"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 had never pushed himself so far but with no wings or swimming capabilities, there wasn’t many options to find a way off the Isle. It had taken time to recover from the fall of the South, from the trauma of being lost at sea and finding himself in a strange and foreign place. He knew where he had ended up now, Icicle Isle. He knew that the entirety of the South was underwater. His home, the Pampas, submerged. And Aela….
There was no way she could be gone. His mother was the smartest, cleverest, and strongest horse he had ever met. There was no way she would ever fall to the sea. So he practiced. He ate. He rested. And then one day, when it felt right, he stood by the northeastern part of the Isle at the edge of the sea. And he focused. And he concentrated. Flames rose before him and began to weave and rise, just as he had done time and time again. But never on this scale. Never at this height, this length. Carefully, he takes a step forward. A single hoof, testing the weight of the flaming structure before him. It smolders and flickers.. But holds.
On a bridge of fire that he weaves piece by piece before him, he makes his way over the sea that had threatened to swallow him whole. By the time he finally weaves the last pieces that touch the land before him, sweat is dripping down his spotted forehead and his body trembles with exhaustion. The fire vanishes when he finally steps on sand and he collapses with a smile on his lips.
Aela would be proud indeed.
- - - - - - - - - - -
His mother had told him bits and pieces of the North but never with any fondness. The lands are not familiar to him although he figures he had landed in Nerine. Yet he easily became confused, trying to find his way back to where his life had fallen into the ocean. Lost if you will. He traveled for days, not sure which way he was going anymore but certain that if he just kept moving he would eventually end up somewhere. Run into someone. Eventually he finds a river and remembers something vaguely about following it. And so he does… In the wrong direction that leads him even further from the South.
The mountains that rise before him are beautiful in their spires and the lake below, breathtaking. A beautiful place, almost as beautiful as the wildflower plains he had once called home. He pushes them from his mind, refuses to think of what was no longer there. He didn’t like the way it felt, thinking of it. He didn’t like the way Terror seemed stronger when he did. He had thought of trying to summon a different soul, like the lost filly that had been taken too soon. The Prince’s daughter. But that was painful too, in a different way. And so he allowed Terror to stay because it felt better then being completely alone again.
Slowly, cautiously, he catches a glimpse of white and spots a winged mare in the distance. He approaches from behind and as he closes the distance to her, the more Terror seems to resist. Tries to convince him that its a bad idea. That it was dangerous. For a moment he considers it but his curiosity is stronger. And besides, the white winged mare seems far from dangerous. The closer he gets, the more intrigued he is. Her wings drip with golden dust and he catches something round and golden that glints in the sun near her head. “Excuse me.” He asks, suddenly uncertain and it shows in his feral gaze as Terror tries desperately to keep their bond intact. For the soul knows it has no hope against an angel. “Could you tell me where I am?”
Her reality is still a wavering thing, and it is worse when she is alone.
She has never done well alone, but for a different reason than now. Alone used to mean she was in danger of being bored; being bored was always a precursor to behaving recklessly, to seeking out something or someone that she shouldn’t. Her life is a patchwork of mistakes and events that could have been avoided if she had known how to ride out boredom instead of following the livewire that led to self-destruction, but of course she never had, and she went knowingly into the jaws of danger time and time again.
Had she been bored that day at the river, when she had come across Gale? The memories are murky now, blurred with things that she cannot confidently say if they are real or not real. Gale was not the kind of danger she usually sought out; he was a player in someone else’s game, but not hers. And yet somehow she had found herself within his crosshairs, for a reason that she still could not explain.
He had fractured a piece of her that no one had before, had broken a vital piece that she had not realized she needed. She is not sure if he devoured it along with her old heart or if she lost it in that strange void where time and space had no laws, but it’s gone, and she is adrift. The hole it leaves behind is where the darkness seeps through, smothering the cracks of light and toying with the filaments of sanity she is left with, until she is left questioning everything she sees and hears.
Yet no matter how much she hates being alone she knows she cannot cling to Atrox every hour of the day and night. For short periods of time she forces herself away from him, though she never strays from Hyaline. She stays well within the borders of the mountain kingdom, keeping mostly to herself, and in the quiet of solitude she tries to keep the darkness at bay.
When she hears someone approaching, she does not turn immediately—thinks that if she does not look she will not have to face the possibility of death and the void again, like a child thinking a nightmare isn’t real so long as they don’t open their eyes. His voice is not one that she recognizes, and instead of this feeding into her newfound timid side it instead appeals to the older part of her that cannot resist the tug of curiosity. She turns her head, the honey-glow of her halo highlighting the delicate shape of it, the light lending a warmth to a pair of impossibly dark eyes that take in the younger boy. “Hyaline,” she answers him, turning to fully face him as she does so, and the movement sends a cascade of stardust to pool on the ground. Her gaze sweeps across the jaguar markings, coming back to study the lines of his face to see if she finds anyone familiar there, and while there is something that tugs within her chest there is no accusation in her soft voice when she asks him, “Who are you?”
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
01-27-2022, 04:10 PM (This post was last modified: 01-27-2022, 06:54 PM by Fyr.)
through the fire and the flames
When she turns her head, he pauses. Not out of the fear that has so diligently dogged his trail since the moment he had washed up on the burnt beach of the Isle. No… It is the stinging trails along his skin that makes him halt. It is the burning sensation, welts and thin lacerations raising over jaguar spots, as Terror who had clung to him with no remorse looks upon her halo and digs its claws into him with desperation as its pulled further and further away from them. There is such an intensity of hatred that oozes from the soul ("Angel" it seethes at her) and it’s something he has never experienced before. Not even close to the resentment he had been so sure he had heard at birth.
He winces and then it is gone, leaving just the two of them. She turns fully towards him then, sending soft waves of golden dust to dance towards the grass below, with a kind answer and a question of her own. He looks into the darkness of her gaze, so dark he can barely catch the reflection from the flames that flicker along his rusty mane, and smiles at what he finds there. As if a weight has been lifted merely by her looking at him. “I’m Fyr.” He responds, his voice softer to match her own, but there is no offering of two pronunciations this time. There is no need for fear here, something that he can feel for certain without truly understanding it.
There is quiet for a moment as he thinks of where he has ended up. Hyaline was it? This side of Beqanna was foreign to him and the fire along his spine smolders as he takes a second to think. Pangea was close to the lake kingdom wasn’t it? Something to consider in his hunt for Aela and the rest of his missing Pampa’s family. For now though… For now he is curious about the winged white mare who had simply banished such a strong pestering spirit merely by looking at it. “Who are you?” He asks and there is much more loaded into his question than merely asking for her name.
Even though she had the ability to summon souls at will, it was not something she had ever done. Her relationship with death was different than most—a little too intimate and familiar. She did not like the idea of having the power to withdraw a soul from the reprieve of death, but only half-way; not enough for them to be alive. She had thought this was a mercy, once, had thought this was a showing of what little is left of her moral goodness; that she does not kill and does not toy with souls trying to rest.
She cannot help but to wonder what might have happened if she had used her soul summoning, or quite literally anything, against Gale. How different the outcome might have been if she had thought to flank herself with any kind of protection the moment she had felt that prickle of apprehension come alive under her skin. Perhaps nothing would have been different—he is a magician, after all, and archangel or not she was outmatched.
It does not surprise her that Atrox makes frequent use of his own soul summoning ability, though. As someone that had once commanded both a kingdom and an army she thinks he misses having that kind of control, even if he would never directly take it up again. The souls provided him with an outlet, and she had grown used to seeing them alongside him.
They did not react to her the way the soul that clings to the jaguar-spotted boy does. The abhorrence is palpable, but she says nothing, though something inside of her seems to harden and twist in response. Once the soul is gone she can feel the knot in her chest loosen, and she looks again to the younger boy with that same faint smile. “Ryatah,” she says, as if that is enough. She knows he was looking for a more in depth answer, but she has nothing to tell him. She has always appeared to be more than she actually is—smarter, stronger, braver. She thinks he is asking because he sees an angel, brilliant and bright, and she does not know how to tell him she is an angel in appearance only.
She could not even begin to tell him all the things she is supposed to be, and yet she is not.
“Does that still hurt?” she asks then, gesturing to where the spirit had dug into his skin. “I can heal it for you, if you’d like.”
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
It is an intimate thing, soul summoning, of that they were agreed. Seeing a soul was seeing the most vulnerable part of another person and each one was an untold chapter, a part of a book that had never been finished to completion. Even the most well-lived and satisfying of lives always held some sort of, for lack of a better term, unfinished business. Regrets, forgotten dreams, aspiring hopes. Stories they still wanted to write, stories they wanted told, stories they hoped wouldn’t be forgotten. The souls still held all of these memories and feelings even if they weren’t corporal beings. It could be thrilling, terrifying, overwhelming.
Perhaps he would have also shunned this aspect of himself if it hadn’t been for one thing. He had definitely been headed in that direction after being called that life changing word, terrible, that feeling of shame that followed him just because he could do what he did… It had almost been enough to close the door and bolt it up tight. Then Aela had come along.
She had encouraged him where other’s had disgraced, had been patient with his hesitance regarding a power she didn’t truly understand, had filled as much confidence and care that she could into the cracks of him that souls sometimes threatened to deplete. It was Aela that had taught him that his curse could also be a gift and that not all stories needed telling, just the right ones.
It was Aela that now kept him from summoning willingly, that little voice Terror had been manipulating convincing him that if he used it… If he dared peek through the crack… It would be her soul he saw.
When he had found Firion in the forest, stricken and grieving, there had been a thought that maybe he could help. He had never found out the truth of what had hurt the stallion, what loss he had suffered, he had only recognized the signs of pain and grief. There had been a moment when he had wanted to offer what he could do, to see if he could bring whoever had been lost and ease that ache. It was only his own uncertainty and confusion that had made him clam up, that had let Firion go without another word as his confidence had shriveled up around him as well as the burning question he had initially sought him out to answer. If only he knew that the source of the older stallions affliction stood before him, safe at least even if she wasn’t whole. If only he had known Firion had lost his mother in the first place… If he ever saw him again at least he could say with certainty now that he understood that pain completely. That there was nothing he wouldn’t do to get to her or bring her back.
And if it meant wading through the darkest of souls like the one that had stubbornly clung to his back since the fall of the South, he would do it in a heartbeat.
If he ever saw Firion again, perhaps he might understand him better now.
Ryatah is still a mystery though. What she is, of that he is certain. Yet he feels there is more to her than that. More than her stardust wings, more than the golden halo that hovers over her head. There is something in her that brings peace and warmth… And there’s something about her that strokes at the terrible parts of him, those dark fibers that made it hard to chase away souls like Terror, and they shiver with anticipation. For weren’t the mightiest of angels terrible in their own way?
If she had told him of all the things she was suppose to be and in all the ways she was not, he would have merely laughed. It wouldn't have been out of viciousness, only who would have thought they could have anything in common with a divine being? As young as he was, unkindness and cruelty were things that had followed him since birth. He had seen demons, both in the blackest of souls like Terror or in the actions of others. Like when Obscene would drink too much nectar, when BoneBone had tried to lie and deceive him. Like Gale, the creature that had killed the jaguar mare.
Nobody was without their faults, he was coming to learn. Terrible, disgraced, broken. Whatever mistakes or flaws Ryatah had… Even a fallen angel is no less an angel, at least in his eyes.
The sting against his flesh had been momentarily forgotten but it comes back with a vengeance when she turns her attention to it. He nods quickly in consent for her help, left to wonder yet again if there was anything she couldn’t do. He is only slightly taller than her and so he bends a little awkwardly to allow her to reach him better. “Thank you.” He murmurs after a few seconds of silence, curiosity bringing his head around to watch while she worked. “Not just for this… For getting him off my back too.”
She knows too well what it means to be haunted, but thinks that maybe it is not the same if you are the one responsible for the creation of your demons.
She could have left them behind at any time, but she never has. Her demons have handsome faces and take her to impossible places, evoke unnameable feelings in her chest that she can never quite shake. Even if she left she would be forever carved with their memories—something deeper than in her bones or across her heart, because all these things have been made brand new and she is still the same.
She has never done much to avoid darkness. She had let it inside of her so long ago she does not remember what she had been like without it; so long ago she is not sure what parts she was born with and what parts had been shaped. To think that she had once been truly innocent and naive was impossible to imagine—not even she believes that girl had ever existed, thinks that she had never been alive until this version of her was first created in the depths of that tangled jungle in a land far from here.
It’s why she had never felt like much of an angel—why it all felt like some sort of twisted version of a joke, a spotlight shining on her to prove that for all her softness, she is not fooling anyone. Throughout her history she has had a multitude of chances to choose the morally good over the morally bad, and all she had done is further cement herself into an infinite gray area.
He is looking at her with a kind of reverence for having unwittingly chased away the soul that antagonized him, but what would he think if he knew she would have looked the other way if it had been Carnage tormenting him instead of a nameless (to her) soul? Would he still think her an angel then, or would he realize all her glow did was hide how tarnished her halo had become?
This thought is quickly buried as she reaches forward to touch her nose to his back, trailing lightly across his spine until the golden warmth of healing had seeped into every injury. She has used her healing far more than she ever thought she would, surprising herself with her own generosity. His wounds are not the worst that she has dealt with, and although the strangeness of their source presents a different kind of challenge she is finished soon enough. “You’re welcome,” she says softly before drawing away, though her nose lingers curiously over one of his rosettes. There are other jaguar-colored horses in Beqanna; Atrox had an entire life before her, just as she had one before him. But she still cannot rid Firion from her mind when she looks at him, but she knows better than to ask—knows that even if Firion is his father he might not realize it.
“Does he bother you a lot?” she asks instead, still close but no longer touching. She has always been unabashed in her desire for closeness, ignoring boundaries and pressing herself where she had not yet been invited. Even after her unwilling excursion into the void her wariness of strangers had proven to be short-lived, made clear by how relaxed she stood alongside this young stallion she had never met, her stardust drifting lazily from her wings across his side.
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
He understands dark tendencies and so far, for the most part except in small incidents, has been able to resist them. However, even under the heavy weight of his denial, deep down he knows that since he is terrible, he more than likely won’t be able to resist them forever. So maybe he would understand why she could turn a blind eye to him in one moment and help in the next.
How funny, that an angel might be cursed as terrible too.
He doesn’t know her past though, the terrible things she has witness or partaken in. He cannot see her gray even if he stands in the same area himself. What he does see is the endless black eyes that remind him (with a painful flutter) of Liesma’s. The beacon of her halo that is far from tarnished. The golden light that soothingly closes the angry wounds on his back that’s similar to what he’s seen Obscene do. And all of these things, in his eyes, are good things. So that is all he can see in her.
There is no rush to be freed from the closed distance between them, finding sanctuary in the peace left behind from Terror and the comfort of another living breathing being after traveling alone for so long. He only watches with growing curiosity as her muzzle lingers near one of his jaguar spots. What was she thinking? He finds himself dying to know. She beats him with a question of her own and he doesn’t speak right away although a hint of a frown finds his pale mouth.
“Sometimes.” He admits, turning his head to her to see her more clearly. Terror was usually not a soul he willingly called, one that more or less used that connection he had to force itself through. He wasn’t always so troublesome though, at least the shadowed voice in his head doesn’t seem to mind him every now and then. “He’s kept me company though since I got lost.” It takes him a second to realize she might not know what he means. “I use to live in the South.” He says quietly, arching his neck and pressing his muzzle to his chest in a moment of self-soothing need.
Out of the corner of his yellow eye, he watches the lazy drift of stardust and the way it glitters into his dapples. Reminding him once more of someone who he use to know. “Are you related to Liesma?” The question escapes from him suddenly and he clears his throat, feeling uncertain as new tiny flames sprout along his shoulders. “You just… remind me of her a bit.” Those endless dark eyes, the similar connection to the sky and beyond above, that strange sense of peace that he had once found in the meadow at midnight. An ache of homesickness wraps itself around him, cementing itself in his lonely heart, and then he remembers there is no home to go back to and glances away from her, disgusted by the tears that shine unshed in the depths of strange yellow.
It was one thing to be touched by an angel and another thing entirely to have one see you cry.
He mentions the south, and it takes her a moment to follow what he is saying through the fog that still lingers in her mind. She had not been here when the oceans rose to swallow the southern lands, and though she had heard whispers of it later, it had taken her some time to grasp what was being said. For so long after her return much of her reality still felt altered, as if she was constantly walking in a world tilted askew. The things that they said (something about Carnage and the mountain, an earthquake and flooding, and a kingdom under the sea) had not made sense at the time. Some of the pieces fit—Carnage causing mayhem on the mountain and dragging others into it—but the south disappearing and another kingdom being discovered was more difficult for her still-addled mind to follow.
So she ignored it all, as she often did, locking herself away in Hyaline where she could pretend things were normal.
Where black voids did not exist and the ocean stopped at the shoreline, and the mountains themselves kept her demons at bay.
But, once again falling victim to her own self-centeredness, she had forgotten that the flooding would mean the residents of those lands were now displaced. She feels a twinge for having not realized this until she picks up on the quiet melancholy in his voice when he speaks of it, and wonders how it had never occurred to her before (she knows how, of course—because the story always began in such a way that it was framed as being Carnage's fault, and so she simply stopped listening, banished it all from her mind). “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, an empty apology since she knows words have never managed to reverse the things that are wrong.
He asks her of someone named Liesma, and when the name does not spark anything from her memory, she shakes her head. “I’m not sure,” she tells him with a little bit of regret that tinges her voice. Her bloodline has spread like a tangle of weeds, and even if she is at the root of them all, she has long since lost track of where they have spread. She wonders if this is to be considered another failure to add to the never-ending tally—that she cannot claim to know everyone that shares her blood. “It’s possible. I’ve had a lot of children over the years, and have not even met all of my grandchildren,” she answers him honestly, though the kind smile on her face transforms into one of remorse, as if she has personally let him down by not knowing.
His sorrow still radiates from him, and while she does not often use her empathy to twist others emotions she cannot keep herself from sending a wave of reassurance towards him. She does not attempt to morph his pain into anything else; she only offers the hope that it will eventually pass, as pain often does. “Which part of the south were you from?” she inquires softly, giving him the opportunity to either further speak of the things that are weighing him down, or to shut her out and change the subject.
AND IT WAS REAL ENOUGH TO GET ME THROUGH — BUT I SWEAR YOU WERE THERE
Her apology might be an empty one but it is an appreciated one all the same. Even if she could find no fault in what Carnage had done, he wouldn’t have shamed her for that either. How the South had fallen was still a mystery to him, he was clueless to the root of what had happened. And if… No… When he found his mother again, it would not be surprising to hear her speak of it with something like awe instead of disapproval. Especially if Carnage was behind it all.
There is no surprise when she shakes her head, admitting that she wasn’t sure who he was speaking of. It’s disheartening but he was starting to learn it was better to expect disappointment then get his hopes up too high. However, what follows brings an interesting idea to mind and he turns to fully look at her, cautious hope flickering in his strange yellow gaze as he sees the remorse in her expression. “Could I be related to you?” He asks uncertainly.
Perhaps it was as stupid a question as his one to Firion asking if he was a doppelgänger from the future. He looked nothing like an angel, being terrible seemed like the exact opposite of what someone related to a heavenly being would be. He asks anyways. Despite his undying loyalty to the mare who had taken him in, he would always be curious about the family he had never known. That hadn’t wanted him.
There is a sudden boost in his emotions, not unlike the feelings Aela would sometimes send, and her reassurance washes over him in a cool wave before wrapping around him like a weighted blanket. It eases some of the building tension, the rising worry, and he exhales soft and slow. Releasing what he could not control. If it had been anyone else, he might not have opened up. Yet he feels safe here beneath the golden halo of an angel. So he does. “The Pampas. I lived there with my mother, Aela.” He halts, swallowing down his hesitance.
“The earth split and I think I was drowning in the sea.” Glancing down, remembering the water choking the back of his throat, filling his nostrils, the blackness that swallowed him whole. Waking up with Terror wrapped around him. “I woke up on the Isle after. I just got back to the mainland.”
