"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
At first, it had been an obvious thing he couldn’t ignore. His brother had been brutally murdered, after all. That sort of death sends out reverberations that shake far more than his own flesh – it had shaken his family to their very core, to their blood and even beyond. But even after the shock had turned to numb, bitter acceptance in the eyes and hearts of his kin, he felt it. He felt the icy fingers creeping across his grief-weary throat, encircling him like an unbreakable necklace. He felt the needle-sharp gaze of the scavengers of his home, how they seemed always to be watching him, waiting for something…
Sometimes, he thinks he can hear the undertaker’s scythe trailing behind him. He can hear the metal scratching against the earth, leaving a permanent furrow in his wake. He is rational enough to know it’s not real. He is still in control enough to know it is the still-grief conjuring sensory details to remind him of the death, to move on, to forget – a coping mechanism with little care for tact. But then, how many impossible sights have his eyes already seen? How many monsters and devils and aliens has he felt and smelled and heard? Sometimes, he wonders if the real world lies just beyond the filters they put up. What if, like the afterlife, he is only a step away from the next plane? What if the only barrier between this world and the world where Death rules is self-created?
His eyes are closed; his imagination takes hold.
When he opens them again, blackness stretches as far as he can see.
But it’s not the severe black of Another World, not the all-consuming shadows of the next plane he paints in his mind. It’s only the gloom of the forest. Ramiel sighs and moves through it. He weaves through the dense trees with only slight difficulty. The forests of the Dale are marginally more expansive; the pine and deciduous trees do not press together so tightly as they do here. It is a welcome exercise, though. For once, thoughts of impending war and dangerous politics are far from his mind, as he has to concentrate on finding a decent path through the foliage.
At first, he had meant to meander his way through the forest and onto the meadow beyond (where conversation was traditionally found). But now, watching the late summer sunlight filter through the overhead boughs of the trees and make latticework of the shadows, he thinks he’d rather stay hidden among them. Far more fitting here. A crack sounds somewhere in the forest just behind him. He turns his large charcoal head towards the source, peering but unafraid. Perhaps the reaper has finally decided to make an appearance, but the cold logic of his brain tells him otherwise. “Hello,” he says simply, efficiently, his voice devoid of any of the emotion he keeps hidden in his own shadows.
There's a song in your lung and a dream in your eye.
They had each known death, but in very different ways. She remembers death as only oblivion. A silent, never-ending darkness that erases all pain. For her, the blackness had been a mercy, a great and terrible relief.
But then, she had never been meant to die. Of course, it could also be said that perhaps she had never been meant to live. Whatever the case may be, she had been marked by death. A roadmap of scars decorating every inch of her body, reminding her on a daily basis that that she had seen death and lived. For some, it might remind them of their weakness. But for her, it only ever reminds her of her strength. Of her ability to survive even the worst of odds.
It had also served to help her recognize death for what it is. Many fear death, but she does not. She cannot. If there is anything one should fear, it should be life. Life is inconstant and unpredictable. It is impossible to know what might await you around the next corner. Death is the very least of it.
Fortunately for her perhaps, her thoughts are not quite so maudlin today. Her thoughts instead are focused on her surroundings, on where her feet are taking her. She might have flown, but she chooses to walk instead. Of course, that might also have something to do with how thick the forest is. It is rather difficult to fly when branches keep getting into one’s way. Having spent the last several years in the jungle, the thick foliage of the forest poses little trouble for her, at least when she has her feet on the ground.
Of course, that makes a silent approach slightly harder to accomplish. Unfortunately for her sense of play.
She had thought to sneak up on him, having spied him through the trees and recognized his distinctive form, even in spite of the gray. It was a game they had played in their youth, and she is feeling rather youthful today. But a stick manages to get in her way, snapping loudly beneath her hoof and spoiling her plans.
As she steps from the darkness of the trees, her cracked skin dark and unlit, her pale nose wrinkles slightly, much as it used to when she was a child.
”Well, that was a bust.”
Joscelin
Tiphon x Elysteria
html c insane | picture c mikanicole.deviantart.com
Munroe too held deep family values. He still thought about the kind old mare who took him in as a mere babe only to be ripped away from him by a vicious pack of wolves. He had been near death, starved and sick, when Ima had finally discovered him on that midwinter day. She had coaxed him to her with a warm embrace of wings and a soothing, gentle lullaby. And he had happily found his niche within the vast deserts that she lived and breathed.
He would not trade Ima and her kin for the world. But he sometimes idly wondered who his birth family had been. Had he been unwanted and unloved? Or had a tragic fate struck his own parents down just as it had the one who had first begun raising him? Ima was truly all he had in this world. He kept away from most of the other desert-dwellers as he was disinterested in the politics and workings of the kingdom. Even amongst Ima’s other children he distanced himself for he did not know how to juggle his small jealousy of Ima’s attention being drawn away from himself to his uncertainty in opening up for trust outside of one other person.
This meant that the idea of brotherhood was completely foreign to him.
He had been desperately trying to find his way back home from the meadow, tired of all the meddling magic that seemed to always find its way towards him. The wild child didn’t understand why the ones with a bad agenda seemed to be so drawn to him for he sorely did not appreciate their efforts. But the meadow had now expanded outwards to an unknown forest. It had honestly been years since he’s stepped foot outside the desert and he has quickly grown lost.
With hesitating steps, his hazel eyes wildly glance about in efforts to avoid any more trouble. But it seems he will once again not escape from another interaction. His path has been blocked by two others and his head lowers in suspicion. They seem friendly enough; looks can always be deceiving. He notices that both of them seem to have some gold on their person - one with gleaming eyes and the other with weaving threads throughout their mane. But little did he know that this color was an indicator of relation to each other.
No gold could be seen upon his person.
He remained a classic champagne dun with the addition of azure blue swirling designs upon his hindquarters. Hazel eyes remain wary yet approachable. The wild child refused to be dragged into another show of magic such as his previous experiences in the meadow. He merely wanted to reach home and back to Ima.
01-24-2016, 11:50 PM (This post was last modified: 01-24-2016, 11:51 PM by Ramiel.)
ghost king of the dale >>
The forest suits him in his current state of mind.
He welcomes the shadows, because so many have come to pass over his thoughts. He likes the twisting, narrow corridors between the trees, because life is similarly complicated and convoluted. Even the little bit of light that manages to fall through the branches above isn’t pure. There is grittiness, a raw struggle for life, in every aspect of the forest. From the trees that stretch into the unrestricted air above down to the smaller plants below – those that fight each other for resources, leaning and jockeying for pockets of light – the circle of life and death is constant.
Ramiel finds tremendous comfort (and sadness, too) in the natural order of the world. It is perhaps odd, considering all of the time he has spent outside of a solely linear progression. His many brushes with the supernatural and alien both have only grounded him more in reality, however, rather than the opposite. Why search for the impossible when you are already amongst the wondrous? Why spend a lifetime waiting for fortune and power to strike when fortune comes with the opportunity of the everyday, and power is found in the strength of your body and mind?
He is still lost in the swirl of such thoughts when the branch cracks behind him. But when he sees who it is, his mind clears instantly.
“You are getting clumsy in your old age,” he closes the distance between them, his lips pulling into a mischievous grin. “Fortunately for me, each year only leaves me more handsome than the last.” Ramiel is never so casual and self-referencing around anyone else. Only his sister can bring this easy-going side of him out, and after today’s shadowed path of thoughts and memories he's trudged down, he’s glad she can.
His golden eyes move away from the mirror that is Joscelin’s own metallic gaze, accessing her in the same way he always does each time they meet. He hasn’t ever forgotten her darkest days after the quest they shared (how could he?). He remembers, in vibrant detail, how she’d crumbled and cracked. How the clearing had been pock-marked by her light. How their youngest sibling had nearly been caught in the crossfire of Joscelin’s delicate energy. He is happy to see that she does not flicker today, her barometer of emotional pressure. Perhaps the forest has a dampening, negating effect on them all. Before he can ask why she’s taken it upon herself to leave the humid jungle like he’s left the Dale for the day, they are joined by another.
“Hello there,” the grey says to the dun, his features still warmed by the presence of his kin. Little does he know that both are, in fact, his relatives. There is a slight familiarity to this man, though. His build and almost porcelain color remind Ramiel of someone that he cannot put a name to. It is a slight curiosity that leaves a question in the back of his mind, but he doesn’t pursue it for now. Besides, so many horses claim similar lineages in Beqanna. If they are related, it is likely a branch too far down the tree to really matter. “Please join us, if you’d like the company.” He looks at Joscelin briefly, wondering if she’ll care that their reunion has been unintentionally crashed. Not that he will let her decide for them anyway; he is the oldest sibling, after all. “I’m Ramiel.”
ramiel
ooc: ee, sorry for the ridiculously long wait. <33 finally getting back into the swing of things post-holidays
