"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
08-07-2018, 04:38 PM (This post was last modified: 08-13-2018, 06:16 AM by Leilan.)
Warning: may attack on sight today
Also swearing and such, so mature tag just in case.
Leilan
Demons run, but count the cost...
Friendship dies and true love lies Night will fall and the dark will rise
Stupid, thick-skulled, headstrong idiot.
His stance is anything but welcoming, a large stocky male, muscle-trained and angry. The aura he emits is colder than the average winter day even in midsummer, but most definitely not meant for anyone to come chill in his presence. His wide stance, his ears flat on his skull and the intense fury behind his eyes would be the reason anyone even remotely capable or reading body language gives him a wide berth today. Even the foals - he scares them.
Good. That's the point.
His teeth are killing grass as if they're miniature versions of the source of his anger, but no, in his mind that doesn't mean he's killing miniature Breckins. Pah. He'd probably love those, actually (excluded if they turned out to be Ivar's, Arthas', or someone he likes as a friend). No, of course, he can in the end only be mad at himself. Saying things out loud that probably killed whatever kind of friendship she'd thought there might be left. Now he'll never get to see her again. Ever.
But wasn't that the purpose? No, of course it wasn't. The purpose was for him to stop longing, to stop thinking about her, but in the end, what did he do? Oh right, just fucking that.
He's the only stupid, thick-skulled, headstrong idiot in sight.
By far.
the battle's won, but the child is lost
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
A winter storm on this midsummer day; I'd always imagined my children to be fiery, but they'd always come up with ways to surprise me. A spring goddess, a medium, a sullen winter soldier; they're less like me and less like Hestoni and all together their own. Despite my initial reservations about motherhood, it has turned out to be perhaps the most blessed part of my life -- no, not perhaps. Definitely. My children are my life - it is they who I returned for, as the world of the dead grew dark around me.
She'd not meant to tail him, but so many parts of the rat's life had been unplanned. Meeting her husband that day in the meadow, losing him to a sacrifice so powerful that he'd had to... kill... to have it reversed. She'd not planned a miscarriage that day in the Valley as she stood a prisoner; she'd not planned to give the crown to her nemesis Lagertha when a fickle labour threatened her life. She'd not planned to be a mother, since her own had been such a bitch; and she'd not planned to love those self-same children as much as she did...
But, she did.
In the wake of his wintery breeze, Scorch cloaked herself in the perfect mix of light and shadow such that she became essentially camouflaged, unless one looked closely. Her ears pricked to catch the muttered curses flowing beneath her son's breath, mouth turning down as she attempted to piece together just what on earth had him so worked up that he couldn't even smell his mother behind him. But that's why she was there, of course; to find out. To help. Even if he didn't want it; even if it killed him to tell her.
Sometimes being a mother is the same thing as being a bitch. Sometimes there's not a way out of the rock and the hard place. Sometimes, you just have to be both.
"Leilan." With the word, she discarded her cloak - mostly. Subtly, she kept herself dark by sending away atoms of light, preventing frostbite as the darkness absorbed the most heat that it could from the sun above. Her eyes - green, as they'd been long ago in this very land when she'd met Hestoni - squinted and tumbled through a range of curious emotions as she stepped closer to her son, a tender expression on her face - even if it wouldn't be for long. He had to know that she loved him.
"I won't leave until you tell me what got fucked up."
08-14-2018, 01:46 PM (This post was last modified: 08-14-2018, 01:48 PM by Leilan.)
Leilan
Demons run, but count the cost...
Friendship dies and true love lies Night will fall and the dark will rise
"Leilan."
Fuck. As if it couldn't get any worse.
His face had been turned away from her for some time now, but mostly, he hadn't really cared to go look for her even as the familiarity of her scent should have warned him. But the air is cold around him, and he doesn't take deep breaths to taste anything else than winter in his breath. Besides, she has camouflaged herself, with light and dark or something of the like. Well, not like he looked anywhere else than the straw-like summer grass at this point, but still. He hadn't expected her here, although he could have.
She had a nose for things like these, it seemed.
Oh, he knows he isn't being fair. He hasn't visited her in well over a year now, almost one-and-half. Maybe it was one-and-half already, he doesn't keep much track of time. A humourless half-laugh escapes him as he spits the grass that he'd not exactly chewed yet, and suddenly doesn't care about swallowing either.
He's not even told her about Chryseis' existence yet. But he can't find himself to care, either.
Instead, he lifts his head a few inches to look at her - her gaze isn't even as headstrong as it could be; as he could be - then with one sudden move moves his neck to stare at her directly. Cold, like the winter's day surrounding him, slowly killing the already-yellowed grass directly around his feet.
"I did." It's almost a dare: I dare you to ask, because it'll give me an excuse to explode again, I dare you to be angry with me, because that's the only emotion I can allow in at this point. I dare you to mention her name, so I can show you exactly what she did to me, and what I did to her. I dare you to tell me you've spoken to her, but if you do, I don't think I will talk to you again for some time.
I dare you to think about what would have happened to you, in a similar situation.
Almost a dare? Maybe it's definite. He's staring at his mothers green eyes, and suddenly he does want to know. But she still has to react to his two words, so maybe - definitely - he will explain to her what it feels like. Simply by bringing up his own father.
Seems the only way to get into a thick skull like theirs anyway.
the battle's won, but the child is lost
@[Scorch]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
She wasn't here because he hadn't visited. In fact, few of her children visited, even the dead ones - oh please, you would go mad if we were always with you - so it came as no offense to the veteran mother. Shahrizai, the child with whom she was perhaps closest, spent the most time with her these days, listening in that quiet and profound way of his as she lamented about all sorts of things, past and present. As her molten eyes scoured her younger son, she knew that this interaction would also be passed to dear Shah - she had never been a heartbroken young man, and she knew that he had been.
But, in another way, Leilan was right; she had a nose for these things.
With a blatant disregard for dignity or self-worth, Leilan spat the grass from his lips as if it were tasteless granules of sand. His eyes, brown like his father's, came about slowly to her - and then found her with a sickening snap. In response, her own expression darkened considerably; her thoughts about Shahrizai disappeared; she recognized this set of emotions now, as she stood before them and received the blunt force of their prowess. She remembered them, and without warning, they rose like bile from her stomach to her throat.
It wasn't the same situation, not nearly at all; but as a storm brewed behind her son's eyes, one came behind hers, too. She remembered watching her mother burn alive in a dream; she remembered being charred, but running in this life to find her mother despite the literal melting of her flesh; she remembered finding her, dead and dying and poisoned by the hands of her own true daughter; she remembered running, screaming, biting; she remembered bleeding in the middle of the meadow and, though she had no powers like Leilan's, practically killing the life around her for the sourness of her heartbreak; and she remembered the man who came and saved her from that pit.
She could only guess, but - she felt as though the saving grace in Leilan's story, had been the one to cast him into this pit in the first place.
I did.
"How?" The word is a bark, followed by a snarl as her charred lips curled up to show bared teeth. "As if anything in this life could push you to throw such a temper tantrum so openly." She returned the volley of his challenge, ears laying back as she ridiculed her son for his public outburst - one that she had had herself, so long ago. It didn't even occur to her that she could continue down the tender route; despite not being of Echion's blood, she'd learned bad habits from her neglectful and dispassionate faux-mother. She'd learned to be hard; too hard.
"Tell me, or else there will be no redemption for what you did."
Friendship dies and true love lies Night will fall and the dark will rise
She’s never turned away from any dare that he knows of: she just takes it. She fucking asks the one question. It slips from her lips as easily as her concerned gaze turns stone-cold, green switched back to orange in a split second, and for all that it’s supposed to be a warm colour it could be colder than his frost that’s killing the grass.
She goes on - that nothing in his life could be so bad, nothing is an excuse that’s good enough for her, for him to act like this. And he snarls back, wordlessly at a moment, before answering. ”Guess what, someone did.” His voice is icy, dripping steel, cutting edges, cynically. ”If nothing else, you could have guessed it was me who’s be wrecking me.”
It’s true in it’s own right; he’s mostly done it himself. Sure, the spotted mare has something to do with it. But if he’d just been able to get over her or at least pretend it was all okay, who knows, they could at least have still been friends. But he just had to yell at her, throw out all of his pain into an anger tantrum, and just like that, he’s ruined his own life. Or whatever. Maybe she’d done it after all. Or maybe Scorch had, long ago, created the first hair fractures herself by leaving him to deal with one sickly sweet twin and one baby, to care for.
There she goes again. Another threat. He laughs at it, chuckles humourlessly. ”Look at me. Tell me I’m not already punished and that there was a chance at redemption two minutes ago that you could take away. Tell me that and not lie. I know you can’t. You know as well as I, I’m already done for. Nothing for you to add.” He’s a broken man, already, and it shows. But his mother threatening him doesn’t help. In fact, he throws it right back at her.
”But if you can’t, why don’t you just leave me alone again. Just like everybody else. Just like you did. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it? Leaving? Not considering if another has feelings at all because you don’t happen to have them? You know what, I’m surprised dad never left you without warning. Maybe then you’d understand, but, I suppose the ones who leave are the ones who need to find themselves, and need time to sort out their feelings, not the ones left behind. They will manage! They’re fine! Sure! No trouble! They’ll just sit and wait where you left them, totally untouched, ready to be picked up where they’re left behind. Fuck that!” His nostrils flare into a snarl-like snort as he scrapes a hoof over the grass, then stomps it with the last two words. And fuck you, he almost adds - but his gaze is probably enough. Fuck all the amazons. Fuck their man-slaves. Fuck the way the world works, with it’s feelings and attachments and other unnecessary conplications like family.
He turns to leave, then figures he should tell her something. His face half-turned into her direction, he spins the words from ice-cold sugar. ”Hey, I suppose you should visit your granddaughter in Hyaline.”
He’s away before another word reaches him.
the battle's won, but the child is lost
@[Scorch]
Felt like a sort of fitting ending. I suppose she can tie the knots together herself or whenever she meets with Breckin again, and also don’t want to make it any worse than this xP
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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