"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
12-02-2024, 06:51 PM (This post was last modified: 12-03-2024, 12:24 PM by Meyer.)
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I’ve never had a friend, not really. Salomea doesn’t count. In fact, I’d ignored her at first. She was even smaller when she’d joined us, her dark coat more fur-like than mine, her gray eyes wide and staring and somber. I still don’t know where she came from - Niklas had just shown up one day with her, cocooned in his shadows in a deep sleep, despite the gentle bump-bump-bump of her body made as the demon drug his prize along the uneven ground. The purpose behind Niklas’ theft had been murky at first; she’d been too small, too weak. The thin spectre rarely bothers unless it benefits or amuses him and I could not see, not at first, how either could apply. It was only when she had been with us for months that I’d begun to pay attention, after she traded her baby fur for the deep black of her coat now. She is like a walking power source, a way to compound one’s own magic - a prize to be coveted by those with no qualms about using others for their own gains. I’d risked everything to free her, to give her - us - a chance at a real life, out from under their dark intentions.
I shift my weight, wincing slightly at the twinge in my hip. Salomea notices and furrows her brow. I can see the guilt lurking in her pale grey eyes and I tuck the pain away, tossing her a wink and shaking my mane out.
“Sort of. We’ve never really lived in any particular place. We stay here and there but,” I shrug, rolling my shoulders. “We know the best hidey places!” Salomea suddenly shouts, and I groan, nudging her none too gently. Ravin seems nice enough but we’ve both seen what can lurk just below the surface of a friendly smile and an open demeanor. I tilt my head back toward the winged boy, frowning just a little. “Your mom is right, though. Best stay on the biggest paths and steer clear of the darkest parts.” I lift my chin, gesturing in the general direction of where we’d last seen Niklas. Although, in all reality, the demon could be anywhere. I honestly don’t know why he’s left us alone. I’m not naive enough to think that my little display of power could scare the likes of him off permanently. My gaze flickers from the chattering, constantly-on-the-move Salomea back to Ravin. “Are there more like you, in the Gates?” I’m not sure what the Gates are but I’ve already shown this stranger enough of my ignorance for now, so I do my best to sound casual, gingerly shifting my weight again. "We don't live here, so much as survive here." I answer his question off-handedly, as if the admission does not carry the weight of all my fears and failures.
I’ve never met anyone with a sense of humor like this Stra … toe … Ravin. Meyer is my protector, the big brother I never asked for, but he’s always quiet and calm, more often than not just rolling his eyes and sighing at what he calls my "shenanigans". I glance at him sideways, catching the flash of pain across his face when he shifts his weight. I’m flooded with guilt immediately, my skin prickling.
Too often I let my emotions get the best of me. Meyer says it’s from repressing so many things while I was growing up (“Which you are still in the process of,” he’d sidetracked sternly as we lay in our refuge for the night, whispering quietly to one another as if the darkness could not steal our secrets.) He’d also cautioned me against using it as an excuse for bad behavior, something I often struggle with but don’t fall back on now. We’ve been gone from Niklas for nearly two seasons and Meyer still can’t travel far in a day, or play-fight like we used to. I made a mistake. Again. I swallow against the sudden lump in my throat when he catches my frown and winks at me before shaking his mane out.
Meyer begins to explain how we don’t really have a home. “We know the best hidey places!” I shout, eager to be a part of the conversation and move past the troubled feeling of having pushed my brother past his limits. Meyer groans and shoves my shoulder with his nose. Oops. I don’t react to his admonishment, physically or otherwise. Instead, I turn my attention back to the toothy boy, staring at these so-called fish-catching teeth. I’ve never tried catching a fish myself. They’re smelly, too, but in a bad way, not the way Ravin smells funny. He said I smelled like the Forest … While he and Meyer talk about boring things, I crane my neck around to my side, inhaling deeply. I can smell Meyer and … I do smell like the Forest! It’s a warm, earthy scent, familiar and comforting and wild.
“Did you eat it?” I interrupt, tilting my head in question.
I scoot closer, even bolder now that we’ve exchanged each other’s scents and Meyer rests a hind leg. “What are the Gates? And if you have a home … why would you be out here?” I lay my ears back and frown at this last thought spoken aloud.
I am so accustomed to ignoring the effects of an aching body in my father that I do not see Meyer’s wince, only Salomea’s sudden attentiveness followed by Meyer's easy wink. Nothing to be worried about, I think, just things between siblings. I’ve decided thats what they must be, the boy and the girl. Not twins like and Luvi and though, the boy is older by much more than the minutes Luvi has on me.
They don’t live anywhere, Meyer answers, and stops Salomea from revealing the best hiding places. I don’t blame him - I’d be reluctant to give up my favorites either. But not to live anywhere? That seems stranger, but before I can ask his face grows more serious, and soon his frown that is mirrored by my own expression as my eyes and ears follow his gesture to an otherwise nondescript direction in the woods.
But Meyer does not elaborate as to the things in the woods anymore than my mother had, and then Salomea asks if I’d eaten the fish and I shake my head. “No. I left it to an osprey.” I would have eaten it, but something about the look in my mother’s eyes at the sight of the blood had turned my stomach. The osprey had needed it, too; the black Islandres bird had been looking thin lately.
“More Stratosians?” He asks, unsure what Meyer is asking. “My sister, and Ruhr. Everyone else is just horses, my mom and her friends.” To Salomea’s question, I gesture back down the path that I’d been traveling on before the pair of them had appeared. “The Gates. The big flowery place down that way along the coast?” Perhaps they've not been there, I think, and then decide they must not've if what Meyer says is true - that they survive out here.
