"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
Leokadia is big enough now (in her opinion) that she can wander all of Beqanna by herself. There might be places that the adults in her life would not want her to go but she doesn’t ask for permission. In fact she has not returned to Jayhawk’s side for days and has no immediate plans to do so. The woman had adopted her and been kind but Lo felt only the mildest attachment to the appaloosa mare. Jayhawk came for her, and did not forget her and for that the girl would always consider her to be her mother but now that she didn’t see a need for the shelter and protection a parent provided she rather preferred roaming on her own.
The cremello filly crosses into Pangea heedlessly. She is confident that for now she is only a child wandering and could choke on her breath as if with tears and pretend to be lost if someone were upset to find her where she isn’t meant to be. It does not occur to her that someone might want to harm her in the way she often wants to harm smaller things. That someone might want to bite her like she wants to bite Jayhawk’s children, little Jenelly and Gato.
On creamy hooves she trots through the lowlands along the banks of a wide grey river, splashing through a silty tributary and setting her sights on a rocky outcropping that looks good for jumping off of and exercising her finally usable wings. She’s a nearly white beacon of filly, and will not go unnoticed for long, but she moves with a foolhardy confidence focused on her target. Bounding up the rocky incline was easy on her now long legs. Her creamy white wings flare wide before she reaches the ledge and she stands there like a vulture peering down on the river bottomed canyon with eyes like ice chips.
Beneath and above her the land is bleached and yet living. The girl is too young to recognize that nothing should grow in the salt-saturated ground. Things do grow, and in whorls red stained earth that she dismisses as geological anomalies, not recognizing them for what they are. One day she will, once she has killed, once she has stained herself the way the land in Pangea is stained. Perhaps that day will come sooner because she has trespassed here.
10-08-2018, 09:02 PM (This post was last modified: 10-08-2018, 09:03 PM by Zain.)
In Zain's younger years he had known kindness. He had a loving mother and protective father, though their relationships were strained. Mainly due to his straying from the path that was laid out for him. Instead he rebelled every moment he could. Disappearing for days on end, returning only to wreak more havoc on their simple lives. Well, of what he thought was simple. He truly didn't know his parents, just the facade they led on. Once older, he began to realize just who they really were and thus, why he is how he is. Sired of destruction and flame, what could go wrong?
So much, was the answer he finally knew. Standing now, weakly, at the risen carcass of a cursed land. One cast to the seas, drowned for its sins. It was much like Taiga in that way. The fairies giveth and the taketh on whatever whim fancies their mood. His God was proven stronger and by the aid of his followers(or non- who really cares about them), his kingdom has risen once again. His pitless eyes glow an eerie kind of red as he looks to what the kingdom offers him. Bloated bodies lay dotted across the sands, most of sea life that had been trapped by the quick recede of water. The others that had given themselves to the cause had left, though some may linger that he cannot see.
With a casual turn of his torn profile, he gazes across the desolate distances. His only destestation would be the lack of plant life to poison, just for the sheer pleasure of doing so. He decides he should scout the lands, a shaky cough comes up dry in his throat. The hoarse tone causes his ears to lay flat along his tangled length of mane as he begins to move forward. His joints creaked and cracked with each labored motion, he needed health and soon.
With no living thing in site, he continues on his own. Large cragged cliffs rise high above him to the left, a weak river twisted through the barren land of sand and salt below. Unknowing of the pearled girl that looks down upon the valley he walked. Her eyes full of wonder and soul full of spirit...
Zain
ReBeL jUsT fOr KiCkS
@[Leokadia] I wasn't sure how to get him up the cliffs so she can come to him if she wants lol
@[Rajanish] My glassy friend, come out come out wherever you are and play with us lol
*Be Warned*
Possesses health transference
and may steal your health.
10-14-2018, 07:52 AM (This post was last modified: 10-14-2018, 10:34 AM by Rajanish.
Edit Reason: put new HTML in
)
Rajanish
Pangea.
The thing sounds huge and faraway and yet here they are. Or truth be told, they brought it towards them, and he’s rather proud of that.
He doesn’t know if the zombie eye was returned to the land’s heart (which is now nowhere to be found) by his actions, but it seems that it had been altogether enough, to let the heart be in the heart of the land again and for the land to rise from the dead. Like a zombie.
Truth is he never left, after that. He doesn’t know if Zain stayed or left, either; but he does know this is home as much as Taiga or Sylva are, no, it’s better. His blood is in this land, this land has been created by his father - it is the homest home he’ll ever have.
Too bad it caused so much pain and sickness inside him - but that’s a sacrifice he can make. Feverish, he roams the empty land, enjoying the feeling it gives him. He coughs up blood every now and then, and it seeps into the ground like a sponge sucking up rainwater. He’s glad he can feed the land, and if there was someone else he could sacrifice he’d do that too - oh, but hey!
A whitish form is atop a cliff, a young and healthy one. A much better sacrifice than his measly self. And so, the translucent bly shakily crests the cliff, slowly but relatively steadily, to meet her.
No cost too great. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry out suffering.
10-20-2018, 08:41 PM (This post was last modified: 10-21-2018, 10:03 AM by Leokadia.)
ashes, ashes,
we. all. fall. down.
She had been born small and weak almost inevitably unwanted in the midst of a pitiless winter. Her birth mother had looked upon the down bent sticks of her wings with a cold disgust that the child cannot forget. She understood, but she would never forget. Even still the cremello mare, growing lean, had sighed and tried to allow the girl a chance to be worth anything. She hadn’t grown fast enough to keep up, to fly away from the deep snow toward better pasture, other horses, and the safety of numbers. So without a word Leokadia was abandoned to become whatever she would...or die.
Here on the rocky ridges of Pangea she is strong, full of brazen intensity. Dainty and fair, this is only pretty wrapping for a mind already warped by the happenings of her life so far. She is nothing to the other beings that would lurk within the borders of this twisted place, but elsewhere she is an anomaly as well. Her glittering eyes too fierce for a child’s face, her cravings (though trifling aggressions) already too deviant. And yet she is nothing to others. She has so much to learn.
A stranger travels below, crossing more slowly than she would have expected him to and Lo watches with her vulture eyes. Her pale lips twitch and she spreads her wings further walking up to the flaking edge. Ears flick, does she hear something, someone coming up along the ridge? The pause to listen is only brief. She is too confident of her ability to escape, foolish little bird. Wings fold and then she leaps--not so far as she had envisioned and though she snaps the limbs back out again she loses a bit of altitude but collects herself well and glides swiftly her shadow rippling over the ground and flashing over the darker horse below. Her efforts to get a better look at him, or even to harass from the air are almost entirely unsuccessful. Her maneuvering still leaves a great deal to be desired but she flashes over just long enough to process the otherness of the male’s appearance, and the unholy glow of red eyes.
Curious but not willing to end her flight so soon she surges skyward with more speed than she has achieved in past attempts. Circling high before turning back to the ridge of cliffs, she hopes to choose a landing place but instead a, become a little confused by what she sees--was someone drawing up the cliff? No--
Leokadia, distracted, misses her mark and drops from the empty air just shy of the cliff’s edge to find herself gracelessly slamming against rock before sliding ten feet down a scree shale slope. Her wings splay and her precious feathers tear out, mostly small ones but they were hard earned and she will resent every loss. She manages to tuck the outside pinion just before gravity dumps her in the dust on her back, rolling her to a stop on top of the other untucked wing. It doesn’t feel broken when she scrambles to her feet but soreness makes it hard to fold down. Gingerly she lays the tender flight limb against her scraped, abraded shoulder that begins to ooze blood beneath the white feathers.
Vexed by her tumble she glances along the path of her descent up towards the cliff from which she dropped, too irritated and sore to fly up and try to figure out what had gone wrong.
Leokadia
@[Zain] @[Rajanish] Soooo..... I couldn't decide if she should turn around and meet Raj or fly down and meet Zain so instead I let her fall out of the sky like an idiot. She's pretty pissed.
10-30-2018, 07:18 PM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2018, 07:19 PM by Zain.)
The world around him is stagnant. Dull colors, mixed with unpleasants scents gives -the place he has helped rise- all the needed components of death. It is a blank space, with nothing that draws the eye. Unless you are one of them. Those who have pledged themselves to a cause much greater than themselves. Death. Destruction. Carnage.
He remembers looking across the landscape, a faint struggle is muffled in the space behind him. He hardly takes interest but the coppery tang of blood begins to seep into his nares. With a curious tilt he halts, turning just the slightest to where a rocky ledge shadows the beach below. The glow of his pitless eyes seek whatever, whoever, has begun to stain this land.
His muscles begin to flex and it is unnaturally seen by any who watches. Tendons flex and joints bend to move his body towards a bright hue tucked amongst the tumbleweed. He approaches at a steady pace and even if this stranger were to scare at his outward appearance he would not falter.
"What are you doing here?" His voice is rough but not unkind. Viewing what seemed to be a girl, plucked from the heavens, he stops just within reach of her. Turning his more normal sided profile to the filly, he waits for her explanation. This land was not forgiving and none faint of heart should find themselves within its borders...
Zain
ReBeL jUsT fOr KiCkS
@[Leokadia] OMG I swear I had responded to this!! I am sure my original post was way better but here is a second draft. SRY!
*Be Warned*
Possesses health transference
and may steal your health.
The girl on the cliff decides to fly, and the see-through young stallion changes course. No sacrificing today... perhaps. He’s still ill himself, and wonders if he accelerates his own disease it might be contagious. But he can’t very well try without a backup plan; a backup like Zain. Hmm.
He walks down the cliffside again, and quickly positions himself next to his friend, looking at the filly. She might have been born a little late, last year, because she is very small. ”You are on holy ground, girl.” Unholy, really, but what the heck, what’s the difference? ”We only have room for worshippers and sacrifices.” he grins at her, wondering what she’ll make of it. Surely she understands that she is in a precarious position now. But the choice, for what it’s worth, is entirely hers.
No cost too great. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry out suffering.
It will hurt worse later, but for now adrenaline from the fall and frustration at her failing dampens some of the soreness. The filly is counting the largest feathers strewn among the rocks when the older boy approaches her. Looking towards the sound of approaching hoofbeats she recognizes that he is the same red-eyed being that she had flown over before her accident. She glimpses his exposed gears--but he decides to turn that side of himself away from her after speaking and the corner of her mouth pulls and relaxes as she tries to reason out his purpose for doing this. Perhaps like most he thought her an infant, easily frightened and of a fragile constitution.
Turning towards the sabino Leokadia resettles her wings, her abraded shoulder aches but she doesn’t turn her attention away from the stranger to look at the oozing wound. “Falling.” She doesn’t crack a smile. That’s what she is doing after all. Falling. Failing terribly at flying just like she always had. She wasn’t discouraged, only irritated. Deciding that her two syllable answer might come across a little rude she continues… “I wanted a place to practice flying. Am I not supposed to be here?” The question is genuine and cool, they are too close in age for a childish mewling in response to being discovered trespassing to have any worth in this conversation.
When the transparent one approaches, her look darkens with recognition. “You. I saw you.” So she wasn’t nuts, someone had been up there, someone that had looked unusual enough to confuse her young brain. Holy ground? Leokadia turns her ears back, moonstone eyes narrowing. “Worshippers of what?” She says to this one, flicking her attention between the two males only once. She is no sacrifice. Of course they could rip her into bits for whatever purpose suited them, but she’d like to know why first.
He nearly chuckles with amusement at the girls response. Red eyes watch as she seems to consider her next words more carefully and he is patient in his wait. As he figured she was naive to the land in which she trespassed upon and the dangers that seeped from the lands core. He answers her in a husky tone, "Not unless you wish to be one of us."
Suddenly there is a voice coming from behind him. It is not unfamiliar and so he does not even turn an eye towards the ghostly one. He was never too sure just how the stallion inquired such an oddity but it was definitely useful in the art of espionage.
A wicked grin curves what lips he has, at his comrades response. They needed followers, worshippers and sacrifices. Though the cream girl did not seem to have any apparent abilities, he did wonder if something festered deep within her. "Worshippers of the Dark God of course. The one who has given us this land to feed," he pauses briefly, "How will you feed her?" Through the blood sacrifice of oneself or of others, the land was not picky, but it required subsistence to thrive. The bays red eyes seem to glow in anticipation of which answer the filly would give. Either one would satisfy them...
Zain
ReBeL jUsT fOr KiCkS
@[Rajanish]
*Be Warned*
Possesses health transference
and may steal your health.
Amused, he tilts his head at the cremello filly. She might be stupid, she might not be. He could care less, as long as she understands that whatever she does now, must be in the name of the dark god.
"I suppose so." he answers with a chuckle to the filly when she says I saw you. Of course he could be seen; it might be off-putting that he was partly see-through, and if that had already startled her then perhaps she should not have come here. There were far worse-looking creatures in this world, some barely able to call themselves a horse any more.
Zain already answers her question, so Raj just stares his signature off-putting stare, smiling just a tiny bit to himself as he awaits her answer. "Pangea needs some blood, every now or then. Blood and magic." he tells her. Perhaps that will help her decide.
No cost too great. No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry out suffering.
Zain
