"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
09-30-2020, 06:12 PM (This post was last modified: 11-26-2020, 12:36 PM by Ionia.)
IONIA
Hardly noticing the eight years already gone, Ionia woke one fine spring day to the twittering sound of mating birds and the smell of a fresh, wet earth. Rain had passed by the night ‘afore, drenching Ionia in her sleep, and she opened her eyes with a little shiver ho that sent droplets flying off her coat. Nevermind the lack of rest from a spring storm; she had another day of pure freedom to live, and she wasn’t wasting it by staying put. She moved out from her jungle covey near the western border of Tephra and stretched her lovely blue legs for a walk, quickly finding her way to the main road that seemed to expand like a web of its own throughout Beqanna.
Crossroads pointed out the many ways to the four Kingdoms, but she ignored their scent markers and kept dead-on for the common lands, aiming past the River that cut off a good third of the massive island-continent. Eight long years she hadn’t been in search of a home, and Ionia wasn’t about to start looking now. She had the Islands - she’d always have the Islands - but their luster had worn off around the same time her dam had taken a hiatus and descended where Ionia couldn’t reach her.
Naw; the rest of the world lay waiting and Ionia (like so many others) focused her energies on exploiting the natural wonders with her equally ice-blue eyes.
She took to humming as she strolled alongside Sylva’s strange forest, a cheery tune that suited her ability to carry a note or two when she wanted. The common lands being far off meant this particular expedition might take days, if not a solid week or two depending on what (or who) she’d encounter along the way, so with that in mind Ionia didn’t rush the ‘going’ part. Her silvery voice tilted high then wavered down low, building in intensity and confidence from her lack of an audience among the trees. “Oh oh, yea yeaaah!” The mare finished strong, bouncing a step or two as the melody crashed to a halt. If that doesn't chase away the creepy-crawlies, nothing will. The nomadic mare laughed at her private joke, turning her head to peer down into the darkness emanating from Sylava's quiet woods with a faint shiver. She had meager ways of protecting herself and had been lucky enough to avoid the nastier of crawlies in Beqanna, however - that didn't mean she was stupid and looking for attention. Ionia swallowed her smile and looked ahead again, keeping one ear to the side... just in case.
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
The thunderstorm had kept him in the Meadow overnight. Gale had not expected the storm, accustomed as he is to the winter-bound storms of his island home, and rather than brave the lightning-filled sky, the brindle pegasus had chosen to take shelter in a thicket of sassafras. He’d woken quite early to the unfamiliar song of meadowlarks and blackbirds, their voices soft and melodic. Accustomed to the chatter of parakeets, Gale finds it almost pleasant, and enjoys the start of his leisurely morning with a large breakfast of the tall green grass that blankets the Meadow.
It is not quite as good as the grazing at home, but it is a novelty. Those are uncommon for him, Gale thinks as he looks up at the cloudless blue sky.
Perhaps he should fix that.
With a shake of his neck, one that ripples the length of his pale mane from crest to mid-back, Gale decides to walk home.
He’s never done so before, preferring the sky as all winged creatures do, but the way seems clear enough. Head west until he finds the ocean, head north along until find the peak of Tephra, and from there home is but a heartbeat away. Unsure what he will find on his way, Gale feels rather excited. He crosses the River, avoids the deepest parts of Forest, winds his way through the foothills of Loess, and heads into the red forest of Sylva. He has only ever seen the fiery canopy from overhead, and thought it pretty enough. From below though, the trees create an endless golden-red ceiling, one the he stares up at in appreciation.
The sound of hooves brings his attention back to earth, where a blue mare stands only a few paces ahead of him.
“I’m only passing through,” he tells her, just as he had told the Loessian patrol who had met him near the kingdom’s border. “Just on my way back to Islandres; I don’t plan to linger!” His tone is friendly, but sincere, and his blue eyes meet hers as he nods a greeting that he hopes is appropriately polite for a Sylvan border guard.
How surprising! Just when she turned her eyes back onto the road there he was: some blue devil the size of a boulder, come ambling up the trail to meet Ionia on her way east. He wasn’t the first traveler she’d met on her journey and he wouldn’t be the last, so she gives him the same courtesy as all the rest. Ionia smiles halfway, a little wink thrown in when they’re close enough to make out each other’s facial expressions.
“Ah, you won’t find any trouble from me. Passing through myself.” She tells him blithely. There’s a bit of a drawl to be heard in her common speech, something picked up from her nomadic habits. For a second or two her eyes stray to get a good look at his handsome figure and Ionia must say, she likes the color he wears. She’s a bit fond of it herself, obviously. Bending a heel to get comfortable, she keeps on.
“It’s been some time since I’ve crossed another Islander though; Byenveni lakay!” She greets him flawlessly, just the way her mother taught her to. For a long time that was the common greeting in Ischia, but now that Ionia was thinkin’ about it, it’s probably been a longer time since anyone’s spoken her mother’s tongue fluidly. Oh well, she shrugs it off. Maybe he’ll just give her the strange eye. Wouldn’t be the first time.
What was he doin’ all the way out here though, she wondered? And with a fine pair of flappers at that, but walking as long as the day was short. What an oddity! What a curiosity! What a puzzle, and Ionia dearly loved puzzles. She loved riddles and mysteries, half the time chasing ‘em down for the amusement of just having something to do. Now one had found her out of the blue (hah!) She stopped thinking of rhymes and blinked her lovely, long lashes with a hefty sigh.
“Back in my day it was The Resort, though. You must be fresh blood on the black sand shores. Sometimes I miss those days…” The mare went and got wistful, and her pretty blue eyes drifted off into the void.
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
Somehow, it had never occurred to Gale that there might be other travelers on the road as well. It takes him a moment to adjust, a blank look settling onto his blazed face as he thinks this over. Fortunately, she’d used this pause to look him over (and so perhaps missed the awkwardness), and Gale shakes his blue head for a moment. Mirroring her relaxation comes naturally, and though Gale hadn’t intended to find conversation here, he accepts it without reluctance. This is something new as well.
“Bonjou. ” The pegasus replies, and though he doesn’t mangle the first word, the rapid way he switches back suggests that he knows the word only as a greeting for an Ischian. The waters between his home and the rest of the island are frequented by nereids and other aquatic horses, and Gale has found that the greeting sets them at ease, indicating that he, too, is of the islands.
“That name was a mouthful,” he replies, but gently. She does not seem old, but she speaks in a way that suggests her looks are not to be trusted. Gale, who shares that quality, inhabits a body that is not quite seven winters old. “I had to ask the fairies several times to rename it, and I think they only gave in because they were tired of seeing me.” He shrugs, and it seems clear he thinks this a perfectly reasonable explanation. There is no understanding great magics, after all.
“Where are you heading?” He asks curiously, looking back the way he had come. To the common lands, he guesses, but waits to confirm before chattering on. Restraint is new for him, but he is trying.
So, She thought while eyeing the horned stallion a bit closer, he admits to being the guilty party. And that’s how Ionia came to understand that her mother’s second lover and once ruler of the black sands Isle was gone, replaced with the horse she was lookin’ at currently. How interesting. A puzzle one-half solved, and she didn’t have to work that hard to get the answer.
Anyways, he gets a laugh out of her pretty mouth. Ionia had a laugh like her mother’s - light and enjoyable, but rolling like the waves of the sea she was named after. This stranger had a way about him, for sure. Pleasant, yet confident. He’d make a fine new leader to private Islandres, and in passing Ionia wondered if Adria had re-surfaced just to get a look at him. The two of them would get along splendidly if she did.
Ah, but Aquaria was the Dame of Ischia now, wasn’t she? And there was no use in thinking about a past long gone. Ionia chopped it up to havin’ met this fellow out on the road. He was the cause of her daydreams, her laughter concerning a world she’d grown up in. There wasn’t any sense thinking about going back now after so long away from home. Not when she was headed in the opposite direction.
“Oh, probably the Meadow. Best time of year for it.” She sighs as a way of answering, caught up in a dreamy smile. “Nowhere I haven’t been before. You headed home, then? Back to your ‘Islandres’?” She wonders curiously, holding back the urge to ask him why he wasn’t just flying back there. He looked strapping as a bull fit to fight, and Ionia wondered at the miracle of such a hefty boy getting airborne in the first place, but looks could be deceptive - she knew that.
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
Gale enjoys the sound of her laughter, and he smiles at having amused her. He is not entirely sure what had made her laugh, but he knows better than to lose himself in over analyzing what had been said. That had been a common occurrence in the first years of his second life, but as he continues to explore beyond the black shores of his home, his confidence grows as well. That he has finally grown into himself these past years has made it easier. No longer a gawky adolescent, Gale has settled into the endless young adulthood of the immortal. His broad build is due as much to heritage as to the daily exercise in which he partakes, but he is still proud of the muscle that ripples beneath his iridescent coat.
He can tell that she is thinking of something, but as he resettles the tender edge of his right wing, he is too distracted to think long on what. He will be fully healed by the time he is due back on the Plains, Gale knows. In the meantime though, neither his own magic nor that of Beqanna have chosen to mend entirely the wound that a pawed Mazikeen had given him. He could have flown home, but that would have taken not only the fun of an adventure away from him, but would also have hurt. For all Gale’s daring and curiosity, it is nice sometimes to not always have something aching. He is already looking forward to the end of the Alliance, when the only bones he’ll have broken are those resulting from his own poor judgement.
She’s going to the Meadow, Ionia says, and Gale nods. He’s not sure what might make the place best this time of year. He’s had the grasses there, and while they are pleasant, they are almost tooth-achingly sweet. He prefers his grazing saltier; only fruits should be that sweet. The brindle decides not to question her though, not when she’s asking where he’s going. Gale nods affirmatively to both the first question as well as the second.
“I’ll have just enough time to get home before I’ll have to fly back to the Plains,” he adds casually. Or at least, he manages to make it seem casually, though he glances at her from beneath a long hank of white forelock to see if she is impressed by the suggestion he is a contender in the Alliance.
Generally speaking, Ionia would’ve just nodded her head and let this critter pass on by. She’d laughed at what she naturally assumed was a joke - his mention of the fae givin’ him the right to rename the island because they were annoyed with him - and then felt kinda bad afterward when he didn’t match her chuckle with one of his own. Serious type of fella, she considered Gale as her laugh died away and the whimsical memories of her childhood on Ischia came floatin’ back to haunt her for a moment. But them skeletons in her closet only needed a good broom pushin’ to go away, and as soon as she spoke about her plans to party in the Meadow all was forgotten again.
That’s why she’d never stayed home. Unlike her counterpart ‘Handsome-but-a-tad-serious’, Ionia never quite caught the bug of responsibility. No kiddos, no title, and literally no hope of carryin’ on what her mama started years and years ago. The mere thought of being in charge of someplace or some horses gave her the willies. Eh-yuck, no thank you. What she had learned in all that time was how to be a good hostess, if ya know what I mean, and how to keep that from stickin’ around for a few years afterwards, if ya catch my drift (wink wink, kiddos.) That and a second language, which was practically useless this far out from the western sea.
She’d never fit in with the fru-fru type, (not that she had anythin’ against blue boy here) so she’d made her way in the world by swinging with the vagabonds and lowlifes of Beqanna. And boy, was it a fun ride.
“Back to the Plains, ya say?” The ombre mare sucked in a deep breath, brows waggin’ at his not-so-subtle hint. “Wow.” She exhaled a dark plume of smoke, pursing her lips to the side so as not to blow it all across the stranger’s face. “A real live ‘Alliance’ contender, well well.” Ionia whistled. “Kick my ass and call me a mule.”
She did the math, quick-like in her head. The word around town was that the fight was reachin’ a climactic ending here soon - only ‘bought four or so horses left until a final shoot-out showdown to announce the winner. Right? “Eh, four or five,” she thought. Ionia couldn’t quite remember. Now what were their names? She knew there was one mare left: Mah-za-keen. Ionia was rootin’ for her, personally. Go team. And then maybe three stallions? Balto - she remembered that one… and two others. Ah, dangit; her memory was shot to hell after too many wild nights.
“Honored to meet ya, Balto.” Ionia flashed her best and prettiest smile, matchin’ it with a lash flutter that had the power to blow gale-force winds.
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
She’s quite taken with the fact that he’s a contender in the Alliance, and Gale must bite back a smile and hide his bright gaze behind another shake of his white mane. Her word choice is especially amusing though, and when he meets her gaze again its with a grin. Though Gale is ungifted with any ability to read minds, Ionia’s thoughts are clear on her blue face as she struggles to identify which contender he might be. Gale, who doesn’t know any of the names besides those he’d already battled, will be impressed if she names him, and is still amused when she tell Balto that she is honored to meet him.
Gale thinks he might let her call him Balto if it means she’ll look at him like that every time she does.
It causes a curious flip in his stomach, but he still chuckles softly and shakes his head as he says: “Gale,” he tells her. “I’m Gale.”
He glances behind her, toward where the path back home stretches off into the red woods, and then back at the blue mare.
“You should come by Islandres sometime,” Gale says, acknowledging that she has elsewhere to be today. “I’ll tell the watch to keep an eye out.” he says this casually, as though the Watch is not himself and his bird and whomever happens to be looking out over the water or up to the sky.
He means to leave soon, his body language says, the way one navy hoof rises and then falls, infinitesimally closer to Islandres with the motion. But he wants to stay, too, lured by the unexpected and easily distracted by a pretty face.
Inside, she was shriveling up like a kettle-cooked lizard. He wasn’t Balto at all - feckin’ embarrassing. Swing and a miss, and now Gale was peering off toward home and Ionia was lookin’ anywhere but wherever his eyes went. She coughed up a plume of dark smoke, cleared her throat, and uh… did her best to shuffle like she was ready to be on her way again too. This was one encounter she wouldn’t mind forgettin’.
To her surprise, however, Gale invited her to come visit his home - Islandres - and Ionia felt the inner corners of her eyes pinchin’ together in a mix of bewilderment and disbelief. One, because he’d invited her back in the first place. Not like she hadn’t thought about a little rendezvous, but now she felt kinda obligated to. Two, because he’d mentioned there was a “watch”.
A watch? Watchin’ what exactly? Last time she’d been there, Island Re- she means, Islandres had been deader than a rock. Lonely and ghostly-like, all quiet and overburdened by insects what bit and annoyed ya. Not eh, not exactly her kinda place. But he seemed insistent on getting a reply outta her; Gale’s body was frozen in motion, and Ionia was just standin’ there with a dumb look on her face.
So she said, “Sure, sure. Why not?” Replacing the earlier look of confusion with a sincere-looking smile. Maybe the place was hopping now, a hot commodity since fresh blood (and good-looking at that) had moved in and set up shop. “Next spring. Keep an eye out for me.” Ionia grinned prettily and nodded her head, not at all concerned by the possibility of what could happen in a year’s short time. Mare’s these days only knew party, eat grass, make baby, and then get rid of baby.
What was the worst that could happen?
“Well,” She said, sliding past the larger brute, “See ya around, Gale the alliance horse.” Ionia laughed gently, and her blue tail swung out in a cascade of hair like falling water as she walked by.
Gale
