"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
12-30-2016, 11:06 AM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2016, 11:15 AM by Kellyn.)
I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you
She hadn’t been…present when the fae had come to remove their powers. As a rule, she rarely was. Perhaps her father and her grandfather had done their best to offer her a grounding influence, a normal family, but in truth they may have been better parents than Elite but normal wasn’t really in their vocabulary either. Two men with a poor grasp of the passing of time, both depressed by ones they’d lost, raising a capricious child with the ability to affect time…? Yeah, good luck.
So she hadn’t been “present” when the fae had called them all to the mountain. Not really. She’d been before, somewhere in her past, watching herself make the terrible choices that led her to being a mother not once, but twice. Kellyn wasn’t the world’s worst mother, either; but she didn’t really understand them. Carwyn was more like her great-grandfather, like her grandfather would have been if he hadn’t been in love with Elite, and so she was less mercurial than her mother. And Cassady – Cassady was unsettling. Cassady was already everything that Kellyn hated about herself, and little that she loved. Well. It only made sense. One had extra Brennen in her heritage, and one had extra Carnage. Kellyn loves them, she does, but she uses time to escape them. It’s not like they miss her, with Brennen to care for them in her absence.
But even lost in time, she can feel the pull of the fae. It’s slower to reach her, because she is in the past, but it’s not escapable. In fact, when it’s done with the others it pulls stronger on her, and she goes to the place it says but there is no mountain yet. The strawberry girl frowns at the land, uncertain, but the uncomfortable tug continues. She releases her hold on time and it starts to speed up, returning her to the present, and she watches. Watches as they build the mountain, destroy the Kingdoms and the only homes she has ever known, watches as they draw all of the Beqannians to them. And then…as she hits the present…it’s gone. Kellyn feels the dissonance go out of her life, the not-quite-right feeling of time manipulation, and the more recent voices of the ghosts. And she’s alone, and for the first time in her life, she is powerless.
And she hates it.
Kellyn doesn’t know where to look for her family, the ones she left behind in the Tundra, so she goes to Meadow, a place she did know, and she waits. Someone will have to come along.
Kellyn
the girl who walks in time and talks to ghosts
Temporarily Immortal
daughter of cagney and elite
01-17-2017, 08:50 PM (This post was last modified: 01-17-2017, 08:51 PM by Harmonia.)
Speaking of horrible mothers - Harmonia takes the cake.
She's little more than 14hh, maybe 14.1hh if you squint, and can't weigh more than a few hundred pounds soaking wet. She's lithe, small, ballerina-esque in her small stature. It's a shocking different from her mother, Myasthenia, "the great Amazonian whatever" which Harmonia promptly backed away from. Her lineage showed that she should have been great, instead she became dangerous. With magic to cloak her she put on the facade of an idiot. She wrecked havoc and laughed and shrugged, as if she wasn't -really- aware of what she could do. It was a common guise and an easy one to put on. They all bought it.
But then the fairies came, and she was left with nothing.
And then Carnage came, and she had another child.
She usually left them behind in the gutter to starve or die or neither or both. Covet was the only one who did anything, the rest were simpering fools. And in the end Covet was no different.
In the end Covet died for love and his children.
Ridiculous.
Ajatar...now, that girl was different. Her anger was expressive and so like Harmonia's and Carnage's and Deimos'...and her pestilence! Ah! She could bring forth the next plague if she wished and she could tarnish the very ground they all walked on.
And they'd have no say.
Was she proud? Maybe. She had a weapon, and Harmonia loved weapons.
It's in the meadow she lounges now, her shark eyes out to extort who she could. She was so close to having her magic restored, she could taste it on the tip of her tongue. Just a few more favors and badda-boom! Babadook! She'd have her magic back and she'd be perfect again.
"Well hello," she croons to the girl, alone. Perfect.
I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you
She has no idea how close she is to her family as she wanders aimlessly in the Meadow. They are here too, uprooted from the Tundra and thrust into a life with no home. A good mother would be worried, perhaps, even about her mostly-grown daughters, but Kellyn knows that would be stupid. Her grandfather, with whom she left the girls, is fiercely protective of his family, and even without any of his gifts, he has proven himself a warrior of repute. If he can’t protect them, nothing will. And anyway, at some point they need to learn to protect themselves.
Kellyn did. Not that her family abandoned her. Her mother did, of course, before she was ever born, even though Kellyn would have been the one child she wanted. So many children that Elite dismissed as useless; untraited, helpless things, and Elite did not love them. But when Kellyn came along, complete with her father’s power over time, Elite might as well have been dead. And by the time she wasn’t, Kellyn was long gone. But her paternal family had been strong – a father who loved her, a brother, a grandfather, lots of half-siblings. But even they couldn’t keep her from Carnage, and a quest, and the end of time and space.
She had too much of her mother in her to ever be satisfied with the family life in the Tundra.
Perhaps in this way, she is also like the mare who she comes across now. Like Harmonia, Kellyn is small and relatively delicate of stature, with a coat of pleasant strawberry roan and a smile and personality that often convinced people she was a charming creature. And she was, much of the time. “Hello,” she responds, stopping to look at the gold-and-white mare with a curious tilt of her head and brightening of her eyes. This is what she wanted, after all. Something to happen. “I’m Kellyn,” she offers her name, and waits.
Kellyn
the girl who walks in time and talks to ghosts
daughter of cagney and elite
She may not have magic, but she could smell something on the girl. Something about the way she carried herself, the way she moved - there was something there. Harmonia didn't need her magic restored to pick up on the subtle movements of a traited horse. Something strong and great.
Pollock long since disappeared from Pangea like all rulers do and ignored her request. Well, she'd have to manage this on her own, then. She'd have to claw her way to the top until her magic was restored. You can only count on yourself, after all, and Harmonia knew to get things done right you needed to do them yourself. She wasn't aiming for a queenship or any other stupid thing like that. No, Harmonia was about the long game.
The very long game.
Her eyes settle on the small girl and the ghost of a smile, though not the kindest of ones, grows on her face. She can't help but be a little predatory - without magic to soften the blow of her chaotic features she appears rough and not exactly kind. Maybe the girl will interpret it as maternal? Aren't all mothers ultimately cold?
"Harmonia," she responds, pausing to look around. "Is this your home, Kellyn?" She draws the girls name out like wisps of silk.
01-19-2017, 07:51 PM (This post was last modified: 01-19-2017, 07:52 PM by Kellyn.)
I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you
Unlike Harmonia, Kellyn doesn’t know what she wants. She’s never really had a chance to make those decisions for herself. As a child she was always told to stay in the Tundra, to stay home, to stay hidden. Her father was a bit paranoid about her existence – but then again, she does look a lot like her mother, and Elite had just started a major war, and was believed to have been assassinated. Cagney was very much afraid of what might happen if anyone found out Elite was alive (thought certainly not ‘well’, that doesn’t apply well to comatose creatures) in his care, and had a daughter and a lover who could traverse time. It didn’t help that Kellyn was very much like Elite as a child – Cagney didn’t trust the magicians and shapeshifters who had attempted to kill the pink mare not to come after him for saving her, or their daughter for existing.
So her childhood was a remote and isolated one. And then she was whisked away to the edge of space and time in a quest for her grandfather, and came back with the ability to talk to ghosts and absolutely no control over either of her powers. Finally, finally after two or three years of a magically-mutated preganancy, Kellyn gave birth to her first foal and was able to control all of her powers again, but at that point she accidentally got pregnant again. Who knew that you could conceive even if you were in the past? Not Kellyn. And then when she’d finally gotten rid of her two daughters, pawning them off on Brennen as soon as they were old enough, all of this had happened.
“I guess,” she answers the palomino mare’s question with a complete lack of enthusiasm or certainty. After all, few claim the Meadow willingly as home. But the Tundra is gone, and though she had been contemplating the Dale as home, it was gone too. Perhaps she was a little attached to Ramiel, the Dale’s last King, but she hadn’t the slightest idea where to find him now. “I used to live in the Tundra.” Kellyn elaborates, trying to decide whether Harmonia makes her nervous or not. She’s not used to having to read people very well – she’s not used to not having her two pesky ghost guides following her around offering their input. At first she’d been glad to have them gone (they acted much too much in the way of a conscience) but now she is starting to realize all the ways they had been helping her. "And yourself?"
Kellyn
the girl who walks in time and talks to ghosts
daughter of cagney and elite
If Pollock wouldn't make use of her gifts - however sparing and fleeting they were - then Harmonia had to take the bull by the horns - so to speak. She is disarming in her appearance, no one would truly know how deadly she was beneath the lithe muscles and sinewy flesh. She was a wolf in sheep's clothing, and this little lamb was ripe for the taking. Of course, Harmonia did not have any plans specifically. It's the chase that Harmonia enjoys. The long game, that's her goal.
Harmonia casts an eye around the empty meadow and frowns. "Not very safe here," she says, thinking aloud. Not very safe anywhere, though. Not from those damn fairies. "Pangea," she answers with a nod. "Carnage created it to spite the fairies," she says this with a wide smile, beaming almost. She does love the fact that they exist in their secret enclave to destroy the nonsense the fairies worked so hard to create. It was beautiful, really. Magical.
"They took so much from us, it was nice to get something back. Did they take anything from you?"
I wish I could feel it all for you, I wish I could do it all for you
She settles, eventually, on allowing herself to be cautious of the other mare, just a little, but nothing is settling on any major alarm bells in the strawberry roan’s head. Of course, she has no idea that’s what Harmonia wants – she is naïve in the worst of ways. Kellyn has seen horrors beyond horrors, fought monsters beyond the imagining, but she knows little of how the world actually works. In her mind, Carnage existed only in those realms at the end of space and time and in the afterlife, not in her daily life. Not in her daughter’s life, despite the fact that her grandfather is also her father.
So she is smiling, but the smile dims as Harmonia keeps speaking, and that particular man comes into the conversation. Skipping over the comment about safety entirely, though she files it away in the back of her mind, she fixes Harmonia with a green gaze that is somewhat unfocused, as memories of the lengths she went to for the magician flit across her memories. “Carnage,” she murmurs, “my grandfather.” For some reason, she had never expected to see him again.Never expected him to leave the underworld, and Gail.
The rest of Harmonia’s words bring Kellyn back to her, and she is quiet a moment longer. When she finally speaks, there is a simmering resentment beneath the words. Harmonia masks her anger at the fae with a bubbly, smiling exterior, but Kellyn isn’t that skilled. Kellyn wears her emotions on her sleeve. “Yes, they did.” Something makes her throw all caution the wind, and leaping off the cliff into trusting the stranger with her secrets. “I am – was – a medium. And a time traveler.”
In Kellyn’s opinion, the fae had no right to take her powers. She earned her mediumship fair and square at the ends of the world for the dark demigod who is her grandfather, and Cagney earned his from another who called herself/ a Goddess so many years ago, and she inherited it from him. They are hardly Beqanna’s gifts. “In Pangea…you are in the business of disrupting this new peace, and restoring what we had before?”
Kellyn
the girl who walks in time and talks to ghosts
daughter of cagney and elite
At first, Harmonia thought she lost the girl.
The way she speaks Carnage's name makes her feel as though she misstepped, misjudged the situation. She thought the name Carnage would evoke strong memories of the original God of Beqanna and the wrath he did bring. Who wouldn't follow the nebula god to the ends of the earth? Who wouldn't try to take a bit of his star and keep it for themselves?
An offspring, it would seem.
Harmonia knows about these things. Her relationship with her mother and father are equally strange and unnatural. Her mother is long dead (long, long dead) but her father likes to creep in like the common cold. A new strain every year, just as virulent, just as annoying.
But the girl snaps from her reverie and her eyes are as hot as her voice. Her convinction is palpable and her anger...
...it's something Harmonia can use.
"We are in such a business," she says. They were, that is - Pollock is a missing giant amongst the mountains, but that doesn't fit her purpose. "What if I told you that in exchange for a home in Pangea I can restore your traits?" she asks. Her voice is low, soft, and she sneaks a darting eye around. In truth Harmonia didn't care if another heard her proposition - let them associate a return to power with kinship with Pangea. Let them think Pangea the great source of power, the final 'fuck you' to the cows that call themselves fairies.
All caution is thrown completely out the window when Harmonia offers her any help at all to restore her powers in the short-term. Kellyn ruthlessly silences the voice in the back of her head wondering if this is some sort of trap – what sounds too good to be true is usually too good to be true, isn’t it? – and subconsciously leans towards Harmonia, hazel eyes intent on the palomino mare.
“I would say that in that case, I’m quite sure that Pangea deserves all of the loyalty that I used to hold in reserve for my Tundra.” It’s an easy choice because Kellyn is nothing without her powers – she has lived with them, and defined herself by them. She loves her family in the only way she can, and she was loyal to the Tundra because it had given her so much as a child – but a Kingdom that doesn’t exist cannot hold a candle to the allure of having her traits back.
“Tell me what I need to do.” The mare shifts, restless now, hope in her bright eyes. Hope to be herself again. And maybe more – maybe she will really come to love Pangea in a way that she just couldn’t manage for the Dale, no matter how hard she tried. Perhaps she’ll finally make someone proud – it’s never going to be Brennen, not at this rate, but perhaps her maternal grandfather would look favorably on her for committing herself to his foundling Kingdom, like she had committed herself to finding Gail. “I will do it.”
Harmonia does not need to give her much more, the girl doesn't need more taunting or teasing. She only wants what she's promised, and today that's her abilities returned. Harmonia may be cruel and she may be a liar but in this time and this space she is not. She has a particular need for things to unfold, so she tilts her head ever so slightly and motions for the girl to follow her to Pangea.
