, but she can feel—something pooling in her bones, like a threat, and rather than face it, presses her forehead against Moira’s shoulder. What else is there to do?
Between them lies a galaxy, atop them a blanket strewn from stardust and fallen rocks and velvet is lain, and below them the world slips into nothingness as they curl together, side by side. The world stills even as Bexley’s heart beats furiously, as her mind blazes a trail of rage and confusion and loss. She is in a freefall that Moira felt the day she left Estelle and the many lonely months that followed.
Then, there was no one to pick up her broken pieces and make sure she ate. No gentle brush of skin on skin for comfort, or sweet whispers to remind her she is still alive, she is still alive, came from the mouth of any she held dear.
Those months were so cold and lonely. Moira had gone into a robotic state, merely surviving from desperation to save a life, merely moving her feet and swallowing down pale, dull, tasteless mouthful after mouthful of grain and water for the sake of another, not for herself. Nothing then had been for herself, it was all for the one who awaited her, the one that needed her, the one that she cherished (cherishes?) above all else.
The phoenix scarcely remembers those days - blocked out like the many other traumas and agonies afflicting her life, littered in the annals of history and nothing more now.
Sometimes, they come like thieves in the night to remind her who she is, who she was. Like the stars that blink sleepily in the heavens, they are whispers cold and barbaric scuttling over tender, supple flesh that shivers and flinches from her sins. She is sure if you peel away her skin to find her soul within that it would be black and dripping with tar and stains and death.
The phoenix is not an image of purity.
But she burns stains from the world all the same.
Hands heal, phantom strokes arc across Bexley’s cheek as lips turn to the edge of red and black mouth, begging for pomegranate seeds that Moira cannot give. Confusion swirlds, strange and low, as Bexley presses into her shoulder.
What is it she wants? How do you comfort someone who has lost near everything?
Eyes close as she curls her neck over the flaxen haired woman’s, sheltering her with a blanket and wing, welcoming her into her home (into her heart) as she’d wished someone would have, or could have, done when she needed it most. “I dream of smoke sometimes, and the smoke dances with faces I know. Some rejoice and some sing threats and sorrow. None of them embrace me as they once did, and their absence is a howling hole that I don’t think can ever be filled.” As she speaks, she pulls a plum from the tray, slicing it absently and offering part to her companion. Water slakes her thirst, sloshing down dry throat until she feels her voice will not waver and these secrets can be shared in her smoky voice made for midnight taverns, made for voluptuous curves, made for men with greedy hands for ample flesh and smiles. Pink tongue darts over dry lips and she wonders what it is to lose a lover over and over and over.
“There was a girl once, who is out there still, named Estelle. When we were children, she was the only one to befriend me. And we were close, so close. I had to leave her to save her. I had to leave her and I will never forget the press of her skin or whisper of her lips. She is the only reason I made it here, and I still talk beneath the old willows in the woods that cry all day long, I still ask them to send her back to me someday.” As her words fade, as the firelight crackles more merrily than it should for such a somber mood, as Moira offers a pomegranate at last, watching red seeds pass like blood over her own lips, over Bexley’s, she can do naught but smiley sadly, sweetly, and let a tear fall to the pillows below. “They are not gone forever,” she whispers into Bexley’s ear with a tender kiss to pale, scarred cheek.
Bexley declines the plum with a shake of her head, though she watches as Moira cuts it, the tearing of deep red skin into yellow flesh, how streams of juice come tumbling down. She declines, although hunger is gnawing at the edges of her stomach like a rabid dog, because she knows it is a waste. She knows she doesn’t deserve it. It will be tasteless to her, no matter how sweet it tastes to Moira—she cannot enjoy it without sickening guilt, that she should be alive to eat and drink and celebrate while her… while Acton is dead.
Everything she’s eaten since that girl came to her in the markets has turned to sand in her throat. It is a dryness that cannot be sated with water nor wine.
She dips her head to rest against her leg. It feels strange, how slow her heart has started to beat, and the endless electric buzzing of her body has faded, just enough that she can feel the dip of her forehead against her knee, the butterfly-soft beat of her lashes against her own skin. Moira’s wing across her spine has all the comfort and warmth of a weighted blanket; finally Bexley can let out a breath that isn’t choked by tears, and it is a foreign sensation. She slumps against Moira’s side. The warmth of the fire starts to seep into her bones, and her eyes sink closed.
Moira’s voice is multifaceted and addictive, an IV drug, an opal: Bexley’s ears swivel back and forth as she talks, and with each passing word she falls closer and closer to sleep, or to death, until she is dragged into a black-fugue state half-waking, half-dreaming that leaves her paralyzed and defenseless. (But she was defenseless anyway, so what difference does it make?) She listens, but her brain struggles to keep up. Across the back of her eyelids plays a never-ending pattern of plums and pomegranates, blood and bone, that both threatens and distracts her from paying full attention.
There was a girl once… so close…
Bexley thinks instantly of Florentine, but she does not open her eyes, does not move, does not breathe, don’t do this to me again, dear God, and the chill that runs through her veins is as much hope as it is terrible, terrible fear.
The press of her skin…
Her chest ruptures in a half-stifled sob.
“I have lost too many people to believe that,” she says, voice shaking against her teeth. Every corpse she's ever seen comes to mind. The blood rushes to her head until it fills with black, and she thinks she might faint, not for the first time recently. But the press of Moira’s lips to her cheek brings her back all at once, sends her roaring to the surface as suddenly as a bird shot to the ground, and she sits up with a gasp and her pupils blown to full moons, the whites of her eyes gleaming a little, as if the touch pressed to her jaw were a slap and not a kiss. She stares at Moira with a cornered gaze, head tilted up high and nostrils flared; liquid gold drips from the edges of her mouth and sizzles against her skin for a split second before disappearing completely.
Slowly she comes down from the high of her anger, her shock, and the magic fades out of her. Every inch of Moira’s skin pressed against hers burns and burns and burns. I can’t do this again, thinks Bexley desperately, and already knows that she will.
Her body unwinds, knot by knot, vertebrae by vertebrae, and Solterra’s golden girl leans closer—she lays her head across Moira’s spine in one smooth, slow movement, and if her lips or teeth brush against the emissary’s skin like the ghost of an invitation, who’s to say it’s not accidental? “If she came back—“ her voice fades for a moment, then returns in a wave. “If she came back, would you give up… the people you love here, to have her?”
At first, the golden girl, Solterra’s daughter, Moira’s beloved friend, sags and withdraws, sullen, seeping into herself, absorbing light and life from the world as though a black hole ready to devour, to consume, to become something rabid and alone. She is limp against the emissary’s side, and Moira cannot help but be concerned, but squeeze tight with gilded wing, press close flesh against flesh and withhold the tears that beg to surface, beg to run free into the world, beg so much that her voice falters for but a moment as she speaks of Estelle.
Then, it is not she, but Bexley Briar who rages forth, on a sob after a sigh, telling of all she’s lost. And Moira cannot blame her. And the world cannot fault her for her sorrow and fury. And so she lets Bexley simper, lets her refuse food for a moment, lets her feel the ugly parts of life that need not be closed off forever. Even the phoenix had to realize that, had to feel the burning sting across her face, let it drown her and carve her bones until they were hollow and decorated and beautiful but empty, let herself fall… And she fell. Gods above! How the phoenix fell and fell and fell until all that she was and all that she wanted and all she would become were shadows of who she is now.
If the sudden movement of a girl of fire, a girl trapped, a girl breaking through ice that’s caged her for so long after such a loss, startles the pegasus then Moira does little to show it. Slightly she withdraws her feet, giving Bexley space, giving her time to see she is not hurt, not in harms way.
A healer asks for the breath from your bones only when life is ending.
Bexley has so much left to live for. Moira presses gently onto the woman, “Bexley, breathe, please breathe,” words whisper onto golden neck, they are as calm as the surface of Vitreus Lake that echoes back reflections so perfectly it could be a mirror. Soft voice is husky, is smoke, is a warm hand curling over scarred cheeks and dimpled sides. It caresses her as the pegasus cannot - will not - in such a state. And it is welcoming, it is forgiving. Moira cannot condemn Bexley, and she would not even if she could. She is a sensible lady, mostly, and partakes in the proper actions and notions that such a station presses upon her. To one so dear, she can do nothing but offer herself to heal and soothe and mend.
“I’ve already given up everything for her, and it was not enough.” Now, it is the phoenix’ turn to let her sorrow be her bleeding heart, slay it within her chest, to dig a grave she cannot hope to fill and pray that Bexley never tells. “Estelle is my cousin - distant, but beloved - and the only one who thought to help me when I was burning and tarnished. She was my first confidant, my first friend, my first love if you will --” and what a sweet love it had been. The innocence of girlhood staining chapter after chapter of their lives together.
Those chapters closed and ended one by one when she came into Novus, when she spread her wings for the first time in a fit of temper directed towards a dark man, when she became kin to a unicorn and sought to heal a nation, when she fell in love with the breath of the sea who looks at her like he’s dying when they are together.
And it hurts.
Raw, unfiltered pain flits down her spine, makes the woman stop midbite and set the tray of food aside. Cinnamon and clove scents in cocoa draw her attention, attention that is minutely focused on the liquid as it sloshes around with her phantom stirrings. More sugar is poured in, brown crystals falling into darker liquid and dissolving like her ties to the past. “If she were here, I would bring her into this life as she brought me into the last, but I would not - could not - give up those I love here. I’ve worked so hard to find you,” and with those words, honey gaze seeks out troubled blue, holds tight when she finds them and tries to express that she is one of those people. She is cherished and treasured and loved, and the press of teeth against spine and cheek against skin is not unwelcome, not now when they are both so torn open and needing.
“Did I answer wrong?” Moira breathes at last, letting dark lips dip into the indent of Bexley’s collar.
She has always been a selfish girl. For many years it had not bothered her; for many years she had thought it was part of her charm, a continuation of the princess act, the horrible spell of her brattiness. For many of her years she had flaunted it like a pearl necklace and indulged it like a teething child: now it’s something that sinks like cement in her stomach, something that makes her want to cry of embarrassment. How could she ever have been proud of this? Her head spins as she thinks of the things she would do to hear Moira say I choose you. They are such different people, and Bexley is so—sinful. How can they possibly be good for each other? And how can she ever be worthy of someone so much better than her, so much easier to love?
My cousin. Something—the clenching in her jaw loosens and so does the grit of her teeth—maybe it’s relief? It feels like letting go. Oh. It’s the relinquishment of jealousy. (Selfishness, again. She had done the same thing with Acton—bristled at the idea that even if she were his last, she had not been his first. How dare he not have seen her coming. How dare he not have waited forever.) Bexley tries to clock her breath, but it comes out in a whoosh that shakes with the weight of her consolation. She sinks her head deeper into the curve of Moira’s spine and lets her cheek fall against the Night girl’s red shoulder with a blink of deep relief; her heart beats slow and deep in the pits of her chest, pulsing from her ribcage and into Moira’s.
The thing that passes between them is pain in every sense of the word. Pain of loss, pain of grief, pain of the past rising up with magic teeth like a snake. She had thought she would be numb to it by now, but it’s stronger than ever, the whole rainbow spectrum of emotions crashing through her with the force of a sun and a moon and the thousand tidal waves that follow; it is all she can do to grit her teeth and withstand it as each nerve turns alternatingly hot and cold, fearsome and relieved, bright and then deepest dark. Light flutters in mandalas over the back of her eyelids. Moira smells like home. Like jasmine and sand. Her body shines with the warmth of something sweet, and it melds perfectly with the warmth of Bexley’s throat resting on her back. I am tired, Bexley thinks, of losing. I will not lose again. Her mouth tastes not like flowers but salt and iron.
Moira’s gaze meets hers over the curve of her shoulder, and Bexley feels it from her head down to her hips. Every muscle tenses. She almost shudders at the intensity of the bright yellow eyes that look back at her, equal parts amazed and unsettled. The space between them is negligible, if there’s even a word for it. From here she could name each one of Moira’s perfect black curls if she wanted to. (She wants to.) In the dim light of the foyer, there is nothing worth focusing on but the curl of Moira’s lashes, the soft curve of her lips, the smell of cinnamon and chocolate that clings to her like the best kind of perfume. Bexley’s eyes, as they watch, are wide and soulful, and Solterra’s golden girl would be embarrassed if she knew just how sincerely her emotions are visible.
“Of course not,” she says softly, the sound rumbling through her throat and against Moira’s skin in the place where her lips are pressed to the emissary’s shoulder. Her head is starting to pound. “Nothing you can say would be wrong.” And it’s true. Deep in the blackest parts of her heart she knows it’s true, that everything, anything Moira does would be okay with her. There is something starting to move in her stomach, a soft, frenzied kind of desire, and Bexley’s ears are ringing as she tries to tell herself to slow down.
They are combined into a single skin, a single entity that knows only how to feel and let itself be felt. The world watches with silent, searching eyes, seeking to pry them apart. Girl of fire and Girl of sun melded into something more and something magnificent compared to what they were before. The phoenix wonders if this is what it is to be more than yourself, to be something not completely belonging solely to your own soul, and feels as though it might be a betrayal of him.
When she can only feel, only wonder, only exist in a state of contemplation and raw emotion so that bones are lain bare and presented before the golden queen beside her. For Bexley Briar is a queen, a ruler, a woman of flesh and blood and ichor of the gods from these lands. Moira sighs at the touch upon her spine, the breath along her back, and closes her eyes with a soft hum, a gentle acceptance (as she accepts all things in time) of what is and what happens. There is no fear to stain her black, to bury all that she yearns to be, to block the comfort offered so freely from pouring out of her skin like honey where birds and bees and creatures big and small would come to seek out aid.
Moira is simply Moira. Bexley is simply Bexley. They are an amalgamation of something beautiful and hurting and wild.
When light meets fire, Moira wonders which would burn more brightly - or if one must burn more brightly at all. Somewhere within, she hopes it need not be a competition.
The ghost of a laugh huffs from between dark lips that turn up at the corners, greeting twinkling eyes with that phoenix smile. “Honesty is a horrible creature,” for in a court such as that which she hails from, it tears you limb from limb. Lies are hidden within truths and brother turns against brother to gain favor. Such horrid things came from those lies - such disgusting acts committed for beliefs that once had been ingrained within every fiber, every cell, every anomaly within the pegasus girl, that now fade like the day, like the fire, like her waning appetite for sweets and treats before them.
If she feels what Bexley feels, perhaps Moira would have turned away. But she is confused and she sees a soul in pain, so she reaches forward when the golden girl’s fiery eyes close. Reaches forward and presses a soulful kiss to each eyelid, to her forehead. Flaxen hair is pushed from her brow with phantom hands, untangled strand by strand slowly, and then wound into braids. Moira does so love braiding hair into styles large and small, complex and simple, come what may it curls back away from her companion’s skin into something more tame, hiding the lion in gold. “You are so amazing, Bexley Briar,” Moira breathes softly into the curve of Bexley’s ear. “Say you’ll stay with me for a while? I’ve missed you, I’ve missed so many, for far too long.”
