Kyrenya lays in bed, wild silver curls spill all about her body like branches of white wood. Her chest falls and rises slowly and with it, their little one. Tiny tufts of ashwhite hair grow on his head, only fair since their eldest got his black strands.
They have yet to name the baby. When he looked at Lunar, right after their birth, he felt destiny reach out for the child and take it, mark it. Just as he is marked. In the quiet of his thoughts he dares to beg, to hope that their son will not share their fate. One child doomed to wander, to bleed and die is enough.
He hums, softly, the first tunes for an lullaby. His blood hums it back and whispers of old tales. That day when he first meet Kyrenya, before she wore her glittering wings wrought of dreaming starlight. Before – he can admit that much – he gave his heart to her. And he remembers the screaming, all kind of voices, old and young, rough and soft, low and high. All screaming, screaming, screaming. The eerie scent of not quite blood, spilled by his axe and crackling mystic powers. And him. Him. He sighs, lovelorn.
The sheet of paper crinkles beneath his fingers, suddenly rough and grasping with wounded memory. His blood pulses and squirms in his veins.
Glenmae, her sister, never understood. Why would Kyrenya take and wed an man who loved her only for what she reminded him of? Ah, he did not understood himself, those first weeks. What an pair they were! She, merciful lady in silver-dust; he, black knight of black heart.
But Kyrenya understands his fondness for their once-savior, his enamorement with her fluttering wings and even the pale strands of her hair. Many suggestion she had made on how to entrap another kind of moth, to ensnare an man and yet not quite just an man.
Carn sighs again and stands up. His eyes pierce the darkness outside, searching, seeking and coming back empty. He lets the bedroom door fall close and dares to brave the half-tamed wilderness of their backyard. The cold bites at his bare shoulders, but only for an moment and he whispers his gratitude to the company in his flesh.
The frosty forest, dark even in light, with its pines, birches and oaks, thick brambles thicket and ruin-stones, lets him pretend to be years past. When they were lost. Somedays he wonders, if he should wander and wander, until death finds him and gives the last kiss, or if the Mothman would find him once more and guide him to safety as he once did.
Dangerous dreams. The parasite would not let him die anyway. The whispers agree.
The need to do something grips him. He presses his hands against the rough bark and stares into midnight. Words come easy to his lips.
"Oh, silver-tongued stranger turned friend. Thou hast not come to visit since that day of glory and sorrow, not since we buried the dead and celebrated our life. Do my words find what I cannot reach? An heavy gloaming-chain thou has cast about yourself, an sacrifice not forgotten – in memory and heart.
I see thy like in all the beauty of the world. In the mist caressing the mountains tops and the glittering of stars upon the lake, in the songs of the nightingale and the water rushing down the streams, in the winter-crowns of the proud firs and the dew-jeweled grass of morning."
Half he expects to see him twirl into life with witty words and playful bow. But there is only the snow.
He turns around and sees – wings under moonlight, silver, blue and violet - Kyrenya. She takes his hand. "You are could, husband mine."
"I cannot get sick." He reminds her. "No need for worry."
Kyrenya raises an eyebrow. "I won't have an ice-block keep me company in bed."
He laughs but it comes out more broken than he wanted.
"The heart ever longs, does it not?" She leans down to kiss him and casts her wings about them like an cloak of spun starlight.