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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    saw the fault line; started panicking (anyone)
    #1
    Spring had passed in a blur, and is is nearly the end of the summer by the time I have a moment to myself. I do not regret my choice - raising a child has been a truly novel experience, one that I had been lacking - but there is an unexpected sense of freedom in walking alone, walking without an adventurous boy at my heels.

    The sun overhead is warm on my back, and both wings are unfurled to catch as much light as as they can. The smells of wildflowers is thick on the wind, and if I close my blue-grey eyes I can almost believe that no time at all has passed since my childhood. Yet I know that I will not see my mother when I open my eyes, I know that Castile does not circle the skies with my protection mind. The land is the same, but the residents have changed.

    I had never imagined my life would end up this way. I had believed, with childish naivity, that everything would work out exactly the way I wanted it to. Perhaps somewhere in some alternate timeline, some alternate Beqanna, I am whole and happy, and the child that I have left behind to play is truly my flesh and blood.

    Lingering on things that cannot be is a waste of time. I shake my head as though I can scatter the notions as easily as my blue hair. I fold my wings (as best I can, given the malformation of the right) and straighten my posture as I look ahead. The hills are green and endless, and I might as well be doing something productive. Recruitment is not my forte (and why bother, when Nerine is doing that for us?) so I decide on a trip to the common lands.

    The journey is not long, and I reach the open plain by midafternoon. There are clusters of horses but none stand alone. I wait, looking about curiously in the hopes of catching the eye of someone looking for conversation.
    Reply
    #2
    Well, now,
    if little by little you stop loving me
    I shall stop loving you little by little.
    He stares at the plain with a frown fixed to his face. 

    It’s like the one in his dreams but no. The differences are subtle but somehow noticeably there. He could very well have been squinting because of the bright sun and not because he knew this state of existence was more farce to him than anything.

    Abysm preferred the dream-plains to this. Probably because he dreamt her up and loved her there, though that love followed him outside the stream-plains and right on into this existence. The only other thing that carried over with him was the dark promise of her eyes.

    He had to shake himself loose from the thoughts of her and occupy himself. It was too easy to stand there and go very deep inside until he failed to exist here as they knew the normal constricted bonds of existence and materialize elsewhere, inside a dream. Usually right into a dream of her as he’d fall into step beside her and they’d walk for hours. Didn’t have to say much - just look and breathe and not trip over his own feet. 

    Abysm isn’t sure why he’s walking all of a sudden. His feet have a mind of their own, all four of them. Must be because he’d been thinking about dream-walking with someone special. 

    (He’s still not entirely sure if she’s real and they just meet on the dream-plains or if he actually dreamed her up to fill the gaping hole inside him.)

    Blue hair waving in the wind catches his attention. The color on a horse is unusual but more and more are unusually colored these days so he shouldn’t be surprised. She looks as if she is waiting on something or someone... the look is highly similar to the one he’s seen on another face - a face inside his dreams. 

    But the look is enough to pull him forward to face her almost nose to nose. Abysm has no true concept of personal space or boundaries. “Hullo.” nor is he that skilled of a conversationalist apparently. 
    ABYSM


    @[Lepis]
    i would do anything for love,
    but i won’t do that 
    Reply
    #3
    I'm certain that the stallion will stop. When he does not - when he presses forward too close - I panic. My yellow wings flare out to the side, and I instantaneously press the emotion of fear as firmly into his mind as I feel it in my own.

    The panic takes less than a heartbeat to subside and I am almost as quick at grabbing back to projection. It might have reached him for a millisecond, or it might have not quite reached him. I am firmly hoping for the latter, though there is no denying that I was thrown by his quick arrival. My wings have begun to droop from where they'd flared out, and I remind myself to take a deep breath.

    "You startled me." I say, as though that was not obvious from the still-rapid beating of my heart. "I don't do well with being startled." There is neither an apology or an accusation in my tone, and the blue grey eyes with which I now watch him are only curious.

    "I'm Lepis." Those words are firm and solid, as though they are the first ones we had exchanged. Neither of our first attempts had gone as we'd intended, so I think it might be best to pretend as though they'd not happened. I consider, briefly, sending out a thread of some comforting emotion, but decide against it. Instead I focus on pulling my wings back to my sides. The left tucks nicely and the right hangs crookedly, but it's clear from my body language at least that I don't plan on bolting out of this conversation after all.
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    #4
    Always close but never close enough. Not quite inside her skin or in the gray-pink halls of her brain. Who cares about the red pulsing heart? Those things are betrayers and liars both. Hearts that is. He’s just being moody and intrusive - the usual Abysm.

    Then he’s suddenly fearful and it stops him in the midst of his next step. It feels unnatural and compelled but so very much like his own brand of fear that he cannot ignore its sudden welling presence in his chest. He looks at her with narrowed wary eyes and stops from coming any closer. But as quick as it had come, it is gone and he is left shaking his head at the aftertaste of fear in his mouth.

    “Was that really necessary?” he quips with another pointed look directed at her. Naturally he assumes it was her doing and what a nice trick that was! Everything about her screamed aloud that he’d caught her unaware so really he shouldn’t blame her but it is easy to do. She hadn’t reacted the way anyone else might have but then he has so few interactions with which to base this off of.

    He supposed that I’m the future some care should be taken to avoid startling others but then he shrugs off his own thought. Nah. They can deal with being stupid enough to not pay better attention to their surroundings. Not that he thinks her stupid because she’d been so quick to react... again, narrowed eyes as he watches her wings sag as if in relief. He wonders for a moment, if she had been about to beat him with feathers...

    Now there’s a smile curling about his lips in a playful manner. “Sorry,” he mentions ever so casually as if he’s not very sorry at all. He looks on as she takes a firmer stance and his nature reverts back to easygoing now that he’s certain she’s going to neither bear him nor bolt from him. But he’s still curious as to how he’d suddenly felt - even for a moment - such a strong amount of singular emotion.

    “So was that you? Like can you do it again and with any feeling or just fear?”


    @[Lepis] he’s such a brat! lmao
    i would do anything for love,
    but i won’t do that 
    Reply
    #5
    As he stands in front of me, shaking his head and inquiring after the necessity of my reaction, I realize that he is not as old as I'd thought. He's still a boy, not quite a stallion yet. He apologizes and it is so reminiscent of my own son that I cannot help but smile in response. Sorry, he says, and I shake my blue-tipped muzzle in a non-verbal 'it's fine.' I don't have time to say any thing aloud, because he's asking questions.

    My gift is not an oft-mentioned subject; there are few I've told. Even less know the full extent; to them it might simply be manipulation of the one emotion I'd pressed on them - relaxation to Klaudius, amusement to my mother, and now fear to Abysm.

    "That was me." I reply, resettling my wings against my sides, the soft smile remaining on my face. "I could do it again, but I doubt you'd like it." I don't answer the last question he'd asked, leaving him to wonder - or perhaps to forget he'd even asked.

    "And what about you?" I continue, tilting my head curiously. "Anything interesting I can't see about you?"
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    #6
    Apologizing earns him a smile. Funny, she didn’t seem that much older than him but he also sensed an air about her that was almost motherly. Or more reminiscent of his mother. Except he’s certain his own mother would not be so quick to just be quiet and easy and use actions more than words. Just wasn’t her way, and it irked him more than anything but he responded well to the ease she presented him in that nonverbal shake of her head, so beautifully dipped in blue.

    Caught between a boy not entirely sure if he hates his mother as much as he claims to and a man who has given up on caring about it, he stares eagerly at her. Considering that he’d just fired off a volley of questions that his ears strained forward to catch. He is riveted, rightly so as every inch of him seems to strain forward in anticipation of what she’ll say.

    Which is not much. Not altogether disappointing but he’d hoped she’d be more forthcoming. She’s not though. Insisting that he’d not like a repeat performance and that’s true, he supposes. Abysm wasn’t one to push back unless it was his mother simply because she was so damn righteous. Enough so to drive him crazy.

    His head rolls to the side in a tilt betraying his sudden skepticism. It’s not that he doesn’t believe her but that he doubts it could be so easily duplicated- if he was afraid. Common sense suggested he just might be after listening to her. He couldn’t say why but something murmured to him to push her one more time just to prove the point.

    Luckily he ignored that quiet urge and now she’s tilting her head in mimicry of him as she asks her questions. Abysm smiles back at her before stifling closer and dropping his voice low enough to not be overheard. “I can manipulate dreams.” he confides in her.


    @[Lepis] Sorry it’s late and crappy :/
    i would do anything for love,
    but i won’t do that 
    Reply
    #7
    "If you'd show me that," I reply, "I could tell you a little more about my gift. Show you, if you'd like." I watch him carefully at that, knowing that the only emotion he is sure I can manipulate is fear. According to rumors, the last queen of my forest had also been able to elicit fear. I wonder how good she had been at it, and how useful it was when it came to controlling monsters.

    Not the best, I have begun to suspect, or she would still be queen. Or perhaps she was simply weaker than I am. I might never know.

    "I've heard one of the mountain queens can manipulate dreams." I add, glancing over at the sunlit treetops as though my statement was just a bit of Meadow gossip. "Is she as good as you are?" My blue-grey eyes meet his, and there is a spark of playfulness in them that hadn't been present before. His lowered voice and step closer have given our conversation a secretive nature, and I am not one to lose such an advantage.

    "I can project any emotion," I add, sharing more than I'd said I would. Not waiting for payment first can be precarious, but I have had years practice in deal-making, and know that the best rewards come with risk.


    @[Abysm] pfft no worries! i always love any words from you <3
    Reply
    #8
    “I can either take you into a dream and manipulate it from there or use it to manipulate something temporary out here just by dreaming it up.”

    The confession is given but he gives her no time to make a decision. His eyes close in concentration as he dreams up an intricate crown of autumn leaves that comes to sit upon her head. He doesn’t even know that she’s a queen - just that the autumn colors suit the navy and pearled fun of her fur. His eyes pop back open to take in his handiwork and the smile on his mouth is one of pure satisfaction. Abysm guessed right - she did look good in the colors of leaf-change.

    In an instant the smile curdles on his face into a sour look. He should have known! “That is true,” he admits through teeth clenched together momentarily. She may not know he is that queen’s son or even suspect but the playful glint in her eyes is enough to knock him down a peg from their games. “Probably better.” he says darkly through a turn of mood that brightens just a notch because of her. 

    “For now.” he avows more to himself than her. “Any emotion, not just fear?” His interest is piqued again. To cast a net of emotion upon anyone and make them feel things they’ve never felt... it seems as unimaginable as his power to manipulate dreams is. But he does not doubt her. “How much is the depth of emotion you can make someone feel?” He alone, knows why he asks this - could she make his mother love him more and love him best?

    As soon as he thinks it, he dismisses it. That particular queen has a brood of children to deal with and he escaped her wide-flung net of smothering affection most of the time. By now, the roguish grim has returned to his lips.

    @[Lepis] because I need more of your words <3
    i would do anything for love,
    but i won’t do that 
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