"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
What are you?
A boy. No. What are you?
His son. No. What are you?
Her brother. No. What are you?
Glass. Breakable. Yes.
Here’s a riddle: does glass know it’s glass? Does it know it exists in perpetual fragility, the world around it – already so treacherous – made even more dangerous by its delicacy?
Now, give the glass a brain, the ability to think. To compare its delicateness to stouter skins. Give it a heart that shouldn’t beat too hard or too loud lest it burst through its fragile prison. Give it lungs to inhale (but not too deep, mind, lest it shatter its own ribcage).
Give it all this, and what does glass know?
Worse, if it does know – what does it mean? Does it mean it should live in a bubble, constant hinged with fear for itself, for the stone-throwers amongst them who find beauty in shattered pieces at their feet? Does it mean it should live recklessly, each breath already such a ludicrous concept that it has nothing to lose?
The boy knows. Of course he does. The knowledge that he was something other was written across the lined faces of his parents, for the brief time he knew them. (They marched into the sea, a romance he’ll come to know, come to idolize.)
He knows his skin is like paper, red-tinged but near translucent. It hints at the network of veins and arteries beneath. A roadmap for anyone to destroy him. What are you?
Scared.
Scared because he did not follow them, he stayed with Adaline. He needed her because she was like him; he needed her because her story was unwritten. He needed her but she left him and he is a glass house in a world of stone throwers.
04-15-2015, 10:39 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2015, 01:57 PM by Sinexuss.)
Tyrna
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
She doesn't walk, she saunters. She doesn't whisper she bellows. The dainty Falls filly had grown up into something bold and brash. She had seen enough heartache from her mom and fury from her dear old pop that nothing could faze her now. Marked with a sky blue tribal pattern and gifted with a new found strength she didn't let much stand in her way. Her tarnished silver hide with its splashes of white was covered in dirt and leaves made a nest of her hair, she was pretty enough under the grime with a muscular but graceful frame and long legs. It was her expression that had kept others at a distance. A near feral smirk had taken residence on her lips and she wasn't afraid to let people know what little she gave a shit. She was a warrior now.
She had only recently been released from the Silver Cove and her father had been quick to leave her behind. It wasn't the first time she had been left in the dust, so shaking it off she takes her own sweet time getting back home. She was quite young by normal standards but her sharp blue eyes had seen more than any child should and screamed fight me. She waltzes through the meadow like she owns it and takes no consideration for others mingling in the warm summer sun. Who were they to get in her way?
Tyrna has no fond memories of the Meadow. This was where father left the first time, and where she followed him into a world of hurt. In fact she was starting to question her judgement in crossing through since all it seemed to do was make her angry when she spots a brief shine of red through the treeline.What the fuck is that? she thinks to herself as she makes her way towards the faint glow, her curiosity momentarily overshadowing the rage bubbling just under the surface. She is shocked to see the color coming from a boy standing alone shining, literally shining, in the sun. With a soft snort Tyrna replaces her grin with one more charismaticjust like momma used to make and approaches the stallion. "Hi there", she says rather loudly as she gets closer, "My name's Tyrna, from the Falls. Can I just say you are stunning to look at?" She smiles warmly at him,oozing charisma. If there was one thing she learned from mom it was to not let people see the darker side if you wanted something, and not much of one for beating around the bush she hopes he stays and talks. He's the most interesting thing I've seen in a long while.
He is still learning how to live. How to draw breath. (It hurts, sometimes. All the time? Maybe. Maybe not when he’s asleep, but he doesn’t sleep much. Glass shouldn’t sleep.)
Some days he wants to throw caution to the wind, knowing his minutes have long been up (were up, really, the moment he was born, translucent and pale, paper-thin wings at his back). When he’s already beaten the odds, what’s a few more dollars on the bet?
Other days he thinks of leaving, of finding somewhere safer than this, somewhere not speckled with horses of all kinds, more than a few with a sadistic streak who would find pleasure in breaking him, the way children pluck wings from butterflies. (Not that he’s a butterfly, he’s nowhere as lovely as they. He’s not ugly, but he’s odd, the look of him, the way you can trace the veins beneath his skin. It’s unsettling, sometimes.)
There’s already been a few scares, roving groups of men and women who’d drink blood just to smile at you. And once, a woman in the night, black and odd-angled, with a monster gibbering at her side. Her eyes had glided over him and he’d felt himself turn cold.
They’d walked on, the lady and the tiger, but he remembers them all too well.
He’s been nowhere but here. Here, and the beach, once, telling mother and father goodbye as they marched into the sea foam, beautiful and damned. He knows there are other places, herdlands and kingdoms, but the idea of anyone wanting his fidelity is laughable. What use is he?
The there’s a woman, strong and there, filling up the empty space before him. He regards her (gawks, really), trying to process her words, trying to process her.
“Hello,” he manages. His voice is quiet, slightly graveled from disuse (he doesn’t speak often, not since Adaline left). “My name is Contagion.”
Wait. She’d mentioned where she was from. Where is glass from?
“From…nowhere, I guess. Here?” his voice rises like it’s a question, like she’d know. Truth is, nowhere is home, it’s all transient.
His mind still churns over the rest of her words - stunning - and he doesn’t know what to say. He’s never seen himself that way. Curious, perhaps. Fragile, certainly. But not stunning.
“Thank you,” he says, because even if he doesn’t speak much, he knows how to be polite, to not make trouble.
“I like your mark,” he says, nodding to the blue etched across her, like a piece of the sky came down to rest.
04-18-2015, 12:13 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2015, 01:57 PM by Tyrna.)
Tyrna
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
She watches his moves carefully as he replies bashful to her forwardness. She watches enraptured by the way the sunlight plays on, and through, his skin. Her eyes trace his veins under pale, smooth skin,and follow the curve of his paper thin wings. He seemed so... fragile. A work of art in dangerous world. When he finished speaking, a look of mild surprise on his face at the compliment, her expression softened. Just a little, becoming more sincere than originally planned. He reminded her of the birds and butterflies she called friends as a child when no one was around. Before she turns into the ball turned into the ball of anger that she was now.
"Well Contagion from nowhere, it is a pleasure to meet you." The corners of her lips stay practically painted into a grin as she gives him a quick once over one more time. "Thank you, I'm rather fond of it myself. I stepped in a puddle of sky and it decided to stick around. I like your wings. Do they work?" She wasn't sure if it was rude or not to ask and frankly she didn't care. Really all she wanted was to keep talking with the strange boy with paper wings. It gave her a distraction far more pleasant that she was expecting, an excuse not to go home. For the time being she could pretend to behave if it meant he stuck around.
Here’s one step crueler: give glass the hope of flight. Of escape, however brief.
Stich wings across its back, long and tapered. But make them paper thin. Do not pay attention to the way wings are supposed to work, only to how they might look when folded against pale skin. Hollow the bones, like a bird, but make it so they’d shatter like ice if you beat them too hard.
Make them beautiful. Make them useless. Give glass hope, take it away.
He unfolds his wings at their mention. They are strange things, a delicate membrane stretched thinly over hollowed bones. No, they do not bear him aloft. So little of his body functions as it should, it should be have been no surprise to him when he once saw horses take flight and beat his wings to join them, only to hear a thin crack, like a twig snapping, and feeling the agony radiate from his left wing and into his skin.
(The fracture since healed, leaving only a slight twist to the line of his wings, unremarkable to the untrained eye.)
“A pleasure to meet you too,” he says, for it is, because she is strong and powerful and grounded and he likes it, likes watching her.
“No, they don’t work,” he says, moving them again. They make for a fine silhouette but little else.
“Were you born in the falls, or have you lived elsewhere?” he asks, because he does not want to think of useless wings, of the way he once thought he might fly.
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
The silver girl watches enraptured as the sunlight filters through his outstretched wings. The light makes him glow and she feels drawn to him, a flower turning it's petals towards the sun. She feels clumsy and ugly standing next to him. A thick, awkward giant. She almost resents him for it. But how can a beetle hate a butterfly when the world would be darker for the loss?
"I'm sorry" she whispers. It's an empty apology. He clearly already knows his capabilities and has heard those words a thousand times before. She sees it in the way he carries himself. The way it hangs across his delicate shoulders like a chain. She doesn't know what to say but she doesn't want to leave. When he asks about the Falls she cracks a small grin. "Aye, I was born in the Falls. Circumstances have kept me away from them for awhile but they are still where I lay my head at night." Her eyes seem to gleam in the slowly dying sunlight. "You should come visit sometime. The view from the top is like nothing you've ever seen before. Plus the water do wonders for the skin." She lets out a small chuckle and meets his eyes with her wild gaze.
He is beautiful in the way all fragile things are beautiful. There is an inherent beauty in delicacy, in translucence. Unfortunately such a look draws the eye of other things – glass beckons rocks, skin beckons scalpels. He sees in their eyes, sometimes, when they see how even the blunt herbivore’s teeth could rip him asunder.
Some days it frightens him and he walks faster.
Some days he’ll stop and stare back, a quiet dare: hurt me.
So far, they have not. So far, he exists, a papered alien among them, the last line of a love story.
She speaks of her Falls with a fondness, and he wonders what it’s like, to have an allegiance. He’s only allegiance was to his sister – delicate and fragile as he is, but she left and he wonders every night what’s become of her.
“I’d like to see them,” he says, even as he wonders if a waterfall would tear him open, spill him out on their land.
contagion
be careful making wishes in the dark
(let me know if you post in the falls -- im bad at checking )
)