"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
It is his mother that pushes Khaedrik from his makeshift bed amongst the rushes this morning; he is mussed and drowsy-eyed from lack of sleep, ill-humored and snappish in the wake of his nightmares. But she, with her mane tangled with weed and briar, tail matching, has decided that her son too, must learn to appreciate these things. Poor Insignificance, intent on giving her son the childhood she never had, stubbornly ignores the dark, dark circles under his eyes and the haunted look he carries in those beetle-black eyes. She leaves him in the Playground and he – equally stubborn and too proud to admit his fear – says nothing. The sun is faint in the shadows, and they lap at him like a kitten after fresh milk, wanting more of his flesh, more of his blood, which he cannot – WILL not – give. He belongs in the shadow, he belongs and he is aware that he belongs but it doesn´t make it any less terrifying. Sleep fades from his eyes and he becomes alert; he is fawn abandoned in the wilderness, motherless and alone; but he is wolf too, forgotten of the pack, left to fend for himself with a pack of puppies nipping his heels. His eyes are sharp and his gaze pointed as he moves, silent and forceful – intent of finding somewhere to rest from shadows and nightmares. Asunder, afraid, uncanny as his small feet find leverage upon the rotting leaves of the forest-floor, slipping only once and casting a foreleg from its brethren, so that he is half-sprawled in the shadow of the dappled ground; he yelps, a high-pitched strange sound, the tones burbled and silver in the darkness – and before he can set himself to right he becomes slowly aware of a light weight pressed against his withers; and with a slow, half-frozen movement, his muscles contradicts as he sets himself straight and flexes his neck around to stare into the yellow-gleam eyes of an arachnid. It was gruesome in his point of view; but were it not for those eyes he might have marveled about how well Nature had hewn it! How smoothly she had bonded flesh and blood and created such a monstrous and perfect being. But those devious eyes upon its forehead – gleaming yellow-bright – disgusting, insidious being. ”Not real, not real, not real.” - Khaedrik chants and squeezes his eyes shut. The eyes that are dead where they should shine with innocent youth and curiosity. The spider, meanwhile, taps a leg in impatience with its master. The shadows, meanwhile, curl around him, and whisper, whisper, whisper inconsistencies.
Suddenly her life had gotten stale. Since leaving her mother's corpse she had sucked dry from life, to follow her sister back to Hyaline. Everything had been too cushy. Too perfect and a large piece of her grew restless.
It had been in the dead of night that she had snuck away from her sisters watchful eye. When all of the day walkers slept, she awoke. Curling through the lands as a shadow of the night. Eyes bright and vision crisp(the day time was so much less brilliant to her). She had discovered that the sun rays burnt her skin like flames to brush. So the convenience of the night had grown on her quickly. Each night her travels widened and she had heard whispers of a land to meet others her age. A playground they called it. So with a devious grin she slips from the borders of Hyaline and ventures forth.
The dark filly enters the new land under the hush of a dark sky. For her young age, traveling is faster than most full grown horses. It was as if time warped for her. One second she is here and the next she is there. It was a strange sensation that explanation escapes. Her equally dark eyes shift about. Ebony ears twirling to each rustle of leaf and sway of grass. That is until a sound of pleading whispers are brought to her on the ever bending sound waves.
Not real. Not real. Not real.
A grin comes to her as she follows the chanting voice. Hawk-eye vision spotting a figure in the distance enveloped in strange shadows. Effortlessly she morphs closer to the young colt. Viewing him from the thick haze and spotting the reason for his uneasy voice. A teeny, eight-legged, fanged insect. A cackle rises from deep within her. Lips curling into a grin and exposing her razor fangs. They gleam in the moonlit mists exposing her existence in the shadows before she steps forward. Walking past the cowering colt and snatching the creature from its perch with a quick snap of her jaws. A crunch echoes as she bites down then swallows it with a grin. Looking to the colt for his reaction...
Kaurma
What goes around, comes around
HTML by Call
Sorry if this is confusing or rambled. Trying to feel her out and make sense of her powers . She's trying not to be scary lol
Khaedrik – catalyst of nightmares – should not be cowering in the darkness.
Perhaps one day he would learn not to fear his own mind. But today, he is saved from the suffocating insanity by a girl with vampire-fangs and a seeming taste for things that go bump in the night. His haunted eyes snap open as she draws nearer – and the naked terror in them soon subsides as they fix on her small form. A filly – barely older than himself.
The glitter-dark of his eyes simmer with disgust as the spider goes crunch-crunch between her teeth. But there is something else there too – behind the vacancy of his gaze is a glimmer of curiosity. The fangs doesn´t scare him, oh no, he has seen things far more terrifying than this fanged girl with a taste for bugs.
Not when the black fingers of shadows comb through the knots and tangles of his mane; not when something stirs – something sinuous and wild – in the pitch-black behind him; not when the white-hot prick of gleaming eyes burn on his back. They have come out to play, and they are not at all satisfied with her bold actions.
”You shouldn´t have done that” he deadpans – still regarding her with his head tilted to the side. Her presence – and lack of fear has put my little shadow-master at ease. The glimmer of curiosity grows stronger behind the veil of lurid indifference in his eyes. But the monster behind him snarls a toothy warning, and he cowers.
”Go away” he begs the monster – but it is reluctant to obey tonight. Khaedrik can feel its hot breath trail down his neck in warning as it recoils and his golden flesh shivers. He is sick sick sick of monsters and shadows.
”Who are you?” he demands to know. Khaedrik has little experience with pleasantries and social interactions, not when the fanged beast of smoke and darkness in the corner regards their every move.
"Trekori, The boy answers from his hiding place, loud enough so that they can hear. They have just met, the two - the filly swallowing down the spider, the colt swathed in a fear so pungent that his baby nose wrinkles in distaste. They are safe here. The boy should know that.
Stepping forward from the shadows, the watcher unveils his glowing horn, which had been hidden by the brush behind them. Against his too-skinny ribs, golden wings shuffle and clutch, the sensation reassuring and so like the motions of his father. Here, though, father is nowhere to be had, and perhaps for the better - the palomino colt does not seem fond of things that go bump in the night. And the vision of his undead father is one of those things.
Blinking his purple eyes, the splotched colt looks from filly to colt. They are all the same age, born from mothers not long ago. There is a mother here, not far off, he senses. But she won't interrupt. The boy steps closer to the two, the tip of his gnarled, root-like horn glowing obscenely.
"Who are you telling to go away?" He deadpans, eyes as lifeless as the colt he now finds himself staring at. They have the same hue, though one is plain and one is decked out, but there is often more than meets the eye. The muscles in his legs itch, but he refuses to fidget. The air - it's skinny around them.
"And Me!" She can't help herself; she was skulking around since her mother dropped her off ('have fun' - she's not sure Sloene knows HOW to have fun) but now there is finally a group gathering and she wants to join them. Jumping forward out of the bushes she stares at each in turn, silver eyes bright, a big smile on her face. It takes more than a moment for her to notice that something is not quite right.
The other filly gives her the shivers. That's the first thing she notices; she's bay which is fine and normal but the smile makes her uncomfortable and then there is the fangs. Fangs! Sochi doesn't like them. The boys look similar at first glance - except he has white spots and a horn, and the other doesn't. Plus the solid colored one smells like fear and the spotty one is super serious about it. She blinks at these observations and wonders if she should have waiting for another group. Ooops. She's not smiling anymore.
"Um, I'm Sochi," she offers into the uncomfortable moment, pasting the smile back on her face. "You guys want to, um, play a game? Or something?"
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine
Deep auburn eyes feast upon the shaken stature of colt. His eyes shift this way and that with uncertainties, which only make her grin grow larger. "Shouldn't have done what?" She coos in near pleasure with herself. Stance bold, eyes almost cast down upon the golden boy.
His next question comes quickly and as her jaw parts to answer another chimes in. In irritation her eyes slide to find what creature had interrupted so rudely. "He was talking to me," she interjects, "I'm Kaurma. Who are you?" As she finishes her question, her ominous eyes find the shadow master. Waiting briefly for an answer but yet again another presence and another name float in upon the night wind.
Casting her eyes now to another dark body that had joined the gathering. A slight stammer coming from the girl as she offers up an activity for them to participate in. A devilish grin curls her lips to accentuate her fangs once more, "I know... Let's play Ghost in the Graveyard..." Holding desperately back a gleeful cackle, her eyes shift to each child's features. Gauging there willingness to indulge in a game of darkness and shadows...
Kaurma
What goes around, comes around
HTML by Call
@[Khaedrik] @[Trekori] @[Sochi] Ok. I'm failing at her not being creepy XD
Khaedrik has only just gotten used to the presence of the fanged filly when another makes his presence known. He carries the same golden color as Khaedrik – with the exception of big white splotches. They remind Khaedrik of bones. But he is not bones; he is white cranberries and sunflower petals on a lake. Khaedrik stares at him as he gives his name, and his eyes swallow his face. He is just about to reply – when yet another joins their little party.
He notices her; he hears her coming and turns a polite smile at her; a smile that wasn´t a smile but a grin, and a grin that was a lie –
But there were no polygraphs here.
”Hello Sochi and Trekori” he offers – and his voice is a tenor – high and clear and beautiful, and altogether unexpected from that throat, those dark lips, those cold eternity-eyes.
”I was talking to the monster” the words crawl slowly, contemplatively from underneath the shadow of his breath. Khaedrik knows, and regrets it immediately, that by letting the thought slip from his lips he has unraveled a thousand secrets best left forgotten, again the lion is out of its cage. The boy is the fool, as he has always suspected.
No sooner has he let the stupid words slip from his mouth than his tusked acquaintance actually tries to save his non-existent dignity. Nevertheless – the look in the black-tar of his eyes as he turns to Kaurma, is one of gratitude. ”I don´t know how to play” he answers in response to Sochi´s question, and there is an almost apologetic note in his voice. He wonders if the other boy, Trekori, is much for games – somehow he doubts it. Kaurma – however, seems to have a knack for the obscure, and his small head shakes violently at her suggestion. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea.
His shadow-creature however, rears its ugly head in response – and with the swift movement of predators it is out of its hiding. Khaedrik might not want to play a game of shadows and darkness – but it certainly does. It looms over them now – an amphora of sacrilege and atrocity and Khaedrik shrinks under the blasphemy-bright of its gaze. With aching slowness it sweeps a fanged maw over them. Sniffing
The briefest of seconds passes and Khaedrik bites hard into the gravel of failure.
It would seem as if he is not the only one with prying eyes and the need for company. Just as his last words come, a blue-faced girl leaps into the group, announcing herself with a vivaciousness that the other filly seems to exude, but that neither of the colts do. Trekori tilts his ears back, spooked by the way her smile comes so wickedly easily, as if a child truly does control her body. Her, the only one of four.
Trekori steps closer to Khaedrik. Closer to the entity to whom he feels the most drawn. No comment given as to a game - he doesn't know any.. And at Kaurma's brash snap of words, again no response. There is too much life in her for the skinny colt. Still, he offers Sochi a small smile, and even glances at Kaurma too. His maximum effort.
Khaedrik greets them then, smiling, sending a chill down Kori's baby spine. The trill of his high voice tethered the colt to him ever more, drawing him closer, marking him as clearly interested in the boy. A prophecy, perhaps - but they are only children...
It comes then, sweeping into their group at the sound of monsters, graves, and darkness. Veiled in shadow - or is it made of it? - the creature gestures with its snout and inhales the group, intoxicates itself with the scent of the innocent. Kori's knees quake - what awesome power has summoned such a creature?
"You are full of surprises," He mutters under his breath, as if he doesn't want the shadow-thing to hear him, to single him out. "This is..." He casts his purple eyes to Sochi, to Kaurma, and lands back on the other boy. The summoner. "Better than games."
When she firsts suggest the game, the other filly jumps on the idea with another sharp grin, but she suggests a game that Sochi and her mom have never played. She wants to give the benefit of the doubt (even if the game doesn’t sound fun like games are supposed to be, but uncertainty makes her pause, tilt her head and flick an ear as she considers, glancing at the boys to see their reactions. Khaedrik doesn’t seem all that enthused, and he mentions monsters. The dark filly looks around, suspicious, but she doesn’t see any monsters. Mom said this was a safe place.
But even as Trekori steps closer to Khaedrik, Sochi feels something dark pass over all of them. She can’t see it, but she watches Trekori and Khaedrik watch and turns her blue face the same way, silver eyes wide again. “I don’t know how to play that either,” she forms the words carefully, glancing apologetically at Kaurma. She had been thinking tag. Or hide-and-seek. Still, ghosts might be neat. Friendly ghosts, probably, here; the fae wouldn’t allow any real harm to come to the children who live here.
“I don’t see any monsters, either,” she says as she looks at the boys, but when nothing attacks her eyes begin to relax and even become curious, engaged; “Is it a ghost? What does it look like?”
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine
02-19-2018, 02:53 PM (This post was last modified: 02-19-2018, 02:53 PM by Kaurma.)
Kaurma
Each child responds much differently. One chatters in fear at a monster of darkness, the other slightly engaged with the same monster and the filly, well she seems curious as to what's all going on. My sienna eyes watch as another shadow creature (the same but different as the last) joins their group. It's eyes a gastly yellow and figure a ragged cloak of darkness sweeping over top of them. I smile, delighted with the twist of game but it is one and the same. I explain it's rules and it's simplicity, "So one of us hides and the others try to find them. The hider waits until someone grows close and BOO!" I exclaim sharply to frighten the others, "The hider jumps out and tags another. Whoever gets tagged is now the ghost... Easy." I grin with satisfaction. Gauging their reactions before turning to the shadow monster, "You can play too..."
. She's trying not to be scary lol
![[Image: sochi.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/rs3xFJR0/sochi.png)
