"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
09-14-2020, 09:33 PM (This post was last modified: 09-14-2020, 09:37 PM by yadigar.)
YADIGAR
there’s a hole in my chest but it’s mine, baby, it’s all i got.
He sleeps for, perhaps, days. There are fleeting moments where he awakens to Beyza checking on him. Virgil tends to his wounds and murmurs how proud he is of his brother. They discuss his condition to one another and he wonders what they’re saying. His head aches so fiercely when he tries to comprehend that he prefers to let sleep pull him under once more.
Finally, on the dawn of the fourth day, his blind eye opens fully. He coughs up a mouth full of dry dust. He has not missed the desert atmosphere, here. Yadigar rolls onto his stomach and his side is caked with red clay. The world is still spinning but he manages to stagger up onto his talons with some difficulty.
“Tarte? Cirilla?” he calls, tilting his head as he searches his surroundings for them. Were they still in Nerine? Were they safe? He would like to panic and he begins to stagger toward the Pangean border once more. Exhaustion does not deter him from trying to reunite with them once more.
Someone calls his name from behind, however, and he turns his head to watch the figure approach. He is not so familiar with the magicians of his homeland as his father had been, and so he does not recognize them beyond fleeting images from the raid on Nerine. Yadigar feebly bears his teeth and follows with a dwindling snarl. The act conjures a memory just days ago when he had engulfed a patch of the north on fire. His heart sinks as he begins to wonder what happened after the western witch slit his throat.
“What.. What have I done?” he whispers, coughing up more Pangean dust. “What did I do?
@[Anaxarete] @[Straia] @[draco] @[Beyza] or anyone else who wants to watch Gar freak out and ugly cry
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
It is days before Yadigar surfaces. She could heal him. Could heal the exhaustion and whatever wounds he might have sustained easily enough, as could Ana, but she does not. It seems better to let him sleep, to let time pass where he does not remember and does not feel. She could take away those things too, but to do so...it was both a kindness and not. To lose your past, even when you are not proud of it, causes a different set of hurts to find you.
Perhaps she would offer it, but it would only ever be an offer. Straia would never inflict it upon the boy without him understanding the cost. After all, all magic has a price.
Straia appears a few feet before him, when she senses his panic. Awake, fully now, it would seem. As always, her head is high and her eyes are calculating and cool, but there is something like compassion in them. It is a hard compassion, for she knows nothing else, but it is compassion nonetheless. It is perhaps something vastly different than the compassion Yadigar has known from his own father. ”You did only what you were forced to do. There was no lasting damage done.”
Taiga and Nerine burned, but these were things easily fixed. None of the children were hurt beyond repair, so far as she knew, though she had not kept tabs on what happened to those in Taiga and Loess so well as she had Nerine. Though Ghaul’s fate, at least, had been easy enough to discern when her magic was no longer occupied. ”I know you blame yourself and what I say makes no difference. Still, I will tell you anyway, that you should not.” She hadn’t bothered to figure out the exact magic wrought upon it, but still, anyone with half a brain could have seen it snap at the end of the battle, timed about when Ghaul must have fallen. It wasn’t hard to figure out what something had been done to the child. A thing Straia would not repeat. For all her faults, she is not always unkind.
-- straia
the raven queen
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
When they got back to Pangea, it took all of Beyza’s effort not to completely pass out. She had gotten Yadigar home safely, the weight of Ghaul’s loss heavy in the air - it seemed the least she could do to help out his family, care for his son. Her magic came in short bursts and so she could not do much to help Virgil heal but she could watch over the sleeping dragon-son, could do what she might.
It felt good, too, to distract herself from her task. To heal and help while she was still recuperating on her own.
She was resting nearby when he wakes, and Beyza blinks her own exhaustion away to drift closer - watching him carefully for any signs that there is lingering pain. “Yadigar. Your family will be glad to see you awake.” Surely they must, though Beyza has to admit that despite her involvement over the last few days she knows precious little about her fellow Pangeans and the draconic family. Still, she stretches out with her magic to call any of Yadigar’s family that might want to come talk to him now that he’s awake, though she lingers without approaching too closely. Straia appears, offering some comforting words, and Beyza adds her own - though her voice is still not working so the words are broadcasted with her mind to the dragon’s son. Her unblinking white eyes softened with a note of sadness but trying to offer some comfort all the same.
“You helped bring your father’s vision to life, that is not so terrible a thing.”
Beyza doesn't know what their relationship might have been like so she is just guessing that this might be helpful (and even as the words leave her mind she is worried that they are not).
i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear
It has been days since the attack on Taiga.
Draco spends most of his time alone, wandering the empty, cracked canyons of Pangea. He keens into the shadows, leans into the red dust, sleeps beneath Ghaul's flame.
He's mourning. It hasn't gotten easier. Even ocassionally checking in on Yadigar feels like too much, too heavy, too far beyond his control. He murmurs with Virgil and Beyza, watches Asphyxea as she stands guard in front of Gar's resting body. Nothing feels particularly real, from the clouds above to the dirt below--nothing feels quite real.
The demon's niece is stirring from a nap, blinking open perpetually irritated eyes as Draco slowly steps closer.
"He's waking," Phyx grumbles, attempting to hide the hesitation in her voice as she imagines the moment Gar finds out their father is dead. Draco hears it, though--the fear and doubt. He peers at her with a hard gaze, saying nothing but nodding his head in acknowledgement.
"You did well watching over him," he murmurs before passing her to close the distance between them and the two magicians with Yadigar.
"Thank you for the call, Beyza," Draco states quietly as he comes to a halt at her side. Asphyxea lingers at his shoulder, eyes never straying from Yadigar's tired frame.
Draco draws in a large breath, thinking he would like to be anywhere but here--here, breaking the news to his nephew that his beloved brother is dead. He looks to the sky, releasing the breath he held while wondering how in the hell he is supposed to say out loud, Ghaul is dead.
"Yadigar," Draco murmurs, stepping closer to look imploringly into the boy's eyes. "I'm so happy to see you awake. You did well." The demon sighs now, feeling the burden of grief and responsibility splitting his spine in half. "Ghaul died in Loess, Gar," he whispers, "but he would be so proud of you."
Draco feels Phyx shuffle next to him, stepping forward to level her shoulder with his and whisper on a strained breath, "Brother . . ."
there’s a hole in my chest but it’s mine, baby, it’s all i got.
He stares at Beyza for a while as he grasps for the memory of who she is, fumbling with her name for a time before he remembers her. Yadigar wonders where his family is when she mentions them. Did Cirilla and Tarte remain in the north? But then where are Phyx and Virgil? Where is his father? His brow furrows and he watches as Straia arrives with the growing group with her usual confident strides.
No lasting damage done, she says. He watches the blur of her face carefully before Beyza chimes in to agree.
“His vision is corrupt with no room for disagreement. And if I helped, then I will carry the blame as long as I live,” he slurs as he tries to stand up tall with some semblance of strength to his voice.
Then he notices other figures that seem to have been there all along - Virgil and Asphyxea, standing near their uncle Draco. He hates the way they crowd him with their stares and their whispering. They treat him as though he fought in their war with nothing but a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Disgust forms in the pit of his stomach.
His uncle sighs and he prays that he will tell him the battle was lost despite their efforts, but instead, he declares that the other Pangean king is dead. Yadigar studies him closely. In a hundred different lives, he would never imagine that his father could fall. A trick, then? A plucking of his heart-strings to test his ties with Pangea? But Virgil is here and he lacks his awful grin that he always has whenever Yadigar is being tormented. Instead, he sniffles quietly next to Asphyxea as she whispers his name.
“You’re a liar,” he snaps, stepping back and baring his teeth. “You’re a fucking liar.”
And he stretches his jaws open to breathe fire across them all, but only smoke and soot spills from his lungs. He is too tired to fight despite the way he continues to rage inside.
Ghaul had stared into Yadigar’s scrying eye a hundred times and never mentioned the fate he saw there. He only spoke of the eventual fires and how his perfect dream would be birthed from them. Wouldn’t he have warned them all of his death?
Wouldn’t he?
@[Anaxarete] @[Straia] @[draco] @[Beyza] pls freeze his heart if you want
sometimes we want what we want -- -- even if we know it’s going to kill us.
It is largely a family gathering, one she doesn’t technically belong in, though such technicalities have never stopped her before. She finds she has an obligation to those of Pangea though. She’s inherited a land that she has no business ruling, not truly, except that Ghaul would trust her with his legacy and his son had handed it to her on a silver platter. What a different Beqanna. Straia had once overthrown her own father to take the Chamber throne. Thrones were a harder thing to come by, once upon a time.
Straia listen, face impassive, as they speak for a moment. ”He is not lying,” she says. Straia gestures to the monument that Ana had created for Ghaul, a small bit of proof. ”The future is a fickle thing, never to be trusted.” She says, which sounds rather out of context but she is, perhaps, skimming a few thoughts from his mind. It seems prudent given that he just about tries to burn his own family, so she’d like to keep a closer eye on him.
The next bit she says into his mind though, only for him. She does not care what the others around think, and she doesn't want them giving their opinion. This option is for Gar and Gar alone to choose. I can take away the memories, or I can freeze your heart, if you want. I give you the choice, though, for this is your life. You should know that all choices have a cost, and I cannot promise that the price you pay is always worth it. She is honest in this. She can take his memories, but he will lose more than just the things that hurt, because the good things in life are made better and tied to the pain. She can freeze his heart, but still, there’s a different sort of pain that comes with being so disconnected. Or, like the rest of us, you can learn to live with what you have done and move on. If nothing else, I will never force you to be someone you are not.
She had raised Ghaul, perhaps not as a mother would raise a child but certainly as a mentor would raise a protégé. She never was much of a maternal creature, but it would be foolish to assume that she did not have a fondness for Ghaul and his family. And in raising Ghaul, she now felt she assumed some responsibility for the well being of his remaining family – especially now as the flames burned to embers and the pain of loss burned fierce.
The shadowmare arrived after the others, and said little in way of greeting – only offering a solemn nod to Straia, Beyza, and Draco. Her attention had settled on Yadigar. She could feel his suffering – it was palpable even to the shadowmare who had shut her emotions away for so long. She could feel the grief consuming him. She knew the paralyzing effect of grief. It had nearly killed her once. She had waited too long before doing something about it – allowed herself to teeter on the edge of darkness before finally turning to self-preservation that had ultimately saved her life. But it is not just grief that consumes him. Grief mixed with guilt is a deadly combination.
The lifeblood of the dragon was fire, but left unchecked it could destroy. She knows that both Beyza and Straia could offer him relief – both of them imbued with Magic of their own. But the shadowmare bears responsibility for this family, the tribute to Ghaul testament to that fact, and she will not allow his family to suffer needlessly.
So she speaks to him directly, ”Be at peace with what you have done and what you have lost.” The shadows curl around his heart, freezing to ice as they wrap tightly around the organ – numbing the emotions as they go. ”You are stronger than your pain.” Until it is done and his heart is cold in his chest – untouched by even the dragonfire that burns within. She would unfreeze it if ever he asked, but she’d yet to have anyone make such a request of her. She somehow doubted that Yadigar would be the first.
idk who's turn it is
ana's literally just poppin' in because nobody magics her lil dragonmonster pseudo-grandbabies but her even tho she's prob not helpin'
Beyza does not know how to be comforting and she is not sure when she lost that ability. Surely once, she had warmth - once she had learned from Agetta how to care and how to soothe. Now all she thinks is that it was easier to consol and help Yadigar when he was unconscious - she does not know what to do with his words.
Not when she does not see what is so bad with Ghaul’s dreams.
Fortunately, Draco arrives and she nods in acknowledgement of his thanks. With his arrival, the weight of the air seems to grow dense around them with what is about to be spoken. Though she stands as still as a statue, unblinking, inwardly Beyza shifts awkwardly - thinking she should leave. She had done what she could.
Anaxarete arrives too, though, and Beyza feels curious enough to stay. Though she doesn't listen in, it's not hard to tell that there are some private conversations going on - and when the shadows curl around Yadigar's heart she understands.
She can't bring herself to mourn this course of action - not when she's become so skilled at packaging her own emotions away. It's for the best.
i've got a face of gold, i've got a heart of coal, but baby that's my cross to bear
Draco and Asphyxea are not surprised by Yadigar's visceral response to the news of Ghaul's death. The demon flinches on instinct when Gar tries to spit fire, but Phyx merely draws her eyes down to sharp, unfeeling slits. Where Draco understands the dragonling's emotions, Asphyxea is incapable of even trying. They stand shoulder to shoulder, now: Draco unsure of what to say and Phyx terribly cold and pointed in her lack of comfort.
The group's thoughts are merely background noise to Draco, being that they are all creatures he trusts. That, and he does not often spy on magicians that call Pangea home for their magic is much greater than his mind-reading and sour curiosity. Though it is clear to him when thoughts are cut off, and he frowns. Not from distrust or even upset, but because he wants to know what his nephew thinking. Because he feels responsible for his brother's children.
Phyx notices nothing, taking a step back and digging her talons into the dirt. As far as she is concerned, their work here is done. She'll keep an eye Yadigar if she feels he needs it, but for now she is incapable of forgiving him for his distaste with Ghaul.
Something changes in Yadigar, but neither Draco nor Phyx know what it is. Not yet.
i won't take you back
@[yadigar] lmao phyx and draco are standing there uselessly
10-13-2020, 11:19 PM (This post was last modified: 10-13-2020, 11:20 PM by crowns.)
YADIGAR
there’s a hole in my chest but it’s mine, baby, it’s all i got.
His gaze drifts to Straia when she declares that Draco is telling the truth. She has never struck Yadigar as someone who has time for silly tests of loyalty or mind games, and so his heart begins to sink into the depth of his stomach. He takes a step back from them all. His chest grows tight. The once heir turns his head to the wall she gestures toward, toward the unyielding flame bursting from an etching of a dragon. Time passes quickly and yet the seconds are eternities he cannot bear.
His jaw moves as he struggles to find words until Straia lets her own thoughts bleed into his mind. “I-I don’t.. I don’t know,” he chokes, gasping now as he tries to find some kind of sense in the mess of his life now. He watches Anaxarete’s approach with some kind of hope that she would not let his father remain dead for long. But she offers no sort of kindness or cruelty, choosing instead to let the dead remain in their tombs. They all know the dragon king would not return willingly, yet the hope lingered strangely in the back of his throat.
Yadigar winces when her shadows first coil around his heart. It feels strange, for the inferno of his lament to suffocate so quickly and leave him hollowed out. Was this strength, as she said? Was it peace if he did not consume his anguish as it consumed him? The questions come spilling out with a dozen others, though no answers are found among them.
Only silence.
Silence and the endless winter night of his heart.
“I need to be alone.. to think,” he finally mumbles as he takes a step back from the gathering of his loved ones. Then, he spreads his wings and takes flight despite the protestation of his tired muscles.
