Put Out The Stars [Pollock]

[Astri]

What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?

Ungrateful little worms. The both of them. Astri had sacrificed a life of her own so that she might breathe some into her children and what have they given her in return? Only wasted years and unfulfilled promises. She could spit in her madness. Instead she grumbles under her breath and weaves through the brackish growth of the forest, wondering why her fellow equines even needed this much seclusion. As if secrets and forbidden meetings could be concealed from the world by the makings of a few trees. It was absurd that Dacia would come here thinking that the elder green mare wouldn’t seek her out. The Chamber was a living forest itself - Astri knew her way around the woods.

But then again, that’s probably why Dacia had come here in the first place. Some part of her willful daughter wanted to be found, and Astri was to blame for that. She’d clearly spoiled the filly, given her some unrealistic expectations about her place in this world. It was probably her daughter's intentions to be found entangled with some horrible excuse of a stallion just so that she could have excitement in her life. Astri wonders where she went wrong. With a defeated sigh the matriarch of the strange little blue-green Chamber trio descends into the heart of the wood, wondering if she can retrieve her young look-alike before the girl really got herself into a mess.

With Dacia, one could never be sure. Of course, this would be easier if she had the help of her son, Lupei, but there was another waste of flesh. He was too tangled up in his own power, too interested in the ways of nature. Men … what a species unchanged. With the flick of a single ear she slows to a halt, sensing that there’s movement ahead. “Dacia!” She calls out, the irritation in her voice straining the word. “Enough of your attitude. Come out and face me.”

Her eyes, never agreeing in their color, narrow on the spot ahead where she was certain she heard something. If it is not Dacia, then oh well, she would scream at woodland creatures all she liked. But she was certain that nothing else would come out this far. Her jade tail is restless, and a for a brief moment, Astri feels uneasy.

astri

@[Pollock]

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

He is clean now. Washed through by a dip in that salt water.
The sun was split in slivers on the surface like a ripe fruit (tangerine and pink, vibrant; his head pounded mightily when he looked up or down, so for a time he kept his eyelids tight together). He had gone one way and Chessur the other, both bound to their own version of a memory made of sand and brine. Unlike his baby brother, Pollock had the courage to face it head-on. To find the place, the exact place, and imagine it real again—her like a snare, the colt trapped inside…
He laid his head low, pressed into the roily water until he could hear nothing but the muffled whooshing of sea spray and the claws of the ocean on the damp sand, pulling them all together.

He stayed below until he could no longer, and came up sputtering.

And clean. Horns and nose and cheeks, split hooves and knees. The tides pushed in, pressing it all closer to him for a moment like a quiet goodbye. And then, pink and violent, the ocean yanked the sanguinary wash back into itself. 
But horses like him wear uncleanliness like a king wears a crown or Pale Death wields his scythe.

She is angry. She coughs it out like hot steam from a broken pipe. That rouses him. He is moved by the way these negative things (fear, anger, jealousy) clog like tar. Or maybe they corrode—caustic, like the way hard touches long ago turn all the soft ones rotten now; the way a mother’s madness can work like a pathogen sent to nibble at the tender meat. So he follows her, quiet and unseeable, for some time. Watching as she weaves, green on green, through the forest, caught in the quagmire of her own inane little problems. Until he knows she is marked, indelibly.

Until he knows that she is his and he moves closer… 

He he begins to imagine her… differently.

The palomino shows himself to her. A kind of… intimate gesture, perhaps. He stands for a while, his brown-black eyes examining the smooth canvas of green lustily. He moves forward, closer, to check the way the roundness of her belly meets the turn of her hip and haunch. “Who is Dacia? Hm?” he says, finally, gravelly and slick, now meeting her eyes. “She sounds like she could use some discipline.” He flickers out, moving between that plane of senses and creeping forward to stand nearer to her still, his breath warm and mixing with hers. “I could do that.” He twists his head, his great, curved headgear making gentle contact with her cheek. The soft stroke of a painter's hand.
He flickers back in, eyes locked to hers and he gives her fear, generously. Watching her face for the way it might turn from him reflexively, or her eyes for their whites. It doesn't matter what she fears—this is fear, simply.

Even if she tries to run, he is faster than her. He could outmaneuver her as if she were a child on new legs. He could hunt her down far longer than she could ever give chase.
Sometimes, paths simply lead to dead ends.


POLLOCK
Lone Artist and Phina's

[Astri]

What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?

She knows (with some sort of terrifying certainty) that he will be the end of her. The faint shimmer of gold in his coat is illuminated by the scattered light that breaks through the broad leaves above them, and Astri sees him as some sort of angel, almost. With certainty he edges forward - the steps of a creature who knows he’s caught his prey. Each footfall deliberate and soft. She cannot escape him, and he’s well aware of that. Inwardly, she blames herself. The Chamber had gifted her with wings and she had refused them, finding the things cumbersome and awkward on a body born without them. To think, if she had kept them, this might have only been a casual encounter. But not now, not with the unthinkable lust that’s reflected in his gaze.

He questions her, and like a weary lioness who’s encountered a rogue male one too many times she hold her tongue, feeling her lip curl involuntarily with spite. Her daughter’s name in his mouth turns the word to ash. He edges closer, and Astri is careful not to move, not to betray the thundering pace of her own heart. He was enjoying this - enjoying her, and the smooth firmness of his horn against her cheek told her that she was his plaything now. Only a means to an end. “I’ve given life to things more terrible than you.” She whispers, feeling his absence the moment he steps away.

Her eyes lock with his, and his power overtakes her.

There is nothing to describe what she sees, only the outward reaction from her terror gives an idea of what she experiences. Her eyes roll into her skull, the sclera giving her a ghastly face. Her muscles seize, neck contorting to twist her head sideways as her mouth snaps open to release a thin, high scream. The effect is momentary, but the memory is there now. Astri cannot escape. She feels her heart near to bursting, feels her mouth form words that come out as a cry for relief, for him to stop. Her eyes rolls back, pupils wide and whites exposed, and she sees - only for a second - Dacia in the wood far from them, lingering with terror in her eyes, watching. But in an instant her daughter is gone.

She’s soaked in her own sweat, panting from the exertion of her body in that terrible moment. Astri is not herself anymore. With a feral cry she stumbles forward into her own end, teeth exposed in a weak attempt to attack him. “Free me.” She thinks, because she cannot speak anymore. Death is now a welcomed friend, a sweet embrace to shield her from what he’s done to her. “Bastard.” She whispers, closing her eyes.

astri

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

Once he had been bruised and hidden. An unloved thing made of bitter stuff.
Then he had been pink and naked; he had been of pavement and vinyl siding, posters of nude woman and electricity, instead of the simplicity of dirt and grass. The two things made themselves separate and strange from each other, only crossing now in fitful dreams that coax him from sleep and make him bitter all over again.
(—ice and snow, colourful buildings nestled in a hinterland of bears; a whirling room of steam and the animation of melted and disfigured playthings. Eyes like green headlights, and sometimes he thinks he remembers why he grows weary in his thigh and leg. Thinks he remembers a strange sensation, the vice grip of a hairy hand rebreaking bone and reintroducing venom.)

Never did he think he would be an angel, if only for a moment of gilded quietness.
Before she realizes he is pale death and he is a bastard, again.

‘I’ve given life to things more terrible than you.’
He grunts. He likes their bile before their squirm. Their spitting, like venom from a snake’s lips, as they ‘round the corner. It’s when they finally see it coming, with the inevitability of a runaway train, that he likes best of all. Faced with their dead end, he sees something nobody else gets to—not their children or their lovers or friends. They share something… intimate. They need not exchange names. She’ll be his, regardless. His to rename whatever he pleases and watch turn to leather and dust. “You think about them, then.” he mutters, a sick kind of comfort, warm near her temple and ear, watching her eyes widen and slip back. Her head turn from his.
As he knew they would.

He thinks he sees that fleeting moment of recognition. His own eyes narrow but he is too far gone to turn his head and try to see what she sees. Besides, her mind is fragile now that it knows that it is not long. He imagines it might lend itself to a sort of hysteria, if only to mask the horror of being snared. It’s why animals gyrate when they are caught, thrashing wildly and breaking themselves apart. Better to self-destruct than to be taken alive. 
He jerks his head back, away from her teeth and her mortal thrust.

“Yes,” he says, almost sadly, as she hisses at him. ‘Bastard’.

He has spent more time with her than any of the others.
Hestia he had felled in a moment. Thyndra had lasted only as long as her brittle, old bones had held—only long enough to choke out a word, or name, he couldn’t understand.
“Dacia. Hm.” he mouths it again.
Well. If he can leave her with one thing…

Just like the others, he makes great hollows of broken bone where once her cheeks had been smooth and high, or her bridge straight. Violent and repetitive. Her body remains as it has always been. Green and womanly, though bloat will come soon.

But her face is something else.


POLLOCK
Lone Artist and Phina's

[Astri]

What is an ocean but a multitude of drops?

Here lies Astri, Mother of a fire wolf, Mother of a colorless child. She loved none, admired many, and remained loyal to her kingdom until death. Truly a mare of her own means, she would have wanted it to end this way. - Into this world alone, out of this world alone -

-----------------

To my firstborn, Lupei: Do something with yourself, you irresponsible fool. I kept your secret, gave you life, now prove to me that you deserve it. Of course, my pride for you is overwhelming, but you know that I always was your mother before your critic.

To my baby, Dacia: Sadly, you're not a baby anymore. My only wish for you is that you find the love that evaded me my whole life. An entire existence without someone to dream of is no existence at all.

To Killdare: You big lump. Thanks for being my only friend.

To Joscelin: Our encounter was brief, but I never forgot it.

To the Chamber: My spirit will always reside within your depths.  

astri