"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
Why don’t you play? Momma always asked. But Killakee didn’t play. She didn’t chase butterflies through dew-kissed meadows. She didn’t cavort with the other foals, mostly because the other foals were afraid of strange little Killakee, the bone-winged girl. They often whispered about her and always ran from her. Killakee didn’t care though, she could make her own amusement. Her amusement didn’t come in the form of light-hearted bullshit and slavish grins.
The Beach was a great place to wander though momma disagreed. Bleach white bones baking in the sunshine; Killakee was fascinated from the very first time she had ventured there. Momma had hurried her away much too soon, but just a glance had been enough to whet her appetite. How did they die? Killakee would wonder. Was it natural or was it murder? Most foals her age would have been terrified at the thought, but Killakee made it her personal business to find out their death stories. Over and over again she examined the bones, only leaving when momma would give her a thorough bitching. Not the Killakee cared, mind, but it wasn’t worth the fight.
Sometimes Killakee wondered what momma would look like as bones.
Today though, she was in the meadow. It was painfully boring but momma had absolutely forbade a beach trip. Rather than face an argument Killakee had agreed, though she outright refused to seek out the company of the other horses around her. They talked too much about nonsense; the weather, or the sky, or some other such shit that Killakee wasn’t bothered with. So instead the little chestnut tobiano lurked at the edge of the woods, bone wings outstretched, as was her habit. Though her wings were utterly useless for flight, they were quite adapt at scaring the piss out of other foals. Killakee liked to be scary.
Sinew dreams; Dreams of a tusked beast great in size and menace, and it is hers’ to command. It is the only time she has ventured forth from the lands of the sunrise to steppes unnamed and found amongst the grass, the strange thing from her dream.
It is newborn, no parent around to claim it so Sinew does, pressing her lips against the birth-wet skin and licking along the length of its strange humpbacked spine. It seems frail in its infant state, mewling and pathetic, and tusked… she is mindful of the minute tusks that sprout from the beast’s cheeks. She thinks it might be a horse, for it bears strong resemblance to her own throwback breed but it is strange too in its appearance and must be a cross between something else. But it is hers’ to claim and she mothers it as best as one like Sinew can.
She claims it, names it, and leads it back home.
Later, she stands in the shadows and sunlight of the meadow - her body half in each as they play over her skin, one chasing the other, and the beast sleeps at her feet. Sometimes, her muzzle drops to the crown of the beast’s head and her breath stirs the long shaggy hairs there that are part mane and part fur - it is a hairy beast after all, the coat thick and long than even hers’ can get in the winter. It stirs beneath her attentions, blinks the sleep from it’s dumb brown eyes but even Sinew cannot miss the beginnings of adoration in its face as it gazes up at her.
“Go play,” she tells it, not expecting it to understand what play is because it is the first and last of its kind.
It climbs to its feet and shambles off, small but hulking for a newborn for it is robust and great in girth for all that it is diminutive in height. Whatever god had a hand in its making did a poor job of cobbling horse and mammoth together, giving it mammoth shape but a small horse’s size and making it look ridiculous to the point that it was ugly - there is no more apt word to describe it than ugly, though it did not know that because Sinew found it and Sinew loved it for its ugliness. It shook its head, baby tusks all agleam from the sunlight as it falls upon them, and lumbered forth, most certainly slow and sluggish and lacking the grace of its sex - female, supposedly.
It saw a gleam in the distance, not unlike the one of sunlight on its tusks and felt happiness burst in its chest like a slick wet fruit smashed open. Could there be others like it? Had Sinew lied to it? No, as it nears the bone-white gleam, it determines that those are strange appendages and most certainly bone and beautiful but not like it, ugly ugly ugly! This was another like it in smallness and newness only, but ever so pretty! Such a pretty thing, it thought even as it said one of the only words it knows - “Bone.” That one word became a mantra, a dry husking chant from its throat as it moved around the filly with the outstretched wings made entirely of bone. It thought it a flightless bird-horse, a shambling-made thing like itself but somehow prettier still because it was neither humpbacked nor fat like it was, or hairy - god, there was so much hair!
It speaks around the tusks that jut out from its hairy cheeks, “Bone.” it says again, and reaches out to lip at one bony wing but a tusk scrapes against it and there is the beautiful rending sound of bone on bone, and Extinct is strangely happy.
He blinks claws flex into the earth. It response carressing him with its strands of grass. The wind carressing black fur yellow slits gazing at the two creatures. "Bones" one says, another made of bones. This he finds more than attractive. Lips curlq around glossy teeth.
Brouching the two a low rumble resounds through his body, his long cat tail flicking against the kissing grasses. Meat rolls under fur speaking of strength. He comes closer, each inch a slow process. Padded claws soundless in their aproach. He was growing slowly this would be his second winter. The filly he met his first winter had been quite fun. Were she was now. He couldn't say, but he was rather disturbed that it wasn't by his side.
Sniffing at this ones hoof he shimmers dissapearing for a moment nothingness replacing him, and then there she is, bony wings and all. Green eyes flicker for a moment before becoming solidly his own. But it is still her standing there. Morning ladies He nods as if nothing is wrong. Then bones catches his attention. Quirking his head to the side he glints a smile going up to her for a brush as well.
Chuckling he appears as her standing alongside her. Alone much? He inquires. Death and murder, such grusome topics. Topics he was all to familiar with. Did they know they stood on bloody ground. He could still see the stains of his mothers blood. It had probably been his mothers bones she had looked at. As recently decade as they were though he doubted it. Skull smashed, every other peice of her lay perfect. Perfect as it always was. Her bones still laid sprawled out close by the edge of the forest the place he would sleep at night.
Momma would have told her not to stare, but Killakee wouldn’t have listened.
It was the oddest creature, all scraggly hair and foreign humps. It was cumbersome and somewhat ungainly, like Killakee imagined a boulder would be if it were covered in hair. There were some horse-like shapes in the mass so Killakee assumed then it must be a horse, albeit the strangest one she had ever laid her young eyes on. Momma told her that their home was full of strange creatures, and she had seen her fair share. Even her own skeleton wings were an anomaly; but this was without a doubt the strangest of the bunch. Killakee wondered what momma would say about it.
“Now Killakee, you mind your manners and be nice to the hairy tusked horse!”
Momma thought Killakee needed good manners, but curiosity trumped manners any day. So instead, Killakee stared with reckless abandon, feasting her eyes on the hair and humps and wee little tusks. And then it spoke, and the voice that came from the odd mouth was feminine, so Killakee assumed it was a girl…thing. “Bones.” she muttered and it was clear she hadn’t done much in the way of speaking before. Odd for a first word, but Killakee could appreciate the oddness. She liked bones too. But when she reached forward, ivory tusks scraping skeletal wings, Killakee had to force herself not to recoil. It was one thing to meet a new beast, it was an entirely different thing to be touched by it.
But the hairy horse was the least of her worries, and even Momma would have approved of rudeness to the new arrival. She may have even encouraged it.
Before the little bone winged girl could do more than snort in disdain (Momma would not have approved), another had approached. While he was purely horse, he was much darker than the hairy horse and not just by his color. While Killakee often thought of herself as scary, this stallion outdid her. From the sneer of his lips to the leer of his voice, Killakee was spooked. Not outwardly, but inwardly. Outwardly she returned his grimace, stretching her bone wings as far as they would go. Had she been a dog her hackles would have stood straight up along the ridge of her spine. “Ain’t none of your business, I don’t reckon. But not alone.” she said, her voice defiant (Momma would be proud). “Me and…Bone, we were getting along just fine, thanks.” For lack of a proper name, she decided right there on the spot to call her new companion Bone. Killakee was nothing if not resourceful. In any case, Killakee wasn’t stupid, and she would much rather take her chances with the little hairy beast as opposed to the leering big beast.
faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us.
Something rumbles; it thinks instantly of cat and predator in a strange tumble of instinct and warning. It squares itself up to look imposing, thick-girthed and impressive in width despite the fact it was on the shorter side of their species, almost diminutive actually. If anything was really imposing about it, it would be the tusks but they were only small sprouts of ivory that would eventually be shed only to come back in permanently and thus, they were not overly imposing - more like curiosities that curved out from it’s cheeks just above the slender equine muzzle since it lacked the mammoth trunk. Actually, it was purely an aberration of nature and by nature’s laws, should be nonexistent but some rampant strand of magic allowed this mutation to take a shuddering breath and seal its fate.
It smells like a male and looks decidedly older than the bone-winged girl, not that it was a good judge of age or character really. It did what it’s mother-master told it, that beautiful overo almost-mare that would press a kiss to its hairy brow as quickly as she would kick it aside when it became too stupidly adoring. Right now though, it doesn’t understand why he (it decides that much on its own) says things to them that make no sense to it - ladies implies females, and it doesn’t know yet that it too, is female. It is fairly newborn and lacks a definitive sense of gender, it’s head tilted upwards in a quizzical manner as it looks between him and her. The bone-winged girl is staring at it and it doesn’t mind, it doesn’t stare back unless to marvel at the bone-wings because the sight of bones are familiar to it and it hasn’t decided yet if the bones are more avian in shape like wings ought to be or not. That would make sense to it, since it has no concept of magic and flying horses.
The bone-wings move beside it and it moves thoughtlessly out of the way, giving the girl more room to stretch them out. It looks like a scare tactic to thwart the he-horse’s approach as it regards the situation indifferently. The girl talks back to him, understanding his language better than the mammoth-horse does, though it understands words are being said that could have some importance to them and the moment, or more likely the manner in which they are being said. It shakes it’s little tusks at the he-horse as the girl bristles with defiance in both tone and stance, challenging him to back off and it takes a step forward (the best way to describe it is a dwarf of a draft horse with a ridiculous hump and tusks and thick hairy fur) as if to menace him further but the threat is somehow lacking as the girl names her (well, it has a name but it thinks this one will do just fine compared to the other because Sinew-mother didn’t seem all that kind some of the time in what she called it) and says they were doing just fine until he came along.
“Shoo.” it says, not sure where the word came from but it seemed to suit the situation.
Looking to the bone wings as they spread he mimics her movements sharp bones reaching out to the skies yawning in magnificance. This was the fun of his ability, it was as if one was looking in a mirror. Every move, every glimmer of sun reflecting to reveal his beauty as a new found female. He takes a step closer growling out the words I'm Kryten, lovely to meet you both. Nodding to the bone winged girl he turns to the tusked beast. He nods to her just as he nodded to the other lady present. As beastly as his personality had become, the manners of a prince still managed to remain lingering in his soul just as all the moments of diplomatic diplomacy and pleasant moments with his sister.
Reaching out to the long furred creature, he shimmers to dust dissapearing for a moment of stunning replication. He then looks to the beast his own tusks extending from his jaws, shimmering back into existance. His head turns just as hers does. His his mouth ýawning open to let out the same toned rush of air that the Bones does at the same time Shoo He chuckles for a moment. We just met, nothing to be afraid of Hostile grin floats across his lips. Once more shimmering out of existance. He reappears as himself a young black draft with green eyes and tussles of hair clinging around his hooves. Locks of bluish black mane cling to his sweaty neck. It took so much out of him. But his large range of replications was worth it. Each one gaining him an advantage that didn't exist before.
He stares at them both, as much as they attempted to intimidate he saw no blood marring their souls, fur or teeth. Nothing could intimidate him these days. No longer was the world a big bad place full of evils, it was place full of oportunity and everything avalible for his personal use. Still even as he looks to the females, his own male form remains gentile in its stance. He was a prince once, he remained proud of this, mother had taught them much, father even more. As they both abandoned him as a infant he still clung to all the knowledge of his lineage. But its not this fact alone that defines his every movement. No its the one thing that terrified him, the one thing that ripped his perfect world apart. No one deserved happiness, no one. They all deserved to see the world as he now saw it, it was an eye opener. It was something that helped him evolve past the meaningless lies of love and despperation. Everyone had a darker side to themselves that they did not want to acknowledge. Reasons being either fear or blindness. In either case he wanted to show the world just the amount of new knowledge they could gain by allowing the acceptance of their darkness.
