"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
"You're welcome." She replied warmly. The unease Starbry had initially felt when the stranger had approached was easing away, melting along with the sun as it began to fade over the horizon. It was nice to settle into an easy conversation with someone, something Starbry wasn't really used to. She watched anxiously as Topsail made her way towards the river, her muscles tensing with each step she took. Starbry followed behind slowly, keeping a distance away. As they neared the river she scanned the gurgling water cautiously. There was nothing interesting about it. It was clear and rushing along with what should be a calming noise, but Starbry was unable to relax.
She inhaled sharply as the other mare closed in on the water, lowering her head to what Starbry assumed was icy water. She didn't even realize she had been holding her breath until Topsail drank and lifted her head, appearing unscathed. She exhaled and filled her lungs again with fresh air, heart pounding furiously within her chest. The grulla mare seemed to be completely unphased, perhaps a bit chilled, but otherwise fine. The water continued on, as if nothing had happened, and Starbry tried to relax. She shook her head, the movement working down her body as she coaxed the muscles to loosen and shake off the edge of anxiety she had felt.
The chill of night continued to creep up on the duo as Starbry looked over the mare, reassuring herself that she hadn't grown any extra limbs or began to dissolve. "I think I'll find a new water source for the time being..." She mumbled. Despite the confirmation that the river seemed completely normal, she wasn't totally sure she wanted to experiment with it yet. Her pounding heart had begun to slow but her body quivered a bit as the oncoming night chill passed over the pair. She followed Topsail's gaze to the rising moon and nodded in agreement. "Longer nights, yes. I've always been quite fond of the night time." She turned and gave a lighthearted smile "I love to watch the stars. I used to count them for my mother." She scanned the sky, looking for the twinkling lights that should soon be putting on a show as the sun disappeared.
Starbry stepped closer to the river, her movements cautious and calculated so she could turn and run if she needed to. Her hooves sunk into the cold mud and she shivered again. No green. No slime. No monsters.
"It had to have been just a dream" she said with a laugh and turned to walk from the water's edge. Her hooves made a suction sound as she pulled them from the mud and another shiver worked over her body, but this shiver didn't stop. Her skin felt like it began to buzz and tingle, rapidly warming until it suddenly dissipated. She shook her head and body, swishing her tail across her hips as if she could swat away the chill.
Except there was no swish or swat from her tail. Starbry stopped abruptly and whipped her head around to look, and a scream shattered through the night air as she realized her flesh was gone. Bleach white bone was all there was where brown and blue should have been.
A relit cigarette never tastes the same, and thats all I'll preach about rekindling old flames
Once upon a time, when Topsail was a young filly with wild eyes and a gypsy heart, she had ventured to the Meadow. Her mother had forbidden her to go, of course, but Topsail was too wild a thing to be fenced in by something as weak as words. She had gone searching for nothing in particular, really. A change of pace, a change of face, a change of scenery. She hadn't been picky or even overly cautious about where she found her amusements. There she had met a silver stranger. Not quite a grown man, but certainly more grown than Topsail. Despite that, and despite her inexperience with any kind of worldly things, a spark had lit between them. It was chaotic and dangerous and consuming. When he offered her a chance to see the stars, she had taken him up on it greedily, her eyes filled with wanderlust. Today, she can't even remember his name, but the memory of his silver skin and the bitter taste of stardust on her tongue remained.
Maybe that is where her love for the night had started, or maybe she was just born with shadows in her heart. Winter nights especially, when the sky was clear and the air froze in her lungs. She relished nights like that, despite the chill that settled in her bones. It made her feel small, which was a feeling that didn't happen often.
Topsail watches the moon as it makes its lazy climb into the sky. The stars aren't far behind, and soon the blue-black sky is painted with their combined lights. Its clear tonight, and the stars have no trouble being center stage. A faint smile works its way onto her lips, the kind of smile that holds memories and secrets and unspoken words. With a shake of her head she breaks herself from the reverie, looking away from the stars in the sky and back to Starbry herself. She offers the mare a more genuine smile, nodding in agreement."Dreams can be tricky things, especially around here." she says with a chuckle. Her smile never falters as she brushes her muzzle against the other mares shoulder in support. It is a tender gesture, one Topsail is unaccustomed to but feels right all the same. But the night is shifting, and Topsail is too lost in the camaraderie to notice.
She notices when the flesh of the other mare falls away, though.
Topsail jerks back, her eyes flashing and her wings spreading from her sides. Where once a young mare coated in navy skin had stood is now a skeleton. Not even eyes remain, a fact which unnerves Topsail more than anything. But she is quick to shake off the fear; she has seen far too much to be surprised by dark magic now. Instead, her mouth sets in a firm line as she considers carefully her next words. Topsail herself isn't necessarily afraid, but she figures caution can't go amiss right now. "I think maybe your dream shifted into a nightmare at some point...? Her statement hangs in the empty spaces of Starbrys mind, as much a question as anything else. She isn't sure what else there is to say, so she remains quiet, bathing in the moonlight.
So focused is she on Starbry that she doesn't notice when the graveworms start to crawl beneath her own mousey flesh. But the night isn't done with them, not by a long shot.
Any comfort she had previously found with the company Topsail had provided after her experience at the river was gone. Fear swallowed her whole. As the scream that shattered across the night fell silent, she felt Topsail's voice in her mind despite no flesh existing on her body. Something about a dream and a nightmare. She was terrified. She felt a cold chill running along her even though she had no hide to feel it. She swore she was shaking, even without muscles to twitch and tremble.
Starbry felt as if she was a child again. Like she was trapped in a nightmare, thrashing about, hoping her mother would wake her to comfort her and count the glittering specks in the sky with her until she calmed down and settled back into sleep. Something about this felt too real - too real and too terrible to be just a nightmare. Tears would have streamed down her cheeks had she been capable of shedding any.
Grasping for any hold on reality she could find, Starbry forced her body to move forwards. Bones clicked in the night, shining under the moonlight with an eerie alabaster glow. Her hooves pulled from the freezing muck along the river and she moved away from the water, the bones shifting and joints bending as if muscle and tendons and ligaments were still pulling them along. Magic was a mysterious thing.
"This is real, isn't it." The words somehow formed and flowed from her as she stopped a safe distance from Topsail, wary she might be contagious. She didn't notice any changes in the other mare yet, so consumed by her own shock and fear of the abrupt shift from navy and bay to fleshless, white bone. Starbry felt weak. "What do I do..." She murmured to the earth, almost to herself but knowing her companion with mind magic would certainly pick up on it. She lifted her skull back upwards to face Topsail. The infrared vision she possessed that enhanced her ability to see in the night seemed...off...when she looked at her. Starbry couldn't quite place what wasn't right, but Topsail's heat signal didn't seem right. She brushed it aside, deciding an altered heat signal was the least of her worries right now.
A relit cigarette never tastes the same, and thats all I'll preach about rekindling old flames
Where once the stars had offered comfort, it only held nightmares now. They were the stories told to foals to keep them at the side of their dams. No longer whole, no longer flesh and blood. They were wicked things meant only for legends and graves. They were monsters.
The moonlight ate away greedily at her flesh, its veracity matched only by the maggots squirming beneath her hide. She shuddered as if trying to dislodge a fly, but the maggots only grabbed on tighter. That is the only attention they will get from her though. The skeleton in front of her as the majority of it, especially the infernal screaming that is pouring from the place her mouth had been. Topsail pins her ears, a sneer lifting what remained of her lips. Patience has never been her strong suit.
"Of course its real." she hisses, her voice slithering into the other mares skull. There is no brain matter to come against, so Topsail can only assume the words rattle against the bone. It would seem as if the girl is unaware she is a monster, a fact which Topsail finds rather unique. Most monsters own their frightening flesh with great gusto. This girl, however, acts as if she woke up one night to the clink and rattle of bone. Very strange indeed.
With an exaggerated sigh, Topsail circles the skeleton mare, her remaining eyeball roving over the expanse of bleach white bone with fascination. Her other eye fell out onto the ground before she even began moving, yet it still wiggles as if trying to find its way back to the socket. Topsail ignores it; the Gods gave her two eyeballs for a reason, she supposes. Instead, she stops and cocks her head, staring directly into the hollows where the other mares eyeballs would be. "You know, you would be perfect for my kingdom. We welcome monsters. Come to The Valley. I'm Topsail...the Queen." she purrs, her earlier hatefulness long forgotten.
Overhead, the moon shines on. Even the stars are dull in comparison.
The mare in front of her continued to change, something happening so quickly but so slowly - like a frog in a pot of water on a stove slowly heating - that Starbry wasn't able to pick up on the changes as they happened.
A voice hissed through her mind, startling and unlike the conversations that they had been having. There was a shift and sudden change in the atmosphere around them, a heaviness and a chill that made her take a step back again as her new friend's sharp spoken words sliced at her tender heart. Of course it's real. The words scraped against the sides of her mind and she felt suddenly very ill and unsteady. "I..I think something bad is happening." She choked out. As the flesh began to rot and fall away from her friend, the odd heat signals began to make sense. If she had eyes they would be filling with tears, her heart would have been thundering, but instead she felt nothing but crushing fear and suffocating cold while her typically happy world crumbled around her.
She stumbled a bit and took another uneasy step backwards when an eye fell from the grulla's face and shuddered on the earth. Bones clicked mixing with the soft noise of the gurgling river as she stopped at its edge again. Topsail's memories again flashed through her mind as she states she is the queen, Starbry would fit in with all of the monsters in her kingdom. Starbry shook her head in confusion. She had said she was a former queen? Starbry wasn't a monster, she'd never been a monster. She had heard the stories and had the nightmares but had always lived a quiet and peaceful life, even since leaving her mother's side to explore the world on her own.
But here she was, very clearly a monster. In the presence of another monster. She can't say Topsail hadn't warned her.
"You know I'm not a monster, Topsail." She had always been the furthest thing from a monster. A quiet daydreamer, tender hearted and soft spoken. "Something is wrong, this isn't us." The words rushed out, a little more confidently now. The grulla, despite her past she'd shown Starbry, had been so warm to her. Even if it wasn't her natural disposition, it had felt so real to the bay and blue mare. Had she just been waiting for the night to fall to let her true colors show? No. No, she had said that beqanna fell and took her kingdom and the monster she was with it. "You said beqanna fell and took your monster-hood with you. You said you used to rule the Valley." She fought hard to resist the urge to turn and run, run until the sun broke the horizon again. She had always loved the night so much and here she was, terrified under the blanket of stars she always found comfort in.
"I'm Starbry, you know I'm Starbry." She took a step forwards, forcing herself to face her fears as the mare seemed to physically and mentally rot away. "You showed me your memories of eight and the wolves and your children." She stopped herself, the moonlight shining off of her bones as she faced the formed queen who was seemingly going mad. Starbry wasn't sure what exactly she was going to do, but she didn't think running was going to save her.
A relit cigarette never tastes the same, and thats all I'll preach about rekindling old flames
As the night wears on, Topsail finds herself falling easily into those old habits. As the shadows twine around her legs and over the planes of her rotting body, she leans into them. There is a feline-esque movement about it, like a devoted cat swirling around the legs of its devoted master. The other girl, Starbry, she seems to know nothing of the night or the shadows. Where Topsail is plainly in her element, the other girl is whimpering and afraid.
More the pity, Topsail thinks. Skeletons make fantastic monsters. If the little meek mouse can't find the beauty in the macabre, thats her own fault.
Topsail listens to the frantic ramblings of the other mare, though she registers very little of it until she hears her own name spill from the skeletons teeth. Her remaining eye narrows, while the muscles within the empty socket contract as if trying to do the same thing. Topsail shakes her head, a sigh falling loose and slipping into the chilled air. The other mare has spoken, continues to speak, but her words fade away on the wind, forgotten and ignored.
Topsail has no time for the mewings of a baby monster.
"If you're really that upset about a little flesh loss, we can go find Eight. He's king of The Valley and a magician besides. Maybe he can set you right, though it seems a pity to waste such a frightening gift." she finishes with a half shrug, though the muscles and tendons in her rotting body don't react well to the motion. She turns towards The Valley, intent on getting the pitiful mare help. With her thoughts preoccupied and her eyeball rolling on the ground, she doesn't notice the pink tinged sky kissing the mountains.
The clicking of her own bones melding with the plopping of her friend's rotting flesh and hungry maggots had turned into a strange and macabre melody. A sound that belonged in nightmares and not underneath the twinkling stars and glowing moon. Watching her only friend rotting away mentally and physically was a sickening distraction from her own physical and mental distress. How could she be concerned for herself while she watched the only other horse who had shown her any form of compassion, however miniscule, withering away before her?
Topsail's elegant and feline movements, despite the rotting flesh, were almost mesmerizing to Starbry. She could see how she had once been a magnificent queen and wondered momentarily how magnificent she really would have been to see in her glory. She exuded power and confidence even while her body and mind fell apart.
The former queen appears to completely dismiss any of Starbry's pleas for her to recognize her, and instead insists she follows to find Eight, who may fix her. At the mention of being fixed she almost dismisses her concerns for her friend and follows. She would love to be able to live under the night again without the fear of her own body. If Eight could fix her...if Topsail knew where Eight was and he could fix her. Maybe he could fix Topsail as well, whatever had suddenly gone so wrong with her. Stabry began to step forward, mindlessly following the rotting mare in hopes to be cured. Something in her screamed at her to stop and she came to a halt. Shining bones clicked softly as she stated "No." More firmly than she expected.
"You said the Valley is gone." Starbry turned her alabaster skull towards the sky. It was beginning to mix the wonderful colors of dawn. Something hitched inside of her at the sight. The colors of night were beautiful and forever her favorite, but there was not much that could beat the glowing dances of dusk and dawn. She began to turn her attention back towards Topsail, hoping she had also stopped, and would maybe listen. The pink sky was beginning to grow and turn the world around them varying shades of pink, purple, and orange. Suddenly she felt a burning head and tingling. A buzzing across her bones that she tried to shake off only to realize that her flesh was beginning to flow over the bones, filling with muscle and soft tissue as it went. She felt her heart pounding in her chest again and air filling her lungs. She laughed at the sensation, feeling alive.
As life again found Starbry, she felt something else that was unusual. Her body was surrounded by a field of luminous energy the colors of the cosmos. Warmth seemed to wash over her, melting away the fear and ice from the night. As the aura enveloped her, she felt a sudden burst that blew her mane forwards as wings created from the same substance rushed from her body into the air around them. She turned her head trying to see what horror had found her now but instead let out a gasp as she caught sight of the magnificent, luminous appendages that had adorned her. They shimmered with color and warmth, fabricated from the heavens.
She turned a bit, sending a wing outwards and setting herself off balance causing her to slightly stumble, the other wing finding the ground for stability. It seemed as if the universe was compensating her for her troubles recently, and she laughed again at the ridiculousness of it all. This emotional rollercoaster was leaving her with whiplash. "I don't even know what's real anymore." She said, laughing again and shaking her head as her wings bobbled at her sides.
i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night
