"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
As the day bloomed, Marianas found that it was pleasantly warm and humid. This put him in good spirits; his skin tended to get dry, regardless of scale or hair. Flakey was rarely sexy. Flakey was itchy, ashy, and left him feeling like the overcooked turkey from Christmas Vacation.
He had started his path in the meadow as the soft morning rays yawned across the waving sea of grasses, and time remained an afterthought rolling off of his gilded shoulders. He had absently plucked a stalk of black-eyed susans with his soft mahogany lips, swishing the prairie flowers back and forth in his mouth as he strolled beneath the cloudless sky. His silvery fin-mane lay relaxed against his neck and his coat stood in lieu of his polished Nereid scales.
After perusing hill and meadow for grasses to sample, he gathered up his buttery-yellow flowers and ambled down towards the river. The rush of water was magnetic, reeling in his mariner’s heart effortlessly, casually. He could never stay away for long.
An easy smile rested on his lips as he drew himself to his haunches beneath the dappled light of a large oak. He doubted it troubled itself with the daily affairs of those who rested beneath its strong twists and arches, though he thanked it for the generous shade it provided to drifters passing by.
Sitting just shy of the rapid river, Marianas gently tossed his bouquet into the liquid fray, thinking of his sister. The day was kind and he dared allow himself to imagine that they’d reach her someday, wherever she was, whether above water or eternally beneath it.
marianas
how the heavens they opened up
with arms of dazzling gold
She had spent the morning among the birds in the sky, daring herself to fly higher than the clouds, higher than even the mountain tops in those hulking faraway places across the horizon. But her enthusiasm was no match for her ability yet, and though she had managed to climb to great heights on those broad, dark wings, she had not managed to fly higher than the highest peaks of the earth itself. Yet. But isn’t all success built upon the foundations of failure, all achievement carved from the ruins of every mistake you’ve ever made? She is certain of it.
There is a wanderlust in her heart that never lets her rest, an ache and a curiosity rooted so deeply in her chest that sometimes they make it hard to breathe around the pain of wanting. She is the first to rise in the early mornings, now so intimately familiar with the colors of every dawn, and the last to close her eyes beneath a sky full of constellations whose paths she travels in all her dreams. Even those dreams are full of faraway places and wild adventures, new worlds and new faces and so many new things to fall in love with. It is an ache that never leaves her, one as buried beneath her skin as the beating organ between her ribs.
But even adventurers need breaks, and so it is that the afternoon finds her napping in the wide branches of an old, beautiful oak tree. She has shifted to her panther form, of course, the lithe black body and curving claws far more suited for climbing than that of her equine form - even with those inky dark wings to carry her up. Her breathing is slow and languid, her eyes closed, and the only indication of her somewhat wakefulness is the long tail that swishes slowly from the deep black of a heavy shadow.
The sound of someone below stirs her more fully awake, and with the grace of someone well-practiced, she leans her head over the edge of the wide branch to look directly beneath her. There is a stallion there with shining fins where his mane and tail should be, and a cluster of bright yellow flowers gripped carefully between his teeth. She stays quiet while he settles himself, feeling that familiar ache of curiosity growing in her belly as he turns his head and, without warning, tosses the flowers into the river beside them.
Her dark head tilts questioningly to one side, watching the flowers swept away - though one becomes caught in some stones at the edge of the water. She stands, considers, and then leaps down from her branch with all the silent ease of a predator. She is, of course, no kind of predator at all, though she forgets the stallion won’t immediately know this and flashes him a toothy grin as she passes by to capture the single stranded black-eyed susan. With a careful paw she fishes the flower out, watching as it is caught in the current and swept away with the rest. Then, turning back to this man with the gleaming fin crest along his neck, she sits and tips her dark feline head at him again, her words etched with the hint of a friendly purr, “Do you often drown flowers in the river?” If she knew the love behind the action, his true reason for it, she would think his heart beautiful. “I’m Aureline, and I promise I have no interest in biting you. No offense!”
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress
12-14-2020, 11:49 PM (This post was last modified: 12-15-2020, 11:40 AM by Marianas.)
Marianas often stared at the sky, watching the sea birds wheeling while fullness grew in his chest. He let his thoughts stray to the clouds. What would they feel like to cuddle, to slice? Was their fluffiness a farce? Their inviting plumpness looked like spun cotton. Perhaps someday he would dance upon it. For now, he remained content to frolic in the dimensions of land and sea.
Today, his first love held his attention, and the daydreamer held his gaze on the steady but wild flow of the river. The yellow flowers tumbled like darters in the current, vagrant droplets beading on their petals like magnifying glasses alighting a hundred glowing suns. He thought of his sister, the woman of sky and sea, and a smile floated to his soft lips like mist settling a forest.
So lost in thought was he that he had failed to notice Aureline’s tail, a draping vine from a feline shadow melded into the bark. Only when she chose to cast away the veil of dappled shadows did Marianas’s mauve eyes roll over her form. The silver fin along his neck was thrust upright, slicing into a stream of light and reflecting its brilliance like fire along the edge of a blade. He inhaled sharply, breath catching and burning his chest. Alarm was soon replaced by knowing. However distrait Marianas was in that moment he was not a green colt, and he quickly captured the mischievous demeanor Aureline wore. A wry smile fell upon his face and his head tilted up in feigned indignance.
“Do you often surprise poor, unsuspecting souls like mine?” He blinked somberly, shaking his head and speaking in a woe-is-me fashion. “I nearly died."
He wilted his body to the ground in all the melodramatics he could muster, turning his head away from her until the river brushed his lips. The Nereid silently drew in a mouthful of water while Aureline spoke reassurances, the cool liquid filling his cheeks like a turgid balloon. It took all of his gumption to not spit it out in amusement as she insisted her disinterest in piercing his flesh.
Slowly he turned to look at her, meeting her eye for a moment. Mirth swirled in his mulberry gaze, and soon water burst forth from his pursed lips in a fine jet the circumference of a child’s marker. Ideally, it would make gentle contact with the ebony button of her nose, but anywhere would do.
marianas
how the heavens they opened up
with arms of dazzling gold
She doesn’t mean to hear him, but the way he thinks about his sister is so loud and the thoughts resonate like cracks of thunder across her awareness. She feels hesitant about that, about learning secrets he does not even realize he has shared with her, but it’s impossible to tune everything out. Even when she is not specifically listening, things find her. Truths and fears and secrets, sometimes things that hurt her - like a mental note on her over exuberance and too-loud laughter. It makes her feel guilty that she’s glad he isn’t thinking that. That it is only his private innermost thoughts.
His reaction to her sudden appearance is a study in wonder, and she watches with unguarded curiosity at the way the fin along his neck slashes upwards the moment his eyes find her. It is of course completely unrelatable in that she does not have fins, and also has no fish friends to speak of, but she does find herself wondering if the gesture is not so unlike the way her hackles might raise defensively in this feline form. Maybe they weren’t so different after all. Especially, she decides, in the matching grins they now wear on their faces.
“Yes basically all the time.” She tells him, and her eyes are like twin pieces of shining tiger stone as she smothers some delighted laughter. “I’ve heard it’s good for the heart, keeps you young.” Her long, dark tail curls around her paws as she sits there watching him, completely enchanted with the grin and theatrics of his melancholy tone. “And I bet next time you’ll remember to look up.” She says it as innocently as she can manage, but the light in her warm eyes and the bemused curl of the smile across her delicate lips completely betray her.
She’s about to speak again - a thing she does too well and far too often - when he spills to the ground like a wilted flower and she wonders if maybe she really did hurt his feelings. She feels momentarily unsure, and her brown eyes go wide and round and a shade uncertain, her body easing closing to examine him as she returns to her feet again. “Hey, I’m sorry if I-“ but the apology is interrupted as he sits up again and looks at her, and she has one single second of warning by the sparkle in his eyes before he squirts her straight in the face with a jet of water.
Aureline is stunned. For a moment she just stands there staring blankly back at him, the water dripping from her chin in gentle pitter patters to the ground beside her feet. Then with a growl that is not at all fearsome and claws that are carefully sheathed inside her soft toes, she pounces on him, wiping her wet face on his shoulder. “I made that promise way too soon,” she says staring down at him from comically close, “I am absolutely going to eat you now.”
She doesn’t, of course.
aureline
dear wilderness, be at your best
her armor is thin as the fabric of her dress
