Assailant -- Year 226
"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
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07-02-2019, 01:10 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-06-2019, 03:27 PM by Neverwhere.
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.puff.
.puff.
Her breath comes in brief clouds against the frosty air, like a dragon out of fire, insistent and interrupted. The air smells of ice, it freezes in her whiskers and gives few clues about her surroundings. The scents are anemic, familiar and alien at the same time. Horse. So many horses have crossed through here, but none known to her. The soil sleeps, the grass is drab, dry, dead, the water is too cold to taste, and it bites - at her lips, her tongue, her teeth and belly. The young mare lifts her head and crosses the small creek, heedless of the skim of ice that scrapes at her fetlocks.
Even near midday, the winter sun is not bright, it is weak and spiteful, and yet…
And yet, it forces her to squint against it as it glints off snow and ice, and off some of the more fantastical horses littering the land. The bear cub stumps of her frostbitten ears flatten in feeble frustration at the sight as her eyes burn and freeze simultaneously. Her eyelids have gone bright pink with the cold and the light exposure. It was a previous year that took her ear tips, the first one, and now those that follow seem intent on taking what remains.
She blinks.
Again.
No use, she peers through narrowed eyelids, pale blue eyes rimmed in angry red. It is a decidedly unfriendly expression, this glowering, as she strains through the haze of tears to see the horses before her. The usual and the unusual mingle, and if she is surprised or concerned by their appearances she gives no hint of it. The wind is kicking up now, surely storms are on their way. The branches of the trees pop and groan under the weight of the ice they carry, and in the distance,
C R A C K
Some great forest king breaks beneath its load. An ear swivels forward at the sound, the other remaining back, a guarded look with pink-skinned nostrils chapped and flaring, warm breath rattling noisily out of them now like gambler's dice.
She has come. Why? It seemed like a good idea at the time... No, that isn't true. But it was an idea, and she was bored.
07-02-2019, 01:55 PM
She's got the devil's eyes The loud crack echoes through the chilly, early winter air, and, suddenly, she is there. One moment nothing but emptiness, the next a woman of pewter blue laced with white stands before her. One blink, one bare glance away is all it would have taken. It’s not often she does this, but she had found her curiosity overcome, and so here she stands. There is history in this stranger’s skin, a story in her eyes. One that greatly intrigues the blue mare. and they'll cut you like a weapon Heartfire
07-02-2019, 10:29 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-06-2019, 03:29 PM by Neverwhere.
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It is important to note that she is glad the first to approach her isn’t green. You just can’t trust children to keep their mouths shut when they should. Of course, she would never call herself a child, but, well… We all know ourselves, don’t we? Still, it wasn’t exactly what one might call normal, to appear suddenly from the cold air like a swarm of biting flies manifesting horse-shape. Yet, it was also so exceedingly normal. Was she meant to shy away in fright, or look on in wonder? Attack or murmur welcome? The expectation that there is expectation holds her feet firm in place, defiant against absolutely nothing.
The silence stretches then, long and thick, like the summer sun bearing down on wetland flowers, crushed underfoot, hooves sinking and sucking into the mud. Silence. The mud will be knee deep, and you will be stuck. Silence. Soon enough, you will be silent, too. Or perhaps not. It might not be soon enough at all.
“Yes. Neverwhere.” And Neverwhere either ignores or does not notice the lack of affability in her own tone or The Stranger’s, but briefly considers that they must look odd, even in a world of oddity, standing faces-to-face, no conversation between them but the soft whisper of wind picking its icy fingers through their manes. Will they force each other into dull conversations and long, murky pauses? She deigns to break their staring contest first, if only because it makes her eyes hurt, and lets them rest against the darkness of a nearby pine grove without a clear memory of the piercing blue eyes others might find intimidating or fascinating. Her own vision is too blurry, too bleary, like glass drifting through the ocean. The burning recedes, the redness of her sclera remains. It, too, will fade some, come twilight.
“I can, of course, take no credit for it.” A silly thing to be complimented on, a name. Was it a compliment? No matter. She did not steal it, or create it, or earn it in any way. It is, essentially, nonsense left to her by parents whose motives were, at best, unclear, and now, beyond discovering. Although her shortened ears never left The Stranger’s direction, pale eyes now turn their watery gaze back to meet hers. The roan’s white-flecked coat does nothing to dispel thoughts of the spontaneity of her arrival.
“So tell me, are you, in fact, made entirely of flies? And if so, how is it you keep them flying in winter?” Tactless.
07-09-2019, 04:48 PM
She's got the devil's eyes There are many things that Heartfire could be described as, but affable is most certainly not one of them. Though she does not share the same recalcitrance this newcomer seems to, there is a certain harsh quality to her presence. Something that seems neither quite welcoming nor quite off putting. An almost aggressive neutrality that often stands her in good stead. and they'll cut you like a weapon Heartfire
07-10-2019, 11:51 PM
Many things can become reality, and the dappled mare is apt to maintain her bored demeanor for quite a lot of them. In what capacity would she see the flies? Would they be clear and sharp? She’d never believe them real. Would they be blurry like everything else? She might fall for it, but so what? Neverwhere is not disgusted by flies, and they often do cover everything, in some seasons, and some places. She does pause when the other mare speaks after what appears to have been a moment of actually considering her question. Of course, Neverwhere can smell that she is not made of flies, can hear that she is not made of flies, unless they are unusually silent as well as inexplicably surviving the winter. One ear flicks, a better voice in her head reminding her not to underestimate magic. Do not assume logic. “I don’t know about convenient, it seems like flycatchers and frogs would become tiresome.” Just one unfortunate summer day and you’d be down two legs, one ear, and half your tail when you re-swarmed into your horse-form. Not to mention only living a few months. No, you’d want some regenerative power to go along with that one or you wouldn’t last beyond your first season. She drops her head when the other asks after the scarring, not out of embarrassment, or any effort to be coy, but because thinking about it directly makes it itch. Rubbing wet eyes against her knee, she wipes away the sand and vision improves in one eye, worsens in the other. This is so typical as to barely register, though she does blink several more times as though that will work to clear the problem. It does not. “It is nothing.” This isn’t entirely true. It would be hard to accurately describe the scars that run between eyes and muzzle as nothing, inflamed and angry as they are in the dry, freezing wind. The skin of her nostrils and lips is mottled with small sections of ropey scar tissue as though she had been burned horribly. And, in a sense, she had, but in perhaps the dullest of way. “Nothing very interesting, rather. The sun burns it. The wind chaps it. Every year, it grows worse, or, I suspect it does. Bit hard to see.” If Neverwhere could shrug, she would. The delicate pink skin of her muzzle and eyelids was never intended for exposure to sun, and while the winter itself does not worsen the scars, the dry winds do nothing to help. Similarly, the pale blue of her eyes makes them sensitive to the light, causes the squinting and the damaged vision. Causes the redness of the surrounding sclera and the dark tear staining on the bit of white hair remaining. It was simply bad luck. Nothing could be so banal as these disfiguring scars. Neverwhere .........
07-24-2019, 05:05 PM
She's got the devil's eyes The woman before her might believe her lot in life nothing more than mere bad luck, but Heartfire does not. Oh, she does believe in luck. Certainly it’s existence has made itself abundantly clear to her. But luck, or lack thereof, is not what she is witnessing here. and they'll cut you like a weapon Heartfire
07-24-2019, 10:26 PM
It's true, Neverwhere has not done anything in her life that anyone could consider impressive. She has been a bit despicable, perhaps, in that regard. She has not stood for anything or anyone, and the boredom that has driven her has been of her own making. This is not a fact that is completely lost on her, but she is not certain that she has reached a point in her life where she is ready to make the necessary changes. She has nursed this misanthropy for long enough that it has begun to define her. Her attention shifts sharply when the other mare's question catches her unprepared, and she lets her guard drop a bit then, tumbling through the possibilities of what she can mean. Of course, she had known that the other had magic, you could not explain the manner of her sudden appearance, or her knowing Neverwhere's name without it. She had pushed the thought away, because so many of the other horses here have magic, you could hardly avoid it without avoiding them. And it had been the easier, more practiced option to maintain an unaffected manner than to delve into the less well known depths of conversation. However, there is a distinct difference in magic that someone else wields near you, and magic you allow them to use on you - if you can stop them. "See... My face?" She asks, immediately annoyed with the stupidity of her own words, "I'm sorry, who are you, again?" She asks the question like an answer will actually help. It won't, of course. The name will mean nothing to her. It simply buys time while the dappled mare considers exactly what sort of magic would be involved. She has found herself increasingly uncomfortable with magic in most, if not all, of its forms, and the idea of submitting to... whatever it is the roan has planned, sparks deep misgivings. Although not blind, she often misses small changes of countenance, and still, she is wary of the other's purpose. The question sets her teeth on edge, and she turns her head slightly, scrutinizing the detail-less mare in an almost comically ineffectual manner. It's hard to imagine that the offer being made is a genuine, friendly, gesture. Certainly Neverwhere has done nothing to endear herself. Neverwhere ......... @[Heartfire] I have not decided if I like Neverwhere very much, Heartfire can do whatever she wants to her
07-26-2019, 04:59 PM
She's got the devil's eyes Though Heartfire has never been referred to before as friendly, there are those that consider her blunt candor refreshing. Of course, there are far more who do not, but one could almost say, in a sense, she is perhaps one of the more genuine creatures you will meet. She rarely finds the need to lie. Of course, when one flirts with the very edges of such dangerous truth, there is rarely any need to anyway. Others so rarely know the right questions to ask, and thus pose little danger to her somewhat unorthodox methods of conversation. and they'll cut you like a weapon Heartfire
07-27-2019, 09:34 PM
There was not much she could have done to protect her ears, and even her face, in the winter and summer of the high desert where she was born. And perhaps she might have made efforts to limit the sun exposure, later, but the damage had been done already, and it limited her travelling to stay only in the shade, to never leave the treeline. The bad luck had been in her genetics, in her place of birth, but the rest, the rest had been decisions, good or bad. If the scars are worth what she has gained, then they are nothing. But, so far, she couldn’t say that it has been worth it. Perhaps being in this new place, that will change? Other places have disappointed. “None at all!” she responds with false enthusiasm to Heartfire’s dry comment about clarity. It doesn’t help to know her name. And she’s pretty much one hundred percent sure that she is about the make the wrong choice. The other mare is puckish and vague, and gives no further explanation of her motives. She only adds the count down, a silent clock that ticks away in Neverwhere’s mind. But her decision has already been made. It had been made as soon as the offer was extended. Neverwhere came here because she was bored, and she continued to be bored, but the flavor of the place is seeping into her and stirring something in her breast. She still dislikes magic, yet she is curious what Heartfire is planning. And, well, she is selfish, too, because she is willing to set aside her concerns to do something that might benefit her, because even if it doesn’t, it might be better than the dust of boredom that has settled so thickly over her life. “I don’t trust you at all, Heartfire,” Neverwhere responds at last, a smirk playing in her voice. She takes her time in spite of the threat of a time limit, curious, but reluctant to be led along on a game whose end has not been shared with her, “but sure, let’s see what happens.” Neverwhere .........
07-29-2019, 07:44 PM
She's got the devil's eyes One thing Heartfire has found to be true over and over again, is that there is rarely a wrong choice. Choices are, most often, merely a reflection of those making them. Certainly there are poor choices. But wrong? Well, she has seen many make what others would deem a wrong choice and come out far ahead. Just as she has seen many make what might be considered the correct choice regret their decisions immensely. and they'll cut you like a weapon Heartfire |
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