[private] hu wᴀʀ ob kąm hᴀr ą hią ląt; dem pony

[Sol]

What am I supposed to do when I want to talk about peace and understanding
But you only understand the language of violence?

“Do we have family?” Sol asked on a warm evening an eon ago.
 
They stood on a hill side by side, mother and daughter, admiring the golden rays of the setting sun; the stars were already poking holes through the sky, she could make out the faint outline of the moon among the pinks, oranges, and purples and didn’t miss the wistful look her mother had given it.  As if she missed someone.
 
“We do.”
 
Sol blinked her mismatched eyes, having half-expected her mother to admit to being an orphan.  Instead, she began reciting history—their history—and the young foal had listened closely to every tale she told with wild and wide-eyed fascination.  Once she finished as much as she was willing to discuss in one evening, Sol’s mind whirred with a million different questions but all she managed to blurt out was: “Do they know me?”
 
“No, they do not.”
 
The roan filly’s ears splayed out to the sides and her head lowered slightly despite her best efforts.
 
Nocturnal snorted, trying not to laugh at her daughter’s expense.  “Blood calls to blood, little one,” she teased, reaching over to bump her shoulder.  “You’ll run into one of us eventually, there’s lots of us.”

~
 
Blood had certainly been calling to blood since The Chamber’s revival.
 
Sol hummed, trying to ignore the raven that was squawking above her; a few hours before that, she had made the mistake of squinting her eyes and following him from branch to branch with her gaze.  For whatever reason, the surly blackbird had decided he didn’t like her after that, and he had been harassing her for the better part of the day.
 
“Quiet, please,” she said, stopping to stare up at him.  “I didn’t mean to disturb you and I just want to—”
 
Suddenly, one of his comrades decided to divebomb her and she snorted in frustration—but then came the second, and the third, and the fourth, and so on, each of them pecking at her head, neck, and ears.  She swung her head around wildly and narrowly avoided one of the birds as it went for her eyes.  “Stop!” She shouted, her bottom lip starting to quiver though she tried her hardest to not start to cry.  “I. Said. STOP!”
 
Hundreds of thousands of thin, sharp, white bony spikes grew from her flesh and as the birds dove down, they impaled themselves one right after the other.  The air fell silent after one last surprised caw and Sol stood still, breathing heavily, her eyes wide and her mouth open in disbelief.  Slowly, the spikes retracted themselves back down into her skin and slid easily out of their little bodies.  They fell to the ground, each a duller thud than the last, their beady black eyes shiny and lifeless.
 
“I-I didn’t mean to, I don’t know—I don’t know how, I don’t know what I did…” She stood frozen in shock, breathing heavily.

sol

No Crosses Count x Nocturnal

[@Dem]

[Dretch]

     

DRETCH

... and from your lips she drew your hallelujah

She loves to fly and she takes to the air any chance that she gets. She closes her eyes, soaking in the feeling of the wind rushing past and around her, cradling her in utter weightlessness. It’s cold up here in the higher altitudes and although she doesn’t mind, it would seem that the flock she’s been tagging along with for the past several days does, and in unison, they lazily wing lower. She can take on their shapes and natural abilities, but her communication with them is limited to what she learns in experience, and she misses the initial cue, subtle as it is. A few awkward flaps and she’s back on track, remaining on their fringes. They had only grudgingly accepted her amongst them after she had managed to perfect their shape (that one shift with the beak and the hooves … shudder), and she only lingers in order to learn. They fly over the river and wing west between two mountains before turning northward. She recognizes the Chamber as they cross over its borders, though it is not somewhere she has been before. It disappeared before her lifetime (something she’s only just recently learned will never end … not naturally, at least), but lived on in memory and Set had spoken of his childhood home and the kingdom he had ruled many times. Many, many times. Insert eye roll. To her disappointment, the others drop even further, settling into a copse of pines on the edge of a clearing surrounding a tree … a tree that seems to be on fire. Hopping from the branch she landed on to another, she crooks her head, contemplating the red-orange flames as it begins to consume the stalwart pine. But it never blackens, never crumbles. Curious. Her attention bounces from the tree to her surroundings and back again before snagging on a lovely young mare, run through with the colors of tarnished metals, beneath them. She seems distracted, her narrowed eyes turned upward as her gaze follows a crooked path. It takes Dretch a moment to realize she’s watching one of the other ravens. He is a remarkably large raven, of the sort who cannot help but cause trouble when presented with the opportunity, and he takes exception to the attention, screeching and buffeting the air with his wings. To what end, Dretch doesn’t know. Not her problem. She flies back up to the top of the tallest pine in the vicinity, the only raven in it as the others choose trees nearer the strange tree. Ruffling her feathers around her and adjusting her grip on the rough bark, Dretch settles down into herself, dozing off. The squawking and cawing doesn’t wake her up at first. She’s been traveling with the lot for the better part of the colder season and grew accustomed to their raucous squabbles. But as it continues to grow in intensity, she reluctantly opens one eye. They’re divebombing the filly she’d seen earlier, a loud, whirling mass of feathered confusion. Blinking slowly, Dretch watches as the girl ricochets back and forth, dodging beaks and claws. Her movements grow more frantic until she’s shouting and … The little roan is standing amidst the carnage, the final caw stretching out and then folding in on itself until it’s silent but for the sound of adrenaline-soaked breaths of disbelief and regret. She stutters an apology,  and Dretch contains her laughter for another beat before she cannot contain it anymore. She drops from the branch (and now she’s even more thankful that her alliances with the unkindnessness had been loose) like a rock, cackling all the way. Halfway down, she finally manages to gather herself enough to not break every bone in her bird body on the ground, and she flies low toward the girl still standing amongst the impaled ravens. Still chuckling, her black eyes wet with mirth, she shifts back to her natural form, not bothering to pick her way through the bodies as she closes the remaining distance. A loud crack of bone and she’s near enough to touch, her amusement still plain. “Don’t waste your regrets on this lot,” she says companionably, nudging one with her foot and inspecting the thin spikes protruding from its body. Her grey eyes catch on gold ones (and for a hairsbreadth of a moment, she could swear that she sees Set staring back out at her) and she smiles what she intends to be a warm smile, but the corner of her lip tends to catch on one of her fangs. “Do you live here? My father lived here once … he ruled it once, even.” She has forgotten the girls shock, whether it’s youth or her nurtured numbness to all things unnatural. She well knows the unsettledness that comes with these sorts of things, but she's already forgotten what it was like when she first started shifting. Or when she discovered that she's no longer technically living ... what a trip. “Well, he’s not really my father, he’s like, my great grandfather or something like that. But, he raised me. Well, he and Uncle Niklas.” She narrows her eyes slightly at the mention of her gaunt uncle. “I’m Dretch, by the way."

html © dante.

@ Sol