Falls

His feral gaze follows the curves and contours of her body as the fem-fatale stalks closer, closing the distance between them with calculated steps. Claws stretch within her, fingers reaching with a desperate hunger for the smoldering embers that hide beneath his frozen soul. For a moment, brief, singular, and fleeting, she can see it in his eyes; the hunger… the lust.
Memories once more arise within her mind, blossoming into living pictures no longer faded and gray. The anticipation and passion that mingled with sweat and the scent of salt air and temperate aromas of the jungle. They had been much younger then, she no more than a foolish filly whose naive heart had been openly given to the first suitor that strummed the cords of her soul. He had been different then, wild and carefree as the northern winds. Protective of her, even going so far as to dismiss the first signs of jealousy that began to twist its black vines around her essence. He had welcomed her fire, her spirit… fed into it even…for a time. Until Siobhan and Tigerlily came into their lives to ruin the future that was being molded into perfection.
She can feel him bristling beneath her touch, the sensitive velvet of her ashen muzzle catching each twitch of his skin, the feel of each muscle beneath his smokey hide as it tensed at the contact of her chiffon skin. A Cheshire smile tugs at the corners of her labrums as his ears once more disappear into the wind-knotted tangle of his dark mane. She had him.
The reaction her silver tongue brings however is unexpected. Where once he would have no doubt launched at her, turning their venom-filled words into a physical battle, his reaction is….different. Defeat. Instead of stoking the smoldering embers of passion within him, the dagger she weilded digs deep into his skin and carves a hole, splaying his soul open to a realization that apparently never manifested itself. Instead of breathing life into him, instead of pouring gasoline onto that tiny red blossom within him, the angry fury she spat does the opposite. Instead of fueling him, she has successfully extinguished the flame. Her words have poured water onto his flames.
Instinctively her own battle worn frame tenses, preparing to take pleasure in the weight of an onslaught that does not come. Instead of lunging into her flesh with blunt teeth and jagged hooves seeking to stain the earth with her blood, he moves….away.
Confusion dances in her dark eyes as a single brow raises in suspicion. It is only when he is drawn back a few paces, that she sees the damage she has caused. Instead of fury and hatred, instead of the adoration and loyalty that she so desperately sought from him, there is only….defeat. Those pale blue eyes, the eyes haunt her dreams and waking moments in the eyes of their children… the fire and passion have disappeared. For the first time since their meeting, for the first time in years, Nyimara feels the sting of uncertainty.
His once proud head droops, as though the weight of her words is more than his aged body can carry, those bright icy blue eyes dull with defeat as he asks her the question that she longed to hear fall from his lips. Somehow, hearing it aloud, spoken in the husk of his voice, it loses its glory. ’What is it that you want from me….’ Her eyes widen. HE continues on, expelling facts from his lips, facts she has not known but only hoped. Siobhan and Tigerlily gone, no longer tugging him along by the leash he had woven of his own accord. The family that he so desperately wanted to create, the son… his heir, her son that he and Siobhan turned against her, no longer firmly attached to Bjorn’s shadow. She had been desperate for him to feel as she had felt, to experience the pain that had eaten at her bleeding heart and turned it into the nothingness that existed now. For so long she wanted to hear these very words from his lips as he met her gaze in defeat and yet….
In this moment, Nyimara did not feel the same satisfaction she had hoped would one day comfort her soul. There is no peace, no happiness in the sight that stands broken before her now. This does not soothe her. Instead, a shiver of dread begins to crawl its way up her slender legs, coating her chocolate skin in a layer of ice and snow. Frozen. Dead.
For the first time in years, crystalline tears gather in the corners of her dark eyes as the breath hitches within her own throat. It was as if hands of her own creation were now cutting off the air in her lungs, causing her heartbeat to quicken its pace for an entirely different reason than lust filled passion. ’Are you satisfied now?’ his words resonate inside her mind. Was she happy? She had finally gotten what she wanted. Finally felt the satisfaction of his defeat and yet it is not happiness that gazes at him from behind those fiercsome eyes of hers.
”I…..” The words quiver with the insecurity she hides beneath layer after layer of thorns and jagged ice. She glances away from his dull eyes, trying to calm the storm that swirled unbehest within her. ”I wanted what I have always ever wanted…” she continues, releasing a heavy sigh of her own before lifting her glassy eyes once more to meet his aged features. ”I want what I have only ever wanted…. you.”
There it is. Spoken aloud the confession dispels the years of anger and fury. From the first moment, her watchful eyes caught the tender embrace he shared with the red-spotted mare to the moment he declared before her that Tigerlily was his chosen half. For the first time since he proclaimed Siobhan his queen alongside her, since his first disappearance, since before Aranack, Cullen and all the other would-be captors tried to untangle the web of thorns she built around her heart… Nyimara allows herself to feel.
The confession leaves her open… vunerable. Like a wound torn wide from her own dagger. The dark gaze that stares at him now is searching and desperate but the coldness of his dull gaze speaks volumes. He was never hers to possess. No matter how desperately she clung to him, no matter how her actions were meant to impress or seduce him. No matter that it was from her own loins and labored hours she spent to bring forth his children... his heirs… she was never as important to him as he had become to her. The sight of him now, the defeat… the truth. She could chase him to the ends of the earth and try to place the same halter and leash around his throat that Siobhan and Tigerlily had but he would never let her keep his heart for herself. An almost sad smile pulls at her whiskered lips as she shakes her own head now, the silver-white tendrils of her forelock falling like a veil across the flat of her brow. ”A foolish girl’s desire has turned into a desperate mare’s fantasy…” she murmurs, more to herself than meant truly for his ears. When she does finally raise her eyes to his it is the realization that sits heaviest on her heart. ”But you were never mine to possess.” she says, a finality in her voice as her shoulders sag as though a weight lifted itself from her soul. Pale lashes blink away the last of the tears that gather in her eyes as she smirks, allowing the mask of exotic beauty to fall into place across her delicate features, hiding the vulnerability in her eyes once again behind the plastic mask.
Closing the distance that he had moments ago created between them, Nyimara reaches out once more to touch him. The desperation and hunger remain hidden beneath the velvet freedom of her touch as for the last time she allows herself to press against him. ”I free you of me…. But… please…” she murmurs her hot breath writhing around her face as the pale-haired witch envelops herself within his scent. Longingly, she toys with his charcoal locks tracing a path along the curve of his cheek as her own tear stained one presses to his own. She cannot bring herself to meet his eyes again, does not want to weigh his tired heart with the sorrow and realization that her own is burdened to bear. ”Please… love me as you once did…one last time.” she stammers, the words choked by the weight of her fantasy slowly disappearing as ash into the winter wind. She clings to his touch, clings to his embrace that she knew now without a doubt would be the last of what had once been and any dreams of a future built at his side. It was time to wake up.