"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
Tonight, the wind was crisp. Yanhua lifted his nose to it and tasted what lingered there, his lips softly curling in the dark.
Tonight, his glow was weak. He stood alone in a remote corner of the meadow, quiet and contemplative as the breeze tugged his short tail. The golden strands tickled his hocks, twisting in between his legs and brushing up against his lean, hardened belly. He sighed.
Tonight, one of his ears twisted to hear the familiar thud of approaching hooves. They sounded like he wouldn’t be alone for long, so the wistful stallion put on a pleasant sort of smile and turned his head, revealing a horribly scarred face and two cloudy, blind eyes.
If the ‘someone’ approaching was familiar, he didn’t notice at first. Yanhua hadn’t been this way for very long, he assumed. He was still getting used to it, not wandering far from the place where he’d come to his senses, and he had no way to gauge time. The feeling of Amarine by his side and the sound of his children's laughter were memories, now. There was only the warmth of the sun, the coolness of the rain, and the rage of a storm as the seasons changed.
He tried not to visualize what the other horse saw as he turned: tooth marks fouling his entire face, suggesting a terrible struggle. The assailant had torn one nostril clean in half, and ruined both his eyes. Instead he hoped that his demeanor would radiate kindness, putting the other at ease. He even shuffled his bright wings, so out-of-place with the rest of him, as if to appear nonchalant.
“Hmm?” He spoke first, encouraging a response by lifting both ears toward the approaching horse. “Is someone there?”
Golden and glittering, she stands at the edge of the Field, glancing deer-like across it for signs of danger before stepping smoothly into the clearing. Once upon a time, the field was a major highway for horses looking for homes, new faces, old faces, all converging here and waiting for homes to be offered them. Those days are mostly gone, and with them, the ancient pathways through this place that is so full of Beqanna's ghosts.
Sometimes, she thinks she hears them whispering to her, but it is only ever the wind, the grass, the leaves. The shadow of a cloud drifting past the moon plays tricks on your eyes. Memories she never formed play out across the empty plain. There's no magic in it except that of an over-active imagination, so it is easy to think at first that the dim, horse-shaped glow, was just another part of the scenes she pretends to remember until he turns and the destruction of his face stops the girl dead.
She would never pretend anything like that. Not her, not this child of the Eclipse. Dace's daughter had sheltered beneath Isilya's boughs and denied Gale's nightmares their victory, but she had seen the fissures carved into flesh and memory and remembered how she had silently declared never again. It is not fair to hide in safety if she is the only one who knows the way back. Perhaps if she had not done that, she would know where her father had gone, if he was alive, or if his bones were somewhere safe.
Her path alters to bring her closer and though she can walk more quietly than she does now, for the benefit of the blinded stallion she takes no care to deaden the noise.
He smiles and it is horrifying, but there's nothing terrifying in his manner, only a sort of sadness, like something lost or forgotten. Gilda has always been too trusting, too friendly - it drove Dace mad with worry - and now that little splinter of guilt in her heart makes it impossible for her to walk on. Instead, she pauses, liquid brown eyes unwavering as they trace the mangled lines of him.
"Yes," her voice is soft to match the quiet of this place that once was so busy, "My name's Gilda. Do you need help?"
He no longer sees the ghosts and assumes it's because of the vision loss. Those spirits are gone, left lingering in the air like pungent scents he’s sometimes able to pick up on whenever another wanders close enough, and that’s been … gods, months now? Yanhua can’t exactly be sure.
Regardless, the stranger’s aroma is rather tolerable to the disfigured stud. He can sense no ill-intent lingering around her, nothing that might drive him to use magical tactics in defense of an oncoming attack, and some might scoff at his paranoia; Gilda sounded as sweet as her name. Still - he had his reasons for being wary, all of which he swallowed in favor of having company for a brief moment in time.
“That’s a very kind offer you’ve made, there.” The half-horse, half-goat creature nodded once.
Did he need help, though? That was the question.
Should’ve been an easy one for the stallion to answer, but he held onto the reply instead and flicked his short tail back-and-forth like he was tossing it around.
“Yes, well, if you’ve got no pressing business…” He mused, turning back to stare out at the nothingness that Gilda would know as the meadow. To Yan, it was all black and voidless these days.
“... I could use some help locating my fine-feathered companion.” He grinned to himself, ragged-lipped.
“She must’ve gone to roost nearby about a day or two ago, I think. Hasn’t been back since. I’m not confident enough to go and get her, or I’d collect the useless bird myself.” Yan shook his horns and chuckled, a bit of the old spark returning. One of his eyes began to weep. He hardly noticed.
@Gilda I bet you thought this would be touching, didn't you? Nope. I give you: chicken hunt.
03-10-2022, 11:21 AM (This post was last modified: 03-10-2022, 11:26 AM by Gilda.)
Perhaps Gilda is unusual among the continent's horses. She doesn't wear bitterness or fear or hatred across her shoulders like the heavy mantles that others carry, but she recognizes some of them in the briefest flashes across his face at her approach, that wariness quickly covered over by glossy, empty, friendliness. She says nothing, his reasons for this arm's-length affability are written all over his body.
She wonders what happened to him and resolves not to ask in the same moment.
His request is an odd one; to find his missing companion. The little that Gilda knows of companions is that they are pieces of your soul made physical, and it seems to her that even blind as he is, the horned stallion should be able to find his feathered friend no matter where she's gone. If not... What can it mean for him that his has gone? Her head tilts curiously to one side, ears flicking smoothly back and then pressing forward again. Coffee-dark eyes scan the scant trees full of night and the moonlight and she wonders how she has any better chance at finding a specific bird among them. It does not, however, occur to her to decline.
"Will you come with me? One horse alone tends to draw attention here." Case in point. And besides, she has no way to convince a wayward companion animal to come with her even if she does manage to find the bird. Without any direction given, she takes a guess and turns slightly to the left.
