"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
He wasn’t sure how much time he’d have before meeting Wyrm and it felt like that hour was rushing toward him. Wolfbane, tired from a journey that had been doubled by his short attention span, looked down from where he was flying to see Nerine and her cliffs before sighing deeply. Somewhere in those harsh moors was Heartfire, no doubt already aware that he’d been making his way towards her. For once that fact didn’t disturb Bane; her knowledge was soon to be his only means of survival. He should really start appreciating it more.
Quietly he tilted in the sky, swooping down in a wide arc that became a slow, looping descent. As he touched blue hooves to the tundra-like kingdom and came to a stop, a light rain began to pour from the heavens - the first signs of spring. That meant Lepis would be arriving shortly. Another reminder of how little time he had to prepare for the inevitable.
A bit irritated and mostly stressed, the stiff-maned pegasus folded his wings to his golden sides and strode off into the heart of a kingdom he felt could practically be his second home. Picking his way over the tough landscape, dusted by the near constant misting, Wolfbane couldn’t help but feel that at any moment Wishbone might appear. If not her, than surely Breckin would intercept him, dressed in her trademark spots.
However, black mud started to coat his legs instead. There wasn’t a flicker of the two mares who might’ve pulled him back here, no matter how much he walked or searched. Only their ghosts remained to haunt his quiet trespassing, flickering out of the rain in the corner of his eyes. It wasn’t until he came across the expanse of a mighty, gray-looking lake that a figure (certainly real and not made from memory) began to take shape in the distance.
Raising one wing over his head for cover, Wolfbane narrowed his vision and slowed to a stop. “Grandmere?” His voice rang out against the silence.
She had been waiting for him. She couldn’t know how long it would take him to arrive after his grandfather had made that fateful request of her, but she has patience. She had warned Wyrm she would be watching, and, for all her other faults, she is always true to her word.
Mist hangs heavily over the Northern kingdom, cloaking the crashing shores and casting a formidable gray over the landscape. For any other creature, visibility would be poor in the swirling drizzle and thick wetness of the landscape, but Heartfire is hardly any other creature. Even in this, she has no trouble keeping a watchful eye on her kingdom. Nor does she have any trouble following Wolfbane as he alights on the rocky cliffline bordering the majority of Nerine.
She rests quietly on the still shores of the lake, her blue gaze fixed on the hard gray surface. The mottled gray and white of her slim form is darkened by the dampness hanging in the chill spring air, the dark strands of her mane and forelock clinging to her skin. There is nothing spectacular in her appearance in that moment. Only the image of a lone, rather ordinary mare. A little too slim, perhaps, with eyes a little too blue, but nothing like the brightly colored pegasus now approaching her.
Though she had followed his path through the kingdom, her eyes rise as he comes into sight. He is indistinct through the mist, but she knows without question it is him. She’d kept an eye on him, of course, as much as she could. It became more difficult with distance, but her talents have grown with practice over the years. He might guess, but he couldn’t know how closely she watches all of them. She may not be overt in her affections, but they are hers. Would forever be hers.
“Wolfbane,” she returns by way of greeting, her voice echoing across the waters despite its lack of volume. “I’ve been expecting you.”
The utterance of his name in a tone now considered familiar blossoms, warm and comforting, from his chest to radiate through each limb. Lowering his wing again, Wolfbane treads heavily over brownish-green earth, each step a faint sucking sound as he pulls it free from the muck. In this weather, his relative might as well be camouflaged, but with idle reflection and a soft, mischievous grin Wolfbane thinks this overcast day suits Heartfire best. If her overall mood could be a type of precipitation, he considers this type to be the best representation of that: cold but not biting, enough to soak the skin when exposed for too long, and a bit ethereal. Mysterious. Hiding and only revealing things to the most curious, most persistent of characters.
“Straight to the bone of the matter.” He jokes lightly, “Good to see some things have stayed the same while I was gone.” The words turn into a sigh.
Where she waits and where he comes to stand near her is shaded by the low-hanging branches of a wide, stout cedar tree. Its dark green needles, clustered together in tight clumps so that they seem almost dusty blue, do well to filter out the constant haze but they don’t block it completely. Its position alongside the banks of the water seems to make it a favorite spot to loiter, and the faint smell of horses past is trampled into the brown dirt underneath its canopy and rubbed into the stringy, red bark of its trunk. As Wolfbane slides under its protection the rain picks up in tempo, drumming overtop the surface of the lake pleasantly.
“Why me?” He wants to know foremost. He’d thought about asking her why she even considered entertaining the neurotic green horse in the first place, much less why she would send Bane a ‘message’ on his behalf, but looking at her now he knew better than to question her actions. “Dad warned me over and over but I never understood why me. I have brothers and sisters. I wasn’t the first born or even the last.”
The complete idiocy of the whole ordeal made his head spin. How could Longclaw have known? What even made Wyrm so dangerous? Why now? Why not strike when he’d been a colt, weak and defenseless? Nothing added up anymore. He should be coming to Nerine to visit with his grandmother and reconnect, especially after all that had transpired between them. Not coming here to hope for some revealing secret or discuss how they could mutually murder her ex.
But here he was. Here they were, and sadly enough for Wolfbane, the reality of his situation as it stood was not exactly a pretty sort of reality.
She watches him approach with something almost akin to affection touching her normally still features. But then, they are alone here, and despite her so often impassive demeanor, she is not truly made of stone. She does have a heart, even if she hides it too well sometimes. He might have struggled when they had first met to find her beneath the careful mask she so often wears, but perhaps he has developed a better understanding now.
Of course, she so rarely admits the true depth of her own emotions, even to herself. She might admit to protecting herself from the vagaries of the world, but at the heart of the matter, she was protecting herself from, well, herself.
A dangerous truth, to be sure.
A faint smile curves her lips as he wryly teases her. The world might continue in his absence, but age and time has rather set her into herself. She doubts she could change her nature at this point, even if she wanted to.
She makes no further response until he is settled beside her, the questions that must have been burning inside him already falling from his lips. She could not fault him for wondering why he had been called. Why she had ceded to his grandfather’s request. They are, of course, the most base of reasons, though one often only gained through experience. Of course, she wasn’t entirely certain Wyrm realized, despite his age and experience, that her concession had not been a concession at all.
No, it had been a way for her gain control of the situation. Something he doubtless would never have wished had he realized it.
For a long moment, she muses on his questions silently, her blue eyes inscrutable as she watches him. After a time, she turns her gaze to the lake almost speculatively as she finally offers him an explanation. “You are aware, of course, that the lands of old used to contain magic,” she begins, framing it as a statement rather than a question. Of course he was aware. “Though the magic faded from them a long time ago, your grandfather…” she pauses briefly, a faint sigh brushing past her lips “...persists in his beliefs of those old magics.”
Wyrm had ripped out his own eyes to keep her from knowledge. Except he seems to have forgotten how often and how thoroughly she had once explored his sight. He might try to prevent her from finding him now, but he could not erase what she already knows.
She finds it ironic though. A self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will. Had Wyrm let sleeping dogs lie, they might have never come to this.
“And you, unfortunately,” she finally continues, her sharp gaze returning to Wolfbane, “are at the center of it.” Her lips twitch slightly, faintly amused at the juxtaposition they find themselves in. “They might only have been fevered imaginations, but he decided the make them real.”
Perhaps Wyrm had seen some truth in the burning tree all those years ago. But Heartfire had always been a firm believer that one makes one’s own destiny.
There was very little to love about the grandsire Wolfbane had only seen in his mind’s eye. From what he knew, Wyrm was a disaster of sorts. Impulsive, self-serving, and worst of all - a killer. He fed on the flesh of those weaker than him, and was labeled a child-eater by Bane’s own father. There seemed to be no boundaries he refused to cross and there wasn’t a goal he couldn’t achieve. As the steady rain settled like a cold chill over Wolfbane’s skin, he realized that the stories he’d always dismissed as fantasy were closer to the truth than he’d ever known.
Sadly, the pegasus drake had hoped beyond hope that there was something worth saving in his ancestor. Wyrm was a link to his past, someone who could unravel so many questions… but Heartfire, like his father, was quick to dispel that pipe dream.
Wyrm believed in the old ways, she told him. He nodded silently and kept his eyes trained on the firm, dark lines of her youthful face. The old ways? Yes, Bane knew of them. Lawless eruptions of magic, abuse of power and position. Most foals had learned of Beqanna’s history in hopes that the past would never be repeated, but here he can see a piece of that history still living, still breathing. Heartfire was now the only link he wanted to that past. The only link he could trust.
That link was now staring directly at him, shrouded by the shadows of their shared cedar tree and mischievously darkened with a rare smile. Wolfbane couldn’t help but feel confidence in that look; if his grandmere was smug that meant she was one step ahead of their mutual target. Wyrm should never have fucked with her, but Bane was kind of glad he did. The green stallion’s underestimation of Bane’s and Heartfire’s familial connection would be to their advantage. Together, they could finally put the sick bastard down.
“His existence threatens my family’s happiness.” Her grandson muttered in a low tone, grinding his teeth. “If you can help me now, I’ll see that our meeting to come will be his last.” He promised.
After all, he’d seen the pitiful state Wyrm had been in when Heartfire had sent him the vision. Blind, skin and bones. Ancient by Beqanna standards. He lacked immortality and seemed to have suffered all the worse for it. “You know his secrets. What can he do? I’ve had Kagerus walk into my nightmares and you alter my reality. I feel pretty confident that I could handle him.”
So many underestimate the true power of knowledge. In a land where magic creates the laws and limitations, it can be so easy to overlook such a common and banal thing as simple information. Wolfbane had done so, when he had first met her. Had likely never imagined how dangerous she could be without even lifting a single hoof. She thinks he has begun to understand now. Has recognized that her confidence is more than mere arrogance (though she is certainly not immune to such foibles).
Still, it is as much a burden as it is a boon. Few enough recognize the power behind knowledge, and even fewer still understand how much weight that might settle onto one's shoulders. She is not omniscient, no matter how she might try. And that makes such a gift a dangerously double-edged sword.
Wyrm though, for all his attempts to make himself invisible to her, is not nearly as much a mystery as he might wish to be. Especially considering how well, and how long, they had known each other.
The briefest flash of disappointment tells her the blue and gold pegasus had hopedtheat perhaps he was mistaken in his understanding, but she would not tell him kind lies about his grandfather. No matter how much he might have wished to hear them. She had known for a very long time that Wyrm's interest in their children had been less familial than hers ever had. But then, while she might now recognize the faults in her logic, at the time, such considerations had been very low on her list of concerns. But she recognizes when the time has come to rectify her mistakes.
“To begin with, I strongly advise against underestimating him.” She fixes a meaningful stare on her grandson. His confidence would be necessary, but she would not let that same confidence be his undoing. “I know you must question what I ever saw in him,” she continues with faint, self-deprecating humor. “I will be the first to admit that I am not the most… acquiescent of women. But your grandfather held his own. It would be a mistake to believe time and age hinders him so greatly.”
She falls silent for a moment then, her gaze slipping from him to the iron-gray surface of the misty lake. She has never cared to re-visit her past so openly, even with her own relations. But it seems she could not escape it forever. “I think it might be best if I show you,” she finishes slowly, her gaze returning to Wolfbane. Whatever explanation she might offer would not be nearly as effective as a demonstration anyway.
An individual's inconsistency to remain the same with the passing of time was probably the most consistent thing about being ageless. Through the dark shade of their northern tree Wolfbane refuses to avert his attention away from the all-seeing eyes of his grandmere, and takes her caution to heart. There was very little need for her explanation of choosing to couple with Wyrm (even if Bane had thrown that in her face once) because he understands... or at least he’s beginning to understand: most every horse seeks self-improvement and change. He had no way of knowing that the relationship between the green menace and his nerinian relative had formed from childhood.
But he was about to.
Her eyes, poignant and yet somehow determined, sweep across the gray waters and cut through him, beyond him; Wolfbane blinks and Heartfire disappears.
She’d left him in an endless desert where shades of brown were impossibly colorful and varied, outlined by a hard blue sky and a few, scarce rocks for cover. Two foals are engaging in conversation and at first he doesn’t recognize that it is Heartfire, just younger. The difference surprises him enough that he smiles before the scene is swept away, replaced with the same characters in a yellowed ravine where pale bones expose themselves amidst layers of bedrock. He watches her work and then watches Wyrm focus, shocked and horrified to see the small colt explode with growth until a monster takes his place.
A shapeshifter, Wolfbane thinks as the day tilts to night and the scenery around him flies forward through time. Wyrm changes colors, changes genders, impersonates another horse.
The skin twister leads his own son into battle against their ancient maker, Lupei, and Bane watches in horror as the blue flame takes a life and exchanges it with a curse. He feels sick, a bit disoriented but mostly sick. There’s a battle in Nerine - Wyrm unleashes his power and then seems to fade, becoming untouchable. After that his grandfather meets Longclaw again but there’s a mare there, crowned with two long horns and she stops Wyrm from killing Bane’s father.
The grass underneath them swirls and the sky explodes, leaving Wolfbane alone to be sucked out of Heartfire’s vision and back to the present. He blinks again and sees the dark glint of her steadfast eyes, then drunkenly rocks back on his heels before lowering his head to void his stomach of an early lunch. This whole time he’d been sweating, it feels like his heart is trying to jump out of his chest. “Holy s h i t.”
That was something.
Pressing the flat line of his nose against the solid trunk of the cedar, Bane pants and trembles weakly. He can only manage to let his wings drag against the ground for a few minutes before finally opening his eyes again to glance at Heartfire. “I’m sorry.” He tells her, “For everything.”
In a sudden rush of emotion and allowing for a brief moment of childlike weakness, the pegasus rushed to envelope her with a bold hug. The two wings flicked to life and reached forward, hoping to cross one another across her back if she let them.
“I will never forget this. Please don’t stop checking in on me… I know now that I need you more than ever.”
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