"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
I’m impressed by how many have come - and by how many of them are my precious Nothlings. Taigans aren’t a rare breed any more, and they’re tough - tougher than they look, for most. But however proud I am of them for coming, I’m equally afraid that it isn’t a good thing for them. It’s one of the reasons I’m here - I have little left to lose, despite what anyone may think, and I’ll hopefully last long enough against the monsters. I can be one, if I want to. I hide in plain sight, like I always have.
My greeting smile for those who have come freezes when the chestnut arrives and for a moment I’m about to tell her to go home. She’s one of those whom I was counting on to continue what we started when she crowned me King - a title I honestly never accepted, and perhaps my coming here is only proving that. The North can do without a King, I’ve always believed and proclaimed. Now I can only hope that Yanhua and Borderline, who seem to at least have stayed to defend the northern forest, can carry on even if all of us here would perish.
I swallow my comments. More arrive, some I know, some I don’t know, some I know a little of, in name. The gathering comes to a closure when the fairies arrive, and tell us of the nature of the monsters.
I’m disappointed. Not in the fairies, it is not their doing, but disappointed in the way the universe works. It’s not even a good hunt if the prey isn’t truly killed, if they come back just as fast as we drive them off. I grimace (I’ve never believed in keeping a stony face for everyone at all times), letting the words sink in. Then, we get a choice. Three choices for those who listen carefully, but I never considered giving up an option.
The rescuing group grows, but for me it’s not the path. I’ve never been able to actually die, and I’ve tried several times. The Afterlife had never let me in and while I could try again, I don’t think that much magic should be spent on me. ”I’ll distract. I hope that gives you the opportunity to get through. Give Straia and Anatomy my greetings if you find them.”
I join said group, knowing in my heart that all of us must die in some way, today, if we wish to succeed. But for the children, we will pretend that that’s not the case.
everything that drowns me makes me wanna fly
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
The heartsick fool does not stir until the faeries appear.
(Although there is some strange, troubling electricity in his chest that hums in time with a pulse that does not belong to him -- it belongs instead to the stark white mare, someone he’s never met but whose life force charges through his veins.)
He lifts his weary head and finds their glow through the honeyed haze of his tears, swallowing hard against the ache in his throat. It makes no difference to him what the monsters are made of when they have taken from him the only thing in the world that matters but he has no voice to object. He drags in a shaky breath and merely listens, the sick, sick heart crying out for Plumeria.
Take me, it cries, please, take me.
(Strangely he feels some distant pang of pity for these monsters, their fear and loneliness, lost, aimless. Is that not all he has been reduced to now? Is he not precious little more than a fragment of a shattered soul separated from the best part of himself?)
These names (the magic entities the faeries list) are not familiar, though they should be. Jarris has been foolish, immersed in this near-perfect life he and Plumeria have built over the last several years. These last several years in which he has stayed, where he has done nothing but love her the way she deserves to be loved.
The faeries separate then, one will rescue and one will distract. A choice that is no choice at all for the gray stallion wearing his crown of thorns, his cheeks burned with gold. He moves to join the first fairy and those who have already gathered around it, including the white mare whose life force pulses in his veins.
He still has not recovered his voice, so he simply bows his head.
He will be part of the rescue, but it is not the entities that he’s after.
I WAS READY TO DIE FOR YA, BABY
DOESN’T MEAN I’M READY TO STAY
Her heart swelled in her throat as the gathering grows, horses in their ones and twos standing in a crowd rife with electric Anticipation. It was a mixture of pride and anxiety that filled her now as she recognized more and more of the signatures as they arrived. Family, children, the ones that they had failed to protect from the long night. Her nose dropped to her daughter's neck when the girl pressed up to her, cursing herself for having woken her willful child.
There is no obvious reason for them to be here at first. No agonized creature lying weak here at the foot of the Mountain. Something had called them here, though, and she didn't need to wait very long before the summoner revealed itself.
It was as before, or close enough. She blinked, and their number was increased by the presence of unmistakable Fey. The source of the Despair, known at last. They were beautiful, as fairies are, but there was a raggedness to them that she couldn't help but note. It had been there before, when she and Yanhua had climbed the mountain, but not so pronounced. Not so desperate.
What followed was explanation, more than any of them had been able to collect on their own. She was grateful for the knowledge, even if that knowledge was less than ideal. Really, it was about as far from ideal as she could imagine, but it was theirs regardless. Something to hold onto, that they could use.
How they used it, however, seemed not to be up to them. The fairies had their own plans, as per usual, and she listened with the gradually increasing horror that comes with knowing too much about the situation you're really in. What it meant for all of them.
There was an awful, heart-rending moment when her daughter spoke, and Memorie next after. She hadn't had time, hadn't realized that the stupid, undeniable bravery of youth would drive her girls to volunteer themselves so readily. Before she had a chance to hurry them away to relative safety.
The "No," she wanted to scream died stillborn in her throat, drowned by other voices that declared which party they'd follow. Rescuer or Distraction, they'd called it; Saviors and sacrifices, she mutely renamed them. And the girls, her brave, beautiful girls, were trying to save the world. Moisture glossed her crystalline eyes. To give them a real shot at success was the best thing she could do.
Her lips pressed hard into her daughter's head, a kiss meant to be felt. Cheri had grown so much over the last year. And still she had so much growing left to do. "I love you so much, my Cheri. You've made me so proud. Take care of each other," the jewel-winged mother crooned softly. More firmly then, she raised her voice. "I will go with those distracting." She hoped and prayed to any god still willing to listen that she was making the right choice. Love, more than she could contain, spilled out from her as the meeting drew to its end.
She is surprised by the way the group breaks down into smaller clusters. It seems as though several of the horses who answered the call know each other, though, like her, there are others who remain alone still. She cannot decide if she would have preferred the company, or if it would’ve birthed a horror inside her chest to turn and find the face of someone she loves dearly headed into certain doom beside her. She thinks, though, that this loneliness must be fathoms easier.
Her focus returns to the fairies once they speak, though she spares one last glance around at the gathered number when she realizes that no one else had been called upon. No one else would be coming. It feels like too few and too many, and a second knot ties itself in her chest. There will be entire braids there soon.
Her eyes settle back on the fairies, and with a pain she has not felt before, she learns of the double-sided horror of what the monsters are. Shattered souls torn asunder, fed only on fear and loneliness and things she is certain she cannot imagine. She had not expected to come and feel broken hearted for the creatures that tear apart homes and families, but as the fairies explain it she finds there is nothing else she could possibly have felt. It wasn’t the monsters fault that this had happened, not a choice so much as a lack of choice, an imminence none could avoid.
She can understand what it is to shatter, what it means to feel the kind of loneliness where nothing but your own dark can reach you. She can understand how that would ruin someone, how it would change a soul. Can these fragments remember the echoes of the souls they had belonged to? Did they understand this pain they caused, or were they so far lost that they could only crave more of what they knew. More dark, more despair, more pain.
Would those who had come today to answer the death knell be reduced to the same?
She hopes not, if only for the sake of the friends and families she can see pressed together in brave clusters.
She listens more, soothed by the ever-shifting glow that reminds her of home and of her own family. It is different from the way they all glow, but it is a glow all the same, and the colors are like the flowers hidden in so many of her siblings manes. She smiles despite herself, despite the pain in her chest. It was starting to feel like this was exactly where she was meant to be.
She knows the entities by name only, but it shocks her to hear that they are all taken - though, it did also explain why the dark had been able to linger so long. What hope had a world without her guardians? It seemed an impossible task to undertake, the sheer magnitude of such a rescue overwhelming. But when the fairies split and present the gathered with the choice of two tasks, Flower knows instantly which her role should be.
There are others who speak before her, and she quietly memorizes each face as they voice their vow and move to stand with their new team. She wonders how many of the smaller clusters will go their separate ways here, wonders if she would have the strength to leave someone she loved. But she had already, hadn’t she. There is only one face that startles her, and she wonders how she had missed the woman earlier in the gathered crowd, for there is no one quite as beautiful as her grandmother, she is sure. She feels a sudden tightness in her chest as she watches the angel claim rescue and cross to join that group, and with an unspoken love in her small ruby face she tries to catch the woman's eyes and wish her well.
But Flower’s voice is silent until it is her own turn to choose, and with a grace that comes only from being made of something so entirely breakable, she steps forward towards the fairy and claims her own choice. “I will help distract.” For what else could she do, made to be broken, made more fragile than life itself. She would be a liability on a rescue mission, she would only slow them down. It makes sense that this is her destiny, and in some way it explains the purpose of why she had been born so different from the rest of her family. She was always meant to be expendable for this moment, always made for it, and now that the moment was here there was only resolve and pride in the angles of her delicate glass face.
I’ll run the risk of being intimate with brokenness
It is Wishbone her muted gaze finds first and the Guardian is glad to see her friend here. There was something about the Tephran mare that reminded Lilliana about the poems and stories of her youth, golden ages filled with heroes who created epics filled with good deeds and overcame impossible obstacles. What they are about to undertake certainly feels that way to the chestnut. Her blue eyes glance around the group - lingering too long on Reave and then Amarine huddled with her granddaughters - before they meet with Leilan.
Her small smile lifts a little, an unspoken apology between them. She can see what he wishes despite the dark and if they had a moment to speak privately, she would have asked him if he blamed her? Didn't he feel the pull of that same plea, just as she had? Just as so much of their family had? It is the only thought that brings her any sense of peace as she stands there, looking at her youngest child.
There are others here that Lilliana recognizes. There is angelic Ryatah who seems to carry a thousand worries with each step towards a hollowed stallion despite her familiar glow. There is Flower, another Tephran neighbor like Wishbone. But there isn't long to reflect on who is here because they finally emerge, the ones who made the call, and the flame-marked mare looks up into the face of a celestial creature. She has never seen any Fae before and even as tired as they appear, the beings before the gathered are the most beautiful equids she has ever seen.
There isn't time for awe, though.
Not when they speak of the monsters and what they are. They are pieces of fragmented souls, torn apart in the torment of Death and twisted into something else entirely. Lilliana listens quietly, remembering the monster that had roamed the Taigan woods and the way that it had seemed to feed off her own emotions and memories. There is a way to release them, the Faeries explain and release the tortured things. Perhaps there is a chance for them to find peace and rest in another realm, some part of her hopes. Away from Beqanna.
The names spoken are what grabs her attention and her expression sharpens, listening to three that are painfully familiar to the crimson mare. Craft and Anatomy (and Lilliana remembers Craft, the way she had offered her life to save the palomino woman against the shifting desert sands). She remembers that last moment as they stood at the opening of the Portal that had brought them to Beqanna and saying, 'I can't promise you that everything will be okay.' But Anatomy had been on the other side and for a time, the magical pair had been under the protection of Taiga. The flame marking on her right shoulder almost itches, prickles at the remembrance of that past endeavor.
Straia invokes images - powerful memories - of that same forest burning, of Nerine being blasted.
Fueled by those memories, the Taigan steps forward and dips her head respectfully to both Fae.
"Craft and Anatomy helped keep Taiga safe," the chestnut explains briefly. There is a moment where she pauses and looks to Leilan who has gone to stand with those who will distract, not far from where her yearling son stands. Look after Reave, she asks the Freyr silently. Amarine has gathered with them as well and Lilliana trusts the bay to look after the Northerners (at least as much as he can, given their circumstances). Death has evaded Lilliana - it came for Brazen and supposedly Neverwhere - but the chestnut mare holds a calm face for her granddaughters who she senses nearby. Memorie who speaks so confidently and Cheri who is so quick to offer her healing; there is a strong surge of pride burning bright in her chest for the pair. Something that helps dull the ache of worry and fear for her family.
"I would like the chance to repay them that kindness."
(A thousand worries press against her mind and she has to push them all away.)
"Rescue." She says and moves to join the smaller group.
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
Like gospel hymns that you caught in the air?
The darkness bleeds into the edges of the gathering as the last of them finds their way into the fold. It is a different kind of darkness, supernaturally more full than it otherwise would be. He knows because he remembers a time before it. He remembers the blue water of the ocean crystallized and sparkling under the hot summer sun. He remembers the shine on the thick skin of a ripened papaya, the flashy glint of redfish scales before they disappeared under the next wave. Of shadows, he remembers those existing only in the dimples of his family’s smiles.
Perhaps along with the light, he will bring those smiles back.
Volos reacts only with a widening of his eyes when the fairies find them. A part of him is surprised to see them; he had wondered if the legendary fairies were just that, legends meant to inspire but as real as any other tale told to foals. That other part of him, the part that is just emerging from childhood like a still-wet butterfly from its cocoon, is relieved to see that some tales are as true as the heart beating within his chest. He feels bolstered by their presence, despite their sagging faces. There is a light suddenly within him if not brightening around all of them. Something like hope sprouts as a seed that he means to nurture and make useful. The darkness might lick at their heels, but in doing so, it pulls them closer and tighter together.
He listens solemnly as the two figures explain away the dark.
The explanation is a lot to swallow. He feels the heavy weight of the truth trying to stamp out his bright hope like he had done to his own misdirected fire before. If the monsters are fragmented souls, are any of them his ancestors? Is the creature who had tried to drag him to a watery grave his own uncle? Do they know that they are no longer at peace? Do they know that they are dead, even? So many horrifying thoughts threaten to overwhelm him. But more than that, he has a stronger desire to make it right, to restore their peace. Volos doesn’t really care to hear any more, he just wants to immediately get started repairing whatever he can.
His muscles twitch with their readiness to move, to do anything, right now.
The fairies talk about those the monsters have taken, entities that are vital to restoring the light to the sunrise lands. One offers their rescue as the first path while the other fairy lays out the second path as serving as a distraction. The blue-tinged grullo listens as the others make their choices. A few seem to know the magicians that have been taken and many pledge to join in the effort to bring them back from the Afterlife. Volos’s first instinct is to join them as well. It seems like the most direct line to ending the darkness once and for all. But then he changes his mind after a moment. Distracting the monsters will likely mean action and fighting. Those are his strengths, and he’d rather bleed out than fumble around in the darkness trying to be useful otherwise. Besides, if he turns down a fight, his mother will never let him hear the end of it.
“I’ll be bait and distract,” he says with a crooked smile, trying and likely failing to lighten the mood to some small degree.
Peace settles heavily on the gathered crowd like unwelcome fog. A few – stragglers – blow in behind her and she grabs them up in curls of serenity, too, like children cupped in the tender paws of Tranquility. Some fight against it and others drift along on the wave of her favor and the little chimera smiles her strange, stiff, smile. There is little to it that might be called friendly, but they may look back on it and think that it was. Memory is such a fickle thing, and she has grown adept with her gifts. Above them all, the sky turns a shade lighter as the first light of the shuttered, sickly, dawn reaches out from behind the swallowing moon and the ravenous clouds that greedily keep its light for themselves. Unsated. Manikin chirrups a soft understanding into the gloom. She, too, is never quite satisfied, never quite full. Like the bilious magic that stains Beqanna, Manikin has only darkness, emptiness, within, and nothing is hungrier than that vacuum of space where her heart ought to be.
The Fairies come to them looking like prey nearly worn down from a long chase. They will be on their knees, soon, prayers on their lips and their eyes lifted skyward to whatever gods such creatures might imagine. This is not their first war, the grim set of their lips says, but any war can be the last one. The beaked girl watches, and she listens, and despite the waves of peace still rolling from her skin, there is no soft place inside her for the plight of the otherworldly creatures, for the mangled souls that formed them. It does not matter to her what the reason is for their existence, for their malice, and she does not want to drive them from the land – or, at least, she does not care that they are here. The only thing she wants is the feel of their sharp teeth against the wrong side of her skin again.
One by one the tributes choose amongst themselves to distract or rescue. Surely they both mean death, but Manikin is not afraid of the Afterlife. She is not afraid to die. Did she not answer her grandfather’s call? Did she not suffocate under his weight and play at his feet while her corpse grew cold beneath them? Oh, it was a merry chase through the stripping fog that stole her skin away, gave her hooves and velvet lips that told the sweetest lies! She has no fear of that place (nor of the one after that stole her bones – and did Grandfather not give those back as well?) It makes the choice so easy. Manikin isn’t after new experiences, she isn't seeking honor, she wants to fill herself up again on lost souls, to gorge herself on their malevolence.
She is not a sacrificial lamb, she is a huntress and she makes the choice of a predator. Rescue. More or less.
| 
Remember when our songs were just like prayers
