"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
It makes no difference, that he’s been gone, does it?
Druid is no memorable being, not a creature celebrated for existing, nor mourned for his absence. He simply IS, that’s all he’s ever been. Isn’t that enough?
The trees, now, they can’t really say that he’s been missing, ever mindful of his haunts- wooded landscapes drenched in sap and leaf riddled sediment. No, the forest does not notice him gone, because he had never left it. Druid was always there, lost in the menagerie of veridian, seeking comfort and familiarity against the rust, rigid bark. Liver stained chestnut, disappearing into the timbers, an eternity spent searching for purpose- at least it felt infinite.
Cold clings to his lips, breath finding its way into the chilled air- puffs of smoke and fog, hanging, clinging like white sheets. Even his whiskers beg to evaporate, turn to ice, thin things- they would break. Break like he never did, not even in his most trying of years, though he has been close, a time or two. Surely he isn’t the only one.
(She has died how many lifetimes over? Again and again, a loop without a start or finish. Time waits for none. Was she even real? Sometimes he wonders if he is real too.)
It could have been yesterday, walking this same path, smelling these same smells, tasting this same bitter Winter. Perhaps it was.
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war.
She is alone, and she relishes that feeling.
When you are born with three other siblings – quadruplets, which she had learned as she grew older was entirely unheard of – it was difficult to find quiet, and even more difficult to find your sense of self outside of your siblings. Their parents had raised them perfectly, never letting any of them feel left behind or forgotten, but sometimes Rosine just wanted to be alone. She wanted to be left with her own thoughts, she wanted to discover her own places, she wanted something that she didn’t have to share.
She wanted something that was just hers, and not part of a set.
It was easier, now that they were older. It didn’t seem to be as noticeable when she was gone, especially with the newborn twins garnering most of everyone’s attention. She found herself taking on her wolf form more often, finding it was more practical to navigate the more rugged, isolated parts of Beqanna on paws rather than hooves, and it was far more satisfying than simply gliding over it with wings.
She is in the forest today, her gray fur blending almost seamlessly with the dreary winter backdrop and further muted by the dim light as she travels over fallen limb and through the bramble. It’s his scent that causes her to stop, to lift her head and further test the air with her nose, her bright eyes sharpening. She did not often find horses this far out, and when she did, they tended to be the kind she wanted to steer clear of – or, the kind that Beqanna was better off without anyway.
But she shifts before she approaches, deciding to see what he was like without being faced with the threat of a predator. Her wolf form disappears, and when she reveals herself from behind the copse of trees, she is fully equine – but still with those same vibrantly colored eyes that pierce him through the shadows. “Why are you so far out here?” She asks him from where she stands, the faint glow of her skin chasing away the darkness, and with pastel roses woven throughout her hair it was difficult to imagine that just moments before she is the same girl that had been contemplating whether this man was a meal or a conversation companion.
Everything starts to feel the same, a tireless existence of yesterdays and tomorrows. It starts to feel the same, even seems the same in some ways- this monotonous repetition of solitude.
However, nothing stays the same, not even him.
The years ticked by, his comfort sought in the wilderness, tangled in tree and vine, the evidence of such a life, embedded in his flaxen hair. Druid was always alone, in a manner of speaking, if one does not count the towering pine or the other him that remains buried and shielded from the cold. Druid’s canine was not suited for the shadow of Winter, not built to flourish in the bitter winds, that part of him recoils as she nears- it does not like confrontation. The faint wolf smell evaporates as quickly as it had come, perhaps he had imagined it.
(The phantom smell leaves his nostrils flared wide, unsure of the source. Eyes threaten to spin and the white become vivid and noticeable, muscles tense. It is only a moment, but that’s all it takes, doesn’t it?)
Another pretty girl, it is so much like the day before. Has it been just a day? A russet head shakes the thought away, he’s lost track of the years passing, mind lagging. Is he clinging to the past?
If he wanted to be alone, he was alone, maybe that’s why he remains solitary in the forest- he forgets his herd, if he has ever had one.
A heartbeat passes, thrums, before he answers her. “The trees are thicker in the depths, it is warmer this way,” a reply based on basic comfort, but it is the quiet that calls him into the shelter of a bark made cage. For all his freedom, it is the suffocating snare of loneliness that brings relief.
At least it did, for a time, but the faint glow that illuminates her skin, is a pretense of warmth and he dares to take a step towards her.
“Is it that far?” He asks, eyes floating like swamp water to the copse around them.
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war.
She recognizes the tension that reads like a map across his body – the tautness of the muscle and the flare of his nostrils, the look in his eye as he tries to seek out the source of the predatory smell. She could reassure him, she supposes, but she doesn’t. It didn’t seem necessary, since she had no intention of bringing him harm (though she thinks she can feel his heartbeat and the way it pulses in his throat, thinks maybe she can see the way it rushes the length of his jugular vein), and she finds it unlikely that she will meet him again after this.
For someone that grew up in such a large family, she has never been good at forming connections, much less keeping them.
But the smile that she offers him is a genuine one. She could be coarse, at times, but she was not unkind, and the action seems to soften the intensity of her stare. “I guess I’ve grown used to the cold,” because she is usually in her wolf form out the forest, with her thick undercoat and protective guard hairs. Even as a horse she thinks maybe her wings, and the way they curl across her back and hug her sides, might make her less susceptible to the elements than the average individual.
“It’s further than most travel,” she says as her gaze drifts to stare in the direction that leads back to the more populated part of Beqanna. Her bright eyes turn back to him when he steps towards her, and she does not move. “You must not be afraid of the dark.” Another smile, one that is dimly lit by the soft glow that radiates from her skin. “Me neither.”
He knows the answer before it is spoken, long before it forms against her lips but it doesn’t keep him from asking. There’s something about things spoken, the words making them more real or physical, touchable things- it’s not just his imagination, he’s no figment.
Company does not reach here, the tethers that tie them to the world tug them back like a fishing rod- they are complacent in their nets. Druid can not blame them, it is not wrong of them to seek friendship, love- he used to do the same, once upon a time.
It doesn’t last, it never did, the only constant in his world has been the earth around him- the flourish of plant life, the canopy cover of leaves above him. He forgets the stars nowadays, the glint of silver speckled dark, the infinite night sky- how it once might have made him feel so small, such a great big world out there.
Stars do not shine here, but She does.
Her lips coax a smile, genuine, and he knows in that moment that she is no illusion- she’s just as real as he is. As he nears the dim light of her essence, the density of his breath catches his eyes, the way his rapid intake and emission of air hangs like curtains before his lips.
“I find the dark cathartic, if I’m truthful, I like closed in spaces,” and that he did, not unlike the sepia-toned scent hound he harbored. Druid did not balk at the tightness, the closeness of the clustered trees, the depth of the pitch black. They made him feel secure- even in spite of the previous threat.
If he is to die, then he is to die, there was no malady for it- he would confront his end head first, like a badger in the burrow.
Death, though it is inevitable, at least it is just the once...for most of them.
(She lived and died in bitter sweet succession, he must have been a coward to not take her place. Perhaps that is why he no longer clings to his life like he once had, the consequences of his actions lingered on his conscience.)
“You must forgive me,” a chuckle, soft but gruff from disuse, “I’m afraid I have begun to lose my senses out here on my own….. My name is Druid.” Maybe it is himself that is lost, his mind slipping to the past so frequently when met with the presence of another. He must pause before a name is given, he’s nearly forgotten what it sounds like to say it, the weight of it is much more than he expected.
“So,” head lifts, he straightens his stature, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war.
She finds his answer to be curious, and she tilts her head and regards him with something like surprise. “I like the dark, but I’m not sure if I like closed spaces.” She looks around, taking in the towering trees and the pressing darkness, but again she is drawn to the path that would lead them back to the light. “I suppose I don’t mind, when I know there is a way out.” She had grown up with no borders and no restrictions, with nothing, really, tying her to any one place. She had her family that was anchored in Tephra, and maybe she was foolishly comfortable with the idea of being able to travel as far as she wanted and still having a home to return to.
She doesn’t really know what a closed space is, she realizes.
“Druid,” his name incites a feeling of magic, and she wonders what kind he might have. She does not realize that she has been blessed with more gifts than most – that she is brimming with nearly everything her parents could have possibly given her, from the opal of her hooves to being able to shift into a different animal entirely, and all sorts of things in between. “My name is Rosine.”
Having not had much interaction with anyone outside of her immediate family, she realizes that everything about this man is a mystery. It wasn’t often that she made an effort to actually speak with anyone, to learn their story, or if they would even share it. She isn’t sure why this suddenly clicks into place for her now, that she stares at him and is suddenly drawn in by the idea of mystery, of unearthing whatever he might allow her to. “Where are you from? Were you born here?”
A pleasure, and it is- in this instance, he is not burdened by a native, does not scowl or huff in her presence.
He disliked his own kind once, the whole lot, creatures that carved rifts in the world without care; took much more than they gave. There were rivers of their greed, overwhelming the banks, drowning the earth with gluttony. That was such a long time ago, maybe Time does something other than fail to wait. Time heals, so they say.
Before he responds, he thinks, considers why limited spaces might not be for everyone. “I suppose it depends on how big you are,” he really takes a moment to reflect on that, chewing his cheek. “Of course, it’s important to know you can always take a step back,” he takes a step in reverse, then another.
Maybe it was akin to tugging a fox from its den, this meeting of the two, she seemed to lend him an ear at any rate.
It’s nice that she has come here, he thinks to himself, a constellation in the forest dark.
“No Rosine, I’m not from here,” shaking his head side to side, his chin dips towards his chest, tangle of hair falling to obscure his eyes. He’s not from here, though he smells heavily of this wood, the lichen and leaf permeate his skin. Tucked away from the outside world, he had all but given up his existence.
“I’m from a forest, not unlike this one, sometimes I think I can smell the same trees here,” deep breath in, as if doing so would coax the memory back. What he does not say is that the word, sometimes, was more specific to his other form- sometimes.
Druid’s beginning was all too similar to this, bark fenced paths, birds against a thick canopy. He doesn’t know what his home is anymore, although he is certain that he used to have one, he belonged somewhere- once upon a time.
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war.
She likes him, she realizes, and maybe that surprises her. It wasn’t that she typically disliked everyone, because that was certainly not the truth. But it wasn’t often that she stayed long enough to truly gauge whether someone was worth liking or not. She was, in a sense, a perfect combination of her parents. Had it not been for Wonder’s gentleness and kindness, and the exuberance of her siblings, Rosine likely would have been as naturally calloused as her father could be. But her mother softened all the hard parts of her father that existed inside of her, and instead she was simply guarded – reserved. She preferred to watch rather than to partake, preferred to listen rather than speak, not so entirely unlike Nightlock.
How strange, she thinks, to find a companion out here in the wilderness.
Or, maybe it was not strange at all.
Maybe it made perfect sense that the lone wolf in the woods would find someone that loved the dark and the forest just as much as she did.
“There are a lot of forests in Beqanna,” she reasons, unsure if he means he had been born on the outside, or just in a forest different than this one. “But this one is my favorite. Because it doesn’t belong to anyone except the wild.” She has seen most of the others; the redwoods of Taiga and the eternal autumn of Sylva, and of course the jungle-like trees of Tephra. For some reason the deep dark of this forest is what always called her back.
“I was born in Tephra, and my family still lives there.” She pauses for a moment, as though she is debating on whether or not to finish her thought. Her turquoise eyes seek out his, and the small smile that lifts at one corner of her lips is almost sad. “But it isn’t home.” She has never said that out loud; has never verbalized that her birthplace didn’t speak to her like she thought it should. “So I guess I don’t have a home, really. I’m still looking for it.”
In the most proverbial sense, a layer is elevated, peeled away until he is left exposing the annual rings of his past. Somehow, she had lifted away his bark, pressed clean passed the phloem and plucked his inner truths into words.
For some reason, this convergence caused him to share something about himself, untainted by hatred or mistrust.
Deft hands.
She made him speak, this delver of the dark, and for the first time in a long time, he was willing to. Without force or coercion.
There are many forests in the world, he wants to tell her, but now it is her turn to confide; in whatever way she might choose.
A stillness takes over, causes the line of his lips to smooth and seal, then his ears to pivot towards her.
He should have listened Then, so he makes sure to listen Now.
Names, she knows them, Druid can only marvel at her familiarity with the trees of Beqanna. The many labels of each, slipping away from her as easily as sap, honeyed quicksand, and for a moment- he forgets himself as he listens.
Of them, there is only one he himself knows, Taiga, and it makes him feel uncertain once more. It is but a memory now, a good one, but he had slipped away as he tends to- a ghost to haunt the thicket.
“Sometimes, home is what you make it,” he says decidedly, wanting to alleviate the pain that threatens to steal her smile. “Home doesn’t have to be where you are, it can be who you are too,” and then, there is his own smile that creeps, shadowed by the dim light of the coppice.
Unfair words, coming from a man who has told so little, refrained from becoming wholly vulnerable and exposed.
“Do you like berries?” He wonders out loud, and gestures for a walk, tossing his sun-faded head. Should she be open to doing him the favor of her company, he would take her to the ripe fruit baring bushes.
if he threatens you with battle,
you raise him a whole war.
She finds herself smiling at what he says, but it is a smile tinged with sadness. Her glow seems to dim, and it shadows the quiet confidence in her bright-colored eyes when she confesses, “I don’t think I know who I am, either.”
She was the first born of the quadruplets – her, two brothers, and a sister. From the moment she had been born it had been hard to shake the feeling that she was simply part of a set. It was nothing wrong her parents had done, of course. Nightlock and Wonder were both loving and attentive parents (in their separate ways). In a land where darkness often twisted through every bit of light it could find, her upbringing was a rarity. She didn’t have an excuse to feel the way that she did. She already knows this, and it makes her feel guilty, knowing that her parents and her siblings would be hurt and confused at the idea that she felt like she didn’t belong.
“I’m sure it will all come together someday,” she finally says hastily, an indicator that she was not searching for pity and also did not want to linger on the topic any longer. Thankfully, he redirects the conversation, and she tilts her head for a moment in consideration. Her conversations did not usually make it this far, and did not know how to handle the idea that someone actually seemed interested in her staying. She can feel her skin begin to itch with the urge to shift back into her wolf form and disappear into the depths of the forests, but she looks again to his face again, and she nods with a slim smile, “I do. Can you show me?”
With her wings tucked into her sides she positions herself alongside of him as they walk, and stealing a sideways glance from beneath her flower-tangled forelock she says, “Thanks for talking to me. I don’t usually talk much, so...I’m not very good at it.”
