"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
she got blood cold as ice
and a heart made of stone
There is meaning enough to fill volumes behind the words she so thoughtfully gives to Ciri about walking with someone important. It is an uncharacteristic kind of comment for Leokadia to be sure, she is usually direct unless being more verbose and eloquent serves a specific purpose. The meanings do in part have something to do with Ciri, with the connection that bounded up between them as soon as they met...but there are other things behind the words, things that she would not tell on this walk north.
Leokadia begins to feel like she knows when Ciri's eyes are upon her. It is not a crawling feeling like the leer of a stallion or the judgemental rabble. It feels like the sun or the moon gazing down at the shelter of a broad tree, shining around the edges, most assuredly there even if you weren't looking directly at it. When she does look and indeed meets the dark mare's lovely eyes her heart jumps like the rabbits she use to startle from the undergrowth. It follows that she would think of what she wanted to do with those rabbits and feel a very small concern for her own well being. Was she being flushed from her hiding place too, only to be sorry she hadn't stayed stoic and still? It's a small fear, easily dismissed by one so unconcerned by fears small and large.
Her eyes are pale, not so light as they had been against the clay she'd worn when they met but still so light as to look white in the right light. She does not pull them from Ciri's direct look for a long moment, at least two breaths. Only when she begins to wonder if the warmth she feels creeping up her neck will show on her light skin does she glance away, side step, look back. "I'm not sure how to answer that, it's a feeling mostly… I like you, and… you don't make me feel like I am not right somehow. I know I am not, but you don't seem to care." It is too much vulnerability, and she is glad for the yawning gap between the two of them.
She hopes Ciri does not ask anything else about that, her stomach is in knots and she mistakes the question about family as a safe one that will also tell her who is important to the other woman. Something she deeply would like to know. The names her companion gives are stored away easily and permanently. There is no one more specifically described than these and she wonders why until the question is turned back on her. She finds she can only give a half answer. "No one, I was adopted but she left me abandoned again not long after." No one else drew very close since then, or did more than criticize or mock her. Often it was fair for them to do so, she knows.
"Where did you live before the isle?" She finds herself drifting back, her small frame drawn back toward Ciri each time she glances the other mare's way. Leokadia does not forget the space between them as their hooves move in rhythm over the packed earth but she ignores the prickling awareness.
"I am asking too many questions." Leokadia states suddenly. She feels strange and wants to run the sensation off, to burn away her hyper awareness of herself. When she nips Ciri's neck, she sprints off before the other mare can see the warm flush that will show on the light skin of her muzzle.
but she keeps me alive
she's the beast in my bones
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
The intensity of those pale eyes on her make her both want to bloom and shrivel beneath their scrutiny. She was no stranger to being read incorrectly due to the strangeness of her own swirling iris’s, sometimes her own feelings didn’t always correlate correctly when reflected from the silvery movement of her gaze. That had changed as she had settled more into her corporeal skin and the memories of her life in the sky became buried beneath the rubble of mortality. The way Lo holds her gaze so boldly makes her feel unusually shy and she finds herself constantly glancing away as the flush of uncertainty begins to grow and question that visible chasm between them.
Stars care nothing for labels and titles and her heart had never placed restrictions on itself when it came to the mystery of love. While Castile and Amet had both caught her attention and the latter had been her first to hold her hand in the exploration of lovers and sex, they had not been the only one to catch her eye. There had been the mare Thistle who she had met when she had been caught in the portals of time, in the land she had been transported to after being snatched from Beqanna after giving birth to her only son and remained for a time before being carried off to Eternal.
Thistle had shown her a different side of love and cleared up the confusion that she had carried for awhile, one that had left her thinking she was wrong and bad for being able to love two at the same time. That didn’t discriminate between sexes or limit itself to one. And while it would be nice to be someone’s one and only, she was hesitant of ever getting herself in the same heartbreaking situation she had once found herself in with her two dragons. The loss of them still had ran a jagged wound across her heart, the loss of her son had widened it, and the loss of Thistle had lodged itself firmly in those half-healed remains. She had watched the mare’s death and had been able to do nothing to stop it.
She had kept her distance since from anyone that might remotely trigger such feelings in her, reminding herself that she couldn’t burden that pain and loss once more.
And yet held under Lo’s direct gaze she begins to question her own willpower of resistance, beaten even further down by the vulnerable words that the feathered mare hesitantly offers. A flood of warmth fills the heavily scarred mare as she holds those pale eyes with her own swirling ones and she takes a step as if to close that distance between them but then stops, thinking better of it. She glances away as Lo does, fumbling for the right words to say. “I like the way you talk.” She finally murmurs, her gaze trained on the well-worn path in front of them that she slowly follows. “I like that you're not like anyone else I’ve ever met.”
Ciri mistakes Lo’s shyness for being her unapologetic strange self and she begins to doubt her own sensibility, perhaps she was reading too much into this and seeking out situations that didn’t really exist in the first place. Maybe being alone for as long as she had was just catching up to her and tricking her into seeing things that weren’t really there. Lo’s response on her own family only makes Ciri’s heart ache for her new friend even more and she tries to lighten the mood she had created with such a question. “Well… you have me now. And I firmly believe the family you make can be just as strong, if not stronger, then the ones we share by blood.”
Lo seems to come closer when she asks of her past before the Isle and Ciri swallows hard, unsure of where exactly to begin. Of where she even wants to begin that won’t make the creamy mare look at her as if she was crazy. Before she can open her mouth, Lo’s abrupt statement slices through the air and she watches as the other darts ahead of her, realization barely clicking into place the nip delivered to her neck that burns with a sudden rush of heat that she can feel throughout her entire body. “Hey… Wait!” She calls out and lengthens her stride to try and catch up with the other, praying that Lo won’t take flight and leave her behind.
“Wait!” She calls again, catching up in stride until she is neck in neck with her and finally throws herself into the oncoming path of the other, hoping to slow Lo’s movements with her own and not thinking of the collision that might follow or the massive tangle they could become. “I’ll answer… all your.. questions. It’s ok. Honestly.” She breathes harshly, surprised by how quick the white mare had been and feeling flushed from both the run and the realization that she would care if Lo had just disappeared on her. Her muzzle extends to brush gently against the others heated neck. "Please. Stay."
she got blood cold as ice
and a heart made of stone
Leokadia can picture herself telling Ciri everything there is to tell. Knows that given time she will. There won't be many words to say. They might mean nothing to the other mare, but she will listen. Leokadia knows this with only a few hours of acquaintance between them… Ciri likes the way she talks.
Do you like girls? The words slither over her brain, detached from the memory they come from and alive in her head, Brunhilde's voice becoming her own. Leokadia pulls away from the question, and drags her gaze away from Ciri's profile with effort.
"I will not make very good family, but if you want me to be I will never protest." She might have smiled then if she were someone else, but her real smiles do not come easily. There is a sound of it in her voice however, around the edges of her strange even-toned way of speaking.
She overwhelms herself, it is too much talking, and too much being herself with someone else. Leokadia just wants to run, certain that she will cease to be so conscious of herself after doing so and will be able to travel alongside Ciri again without fixating on their connection until it appears to be anything but an unexpected friendship in bloom. If they can run together it will not seem too strange, the nip is intended as an invitation but it is not enough to make Ciri understand the cremello's sudden sprinting away.
The little mare doesn't stop, not until Ciri and her longer stride overtake her, spinning to a stop in her path. Dust whorls up and clings to Leokadia's wet pelt as she tries to slow down before she ends up colliding with Ciri. It is only by unfurling her vast pallid wings that she manages to brake, ending her headlong charge inches from Ciri.
Her wings shadow the two of them, flared out and still, a half moon of creamy feathers shielding the pair of them from whatever lay behind them. Their breathing echoes against that wall of plumage, the only thing louder than the blood rushing in the winged mare's ears. Leokadia's eyes are wide, her pupils dilated and very dark with just a ring of brightness around them, eclipsed. Her neck quivers a little beneath Ciri's soft touch, and she cannot help the way she arches it, dropping her chin toward the touch, and breathing in the sweetness of Ciri's breath. "I am. I will. I am here."
but she keeps me alive
she's the beast in my bones
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Once she had been the Heart of Hyaline, when it had been a sanctuary for lost children and those who didn’t quite fit anywhere else. Horses like her that were born unusual, strange. Beautiful unique misfits, each and every one of them. She doesn’t see the awkwardness in Lo’s speech, she only sees the beauty in her directness. Appreciates her for being unapologetically herself and nothing more, not hiding behind a false persona or trying to be something she is not.
Ciri thinks those are the types that are most reliable in the end and that Lo is wrong about not being a good family member. That she wouldn’t mind discovering that for herself. The words almost make it out into the open but then everything seems to get muddled and confused. She mistakes the winged mare’s dash as an attempt to escape and perhaps she should have let her go. But something grips at her heart and drives her to chase behind her, to catch up to her, to brace herself against her until they tumble against each other and then there is nothing but darkness as those large wings blot out the sinking sun that’s already dimming over the horizon.
It is instinctive reflex that makes her call down the stars and they fall around the pair in a weak shimmering shield of thin nebulas and spiraling galaxies, the remaining sun in the sky weakening her hold to the heavens above. She had closed her eyes when bracing for impact and she slowly opens them to find the brilliant wide darkness of Lo gazing directly at her. Becomes hyper aware of how close her muzzle is to hers when she drops it from her neck and the way their breath mingles together in the makeshift tent of cream and feathers. “Lo….” She starts, hesitates.
And then remembers that she has somewhere she needs to be. “Shit!” She suddenly exclaims, her own silvery gaze widening in sudden shock and frustration at how she had lost track of the time. Tonight was her meeting with Gale, the one he had sworn he had seen in the fortune telling deity he had acquired for Hyaline. She still wasn’t sure if he had been joking but she didn’t want to disappoint him, had been looking forward to letting him know how she had settled in the Isle and the added bonus of his brothers rise to the throne. “I have to go. I forgot I'm suppose to meet a friend.” She says with agitation, tinged with regret. She hadn’t expected this, to meet someone like her today. If it was anyone else she might have considered blowing off her plans… But this was Gale. She wouldn’t keep him waiting. And she selfishly wanted to keep Lo to herself, just a little longer until she could figure out what exactly this mare was all about.
“Come find me on the Isle. Please. I promise I will still show you the stars.” She whispers softly. And then before she can lose her nerve she bumps her muzzle against Lo’s, lingers just long enough that she hopes the other might sense the invisible question that had been asked in that touch. And then she pulls herself free from her feathered embrace and dashes back from which they had come, leaving only glittering stardust in her wake.
