"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
09-03-2016, 12:01 AM (This post was last modified: 09-03-2016, 07:48 PM by Lilitha.)
I pretend to close my eyes; I pretend I'm burning bright.
Oh, I do not like this. I do not like this one bit. The earth shook, and it ate my home, and I can’t find Daddy Romek, and my fire is all gone. I’m so cold without it, even far away from the ice and snow of the Tundra. Even now that spring is starting to melt the snow and make the green things grow again. Good thing, too, because I’m finally just big enough that I don’t need milk anymore, and it’d be bad if I did. Since I’m all on my own again.
I thought that’d never happen again, once Daddy Romek found me and brought me home with him. That I’d never be lost and alone, or wandering around with nowhere to go and no one to cuddle with or play with or keep me warm. Oh, especially that. The fire always did it for me before, keeping me warm even when the cold should have set alllll the way into my bones.
Now even standing in the sunlight I feel cold.
I just want to go home. But home is gone, maybe forever and ever. So I wander through the forest again, aimless and dejected. My head hangs low to the ground, letting the red of my forelock fall over my face and flicker in the edge of my vision like the fire used to do, and I tell myself that it’s almost the same. Even though it’s really, really not.
Heaving a great big sigh, I keep plodding along. Maybe if I walk long enough or far enough, I’ll find my daddy again. Or make a nice warm new friend. That’d be good too, I guess.
The earth quaked and shook its great angry belly;
The Tundra was ate up, swallowed whole down a big dark gullet that spat the two of them back out, sleepy and confused - like all of them are.
Now a big mountain juts up from where there was no mountain before, and everyone talks of the mountain in thin hushed whispers.
They think the mountain must be magic, but they have no purpose to visit it.
What they do visit, is the forest, always familiar to their brave adventurous souls. They weave in and out of the trees, sinuous as snakes - they've tried to play with one, but it reared back and hissed threats at them and something instinctive whispered dangerous to them. So they laugh and leap away, happy to be alive even in the face of all the strangeness they've seen.
They smell her in the midst if their play; noses lifted up to the air, siphoning information from the altars of cloud and scent. She smells like they do, of the Tundra, and the smell is faintly familiar - something about a cave and fire comes back to their minds; remembrance. They rush to her, crowding her black sides with their warm furry bodies - they still looked like wooly wild sheepdogs, not like the little growing horses that they really are. “We know you,” they say in unison.
I pretend to close my eyes; I pretend I'm burning bright.
Oh, two nice warm friends, that is way better than one. They squish against me, cuddling me nice and close and chasing away some of the cold. So of course I nestle right into the middle, sort of hugging them with my weird new wings which I’m sure I will be very excited about later. When I’m not so cold. “Yeah, I know you too. My name’s Lilitha. Or Litha, you could call me that, or Lil, or Lily, or--well, I answer to lots of things. We shared a fire once! I would offer you another, but...well, I can’t.”
Oh, and that’s still a very big sad thing weighing in my chest. I miss my fire friend. So my head droops a little when I say those last three words. But then I perk back up a bit, because hello new friends! “I was I guess a little too cozy last time to be very talkative, sorry about that! But it’s nice to meet you again! What are your names? Also I like your pretty white splotches. They’re very nice.” I don’t have any white myself, but I like the shapes it forms on their lovely shaggy winter coats. Mine’s solid black, not a stray white hair even, and then the red mane and tail of course.
And my wings are the same, solid black but with the very tips of the feathers dipped in red. I stretch them out a little, glancing over my shoulder to get a better look at them. Okay, so maybe they’re actually pretty cool, even if they’re not my fire friend. I will have to test them out. Maybe over something very soft. But that is for later. Right now, there are new friends to play with. “Also thank you for helping me be warm again. Here is very, very cold, and you both are very, very not.”
Spear and Spark share a look over her black back and very new, very different wings.
They know she didn’t have them before, and Spear is on the verge of mouthing a few feathers to see what they taste like but Spark gives him a look that makes him think twice about disturbing the wings between the black filly and them.
“Spear,” he grunts, easily churlish now that Spark won’t let him satisfy his curiosity.
“And I’m Spark.” she adds with a hint of a chuckle, her mouth curling up in a friendly smile.
“What happened to your fire?” He asks this, able to at least indulge his curiosity in something.
They both remembered coming into a cave from out of the cold, and there had been a fire blazing before their eyes. It was self-contained and not started in the way that most fires were, or at least the ones that Scalped had told them about from her origin story out on the Plains. But it had warmed them, and beyond it had lain Lily in the fireglow. They think of her as that, as a pretty flower that had no place in the Tundra’s ice and cold. Then again, who had much of a place there? It was fairly rough to weather both the cold and the barren land, but they had and they miss it already.
“Thank you, we like your red hair and newfound wings.” That is Spark talking, because Spear is trying to get a good look at her them, especially as Lily stretches them out. “Have you tried flying yet?” He’s never been altogether too envious of things like that, he could care less if he had a horn to hurt with or wings to fly with. He had half-expected Spark and him to end up like their mother - immortal, but even that had not happened and they were just boring old horses. Okay, not boring or old in the least since they were two usually happy-go-lucky almost-yearlings underneath all that shaggy fur. He’s still curious though, mostly that above everything else.
“You’re welcome,” they say in almost one voice, laughing a little. They are glad she is not so very cold any more; they hadn’t noticed it, honestly. The cold never bothered them like it did others, maybe because they had been born just outside the Tundra and raised in the heart of it, running free of parental interference (they knew Offspring looked after them, turned a red eye to them here and there) across the permafrost. Maybe that accounted for their lack of boundaries and regard for most things, like social graces and the like.
I pretend to close my eyes; I pretend I'm burning bright.
I grin at the boy as he moves to nibble on my shiny new feathers, and nudge his shoulder playfully with the soft part of my nose. “It’s nice to meet you, Spear.” And then I turn to the girl, and touch my nose more gently to her shoulder. “And it’s nice to meet you, Spark. I like how your names fit together, that’s really cool. Are you twins? That sounds like a whole lot of fun, having someone who’s extra special yours like that. I’m just me--oh, hey, you guys have cool eyes too! All mismatchy and one’s red like my red hair! Neat!”
Okay, I’m definitely feeling better now that I’m all cozy and warm and have new friends. “Oh, thank you, I like my red too. And the wings are kind of cool. I don’t know where they came from, but they showed up when the fire went away. Sometime on the way down the big scary mountain, it was just suddenly gone, and poof, there were wings all heavy on my back instead. Weird, huh? But that’s why I’m so cold, I’m not used to the fire being gone like that. Even with my winter coat, it’s still so much colder with the fire gone.”
My head droops a little again, and my smile does too. Just for a minute though. “Oh, but it’s lots better snuggled up between you two. And having friends makes me all cozy warm in my chest too, which helps some! I’m really glad you found me again.” I rub my face against Spark’s neck, and then Spear’s. “Cuddly friends are the best kind of friends, don’t you think? Oops, and no, I haven’t tried flying yet! Though I think I will do soon, because it sounds like fun!”
They are creatures of careless, wayward affection;
Her black nose touches his shoulder playfully, and he smiles at her - a quick flash of a grin that is boyish, charming.
That same black nose touches Spark’s pale shoulder too, and her smile is ever greater, making her face lovely in its expression of happiness.
“Yes, we are twins.” their voices are a chorus of tender expression, their own noses touching each other’s for the space of a breath. Then their noses converge once more upon Lily, slipping along her sleek black ribs and rifling through the red strands of her alluring hair. They cannot help themselves as they ingrain her smell and the look of her in their minds; it is not as if they could ever forget her! She is red and black, like they have bits of red and black in them - just their eyes, but still - or the fact of the fire that is gone from her. They hope this elemental bereavement is only temporary… that her fire will come back, but they are children and believe greatly in all things, only because they’ve known no taste of sorrow (except briefly, when the earth shook and their mother was not next to them) up to now.
“Very weird…” Spear says, still eyeballing her wings. How odd that the fire disappeared but things that had never been before were all of a sudden there, but she mentions the mountain - could it have had something to do with that? There is a new light in his eyes all of a sudden; “Maybe what is taken, is given back in a different way from the Mountain…” He wonders if anyone else has figured this out yet - that everything is linked to the Mountain that had never before been there, and really, mountains like that should not grow up out of the earth overnight!
Spark sees how Lily starts to droop as if the sun has gone behind a cloud, and it has - her happiness at friends and wings and things, has dimmed a little. “It’s okay Lily,” she says, but the filly is perking up in an instant, rubbing her face along their necks and they nuzzle her gently in return. She’s like the third amigo to them, and they are happy they’ve found her too. “Everything is better with a bit of cuddling from good friends,” she says laughing and they both cuddle up close to her again before spiraling away in fits of good-natured laughter and play. “Try your wings, Lily!” Spear calls out to her, as they move in and out of each other’s way, and circle around her. “We want to see you fly!” They are encouraging little buggers, aren’t they?
I pretend to close my eyes; I pretend I'm burning bright.
Oh, smiling faces are so nice to see, especially being all by myself again. Well, sort of being all by myself, ‘cause now I’m with my two new friends. And that’s not lonely at all. “Oooooh, twins, that’s neat. It’s cool how you’re kind of matchy-mismatchy too, with your eyes and your pretty patterns.” I wonder what my twin would look like if I had one. Maybe she’d be gold like my eyes, with black hair and red eyes. Or look just like me, but with her eyes red and her hair gold. Or be red all over, with little flecks of gold like some people have white roaning. Ohhh that would be pretty.
Or handsome, if he were a boy.
But I do not have a twin, I’m just me myself and only I, so I guess that isn’t really all that important, huh? Anyhow, I like the way they play with my hair, and I smile and all the muscles in my neck relax in response to the comforting touch. Spear’s speculation is a little bit of a distraction, but I mostly just shrug. “Could be, I guess. I mean, wings are cool and all but I miss my fire more than I’m excited about these,” I add, flaring my wings just a little to indicate what ‘these’ were.
And at their encouragement, I grin and spread them out, giving them a quick little flap to see what happens. Which isn’t much, really. A little resistance to the air, a little bit of work to bring them down quickly, but that’s about it. So I try again, flapping harder, and managing to get just a little ways off the ground. But the instant I stop flapping, my feet touch down again. With a determined little snort, I jump up and flap as hard as I can, and actually manage to gain a little altitude. Buuuut then I get a little wobbly, and sort of stumble to the ground.
Taking a deep breath, I pin my ears with stubborn determination and gather myself to leap again, flapping with all my might until…
Yes!
I’m up! I’m doing it! I’m flying! Aaaand dodging, because there are an awful lot of trees here. And trying not to fall, which sounds like it shouldn’t be too hard, but they’re everywhere and this whole flying thing is super duper new. Also exhausting! After a few minutes of relative success (in that I narrowly miss running into only about half a dozen trees, and don’t trip over myself or anything!) I touch back down, stomp a few times to convince myself the ground is solid beneath my feet, and hurry back over to my friends. “That was fun!”
They are more than content to poke and prod at her. Touch to them, is as familiar as heartbeats and breaths, because that is how Scalped raised them - touch and learn, and they learn that Lily’s red hair is soft, and should maybe be burning but the fire is gone from her skin and her spirit, and they grieve a little for her loss. Especially as she tells Spear that she prefers her fire to the wings, and his lips climb up her neck to press against her cheek in a tender kiss. “I’m sorry Lily,” he breathes against her black skin, the words barely more than a murmur.
Spark looks at him from over Lily’s back; she’s never seen him be so affectionate or caring towards another. Not that she thought him incapable of it, just that it shocked her a little to find him so moved by Lily’s uncertainty of her wings. But then, Spear was as much his own creature as she was hers, for all that they were twins and shared in everything.
They both step back and give her space; their eyes are watchful, curious, as she flaps her wings and hops around. Eventually she manages a choppy flight and they can see that the trees are problematic but Lily’s determined, and they cheer her own with happy cries of delight and directions to avoid this tree or that one. Then she lands, and okay, it’s not all that graceful but she looks rather tired as she hurries over to them. They crowd around her again, running their noses all over her neck and back, up and down her legs to make sure she’s not hurt herself during her first attempt at flying.
“That was awesome!” Spear crows, far too excited for his friend.
I pretend to close my eyes; I pretend I'm burning bright.
It’s so nice to have friends that are so cuddly and affectionate. Spear cuddles even more than Daddy Romek does, and I smile as he nuzzles me and kisses my cheek. “It’s okay, Spear. The wings are really, really nice too. And you’re helping chase away the cold.” I snuggle a little more into him and kiss his cheek too, and rub my face against his neck. So warm.
And then of course there’s the flying, and when I’m done they both get real close again, touching their soft noses all over to make sure I’m okay. It’s a little tickly when they check my legs, and I laugh out loud and grin. “Yeah! It was lots of fun! Hard, though, and man am I tired! But very, very fun. Thanks for talking me into it.” I nestle myself back in between them, all cuddled up to my new best friends and cozy-warm. And I yawn really, really big, a huge wave of sleepiness washing over me now that I’m down on the ground again.
Flying is big work.
“I think I need to curl up for a nap. There’s got to be a nice spot somewhere nearby, don’t you think? A happy, sprawly tree maybe, that we can fall asleep under--or I, if you don’t want to, that’d be okay too…?” Oh, but even a nap sounds way better all wrapped up in my very warm, very snuggly friends.
I try not to let my eyes be too big, or to let the way I want them with me to be too obvious. Maybe they aren’t tired, or don’t like naps, or have somewhere they have to be. I don’t think I do a very good job of hiding that yearning, though, not when I’m sort of biting my bottom lip and peeking over at each of them in turn, all hopeful uncertainty. Cuddles and naps sound lovely, right?
((I think I need to move her forward to new threads after the Mountain drama, but would definitely be up for a new thread with them right away. <3 She loves her bestest buddies and wants to see them again.))
She is a snuggler like them; they grow drunk on the easy affection that slips between the three of them, careless touches of nose to cheek, lips to shoulder, even nuzzled brows and heads on one another’s backs.
They could stay like this forever, and are usually hard to tell apart because they are always like this - touching and together. It must be because they are twins, because they came this way into the world. Together, apart only for minutes at a time as one slipped after another down the dark rabbithole of birth from loins to life. Now they absorb her into their togetherness, make two into three.
Contented, they sigh and sleepiness finds its way into each of them. They cannot imagine how sleepy she must be after her flight, and they encourage her to nap in between their fuzzy warm bodies. “A nap sounds good…” Spark drawls, trying to stifle a yawn that Spear cannot stifle. He yawns, big and noisy, and says “How about over there?” It was a tree, sprawling and shadowy and far too inviting for any of them to ignore. Before Lily can even answer them, the twins hustle her over there and they bed down for a nap in a big pile of fuzzy baby horse legs and heads.
“Sleep Lily,” they mumble softly, their eyes already starting to close.
ooc: sure! they're down for a new thread right away especially since i stalked the mountain, would be interesting to see how Lily will be after that went down so let's do it! <3
