"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
09-13-2016, 05:45 PM (This post was last modified: 09-17-2016, 11:08 AM by Echidna.)
The cold is in her blood.
Burns and swirls in her veins to remind her where she comes from, the long road from her home to this new world. How does she end up in these messes? It’s like something picks her up and tosses her to the wind and she lands, usually with some difficulty, in places she’s never been before. Life is an adventure and it makes her feel nauseous. Echidna would rather be left to her own devices, or better yet, left to rot. Like the world she left behind, or worlds rather, she’s been in so many places -- she’s been so many things.
Her body feels hollow. Her mind feels endless. She has galaxies contained in the infinities of her existence. Echidna remembers both her younger self and the many things she was between then and the now she lives in. It’s like living in a room full of disguises. She picks them up, puts them down, but never forgets each one. Now she’s just a simple mare, with simple bones. Her idea of the world is limited to the body she is in, which is both different and the same from the one she was born with. She can’t feel the earth beneath her feet, can’t hear it sing, can’t taste it on her tongue -- it’s empty. The entire thing.
But in the emptiness there is also a strange sort of peace. She feels oddly content, but oddly restless. It’s like starting over except the ghosts of her past are there with her, they follow her around, and sometimes they taunt her. Echidna doesn’t know who or what she would be without them so she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t feel a thing. Feelings are weakness and like she used to say, weakness is something she can’t afford. Not anymore, not since she met him.
Lost him; found; lost.
It’s a dirty, vicious cycle.
She lost him again, maybe not lost this time. She left him. That’s not right either, he never even knew she was there but she made sure he never would. It was too painful. Echidna never admits she’s in pain, call it a character flaw.
The little mare is used to the cold, however, and her appearance says a lot. Her thick legs, short neck, shaggy coat. She’s got a crudely shaped head, pinched eyes, big ears -- she’s lopsided and ugly and covered in mud. Echidna is not beautiful and never has been. It doesn’t matter to her, there is more to life than beauty. She doesn’t see much that’s beautiful. But the meadow is quiet enough, stretched out all long like a lazy house cat. The sun is setting somewhere far off and the sky is lavender streaked with tangerine, there is something lonesome in the air.
With a quiet chuff, she walks through the snow. The drifts she stays away from, it’s the little crooked path with a light dusting that she stays on -- Echidna knows the cold. She was born and lived and died a thousand times over in the cold. She doesn’t know where she’s going or if she might be lost, well, technically she’s always been lost. For now, Echidna walks slow and steady with her head down through the meadow. There’s not a single emotion that flicks across her face and she doesn’t care if anyone approaches her on her way.
Way to what?
Ruin?
That’s a laugh. Ruin was a long time ago. Echidna snorts softly, her ears flick backward, forward. It’s just life, it always has been.
Hellbane has been nothing. Well - that’s not particularly true. At one point he assumes he was something, or at least of little importance to someone. That, of course, had changed. He’s been left to his own devices for some time now, had the ability to rot for a few years now too. It’s really not as fantastic as one would assume. More along the lonely side, but of course that’s never bothered him. He remembers being something of a silent, sullen colt anyways, not uttering a word until he’d met his half-sister.
Those thoughts don’t rattle well in his brain.
So he focuses instead on what he’s good at. His dark eyes greet the trees and inwardly he knows the types by name. He can differentiate which are everlasting and which are not, and he knows what types of creatures burrow within and without. The world itself may have shifted, but the physical properties of the land itself have not changed. Wherever Hellbane went, he was comforted by the thought that woods were woods, water was water, and everything else had a place, a purpose. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t found his quite yet - the time for that would eventually become clear.
It’s only when he breaks through the thin expanse of forest that he sees her, mainly because she’s so hard to miss. Matted, muddy, and clearly alone in whatever agenda she’s bent on completing. Such determination! To her, the world could be mute and grayscale. Hellbane decides then that he must have conversation with her, if only for the reason that they seem to be the only few about in this sort of weather. Nothing else drives the shaggy, sturdy draft mix as he breaks his hold to meet her in her journey. “Sorry to bother…” He calls out, rumbling voice echoing through the expanse around them. “But I wonder if you might point me in the way of Ischia?”
It’s a false pretense. Hellbane knows exactly where he is, and exactly where the acclaimed Ischia lies (due north … far north) but it’s her answer he’s most curious about. Not every day that you come across a face as distinctly alien as this one.
She knows more than she likes to admit. Each world she has come into contact with having its own adventures and perils. The inhabitants different in appearance but naturally the same in nature, nothing ever changes. History repeats. We are doomed. Blah, blah, blah. Echidna has lived with a variety of creatures scattered throughout several worlds, she’s even changed more times than she cares to remember.
Echidna has been many things but here she’s not much. Or rather, she’s plain. No longer with wings and strange patterns and peculiar abilities. She is a simple spotted mare, small and crude and oblivious. Her understanding of the mechanics of this world are limited to what she has observed and that leaves her without much to fall back on. This place appears normal, or relatively like all the worlds before it. There is still sky and ground and other horses. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.
The cold feels natural and pleasant against her skin. She’s at home, for now. Echidna can hear his footsteps crunch against the snow and she flicks an ear in his direction. When his voice hits her ears, the spotted mare doesn’t slow down or acknowledge him. Her dark eyes keen on the open meadow stretching out in front of them.
Besides, he doesn’t sound lost.
It might have been a while since she last made contact with someone, but that didn’t mean she was ignorant. She can hear in the tone of his voice that he is confident in himself. “I think I should be the one asking you for directions,” Echidna says gruffly.
She stops then and swings around to look at him. He’s nothing special, he’s all mud and grass, it isn’t anything knew. Echidna lifts her head and eyes him. Naturally he is bigger than her, most other horses are, but she isn’t intimidated. Not in the least.
He doesn’t know her past, and he doesn’t assume to know it. Hellbane doesn’t pry, nor does he enjoy the act of prying (despite the fact that he may seem to be doing that just now.) What he does enjoy is getting to know the true nature of person, and this mare certainly wastes no time in revealing to him her exact sentiments. Her voice, though harsh and undeservingly cutting against his own polite nature, only rouses a genuine smile across his dark mouth. He could laugh at her, if he chose, but there’s a blazing independance in her pleasantly caramel-colored eyes that stops him just short of the action. He’d dealt with enough troublesome women in his life.
“So then ask.” He tells her, stepping around her sturdy little body to make his own path in the snow. Stone for stone he could match her attitude if she wished. For someone so bent on going nowhere at all it seemed to be something of a comical situation she’d put herself in. But then again, that’s the way it was for a loner out here - especially a mare. Eat, or be eaten. He thinks she’d be tough meat to chew.
It’s his turn to walk ahead now and he does so only briefly before turning an ear back to listen to her. “We could figure out the way together, for a little while.” He offers, breath spilling out from his nostrils in visible, crystalline form. His neck bends to the left, eyes peering back over his shoulder to where she stands - a mottled patchwork of curiosity. “What’ve you got to lose?”
