"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
Anubias wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow he had just forgotten to live in the real world. There was the intention of finding a home, of making new friends and filling his waking hours with laughter and love. It just never seemed to actually happen. The days passed by faster than he could blink sometimes, without anything really happening.
Sleeping offered some relief, there was never much room for boredom in the elaborate dream worlds that he could create.
When he had been younger, he’d race and run to wear out his energy faster but now - since the days pass by so quickly anyway - he does not bother. Sleep will find him again before long. As it begins to this evening, when the autumn sun is dipping closer towards the horizon and all the shadows are long. He’s wandered somewhere new today - along the river with the mountains to the east. They look treacherous to climb for someone who’s spent most of his life in the forest and lowlands.
Especially in the growing darkness, even when a soft blue-green glow surrounds him and reflects off of the brightly coloured leaves nearby.
He is just starting to drift off when his companion, a red panda who got away with being a brat because it’s so cute, nips at his leg and any sleepiness snaps away. Soft, pale green eyes widen in surprise and then annoyance, but before he can so much as scowl at the offending critter, his ears twitch at the sound of someone nearby.
The red panda makes a sound something like a 'mrrrp' because I've just decided they can do that, while Anubias says something more along the lines of "Hello?" As far as greetings went, it was hardly creative or memorable but it did the job.
Because when she sleeps there are nightmares. When she sleeps she cannot control the way her imagination runs wild and tries to fill in the blanks of her mother’s death — intrusive images of her chest open and bleeding from her heart being torn out, of what the blood must have looked like smeared on her skin and pooled on the ground around her. Este has never been subjected to anything so graphic; she had been sick and weak and dying when her twin had been attacked, had missed so much of the violence that took place during the eclipse.
But violence and darkness are in her blood—are as much a part of her as light and good, they are all the things that twist together to make her the corrupted angel that she is.
It makes it easy for her mind to craft these kinds of things, and it unsettles her.
It unsettles her to the point she decides she would rather not sleep at all.
She is away from Hyaline tonight, slipping quietly along the river in her angel form, the rose-gold glow of aura softening the darkness around her. She moves without really seeing, without hearing the rush of the river, without feeling the way the breeze stirs her mane. But a blue-green glow catches her eye, shifts her focus to the present, and all at once she is grounded in reality.
She should walk away, she thinks, is certain that she is encroaching on someone trying to rest. But before she can stop herself she is following the questioning ‘hello’ that had reached for her in the dark, stepping softly until she finds him and the small animal near him. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes reflexively, her voice hushed in the evening air. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just...” she trails off, her quiet brown eyes tired, before finishes aimlessly. “I don’t know, actually.”
WHO COULD EVER LEAVE ME DARLING, BUT WHO COULD STAY?
The red panda is satisfied as soon as they see the mare appear and it gives another chirp before disappearing into the trees. Anubias was a friendly creature at heart, one meant to be around others, it was just sometimes he needed a little help. If the panda hadn’t nipped him, he would have been slumbering away when this mare passed and missed the chance to, at the very least, speak to someone. Something that happened all too rarely.
And, his companion thought as it scrambled up a tree - better he talked to someone else for a while. She could only handle so much chatter.
Anubias’ leg is still stinging from the nip so he does not miss his companion when it leaves, his attention instead focused on the soft-spoken stranger. He’s not entirely sure why she’s apologizing, so he shakes his head with a small smile - wanting to let her know that he hadn’t been disturbed at all. Even if she had interrupted his falling asleep, it wasn’t in his nature to be bothered by that. A voice in his head, which may belong to his companion, often let him know that he should be living more in reality. Or, at least, making more friends here instead of the ones he could craft in dreams. “No apologies needed. I was just going to take a break from reality in the dreamworld for a little bit.”
It isn’t even really a decision what comes out of him next. Anubias lives in a kind world, one where it is effortless to offer things to someone he has only just (barely) met. “Could you use one? A break from reality?” Any chance that this could be an insidious offer is mitigated by his warm voice, the bright and curious smile in his pale green eyes. She looks tired, this dappled mare, and maybe there’s a chance he could both meet someone new and be in a place where he can craft wonderful things.
She watches with a small smile as the red panda disappears up a tree, and she realizes it is one of the first times she has managed anything close to a smile in days. Perhaps leaving Hyaline for the evening was going to turn into just the distraction she needed; to finally see a face and speak with someone that did not know her mother, to have a conversation that was not haunted by the fact that her mother’s body was resting somewhere in the mountain kingdom, shielded by her brother’s magic.
To want to escape her grief made her feel guilty, and it takes a concentrated effort to ignore the discomfort in her chest. Her quiet brown eyes focus on the young stallion before her perhaps a little too intently, as if somehow his face and this conversation is going to keep her from sinking further into the despair she has made her home in.
“I don’t think I dream anymore,” she tells him, not fully understanding what he was actually referring to. She has never met anyone that can manipulate dreams—did not even know such a thing existed. She knows only of her own dreams, but it has been weeks since she last dreamt. Sleep was already such a rarity for her these days, and when it did find her it was fitful and restless.
Her sleep was only dark, with sparks of emotions and things she couldn’t name or see, and she doesn’t think it serves as much of an escape.
“I would have escaped reality long ago if I knew how,” she says with a grim smile and a short, dull laugh. She is being depressing, she knows. This man is going to think she is the most miserable thing he has ever met, and the part of her that still exists beneath the rubble of her heartbreak wants to amend that. “My name is Este, by the way,” she tries forcing her voice to sound lighter, and a soft, blush-pink light begins to glow beneath her skin, as if she could somehow fool him into thinking she was not drowning in darkness.
YOU'VE GOT YOUR DEMONS AND DARLING THEY ALL LOOK LIKE ME
He frowns a little, wondering what it would be like not to dream when it has so thoroughly become his entire life. It’s obvious, even to him with his limited social experience that there’s something dragging at her heart. But he doesn’t begrudge her for the grimness or the dull laugh - he can’t imagine what carrying around that weight must feel like.
She makes some effort to lighten up, but the dullness of her laugh still echoes in his head. The green stallion with his gentle glow and eyes doesn’t think it’s his place to ask the source of her sadness. They’ve only just met, after all, and he is not an overly curious creature. What he sees instead is an opportunity to help - or at least make the offer. A chance to give her a break from whatever it is that is haunting her, and maybe be a friend. So he meets her attempt at a smile with one of his own - a little brighter, a little warmer. Encouraging, he hopes.
“Nice to meet you Este, I’m Anubias.” And then after a small pause he adds “I like your glow.” He says this without thinking, realizing only after the words are out that it’s probably the type of compliment you’d hear from a child. It was sincere, at least. Just like what comes out next. “And I can help, if you’d like to dream and escape reality a little. I’m able to control and shape dreams, and bring someone along.” Granted, it would depend on whether she could fall asleep. Small details.
The bigger hurdle would be whether she’s up for trusting him.
