"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
The red and black stallion, with his white forehead shining in the rising moon's light, fretted as his phobia kicked in. He laid down, tried to sleep, but couldn't find a way to make the light come back again.
Of course the light won't come back; I'll be awake all night like this now.. The stallion thought, snorting anxiously. He decided to stand: he could feel like he was somehow safer this way. He could make out the dark shadows a little easier this way.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The moon is almost full; it paints the quiet field in stark relief. Everything is a shade of grey in the darkness, and the tobiano stallion is no exception. The matte black of his body blends easily with the shadowy copse he stands in, but the pearlescent glitter of his white mantle and handsome face are clear even in the darkness.
Most everyone is asleep at this time of night, but sleep is far from Ivar’s mind.
He does not sleep when it is this dark.
Instead he watches, his brown eyes alert. There is very little to see on the quiet summer evening – the wind plays with the silver sea of grass, a few horses shuffle in their sleep. But there, a ways in the distance, is quick movement. Intrigued, the tall stallion’s ears prick forward, his scaled nostrils flaring to catch a scent. A dark stallion (he might be black, or bay, or even steely grey; it is impossible to tell) stands on the side of a nearby hill. There is so rarely someone else awake that Ivar cannot help but move closer, curious what might have this stranger up so late.
“Can’t sleep?” He asks curiously, a friendly smile on his handsome face.
10-03-2017, 04:09 PM (This post was last modified: 10-04-2017, 02:01 PM by Faer.)
Faer heard the other approaching as he turned; giving a nervous smile back to the masculine face. His slightly orange-tinted - but still obviously a bay - body turning, greyed in the darkness by the moon and the shadows. Brown eyes taking in what they can, dilated to their limits in the night, of the black and white equine in front of them.
"Yeah.. Never have slept well in the dark. Well, not once it's dark." Faer replied in an exasperated tone, eyes slightly desperate, searching, but not quite with a haunted appearance. Merely very tired looking; as if he hadn't slept for a while.
Truth is: he hadn't known a proper rest for a while. Not since he woke up, short of breath, not knowing anything of this place aside from his name - his past was gone, strangely, but he felt like that was for the best - and found himself chased by the imaginary night-time shadows of his fears down the mountain to this field. It was busy but rarely crowded. Horses came and went as they desired, as far as he could tell. But he knew no-one yet. Not yet. Those this stallion may become a welcome acquaintance..
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
From this distance, the nervousness in the other stallion’s bearing is a bit more obvious, and Ivar eyes the other stallion curiously. Ivar has seen nothing especially frightening about this night, but be supposes that there might be things he does not know. Or perhaps it is just that the bay horse hasn’t slept in a while. That would make anyone on edge, the tobiano horse reasons.
“Well, I don’t blame you for not wanting to sleep here,” Ivar says, glancing about the rolling hills with quiet brown eyes. “While I wouldn’t say it’s unsafe, I’d definitely prefer to have someone watching my back while I slept, and that doesn’t happen much here.” Horses tend to come to the Field alone after all, perhaps a handful of mothers with their foals. This is only a temporary place, after all, more transient even than the Meadow.
“Have you been here long?” Asks the smoky black stallion, looking back to Faer as he settles his weight. Neither of them seem ready to sleep despite the hour, so Ivar has decided that he might as well try to have a conversation. “I’m Ivar, by the way.”
Faer almost snorts sardonically at the other's first statement in reply, but simply exhales slowly. He listens, brown lenses starting to regain composure while in the tobiano's company. He followed his gaze momentarily, before pausing to look at a bay mare and foal pairing sleeping peacefully as the small foal shifted. His mind slowing slightly as he started to think and stopped reasoning about dangers in the shadows being around him so much.
He comes back to the world around him, and the tobiano, to reply to the question. Ivar. Ivar. He memorizes the name to go with the face. "No, maybe five days, six at the most; time flows differently here. Faer. Pleased to have your company, Ivar." Faer says, giving up his own name in polite reply. You don't take without giving, right?
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The idea of time moving differently is an intriguing one.
Ivar only knows the time of Beqanna and of this singular lifetime. He has heard tales that it can spin differently elsewhere, by those are only tales, and tales he’ll never be able to verify. This is his home, after all, he will never move between world and history the way that the truly skilled – and truly immortal – so easily do.
The brown stallion is polite, something that Ivar appreciates in a stranger, and he is clearly without a home. While first impressions aren’t everything, they are vital for a recruiter, and that is Ivar’s role tonight (and most nights, truly – he holds all of the roles). Faer – for that is his name – has been here in the Field for nearly a week. It’ll be autumn soon, and given the meekness of last winter will likely be bitter fall.
“I’m from Loess,” he begins, the words familiar and his expression genuine. “And I’m here to find potential new residents for the kingdom. Is that something you’d be interested in? The kingdom is small, but you’ll have someone to watch your back at night, which I can’t say for the Field.”
The stallion intrigues Faer, and he listens curiously as Ivar talks. His brown lenses meeting Ivar's own lenses. Loess. He'd heard the word before, and remembered how at first he thought it was Loss before getting corrected by a mare who was apparently from there.
Ivar's note of being alone in the Field made him crave company just a little more. He had nothing to lose but the hair on his skin, perhaps the skin itself as well, and his life. "I'm intrigued. Safety is something I have not known for a while." He says, not quite committing himself to it but also not dismissing the idea of a kingdom. He saw the moon was far along it's path and knew it would be light again within a few hours. Their simple conversation seemed to have allowed him escape from, well, himself, and he was at a calm he had not known at night since he was a young colt. Sighing, he says finitely; "I will come."
@[Ivar]
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Overhead, a thick band of clouds clears the moon, casting the scene around the two stalliosn into sudden and stark relief. It takes Ivar’s eyes a moment to adjust to the increase of light. Soon enough another drifts across the pale orb, and leaves the plains in shadow once more. Ivar hasn’t look away from the other horse, knowing that the offer of a home is not a choice made lightly. The pied stallion leaves his offer as it was despite Faer’s hesitance; he knows better than to rush such a heavy decision.
Faer makes it (after a sigh, but that doesn’t diminish Ivar’s smile), and Ivar nods agreeably.
“Wonderful,” he says, shifting his weight in a manner that suggests he is ready to move. “We could probably get there by midmorning, if you’re not too tired?” He asks it as a question; the pied stallion would gladly wait ,but he does prefer to rest in familiar territory. His own habit is to sleep during the daylight hours – when the sun rises he knows he will begin to feel almost as tired as Faer looks.
