Tyrbird and Lyssa

By Bluey

“Tyr?” a soft voice calls into the dark night, like the sound of pan flutes trilling into the summer sky.

“Tyrbird?”

At the sound of his truename the stallion flinches, forced to seek out the coppery coat of his shoulder friend through the shadows. Like a fire brand she flickers and wavers into view from the depths of the night, and then she is beside him. They stand side by side, fire and sunrays against darkness and starlight. He swings his great head to watch her sidle up against his dark bay coat, the white of his blaze flashing in the dappled moonlight that filters through the trees.

It is silent for a moment, and they both know what the other is thinking, while at the same time not knowing at all. She dips her head, shy and reserved as she has always been ever since he had known her as a filly. It’s funny how time changes some things, and not others.

“What is it, Lys?”

He knows he has to ask her, else she would have stood there next to him through the rest of the night, and he knows she doesn’t want to. He knows the voices call to her from the valley floor, and she’s not his to keep. The coppery chestnut sighs and relaxes into him, and at her touch his skin seers just a little, but it’s something he’s become used to. Her green eyes peer up at him, a mixture of wonder there, and something else he couldn’t quite gather, but he doesn’t dwell on it.

Perhaps it was the summer heat making his head swim with things that weren’t true. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“It’s Moondance, and you’ve been hiding up here since sunset,” she started quietly, “won’t you come down for just a moment?”

Her voice pleads with him, and her green, green eyes. Tyr looks away, into the trees, and up the sloping hills into the farther depths of the pan woods, and beyond that the Gryphon Mountains that border the Summer Sea. He gives a flippant toss of his head, and doesn’t look back to meet her gaze, so he can’t see the hurt that crosses her pretty face when she is met with silence.

“Someone has to keep watch,” he finally muttered, “we’ve already lost a foal to the wing cats, I’ll not have another.”

An excuse, always another excuse; he had convinced himself it was better this way, but the way his chest ached when he finally did see the crestfallen light in her eyes made him think otherwise. Briefly, with longing only known to himself, he pressed the soft flat of his nose into her shoulder. It was all he could do not to cringe when she pulled away, as if burnt by his touch.

“I see,” she replied flatly, barely able to hide the ring of disappointment at the edges of her chiming voice. She wavered, standing a few paces away now, and he knew she was waiting for something, anything. Tyr wished more then anything he could give it to her, give her the world, the sky. But he couldn’t, she wouldn’t let him.

His voice choked and caught in his throat as it tightened.

When she turned away from him, he finally managed to call after her.

“What do you want of me, Lyssa?” the words seemed to drop like stones from the air, heavy and broken between them. She stopped, cloven hooves digging into the soft woodland soil, but she didn’t turn around. Her head balked, flinched, but it never turned his way. The stallion braced himself from going to her like he always had, locking his near trembling knees in place, cursing himself. Here stood a warrior, slain by a tempest. He shook his head, but his thoughts grew no clearer, no brighter in the shadows of the night.

“You’re not a filly anymore, Lys, no more than I am a colt,” he said bitterly, his thick voice muted, “there’s no more gallivanting about on summer nights as if it were the same, no more days spent lazing on the riverbed; you can’t have it that way anymore Lyssa. You’ve changed-”

His voice caught again, but he continued on, months of pain and sorrow begging for sweet release.

“I’ve changed too.”

How he wished more then anything he could give it all back to her, the care free days spent playing with their shoulder friends, hiding and scaring elders in their grottos, sparring on the lookout knoll, initiation the night they slept side by side at the Mere of the Moon. Traveling as newly minted warriors across the mare’s back, wandering away from the others, and dancing alone beneath the thousands of dazzling summer stars. He would relive it over and over again if he could make it right, but that was like asking the rain to fall back into the sky. There was no going back now, even if going forward – without her – was killing him.

“You have changed,” she spat vehemently, spinning to face him, her pretty voice filled with uncharacteristic venom, “I waited for you Tyr, because I knew it was my fault, and I still bear that blame to this day. But I’m tired, and I won’t wait for you anymore.”

He wasn’t the trouble making colt who had gotten her in trouble the first time they met (because he’d told her there were Gryphon hatchlings at the edge of the Pan Woods). He wasn’t the carefree halfgrown who stayed at her shoulder all the way to the Hallow Hills the year they became warriors. He wasn’t who she fell in love with. That one night had changed everything, and she’s still not sure why, or how, even two years later.

She won’t say it out loud, because she’s too prideful, too stubborn, but she misses him more then he would ever know. More then she would let her heart admit to.

Lyssa can see the way her words hurt him though, the way they bite into him unmercifully, and her anger softens and flickers out just like a dying fire light. A mixture of shame and guilt courses through her, but she doesn’t look away. For the first time this night she has his gaze, emerald green locked with pale blue ice.

“I’m sorry, Lys.” It’s all he can offer her, the only thing he can think of that would make it any better, but it doesn’t. They both know that. Lost in the tumultuous whirlpool of emotions the coppery mare is forced to look away from him now, and he does the same. They were two lost souls looking for some sort of end out of a bunch of odds, and they had yet to find.

“Kele is waiting for me,” she interjects quickly, changing the subject, leaving the heartache to fester once more. Tyr is stabbed yet again by this name, that of his once shoulder friend, the stallion who had taken his place. He couldn’t be angry with her though, because he had abandoned her, it was only right that someone had filled the gap he’d created. Never the less, it still hurt and made him cringe.

“Oh,” his voice is empty, and that was just how he felt. Empty and lost and tired, so tired he could sleep for ages.

Again she waits, uncertain on the edge of the clearing, but this time the fight is drawn out of her. There is nothing more that can be said until either of them saw the truth for what it was, what they still refused to admit. But even though she knows she should, she still can't let him go, and the old part of Tyr that still remains doesn't want her to let go either. Those are the things spoken without really being spoken at all, the one thing he never had to say aloud, because he knew he'd always be there. Even now, when he knows he shouldn't.

“Be safe,” she whispered through the quiet between them, because she knows he won't come with her, "for me?"

The dark stallion hesitated and glanced at her. He was torn at what he saw there, the anguish of what had happened between them, and what could have been. He nodded, a solemnand heavy nod.

“Always for you, Lyssa.”

And with that Tyr disappeared into the shadows of the night. The fiery mare was left alone with nothing but the voices of the Moondance below to fill the hollowness made by the absence of his presence. It was as if she had been alone all along.

She could still feel him there in the clearing, but soon that faded too, and she felt even colder and weaker then she had before. The ashes of a fire swept up upon a cool summer breeze; they were lost to the winds.

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