"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
The outer edges, the places where few go and even fewer return from, have been his home for many years. He likes it here, likes the blankness in the eyes of the other horses. He likes how they look at him reverently, as if he was some sort of golden god brought from the heavens to walk amongst them. It suits his vanities. He even takes a herd after a time, fighting off the other, weaker males who try to take what is rightfully his. But it’s not for bravado’s sake that he becomes a champion for the mares; more than anything, he wants the company. Despite all his self-assuredness, he’s still the lonely boy he always was, back home. He’s still the child abandoned by his mother, always in search of a steady rope in treacherous waters.
He remembers Beqanna most of the time.
And eventually, he can take no more of the glassy-eyed stares of the women when he spins tales of the magical place he used to inhabit. He can no longer tolerate their mechanic responses to his attempted advances, as if they are living on instinct rather than their own born-with intelligence. He thinks they are soulless. Emotions are few and far between when he can sense them, and it nearly drives him mad.
Walter learns that romance does not exist in the wild-lands, as much as he’d wanted it to.
And as if emerging from a fog after years lost at sea, he remembers that he can leave anytime he wants. Sparing not a second glance at the charcoal mare he’d spent years trying to breath a soul into, (he’d told her how the Deserts become so cold at night but are worth it for the millions of stars that appear, he’d told her how he could still smell the pines of the Chamber, even now it hadn’t left him) he canters forward, pumping his wings and lifting into the sky. Because he hasn’t forgotten the way back (he’d planned his escape the same day he set foot in the feral world, just in case, and had spent many nights rehearsing it in his mind) he sets his course for the meadow and arrives only days later. Perhaps he’ll not be a god among men here. Maybe they’ll look at him with dull acceptance, but at least there will be a spark hidden in their gaze. At least they’ll have their own stories woven into the fibers of their brains, ready to release them at the slightest provocation.
Summer is at its close, but it’s still rather warm when he touches down in his old, haunting spot. Walter lifts his wings slightly away from his body, letting the tepid air cool him in some small degree. He remembers everything about this place, but already, he’s starting to forget the faces of his mares. Already, he can feel the weight of their beady eyes lessening. Old faces come to him then, swimming in his mind’s eye. He welcomes their vibrancy, their ability to tether him to the past even decades later. And with more of a spring in his step than ever before, the leggy palomino moves further into the sunlit meadow, a lazy grin stretching his lips.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long
we dance with the devils your halo's the color of sinner's portraits
This is before the Field, she thinks as she walks, unsure how she knows this – only that she does. Someone must have wished it; she’s aware of that at least. There’s no way to tell who anymore though, and Djinni resigns herself to never knowing.
It is something she’d done many times before, and will surely do so again.
The autumn air is crisp in her lungs, an icy finger running down her tongue and throat and finally fading away in her belly. For a long while she stands with her attention on the sky, watching the red and orange leaves as they blow across the pale grey sky. When the mare finally lowers her gaze to the earth she sees another flash of gold that at first she thinks is just another leaf. But her vision sharpens and the distant palomino stallion comes into focus. Her heart leaps in her chest
Is she only happy to see a familiar face? Are they friends? More than that? Does she love him? Has she ever told him she does? Djinni can’t even remember. Perhaps her mother had told her a story of Walter and it involved love; she doesn’t know that for sure either.
But she does know this feeling bubbling up in her throat to warm the cool left by the wind. It’s happiness, and it shines in her dark eyes as she canters toward him across the empty meadow. Her mane and tail stream out behind her, as yellow as the warm sunshine coursing through her veins. Her body remains the same shade she was born, a smoky grey with her father’s white withers. “Walter!” She says as she comes close and then again “Walter,” because she’s not entirely sure that she’d said it aloud the first time. “What are you doing here? Where have you been? What have you been up to?” The words spill out of her in a rush and she reaches forward to press her black muzzle to his jaw just as much to stop the flood of words as to offer him a greeting.
d j i n n i priam x aseret current shape: arabian-hyrid mare, 15 hh current color: smoky grullo tobiano with yellow mane and tail
As the dull ground crunches beneath his hooves, his grin fades into a more settled smile. Because as he walks, he remembers. As he sees the framing branches of an old oak holding up the autumn sky, the pictures flood back into his mind. Here’s where he stood after leaving the Chamber for the final time. Here is where Violette rejected him, not with her words but her actions. He can see the precise way her stomach curved, full to the brim with the new life it held. He can see her face, the way it lit up with the sweet glow of new love. Further away, Walter can see the copse where he’d found Aseret not long after. His old eyes crinkle to remember her, but his heart constricts. Just like Violette, the dusky mare had been rotund with her own unborn child when they crossed paths again. And the truth had hit him violently in each case; life was leaving him far behind.
It’s been so many years, and still, he doesn’t feel like he’s caught up.
He wonders about his friends as he walks. He imagines Violette has long since turned to dust on the beach, but he hopes she’d lived as well as she could in the years between. Aseret and Priam he is less certain of – had they been immortal, like him? The palomino strains to remember until another face swims into the forefront of his mind. It’s amorphous and smoky, not constrained and set like the others. She had been different nearly each time he saw her, but those golden rings had always remained the same. He can hear the soft clinking of them even now in his mind. But no, he really can hear them.
Walter cranes his neck backwards, thinking he must be losing it after all this time. Perhaps the wild-lands had done a number on his brain, leeching it for the mindless drones that lived on the other side. But she’s there, running at him as if her life depended on it. His grin resurfaces then, a wide, warm thing that seems to take up his entire face. “Djinni?!” And as incredulous as he is, he can’t help also enjoying the sight of her so desperate to reach him. He’s also ridiculously thankful she hadn’t mistaken him for a woman as many were prone to do.
She approaches with a slew of questions, but he is too absorbed in hearing her familiar voice and seeing her familiar form to really listen. How long has it been? How often had he met with her mother by chance, their paths often intersecting at various points in their lives? Almost as if fate has overlapped the strings of their lives, as if his return had pulled her string towards him, their reunion inevitable. Whatever the reason, Walter’s tremendously glad to see her. He thrills at the press of her muzzle against his cheek, comforted in a way that she likely wouldn’t understand. He’s been surrounded by voiceless, humorless (and rather soulless) horses for so long, that this kind greeting leaves him breathless. And for the first time in his life perhaps, he finds it hard to speak. He blinks his honey-brown eyes slowly before he finds his voice. “I’ve been living outside of Beqanna. A horrible mistake.” Walter looks around, breathing in the familiar scent of the meadow, grounding him. “But I’m home now, thank all the stars in the sky.”
The full realization of being here once again makes his bones feel lighter than they have in years. He flaps his wings once decisively before settling them against his side. Djinni looks much the same as she had last time. He sees no tell-tale bulge at her waist, no blinding love shining in the corners of her eyes. She intrigues him as she always has; she makes him feel more than the apathy that usually casts a shadow over his mind. He wants to return her nudge, but years of cold indifference to his touch stay his movements. “And you, Djinni? What a coincidence to see you right away.” His tone becomes mischievous then, roguish, as if she’s waited all these decades for his return.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long
we dance with the devils your halo's the color of sinner's portraits
Djinni has not been alone the entirety of time since she’s last seen Walter. She has always been a giver – of smiles, of wishes, of her heart. Love though – traditional love, romantic love, that longing to find her soulmate?
Djinni has never felt that.
She has no need to find her other half – she is already whole.
The smile that she gives Walter as she beams up at him is as innocent as a child’s. She has never lost a thing; she has not yet never loved a thing enough to mourn losing it. There has always something on the horizon to draw her away from serious attachment, a new face to wear, a nameless land to visit. She is happy regardless, as if that was not clear in the brightness of her eyes and the ease of her smile.
The grullo mare does notice that Walter does not return her touch, but it does not occur to her to mind. She removes her muzzle slowly, only to listen to him answer her rapid fire questions. He has been gone too then, but his adventures must have been less fulfilling than her own. She is fonder of Beqanna than of anywhere else she has been, so she can understand his sentiment, even if it is only partially.
The flapping of his wings cause her smile to grow again, and she glances at them for a moment before she adds a few white feathers to her yellow mane. They feel pleasant, smooth against her smoky neck. They are clearly copies of his own, white feathers like those in his broad wings. The mischief in his eyes distracts her before she can think too much of the significance of the feathers, and she laughs softly.
“You didn’t wish me back, then?” She asks, feigning surprise, the gentle teasing in her voice entirely good-natured. “I was somewhere else,” she answers a moment later, gesturing with her dark muzzle in the general direction of over and up, “and then I was here.” A shrug completes her answers – she never has a logical reason for the way she tends to be one place or the next.
d j i n n i priam x aseret current shape: arabian-hyrid mare, 15 hh current color: smoky grullo tobiano with yellow mane and tail,
He is the leftovers of a loveless night, the residual dust from a carver’s earliest work before he moved on to greater labors. Walter is the unwanted, the thrown-away; he is the trash grown staler by a stalled truck.
Djinni had her childhood, had her parents and their love. But Walter’s was a quick and greasy take on growing up. The emaciated crone with a voice like broken glass had lured him to the Chamber. She hadn’t lied at least – she hadn’t promised him a proper home, anyway – but she hadn’t really wanted him, either. He’d been just another body to fill her kingdom, just another faceless orphan to feed the machine that was the piney place at the time. He was a bitter and angry boy, but he was smart. Smart in a way that kept him out of trouble, despite his lashing tongue. Smart in the way he occupied his time and taught himself everything he needed - and wanted - to know. But his sharp brain made easy work of his heart, poking into deep, meaty truths he couldn’t ignore. He had been left behind because his mother was either incompetent or uncaring (he wasn’t sure which was worse). His father possibly knew he existed and didn’t give a rat’s ass or his mother had never told him. Walter saw that the common denominator was his mother, and has more or less blamed her ever since.
So he’ll never be as whole as many others. His heart is still punctured by the sharpness of thoughts that have never left him, even after all these years. Holes caused by abandonment and regret decorate that vital organ, sending out blood throughout his body that is poisoned by his memories. He is always seeking a salve, a tonic to patch him up and ease the ache.
Despite his outward indifference, his heart sings for repair.
Seeing Djinni again heals him further. She is like sunshine on this cloudy, sunless day. He suddenly thinks they should have been born with each other’s coats – they’d be far more fitting. Her smile is radiant, and he already knows his cheeks will later be numb with his own returning smile. “I wish I had wished you back,” Walter says, feeling much colder than he should when she pulls her muzzle away from him. His voice is still that same smooth tenor, even after years without polishing. “But I can’t be responsible for all the good in the world, as much as it pains me to admit.”
He grins, the sudden appearance of his own feathers on her neck stretching the smile even further. The palomino wants to know everything about Djinni’s adventures then. He wants to see where she’s been, to hear the voices she’s shared stories with. He breathes her in as discreetly as possible. And when he doesn’t smell the sage and spice of the Deserts, he is not surprised in the slightest. But she remains coy in her answer. “Well I’m glad you’re here with me.” His face sobers instantly when he realizes what he’s said, how she might interpret it. “Me and the rest of this lot,” he says, gesturing to the meadow-dwellers around them. To his dismay, they are few and far between. Walter takes a moment to collect himself before looking back at the smoky mare, a tentative smile curving his lips. “Where will you go next?”
She smiles in reply, a little shy, but clearly pleased. Her entire existence has been taken up with her adventures these past years, and while to say she has thought often of Walter would be a lie, so too would saying he has not crossed her mind. She’s thought of everyone she left – her mother and father, her siblings. They are part of what she’s returned, but Walter is the only one still here – or rather, back here, she supposes. The rest of them are as absent from Beqanna as she had been, and while she could find them, she does not yet miss them enough to try.
The grullo mare doesn’t press closer despite her preference for proximity; she has learned that not everyone is as comfortable as she is. Walter would humor her, she is sure, but she would not dream of presuming. So she holds back, and when he says that he is glad she is here with him so is so ready to say the same thing in return that the words are already forming on her lips. His smile disappears though, and Djinni is suddenly doubtful – both of her own feelings and of Walter. Isn’t he glad she is here? She is certainly glad she is, and gladder still that she has found a familiar face so soon. “I’m glad to be here too,” she says instead. It is not in her nature to be easily cowed though, and when she says “I missed it here”, she also adds, “I missed you” with so much certainty that it’s nearly a challenge to Walter to refute it.
Despite the generations before her, Djinni has not felt the urge to pledge herself to a kingdom the way her ancestor did. Her parents loved the Desert, but they loved each other more, and had not instilled in any of their children an incredibly strong desire to serve. Mellark had been called, Djinni remembers, but she had never wanted the same path as her turquoise-haired brother. Lately though she has wondered if perhaps she is missing out. Surely there is something valuable, something important, something to keep horses so stalwart in their loyalty to their chosen kingdom.
Was it possible that it was not that kingdoms didn’t call to her, but rather just that the Desert didn’t? The sandy kingdom’s hold on her bloodline was only a few generations deep, and tales of her grandparents in the Chamber, Valley, and Gates had always enthralled her as a child. This is in the back of her mind, and so when Walter asks where she will go next, she responds readily: “I’m going to find a home.” It sounds so certain, so stable, that she surprises herself. “Well, I’d like to, anyway.” She amends with a shake of her yellow mane. “I thought I’d see what’s so interesting about the other kingdoms.”
The sun moves relentlessly across the sky above them, the light making a slow pendulum of the shadows from the trees. He doesn’t notice the time that passes, however. He’s so enraptured in familiar company - Djinni’s specifically – that he doesn’t really care at how little progression he’s made back into Beqanna. The wild lands were different. Every day was a brand new challenge at forging ahead to new lands. It was absolutely draining to keep his band together, to posture and herd and often fight for the witless mares that gave him nothing in return. He doesn’t miss the constant motion. Already, his feet press heavily into the ancient soil of the sunrise-lands as if they are reluctant to move for a long while. Something tells him that Djinni’s are not used to being static either. Surely, they’ve traversed many strange lands and accrued many miles on her journey. He’s interested to hear about any and all of them, but she seems to steer the conversation in another direction.
Always the gentleman, he obliges.
But the sudden change in her (subtle, but there nonetheless) confuses him. Doubt creeps over her as it had him only moments before. A memory comes to him like déjà vu. They’d been here before, standing face-to-face after years apart. She’d looked much the same but without the yellow and feathers in her hair. He’d balked at her touch then, too, instinctually and not understanding the tawny mare’s intent. Now, after years of missing this very aspect of one sentient creature’s expression towards another, he can’t believe he’s made the same mistake again. For her part, Djinni recovers quickly. Her words are a distinct dare; she pulls his doubts away with only a few choice sentences.
I missed you, repeats in his brain, warming him more than even her touch had. Words he can understand; words are black and white unlike the grey of touch and feel. He’ll never fully understand those parts of a relationship. He’ll never fully be able to utilize his physicality to draw closer to another – it’s simply beyond his realm of understanding. Her admittance assures him far more than a well-placed muzzle or the press of skin. He’s missed her, too. It’s an easy truth that he has no trouble in revealing. “I missed you, too.”
But because he’s late on the uptake (as he always has been; he’s the last bit of molasses in an already harvested forest) the conversation is already moving along. He smiles, somewhat sheepishly as she blazes ahead to answer his question. His mind still lingers on what she’d said - I missed you - a truth that had amassed over a decade spent apart. Walter had thought of her, of course, but he’s still surprised to find the opposite had been true as well. So when she does answer him, he’s overly quick to reassure her. “You will.” His voice is hoarse in his haste and he hurries to clear it. “Any kingdom would be lucky to have you.”
And for the first time in his life (because she deserves it for putting up with him, and he thinks she wants it, too) he initiates contact. He stretches his golden neck as far as he can before he realizes he should just move closer. He does, his muzzle hovering awkwardly over her own neck for a moment before he touches down with his chin. The contact sends a shiver across his skin, but he finds it is a rather pleasant chill. If anyone could make this okay, it would be Djinni. Walter withdraws slowly, testing the limits of his tolerance and finding they didn’t really exist with the paint mare. He smiles when he looks back at her, wondering if she realized how big of a step he had just taken. “If I’ve missed anything more than you, it’s the Chamber,” he says, winking to show his jest. He has missed the pines of his youth, but he hasn’t decided if he’ll return just yet. “Otherwise, I think they’re all basically the same these days. Pick a place and go from there.” Of course he doesn’t really believe it, but he’s more interested in her opinion anyway.
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long
They do not speak of their experiences – at least they haven’t yet – and so she cannot tell him that she, too, knows of places where her companions were nothing more than empty shells, driven only to eat and sleep and procreate. She had tried to make them something else, something bolder, something like those she knew, but she had never succeeded. Instead she had wished herself into an even more emotional thing filled with pulsing tendrils of sadness and euphoria, shaped like a star and a stone and so full of feelings that it almost drove her mad. Well, perhaps that experience she does not share with Walter. But black faces and blank words? Those she knows. Those she does not ever want to see again.
She is too full of emotion to not share it with others, and so when Walter tells her that he missed her too, she smiles so brightly that she turns entirely yellow. Only the pale feathers in her mane remain the same soft shade; the rest of her is suddenly bright enough to put the sun to shame. Concealing her emotions is not her strongest skill.
When he reaches toward her she does not let him pull away untouched; she is not willing to let this moment get away from her so easily as it had those years ago. Djinni reaches up and brushes her yellow muzzle against his jaw as he pulls back, a soft kiss with no hidden meaning. She’s smiling gently, not at all expectant, because she can empathize with the palomino stallion. She knows that he is not the physical creature she is, but his willingness to try means even more than his verbal admission. They have such vastly different modes of communication, but somehow Djinni feels that Walter truly understands her.
The compliment surprises her though, and she glances down for a moment, and what would be a blush is only her reverting to her familiar shade of grey dun, only the feathers remaining. “I thought about the Chamber,” she says, but chooses not to mention that she wants to know where her mother grew up. That’s not really the real reason anyway; she has no words for the real reason behind her curiosity. “What will you do?” She asks, because she is not quite ready to leave him for a new adventure, “Will you stay here?”
Even if he weren’t able to sense the emotions in others, Djinni would negate the need to.
She illuminates at his admission, her skin sunshine-yellow like her mane and tail already are. It’s fascinating to watch the change come over her, made all the more so because it is her and no one else. She shimmers under the midday sun, so bright he nearly has to avert his gaze, and it reminds him suddenly of the desert. The warm, snaking tendrils of her happiness make their way under his skin, reaching ever closer to his heart. That he’d caused this change in her makes him wonder more than anything. That he’d made the smile on her face fills all those little holes in his heart with buttery light. Walter suddenly forgets that he’d tried for years and years to make the others respond like this. He no longer cares about those failures (failures that had kept him up at all hours of the night, wracking his brain for reasons why) because this is the only success that matters.
Why hadn’t he followed her all that time ago?
A dark, needle-thought pierces him then. Because you are your mother’s son: a coward, a leaver. He closes his eyes even as Djinni places a kiss on his cheek. It’s not true, he tells himself, trying to shake the thought. But at the same time, he doesn’t lean into the grullo mare’s touch – not again. Walter pulls back all the way until they are facing each other once more. He’s not a leaver, (I’m not) but he will not hold her back, either. He cares about her too much.
And while he wants to follow her this time, (his wings even stir unconsciously as if readying for takeoff) he thinks he will not, should not. She needs her adventures and stories; she needs to see the world and dive in feet-first without his weight tying her down. The yellow stallion looks away from the yellow mare when she says she’s thought about the Chamber. He can’t imagine losing her so soon after only finding her once more. He sees her in the inky, piney confines of the achingly familiar kingdom, pictures himself alongside her, pointing out the places of his childhood. It’s such a silly thought, really, but he knows it will keep him awake at night for a long while.
“The Chamber…” he starts, trailing off as he turns back to Djinni. He looks pointedly at the too-bright yellow of her skin, figuring she realizes how out of place it will be there. He forces himself to adopt a lighter tone when he speaks next, hoping she doesn’t think he disapproves. “Might want to change it up before you go.” His smile is small but there; he misses her already. “I visited the Deserts years ago, looking for you.” Walter blinks, hurriedly adding, “and your parents.” The spot where her dusky lips met his face still tingles. “I don’t think I’m ready for a kingdom just yet. I thought maybe I’d start a herd here. More of a band, really. Nothing in the traditional sense.” Nothing about him is, anyway. More to the point, he doesn't want her to get the wrong impression. "What do you think I should do?"
Walter
come down from the mountain
you have been gone too long
12-29-2015, 01:19 AM (This post was last modified: 12-29-2015, 01:20 AM by Djinni.)
djinni
Walter might yearn to follow, but that is not what Djinni wants at all.
She wants him to lead, to show the way that she will gladly take; she wants to follow him.
But could she do it? Could she follow him and live as a herd mare, soft and sweet and ever-wide with child? Is that even what he means? What even is traditional to those strange creatures that do not prefer the life of a kingdom-dweller or a vagabond?
Djinni does not have an answer to any of those questions and rather than let them swirl until they soured she pushes them aside. She always pushes things aside when it comes to Walter: questions, answers, emotions. There is a blink-quick flash of pain, or genuine sadness, and then it is replaced by the emotion that she summons to replace it.
“Do you think something like this might be more fitting?” She asks with a bright laugh. Her yellow coat darkens until she is a dark brown a shade or two short of black. Her legs are suddenly wrapped in red, an abstract pattern that screams “violence!” despite its utter lack of shape. She’s taller too, broader than her natural lithe build, but all that fades away as she reverts at last to her natural hue. Rather than deal with her emotions, she does what the two of them always do. She diverts, distracts, does something witty or clever and desperately keeps from stepping into waters where she cannot swim.
When Walter asks her what she thinks he should do, she lets her bright smile fade a bit as her cheery face slides into mildly pensive. “Whatever makes you happy,” she replies after a long pause and a flippant shrug of her shoulders. “Do you really think they could make you as happy as I could? Do you think a herd will make you happy?” Her body language (which she knows Walter does not read as accurately as it will probably take to decipher her meaning) says the first, while her voice says the second. Her emotions are as tangled as always, and while the yellow stallion has never told her explicitly what it is he feels, she’d likely not even be able to grasp the concept of “recognizing a single emotion at a time” even if he did.
