"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 had been day, she was certain of it.
It had been day and then, quite suddenly and much earlier than it should have been, it was night. Or something like night.
She had curled herself into the darkness of some nondescript corner of the forest where the sun could not reach her (how terribly it burned her skin to be exposed to it!) and had emerged, blinking, when all of the light had gone from the world.
It was not night, she knew that, but it certainly was not day either. Not anymore. Not when it should have been.
If it were night, her vision would have been clear, unmuddied by the sun’s rays. And the vision had certainly improved, but it was not as it should have been. She did not burn when she emerged, though, which was perhaps the most important thing. More important, certainly, than her ability to see because she had more or less learned to navigate the world blind.
She wanders now through the dense darkness, spooked occasionally by the way the shadows seem to move and teem with life. She peers into them but cannot discern darkness from darkness, unaware that the things that linger in the shadows are the sort of things whose edges soften when they are looked at directly.
She goes to the river because she thinks it familiar. She moves quickly and finds herself breathless by the time she makes it to the water’s edge. The auroras splashed across her sides glow faintly in this strange darkness and (though she does not know it yet) make her an easy target.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Tiercel has picked the worst day to travel. Aside from his impromptu trip to Islandres, he has spent the fall and beginning of winter among the rocky scrubs of Loess. He hadn’t planned on staying there for such a long time; his initial visit to the kingdom had been an instinctual return to his birthplace like the salmon might return to their breeding grounds. Yet his extended stay in Loess has resulted in much to think about — perhaps most importantly the soft swelling of Islas’s sides — and he had ventured out to spend the day in thought.
The sun and moon collide in the sky above his head as he wanders along the edge of the River. With this collision, the world darkens. The day becomes night but as Tiercel turns his pale eyes toward the sky, he notices the absence of the moon or stars. There is nothing but a dark swathe of emptiness, and the shadows are so heavy he almost forgets to breathe.
His thoughts on Islas and their future child are abandoned, but Tiercel continues to walk. It is difficult to pick out the curving path of the River among the shadows — there are no stars to glitter off the soft currents — so he keeps his dark navy legs in the shallows. Though there hasn’t been recent snow in this region, the water is bitterly cold and Tiercel feels his skin first prickle and then grow numb.
Her glowing sides are faint, at first, but as he comes closer they become brighter in his eyes. She is brilliant in the heavy darkness, a beam of light that might draw moths to her flame. Tiercel’s cerulean eyes peer into the shadows around them; they are close to the Forest and he wonders if those monsters might see her light and pull themselves closer as he does. He frowns, uncomfortable with how vulnerable he feels. His skin feels thinner than it ever has as if a creature could rip it from his tendons with a simple scratch, and Tiercel wraps himself and the surrounding area in calm to dissuade his nerves and any vengeful shadows.
Satisfied (and comforted by the way his heart slows its beating from its anxious skittering), the dun-and-navy pulls himself closer to the girl’s glowing form. “It’s strange, this darkness.” His cerulean eyes find her glowing ones and there is an expression of discomfort in their pale depths. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m Tiercel.”
tiercel.
@[chasmata]
@[The Monsters] Curious to see what happens to his invisibility!
She feels him before she sees him.
Or, rather, she feels his influence.
The calm seeps into her muscles, which had trembled begun to tremble with caged adrenaline, her want to move with no place to go. The calm slows the ragged beat of her heart and the quick, frenzied pattern of her breath. Whatever fear she had felt moments earlier is gone by the time he reaches her.
He does not glow as she glows, but she throws enough light that she can make out the shape of him in the darkness. He is light and does not appear to be a threat, which she is grateful for. It occurs to her that she should try to make it home to the Cove but, even under the influence of his calm, she doesn’t think it would be wise to try to make the journey on her own.
She draws in a long, steady breath and casts a glance into the shadows that seem to lean in toward them. She has never seen anything like it either, she thinks but does not immediately say. She moves toward him almost imperceptibly, still acutely aware of the sense of looming danger in all that crushing darkness. She finds herself grateful that he has come along and seems to have brought this sense of calm with him.
She tries for a smile as she pulls her focus back to his face but it’s flimsy, not all that convincing. “It’s confusing,” she finally agrees and then glances quickly up toward the sky, the long stretch of absolute blackness, “it doesn’t seem to be day but it’s not night either.” She could explain to him how she has come to this conclusion, but that would require explaining the way her vision changes based on the time of day and how she seems to be stuck permanently midway between clear-eyed and absolutely blind.
“I’m Chasmata,” she tells him, “I’m glad you came along, I was starting to talk myself into being afraid.”
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
For all their bold independence, they are creatures that know safety is found in numbers. While they have an untold number of abilities, the instincts of their ancestors cling to their blood. This ancient knowledge (the feeling of something not right, the desire to seek others when things are unfamiliar, the comfort that finds both of them when they stand close together) is a tree standing in the core of their bodies. Its deep roots could not be upheaved by the fiercest of storms.
Tiercel knows the calm surrounding him is partially manufactured, but there is an original thread to it. The soft glow of Chasmata’s sides and the relief she brings as a peer does soothe him beneath the sudden darkness. His cerulean eyes search the sky as she does, peering into the vast swathe of emptiness. Tiercel’s chest tightens when he sees only black; there are no stars or moon to shimmer down on their heads. He might have shrugged off this observation last spring, but now the galaxies’ absence makes him worry for Islas.
He still cannot explain how she thrives beneath the starlight, but he understands it is essential for her.
The dun-and-navy pulls in a slow breath that plunges so deep into his lungs that his chest rises to fill with air. He holds it for a moment, focusing on the strange pinch that comes with such an action, before letting it softly slide out of his dark nostrils. “Chasmata,” he repeats, his voice neither friendly nor aggressive. A simple method of testing her name, of locking it away in his memory and tying her glowing face to the syllables.
As his voice falls silent, a great wind sweeps across them. It is the type of current that might tear across a wide-open plain, over low-lying rocks and empty fields. It feels warm on their skin, but it doesn’t feel good, even with the winter’s chill. The wind is a heavy, hot breath that flies against their shoulders and rips across their backs, grabbing the tangled bits of their hair and flinging them against their cheeks. Tiercel repeats her name, “Chasmata!” while the wind rages, but it sounds as though it were coming from somewhere far away.
It lasts only a few moments, yet when the wind finally vanishes, it feels as though it had been much longer. And Tiercel admits he feels different, like something from the middle of him has been stripped away and placed elsewhere. There is a new weight on his shoulders, and he assumes it is the hand of this strange darkness pressing down on him. His calm had slipped away with the wind and a bittersweet melody of anxiety and fear begins to softly wind between them.
He takes a shaking breath to steady himself, turning his face toward Chasmata. “Are you okay?”
At first, she thinks that he has called upon the wind. There is no reason for her to think this, really, because he has given no indication that he is a villain in this story. But she instinctively steels herself against it, bracing against its punishing force, her pale glowing eyes rolling as both of their fear spirals through her.
The heat of the wind makes her skin bristle and she fears that she will find her flesh slick with blood if she dares to look. Instead, she presses her eyes tightly closed and sways on her feet as the wind continues to scream past them.
She is only vaguely aware of the sound of her name as it is carried off by the wind and she thinks she must have imagined it. As far as she knows, Tiercel is still standing within feet of her, so it could not have possibly come from him.
It occurs to her that she should flee, put some space between them. If the wind truly is his doing then getting away from him is almost certainly the only way to escape the vicious current. But she cannot convince herself to move, stricken motionless by the anxiety that courses through her veins.
And then, just as suddenly as the wind had picked up, it dies down again. She pries her eyes open and turns to look at him, startled. But he looks equally as disconcerted by it when he turns to face her and this is enough to convince her that the wind had not been his fault.
“I think so,” she pants, glancing down at her chest and exhaling a relieved sigh to find that she has not begun to bleed. She swallows thickly and shakes her head. “What was that?” she asks, a tremor rolling down the center of her question. She grimaces and then remembers to ask, “are you okay?”
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Tiercel is relieved to find the glowing mare unharmed in the wake of the wind. The tightness in his chest slowly loosens, though it isn’t entirely gone. A constant whisper from worry has worked its way into the back of his mind, a reminder that he should make sure Islas is safe. The sudden darkness concerns him, and the wind has strengthened the fear that seems to loom over his shoulder. The star-mare is in the back of his mind, but Tiercel is grateful that this sky-mare is safe.
Knowing that Chasmata is uninjured, the dun-and-navy glances at their surroundings again. His pale eyes stare into the darkness, hoping to pick out what had drawn the wind to them. Their world is brimming with magic, and it would make sense if the wind came from someone. They have wielders of water and earth and fire — why not someone who speaks to the air? Yet there is nothing in the shadows around them, not even a stirring in the underbrush. The emptiness leaves him feeling tingly and exposed. “I don’t know. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
He has felt hot winds like this one before, but they had been welcome and familiar. Standing atop the red-rock canyons of Loess brings a fair share of whipping, warm breezes like this one. But that had been expected; there is almost always wind once you get high enough in altitude. Standing within the confines of a forest, no one would expect a fierce wind to blow through. And that is what makes him uneasy.
Tiercel forces his eyes to move back to Chasmata. “Yeah, I’m okay.” He can’t quite shake the displaced feeling from within (like energy that dwelled in him had been moved someplace else) or the sensation of being watched, but he can’t feel any physical injury. “Just shaken up.” He pauses a moment, ears twitching uncomfortably at the eerie silence around them now that the trees have stopped shaking. “I live in Loess. Would you want to come with me there? Safety in numbers, and all that. You don’t have to stay long, maybe just until this darkness goes away.” Tiercel is itching to return home, find Islas, to make sure she is safe in this absolute darkness, but he doesn’t feel right leaving Chasmata alone.
It had occurred to her as some abstract thought that she should not have been out here by herself. There were dangers lurking in the darkness that she could not have begun to imagine and it didn’t matter that she had traveled to the base of the Mountain and encountered a creature that she did not understand once. It didn’t matter that she had been given a ‘gift’ that she didn’t want because she had misinterpreted a question. The wind had proven that there were much greater things to be afraid of, much bigger things that she did not understand.
She could go home to the Cove, but it does not seem wise to make the journey alone. She studies him through the darkness a long moment, considering. There had been a split second when she had thought that he was responsible for the wind and fear had twisted wicked in the pit of her gut and she had thought to run. But he seems as genuinely perturbed by it as she is and there is nothing blatantly sinister in his offer of companionship.
After a long moment, she nods, swallowing thickly. Safety in numbers. She’s never been to Loess. She does not know anything about their relationship with the Cove or its mother kingdom, but she supposes there is no reason for her to share this information.
“Okay,” she says and nods again, “that sounds like a good idea.” Would it be unwise to admit that she’s afraid? She had tried to ease the tension by saying that she had been on the verge of taking herself into fear when he’d turned up, but the wind had nudged her rather abruptly over the edge.
“Tell me where to go and I can light the way,” she says, sounding much braver than she feels.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
