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+---- Thread: [private] oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] (/showthread.php?tid=24428)
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - Kagerus - 07-30-2019
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - lilliana - 08-03-2019
Life hadn’t been perfect – but then again, when was life ever perfect? There are too many shades, too many dimensions that hint at things much deeper. Perfection, to Lilli at least, is something that exists on the surface of a smile or the sparkle of an eye. Murmuring Rivers hadn’t been an ancient kingdom. It had no claim in history as the site of something illustrious or important. There were no rulers that came from the small realm that had helped shaped the lands around them or did anything notable enough that was able to be recalled by later generations. Murmuring Rivers had been just as it sounded – a land of many flowing streams that were protected by the imperial mountains that surrounded them.
The herd had been a small band. It had mainly been the remainder of her father’s mares that hadn’t wanted to or couldn’t go to Windskeep. It had been the young and the old, the pregnant and the sick who had stayed behind when the war cry came. By the time that Lilli had arrived, Valerio’s last-child, the land had been quiet and still. There had been no abundance of foals to play with. There had been no aunts or uncles to tell her stories. The life that her elder siblings had known had been long gone by the time Lilliana came along and she only knew the remnants of it through their own words and memories. She learned of the many family members that had once dwelled together in a place called Paraiso, the place where all her siblings had been born and the place she should have been born as well. She learned of the siblings and cousins that raced and romped in groups across the open meadow at the heart of the ancient valley. She was told time and time again about the glistening lake that lay beneath the mighty falls whose majestic roar could be heard from almost every corner of their paradise.
Life in Paraiso hadn’t been perfect but it had been theirs and it had been a place where her family had been all together. To a little girl yearning to know so much about the father and the family members she never knew, it had sounded magical.
If Lilli had any inclination of the things that were to come (if she could have been blessed with the Sight like her cousins Marcelo or Ori), she would have clutched those precious days in Murmuring Rivers even closer to her heart because while her family might have been small, it had not been broken. Not really. Her family had been different in from the traditional sense of having a mother and father. Lilli had her dappled dam and then there had been Malachi, trying to follow in the hoofprints left behind by their heroic and honorable father, attempting a role as a father figure. But then there had been kind Marcelo and sweet Brynn with her own large brood that always found themselves tangled in with her siblings. And then Elaina had come, giving Lilli the sister she had so badly needed.
Valerio might have been gone and Murmuring Rivers might have been a paler, minor kingdom in terms of glory and grandeur than Paraiso had been but it had been the home Lilli had known with the family she had grown up with.
On a gray day in Spring, when Lilli is feeling lost and lonely, she loses herself in memories. The way that Malachi’s dark mocha eyes warm when he laughs. The look on Kalina’s face as she glances over to her children as they play. The sweetness of Kildare’s laughter as he runs. The determined and fierce gaze of her silver mother, brave and resolute in her conviction to provide for her children, for Brynn and the others left behind in the wake of war. The shocking silver blue of eyes so like her own as they gaze down to her, realization coming on Valerio’s face as he looks down to his daughter for the first time. The mischievous smile of Elaina as she bumps her shoulder into Lilli’s, daring her to tell a secret or to test yet another boundary. Orani as she cries into her shoulder insisting that she fine though Lilli feels like the world has fallen apart. The intensity of Broch’s gaze as she drowns in it, his beautiful lilting voice asking when he could see her again.
That tugs at her heartstrings, a hard tug of grief and guilt and she has to banish all of them away. She doesn’t know why she comes back here time and time again, why she relives all the things that hurt her so badly. Part of the reason for coming to Beqanna had been the point to leave all that behind her, to not be left behind ever again. How foolish she is to still think that. There is still enough youthful innocence in Lilli to not yet understand that sometimes there is no other choice than to leave, hoping the ones you leave behind you can someday forgive you. And Lilli, as the one who has been left behind twice now, has struggled with finding that forgiveness and only finding a way to blame herself.
The wave rushes through her, twisting her heart in a knot until it falls into the pit of her stomach where it threatens to linger. The gray of the clouds above matches her current mood. There is nothing bright or shining about this spring day. Her beloved flowers kept their petals closed and the shades of spring come so much duller today than they have in the past. Her mind is numb, empty because if she opens it the emotion will come rushing in and cripple her. The barren is a safe place to hide today. Her movements are instinctual and she walks to the place that has always brought her comfort – the running sound of water as it pours over the rocks, as it rushes it way past her. While this isn’t home, there is something familiar in the scent of clean and sweet water.
So Lilli, with absolutely nowhere else to go, goes there.
She draws closer to the side of the river, can see the current dancing and hear it bubbling as it moves. The long grasses move just enough in the light breeze to part and for the briefest of moments, Lilli thinks she sees something. There are colors there that don’t belong to the drab sky above or its reflection in the moving water below. It is a stark shade of rich brown exposed in ribbons through the grasses, the fresh scent of water replaced by something more earthy and like herself, another horse. There is an urgency in her steps that weren’t there before, replaced by the worry that there is something actually in the stream. The grasses are pushes aside and her blue eyes come to find the form of Kagerus who seems so beautiful, something about her so pristine to Lilliana.
But her brief admiration for the loveliness of the overo is replaced with the more immediate concern that she is laying in the river. She ambles down the small slope, her own chiseled face reaching towards Kagerus, hoping for what? There is panic at the back of the mind as she wonders what she will do if the painted mare is hurt or injured. What can Lilliana possibly do for her? ”Miss,” she tries, hoping her voice comes out steady. Her attempt to reach Kagerus has been more of an amble, of sliding down the bank until she finds herself in water past her ankles. It is bitingly cold as it moves past her. ”Miss,” Lilli tries again as the whites of Kagerus’s eyes show, ”Can you hear me?” Her blue eyes scan urgently over the mare, looking for signs of harm or injury. ”Are you hurt?”
@[Kagerus]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - Kagerus - 08-08-2019
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
@[lilliana]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - lilliana - 08-10-2019
Lilli stands, the water rushing past her in a way that makes her all too aware of how bitterly cold it is. Each moment that Kagerus languishes in the river, Lilli feels her pulse race faster and faster as she struggles not to panic. All she can think of is that if this mare is seriously injured, her options of what she can do for her are severely limited. What limited healing abilities she had have long vanished since her arrival into Beqanna and her knowledge of this land is even more limited. If she is needed to find a healer or any assistance at all, her mind is reeling through the options of what she knows and where she should go. The thought of leaving Kagerus here is something that is unbearable. It is another agonizing thought that Lilli grapples with - if she would even be capable of leaving her.
Kagerus speaks and Lilli feels a rush of relief though she knows the mare isn't out of the woods yet. She lowers her delicate head to the mare, the ends of her mane becoming soaked by the waters current as they float on top. "Miss," she tries again, making sure her words are clear and concise. She doesn't know what is strange but Lilli thinks that if she can beckon Kagerus to awareness then they stand a chance of getting her out of the water, away from the frigid current and away from the imminent death that would have awaited her there if she remained. Her blue eyes seek out Kagerus's, locking as she peers out into the world. An expression of pain and struggle crosses the features of the other mare and Lilli lowers her head, even more, wanting to offer some kind of comfort to the painted mare. She tries to speak again and Lilli takes a careful step away, still observing her with concern.
Kagerus stands and Lilli watches closely, trying to gauge if and when her help is needed. There is still a sense of urgency from where the chestnut stands, her stance alert and gaze attentively as the other mare finds her footing. When the mare does stand, Lilli gazes over her again with a close eye, trying to discern for any obvious injuries that might prove fatal or at least critical. For the briefest of seconds, her gaze does take in the scar that adorns her face. It reminds her of the one that Valerio brought home from battle, the one that should have claimed his life. It should have been an ugly thing, a blemish on an otherwise perfect and impressive physique. Instead, it served as a reminder that he had almost been taken from him. A reminder that each and every moment of this life is fleeting and precious.
The thought is there in Lilli's mind as she wonders what battles this mare has seen, what struggles she has endured to earn such a scar. But the shaking of her body disrupts that and it is immediately addressed by the petite chestnut. It is only words that follow that catch her off guard, that startle her. "Dead?" she asks, the expression on her face perplexed and not fully realizing the full extent of Kagerus's words. She wants to ask for an explanation, an elaboration of the words that she has given but there is no time for that. The two-toned mare steps forward and Lilli takes a step as well to meet her, trying to come to where Kagerus is. Instinctively she angles her body in such a way that she hopes to catch her, steady her somehow but Lilli fails.
Kagerus stumbles and Lilli offers her body again hoping that she might be able to find some source of stability from her.
"Of course," the chestnut answers without hesitancy, replying to Kagerus's request. Lilli stands strong against the current, ready to accept the weight of Kagerus if she wishes to lean into her. The other mare drops her head low, almost greeting the river and worry comes again in her own gaze. "Please,"Lilli says, welcoming and inviting the other mare to rely on her. "How can I help?"
@[Kagerus]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - Kagerus - 08-18-2019
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
@[lilliana]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - lilliana - 08-20-2019
She should be afraid. This place is wrong somehow, tilted and skewed in a way that the waking world isn’t. The world had fallen away, had melted and shifted. It had been an effortless thing, as simple as breathing, to follow Kagerus here. But the how and why of it are hazy, blurred lines that have receded to this place.
She should be scared. Lilli knows that fear should be claiming her mortal mind. The River, the place where she and Kagerus had been just moments before is gone. Somehow the world has fallen away and the chestnut mare finds herself here, in this place of everywhere and nowhere. Her mind tries (and fails) to grasp for a reason, trying to find a thread of thought that will be able to turn this reality into something logical.
But for as much as she reaches for it, it slips past her, refusing to be explained.
Peace. This is all she knows. It wraps around her like the security of Elaina’s golden form under Hyaline's night sky, like the enveloping embrace of her mother.
Stars fall around them both and it takes Lilli a moment to realize that Kagerus is here and that she no longer struggles. She searches for the lovely painted mare, blue eyes gazing and glancing through the veil of dream. She thinks she feels her beside her but when the crimson mare can finally make out forms and shadows, Kagerus vanishes into the mist around her.
She should be afraid but she isn’t.
Kagerus speaks but she isn’t speaking, not in the normal way. The gentle incantation of her voice comes from within the walls of Lilli’s mind, from the place where her own hopes and fears guide her. A touch, featherlight and redeeming comes on her shoulder. The muscle doesn’t flinch and the girl finds herself welcoming it. She relishes it instead of unease or worry. Lilli can’t feel those emotions here; she feels freer, lighter than she has been in.. since she can no longer recall.
”You owe me nothing,” she whispers, mystified and still searching through the haze of this place. And then she smiles, a hopeful thing that graces her features. The expression on her face changes as she feels the laughter of Kagerus around her – a wonderful, bubbling thing that wakes the joy inside Lilli. ”Will you tell me?” she asks in a quiet tone, awed and marveling at what wonderful thing Kagerus might be.
Goddess? Deity? Divinity?
The seam splits and Lilli feels like she is being told a secret, that she is being shared something sacred and special. The young mare sees Kagerus as she had known her before the dream, in the form of a mortal equine. Love touches Lilli’s face. She warms with it and it expels the last of her shadows, takes away the last of her doubts. Everything about her is bright and surges with joy, is overwhelmed with happiness for Kagerus and this golden mare, for their family.
Love, after all, is the great illuminator of life, able to drive out all darkness.
”Kagerus...” she murmurs, repeating the name softly to herself. She clings to it, some part of her afraid that this really is a just dream and she will wake up to remember none of this beauty.
Somehow, in a way that she isn’t sure of (and much like the magic of the Mountain), she is able to conjure images for Kagerus. Had this been anywhere but the dreamscape, the chestnut might not have revealed so much. (It is, after all, much harder to put emotions and memories and lives led into words than to simply show.)
So Lilli reveals her most beloved of memories, pours them out in a torrent of love – scrawny and wild Elaina at their first meeting, amber eyes blazing with fire. Aletta, her silver mother, bathed in moonlight and star shine in such a lonely way that made Lilli’s heartache. She shows her golden Valerio with his stoic blue eyes, her father so impossibly sure and brave in a changing world. She shows her siblings, her family when they had been thriving and unbroken. Each memory rolls along and Lilli revels in it, a ferocity that builds in her chest with the ache of missing and loving them.
”I’m Lilli,” she says to the dreamweaver as the seam fades. On the edges of twilight, she looks again for Kagerus, searching for some particle of her. ”What are you?” comes her voice again, hushed with wonder. ”And what is this place?”
@[Kagerus]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - Kagerus - 08-24-2019
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
@[lilliana]
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - lilliana - 08-26-2019
She wonders if blushing is possible here. Can she feel the heat in her cheeks, creeping up her neck? It’s not the first compliment she has heard concerning her name but coming from Kagerus, it takes on a new meaning. The edges of her mouth curve up in pleasure, her blue eyes warming with delight. The world changes again, ripples and waves into something new, something no less beautiful than what was before. The pressure on her shoulder lifts and the chestnut mare finds her gaze searching through grays and pastels of the dreamscape, trying to find where the lovely wonder has gone.
From the blending of the colors, from the place where the sunrise and horizon meet, Kagerus dawns.
When the overo mare reaches out to Lilli, the crimson girl finds herself voluntary reaching towards the other mare. Their noses meet and the smile spreads, shining through the silver-blue eyes that meet Kagerus’s own. The laughter dances around them, twirls like a girl might around her first Maypole. “You are beautiful,” the chestnut replies. It is meant as a compliment but there is a determination in it, a stubbornness in Lilli that refuses that Kagerus could be anything but the ethereal being she is. Her voice comes softer now but the conviction remains, ”Surely you come from where the sweetest dreams dwell.”
The words are breathless, full of the dream itself.
Her ears pick up Kagerus’s next words and Lilli lifts her head, eager to hear what her sleeping companion has to say. That is my true identity. Hers. It is a beautiful, dazzling truth in this place and Lilli’s heart catches in her throat. ”You are two halves of the same whole,” she muses, half smiling. But the dream billows again, concern coming out in echoes around them. ”You lost her?” It is a story that Lilli knows well. Her gaze drops for a moment as she remembers. Was that was love then? Losing yourself again and again until eventually, you found it in someone else?
Somehow her heart has found its way back into her throat again. But the pain is paler here; the anguish and the regret are not so easily evoked here as they are in the light of day.
Kagerus invites Lilli to look around again, summoning the magic and miracle of this place. She listens to the melody of her words, the lightheartedness of them. Her smile catches again, unable to keep away from the charm of the dreamscape and its hostess. Lilli’s companion invites to her test this place, to create, to imagine, to dream without limitation. This place is full of infinite possibilities. There are so many things that Lilli has wondered about, has yearned for and in this moment that yearning comes as something else. It starts as a single word, a thought simply dwelling in her mind.
The chestnut tilts her head, a shy smile forming on her lips. ”Can I show you something?” Tentatively, hesitant like hands afraid they might shatter something fragile, she summons the thought into a line of words. Home. Home. Home. The word comes over and over again from the recesses of her mind, bounces of the edges of the dream until a trail appears. It hugs the edge of a bank and where the path isn’t immediately bonded with the stream, Lupines appear in all their early summer glory. Blues, purples, pinks and white all dot the river bend they find themselves in. The air is sweet with their scent, full and rich with the smell of summer.
Her lips part and she can’t catch the sound of longing that comes from her throat. This bend is imprinted on her heart, etched on along the cracks and places that Lilli so desperately longs to hide. Her face is a picture of yearning. She had been a girl when she had seen this place last and perhaps its perfection is a telltale sign of a child’s memory. But this, this was where she had been happiest. The days spent in this very spot where she and Elaina had vanquished dragons, toppled kingdoms, had shared the deepest of their worries and the highest of their hopes.
She swallows and turns her attention back to Kagerus, wondering if the other mare can know how beholden Lilli feels to her. Her blue eyes meet the nutmeg of Kagerus and Lilli smiles again. There have been days, so many days, where she feels like she is drowning and at this moment it feels as if the dreamweaver is the one who pulled her from the water.
Kagerus has restored something lost to her though she struggles to determine what that is through the haze of this place.
”Tell me what I can do to help,” the young mare says softly, as steadfast in this wish here as she had been in the corporeal realm. ”Whatever aid I’m able to provide, I promise you have it. I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go. I’ll help you find your wife. Whatever I can do to help, I will.”
From the blending of the colors, from the place where the sunrise and horizon meet, Kagerus dawns.
When the overo mare reaches out to Lilli, the crimson girl finds herself voluntary reaching towards the other mare. Their noses meet and the smile spreads, shining through the silver-blue eyes that meet Kagerus’s own. The laughter dances around them, twirls like a girl might around her first Maypole. “You are beautiful,” the chestnut replies. It is meant as a compliment but there is a determination in it, a stubbornness in Lilli that refuses that Kagerus could be anything but the ethereal being she is. Her voice comes softer now but the conviction remains, ”Surely you come from where the sweetest dreams dwell.”
The words are breathless, full of the dream itself.
Her ears pick up Kagerus’s next words and Lilli lifts her head, eager to hear what her sleeping companion has to say. That is my true identity. Hers. It is a beautiful, dazzling truth in this place and Lilli’s heart catches in her throat. ”You are two halves of the same whole,” she muses, half smiling. But the dream billows again, concern coming out in echoes around them. ”You lost her?” It is a story that Lilli knows well. Her gaze drops for a moment as she remembers. Was that was love then? Losing yourself again and again until eventually, you found it in someone else?
Somehow her heart has found its way back into her throat again. But the pain is paler here; the anguish and the regret are not so easily evoked here as they are in the light of day.
Kagerus invites Lilli to look around again, summoning the magic and miracle of this place. She listens to the melody of her words, the lightheartedness of them. Her smile catches again, unable to keep away from the charm of the dreamscape and its hostess. Lilli’s companion invites to her test this place, to create, to imagine, to dream without limitation. This place is full of infinite possibilities. There are so many things that Lilli has wondered about, has yearned for and in this moment that yearning comes as something else. It starts as a single word, a thought simply dwelling in her mind.
The chestnut tilts her head, a shy smile forming on her lips. ”Can I show you something?” Tentatively, hesitant like hands afraid they might shatter something fragile, she summons the thought into a line of words. Home. Home. Home. The word comes over and over again from the recesses of her mind, bounces of the edges of the dream until a trail appears. It hugs the edge of a bank and where the path isn’t immediately bonded with the stream, Lupines appear in all their early summer glory. Blues, purples, pinks and white all dot the river bend they find themselves in. The air is sweet with their scent, full and rich with the smell of summer.
Her lips part and she can’t catch the sound of longing that comes from her throat. This bend is imprinted on her heart, etched on along the cracks and places that Lilli so desperately longs to hide. Her face is a picture of yearning. She had been a girl when she had seen this place last and perhaps its perfection is a telltale sign of a child’s memory. But this, this was where she had been happiest. The days spent in this very spot where she and Elaina had vanquished dragons, toppled kingdoms, had shared the deepest of their worries and the highest of their hopes.
She swallows and turns her attention back to Kagerus, wondering if the other mare can know how beholden Lilli feels to her. Her blue eyes meet the nutmeg of Kagerus and Lilli smiles again. There have been days, so many days, where she feels like she is drowning and at this moment it feels as if the dreamweaver is the one who pulled her from the water.
Kagerus has restored something lost to her though she struggles to determine what that is through the haze of this place.
”Tell me what I can do to help,” the young mare says softly, as steadfast in this wish here as she had been in the corporeal realm. ”Whatever aid I’m able to provide, I promise you have it. I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go. I’ll help you find your wife. Whatever I can do to help, I will.”
LILLIANA
i left home on account of snow
(buried all the things i know)
(buried all the things i know)
@[Kagerus] sorry for any typos.. Lil was excited <3
RE: oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream... [star pony] - Kagerus - 09-13-2019
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
@[lilliana]