"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
09-10-2021, 03:38 PM (This post was last modified: 09-10-2021, 03:51 PM by gaspard.)
i’m under lock and key, but you can probably tell
A powder keg in a prison cell
He is weary, bone-tired, when he reaches the shores of Beqanna.
When he drags himself from the sea and collapses on some remote stretch of shoreline.
(What has he fled? What could set a horse to swimming like this?)
He staggers up onto dry land, so grateful for earth that he lets his relief buckle his knees, and collapses there in the sand. And he sleeps. For how long, he doesn’t know. But when he wakes again, night has fallen and his stomach turns with the ache of hunger.
Alone still, he hauls himself to his feet and resumes his journey. He pauses occasionally to gorge on patches of sawgrass that cut his tongue and his throat and sit uncomfortably in his belly. But his hunger is blinding, deafening, the only thing he can see or hear or feel.
It is perhaps by chance (or is it by design?) that he stumbles into the field and his eyes burn with new relief at the sight of sweetgrass, even here in the middle of winter. He eats with reckless abandon, until he’s afraid he might choke, until he can think beyond the vicious pangs of hunger.
Only when he is full does he lift his head and scan the horizon, uncertain where to go from here. (Still, the limbs tremble with exhaustion, despite all those hours he slept there on that beach.) But he sets his jaw and exhales as dawn swims up over the horizon and bathes the landscape in a heavenly glow.
He will wait, he thinks, and if no one comes he will find a home here himself.
09-12-2021, 09:20 PM (This post was last modified: 09-14-2021, 06:24 PM by Cheri.)
Waiting. That’s how everyone in this world spent their time, in-between doing the important things. Waiting or traveling, or standing out in the Field like Cheri was with a small band of shifter-mixes. Two of the group were mimics: they had fangs and odd-looking coats, one sported a hairless rope-like tail. The third was a true shifter, and she spoke with a warm, foreign purr. Together, the four mares were discussing suitable locations - the kind that could cater to their… hungers.
That was when Cheri caught a glimpse of him.
She noticed his color first; who wouldn’t, covered in all that green? And she immediately liked it. One look at her and anyone could see how the fair-haired pegasus might relate. But it wasn’t so much the color as it was the rest of him, too, when she finally got a better look. Around his head were shimmering plumes of light, angled and bent though their form was free-flowing. Magic horns, interesting ones at that.
He looked nearly finished with a thought, glaring out like that at the early morning sun. Slightly lanky, too. Or maybe his flesh was a little loose around the bones. From her vantage point, Cheri wasn't sure. The pegasus politely excused herself from the group of hybrids and turned to make her way across the field so she could find out.
The weather of late hadn’t been the best for grazing, but winter in Beqanna had felt mild this year. Some sprouts managed to push their way up through the frozen soil, stubbornly early for spring. All the way Cheri could hear the damp squelch of her hooves treading cold mud, so that by the time she was close enough to ask him, “Are you looking for a particular someone?” The pink and white color of her legs was soiled brown.
A chill in the air hung visibly to her skin, dampened her vibrant green hair, and beaded itself along the outer feathers of her tightly folded wings. In case he questioned her intentions, she smiled - a quick, pretty flicker of emotion that told him everything he needed to know about her: Cheri was being polite… and also curious. So far this morning he’d been the most interesting loner to pass through, and he had a look about him. Something haunting, maybe. Something worth exploring.
i’m under lock and key, but you can probably tell
A powder keg in a prison cell
His muscles cramp with fatigue and he thinks he ought to keep moving. His mother (or had it been someone else?) had told him once that the best way to combat the pain was to move and he is on the verge of throwing himself headlong into the fold of Beqanna alone when she turns up and gives him pause.
His chest heaves as he draws in a long breath, his gaze moving swiftly along the landscape of her body, the wings folded against her sides, the electric green of her mane and tail, the jewels that catch the light just enough to make him want to avert his eyes. But he goes on looking, his expression impassive.
(The green is the same color as the flames that lick their way up the horns, isn’t it? The horns that erupt from his head, his nose, the sharp edges of his cheekbones. Vibrant to the point of seeming hazardous. Strange to have this in common with the first soul who comes along, he thinks but doesn’t say.)
Her question is easy enough to answer when taken at face value: no. But it’s not that simple, is it? Of course he’s looking for someone in particular. Anyone who might offer him some sense of direction in this strange land, certainly. Someone who might have a place in their home for him. He shifts his weight and a lopsided smile ties up one corner of his mouth.
“No, not in the most literal sense,” he says and then exhales a breath that could have been a laugh if she chose to interpret it that way. He rolls one shoulder in a kind of shrug and casts a glance around at all of the equines who loiter here. “It seems like everyone here is looking for something, though,” he adds, “I suppose I’m looking for someone who can provide me with a little insight.” He turns his gaze back to her face, steadily meeting her eye. “Is that you?”
He smiled back, impassive as far as Cheri could tell. Just a shrug of his shoulder and a laugh; No biting sarcasm, no viciousness. That was fine. She could deal with (preferred, actually) the company of a more insightful conversationalist. It did her good to talk and mingle, which was partially why she came out to the Field when it suited her. Some of the wild streaks she felt - the types keeping her up at night or causing erratic bursts of magic, they toned down if she could focus on something mundane.
Which he wasn’t, of course. The fire-horned outsider had all of his angles sharpened, didn’t he? “I’m someone.” She agreed. “But whether or not I can give you insight depends.” She knew many things, not everything.
What she could feel was him staring at her candidly, and it drew her attention. Normally, Cheri would avoid outright eye contact; most any horse could sense unnatural power there, something strange about the vivid iris color or the way they seemed alive, like the fire on his horns. For him? She thinks an exception could be made.
“How can I help you?” She met eyes with the stallion, unafraid of what he might discern by scrying through her green portals. Just under the surface they twinkled, animated as an emerald night sky filled with stars, and knowing all that Cheri allowed him to look anyways. It wasn't fear that kept her from being overbold, it was the flamboyancy that she avoided with strangers: as if her jewels and her jade-colored hair weren't enough, the universe had seen fit to make Cheri sorcerous as well. Most times, it could be off-putting.
But this one, she thinks - he might not mind so much.
i’m under lock and key, but you can probably tell
A powder keg in a prison cell
He is not unaware of magic (how could he be when fire had enveloped his horns only days after his birth—green fire, no less, and fire that never burned him, not even when he pressed his nose hard against his shoulder and waited for it to singe), but he has no way of knowing the width and the depth of the magic that pulses beneath her skin.
This limitless magic had not existed in the home he’d fled in favor of friendlier shores.
(Is this shore friendly? She does not seem particularly cold or callous, so he supposes it must be. At least friendlier than the shore that had set him swimming in the first place.)
Her response elicits another wry, lopsided grin.
Of course, he thinks, of course her insight will depend on the things he asks her. She meets his eye evenly and he feels no overwhelming impulse to avert his own. Can she sense the wars under his skin or are they as invisible to her as his magic is to him?
He draws in a breath and finally, grudgingly, shifts his focus to the meadow stretching out around them, yawning toward the horizon. He rolls his shoulders and exhales, contemplative. It is no great question he wants to ask, but he supposes the answer could be something he doesn’t want to hear.
“I’ve come here in search of a new home,” he prefaces, steadily meeting her eye again, “will I find that here?” he asks, head tilted ever so slightly. (He had been inquisitive once, curious, and it shows in this small gesture.)
“There is magic here,” he says without allowing her any space for an answer, “you’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” And then he is quiet.
As infallible as she felt most days, Cheri knew her limitations well enough by now not to pretend that they didn’t exist. His wars were still his own to battle alone inside the safety (or prison) of his innermost thoughts, although at the very edges of her sight Cheri could sense something like an aura surrounding him. She neither focused nor fed into the suspicion, preferring that they remained on as equal a footing as possible in the meantime, and though her eyes swam with impossible stars she was still just a rather glittery sort of mare out in the Field, dampened by a morning dew and intrigued by the mystery of a stranger in this land.
He looked away; afraid, perhaps? But Cheri second-guessed herself and decided she couldn’t be certain of his expression. Maybe he was hiding something, and that was fine as well: she believed secrets were best uncovered slowly.
“A compliment, a statement, and a question.” The warmth of her blossoming smile was genuine, though tainted with humor. “You’re in need of more help than I thought.”
Lucky for him that she was the helpful sort. “There are many homes and many types of magic to be found here.” Cheri glanced from his writhing horns of flame back toward the throng of horseflesh in the distance, appraising their spots and colors with a knowing look. “Where you end up is a choice; you’re more than welcome to find refuge and safety in my lands, the place where I call home. Or you can branch out on your own, establish a place and run it as you see fit.” She shrugged her wings, overdue for a turn at acting nonchalant.
Her head turned back to him, brilliant despite it’s dark-colored fur. “The rest is more a matter of fate.”
And as for herself? “I’m Cheri,” she announced, “and I can promise that if you hang around here long enough, you’ll see things that make a horse like myself seem small in comparison.”
What she wouldn’t give to be able to read his mind right then. To hear his response unfiltered and honest rather than interpreting it as true or false, now that would’ve given her a pleasant shiver of delight. She held her breath for a second and wondered... but in the end she still heard nothing, so Cheri settled for trying to read the language of his body instead. That venture proved not to be as disappointing as her earlier efforts had been. He might’ve been thinner than he ought to be, but up close she could see the finesse and strength wrought together in his bodily form, making him generally enticing.
How could he end up here alone? She wondered, and as she did the intrigue deepened. There was a part of her (small and selfish) that quietly hoped he would come home with her to Loess, only so she could dig further.
