"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
Leaving his brother and sister in their homeland had been the hardest part about sneaking off in the middle of the warm Dunes night. Amet still struggled with it, still quivered in fear and sorrow whenever he let himself think about his siblings for too long, but the brief warmth it brought to his chest made the young colt drink that poison over and over again.
He needed the pain sometimes, to remind himself why he can't go back.
Amet's thin light bay body shivers in the cool autumn dusk, the low-hanging sun glowing attractively on his metallic coat as if to apologize for offering no heat. The Akhal-Teke draws his lips into a thin line to hide the anxiety that has gripped him coldly, his young and lanky frame hesitantly moving closer and closer to a new civilization.
Beqanna's existence is unknown to his homeland. I will be safe here, he repeats silently to himself as he breaks from the forest and into a wide open field. Uncertain that he is in the correct place, our metallic bay colt meanders slowly. His dark brown eyes move quickly, this way and that, to make sure that he is not intruding upon the land of someone who would be less than appreciative. Amet's heart hammers in his narrow chest, but he keeps his thin face up and his ears pointed.
He extends his maw to the grasses and nibbles, hoping that the act of keeping himself busy will make his dappled bay self seem less out of place.
You'll be fine, his mind says coldly, but the young Akhal-Teke shivers one more time.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
It was not the first time she’d found herself here, though now she roamed the fringes of these grasslands with purpose when once she had drifted across them lost. The seasons had turned from cold to warm to cold again. She was no longer that faceless child, aimless and hollow. She’d found herself a home, and in the safe harbour of those giant redwoods she had grown. Taller now than before, more elongated, and the dusky white of her soft fur had been replaced by hairs that grew fairer, a milky type of pale. She flitted through the tree trunks that ringed the field more ghost than real. The swarms of dancing insects stealing most of her attention as she shimmied amongst them. Shimmied and cavorted until something else caught the focus of her eye. Out there in the wide open, exposed. Him. Shimmering more than her in the darkening dusk-light.
She paused, her delicate head at first curiously tilted. She watched as he moved further into the open. Each careful hoof-fall taking him further away from the trunk rimmed edge. It felt off. And her curious demeanour slowly altered into a look of fear. Her pulse raced for him, her breaths becoming shallow. She feared for him not because of his fears – of which she did not know – but for fears of her own. This place, the field, it had broken her, drowned her, here she’d become a hollowed-out shell of herself. Did he really want to be lost in that sea? Did he know? She had to tell him.
She swallowed back the fear. She willed herself brave. And then she went to him. Peeling herself away from the shadowed safety of the tree trunks and into the vast, hollow open. She ran lithe and quick and with urgency. And when she reached him her lungs heaved and her breath was ragged but she tried to warn him all the same. “This place does things to you, please don’t stay.”
The grass is pleasantly salty as he slowly chews, but Amet is not hungry, and his anxious stomach does not welcome the addition of his newest meal. He grimaces slightly, his metallic face twisted into something uncomfortable as he forces his last bite down. You need to eat something, he scolds himself, but the Akhal-Teke makes no move to keep eating.
His mane and tail billow as a cool breeze picks up, and the colt nearly sobs as a crushing homesickness grasps his heart with painful, suffocating hands. No! he scolds again, forcing his thin face to steel itself against his emotions.
Amet's internal war is forgotten when he notices rapidly approaching hoof beats. Pivoting his lanky frame, the metallic boy nearly shies sideways as the filly (his age, he notices) comes to a sliding and breathy halt before him. His ears twitch and fall to half-mast as he takes a second to register what his light gray acquaintance has said.
Amber eyes watch her worriedly and a cold silence stretches between them while Amet tries to decide what to say back to the panicked filly. His father's voice rings painfully in the back of his mind ("You are forbidden to show fear, boy!") and the Akhal-Teke boy snorts in protest at the voice in his head.
"I'm not sca..." he falters, "I don't have anywhere else to go."
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
Brennen who had his Tundra had been found very rarely in the Field.
After all, the residents of the Tundra had never placed a huge emphasis on recruiting to fill their ranks. It was rare to come across strange men in the Field, and most of them were content to be a small loyal few. On top of that, Brennen was a great warrior and something of a recluse and he made his worth known in other ways.
But to the women of Nerine, these former Amazons, he is not the strange half-legendary creature who wanders their frozen Tundra, but a relative unknown. Some of them have heard his name, at least, but Brennen knows that he will have to make an effort, at least at first, if he wishes to prove his place amongst them. So that is why he is wandering the Field, wondering how to identify those with enough fire to be worthy of Nerine (surely the former Amazons wouldn’t take just anyone) but it is not a mare who finally catches his attention.
It is two who are not more than children, a boy and a girl, and he first starts his approach because whatever else the warrior-stallion has or has not been and done, he has a soft spot for children. His, others, he is not particular. He strains to catch their words and keeps his own gait slow, not failing to notice their tension. He strives to be non-threatening, keeping his expression light and his wings folded tightly to his sides.
It is on his walk over that something else stirs in his chest as he looks at the colt, a hope for the future that Nayl had kindled but he had let go dark once more in the days since. She had teased that perhaps in the future she could help him restart the Brotherhood, if he could prove himself to her. But Brennen, alone with none of his Brothers, could not see a future for the Brotherhood; but in the eyes of this boy he can see that perhaps he could rebuild them, from the ground up. He has many daughters and few sons but there are other young men in Beqanna. “There are many places here to go,” he says gently, stopping a few feet away. “My name is Brennen.”
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
BRENNEN
I'm sorry I don't know what this is Brennen insisted
She was coiled muscle beside him, ready to run, ready to flee. She had not meant to startle him, only to warn. She waited for him to gather himself, her body a breath away from trembling as the cold wind swirled around them both, a foretelling chill that had nothing to do with a cold and impending wintery night. She searched his face, her brown eyes wildly dark with a terrible and cinching fear. She watched him, and hoped soon she would find that recognition of her fear reflected in his face.
But at first he did nothing, said nothing. The stillness and the silence between them stretching. She could feel and hear the quickening lub dub of her heartbeat, she was certain he must hear it too. His quiet stare became unnerving, and for a moment she wondered if she had reached him too late, if he were already lost. Soon enough the moment became a moment too long, and she decided that she could not stay, would not. She turned to leave, the steep shadows of the fields fringed trees beckoning to her like fingers. But then she felt a rush of warm air seep into the pale fur on her neck, and she turned back to face him. She found the worry in his eyes, that recognition, and he had found his voice.
“I know.” She acknowledges softly. She knows the lost are not expected to know where to go, she can remember. But she also knew now what she did not know then, she knew of a place. He would not have to call it home, he could find himself there, she would show him her tree. Just don’t stay here, come away from here… “Come with me,” she says, her fear still very real. And she inched away from him and made once again towards the tree line. Except now it was no longer just her and he, but another. And her gaze fell upon the stallion, far older than them both, and bearing wings as Ruan had once done. She eyed him uncertainly and wondered if he too shared her leader’s largeness of heart and penchant for fiercely protecting all that was his. She hoped so, perhaps began to feel so.
‘There are many places here to go,' he says to them. And though she knew he must speak true, she did not know of those places, only hers. Her home and her family now, though none by blood. “But my place is a safe place.” She whispered to them both, her quiet voice shaky as she looked back not at them, but past them, her eyes cast on some place far off and not at all here. Taiga, she had been gone too long.
She says it so urgently that he nearly jumps from his metallic skin, but young Amet holds his ground for another moment, his attention tugged away by more approaching hooves. He swings his narrow head, his gold-flecked eyes finding the stallion with large, magnificent wings. He is twinged with jealousy for an odd, small moment, envious that he had not been gifted with wings of his own. Amet registers that the stallion means them no harm, his face soft and understanding of their plight, but he can't help it when he sidles closer to the young and panicked filly.
Her whisper rings in his ear and the Akhal-Teke chances a quick look at her. She is as rigid as a board, and it makes Amet all the more uncomfortable. Snorting quietly, the light bay colt stands himself up straight and whispers back to the light gray filly, "Please, wait."
He wills her to stay, to be with him for just another moment as he questions the winged stallion, "Are all the places safe?"
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
A part of him wants to know what has happened to the two young people to make them so skittish. He watches them press closer together, whispered words he must strain to hear passing between them. A fire in his belly demands that he take action against someone who would willingly frighten children, but Brennen doesn’t act on it. Can’t act on it, because there is no obvious danger he can throw himself at, no clear culprit that can be the recipient of his rage. And he has decades of experience suppressing feelings he doesn’t want to show, so the fire is pushed far away and down into his core, to be called upon at some future unknown date when he has an outlet.
Instead he gives a half-smile, a quirk of the mouth really, approval in his honey-brown eyes as the colt stands taller, leans that little bit bravely towards Brennen to address him. It is brave because Brennen had honestly expected them to glance at him and then scamper away into the trees, as skittish as they are. He is not sure where the girl is from, but if the filly who seems so afraid thinks her home is safe, the bay warrior supposes it probably is one of the safer places.
His little smile can’t quite last at the question the boy asks, and he considers it for a moment before answering in a very solemn voice, “No. Not all of the places are safe.” Brennen’s eyes are sad for a moment, wishing that he could say all places are safe for children, but he knows that the darker side of Beqanna is still here somewhere. The displeasure of the fae might have momentarily shone a bright spotlight on all of them, causing them to behave, but the evil and depraved will re-emerge. Might already have done so; he knows the rumors of how Carnage destroyed one of the lands they had been given, and he can only imagine what will slink in behind the great mage to inhabit such a place.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
