"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
Summer is slipping into fall, and the wind is high in the lowlands. Clegane storms across the plains, the only hint of grey in a world otherwise billowing with brilliant colors. In every direction away from him, the pampas stretch, undisrupted until the vaguely suggested line of forest far to the north. The sky arches endless and blue above him, and the stallion rises onto his haunches once he reaches the top of a rolling hill, striking the air for his audience of none.
His four hooves land firmly in the loam again, and his sides rise and fall, but energy and power still burn hot in his belly. The fall wind blusters against him and he challenges her with a blast of his own. The air around the stallion suddenly fills with wildflowers, dust, and bits of grass as he manipulates the wind. He pushes against her with a blast of his own, but autumn would defer to no one, and soon his stance breaks. He laughs in his defeat, and once again his mane is ripped back in the furious gale. But his laughter dies as he sees a little shape, helpless and feathered, and tumbling towards the earth - a sparrow, paying the price for his recklessness. Without a thought he reaches for her, stretching out a thread of wind to hold her steady and smooth her ruffled feathers.
"Oh, little sparrow," he says, low and soft and never expecting a reply. "I'm sorry. I hope I haven't hurt you." The wind carries her, guiding her hollow-boned body above his head and gently placing her in the place where is wings meet.
"You can rest there for a while if you would like." The stallion twists his crested neck to catch a glance of her, tucking his wings at his sides and creating a hallow of down and warmth.
"I'll just graze for a while, so don't you worry. Rest and get your warmth and strength back, and then you can be on your way and go wherever sparrows go before the winter comes."
She had been sitting among the branches of her brother's antlers, her little clawed feet wrapped around the highest prong so that she could lift her delicate face to where she knew the sun must sit so radiantly in the sky. Summer was her favorite, and with fall edging in and the air growing more crisp, she was eager to spend every second of every day basking in the bright.
Of course, she could not see the sun so bright in the sky, could not see a sky so blue that it better belonged to the gems buried in the darkest stone of the deepest caves. She couldn’t see the green or the grass or the shape of the trees, didn’t understand the delicate beauty of flowers when the wind taught them to dance. But she loved them in other ways, like this, with her sightless face lifted to a summer sky, the whispering of tall grass murmuring silly nothings in her ears. But the flowers were her favorite, small and sweet like her, and she could smell the ones that grew in Sorren’s mane beneath her, a smell that was blue to her because that’s how he described them.
But she had not expected the wind to pick up so suddenly, and as her delicate wings unfurled to feel what had been a gentle breeze moments before, she was suddenly ripped away and hurled into the sky much to the dismay of her brother. She could hear his frantic shouts below, but then they were too far too hear as she fell through a nothingness and remembered, quite belatedly, to try and flap her wings.
There is nothing easy about flying without direction, and it is almost immediately that her wings are battered and sore and she is too exhausted to do anything but chirp softly and pull them close to her feathered body. She isn’t scared until the moment the wind fades and her body starts to plummet, and then she flings her wings open again, frantic and fighting and caught totally off guard by the voice that finds her.
She is soothed instantly, relaxing into whatever it is that holds her now, though strangely it still feels like wind until it is decidedly not and she can smell the distinct scent of summer and horse hair. She burrows into the warmth of him, chirping softly and settling just as he bids her, letting sleep overcome her exhausted body while he grazes.
When she wakes she is warm again, like petals left sleeping too long in the sun, and she stretches happily before rising to balance along the curve of his spine. She has only ever known kindness, so there is no doubt that this boy is kind too. But she thinks on his words from before sleep had taken her, and once her balance is restored she walks her way up the tangles of the crest of his mane, nesting in space between his ears to say, “Thank you, I feel much better now.” Because she has no reason to think a talking sparrow might startle him. And then, in that same soft-chirp voice, “Where do sparrows go before winter comes?”
splendora
how can i put it down into words, when it's almost too much for my soul alone
03-29-2021, 04:04 PM (This post was last modified: 03-29-2021, 04:06 PM by Clegane.)
She relaxes into him, and the tight twisting of anxiety the sight of her tumbling body had ignited begins to fade. She nestles into him as if they had known each other for a lifetime, and he feels as if he had never had a more important duty to perform. He wants to live up to the faith she so blindly places in his protection, and he holds his wings a little higher and tighter to his topline. The wind that had tangled his mane falls flat as he creates a barrier of wind to push against it, redirecting the currents of air. As far as he can see, the grasses tumble in waves, and the trees bend and sigh in the distance, but at his hooves, all is still. Another glance over his shoulder lets him know that she is sleeping, or deep in rest at least, and he lets his mismatched eyes linger on the impossibly delicate beak, tiny eyes pressed closed.
After a moment, he does what he said he would and begins to graze. His steps, when necessary, are gentle and soft, and the wind never ruffles any of their feathers.
Time passes, enough that his thoughts begin to wander and the hum of a simple tune rumbles deep in his throat. It was something he had only caught himself doing in this last year, something that happen spontaneously in the quiet happy moments when the shadows of his former life seemed farther away than they ever had before.
A light tickle along his withers brings him back to the present, and a bright chirp puts a smile on his uneven lips. He is delighted as he feels the sparrow's little toes dig into his mane, and she follows its trail with lively hops to the place between his ears. His wings stretch wide as he flexes the cramping muscles of his chest and back, but he doesn't dare to move his head and disrupt her balance. "Goodmorning, friend," he chuffs happily, even though the afternoon sun is low, and the golden hour paints the meadow in soul-warming light.
The soft voice that pipes up between his ears is startling, but somehow he stays in control of his reaction. He manages not to toss his head; a snort is the only thing that betrays his surprise. He had seen little of the magic-drenched world they lived in and even less of the haunts who wielded its power. The few times he had brushed his nose across magic it had been of the darker kind, pulling him towards it in a way that he wished he had shied from. But he knew nothing of the innocent little pieces of beautiful magic that made sparrows speak and sunlight heal wounds.
It takes an embarrassingly long moment for the stallion to find his voice again, but when he does, it is as kind and genuine as it had been before, although he has very little helpful information.
"Well, I can't say I know for sure," he begins, trying to piece together the rough mental map of places he had never been before. His grandam had taken the time to explain to him the way the world fitted together, but that seemed so long ago now. "I would think somewhere in the west, but I've never been there, so I couldn't say for sure. It doesn't get very cold here on the pampas, although we sometimes get a little snow... but it never gets bitter cold like it did in the common lands." He shuts his mouth with intention after his last sentence, realizing his answer was rambling on. He thought these were the sorts of things little sparrows and ravens were just born knowing, something that their ancestors passed on in their internal code, or whispered in the wind when they learned to fly. Concern furrows his brow, as he thinks of her light-boned body fighting winter storm, and his head shifts ever so slightly to look in the direction he thought the tropical lands lay.
