I am tired, his voice admitted and she could hear it in his tone. Oswin’s eyes had stayed closed as she remained tucked in close to Tyr but, if she hadn’t, she would have nodded agreeably at what he said. A sad sigh slipped out of her pale pink lips and she distracted the painful squeeze of her heart by turning to softly rub her whiskered lips on his large, muscular shoulder.

His caress made her skin shiver delectably and her heart raced. Oswin had never been affected by a lover the way Tyr affected her. I needed you. He admitted, and Oswin couldn’t help but lean more of her weight onto him. He was strong, she knew he could remain steady. There was so much vulnerability in his words and Oswin knew the dangers of a lead - Lagoon, Peak, or otherwise - showing that weakness to another in power.

The thought that her heart was being steered in the wrong direction faltered. How could this be a trick? All of this, his honesty, his soft touches, his openness… it didn’t feel like a trick… It felt real. It felt like someone understood how hard this fight was and could admit, in this moment with her, that their side was struggling to find its ground.

“The islands target the Lagoon,” she said softly after a few moments of silence, “and the Peak eats itself alive from the inside.” Her voice was strained with her own weariness. She rubbed her cheek soft and affectionate against Tyr’s sooty gold skin. “I can’t figure out what we’re doing wrong, Tyr. Is it only this hard because it’s worth us doing? Or… are we fighting a battle we’re too stubborn to realize we can’t win?” Her throat tightened as tears suddenly rose in her eyes.

This was her only purpose. This was what she had sworn to do with her life from the moment she was a young girl, growing up under her mother and father’s watchful and loving eyes in the Prairie. The evil of the islands would have someone to shine light on it and to fight it…

But how could she fight it and her sisters?

“It was different,” she said, “my sisters who were here before. It was… different with them.”

Maybe it had been wrong of her to assume it would automatically be the same and she would find that sisterhood she’d had to leave behind.

oswin
this is as brave as I know how to be.
I know it’s gonna hurt you, but please… be a little proud of me.