"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
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He is standing in the surf, the tips of his wings soaked in salt water where they drag behind him, and sunrise is tinging the water along the horizon a dark color as if blood is dripping into it. He reaches down to touch his own reflection, and the next moment he is in Sylva, the leaves around his hooves the same yellows, oranges, and reds of the sunrise over Ischia. The bay king lifts his head and considers the forest, briefly thinks that perhaps he should have brought Jesper or Belgaer along with him – but then he discards the thought as quickly as it had come. After all, there is little they can do to harm Brennen, but his son and grandson are infinitely more fragile. On a more personal note, he doesn’t want Belgaer to see his sister the way she is, the thing she has become that would allow her nephew tortured and her younger sisters murdered.
Brennen isn’t sure he wants to see her like this, again.
Something isn’t right in the forest. Or, well, something is different. Things have not been right in this forest for a long time. But one thing that simply isn’t here at all, as he stretches his senses across the forest debris, is his daughter. Astarael has been here, and recently, but she is not here now. Brennen feels endlessly guilty for the brief rush of relief that sweeps through him: if Astarael is not here, with her fury and her hurt and her strange insistence that Brennen has somehow ever loved her less, treated her as less than her siblings, perhaps the rest of Sylva will see reason. They will not harbor the murderer of his daughters, of Krone, and the Allied Kingdoms will not feel they need to bring any threat against the forest of perpetual autumn.
(He doesn’t know, about Warrick. He suspects nothing, and so he hasn’t bothered to check.)
He walks forward, in easy strides, glancing at the trees and the weird boulders and the canopy of colored leaves that obscures the sky. Dawn must have broken above him, for the light is brighter now as it filters down to the ground in dappled patterns across his brown pelt and inky black wings. On an inhalation, he tastes the crispness of the winter air and then exhales and halts beside one of the mammoth-sized rocks and then he waits, to see who will come.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
It was a crisp winter day, the air blew cold. Arthas had left Loess and claimed Sylva as his own. He did not do it fir any other reason than to strengthen both Loess and Sylva. So the powerful creatures within Sylva could finally have an outlet to ther pent up bloos lust. They finally had a ruler who would not lead them astray with false hope.
He went out to scout the land, ensuring that no horses lingered unwanted. Sylba was nearly a free ground like Taiga is, Arthas would ensure others knew it was no longer. It was not long before he picked up a sallty scent, his ears lowered to his dome the scent comes from Ischia; the same kingdom Leilan came from. This ought to be interesting he thinks to himself.
The dapple stallion heads in the direction of the scent, he passes all different colored leaves that have all fallen from there branches. Off in the distance he can finally see the lingering equine, a bay winged stallion. Arthas stops in front of the stranger, his gaze matches his Is there something in specific I can help you with? The sentence came out as polite as possible, he surely had a few other sentences to speak.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He doesn’t have to wait long, before the distant sound of hooves crunching on leaves disturbs his bubble of sunlight-filtered silence. The bay doesn’t move towards the sound: let the stranger come to him. Brennen does straighten, pulling himself to his full height and refolding his overlarge wings, the ends still damp from standing in seawater. A precise flick at the end of the folding process lays all of the feathers down neatly, and he turns his face to the leafy canopy overhead until the sounds becomes too close to ignore.
When Brennen turns his head to regard the dappled stallion, it’s not with any sort of haste. He takes his time surveying the stranger from ear-tips to the end of his tail, before finally settling his honey-brown eyes on the other man’s face. The gray smells, interestingly, of Loess more strongly than of Sylva. That doesn’t exactly put him at ease, but it doesn’t hurt. Loess, is, if not a neutral entity than at least one that has not been overtly hostile. Brennen’s dark-tipped ears are actively moving, listening for other threats, but one flicks forward to catch the stallion’s words.
The stranger doesn’t bother to introduce himself, but speaks as if he has authority to speak on behalf of the forest Kingdom, and it annoys Brennen enough that he takes his time in answering. He didn’t like the way his daughter had been acting, after she had left Ischia for Sylva, but that didn’t mean there was any particle of him that was okay with someone overthrowing one of his children – except for himself and his allies, of course, but that was different, at least to Brennen. “Yes,” he drawls in reply, and despite the warm color of his gaze locked with Arthas’, there’s nothing warm in his eyes or his voice. “My name is Brennen, King of Ischia.” Each word is chosen with care, considered and tasted fully before he releases them. “I’m looking for my daughter, Astarael, Queen of Sylva.”
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
It appeared as the stallion was already not fond of Arthas, not a shock, perhaps he realized he was the one who stole Leilan years ago. He responds with a yes, taking a few moments to respond once again, Arthas gazes as the bay stallion awaiting the reason for his visit. Finally the bay stag speaks again, this time he introduces himself as Brennen, the king of Ischia . A snort escapes his maw at the mention, so this is the king....
Brennen continues on noting he is looking for his daughter the queen of Sylva . Arthas gives a quizzical gaze to the bay stallion Queen? his voice was questioning, he looks around as if trying to remember. Queen?... he says it once more before finding the stallions gaze again Oh yes the queen...she left ages ago. No one knows where she went off to, my name is Arthas, King of Sylva. a cynical chuckle escapes his maw. The dappled stallion was in a pleasing mood today, he was big on loyalty and a queen who abandons there people is surely not loyal. Arthas would not send out search parties for her, should she come back to Sylva she would happily be exiled, or left to the Sylvans for scraps. She could run back to daddy if that is what he wanted.
I am sure that plenty of Sylva searched for there queen when she left them....then again....maybe not. He shrugs, he did not care, she was irrelevant at this point. Well Brennen, king of Ischia, your daughter is not here, do you have further business with Sylva? His gaze narrows, this meeting was over as far as Arthas was worried unless the stallion had other motives for the visit.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He is already on edge, being here in Sylva. They had, after all, either allowed or ordered the murder of two of his children. It is inhabited by the darkest of creatures, the vilest natures, and he is not a huge fan. When Arthas snorts in derision at Brennen’s title, it just pushes the bay a little closer to the edge of the tenuous control he has over his temper. Nobody wants Brennen to lose his temper right now (least of all Brennen!) – his control over the magic is too new, too uncertain. It is of the utmost importance that the King of the Krakens stays calm.
The gray’s next words don’t help the situation. The mocking tone, the jovial expression, has Brennen leaning in just slightly. The leaves underneath his hooves crackle, turning brown as the frost that is forming around his feet destroys them. “Less than a year,” Brennen’s voice is hard, because he can feel her here. It was one of the first things he mastered, after the alliance; he learned to see the ties between himself and any of his family members, to follow those ties and find them. There is nothing more important to Brennen than his family. “Astarael was here less than a year ago. You have a funny perception of time, Arthas of Loess. Strange, how you seem to have abandoned your own Kingdom to come here as soon as opportunity presented itself.”
Brennen remembers who had stolen Leilan away. He remembers almost everything. The name with the face is enough to place the history between this gray and his own Kingdom. Well enough that he had no intention of playing nice with the demons that live here, because that would have been nixed pretty fast. “Someone killed two more of my children in cold blood in the name of Sylva. Someone here murdered my former queen Krone, after stealing her away from her sanctuary in Tephra. Modicum Mortem and Astarael sanctioned the torture of my grandson and diplomat while he was a captive here.” The crimes of Sylva and its creatures do not roll off of Brennen’s tongue but fall like rocks from his mouth, flat, not even his laid back drawl to give them any flavor.
The frost has turned to an inch of ice beneath his feet, and the stallion has to make a concerted effort not to allow it to spread towards Arthas. “My daughter has much to answer for, from me and from others. But rest assured, if I were to find out you or anyone else had a hoof in her disappearance, you will regret it.” He smiles. It should be pleasant. It isn’t. “I will not hold you accountable for the crimes committed by this Kingdom before you…arrived to rule them.” There, he almost drips sarcasm, though a corner of his mind wonders how that went down, exactly. How does one show up and wrangle a herd of monsters, exactly? “I will, however, hold you accountable for anything that happens from this point onwards. And if I learn the identity of the one who murdered my daughters, one barely out of her infancy, no one and nothing will stop me from avenging them.”
Brennen doubts that someone who is willing to take on this den of disease and depravity will hesitate too harbor a murderer, even of innocent children, but Arthas can’t say now he hasn’t been warned. There are things that make Brennen angry – the torture of Jesper, for instance, and the murder of Krone. The murder of children is on a whole other level. He continues to hold the gray stallion’s gaze for several moments as he listens for a response, and then he simply vanishes, the same way he came, leaving behind the plate of ice with four distinct hoofprints in it. He has not lost his joy for flight, but at the moment he’s thinking of expediency.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
The king is obviously growing annoyed with Arthas, he had some sort of power that he was refraining from unleashing. Although every equine has a bit of evil in them, it just takes one event to push them over the edge, show them just how fun chaos can be. Though he eggs on, Brennen keeps his composure, he blurts out less than a year a forced calm voice.
He goes on to note Astarael was here in Sylva less than a year ago, he goes in for his own stab mentioning how Arthas left his own kingdom for Sylva. A grin grows on his maw once again as he narrows his gaze in on the stallion I wouldn't say I left my kingdom, branching out is what I would call it. He snorts, his grin falling to a monotone face. Though as I stated before, your daughter no longer lives or rules here.
A few moments of silence pass before Brennen goes on to explain that someone in Sylva murdered Krone, the previous queen of Ischia. Arthas cocked an eye to the stallion The queen you forced from her throne? Why do you care what happened to her? He asks curious. Wouldn't it be best that the queen was dead? She would no longer be able to come back to to regain her throne. Instead he shrugs it off, as the stallion continues on to talk about Morty torturing his grandson and one of his diplomats.
He notes a thick layer of ice at the hooves of Brennen and he grows curious of what it was this bay stallion was doing but does not question it. He opens his mouth once again, he says that his daughter, the previous queen, has a lot to answer for. But at the same time he would not stand for someone in Sylva harming her and Arthas releases a huff I told you she left, she has not been harmed from any Sylvan members.
The bay stallion smiles, although it was forced and anyone could see that. Arthas forces the edges of his maw to curl up in a smile before falling flat, as it does Brennen notes he would not hold Arthas accountable for the actions prior to his rule. Was it a threat? Arthas was not scared, between Sylva and Loess Ischia would fall in a battle, he was sure of it.
He grows tired of the drawn out conversation, that the bay king was not finished with. He finishes by stating he will hold Arthas accountable for any future actions, another threat? He also notes that if he finds out who murdered his daughters, one barely out of infancy? He would kill them. What is this murder of a child he notes? Horses in beqanna die, he does not feel bad about murdered, although a foal he can sympathize with. He would not kill a foal, but he would also not punish a member of his kingdom should they have harmed one. Arthas was a father himself, he has lost two foals of his own and knows the ache that comes along with it. Brennen of Ischia, you have a lot to say. Rest assure I hope you find the murdered of your children, for your own sake. His tone was sharp as his gaze narrows in on the stallion, he would not be scared by the Ischian king. With it he gazes at the stallion, they both remained silent for a few moments until the king turns and heads back to his own home. Arthas remains to watch the safe departure of the stag.
