Deep into that darkness peering; Kristin pony

[Novel]

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Novel

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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

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The first thing that she had known in this new world was confusion. Unfortunately it is a confusion that lingers, despite all the answers. There are too many answers, all thrown at once into a sea of uncertainty. She had been swallowed by that sea, one small, lost soul in the midst of hundreds, thousands of others. And it takes her time to surface. It takes her time to surface, because she has never learned how to swim. She only ever knew how to fly, and with flight taken from her, she flounders.

Of course, none of this is in the literal sense. She still has wings. But they are not her wings. They are a stranger’s wings. Ones given to her because the ravens and colors had been taken. So it is no surprise that she was confused. She really is still only a child after all.

But she has grown. Not quite into adulthood yet, but no longer such a youthful girl. She is at an awkward, in-between stage, one everyone must venture through. Of course, most do not take as long as she to do so, but she has always been a bit odd, a bit naive.

In truth, she could be ancient, but at heart she would still be young. Free and eternally fleeting and terribly unsophisticated. But she is not, so it is not yet a thing to be dwelled upon. For now there is only this, the two simple colors and the one single shape that had been hers before birth. Even if they now feel odd and cumbersome, like clothing that does not fit quite right.

She has retained that raven-like curiosity though, the odd quirks that make her Novel. The bird-like tilt of her head, the way she holds her wings at an angle when she walks, the way she ruffles her feathers on occasion to settle them into place. She might not be able to perch in trees anymore (she had tried. It had not gone well), but that does not mean she has to lose herself in the midst of all this upheaval. She could still be Novel. Even if she is a simple horse of dark navy and burnt orange with feathered wings and black eyes that watch the world around her a bit too brightly.

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Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.

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@[Kristin]

[Spear + Spark]

The first thing he knew was himself, plus one - Spark, sister, same.

As twins, they had always known each other and were ever aware of each other even as the Mountain spewed rock and ash, threw them up and down, and spiralled them back down through the space of creation. If asked, he’d say it felt like being born again. It lacked the wet ickiness of birth but he’d had a sense of pelvic pressure, as if the Mountain’s thighs scraped open - the sound of rock on rock still rings in his ears - and spat them out, then closed up tight again, a craggy seam of stone that everyone climbed back up to beg for lands and traits and their sameness from before. He begged for nothing, only Spark and adventure, and sometimes, separation. Being a twin was fast becoming tiring if only because they were always together, in the Before and even Now - together, together, together, until that was all either of them knew.

Spear craved something else;

Something decidedly different.

Worse, he knew Spark had her secrets that she kept from him and he, had none of his own to hide from her. Knowing that made him start to resent her just the tiniest bit; she had something that he did not, and their sameness was forever severed, like a limb, and he felt the phantom ache of it keenly in his growing chest. It felt too big and too small, all at the same time - that ache that Spark wasn’t solely his any more, just like he was never wholly hers, because other things beckoned to him that would eventually sunder their bond. Maybe sunder is too strong, too harsh for the strain of it for strain it would be. Always a pressure and a pain in their joints, of being too far from one another, as if their hips always belonged side by side, squeezed together by the tightness of womb and world alike.

He abhors this ache, this separation even if he has desired it.

His ears pin back to his poll and he gnashes his teeth together; it was never supposed to be like this!

Spear cannot help the brooding that comes with the maturation of his bones and flesh. He transitions into that awkward almost-stallion phase but there is still a gangliness to his legs, a boyishness to his face and voice, but the rope of muscle beneath the thick horsehair is certainly testament to the stallion that he’ll become. Still, he is caught - as much as she is, in the in between. His face bears it none too well, dark in its brood as he finally steps out from the leafy cover of some trees (Spark would have guessed their species, he does not - they are trees, they shelter him, and he has no reason to know what kind they are), and his eyes - the left is red, bright like fresh blood and the right is black as starless night - search for something.

They search and they find a thing of feather and color, burnt orange and dark navy, eyes black but bright. He cannot pinpoint the very nature of the thing that makes him veer towards her, but it is a thing done and once done, cannot be undone because he is absolute in his trek to her side. He is mindful of her wings, the flutter and flare of them as she primps them more like a peacock and less like a raven. The only thing ravenlike about her is the way that her head tilts in time to the way her eyes follow threads of horse and time, hot on the tail of moments not to be missed and he is curious, like the proverbial cat, as to what it is that she is watching for.

For the first time, he doesn’t think about Spark.

He thinks about orange and blue and all the ways it can come together to create her.

He doesn’t even realize that he has said nothing to her, just stares, impolite as ever.

ooc: sorry it has taken me forever to reply! Spear took over even though I intended it to be both twins replying to Novel. <333


Spear & Spark