"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
It's winter in my heart or the icy air that greets me upon waking makes it so. There is really nothing else like watching the world fold in on itself. When it did I could do nothing but revel in the beauty and fear that it made me feel so very deep down in the marrow of my bones. The Gates, my home, was no more, it now lay cradled somewhere unobtainable, untouchable and I could only despair at the loss. One moment I had been content, surrounded with my siblings, my niece. The next we were all staring wide eyed and unable to make use of our bodies in the rumbling wake that shook the earth and took it too.
Now I am awake, staring blankly over the expanse of mountain side that I have been unceremoniously deposited on. It’s night now, cold and bitter- enough to match the feelings the rumble in my soul. The sky above, so beautiful in comparison the the heartache that has just befell us all and I look to my brother and sisters as they raise their heads to the sky. Stars, so many it seems, here the air is clear enough that I feel if I were just a bit taller I could reach them, Romilly seems to want the same and I can not begrudge her that hole which has yet to ever fill.
With a shake a rid myself of the groggy feeling that combs over my brain like a veil, coaxing me to sleep longer, to rest once more but I wont- I can’t. This world is new and I can taste the unbridled rawness in the air with each breath, I long to know it more intimately because it is all that is left to me now. Of all the things that have been taken from my life this perhaps is the one that causes me the most discomfort, the most on which to mourn but I can not simply wallow in sorrow. Mother would not have liked that, the others, well, they are old enough to decide their paths. It seems they will take refuge in the mountainside for a time and so I bid them goodbye. For now, because I would never leave them fully, I would be back to see them or they me and we all knew that was enough.
Below the forest remains, barren branches of trees clawing at the winter night, casting eerie shadows from pale moon beams. I do not balk at this, I have known danger and destruction and I am in a sense made of those very things. That all seems so trivial now, my parentage but it serves me nonetheless.
The loss of the Valley left a similar hole to be filled in Thorunn. At first she ached to find the others, to craft its exact replica and raise it from the dirt. The Valley 2.0. The Valley Reborn. The Valley: Next Generation.
But then she moves, and meets, and shakes, and realizes that change might do her some good. Her parents cast a shadow on her, and without their lands to hang her namesake on. She was oddly freed by it. At last she could be what her father intended her to be (without the shadow, right? The shadow is just harder to see now). She embraced this change and fell, only partially, into her own habits. She followed Eight to Tephra.
Other things occurred, though, that left her a much different creature.
She wanders the forest because she doesn't sleep as well anymore. Sleep seems like a distant responsibility, a thing you do because it's expected. It's a chore, not a necessity. She can function without it, she's found. It's not like the freshly healed (thank you, Mountain - or witch, whatever) scar destroying most of the right side of her face would let her sleep anyway. It pounded, it howled, it called out in its slow venomous ways. There must have been something in that horn, something poisonous. It made no sense.
In all her wanderings she's rarely found another soul out so late, crossing the plains and meadows, until now. Until the mare, looking equally displaced. Thorunn allows a low welcome nicker, but keeps her distance.
The last stranger she approached slashed her face.
The night coaxes shadows from the trees, how so? The moon so full and glorious lends them her light and they drink it up like a squalling new babe. Beneath this silvered splendor I am illuminated, the dapples of my coat dancing with a mesmerizing pattern one may never understand. I travel alone, pushing my flexing muscles to continue movement, they all feel sore and achy from disuse. How long had I been on the Mountain? Long enough it seems, too long perhaps though I doubt I will ever know the true passing of time spent there. Really I did not care to know, Magic had its peculiarities at times that I thought were best left unexplained. Sometimes the mind does not do well with such anomalies that it creates anyways.
Some things are better left in the dark.
How far is this road, how long? I wonder where I am going, where I am headed because I have no set destination in mind. Everything that I know or have known is no more, where will I go from here? I am certain that I must choose, I will have to make a decision and for the time being I will find a group a band if any still exist. While I am looking for others I might as well take in what I can, mentally map the grounds I cross so if I ever need a mental map I will have one. I spent too much time shut up in the Gates but I wouldn’t change that, it is hard to leave sanctuary is it not?
There is another now, a girl moving in the witch light and her coat gleams a rich acorn, something that only reminds me further of home. Wouldn’t everything do that, some way or another? While I do not allow myself to physically pine for the loss I do have trouble keeping the ache of its absence from my mind. It is something I will have to overcome, just as I will learn to overcome this new world- one way or another.
Sound is lost to me, faintly I watch her maw move but the notes to leave it will never settle on my ears. They will not even turn forward to catch her hello’s, not anymore, they stopped doing that long ago. I stop my progress as well, watching this girl carefully though I am not afraid, curious more like as to if she too were lost. Aimless.
Of course she was, weren’t we all?
I give a greeting of my own, low and steady from my chest and I approach. One step, two. My head hangs so that I am less of a giraffe, hopefully I seem friendly enough.
Before (is that what it is now? A before / after the maiming?) Thorunn wouldn't have hesitated to approach. She is stoic like her father, but curious like her mother. She cannot help but follow the scents and smells across Beqanna and find where they originate. Where they end. After getting over the shock of the Valley (and all of Beqanna, really - but she never went anywhere else) disappearing Thorunn took to wandering. She saw the volcano, she watched the mist rise and fall. She felt it choke her like a caustic thunder when she went too far.
It was hard not to be curious when you're young.
Even now, hardened by her incident, she is curious about this mare. Her ears don't flick toward her, and her voice is...strange. Off. Thorunn is not witty like her father (yet) she wouldn't pick up on the mare's deaf tones until much too late - if she did at all. Father tried to impress upon her the need to study your surroundings, to take stock. To know - always know. She is unknowningly failing at this now.
"Thorunn," she introduces, giving a brief nod. At least this mare lacks a horn. At least this mare lacks that sense of foreboding that shook Thorunn to her core. Her instincts didn't tell her to flee - so she stayed.
Will she be afraid? I wonder as I make my way to her, doing my best to seem friendly, inviting. It’s been a long time since I have made company with others outside my own family, it’s easy to get lost in the eccentric tales of the twins, they are an enigma, captivating me with their odd story spinning. It was easy to lose myself with them, not that it mattered, they were family, they were blood.
Blood.
I almost scoff at my own thought. I am not so welcoming to all those who share my lines, at least the paternal side anyhow. They were another breed of being entirely. Twisted, grotesque, sick things with minds warped and morals tossed to the wind. Alas, I was still stuck with them, as much as I did not want to be. Blood runs thicker than water you see, whether I like that or not.
When the chestnut doesn’t balk or flee, I ease my mind, stilling the spinning thoughts and calming myself to the present. This was no time to dwell on the past, I’d be better off leaving that behind me, along with the old world. Put it to rest, ash to ash.
Run, I catch only the last part of the word, and immediately I wonder why. “Run?”, I ask her, lifting my head and looking around as quickly. What danger was lying in wait, what things were going bump in the night that I did not know of? I tense, my muscles flexing beneath my dappled coat and I take inventory of our surroundings, each piece of the terrain awash in moonlight. There is nothing sinister lurking from what I can tell, from what I can smell and see with the senses that have been left to my use.
“I’m Tioga,” a name, just that, because I am of no where. The words are thick in my mouth, as if my tongue may be too big for it. I do what I can to pronounce the syllables, the letters and texture of words best I can. Still, I’m sure I sound a bit off. “You okay?” Shorter, sweeter sentences and word groupings were my friend.
![[Image: Tioga.png]](http://s16.postimg.org/ceb0gz0n9/Tioga.png)
