[open] i pretend i'm burning bright; romek, any

[Lilitha]

i pretend to close my eyes;
i pretend i'm burning bright.

God, it was cold in there. So cold, so cold, so cold, and wet. I do not like wet. Wet is slimy and sticky and gross and did I mention cold? Even out, wet is cold. Not colder, exactly, but a different kind of cold. One that blows past and tangles in hair instead of one that surrounds and smothers and muffles all the lovely warmth.

At least out, though. At least I am out.

I wobble and stagger, trying to stand. Trying to make legs cooperate when they’re so used to being confined inside the cold wet yuck. This freedom thing’s still pretty new, but I would like to try it out anyhow. So I get up. With a bit more difficulty than I’d like to admit, and a whole lot of falling on my face and my side and my butt. Eventually, though, I get it figured out. One foot, two foot, red foot, blue foot--no wait, that’s not right.

Three foot, four foot. Right.

I don’t have any blue anyhow, no wonder it wasn’t working. And my feet are black, it’s just my hair that’s red. Or my tail at least. It’s kind of hard to see, but I think maybe there’s red on the top of my neck too? I’d ask, but. Well.

The bearer of the cold wet yuck has yet to acknowledge me, not even to look at me. Or talk to me, or say anything at all even. Still, she’s the one with the food, I can smell it from here even. I take the few unsteady steps needed to close the distance between her and me, and nose at her flank, glancing up at her to see if...nope. Nothing, just standing there. Well. Okay, cool then. I duck under her leg and drink my fill, then lick more wet off my lips because get off me and also because my belly could probably use that last drop or two anyhow.

And then I curl up on the nice dry ground to sleep. And when I get cold, a few little sparks dance along my skin to keep me nice and cozy and warm.

When I wake up, my unresponsive dam has wandered off some, not bothering to wake me or wait for me or even really indicate that she’s noticed I’m here. I scramble to my feet, and chase after her the best I can, stumbling along the way and tumbling to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs and awkward, sticky, unkempt baby fur.

Ow. Oh, ow! My lower lip trembles, and my vision gets all blurry, and it hurts. My face, and my knee, and I’m dripping red and it hurts and owwww. “Momma?” Oh, and I don’t like the piteous little mew, or the wet that trickles down my cheek, or the more wet that’s creeping slowly down my leg. But she doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even look back at me. So I get up, and I limp toward her, my head hanging low.

I’m hungry again. But I have to wait ‘til she stops on her own before I can sneak more milk, and by then I’m at least tripping over myself less. Walking’s not so bad, really. Once you get used to it. I just feel like I’ve been walking my whoooole life, and I’m so tired, and--oh! I bump into my mother, who I guess got tired of walking. Before she can change her mind, I fill my belly up with milk again. And I want to curl up and sleep so bad, but if she wanders...away...again…

I jerk awake, and once again she has wandered off, but at least this time not so far. Sighing, I clamber to my feet and walk after her, not bothering to run and trip and fall on my dumb face again, thanks. Another game of chase, another full belly, and then...this time she falls asleep.

And I wander off.

Not that she’ll care.

Scruffy, sticky, still covered in the gross crusty remnants of the business of being born, with a scraped up knee and a scraped up cheek and a scraped up heart, I walk away. It’s dumb, I already know that before I’ve gone two sad little steps. But if she doesn’t want me around, well. I’ll find somebody who does. Or. At least someone who moves around less.

@[Romek] 

[torrid]

TORRID
tarnished x kerowyn, skeleton shifting, wanderer

Let the dead bury the dead, they will come out in droves
But take the spade from my hands and fill in the holes you've made

Torrid’s mother also couldn’t seem to stay in one place.

She hadn’t been neglectful in any way. He had always had his belly full and a warm body to curl up against at night when the darkness creeped upon them. He had older sisters to keep him company and he had all his bumps and bruises fussed over appropriately. But ever since the bright flash of light that had shone in the distance, his mother had suddenly become engrossed in some mysterious mission.

It had been disconcerting.

She had packed up their little family and hurriedly coaxed them into a fast pace of travel. The skeleton boy had been bewildered by her brusque manner. She wasn’t overly concerned with her surrounding children and the way they seemed to be lagging tiredly behind her. The second night of travel had resulted into Torrid becoming separated from his group. It had been dark and a sudden rustling noise to his right had made the poor boy lose his footing and take a tumble down the leaf-littered raised elevations of the forest.

He had been lost to the night.

Now the yearling wandered the forest, desperately searching for any clues of his family’s whereabouts. It was during this fruitless wandering that he happened to bump into another child perhaps as lost as he was. Her appearance seemed to be a bit unkempt and gross, much like his other ugly self. She was certainly much smaller than himself and the skeleton boy briefly wondered where any of her family members were. She was much too young, in his opinion, to be allowed out of sight just yet.

The blue roan boy approached the girl with concern flashing through his eyes in an otherwise fairly stoic expression to his face. He had long since ran out of any tears to cry and now his fear and worry became locked behind a thin wall of dying hope. He couldn’t bear to leave this girl alone if she truly was just as lost as himself.

“Are you all right?”

[Romek]

ROMEK

Why, if he were thirty years younger perhaps he would also share their dilemma: his mother, once upon an age, had been so obsessed with just laying around and moping it had driven him to despair. And while she was mostly indifferent towards her little son, she had moments of almost guilty love, where she would draw him close (too close) and tell him how much she loved him, and how sorry she was and so on and so on until his ears were tired of hearing it.

So he’d turned to the dunes instead, and they filled his ears with sifting whispers of distant lands, and for quite a time he was happy, or, at least, he thought he was happy enough.

But that is all an age ago, and it is long gone, and now he is a man grown, with spots upon his back, and a face that is a good deal more handsome than his younger self’s. And he’s grown inside, too – his self loathing has developed into a pretty shade of sarcasm, and, well – these days? He finds himself singing to himself. Singing birdsong, or a babbling brook, or the rustle of leaves in a tree – whatever the music, he is fucking singing it because apparently all he needed to do was get out of the Deserts, out of those comforting heavy chains. Or perhaps it was Mari (although he still feels very hesitant about admitting to himself just how much he enjoys her company – its still a scary thing, opening yourself up). Warmer than the Desert sun, but with none of its scorch. Like she held a box of pleasant spring sunshine within herself, which shone through her skin, her golden hair.

The Forest, he realises, is a pretty place and very nice to be in. A fair bit nicer than the Meadow, he would say. And he had yet to meet someone here who had rubbed him the wrong way, which was rather unusual.

He is distracted from this (rather dull) train of thought by two waif-like children, one younger, one older, but both equally dirty and neglected-looking. He frowns, looking for their parents, but there is no-one around them, and Romek would judge that they are both far too young to be out on their own. Out on their own in the common lands, anyway, if this was the Playground it would be an entirely different matter. And perhaps its his own miserable upbringing, but he can’t help it, his heart goes out to both of them. The lost, the strange-looking, the unwanted. Because he knew that drill all too well.

So he does not hesitate in approaching them, catching the tail end of the older one’s words, which cause his dark lips to curve into a gentle smile.
”Are both of you alright?” And where the fuck are your parents? Do they not give a shit about you? –Although that last part remained unspoken. It’s to the young girl he goes to first, as she is still covered in the remains of her birth into this world. It’s… somewhat gross, but Romek dutifully attempts to lick the filly clean. Whether she will stand still is another matter. He turns to the boy, too, tilts his head, extends his nose (taking a short break from cleaning the gunk off the baby) to exchange breaths in greeting. And while he would very much like to lick the boy clean too (OOC: IF THIS SENTENCE WAS TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, IT WOULD SOUND AWFUL), he does not want to embarrass him.

”I am Romek. What do you two call yourselves?” he frowns again, and looks around. For now, at least, he can offer his protection. Not everyone has the best intentions, after all.

fuck all your dreams, they’re not all they seem

[Lilitha]

i pretend to close my eyes;
i pretend i'm burning bright.

Okay, so I decided to find somebody to stick to, right? But turns out that is a little more complicated than you might think. The forest I’m wandering through isn’t exactly drowning in conveniently placed moms with extra milk and slow feet. Sadly. I’ve kind of given up just a little bit, maybe just for a few minutes at least, and am about to curl up in a ball and sleep under one of the trees when someone makes noise nearby.

Startled, I jump, my coat shedding sparks as I jolt to attention. Oh, oops! I stomp on a few that catch into tiny little flames on the ground, putting out the baby fires before they grow up to be biiiig fires. And then I peek up at the stranger who actually talked to me, nervous and unsure. I bite my lip and nod, because I guess I am alright. I’m not dead, or starving (yet), or hurt much, aside from my knee and my cheek which isn’t so bad really, so I guess I’m alright.

I’m opening my mouth to say so when somebody else talks, and I jump again. This time at least the sparks cling to my skin and don’t try to burn the world down, so maybe that’s progress? They’re even sort of nice, cozy and warm and lovely ‘til they fade back into nothing and I immediately miss the contact.

Well but not for long. Because before I can even answer, the new stranger who is much bigger than the first stranger is licking me. I tense up, because being touched is new and unexpected but oh, it is nice, and in a minute or two I’m all warm and gooey inside, and my face is doing this weird thing where my lips curve upward, I don’t even know. But I like it.

Oh and it feels good to be clean and not sticky and crusty and gross. And I’m fluffy underneath all the yuck, a sort of mousy blackish fluff that is soft when I touch it with my nose, instead of spiky and awful.

When the big person stops for a minute to sniff the slightly less big person, I step closer, carefully, quietly, and just nestle up against him. But I’m ready to jump away at the first sign he doesn’t want me to, it’s just he’s nice and it seems like it would feel good to be close. “...call ourselves?” Um. I tilt my head, peering up at his chin. Romek’s chin, he’s Romek. “I...mostly just call myself I. Um. Nnnobody’s ever called me anything.”

[torrid]

TORRID 
tarnished x kerowyn, skeleton shifting, wanderer

Let the dead bury the dead, they will come out in droves
But take the spade from my hands and fill in the holes you've made

Torrid takes some hurried steps backwards when the girl’s skin seems to suddenly erupt into tiny sparks of fire. He’d like to avoid adding second degree burns onto his bucket list of bad things that will occur for now. He watches, almost in disbelief, as the goo-covered girl nonchalantly begins to stomp on some of the stray sparks that had successfully reached the ground. He was definitely used to some weird stuff, considering his sisters had the ability to do practically anything. Plus, he turned into a weird skeleton whenever he wanted, which was actually pretty useless. But someone creating fire from their body was a totally new concept for him to experience.

The fire girl nods hesitantly in response to his question and he’s glad that she seems to at least be somewhat stable in her surroundings. Even if she keeps randomly bursting into flames. But the skeleton boy didn’t have any room to judge another for their weird tendencies. Another stranger calls out to the both of them and he startles just as much as the girl before him but with much less fanfare. She seems completely comfortable with the other’s presence and his hackles are sufficiently lowered. After all, if someone didn’t hesitant to start bathing gods knows what off of a complete stranger, they have got to be a saint in real life, correct?

“Well I ain’t dead yet.”

Torrid didn’t mince his words, but he could certainly hear Kerowyn in the back of his mind saying “manners!” every once in a while. He notices that underneath all that goo, the girl had red hair and absent-mindedly he believes it quite appropriate. The roan stallion turns his attention to him and extends his muzzle in greeting. He seems to take a more cautious approach to Torrid and the boy can appreciate the space. For a boy who had just lost his family, little did he know that he was currently exchanging breaths with his uncle. He did not know his father’s face and Kerowyn’s reluctance had stayed Torrid from further broaching the subject. All he had was a name for a man he had never met.

“Torrid.”

Romek seemed solid and real. This was perhaps someone who could help him. Someone who he could easily rely on. After all, the baby fire girl was practically digging herself a den into the other’s skin. Surely, fire babies would have some self-preservation, right? But then again, she could be just as fucking clueless as himself at the moment.