04-10-2021, 05:31 PM
She staggers, struggles to regain her footing in the darkness. The impact arrests the air in her chest and she drags in a great, heaving gasp as the sharp, warning sound tears through the silence. She cannot retreat quickly enough, though the snapping teeth find no purchase on the great plains of her flesh and they are plunged back into that oppressive silence as she struggles to catch her breath enough to blurt out an apology.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, though it does not seem to be an apology the dark mare is after.
Still, Basilica cowers, swallowing a grimace. Guilt pulses through her, radiating outward from that cursed heart in that cursed cage. How desperately she wants to reach out, to touch the mare, to undo whatever damage she has done. But she is wary of the snapping teeth, the wide, silver eyes trained on her through the swath of darkness that separates them, the single syllable that drips out of the mare’s mouth sounding like an accusation.
Hers? Basilica tears her gaze away from the dark mare to study the stars that gather around her. And she feels that same sudden rush of fondness for the dream thing that had given them to her. Orville. How he had found her at the edge of the river and pulled her up and out of the depths, draped her so delicately in these stars.
Despite the hammering in her chest, she smiles. It is small, uncertain, hardly there at all.
“They were a gift,” she murmurs, soft, as if this might explain it.
And the stars wink in agreement, pleased. And then they are gone, too and both mares are left without their stars. (And Basilica is too distraught to notice that the stars have been replaced by flowers.
“Oh,” she cries, turning in a quick circle, “oh, where have they gone?”
“I’m sorry,” she gasps, though it does not seem to be an apology the dark mare is after.
Still, Basilica cowers, swallowing a grimace. Guilt pulses through her, radiating outward from that cursed heart in that cursed cage. How desperately she wants to reach out, to touch the mare, to undo whatever damage she has done. But she is wary of the snapping teeth, the wide, silver eyes trained on her through the swath of darkness that separates them, the single syllable that drips out of the mare’s mouth sounding like an accusation.
Hers? Basilica tears her gaze away from the dark mare to study the stars that gather around her. And she feels that same sudden rush of fondness for the dream thing that had given them to her. Orville. How he had found her at the edge of the river and pulled her up and out of the depths, draped her so delicately in these stars.
Despite the hammering in her chest, she smiles. It is small, uncertain, hardly there at all.
“They were a gift,” she murmurs, soft, as if this might explain it.
And the stars wink in agreement, pleased. And then they are gone, too and both mares are left without their stars. (And Basilica is too distraught to notice that the stars have been replaced by flowers.
“Oh,” she cries, turning in a quick circle, “oh, where have they gone?”
@[Ciri] might be fun if the sun comes back in this thread and they both get their stars back!