"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
09-09-2017, 06:14 PM (This post was last modified: 09-09-2017, 06:18 PM by Ceara.)
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
Her mother was going to kill her. He had been told to stay put. They had crossed the border and she had been told clear as day… to stay put. There was a dangerous voice deep inside her that didn’t listen. She never listened to a thing her mother had to say. She knew it was wrong… She knew she had to listen. She just never did. Her mother was just so different. She never understood, never took the time to try and see things from her child’s perspective. The scent of ice that had been around the trees when she had been growing up. It was almost a frost that came through, the little girl with a demon in her eye had known that somewhere out there, there was someone she had to meet. She had heard the brustling that night… and hushed voices. She had almost come out to say hello. To be nosey. Instead, she had gone the opposite way. To where the trees got thicker. More…everything. And Reagan had spent the remainder of that night searching up and down for her little dip-dyed smoke baby, giving her the lecture of a lifetime after she finally found her safe, having dug a hole to smoke out some foxes who were hiding in their holes. Mother always did call Ceara her problem child. That was probably what Ceara meant. (It doesn’t matter that that is not what it means. To Ceara, her own meaning was enough.) And so, Reagans child endeavored to be the problem child that the Grey Lady always said she was. But this time she’d really done it. They’d finally gone somewhere new… after months of begging and pleading, and she’d up and gotten lost. Somewhere that was covered in smoke. Like her. The sense of belonging was heady, and though she did not know what any of it meant, she unequivocally knew that she was lost. Her mother was going to kill her. RIP Ceara, we barely knew ye.
devils speak of the ways in which she'll manifest; angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress.
Ajatar is still new to these lands.
She wandered into them, in tow behind Longclaw, with a promise to see the volcano. A big, grand, jutting structure with a fire reserved deep within it. From the outside it looked peaceful, innocent - another too tall rock looking over Beqanna. Ajatar is no different, though she is short, not tall. But as you look closer at the volcano, as you look closer at the black roan girl, you notice some strangeness. Off-ness. Scaled legs like a serpent that climb slowly and steadily before they peter out and terminate at her elbows and knee. Her eyes are bright, a dark brown, but something - well, you have to make those connections for yourself. Something seems strange.
Off.
Odd.
But if anything she's friendly. Her magical ability, her strange trait, keeps a lot of the fear of the unknown at bay. The childish wonder that one has as a child did not dissipate as she grew older and learned more and more of the world. The opposite happened - she became almost more innocent and naive. She found the sun shone brighter each day, and her new kingdom? What a wonderful playground.
She turns her attention, then, to the girl traveling through the smoke. She watches for a time, marveling on how she seems so lost yet so comfortable against the low haze. Ajatar weaves through it with considerably less precision, stopping a few feet away to issue her greeting. "Hello there!" she offers, quiet - an attempt not to scare the girl, but how can one know how they truly come off?
Levi sleeps soundly in the tall grasses. The smoke forms a thick blanket over him and his breath rumbles in his chest - rarely did he sleep so well as when the volcano growls and spit the most.
But soon, a sound he is not accustomed to pulls him from his rare deep sleep, a sound which is light and out of place to his mind. It was a quiet sound, meant to be soothing most likely, but it soothed him right out of his dreamless sleep and that irritated him more than it should have. With a growl and two heavy blinks the mottled stallion rises to his full height (which is quite tall) and looks in the direction of the friendly noise.
The soft voice had come from one of two girls who both stand closer than they should have been able to get without him noticing. The sight of them does nothing to lighten his mood. Tephra was growing more crowded by the day - wasn't that supposed to make him happy? But a greeting is not the first thing to pop into his mind and like the good son he is trying to be, Levi squashes down a cutting remark about watching where you're walking. Instead, he settles for a shake which loosens his muscles from crown to dock and sends flying the ash which had settled onto his mahogany coat. And giving each a quick once over for future reference, he turns to walk away.
He had more important things to do than play with little girls.
