"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 would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
It has been days now since her brush with death.
Her lungs still ached, and there is a faint rattle when she inhales. But her bones no longer felt heavy, not the way they had when she had finally awoken on the frozen bank. Some would say that she is lucky to be alive, but it had not been relief that she had felt when her eyes opened to the bleary, unfocused view of a mountain range pressed against a bright blue sky. Laying in the snow, with the fire on her skin slowly rekindling and flickering to life, she had not felt grateful to have avoided such a wretched end. She hadn’t felt disappointed either, though; just a dull indifference.
Something is different, though she cannot yet pinpoint it.
There are strange, irregular patches on her body where the fire had not yet returned, revealing instead a charred surface and a fire-glow orange beneath it. She assumes that the fire will return later. As much as she wanted to brush off what had happened, she supposes there is a chance that being submerged in such icy waters for a considerable time had inflicted some type of damage. She tried not to think about that, and what it could mean; if she would be forced to learn to navigate the world with a new kind of damage.
Here in the meadow, spring is well upon the land, and she revels in the warmth. She had departed from the mountains as quickly as her frozen bones would allow her to, and she cannot deny that it is a relief to see a field of green, awash in the golden glow of the afternoon sun. The meadow is the one place she has realized that always seemed unchanged, safe, the anchor that kept Beqanna from becoming unmoored. She would have been content to settle on the outskirts to simply observe and perhaps finally seek rest for her body that had so recently cheated death if not for a familiar face that she catches at the corner of her vision. She turns her head, holding him in her firelit gaze, hesitating. She is terrible at companionship, conversation, and all the other things that could make her even remotely pleasant to be around. But she remembers him and the way he had not been afraid of her fire, and her tired mind thinks that it might be nice to not have to worry for the safety of anyone right now.
“Fireheart,” she recalls his name once she is close enough, her body still burning bright even in the middle of the day, and even with the patches of fire missing. Somewhere beneath the flickering flames on her face she might have offered him a small smile. “It’s been awhile.”
basically after falling in the icy river/snow, her summer appearance is starting to disappear in patches, leaving behind pieces that look charred & glowing
i burn from the hell i've seen, but the devil can't hold me down
He has known many things throughout the course of his immortal life. Love and loss, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. He has laughed without restraint. He has known grief so fierce and all consuming that he could feel it right down into the sinew of his heart. But the one thing he has never felt is the fear of death.
He has seen The Veil, but he has never pushed it back to look beyond it. His life is not finite, the mortal coil holding him much too tightly to allow him to leave for long. The ashes are barely cooled before he is reborn from them. There is no time for him to settle into death, or even conceive the notion of it.
He knows only the essence of life.
Many seasons he has watched come and go, but spring is always his favorite. It is so much like his own life cycle, though the death comes by way of freezing instead of fire. Today is particularly beautiful in that new, fresh way of spring. He is content to graze quietly on the sweet grass, paying little and less attention to the rest of the Meadow inhabitants. Until one steps forward like a ghost from his past. He hadn't known her long, but she still had made an impression on him. "Brinly." he says, the warmth of his voice in contradiction to the coolness of hers. She is mostly as he remembers, though parts of her seem to smolder now as opposed to burning. "It has been a while. Too long. You've been well, I hope?" He longs to say more, to reach out and touch her shoulder in that kind way of his. But he refrains, remembering all too well they way she flinched beneath his touch. He also wants to ask where her fire has gone but refrains from that too. If shes wishes to tell him, she will.
fireheart
@Brinly Ooc- I wrote this on my phone so excuse any typos >.<
— i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
She does not know why her name always sounds strange to her on someone else’s tongue.
Perhaps because she has spent so long trying to ensure that no one could possibly know her, and so to see the shape of it being formed inside someone’s mouth felt far more intimate than she wanted to accept. But he doesn’t know her, she reminds—reassures—herself. He knows her face, he knows her name, and maybe he also knows how much she hates her fire and regrets the life it had stolen from her, but he does not know her. He cannot.
It is nearly imperceptible, the way these thoughts seem to draw a curtain over her face. Closing a door she had never meant to even show him had existed, much less opened, but she stays that sharpened tongue of hers, at least, and does not voice or outwardly show any regret she might be feeling in this moment. Truthfully, something has changed in her. She does not know what, yet, but she knows it is odd that not only has some of her fire not returned, but more and more continues to fade. Even as she stands there before him another patch burns out, smoke snaking up into the air before dissipating, leaving behind more smoldering skin.
It leaves her with a feeling of unease, because after being this way for so many years, it did not appear as a good sign to her that things would suddenly change.
“I have been…” she trails off, unsure of how much to reveal. She does not want to tell him she had almost died; that landed in the too personal side of things. “Different.” This is where she should have asked him how he had been, but it’s been established she is a poor conversationalist, and, as he has probably noticed, significantly distracted. “Do you think this is a bad sign?” she asks him abruptly, referring to the places where the fire had disappeared and left behind charred, glowing skin.
i burn from the hell i've seen, but the devil can't hold me down
He wishes he could see behind the walls she has built so high.
Not to pry, or search for ammunition to use against her, but to understand her. To help. Her firey shoulders always seem to be trembling beneath the weight of the world, and he would gladly help her carry that burden if he only knew how, if only she would let him. That is his very nature, and one of the most extraordinary gifts that he possessed.
There is a hesitance to her voice that makes his lips crease in a frown. He doesn't know her all that well, but he knows her strength is her armor, something maybe even stronger than the flames that claim her. It almost sounds like fear but he isn't sure, she is so reserved and closed off. "Different?" he repeats, cocking his head. He steps closer, his gaze focused only on the smoldering, flameless skin of her shoulder. His neck stretches out, though he stops just short of touching her. He is close enough that he can feel the warmth, but it doesn't not feel threatening. And her smell is different too. When he first met her, she only smelled sharply of ash and smoke. Those scents were still there, but they now mingled with the sweet, dusty smell that was distinctly equine in nature.
"I don't think so, Brinly. I'm not am expert in the ways of fire, but it seems to me that you own your fire now and not the other way around." he says with a smile, knowing what this could possibly mean for her. "For me, my fire is inside my chest, right where my heart beats. I can feel it in my veins, if I think about it. Maybe thats where yours is too?" he ponders, eyes sparkling warmly.
10-18-2026, 12:27 PM (This post was last modified: 10-18-2026, 04:58 PM by Brinly.)
— i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all —
Once, she would have flinched backwards when he stepped closer. It is how she had reacted the last time he had done it, when he had reached out to prove to her that she could not burn him. And she remembers, too, how his shoulder had brushed hers and she had involuntarily trembled, because she cannot recall the last time anyone had touched her at all. It had been a strange sensation, to feel the pressure of something across her skin beneath the flickering flames, but Brinly has become too good at denying herself anything that might make her feel something besides the usual smoldering coal of discontent in her chest.
Even though her anger had long burnt itself out, she still did not know how to feel happiness, or at the very least, peace.
Just the never-ending unease that something in her life is not right, and perhaps never will be.
He does not touch her, just as she had taught him last time, and if there is a small splinter of disappointment behind her ribs she ignores it.
“Maybe,” she says dubiously in response to him. For most of her life now she has felt heat inside of her, that fire-hot sensation in her veins that she could not control. She is not sure if she would know how to tell the difference between that and her fire suddenly tunneling itself inwards rather than only being alive across her skin.
“I don’t usually feel much inside my chest,” she remarks almost drily, the barest of smiles almost hinting at the edge of her lips. She doesn’t want to admit that she does not want to look inside of herself; she does not want to face what might be there, every dark thing that she has locked inside a tomb of bitterness and anger. But even as they stand there speaking more of her fire begins to gutter and die out, threads of smoke snaking into the air and leaving behind charred, faintly glowing skin. “Do you remember what we talked about last time?” She asks him, her voice suddenly quiet, so much of its usual edge having softened just slightly. Her dark brown eyes watch him carefully, her tongue growing heavy as if trying to stop her from revealing too much of herself, and yet she stumbles forward with it anyway. “When I said that it didn’t matter if my fire was gone, because I would never be the same as I was before?” Her gaze drops away now, shuttering away the flicker of fear and uncertainty that flashes there, knowing that she is already showing him too much. She doesn’t know why; maybe there is a hidden part of her that knows she can, that she should trust him, and without the fire controlling everything it is slipping past some of the fallen guards. “I don’t know how to be anything other than what I was before.”
i burn from the hell i've seen, but the devil can't hold me down
He doesn't miss the smile that tries to find its way across her lips.
It is small and fleeting, so small it could go unnoticed entirely. But it doesn't escape him and just that small motion makes his own heart soar. Since the very first time he met her, he wanted to know what happiness looked like on her. He figured she would wear it well, even if she lacked the confidence to do so. He is not disappointed.
Like always, she keeps her emotions clutched to her chest. Whereas he wears his heart for the world to see, hers his hidden behind a fortress of stone and iron. He thinks he can see glimpses of it between the bars, enough to keep him here and trying to break in. He returns her simple maybe with a small smile and a glimmer to his eyes. He is not an expert in all magics, but fire is the very thing that makes him, him. Just like her, he is fire made flesh, and fire doesn't hide.
She continues on, her voice softer than he has ever known it to be. So much doubt, so much fear and heartache. It seeps from her much like the smoke, but with a bitterness to it that makes his own heart clench. Instead of answering her immediately he offers her a smile, then shifts into his Phoenix form. A swirl of sparks and embers shower from his magnificent wings as he rises into the sky. There, he begins to sing. It is a song older than time itself, something from back when the world was fresh and new. Though there are no words, it speaks of new beginnings, of hopefulness and joy and all the things good. The melody searches for those broken bits inside of her, seeking to mend the cracks and sew them back together. He sings for her, and for them, and because it is his nature to heal.
When the last notes leave his mouth he flutters back down, shifting before he touches the ground. He is eye to eye with her, closer than he's ever been. Close enough he can feel the warmth of her, and smell the sweet ashy scent of her. With his song still ringing in his heart he presses his mouth to her jaw. "You just have to be Brinly." he says, his muzzle so close to her ear. He pulls back, his eyes blazing with the fire that lives inside of him. "Have you ever seen a forest after a fire? It grows stronger and taller. Fire is rebirth." With that he steps back, though his eyes still blaze into hers.
