and i’ll never let you face the same storms i’ve been facing
DANCES WITH WOLVES
There came a day when Dances With Wolves woke up with a heart unburdened by sorrow. The good in his life had swallowed up the bad, and he was at peace. Nephilim and his daughters where never far, and Sai never was either. Somewhere across the sea, Jökulrós would be waking up to the sight of the rising sun, and the thought of her - his bright-eyed dreamer and friend - sustained him.
That night at dusk, the tide washed a lone mare onto the shores of the Bay, and her arrival changed everything. The brokenness in her spoke to something deep inside Dances With Wolves, and he took to never straying far from her side, and sleeping with her breath on his neck. Another came, one who was a like-soul to the wolf-mare Dances had grown to love – quickly and all at once. She was all fire, angry and passionate, happy and jealous. She wanted her sister all to herself, but Dances With Wolves refused to give up his share. His wolf-mare would stay with him for as long as she wanted and was free to go as she pleased, but he would not let her sister make that decision for her.
And then his world turned upside down when Maziel vanished. He felt guilty that he’d been spending so little time with the girls, and when Mariael and then Nephilim went looking for her and didn’t come back, Dances was torn, plagued with guilt and suffocated by his fears and weaknesses. He was a coward, his back-bone paper-thin. The only time he had been brave was when he followed Nephilim into the sea when they were younger, all the way to Luthien, where together they had faced foes and fears and had been let down with a crash so great that sometimes in the darkness of night Dances felt as though his bones trembled from the force of that day.
He didn’t have it in him to be brave like that again.
Sai and his wolf-mare comforted him, trying to convince him he had done right by staying this time. But he wouldn’t have it, and the nights when Sai slept on his other side, he was haunted by wakefulness. He could not truthfully claim that his heart didn’t beat faster whenever he saw her, whenever she said his name. But he knew, he knew that she loved Nephilim in some way. A voice inside him sneered in those weary and restless hours; you don’t want him to come back, because you want his life, his home, Sai – you want these things for yourself.
It wasn’t true. It wasn’t true.
Where these his only options – coward or selfish brute? Couldn’t there be something more? For days, Dances pondered in silence. No, he could think of nothing else. Better a coward than a self-seeker. And then, not long after Nephilim had vanished, another two souls joined them. Dances With Wolves became something more. He was a father, and his son was a near-spitting image of the wolf-mare. Except for the eyes, glimmering like sapphires in the sun.
The sea took from him again – he watched helpless on the shore as his wolf-mare was dragged away from him by the undertow. By the time her sister and Sai crashed into the surf, the sea pushed them back in the sand, and carried the beautiful painted mare beyond sight. Sai came between Dances and the fire-vixen, whose words of rage and grief burned into the flesh of a coward, and later, with Sai guarding the entrance to the cave in which he sought shelter (lest the wolf-mare’s sister make good on her threat to spill his blood) Dances couldn’t sleep, but he closed his eyes, so that he wouldn’t see the bruises and bite-marks on Sai’s pale, ashy skin, inflictions meant for him. He felt numb, barely-held-together. But he didn’t come undone.
Not yet.
Wolves came in the night, ones that had not a drop of cowardice. Maybe they came, investigating why the place had faleld silent. Dances believed they scented his weakness. They attacked, and out of desire to protect what was Nephilim’s (or was it something more?), Dances went to Sai’s aide, believing his son and the son of the vixen would be safe in the caves they’d been sheltering. But he was wrong, and the wolves found themselves an easier target. Run! That’s what the fox-mare had screamed at the colts. But the wolves were quick, and they cut them off. With nowhere to go and the sea at their backs, things looked bad. The red mare fought like a wolf herself, keeping the predators at bay for a few moments. But there were too many, and she could only protect one. So she abandoned her son, in favour of her sister’s, because the smoky black and white boy was all she had left of her kin.
Dances was too late – the black colt, half-blind and deaf, he turned and fled, squealing in fear as his mother abandoned him. In desperation, he plunged into the sea, and let it pull him beyond reach. Just like those who had gone before – the wolf-mare, Nephilim, Mariael, Maziel… Guadalupe… The black colt did not come back.
As soon as she recovered from the injuries she’d sustained, the fox-mare, she staked her claim on what she thought of as hers, and challenged Dances With Wolves. You are no good for anything, worth nothing to anyone. Because of you, my sister is dead. Her son is coming with me. And Sai, the gentle, peaceable creature she was, grew hot with anger, but Dances just lowered his head and turned away, leaving silence, heartbreak and victory behind him. If you know what’s good for you, little dove, you’ll leave this forsaken land, and tear all memory of this coward from your mind. Sai had moved like a snake, striking quick and true, and drawing blood from the fox-mare's neck. Dances remembers the laugh that left the red mare’s lips, bittersweet and void of mirth. She had conceded defeat, letting Sai win that battle, because the red-mare had won the war.
They’d departed at dawn on the next clear day. The vixen had allowed Dances to bid his son farewell, and as he ran his muzzle over what seemed to be every line of his son’s body (as if he were committing his form to memory), he whispered his boy’s name, again and again, in his ear. Shiriki. Shiriki. Shiriki. Three words, in place of the ones that lodged in his throat and threatened to choke him. I’m sorry that I can’t protect you. Sorry I’m not enough. And then the boy was gone.
For many days, Dances With Wolves stood vigil on the beach, willing with everything within him that someone, anyone return to him. No-one did. Sai never left his side.
For many days after that, Dances lingered in the cave, until he forgot what the sunlight felt like on his skin. Everything was cold, within and without. Sai told him stories at night when sleep refused to come to him.
There came a time when Dances ate very little, and Sai tried to coax him with kindness. When that didn’t work, she grew angry, and tried to bully him into eating. Eventually, she resigned to go without as well, and after the first day of her fasting, Dances With Wolves finally resumed his eating. Sai was the only one left, and Dances had to look after her. Just until Nephilim came back...
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With his heart racing, Dances With Wolves opened his eyes. He’d dreamed that the wolves had come back, and that one with a red, red coat had dragged Sai beneath waves as blue as sapphire. But no, she was still there, stirring beside him. As she shook free of sleep, Dances watched concern fill her features, and he shook his head, trying to calm the organ beating frantically within his chest. “I’m okay,” he was quick to reassure her, and at the nuzzle of relief she gave him, he inwardly braced himself. Perhaps someday soon he would come to terms with the fact that his heart would always beat fast for the pale, sooty mare, even if it shouldn’t. He shifted his weight, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, attempting to shake free of the few stubborn claws of the nightmare that still dug into his two-tone skin. A white ear twisted, following the sound of movement. And then Sai’s voice came to him – she was saying his name.
“Dances With Wolves.”
Was it because he was a coward that her heart didn’t beat fast for him? Or was it because he was selfish? Because he wasn’t capable of being more?
“Dances? Dances!” The urgency in her voice had him awake and alert, apprehension already pressing down on his lungs. What else could go wrong? But the truth was far from his perceived reality. There was nothing wrong. What was, was far from it.
“It’s him, Dances! It’s Nephilim, he’s back!” And Sai left the painted stallion with these words, charged with hope and relief and something deeper that Dances thought it best not to dwell on. He moved to the entrance of the cave and saw a distant figure for himself. The sight of it sparked something in the heart of the stallion, and he followed Sai from the cavern they’d sheltered in, where thankfully the wolf pack hadn’t bothered them.
His emotions were jumbled as he followed Sai – he was glad that his friend, no, his brother, was back, there was no denying this. But, in addition to this, he remained worried – what had kept Neph, and where were the girls? There was guilt too, would Nephilim hold it against Dances that he hadn’t come to his aid? How could he even think that? Nephilim wouldn’t hold that against him… And relief… Sai would be safer, now that Neph was here. And yet, some tiny part of Dances resented the fact that Sai was no longer just his. ‘But she never was mine!’ Dances stumbled to a halt, alarmed by the existence of this jealousy. He longed for those nightmare claws to come back, so that they could reach into his heart and tear out this darkness…
Ahead of him, Sai let loose a bugle – eagerness and a touch of anxiety clear in her cry. Dances With Wolves sighed deep within himself and resumed his pace, trying not to brood over the grudge that he feared had taken root within him, and suddenly very anxious himself, and aware that there were still hunters about. Somehow, he’d kept Sai safe this long (though really, he was sure she’d been looking after him all this time), and if anything were to happen now, just as he was about to witness their reunion for a second time, he would fall to pieces, and it would be near impossible to put him back together.
“Sai, wait!” And something in his voice drew her to his side, despite the energy she had about her that pulled her towards someone else. She could hear the strain, and after all the time they’d spent together, well… Dances was wrong about one thing. Sai’s heart did beat fast for him. And so, she stayed with him, alert and eager, anticipating the approach of another. As the seconds passed, she felt herself beginning to tremble, and so she shifted a little closer to Dances, her smaller, muted body leaning into his larger, bolder coloured frame.
“He came back, Dances… He came back to us.”
s a i
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