"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
He no longer feels quite like an equine. At times he can nearly catch and decipher the whispers at the edge of his sleep. He feels his blood boil and cool in a single breath. After his discovery that he could move as a full blooded Dragon God to that of a fog and then to a lightning strike, he attempts to discover what else lay dormant. Could he read minds? No. Teleport? No. Communicate with the dead? No. Yet he is satisfied. He finds himself grinning darkly after the sun sets deep into the embrace of Beqanna's curved hip and nearly dares his father, the mighty Gunsynd, to show his twisted face and challenge him. Lior has waited decades to regain the power he once possessed. He is no longer the shy colt his maker had made him into. There would be no more fear, no more humiliation.
He emerges high in the sky as a dark blemish against an early spring morning. The dew still clung to sharp grasses and velvet flower petals. Bees busily pollinated and hummed their worker's songs. The onyx dragon drops from his altitude to better find a place to settle. Many places hid sleeping spring foals or fawns that he did not wish to crush under his weight, so the meadow was the easiest choice to find footing into the damp soil. Lior moves downward slowly, the sheer bulk of his mass is engulfing as he nearly blots out the sun. The glass of his black eyes narrow and scan with heightened senses as he proceeds to descend. There be hardly any others roaming the early dawn and he finds this enticing to explore what world Beqanna had become while he dreamed.
Slowly, the long nails rake into the ground but he is well practiced to take care not to destroy the meadow. He settles easily enough, graceful and with a tenderness of his surroundings before slipping into his dull form of a simple inky black stallion with tangles in his hair. Silver-white eyes peer beneath the long fore lock, giving it a slight toss from his whiskered lips and long lashes. Each hoof falls solidly, the roll of his hip heavy as the scars that stitched haphazardly over his male form. He breathes deep to taste the virgin morning's scent. The dewy dawn was intoxicating and he is instantly pleased to have dared leave his chilly cave in Nerine.
The smell of others has softened and scattered as it has been some time since most others bedded down. Bird song is all that greeted him and a small smile toyed on his dark lips. The squirrels and robins watched him curiously from the safety of their nests thought the nasty horseflies already grew brave enough to bite at the tender points of his hips (though they were soon greeted by the lashing of his burr ridden tail). Lior eases enough to drop his head and pull at the tender spring grass, their flavor sweet and bright on his dry tongue. He soon finds himself famished and tears at the greenery with a savageness of a starving man, unaware others could be watching and judging the primal stallion with disapproving eyes.
Seasons had passed since the portal had spit her back out on Hyaline’s shores and she thinks she’s done an admiral job in trying to adapt back to the ways of Beqanna. Although memories still lurk around every corner (some haunt her more than others), the pain that comes with them is starting to ease. Just a little. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t lonely, she was. It was hard to face this world alone and even harder for a fallen star. The small balls of light that glitter and twinkle around her still offer a source of comfort but it’s not the same as the warmth she had once felt curled against the smooth scales of Amet. The laughter she had shared with Castile. The mothering of Jah-Lilah.
The Meadow still offers some of the best star gazing so she still finds herself here often enough on cool spring nights, her swirling silver gaze turned to the celestial world above. Wondering if perhaps the reason for her existence on this mortal plane was coming to a close. She thinks back on the worlds she had seen before as she jumped from portal to portal, of the creatures and horses she had come to know, of the losses she had endured. It was heavy stuff for a simple star turned mortal. Enough to make her head foggy until she curled up in the grasses beneath the star dusted heavens, falling asleep in the silvery caress of their light.
The sun is pale but bright as it starts to rise from its mountain cradle and she wakes with the dawn, yawning and stretching leisurely. The heavy sound of wings makes her turn her sluggish swirls upwards and what she sees wipes all traces of sleep from her system. A dragon, dark and ominous, passes overhead on huge leathery wings, blotting out the smears of pink and gold light as it quietly cuts through the atmosphere. Her heart is suddenly in her throat and her lungs swell with the sharp inhale she takes. It’s not fear that freezes her, not the normal kind of fear that most would have seeing a mythical predator swooping in from the horizon anyways. She had never gotten to see Castile shift but she knew he could. Could this be him, the dragon of what-ifs from her teenage years?
The beast moves away from her but she starts to trail it, not really thinking about just how dangerous that might be. Although she had been apprehensive in Hyaline regarding the lake’s resident kelpie, she was normally not one to cower in fright in the face of a threat. Hyaline held a different kind of opponent, filled with recollections of an emotional pain that hurt worse than any scar on her body ever had.
Sometimes memories are scarier than monsters.
By the time its claws are sinking into the earth she is trotting over the hill between them, just in time to see the reptile shift into a more familiar shape. A dark stallion stands out in the middle of the meadow and the breath she had been holding slowly releases, shaky and tight. It’s not him. It’s not Castile. She should go, she thinks. She should leave. Her hooves start moving with a mind of their own in the opposite direction. As if the ancient star of her soul cannot help itself, drawn to another ancient being before her. It had been said before and would be said again, Ciri had always been drawn to dragons.
The sun had come up enough for the stars covering her to start to dim, soaking in the sunlight greedily so they could shine bright for this evening’s performance. As she closes the distance, he watches his head lower as his whiskered muzzle pushes through the tender shoots of spring blades, ripping at the grass without much thought. Her metallic gaze sweeps over him with interest, looking for any familiar features in the dragonborn of the ones she had known before. Her heart flutters uncertainly as she lingers on the carved muscles of his chest, on the hardened planes of his face, the long tangled strands of onyx hair that lay loosely over a thick neck. The swirls of her eyes seem to move faster as he takes notice of her, realizing with a start that his eyes somewhat match her own. That her stars would look eerily bright against the night canvas of his black skin.
“Hi.” She finally manages to say with a small smile on soft lips, suddenly incredibly insecure of the thousands of scars that were lashed into her own smoky skin. Feeling strangely raw and vulnerable as she stands before the stranger.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
His descent had been a soundless symphony. As a dragon, Lior seemed to possess a more elegant demeanor and a grace he had never mastered as a stallion. His stands alone, under the early dawn, tasting dew and the crisp strands of green grass when the most gentlest of voices ripples his secluded world. A small, single syllable is enough to rip him from his murky thoughts, a tiny 'hi'. The tall male ends the abrupt tearing and pauses a moment to suddenly inhale a perfume of an unknown mare.
His head jerks high, pale silver eyes immediately scrutinizing for some malice, taking a step forward without hesitation or forward thought. Lior does not wish to crowd her or invade her respective distance but it shall be known that without his queen or children, he feared nothing anymore. Lior is not a creature of poetic stanzas. One could never quite string together a quote longer than a few brisk grunts from the older equine for he chose to speak fluently with those worth sharing conversation. Ferocious with his eyes alone, he reads her smoky face, his pale eyes flit over her form and notes the stretch of her heavy scars. She was no dainty creature interrupting him for coy conversation...there was fading starlight in her eyes but starlight nonetheless. Lior snorts and drops his head once again to tear a mouthful of the green grass, chewing and wondering how he should proceed.
He could simply leave, never to see her again, unbothered and alone in his cave but he is tired of the isolation and his own thoughts. He could actually feel the craving of foreign conversation. "Hello." The voice is low and thick, aged in whisky with depth thatched by leather. Lior remembers to be polite (for Nayl would have nipped him hard on the shoulder) and lifts his head to soften his expression. This time Lior notices her modesty, her body curls slightly inward and he blames himself for the crumble of a seemingly war-hardened mare. "Sorry." The word is grunted softly as he drops his eyes momentarily and allows a few seconds to tick away. "I'm Lior." He breathes his own name lowly, a burn that tasted exquisite on his own tongue. How many years had it been since he had to introduce himself? How long had it been since he had even left the solitude of his Nerinen cave? He can sense a long dormant excitement budding somewhere in his depths.
As much as he can muster, Lior attempts to soften his features from a feral beast to that of polite recognition. He pressed his ears forward while flicking his mane from his eyes so she may see his full feature and relaxes his crested, corded neck. She was not much smaller than himself but her body wove tales of hardships for perhaps her entire existence. He tenses at his own regret as potentially causing her unease. "Your name?" The Lior before this would not have asked, content to refer to her as simply 'mare', but Nayl had taught him respect. She had taught him manners and tamed the shabby beast he had once been (though his outward appearance certainly did not reflect it in this moment).
He does not attempt any moves forward but scents the air for any familiarity. Perhaps her name, her lineage, could be a glimpse into a recognizable identity. The dark male falls silent as he awaited her reply, silver eyes moving from scars to the fading starlight that threatened to trick him into thinking he had imagined it.
When she had been Hyaline’s Heart it had been a place of sanctuary. For castaway children, lost souls, and the broken hearted that had nowhere else to go. They have both been shaped by the ones they had loved and lost, pieces of them woven into the very fabric of their souls. So despite how rough he looks around the edges or how worn and gruff his voice is, she doesn’t wilt underneath the ferocity of his gaze. The swirls of silver instead calmly gaze back into his until he finally turns away with a dismissive snort and returns to tearing at the earth with his teeth.
Loosening another shaky breath as the pressure of the dragon releases, she chews at the inside of her lip. He seems to be blatantly ignoring her and she thinks maybe this was a huge mistake and perhaps she needs to stop flying off after every dragon she sees. However he suddenly looks up at her again before her resolve starts to crumble, a kinder look, before dropping his gaze at the same time he drops his apology. “It’s ok.” She responds quietly, suddenly embarrassed and averts her own silvery eyes to a part of the forest behind him. Trying to hide the intensity of emotion that swirls in her breast, blaming it on being alone for too long with only memories to keep her warm. Everything about him screamed of neglect. Burrs tangled into tight knots in the length of his mane, dirt streaked smoky patterns amongst his raven coat. He obviously had not been taking the best care of himself. Beneath all the grime and grunge, she can see the handsome older stallion hidden below. Can sense the heat of the dragon that flickers and beckons.
Lior. The name is strange to her but her iris’s flick back to him with curiosity. “Lior.” She breathes back, tasting the unfamiliar letters that curl around her tongue. Her smile spreads slightly, curling the corners of her lips and softening the ravaged scar slashed across her eye. There's a surge of warmness in her own name that she easily gives when he asks. “Ciri.” She offers and then suddenly scrambles in the following silence for some sort of justification for why she had approached him in the first place.
“I didn’t mean to annoy you.” She starts, the stardust from her subdued companions leaving fine glittery powder in the dark strands of her forelock and dusting silvery threads along the soft curve of her shoulder. Reflecting an array of colors in the rising sunlight. “ I just… saw you flying in. I thought you were someone else actually.” She gives a small laugh, trying to ease the awkwardness that suddenly floods them both. She doesn’t tell him that it's not just mistaken identity that has her lingering. That her strange connection with the stars had drawn her to him, whispered something to her curiosity, that made her stay.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
