"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
01-27-2017, 10:24 PM (This post was last modified: 01-27-2017, 10:27 PM by Carwyn.)
Carwyn
Folded wings into flattening veins and fluttering eyes
The sun has set and risen again on the Meadow. The blue roan girl heaves a sigh and looks around, but there is still no sign of her purple sister. It has been three days nearly since Brennen had told them that he had found them a home in a new land, and was headed there immediately.
Carwyn had volunteered to wait and travel with Cassady, and Cassady had promised to meet here beneath this willow tree the next day to go – but two days have passed since they were supposed to meet, and nothing. She is finally coming to the realization that Cassady has either already left, or has no intention of leaving, or just got distracted and doesn’t care that Carwyn is waiting.
A year ago, even a month ago, Carwyn would have waited forever for her big sister to come. But something has changed, something inside the blue girl, and she won’t wait anymore. She loves her sister, but she won’t let her life hang in the balance for her.
Stepping out from under the cover of the willow boughs, the girl spreads her wings wide –and oh! how glorious it is to have them again – and leaves for Nerine. It’s easy enough to find, and the pegasus finds the waves crashing on the shore enchanting and exciting. She lands and touches her nose to the grey sand that is just a few shades less blue than herself, blowing gently to make the grains whirl and blow. Then she lifts blue eyes to look at the rest of her new home, and wonders what kind of place Brennen has chosen for them.
01-28-2017, 04:22 PM (This post was last modified: 01-28-2017, 04:22 PM by Raeg'n.)
-Raeg'n-
Carwyn, she greeted in pleased surprise with bright eyes, the name coming forth easily as she didn't really know many people. Ruan chased a ways behind her in their game. She was preparing him for what training she knew, beginning first with strengthening his body. She'd poke and prod him, shove him off balance and leap away with a laugh. She'd coax him into chasing her, or she would be the one to chase after him, nipping playfully at his rump to push him harder or easing back to boost his confidence with success.
One day, he would be powerful.
One day, he would be his own weapon if he wished to be.
As he caught up to her, she shifted to the side to introduce them, amber eyes lit with pride and pleasure.
Carwyn, this is my boy Ruan. He would not always be just a boy, and still the tag stuck to him. Not to belittle him, but simply because that is what he was for now, a boy. A growing boy, with a great deal more strength to him than he'd had when they met. Even a little taller, maybe. And certainly not boy as in her child, she was obviously still too young to have her own and probably never would. Could she even bear children? She wasn't sure, and wasn't interested in considering it.
This is Carwyn, she said to him, passing her navy velvet over the sheen of sweat on his neck. She liked how it darkened his silver-gray like clouds of an overcast sky. Yes, perhaps he was just a bit taller. She forced her attention back to the blue-painted roan.
Do you live here in Nerine now? she asked. The two of them had skimmed the border many times, and had since learned the name of the land that cut off the wasteland with a river wall. A source of play, that river, where they drank or galloped through, leapt over or splashed in. She enjoyed those times. She enjoyed when his face lit up.
”Hello,” she had watched the Pegasus soaring among the clouds, winding blissfully before having to reconnect with the ground and with reality. Above, Nayl imagines, is limitless and free. There are no worries in the sapphire eternity of the sky, no responsibilities to anchor one down. Oftentimes, she wonders how exhilarating it would be to taste the freedom and to feel the shackles slip from her legs, but alas, she remains grounded to Nerine and the obstacles that life always has in store.
The outsiders recently congregating at Nerine’s borders has Nayl’s interest piqued. Her eyes, blooming with the colors of autumn, roll back and forth between the two women and child as she closes the distance among them. Pushing aside her worries and her recent mishaps, she addresses them with a face of steel, stoic and militaristic with the exception of her fiery gaze. ”Do any of you live here?” Though not unkind, she is stern as she draws to a halt into their small group. Her ears hungrily twist for their answers, wanting to hear their confessions or their lies.
She hardly waits, settling herself comfortably among them, before finally adding, ”We haven’t yet met,” a pause to include them all, ”I’m Nayl, Queen of Nerine.”
He was transforming, like the world around him. As spring passed, flourishing with flowers and creatures and new birth - Kilter too grew and flourished. The Angel had replenished him, had lifted his sunken and sallow body from the depths of winter and turned him into a burning force of life. He no longer stumbled through their travels, save for when his Angel would bump into him - a test of strength and a challenge of the future. He was no longer entirely timid, either - Raeg’n had brought him through Beqanna, and they had conversed with others. While Kilter still faltered at times, unsure of what to do or say, the Angel was always behind him, coaxing him on.
They had remained in Nerine for the past few days - enjoying the fresh waters, the flush fields, and reveling in the vast difference of it to Death’s house. It was a welcome change, and it showed in Kilter’s body and spirit.
Today would be another day of play fights, romping through the sands, and filling up on the green grasses that Pangea so lacked. Kilter followed Raeg’n dutifully - and whenever he roamed too far, he heard her brief call to him before running back to his night sky once more. It was one of these moments where Kilter was wandering slightly askew, when he looked up to see that his Angel was not alone. A winged woman stood before her, and his Angel seemed to know her.
Kilter cantered up, his body in a sheen of sweat from their bouts, and his Angel gave him a nudge and an introduction. Kilter glowed inside - each touch of approval from his Angel was another reassurance that he had done right, was doing right.
He nodded his silver head in greeting, lessons learned from Raeg’n - always be polite, but be on guard. But it is not long before another woman approaches- black and white, she created her own night sky where as Kilter and Raeg’n made one together.
Kilter, confidence bolstered in Raeg’n’s presence, spoke to the queen. “I’m Ruan. This is my Angel and her friend. We live in Death’s house - but it’s awfully lonely there. We came to eat and play.”
She had been watching them, that women and her boy whom had consistently lingered at Nerine and Pangea's borders. She had watched them cross two and fro with such carelessness, she had watched the women's boy play amongst the seagrass, and she herself practice her battle tactics upon the sisterhood's soil. But now as she watches, the pair gathered with another stranger and her queen, our alabaster feline grows perplexed by the little cluster of equine gathered in Nerine. And with a rather talkative curious child, whom is rather perceptive to her surroundings the petite crowd is surely not to miss.
Her emerald gaze remains watchful, as she shifts into her equine form as her cub weaves through long alabaster hoofed limbs. "Come Lewana. We have visitors." Her vocals remain soft and soothing as she nears the group. Stopping for a moment, to allow her cub to climb up one of her porcelain appendages and to settle down upon her back. She continues forth, reaching the cluster of equine.
Her head dips with a matter of respect towards Nayl, her queen. "Nayl." She greets her queen with a smile, genuine and rare. Her gaze turning towards her own daughter for only a moment
----
"Nayl!" the little girl exclaimed, tempted to leap off her mothers back and onto Nayl's. But instead she remained put, keeping her ebony paws planted firmly upon mom's ebony speckled hide. Her wild eyes lingered upon Nayl, and then met the eyes of the newcomers. Her yellow gaze meets the boys eyes, and when he spoke of playing, her heart nearly skipped a beat. Momma, never let her play with anyone before. Nor had momma let her out of her sight.. Maybe momma would if she was accompanied by this boy? "I wanna play momma. He wants to play, can I play with him momma?" She paws at her mother's tuft of mane, where her mane meets her withers. "Please?"
----
Craning her cranium she glances at the boy, that women's boy. Her alabaster tail lashing, "Not right now Lewana." She states with finality. Her daughter was too young to go freelancing with some boy, right? Plus she was far too little to go wandering about Nerine alone, at least she was quite little in her cub form if only she knew how to shift.. than perhaps it would be a lot easier letting her go? Her mind is clouded only for a moment, before her focus returns onto the trio.
First onto the mare and her boy, whom she had seen before trespassing upon Nerine. "Is that so? Then why have I see you two before? And if Pangea lacks such resources, than why haven't any of their other inhabitants come to Nerine?" She lingers on them for a moment, allowing her verdant gaze to fix upon the winged one. She was new, someone Celeana couldn't match a name to. Her gaze flickers with curiosity for a moment, allowing herself to settle in a form of silence, to watch what happens... to listen to the women and her boy's confession.
Folded wings into flattening veins and fluttering eyes
Of anything she was expecting to find here, a familiar face that wasn’t Brennen or Cassady wasn’t on the top of the list. But it is a pleasant surprise, and she turns to Raeg’n with a bright smile, and turns the same friendly expression to the boy at her side, committing his name as well to memory. “Raeg’n,” she nods, and offers the same greeting to him, “Ruan.” She tilts her head then, listening to them and preparing to answer the question, but she doesn’t immediately have the chance.
The next to join them, the dark-and-white mare, is not as friendly. Carwyn understands – clearly they have invaded on her territory – and she eyes the mare with a little bit of wariness in her body and her gaze. Surely she is not mistaken – this is the place that Djinni had told him to come, the land of rocks and ocean, and if Brennen was invited to live with the former Amazons, surely a mare would be doubly as welcome. Still, she doesn’t have a chance to respond to Nayl’s questions either, turning again to look at the pale mare and the dark feline cub on her back.
My, what a diverse group they are now. Carwyn shifts uncomfortably, looking around the group, not immune to the hostility (however mild) that they are extending towards Raeg’n and Ruan, and uncertain if it applies to her as well. Perhaps she can diffuse the situation? “I’m Carwyn,” she introduces herself to Nayl and to the nameless mare, smiling at them as well as she had Raeg’n and Ruan. “I am coming to seek a home here – my grandfather, Brennen, said that he had been invited by Djinni. He thought my sister and I would be welcome as well.” For a moment her blue eyes linger on Nayl, questioning.
She is not yet attached to the place, one way or another, though she thinks it is beautiful from what she saw from the sky. But it was nice to think of having a real home, a place not the Meadow to live. And moreover, she knows that if she and Cassady are not welcome, Brennen will not stay. And her grandfather is a shadow of his former self with no land to serve, and Carwyn was so glad for that to change for him, it hurts her heart to imagine him going back to being homeless again so soon.
"Do any of you live here?" the voice was hard, belonging to an equally stern mare. "We haven't yet met, I'm Nayl, Queen of Nerine."
Raeg'n, she replied simply, a slight dip to her head in neutral respect.
Raeg'n was wary but generally at ease next to Ruan as the queen joined them and introduced herself. The woman was clearly capable in a scuffle, but she did not alarm the nightly mare's need to protect Ruan. And he, too, was at ease -as he should be- and he addressed her without any hesitation and that shining light in his eyes. Raeg'n's heart warmed at that healthy glow, but it swiftly turned to a bright fire reflected in her amber eyes at the newest addition.
Her senses spiked and she shifted instinctively to place herself between the lion-mare and her boy, staring hard in open warning. Their previous encounter had not been pleasant, and Raeg'n would let it be known Ruan's health and happiness were hers to secure and no amount of teeth and claws would sway her. The dark cub grew excited at her boy's statement. Raeg'n was not pleased with the idea of them playing together, and didn't bother to hide it with a sharpness to her stare.
Then again, she was not his mother and would not keep him from it if it was something he wished to do. But she would be a constant presence, a trained eye, as she always was. She was his and he would be safe.
The lion-mare spoke up again. "Is that so? Then why have I see you two before? And if Pangea lacks such resources, than why haven't any of their other inhabitants come to Nerine?"
Raeg'n sniffed but gave no other response as her gaze settled on the Nerine-Queen, waiting to see how she answered her friend Carwyn. It was no concern of Raeg'n's what Pangea's scum did or didn't do with themselves. Her boy would have the very best even if it meant they danced borders to get it for him.
