"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
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
”Loess,” his voice is throaty and deep as black smoke coils from his nostrils into the cool, winter air. It’s a nonchalant introduction to his home, but he imagines how many she has seen in her lifetime and how they all melt into one another. They all have hills or mountains or lakes. Trees, of course, too, but cacti and hot springs also scatter throughout Loess in what Castile hopes to consider unique as he accompanies her across the rocky border. His eyes flash across the foothills then toward the jaded peaks where his nest lies. How long has it been, he wonders in a flickering bout of distraction before his attention returns to Straia at his side. ”A kingdom like the countless others you have seen,” a chuckle escapes him, his grin lopsided and boyish as they venture closer to the heart of the kingdom where there rests a hot spring.
Their idle chat draws to a gradual halt as Castile edges toward the spring. A glance down meets him with his own reflection and an observation of how his eyes have changed. They hold greater stories now, greater achievements. It doesn’t stop there, the voice in his head hisses.
Blinking, he turns to Straia. ”We have Sylva and the Pampas. Taiga as well, I suppose, but I need to make that… more official.” The mischievous gleam in his eyes makes it plain to her that his agenda remains extensive, unfinished. ”Pangea is on its own. Tephra and Loess have prickly relations,” a pause brings his thoughts to Nerine, ”and Heartfire recently stepped down, and she was the one joining forces and pitting friends against me. Though, I suppose after that, they aren’t exactly friends anymore.” A shrug ripples through his shoulders, exemplifying his nonchalance toward the change in relations. Immortality sinks its claws further into him, plaguing his thoughts with the premise that everything is temporary. One day, Loess will no longer be his. His children will die, his heart will shatter and rebuild over again, and his life will continue through all the chaos. What are friends, if not pawns with their fickle loyalty?
The compassion in his soul recedes, his ambition and primal instincts surfacing slowly, day by day.
”Tell me, Straia, how does one escape death?” And come back again with the same drive, the same hunger.
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
He leads her to Loess, and as she expected it is just a land. It is not the Chamber. It is not even the Valley or the Dale or any of the lands she’d tried to destroy. This Beqanna is lesser than the one she knew, different, still teeming with magic but in such a way as to not feel memorable. It had once been memorable, it had once been vast and different and full of magic that you could taste it in the air. She knows that she is very much a part of the reason the Reckoning happened. Those living are far less likely to know this, though, save for the few that had been around during her time.
Her eyes skim the land, and he seems to know that it will not impress her, though he doesn’t fully understand why. “No,” she says. “It not like kingdoms I knew, but not because it is different. No, because it is so very much the same as everything else now. The kingdoms of my time were alive.” It was not his fault, of course, that he could not have what she once did. It is her fault, if anything, and she feels a pang of remorse.
The Chamber. How she would forever miss it.
She eases into the hot spring as he talks, enjoying this little luxury given that this, at least, the Chamber had not offered to her. She misses the pine forests of her home though, the squirrels that had been her friends before she’d become what she is now. Her mind listens to the politics, though some part of it wanders to the life she once lived. It is an easy, secondary nature now to catalogue the happenings of kingdoms. When he finishes, she focuses on him with the lazy nature of a predator. “You already know your first move. Take Taiga. It is not yet yours. Then tell me, what is you want for Loess, for yourself?”
She had dreamed of power for the Chamber, power through fear. There was a goal, there was an end, there was something to accomplish. It had taken time, as all things take time. She had waited for the moment to overthrow her father, who let the Chamber languish and suffer. She had waited, recruiting and rebuilding from the ashes until the Chamber was strong enough to sustain what she would ask of her subjects. And then they became monsters, slipping in through the shadows and instilling fear, creating chaos, becoming something so terrifying that either you joined or you fought against. There was no in between.
Then he asks a different question, and she regards him for a moment. “You do not,” she says finally. “In one way or another, death will find you.” She had slipped into oblivion and crawled back out again, but still, she knew death. Her Chamber was gone, and there was a death in that. Her children were gone, and there was a death in that. The afterlife clung to her, even now, though she knew how to live with it.
-- straia
the raven queen
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
The kingdoms of my time were alive.
What Straia says resonates within him, piquing his curiosity as their eyes meet. These are the kingdoms he has known since childhood; nonetheless, they are parcels of land. There’s life within them, wavering on a spectrum between thriving and struggling. Other animals survive alongside them and voices thicken the air. Castile regards her first then narrows his eyes onto the distant summit acting as a wall to Hyaline. A slow, inward breath fills him with thoughts and questions, but he doesn’t look at her until he has sifted through them all. The simplest stands out and fans across his tongue, needing to be heard. ”Alive,” he echoes, ”How so?” Perhaps ignorant, but when he listens to Loess, it brims with life. She must hear it too, but obviously, there was something more – something deeper – in the lands of old.
Castile’s visions lie in the future, but he willingly pays homage to Beqanna’s past, to the generations long before him that forged their paths and tales. Simply by looking at her, talking to her, he knows Straia is in those history books. There is a significance to her and even to her arrival back among the living. What, he cannot yet fathom, or even why.
(To help us soar)
It’s so simple for her to tempt him, throwing him occasional pieces of meat to ensure his attention and cooperation. She wants to know what desires burn inside him, aside from retrieving Taiga, and Castile considers it for a long moment underneath the sweltering sun. ”A legacy,” he finally states, lifting his chin and surveying their surroundings. ”I can gain all the power I want, but it can change the second I step down. A legacy to help the next leader after me,” he pauses briefly because although he cares for the Loessian family he has, there remains a selfishness about him, ”and to be in the historic tales like I’m sure you already are.” A lopsided grin tugs at his lips humorously, and his eyes catch the light, flickering like the fire inside him.
But then a tendril of thought drifts across his mind when she mentions death. It gives him pause as he recollects everything he has ever heard, every monumental being that has roamed Beqanna. ”To be a legend,” he begins in a distant tone as though in a trance and as though she is no longer at his side, ”must one always die?” Each one – each figure of history – has come and gone, their bones bleached or already disintegrated in the dirt. Castile, for the first time, senses a fleeting sense of fear rush through him, but he pushes it deep into the crypts of his mind. Although he doesn’t say it, he realizes immortality will one day fail him like it has countless others.
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
How so?
A slow smile curves her lips at the question. “Magic thrived in my Beqanna. I was given my magic through the kingdom I ruled. Atrox’s heart beat beneath your feet in the Chamber. An ever-burning tree showed glimpses of the future, for the price of your blood. Other kingdoms had other pieces of magic. Healing waterfalls, pools that gifted companions.” She imagines those lands, those magical entities, and around them, she creates their image. The prophecy tree burns nearby, the waterfall of the Falls roars in the distance, the pool of the Dale shimmers to their left. She shows him, because she can, before the ghosts of the past fade away. “But we abused the power we were given, and as such, it was taken away.” We, because she had absolutely been part of the cause. Part, because she is not so full of herself as to believe she was the entire problem.
She listens, focusing on him as he tells of his desires. “I am, and yet, you do not know my story. Time will erase us all, eventually. And there are many ways to leave a legacy. I chose to build a kingdom that was feared, to make my name one whispered in fear and synonyms with destruction. You can choose a different legacy though. Kindness builds its own legacy, though I don’t think that’s what you have in mind. A family, one large and lasting, builds another kind.” She will not steer his path, but rather, she will open it. She will push and prod until he finds the path he wants to take and the way to take it.
Straia had always simply known her path, the legacy she craved. But not everyone knew their goals so clearly.
Her amber eyes fall on him at the next question, and she chuckles slightly. “To live, one must die.” She’d never thought of death really, had always figured she’d escape it. And in some ways, she had. She’d simply disappeared into oblivion, simply stopped caring enough to live. That was the point. Life is exhausting, and sometimes death is required. In a world like there’s, death was not a very permanent state. She supposes they have Carnage to thank for that.
-- straia
the raven queen
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
There is a smile twisting across her lips as she reflects on the grandeur of a past Beqanna. Magic, she says, and it was rampant in her home. Heartbeats beneath the soil, healing springs, great waterfalls. The adoration in her voice would be enough to incite passion and curiosity from anyone. Castile’s eyes dance with fascination as she recreates these monuments, displaying them around where they stand like an art gallery. While scrutinizing them, he cannot help to wonder what greatness survived back then, how such feats were accomplished. Loess, he determines, should have one of its own.
But he says nothing of this, instead savoring this taste of Straia’s memory in the minutes they last. After a few long breaths, everything is gone. There is no longer a deep thud beneath his hooves, or a towering waterfall to his left. There is only Loess again with its distant canyons, rocky hills, and eastern summit.
It’s interesting – borderline laughable – to hear how even then, generations before him, took advantage of their powers and angered the faeries. It’s a pattern, it seems. ”They get fired up quickly,” he remarks with a lopsided grin. From what he has seen of the faeries, their fuses are short and their wrath explosive. Funny, he realizes; he is not so different from them.
It’s for this reason that Castile is unable to suppress the short bout of laughter that pursues Straia’s statement. ”No,” he confirms with a shake of his baroque head, ”Kindness will certainly not be a legacy of mine.” Although there is certainly adoration thrumming in his heart, it doesn’t extend far beyond Loess’ borders. Few outsiders have experienced the amiability he is capable of. What he will be known for, he imagines, is his volatile nature and alter ego that has torched both lands and inhabitants. Castile is a monster, he knows. It’s a simple fact that he has accepted over the years and stopped fighting. As Straia once said, he may as well become what they fear.
But such a fickle thing fear is. The nature of the horse is to run, to panic and flee in the face of monsters and blazing fires. It should be easy to frighten them all, but there are many that defy the norms.
So, how can he become what they fear when fear is subjective?
Straia tries lifting his strings. She inches slowly toward being his puppeteer, being the voice inside his head that pushes him. He considers it briefly. They could work together, but that would clap shackles on her ankles that she would never want. The other entities have chosen their paths, but Straia’s remains undetermined. Castile’s weight shifts, his thoughts reel. ”I need to achieve greater things before I die,” he mulls over the idea of his body falling limp and his lungs deflating. He blinks and sees himself rotting on the beach, a lost soul left to wander an aimless abyss.
A shudder runs down the length of his spine.
”Many have avoided death. Perhaps, I will be one of them.” He does not realize that they’re not unlike Straia. They’ve seen into the other world, only to rise from it time and again. ”I will defy death. I won’t be held back by mortal means,” he glances away from her, toward Loess and the mountain peaks that he has called home. ”I won’t be stopped, even after I’ve resigned as Loess’ King.” Because his life and the unwritten chapters will not end when the crown is removed from his head.
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
”Do you blame them?” she asks. Perhaps the faeries did have short fuses, but were they off base? If she is being honest, perhaps they are not. She had not cared for the damage done to the lands they were made to protect. She had taken life with nothing but a thought, life that they serve. She had created panic and chaos and destruction simply for the sake of it, and for no other reason. Did she feel bad about it? Not particularly. But she could understand the response of the faeries.
She rises from the hot spring as he speaks, so reminded of the fire that once lived in her veins. She is still herself, but a changed version, aware of what happens when your time has run out. Then again, she always knew her time was limited. She’d never sought immortality, but rather a legacy for the once evil kingdom. That had seemed far more permanent back then, but even that too had been taken from Beqanna.
As it turns out, nothing is forever.
She chuckles lightly. ”You do remind me of myself, in many ways. Though not all.” She stretches, yawning in pleasure from the steam bath. ”You have much to learn, as I did. Though you will. For now though, it is time for me to go. You will be able to find me again, though.” And with that, she disappears.
-- straia
the raven queen
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
