"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
04-23-2023, 07:20 AM (This post was last modified: 04-23-2023, 12:11 PM by Chemdog.)
❤
Beqanna sheds its pearly skin like Irisaen. Chemdog has haunted these halls so long that it doesn’t surprise him anymore. No longer is he shocked to find the terrain morphed, new Kings rise and mountains fall, crumbling into the heart of the earth only to rebuild another skeleton.
He finds himself alone, again, except his reptilian companion gnarled in his mane and half draped over his speckled withers. The River is always a favorite place to be, his Cove gone. He is his normal self today, a depthless black with bright ghostly splashes and dots lined like stars across his pelt. His teal eyes bright against the morning sun as he moves down the pathways toward the sound of flowing water.
He sees her there in the distance, on the river’s edge, but was it her? His breath catches and he stops, leaves crunching beneath his chipped hooves. “Ori?” But it could not be, it has been so long, and the Cove is gone now ̶ the silver beaches they would haunt together. He draws in another deep inhale and descends down the bank to stand beside her, ankles in the cold flowing current. He reaches out to gently touch her shoulder, to feel the warmth of her flesh against his lips, to confirm it is really his dear friend Oriash.
She should be used to losing things. Family, friends, her home. These things have always been like grasping at mist. Her parents had left her when she was only a child, though she’d gotten them back for a while. The Cove has come and gone in and out of existence. How long had it been since she’d seen Pteron, who’d taught her to love the sky and challenged her to fly? Or Chemdog, who she’d had only briefly, but his memory still shone bright in her mind?
As Beqanna shifts and changes around her, Ori does what she always does - she disappears into the common lands and creates worlds around her. If she cannot have the black beaches of the Cove, then she will stand on some other shoreline and paint the sand black beneath her feet. If she cannot have a family that stays, then she lets their memories come to life and live around her. Perhaps all she is doing is painting her own quiet hell, her own imaginary prison, but it feels more like life than anything she’s experienced in the real world. But her power blurs the line between reality and fantasy, and there are days she cannot trust her own senses.
Today is no different. “Ori?” says a voice that is familiar, one she hasn’t heard in a while but one she cannot forget. Her eyes turn to find the stallion she’d grown so fond of so easily, and she wonders as he comes closer if he’s actually there. Is he real, or just her imagination gone rogue with her own power? But when he stands near her, the heat of him is real, the smell of him better than she remembered. Her illusions were always just slightly off, skewed by her own faulty memory, but he did not seem to be merely an illusion. He reaches out to touch her and he feels alive and solid. These are all things she can create, but not things she usually creates in her own, imaginary world.
”Is it really you?” she finally says, voice little more than a whisper as her eyes find his. She cannot quite bring herself to hope, and yet hope creeps in anyway. Sneaky and welcome and potentially heart wrenching all at once.
A rush of heat ̶ of relief ̶ washes over him like a wave thrown from the center of the ocean. His forehead presses into her mane, “It is.” he whispers back, grumbling it, taking in a deep breath. He has been alone since they left each other's company. They didn’t spend massive amounts of time together, but the time they had, it was unlike time spent with others; seemingly, for some reason, a bit more coveted and precious to him. Lovers are a concept he let go of long ago, he’s had bonded partners, mothers of his children, concubines, all sorts, but that was a long time ago. Women don’t have the magnetic appeal they used to, except Oriash. They’ve never spoken of loyalty, or even togetherness, but it was just a feeling he had. She was different.
He pulls away from her but stands close, looking her over and moving his eyes back to hers. “It’s good to see you survived the land’s latest mood swing.” he chuckles, noting that she looks healthy from this angle, but he looks closely for scars or injuries. “No more Cove.” he rolls his teal eyes, as if he expected the earth to take their haven back (and he won’t be shocked when or if it returns, either). He found sanctuary well enough in the Forest or the River, as he always does when he’s a bachelor. It looks like Oriash has done the name, he takes note of that too.
“How have you been?” He fills the quiet with idle chat, but really, his body is singing just to be in her company. He resists the urge to reach out and caress her shoulder, or her cheek, but he looks at her like he might move closer any second. “Any plans?”
”It is,” he says, and his touch feels like breathing. It feels like she’s been holding a breath since the destruction of the Cove that she didn’t even realize she was holding, like she’s been drowning for a year and just finally came back up for air. Should she feel like this? Does she have any right to be so joyful to see Chemdog again when they’d spent so little time together? Perhaps not. Perhaps she is grasping at something she has no claim to, and yet if she can read him correctly, it seems like perhaps he may feel the same way too.
She presses into him as he leans his forehead against her mane. The hope creeps in further, and she cannot banish it. She knows what hope does, she knows the gaping wound it leaves behind when hopes are dashed. And yet, and yet she cannot kill her hope, even if she knows it may kill her.
Oriash has come to accept a life alone. That has been her whole life, and every time she touches something like an actual life it disintegrates in her hand. How can she expect anything, anyone, to stay, when they never have before? And yet he found her, and it feels like something larger than coincidence.
She does not want him to pull away, though he does not go far, and she turns enough so she can face him, a soft smile on her lips and joy in her eyes. She chuckles at his comment, ”You’d think I’d be used to her mood swings by now.” She sighs slightly as he mentions no more Cove though. “I feel as though I will spend a lifetime chasing my own home.” Though maybe home didn’t have to be a land, she thinks even as she speaks. Maybe home could be someone instead of some place.
“I’ve been,” she starts before hesitating, deciding if she pretends she’s fine when she’s almost never really been fine. She just survives. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve just been.” her chuckle is rueful, but she trusts him with this truth of hers. “Do I ever have plans?” she responds, her voice teasing now, a smaller smile on her face. “If you’ve nowhere to be, maybe we can go on a walk?” She just found him, and she wanted to keep him as long as she possibly could.
but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too
@Chemdog - pretty sure I'm the one who writes rubbish
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