"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
As with any trauma or crisis, the afflicted feel as if time will never go on; that they will remain fixated at this specific moment forever. Gunsynd knows better, but he feels the pangs of distress as he watches the sun begin to sink in the sky once more regardless. Just as expected, the day was ending and the sun was setting on this new and terrible landscape. And with its passing, he decides he must change as well. More will be required of him in this new world.
He finds a deep and clear pool in the recesses of the forest and slowly wades into its depths. Unlike the last time he found himself submerged in water, he cannot force his body to welcome the liquid like air. He cannot rebuild his lungs to filter out the hydrogen from he oxygen. So he must resurface quickly to fill his normal lungs with regular old air. He stands there for quite some time. The sun finishes its descent and the moon begins to rise.
Finally, he is too cold to remain and he drudges himself up from the pool. The sap and the pine needles that had been embedded in his pelt have disappeared. The refreshing liquid had loosened the tangled and matted locks of his mane and tale which now hung in large, simple curls still streaming with water. But there was no helping the dull look in his dark eyes - only one thing could restore their vigor.
He trots through the forest now to warm his body and then finds a quiet spot for the night. He finds that exhaustion finds him faster than he would have expected and soon he is fast asleep, only waking with the stirring of morning birds. At first he is shocked that he is somewhere besides the Valley. Then it all comes back to him like some unwanted nightmare. He sighs deeply, wishing desperately that it all could just go back to the way it had been before.
I M J U S T A S U C K E R F O R P A I N
Gunsynd is currently pretending to be someone else! He is now 15hh, hybrid, flea-bitten grey with clear blue eyes and goes by the name of Ginkgo. He will not have use of his traits while he is in this form. Please play as if he is simply the other persona unless your character has some sort of mind-reading. Thanks! <3
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
God, I miss him. It’s so lonely here in this new world, without my Noctem in my head and sharing my body. After a decade or more of being so close, it feels impossible to be so utterly out of reach. Dead has never mattered before, aside from those first days when my body so desperately missed being curled up against his. Now dead is so much bigger, so much more devastating. Like losing him for real for the first time.
I have wandered the meadow, encountering strangers who are far more strange now that I cannot read them the way I used to. I feel naked, blind, deaf, as though all my sense and defenses have been stripped away, and it’s so hard to learn to rely on just five dull senses to tell who is safe and who is danger, who needs something of me and who would gain nothing from an interaction. Who I need, and who I need to get the hell away from.
It all feels so pointless and random, but there’s nothing else I can do. I can’t get back up the mountain to see if there’s any way to reach my Noctem. All I can do is...live on.
Night has fallen, and somehow it’s easier to breathe in the dark, when at least I am not the only one who can’t see as much as she should. When the shadows wrap around me like an embrace and I can pretend I feel a little bit closer to my twin. Best to curl up and sleep somewhere, and hope to all that once was holy that I somehow manage to dream the way I used to. Even if I’m hoping in vain. So I set out to find a spot that looks promising, somewhere cozy and close where no one is likely to stumble across me.
But it seems someone else has had the same thought, because when I finally settle in to sleep, I hear another nearby, sleeping the heavy sleep of the deeply exhausted. I yawn and sigh, too weary to rise and seek out a new spot to bed down for the night. I’ll just wake early and be gone before the stranger rises.
Or, as it turns out, I will not. Instead, the birds wake me just as they have woken him. I stir and stretch and blink open sleepy blue eyes, and peer around the trunk of the tree I’ve rested against to find a strange stallion nearby, black as I am but without my splashy stockings and asymmetrical blaze. Or, of course, the cheery little crescent moon sprawled across my right side, the yellow of sunshine and dandelions.
“Did you sleep well?” I ask, though the depth of his sigh suggests it was perhaps a foolish question. I shrug and add as much. “Probably a dumb question, huh? Everything’s so different now, even sleep. I’m Strange. What about you?”
09-04-2016, 03:53 PM (This post was last modified: 09-04-2016, 09:24 PM by Ainlif.)
He could feel them, sense them. Here within the forest that was not his, yet it claimed him. The dark canopies shadowed his red bay, and his dark dun points melded with the night. He was the monster within the beautiful forest, stalking those that would harm her roots. She declared her soldier with a whisper, shifting her leaves in salute of his passing.
Like a hound catching his scent, he eased into an eager lope, lion's eyes lit with hunger. The predators all, he could relate to. But there was none so true as the beast of flame within his heart. He could feel the chains rattle as the great body shifted, a deep rumbling growl in his mind, in his ears, releasing out of his own mouth. Territorial. Hungry.
He didn't stop until he saw the moon sunken in the trees, imprisoned by their numbers like bars of a cell. A false moon. A forgery. The true moon was sleeping. Dawn had come. He halted a ways away, noting a second presence as well. Two as black as death. He and Death knew each other far too intimately. He didn't like His friends coming to play. Remove them.
Great wings stretched within his mind in anticipation, then bent at the elbows with claws fisted on the ground. His feet danced in place, muscles loose and eager. A madness in his eye. Sweat drenched him. Shy sunlight painted him red once more. The feral beast snorted and pawed the earth. A tension was building. Coal into the furnace. Tinder to flame. The skull retracted, pressure in his belly rising.
Then the release. The eruption.
He roared.
His thick haunches coiled, holding himself in place as he threw his fore-hooves to the ground in rapid succession. Obsidian mane striking his neck furiously.
THU-THUMP.
THU-THUMP.
The warning. The punches left their mark on the forest floor, punctures and indentations. The threat. Heed the delirium, the insanity.
Ears swivel to the direction of the intruding vocalization. He is surprised to find that there are eyes looking back into his. He aches, deeply, for his old life, his old body. This body was too heavy, too solid. He felt encumbered by it, as if sleep were something he had never heeded before. He finds that his bath last night has washed off much of his lover’s scent and that only adds to the pain. She was disappearing all over again.
They all fought the loneliness of this new and alien world into which they had been thrust.
But they all fight onwards. What choice do they have? Of course, he had considered death. He had thought of its cold embrace as he stood in his silent vigil on the mountain’s slopes that godforsaken morning (when he had realized that his lover had been taken from him). Death had seemed the only way. But hope is the bane of the living. He had to hope against all odds that he would somehow be able to revive his mistress. He could only die after he had either succeeded or exhausted all hope. She would expect nothing less from him.
He finds that her words do not stick to his groggy brain. She has spoken, he is certain for it roused him from his nightmarish thoughts. But what she has said remains a mystery. He stares at her for some time, trying to replay the last few moments in his mind. Before he gives up, she speaks again. He finds he is relieved, though he is unsure why.
He nods automatically and wonders if the girl has seen into his thoughts (but no, there was no invasion of his mind that came along with such power). He shakes himself awake, his dark mane no longer quite as matted and tangled as it had been before. “Gunsynd” he offers quietly. His voice still raw from the chaos of the changes. He wonders if the girl had sought him out for protection (what a thought) and he blinks away the remaining confusion of sleep.
Just in time, too. A roar erupts before them and he wheels around to see a red hued stallion with fire in his eyes charging towards them. Despite the initial shock, the black beast finds that this is almost more normal than anything else he has experienced lately. He steps forward to meet the oncoming charge, a dull throbbing anger in his dark eyes. His lips curl into a sneer. If the rabid creature wanted to start something, the monster was more than capable of finishing it.
I M J U S T A S U C K E R F O R P A I N
@[Strangelet]
@[Ainlif]
Gunsynd is currently pretending to be someone else! He is now 15hh, hybrid, flea-bitten grey with clear blue eyes and goes by the name of Ginkgo. He will not have use of his traits while he is in this form. Please play as if he is simply the other persona unless your character has some sort of mind-reading. Thanks! <3
You've been up and down, down, you've been low, low, low.
The quiet lasts long enough for the strange stallion I slept so close to to nod, shake himself a bit, and murmur his name. And there’s a familiar gravelly note to it, one I know so well from my older brother Drow when he was younger and had more jagged edges, and spent so many nights screaming at the moon ‘til his voice gave out. God, I miss him. The way he’d curl around me like I was something sacred needing his devotion, his protection. The way he’d croon to me in a darker, deeper version of our mother’s low voice, borrowing the haunting melodies of her jungle songs to lull me to sleep.
I miss them all.
“It’s nice to meet you, Gunsynd. You remind me of--” But there’s no time to finish the thought. Another strange man, this one with a look in his eye I know far too well. How many times have my eyes seen what wasn’t there in front of me? How many thought me mad over the years for the apparitions that held more of my attention than the world around me? Mine was a quiet distraction, though; this one seems to be taking more violently to the unsettling way the world has of not quite fitting what the senses perceive.
I rise to my feet carefully, quietly, even as Gunsynd steps forward to face the stranger in the throes of madness. And I step forward too, but with my head lowered, crooning those gentle sounds of comfort and reassurance my mother and my brother used on me when I was young and confused. Or older and still so confused. My approach is far less direct than Gunsynd’s, more roundabout, more circumspect. There’s no aggression in my posture, nothing fierce or threatening, just a quiet acceptance of the many and varied shapes madness can take.
“There now, friend,” I murmur softly, taking another step closer. “It’s alright. Tell me what you see, honey. Sometimes it helps to share it. Doesn’t always mean what you think it does, you know.” The twists and turns of the mind like to talk in riddles sometimes, and it’s easy to find the wrong answer when the path becomes a maze and your compass isn’t pointing in the right direction.
The male friend of Death spun to face him, a wicked little sneer stretching across his mouth. There was no answering challenge, no goading or cruel encouragement; only empty acceptance, and a cold promise to come out the victor.
The beast settled a little at this with a soft growl deep in his chest, much like an agitated cat lowering itself to wait out its prey with the occasional pissed-off flip of its tail. His gaze was pulled to the female friend of Death as she rose and stepped forward with her head lowered.
He grumbled another wary growl, but it was half-hearted at her clear submission. She slowly circled around his side, easing her way into his presence, soft voice soothingly gentle. The beast held still, only his head following her advance as he craned towards her with nose lifted, grasping for the scent of this strange creature. He retracted his skull as she took another step closer.
"There now, friend," she cooed. His eyes flicked to the male, curious why he would allow his girl to approach a vicious beast, then returned to her in suspicion. Dark ears melted back in warning, teeth bared for emphasis. Do not come closer.
"It's alright. Tell me what you see, honey," she continued, and he felt his blood chill with ice. Did she know about Kinley? No, it wasn't possible. How could she know his dead daughter haunted him with her child's image, driving him to do things he didn't want to do. "Sometimes it helps to share it. Doesn't always mean what you think it does, you know."
No, he didn't want to share it. He was mad and alone, and he'd keep it that way.
He suddenly felt she was too close, and side-stepped further from her, avoiding her gaze now for fear she might know his madness a little too well and would make him face it down. The monster in him seemed to be slowly sliding back into the dark recesses of his mind, allowing intelligence to return to his eyes.
I am haunted... he agreed carefully, quietly, his voice foreign to his ears and raspy in disuse. He inched another step further from her unnerving presence, and turned his attention to the stallion.
He thought he might apologize, he knew he should and was raised to be honorable and courteous, but how does one ask forgiveness for insanity? Grudging pride also made it difficult to do so to another male, and he gave him his profile, ears dancing with uncertainty. He would not lower himself further in the stranger's eyes.
“Nice to meet you” she says and he can’t help but find that humorous. He was not someone nice to meet. Which is what the crazed stallion would find out if he came any closer. But instead of continuing his charge he sees his opposition and backs off like a dog that knows his bark is worse than his bite. Gunsynd does not bark.
But the small coal-colored girl comes out from behind him before the biting can begin and begins cooing to the madman sweet words that he can hardly make sense of. But it seems to calm the male down… enough anyway. He curls himself away from her sweetness as if it would burn him, but the words take effect and the rage clears from his eyes if only a little. Gunsynd watches with interest as he speaks to the girl - even if his words are hard on the ears and on his mind. Madness had never affected him. Sickness perhaps, but that depended on who you asked.
“Haunted” though, that was something that seemed to touch on certain parts of his brain that caused pain. The pain he remembers (burned into his memory forever), but everything leading up to it was gone. The synapses had been broken, burned, cauterized. They would probably never heal; always tender to the touch. He preferred to just steer clear of thoughts that might trigger that injury to flare. But still, it leads to some sort of recognition a least for the black beast.
Gunsynd shifts his heft uncomfortably behind the girl; he doesn’t like this arrangement but if she wants to get mauled when the stallion snaps again then who was he to interfere? The monster does not let his guard down, despite the change in the stranger’s temperament and the calm of the girl. He stands his ground, head held high. “Tell me Ainlif… are we the ones that haunt you?” His voice is hard compared to the girl’s, he does not worry about keeping the stallion calm as she does. He would face this challenge like all others; with force.
I M J U S T A S U C K E R F O R P A I N
Gunsynd is currently pretending to be someone else! He is now 15hh, hybrid, flea-bitten grey with clear blue eyes and goes by the name of Ginkgo. He will not have use of his traits while he is in this form. Please play as if he is simply the other persona unless your character has some sort of mind-reading. Thanks! <3
