"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
11-20-2018, 04:35 PM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2018, 04:38 PM by siona.)
She feels a comfort in the forest - the camouflage of the trees, just returning to their natural colors, the crunch of the fallen leaves and brush beneath her pawed feet. She’s comfortable anywhere, really, but the forest feels like the closest place to a home. It’s the only place she can sleep.
She yawns, stretching, all sharp teeth and thick, red fur — and then, the earth shakes. It doesn’t collapse and reform like the reckoning — which Siona wouldn’t remember, anyway — merely shakes and then resettles. She freezes, listening to the fairies’ warning. They tell Beqanna of the new lands, safe from the plague, but the words are meaningless to her — Siona doesn’t know where anything is besides Tephra, where she lived years ago. She watches as people start to flee the forest in every direction, but she only knows of one place to go.
So she heads west. To Tephra.
She crosses through Loess first; hilly and beautifully green, with freshwater springs that allow her to rest and quench her thirst. It’s pleasant enough here, she thinks, but too bare. There is nowhere to hide.
Next is Sylva, marked by its colors: reds, oranges, yellows. She pauses here, taking in the forest, and contemplates stopping here despite it not being safe from the sickness. It doesn’t feel right, somehow — sick, but not only with the plague. Sick with darkness. It’s an unsettling feeling.
She moves on.
Siona crosses the Tephran border, breathing in the ash and sulphur that cover the land. It feels familiar here: the flowing lava, trees and assorted greenery, the heat. It brings back memories of her only friend, Wishbone — the fox-girl and the little bay filly used to play tag between the rivers of lava, free of worries or danger until the bay filly was chosen to move to Nerine and became queen. Instead of following her friend, Siona chose to roam, off by herself. It was what she was used to, anyway.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees an island off the north coast. She moves through Tephra, then, entranced by the island — from afar she can only make out its white beaches and thick clusters of trees. Before she realizes it, she’s in the water, swimming to shore. Siona wonders how the normal horses fair on their trip to the islands — her paws are better suited for the swim than hooves, but her large, fluffy tail slows her down a bit.
As she reaches the shore, she looks around while attempting to shake herself dry (even though she loved to swim, she hated the side effect: being wet). Exhausted from her trip, she makes her way inland, trying to find a place to rest in her new home.
@[SamShine] @[Toli] or anyone welcome!
also @[The Plague] please infect her even though she's in a safe land <3
She'd at least been thinking to him even if she hadn't spoken aloud yet. They'd get there though. She'd be okay. He wouldn't stop trying until she was okay again. Or better.
I love you, Kali, he told her softly with a gentle brush against her mind as if he could nuzzle her. She was little and in his hair again, where it was safe and quiet and dim. It was easier for her to hide away that way when she felt like it. And it was simple enough to just peek out when she wanted a look around too. He didn't mind either way. Going about his day with her tagging along with him seemed to make her feel a little at ease, so he continued on.
His head turned toward the ocean and he paused, listening. He smiled.
There might be a friend to make. I think you'll like this one. Let's go see. He made his way there, strolling casually to the shore where the sea met the sand. The fox was heading inland as he was heading out, so they met somewhere near the treeline and he paused again, smiling down.
"Hello." His wings flared out as he reached back to nuzzle his baby sis, coaxing her. Look, baby. Do you want to shift and meet her? His light eyes turned back to the fox, still smiling.
"I'm Kharon. This is Kali, my baby sister. I think she'd like to meet you if that's okay?" His head tilted. Then he gently lowered himself to his knees, to the ground so that Kali would not have to jump and so he could be on a better level with the fox-lady.
"We came from Ischia," he continued a little proudly, grey eyes glittering like his silver necklace. It was a wonderful place. Here was nice too, but he thought they'd all probably rather be home where they were from. If only they wouldn't get sick, though. "It's beautiful there. We were both born there, and our sister. I'm not sure where else Mom and Dad lived when they were younger, but I think Mom misses it a lot. So she'd probably been there a while. Dad didn't come until he found me," his chest puffed out a bit. Definitely proud of that. He'd attracted his Daddy there, showed him how beautiful he and his twin were.
Dad never left them since.
Except for Kylin. But they hadn't meant to.
His heart sank, and his eyes dimmed, but he tried to hold the smile on his face.
I wish I could scrape away the dirt that's on my mind
@[Siona] has been infected, per request (infection took place outside safe land)
A roll of 5 means she will express symptoms.
A roll of 1 means she will not express a trait.
I love you too. So much. Through it all, he'd been the safest place left in the world, the one who could best make her feel not quite so alone. Not quite so lost in a sea of her own fear, every drop made up of memories and nightmares from the last few weeks? Months? Days? She couldn’t even tell anymore. What did it matter, when time had so little meaning? When it could stretch and twist in on itself, making a year for one take a day for another, when taking the wrong path could mean your entire world was lost?
But he helped remind her, with his steady presence and his warm embrace, that she was not as lost as she felt. She had him, and their family was together again, and even if things were different now, different didn’t have to be bad. So she held on tight and let him carry her wherever he wanted to go. The where didn’t matter to her as long as it was with him, and she got to listen to his soft little mind-whispers and feel those gentle touches.
There might be a friend to make, he murmured softly, and she nodded, not especially caring on her end but her Khari was a people person and needed friends. So they should definitely go. She clung tighter to his mane and closed her eyes, snuggling him while he made a new friend. He reached back and nuzzled her, coaxing her to look with that gentle crooning mind-voice of his, and she let the tiniest little sigh escape her itty bitty bat body, safe and curled up in his mane. Okay. If he wanted, she’d look.
She craned her neck out from her little hair nest, dark brown eyes peering around at horse-eye level and--oh. There was no one…? So she stretched farther to see where he was looking, in case they were hiding some like she was. And she followed his line of sight down to the ground to--oh! A fox!
Her eyes widened, and she chittered softly. Fox was one of her favorite shapes! It was just hard to hold onto manes and hide there with fox paws. Bats were so, so good at sneaky hiding in hair and holding on with their little claws. Ohhhh but fox! She wriggled a little, undecided, reluctant to leave the safety of her Khari’s mane, but oh, a fox to play with!
Khari lowered himself to the ground, and she squirmed a little more, nervous and excited and a little anxious at the thought of leaving her cozy hiding spot, but the fox was so close, and she caved, shifting into a little grey fox cub and shimmying her way out of his hair to the ground. She whined softly and ducked her head, took a nervous little step forward, her ears tilted back, head ducked down lower than the new fox’s, crouching a little with her tail low too and wagging juuust a tiny bit. She snuck hesitant little glances at the other fox, who was such a pretty bright bold color next to her soft plain grey. With a soft little whuff of breath, she crept another step forward, sniffing to try and catch the other fox’s scent.