• Logout
  • 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


    [private]  feels like december knows me well // Haunt
    #1

    feels like December knows me well

    It did not take long for the cumbersome colt to find his way from Nerine to Taiga, not that he knew the names of the places he journeyed; after all, one could easily get lost in the world around them when one's mother spent less than a fraction of her time actually paying attention to said one. Arctyrus knew the feeling well, often found himself growing cold and dark at the memory of his first day alive, of how warmly the stallion Brennen had spoken to him, and of how desperately he craved to be addressed as such again.

    Like a person, or someone who would someday grow to be a person; being addressed as anything would be better than his apparent invisibility to Scorch.

    The Taigan scenery drew Arctyrus in with long fingers, sending chills cascading down his too-long legs and his too-heavy head as though to welcome him into her otherworldly depths. The young boy hadn't met many people as of yet, and often found himself wandering where perhaps he shouldn't, on account of him not being raised proper and all. Perhaps if that nice man Brennen had stuck around - but no, Arc forces himself to remember, he has duties elsewhere, duties besides caring for a stranger.

    The chills, he realizes, are self-induced, and have nothing to do with the wind. Still, he wraps layers of darkness around himself, visibly obscuring his figure but not hiding it at all. As such, he trundles through the Taigan forest, tears dripping down his face as he considers his place in this weary world. A few months old, and already at his wits' end.

    Arct
    yrus
    Reply
    #2

    we scream our very souls free

    This world is full of distractions, endless and meaningless but fascinating all the same. The shadow child, so easily distracted, falls prey to nearly every one of them, dragging it’s attention here and there like flotsam on a riptide. The child’s parents could hardly keep up anymore, and the little shadow takes full advantage. Briseis, who had grown so quickly protective of the three siblings, could not always have her eye on little Haunt, and even Ether struggled, despite their apparent similarities.

    Of course, none of this occurs to Haunt, too caught up in such wild distraction to be bothered with harried parents.

    Especially when the shadow had grasped the ability to step through shadows. Perhaps Ether regretted teaching Haunt that particular skill, but Haunt does not know this. No, the childish creature is far more intrigued by the endless possibilities this particular ability had suddenly exposed. The boy-girl had been aptly named it seems, for as it trips through the forest, stepping from one shadow to another, giggles chase it in haunting echoes. It would be so easy to believe the ghost of a child lurks in these woods, if one were superstitious enough to believe it.

    It isn’t until something new and strange and infinitely more distracting tugs on well-attuned senses that the indefinable child slows it’s wild sprint. A taste in the shadow the speaks words of wonder and servitude. It’s easy to find for a creature made of shadow, who can move among them just as easily. For a moment, the only evidence of Haunt’s presence is the gleaming gold of peering eyes, bright in the darkness that it blends so well with.

    That this stranger with the twisting shadows is another child only serves to further intrigue the little shadow creature, drawing it closer until it has come to stand at an uncomfortably close distance, yellow eyes boring into the stranger. It grins then, revealing tiny, pointed teeth, before snaking it’s pitch nose forward and tasting a tear.

    Nose wrinkling, Haunt drags the offended tongue across pointed teeth before shaking it’s head with a snort. “You taste weird,” Haunt annonces, as though it is the most normal thing in the world.

    Reply
    #3

    feels like December knows me well

    Golden orbs appeared where the darkness had been supreme ruler just seconds before, their depths blinking with the promise of stories untold. Arctyrus halted immediately upon sighting them, stunned by the ethereal nature of the orbs' existence; and then, drawn forward as a child to honey, he approached, unaware of evil in the world beyond the neglect of a mother. Perhaps, in the depths of his new disembodied friends, he might find some solitude.

    Of course, his friends soon became embodied, and its glimmering teeth told stories far less kind than the pupiless depths of its oracle-like eyeballs.

    "Hey!" Arc squealed childishly as the other surged forward, attaching the pink of its tongue to the salty stain of his own black cheek as if it were the most normal thing to do. The sensation sends Arc reeling back to his first memory of Brennen cleaning him as his mother towered above, dissociated and not even remotely interested in the caretaking of her own son. More tears welled up in the colt's distal grey eyes, and they fell without ceremony as he skittered away from the shadow-thing, ears pinned though clearly in an upset kind of way, and not in an angry kind of way.

    "So what if I taste weird?" He finally mustered, tone garbled and defensive and pathetic. The ugly boy stomped a hind hoof, acutely aware of how disproportionate his drafty figure was compared to admittedly incomprehensible mass of shadow which stood before him, happy to be one big enigma in a world without answers.

    But maybe, this world had kindness.

    Sniveling and moodily shifting his wide baby-eyes back to the other, Arc decides not to leave straight off, too curious despite the tears which trail down his face. "Who are you, anyway?"

    Arct
    yrus


    @[Haunt]
    Reply
    #4

    we scream our very souls free

    Hey!

    The offended squeal only serves to produce a fit of giggles in the indefinable child as it pulls back into the shadows for a brief moment. Truthfully, there had been little forethought that went into the impulsive action and even more impulsive reaction. But in hindsight, it is wildly amusing, at least to the shadow child.

    After a moment, Haunt presses forward again, eerie yellow eyes fixing on the dark boy where he had retreated to safety. As though anywhere shadows touched might be safe from a creature that could step through them as easily as breathing. Of course, this is not a thought on the child’s mind as it steps through those very shadows, bringing them uncomfortably close together. But then, personal space is a foreign concept to the childish creature, given it’s relatively unorthodox life so far. Haunt had been born one of three, and when there are three, space as a luxury unafforded to them.

    “You taste different,” Haunt amends then. For all that Haunt is an odd thing, even the child can recognize the accidental offense given with those thoughtless words. Of course, the amended turn of phrase may not be any less offensive, but that’s not something that had occurred to the little shadow quite yet.

    With a wide, happy grin, Haunt presses closer, yellow eyes fixed and unblinking as the shadow considers the new friend it had stumbled so accidentally upon. “I’m Haunt,” Haunt answers simply, before stretching forward to test another tear. Salty, and still rather weird. Definitely not like Misfit or Harken or Harbinger. “Who are you?”

    Reply
    #5

    feels like December knows me well

    In pure abandonment of logic and manners, the strange child released a cacophony of giggles into the shadow-thick air between them. Arc could only pin his ears against the sound and sniff back some stray snot, using the giggles as a cover; a part of him felt flimsy and weak for cowering away from a foal so much smaller than he for no other reason than his own feelings of worthlessness; but there was nothing he could do to remedy these things right now.

    It comes closer. The taller, broader Arc stomped a front foot in a timid display of discomfort and disapproval of the approach, but did not pursue further discouragement when the thing began to speak again. Instead, his watery silver eyes blinked and flickered away-and-towards the other's piercing yellow ones, seemingly incapable of deciding on looking at one space continuously, as though uncertain of which would be the appropriate choice in this situation. You can't blame him; it weren't as though Scorch taught him these kinds of nuances.

    You taste different, the thing enunciated, as though that cleared everything up. It then grinned, to which Arc frowned deeply; when it stepped forward, Arc fought the urge to reach out and bite the thing which seemed to have no sense for personal space. In Arctyrus' world, he never got close to anyone, least of all his mother, who had already weaned him. The closeness made his skin crawl, and he knew he would have to do something to address it before this interaction ended.

    "I'm Arctyrus," the colt whined, ears flopping and straightening anxiously. "Will you please back up? I don't like being so close to people - it makes me feel weird, you're making me feel weird!"

    Arct
    yrus


    @[Haunt]
    Reply
    #6

    we scream our very souls free

    For the shadow child, personal space is something of a novel concept. Haunt had yet to encounter any other, elder or child, who seemed overset by the unnatural curiosity the little creature is given to. So to find a boy that seems to flinch away from every step nearer, that recoils from each touch, is vastly intriguing to Haunt. Rather then putting the child off, it draws the smaller equid closer.

    Tilting that pitch-dark head, Haunt eyes the boy with avid curiosity, unconsciously beginning to mirror him as he shifts uncomfortably. It had never before occurred to the shadow child that it’s very presence and unusual mannerisms might be enough to sew discomfort in another. Not until Arctyrus, leaning so uncomfortably away, utters the words in a low whine.

    Stilling, Haunt stares unblinkingly at the much taller boy, ears twitching as the admission is appropriately digested. “Weird?” Haunt questions, tasting the word as though it is a stranger to the shadow’s tongue. And perhaps it is. Weird is so very relative when one had been born as Haunt had. “Tingly weird? Giggly weird?”

    Drawing back suddenly, Haunt lifts his head, peering widely at the boy as he speaks. “Salty weird?” Slipping abruptly into the shadows, Haunt appears without notice or forethought on  the other side of the boy. “Shadow weird?” Teeth snap with futile playfulness around a string of the shadow that seems so attracted to his new friend. “It’s all weird, isn’t it?”

    With bright, almost guileless eyes, Haunt peers up at Arctyrus once more, never once considering it is the child’s own self that may be the issue.

    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)