Falls

It was not an apparition. Oberyn’s bleary eyes cleared, and the dark shadow wavered into a solid shape, one he recognized all too well. His ears slicked back into his tangled mane, and his gold eyes smoldered at the sight of his brother standing before him.

He had more confidence than the last time Oberyn had seen him. His pelt was marked with scars, some familiar and some not. Muscles rippled beneath the imperfect coat, and his voice was smooth and suave. But Oberyn was not convinced that Damascus had found a perfect life here. There was a sense of torture behind his brother’s eyes — or maybe that was Oberyn’s own reflection in them. His heart burned like a hot coal at the sight of his twin, and each confident flex that Damascus performed only fanned the furnace. He felt hot with anger and hurt, and the other stallion’s voice grated on his ears.

Cast out with your bastard of a brother?

The Warlander growled at the words, harsh for the unbothered tone in which Damascus spoke them. Oberyn could not believe that his twin had moved on so completely, especially not when Oberyn himself was still tormented by the past. He knew his brother; Damascus had not been easily able to escape the hold of emotional events, and Oberyn could not conceive of the possibility that he had outgrown this part of himself. The dark stallion’s memories of his twin were of an affectionate and emotional boy, loyal to a fault — and in this memory, a great beast of pain unexpected snared Oberyn. His heart panged with agony, and for a brief moment he was taken back to his childhood, when the two of them were innocent and inseperable. Before he could shove it away, he realized how much he missed his brother, and the bond they had shared as young colts. Oberyn could not stop his face from twisting in pain, but he recovered in time to reduce the grimace to little more than a pained sneer. He shoved the pain down, and the memories with it, because he could not bear to face them. Anger rushed in to fill the space the pain had occupied.

”I don’t need to explain anything to you,” he said quietly, his voice rough with salt and simmering with poorly-contained emotion. ”I owe you nothing.”

He stared hard at Damascus. How had this happened? Oberyn was certain he had nearly died in the ocean the night before. Had he really come back from the brink of death, only to be deposited at his forsaken brother’s hooves like a piece of flotsam? It didn’t make sense. The gods must have had a hand in this, and Oberyn hissed a curse between clenched teeth for denying him a chance to move on. Of course. Of fucking course it would happen this way.

He was quiet a long time. His anger cooled, and he was numb, before the rage flared back again. It fluctuated this way a few times over the next moment, until Oberyn wrenched his gaze away finally and turned back toward the stream. ”It seems the fates have bound us together,” he said icily. ”I hope you have enjoyed your time of peace here, brother, because I doubt it will last. Do you forget about father, so long as you avoid your reflection in the water? Well. You can avoid your reflection, but let my face serve to remind you of the past while I recover. You are stuck with me for a while, I’m afraid.” He didn’t want to give Damascus any more details than were necessary, but Oberyn suspected he had been more badly battered on the rocks by the surf than he originally had thought. His head ached, and his body was sore and tender. He moved stiffly and slowly, even as he bent to continue to drink. As the cold water rushed down his burning throat, he tried to forget the dark shadow behind him, and pretended he was far away from this cursed place.