"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
all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash
She's not sure if any of the others are still alive.
She had sought one out, once upon a time. Newly returned to Beqanna, soaked in blood and with fresh scars adorning her ears, chest, and forehead, she had recognized one of the ones who had been held in the dungeons of the Dark God with her. She had stumbled after him, calling out for him to stop, to turn, to talk to her, but he had vanished into the dying light of the evening. She doesn't blame him for running; she had done a lot of running herself after that.
Since then, she has... survived. Thrived would be too optimistic of a word to use here—existed would be much too melodramatic. No, she has lived, loved, and lost since returning to the Overworld, much like anyone else in this wretched land. She has felt the burn as her flames were ripped from her chest when the Reckoning swept through Beqanna, and she has learned to live without being able to heal minor cuts and bruises. She has raised a child by herself, her lover having vanished into nothingness—he's not dead, she knows that much, but where, oh where is he?
The once-vibrant golden girl is lost. She was offered a home and chickened out, too scared of committing to a new place to even consider it. She has been gifted with beautiful dragon's wings, golden and glimmering in the sunlight, but she still cannot let herself take to the skies. She is no dragon, not without her fire; it would be wrong to soar without her entire soul intact. Maybe soon, they shall return to her, but until then she must continue on. It is as she has always done. After her torment, after her mother's betrayal and death, and Flamevein's sudden disappearance, she has always continued on. This is no different.
06-25-2017, 10:19 PM (This post was last modified: 06-30-2017, 07:40 PM by Ledger.)
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
Cress is a survivor success story. She has lived, she has loved. He, on the other hand, is a perpetual victim. Unable to overcome and rise above his station. They had all suffered tremendously at the Dark God’s hands but his torment and abuse had started much earlier than most of theirs. He and misery were old friends, constant companions. As for running from his problems, he was an old hand at that too. Her calls would have fallen on deaf and panicked ears. Even Magnus couldn’t help him. He was a danger to himself and others after what Carnage had done. It didn’t matter though how far he ran or where he went. It didn’t matter how many years he spent away from the source of his nightmares. They say time heals all wounds but he knows that this is a bald faced lie. Time heals nothing, it only festers and infects.
The stallion is barely surviving. He drifts from day to day. When he had returned back to Beqanna the first time, he had managed to somewhat pull himself together from his past. Trying to be part of a productive society, taking better care of himself. Flesh had started to cling to his bones, they started to say he looked like his father’s son. Carnage soon followed, it knew that the man’s vague attempt of happiness was brittle and easy to break. He knew that he deserved only pain and heartbreak. So the stallion withered away after such a brutal beating. There was no love, no warm pair of eyes to gaze adoringly at him. No seductive words or soft caresses. No children to live vicariously though, to see childhood as it should have been. Not like he could have been a great father when he hated himself so thoroughly.
He has always been lost. Drifting. Wandering. It’s funny how these vagabond gypsies seem to always find their own. The lost ones, finding solace in each other because only they can truly know what real sorrow is. In the autumn winds, his frail body seems to sway. Dull gold flecked eye staring unseeingly into the open distance at nothing in particular. He is often like this now. Deep down he knows he may not see another spring, in no shape to survive a harsh winter. Already the air is cool enough it makes his skeletal frame shiver. He barely eats or drinks, god knows he rarely sleeps. Deep down he thinks to himself he is too far gone and worse, he doesn’t care anymore.
When he had left the Mountain after receiving only silence from the fairies, he had thought that had been it. The bear he figured would go back to hibernation but instead it remains awake. The Mountain had answered after all and decided to return the curse upon him. He had hoped for an explanation, a more definitive answer. Instead he left with his bear roaring with hunger and more questions then he had before. He feels a little more complete though, now that it’s back. He knows it’s what’s keeping him alive at this point, just barely. It’s a part of him now, just like the hollowed socket where his right eye use to be. Just like the constellation that winds across his hindquarters in sick mockery of the stars. He is nothing without the torment inside him and it just happens to take the form of a snowy white predator.
It takes him a moment to register her in his sight, no longer just another hazy thing in the distance. He remembers them all, not by name, merely by the terror written across their face. Although the cave had been dark and their cells had been separated, they could still catch glimpses of each other. ”I remember you…” He murmurs thickly, unsure if he’s hallucinating. Truth and reality constantly blur within each other. ”I remember your screams…”
all that we have amassed sits before us, shattered into ash
Is she lucky to have loved and lost? Honestly, she isn't sure. She's had the chance to fall into passionate love and birth children, but having that love torn from her has been almost too much for her to bear. Her children have all grown and left her side, so she doesn't even have that familial love to keep her company. She is completely, entirely alone, and she doesn't know if it's worse to have lost Flamevein, or the idea of never falling into love at all. Without her lover, she would never have had two wonderful foals, but where are they now? Where are the ones who helped her when she was a husk of her former cheerful self? Why has everyone left?
When she thinks back on her family, it is only worse. Kindling had thought of her as a disappointment and nothing more. Both of her parents had abandoned her as a child, and she still remembers the earthquakes ripping through the Valley and her foreleg snapping nearly in half as she wandered, lost and afraid, through the ruins of the kingdom. She had discovered her powers then, but she had lost everything else.
Both her parents and her self-built family had abandoned her, and she'd be lying if she said her heart wasn't breaking on a daily basis.
She cannot stop.
She is alone when her fire returns to her, and she squirms at first as she feels the burn in her chest. It is something that she has not felt in several years, and at first, the sensation is uncomfortable. Smoke curls skyward from her lips as she lets out a deep breath, surprise written all over her face. What is happening? Why has her fire suddenly returned? Is her healing back as well? Silently she reaches for her other ability, but there is nothing that can be physically healed, and her attempt falls flat.
She trembles as she sucks in a breath, close to tears as she lets out a small tongue of flame. Her flames have been returned to her and the feeling is entirely overwhelming, for hers is not a curse in her eyes. It is a gift, freely given for surviving the Dark God's lair, and though years ago the power frightened her, she has learned to embrace it. She has not been herself without her fire breathing, and all of a sudden she has been mended.
Still broken, but better.
She watches the flaxen stallion as he approaches, and she utters a small gasp as recognition spreads over both of their faces. She takes in his scarred eye socket and his entirely beaten down frame and more emotion sweeps through her than she cares to admit. "You," she murmurs, taking a step closer to him to breathe in his scent—familiar, but long lost. "I remember you, too."
They are broken glass, the pair of them. Perhaps they are the only two survivors of Carnage's wrath, and Cress wants to reminisce while at the same time she never wants to bring it up ever again. "I tried to chase you down, after escaping," she tells him, pulling her wings even closer to her sides. "You ran. I couldn't keep up... you were terrified. As was I." What would have happened if she had caught him that day? Would he have shunned her, or would they have been friends, bonded over a shared experience? She cannot say—it was so long ago.
"I could never forget your screams, either," she whispers, and her eyes find the ground between his hooves. "Though I am glad I am not the only one who made it out alive. I've not found any of the others."
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
Unless you have been through it yourself, you could not relate. Could not understand. But she did. She understood him completely. Having suffered in the Dark God’s grasp herself, having fought demons and burned like the rest of them. Only she could fully know him and the pain he constantly felt. He’s not sure if he can recount the tale with her, if he even wants to. Bile rises in his throat, burns at the back of his mouth. Pale gray lips reach for her, touching her cheek just to make sure she’s real. Not another cruel figment of Carnage’s wrath.
Her words are soft, rushing towards him as if she needed to explain herself. Instead he shakes his ravaged head, the one good eye closing for a moment. Reliving the pain all over again. ”Don’t..” He mutters quietly, the bear poking and prodding at the open wounds inside him. Knowing if she continues he might not be able to control it. After losing the bear for months, he had lost some of his ability to control it. High emotions usually meant it would come roaring out unhindered.
”Please…” He finally adds, an apologetic glance her way. Hoping she would understand it was still too rough to talk about. It still haunted his dreams. Chernobyl and Carnage now kept him from sleep these days. And a white bear, it prowled in the darkness. Mocking him. Burnt gold flecked eyes searches Cress’s face, looks her over. She doesn’t seem as damaged as he. Her body looks healthy, she has lived. Unlike him. A soft sigh escapes his lips, envious of what she might have experienced. Wondering how one crushed their pain and darkness down, how did she keep it from consuming her?
”I barely remember them.” He finally manages, racking his brain. He thinks there had been a child, that had been a kick in the gut. The way Carnage had made sure not exclude any no matter their age, gender, race. He wanted them all, would destroy any of them merely on a whisper of a whim. ”Where did you go?”
