[open] shadows fall over my heart; - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: River (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=82) +---- Thread: [open] shadows fall over my heart; (/showthread.php?tid=27385) |
shadows fall over my heart; - Cineres - 07-02-2020 How did we do it? How did we make it out of such an awful place alive? I found myself wondering that more and more as time went on, we were so little when everything was happening. I would follow the tangles of memory whenever it got too quiet and I gave myself too much time to think, much like tonight. I thought about how Mama named me after the ashes of our home, she told me once, because maybe one day I would be able to rise above them. My name would be a constant reminder of the ruins we came from and I would always want to be better than that. Better than the savages that ripped our country apart. She died not long after that and I was alone for a while. At least, until the enemy soldiers found me and took me to some canyon where the other orphans were kept. Colts were killed, no questions asked. Fillies were considered spoils of war and we would be given to someone, one day, when we were old enough so that our lines could be bred out and our mothers and fathers would be forgotten. I was frightened and alone, and to make matters worse, my clan wasn't exactly well-liked even before the war, so the other girls took to avoiding me at first. All except Evarae. She was a peculiarly happy face in a crowd of otherwise bleak children, her butterfly wings made her stand out even more so from the others; I couldn't understand her joy when being different made her valuable, when being so pretty made her a target. As young as I was, I understood that the leering of the soldiers who guarded us wasn't a good thing, but she did her best to stave off my fears and to cheer me up. Despite my often morose demeanor, she would find me everyday and we would play and have fun despite our circumstances. Others joined in and soon we all became fast friends. Sometimes, even the young soldiers would join in on our antics but that was quickly put to an end one day when a higher-ranking member caught them and they were taken away to be punished. We never saw those young stallions ever again. After that, things seemed to get worse. I'm not sure if that caused it or the fact our enemies were winning the war, but soon, they started taking the older girls away. One by one. Until it was really just the group we often played with. I remember Evarae waking us all up one morning, I remember the panic in her voice. I remember her leading us up to the top of the canyon and I remember running until it felt like my heart was going to explode in my chest. There were loud booms behind us, explosions—fire. Someone was trying desperately to burn us all alive, to stop us from reaching the edge of the cliffs and the ocean that lay beyond. My wings weren't strong enough to carry me yet, but I don't think she realized that. Some of us were too young, too little, but taking that leap of faith into the ocean was better than whatever fate lay behind us and we all knew that. So when we got to the edge, we jumped. Some of us flew away, but others—like me—we plummeted into the water below. I stared up for what felt like forever, watching the sunlight filter down through the waves and smiling because up above me I could see my friends silhouettes and I watched them fly away. They looked like angels. I accepted that I was going to die, I was okay with it, despite being so little. Because in my mind, I had made the best of friends and my last days, despite being a prisoner of war, had been some of my best. Never in a million years, when I started blacking out, did I ever think I would end up washing up on some other beach. I didn't look like the locals so they kept me at a distance, scared, nervous of what I might do. I spent the next couple of years neglected and isolated and, well, learning how to fly. I got pretty good at it, actually. But honestly, no matter how good you are, you can only fly so far until your wings get tired and I had pushed myself well behind my limits a few hundred miles ago. I zigged and zagged on currents of air, my hazel eyes narrowing in on some white slip of beach below. I began my descent, much less gracefully than I normally would have managed, my legs already moving as I prepared to hit the sand at a full run. Grains of it sprayed out all around me and I just kept right on going, tucking my wings in close to me. I darted past the trees so fast they blurred together, my blood hammering in my ears, my nostrils flaring. I kept running until I found myself traveling alongside a river, I kept running until my legs wanted to give out. I didn't stop until I was made to. I skidded, sliding to a halt at a base of a tree so large that I couldn't believe it. My mouth fell open and I peered up into its moonlit branches in wonder. [ooc: Evarae mentioned with Taz's permission.] RE: shadows fall over my heart; - cringe - 07-03-2020 how to be a monster: 1. learn the taste of dirt and pain. 2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed. 3. see if that makes it easier to breathe. cringe @[Cineres] RE: shadows fall over my heart; - Nilam - 07-05-2020 Nilam Her early life had been one of jealousy and superiority, and she’s never wanted anything else. Of course, she heard about her father’s exposure - he’d done something stupid, taking some leader’s children. Perhaps he had become overconfident, but such a thing wouldn’t happen to the blue Nilam. Oh, no. She was becoming a mother herself, after all. And in her pregnancy, more hungry than she ever felt before. First, she’d taken the child’s father. After all, it was his fault that she was pregnant, so he could feed her and the baby for a while. The child had better be kelpie, she figured, and maybe letting it taste the blood of it’s maker would help force such a trait into existence. By now, however, she had long since digested him, and the other sea creatures just weren’t as tasty. The river was her best chance of finding something more hearty than white fish-meat quickly, but it took her a while to get adjusted to the cleaner water. When she finally picked up the scent of someone broken, she was no longer the only hunter. Another had approached; the vanta black filly was talking to a gold-hinted, cream looking stallion. If he didn’t have that predatory look about him, he would have been her preferred victim. For now, she just decided to play along. ”I could take you home, if you want.” Her tail moves lazily in the river water, her smile is easy and though it shows her sharper teeth, it is also charming and dazzling, a magic that true kelpies so often have. Her gleaming sapphire and gold figure must look attractive - so much so that any other horse might easily forget that her teeth are indeed pointy, her jaw slightly longer than a normal horse’s, and that she is every bit the predator they should fear. What they see is a pretty young woman, just like her child’s father. And should they see through it after all... well, there’s more than one trick up her sleeve. there is no new wave only the sea @[Cineres], @[cringe] RE: shadows fall over my heart; - Cineres - 07-11-2020 “You seem lost.” I jolted, scrambling backwards—clearly startled, because they had found me. They had found me, they found me and they were going to take me back to that awful place; they found me, at long last, and were going to do terrible things to me. And once they were done, they were going to burn me alive. They found me, they found me—I took a deep breath, my eyes finding his as best they could in the dark. A tingling numbness had swept over my body from the shock. I couldn’t run now, even if I wanted to, so I took my time studying his face in the moonlight and felt myself slowly relax. My ears slid forwards to listen more easily, all of my muscles went slack. I almost laughed, the breath escaping through my nose in the form of a soft snort. Those soldiers and their horrors were an ocean away now. What did I have to be afraid of? The corners of my mouth slid upwards to form a small, apologetic smile. “You scared me,” I said, a shiver snaking its way down my spine. I felt… something odd, but the feeling was quick. Fleeting. I didn’t know what he was capable of and I let him right in. “I am Cineres, who are—” “I can take you home.” I stiffened, turning my head to peer curiously at the pointy-toothed woman. She was something else, something wild, something beautiful, something otherworldly. I didn’t really feel worthy of being in her presence. “I don’t want to go home,” I told her, frowning. I’m not sure what compelled me to do it, really, but I found myself inching closer to the handsome stallion, slightly unnerved by the gorgeous female’s presence. My wings fidgeted nervously at my sides. Was I really so insecure? @[cringe] @[Nilam] RE: shadows fall over my heart; - cringe - 07-22-2020 how to be a monster: 1. learn the taste of dirt and pain. 2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed. 3. see if that makes it easier to breathe. cringe @[Nilam] @[Cineres] RE: shadows fall over my heart; - Nilam - 08-08-2020 Nilam The stallion on the riverbank... he is something else. Something alike. A predator in perhaps a less literal sense of the word than goes for her; but honestly she doesn’t care. It’s the victim, the girl, that she is more interested in; girls, especially pretty ones, seem to be ones she usually... likes instead of just... discards. That stallion, were he not a predator in every sense of the word that she recognized, might have been in more trouble where it concerned Nilam-the-monster. ”There are, indeed,” she admits casually when he mentions that there are monsters. ”They only look different from the ones you already know?” she ends her sentence in a bit of a question, guessing at the girl’s jumpiness and not wanting to go home. ”I could take you to my home’s waters, if that’s better with you.” she offers the girl - then regards the stallion, her eyes saying you too, I suppose, in one shrugging motion of her half-submerged body. The stallion asks the question that Nilam doesn’t think Cineres - if that’s her name then - wants to answer, wants to think about. For now, she lets it happen, but should he scare her away she will have to intervene the next time. There is always a next time for Nilam... perhaps, she wonders, she should ‘save’ the girl from a monster. As long as he doesn’t know about her little sideways gift, she can try and endless amount of times anyway. there is no new wave only the sea @[Cineres] |