"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
i'm freezing, it's not winter yet but my fingers and toes are shivering beneath these sheets and i feel so alone i don't want to die, i want to sleep
My hooves strike ice. The glittering white crystals littering its top layer stick to the light feathering of my hocks, dusting their dirty brown tendrils a purified white. I pause on my journey as I notice this. Hmm. Without ceremony, I drop to my knees, then to my side, my tawny wings clutched to my painted side. With an audible heave, I kick my legs up above me and wriggle and roll around in the snow, hoping that the frozen tundra can wash away the grime of my previous days' journey. Hell, of my previous life. As I move my body and feel the cold seep into it, I rest my eyes on the painful blue-white of the wintering sky above, wondering just how the hell I got this far. Not that my meager accomplishments in life have been "far," by any means.
There. Pleased with the results of my snow-bath, I repeat the heaving grown from before and right myself, splaying my legs to shake off the excess crystals. My mane slaps against both sides of my neck as I do so, the sound echoing into the vastness of the white plain ahead of me. Kinda embarrassing, I muse to myself. Oh well.
Snorting steam into the frigid air, I resume my trek towards the frozen wasteland known as a kingdom. Which kingdom I do not know. My junior years in politics long since gave way to the far more pressing needs of seclusion and mundanity, those being the themes of my adult life thus far. I could not tell you a single fact about my family, distant or close, nor a single fact about the names of the faces I knew as a somber and neglected child.
Familiarity breeds contempt. And I suppose I have held myself in contempt for a long, long time, neglecting myself the same way my parents once neglected me.
Unsure of my motives, I trudge through this frozen (yet apparently scorched?) wasteland, eager for night to fall as my eyes squint against the onslaught of whiteness before me.
03-01-2022, 12:23 PM (This post was last modified: 03-01-2022, 12:23 PM by Leilan.)
Leilan
If there’s one thing characteristic about the Isle, it’d be its whiteness.
Ice and snow come down from the northern mountain range early in the season and leave only when summer’s hold on the mainland is at its strongest. The winds never turn hot here, causing snowdrifts well into spring and freezing the autumn rain as soon as the sun turns its attention to another place.
The ice-wielding roan would never feel at home in Tephra, but here, he cloaks himself with nature as much as nature beckons to him. It’d be too much to say he’s growing one with the land itself, but the cold that seeps into every visitor’s bones might as easily have his magical touch as not.
He rides the northern winds mentally, expanding only in the winter season beyond the borders of the northern kingdoms. It’s how he found Brennen once, though he knows it’s not he who made him stay awake, but his nephew. Today he doesn’t have to go so far to meet a familiar face, however: Kori sets a hoof on the obsidian glass of the beach, the last remnants of Castile’s crazy fire, and he alerts his uncle.
Blood calls to blood, he thinks, though the influx of relatives is less and less as the grow older and older. Young Trekori is no longer that lanky colt in need of a father figure, easy to manipulate or in Leilan’s case just bother. He has shed his adolescence to become a stallion, but that is really all that the ice-clad roan touches. He never wanted to start into mind-reading and the like and he sure as hell wouldn’t start with glow-stick.
Oh, old habits die hard indeed. So he shows up, albeit behind the other male by use of a portal, and adds a waft of ice-cold to his presence. Just for the idea of freezing him, but not fully, as Trekori was never built for the cold.
”Hello to you, too.”
There would be plenty things to say - other things, like a warm welcome to the lands that best hold their family’s remainder. Or maybe that this is the best likeness to the Tundra that once held the Brotherhood; hell, that since the fusion of Brothers and Sisters this was the last version of some sort of Brotherhood, though only in spirit and no longer in name. Or that Nerine is again the souvereign kingdom and was led by none other than Heartfire’s grandson.
None of that is as important as spooking Trekori, though.
tell me, have i gone insane talking to myself but i don’t know what to say
i'm freezing, it's not winter yet but my fingers and toes are shivering beneath these sheets and i feel so alone i don't want to die, i want to sleep
First, the cold; then, the greeting.
Hello to you, too.
I hop to face the voice, startled by its unembodied manifestation. What ought to have been its unembodied manifestation. Hot air billows from my nostrils in a snort of disapproval as I train my white-rimmed violet eyes on the stallion across from me and wait as a slow recognition and calm dawns on me. That asshole uncle of mine from the meadow all those years ago, I muse to myself, a nostalgic fondness colouring the thought. Lei-something...
With a snappy shake of my head to rid myself of the last remnants of the spook and a good-natured harrumph to seal the deal, I turn my back to the scaled stallion and toss my head for him to accompany me. I do not wait long before his hooves fall in step with mine and, in the beat of a heart, we walk, brothers in frigid arms as I imagine our ancestors must have been a long, long time ago.
"Uncle," I say in greeting. "Long time, no see."What exactly does one say to one's estranged uncle a decade after meeting...? How d'y do?"Are you the lucky bastard who wields the helm of this here frigid wasteland?" I scan the horizon for dramatic effect. "Quite the catch."
A sudden shiver runs through me and I clatter my teeth. Begrudged of my humour by my own temperature-related intolerance, I clench my teeth and grumble: "Maybe it has something to do with having Spring for a mum, but this place gives me the shakes. How do you stand it?"
Glowing stick hops in a very satisfactory way, and a green-eyed grin blooms on Leilan’s face. Not quite malicious, but relatively close. Leilan waits, for Trekori to rack his brain for the familiarity, the realization on his face easily read. For once, the scaled roan is some sort of patient with his nephew. If only because he openly enjoys the way his wide eyes make room for a scowl.
Uncle is what he finally greets him with, and a low chuckle gets almost stifled in the gold-maned stallion’s throat. Almost, as he does enjoy upsetting the younger one. One of the few pleasures in his life nowadays.
Sarcasm drips from Kori’s voice and it makes Leilan more careful. What ever happened to the young colt who was going to explore the world - his neglected self finding a new father in whatshisname, that winged stallion. Life, presumably. The ice-covered roan isn’t per say touched, as well as a little careful in when or where he prods this time. Mature? Not really. Just a little maybe.
”I’m one of its founders, yes. Dragon King in the North, as well.” he muses aloud more than that he answers with pride. ”Last remnants of what could have been a Brotherhood, but perhaps the name was cursed to begin with.” he shrugs a little. ”No longer, though. I’ve distanced myself from leadership twice now, but this cold has seeped into my bones. Couldn’t get rid of it if I wanted to.” He motions his head to one heap of snow, moving the wind such that it carries the snowdrift in an unnatural fashion, up in the sky to take Trekori’s shape. ”Look, it’s taking a liking to you as well.” Though this time, he does grin widely, making sure it’s quite obvious it is he who is shaping the white substance.
told you I'd change even when I knew I never could
| 