The Invisible Ties
Life during war wasn't supposed to be easy, is what Robin kept telling herself. What did she think, that it'd be piece of cake? Of course not. Never. That kind of thinking was what got people killed in stupid ways, ways that could have been prevented by simply paying more attention. That's why she sighed. She was one of those. She felt like sometimes there were things that were beginning to stuff her and she simply needed to let them loose. A scream, sometimes. But she almost never cried. When she did it, it was voiceless. Silent, warm tears would run down her face, and she would feel like a miserable fountain, like the sadness wouldn't stop, like she was inadequate and stupid, powerless…
But then rough fingertips would catch the salty water on her face and stop time with their unexpected gentleness. Just as easy as the self-admonishing had started flowing, it would come to a stop with the coming of his familiar presence. He couldn't be missed, like the twinkling stars couldn't hide in the dark of night. It was in moments like those that the ring on Robin's hand would burn against her flesh and she'd place one palm over it, overly conscious of its grip about her finger. With a small amount of shame, she would face him and let him smear the hot liquid on her cheeks with the heel of his hand.
His hands, masterful hands of a sword-wielder that could deftly play with bugs that danced on the joints of his fingers as well as leave her breathless with practiced, knowing motions when they entered the dark and wet of her. He was entirely mesmerizing in a way that erased all around him. Nothing in the world seemed to exist when he was close, when he seized her with his gaze. Like that, in a puff of smoke, up the world and all in it went to a place neither Robin nor her husband could care for when they could just have each other to look at and hold, and to let themselves be lost in.
How much they had allowed their hearts to mingle was never as clear as when they laid on their shared bed, or cot, depending where the whims of war took them - a nameless meadow or a hearty town. It was hard to tell where one's hands and legs ended or the other's began. Lon'qu would be aware of her palms flat against the expanse of his back, but he would still be unsure of where his wandered. By the way she breathed out his name hotly against his neck he would guess they were somewhere good. Still, ensnared in the heat of her arms around him, his senses began to fail him. A contrast to the first cautious touches of fleeting hands which had him overly aware of himself and her, as well as overly sensitive.
Those veteran eyes of hers drew him in to trap him in her mouth, where it was warm and sweet. In her he found this hidden place where light danced, where he could feel the breezes more acutely, how they brushed his skin. She was a divine gate to rapturous things he'd thought long lost to the cruelty of the world tarnished by the greedy and power-mad. But she made him realize that none of what had escaped him ever could be lost. Hope, freedom, love, all that which he'd felt slip from his punished hands when at an age still too young had simply flown to find refuge in she who was meant for him to hold and drink the tranquilizing brew of her fervor.
Like so he held her face, like a cup. When her eyes no longer shed tears and moonshine with its luminous glow diffused the shadows from her face, he let fall careful kisses on the puckered tip of her lips which were like mountains or a rugged old map with their crinkles and other telltale signs of enduring much weathering. He found joy in the hidden valleys of her, in her secret sounds, and pride took him when she laid herself bare only before his eyes. Not only was it her skin she unveiled, it was too that which could not be seen, only felt. Fear and pain, insecurity, anger, sadness, guilt, and everything else a dark part of her she could not battle alone. It was there, on the plain of inner turmoils, that he was most eager to prove himself. He knew of the battles that made the heart smaller and the mind lost in mist and shadow. He had yet to master a sword that could sever the black demons of his past, still he lunged at the opportunity to disburden his wife's heart.
To make Robin smile was as close to saving himself as he could manage.
Sometimes they were rocks and blades to each other as well. When nothing and no-one in the world could prove sturdy enough it was Robin who came to him, stone-cold and stone-hard, and he was welcome to try and break himself against her when calm words no longer did the trick. He made sure to return the gesture when her rage and pent up frustration turned her into a sharp beast, complete with keen-edged claws and glistening fangs. Such was their way. When they were tired, empty of fight and brittle of bones, they'd crumble into each other and start rebuilding, piece by broken piece if need be. It could take them all night by the candlelight, and they'd go to their secret grounds mapped on their bodies.
To the caves of their mouths, to play in the dark. To the long, long ridges of their legs, to walk together for miles. To the high peaks of their shared passion, to marvel at the sights. And then the descend would be glorious, accentuated by a delicious languidness of body and mind that made their feet flutter just inches from anything solid. And they'd feel as though they'd conquered something inside themselves, as if they'd sent legions of monsters to their graves. They would find pride in their shared bruises, but also offer some tender care to help them heal. That was what they did, after all. That is what they were to each other, havens for the suspension of their pains and the healing of the scars left behind.
And when their battles gave place to a bud on ground fed by the spilt blood of their hearts and the downpour of their tears, what blossomed was beautiful to behold. A marvelous treasure, a wonderful child with sparkling, astral eyes and tiny fingers that curled about their own firmly. It was new light, a child emergent from his parents' inner battles born into the world's outside struggle for dominance.
They were enamoured with the baby, enthralled by his quickness of wit and of feet as he scurried all around like some lizard, though sometimes he was clumsy as a flightless bird. Morgan was his name, and he didn't seem to mind the cold, like his father, which made his mother think of him as this hatchling penguin. Sometimes he could be a turtle too, when he fell for running too fast and he waved his limbs wildly while still laying on his stomach, as if he couldn't get up unassisted. But truthfully, he was a dragon. His appetite was beastly, no doubt. His roars were hearty, no matter if he only managed to scare poultry. His eyes were the razor-sharp stuff of helpless centipedes' nightmares - while the centipedes were in turn his mother's.
His aspirations were simple, as all young kids'. To be like mom, smart and kind, and to be like dad, unyielding and resourceful. And his parents would joke among themselves about that.
Do you hear? He wants to be a smarty pants, what do you make of that?
It's not as bad as him wanting to be as hard-headed as his dad.
And then they'd laugh, though the joke was lost on Morgan. His cheeks would quickly burn under their curious gazes before being picked up. His father had the habit of rocking him on his legs, his mother entrapped him against her warm chest to sing the olden lulls that were tradition in Ferox. No matter where he ended, whose hands held him before falling asleep, his dreams were always about strange prairies, snow-crowned summits, endless veins of rivers, and bursting volcanoes. This, he would come to realize with time, was a place within himself. It was his sacred ground, the eminence of his inherited warrior spirit.
His grit and his fire were gifts to be wielded just as the ones who had given him life had - masterfully, reverently, humbly. So as to not shame them or himself, he needed to embrace the weight of that responsibility and someday he too would find another who completed him, the way his parents did for one another.
To keep true to himself was the real goal, like his parents struggled to out in the battlefield. To keep faith in what he knew of decency even as he crossed crimson rivers and stumbled on the bones of fallen foes. He was not a war machine, his parents told Morgan, he wasn't a killing machine. And never for a second should he become so jaded that he would forget the cost of keeping his freedom. A day may come when he questions the meaning of wielding his weapons, of fighting in wars, of killing fellow kinsmen. If this is ever the case, he should seek refuge. He would not be wrong to flee from carnage and all that debases human kind. That being said, never should he drop the sword that matters most. The one that found sheath inside him. That is the one weapon no-one could ever take from him.
And all those lessons were delivered to him before the fall of Yllistol, before the shadow of the fell beast ate the sun and nightmares ruled the land. Those were the thoughts that echoed in his quickly fading memory as he escaped to the past, and though he would later awake alone, lost, and cold, there was a fire guiding him blindly until a candid face he could never forget came to him. It wasn't a coincidence or a miracle to be found by the living ghosts of his parents, the swordmaster and the tactician, though it was still something abstract, something in a realm beyond solid fingers. Something difficult to explain, for which Morgan was often regarded as nearly delirious and asked not to push himself, but he could not let go of it, even if the words escaped him.
It was a gift that kept him tied to the people he'd lost to the beast, it kept him safe and true to himself.
"Father! That's amazing! I was just thinking of you! Is this fate? This is totally fate! Family-style fate! …Wait, no. How did mother put it? "We're not pawns of some scripted fate. It's the invisible ties we forge that bind us." So yeah, it's not fate. It's the whole invisible bond-link… thing!"
A/N: Morgan is an adorable penguin X)I love this family.