Solira: The Ocean: ; have you noticed the pattern yet?

You don't see what you possess, a beauty calm and clear
It floods the sky and blurs the darkness like a chandelier
All the light that you possess is skewed by lakes and seas
The shattered surface, so imperfect, is all that you believe.

Cade feels very old. She may only be four years old, but her golden eyes have seen more horrors than most creatures of an even older age. There are things that hurt her soul, make her insides cry out with pain that she doesn’t even fully understand. So far Cade has done quite admirably at blocking out those memories, instead focusing on her movements, the way she presents herself. She still glides across the ground like a phantom, every step deliberate and proud, even in this strange and unknown place. You wouldn’t guess she had been shaking in fear and desperation just a week ago when she arrived to Solira. She’s getting to know it, she truly is it’s just – she misses them. She misses her. She misses him.

That bone-deep ache that Cade feels every time she thinks of Eos may never go away. It’s like a low and keening cry that escalates into a wail of sorrow, one only her heart can sing and only her soul can hear. And it hurts. It hurts far more than Cade had thought it would. Of course, she hadn’t expected Eos to be murdered so brutally either. She remembers the way Eos lay there, almost perfect – could have been sleeping really – not breathing. She knows that Tartarus had ripped the red-princess up, but must have, for whatever reason, restored her to her former glory. Cade remembers laying across her sister, white against red, like Cade was bleeding Eos out all across Acheron’s shores. She remembers those precious minutes with the sun-goddess until their peace had been disrupted and a crowd had gathered. And where did she go? To Finn.

Finn. Where the memory of Eos leaves a dull, throbbing ache, the memory of Finn screams in anguish and stings like a fresh knife wound. They had almost been normal. They had almost been a family. But Cade is skittish, and guilty, and afraid. Don’t tell her, she doesn’t know, but she is. She’s ashamed of her actions, feels dirty and unworthy of Finn’s love, even though she loves him fiercely back. Who else could put up with her sassy mouth? Who else would hold her as she beat at them and cried? Was there anyone else who she could hold a conversation with and not get bored? Not at Ilius. Finn was the only one; he was always the only one. She remembers seeing Finn after his mother had been killed – how horrified his face was, how desperate and furious and destroyed. Cade had to go to him. She was the only one who could fix him.

Now Cade dozes in a off-shore cave, still not feeling safe as one of the herd. Perhaps if she curls near to Marshall, or lay a few feet from Huyana could Cade feel comfortable – but with so many in the herd and so many she can’t trust, it is just safer here, quieter, secluded. Her eyes are open before he even enters, having heard the clattering of unshod hooves on uneven ground, and the perlino princess immediately draws herself up, looking towards the mouth of her cave with a hint of wariness. Her eyes are hooded with exhaustion, her face drawn and weary. It is hard to march on in life when she had almost given up. It is hard to keep going when she thinks everything has been burned, including her lover.

He’s right to assume she wouldn’t recognize him at first. He came in and turned to leave, all without seeing her standing there in the shadows, silent as a ghost. Just another passerby, Cade had thought to herself, noting the big bay stallion and his shaggy coat. The way he walked was so familiar, even how he swung his head to – her heart leapt into her chest, then slithered to her throat and proceeded to choke her. He looks like Finn, he looks like her Finn. Our gold-eyed filly looks much the same as the last time they’d been together – weary from the twins, a little on the thin side, but much the same as ever. Then again, Cade is quite recognizable, from the pinkness of her skin to the unusual color of her eyes; all the way to the way she carries herself. Her heart, having no success with choking her, begins a hard rhythm in her chest as she sucks in a breath of bitter sea-air, and gazes at the phantom stallion, still unsure. Until he speaks – then she knows.

”Are you done running from me yet?” He says, and Cade wants to collapse into his arms, so relieved and so in pain that she can hardly stand it. He’s just the same, he’s always the same – why does Cade feel so different? Sometimes she hates herself for loving him, for letting him into her heart. But how could she help it? Even when she was just a filly, he had wormed his way into her life, a big, precocious colt with manners and a twinkle in his eye. If she moves now she might stumble and fall, and so the perlino stays perfectly still, just staring at her lover. ”I’m tired of running,” she admits with a hoarse voice, finally gaining the strength to slide towards him, as if in a dream.

As soon as their skin touches, it is as if Cade cannot get enough. She twines around him like a kitten, desperate for his touch, desperate for his love, desperate to be clean again. She refuses to make this a sorrowful reunion, and instead presses her lips against his skin in a sensual caress, murmuring her apologies, singing out her praises, searing him with touches that are too hot and too intense. ”I didn’t ever want to leave you,” she whispers at some point, but it is an unconscious comment, too caught up in re-learning his body and making sure he is not a dream. As fierce as Cade can be, she loves just as fiercely. She will not leave Finn again – it hurts too much. He is nothing without her, and she nothing without him. It’s embarrassing, this loss of control, but our godly filly can’t seem to help it, swept up in the emotions that she kept pinned back for so long, the emotions she will lock away when the dawn breaks for another day.

The pink-skinned mare finally ceases her unbridled adoration, curling towards him like a night-flower towards the moon. She rests against him, wanting his love, wanting his passion more than she can possibly want anything in her life. But guilt weighs heavy on her conscious and she can’t help but relive that situation with Augustine in agonizing detail. Finn told her to stay away; he told her that he would protect her if she let him. But Cade was too proud, too independent at the time. ”We’re idiots,” she says to him, the words light, but her tone heavy. She wants to be worthy for him, she wants to be the one thing he can’t live without – but how can she be? ”Why do you love me?” She wants to ask. It’s on the tip of her tongue. ”How can you stand to touch me?” It hurts to want to ask him these things, it hurts because she’s afraid of the answer. Just tell her, Finn. Tell her again and again.

"I love you," Cade says, softer than a whisper. "I'm sorry." What she's apologizing for is unclear. She could be sorry for everything she's done - pushed him away, not listened to him, going down to Acheron when she should have stayed with him... Or she could be apologizing for loving him. She's sorry she loves him, she's sorry he loves her - it is not an easy thing to do. Because loving Cade and being loved by her is not easy, and it is not always sunshine and happiness. But they're in too deep now. Resting her forehead against his, the mare exhales and smiles, her eyes shut tightly. "What do you think Finn? Can we hack it here?" She refers to Solira - what do you think Finn? Can you make a home here, with her?

I will bring a mirror, so silver, so exact
So precise and so pristine, a perfect pane of glass
I will set the mirror up to face the blackened sky
You will see your beauty every moment that you rise.

Character (C) Del 2009 and beyond
contact: izzyfaintt@aol.com