Falls

The softly spoken words are delivered with tenderness and pleading that is almost foreign to her. Centuries have passed since last she found her gaze seeking the stars and the gods hiding behind them. She had begged them then, pleaded with everything in her heart to have Bjorn return to her… to come for her. She had been little more than a filly then, caught up in the throws of a love bond she could only hope for. Bjorn had been hers in those first years, as much hers as she was his. Until he disappeared, she had been the bright shine in his pale blue eyes. Then the fates saw fit to turn any image of love she held dear to dust. The unspoken connection she watched her father share with Zjeena and Monster was a mere beggar's dream. An unattainable fate.
Nyimara expects relief to flood from Bjorn at the confession of her words. Relief at the realization of cat and mouse the fates continued to throw upon them. She fully anticipated the stallion of mist and smoke to visibly relax at the freedom she offered to him. The only request that falls from her lips is that he might bleed color into those old memories now faded in her mind. So close to him, his scent so invigorating and fresh, the silver witch could not help but stretch forth her hand even if she knew that a blade was teetering by shredded string, ready to cut it off. What could she do if he denied her? Maybe age was beginning to sink into the cracked crevices of her soul. Together, they could once more pick up their dropped weapons and begin the dance again but something in the brokenness of Bjorn’s eyes, in the heavy sag of his shoulders told her those days were behind them.
Nyimara at the least expects Bjorn to bid her farewell with a pull of his warmth as he drove away from her again into the shadows. She almost expects it. What she does not expect is the reaction he offers her.
’Nya…’
Her pale lashes flutter, the warmth of her breath hitching in her throat as she fights the quiver of her unsteady heartbeat. Nya… Nya… The tender endearment he had given her so many years ago. A name that only he ever used and a name she kept hidden from any who crossed her path. She feels it. The beating of her heart now, the warmth, the need that floods into her very existence at the rebirth of his husky voice.
His whiskered lips trace the arching curve of her neck, sending shivers coursing through her veins. His touch is electric, like the lightning-charged air before the flash of light and the roar of thunder. Desperation bleeds through as the armor she shrouded herself in all these years falls aside. Tears fall silently down the contours of her cheeks as the chocolate mare presses tightly against his muscular nape, tucking her finely dished head into the curve of his throat as she had once done. Even after these years, she still feels the same satisfaction at how easily she fits. As if this alone was where she belonged. And yet, she was willing to give that… this… up if it meant returning that fire and fight into his eyes.
He speaks again, a single fluted lobe tilting back to catch the graveled words as they rumble from his lips. For the first time, he acknowledges what she has known… what she has always believed. He is hers as she is his. It would never be in the sense she wanted, he would never stay high on the throne of gilded gold she created for him but he at the very least no longer denied it. A soft, sad smile draws at her ashen lips as she leans into the tenderness of his exploring touch. Greedily she followed his lead, stretching her own slender throat upward to let her parted lips taste the flavors of salt water and pine that clung to his skin.

”My… heart…” she breathes, fighting to find the words amid the torrid of estranged emotions that hammer at the cracks of ice and stone around her heart. ”Has always been yours…. I would never have it any other way.” she whispers, leaning hungerily into his touch.
Like some great fantasy she imagined in the late, dark hours of midnight, he pleads for her forgiveness. He promises to forgive her treatment of Sio and Lily in the early years when she had tried to desperately to keep him to herself and in return he gets her to forgive his absence.
Sio… Lily…
The names prick at the tiny bubble of vulnerability that she finds herself in. For a moment, brief and fleeting, her eyes flutter, and her heartbeat stutters. Sio. Lily. He had taken them with him time and again to the northern country of his homeland and left her behind. Once more the memories of her heartache begin to rage as she remembers the feeling of jealousy and silent anger as she watches him turn his attention to the other mares instead of her. Nostrils flutter as the silver-haired witch fights to push the thoughts away, hide the grief and the sadness away from him, at least for now. She could not. Would not dare to miss this opportunity. Too long she spent without his touch and the warmth of it and the security she felt surrounded by his masculine scent is too much to risk with biting words.
”..Yes…” she whispers, craning her neck into his side. She would split her own veins open for him if only to keep that adoration in his eyes and the tenderness of his touch against her chocolate flesh. Later when confessions had long since become silent and passion run its course, perhaps she would regret it. Maybe even he would as well. Yet that does nothing to stop her in this moment. ”I love you, Bjorn.” she whispers, her voice heavy with emotion.