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    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


    anyone;
    #1

    how come I never got used to the feeling of sleeping in a cage?
    too long driving, too damn hungry; a tied-up hound but nothing stays

     It all happened so fast, but still Valdis capably kept within stride. A war, she heard from the reptiles as they slithered across the forest floor. A dragon, another lizard said as it scampered up a tree and disappeared among the leaves. That was enough for Valdis to piece her assumptions together before her thoughts were interrupted by a contraction and a figure luring her away from Sylva’s embrace.

    Her pulse brimming with anger and disgust for Mary and Sinner, Valdis obliged amiably.

    It was a long trek punctuated with more and more contractions. By the time Pangea engulfs her with its barren cliffs and valley, Valdis’ body succumbs to nature’s expectations and her captor left her alone. Resigning to instincts, she collapses with labored breaths and grunts until, hours later, a child is left in the wake of blood and amniotic fluid. It’s startling how easy – and reasonably quick – the labor was in comparison to her daughter. Skeptically, she lifts herself enough to peer across her body and see the small boy scrambling. Oddly, he is much smaller than Dracarys. An exhausted huff slips from her lungs as she rises to her feet to better observe the newborn.

    Small.
    Strangely so.

    A tender brush of her lips across his neck startles him into an unexpected shift that sprouts thick hair and triangular ears and paws. Valdis reels back in surprise but returns above him when he hardly moves toward her. His limbs are too-small, but still he resembles his father. ”Dwarf,” she whispers quietly to herself in mild distaste as her mind strays to Sylva and its monarchy. They will ridicule him, scorn him for what he is and what he isn’t. Valdis’ brows furrow both in pity and in a confused maternal love that she cannot stop spreading through her when he peers up at her inquisitively. ”Erio,” she names him simply before granting him access to nurse while she observes Pangea for the first time.
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    Valdis

    Reply
    #2

    Morgayne

    Jackel was the kind of mother that dropped you and then wandered away, and perhaps nature had prepared her youngest child for this. Only days after being born into the mud and nearly melted snow in an early spring Sylva the girl walked herself away from her indifferent mother. Her eyes caught on the painted pelt of  a mare who was making her way out of the autumn kingdom, following a pale man away. She drifted after, curious, distracted, or just knowing instinctively that she ought to. 

    So the little fanged babe ended up in Pangea, having followed after a pair of strangers on long slim legs not used to walking so far. If anyone knew she was coming along they did not address her, and nobody stopped her from leaving her birthplace behind. Her mother, had she cared, would probably have let her go anyway as she’d handed Morgayne’s elder half-siblings over to the cremello Archon the prior spring. 

     It was a very long way for one so small and when the bigger ones seem to be going no further the girl (too tired to care about anything at all) lay down to sleep a curled up tangle of black and pink. 

    When Morgayne wakes and shakes herself she sets herself to finding the mare she had followed, the passing familiarity enough of a connection for the infant. She approaches boldly, though champs a bit just in case she isn’t wanted so near the blue splashed mare and her little child. Where had he come from? A mystery. Her blue and pink eyes pass over him in judgmentless interest but she flicks her small tail eagerly as she returns her attention to Valdis. “Hi. Where did you get that boy?” He had not walked here too, she or the big ones would have walked much slower and she might have kept up a bit better. Erio nurses contentedly and Morgayne is also surprised that the mare remains still to let him do so rather than growing bored and wandering away. She keeps her dark little face turned up expectantly, awaiting an answer to her question.

    when they finally come, what'll you do to them
    gonna decimate them like you did to me?
    will you leave them stunned and stuttering



    @Valdis How convenient!  Big Grin Morgayne was supposed to come live in Pangea with her older siblings, so I just had her follow Valdis on over!
    Reply
    #3

    how come I never got used to the feeling of sleeping in a cage?
    too long driving, too damn hungry; a tied-up hound but nothing stays

    Valdis didn’t at all regard the child during the trek here, and once she fell behind, so did the memory of her.

    There are more pressing matters at hand such as the boy nursing from her now. Her eyes cast down on him with both intrigue and disappointment. Her and Sinner’s first and only son is tainted, stunted. Is it a mild curse for the poor choices of the parents? The muscles of her jaws coil and clench until she forces herself to look away toward the rocky cliffs standing proudly in the distance. Erio, once finished, retracts from his mother and joins her in peering toward the bare region with mild interest. She acknowledges him silently. No words are exchanged between mother and son for a long while. Admittedly, she still tries to grasp the situation and the potential weakness that the boy poses for her.

    It's with the arrival of the girl that the quiet shatters like glass and interrupts Valdis’ train of thoughts. Turning her head, she regards her but then glances down to Erio as he steps closer to the girl, his size dwarfed in comparison. ”I found him,” Valdis lies, not yet determining whether he will be left behind or be the scapegoat of a poor joke. Drying sweat lathers her skin and blood has begun to cake on her hindquarters, but she pivots in order to conceal the obvious clues that she actually delivered him.

    ”Why were you following me?” She skeptically asks with narrowed eyes that stab into the girl. But what answer can a child properly give? Inhaling slowly to ease the agitation in her soul – namely due to the child adjacent to her – she redirects the question with a calmer tone. ”Why Pangea?”

     

    Valdis



    @[Morgayne]
    Reply
    #4
    CRYBABY
    so we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight

    They twist around each other like the creepy twins they are. As colts and yearlings, their behavior was simply odd - perhaps a bit cute. Now, as they grow into muscles and handsome faces, their attachment is at times mildly disturbing. Luckily for Crybaby and Hatchetface, they have figured out how to behave in front of strangers (for the most part).

    Their father has taught them how to patrol borders and how to fight, so they begrudgingly partake in their duties when Litotes is away. Though not exactly good at their jobs, the two do happen to notice when strangers wander into their land. Their pink and yellow eyes glimmer with delight at the mare and her two children. They can only assume both babes are hers, making today all the more delightful in a quiet kingdom.

    Crybaby steps forward, the more outspoken of the two, hollow smile twisted across his mouth. Hatchetface hovers behind, nape gently brushing his twin’s hindquarters. The two pass their bright eyes over the trio, drinking in their brilliantly painted bodies.

    “What do we have here?” Crybaby questions with a quirked smile. His gaze settles on the little pink and blue Morgayne, fascinated. “Quite the trio you three make.”

    Hatchetface takes a single step forward and peers at the oddly-formed babe near Valdis. “Your names?” he murmurs, dipping his head to further inspect the children. “My name is Hatchetface, and this is Crybaby. Father isn’t here -” he pauses, thinking on how Litotes had bid them farewell then teleported away.

    “Litotes isn’t here, we mean,” the perlino cuts off his twin, glittering pink eyes telling the other to hush.


    @[Valdis] @[Morgayne]
    Reply
    #5

    Morgayne

    Morgayne is easily bored but she finds Valdis and the boy to be interesting enough to linger for conversation. Most big ones are boring or annoying so far but she likes the blue clouds on Valdis’ skin and can see that she herself might be something of an irritant to the Sylvan mare and so she will press on with her questions to see if she can either endear herself or become so much of a nuisance that she is chased away. “You found him.” She repeats, though she has not yet learned to tell truth from lies. “And you just get to keep him? What if I found him first?” Lisps the bubblegum child, reaching out to sniff the newborn.

    Morgayne ignores the way the suspicious mare eyes her, and her question until she asks another more gently. She is more accustomed to being spoken to in a tone of irritation. “You followed that other big one. I hate Sylva” Thylva. She pokes at small Erio with her black nose, already forgetting to worry about Valdis but her prodding is interrupted by the approach of the pale twin boys. She considers telling  the boys that she found the mare and the boy first and that they are hers but she still isn’t clear on how that works. So instead she remains silent and stares at them until they give their names.

    She laughs, her fangs glittering. “I am Morgayne. You are my brothers.” She does not bother to explain herself just presents herself to be inspected by the pair, sniffing at the legs and their muzzles when they are lowered to her and then drifting back towards Erio as they talk to the mare about their father who is not her father. She wants to know the names of the mare and the found boy but does a very fine job of appearing indifferent to anything but trying to get the small colt to join her in bounding back and forth beside the mare.

    when they finally come, what'll you do to them
    gonna decimate them like you did to me?
    will you leave them stunned and stuttering



    @[Valdis]
    Reply




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