"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
( this world will have the wolves outside your door
make you leave all that you love to fight a war
and never tell you what you're dying for )
There are few children in the Cove. As far as he can tell, he and Stargaze are the only ones at the moment. The viper had been pregnant and there had been a baby draped in galaxies but she had disappeared almost as quickly as she had appeared, which had struck the colt as odd but something had told him that he was better off not knowing what had happened to her.
Perhaps it’s loneliness that makes him so eager to trust this spotted filly who’d turned up by accident. Stargaze could only entertain him so much before she became irritable and anything beyond that was not really entertaining for either of them.
The evil her father had warned her about in the Cove certainly existed and warranted caution, Starlore could attest to that, but there were exceptions to the rule. Starlore being one of them.
He glances back in the direction she gestures, though he can make out nothing in darkness, so he just rolls his shoulder. He trusts that it’s there, even if he’s never seen it. He doesn’t know what redwoods are either but if she says they’re there, he believes that, too. “Sounds nice,” he says, which is just something to say because he doesn’t really know what it sounds like. He’s just a boy and most of what he knows is the sea and the mountains that surround it.
He trots through the grass, careful not to outpace her as they approach the lake. “Yeah, I’ve always lived here,” he answers, nodding. “It’s a pretty nice place, even though the lady that runs it is kinda mean.” He rolls his shoulders and snorts out a kind of laugh. “I’ll probably move away when I’m older. Do you like Taiga?”
Taiga was as abundant with foals as it seemed to be with trees, a crop sprouting up each year from thin air (although Cheri knew perfectly well where they really came from) and the previous batch working their way slowly up toward the sky. She wasn’t obtuse enough to think that it would be like that everywhere, she just didn’t necessarily expect there to be horses near her age so close by. And… in Silver Cove, she guessed. Couldn’t forget about that.
Honestly, the farther out Starlore led her, the less Cheri was inclined to give into negativity at all. She could almost laugh at herself for cowering like a frightened wimp, the image of her begging Starlore to spare her life now a comical rerun in her thoughts. Sure, so there might be danger here, but if there was it wasn’t any bother to Cheri anymore. Not when real danger lurked everywhere and darkness seemed to fully overshadow her father’s territorial concerns.
If Yanhua had enemies here once upon a time, they were his demons to battle — not his to pass on to Cheri.
The appaloosa mare would rather laugh along with Starlore’s description of the Cove’s leader, hopeful that she’d never come across her without good reason, and agree with a whole-hearted “me too” at his desire to leave the nest. “Don’t get me wrong,” Cheri huffed, trotting along carefully, “I love my home, love my family there.” She explained.
“But —” and there was always a but, “It’s not everything, you know? There’s more to life for me, I like to think.” Her mouth curved agreeably.
She looked up at the rim of light veiling Starlore’s face and studied him thoughtfully from a few paces behind, the smell of water rich in her nose. They must be nearing this lake he spoke of, then. It really was nearby, like he’d said.
“Where do you think you’ll go Starlore?” Cheri asked him as she slowed from a leg-swinging trot down into a reaching walk, her legs wet from the unseen dew hidden among the grass. “Maybe someday I’ll come find you there, and we could talk again. I don’t have any friends outside of the redwood forest, really; it would be nice to reconnect if we all make it out of this hell alive.” She laughed. She really couldn't help herself.
( this world will have the wolves outside your door
make you leave all that you love to fight a war
and never tell you what you're dying for )
Starlore had long entertained the thought of exploring the world outside of the Cove, though he had never actually given a voice to these fantasies. Odd that he should confess these things to some strange filly who’d turned up on the beach by accident, he thinks, but probably also safer. He doubts that anyone in his family would take kindly to the idea of him leaving, though there had been plenty of siblings who’d left before him. It feels different for him, though he can’t really comprehend why.
But they have this in common, the fact that they both love their homes and their families but feel like there is more to life than that. Unlike her, though, he has never actually ventured outside of the Cove. Given his display on the beach, it’s no big secret as to why not. He hasn’t quite worked up the nerve necessary to brave the world at large.
“I think so, too,” he says, nodding, grinning. “Plus you have those cool wings, so it’d make no sense to stay in one place.”
He laughs to himself, a sound made nervous by how acutely aware he is of the weight of her gaze on his face as they make their way across the vast sea of grass.
Her question hits him square in the chest and he screws his face up in thought. The thought of reconnecting is a strange one, mostly because he has no real concept of friends. It’s not unpleasant, just foreign and he turns his head to look back at her with a beaming grin. “I don’t know,” he tells her, honest in his delivery, “but I think it’d have to be somewhere close to the ocean.”
He shrugs, turning to look ahead again just as they reach the edge of the lake. “But I’d like to see you again, too, Cheri,” he tells the water.
No sense in staying put when the world’s sky was an open invitation, he meant. At the thought of it Cheri's wings itched despite being tired. The gift of flight ran halfway through her family’s bloodline like the random flip of a coin, missing her twin brother and hitting Cheri instead. Her uncle Nashua had them and her father Yanhua had been born without, only later understanding that they’d been present if not seen. She doubted her father would get much use of them; Yan was the grounded type. Her father loved Taiga with an almost unhealthy sort of reverence. Cheri though… she considered Starlore’s comment with a shrug of her colorfully lit wings.
There were benefits and drawbacks to everything. Her wings could hold her aloft and take her places eventually, but they were a pain currently. They’d waylaid her here in Silver Cove instead of doing their job appropriately, even if that mishap had a silver (or golden?) lining. They constantly got in the way, picked up debris between their many feathers, and required habitual preening to keep in shape. Starlore was right about one thing, however: they were totally cool. Cheri thought so and she was glad to hear that feeling confirmed from a near-stranger.
Cool, but still a pain in her ass sometimes.
“Somewhere near the ocean huh?” She smiled politely, lifting her head after taking a gulping drink. Had he ever heard of the islands to the west, she wondered? Cheri only knew of their existence from her father’s pining to visit them someday, and her uncle Nash’s travels. She didn’t know the names of the small land masses, or who lived there. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Rubbing her damp lips over the curve of her knee, Cheri cleaned her mouth and readjusted. Her swaying legs stood square again and she flicked her vibrant, green tail against the slope of her patterned hide. Starlore looked… pensive. She wanted to comfort him somehow, promise him that time would fly between now and then, but the words died in her throat. In a world such as theirs, promises were hard to come by and even harder still to keep. In the end, Cheri felt it was best just to be sincere.
“I won’t forget.” She murmured softly, ears aloft and eyes steadfast on his comely face. This close to one another she could see the finer details of his skin, how the blue looked more like the surface of a stone broken up with strands of gleaming gold, and his eyes… Starlore’s eyes were a rich navy, not black like she’d originally thought. The Taigan filly committed this all to her memory before speaking up again. “Thank you — for helping me.”
And then her grin tilted higher.
“But I don’t think it was me that broke the rock. I’ve been trying the entire way here. Nothing.” She admitted with a quiet laugh.
( this world will have the wolves outside your door
make you leave all that you love to fight a war
and never tell you what you're dying for )
It occurs to him that he should ask where he might find her but the moment passes before he can seize the opportunity and he’s just old enough to understand what it means to be self-conscious and the last thing he wants to do is look stupid. Especially after his display on the beach, the memory of which will no doubt embarrass him for weeks when he actually lets himself think about it later.
(And what does it mean that his stomach does a little flip when she says that she’ll keep it in mind? Will she look for him by the ocean? Will he actually see her again someday? Is it stupid to even think about it? Probably. Just silly things kids say.)
He watches her drink but tries to do it without staring. Because everything he does suddenly feels kind of obvious, so he turns his gaze further inland and wonders if there are monsters and if they look the same here as they do where she’s from and if maybe he should have said that he’s seen some, too to sound braver than he actually is. And then he wonders why it should matter or why he should care what he sounds like and he feels kind of stupid for that, too and heat rises in his cheeks and he wants to think about anything else but the thought gets stuck in his head.
Then she says she won’t forget and he draws his focus back to her face and he starts to think maybe it’s not just some silly thing that kids say and his stomach does another little flip and he smiles. He can’t help himself. He smiles and he nods and he swallows, too because it feels like his heart’s going to crawl up out of his throat. “I won’t either,” he tells her, even though she hasn’t told him where he might find her. It feels like the right thing to say.
She thanks him even though there’s nothing to thank him for and he wants to tell her as much but he’s distracted by her smile. And then he laughs and surprises himself with the sound of it. “What do you mean?” he asks brightly. “Rocks don’t just break themselves!” he says and then reaches out to nudge her. “It had to have been you!”
Of course she would remember, and of course Cheri told herself she’d go looking for Starlore someday in the future if there were days to be counted in their future at all. He would still be alive if she was, right? And so naturally, she assumed that if she could make it to the other side of this Eclipse then so could he. The way he’d confronted her on the silver shoreline of his home turf stuck out in Cheri’s mind as admirable; Starlore might’ve thought differently, but Cheri considered it a trait of the more capable to defend their home even if they thought they couldn’t stand a chance against whomever or whatever might be invading. He was brave. She judged him a good kind of horse, the kind worth finding and giving a proper thanks to when she could.
“Or maybe he’ll come and find you first.” The black filly thought to herself warmly, enjoying the sound of Starlore’s laughter and how it chased away the dark worry inside of her for a moment.
“I know that!” She squealed, mock indignant at his explanation of the natural world and how it so obviously functioned. “I know rocks don’t break themselves and I know it wasn’t me, you shiny jerk.” She flicked away the touch of his nose lightly, extending her wing that was nearest to his side. All the while she was beaming like a charmed imp, obviously happy and meaning no offense. “Didn’t you think for a second that it might’ve been you who broke it?” Cheri tried to slowly guide him to that conclusion as well, emphasizing his involvement.
There’d been her and him, alone on the beach. If it wasn’t her… “it was you, duh.” She thought, shaking her head with a soft, girlish laugh.
“My parents are convinced emotions tie directly to a horse’s magic.” Cheri told Starlore, turning away from the water to face the direction they came in again. She should be getting back… time had passed so quickly that she wasn’t sure if it’d been hours already or only a few minutes. “You were pretty emotional back there. All “i’M nOt AfaRaID oF YoU’!” The pegasus filly mocked him playfully as she hopped a few steps forward into the shivering grass. “I bet if you felt that away again, it would happen.”
