"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
( MY DAYDREAMS LOVE THE VIOLENT COLOR OF YOUR LIPS
AND THE NIGHTMARES THAT ACCOMPANY IT )
She seldom strays far from the river.
She does not like the sound of sand against porcelain, the gritty feel of it.
She prefers the soothing lap of water, the cool kiss.
Her father manipulates the current for her amusement, curls it around her coltish limbs, licks it up her sides. He tells her stories about sisters made of glass, a sister who could fashion the water into wings, a sister with a galaxy where her heart should be. Amathea will meet them someday, she thinks, someday they will all be together.
But now she sticks close to her father’s side in this impenetrable darkness while her mother tends to important business. The girl is proud of her mother, certainly, the beautiful, powerful woman that she is. Though the girl does not travel far from the river, she sees how they bend to her mother’s will. Her father teaches her to love her mother without compromise.
Today the girl discovers magic by accident. Her father finds light in the darkness, invents reasons for laughter, protects her from the terrible gravity of this world she’s been born into. She slips too deep into the river and she dissolves as the water rushes over her back. Her edges bleed into nothing and she opens her mouth to cry out but there is no mouth left.
And then, moments later, she emerges fully formed somewhere further down the river.
She squints into the darkness, fear gripping her hard-beating heart.
“Dad?” she calls, but there is no response.
She takes a series of small, uncertain steps up the river and then stops.
“Hello?” she tries again.
Behind her, something stirs in the darkness.
amathea
@[The Monsters] please have at her infrared vision
He is brave but still wide-eyed as he moves through Pangea.
He’s been promised monsters, after all. Asena had told him he would be met with a multitude of dragons when he descended into the canyons of the land. But even as he slides precariously down steep inclines in the near total darkness, even as he treks deeper and loses himself in the sinuous ravines, he still doesn’t spot a dragon at the start of his adventure.
There are many places one such beast could tuck itself into though, Volos finds. He exhales little bursts of fire to see into the darkest spaces he comes across. There are a few pairs of eyes that shine back at him, all of which are small creatures he has no names for, and all of which are similarly terrified by the sudden brightness. He apologizes to each of them in earnest before he moves on. None of the eyes are large enough to be a dragon peering back at him, fearless in the face of his fire.
Giving up his search when the scratch of his throat becomes too much to bear, the yearling hears the telltale susurration of water over sandstone and goes to it. With one last burst of sputtering fire between his lips, he aims it over the body of water just before his hooves. The reds and oranges of his fire paint the surface of the river and reveal its vastness all at once. Asena hadn’t told him about this. He couldn’t imagine such an otherwise dry, dusty place could harbor such a treasure. And for the island-born boy, it is a treasure indeed.
Volos leaps in with reckless abandon, the water as home to him as much as anything else could be. He thinks he will call off the search for a Pangean dragon and make his way to the common lands that he’s heard so much about but hasn’t yet explored. He gorges himself on water that tastes almost like copper as it slides down his throat. He pays the taste no mind; surely the water is not the only difference he will experience in a life that stretches wide open ahead of him. He’s smiling easily at that thought when he realizes he’s not alone.
“Hello,” the boy calls back, hearing the stranger’s splashing approach from down the current. He moves to intercept her, not wanting her to put in all the work even if he can hardly move with all the water sloshing in his belly. “Not your father.” A crooked grin finds his lips as he states the obvious. “I’m Volos.” It should be impossible to see her in the eternal night, but her porcelain coat makes her just the tiniest bit more visible. “Is your dad a dragon, by chance?”
( MY DAYDREAMS LOVE THE VIOLENT COLOR OF YOUR LIPS
AND THE NIGHTMARES THAT ACCOMPANY IT )
Not her father, the voice calls, but not something else either.
Her father had told her that the things in the darkness did not have voices, at least not the kind of voices they could decipher. They did not speak in plain language. They certainly would not have introduced themselves, she thinks, and she lets this thought soothe her even if she would have preferred if the voice belonged to her father himself.
The colt swims out of the darkness and she sucks in a sharp breath, consumed suddenly by a visceral shyness. He is closer to her age than anyone else she has ever met, which seems like a thing she should be embarrassed about. Will he think her strange? There are other children in Pangea, certainly, but her father is so fiercely protective of his daughters, acutely aware of how fragile they are. And the girl is so wary of tearing herself away from the comfort of the river’s shore anyway.
She is so thoroughly distracted by these thoughts that she almost forgets her fear entirely. Forgets that she had been meant to be frightened, panicked, frantic to get back to her father, and thoroughly confused by whatever trick he had played on her that had carried her so far away from him.
So thoroughly distracted, too, that it takes her several seconds to respond to all of the things the colt has said. She swallows thickly and shakes her head, “no, he’s not a dragon. He’s made of glass.” There is no reason for her to volunteer this information except that it might explain how she came to be made of porcelain.
“I’m Amathea,” she tells him then, heat pooling in her pale cheeks, “I think my dad has played a trick on me and I need to get back to him.” It does not occur to her that Volos does not live in Pangea, she is only vaguely aware of the other children in the desert and has never actually met any of them. For all she knows, he is one of them. So it does not occur to her that she is being unreasonable when she asks, “can you help me?”
amathea
@[Volos] my dumb ass used the wrong table the first time so you might get two tags from me lmao
She seems uneasy as she stands in the middle of the waterway facing him, like she is uncommitted to the place she holds against the rapids. It isn’t overtly obvious the way she stands, but Volos is quite keen on body language despite his young age. He knows when his father is forcing a smile, for instance, when Titanya leaves the island to go hunting for days at a time. He knows, too, that when she comes back there are secrets unspoken between the words and looks his parents share. He doesn’t like knowing these things, doesn’t like that there is an entire second world hidden inside the one that they live in. He likes black and white much better. He likes certainty, likes knowing that there is solid earth waiting for him under each next step.
He thinks maybe he just surprised this girl. Hopes that is the reason, anyway.
She says that her father is made of glass, and his brows rise quickly with this knowledge. “Glass?” He’s seen the effects of lightning on the beach after a severe storm - the sand twisted and climbing into shapes of glass - but he’s never known someone to wear it on their skin. His molten gaze slides to the girl’s pale skin, searching for the same effect on her and finding only an unusual glean instead. “Couldn’t he break easily, then, being so delicate?”
His gold eyes trail up to the blue of her own but are momentarily distracted by the flush of her cheeks. It makes him almost uncomfortable, like he’s unearthed one of her secrets that would otherwise be hidden if not for his prying. Volos looks away even though there is nothing to look at. The darkness stretches on for miles and miles, all the way across the ocean and back home. He knows, because he’s just traveled it in reverse. It is unnerving to think about, but he reminds himself that they still manage to find each other. Despite the blanket of darkness, they are not alone. This chance meeting in an unknown land proves that not all of their fears are as terrible as they seem, that they can be overcome.
“Amathea,” he says, liking the quiet, unobtrusive hush of it in an otherwise harsh world. He’s looking at her again and a genuine but gentle smile tugs at his lips. He doesn’t want to upset her again. “’Course I’ll help you. Do you think the river is safer to travel in? Our monsters seem to prefer the sea in Ischia.” The colt wonders if the next generation will discuss monsters as readily as the weather or if they will be a relic of the past by then. “Don’t worry though, I can fight any of them off if they try to hurt you. I’ve done it before.”
03-09-2021, 02:15 PM (This post was last modified: 03-13-2021, 06:21 PM by amathea.)
( MY DAYDREAMS LOVE THE VIOLENT COLOR OF YOUR LIPS
AND THE NIGHTMARES THAT ACCOMPANY IT )
They are fragile, her father had warned her about this. But he had kissed her head and she had tried not to grimace at the sound it made (such a harsh sound for such a sweet thing, glass against porcelain) and told her that he had not wanted her to spend her youth afraid like he had. She could talk herself breathless recounting the stories he had told her about the nights he had laid awake waiting for his sister to return to him, smelling like faraway places because she was made of flesh and blood and bone. Because she was not breakable. Because she was not afraid.
They are delicate things, yes, but they are not meant to be afraid.
She swallows and blinks and averts her gaze to the current pulling softly at her ankles. This is why they love the water, because it is kind to them. Should she tell him this? Or has he not noticed that she, too, is breakable? “He’s very careful,” she tells him instead, trying for a smile. It is something much shyer than she means for it to be.
When she finds his face in the dark again she finds that he, too, has averted his gaze. It does not occur to her that he has looked away to afford her some privacy, to save her the shame of having revealed her embarrassment so easily. (Certainly if she knew, it would have swayed her to some kind of new tenderness. What a tremendous kindness!)
He repeats her name and it’s the first time she’s heard it out of the mouth of anyone not directly related to her. This, too, is a new thrill. Something deeply electric, shocking in its novelty. And when she smiles this time it more closely resembles his. (Though the smile is rather quickly chased away by the thought of monsters that inhabit the waters. How troubling it is to think that she might be betrayed by the only thing in Pangea she knows how to trust.)
She draws in a shuddering breath and glances down at the water again. “I don’t think there are any monsters in the river,” she muses, though the thought trails off into uncertainty and she is distracted by another thought before she can come back to it. She looks up at him abruptly, a soft frown darkening her brow. “You’ve fought them before?”
amathea
@[Volos] no worries! moving is the WORST!
@[The Monsters] this tag has absolutely been here the whole time idk what you're talking about -- please mess with her infrared vision!!
