"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
I open my eyes to near darkness, and it takes several long moments and a few deep breaths that taste of cool, damp wood and salty sea to remember where I am.
We’d been playing hide-and-seek, and I’d found the perfect hide, tucked beneath a piece of driftwood. It was hard to hear anything over the crashing surf, and if Luvi had called for me I hadn’t been able to hear her, and eventually I must have drifted off for a bit while waiting.
I wriggle out into the light from where I’d been resting beneath the rotting wood, and dislodge some of the sand in my feathers with a quick shake. The sun is much higher than I remember, though is barely discernible through the hazy clouds that hang low in the air. I call out for my sister a few times, but she does not answer, and I suspect she’d gone back to the more central meadows and whatever game she’d been playing with herself before she’d pestered me enough to join her.
This wouldn’t be the first time I’d used a game of hide-and-seek to ditch her.
She doesn’t like to be out here along the shore by herself; says the ocean is too large and gives her the creeps. I glance out at the grey winter waves, and think only of the distance that they put between us and the rest of Beqanna. I decide in that moment to travel to the Forest, and am striding east along the shoreline before I really even think about why.
Ruhr had said something about being careful with ‘adolescent recklessness’, but the memory of that is hard to hear over the ocean and the adolescent recklessness. I am old enough to go alone, I reason, and if I should have told someone that I was going, well…I’m surely big enough to take care of myself. I’m nearly as tall as Ruhr despite not being quite a year old, and surely showing off a mouthful of sharp teeth would scare off even the worst sort of monsters in the world.
The farther from the Gates I go, the colder it feels, and I am grateful for the trees that block the wind when I arrive in the Forest. Now that I’ve come, I realize I had no specific destination in mind, and wander through the woods, pausing now and then to ensure that I’d heard a natural noise and not an eerie spirit calling from the heart of the Forest.
11-13-2024, 01:49 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2024, 01:50 PM by Meyer.)
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Once he enters the Forest, we trail him for a little while. It's not like we had anything better to do. Survive. That’s just one thing. And surviving is what we've been doing. Day in and day out, watching, waiting. Hiding. We are tired of hiding, though. Niklas hasn't come looking for us for longer than a season, last spring. I shudder, a chill running through the length of my body when I recall the nature of his last visit. I’ve not seen Set recently, and when Salomea had, he’d been too preoccupied to bother with her. At least, that’s what she’d told me. It’s entirely possible that she wasn’t being entirely truthful regarding that encounter. She had only ever seen the more benevolent side of the pied magician, shielded from his darker tendencies by the shroud of Niklas’ violent misdeeds.
“Psst!”
Salomea’s loud whisper comes from the shadows somewhere up ahead of me, off to the side of the young stranger. Grumbling, I skitter out into the open, hoping to draw his attention off of Salomea. Her dark coat blends into the shadows much better than mine and I silently will her to stay put. The stranger looks to be around our age, but I’ve learned in a short time that looks can be very deceiving. I search his odd eyes for any hint that he is anything but what he appears to be, my nostrils wide, jaw clenched tightly. Now what?
It’s my idea to follow the young stranger. The Forest doesn’t get as many visitors as it used to, not now that the shadows are longer and the nights cooler. We especially don’t see anyone around our age. We’ve seen all sorts come and go - lovers and traitors, diplomats and demons. I cringe away from thoughts of Niklas, focusing my attention on the colt rounding the bend. When he pauses, we do, too. I hold my breath, watching him intently, curiously. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to anyone but Meyer, and even then it’s a mostly one-sided conversation. There was that time I saw Set, back before the weather turned. I’d been looking for Meyer in his favorite places in the Ruins, eager to share with him a new grazing spot I’d found, just a little way into the Forest. Instead, I’d found my grandfather. Only, I didn’t know he was my grandfather at the time. He told me, then. He also told me that my mother was back, that Niklas had brought her back and Set was looking for her. I swallow hard, clinging tight to the shadows when our quarry pauses again, listening to the woods around him.
Meyer is unusually distracted when the other colt starts on his way again and I take the opportunity to duck down a shortcut. A bed of dead, fallen pine needles and leaves muffles the sounds of my hoofsteps as the path angles to cut ahead of the winding, wider path that the stranger is on. When I’m nearly parallel to him, breathless, I whisper-yell.
“Psst!”
I can feel Meyer’s exasperation from here, but I’m still surprised when he breaks his cover, stepping out into the path back where I’d come from, the weak, filtered sunlight catching on the gold highlights in his bedraggled coat. He’s mad, that I can tell, but there’s something else in his defiant stance. Fear? For me? Suddenly I’m acutely aware there could be serious consequences for my actions. Meyer is always telling me to think before I act. But this stranger, he’s just a child, like us. Surely he wouldn’t …
I blink rapidly several times and muster my best growl, deepening my voice and attempting to match the authority I’ve heard in Set’s before. “Try to harm him and I’ll tear your throat out.” It’s a bluff - I’m much too small and dependent to do anything but get myself killed and I know I sound like the child I am, but I’ll die for Meyer if I have to. He came back for me and he’s watched over me ever since. Stupid, I think, and I don’t know if I mean him, or myself.
At the sound of a voice, I freeze, my golden ears turning toward the source of the sound to my left. It had most definitely been a voice, but there had been no one on the path in front of me, and though my hazy grey eyes are wide with fright, they narrow quickly to try and pinpoint the speaker in the shadows.
Before I can, there is another noise from behind me on the path, and I spin about, putting the disembodied voice to my right and the golden stranger emerging from the woods in front of me. I’ve never met anyone that does not live in the Gates, but I do not have time to take in the stranger in front of me before the voice sounds again from the woods to the right.
The words are menacing, but I glance back to the stranger - a boy my own age - and at the someone who remains hidden by the darkness. I hadn’t been doing anything but walking, I think, beginning to feel a little defensive.
“I know my teeth are kinda sharp, but that assumption’s a little rude. I’m not gonna go crazy and bite anybody.” As the only one in the family with sharp teeth - at least in my horse form - I am slightly sensitive about them.
I internally groan and roll my eyes at Salomea’s threat. I know she’s only trying to protect me, always trying to return the favor, but we wouldn’t even be in this situation if she weren’t so impetuous. I shuffle closer. My limp isn’t as obvious these days, even more so when I concentrate on disguising it. Not too close. I warily eye the many differences between the plain, golden bay of my lanky form and the other boy’s striking features, clutching my magic with an iron grip. I’m still learning to control the mimicry, the way every cell in my body strains to shift and copy, to stretch and to mold into something that isn’t me. The physical traits - the wings, the coat colors, horns and scales - those are the easiest to ward off. A fact I’m grateful for because those are the changes that hurt the most, second only to the fire in my veins when I wielded their power, power too big for my body. I swallow convulsively and stop again, careful to keep a reasonable distance. Before I can reply to his apparent indignance, Salomea’s small voice chimes out from the underbrush once again. She attempts the gruff, gravelly sound she’d originally threatened with, chokes and splutters, clears her throat, and tries again. This time it’s “undisguised”, her naturally warbling voice charming and bubbly.
“Says you!” Her reply is exactly what would be expected from a child her age, even despite her first experiences in this life. I imagine she’s stuck her tongue out, too. If I had one word to describe her, it would be resilient, seemingly largely unaffected by the horrors of her early childhood. Clucking in admonishment, I glance back toward the stranger we’d been stalking. My ears flick forward and I shrug.
“She might, though,” I tip my head in Salomea’s general direction. A shriek precipitates her bursting from the bushes like some dark little shadow creature, blunt teeth gnashing in an outraged grimace. I am only just a little bit faster than her, having accurately predicted the likelihood of a wholly over the top response to his perceived insult. I step out of her way and she trips, going down in a tangle, spitting and snarling. I glance toward the stranger, wondering briefly if he has anything useful I can borrow to subdue the little devil. I abandon the thought just as quickly, spinning out of reach when she charges again, careful to expend only as much energy as it takes to stay out of her path.
11-18-2024, 01:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2024, 10:15 AM by Salomea.)
The stranger spins around when Meyer steps out into the open and I tense, waiting for an attack. He looks like he might be Meyer’s age, but that is about where the similarities end. My ears flick forward and then back again. He sounds annoyed, but not aggressive. Meyer doesn’t answer right away, shuffling closer. I can tell he still hurts, though the physical injuries have long since healed. Will this other boy sense his weakness and take advantage of it? Meyer’s personal bubble is larger than most others and he stops just short of it. He’s tense, too, but maintains control, his golden bay body devoid of the other boys purple and blue, his shoulders remaining bare of wings. I grin with pride and, perhaps feeling a bit cheeky because my plan worked, try to reply in the same deep voice I’d originally adopted. It irritates my throat, though, and I cough and choke on my own spit, spluttering for a second before clearing my throat and trying again.
“Says you!” I shout, and stick out my tongue, though I’m sure they still can’t see me.
Rather than back me up, though, Meyer clicks his tongue in that scolding way of his, and replies to the stranger, his tone clearly mocking. I hate being chastised, almost as much as I hate being talked about like I'm not standing right here. I run out onto the trail with a wild war cry, barreling towards the bay boy who is the older brother I never asked for. He steps out of the way at the last second and I trip over something, stumbling over my own legs and rolling off the other side. I come up wild and raging at the indignity of it all and charge him again. He wheels out of my way again, a matador well-accustomed to this particular bull, and I duck to my right, hard. Too hard. My feet go flying out from under me and I somersault again, skidding across the ground several feet before coming to a rest near where the unusual boy had been.
I get back up, shaking my coat out and gulping down air, my little chest heaving. I glare at Meyer, who just stands there, watching me in that obnoxiously quiet way of his. I immediately feel contrite - smaller than him as I am, he's still not himself. I could have hurt him. Childishly, I turn and look up, changing the subject rather than letting Meyer see my guilt and the apology on my face. “They sure don’t look just “kinda” sharp to me,” I say, squinting at the teeth in question. “What are you, anyway?”
Says you, comes the voice from the woods, except this time it sounds different, like the deep menace of a moment earlier had only been a pretense and the coughing and spluttering were the end of it. My eyes narrow as I continue to peer into the shadows, but try as I might I cannot make her (for I am almost certain it is a her) out amidst the layers of bramble and darkness.
When the boy begins to speak, I turn back to him, my brow raising a little at his claim. She sounds like a kid, like me. I can’t imagine biting a stranger, and it seems farfetched that anyone ever would. But before I can express this, the hidden stranger suddenly bursts from the undergrowth toward the bay colt.
He seems prepared, even accustomed to her charges, and I wonder if I look as silly as she does when I charge at Luvi and she so easily evades my attempts. No, I decide with a grin as she loses her footing and stumbles, I couldn’t possibly look that ridiculous.
I sidestep her summersault, not as elegantly as the other boy had, but at least with a more resplendent flare of my feathered wings. The movement hadn’t really been intentional, more an instinctive effort to appear larger to a potential danger. As I fold them back to my golden sides, I watch the exchange between the pair with curious eyes, unsure of what passes between them. The charging seems over, and well as any possibility of being bitten, and as the moment passes, I realize I’d been right and the girl is my age - our age.
All children are the same age, at least those I know. Luvi and I are twins, and these two seem the right size as well. I do not know other children, but I assume the same is true across the world.
I consider pulling back, tightening my lips and refusing to show her my teeth. But then it occurs to me that she might squeal if I flash them right in her face, and then she might fall back down again and hadn’t that been a funny sight?! So I grin, revealing the kelpie-like rows of glittering teeth in the mouth that opens just a little too wide. I cannot see the way the unnatural smile, wide and toothsome, transforms my golden face from an adolescent that is always just slightly odd to something luminescent.
Speaking through teeth that I keeps bared and as still as possible, I answer: “I’m a Statothian. Statoth” I can’t speak clearly enough to be understood, so I give up the grin with a small shake of my blonde head. “A Stratosian. Well, partly anyway. My dad.” I stretch out the wing farthest from the girl, to demonstrate, showing off the blue and purple feathered wing that is not yet strong enough to carry me while flaring the feathers that grow the length of my spine, making them stand nearly upright amidst the pale gold hair.
I am leaner than they, not as birdlike as Ruhr but still just slightly different from my mother’ side of the family. Not enough to be an anomaly, not in a place like this, where dragons once soared the skies, but enough that I am sure these two strangers will recognize it.
“I’m Ravinkavek, but you can call me Ravin.” I’d promised Ruhr to use my whole name, even though I wasn’t sure why he was so insistent. He got insistent about many odd things, but introducing myself using more than just a nickname is one that my mother had concurred with him about, and so it was one I followed.
11-20-2024, 11:24 AM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2024, 04:27 PM by Meyer.)
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Salomea blusters and frills and when she’s finally back on her feet and glaring at me, I hide my smile behind the placid look I know she finds infuriating. I’ve been told before that I’m too pensive, that a shy nature is a coward’s nature, an unbefitting one for the magnitude of magic that runs through my veins. But, I’m not, not really. I am quiet, yes, and I do not often have a lot to say, but I do not think I have a coward’s heart.
Salomea surprises me by changing the subject rather than re-engaging me. It is unsurprising, though, that she gets directly to her point. She tilts her head, raising her brow in that annoying way of hers. I think the stranger is going to clam up, draw back and turn and leave them to the woods but instead he grins. His lips stretch wide - too wide - revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth and I instinctively start forward to put myself between them and Salomea, who’s already jumped back and fallen - again. I’m too slow, though, still sore from our escape and distracted by the fact that the smile I’d first thought creepy and dangerous is suddenly not anymore. I blink slowly and look at Salomea. She’s recovered from her fright (for all her wild fervor, she is still just a child, a damaged one at that) and now stares at the many-toothed boy with a similar expression to the one I’m sure is on my face.
I frown at his introduction, ignoring Salomea’s giggling, and tilt my head. I don’t flinch when he raises a wing but distracted as I am, I feel the familiar itch at my withers as I struggle to regain mental control. I hate wings - it’s not just the outward appearance that changes, and growing new muscles in an instant hurts. Set once told me that there will come a time when the changes don’t hurt as much, especially if I practice. And I did practice. That was before, though, when my sole purpose for learning how to wield my magic was getting Salomea away from those that would use her.
I’ve never met a Stratosian. I’ve seen shifters before but this is different. I take in the brightly colored wings, the feathers that stand up along his spine. He’s more like a bird than like a bird … I don’t voice this out loud because it sounds absurd, and tilt my head at his name. “ Strato … she-N,” my tongue stumbles over the unfamiliar word. Salomea, her tantrum and fear seemingly forgotten, smiles back at Ravin and traipses about him, brushing her nose along his feathers before retreating to my side with a lyrical giggle. “I’m Meyer and that’s Salomea.” I don’t know why I give him our real names but I feel at ease around him. He’s young, like us, and seems friendly enough, despite initial appearances. For a moment I wonder how we got here, not just talking to a stranger, but exchanging pleasantries, too. Then Salomea snorts huffily and I remember exactly how. "We haven't seen you around here before. Are you lost?" Salomea touches her nose to my shoulder. I don't think she even notices the habit anymore. Her way of centering herself. The touch centers me just as much as it does her.
11-20-2024, 04:32 PM (This post was last modified: 11-20-2024, 09:20 PM by Salomea.)
He snakes his head toward me and grins. It’s absolutely terrifying. I knew we shouldn’t have followed him! Nevermind it was my idea. I don’t make a sound as I scramble back, all the air sucked out of my lungs, my eyes and nostrils wide and staring. In my experience, teeth like that are never attached to someone with my best interest in mind. Then, I trip (yes, again), falling on my hocks and rump, splaying out like a newborn for a breath before I scramble to my feet. Gulping, I look at Meyer with my best what-do-we-do-now face. But, he’s not looking at me. He’s closer than he was before I fell but his eyes are trained on the other boy, his eyes wide with wonder. Wha - ? Tense, I whirl to see what Meyer’s entranced by.
I’ve never heard of a Stratosian before but, despite my initial horror, I catch his gaze and find myself grinning back at him. Why, he's not scary at all! He's quite lovely! I snicker at the lisps in his introduction, all at once wholly unbothered and not at all embarrassed by my behavior up to this point. I tilt my head when he gestures with a wing, too enthralled to flinch when Meyer does, my sense of self-preservation and caution tossed aside.
“Stra …,” I shake my head, quickly giving up my attempt to pronounce what he is. “I think I would like to have feathers like that, standing up straight along my back.” I glance again at Meyer and then scuttle forward to inspect the outstretched wing, tromping around it to the back side. There I stretch out my nose to brush reverently against the lovely feathers, withdrawing after the slightest touch with a giggle, darting back to Meyer’s side. My eyes nearly bug out of my head when he introduces us using our real names. He’s never this casual with strangers. I snort and lift my chin, tilting my head back toward Ravin. “So … you have two names?” The concept of nicknames and full names is beyond me; a healthy family unit who cares enough to ask you to use your full name would be even more of a foreign concept. I rest my muzzle on Meyer’s shoulder for a moment, inhaling his familiar scent before turning back to Ravin. “What’s the point of teeth like that, if you’re not going to be biting anyone? Do you eat meat?” I sniff. "You're handsome. But, you smell funny. Not bad. Just … weird." I emphasize my observations, wrinkling my nose and rolling my shoulders in what can only be construed as a shrug.
She does scramble back at the reveal of my shining teeth, and my grin opens into a delighted laugh. “You should’ve seen your face,” I manage between laughs, “I didn’t really mean to scare you but that was so funny!” Any fear I’d had - about her possibly biting me, about other dangers that might lurk in the Forest around us, melt away with my amusement.
As she rises, I look back at the boy, sure he will find this as funny as I had, given how he’d sent her tumbling a few moments ago. But he is looking at me differently, in a way that feels odd, so instead I look back at the girl rather than lose the bubbling warmth of companionship.
She’s grinning as brightly as I do after succumbing to Luvi’s maneuvers, and I wonder for the first time why there are not other children in the Gates, others for Luvi and I to play with. These two, introduced now as Meyer and Salomea, seem most excellent.
“I’m from the Gates,” I explain, “I’ve never been here before, but I’m not lost.” I do not think I am lost, anyway. Despite the overgrowth, the narrowing of apath that comes naturally of less use, I am certain that this is the way to the Forest. Or maybe this is the Forest - the trees seem numerous enough. “Do you live here? Isn’t it kinda spooky? My mom says there’s things in the darkest parts.”
The most terrible thing in my life had been tumbling down a steep bit of cliff near the Gates’ waterfall and the deep gouge it left in my fetlock. It hadn’t healed immediately, no matter how many times he’d dunked it in the healing waters. Ruhr had said it was probably the magic in the waterfall attempting to teach me caution, but Ruhr often attributes sentience to odd things - like the Moon.
So when I think of scary things, they are things like jackals, or steep cliffs; things that can be avoided or scared off with flared wings (like those Salomea inspects) or bared teeth.
“I only really like Ravin,” I admit to her, “only Ruhr calls me Ravinkavek. I think it’s a Stratosian thing.” It had been clear from their attempted pronunciation that neither of them had heard of Stratosians before, so I decided that they are probably not Baltians themselves. (I’m not entirely sure what a Baltian looks like, but these two look less fishy than the tailed creatures that I’ve spotted from time to time in the waterfal’s lagoon.)
“I caught a fish once,” I reply to Salomea’s question about the usefulness of my teeth, and I open my mouth to tell the story when she continues. I smell funny? I bend the still-outstretched wing forward, but it only smells like feathers, and I offer her a mirrored shrug as I tuck it back against my golden side. “Maybe it’s the Stratosian,” I muse, “or the Gates?” I lean forward, just a little, and inhale. “You smell like…the Forest. Do you live here?”
