"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
Some time has passed since Ori has spent a day in Loess. Petron gave her the world when he told her to learn to use the wings on her back, and suddenly she found a freedom she’d never really known. Yes, she chose Loess as a home after her captivity, but somehow she never left captivity. Castile did not keep her a prisoner, but she kept herself as one, bound to a land that she owed nothing to. It is home, a home she is happy to have, but it is not all. She had been acting as if it was all, as if living inside painted unrealities was all she could offer this world.
Not that she knows what she can offer, but she knows she can offer something. No longer a child, Ori has grown into the shape of a woman. A young one, but filled out and beginning to seem whole. Wholer, anyway, than she had been as a child. Still though, the shadow of her mother follows her, slinking in the background like the remnants of a nightmare that you can’t shake even in the bright sun. Ori longs to grow brighter still than that shadow, longs to shake away the nightmare.
Of course, Ori is a dream and a nightmare all tangled into one. She is her mother’s daughter. It seems impossible to become more, but she has to try.
Not that she knows where to start, but she figures starting in Loess is the best option. Ori doesn’t know the residents of this place well and that seems like a thing she can remedy. So today she stays, the wind cold but the day blue and sunny. She finds herself near one of the small lakes that dot the land, the edges of it iced over with the winter cold. Experimentally, she puts a hoof on the edge to see if it holds. Not that she intends to travel onto the ice, but curious to see just how icy the lake really is. More tempting, she wants to ice the whole thing over, to pretend it completely frozen, but that seems like a dangerous illusion to create and so she doesn’t, simply retracting her obsidian dark hoof as the ice crackles beneath it.
but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
Oceane soars high above Loess, where the atmosphere thins and her limbs numb in the early winter cold. She's naught but an opal speck glimmering in a baby blue sky as her golden eyes slide with appreciation over the vast expanse of Beqanna sprawled out far below her. She inhales deeply, holding the crisp air in her lungs as her satin wings stretch wide and she coasts.
With nowhere to go and nothing to do, the violet pegasi settles comfortably into her midday wanderings, allowing the gentle breeze to coax her in whichever direction it desires. Her amber gaze hops from sage-colored patches of salt-brush to teal hot springs, to the gauzy wisps of steam that rise from the mirror-smooth lakes where they have not yet succumbed to a thin blanket of blue-gray ice.
It's there that Oceane's bright, insightful eyes settle on overo splashes and feathered wings. Curious, the pegasi woman coasts in a large circle and allows the air to catch her extended wings as it carries her gracefully lower until she can better inspect the frame of the unfamiliar equine.
The air warms, though not exponentially, as Oceane descends until finally her gleaming opaline wings give four forceful undulations to slow her impact with the frost-dusted ground. Pulling her feathered appendages in and folding them neatly against her bluish sides like the world's softest blanket, she pivots her muscled body to face the horse she'd seen from the sky.
Appreciatively, Oceane inspects the other woman's wings and high-reaching antlers as her own purple hooves carry her rhythmically towards the stranger. "Hello there," the new Loessian says succinctly, though not unkindly, as she comes to rest at the lakeside near the overo woman.
Considering the vast number of equine Oceane had seen coming in and departing across the borders of Loess over the past month, she is yet unsure of whether the one who stands before her is a resident or not. She had come to discover that quite a few residents of the other kingdoms would visit simply to hold court with Castile, even if only for a few minutes, before again disappearing across the border.
"I am Oceane. Do you live here?" She is inquisitive, and while the opalescent pegasi can usually be too nosy for her own good, the feeling of contentment with her new home has settled down the bloodhound within her if only for the time being.
@[Oriash] | speech
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
It does not take long for someone else to find her. Ori does not recognize the mare, though that doesn’t mean much coming from Ori who has only barely participated in the land she calls home. This mare though is the type of mare one does not forget easily, or miss for that matter, so Ori thinks she must be new. Even in the gray sunshine of winter, this mare gleams like she was plucked right from the oyster’s mouth. The mare is a gem painted by a sunset, and for all that Ori has imagined and created, something like Oceane (as she introduces herself) has never been among her imaginings.
To say the mare is merely beautiful seems almost like an insult. Words simply do not do justice here.
So instead Ori says “Hello,” blue eyes noting the way the other mare seems to take Ori in as well. Ori is used to being appraised, used to the follow up question being something related to the fact that she must be Kagerus’s daughter. Particularly here, for Ori had some small amount of fame in Loess for being the captive almost princess of the Cove, stolen by Loess, who decided to stay put. Stories like that don’t stay quiet, after all.
It is almost shocking then when Oceane asks if she lives here. It was common knowledge in much of Beqanna where Ori lived, at least to anyone who paid attention to politics. Her capture was fuel for the most recent war (one small ember thrown into a pile of tinder and ashes just waiting to catch fire), and her body infinitely recognizable. There is a strange relief at the other mare’s question, like letting out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.
“I do,” she says. “My name is Oriash, or just Ori is fine.” Often she doesn’t even give her full name. It is a thing used so rarely that she forgets it is hers at all. It is a thing gifted to her by parents she fights to forget in so many ways. Perhaps that is why she has become Ori, some version of her parents but with her own influence. She will always look like her mother’s, and she isn’t sure she’d change it given the chance despite everything, but she doesn’t want to be defined by them. “Are you new here? I’m not out much, I admit, but I don’t think I would forget you.”
but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.
@[Oceane]
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
Admittedly, Oceane would be unabashedly intrigued were she aware of Oriash's lineage and the implications of her residence within Loess. Though her interest in others is nearly always rooted in a desire to learn as much as she can about whatever she can, the opaline pegasi is not the most skilled at handling such conversations with tact. Instead, she sacrifices finesse for the sake of swiftness and it's at this crossroads that she has, more than a few times, offended the recipient of her unrelenting curiosity.
Fortunately for her new ungulate friend, Oceane has no knowledge yet of Kagerus or the war that teeters on the cusp between kingdoms. And so there can be no comparison hoisted upon her unwelcome. "Which do you prefer?" she interjects, large amber eyes following the expression on the other woman's face - relief, maybe? "Ori, or Oriash?" She usually refrains from the use of nicknames. More often than not, they are too cutesy - and the scholar refuses to be anything close to cutesy.
Ori, the name in itself, is safe from this title. Besides, the relief that had splashed itself briefly on her new companion's face draws the assumption from Oceane that there may be a reason behind Ori.
"I am," she affirms with a small smile, "to both Beqanna and Loess." But she neglects to offer where she has come from, or why. Oceane, too, runs from events and horses in her past that have no business existing within Beqanna or in this new life she strives to create for herself.
She shifts her weight, habitually ruffles the feathers at her sides. "I'm quite enjoying it thus far. Do you travel often? I'm curious which territories would be the best for me to visit." Undoubtedly, she'll visit them all - but learning the politics of each is an important factor before she makes her trek.
@[Oriash] | speech
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
It is altogether too easy to offend Ori when it comes to mention of her mothers. Well, only one of them really. She has forgiven Solace, though she’d never truly blamed Solace for falling ill, for taking the time she needed to heal. Kagerus, however, had simply chosen Solace over her defenseless, tiny daughter. Kagerus hasn’t come running, half delusional, to find Ori the moment she’d woken. In truth, Ori has no idea what has happened to her other mother, because she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of her. Yet if Solace was back, Kagerus must be as well.
The supposed goodness of her mother fanned a flame Ori could not managed to smother. Certainly there were parts of her mother that were good, but it was not all of her mother. She simply wished they knew the truth, that they understood things gilded in gold often simply hid the rust.
“Ori,” she says, no hesitation in her voice. She has not been Oriash for a long time, she is not even sure who Oriash is. Who might she have become if her mothers had stayed, if her life had turned out differently? The question doesn’t warrant much thought though, because the answer doesn’t matter. Her life had turned out how it had, and she didn’t dislike who it had shaped her into.
The other mare affirms that she is in fact new, and Ori smiles and nods slightly. “Welcome, then. Has anyone given you a tour?” It seems like a polite thing to offer, and one Ori can deliver on. She’d spent her entire childhood wandering Loess, really, spending little time with anyone but herself and her illusions. She knew the land far better than its residents.
Oceane follows this up with another question. It never even dawns on Ori to ask where the other mare is from or what brings her here. Such information is personal, at least in Ori’s world, and she has never been one to pry. “I’ve started to recently. And really, it just depends on what interests you the most. We had a few allied territories that are good to know, or if you find yourself drawn to politics you could visit the other major kingdoms. Or there are some places that are simply beautiful. I can probably offer better suggestions if I know what your interests are.” At least she could try.
@[Oceane]
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
"Ori it is, then," she says with a gentle smile to the antlered woman, "have you lived here all your life?" It's a question she should, perhaps, refrain from asking if she'd like to keep that same information about herself tucked close to her chest, but Oceane's desire to learn (and her practiced nosiness) have other plans. This is to be her home for the foreseeable future, anyway, and to make friends is to be accepted as a part of the community.
"Thank you," she offers genuinely at Ori's welcoming, happy for the conversation to turn away from the thoughts of Nau-Aib that linger just on the edge of her mind. "I would love a tour," despite having been given one by Castile, it will be nice to venture over the foothills with her new friend to see what areas Ori deemed important. She falls in step with the other woman, two-toned wings rustling at her sides before she looks skyward at the clear blue above them. "Perhaps a tour from the sky?" Oceane suggests offhandedly, though she wouldn't be entirely disappointed if the painted woman preferred to remain on the ground.
"I do enjoy politics, but let's start with some places you find to be exceptionally beautiful - places that I can visit when politics start to feel like too much," she'd had no such place Nau-Aib. There had been no escape from the politics, the bargaining, the under-the-table work. Evil had gone perpetually unpunished in Nau-Aib, and she'd had no reprieve from seeing it happen in a never-ending succession of one bad deed after another.
@[Oriash] | speech
i must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
and all i ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by
