"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
Unpleasant events seemed to linger around her like a cloud of rain; it had started with her finding herself in this strange land, unable to find her mother no matter where she'd looked, and now she'd traveled through gates she didn't even know had existed in the first place. Thrown first into death's hands by the dark stallion that seemed to be a god, and chased to the edge of the afterlife by a beast who wore her mother's kindness as its guise, and robbed of her own autonomous emotions through a gate that lead only to confusion and hunger. The beasts that had ripped her flesh had left scars in her mind and on her body, she had been shaken to the core and mauled by the abstract yet somehow she had been brought back, though maybe not entirely.
Though the rest of her emotions still seemed to be absent, fear ate away at the mare's mind like no other. Surrounded by voices who spoke so cruelly to her, and now haunted by the memories of the events that had taken place on the beach, she felt as there was no safety to be found anymore, there was no peace that could ever kill the war her mind waged on her, there was no escape from memory; however, there was shelter from the others that roamed this land, she could at least hide away from them - so she did.
Convinced that no one was to be trusted here, she slowly limped her way through the foliage, her body screaming at her with each step, and her legs nearly buckling underneath her from time to time as she maneuvered her way towards the sound of water. Sustaining herself had proven difficult since her return, having no interest in water anymore, and even less interest in the leaves and grasses that covered the island than she had before. Everything still seemed pointless, though at least now fear nagged at her to eat before she became weaker, fear reminded her that though she is immortal, she still must keep her strength somehow, and she would only grow weaker and easier to target if she did not make somewhat of an attempt to give her small body what it needed.
Once she reached the edge of the river, she finally let her legs give out and collapsed to the ground, letting out a small cry as her body hit the ground, still sore and scarred from the ordeal. The snow was cold but offered softness at least, and she desperately dug her delicate muzzle through the white blanket to weakly grab a few clumps of greenery. Chewing felt like a chore, but eventually she was able to swallow, sighing as she finished it. Energy seemed to still illude her, and she could no longer will herself to eat anymore, instead choosing to lay her head onto the soft, cold ground and lazily sip the river water that flowed past her soft pink nose, closing her eyes in relief as she did so. It felt nice right here for the time being, hidden somewhat by a nearby bush as well as the snow that matched her own pale coat, and plenty of cold water, with little to no noises aside from the occasional singing of distant birds. The white pegasus decided it was best to just remain here, hidden as she continued to slowly lap at the running water with her small tongue.
It is not often that the winged stallion finds himself journeying outside of Tephra. He tries to keep the warmth of the volcano and the solitude that it brings; being alone seems to keep the terrible visions at bay (at least, that is what he tells himself) and he finds comfort in the familiarity of it. There is also her - crystalline, bright-eyed, stubborn, beautiful - that tends to his burdens and the weight of it across his shoulders. She keeps the darkness away - at least for a time - and he finds that her touch seems to melt away any shadows that try to infiltrate his mind.
Perhaps it is the cold that draws him out of Tephra. It had been a long while since had soared on the wind-scrubbed skies of winter and felt the chill of it deep within his marrow. Cold and unforgiving (it made him feel alive and breathing), the wind bites and scraps at his auburn and white skin, ripping against the ivory of his great wings without mercy. The freshly fallen snow ladens the ground in huge, white dollops, sparkling and inviting to his navy eyes that watch from above. It’s a beautiful sight and rather lovely, but even in the brightness of the sun does his mind fall to a darker place.
A severed wing. A dark god. Black and gold feathers. Oh, the blood. The cries for help - the confusion.
The vision is still seared in Warden’s mind like it had only just happened. She had been another victim of his own. Not Carnage’s, but the Watcher. He had been there with her in her last breaths, but did nothing as she choked on her own blood.
With a sweeping tip of his left wing, the horned stallion slowly spirals downward towards the river that lay like a crystalline snake below him. Too fast moving to become solid ice during the winter months, the river rushes loudly as Warden comes to land beside it with a solid thud of his blue opaled hooves hitting a mixture of snow and pebble. He comes to the river’s edge - ice crunching beneath his hooves - and stops to stare at his rippling reflection, lost in his thoughts and in his visions, replaying them over and over as if to torture himself for things he cannot change.
Movement catches the deep ocean blue of his empty stare and he glances to his left, squinting. He is sure it is only a trick of his eyes - a winter hare jumping into the shadows, a cardinal taking to the skies to fill its nest - but then he realizes he is not mistaken. He isn’t alone.
The stallion tilts his horned head, the blue opal shining brilliantly in the sunlight. The tiny body is as white as freshly fallen snow, hidden almost expertly in between the greyscale of winter. When he sees the deep onyx of her wings, however, Warden’s blood runs cold and he is sure his heart is about to beat from his chest.
I saw you die.
The thought comes to his head and he is quick to keep it from coming out of his mouth as well. Instead, he halts, frozen as if the winter’s temperatures had finally gotten to him. At a loss for words but knowing he couldn’t simply stare and not say anything, he finally speaks. “Hello?” he gently asks, because maybe he is wrong - maybe he had only found her body, and his premonition had been true. He swallows hard.
She had never expected any of this, had never even thought that such a thing could happen. All this time that she had spent getting lost, running in circles in a desperate attempt to find her mother, who may not even be alive for all she knew; but, she tried not to think about that too much. Instead, Astra focused on trying to collect some sort of emotion from the faint memories of her mother, any feeling at all. She thought of the gentle eyes that looked down at her without judgment, the warmth of her side that had kept her safe through even the darkest of nights, and the soft sing-song voice that lulled her worries and calmed her wild spirit. No feelings came though, instead only the fear lingered, and she began to truly fear that she may never find her again.
The only time she had actually seen her mother in this strange land was in the afterlife, and even then she was not real. She could never imagine her mother in such a place anyways, it wasn't possible - it couldn't be possible. It was an illusion, that was the only explanation she could think of, and perhaps that stallion had known such horrid tricks would occur there; yet what was she to do about it now?
The memories of that day cycled through her mind, but exhaustion plagued her and soon everything was becoming a dark and hazy blur, serving only to give her more reason to slowly shut her eyes, fighting only momentarily to keep them open. Once shut, she gave a small sigh before allowing herself to doze off in the cold - until she heard a soft thud nearby. White ears pricked in the cold air, swiveling in an attempt to find the source of the sound, too tired to lift her head.
For a while there was silence, save for the sound of the rushing water, and then her soft ears twitched at crunching of the snow.
"Someone is coming." She thought to herself, her mind now panicking - what if it was that godforsaken being again? What if he was here to finish the job? No, it couldn't be. Why would he fix her and put her wings back together if only to kill her again later? Unless this was some sort of sick game he enjoyed, giving her hope of life only to tear it away again while she was still weak.
Over the pounding of her heart, she heard a voice call out towards her, and she raised her head in panic. Wide, fearful eyes searched the features of the taller being that stood away from her, expecting to see the dark grey of the god that had plagued her with more trauma. For a moment, she was thankful that it wasn't him, before realizing she still did not know who this was - or if he could be trusted. Dark wings tucked closer to her body in defense, aching as she did so, and the dark feathers puffed out slightly in an attempt to show some sort of aggression.
"Stay back!" Her voice was hoarse and quiet as she called out in warning towards the sparkling bay pegasus, but it was the best she could muster for now.
If only he knew that she was attempting to grasp at whatever was left of her mother so that she might feel something, just one emotion to pull her from the brink (and perhaps it is a strange blessing that his visions do not come with mind reading; he is sure his heart would break far more than it currently does), for the horned stallion before her - though he stands as still and stoically as the silent snow-laden woods around them - fights to sort through the entanglement of emotions that shred through his chest. Guilt, sorrow, hopelessness, sympathy. They all twist and turn like ugly, convoluted things within him, alive and breathing. But somehow, on the outside, he is just a silent shadow towering over her, wrapped in the darkness of nightfall.
She had died; he had seen it - had he been wrong? Had she gone beyond, like in his vision, and back again? The questions curl uncomfortably, cold and stifled within his mind. Moonlight has spilled between them, silver against the bright white of the patches of fresh-fallen snow, the darkness of the rocks and the tall pines painting the entire river in greyscale. Besides the shudder of the rushing river, the silence between them is nearly deafening. There is a flurry of movement that gives his dark ocean eyes focus, his head lowering just slightly so that his horns nearly fall into the auburn of his neck.
And then, after moments and moments (and Warden thinks he might have stood there forever, waiting to hear a voice come from the crumpled and tiny mare), she calls back to him through the thin, cold, and unforgiving air of winter.
Stay back!
Warden wonders if she can hear his heart breaking, barely beating in his chest.
The stallion’s wings that were already folded into his sides shudder slightly, his onyx legs moving as he takes a few steps back. He obeys her command, but there is a heaviness in his gaze that weighs him down; he moves slowly, methodically, unwillingly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers into the darkness after a long while, his breath clouding before his pink lips. “I just - I need to know you’re alright.”
He can’t tell her why he needs to know (how do you tell someone you’ve seen them die?), so silence and darkness swallows them both again, the jeweled blue of his horns sparkling in the shadows of night.
10-03-2020, 12:14 PM (This post was last modified: 10-03-2020, 12:14 PM by Astra Daggenhardt.)
Astra Daggenhardt
Astra's dark wings screamed at her as she held them close to her, the ache causing her to tremble, along with the cold air that bit at her skin. The cold was becoming especially uncomfortable on her new scars, the flesh there no longer covered by her pale coat. She trembled and shivered, but did not try to run, as she did not have the strength in her to move that quickly now. The ache in her body did not fade, and she didn't know how to soothe it, though she suspected keeping her limbs that were only recently returned to her so tense was not helping with the pain.
Her eyes were glued to the stallion as he backed up, filled with fear as her heart raced; but, then he spoke again, and this time it felt as though his words had slapped her in the face. For whatever reason, those words awakened a feeling within her, one not too far from the fear she had already rediscovered.
"I need to know you're alright." The final part stuck with her, causing silence to hang in the air for a moment before the feeling finally clawed its way out of wherever it had been hidden, and she felt like her insides crumbled within that moment. Tears flooded her eyes and she began to sob in earnest, her cries wracking her already shaking body as the heavy droplets began to fall into the snow below her. She was alone, she had no idea where her mother was, or if she was even still alive, and she felt as though she'd been tossed through a nightmare, it had left her scarred in many ways; and now, she realized that within that fear that ate at her now, she felt so deeply saddened by her inability to do anything about any of it.
"I'm scared." She whispered, the sadness coating her voice thickly, as her gaze fought to stay focused on the other pegasus through her tears.
There is sadness in his dark ocean eyes - a sadness that is permanent, but somehow deepens within those irises as he watches her shiver beneath her hiding place, cold and frightened. He wants to tell her he knows what it’s like to be frightened, to be uncertain, to feel helpless; but none of these words come. Instead, he bows his great horned head in an attempt to make himself seem smaller. He goes so far as to pull the flurry of his white wings as close as they could to his body, blinking gently beneath snow-white lashes.
Silence engulfs them - deadly and sinister despite the fact that the two were in no way attempting to harm each other. And then; so sudden that Warden’s head jerks upwards in concern, his nostrils flaring pink at the sound of her cries. His brow furrows, nearly breaking his promise to give her space when he lifts a single dark foreleg, desperate to go to her and comfort a mere (and terribly broken) stranger.
Her voice is so quiet, shaking and uncertain with such sadness that Warden can feel her heartbreak. He swallows, a frown on his pearled lips as he lowers his body into the snow, his dark legs curling beneath him as he comes to rest just where he had been standing before her, nearly eye level but still that same distance away. His wings are as white and untainted as the world around them, his movement downward sending the familiar smell of ash and smoke into the otherwise clear night air.
“I don’t know what it’s like not to be scared,” he confesses in a hushed voice, near to the same tone that she had spoken in to him. The constant nightmares, the constant knowing of the future - fear is an old friend. He’s scared at this moment, even though in reality, there is nothing to be frightened of. “I’ve learned that that’s okay.” He pauses, pressing his lips together thoughtfully. He opens his mouth as if he’s about to say more, but finds that there is nothing he could offer her that would make her feel brave.
She had taken her own ignorance for granted. It was true, she could see it now, ignorance truly was bliss. She'd spent her days chasing butterflies and conversing with flowers that would never answer her, swapping stories with the passing breezes in hopes of a reply, and shedding her tears in rivers that carried the droplets of worry away in their constant journey. The mare had buried the feelings of sadness and anger as much as she could, she soothed her anxiety with melodies that came from the deepest part of her beating heart. Now though, now most of those emotions no longer seemed to exist within her, and she missed them, and now she had to feel fear and sadness in totality. No longer was there a spark of happiness to sugar coat the worry with hope of improvement and better tomorrows. The fairy tales that once filled her with happiness now just played through her mind as empty words, and fear ate away at those happily ever afters.
In the moment, she wondered how the stallion still went through his days standing so tall, despite just admitting to not knowing what it feels like to not be afraid. Astra longed to understand how it could be okay to be this afraid every day, the feeling of fear felt like it was eating away at her from the deepest parts of her core all the way to the flesh that barely protected her from the harsh Winter air. Fear sent a feeling through her heart that forced her to feel like absolutely nothing was okay, and that there was no chance for it to be okay, so how could he lay before her and speak such lies?
"T-that's not true," her voice shook both from the fear and with the chattering of her small jaw. "How could any of this ever be okay? Who spoke such lies to you, and how dare you repeat them to others?" Her pale brow was furrowed in confusion, and her dainty voice held no anger within it, mostly because she was incapable of feeling such a thing for the time being.
Her head nodded in a vague gesture to their surroundings, the fog of her warm breath trailing the movement as it erupted through the cold air.
"It's cold here, there is no safety, there is nothing but the wilderness and yourself, this is a place where fear finds its roots and will bury itself within just about anyone without hesitation. The world is dangerous, the afterlife is terrifying, and the realms that lay beyond are the things of nightmares. How am I supposed to be okay with that? How would anyone be okay with the knowledge that no matter where they are, there is no peace?" Tears still fell from her eyes, forming small rivers along her delicate cheeks, and sadness made her pink lips quiver, pulled into a frown to match the hurt that her eyes showed.
"Please...Just explain to me how this could ever be okay..."
One life with one dream on repeat
@[Warden] Sorry for taking 200 years to reply, but here are Sad Words again
Here he is, amongst darkness and snow and ice, making matters worse for the poor, frightened girl before him. Warden curves his neck, the gentle slope of his horns now standing upwards prominently from his crown as his eyes fall away from her, settling on the darkness beyond. His skin shivers, a gentle tremble of mahogany and white, allowing the swiftness of her voice to fall across him in waves, becoming more intense with every word passing through her lips.
Maybe it is because he enjoys the lashing, but the horned pegasus remains still and quiet. He never turns his navy eyes to meet her gaze, though, but he is listening actively.
The fear in her voice is raw and painful, full of emotion and vibrating with something like anger - but not really, more like concern for insinuating that being afraid is something to accept. But she does not know what he’s seen and what he’s watched come apart at the seams, and the inability to do nothing as it unfolds. It gives him a sort of apathy towards the way of the world - for though he wishes for it to be righted, no amount of shouting at the stars or running from the future will change it. He should know, he’s tried for his entire life.
“It’s not,” he replies with finality, finding the strength to let his gaze wander back to her, his pale face strewn with the shadows from the branches in the canopy above them. “None of it’s okay and there will never be peace.” He inhales sharply, nearly inclined to glance upwards at the stars that peek through the bare branches with a discerning scowl, but he refrains.
Instead, Warden’s brow furrows, to meet her gaze carefully. He cannot quite see the tears that have begun to stain her cheeks, but he could hear it in her voice how they threatened to choke her. The Watcher watches her sympathetically, wishing he could offer her more than what he is giving her. He is nothing but a harbinger of death and destruction; an angel of death standing before her masqueraded with perfect white wings and a warrior’s prideful stance. “Which is why the fear is okay - if you were not afraid of this world and all its horrors, I would be more worried for you than I am now.”
A pause, a consideration that finds him as he tilts his head slightly.
“Beings such as us cannot change the terrible atrocities we have witnessed and experienced. It would be far easier to lie down and allow the ice to stop our hearts.” Warden snorts softly, knowing it is quite possible that none of his words will dry her tears and may easily cause more to flow. “I do not wish to leave you in the snow, though.” He finds it odd that he wishes for her to stand, to do something, when all his life he has been where she is - curled into the snow, with no fight left, reality raining down unceasingly. “I can take you somewhere warm; that will solve at least something tonight.”
