In a world of vivid colors and gnashing teeth, she stands a smudge that draws the eye unwillingly. Beqanna is an entity of flying beasts and horned hellions that cut the cold winter air with sharp words and bellows of war. It is as if she were in a time capsule, sleeping deeply, a creature of only rose dapple and without fang or claw. A simple mare to the eye, tall with a pretty face, having seen much in the depths of her simple dark eyes.
She is in the field as though it is foreign to her. When she has been young she had attempted to find a home but it had failed along the walk with a blind stallion to a land far from her own eyes. Along the way she had been lost despite the efforts to find a home built upon security and community.
Oona is quiet as she watches how snow falls in the dying gold of a winter sunset. A chill ripples her rosey skin for a moment while small clouds form and fall from the edge of her lips. A sadness edges the brim of her dark eyes as she hates herself for returning to the lands of unwanted and untouched.
But a broken plaything left along a dirt road of ruin.
Patient and silent, the sun ends its evening prayers as a thin sliver of gold, the sky growing heavy with a darkness littered with star dust from a thousand silent wishes.
There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'
for every tyrant, a tear for the vulnerable in every lost soul, the bones of a miracle
The shadows grow long and she knows she should be home. Night is waiting in the wings for curtain call, and she should most certainly be sweetly secure in Hyaline, but the world is bigger even than those mountains and the love she has for them. Sometimes hours and hours must be spent in pursuit of the mysteries of the world, obligations must be set aside in search of one singular and imperfect moment or another.
Tonight that moment is the sight as the last flare of sunlight burns The Mountain, turning it into a jagged molten tooth, Hyaline’s many splendored peaks glowing orange molars behind it. The light dies fast, slithering back, retreating away to the coast, beyond the reach of her eyes. The stars fill in the empty sky, infinite, making rivers in the blackness. Kensa admires those rivers as they weave through islands of dark clouds, unreachable. The field grows emptier as the night rises up around them until she at last notices that all the familiar faces have drifted away.
In the new darkness, blue and shadowed, the wandering Primarch’s eyes settle on the dappled mare who lingers here. She cannot know why this one has not gone off to bed or familiar haunt. Maybe this is as familiar a place as any to the other woman. Perpetual curiosity turns her pale hooves toward the mare, and she reaches out in greeting, bold but gentle. “It’s a beautiful night, if cold. I’m Kensa.” Far off in the woods, a creature calls to another of its kind. Ears flick, and she says. “Where do you come from?”
kensa
for every dreamer, a dream. we're unstoppable with something to believe in.
And this small act of kindness grounds her. A small tether of warmth over frozen ground and beating hearts, the gilded edged ivory mare makes herself known in a gentle way. Oona is silently thankful to see another face despite her comfort in her own companionship.
The dappled mare is melting into the hungry shadows that extend with jagged fingers before the sun winks out. They stand alone -but together- as the rise and fall of their frozen breathes hang like unspoken confessions. Oona offers a tight smile but the act is lost beneath the stars. She gives a polite dip of her head to acknowledge the other mare. "It is very beautiful." She exhales the four words wistfully, her voice low as though they were two fillies who shared a secret. "I'm Oona-", the vowels of her name are nearly a coo, "I'm from nowhere."
It was not a lie but it was not entirely true. Oona had tried once before to find a home but fate decided else...but it was neither here nor there so the irrelevancy of it all kept the fact buried. "What about you?" The question is captured in a small fog from her lips. The other was far too pretty and clean to be a nomad or some man's whore. She smelled pleasant and walked with a tight gracefulness that accompanied most diplomatic creatures.
Perception was everything.
Ears are offered as she awaits Kensa's reply, curious and relaxed, wondering what the frozen starry night could bring.
There was a star riding through clouds one night, & I said to the star, 'Consume me'
The shadows have grown long and heavy in her absence, but is not unusual for the blue and white woman to spend the long hours of the night casting out into the world. It is an ideal time for those who wish to remain unobtrusive and unseen. And for someone like Heartfire, the lack of sunlight is hardly a barrier to her activities.
It’s true this land is brimming with the odd and unusual. The brightly colored and the outlandish of guise. Though she is not one of them, she has seen more than enough of the world to know it becomes less and less common with each passing day to find one who lacks such embellishments. Once upon a time, they might have been rare (she had seen that time, though not in person. Still, it is a curious thing), but no longer.
Sometimes though, it behooves one to blend so well they might fade into the background. Sometimes, it is better to be so unnoticeable.
And that is perhaps why Heartfire so often takes note of the seemingly unnotable. Why she might now choose to approach a lovely dappled mare in the meadow though she appears to be a creature of the most ordinary variety. Why she so easily looks past that, to the woman beneath.
To a woman who seeks a purpose.
She is all but invisible in the thick shadows of the early evening as she approaches the duo, but she makes no effort to remain unnoticed. Her eyes are sharp, piercing the darkness to unerringly find the two woman. Her gaze passes curiously over the golden-tipped woman who smells of Hyaline before settling on the dapple rose. There is nothing remarkable in the mottled pewter and white of her slim form, nothing to make her stand apart from any other unless you count the startling blue of her eyes. Of course, in this world, it would be a mistake to discount anything.
“Hello,” she greets them, her voice a smooth, low lilt. She watches Oona curiously for a moment before continuing rather boldly, “We are all from somewhere, but that’s hardly what matters, is it?” She tilts her head slightly, the corners of her lips quirking in a barely there upturn. “I’m far more interested in where you’re going.”
Her gaze turns then to the other mare briefly, eyeing the woman momentarily before glancing back at Oona. Finally she introduces herself, as directly as she had greeted them. “I am Heartfire.”
