Oathsworn to Ylva
He takes that cautious, too bold, step, and he takes that moment of hope. He takes it because she does not turn away from him, not really. She looks away but he holds ground in the expanse of her equine vision. He asks her to let him love her as was taken from him that long time ago - when he was stripped of that hope and only survived till this moment to revive that hope again. He extends his head to her, reaching as he had ever done in silence, and he is met with equally as bold an answer.
When she whirls on him, the black stallion still does not pull back his head from that entreating extension, the yearning openness for whatever it was she would be to him. He faces her flattened ears, the shrill keening of her voice, accepting her truth because it was simply that-- truth. He cannot deny that to her, he was dead. He cannot deny the feelings that entailed in her… although knowing that she grieved him did half surprise him after the knowledge of her distant acceptance of him as a companion at best. He had not thought that she would truly grieve for him in the way she responds, with vehemence.
"I grieved you, Errant. What are you? What are you now? A ghost? A spectre come to haunt me for the rest of my days? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to react?"
He twists that extended neck, head tilting to her in solace and apology, though if she would accept such things was unknown to him. "I did not ask that so you would change how you feel or so that I could instruct you how or what to do. My Lady, I only seek permission to not pretend I do not love you, that I have not been haunted by the lack of you in every waking day I was kept away, to be allowed to simply know or assure myself that you are well because you have never been dead in my heart." He reaches more fully now, "I was taken, but to grieve me and to not understand that I would be battling to return to you with every atom of my being-- I am so sorry that you had felt such loss because of my inability to perform what duties were due My Lady."
He clenches his muscles because he sees her retreating and he cannot take another step if she does not permit the approach. Her own step backward was his command, as clear a command in the bodily language they both spoke as if she had said it allowed. He could ask her, beg her, ply her with his war-trauma calmed nature-- but he could not disobey the screams of rejection that emanated from her now. "I am no ghost, no haunting meant to torment you. I am one who loves you and would hold you close again just to remember he is no longer at war, no longer alone, no longer so far from home. I am one who would dilute the grieving into joy at a prodigal return, who would offer a warm side onto which you could lean, or would at least hope that my not having been eaten by the wilds of the islands could grant you peace."
Always entreating, damning that his will to not erase her own kept him from racing into an embrace with her… but feeling ashamed that he should ever undermine her fierce determination… whatever that determination would be for.
OF THE LOST ISLANDS’ WILDS
▻ sixteen years - friesian - heterozygous black - 16.1 hh ◅