"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
Wolves in our own skin, we're savages; we act so primitive.
I have had an awful lot of time to explore my new home. And it's gorgeous, don't get me wrong. All sorts of lovely scenery to explore, a nice river to play in, great shady trees, and the mountains stand sentinel to the east. Watching our backs, defending us from potential invaders or whatever. It's great. I love it. I'm super excited to live here, and I'm happy about all of that. Really.
But I'm bored out of my damn mind, okay? I mean, Grandma's taken me all over, showing me the sights, telling me stories about our history, and that's been wonderful. I have loved every minute, watching her eyes light up as she remembers tales of my dad's youth, or her own, or my aunts and uncles, so many I haven't even met yet. I even love watching the lingering echoes of old sorrow dim that light as she tells me the sadder parts of our family's story. Because even the sad parts, they're what made us who we are. Just like losing Papa is part of what made us who we are.
Just like getting him back is part of it too.
Here's the thing, though. My dads? Well, they're the tiniest bit overprotective, believe it or not. If I try to wander off on my own, it isn't long before I have a silent bodyguard tailing me and watching out for me, making sure nothing bad happens. I appreciate the impulse to keep me safe. I do. But for fuck's sake, there's only so much living a girl can do with her daddies hovering, you know? I love them dearly, and I know they mean well, but I'm a grown woman (if only just), and I need some space now and then.
Which is why, the one time everyone finally seems distracted at the same time, I sneak away. Oh, I play it cool, just wandering off to the river for a drink, right? No big deal. Nothing to see here, no reason to be suspicious. I do exactly that, taking a nice long drink from the clear water flowing through our territory. I just, you know, don't quite stop there is all. With a glance back over my shoulder, I sneak away toward the edge of the herd land. Maybe, for the first damn time since we came to Beqanna, I will actually get to explore on my own. Even get into just a little bit of trouble. Nothing major, no heart attacks for my dads just yet, but a nightmare or two sounds reasonable.
My gold eyes are wide with delight and just a hint of mischief as I step across the border, a grin spreading across lips so dark a brown they are almost black—I take after my dad's nearly impossibly dark silver black, but roaned out to a pale grey color on my body. And, I suppose, in build I take much more after Papa. Rather than Dad's towering height or broad, heavily muscled frame, I have Papa's sleek elegance, all smooth curves and clean lines and none of the crazy thick hair and feathering.
Anyhow. Not important. What is important is the fact that I seem to have made it out of Echo Trails undetected! I laugh quietly and kick up my heels, indulging in a little triumph-frolicking before setting out toward the infamous Meadow. If I'm going to find a little excitement, that sounds like a fine place to start.
I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.
They are, perhaps, the most opposite of creatures. Certainly he has never known love nor protection. Nor has he ever desired it. He had been abandoned so shortly after his birth that it had never occurred to him there might be places he should not go. He had simply gone wherever his feet had carried him.
Ultimately it had led him to his family, though one far different (and far crueler) than any normal equine might consider family. But it had not tamed him. Truth be told, it had likely made him far, far worse.
And then She had come. He had tasted her lightning and never been the same. If there is any one creature it could be said that he might love, it would be she (but a twisted love, more sickness than any true emotion). The dark god had followed, showing him the true meaning, the depth and breadth, of pain. He had left him changed, forging and remaking him into the creature he is today.
Far more monster than stallion.
He crosses wood and meadow with little thought as to where he travels. He likely would have continued, had he not seen the young girl. She is a lovely thing, sleek and pretty. So very different than he.
These are the ones he delights in, the ones he can teach and mold.
And so, he approaches, dull gray eyes focused, though curiously lacking in any true emotion. His dark skin is bare of flame for the moment, but that does not make it any less horrific. If possible, it makes it more so. His blackened hide is bare of hair, pitted and disfigured, charred almost beyond recognition. His ears are little but scarred nubs atop his head, the muscle upon his left shoulder sunken and deformed, all that is left from the fires that had ravaged his body.
And he had loved it. Loved it as so few do.
As he nears, his lips split across yellowed teeth, curving into a macabre grin, one completely devoid of any true humor or goodwill. He steps close (far too close for comfort), bland gray eyes seeking out her gaze.
”I am Raelynx,” he rasps in a voice rusty from smoke. ”What brings you out here? Alone.” In truth, he cares little. But he has found conversation to be the best way to keep them from fleeing at first sight.
Wolves in our own skin, we're savages; we act so primitive.
It doesn't take long, only a couple of minutes after I pass the edge of the territory. I still have the lingering scent of Grandma Quark's and Uncle Pazuzu's favorite patrolling shapes in my nostrils when I encounter a stranger. A rather horrific-looking stranger, but I've seen my dad looking pretty messed up and scarred, so I'm not about to judge. Even if something about the blackened, disfigured skin and the complete lack of hair on his body has chills tingling along my spine at the same time my stomach clenches with excitement.
Someone new. Someone new, and maybe a little bit dangerous.
I give him a welcoming smile as he walks over, his grey eyes on me but strangely expressionless. It's actually a little bit uncomfortable, the way he's looking at me. The way he walks over, invading my personal space in a way that would be fine with family or a close friend but feels awkward coming from a stranger.
Maybe he's like Tycho though, and social cues aren't his strongest suit. Granted, Tycho tends more toward the opposite, making too little eye contact and keeping too much space between himself and everyone else. Avoiding physical contact unless he's feeling extremely affectionate, for him. So even when he gets a little too close I don't back away. I just shift my weight slightly, drawing back just enough that I still feel like I can breathe without brushing against him.
“Hello, Raelynx. My name's Dara.” Just like the scarring on his skin, Raelynx's voice kind of reminds me of Dad's too, or the way it used to be at least. Dark and gravelly, rough from years spent screaming at the moon. It took a long time for Grandma to heal him, for him to get to a place where he could let her. Now his voice is still dark and deep, but there is a rich crooning note to it now. Much less tormented. Still, there's something almost comforting in the sound, even as his body language makes the back of my neck tingle unpleasantly. His voice is a raspy reminder that life isn't always so kind, so peaceful.
“Oh, I'm just exploring a little,” I answer, smiling at him again and meeting his eyes, the odd intensity in them an interesting contrast to their unassuming grey color. “What brings you to Echo Trails? Or close enough anyhow. Home is just a few minutes back that way,” I add, turning my head away from him to glance briefly back the way I came just to illustrate my comment.
"Are you looking for someone? If they live here, I'm sure I can find them for you."
07-28-2016, 02:14 PM (This post was last modified: 07-28-2016, 02:15 PM by Raelynx.)
I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.
There has never been anything comforting about him. His only legacy is the pain. It is a legacy that always seems to make those around most uncomfortable. Even his own kin find little solace in his presence. He has never cared, never wished to comfort or offer solace. He enjoys company well enough, but not so much that it bothers him to be alone. He is, for all intents and purposes, little more than a thing. A thing that exists solely to cause misery and pain.
Except that, in his darkened and warped mine, there is nothing greater than a terrible agony. It is a thing of beauty, desirable and sought after. So very few understand that. So few, in fact, that he clings unwittingly to those who do.
(Would she? He wonders. Would she enjoy hurt as he does?)
It is a question that goes through his mind with every new creature he meets. It is his sole purpose, his reason for existence (He had taught him that - that wonderful, terrible dark god). And so, he wonders. He considers stealing her away, but he has no great powers of persuasion. He would simply need to wait and see where this conversation takes them.
She would not be worth it if she could not be taught anyway.
As she speaks, pointing out her home behind them, he glances back, considering the possibilities. They are not so very far from the Cove. Turning back, his gray eyes latch onto her vibrant gaze. ”No.” He rasps the simple response to her second inquiry, halting abruptly for a moment before continuing in a rather staccato tone. ”I am just passing through. My home is in the Cove.”
He pauses again in consideration, staring at her unblinkingly for an uncomfortably long period of time. ”Have you been there?”
Wolves in our own skin, we're savages; we act so primitive.
The Cove. Oh, I’ve never been there, but I have certainly heard stories. Not so much of the current residents, because our family has been away for quite some time. No, but I have heard my family’s stories of the Cove’s infamy, of a man named Khaos who brutalized Dad’s friend Noellen. Who mutilated Dad when he tried to rescue his starshine girl, nearly killed him, left him crippled and broken and bleeding out onto the Meadow’s already blood-drenched ground.
And of Grandma Quark’s ruthless, glorious vengeance. The way she tore Khaos’s soul from his body, tortured and mutilated and branded him the way he had done to her son. The way she left the iron statue with a dragon’s eye carved into his shoulder as a warning to any who would dare fuck with her family.
This strange man who stands too close for comfort is from the Cove.
I turn back to him, wary curiosity replacing my friendly smile. “I haven’t, no. But I’ve heard things. About an iron horse and a dragon.” I wonder if his body still stands sentinel over what were once his lands. If Grandma’s mark is still branded into his iron skin. That’s one of the old stories she wouldn’t show me, wouldn’t take me into potential enemy territory just to satisfy my curiosity. Oh, and I want to see. But I’m also not quite stupid enough to ask a strange, kind of intimidating man, who very well might have reason to hate my family, to take me home and show me his iron idol.
Still. Ohhhh still. “Does...is Khaos still there?”
I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate
The Cove has lived on in infamy, from the time his father had ruled until the present day. His lavender brother has been ruthless in his pursuit of glory, and Beqanna remembers him for it. Raelynx is more quiet, his pain a much more insidious kind. He has never felt the need to proclaim himself loudly to the world. Those with the ability, the aptness, would find him. Eventually. He is patient where his brother and father were not.
And now, the Cove is his. And so it would follow him in this way.
He knows not the story of his father's death. Khaos, the one his siblings have worshipped as an iron god. Though he shares many things with his kin, this is not one of them. He does not follow the iron god (no, his god is much darker, much greater), and so, his fate would not enrage him as it might have Kirin.
But her questions inspire a curiosity in him (one pale in comparison to what should be felt, but far more than he normally feels). Many know of the Cove, of the atrocities committed there, but few remember Khaos (memory is so blessedly short here. It is how they so easily remain, so blithely continue their work). That this woman knows of him is… interesting.
A slow, awful smile curves his lips as he considers the possibilities. ”He is,” the burned stallion growls, pressing closer in an almost intimate manner. ”I am… surprised you know of him.” His voice drops then, lowering into a near whisper as that terrible grin widens. ”I could show you.”
Wolves in our own skin, we're savages; we act so primitive.
Oh, I should say no. I should definitely, definitely say no. Accepting his invitation would be so stupid, I don’t even have words to express it. His scarred skin is almost touching me, and there’s a wicked little edge to that grin that almost makes my skin crawl, or...I don’t know, tingle in a weird way. Not good exactly, but somehow not quite bad either.
Be smart, Dara. My dads would kill me if I wandered off with a strange man, especially one from the Cove, if he’s one of Khaos’s brood. And since he knows the name of the iron corpse, there’s a good chance he’s exactly that. Don’t be dumb. Doooon’t be dumb, Dara-girl. What kind of example would you be setting for the little floofs?
Ohhh but it’s the one place Grandma Quark wouldn’t take me. The one story whose setting I haven’t seen first hand. And I want to. God, I want to see. I’ve heard the story of how brightly Grandma’s fury burned, of how ruthless she was in pursuit of vengeance for my dad’s near murder. I want to see for myself, want to see the brand she carved into his iron skin, want to see the wounds she melted into him.
And what if the Cove gets swallowed up just like the Deserts was? What if we’d waited just a little too long to go visit, and I’d never gotten to see the land where Grandma Noct and Grandma Quark lived while she was pregnant with Aunt Xero? An aunt I’ve never met, but still, she’s family. She’s blood, and it was one of Grandma’s happy places. I almost missed out.
Oh, I open my mouth to say no, I swear I do. But what comes out instead is a good bit closer to yes. “He made quite an impression on my family,” I answer, searching his strange grey eyes, torn between knowing it’s a stupid, stupid idea and a ridiculously huge mistake, and this craving clawing at my insides. I glance over my shoulder again, considering. “Iiii don’t know. How long would it take to get there and back, do you think?”
