"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
The sun plays across her face, her eyes drifting nearly shut.
She sees the ocean and how it glimmers with a reflected light; the seagulls cry overhead and the coastal grass whispers flirtatiously into the breeze.
Nerine.
Beneath a stoic expression is the elation of having returned home (returned? She never actually left). The caves had provided her a shelter and an escape from a world she helped create. Lior wrapped himself around her and for a long while, Nayl wanted nothing more than the warmth of his adoration to wash over her. Their children are out in the world, surviving, thriving. They don’t need her; Nerine has even held its own in her absence, but something called to her. Something lured her from the webbed cave systems to finally emerge.
Far from sight and scent, Nayl would periodically emerge to bathe herself in the salty water and enjoy the bright sunlight before ushering herself back into Lior’s embrace. Undetected, almost forgotten.
Until now.
A deep breath fills her lungs and she smiles rather smugly to herself, feasting on the exhilaration of stepping out of the shadows once more. From the secluded point of Nerine, she is battered by the winter gale, but she isn’t deterred from her mission. She strolls down the coast, heading south toward the most commonly frequented stretch of beach. Her body smells of Nerine, her coat kissed by the salt and sand. On one side, she contemplates whether she would be trespassing in their eyes, but Nayl’s fairly arrogant personality proves superior to her doubts.
After a couple hours walking, she finally reaches the familiar Cliffside where an entrance lies to the cave patterns she had nestled in these past months. A sideways glance is spared, but her attention is more focused on the voices in the distance, knowing the vigilance of the women will find her soon enough.
She did not often frequent the beaches, other than when Mina brought her there to show her some new oddity or beauty. And those times were growing less and less as her daughter grew and matured; but every time the pair do go on another little adventure of such a whimsical kind, Scorch always cherishes the moments. Her other children have grown up, grown old, died, had children, and those children had children; her life has been long, twice over in fact, and this time around, she intended to appreciate the little things.
So, although Mina was not there today to guide her to the glimmering ocean, Scorch went.
Beneath her hooves, the sparse grass transitioned gradually into dry sand, and then to wet. The Amazonian allowed her powerful legs to carry her just to the water's edge, where the wintery waves could lap at her bare ankles.
Hey. An unfamiliar voice - or, no, not that, just one that hasn't spoken to her yet. Hello... I trust you know who I am. Who are you?
Myrina.
Ah, sister, so good to hear from you... How are you faring?
You remember what it's like here, no need to pretend like you don't. Anyway, I miss you.
I miss you too, sister.
Scorch, there's something else --
You can tell me anything Myrina, you know that.
My daughter. She's nearby. Tell her... Tell her I'm proud of her.
The ghost-whisperer glanced down the coastline, and caught sight of an approaching figure, black and white, just like her grandmother, Scorch's faux-mother. A wry, bittersweet smile came to her lips. Y'know, this is a lot easier than bringing you all the way back like I did with Echion. You remember, right?
Of course I do.
But... I'm still sorry that I can't this time. Bring you back, I mean.
It's fine, sister. Just tell her my words.
Of course. I'll be in touch.
Nayl was coming then, and her resemblance to Echion left Scorch a little sick to her stomach; but with a reminder of how desperately she had missed that same mare when she died, Scorch pushed through the queasiness and turned, making her way down the coast.
"It's been some time, Nayl." She called across a reasonable distance, taking long strides until she stood before the mare. For a split second, Scorch was motionless, holding the tobiano's gaze; then, her head lowered. A nod of respect. "Welcome back, sister." For they were then, and by the blazing pain on her chest where a rose once bloomed, they still are.
Scorch
Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle
@[Aeris]
...If you hate this and me and I have overstepped my bounds, LET ME KNOW.
Also, I feel like this is now a private thread. <3
Here on the shore, there is a sense of freedom. The salty wind tousles Nayl’s mane as she lifts her nose to breathe it in. It had taken years for her to accept Nerine as home, to move past the loss of the Jungle. She made it her own, strengthened it, breathed new life into its veins. Years ago, she created an empire that has since crumbled. Her legacy is gone, her name lost on the wind she so admiringly inhales.
Nayl wants to turn around to see Lior stepping toward her, to embrace her, but she knows that he remains tucked away in their cave. He isn’t drawn to Nerine as she is; she is his anchor, his reason to live here.
But she hears footsteps eventually, even over the dull hum of the ocean waves. The voice that caresses her had almost been lost to memory, but she remembers it. It cradles her thoughts in a most reassuring way. ”It has,” she says back in a voice so eerily serene, but her fiery personality hasn’t been tampered. The nostalgia from Scorch’s voice creeps through Nayl’s mind like a cloud of fog, tendrils of memories playing back what they had in the Jungle.
When she finally turns around, she is surprised to see the change in the Jungle sister, but her face doesn’t betray her. There is still a lick of fire in her autumn eyes as they level on the face from her past, a lopsided grin channeling across her mouth.”Scorch,” she finally says, an affirmation to herself that a sister of her valor would never be forgotten, ”welcome back to the living.” A low chuckle slips from her but it’s fleeting as she steps forward into a familial embrace. This is the closest she has to family now (besides her own son) and she can’t deny the allure of it. What had once been dead now stands before her, still powerful and in whole.
A few seconds pass before she inches back, withdrawing from the brief touch so that she may search Scorch’s eyes. ”How much has changed in Nerine since I resigned?”
Her transition from the Jungle to the Cliffs had been easier than Nayl's; one is grateful for life in general after being brought back from the dead. The fact that any morsel of her past self, life, and family remained happened to be but a happy accident. One that she now chose to embrace and to support with her every fiber - but when had Scorch not dived into things head first? The Amazons, Queenship, starting an empire (something she failed at, but that Nayl succeeded in), her family for god's sake. Suffice to say, she didn't do things half-assedly.
But... Had she been around for the Reckoning, like the mare that stood before her now, her disposition on the whole thing would have been entirely different.
Nayl stood for a moment before turning to face Scorch, and during that time they both lost themselves to the memories - for at the mare's words, Scorch's mind went back decades, to memories that hadn't felt so fresh in years. The sound of Echion's voice, and of Myrina's - a lifetime of family and of servitude, wrapped pristine in the voice of her faux-niece. The nostalgia did little to unravel the knot in her stomach.
But the sickness dwindles when at last her companion turns to face her, a serenely chaotic grin on her lips. Gods it felt good to see such emotion in someone else, to see that life and vitality - Scorch couldn't help but mirror the expression in her own way, cracked lips pulling into a grin of familiarity and pride. That they stood here now was a testament to their kingdom of old, and they both recognized that fiercely.
"It's good to be back, dear niece." Her words pressed against Nayl's smoky mane as the two embrace, the camaraderie of a lifetime far from forgotten between them. She held the women in a tight grasp, reaffirming that this wouldn't be the last they saw of one another; but she let go easily at the other's step back, and their eyes met.
"In truth, I have only been here for perhaps two years; since the day Hestia took the throne from Isobell. I don't know much of that one's reign, but Hestia has done well for us. An Amazon of old, though she was before your time." Her mind's eye flickered to the black hag during the time of her teenagehood, a mare sent to spy in other kingdoms for the sake of the Jungle. "But any other news will be covered in the kingdom meeting Hestia is calling sometime this week."
Her ember-eyes flashed like sparks from a fire, her lips (which had fallen into an easy line during her drawl) twitch up into a knowing smile. "What I am more curious to know about is your own time as queen - it would seem that Echion's bloodline has a thing for raising empires. I tried my hand at it, but no luck... You, though." A chuckle rippled from the mare's broad, hairless chest, reverberating in the air between them. "Well, I'd love to hear about it right from the horse's mouth, as it were."
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