"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
He keeps the fairy’s words locked in his chest.
They play on loop in his head.
The only thing that occupies all that space, they crawl through his veins.
He travels down from the Mountain and heads for the meadow. He has never been, only heard of it in brief glimpses of conversation with his mother. She had offered the twins only a rough outline of the worlds within Beqanna, did not elaborate when either of the children had a question.
But he is determined to learn himself.
As determined to understand Beqanna as he is to more effectively combat their father’s undead armies. He will find a way.
His journey to the Mountain’s peak had done precious little to combat his exhaustion and he finds it compounded when he finally reaches the meadow. He doesn’t know where to start, not really. Perhaps he could have asked his mother, though she hardly seemed like someone who had ever helped anyone.
He surveys the milling bodies and drags in a long breath, ignoring the weakness in his muscles when he sinks deeper into their midsts. Rather than waste his time waiting and hoping that the right sort of animal might somehow know to come to him, he approaches the first lone figure he happens upon.
“Hello,” he says, plain, “can you help me? I am on a quest and need to speak with someone about how they have tried to protect someone and the consequences they suffered because of it.”
08-30-2020, 09:20 AM (This post was last modified: 08-30-2020, 09:21 AM by Leilan.)
Leilan
It had taken him ages to discover what Oceane and Lepis were up to, let alone Lilli (but she had kept it secret from him more actively he believes), and so he starts to visit the Meadow and Field more often. Catching up is never a bad thing, in fact, nowadays it has become a must-do for him. So, he mingles - sometimes in broad daylight, like today when he lets the sun polish him like a mirror; sometimes at dusk or night, he cloaks in the darkness that he asked for and received as a gift of sorts.
Right now, he can pretend he’s a normal horse (with shifting or invisible wings he supposes, for those that have seen him arrive). Grazing with the rest of them, he catches up with some groups only to be disappointed in the subject of the day, and meandering forth like a slow river when he’s tired of playing nice.
Maybe he should try not-nice.
This idea gets interrupted by a youngling - a colt barely to be called of age compared to the decades-old stallion. Nevertheless he is one of the few that might appreciate his direct, blunt question. Brown ears lift between his multi-colored mane to hear him out, and cast an appreciative glance his way. ”I had a fight with my eldest daughter about her boyfriend and then chased her out for her own good. Pretty sure she benefited from my absence and flourished by making her own choices.” he muses for a moment, then shrugs. ”I also scratched up a friend in keeping her from falling to her death. I think the scars might stay as a reminder.”
Yawning a bit, he smirks at the colt. ”Any more questions or is that enough drama for you?” His tone is almost light-hearted, like he doesn’t care about the things he did, but he damn well knows how to keep any feelings from surfacing.
After all, he’s practiced for almost all his life, and old habits die hard.
I am the dragon and you call me insane
Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA
@[gravitas] well I mean, he asked
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
09-11-2020, 07:21 PM (This post was last modified: 09-11-2020, 07:23 PM by gravitas.)
It seems lucky, he thinks, that he should have stumbled so promptly across someone who has examples to share. Someone who, for all intents and purposes, looks perfectly ordinary.
He listens, his expression stoic, even when the older stallion turns a smirk his direction. Asks if his examples are dramatic enough. The young boy rolls his own dark shoulders. The faeries had not specific about how much drama the story needed to involve, but there’s no sense in not asking the stranger to elaborate, just in case.
He thinks about the stallion’s daughter, how she’d flourished when he’d sent her away. The friend he’d saved and left scarred in the process.
“I think I have to tell the faeries about what consequences your actions had for you. Does your daughter hate you for sending her away? Is your friend angry that you disfigured them? Do you regret doing either of those things?”
He tilts his head, all drenched in galaxies, and blinks up at the stranger, waiting.
He seems very serious about his quest, and possibly about himself, Leilan thinks. The boy had randomly asked a question, so Leilan had responded in kind, but he doesn't seem to really understand what had just been said. Oh, but the ice-scaled roan supposes that this was the nature of said quest, all in all. He's young. He has to learn on a different level than Lethy had.
Turning to the colt in full, so as to say he has his full attention, he debates outright leaving, asking for a name instead, and answering. Coming up short on the outright leaving because his decision-making takes him long enough, he rolls his shoulders instead. "Yes. No. Yes." Then, he moves his cold-scaled head to scratch an itch on his foreleg. Looking up, he watches with amusement; he wonders if the boy would understand the point he's making, or if he would continue firing all his questions at once. "I'm Leilan, by the way." Also rude, he doesn't in fact mind the lack of a polite introduction, but maybe, just maybe, the kid will learn more about patience than he ever did.
I am the dragon and you call me insane
Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA
@[gravitas] I'm sorry he's not helping immediately -.-' I'm sure he'll answer the questions better soon
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
He has precious little patience, the boy. Neither of his parents had any to begin with, truth be told, and there had been none left over to breed into their children. But he tries. The boy does try. Because he understands, on some basic level, the social contract. His mother had taught him how to bite his tongue, one of the precious few things she had taught him.
And his father. Well, his father had taught him the importance of answering questions. Perhaps his sudden spark of irritation is born from his remembering how he had shirked his father’s questions. How his father’s irritation had resulted in Gravitas and his twin having to fend off an army of Stave’s skeletal minions.
The boy huffs something sideways and shifts his weight at the older stallion’s answer. Marginally helpful. Somehow, though, he doubts the faeries will go for it. And then he offers his name, though Gravitas had not asked for it.
The boy grits his teeth, trying to temper his temper. “Can you elaborate?” he asks without offering his own name in return.
There is a silence, and the boy tenses and tenses. He seems to near the brink of snapping when Leilan casually gives his name, awaiting a hopefully more educated response, but the only thing he receives is a glare, a tensed jawline, and some sideways-muttered words. If Leilan were truly out to annoy the colt, or to teach him more manners, he would have done so - but mayhaps Gravy is lucky in finding the rude-on-his-own stallion, who doesn’t give as much if a shit about the weird conversation as he probably should.
Had Gravitas been on the Isle with the other youngsters there, well, that’d be a wholly different situation.
He’d tried, and the colt hadn’t picked up on the hints, so that’s where Leilan’s responsibilities as an adult, end.
”Easy kid, I’ll tell you,” the ice-scaled stallion shrugs a little, ”Be more polite with the fairies when you go back up there, ‘kay?” He tilts his head, looking down at the colt and released a breath (a disguised sigh). ”I made the mistake of interfering when a young boy took my daughter away. She wanted to, but she was not yet two years old, and so was he. There was no way that he could provide for her and keep her from certain dangers I already knew about. Those came in the form of a kelpie at the time, I think. Anyway - what is a father to do when a child leaves, ready to throw herself at the wolves?” And she wanted to - does he understand the metaphor, Leilan wonders - the colt is about the same age they were. ”I had a hard time liking this boyfriend and she always hated me for it. One day when she was in fact a little older, we had a big fight - I think I started it but it’s too long ago to remember - so I told her to stuff it and never return. I think that’s the only thing I could do for her at that point.” His eyes distant, he shakes his head then, returning to the bay child. ”Sometimes when you really love someone, you have to let them go. No matter the price you pay.” he concludes - and certainly, the boy has yet to come to understand any of this. ”I later asked the fairies to give her my immortality, though it seems they gave it back to me later. At least, I know she is safe.”
”As for my friend... she forced my hand, but forgot about the consequences. I was really angry about that - she just jumped off a cliff and I had to catch her. But you see, to do that, I tore open her skin.” At this he lifts a foreleg, the hoof momentarily turning into a dragon’s paw and claw. Putting the hoof back down, he tilts his head at the kid. ”I learned the taste of her blood that day, and I will never forget. She learned that traits are sometimes more powerful than you wish them to be, and that it is the responsibility of the one who uses them, to be careful with it.” He shakes his head a little. ”But it is in our nature to slip up, every now and then, whether we intend to or not.” The colt may not have experienced this yet, but if this is a quest then in time, he will. All Leilan can do is warn him, and hope he remembers what he was once told, by the time it matters.
I am the dragon and you call me insane
Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA
@[gravitas] I'd totally missed your reply! Sorry!
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
He is oblivious to whatever lesson Leilan is trying to teach him. He has parents, even if they aren’t very good ones. Largely disinterested in both him and his twin sister. Left to fend for themselves, they have done the best they can, which means that they are as short with strangers as they are with each other. He is not interested in being taught manners, that’s not why he’s here. So he merely blinks at the advice Leilan offers about being more polite to the faeries.
He is not being rude on purpose, he just has very little interest in small talk. Yet another thing he had inherited from his parents.
He listens carefully. Leilan is correct in thinking that Gravitas has little to no experience with the things he’s speaking about. Gravitas knows little of love and cannot imagine what it would be like to try and stop it any more than he can imagine what it would feel like to love anything at all. Still, he listens and he watches, gauging the older stallion’s facial expressions as he speaks. Trying to gauge… what? Whether the stallion regrets his decisions? If he’s glad he’d done what he’d done?
He nods along to indicate that he’s listening. And he’s learning, too, even if it’s not what Leilan wants to teach him. He wants to protect himself and his sister from the cruel things in the world and he needs a trait more powerful to do that. He shifts his attention to the stallion’s hoof as it shifts smoothly into something else and then back again. A dragon. He had hurt his friend in trying to save her.
He goes on listening, contemplating. And when Leilan goes quiet, Gravitas tilts back his head to look the older stallion in the eye. There is no air of impatience when he asks, “do you regret it?” He asks it earnestly, his expression plain.
10-24-2020, 08:20 AM (This post was last modified: 10-24-2020, 08:20 AM by Leilan.)
Leilan
The boy is silent, so at least the stories are being remembered. He's not entirely sure if he should have told the kid about Chryseis now, but it's too late to change his mind. His earnest question that follows, lets him forget about hesitation - instead he thinks it over, then nods. "Yes, and no." A wry smile follows.
"I regret pushing her away in the first place. I regret inviting my friend to think I'd always catch her, and bringing her up to that high place. I don't regret correcting my mistakes, but I regret making them in the first place," he finally decides. He tilts his head at the dark bay before him, then shakes his head. It's better if this is the end of their meeting, he thinks. "Off you go. Make your own mistakes and learn to live with them. I hope they aren't as terrible as mine."
I just wanna be someone well, doesn’t everyone?
Image commissioned by Vanilla, made by AshesDrawn on DA
@[gravitas] good luck with your quest!
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
| 