Blackwater Islands dread

time blinked away. each breath, each step a leap across days, weeks.

and when at last her vision cleared, the prophet found herself once again confined to her beloved islands — alone. wholly alone.

how long...?

even her iron guardian had faded from these islands, untethered. their children, grown and flung to the corners of the earth to bring balance. chaos and respite by turns. once, that had been her task. a task she had failed.

too long...

weakened by moons of malnutrition and neglect, the listener made the daunting trek to the islands' outskirts. through dark water and under drooping tree-cover, across dirt and stone etched with the faded scent of her keeper. she went to the bridge of souls.

and for the first time in her life, raised her voice in search of another. the prophet called for her iron guardian, her lover, her equal; her @Ingram.

she would linger there for days, perched at the edge of what had once been her domain. waiting. and each day she would call for him. he would return. he must.

plaguing dreams of shadows, of mismatched eyes, of the roiling sea calls ingram from the borders of the plateau — a quick howl sent to the wolves to be on alert, that he was stepping out and to not expect him towards the end of the day, if not the next morning all together.

path determined by his plaguging dreams, his steps are purposeful.

he swims the span of sea betwixt the mainland and the islands...expecting them to feel as desolate as they were when he'd departed.

a howl cuts through the mist that blankets the islands; heart fluttering into his throat. the listener! his nightwife!

unbridled, the dreadfather seeks her. nightwife. he croons in greeting; joy and euphoria swelling within his chest, fluttering like a caged bird desperate to break free.

oh, how he had grown into himself! she had always felt his power, rippling from him like waves of dark heat, yet now —

now it was written in his flesh, etched into those endless eyes of the sea. i am divine, the regal set of his shoulders proclaimed. you will obey, the fierce strength of his jaw commanded.

he had risen while his prophet withered to dust, nightblack rags on bones. punishment for her arrogance, while his faith did not go unrewarded.

yet he loved her still. that, too, was written in his eyes. his fallen queen, his failed prophet. she was divinity gone awry, and he loved her still.

nightwife, he called her.

you were my iron guardian, careful words as they met, close enough to intertwine their scents. faintly in his scent were others, none of them familiar. none of them her druids. until i failed you. now i return from the realm of spirits, knowing my arrogance was my downfall. i am a seer, a soothsayer, a prophet... never a leader. never again. but i am your nightwife still, and my place is at your side. and so we must trade roles. i will follow you, as you once followed me.

she studied him.

we were listener and keeper, before. tell me, my husband... what shall we be now?

words of comfort, of soft retaliation at her words of failure flutter to his throat but do not form beyond. they do not take form on his tongue despite how fiercely he wishes to contest it. he does not see it as failure!

ingram had never seen himself in a leader role...at least, not until the vision. the blood of his muzzle, the taste of usurping... the crown of bones atop his brow. once upon a time, he'd been content to be only the iron guardian. the keeper.

now? now he found himself stepping into himself; embracing all facets of himself to make the chaotic and dark stainedglass painting he was.

whole again now that they were reunited, that she was by his side once more.

dreadfather, he murmurs his title first; drinking in her scent: isolated and tinged strongly with seabrine. and nightmother. he had always hoped for her return; though it was not until now that he thought she should have her own rank, seperate from the others. high in the heirarchy but not a leader, if only because she has stated as such.

you will start first as druid, as all the others out of fairness. he explains, knowing that he has no want to keep her there. i will give you a task, as i will all the others. once that is completed, you will be elevated into and remain in the rank of nightmother.

he outlined her future, her role, as she had once done for so many others. and perhaps she might have accepted it, were it only her own ego that chafed at being ranked among lessers.

but the listener was not wholly her own, and it was not her who would foremost be insulted by the dreadfather's plan.

she laughed; the rarest and most musical sound heard from the prophet.

have i not already completed your task, my grim? the first task, to call you from the void itself, a smile like a bolt of lightning, gone as swiftly. nonetheless, i will accept this quest, husband. but i cannot accept a rank equal to my lessers. i am a prophet, chosen by our god, and my status must always reflect this. i cannot lead, but neither can i mingle amongst underlings. i will remain with my islands... until you feel i have earned my rightful place.

she swept around him, circling, inspecting. or perhaps you would have me depart? learn the secrets of those who might threaten your rule? hound the steps of those who earn your ire? you need only say the word, my love.

flank pressed to his, mouth at his ear. never forget: i chose you, that day in the mountains. i was the first... and i will be the last.

she does not approve and for a moment it needles past the iron fortress ingram has risen around himself at his flesh. annoyance flares briefly before it soothes out. you have been isolated for some time, he reminds her; not speaking that he had thought her really and truly gone from him this time. he had never given up hope, of course; never forsaken her for another. she was his wife. his true wife; the wife of his soul and his heart and his bones.

but she holds a point.

loathe as ingram was to show any sort of favoritism: he has known her the longest out of any, title as wife notwithstanding.

he does not answer right away; giving contemplation to her words. i will not have you stay on these desolate islands. there is nothing but ghosts here. nothing but what once was's. there was no future here. for him. for her.

as i chose you, wife. he reminds her with sharp tongue and clicking teeth; despite that there had never been any other. i digress, murmurs the dreadfather. you shall be nightwife, foregoing the steps in between, as you wish. because he was soft for her; always. she could ask him to bend the heavens and he would find a way ( or die trying ). you should know the others might not take it well. be prepared to answer their needling questions.

not that she couldn't handle it, he knows. but those rallied to basilica were thus far an ambitious bunch.

the shadow of listener and keeper hung over them. or so it felt, as the dreadfather verbally bristled and then bent under her displeasure. the prophet forgot, at times, that under the shimmering voidmagick ingram was still a man; a man who loved her. she was never certain if that love was his weakness or his strength.

he was still a man, but had the listener ever truly been a woman? this was the part where a woman would take him into her arms, all gratitude and promises, love reunited. they would forget the troubles ahead, and when the time came they would face it together. a woman would put him above all else, as he had done for her.

instead, the listener went still at his side, fur twining with his.

these islands have always been filled with ghosts. i do not mind, though my place is at your side. i would not undermine your authority in the eyes of your followers, her voice was hushed. give me a task. one of importance, so that none will question my place. let them see that you are king, even to your wife; even to a prophet. i will remain outside of your hierarchy until i have proven myself. but i will be near, if that is your wish.

because i love you, a woman would have said. but the thought did not occur to her, just as it never occurred to her to proclaim her love for her tail or her ears. these things were part of her.

but her expression softened, by fractions, as she stepped away to look at him — to truly study him for the first time in months.

i was away for too long, she murmured. i had forgotten what it felt like. to be made whole again.

ghosts are not sustainable for us. not anymore. not while they inhabited these flesh and mortal bodies, at least. and the dreadfather was not so willing to depart his now that he's made it home.

i would not have you gone so far from me again. speaking first as her husband, and second as her king. oh, how fiercely he has missed her! how he had been able to fool himself into thinking that the aching void in his soul while she had isolated herself away for months could be ignored. and while he's had some modicum of success...he can keenly feel the difference now.

the fire of desire and love and obsession and soultether that had ached like a festering wound in her absence. put in front of it, without any other option than to confront it.

i intend for basilica to be a powerful force of magick in the wilds. to spread the word of the threadbone readers and offer readings in exchange for favors. power gleamed by owed favors and war waged by favors refusing to be returned. this, though, is perhaps still yet too ambitious for their small size. but the seedlings needed to be planted all the same.

there is a pack east of the plateau we've claimed and one to the south. i had thought to seek them individually to begin planting the seeds of our threadbone readings. to nurture potential allies of them, i suppose. though he was not terribly fond of the idea. pick the pack to the east or the south to plant the seeds of basilica and our ambitions and i will go to the other. upon your return to the plateau, tell me how it went. that is your task, wife.

a pause is given; a fluttering stutter of his breath as their eyes meet and her words sink in. as have i, trikova. ingram purls.