"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
12-20-2018, 09:19 AM (This post was last modified: 12-20-2018, 09:20 AM by abysm.)
He can taste the remnants of dreaming here; something sweet and snowy. His jaw grinds against the grit of it that hangs in the air, not unlike notes of dust that catch the light. It feels tender and glowing yet dark and brooding…
Has she yanked another out of his abyss?
Ire rises in him, goads him to needless action as he snorts and stamps the ground with angered hooves.
Kagerus forgets her place; always meddling with the fabric of things and ripping threads out of them to twist around her own hands. He knows this all too well. Is himself, a victim of it. Of course, he assumes she has gone and stolen something from somewhere to make them another perfect child. Because he knows it is a child - the dreams are too new for it not to be.
“Come out little one,” he murmurs, not really searching as he roams up and down the unfamiliar shore that he’s been dumped upon by the dreamland shoving him out. He also means the babe no harm, couldn’t ever hurt it - they share blood, however little much that matters in a place like this.
Abysm cannot help his moods. He had been in a place of perfection, her navy nose attached to his neck and loathe to leave it. The scent of their lovemaking and its sweaty efforts had still cling to them before they shared a roll in the grass. Then, ripped so cruelly from a dream that was sweeter and kinder than water to a parched throat. Now he chafes at the loss of her in this existence, at how the door to dreaming has been slammed shut in his face.
Instead, he’ll content himself with meeting the newest royal brat.
12-22-2018, 03:56 PM (This post was last modified: 12-22-2018, 03:57 PM by aegean.)
love is my religion. i could die for that.
Being a child, Aegean does not know much of his parent’s lives.
He knows, in some secret part of himself, that they must have had such lives—that they have lived and loved and fought and dreamed. He knows that they are complex, multi-layered beings but he has only reached but that first layer, has only just begun to learn the more solid foods of existence. So he has no way of knowing that this stallion who calls to him is his half-brother, that his mother has any children outside of his older triplet siblings. But he also knows no fear. He’s never had a reason to learn it.
He is by himself, as he usually is, when he hears the voice, the sound of the stallion moving about.
He unwinds his legs and stands, his body faintly glowing in the milky light, pulsing softly as he twists his head to the side, purple eyes peering out. When he sees the stallion, curiosity blends with confusion on his young face and he steps forward from the shadows. “Do you mean me?” His voice is quiet and soft, just a brush of it against velvet lips, as if he was concerned of speaking too loudly, disturbing the other.
Aegean has never been called for specifically before and it seems unlikely that he would be called now, but he doesn’t see any other children immediately about and thus he can only assume the call is for himself. Increasingly curiously, he takes several more steps forward, delicate legs picking his path carefully, each step deliberate, even as his eyes study the other—unblinking and direct.
“You look upset,” he notes the agitation that seems to hang off the other. “Are you upset with me?”
12-27-2018, 07:48 PM (This post was last modified: 12-27-2018, 07:48 PM by abysm.)
Of course the child won’t know him, or know of him.
The older the queens get, the less they mention their more sordid affairs before the true heirs dropped from Solace’s belly. No mention is made of the twins from her first foray into sex nor of his mother’s own meddling with the abyss and natural order of things (no one comments on how she made a stallion birth her son because she was far too selfish and self-involved to just die in childbirth like so many unfortunate others do). See? That’s him being struck by petulance again; it happens from time to time.
His gaze locks on the purple-eyes boy that glow in the soft liquid light. Yet another strange addition to their strange brood of children. “Yes you.” he barks back, not unkind but also not kind either. There is an indifference in his tone that almost borders insolence or irritation. It isn’t the boy’s fault though, but Abysm’s own - he longs to be elsewhere but instead, here he is looking at this delicate half-brother.
He looks like he might break at any moment; shatter into some figment of his mother’s dreaming but he smells real enough according to the stallion’s nose. Feels real enough too, once that nose alights upon his nubbin-brow.
“I am,” he huffs as he pulls back from touching the glowing skin and fine fluff of a forelock. But he’s not upset with the child. It’s not his fault that something else has yanked him out of the dreamlands - that he’s been denied the best dream of his pathetic life. The kind of life that Abysm has done absolutely nothing with. Just wastes it with small tastes of someone else’s dreams, letting them have a look at how it could all be but he’s a poor man’s genie unable to grant lasting wishes.
Dreams always have expiry dates to them.
They come and go, like his siblings do - so many, and so few.
“No Aegean, not with you.” and it strikes him how similar their names are. Both beginning with A and there, the similarities ended. His wild eyes momentarily soften as they refocus on the child. “They’ve never told you about me.” He knows what the answer will be - no; all he wants to do is peek inside this boy’s head and see if his dreams are the simple things of milk and a mother’s warmth of if they’re something far more complex. Except he’s never meddled in his siblings’ dreams - only strangers’.
12-30-2018, 12:16 AM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2018, 12:16 AM by aegean.)
love is my religion. i could die for that.
Aegean finds himself drawn to the gravity of his half-brother, to the wild and gentle and the everything in between. He takes another step forward, closing the distance as his brother reaches down to press his lips into his forehead. He leans into the touch, savors it even, and when his brother breaks the contact, Aegean sweeps his head up so that he catch catch the curve of the elder male’s jaw. He presses his own kiss there, something soft and sweet and would linger longer if his brother allowed it.
Instead, the distance between them grows again, and he accepts it the same way he accepted closeness. In the same way, he gladly rides the waves, feeling the moment stretch and fade and find its own rhythm. He doesn’t fight the ebbs and flows of the tide and just leans into each breath of time. When he tells him that he isn’t upset with him, he takes a deep breath, relief flooding into his bones and his smile stretching.
“I am glad to know I have not upset you.”
Even though he has no idea what would make the other upset. How his very existence could trouble the dreamweaver of a son. But still, he feels the tension melt in his body, although it is soon replaced by confusion. He tilts his delicate head, the faint milky glow of him nearly pulsing in response to his body’s reaction. “Should they have?” is his only hushed response, somehow knowing that the they he spoke of was his family—his mothers. His face is open, vulnerable. “I would like to hear about you now.”
And then the wind picks up only slightly, rustling his mane and forelock.
Reminding him of the outside, and the stars, and the dreams.
And of the mysteries trapped there and, apparently, in his own home.
01-19-2019, 04:10 AM (This post was last modified: 01-19-2019, 04:11 AM by abysm.)
Their siblings are far too numerous to bother with; he’s rarely spared them much thought. Too far removed to be anything but the elusive eldest half-brother. Feeling like a bastard most of the time, a secret thing that is known but not spoken of. Yet he comes because of this one here, that gentles him in a way that makes him think of someone else that he’s been dreaming of for so long now.
Probably because he imagines this is how a child of theirs’ would be, grave but trusting, and he looks on this littlest brother with something bordering on affection. Which is something none of the others have ever gotten much of from him.
He feels a kiss echoed on his jawline; sweet and soft and all manner of things he’s not all that used to. Maybe once, long ago but no more and the boy’s innocence could almost be enough to break the tough carapace of uncaring that has hardened around his heart, - almost. The deep breath of relief and earnest smile keep him calm, lulling him into the false ease of brotherhood. No such things exists, but for now he imagines it does with this pale bone-bright colt.
Abysm smiles, lazy and lulled as the boy begins to pulse and the flow draws his wayward attention back to him. His eyes refocus as he considers for a moment, how to answer him. “No. It is probably best that they have not.” but even as he says it, he can feel the delicate burn of anger bloom inside him. They keep him a secret after all! Too busy ruling their fawning duped subjects and procreating like rabbits to bother to name all their children - only those of their copulating loins get mention, never the ones that came before: him, and Velk and Valdis.
The unmentionables; the dirty laundry of their lives before their greatest love affair. He almost huffs aloud until he remembers that such actions unsettle the dreamy boy. But the openness of his face and the naked vulnerability that suits him are enough to sway Abysm to tell him, and to do so with a rare treat of a smile - one of almost affable affection. The wind though, picks that moment to act up and it is foretelling as Abysm feels his own power pull at the yoke of his control.
“Well, I am the firstborn. Not to our mother’s, of course but to Kagerus alone. Except she was too afraid of her own innate curse and magicked me into my father then she left us before I was even born. Left us for family and this kingdom and it’s queen. Quite tragic, but commonplace. She loved herself too much to keep me in her womb. But here I am, kept in the dark and now my own siblings do not even know who I am as they spit each one of you as quick as they can.”
He keeps the telling dark but brief. His opinions are biased and encased in hard jade. There is little love between him and the queens, little enough to be squashed by abandonment and other things in his heart. He cuffs the boy on the head but gently so, more of a light push of rough unfamiliar affection. “But they are your mothers, and I suppose they have their reasons.”
Except now he’s fixating on how the boy looks so dreamy and he can feel his power tugging at the edges of his being. It gives him an idea, “Do you like dreams?”
Abysm offers that question up like a palm upturned with a forbidden treat resting upon it, knowing it is irresistible to one like Aegean. For once though, there is no malice in his offering - only a sincerity that surprises even him.
01-21-2019, 02:33 AM (This post was last modified: 01-21-2019, 02:33 AM by aegean.)
love is my religion. i could die for that.
Abysm is a forbidden fruit. Dark and dangerous and tempting and Aegean has no way to protect his young, eager heart from such things. He leans forward, takes a bite, and the moment runs like juice down his chin, satiating him and curling his stomach with hunger for more. It is a conflicting thing but it does nothing to confuse him—does nothing to drive him away. Instead his dark purple eyes merely wash over his older half-brother, studying the edges of him and wondering at the sharpest corners of his mind.
“I am glad that I know you now,” is all he says when the other has finished his story. The words wash over him but don’t sink into his flesh. He cannot feel anything but love for his mothers—cannot feel anything but complete and absolute adoration. He nods when Abysm says that he is sure that they have their reasons because Aegean cannot imagine a world where they do not. Everything his mothers have ever done has always been rooted in logic and kindness and love—the most of all, love.
His very foundation would shatter should he see or believe anything different.
Still, it does not take empathetic abilities to see that the story hurts his brother, that it is rooted in pain, and he closes the distance again, his dreamy eyes closing and his mouth touching his brother’s neck, his jaw if he can reach it. “I am your sibling,” he whispers softly. “and I love you very much.”
He doesn't know anything but love.
Cannot imagine a world where his heart does not ache with it for each new soul he meets.
“I do,” he affirms with his silvery voice, thinking of all the dreams his mother has woven for him—all the different places that she has taken him, that she has walked him into. He remains close to the older stallion, tipping his delicate head back and watching him carefully. “Do you like dreams, brother?”
It is like he can feel the boy’s wonder reach out and brush at the edges of him. He is something gravid and dark beneath those dark purple (plums, amethysts) eyes that wash over him again and again, like dusk-colored tides. This one could strike deep into the abyssal heart and maybe hit a vein of pure quartz, fine and shimmering - the core of his dreams, but then Abysm, ever cautious, shuts him out and stops his own dreams right there.
“I am glad, too.” is all he can manage to muster from the moment and that uncanny half-brother’s stare. The boy is really too pure for him to shatter. He just couldn’t do it, but that’s also why he had to stop his own hopes from growing too big. So one sibling accepts him unconditionally and shows him the very thing he’s ever craved from his mother that they share - love.
Abysm flings it back into the abyss he thinks love probably came from. Like it’s a curse or a disease lacking a cure. He’d had a small taste in Sibyl; he can’t be having more from this halfblood-brother. Love, he thinks, might just be the abyssal undoing of all that Abysm is. He realizes this more so as the boy comes closer, struggles for his jaw and finds it, but worse the whisper that flits across his skin.
The champagne and foam of him shudders in response. Good or bad, it’s origins remain unknown and indecipherable to Abysm. Does he want to love this boy back? Part of him very much wants to do just that - love him, smother him in it, break him through love in dreams until the boy screams for the love to stop. But could Abysm really do it - destroy through the very thing that sets this sibling apart from all the rest of that vast brood?
Deep down, he knows he cannot and so, he just sighs. Regret becomes a drink he can fairly taste on his tongue. This is not who he is - cruel, mean, devastating, even though he has deluded himself into believing this for so long. He’s boyish and lost for all that he a stallion grown standing next to a colt that stares up at him, so loving and trusting.
“I am dreams, brother.” he bounces back, rich and honeyed and promising. Their mother was not the only one who could take someone into that plane and he shows it either a wink of his eye and a secretive dip of his head. “Would you like a dream?” he offers, both sly and sweet all at the same time.
@[aegean] you get a dream and you get a dream, everyone gets a dream! <3
Whatever it is that Abysm carries within his breast, it is not something that Aegean sees.
He can only see the sweet parts of his brother, the goodness—the things both imagined and real. He does not care for the shadows; in the same way, he has long since expelled whatever doubt the encounter may have planted in his mind about the impurity of his mothers. They are loving and kind and he does not doubt them. In much the same way, he does not doubt the brother that stands before him now.
It is beyond him to think that Abysm could have anything within him that was not good.
It is beyond him to imagine that his brother could ever wish him harm.
So he stays comfortably within his presence, letting the golden glow of it swell in his chest and rush through his veins. He breathes it in, remembering it, lingering on the moment, and just enjoying what it means to be with his brother, to soak in his presence and accept this moment for what it is.
“Dreams,” he repeats in that silvery voice of his, mulling it over, thinking of the ways that his mother can weave such fantastical things from it. “Yes, I suppose that you are.” His lips don’t stray from where they are, continually curved, the warmth radiating into the amethyst of his gaze.
At the question, he cannot help but take a small step forward, tempted by the outstretched apple, even though he has taken a bite so many times before. “I always like dreams,” he cannot imagine being in a situation where he would turn down the offer, where he would turn up his nose at the offer.
“Will you weave me dreams, brother?” A soft, quiet sigh. “I would very much like to see your dreams.”
