"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
09-26-2026, 07:04 PM (This post was last modified: 09-26-2026, 07:08 PM by Ygritte.)
BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE
Spring cleanses away the death of winter's breath; the gentle urgency of green grass pushing through frost; she walks toward the sound of tired river water. The soft hue of salmon pink seems harsh against the dull, murky greys and browns, but Ygritte is somber and purposeful in her walk. Her throat is tight and itches with the desire for a drink, the need making her throat hitched and jagged. She doesn't wonder why she has returned; she simply exists.
Ygritte presses her hoof against the still brittle frozen river edge to splinter, admiring the spider's web only momentarily before breaking it; she pauses, then plunges her painted lips into the icy water, a frozen kiss as she drinks. Beqanna is as it always was, a home of wayward souls, grappling for a foothold and for honor while others look for peace or even revenge. None of it pertains really to the cinnamon mare as she repositions her wings so they lay neatly along her spine. The water is cold, hurting her raw throat until it numbs, but the pain is a reminder that she isn't dreaming anymore. She is real.
Only when she has had her fill, Ygritte lifts her head, scanning with her good eye to see there are others here. Despite the early spring, the begonias in her other eye socket bloom vividly with a ferocity of life that no winter could cripple. Beqanna breathes with life, as it could never truly die, and perhaps, she mused wistfully to herself, that is why she too will go on living.
Ygritte.
Short, but I appreciate you helping me dust off the laptop
to know me is to hate me
Is to hate what i’ve become
He has known beautiful things, Mutiny.
Enough to understand that he is not one of them.
How the stars have loved his mother and how she has loved them in return. She’d called him a star, too, with that heavenly glow that settles around him in the dark. But he is a star in the same way a black hole is a star: collapsed, so pitch black that no light may escape. And none does. Understand that there is no light in him at all.
He has seen vicious, frightful things, too.
Enough to understand that he does not want to be one of them.
But it is not a matter of choice. He’d emerged from the womb a blight, a stain, starved before he could ever even think to open his mouth to eat. His mother had loved him so wildly, fervently, though she had whimpered in her sleep and smiled wearily in the morning. He suspects that she had known then that he was the cause of the darkness that chased her in her sleep but had not thought to cast him away. She had pledged herself to loving the twins and she had done so with feverish intensity.
And yet, he knows.
He knows when bones splinter between his teeth that he is one of the frightful things. When it is meat that settles in his gut rather than plants. When he yearns and yearns for the death of things. He is not a beautiful thing, Mutiny, he is one of the monsters.
Still, he loiters. The daylight is muted, soft in the way it often is this time of year. He prefers this soft light, though there is no time of day or night where he feels particularly comfortable. It all feels wrong. It feels wrong because he is wrong. A nightmare brought to life, he thinks. A thing meant to keep its distance, which he does. Even when he catches sight of her and the flowers that bloom from her skull.
“How do you do that?” he asks her before he can stop himself. “The flowers.”
BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE
She raises her head from the long drink, a shiver capturing her for a moment, uncontrollably. The cold coats her tongue, teeth, and throat, but it feels good; it feels real, even as it consumes her for a brief moment before the warmth of her own blood replaces it. Winter ghosts will soon be driven away by the cheerful chirps and squawks of birds.
Ygritte senses she is not alone before she even needs to turn her face so her good eye can see who it is. Her senses have heightened in her lapse of full sight. It's a prickle, a thickness in how the atmosphere changes, pregnant with anticipation, but she does not feel fear. The heaviness is another sort, collapsing the energy into a tight knot.
"How do you do that?" Pausing briefly before the curiosity drips from the knot. "The flowers." Ygritte contorts her head so she may rest her good eye on her visitor, respectfully, a habit she maintained after she had left her queenship. "I believe they just are...like you and I." Ygritte speaks matter-of-factly but without the callousness. In fact, her tone maintains a gentleness and conjures a little smile from the mare.
Ygritte has time to observe her company with unabashed interest. He is not ghoulish and grotesque to her; he is not the first wendigo she has witnessed. But each time she does, she finds herself slightly lost in the depth of their darkness. Their melanistic skin, antlers, the way needle-edged teeth slip between black lips. Beautiful, if the silent fear of having your throat torn out was not a lingering thought.
Ygritte catches herself, shuddering her good eye for a moment and chuckling softly. "Apologies." She singsong the word before returning her gaze to the wendigo. "I lost my sight when I was a younger mare, and then the flowers bloomed. I suppose a reminder that even something beautiful can come from tragedy," she smiles again, " it tickles a little when they bloom." The shame Ygritte had felt for so long has thankfully dissipated. She imagines she is still beautiful in the eyes of others, but it is magic that keeps her that way, eternally, even on her darkest days. "Watch this.", a gleeful and almost foalish giggle follows. A flash of light ripples over the bay and salmon mare as though passing under dappled tree light, and her coat darkens to the rich, velvet black of a cloudless night sky, stars emerging and glittering across her skin, the begonias following suit. "Neat, huh?" She smiles broadly at the wendigo, her good eye the color of a pale moon and dancing as she loses herself in the magic, if only briefly. "Sorry, I'm Ygritte," A small shyness creeps across her expression as she titters a small laugh, "it's been some time since I've had someone to talk to."
to know me is to hate me
Is to hate what i’ve become
They just are, she says, and he feels foolish for asking. Perhaps it would have been like someone asking how he became so pitch black, how the antlers grew crooked from his head and the ribs pressed earnestly against his skin. How would he have answered that but to turn away in shame over something he could not control?
And this feels shameful, too, his having asked. His having assumed that this magic belonged specifically to her, that she could make flowers bloom in places they wouldn’t otherwise. If flowers belonged to her in the same way that stars seemed to belong to his mother. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, so quickly that the syllables trip over one another as they tumble out of his mouth.
He thinks to turn to go, to leave her be, to remove himself and his shame and his embarrassment. But she goes on looking at him without turning away, no fear registering in her expression as she tells him to ‘watch this’ and she laughs.
She laughs!
And what a sweet sound it is!
So sweet that he cannot help but to smile uncertainly in response, the row of razored teeth catching in the light before he promptly closes his mouth up again.
This is magic unlike anything he has seen and, for a fleeting instant, he wonders if she might be able to change his color, too. But he does not ask. He only nods an enthusiastic response. Neat, yes.
“It’s okay,” he says this quickly, too. How rare it is that anyone can stand to talk to him at all, let alone for any extended period of time. Perhaps, he thinks, this is the greatest magic of all: that she seems immune to the darkness. “My name is Mutiny.”
He thinks he should have something to offer her in return, but there is nothing. “I can’t do anything cool like that,” he admits. “I just…” he rolls a deep black shoulder and says, “I don’t know, make others afraid, mostly.”
BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE
Moonbeam's eyes flicker momentarily and return to their normal amber-honey irises, her skin following after as the black night sky brightens and she returns to her russet-and-sunset-pink form. She doesn't let her good eye leave him as he smiles (briefly!) and her heart feels a warmth. It's so strange; she finds the word endearment is the best one to describe this feeling, and oh, it is lovely! "Mutiny," with her ears pricked and a good eye resting on him, Ygritte smiles broadly enough for both of them in this small space.
Ygritte feels a foalish giddy blossoming under her skin, a feeling she had thought was lost ages ago, and yet it has returned. She feels grateful for the pickles of excitement and hopes she isn't the one scaring him. His energy is calm, more reserved, and Ygritte attempted to quell some of her own spark as it might be perceived oddly. "Afraid? How could anyone be afraid?" Her tone scoffs ever so slightly as she still smiles. "Just don't make me your next meal, my dear wendigo." Her tone is playful and light, with a gentle edge of teasing. Ygritte had known horrors of Beqanna, the carnal abominations that crept from the earth when the ground split open and birthed monstrosities, but that was when she was a queen still, when she had to gulp down a chalice of tears under a blistered sky...but that was long ago. She was the same mare now, albeit an eye, as she was then, just without the weight of expectation. "I'm Ygritte and I'm pleased to meet you, Mutiny."
The mare can only pause a moment before she asks, "Can I see your scary face?" Ygritte is too chipper for this nonsense and suspects she may unwillingly overwhelm him and attempts to change the subject. "Sorry-", her good eye darts away and the begonias in the empty socket seem to fold and droop ever so slightly. "Do you have a home in the lands?" Subject changed successfully, she thinks.
Ygritte.
((So I know nightmares can happen by being in a Wendigo's company; you're welcome to add them to the post if you want that to happen! Mutiny is a sweetie pop and Ygritte likes him so it's up to you if you like her to perceive him differently <3))
to know me is to hate me
Is to hate what i’ve become
How could anyone be afraid, she asks. He is not a particularly frightening thing, Mutiny, despite the rows of razored teeth, the impenetrable dark of him. He has always been a mild thing, careful. And yet his mother had whimpered in her sleep and he had known, somehow, that he was responsible. If only because she’d smile at him but the light would stop just short of her eyes. Because, though she insisted that she loved him, that there was nothing he could do to make her love him any less, the distance between them grew and grew and he understood then that he frightened her.
But he does not tell Ygritte this. He does not share with her his shame of being something so terrible that he can strike fear in others, even his own mother, without even trying. He huffs out a self-conscious laugh, mouth lopsided, when she asks that he not sink those wicked teeth into her own flesh. He has eaten his fair share of hares, birds, small woodland creatures, it has never once occurred to him to sample the flesh of another horse. “I won’t,” he vows, so self-conscious that it makes his nerves hum beneath the impossibly dark skin.
He doesn’t have a scary face that he’s aware of, but before he can tell her this, she has dimmed her own shine and cast her gaze away with an apology. He wants to tell her that she has no reason to apologize for asking a monster to show her how monstrous it can be, but she is already asking him something else. It sets his head reeling, how quickly she moves on, as someone who has largely avoided conversation his entire life purely because it meant getting close enough to others that he might unwittingly strike fear in them.
Does he have a home? He shakes his head. “No,” he tells her because he has no reason to lie. “I was born in the meadow, but I have never really called anyplace home.” He rolls a shoulder in a shrug and then asks, “do you?”
Ygritte
