"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
06-13-2020, 05:42 PM (This post was last modified: 06-13-2020, 05:42 PM by Pollen.)
Pollen leapfrogged from the field to the forest and finally, to the river in her explorations. She had no rhyme or reason for bypassing the meadow awash with flowers and all manner of creatures from ants to mice to birds to horses. The little half-grown palomino was just kind of following the wind as it blew, and the scent of water which made her throat ache terribly. Hence why the river seemed like such a good idea!
She could slake her thirst and cool her hot sunny skin all at once. The bees though, that buzzed around her face, flying in and out of the honeycombed parts of her hair, were not all that thrilled by that idea. They seemed to have a natural aversion to water and she respected that as much as she could, taking great care to avoid total immersion no matter how much it appealed to her.
The yearling didn’t want to risk losing the bees that have been with her since she was months old. Their buzzing was a constant in the background and their microscopic feet tickled the areas of sensitive skin whenever they alighted there, making her laugh. She must have looked a sight! Honey dribbling down her neck and flanks, bees crawling all over her mane and tail… and if that wasn’t enough, purple asters had begun to bloom in her hair.
That was thanks to the weird dust storm that had just occurred which had left a shimmery residue all over her. One more reason to go rinse off in the river as best as she could! So smiling, like she always does because Pollen has little concept of what a bad mood is, plods along at a happy slow walk. Clearly she is in no rush despite this being a place she’s never visited before.
Her ears tip forward at the sound of the river as it manages to drown out most of the noise the bees swarming around her head make. Pollen’s smile broadens into a cheerful grin as she gives a little buck for good measure and surges forward out of her walk into a canter. She’s eager to dip her legs in all that cool glimmering blueness and of course that’s just what she does with a grand dramatic sigh that’s really just a small exhale of contentment.
Pollen’s gaze follows the sun-sparkles on the top of the currents, watching how they bounce and dip between the small swells. This eventually lulls her into a nap, and she stands there, about hock-deep in the river, snoozing.
06-14-2020, 02:48 PM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2020, 02:48 PM by clementia.)
It has been days now and the glitter has not faded.
And it feels silly, to be so captivated by it. But she is still young and prone to admiring things that sparkle and perhaps even too young to know that it could be considered narcissism, to allow her attention to be so thoroughly arrested by the way she catches the light. It’s almost like bursting into flames, she thinks. It must be.
It’s like a dream.
She does not venture far, Clementia. It is strange to strike out on her own, without her sister glued to her side, but she is dizzy with her want for adventure. Just as their father had been once and she is every bit as careful as he had been, too. There is no folly of youth when you are made of glass, when your father reminds you of it every day.
The more she travels, the more she discovers that she is the strange one. Her sister, her father. She could walk for days and find no one else like them. Silly to think that she had once thought that they were the ordinary ones, that her mother was unique because her skin was warm and soft and it bent and folded when she caught it between her teeth.
And it is no different today as she travels alone to the river. The river, which reflects the light just like she does. Even with its choppy, wild surface, they both glint and glitter. She wonders, as she ventures carefully to the edge, if she belongs to the water. Not only because of the glittering but because of the steady stream of water that cuts their own rivers down the side of her slick glass barrel. (Does not know that one day, when she is older, they will be wings, only knows that the water seems to come from no real place and has dripped down her sides since she was a baby).
She hears the bees before she sees them, turns her face and blinks into the sun. She watches, captivated, as the bees tuck themselves up into the mane. She watches, enthralled, as honey leaks out. The stranger is sleeping, that much is obvious, but not much older than Clementia and perhaps this lends her a certain air of confidence as she edges closer.
“Do they hurt you?” she asks, the voice dreamy, the fine glass head tilted.
crack the shutters open wide
i wanna bathe you in the light of day
06-14-2020, 03:53 PM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2020, 03:56 PM by Pollen.)
“Do they hurt you?”
The dreamy question tugs at her ears and pulls her from the clutches of the afternoon nap. She feels like it is a struggle to climb upwards to light and wakefulness but manages it with a classless yawn and a shake of her head to dispel the sleepy sand from her eyes. Pollen blinks at all the glittering that distracts her; it's sunlight on water and sunlight on a surface like crystals (she has never seen glass before in its natural state), thrown everywhere and wildly so.
But she has to think because no, not once can she remember them ever hurting her. She knows they can sting, has asked them to on her behalf to keep predators from attacking her and that’s it. Pollen has never abused their ability to hurt because once they sting, they die and she cannot have hundreds of tiny deaths on her conscience like that. It would be too heartbreaking even though the hive thrives and there are more bees all the time.
“No, they never have.” she states with a smile as her gaze finally takes in who the dreamy voice belongs to. It’s a girl close to her in age and she’s achingly beautiful to look at, as the sun makes her glitter. It throws shards of light all over and makes tiny rainbows that captivate Pollen and her bees. Some of them fly off to investigate, buzzing in and out of the gorgeous pinpoints of color, as dazzled as the palomino is.
“Did you know you’re making rainbows?” Pollen can’t quite sound as dreamy as the unknown girl does but there is an awe palpable in her tone as she continues to smile. She moves closer without hesitation or thought to personal space, intrigued enough to want to touch to see if the skin is smooth like crystal or furred like her own is. There doesn’t appear to be individual hairs and whorls, just shiny lines that look cool and inviting.
She’s about to ask if she can touch but realizes the asking is too personal and might seem silly. Then she notices the small dribbles of water that flow down her sides and Pollen is even more amazed. “What are you?” she asks, no in the least bit rude but simply stupefied by wonder. “I’ve never seen someone like you before, and has anyone told you how beautiful you are?”
No, Pollen isn’t in love but she’s kind of like her bees - attracted to things like this girl, spun of something she’s never encountered before, who gives off light like the river does. Mesmerized, she finally does bridge the gap between them for just the smallest and lightest of touches - nose against neck, to confirm her suspicions that she ends up murmuring aloud. “So smooth…”
06-14-2020, 04:45 PM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2020, 04:47 PM by clementia.)
She does not know why she’s asked it.
The bees have never hurt her either.
She is impenetrable, though they have buzzed around her head when she had dipped her face too deep into flowers, disturbing them. Perhaps it is something she only knows inherently, the same way she knows which plants will poison her should she try and make a meal out of them.
She smiles. And the smile is just as dreamy as the voice. Something about it tranquil when the girl finally turns to face her. Clementia feels no sharp sting of remorse for waking the palomino and, besides, she doesn’t seem to mind. And Clementia tips back her head to peer up at the bees who buzz over to investigate, smiling that tranquil smile at them as they come.
They are friends of this girl, who seems kind, thus she decides that they are her friends, too. But whatever reverie she’s found herself in is scattered when the girl speaks again and Clementia casts a glance around herself at the rainbows bending away from her. Still, the smile remains.
“I made them for you,” she says. It’s not true, but it could hardly be classified as a lie. She is still while the girl trudges through the water to get a closer look. And if she were the meaner sort, Clementia, perhaps she’d find herself annoyed at the prospect of being viewed as an object. But she has found herself captivated, too, captivated by the way the glitter catches the light, the milky white of her body edged in dark galaxies.
“Thank you,” she murmurs sweetly, ducking her head, bashful. The girl comes closer and the bees come along with her but Clementia feels no fear. It does not make her nervous that they all sink into her space. She is glad for their company. Doesn’t even hardly flinch when the girl reaches for her, dusts her mouth down the length of her neck. Still, she smiles that dreamy smile and reaches out in turn, gently bumps the girl’s shoulder.
“You’re beautiful, too,” she says, “and warm, like you’ve got the sun trapped in your skin.”
crack the shutters open wide
i wanna bathe you in the light of day
06-14-2020, 07:57 PM (This post was last modified: 06-14-2020, 07:58 PM by Pollen.)
Pollen has never been this bold before. It is a side of herself that she has never seen, unless adventuring off on her own counts. Her momma might have argued otherwise but let her go all the same and that’s how the sunny girl ended up here, standing in the river next to the girl made up of galaxies and rainbows, stunning and impossible but so very real that it hurt to keep staring at her.
She just didn’t want to look away, or blink, afraid the girl might disappear. Might turn out to be a figment of imagination or a scrap of dream that clung to her mind, and if she blinked or moved, it might all dissolve back into sun-sparkles on the river. Until Pollen touched her and the girl felt so solid and smooth beneath her wandering curious lips. That confirmation alone made her sigh happily against the glass skin before she pulled her head away out of decency.
These moments feel dreamlike, improbable as the sun shines down on the pair and the river meanders between their legs. Her senses feel both heightened and diminished as she looks, listens, and smiles blithely too. The glass-girl is more tranquil than Pollen, dreamier too. Pollen tries but there are always bees buzzing too close to her ears for the dreams to make much sense unless they’re all sleeping.
She’d no more believe a lie than truth from this girl; thoroughly enchanted at the company that has found her. Bees buzz and purple asters bloom amongst the honey and pale hair as she bobs her head and glimpses all that glitters on the girl beside her. She itches to touch again but manages to keep a polite distance even though her nose seems to drift close of its own accord, moved by impulses that Pollen tricks herself about.
“You’re welcome,” she comments quietly, studying the bashful duck of the girl’s head and how it makes the whole world light up like something special. It feels like the edges of the river have grown fuzzy and inconspicuous, like a dream taking shape all around them. Pollen keeps on smiling, as is her nature to do so. She doesn’t stiffen at the returned bump to her shoulder; if anything, she relaxes further as touch was a language she remembered well from the earliest points of her childhood.
“Thank you,” she responds in kind at such a compliment; something that she is clearly not used to as embarrassment paints itself across her face. She felt more wild and messy than beautiful on account of all the times she looked at herself in the water, not out of vanity but as she took a drink and happened to glance at her reflection - stark-eyed, frank, and disheveled as bees flew around her head merrily.
“I might,” she admits with a cheery little laugh as her eyes sparkle with goodwill. “Momma used to say something like that to me too, but I think mothers are just partial to their babies and think all of them look beautiful no matter what.” Pollen then realized that she was just blathering on, carrying the current of conversation off on a tangent that was not at all pertinent to the moment happening between them.
She knew she wasn’t nervous but she was utterly enamored of the girl and couldn’t stop looking at her or moving in for another quick but gentle touch. “You sure are unique…” she murmured, maybe a touch smitten herself because it just seemed so right to be. Must have been the magpie hiding in her heart that loved shiny things like girls throwing off rainbows with their smooth glittery skin.
@[clementia] i think polly just got her first crush, awkward! lol
06-15-2020, 06:28 PM (This post was last modified: 06-15-2020, 06:29 PM by clementia.)
Clementia lingers there, her own curious mouth pressed against the girl’s shoulder.
Because she is just as bewitched by the sun-girl as the sun-girl is with her. Because it bathes her in wonder to feel the softness of the flesh, the fine hair, the muscles moving and shifting and pulsing beneath the surface. Sometimes she stands for hours with her nose pressed against her mother’s hip, breathless, wondering if her body worked the same way beneath all that smooth glass.
But she, too, minds her manners and eventually draws her mouth away. Blinking those milky white eyes at the girl, deciding that she is the sun. And it is only now that she takes note of the flowers blooming in her hair. Too thoroughly distracted by the bees to have noticed them before and she reaches for one, dusts her stiff lip across its petals with that same dreamy grin.
She draws away again when the sun-girl laughs. The sound of it makes Clementia’s own heart spasm, deepens that tranquil grin as she turns her head to meet the sun-girl’s eye. Maybe Clementia agrees. Both her mother and father fawn over she and her sister, cooing, have since the day they were born. But her mother and father are not the only ones who’ve looked at her captivated. Even Clementia is not immune to the way she glitters and sparkles, the spiraling galaxies just beneath the glass. Still doesn’t recognize it as vanity, but perhaps some day she will.
But her sun-girl is the first creature whose wonder has ever filled her with heat. It is not embarrassment but a specific sort of delight. To be so feverishly revered by someone every bit as beautiful is a new kind of thrill.
“That may be true,” she says, the voice like spun silk, “but that doesn’t make you any less beautiful.” She tilts her fine head, shifting her focus to the bees and the honey and the flowers again. Sighs her own dreamy sigh. “Just look at how much the bees love you.”
She shifts her weight then, as the girl reaches for her again. Welcomes the touch. Sinks a little closer even. “Won't you tell me your name?” she murmurs as she brings her own nose to rest on the ridge of the sun-girl’s spine.
crack the shutters open wide
i wanna bathe you in the light of day
10-09-2020, 05:31 PM (This post was last modified: 10-09-2020, 05:34 PM by Pollen.)
Pollen was smitten; recognized it because it felt like the first time the bees came to her. Buzzing and fat, heavy with the collection of pollen and the making of honey and that’s how her heart starts to feel - fat and heavy and gooey, with an emotion that she’s heard of, dreamt of, but never once thought she’d feel. Least not this fast, not like this but it’s like falling head over heels for the bees that buzz around her and the emotion welling up in her leaves her buzzing from the inside out.
Queen bee, queen bee! Shouts every fiber of her being, echoing what the bees said about her and it’s how she feels about the glass-girl pressed against her. Should it feel like this so fast? So tender in the infant stages of infatuation, but Pollen is drug under and over like a wild garden of fragrant blooms made over into orderliness. Her attention never fails to waver and for the first time, the bees fail to interrupt her thoughts and they seem to settle into the background.
She swears she can feel the touch of lips on the purple aster in her pale hair. Feel it all the way down deep in her soul. It’s a touch that she wants to keep forever, like a petal in a locket clasped tight to her chest. Remembering will have to do, and she settles for tucking it away in a piece of brain that won’t forget - that will pull it up for her to dream about, as if she needs more to while the hours away with.
Her ears and eyes fixate on the mouth through which the voice of heaven pours from. Pollen thinks this could be what angels sound like, fine silk that is somehow both rich and soft, delicate and strong. It reverberates through her as much as those dreamy sighs do, and she laughs as she remarks, “But they love you too!” It’s true, they do.
Pollen’s bees have migrated from her to the glass-girl inside which galaxies spin. She thinks it is the colors that intrigue them as they smack themselves against her glass skin at first then settle their frenzied selves into alighting carefully along her neck and spine. They communicate back to Pollen about how smooth and slick she is beneath their feet, and she laughs again.
“They’ve never seen anything like you, neither have I.” The two of them gravitating to one another like lost planets in search of a familiar orbit, and she weakens further beneath the glass-girl’s touch of nose to alone. It is a cool small comfort that Pollen delights in. “Oh…” she murmurs dreamily, so thoroughly enchanted that she had forgotten to introduce herself.
How could names matter? But she is curious now, as to what this beautiful creature might be called. Her lips curl up in a teasing smile, “I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours,” not that she hadn’t expected the girl to. It just seemed easier and sweeter somehow to tease, to shift so that their skins could touch just a little more. “I’m Pollen.”
@[clementia] long overdue and I’m sure they’re older now but this is such a cute thread!
She can feel them, if only just barely. The way they bump along her glass and then fold their wings, skitter across her surface with their sticky feet. The sensation deepens her dreamy grin and she turns her fine head to look at them. Thinks how wonderful it is that her sun-girl’s bees should be just as fond of her. She wants to touch them, to breathe them, to know them as intimately as the sun-girl must, but she does not dare disturb them. So she only watches, transfixed, her grin frozen on her face.
Her sun-girl tells her that the bees love her, too, and her heart leaps and spasms and she exhales a breathless laugh. Her eyes are bright with delight when she finally drags her focus back to the girl’s face. The flowers and the honey in her hair. And isn’t this just the most incredible, amazing thing? How full her young heart as she revels in the joy of it all. Unfettered.
She feels flush with heat. She has never felt so vibrant. She is so painfully alive in that moment. They are all awash in beauty and the purest form of love. It makes her dizzy.
“They are wonderful,” she murmurs sweetly. And she means to say, you are wonderful, too, please don’t ever leave me but she doesn’t. It is not shyness that stops her but something else entirely. Something she doesn’t have a name for but sits heavy in her chest all the same.
But it cannot rob her of her happiness. Or the way her heart soars when they touch. When her sun-girl smiles at her like that and tells her her name. Pollen. The thing the bees crave the most. And she craves her, too, she finds but does not know how to say this out loud either.
She reaches out to nudge Pollen’s shoulder then, gently. Lingers there a long moment. “Clementia,” she murmurs into the sun-soaked shoulder. Her father had told her it meant mercy. Salvation. “My name is Clementia.”
She lifts her head then, searching Pollen’s face. “Did I dream you?”
