"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
03-29-2022, 04:06 PM (This post was last modified: 03-29-2022, 04:11 PM by Castile.)
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
There's no reason to be back, to return to a world he long left behind in a cloud of ash and smoke. Soot lied in his wake when he launched himself into the open sky one last time.
A thunderous roar. A stream of fire. And then he was gone.
There is a life beyond this, beyond this island, and yet underneath his armored skin and iron-encased heart lies a spark of curiosity to taste familiarity again. This is where he was conceived, where he took his first breath. It's where he has filled and broken so many hearts, wrecked vows, and destroyed lives. But it is also the place where he experienced love and fatherhood, power and fortitude, friendship and so many mistakes.
He doesn't expect to see anyone from that life, not even his own children. Many years have passed, but he is truthfully unaware of exactly how many. He quickly lost count after fading beyond Beqanna's horizon. Each rhythmic beat of his wings carried him further away from everything he built - and destroyed.
Curiosity killed the cat, but what, exactly, does it do to a dragon?
A plume of smoke coils from his nostrils as he stands beneath an ancient oak. Patches of missing bark grab his attention, albeit briefly, before he takes heed to the noises surrounding him. Voices, laughter. His brows furrow as he notes the spectrum of conversations, eavesdropping haphazardly. As one would expect, he does not make a display of his presence. Not a word or noise slips past his pursed lips that would betray his unexpected return (because deep within him, he questions the permanence of his decision).
Instead, Castile keeps mutely to himself beneath the oak tree as sunlight dapples across his skin. Scars still web across his coat and age him, as do the stories in his eyes, despite immortality's sweet kiss. A deep pull of air, and then a sigh. He cannot help to toy with himself as to what, exactly, drew him back to the confines of Beqanna
castile
Uhh not really back, per say, I guess?
Just a lot going on in life and felt like writing a little, even if it's giving me anxiety. If anyone even responds - which is quite unlikely - I would at least try to keep the thread going and not intentionally ghost anyone.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
It is strange to be living in this Forest when she belongs to the Isle. To its colorful dancing lights, the biting cold, the stretching solitude where it is just her and the stars. The burnt beach which reminds her of a life she can barely remember living anymore. She misses it but the intensity of her newly released emotions, the love she has for her son gifted by a Dark God to a Dark Star, is stronger. Besides, those memories barely matter anymore. It is just a drop in an ocean that is now filled with a thousand stories of a life lived in the sky. It is just another chapter in an unfinished book. She can think back now and not feel as if a million razors are slicing into her heart. When she had unleashed the taint of what the Curse had left within her, when she had flung it at Amet and thrown him into darkness as her brilliance reclaimed her…. Some of that old hurt and anger had gone with it.
Ciri had crossed to other worlds, had faced monsters, had died. She had loved and lost. What she was now was something new, something she was still trying to understand and figure out. The crimson stars that flicker around her speak of her past (of the things still left to heal), the light that glimmers through her many scars (too many now) a sign of what she had overcome to finally find the path to understanding who she truly was. Who she wanted to be.
Returning from the Isle, she seeks her starlit child who she knows will be wandering these woods. He never leaves them, seems to have no desire to. It bothers her but she never forces him. Remembering how strong the pull had been to come here and birth him to begin with. There is a strangeness to the colt that she is aware of. He barely speaks and every time he tries, it is stuttered and harsh. As if he was a thing that shouldn’t be speaking at all. It still unnerves her when the forest creatures eyes seem to watch him when they move, those damned ravens that are always fluttering overhead and trigger nightmares from a time spent Underneath. Still, she loves him. This dark boy covered in her own celestial light with an eye of red and another of silver. Still, unlike her own that now sparkle with shooting stars.
Her second chance. Her gift.
It is he that she seeks when a sigh from the shadows makes her halt her steps. It is only a slight glance but then she stops entirely. Not unlike that moment in the meadow when she had caught a glint of a golden scale. He is older, battle hardened with old wounds much like her own. Yet there is no mistaking him as sunlight catches across his face. For there is another memory here, more recent than the ones from the night sky but yet not new… Not like her death that’s written in the many layers of healed lesions across her chest. Not like her rebirth as a mortal star.
How often had she stood on the remains of that beach and thought of him?
”Castile?” A soft hiss of his name that slips from dark lips, bewilderment and a variety of other pressing emotions setting off the stars in her silver eyes. Unbelieving that yet another ghost had somehow seemed to manifest from her mind. Her wings wrap around her as she takes a step back, instantly remembering just how terribly wrong things had gone when she had stumbled across Amet in the meadow months ago. She had already casted one dragon to eternal darkness. To be fair, she had been a much angrier mare then (and part of her could still not be sorry for it, that unraveling of his betrayal that had set her off and set her free). Still, she is not sure she trusts herself. Not when the memories and what ifs she had played a thousand times finally shift back to the front of her mind as she looks at him in disbelief.
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
Of all the faces, of all the memories, Ciri was the last he expected.
They were mere children when they first laid eyes on each other. Their lives intertwined so unexpectedly yet so passionately. Castile wanted her then, craved her, but his friendship with Amet barred his primal desires. Amet was the raging river Castile dared not cross.
Their paths crossed once, maybe twice, more but it was hardly more than aimless wandering. Love branched them in different directions. Apart, they found love and parenthood. Together, a loose friendship.
Yet that doesn't inhibit the way his heart leaps at the sound of her voice.
It's different. Wiser, perhaps, but still he almost immediately recognizes it as she utters his name.
His mismatched eyes blink slowly, thoughtfully, while his baroque head lifts to drink the sight of her. What meets his eyes isn't at all what he expected. The confidence he had falters. Seeing her now, with stars adorning her skin, fills his eyes with doubt. A deep breath and a furrowed brow. Is it her? Is it truly? This isn't the image that he remembers. She isn't the one that sank her claws into him decades ago.
… Right?
But the sweetness of her skin reaches him again and sheds away the layers of doubt. His childhood - when he was afraid of the creature inside him - trickles back, little by little, until he finds himself facing her full front, staring in awe at what she has become. He hadn't even realized he was moving at all.
Suddenly, his tongue feels thick in his dry mouth.
Castile hesitates before he finally nods his head, confirming her suspicions while delivering his own. "Ciri?" It shouldn't be a question and yet it is framed as one as he regards her more curiously now. "So much time has passed…" he trails off, unable to find the words as he inches closer, almost believing they are once again children.
castile
Oh hi! Long time no see ❤❤ I've always loved our threads
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
The fallen star sorts through her newly acquired memory bank until she lands on one that is not so old, not so new. The last time she had seen Castile before her. It is easier now to pull them, those pieces of him, when he is standing in the flesh before her. A stray piece of forelock gently brushes against the ragged scar along her face, the one she had acquired that night in this Forest when he had found her and the truth of desire was no longer something they could deny. Children. That day on the Island when she had been pregnant and broken and she had thought that maybe.. just maybe… He had been looking for her. Except he had looked unnerved by her presence and then those fateful words, ”Amet can’t see us.”
Amet. It always came back to Amet.
Her ears twitch as she pushes thoughts of a certain gilded stallion being swept to oblivion from her mind, swallowing hard as the shooting silver of her gaze finds his own. Metallic and orange, not so unlike the eyes her newborn now wore. It stuns her to find amazement there, awe of her. Slowly she drops her wings from where they cradled her, allowing them to find their place along her backside. It is still hard to believe that this could be him, the dragon she had thought about most since she had come to live on the Isle. More than Lior (who she had befriended before Gale had shattered her legs and ate her stars) or even the one currently orbiting some small part of space.
There is always the thought in the back of her mind that Gale was lurking in the disguises of those that had mattered most to her. Despite the fact that there had been no sign of The Curse since she had been freed from the ice… She refused to let her guard completely down. It had cost her so much last time, after all. Her silvery gaze brushes over the familiar gold band along his muzzle and when she takes a hesitant step closer, the rumble of her name and the familiarity of his scent washing over her, a small smile flutters over her dark lips in response as her heart leaps with recognition. So much time has passed… A slight nod of agreement as he closes the distance between them and her breath is caught in her throat at having him so near after years of only nightmares and dreams to keep his image alive. “It has.” She whispers in her fluted voice of starlight, the shimmering brilliance of her light pulsing beneath her scars and sending the crimson of her stars to bleed a little darker.
It is becoming easier to pluck the threads to each intense emotion that spirals inside of her. It is uncertainty that lingers at the corner of her mouth and bundles nerves in the hollow space of her chest where Gale had once hidden his sparks and dark heart. Her own flutters anxiously despite being so bruised and shy after long years of knowing only anger and darkness. Yet she finds herself reaching out to him, her muzzle seeking that gold band and brushing gently over it, thoughtfully. “What happened to you?” She asks quietly, finding his mismatched gaze again. She had heard the stories of course, what he had been up to when she had been in other places, other worlds. Told with trepidation, anger, or dismay. And yet she had ambled enough times over the pebbled glass that remained of his unleashing and hadn’t felt any of those things. For how could a star ever fear a dragon?
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
What happened to you?
Suspended in the air between them, Castile measures the question. There are so many ways that he can answer, including a dismissing snort or evasive change of conversation. He grapples with his memories as they flash like lightning every time he blinks. They play across the backs of his lids and bring to life the smoldering embers of his soul.
In the quiet that settles, Castile thumbs through what his life was, what it had become. Few things he did were truly good; he realizes that but there were blissful moments in the mayhem he helped to create.
He sees the faces of Sabra and Oceane, Sochi and Solace, Lepis and mother and father. He smells the smoldering ruins of Tephra and tastes the ash of Icicle Isle.
"I lost myself," he simply states, his voice flattened and hollow, as his eyes fall to the grass underfoot. The voice that once haunted him has since been subdued, tethered down with indestructible manacles (or so he assumes). It doesn't even raise its head when Castile reminisces. After so long of fighting, it has finally been subdued. Perhaps forever, perhaps not. Its eerie quiet unsettles Castile and a peculiar sense of loneliness suddenly washes across him. "I ruined everything," his family, his ability to be monogamous, his life. He has survived the consequences of his actions.
But he does not want pity. He doesn't even pity himself. Mistakes can be learned from. Life goes on.
"But I am alive and well," a lopsided grin cracks the stoicism of his face as his gaze dives deep into Ciri's. Their breaths mingle as she traces the gold banding across his muzzle. I am not a figment of your imagination, he doesn't say; this is truly me. With waning hesitation, Castile returns the gesture and slides his lips along the curve of her jaw. To touch her again, to be so near, enthralls him but he keeps level as though afraid she will again disappear. "And you? When did you become such a captivating star? "
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
She does not know this stallion before her. The one whose words are so flat and hollow, the one whose gaze falls to the floor as he sorts though his life, his successes and his failures. They had been wild blossoming teenagers when they had first met. Still discovering themselves. Lost. She does not know this Castile but it startles her to realize that she would like to. Especially when that familiar lopsided grin that had pulled her in all those years ago reappears on his lips. Or when those old feelings that she had long thought dead reappear to flutter in her ravaged chest as his touch grazes her jaw.
There is no pity in her gaze, instead there is understanding. When he asks about herself she gives a strained smile in response, sending the stars in her eyes to spark and fly as she pulls her muzzle back to her heavily scarred chest. “It’s a long story. I guess you could say… I lost myself.” Her smile fades as she holds his two-toned gaze in her own unrelenting one. “And ruined everything along the way.” How could she ever judge him of all people? The balls of light that surround her drop to an even darker shade of crimson, bloody, as she hesitates and remembers what she had become. A viper hellbent on revenge, a black hole. Exhaling slowly as she recalls all that she had done. It had been easier back then to blame everything on Gale, on The Curse. However, the darkness inside of her hadn’t come solely from him. It had always been there, a streak. A stain. Gale had just managed to coax it out and develop it into something new. All he had to do was simply take her life and close her off to what she was for her to find herself, truly find herself, again.
She had lived through a hell of her own making and now with yet another reminder of her past standing here beside her…. Her gaze turns glossy with the promise of unshed tears when she finally forces herself to find his face again. “It’s been a hard few years… For everyone.” She admits, feeling pain not just for herself but compassion for everyone that had been harmed by both The Curse and by the Gods. The fallen South and those that were missing and presumed dead, those that had died at Gale's whims (the ones she hadn't been able to save), Nashua who seemed more broken then ever, Leilan who seemed distant. Mazikeen, who she had unjustly blamed when she herself had also been a victim. Nash’s mother and Kestrell who had never deserved her harshness. Thinking briefly of him (the stallion who had managed to prick beneath her skin hard enough, who had claimed to need her) and the insufferable looks he would give makes her shift suddenly in discomfort.
“But I am alive and well enough. And I’m glad to see you, Castile.” She says and there is nothing but genuine feeling in her expression, in the stars that sparkle in silver. Is there still some anger lurking at the corner of her gaze from old hurts and past pain that he had been the root of? Yes, she cannot deny its existence or how acutely she feels it as she feels all emotions now with such strength and intensity. Yet, it doesn’t threaten to overtake her like it had once done, it simply lingers around her heart and she allows herself to feel it. Recognize it. It is not the same anger or distress that’s reserved for Amet. This dragon had not betrayed her, hurt her, like that one had.
Pushing past her uncertainty, her throat constricting as the light simmering beneath her skin flickers and burns, she arches her neck and keeps a little distance between them despite the sudden urge to touch him again. Just to make sure he was truly real. “There’s a few things you should know, now that you’ve come home.”
04-19-2022, 10:09 AM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2022, 10:10 AM by Castile.)
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
Her chin motions to the scars on her chest after he touches her, and her smile strains itself tightly across her lips. Castile takes it all in - the sight of her, the smell of her - as though this will again be the last time they meet. Perhaps it is his possessive nature that keeps him so closely rooted to her, wanting her like he has other women. Always craving love, he often found himself wandering and polygamous despite telling himself that it is monogamy that would truly bring him joy. It's what mother and father had, after all. So, shouldn't that play as his perfect role model?
Once, he thought so too.
But then there was Ciri, Solace, Sabra, and Sochi.
Each opportunity he had, each chance of love, he shattered. It was his fault, and he can take that responsibility, but that doesn't nullify the fact that each failure bit away at him and broke him.
He isn't quite the same man as he once was, but he also isn't entirely different.
"Fancy that," a chuckle, deep like rumbling thunder, slips past as Ciri nearly quotes him. Their lives have seemingly both faced trying tribulations. He can see it in her eyes how much she has endured over the years. Questions simmer beneath his level demeanor, wanting to know more about her and more about what trials she has faced. Hopefully not alone, he finds himself thinking.
Every twitch of muscle and sharp breath holds Castile's unwavering attention. The world around them begins to fade as his gaze travels across her in deep scrutiny, memorizing her all over again. They aren't children anymore and the years have come and gone, and yet something stirs and crackles in the space between them. History. There was pain and yearning and confusion back then. Yet they speak nothing of it. They move along in conversation, never addressing their past so that they may instead look ahead. "Like what?" he asks, never telling her that this may not be permanent. Truthfully, Castile isn't so sure he belongs here anymore, but her company anchors him for at least the time being. "Tell me," he murmurs in reiteration, curious as to what could have possibly changed here in Beqanna.
