Moonstone Quarry [m] snow trickles

@Fleur

the quarry pulsed quiet with old breath, the kind that clung to stone and bone alike. beneath its echoing ribs, sólhárr walked again—not as he had before, crowned in snow and silence, but stripped to the sinew of who he was. a man returned. not whole, perhaps. but tempered.
his limbs moved with purpose through the dusk-streaked canyon paths, ears twitching at the familiar tremble of water, of bird, of memory.
his scent curled along the ledges again. his gifts had been laid—pelts, dried meats—yet none of it soothed what stung at the pit of him. not until he found her.
and he did.
fleur stood in the amber wash of sundown, outlined against the rock like a piece of the land itself—wrought from shadow and stubborn flame.
his step paused. the hush between them swelled. the air was thick with things unsaid.
you are angry with me, he said at last, voice low, shaped like regret.
his one eye held her with that terrible softness only the north could teach:
weathered, unyielding, yet achingly tender where it chose.
i have earned it.

Fleur stood under the fading glow of the sun, waiting, watching. Searching. Her eyes, awash in the colors of the setting sun, finally landing on the man who held her heart in his paws, only to make her bleed when he had left her…so many moons ago.

She remained where she was, the distance between them an echoing chasm of many emotions, some of which too deep to ignore. His words, filled with regret and acceptance, were timbered deep and low, reaching and caressing in their unspoken apology. She shivered, unable to stifle the reaction in which his voice tended to elicit in her.

He was not wrong—in her there was anger, but there was also a deep sense of relief, of joy, and an all-consuming inferno of an emotion she didn’t give name to, but knew with one touch she would unravel with it. It had never left, and now—now, it took all she had not to give in to the way her body wanted to crash into his, to feel him against her. Alive and whole.

Turning to him fully, her voice was low, but steady. “I am. You left us.” She took in a breath, but it did not stop her voice from breaking, crumbling and crashing like sea-beaten stone. “You left me. Why?”

he had not meant to speak so soon—had wanted to look upon her longer, to memorize how she stood against the dusk, gilded and wild, as if the sun bowed only for her—but her voice, her voice, it met him like a wave and pulled the words from his chest.
i had to, solharr said, throat thick. his voice was rough with the gravel of old grief, but honest. unhidden. his ears shifted back, his chin dipped, and he stepped forward just once—not to close the space, not yet, but to bridge something of it with his breath.
because of this. he gestured faintly, a motion that did not mean the quarry, nor the setting sun, but them. her eyes. his silence. the weight of it all.
i needed closure.
his gaze broke from hers, falling to the earth between them. a long, worn breath escaped.
she haunted me, he admitted, at last. not her spirit—her memory. the kind that waits behind every quiet. every time i looked at you, i saw what i never gave her. and that— his jaw clenched, voice low, that was not fair to you.
he lifted his eyes to her again. there was no armor in him. just a man who had bled for something he had not yet held with both hands.
i had to bury her. not in the earth. in me.
he paused.
and i did. so i could come back to you, whole.

His first words caused Fleur to reel back, hurt flashing across her features. Her silence remained and so did the stretch between them. Solharr took a step in her direction, continuing his words as the shock of hers settled, but the longer she listened, the longer she gazed into the eye of the one who held her bloodied heart, the pain melted into an understanding. 

Callyope. 

It was for her. For him. Fleur had never thought that Solharr would ever let the ghost, the memory of her go. It had not bothered her in the slightest—she had wanted all of him, even if it meant the ghost of Callyope would surround them in every moment. The woman had been there before, held him, loved him, and he did the same in return. Had he thought her so insensitive? Had he believed that she would ask this of him?

She met his singular step with many of her own, her breath the only sound as she closed the chasm between them. Her gaze held his as she reached him, her paw coming up to brush away what was left of the debris. Her paw then traced all of the sharp angles of him, the dips and jagged edges of the scars, down to ease the clench of his jaw, and over the softness of his lips; her eyes followed the same paths her paw took before they returned to his once more, a smile offered to balm what regret he felt in leaving.

Solharr… his name on her lips was soft, dipped in the sweetest honey. You have always been whole. I would have endured to share you with her ghost, to sit with you in her memory, if that is what was asked of me. I would not have felt slighted—I would have been honored. The truth of it had always been there, and it was even more so in her words to him now.

I had awoken to you gone. She began to splinter then, cracking and breaking with the weight of all that she had felt in his absence. When you did not return, I thought—I thought… Her words faded as a sob broke from her. She had thought many things, all of which ended in her solitude, and she couldn’t bear any of them. Tears flowed, creating trails of sadness, of relief, to drip down to the quarry floor. 

You were lost to me.

he saw her break, and it broke something in him.
no— his voice cracked like stone beneath thaw. and before her grief could deepen, before it could sink her too far, solharr closed the space between them and pulled her into the breadth of him, into the fire-warmed furs and the scars he had dragged home. his one good eye shut as her sob bled through his chest, and he held her like the wind holds a trembling flame.
fleur, he breathed into the crown of her head, low and hoarse. i was not lost. not from you.
his jaws trembled at her temple, not knowing whether to kiss or press, so he did both. he did not try to silence her. he let her weep. and as she did, he cradled her tighter.
i needed to see the ash with my own eye. i needed to put her to rest. for us, he whispered, so that i could come back whole.
there was silence again—but this one was not hollow. it was filled with the weight of her tears, his heartbeat, and the softest sigh of a ghost released.
i will not leave again, he murmured, and this he swore with every rib and bone that clung to her now. i am yours.

If she were to burn, it would be now, her body melting into the heat of living brimstone and fire. It did not hurt; it melted and reformed her, the cracks of her melded, yet barely able to hold back the intensity of the unnamed emotion she wanted to speak to the heavens. But, for now she stood against him, savoring the feel of him around her, feeling his words floating from his heart into hers, fueling the hearth in which he placed there when they first met.

The kiss to her temple had dammed her. Her tears ebbed, the flow of them nothing more than remnants, and she heard his heart speaking directly to her own. It responded in steady pounds, she would have been surprised if he had not felt it then. His words were a slow, unfettered caress, sending another shiver through her.

She pressed into him further, unwilling to unravel herself. The relief she felt for his safe return and the undeniable want for more than a kiss bubbled and raged just barely below the surface. The feel of it was almost undeniable. There was no force, only a suggestion, and a choice to be made for him and him alone. She had made her choice; it had always been him and she would have him in all ways a woman could have a man. In all ways that he would offer.

Her words were dark, husky, hinted with the fire that burned for him and him only. I cannot, and will not, be parted from you. Not anymore. If I am to be yours, then make it so, Solharr. Whether it is now, or in a year’s time—I do not care. All I know is that I want you—now and always. As whole as you’ve always been.

his arms tightened around her. the quarry, the stone, the ghosts—all fell away.
then you are, he said, voice thick, gravel turned gold in her ear. mine.
he pressed his brow to hers, steadying. anchoring. not as a man drowning in her, but as one reborn. my seidkona, he breathed, as if it were a vow. my flame. you knew me when i was only embers.
his jaw clenched, and he held her as though he might vanish again if he did not. but he would not leave. not now. he would build, with her hands in his, not in shadow but in the blaze of what they chose.
you will sit beside me, he murmured, drawing her hand to rest against his chest where his heart beat full. and they will know you not only by fire, but by name. fleur. my wife. the one who waited through the dark.
and quieter, lower:
i will not leave you again. even if the gods themselves tear open the sky.

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Mine.

The word shook her to the core; the delicious way in which the gilded words of his rippled through her pebbled her skin. Her chest vibrated softly, a hum of a happiness and a feeling of rightness settling so deep within the ancient web of her very being. 

She had belonged all this time; always to herself, even though she doubted it, and even more so to the one who held her now. It was his heart she had sought all this time, the very one she clutched against her own, the beat of it a steady rhythm of promise.

Her home had never been something to find, for it had found her one morning in the cool mist amongst the fireflies, lighting her up and guiding her to where she would burn brightly, again. Somewhere she could dance unbidden, sing to the heavens of her love for the Hárkonungr of Forneskja.

His brow pressed into hers and she returned the pressure of it; yet where he was anchored in the touch, she was the one drowning in it. Drowning in his claim, in the precious title he had bestowed upon her. There was breath, so she didn’t fear the way she sank into him, into this love that melded them together.

She pulled away to look up at him, her eyes heavy-lidded but full of every emotion Solharr deserved. If she could give him the world, the stars, the universe—she would. 

“The gods would not dare; I would rip this world apart and burn it all to ash. I would reach the heavens and demand your return. The gods would know me by the fire in my soul that burns eternally for you, my love, and they would know me by name—

Fleur, Skeiðkona, Wife of Solharr, Hárkonungr of Forneskja.”

She reached up to bring his face down to meet hers, kissing him deeply, daring to take what she had longed for so long. And when the flames simmered and rolled, they would settle lower in her belly, a flicker remaining behind sunset eyes to draw him to follow her. 

She did not have to speak her wants, they were plain to see in the way she sauntered away from him, the way her tail swayed slowly, inviting, and the feigned shyness as she turned to look back at him. If he truly wished her to be his, and for him to be hers, then she wanted all of her senses to drown in him.

his blood turned molten.
not since the first light fell upon forneskja’s quarry had he seen such a woman—no, his woman—lit with promise, power, and want. her words sank into his flesh like iron to forge, carving her name alongside his upon the stone of fate. fleur. seiðkona. wife.
the kiss left him breathless and branded, and he let her take it, let her mark him with lips and love and fire. when she broke it and turned, his gaze followed like a beast entranced. her tail curled like a flame; her look over-shoulder could have crumbled kingdoms. and solharr? solharr was only a man, and hers.
he did not speak. words were dust beneath what rose between them. instead, he followed. without armor, without crown. just flesh, scarred and loyal. just breath, drawn to hers.
as she led him deeper into their haven, he closed the distance with a growl softened to a hum, a vow in the making. you are my home. you are the fire i return to.
and when their bodies met, it was not conquest. it was reunion.
like bone meeting bone again after long fracture.
like the sea pulling tide back to shore.
like two names carved on the same stone.
solharr did not take—he gave. gave his love, gave his soul, gave his name and his night. and through all the flickering heat, he murmured her name again and again, like prayer.
fleur.
fleur.
fleur.
his wife.

A flower, silver and white dipped in golden hues, unfurled slowly as heat from the sun’s rays caressed it to bloom. Grasses of green tranquility swayed in the wind, while gilded birds of peace drifted above, calling out to the gods.

….

Answer, they did—singing their praises, words carried along golden wings, only to fall and shatter the earth. Power with intertwined elements of stone and fire called forth a haven, a place of power. A place of love and reverence.

Photo by Ali Aldoul on Unsplash/manip by KITT

Words of Solharr’s, spoken before the resurrection of his love in her name, drifted on the wind in their wake: “dreams aren’t soft things, fleur. they bite. they bleed us. but sometimes.…they carry us farther than fear ever could.” She had dreamt so many dreams, many tears shed from pain, from loneliness, but, this time? This time was different.

They bled, they burned, but there were no tears. None flowed in this dream that conjured itself from two, lost hearts colliding, become one eternal. Each touch, each kiss leaving its mark; her heart, her soul, there was no discrimination as to where they landed, branding her for all to see. Forever.

Their scents mixed, in and around them, above and below. There was no where to turn that did not hold remnants of being engulfed in each other’s blaze. 

But all things come to an end, and when their infernal blaze died to smoldering embers, the couple sank into the furs her love had gifted, some given out of duty, others gifted when fires were stoked over time, coals glowing at the hearth. 

Their story, written in each scrap of hide, singing in every rise and fall of their chests as they drifted, curled in each other.

Never parting. Never letting go.

fade here <333