"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
let me tell you something baby,
you love me for everything you hate me for
She is at unrest, she has been all winter and the little time she does sleep she dreams of things that seem both all too real albeit impossible. Like every other night, she begins to sweat heavily, it's thick and lathering on her dip-dyed pelt as she raises herself from the ground - the visions are something that she cannot bring herself to forget. Warship. Prague. Weir. Her. It was consuming her, night after night, and day after day the weight of her current pregnancy was taking an entirely different toll. She had stepped into the Jungle to try to find the house magician with no luck, Warship was dead so that only left Weir to fill in the gaps.
Swiftly her wings carry her beyond the burning tree, through the valley's and mountainsides to reach the entrance of the Dale - her eyes glossy and red, lack of sleep and yet; seemingly asleep now. She lands towards the borders, she knows that there is no alliance between them and considering she's a dark thing going 'bump' in the night she may not be greeted with a warm, welcome smile. She must know though what these dreams are about, surely the magic bender would know something so she doesn't hesitate. "Weir? It's Kimber...from the Chamber, I was close to War-..." she stops, unable to even speak his name now, the dead aren't anything to speak on regularly she had learned. She has to tell someone about her dreams, in actuality it's a nightmare but the bold mare was fearful of very little. She wanted someone who may be able to explain why her conscious was being so cruel to her.
He thought it was Warshyshippy, that scent of ashen, pine forest finding him where he was grazing. That’s why he came so fast I’d say, barreling over the Dale’s Meadow as a gust of wind and snow. A whirl of a blizzard, spiraling upwards towards the sky and roving over the spring grass like a tornado. It was excitement that fueled him, convinced that the war hardened Chamberling had come down to visit him. Made a special trip to greet an old friend after years of tucking himself away in the hills. Then again he remembered what had happened, that Warship might not have a pleasant visit in mind, and Weir slowed.
He ceased is furious tumbling, becoming a whisper of the force he had just been and trickled slowly towards the border where he was sure the blackened beast lay in wait.
It wasn’t Shippy though, not even quite. He finds the woman instead, the one that was fading blue and winged like a bird. He had left them there, after it had happened, taken by an illness he did not understand at the time. Weir had crawled away, rolled as he did in the ice until he had made it home, head pounding from the ordeal. Not a moment was taken to check on her, she could have been dead for all he knew, could have disappeared the way the Jungle Lioness had and he would never have noticed.
She wasn’t dead though, she was quite alive, just as Shippy had been when they found him. It should have taken more time to settle in than it did but Weir had accepted the man’s life without question, simply happy that he was breathing. Elated, until the Amazon revealed her true nature, intent on striking revenge into both his friend and the bird-woman before him. That’s not allowed though, not where Weir is concerned and instead of having her way they had Weir’s way instead. He had latched himself to that Magic, tugged the tendrils away with such fierceness that they had snapped all together, breaking the tether even though it were only half formed. What he had done was marvelous, great even but practically terrifying. That’s why they didn’t often seek his company, the Magicians, they didn’t like that. Weir was an anomaly in his own right, able to twist their powers to his own will, to coerce the flow, change the intent of it.
That’s what he had done, knowing full well the Lion had meant to snuff the life from them both. Kimber, she says as he solidifies before her first snow, then ice, then flesh. “I remember you,” he says, amber eyes bright as she speaks and then her words break and his ears fall. “Warship,” he says it for her, completes the name because in contrast he can not stand for it to be left broken that way. “I know you were, she knew you were too, that woman. Prague.” Rusty forelock falls over his brow and he gets the feeling this is a story to her, one she hasn’t heard though she has every right to remember it herself under normal circumstances. “Does he need me back? Did he ask for me? Why’ve you come?”
let me tell you something baby,
you love me for everything you hate me for
She is leary of magician's or anything related to magic - did he anticipate her coming? Was this part of the dream, too? Questions she hoped to have answered in due time. She watches the snow begin to stack before her, turning to ice and then revealing the roan man - Weir, who she had only met briefly in the midst of war and...with Warship in a dream. The black horned man had spoken a few times of Weir, his best friend and confidant, Kimber felt like she, too, could grow to like him just as much with an opportunity. He finishes the name, the name falls from his lips so easily and it drips fluidly into her heart. She comes closer to the roan, she feels more at home just from him mentioning the name but she stays back some - he knows her on a very small level. "You know her? I am so confused, I had a dream, I think it was a dream - about you, her, and warship and we were in the mountains but she appeared and I keep waking up, I keep forgetting. Is he alive? Am I sick? Delusional?" she rambles on, almost manically to the roan man. "He hasn't called, he's dead - right? What happened, Weir?"
my brain turned to mush.
i guess maybe this is the time to find out about the twins and he's alive, etc.
so she can hold a grudge
His questions are met with a confused uncertainty, the words pulling at the lines of his lips and creases near his eyes as he took them in. There is a haze there in her eyes, a veil of concealment for reasons he doesn’t know. A side effect, the aftermath of his own meddling? There could be many reasons for the mare’s lapse in knowledge, in reality but it was a dangerously thin line. The mind was a complicated being, vast and endless in ways that most equine would not even begin to comprehend. His amber eyes find hers and they hold, delving into their depths but not by magic, by observation only- a glimpse of the inside from the surface.
Paces are replaced with a closeness, one she brings as she steps forward then idles suspended, seeming to not know whether to toss herself into his bubble or remain teetering on the edge of her own. It’s only curiosity and concern he has for her now, more questions falling from her painted lips as she speaks of things she should know- things she for some reason has no answers to. Dream, she says and he wonders if she has suppressed the event somehow, for some reason. “A dream?” he asks, amber eyes narrowing as he contemplates the severity of it all. “Know her? Prague. Very little I’m afraid and less than I had hoped,” his rusty shoulders roll as he speaks of the Amazons magician, trying to push away the very thought of her but he can't, he mustn't.
“You remember the War then Kimber? Prague was there doing what she could to snuff the fires from the burning Gates tree. I helped her, augmented her magic because for some it takes a toll on the body.” Some. Weir’s own gift was just as complicated at times, more often than not the magic did something he didn’t try for and when he didn’t use it for a long time it did hurt him. However, if he kept at it enough it did not claim his energy anymore, didn’t have ill effects and used itself against itself, folding its power inwardly like a circle, constant, continuous. “I’m sorry I didn’t know her intentions better,” he admits, he apologizes because he feels one is owed.
“Come then Kimber, I will tell you what your mind forgets,” with that he bends his invisibility over her, the feeling akin to something like having an egg cracked over your head, the substance dripping down the entirety of your body. When that is down he turns, walks forward with every intention of her following his slow, dawdling pace. “It were no dream you had, we were there. You, Me, Prague and Warship. A very much alive Warship mind you but only just it seemed, he was still weakened but on his way to full recovery I am sure.” Weir was sure, the simple sight of Shippy breathing was enough to instil hope in Weir, hope and certainty that his good friend would make it.
“I don’t know what kind of relationship you had with the Magician mare, had I known I would have insisted you stay behind. At first I thought she meant to help, to heal but that wasn’t the case.” he stopped, looking over the meadow and sighing. “She wanted you dead, the both of you but I wouldn’t stand for it- I couldn’t.” Truthfully it was Warshyshippy he was most concerned for, terrible as that may be to admit, perhaps that is why he did not say it out loud. “I’m no Magician Kimber, not quite, my gift feeds off theirs- it is useless without their harness of the power in the first place. I did what I had to do though, I broke that tether, that desire to take life. I replaced it with my own want to give it instead, to create life, I wanted to heal Warship with her Magic.”
Wanted to, that was what he had intended but that isn't quite what happened. He turned his soft gaze to her, taking on a look of utmost seriousness. “I managed that and something a bit, more. I pulled too hard it would seem, I willed it too much and overpowered the intention of the course without realizing. I gave life Kimber, to Shippy and to myself.” He swung his head then, carrying it low as he turned and lead her towards a new path, one further into the heart of the Dale. The rise and fall of the hills came and went until over one small horizon he stopped, still as a statue, frozen almost but not with his ice. Against the backdrop of the great river and the wide plain of green that was dotted merrily with colorful blooms stood two children. One a boy, blue and black and sending delightful creatures made of hoarfrost to parade around his feet. The other was a girl, dark and familiar even to Weir, the shape of her body, the way she held it. Only one difference was the sparkle of tinsel in her mane and tail, the last breath of Magic from their birth to mark her as his own spent. Even at the face of her brother’s deafness, Weir thought it was important for her to be recognized in the sea of black horses when the time came- but he’s not sure why.
WINTER IS COMING
Omg it is a novel, i am so sorry ;-; does this story of it all look okay?
Kimber's minds a master of concealment but the reasons for such antics were truly unknown. Were the things that happened in her past traumatic enough that it was a defense mechanism? Perhaps or just maybe her memory was so faint these days that she simply couldn't recall. Once the connection is made, eye to eye, she knows there is no hiding from this point onward and so she listens. Prague, she wasn't certain of the mare's name before it wasn't customary in battle to get to know the details on your opponents - especially when they're attempting to murder your love interest and General. "Yes, that one. That despicable creature, I remember the War quite well despite my rage at the time," sh e says her heart beginning to race at the thought of it, something she couldn't withstand in such a state, "no need to apologize, Weir, I never knew her until I met her on the battlefield and from my understanding, most magicians are that way - untrustworthy."
He mentions showing her what her mind has forgotten and although the dip-dye mare was normally untrusting of everyone she felt at ease with the roan man. She feels something start to extend from her head, dripping down and over her body like a pool of liquid as it rushes over her skin to cover it. As Weir speaks, he affirms that indeed it was real - her flight to the hillside was true and Warship was there - she wonders what else she has chalked up to a dream? Perhaps the magician had tried to kill them because of the dip-dye mare's threats for her but she felt all the same. "I have no relationship with her, I do now - she's my enemy, the only true one I have. I am not sure her business with Warship, why she hates him so or me for that matter," she snorts, listening to Weir continue on as they travel deeper into the Dale. She has never been here but it seems nice enough, it seems tucked away from the problems the rest of Beqanna faces; sometimes she longs for a home like this even though her heart beats to the Chamber's mighty drums. She can feel something amiss when Weir mentions giving life, that he harnessed her powers too much; such an explanation of depth meant only a number of things. She knows not if Weir knows her feelings for Warship, although they were never openly discussed; the fact she's here serves an inclination.
She quickly notices the children, a pang in her side as she carries her most recent child beyond the due date - she notices the blue and black boy but her eyes focus on the filly - she looks identical to what her own Vaughan looked like at that age (spare the decorum). She blinks silently, cautiously at the two - knowing then that she was not the last to mother a Warship child. Her heart feels faint at this moment, partly due to pregnancy and some due to residual feelings. She knows the closeness Weir and Warship shared and although this was not a willing coupling it still jolts her heartstrings some. "You and Warship's children are well, I see," she says, passively but firm - she had no ill feelings, she honestly felt relieved to know the past General was alive but also betrayed. "The girl - she is like my son, we share something now, Weir - what are their names? I understand if you do not wish for me to meet them but I have secrets of my own that involve Warship." Four years seems like a long time to keep a secret, her son was not Nymphetamine's after all and in this moment she knew that - Vaughan was Warship's.
What a tangled web we weave.
k i m b e r
winged, immortal dip-dyed colonel of the chamber
