"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
Osyva has seen too much in her lifetime to ever hope to feel her childhood innocence again. She has felt too much pain to ever hope to feel anything but numbness again. Still, she dreams of a time long ago - of memories drenched in sunlight. She can hear her mother’s voice.
“Be safe, Osyva”
“I know, mother!” she’d squeak in reply as she set off for her father’s home. Her mother would follow at a distance, but Osyva was never aware. She’d been so sheltered then.
Now, no one watches her. She has been alone for quite some time, mostly due to her own lack of motivation. She’d abandoned her father’s home for the enemy. She’d followed Straia to the Chamber. She’d slept beneath the jagged pines as she once had the Mother Tree. She’d watched the war rage from the sidelines. Violent magic instilled in her the idea she’d had all along since her father was snapped from the hills of the Gates. He was dead. He could not have survived. But this time, no tears fell down her golden cheeks. Only fire and magic flashed in the reflection of her glassy eyes.
Osyva has never been anything more than a witness. Perhaps, if magic had not killed her sire, or turned her mother into a fish, things would have turned out differently.
let me tell you something baby,
you love me for everything you hate me for
Magic had offered her nothing good either, it stripped her kingdom of it's trees and her of her confidant and once-lover; Warship but it also created her immortality. Life has a way of balancing things, the tide must come in and it must go out. The dip dyed mare wanted nothing more to see a particular magician dead but alas, they're better at playing hide and seek than she; a mere average woman.
Kimber has found several floaters about the kingdom and it aggitates her, did anyone bother to ask and wait to be seen or tended to? Did anyone have a purpose here other than to eat the vegetation and fuck in the darkness of the night? Perhaps she herself needed to be covered in sweat, be it battle or pleasure. Either way, this girl would likely get a the brunt of it. "You there, what's your name, where are you from and what do you need?" she spits out like venom, not necessarily because of the girl personally but it was just her mood for the day (or hour).
Her brow lightens up some, "Kimber, the Colonel of the Army." With that she tucks her bluejay wings to her side but her stare is still piercing and on edge. She cannot explain why she's so uppity today but whatever it was had taken all control.
In all her time here, she had not once been confronted by any member of the army, not even during the war. But, that isn’t their fault. For the “average woman,” Osyva is rather adept at hiding. She has done so nearly half of her life. Why she chooses today to step from the penumbras half light and into the open is a mystery, even to her. Why anyone suddenly has an interest in her is also a mystery. Yet, here they are.
The blue-black Colonel spews an array of questions in rapid succession. She is obviously not a diplomat. Osyva stares at her for a moment before the mare introduces herself as Kimber.
“I came with Straia from the Field long ago, before the war.” she says, unwilling to divulge any more of her past than that. The Field had been her baptismal font. She’d been washed clean of her past there. At least, that was the theory.
Yet, as far as Osyva had traveled from Heaven’s Gates and the Falls, she could never forget her parents, even if they had forgotten her.
“My name is Osyva.” What does she need? She does not know.
