"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
There had been a time when she had kept to the shadows, separated from the world in a constant state of nerves and uncertainty. The darkness was all she trusted. A means of comfort and security, she had cocooned herself there for a number of years. Her mother, never one to concern herself much with the well being of others had taken over her mind at a young age to extract revenge on some poor soul. It had left the chestnut mare fragmented for a time, and she had only just recovered. Occasionally she felt the fear and self-doubt seep forward into her consciousness, she had to work hard to keep them at bay. While she still was more nervous that many, she no longer was such a total wreck. A few years had done her well, and she had been able to calm her mind.
Tirzah had been alone for some time, unsure what had happened to her twin during the time her mother occupied her mind, and had not been in a state to be able to find her after. So she had accepted her solitude. In her time alone she had briefly joined the Valley but had long since wandered on her own. Now however she was better and hoped to leave the solitude for good. In the late summer air, the meadow in which she stood was bustling with activity, and she stepped out exhaling away her nerves. She felt the warmth wash over her and she was glad for it. The need for her to succeed was of the utmost importance to Tirzah. The wind struck her face and lifted her reddish mane cooling her from the humidity of late summer. Each step reassured her that she was ready, Prague- her selfish mother, could no longer hurt her, and she had found herself again. For now, she would settle into the meadow here, with the tall grasses and enjoy the sunlight. the pressure of a territory would come soon enough, but she would wait until the commotion of the meadow was less overwhelming.
Tirzah
In a maw world, only the mad are sane
trying to find a better fitting voice for her from my first attempt with her. also it late so i didn't have time to write more. soooo there it is. >.>
Fear, uncertainty - these are emotions she has rarely had chance to know. She has always been a woman of confidence, of brazen assurance. Even in youth, she had been the one to take the lead. Her brother, her twin, one of the few she has ever loved (with her whole heart, and even if she does not currently know where he resides, she knows he is there), had always followed her lead, participating in her schemes, but allowing her to make the decisions.
Her confidence has brought her wonderful things in life. But then, everything else is so utterly foreign to her.
Perhaps, in a way, she is far more like this mare’s mother, but of course it is something she cannot know (not yet, at least - not with her unique sight stripped from her in such ruthless manner). Still, there is an air about her that she finds intriguing, even from a distance. Perhaps it is that very difference.
Her steps are smooth and sure as she slips from the darkness of shadow into the heavy warmth of the late summer sun. It is the stride of a once desert dweller, confident and graceful. She might not be the beauty of the meadow (not with her narrow shoulders and angular lines), but that does not mean she cannot draw the eye, cannot display the bearing and assurance that she has always claimed as hers.
In moments, she is beside the unfamiliar mare. Though her lips do not smile, her demeanor is friendly and neutral. After a moment of eyeing the stranger with eyes of vibrant blue, she finally breaks the silence. ”You look… uncomfortable. New, I take it?”
After a brief pause, she adds, ”I'm Heartfire, by the way.”
heartfire
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts
12-14-2016, 08:30 PM (This post was last modified: 12-14-2016, 08:39 PM by Tirzah.)
Tall grasses, rustling trees, and birds chattering from the canopy were obvious sounds from almost all directions. Those sights, those sounds Tirzah knew and they were the anchor to her attempts at calming her. She sue looked uncomfortable, but that was nothing to the stuttering shell that stood in the field some time before. Despite her discomfort she hadn't fled. So there was that. Baby steps. It didn't take long for someone to approach. It was summer, and the common lands were busy this time of year. Tirzah had watched from the shadows, she knew how it worked, even if it was from a removed vantage point.
The mare who approached was proud, obviously self-assured, it was evident in every inch of her frame. The way she held her head, the look of superiority in eyes, and her sure foot stride. Or at least it looked that way to the more feeble chestnut. Maybe the mare was just as scared but to Tirzah the blue roan mare was something of awe-inspiring creature. Both of then within feet of eachother within a moments time, and the nervous chestnus did ok in the "don't panic" department even though she had to remind herself to breath. The other had no ill will in her stature, just confidence, and she surely wondered what was wrong with the meek thing before her. Again Tirzah could only guess, but it was her experience to have reason to doubt.
Her words fell over Tirzah and a moment passed, enough time for he to know there was no intrusion on her thoughts or mind for that matter. " You could say that, yet I am not new....just damaged, messed up childhood." It fell factual there on the ground. "damaged" a pile of letters on the ground between them. It wasn't attention seeking or self pity either, Tirzah had accepted her damaged mind a while ago. and therefore she was able to more forward-- at least a little. She caught the name of her visitor, Heartfire. and a small smile and nod was given before returning her own name. "A name is a good thing mine's Tirzah, what beckoned you to the meadow tody?" It wasn't bold, but it wasn't meek either. Maybe the confident of this new mare would teach dear Tirzah to not bee so scared.
12-14-2016, 09:00 PM (This post was last modified: 12-14-2016, 09:32 PM by Nier.)
NIER
He was a mystery, always the unknown element. A wild card. A drifter. And sometimes, he was even up to no good.
He went by unnoticed; completely invisible. Careful to stay downwind, he paced a few feet beside her, a pretty little chestnut, step-for-step to mask the sound of his own footfalls. His scent lingered all over the meadow, in truth, but it aided the idea of stealth to remain on the receiving end of the breeze. It meant her own fragrance was constantly wafting to him, sweet and teasing. She'd caught his eye earlier, and had so far successfully held his curiosity close. There was something about her.. something just a little broken. They were the best, the most fun. He might try to play with her, but for now it was only reconnaissance.
Another joined them, joined her. Roaned and clearly confident, she stood tall. Almost regal. That type could be fun too, to see how long it took to break their self-assurance, but most often they turned out boring and short-lived. He stopped as the pretty red stopped, watching the conversation impassively. Blue was introduced as Heartfire, an intriguing name and almost backwards when considering their coats. And then he smirked as his possible target confirmed his suspicions: she was damaged. This could get fun. Her name was Tirzah, something exotic yet graceful-sounding. To say he was intrigued would be a mild description, but he'd much prefer her to still be alone.
He watched on in silence as they continued, only observing. White wings stretched without a sound, pulling loose the muscles that had become cramped, then resettled at his sides. He would experiment soon, perhaps. While they talk, he will reach out a feathered limb and brush against his pretty Tirzah, just barely. Like a leaf drifting on the breeze. Or clinging cobwebs. Just to see if she would react. The other, he will leave alone for now. And only observe them both.
Sea salt still clung to her heels, lightening the hard black surfaces to a frosted glass. The mist of mountain tops dappled the steel of her coat in loving kisses. Sand from deserts past flecked the deep green of her eyes. But no matter how far she went, she could never outrun Beqanna.
Three years have passed since the gray woman had dipped her toes into the pool of womanhood. Long gone are the gangly legs, the wild and ragged mane. She returns renew, restored. The wildness pressed itself lovingly into her heart with a white hot brand to mark it's claim upon her restless soul. She remained bound to no man, no home, no beaten path. And yet, when the nights are cold and the rain seeps just a little deeper into her skin, she remembers.
They had been so young and vulnerable when life imploded. The older version of her own skin was their mother. Stern, bitter, relentless. Prague. Her mother, consumed by the very magic that rotted her bones, had simply left them to the wolves.
But Romantica is not free of blame.
Two long years they had survived. Two long years of hunger, desperation, mouths full of filth from the lies they were fed. Two years till the granite girl broke her chains and fled into the wilderness without looking back. Tirzah would be better off without her, right? Right? It only took a few more years till the guilt in her own abandonment of her own kin to drive her through fog and fire to find the red mare.
Green eyes, like her mother's, watch from the thick wool of her forelock. Burrs and flower petals dot the mane of the pagan queen as she makes her way though the tall sea of grass, following something so familiar...something she knew so well. The meadow grass splits like the great sea as she presses through to stalk the chestnut woman. Could...could it really be...? Ears are forward and eager as she almost makes the ravenous decision to break the blind of her cover before another approaches. Another mare, blue and smudged like a House Finch's egg, approaches. Rom strains to hear the exchange of private conversation.
"Tirzah-" the word is barely above a whisper as she repeats the name. Rom goes deaf to the other as she can already feel her wild heart betraying her, exposing her. Gray limbs move her eagerly but she reins herself back. "Tirzah! " A smile blooms across her lips as she begins to move quicker, green eyes wide and watching. Would she be angry? Elated? Rom offers a quick smile to the blue roan as she begins her deceleration.
In that moment she chokes, attempting to find her manners (lost somewhere long ago in the wilderness no doubt) but can not retrieve them. "It's me, sister! It's Rom!" A wide grin is on her lips as she settles close to the pair with muscles quaking in nervousness. Emerald eyes shift shyly to the other, embarrassed to have simply barged into her sister's life (and conversation). "Hello, she says almost bashfuly to the speckled blue mare, "I'm Romantica."
Yes, she is confident, even in this strange new world that surrounds them like an ill fitting glove. But then, she has always had good reason to be. It is fate, or perhaps merely unendingly good luck. She had been born to parents who love her, a brother she cherishes, and a world that had embraced her. She had gained far more than she had ever lost (though, in this moment that is not quite how she might see it, considering how relatively powerless she is now compared to not so very long ago).
Still, she has suffered. She had lost her heart, a distant, unreachable love stealing it away. She might love still, but never like that again.
In comparison however, she has been blessed.
The sun beats down relentlessly, nary a cloud in the sky to block its light. Her dark coat warms beneath its rays, reminding her so much of the home she had been born to, the home that had been lost even before the hills and valleys had buckled and folded beneath a powerful force, before Beqanna had changed its face forever. She misses it sometimes, misses having a place to call home. It’s true, she had not been overly attached, but she would not mind having that again.
It takes a moment for the red mare to make her response, giving Heartfire time to consider the open meadow before them. For a moment, a shiver traces down the blue mare’s spine, causing her refined head to come up slightly, her blue eyes to scan their surrounding suspiciously, and distracting her momentarily from the other mare’s question. When she sees nothing out of the ordinary, a slight frown tugs at her lips.
”Boredom, I suppose,” she responds after a moment’s silence, almost offhandedly. For a moment, she wonders, but the approach of another draws her attention. Her appearance is rather bedraggled, but she seems quite elated. Her words confirm her excitement, quite overshadowing anything Heartfire might have said.
A sister, it seems. For a moment, a pang in her chest reminds her of the twin she has not seen in ages, but it is quickly snuffed. Instead, one brow tips up slightly as she considers the newcomer. Things had just become so much more intriguing.
”Heartfire,” she says simply in response to Romantica’s introduction. After a moment’s consideration, her lips tilt up slightly into a mildly amused grin. ”Imagine that.” Pause. ”Long time, no see I take it?”
heartfire
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts
She knew shadows, and being unseen. The summer sky made little of her prefered sanctuary, but it didn’t bring about the invisible. And yet,Tirzah was unaware of the silent shielded follower she had gained in her entrance to the meadow. Summer had burnt the tall grasses, and their crisp stalks would have resisted the displacement, yet she knew not of the wolf breathing down her straw and thatch house. Heartfire’s house would be brick, impenetrable and sturdy through her confidence and wherewithal. Maybe security bred the restless stir that brought Heartfire to the meadow. Boredom wasn’t something the chestnut knew, her mind was far to busy to ever be bored. ”Must be nice…” it was more a muttering to herself, and not met rudely, and she didn’t notice she said it aloud. ”So then do you live in one of the territor---” Her words chopped off by the high pitched call of another across the brown-yellow grasses. Tirzah!
Well that was a turn of events. She didn’t know anyone, and surely no one knew her. She had been alone for far too long abandoned by her self-obsessed mother, and her sister, no her twin, had left her to save herself. Maybe that wasn’t fair… they had both wanted out from under their mother. Romantica… she had just been successful, while Tirzah had not. So there must have been some mistake… she had misheard. So he turned her attention back to roan, ”Yeah, so you live around here” The words had barely left her mouth when this other mare came up, rather excitedly. Tirzah looked at her with a sidelong glance, unsure if she had found someone more mentally unstable than her own self.”Do I know you…?” The Grey looked familiar in a distant sense of things. Like a dream you know you’ve had, but you jsut can’t quite remember. Tirzah’s memory is not what it once was, effects of Prague taking over her mind when she was young. Despite the reddish mare’s objections the grey continued, insisting she was her sister.
Sister.
A snarl planted on her face, her eyes in narrowed scrutiny. How could that be, Romantica was gone. She had fled these lands, to rid herself of Prague, and in the process left Tirzah behind. So what was did this mare thinks she was doing? Incredulous, that’s the best way she could put it. Prague must have sent the look-alike, unwilling to let her daughter move on with her life, her mother-dearest must have wanted her to stay weak and easily inhabitable. She didn’t trust that this was he actual sister, even with that nagging familiarity that whispered her to trust. Trust had got her no where in the past, and this wasn’t some small talk in the meadow. No this was somone trying to trick her with her own lost twin. Shameful, that grin, that excitement. My sister is gone, and has been for years…. Why kind of sick joke is this? Did my deplorable mother send you? What more could she possibly want from me!” He voice angry and spiteful at first but morphed to panicked and frightful by the end.
If the damaged mare had been human, they would have just witnessed the unwinding of a semi-stable teen into that of a girl hugging her knees while she rocked back and forth in a mess of tears on the floor. Cooing to herself that she was in control, and other self assuring statements. But she wasn’t so she glared at the dapple grey, forgetting that the roan was still there, forgetting that she had been her own person for nearly 4 years, Forgetting that it was possible for her sister to come home, that it was ok to trust. The roan’s words shook her from the trance that held her for a moment…. ”you could say that…” Romanica was gone, she was alone. It had always been that way, more or less; and she saw no real way for that to change now.
12-17-2016, 02:06 AM (This post was last modified: 12-17-2016, 02:07 AM by Nier.)
NIER
She was suspicious, this Heartfire. He could feel the grasping fingers of her intuition trying to search for him, seek him out. The one that didn't belong. His hidden presence itched at her senses, made it hard for her to concentrate completely on their conversation. Her response was absent-minded. Hehe, I am distracting, aren't I? Don't you want to see just how all-consuming I can be? Silence and wicked thoughts. Nothing but a secret cheshire grin for the bold one with the searching mind.
And then another joined. A gray. Ah, but not just any gray, was it? He knew this one. If fate existed he might blame it. He could feel her presence pulling at him, eating at him as it had for the passed few days since the last time he'd seen her. Hiding in his mind as he hid in life.
That tease.
It was almost gradual, the crack in Tirzah's exterior. Her sister. It didn't seem to be such a fine reunion, for her at least. He glanced at Romantica curiously, wondering what evil she'd done to cause this reaction from her pretty sibling. The chestnut denied her, claiming it a sick joke. It must have been a cruel one indeed to gain such a strong reaction. Old hurt painted her face, slumped her shoulders and weighed so heavily on her spine. It was clear she battled with accepting it was truly her sister. Probably mixed emotions tearing her from the inside. So perfectly broken. A very deep wound was now bleeding out before him.
He was at her side and so he didn't have to move. ..you are safe, he said confidently under his breath, softer than a whisper, almost to himself. Meant for her ears alone. His voice cradled gently around her like a security blanket, protective and calm. He wasn't sure she would even hear it, perhaps it had been too quiet, but he decided touching her would only confuse her more. Cracking the poor thing further wouldn't help; she might slip away into mindless mutterings at this rate. No, this would take a more gentle approach. A steady hand. She needed more care. He could do that.
The fine cracks feather through her heart like the graceful aging of antique vases. Her sister, beautiful and wild like she, does not recognize her and even so accuses it of all being a farce. The fine jaw of the gray falls slack in the raw shock and disbelief. Surely this was some sort of other sorcery.
"Tirzah..." She attempts to begin on a tongue that feels are to thick to be her own, a throat that is suddenly and noticeably dry. Romantica forgets the friendly introductory conversation that typically falls after give one's name. All she can do is watch her red sister with wet green eyes.
It hurt.
The gray moves to go to her sibling but freezes. Something lingered int he air, something dark and full of malice. Rom stops, eyes moving to the clouds as though she can read them. But the atmosphere reveals nothing. It all feels like an ugly joke, a punishment.
A soft sigh is all that can be offered as her shoulders slump, the edges of her lashes darkening with the dampness of overwhelming emotions but Rom steels herself, teeth sinking into her lower lip. Her attention flicks to the roan mare as though the other's face would reveal the code, the map, an answer but there is nothing as well. "Well then." She gathers the crumpled pieces of her delicate heart, smoothing them and slowly them piecing the ugly jagged edges back together. Rom decides it is best to go.
If she did not have Tirzah, then she had no one. "Goodbye, Tirzah." The voice, usually airy and tinkling, is thick with suppressed pain as she takes her leave.
To say she is intrigued by the scene before her would be an understatement. Oh, she has seen many intimidate, private moments before, but she had always been a fly on the wall, a visitor no one ever knows exists. To be in the very center of it though, that is something entirely different.
She watches the way the chestnut mare's features change with her emotions, the way she spits her words at the grey (she has grown so used to watching so closely, to reading lips - this is the first time she has ever actually been able to hear such a conversation). She watches the way the grey’s features fall, the way her heartbreak is evident for all to see.
She doesn't hear the faint whisper of their invisible spy, though her ears flick suspiciously. Her focus is far too much on the drama playing out before her.
”Well, doesn't your mother sounds like a peach,” she says a bit wryly in response to Tirzah’s words. She does not share the chestnut mare's suspicions, but she is curious all the same. Had she her powers, she would have offered to verify Romantica’s claims, but alas that is not currently possible. Still, something tells her not to let this go.
Curiosity or empathy, whatever it is, it compels her feet forward as the grey mare moves to take her leave. She steps forward, moving to block Rom’s escape. ”Come now, surely you will not give up that easily.”
Her next words are perhaps the most genuine thing she has said yet in the course of their odd conversation. ”I certainly wouldn't were it my brother there.”
heartfire
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts
