07-26-2016, 05:23 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-31-2016, 08:40 PM by mandan.)
He is becoming too much like Scalped; scarred by heartbreak (but in ways that his mother never was, she loved her human boy but never her own kind like that) and thriving only for the sake of his foals.
The last has left him though, even as he expects another after having cooled his hot loins in the flesh of some barely known mare. It is better that way, he thinks, then to know and care and experience the awfulness of feeling again. He no longer thinks of her - a small blessing that; his nights empty but for wind and star, his mind finally free of her face as if the wilderness had scratched it all away, and maybe it had carved a thick slice of emotion and memory right out of him.
Mandan sucked in a large breath, light glinting off the sharp twisted spires of his horns as his head dipped and swayed. His eyes rolled towards the wicked shadow his horns cast on the canyon floor, but he could smell no one nearby and he presumed that was for the best - he made poor company these days, preferring to remain alone and apart. Why then did he decide to submit to his most basic nature and start a herd? He did not express a true desire for the company or chatter of any mare, not any more, but maybe it was time to give in to the fact that he was completely wild at heart.
To think she thought a kingdom could keep him! Never, just as the thought fades from his mind, struck swiftly from his brain by the cry of a hawk overhead and he tips his broad head back to regard the bird’s path of flight, knowing he could track it just as easily by the shadow it threw against the canyon floor. He moved deeper towards the lush oasis awaiting him around the corner, having discovered it in the aftermath of the Desert flooding. This place seemed rather untouched by everything that had happened recently and he figured that was also for the best, as the big hulking bay stallion strode through his domain.
Roped in brawn and impressive, eyes hard and dark, he called to the two mares that had consented to join him. Of course, their consent was more than likely coerced by some force and he would make no apology for that, having no more mercy left in him for things like that - they would either cope with how feral he had become, or they would wander off in the end, and it mattered little to him. Or so Mandan told himself but a tiny part of him was fiercely glad and fiercely proud that he had started this with them.
MANDAN
Oh, it's in my roots—in my veins.
It's in my blood and I stain every heart that I use to heal the pain The child of sun and moon stood motionless before the waterfall that fed this small slice of paradise which cut unexpectedly into the stark, canyon walls. It vaguely reminded her of her beloved home and the secret waterfall that only her family knew the whereabouts of deep inside the jungle terrain. The one currently before her was, of course, smaller and surrounded by fewer brilliantly colored flowers and sparser vegetation. This was an oasis available to the wide, open air of the looming canyon walls. But yet it revealed itself to those willing to make the journey deep into the heart of the badlands.
The screech of a circling hawk overhead broke into her reminiscing thoughts and she briefly smiled at the sound. Its cry tended to remind her of her elder brother whom she had not seen in many years. In fact, she had not seen any of her family in the past several years. They had simply scattered into the winds, like helpless tumbleweed spinning about aimlessly. She had been left behind with no anchor of familial ties to keep her happy within her jungle home.
The wandering was a result of this empty feeling within her chest.
Following the hawk’s aching cry, the herd stallion of this mysterious land called out relatively close by. Xero had accepted a place in his herd for the time being. He appeared to be rather solemn and perhaps even unfriendly, but she wasn’t particularly fazed by these personality traits. In fact, some of her own brothers could be quite standoffish at times. But her family was comprised of fire and ice, of light and dark, of sol and luna - clashing elements desperately trying to find a happy balance.
She watches as the horned stallion rounds the corner of the canyon and she offers him a slight smile in invitation. Xero wasn’t feeling particularly sociable, but it didn’t do much good to refuse a visitor when they were already at the door. The silver black paint shifted her weight and waited for his approach before offering him her greetings.
“ Hello.” Xero Nocturnal x Quark
He spies her staring at the waterfall; knows that she keeps to herself in this damp corner of the oasis. The waterfall misted the air, made it swim with rainbows and her silver black shape - she is a paint, like his mother and so very unlike his mother too except in the way her feet are planted in the dirt, her stance as uninviting as his own often is. Her smile, small and inviting, pulled him in close despite his own closed off nature that rebelled and sought to keep him running the badlands around their canyon home. Anything to keep him from opening up again and feeling the hurt cut through him all over again.
Her hello was quiet and polite, and all he can offer back to her is the same polite but casual greeting. “Hi,” he says, rather unenthusiastic about the prospect of having to play nice even if he suspects he owes her something for agreeing to come with him. He needed no force in his coercion, but he knew none of this was possible without her and some old part of him rears its ugly head to remind him of his manners. So he does the unthinkable: he thanks her, “Thank you.” It is short and rather to the point, as he spares no breath or thought to the thanks he gives her. His nose is not offered afterwards, no need to exchange air like horses of old do even if his instinct pipes up and says he ought to.
Mandan is taking no chances; he strives to keep his land and will cultivate a herd as is the expectation but he has little purpose since his heart had been cut so neatly in two, so easily and beautifully ruined that he thinks there is little left in him that is capable of small kindnesses except to his foals - they had his undying attention and love, but mares like her? He’s starting to think they’re a dime a dozen and all alike: “love me, love me, NEXT!” But no, she is not bay and salmon-pointed and her eyes are not that sweet - they are eyes that have seen both sides of the coin, good and bad, and he feels a faint appreciation for that bubble up in him. Her eyes are real and not lost in a haze of dreams, no matter how long she stares into the waterfall - he knows that she has seen it all.
“The waterfall seems to interest you more than anything else,” he says aloud, his hard dark eyes sliding towards her face to judge her reaction to the statement he’s made.
MANDAN
Oh, it's in my roots—in my veins.
It's in my blood and I stain every heart that I use to heal the pain She smiles in amusement at his flat greeting. He seems unhappy about the prospect of socializing, but too proper to be rude about it. His no-nonsense air had been refreshing among a field full of charming snakes. Xero has no qualms with a bluntly honest person – they were usually the most trustworthy. And she’d rather not mentally tire herself out with trying to navigate through flowery words or cutting insults.
She was looking for an outlet – a way to ease her current loneliness.
He abruptly thanks her and she is startled enough to swing honey brown eyes away from the water and to his own. A lingering look and she determines her acquiesce to be the cause. She wonders for all his brusque and bristly presence if he really isn’t the same as her. Hurting in her loss and separation, lonely and yet distancing herself from others to prevent more damage. She just needed a solid place to pull her back from the swirling depths before she could drown herself.
“ No thanks needed. I imagine we’re both fulfilling a need.”
She’s always been curious by the idea of herds. Xero was a jungle-woman, a kingdom of female prowess and fearlessness. She was taught to survive the unforgiving jungle and developed a backbone that could endure whatever life threw at her. Momma Sol and Momma Luna took great care in giving their firstborn daughter all the life skills she could possibly need. But her jungle home served as a painful reminder and so here she was exploring that frivolous and youthful curiosity.
His observation brings a bittersweet smile to her face as she stares intently at the gushing water. Of course she had been drawn to what was most familiar to her. The deep, rugged canyons were striking in their unfamiliarity, and yet somehow gave the illusion that no others could break through her thin walls. They were a convenient safeguard against the outside world and Xero had found comfort in the very heart of them.
A secret garden hidden amongst towering, fortress walls.
“ It reminds me of home. I grew up in the jungle, but I can appreciate the hidden beauty of this mysterious place.
She swings her face back towards the other, yellow forelock falling across her forehead as inquisitive eyes search his once again.
“ What drew you to this place?” Xero Nocturnal x Quark
Scalped would have a chunk of his hide if he did not mind his manners; that was one thing she had instilled in him early on - be respectful to mares, to all, in fact and he tried to be, despite the bitterness in his heart that begged for him to be crueler than that. He could blame her too, (unfairly, maybe) for the call of the wild that their blood always answered to. That had sowed the seeds of ruin in his relationship with Ygritte, though she had always loved her kingdom more than him and that was in truth, the downfall of what they had innocently begun years ago in the meadow. Loved her land more, and loved her king as much as that, and spared no more thought towards Mandan. He had become a ghost, a bitter hulking ghost of himself that could do little more than reap the benefits of some warm flesh to cuddle beside on chilly fall nights. Come morning, he left them in the family way and came for his sons and daughters afterwards. He instilled in them, the same manners Scalped taught him and therefore, he could be nothing but proper even as his socialization skills began to suffer from a lack of companionship, which he was still unsure of.
Why had he done this thing besides it being a quirk of nature?
No matter, it is done all the same and she is here now, with him.
(He will lie to himself, that it isn’t that her loneliness called to his or that his answered hers in that same lonely way that each of them knows.)
Mandan has kept his eyes on her all this time; is startled to see that hers are honey brown, but they linger a little too long on his face and it is he that looks away first, like she has seen too much of him in that one look they shared. “Probably,” he mutters, not sure if he wanted to pick at the nature of why he chose this, or why she chose it with him. He could tell she respected his brusque approach, but… he thinks there is almost a curiousness about her that makes her want to pry and he is too stubborn to admit that he too, was as lonely as she was. Or that he too, was as curious about herd life even though it ought to come more natural to him - he’d considered it once, face buried in a salmon-pink mane, breathing in the smell of her fur as it tickled his nostrils; Ygritte always smelled of flowers, as if she were a flower herself.
He starts at the memory, at the ease that it came to him from right out of the blue like a bolt of lightning that stunned him. Mandan thinks she hadn’t noticed - she’s been looking at the waterfall again, the shadow of memories playing across her own face like they have on his. “The jungle - never been there,” but he has heard of it, his older half-sister had a brief dalliance there before she preferred popping out foal after foal like their mother has done for most of her life. Granted, Scalped is beyond ancient and ever since her brief flirtations with the Falls and the Deserts, the medicine hat mare has opted to grow fat with foal than make something of herself. He supposes that his mother has had no reason to make her name known; they manage to do that for her, except him, what must she think of her wayward son?
Xero’s eyes find his and he finds that he cannot look away, or doesn’t want to look away, but he refuses to admit it could be the latter. She wants to know what drew him to this place; what can he tell her? The canyons called to his heart, or the bits of it that did not suffer the same ruin as the rest. It was the lone shadow of the eagle on red rock, the lone shrill of wind across that same rock, and the way his shadow grew larger than he was and that it was the only thing to keep him company which was how he liked it. He settles for this as his answer, “The loneliness of it.” and his eyes burn despite their blackness, and he thinks that he she might know what he means by that.
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