"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
06-20-2021, 07:47 PM (This post was last modified: 06-23-2021, 03:36 PM by Aloy.)
Summer closed stifling hot, reluctant to give way to a dry and slow cooling of autumn. Aloy landed on the coast weeks ago but has taken her time in coming inland. She’s no good at being home but keeps telling herself she’s staying this time. If she just tries there will be some reason to keep herself on the ground. Being home never feels like belonging. It feels just as shitty as any place else but with a bonus of eerie familiarity waving at her from this corner or that.
When things go bad she comes home. It doesn’t make any fucking sense, but here she is galloping into the midst of the field to offer herself up.
The ground is hard-packed beneath her hooves. Their percussive beats stirring dust when she gallops over the patchy grass. Whorls of flaking leaves spin across her path and disintegrate beneath her tread. The leggy mare is not certain how this is supposed to work, if she’s meant to make a friendly approach to someone else or if she ought to find a place to stand and look approachable. Both of these options are so unappealing that she strikes out at the earth and bucks once mid-flight to shake out the irritation that grips her muscles. She is not her mother, who unbeknownst to Aloy once stood on this same ground practically quivering with eagerness to know this place and its people. Aloy would rather be alone.
If she could be alone she wouldn't be back here. Her mother had made her too pretty but did not pass on the ability to wield that beauty as a weapon.
When Aloy does stop the wind plucks at her feathers and twists her flaxen mane around the bases of her back-swept antlers. Otherwise, she is as still as she can be. Her breathing slows and her green eyes sweep methodically over the nearby horses. What is it they want? Not her.
She will not stand alone long. When someone comes close enough for whatever reason they do Aloy valiantly resists the urge to pin her gold trimmed ears at them. She only turns them backward which could be mistaken for coquette except that she's practically glaring. "Can I help you?"
An excellent way to be invited into the shelter of a kingdom.
Oren hasn’t been in the Field for a while now, but he doesn’t regret not coming. If anything, he’s happy to be here now, today, and he wouldn’t have been here now if he were here yesterday. Now, yesterday for example, he had been happily following the River all the way from Hyaline to the coast, just to see how many bends there were now and if it might be different next spring.
The mare who enters the grass field is really pretty, but seems upset. The gold-marked roan cocks his head, gathers what courage he has, then shrugs a little. Oh, well. One can only know things if one finds them out.
He moves forward with a trot and the little speck of light that hides in his mane, finds its way towards the mare, curiously going farther than Oren can do. The firefly rounds one of her ears and lands on her forelock, seemingly content to be there and distract the young male. Ray! That’s not polite! But if an insect could stick out their tongue, he would have.
The mare now is glaring at Oren, and he perks his ears when she asks her question. She may not have noticed the firefly, since it is so small, so he hopes to distract her. ”I was wondering why you looked like you don’t want to come here, but you’re still here.” he blurts out in reaction to her question; it had been laying on his tongue even though he would maybe not have asked so directly, if he had had time to think about it.
He hadn’t, obviously.
@Aloy I hope this tag works and also, excuse my language, it is late
Aela has two mothers - perhaps not uncommon for Beqanna - but there is the woman who gave birth to her and then the woman that raised her. She knows very little about the first, only that if the two mares had ever been in the same proximity, it would have been obvious from their finely sculpted cheekbones to their expressive blue eyes that they were related.
The second - spotted Kota - is the one who taught her to walk quietly along the paths and trails, to move so silently that nobody could hear her approaching.
She sticks to the shadows, like she had been taught. When there is a group of rambunctious yearlings over eager to move and unaccustomed to biting flies, she manages to blend in with their band (which isn't hard, given her diminutive size) and moves from one side of the Field to the other. When they finally disperse, Aela moves towards the edge of the treeline where the gnats weren't quite so dense.
The same thing couldn't be said for some of the few horses in her vicinity. Aela spies what she deems is a broodmare, a woman with a baby still at her hips and by the way that her sides have rounded, another on the way. A few bachelors, all boisterous and loud, and have far too much energy to garner any interest from the lithe mare.
Another mare with a pale mane and tail piques her attention immediately. She's lovely, too; something that Aela rarely admits about anyone else besides herself and Skandar. Every line of her is pleasing to the eye and the striped girl wonders if anybody has taught her how to use that to her advantage, how to turn into something as useful as any kind of magic that exists within Beqanna. With a sweeping step and another, it doesn't take her long to reach the pair. She misses the first part of their conversation but the young stallion (colt, really) blurts out an answer, and some part of Aela wonders if it was the beauty of the other mare that made him do so.
"Well, why are you here?" Aela asks, deferring the question to the male who wondered why the chestnut looked annoyed about standing in the Field. She would be irritated too - the filth, the stench, the rabble. Regardless of what happened to the other woman, she didn't want to be here but she most likely needed a home. A delicate ear flicks towards the other mare, quietly considering her. If she had mettle, there was the possibility that she might fit in at the Pampas. "Perhaps I can help you," she casually offers, speaking the words airily enough that they could be taken as a challenge or an invitation; her choice.
07-25-2021, 09:17 PM (This post was last modified: 07-26-2021, 12:30 PM by Aloy.)
now i don't know who i've become
and another day breathes
tearing at the seams
and i hope i don't come undone
She is approached by not one, but two strangers. They are both adults and yet both of them feel younger than her, fresher and less lifeworn. It’s a ridiculous thought, she cannot know anything about them, she just feels so weary and wary lately. It should not surprise Aloy to attract the attention of two separate individuals. She attracts attention everywhere, and even her charming demeanor cannot usually put it off. The roan stallion is the first arrival, and Aloy eyes him carefully. “Good question.” She replies but says nothing to immediately elaborate, giving her head a shake and resettling her wings while her green eyes flick to the palomino who has joined them. She too is in possession of unearthly beauty, and she wonders how often that trait, that unusual and inescapable appeal shows up in Beqanna. What does this little mare do with her gift? Wields it one way or another, no doubt.
Aloy wants very suddenly to get this over with.
“My name is Aloy. I don’t want to be here but I need somewhere to live. That’s all. I don’t need help.” She bristles, tucking her chin, sunlight glittering over her golden freckles as she moves. She should already have a home and people to come back to, but she had been little more than the evidence of all her mother’s mistakes in the end. There is no one out there waiting for her to come home, wondering what she has grown into. Having come to terms with that far younger than had been fair means she doesn’t want help now, just a place to belong and try to blend safely into. Drawing a deep breath and letting it leave her in a sigh she makes some effort to smooth things over. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I need nothing from anyone. Just a place to go. Where are the two of you from?”
In Oren's life, nothing much had happened to make him mature. He's grown up, sure, and then stopped ageing. And while he stopped ageing, he never stopped being his joyous, curious self - naive if you will. It makes him appear younger than the summers he counts, while simultaneously such an estimate would not be very wrong; years do not give a very good estimate to one's personality, that is.
When the young mare says it's a good question, he does expect an equally good answer, but alas, she leaves it at that. This is a new thing for Oren, used to asking fifty-and-some questions in one conversation and getting, well, about an equal amount of answers. Or different sorts of answers, as well.
Aloy's is... well, different for sure. As Aela claims the attention of both conversationalists, he finally receives the answer to his question although he isn't quite sure she meant it as an answer to him. The gold-marked roan studies both mares, finding a likeness in the flaxen chestnut he cannot place entirely; perhaps in body, then certainly not in nature, or vice versa? Hmm - he almost allows himself to drift off, and with a barely visible shake of his head he focuses back on the conversation at hoof. "I'm Oren. My home is Taiga," he states, nodding vaguely north-west from the Field. "If giant trees, crystals and mushrooms, and the air of mystery are your thing, you might just like it there." His eyes sparkle a little - he has always liked exploring those woods, and finding yet another new thing when passing through a previously same spot. His ears perk forward towards the mare now that she is more into answering mode, and fires another question her way - he could keep going, but at the very least he has learned to ask them one at a time. "Do you seek to join a kingdom and gain ranks, or just a place to call home?" After all, it's important to know if she's here with ambitions, or none at all. Not that he minds, but his recommendations highly depend on it.
08-15-2021, 08:10 PM (This post was last modified: 08-15-2021, 08:11 PM by Aela.)
The flaxen chestnut is intriguing.
Aela eyes the young mare, observing her ethereal beauty and how odd it seems with the hard edges that she holds herself with. She doesn't want help but seeks a place to live. It isn't like her meeting with Auboro. This other female seems familiar with Beqanna, where the other chestnut seemed shocked to learn that Magic even existed.
The Field really was an odd place.
She listens as the bay stallion explains that he comes from Taiga and Aela turns her blue eyes to regard him. His golden blaze glints attractively in the sunshine and the Empath catches the familiar sights of the Redwoods. Some things seemed to have changed since she last lived there, as he mentions mushrooms and crystals. Aela is almost tempted to ask him about Yanhua - if he is a relation to the roan - but she decides to save it for another day.
There will be another time where she crosses paths with this stallion, and Aela decides to save her questions for that meeting.
In the mean time, she glances back to Aloy. "Aela," she says, introducing herself as effectively as the other mare had gotten to the point of exactly what she wanted. "And I come from the Brilliant Pampas." The slender palomino says with a graceful roll of her shoulders and then continues, "A small territory in the South whose inhabitants are mostly quiet and keep to themselves."
She is the Seneschal, and Aela has heard no complaints (apart from her prisoners) about the Pampas.
now i don't know who i've become
and another day breathes
tearing at the seams
and i hope i don't come undone
Aela and Oren are not offended by her manners. Good. She isn't interested in standing in the field soothing the delicate emotions of others. Taiga. Pampas. She knows the first, since it shares a border with Hyaline. Brilliant Pampas is unfamiliar, she has never been to the south nor does she know anything about the people that live there.
No, she remembers, you don't know about anyone anymore.
It's a strange feeling, being home and surrounded by foreign faces and ways. She imagines that she should feel returned and comfortable but it's like coming back to a mirror world with everything unsettling and backwards. Not because it is, but because nothing is ever as one imagines it to be.
"Tell me what purpose guides your peoples. Oren asks if I would climb the ranks, Aela you suggest I need not choose a quiet life if I do not desire to. What is it that you want, that your leaders want for your lands?"
She remembers her mother's beautiful ideas, forgotten and faded away. Does Kensa still have those same dreams, wherever she is? Does she wish for the thrills of chaos and passion anymore? Aloy, once again, cannot imagine this. It's been too long since she has seen her fallen dam, and she is too unlike her to try and climb inside her head.
"Whatever home I choose, I know that it's politics and ideas will alter my life… even if I come there only to live and nothing more." Aloy resettles her wings, tipping her antlered head to study her two companions as they formulate their replies.
08-26-2021, 07:50 AM (This post was last modified: 08-26-2021, 09:13 AM by Oren.)
Again he doesn’t get an answer, and it is off-putting for the Explorer of the redwoods. Add this to the way Ray still sits comfortably in her forelock, lighting her up like a Christmas tree (none of the women have noticed the firefly so far, so really, Oren’s imagination stems from his own uncertainty), and add her enhanced beauty; the handsome young male gets nervous around her. Not to say he is not attracted to her, on the contrary - but he is so unused to the situation that he gets uncertain about his next move, especially with the other, extremely beautiful mare besides them. The latter has more of an overweight than Oren - is he really just a boy then, he wonders for a moment; Aela seems to regard him in that way.
Aloy saves him, and for that he thanks his lucky stars. A direct question, that he can answer. ”Taiga’s just a home for everyone. Friends become family, and families live beneath the trees. The North as a whole...” he tilts his head, nearly drifts off like his mother would, but catches himself in time. ”It’s a stronghold.” he decides finally. Once in, she’d be part of that family. If anyone opposes it... there’s no easy way to earn any trust again there, if ever. But really, most of it goes without saying, and the strong, resilient Northerners don’t discuss this amongst themselves so often. Perhaps it’s an Amazonian heritage of them. And added to that, honestly Oren had always had an outside-directed point of view, and self-analysis was hard enough without his orientation.
He shrugs a little, focuses once more on the now unlit bug and silently commands it to return now. Ray doesn’t seem to be too happy about it, and in fact buzzes in circles before he lands back on Oren’s neck. He doesn’t know what Aela has to say, but he bets it’s probably something that sounds way more exciting.
08-27-2021, 02:54 PM (This post was last modified: 08-27-2021, 02:56 PM by Aela.)
Aloy is direct in a way that she can appreciate. The slender palomino has no particular interest in idling in the Field long, and she likes the bluntness that the other mare questions both she and Oren. If the Pampas is not what she is seeking, she should arrive at that decision quickly enough. So the gold-striped mare tilts her head in the direction of the young stallion and listens as he explains that Taiga is a place for family.
That it was a stronghold, and Aela wonders if he has noticed just how many times that she has slipped past their borders on her visits to Nerine.
"The Pampas is a territory under the kingdom of Loess," Aela starts, once Oren had finished speaking his piece. "We are a court striving for the bold and beautiful." Her blue eyes linger on Aloy - on her flaxen mane, on the gold marbling her sides, on her elegant wings - and her expression makes it known that the other female would easily fall into the latter group. But she doesn't doubt that the obvious beauty of the other female is her only strength, just as it is not Aela's.
There was always so much more than what meets the eye, and that is what she dreams for the Pampas.
And then Aela's gaze sharpens, because while she wants the wildflower court to gain a reputation for its residents to be as lovely as its flowers, she wants those residents to take part in the shaping of it. She wants the powerful to come, those with unusual traits, so that they might all benefit in learning how unique powers might create different outcomes. How they might bend and play with Magic, much like the gods on their Mountain bend and play with fate. "We would have our residents do as they please. If they want a quiet life, they are welcome to it. But if our politics and ideals aren't shaping to what they wish, we would have them help us create the home they want."
now i don't know who i've become
and another day breathes
tearing at the seams
and i hope i don't come undone
She considers the things both of the horses say, calmly, green eyes drifting slowly from Oren to Aela as they advocate for their homes. In her silence, her features are sharpened by her own thoughts. If she wanted to seek out family she probably could, a sister, an aunt, some others… but half don’t know she exists and the other half could probably care less that she does. Taiga stands in the shadow of Hyaline, where the mountains might peek down through the treetops and make her wonder every day where her mother might be.
On the other hand, Aela makes no secret that she notices and values the beauty that rides Aloy like a curse. Would it be easier to bear in the Pampas where perhaps others were also so attractively constructed? Could that be the key? Finding a home where she can be commonplace? Even as she hates how important her beauty seems to be.
Aloy shakes her antlered head and gives Oren a long look, sorry to turn him down in spite of her own pricklyness. She tips her muzzle toward Aela. “I’ll come to the Pampas. I’ve never been to the South.” Then, looking back at Oren she adds, “Thank you… for the invitation Oren. I am sure we will meet again.”
Aloy
@Aela @Oren ((Okay I couldn’t figure out which one she would pick so I just rolled the dice and got Pampas. haha))
