"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
In every young girls life, there comes a time when she learns the truth of the world. A time when the silly notions she had of prince charming and his happily ever after are thrown out the door. A time when her eyes are peeled open and she's forced to see that monsters are more common than princes, and that happily ever after is the biggest lie ever told.
Wayfair has had her time, at the top of the Mountain and in the depths of that jungle Hell. Her eyes weren't just opened; they were plucked from her skull like fruit, heavy and ripe for the plucking. There was no prince in that place to rescue her, only a Dark God and his wicked creations. There certainly wasn't a happily ever after, though she supposed being alive is happy enough. Branded, scarred, and damaged...but alive.
Alive, but changed.
Stronger, both mentally and physically. It is amazing what one will do when their back is against the wall, even a doe-eyed young thing like herself. She is young, but she comes from a long line of monsters. She quickly learned that darkness comes easily to her. She is not her mother or father, but there is something fierce lying beneath her skin, some beast that will fight when it is cornered. She is thankful for that beast.
The Meadow is quiet as she makes her way through it, the snow falling lightly and melting against her ivory coat. The birds have gone, and the woodland creatures have taken to the warmth of their dens. She is the only soul around, and only the warm mist rising from her nostrils betrays her as a living thing. As the solitude closes in, she waits. For what, she doesn't know. But she's surely meant for more than fighting for her life in a Dark Gods hellscape.
Like a foal learning how to walk with steady legs, Harrowed learns how to navigate the world as his new self. It feels so strange to see someone he is sure is in distress but to not feel that emotion calling to him. Strange to eat only plants and not gorge himself on the feelings of others at their lowest. The predator in him has been silenced, and he does not know if it will wake again — or what form it will take when it does.
His dreams haunt him, ghosts of his nightmares linger in the waking world almost every day now. Miniature bodachs with gleaming red eyes. The torn, twisted versions of his family. Sometimes it takes most of the day for these visions to fade away under the sun, melted away like snow.
Today it he is being haunted but the small, leaf-like bugs are easy to forget about. They are intangible, he has already figured that out, so their presence is more annoying than it is dangerous.
He is looking for a distraction, something to pull him out of his own thoughts, when he spots the mare with a familiar looking brand on her. His own, gnarled thing, rests on the lower side of his neck and — though it is healed — he swears it itches upon seeing someone else who was there that night.
Harrowed looks at the pale mare, trying to place her among the small crowd that had gathered but the truth of it was any memory of those strangers had been eclipsed by everything that had happened afterwards.
He approaches though, knowing too well how misery loves company (he had once been a bodach, after all), and greets her with a quiet "You too?"
She doesn't remember any of the faces from the Mountain. She knew there were others there, of course. Even in the midst of the chaos and magic she could hear their thoughts, though they were wordless and panicked. But beyond that, they were none of her concern. Selfish, maybe, but manners and decorum mean little when ones life is on the line.
She doesn't remember them, but she knows she isn't the only one.
The Meadow is eerily quiet today, a fact she finds peace in. It is an odd thing for her, searching for a spot in the stillness. As a young girl she had made every effort to escape it. Coming from a family of telepaths meant lots of quiet, wordless interactions. But that was all before the mountain. She was a telepath no more, and her thoughts could be hers and hers alone.
His approach breaks the solitude, though he arrives without fanfare. A quick glance over his body stirs something in her that that could be remembrance, though she isn't quite sure until she sees his brand. Where hers was beautiful despite its meaning, his was harsher. Her reptilian eyes begin to glow as she called the wind to her, though she did not release it just yet.
Too much had happened up there for her to be anything but cautious.
But when he speaks of her brand, he speaks softly, despite his voice carrying the same weight as hers. She visibly relaxes, the glow leaving her eyes. "Me too." she answers with a slight nod. "We made it though. We lived. I'm Wayfair." she offers, as if her name is an afterthought.
Maybe it is. Maybe she just needs to introduce herself as survivor from now on.
Harrowed notes the glow that comes to the stranger's reptilian eyes, and then fades, but he doesn't even spare it a thought. It could mean anything, after all, and if she was temporarily on guard then he saluted her. She should be, after what they had gone through. Little did she know how little of a threat he was to her now. He should be savouring the scent of her distress, any lingering fear and sadness from after their ordeal, but all his nose picked up was the earthy scents of the meadow and the warmth of another horse.
Preying on the emotions of others had never felt wrong to Harrowed, when done correctly. It had been how he needed to feed, how he needed to survive, and he felt so off-balance being forced to live in another way.
He didn't know if he even truly was himself anymore, with so much changed, but he replies to Wayfair's introduction with his name nonetheless. "Harrowed."
A name and description all rolled into one.
Now, though, he hesitates — not sure which direction to push the conversation. The weather was so utterly unimportant, wasn't it? Pretending to be normal wasn't going to make it true.
So he asks her a question he had been asked himself, deliberately reminding himself that having someone he could lean on afterwards did help. "Have you talked about it with anyone?"
She has never told a single living soul about what happened at the top of the Mountain.
Her mother was gone again (good riddance), and even if she wasn't, Wayfair wasn't going to seek her out, anyways. Topsail had never been the coddling type and Wayfair couldn't imagine that had changed any. She hadn't told her lover, despite him being kind and likely to listen. She had used him to fill a void and nothing more. It seemed unfair to burden him with her past.
She certainly hadn't told her child. There was something unsettling about that girl, too much dark magic in her bloodline. The child, Starboard, was the type to eat the weak and call it a mercy killing, not listen and offer consolation. Starboard was the type to cause trauma, not heal it.
No, Wayfair had held her trauma tight to her breast, never letting slip the mask of perfection her mother's tutelage had taught her. But here, with him, she feels like maybe she could lay it down, if only for a moment. While their journeys had no doubt been different, the nightmare had been the same. Two sides of the same coin.
"Harrowed." she says, dipping her head in acknowledgement. His question, however, gains him her full stare. It is a honest question but still, it makes her mouth go dry and her stomach clench. "Of course not." she says, unable to keep the bitterness from poisoning her words. She tears her gaze from him and adopts a thousand-yard stare instead as she tries to settle herself. "Who would believe me? Who would care?" she asks, somewhat to herself and somewhat to Harrowed. Finally, she turns back to face him, a small smile tugging the corners of her lips. "You're the first one I've ever met that was...there."
