11-19-2017, 10:36 PM
<center><div style="width:500px;background:#42425b;padding-bottom:10px;padding-top:3px;border-radius:50px;"><img src="http://38.media.tumblr.com/1cb7c100466f94ed4604add831f0c619/tumblr_n05abcLpo51sxtsggo1_r3_500.gif" width="496" style="border-radius:50px 50px 0px 0px;"><div style="position:relative;width:600px;height:50px;bottom:50px;margin-bottom:-50px;background-image:-moz-linear-gradient(top, rgb(183,197,214) 0%, rgb(183,197,214) 100%);background-image:-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%, rgb(183,197,214)), color-stop(100%, rgb(183,197,214))));background-image:-ms-linear-gradient(top, rgb(183,197,214) 0%, rgb(183,197,214) 100%);"></div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 5px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 18px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>lady, runnin' away to the riptide</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 0px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 21px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>taken away to the dark side</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;width:450px;font:14px times;color:#85848b;text-align:justify;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;">
<p><s><i>The Looking</i></s>
It’s not a nice journey. Even if they weren’t anxiously searching for her missing friend, for Thomas-called-Indigo, they did better spread out across The Shore. Green is even more uptight out here in the open, insisting they all travel as a single close group. Black is even more creepy, staring at them constantly, his pupil-less eyes like the feeling of ants crawling on her skin. Scarlet and Orange are the most normal, at least at first, treating it like a grand adventure. Everyone else is some mixture of worried and anxious.
And as time goes on, exhausted. One day turns to two and two turns to three, and they turn up nothing. And though they stay relatively active on the beach, that is nothing compared to trekking across different terrain from sunup to sundown for several days. Sloene wants to memorize these sights for Thomas, who has always wanted to see them, but she can’t focus on anything but looking. And looking.
<s><i>The Missing (Part Two)</i></s>
She is the last to wake on the fourth morning, and something is wrong. She can feel it immediately in the air and she stiffens, even as she struggles to her feet. She looks wildly around, trying to make sense of them shouting and milling around and it’s wrong and she doesn’t know until...she counts black bodies and comes up short.
Sloene counts them again, but it doesn’t change. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. There are only seven other people in the clearing with her. Green, Pink, White...Black, Yellow, Orange...Red. No Scarlet, no Purple and...her heart clenches, and then sinks. No Blue. She’s lost her other closest friend. They’re shouting, the others, constant motion making her nearly sick to her stomach. Accusations are thrown - some of them her way, by Black, and Sloene defends herself the best she can. Of course she didn’t do anything to Indigo/Thomas. She loved him. Of course she didn’t do anything to Blue, or Purple, or Scarlet - her friends, her family.
Black is the one standing perfectly still, staring at her. Sloene starts to suspect he knows something, with the fervor he tries to blame her. Why cast the blame on her, except to get it off himself? She keeps him in her peripheral vision, all trust of him that used to be slight gone now entirely. Eventually, White gets them going again, but now they finally persuade Green it will be more efficient if they split into groups.
<i><s>The Finding</i></s>
They spend most of the fourth day regrouping, and the fifth day they spread out, within hearing distance of each other but covering more ground. Pink travels with White in the middle, guiding the blind mare. To their left Green travels with Yellow, because she is simply too young to be alone. Red walks silent with Orange, who is nearly inconsolable at the loss of her heart-twin, to their right. Sloene refuses to walk alone with Black and so he goes to the far left, and she to the far right.
So she is alone when she nearly stumbles on the body. It is unrecognizable except as an equine, burnt and battered and broken. Lifeless.
Sloene turns to call for the others and that’s when she sees the head, unmarried scarlet head perched on a stone cairn a few yards away. It has no eyes, but it’s smiling.
Sloene screams.
When the others arrive, there is no sense. Mourning and grief and anger, and Sloene doesn’t know what to do. Scarlet was family, but she feels a guilty relief that it wasn’t Blue. Or Thomas. They might still be alive. But Orange is totally crazy with grief, wailing and weeping, and it takes all of them most of the night to settle her (except Black; Sloene’s suspicions rise when even this is not enough to get him to engage with them, on any significant level).
The grief of losing - really losing - a familiar member carries them deep into the night. Eventually, they all sleep.
<i><s>The Running</i></s>
When she wakes, it is alone. She has not been alone since she arrived in this place - always with either Thomas or Blue at her side, and since they began looking for Thomas, in a big group snuggle pile every night. She gets to her feet and blinks sleep from her eyes, and then freezes.
They’re all looking at her. Spread in a semi-circle around her sleeping position. Green and Pink once more united in the middle, Yellow tucked against White on one side. Orange standing, still broken on the other side. Red, mute and off a little ways by herself. Black is missing.
They begin to accuse her, voices hard - even shy little Yellow, and previously supportive White and always her friend Orange. Only Red is silent, because she is always silent. Sloene defends herself, asks where Black is, but they get meaner and more insistent. Witch! Killer! Liar! Evil! Tears are in her eyes, and she doesn’t recognize these people who had become her family - they are strangers, monsters, and she is forced back by the weight of their anger and the lash of their betrayal.
Still, she is shocked when Black comes barreling out of nowhere, knocking her to the ground. <i> ‘We’ll kill her then,’</i> he snarls it at the others, <i> ‘and she’ll never hurt one of us again,’</i> He turns and he kicks at her as she is struggling to her feet. Sloene cries out, looks to the others for help, but they are silent. They are going to let him kill her, she realizes as he body-slams her again, teeth tearing into her hide.
She can’t fight him - her only chance is to run. She knows nowhere except to run, to hide. Sloene just wants, desperately, to go <i>home</i>, but she had tried to find a way home from the Shore and had not found one. So she ducks away from him, and she runs. She is smaller than Black, able to fit through small spaces and under low branches; she is lighter, and more nimble - she knows that’s her only hope to lose him, and then she will have to find a place to hide. She dives into the familiar scent of the Citrus Grove, and searches for a place to disappear.
Maybe Blue and Thomas will find her, if she survives this.
She still has hope.
</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;font-family: 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 40px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative:900' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>SL<font color=86abe5>O</font>ENE</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -5px;padding-left: 185px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 14px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>I've got a lump in my throat</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -10px;padding-left: 50px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 16px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>cause you're gonna sing the words wrong</div></div></center>
<div style="position: relative;top: 5px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 18px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>lady, runnin' away to the riptide</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 0px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 21px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>taken away to the dark side</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;width:450px;font:14px times;color:#85848b;text-align:justify;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;">
<p><s><i>The Looking</i></s>
It’s not a nice journey. Even if they weren’t anxiously searching for her missing friend, for Thomas-called-Indigo, they did better spread out across The Shore. Green is even more uptight out here in the open, insisting they all travel as a single close group. Black is even more creepy, staring at them constantly, his pupil-less eyes like the feeling of ants crawling on her skin. Scarlet and Orange are the most normal, at least at first, treating it like a grand adventure. Everyone else is some mixture of worried and anxious.
And as time goes on, exhausted. One day turns to two and two turns to three, and they turn up nothing. And though they stay relatively active on the beach, that is nothing compared to trekking across different terrain from sunup to sundown for several days. Sloene wants to memorize these sights for Thomas, who has always wanted to see them, but she can’t focus on anything but looking. And looking.
<s><i>The Missing (Part Two)</i></s>
She is the last to wake on the fourth morning, and something is wrong. She can feel it immediately in the air and she stiffens, even as she struggles to her feet. She looks wildly around, trying to make sense of them shouting and milling around and it’s wrong and she doesn’t know until...she counts black bodies and comes up short.
Sloene counts them again, but it doesn’t change. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. There are only seven other people in the clearing with her. Green, Pink, White...Black, Yellow, Orange...Red. No Scarlet, no Purple and...her heart clenches, and then sinks. No Blue. She’s lost her other closest friend. They’re shouting, the others, constant motion making her nearly sick to her stomach. Accusations are thrown - some of them her way, by Black, and Sloene defends herself the best she can. Of course she didn’t do anything to Indigo/Thomas. She loved him. Of course she didn’t do anything to Blue, or Purple, or Scarlet - her friends, her family.
Black is the one standing perfectly still, staring at her. Sloene starts to suspect he knows something, with the fervor he tries to blame her. Why cast the blame on her, except to get it off himself? She keeps him in her peripheral vision, all trust of him that used to be slight gone now entirely. Eventually, White gets them going again, but now they finally persuade Green it will be more efficient if they split into groups.
<i><s>The Finding</i></s>
They spend most of the fourth day regrouping, and the fifth day they spread out, within hearing distance of each other but covering more ground. Pink travels with White in the middle, guiding the blind mare. To their left Green travels with Yellow, because she is simply too young to be alone. Red walks silent with Orange, who is nearly inconsolable at the loss of her heart-twin, to their right. Sloene refuses to walk alone with Black and so he goes to the far left, and she to the far right.
So she is alone when she nearly stumbles on the body. It is unrecognizable except as an equine, burnt and battered and broken. Lifeless.
Sloene turns to call for the others and that’s when she sees the head, unmarried scarlet head perched on a stone cairn a few yards away. It has no eyes, but it’s smiling.
Sloene screams.
When the others arrive, there is no sense. Mourning and grief and anger, and Sloene doesn’t know what to do. Scarlet was family, but she feels a guilty relief that it wasn’t Blue. Or Thomas. They might still be alive. But Orange is totally crazy with grief, wailing and weeping, and it takes all of them most of the night to settle her (except Black; Sloene’s suspicions rise when even this is not enough to get him to engage with them, on any significant level).
The grief of losing - really losing - a familiar member carries them deep into the night. Eventually, they all sleep.
<i><s>The Running</i></s>
When she wakes, it is alone. She has not been alone since she arrived in this place - always with either Thomas or Blue at her side, and since they began looking for Thomas, in a big group snuggle pile every night. She gets to her feet and blinks sleep from her eyes, and then freezes.
They’re all looking at her. Spread in a semi-circle around her sleeping position. Green and Pink once more united in the middle, Yellow tucked against White on one side. Orange standing, still broken on the other side. Red, mute and off a little ways by herself. Black is missing.
They begin to accuse her, voices hard - even shy little Yellow, and previously supportive White and always her friend Orange. Only Red is silent, because she is always silent. Sloene defends herself, asks where Black is, but they get meaner and more insistent. Witch! Killer! Liar! Evil! Tears are in her eyes, and she doesn’t recognize these people who had become her family - they are strangers, monsters, and she is forced back by the weight of their anger and the lash of their betrayal.
Still, she is shocked when Black comes barreling out of nowhere, knocking her to the ground. <i> ‘We’ll kill her then,’</i> he snarls it at the others, <i> ‘and she’ll never hurt one of us again,’</i> He turns and he kicks at her as she is struggling to her feet. Sloene cries out, looks to the others for help, but they are silent. They are going to let him kill her, she realizes as he body-slams her again, teeth tearing into her hide.
She can’t fight him - her only chance is to run. She knows nowhere except to run, to hide. Sloene just wants, desperately, to go <i>home</i>, but she had tried to find a way home from the Shore and had not found one. So she ducks away from him, and she runs. She is smaller than Black, able to fit through small spaces and under low branches; she is lighter, and more nimble - she knows that’s her only hope to lose him, and then she will have to find a place to hide. She dives into the familiar scent of the Citrus Grove, and searches for a place to disappear.
Maybe Blue and Thomas will find her, if she survives this.
She still has hope.
</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;font-family: 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 40px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative:900' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>SL<font color=86abe5>O</font>ENE</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -5px;padding-left: 185px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 14px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>I've got a lump in my throat</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -10px;padding-left: 50px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 16px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>cause you're gonna sing the words wrong</div></div></center>