"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
11-18-2016, 04:35 AM (This post was last modified: 11-18-2016, 04:36 AM by Ashley.)
And so come the duties that every leader dreads; the foreign visits. Seeing what else is out there; who else survived this wretched Reckoning. So few were left to fan the flames of Beqanna. So few left to tend the land, and to care for it. He wondered if this is what the fairies had wanted; a culling of life, a limiting in power. Those who had not died, had moved on. Those who were left; well, they languished.
Ashley’s lip curled when he thought of the fairies. Their self-righteousness made him shiver with anger, and though he had his abilities back, there were so many who didn’t. Maybe one day that would change, but for now, things were as they were, and there was no changing that.
The swim from Ischia put his mind at rest for the time being, and when he rose out of the depths, he shook off the water—and the fins—and regained his composure with a straight, sleek back, auburn colored hair, amber eyes, and thick feathered wings that matched the ginger tint in his coat. There was something to be said about presenting the best face forward to your contemporaries. Though he cared little for them, he cared very much of what they thought of him. If they remembered him; his greatness. Had he ever really been great?
And so, to the mountain he goes. No, not that mountain. There is another, small mountain behind it, one that spews smoke and fire. The trees are less dense here, but the soil is rich. Ashley’s nostril’s flare and he spreads his wings slightly at the smell of Sulphur. The constant burning sensation is not one that he enjoys. So unlike the wet thick atmosphere in the jungle. Here the air is dry, and warm, but he does not like it. Best to conclude his business here and be done with it.
“Magnus, and any who wish to come, I beg you come treat with me, as a representative of Ea and the Island of Ischia.”
Tephra did not boil with life, but she simmered with it. There were pockets of activity, of families who mulled together, of siblings and warriors and mothers. There was his rabbit-granddaughter and her family of wild things. There were the spotted twins and their rambunctious laughter. There was Offspring and Isle, tucked away and keeping to themselves. It was not an overtly active land, but he was proud of those who stayed, of those who carved out a life here beneath the looming shadow of the mountainous volcano.
He was wandering, as he did most days, when he heard the call, and he lifted his handsome, heavy-jawed head toward the source of the sound with the slightest of frowns. It would be the first time that someone from another land had called upon them and while he had begun plotting out his own trips toward the surrounding groups, he had not anticipated that there were those who would beat him to the punch.
Shaking the dust from his coat, Magnus straightened and made his way toward the magician, his gold-flecked eyes measuring the stallion carefully as he approached. While Magnus and Ashley hailed from a Beqanna of old, their paths had never crossed. Magnus did not know of whatever greatness Ashley had claimed, and he is certain Ashley would not know of Magnus’ own accomplishments (of which Magnus thought little). He did not know Ashley had once ruled a kingdom he himself had served. He did not know that magic sparked in his veins. He simply knew he was a foreigner on his land’s border.
It was enough to warrant a polite, crooked smile. “You called?” He came to a stop, unsure how he felt being summoned but willing to let it slide for the moment. “I am Magnus. Welcome to Tephra.”
Magnus was a leader worth treating with. He was from the old days. Not as old as the ginger man standing before him, but he was old. There was something magical about Magnus and the way he carried himself. Ashley came as a representative of Ischia, but truthfully, there was no life there. He was alone far more often than he was not, and he looked to the borders of other lands for a place of importance… to validate that Ischia—and Ea—were where his allegiance truly belonged.
In the end, the old days did not matter. He was a representative of an island—not a kingdom. A small band of individuals who were so busy coming and going—or sleeping—that they did not usually find themselves at home at the same time. With this in mind, and little power to gather behind it, he looked at Magnus with a level of respect that only some can understand.
“I did call. And thank you. It certainly smells of Sulphur.” He smirked as he looked up at the volcano. “How do you live in the shadow of such a thing? Don’t you ever tire of the darkness?” His business momentarily forgotten, he stood agape at the smoke that spewed from its top.
Loyalty was always a fickle thing in Beqanna, but never more so than in this new world. When the land had opened up and swallowed the rest, it had left everything unsettled and different. Sure, alliances had forged from the old kingdoms, but they had been tenuous at best. Some kingdoms stuck together while others fell apart. Tephra had been, in theory, the coming together of the Tundra, the Chamber, and the Valley, but even that had been shaking. Magnus had been an outsider as a representative of the Gates, a kingdom historically aligned with none of the others, and over time, while Offspring, Malis and Eight still roamed the volcanic island, they had stepped down from the council and left it to him alone.
Magnus could only imagine that the similar happenings had shook the other kingdoms as well.
Of course, he has no way of knowing that, not yet. He does not know Ashley’s own illustrious history or even know anything about Ischia and the Queen that he served. He only knew him for the stallion before him now, wings tucked at his sides and eyes bright. At his comment of the scent, Magnus chuckled and glanced around them, “The scent gets easier with time. Particularly when the breeze picks up.” Those were the times that he liked best—when the wind brought with it the clean, salty scent of the ocean.
He tilted his head back to look at the volcano, his gold-flecked eyes studying the craggy cliffs and the fog that curled around its base. “I have lived in darker places,” he answered with a dark smile, thinking about about the belly of the Jungle where the canopy ran so thick that no sun could reach the ground and the shadows of the Chamber. “But there are places where the darkness does not reach so that the residents of the land can enjoy the sun on their backs.” Either way, he did not mind. He loved the land all the same.
Turning his gaze back toward the buckskin, he looked upon him for a moment, wondering what brought him to their shores. “And what of Ischia? I had planned to visit shortly, but you beat me to the punch. How goes life upon your island?” It would do Magnus well to learn of it while he had Ashley’s audience.
He is immediately brought to attention when Magnus mentions his homeland. Not that his thoughts were straying hard from the conversation—this was, after all, a friendly business venture. The two men stood in each other’s comfortable company, discussing their homes and remembering alliances both old and new. Ashley’s mental snapshots of the world did include Magnus, but the time snatched those images and flashed them so fast before Ashley that even his own memories were fuddled as to the world that Magnus had seen when he had lived here in truth the first time. Those that display their ability to lead, and their honorable actions will see themselves once again at the helm when the world is razed to the ground. Ashley coughs, noting that the mountain behind them was almost constantly erupting. He silently prayed for the sea winds to come and clear the expanse, as Magnus had said they did; But when they did not, Ashley felt the heat choking him. He would have to make his leave of this place soon.
“The Forbidden Dale was always so temperate. Everything willed to be in balance. I do remember the darkness of the Old World, that is for certain. Unfortunately, my heart was always with the Dale, and indeed still is. Ea rules the island, when she is around.” He stops here, thinking about the calmness and peace of Ischia being granted due to the sheer quiet and lack of residents upon the beaches there. “It is just above your most Northern coast. To get to the meadows beyond, our residents have to cross your borders, or risk their lives swimming further west and south. We make due, but the true beauty lies in the biocandescant phytoplankton that glows blue when the sun falls.”
Memories wash over Magnus as Ashley mentions the Dale, and his eyes spark. “The Dale was a good kingdom,” he says thoughtfully, lifting his head to glance over the rest of the land for a moment, to check on it before immersing himself back in conversation. “I had the good fortune to live there—even if it was during one of the darkest moments of my life. I served under Katana. She was a good Queen.”
Wild, dark—some would even say crazy, but he had appreciated her dark edge. She had burned with a fire that threatened to raze the earth were she to be crossed and during that time, it was what he had needed. They had burned brighter together, their own anger fueling each other’s. Their hatred of the Valley had drawn them together and, from it, a child had been born. Brunhild. Fierce, deadly, introverted.
It takes effort, but Magnus pulls himself from the muck of the memories to focus again on Ashley. “I have heard of Ea, but I have not had the chance to meet her yet. I am glad to know she still leads her people.” He does not comment on Ashley’s mention of her doing so only when she is around, although he wondered at it. Absentee leaders were not uncommon, but they could erode at loyalty, at trust.
Peace born of absence was tenuous at best, and a lie at worst.
He could only hope theirs was lasting.
“I can promise you that any with ill intentions would do best to go around Tephra,” he said with a wicked grin, his scarred lips pulling into a crooked smile. “They will not find their journey through easy.” They had proven that already, at the last meeting when the gray giant had wandered in with dreams of overthrowing the land and taking it for his own. Magnus had swelled with pride at their show of force in response, at the way they rose up and drove him out. Tephra was made of sturdy stock.
“That does sound beautiful though. I should hope to see it someday.”
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
12-15-2016, 05:02 AM (This post was last modified: 12-15-2016, 05:05 AM by Spink.)
Ashley looked at Magnus, when he spoke of borders, and then again when he spoke of his homeland. The sun was lowering in the sky and he had lingered here far too long. He had not meant to get into the memories of a time that was long dead and gone, and rulers that had ruled after him—in the land that he had re-created. They had followed his stead, and then his daughters. After those glory days were over, came a time of peace—and then of great war and pestilence; the Catastrophe. He knew that they had survived without him, just as they would always survive.
The residents here were resilient, if for nothing else. They would survive and last, just as their ancestors did. “Katana’s time on the throne came after my time there; but loyalty to land always runs deeper than to the one who runs it. I try to remember that it’s the land that I look to for sustenance and living—not necessarily its ruler.” And with that, he let the sentence hang. No sense in rehashing the history of Beqanna. Those days were long dead and gone.
He stretched, his wings splaying out, bringing comfort to his muscles that had tightened up from standing here. “I best be on my way, Magnus,” he says with a yawn. Flicking his tail and taking a step with a strong hoof in the ash-ridden soil, he was shifting his bodyweight to head north—back to the ocean. “The sea is calling, and I must make plans to visit the other leaders at some point. All but Taiga.” He shakes his head. Not Taiga. Never there.
“If you ever have a wish to see the beaches, please know that you are welcome any time, friend.” And, nodding, he turns and heads in the opposite direction. An understanding was set up between them. Perhaps not an alliance, as things were not yet necessary… but a friendship built on mutual respect and protection for those who were looked to them for guidance. The days were new and the time of the new Beqanna was at hand—but it would only be determined by the strong.
Ashley grows restless beneath the weight of the conversation, the length of it, and Magnus cannot find it in himself to begrudge the stallion it. Such conversations were often wearisome, the need to return to the usual hustle of your own life there before you, the habits and responsibilities dangling just out of view.
At his statement regarding Katana, and the land itself, Magnus only nods. He had no intention of walking down his memories or of rehashing everything that they had lived before. That Beqanna was long since gone, and they were no longer part of it. This was a new world now, and it would serve them well to remember that they lived within it. It served no purpose to spend all time reminiscing of something past.
“It has been a pleasure,” he says, taking a step back and rolling his own shoulders, although they were now bare of the eagle wings that had once, temporarily, graced them. “I look forward to that,” he offers and then stands, watching as the magician makes his way back to the island beyond the white-capped sea. Perhaps he would one day take him up on it, but for now, he swung his head back around to the volcanic island that stretched out before him. There was work to do here, and it was where he would focus first.
out of the blue out into the loneliest place that you'll ever know I carried the world just as far as I could but the damage had taken its toll
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