"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
What little information Lillibet could glean from Mother about her past, the young girl clung to. The customs of Nau-Aib interested her the most; especially now, at the turn of the season, when Mother said monsters used to roam the woods of her ancient home as the veil between life and death thinned. Perhaps an attempt on Oceane's part to keep Lillibet close at hand, the anecdote had produced quite the opposite effect. While the Loessian Queen attended to the kingdom, the young alabaster girl had departed in the direction of her father's new abode.
In passing, she had mentioned her plans to Link.
Through the golden forest and atop fallen leaves, Lillibet runs. She makes a game of circling the forest's massive boulders, her imagination planting monsters just around the jagged curves of the ancient stones, only to be seen at the last moment and with a loud, commanding squeal of surprise. Her heart races at the imagined danger, at the feel of the autumn tree branches reaching for her angrily as she flies between them.
Her lithe frame begins to glow, the effect more apparent as further the sun sets, the ethereal light bouncing against tree trunks and rock faces until finally she is the only light source around. A loud, fearless whinny is thrown into the darkness as she plants her forelegs wide and presses her ears forward in a silent challenge for whatever might be hiding in the darkness of the forest to show itself.
The child wants a monster? There are plenty of them in the Sylvan wood, watching, waiting, deciding what their own futures hold. Manny has already decided, she will not be run off so easily. Instead, she wraps herself in a miasma of peace that so contradicts the predatory nature of her being and slips through her home in search of invaders. It is how she happens on the girl, glowing in the night like the fireflies the hippogryph used to hunt and catch and eat in the Pampas until her beak glowed a soft yellow-green with their bitter light. The memory makes her smile - would her mouth glow if she ate this glow-worm girl?
"Are you yelling at me?" she asks from the shadowed path, stepping forward into the soft glow emanating from the young princess. There is a whisper of threat in the smoky rumble of her voice, but with the peaceful magic leaching from her skin, the filly is unlikely to be very afraid. The confidence (and foolishness) of youth! The chimera slinks forward, overtaking her quarry easily to wrap around her like a fond cat.
You remember me, don't you? Her magic whispers to the girl's memories,We are old friends, you and I. You will remember you've always called me Manny, if you think very hard, and I have called you Glow-Worm.
Manikin pauses, affixing her sharp gaze on the child with mild reproach.
"You haven't forgotten me, have you, Glow-Worm?"
Will the memories hold? Memory is such a funny thing and so soft in children, so apt to get take suggestion when one is too full of imagination.
Sylva was very different to the tall dusted cliffs of Loess. He had grown fond of the southern kingdom they had been raised in, the cove and cave that had been home, the glistening sea that their father often lounged in, the winding canyons and whistling winds. There is a part of him that’s already homesick for what they had once known even though they still had a few more days till their mother handed her crown over to her successor. Still, he is excited for a new adventure. Excited to explore the golden woods of what will soon be theirs although their father hadn’t wanted them to come see it yet. Had mumbled something about “not being safe” amongst other things but their dad was always overprotective. How scary could the forest really be? It couldn’t be worst than the monsters Mother had told them about (Father’s horrors were still locked up tight within him, stories he was unwilling to share with his children when they were so young). Perhaps he should have, they might have been more careful.
Lilli had told him her plans in passing and of course he couldn’t let her have all the fun.
His sister races ahead of him but as usual he is always one to be easily distracted and pauses whenever he comes across something new. Her whinny calls through the dim light of the majestic woods and he shifts into his bear, using his claws to climb up the nearest boulder. The panda cub glows softly as he reaches the top of the large rock, joining his twin in illuminating some brightness in the dark. He’s about to call out to her, taunting her to try and find a way up to join him, when the monster appears.
He peers over the edge as he hears the silky smoky voice and his gold-flecked eyes widen as he looks at the thing stepping close to his twin. He does not feel the peaceful flow directed at Lilli and he hears that rumble in the monster’s voice and for the first time in his life, he feels a ripple of hesitation in his young soul. That something isn’t quite right. The monster speaks of being forgotten and his confusion mounts in ten-fold. So distracted is he that he doesn’t realize one of his paws is slipping over the edge until he is suddenly tumbling off the boulder.
Tumbles and collides directly into the feathery taloned thing that he’s only vaguely heard about in fantasy tales. When he looks up at her he is back in his equine shape and he stands quickly with an uncertain grin. “How do you know my sister?” He asks boldly, shooting Lillibet a pouting glare that she had kept her friendship with a monster secret from him.
From the inky shadows, a chimera manifests itself. Herself. She blends into the darkness, illuminated only by Lillibet's own ethereal glow. The soft light shines against feather and dapple, though there is no equal softness in the brief way the young filly's muscles tense or lanky legs scramble to distance herself from the foreboding surprise.
Though she is naive to the source of the inexplicable peace that so swiftly floods her, the feeling is paired with an inkling of confusion. Her brows furrow and her mouth falls ajar to question the mahogany intruder, but this, too, is short-lived.
“M-manny!” The exclamation is tentative at first, her mind still uncertain until finally she has pressed the name from her lips. The slack-jawed fear disappears, replaced by the comfort of her old friend's company. A soft giggle escapes the young girl as the chimera circles her and expresses, what she assumes to be, mock affront. “Of course I haven't,” the rebuttal is offered in conjunction with a playful roll of her brilliant amber eyes -- a look that tightens into something reproachful, with pupils that narrow, as she turns them onto their unexpected assailant.
She's met with something similar from Link, a pout that begins sharp-toothed and ends blunted as he transforms before the pair of them. “Link!” Despite her pleasure in seeing her twin, she can't help the quick fear that he will offend Manny with his ignorance.
“If you hadn't been spending all of your time in the playground, you would know Manny already. She lives here.” The young Lillibet turns her gaze back to the chimera and offers her an apologetic smile, one flooded with the effects of the peaceful air that envelopes them. “This is my twin brother, Link.”
The russet feathers that line her neck and chest ruffle softly with genuine pleasure. Of course she hasn't been forgotten! The chimerical mare plays an unmusical trill in her throat that is almost like laughter and is about to say something else when they are interrupted suddenly by a second child. This time it is the stiff black feathers of her mane that lift in response to the "attack," creating an impressive crest that shivers slightly with every twitch of muscle as she snakes her head down protectively (possessively) between colt and filly. She had heard him lurking - the fallen leaves make it so hard to travel silently through Sylva - but his careless tumble takes her by surprise.
Brave, foolish, boy. He confronts her, not yet succumbing to the peace that chokes their little copse. Her yellow eyes flash dangerously, but his sister saves him with quick words of introduction. Manikin rears her head back to its usual height, crest dropping halfway - not on alert, but neither entirely disarmed.
"Link," she purrs his name through a reproachful frown that only just tugs at the corner of her mouth, barely touching the beak-fixed grin but harshening the lines of her face nonetheless, "Your stealth leaves something to be desired."
Another set of twins is on Manny's mind; an advantage-less brother tilting at gods like windmills. She doesn't know he finally found Grandfather - she doesn't know she's going to be an aunt - she only thinks that it is near time to find Avocet's shattered memories and rearrange them once again and thinking of him brings her attention back to Link. It's too late to make him forget that she is a stranger without that shattering confusion that has made such a kaleidoscope of Avocet's mind so she fattens the little flame of jealousy with a familiar tug at his sister's mane. Magic feeds playful hints to the girl's memories and lets the child's imagination run wild with them. All the things a small and willowy filly left behind by her brother, again and again, might wish for in a muscular and somewhat dangerous friend.
And Link? She tries to dull his trips so his sister's secret rankles just a little more. She pulls the fog of peace back from him just enough so jealousy and dissatisfaction can burrow in, but that's no magic, just sibling rivalry. Her blazed head tilts, birdlike, peering down at him from above his pale twin with a watchful gaze. Her interest can be won, it says, if he wants it.
The twins told each other everything. Every secret, every adventure, any and every little thing he discovered… He always shared with her. At least, he had always thought that they told each other everything. Now… Now he can see that isn’t true at all. When had she come to Sylva without him? What other things had she kept from him?
The strange monster is standing protectively between them and he doesn’t like this either. Doesn’t like any of this what so ever. There is hurt in the gold flecks of his eye as well as mistrust as Lillibet speaks and it remains as Manny looks at him and chides him that his stealth was lacking. “I wasn’t trying to be stealthy.” He snorts with indignation, not realizing that perhaps he should have been. As the monster reaches for his sister, he takes a step towards them with a sharp cry of alarm. Only to suddenly feel his hurt and mistrust make room for something else. Envy, fat and cloying, strikes into his heart as the hippogriff gives a playful tug to his twin’s mane and he feels his lavender cheeks grow hot as his russet gaze glances away.
“You never want to go to the playground with me.” He says unhappily. “If I had known you were coming here, I would have come too.” He glances back at the birdlike mare, sees her gaze and glares right back at her. Part of him is jealous that Lillibet had discovered her first, had kept the monster a secret from him, but more than that…. He does not like the familiarity between them. Nor does he like the fact that he is still on the sidelines as the two of them stand together.
Lillibet was his twin.
Link was jealous, yes, but it is mostly directed at this creature who had suddenly come between them.
Lillibet is content and satisfied as she sits in the peaceful aura the chimera has enveloped her in, at least as long as her amber eyes are turned to the bird-like mare in an effort to introduce her twin. But as her gaze shifts again, turning the other way to bring Link into view, a sharp sadness finds her heart at the hurt and indignation in his eyes. Lillibet makes an effort to move closer to him, to apologize for making him feel left out, when Manny tugs playfully at her tousled ivory mane.
The charmed touch feeds Lillibet memories of exploration, hours of running wildly through the golden forest with Manikin protectively at her side all the while. It feeds her camraderie, competition, mischief ─ all things she had wished to nurture between herself and Link.
Her twin's unhappiness permeates further into Lillibet's conscience, leaving her feeling disoriented as the empath within her fights the chimera-produced emotions. She frowns, her amber eyes looking back and forth between the older woman and her own brother before she takes another step closer to Link on uncertain gold-striped legs.
“I just thought... because mom and dad were moving here, we should explore.” Her eyes search his apologetically, hoping that her next little olive branch will remedy whatever damage has been done, “Manny and I found some really cool spots here if you wanted to see them. Or we can all go to the Playground,” her amber gaze turns to the feather-crested mare hopefully, nearly certain that her friend would be happy to accompany them wherever they may choose to go.
