"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
have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
He had not come here purposefully—at least not for a while.
He had needed time to grow, to learn, to shape his own path. He had needed time to find out what was his own truth, his own gravity. And so he had. He had turned from his home, his family, and left the warmth of their embrace—and while he had left a young boy, he had returned a man. In the years since he had found ragged hoof on the twisted path, his body had filled out. His narrow chest had widened, his muscles had grown; he was no longer a spindly teenager. Instead, he was mature, maybe even handsome.
Not that he wasted much time thinking about that.
His thoughts were on much different things, the boy having grown serious and introspective in the years since he had left. Even now, walking what was once the path to home, he struggled to connect with the boy of his youth. The boy who had so affectionally bound toward his father and launched into him. The boy who had changed his spots to mirror his family. So much had changed within him since those days. He had to wonder if his family would even recognize him; if they would know his heart still.
A frown grew at the corner of his russet mouth as he walked deeper into the forest, the light splattering across the curve of his haunches until it died away, the thicket of branches above him blocking even that from reaching him. He sighed as the air turned cooler, the summer heat dissipating with the light, and he came to a stop beneath the boughs of a walnut tree, his flesh pressed into the bark. For a moment, he leaned into it and scratched, satisfying an itch he didn’t even know he had, before he stilled.
Gray eyes peered out into the woods as he waited silently for things he did not even think would come.
so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess
While she is far from an invigorating and inspiring ruler, she has been – at the very least – a good one. The forest of Sylva continues to remain the quiet haven that it had been when Marlyn had left. (They do not speak of what lies beneath the lake). The piercing call of geese overhead as they wing their way south had roused her earlier in the day that she might have wanted, and the grullo mare stares blearily into the fiery woods with still-unfocused eyes.
She should go to the other lands before winter comes. She should find Nayl, discuss what she has planned. She should do a great many things, but instead she yawns and watches a pair of squirrels scurry up a walnut tree, each carrying a mouthful of leaves that nearly dwarfs them. They’ve the winter to prepare for (though it never comes hard here); their yearly labors are winding to an end. Djinni has no such peace to look forward to, if anything, tensions tend to escalate in the Fall. It’s the natural way of things, but she does not have to enjoy it.
As sleepy as she is, it takes her a moment to notice the movement farther ahead in the woods. It shouldn’t have – the stranger moving through the woods is impressively large – and she reacts quickly to make up for lost time.
When she appears instantaneously directly ahead of stranger, her sea green eyes have sharpened. She is scowling (how dare he come so far into the land!) but when she recognizes him, her entire expression brightens. “Zai!” she says with a laugh, stepping forward to press her dark muzzle to his jaw in greeting, “If you’ve come back to Sylva, does that mean you’ve finally found yourself?” There’s teasing in her eyes as she pulls back; he had always been such a serious creature.
current appearance: natural build - slim smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.
She is made of pure magic, she is bright, she is welcoming, she is sneaky. He has long since come to love these things about her, to appreciate them, but never to fully understand them. He does not understand how she appears so suddenly in front of him, how her emotions can zip from immediate suspicion to joy, how she can so quickly press her muzzle to his jaw, stripping away the distance between them.
He does not understand, but that doesn't stop the warmth that spreads in his chest in response.
He is relieved that she makes the first step, that she is the one to bridge the gap, because he knows that he never would have been able to. Still, he leans slightly into the touch, his russet head turning against it. He doesn’t reach for her himself, but his gray eyes are a little brighter when she pulls back and finds him.
“I am tricky prey,” he rolls his shoulders, a rare humor in the curve of his mouth, “and an inept predator.” It wasn’t the best combination, but it had been the one handed to him—the one he was forced to handle. “So, no, I have yet to find myself.” He does not think that he would ever find himself, not truly. The barriers that he had erected over the years were formidable, even to him. He had walled himself off long ago.
She doesn't seem to mind though—she never did. Despite the fact that his face was impassive more often than not, despite the fact that his gray eyes were too often solemn, she didn’t treat him as the boring lump he was. In her presence, he even felt more…interesting. More lively. Even if it was dim in comparison.
“How is the family?” he finally asks, the words rusted and difficult to pull from his throat.
He isn't sure he wants to hear the answer.
so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess
Djinni places a friendly peck to the side of his face as she pulls away, the same affection she would give to her own younger siblings. He looks even taller than when they had last spoken, she thinks. She had often been taller herself, so perhaps it is just that he’s grown more comfortable with himself in the time since their last meeting. Looking up at him admiringly, she repeats the words that Zai has heard from her time and time again: “You still look ‘found’ to me” and the customary gplayful prod at his chest with her nose.
It comes crashing down when he asks about his family.
Of course he asks. He cares, loves them dearly; it is what had truly drawn her to him. It had drawn her to all of them, truly: the happy family with the loving mother, brave father, and their smiling children. She had only meant it as a joke, but the wildcat king had misspoken, and there are some things that even Djinni cannot undo. Ygritte had gone to look for him, and then Raene had done the same. She can’t seem to stop them from leaving to look for something that they’ll never find.
But they’ll all come back someday, she is sure. That hope is what keeps her eyes steady even as her smile falls. “They’re…not here.” The three words are too simple, not enough of an answer. “I heard your father went missing, and then your mother and Marlyn left to find him. Raene left too, but she told me to take care of Sylva while she was gone so I’ve just…stayed.” She leaves out the middle of the story, that she’d thought it would be amusing to toy with Marlyn for a few minutes before revealing herself and the conversation had taken an entirely different turn and now Djinni rules the land they stand in.
Sylva should belong to him, she realizes as she looks up at him with a pensive expression.
current appearance: natural build - slim smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
Zai would have been appalled if he could have read her thoughts.
Him?
Lead?
The idea was atrocious—terrible by its very nature. To be a good leader, you needed to know how to deal with people. You needed to be able to care about them, invest yourself in them. He could barely bother with engaging in normal conversations, let alone trying to help carve their path into the future. The idea that he would, in any circumstance, be capable of leading them, caring for a brood, was laughable at best.
Dangerous at worst.
Thankfully, the boy cannot read her thoughts and can only focus on the pain of her words. His family, his bright and joyful and happy family, was gone. “All of them?” His brow creased, his lips folding into a severe frown as he dragged his gray eyes from her to look to the horizon. “They have all left?” It was almost more than he could comprehend—the thought so completely and utterly foreign to him. He had been the one to leave, to look for meaning. But to be abandoned? To be alone? That was entirely new.
He shook his head, the ache of it spreading across his chest. Finding her face again and smoothing out his mottled expression with something smoother, something hard and unyielding. “I am glad that you stayed to look out for the kingdom,” he finally offered, the trees hanging around them not entirely home but also not foreign. There was a comfort in being here, in knowing he stood where his family had stood, even if they were but ghosts now. “I know that is what mother and father would have wanted.”
His handsome, severe face breaks for a moment into a slip of a smile,
“After all, there are few hands as capable as your own.”
so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess
He had been light for one rare moment, and it pains Djinni to see the brightness fade from his face. Empathy is a weakness that the grullo mare has only recently begun to develop. She usually squashes it quickly, but this is Zai, and her innate distrust of others has always been dampened around the spotted stallion.
"Not forever," she tells him, reaching out to press her dark muzzle to his shoulder. She doesn't know if he'll brush her off - soldier on - but she doesn't want to risk not trying either. She knows the sadness that comes from missing one's family, but at least she knows where hers is. Far away, beyond Beqanna, but there if she were to ever need them.
He shakes his head, becomes stoney again (but at least no longer sorrowful? An improvement?) and Djinni looks up to meet his gaze. Zai tells her he is glad she stayed, and she does feel inclined to tell him that she hadn't wanted to. She'd only been doing Nayl a favor and teasing Raene in the process, but then she'd stepped into a moment where she didn't quite belong, and now the forest of Sylva is under her protection. Well, hers and Stillwater's, she supposes, but she's avoiding thinking of the stallion for the time being.
"Only because you taught me," she responds. They both know what a terrible warrior she had been when they had first met. Djinni had never had a reason to learn to spar: why exert herself when she could simply wish herself the victor? Of course, fighting is not a requisite skill for a leader, and that holds especially true in this new and quieter Beqanna.
She lights up at his small smile, hopeful that he might show more of the young adventurer that she had met those years ago. Of course, it's more than likely time has changed him just as it has her.
"Are you here to stay?" She asks, her green eyes curious. "We could always use more handsome men wandering about the woods to scare off intruders." The wink she offers him is more playful than flirtatious; she has (almost) learned her lesson when it comes to teasing stallions in the Fall.
have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.
Her touch softens him, comforts him, and he once again leans into it, gray eyes closing, squeezing tight as if he could keep out the rest of the world at bay, the wicked truths of it too much like a blade between his very ribs, their sure touch carving out spaces within him he was not sure he could recover from. Although his instinct is to pull away from the interaction, to distance himself from her, he remains rooted, the only thing moving being his head as he angles it toward her, his solemn eyes finding her face and studying it.
“Not forever,” he repeats, because it makes him feel better to think that it is temporary, to think that he could close his eyes and wake up to their sleepy, smiling faces. As if he could dream himself backward in time—as if he could wake up young and whole and untouched, his mind bright and willing. But such things are impossible. There are too many walls he has erected over the years, too many ways that he has taught himself to shield that which is most important. He is no longer the young boy that she knew.
Still, there is enough of the boy that his face splits into a grin for a moment. He bridges the gap between them to nudge her neck, a soft laugh finding its way onto his tongue and into the air. “You were truly terrible, weren’t you?” For all of her gifts, for all of her control over the world around her, that had been one thing she had not come by naturally—although he thinks he can understand why she had never truly tried. “You were a fast learner though,” he muses, the memory of their lessons washing over him.
The bright light dims again at her compliment, at her teasing, although this time it is not because he is too serious, but rather because he fumbles at handling it. Confusion pinches his brows together, the red boy uncomfortable with the insinuation of flirtation. He takes a deep breath and shuffles his weight before looking up at her from beneath his forelock. “I am not particularly handsome,” he mutters before rolling his shoulder, wondering why the words coming from her made him stutter. “I am sure there are plenty of handsome men wandering through your words.” A frown, the words sounding wrong. “These woods.”
so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess
He does not pull away, and she keeps the contact as long as he lets her, smiling up at him when they separate. He teases her about her rather horrendous battle skills and she shakes her head, affecting an offended expression that she doesn’t mean. Her father had tried to teach them as children, but only Mellark had ever truly been interested. Djinni had preferred to spend time with her mother, listening to the stories of Beqanna and of the world beyond. She’d soaked up tales that way her brother had absorbed the skills necessary as a warrior. She’d have never imagined that it would take her nearly seventy years to learn how to fight (beyond the basics of self-defense that any girl with sense learns).
They change topics rather quickly, and this time the subject is one that Djinni seems to have far more skill at handling than her spotted companion does. The timing is no longer ideal for conception, but confusion and mischief have no seasons. She laughs, pressing her muzzle to his shoulder in a nonverbal reassurance that yes, of course he is handsome. She holds her touch a bit longer, but when she pulls back and her smile is more kind than it is alluring.
He would make a good distraction, she knows, but Zai is worth more than a distraction.
“I’d like you to stay.” Says the grullo mare. “They can be your woods too.”
current appearance: slim build smokey grullo tobiano sea green eyes
have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
Djinni is, as always, everything that he is not.
Her kind smile and reassuring touch eases the embarrassment that simmers beneath the surface, eases the discomfort that causes his spine to stiffen. He wills the discomfort from his limbs, the awkwardness from his expression, reminding himself, again, that this is just Djinni. This is not a stranger—this is not some random soul that he met while walking along that lonely path outside of Beqanna. She is family.
Or close enough.
So at her prodding, he simply rolls his shoulders and sighs audibly, giving into her. “I will stay,” he finally says in his gruff voice before reaching over and tugging her forelock in an uncharacteristic show of play. “If only to get you to hush up for but a moment.” But even then, the teasing in his gaze is clear.
The truth is that he would be thrilled to have a home again. For so long, he has been searching for some piece of honesty—something too ease his soul, reveal himself—but the journey was long and too often lonely. He longed to find a place to settle down, a place with paths he knew by heart, a place where the ground curved to his body at night, cradling his skull. He longed for stability, for comfort.
He can only hope that he will be able to find it here in Sylva.
Growing more at ease, the uncomfortable shell of newness fading, he cocks a back leg and settles into a more comfortable position. “So, tell me, Djinni,” he glances up at the foliage that decorates the land they have decided to call home—this land that was at once his family’s and alien to him. “What have you been up to lately?” Because he could not imagine the tricky little mare staying still for very long.
so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess
As soon as Zai sighs she knows she has one, and the grin on her dark face becomes that much more victorious. She likes winning, but she also likes that Zai will be staying.
“Oh but now I can talk even more,” she says with a laugh, “And you’ll have to be polite and listen to everything I say.” She is teasing him in return, and its clarified when she follows his cave up to the red and gold canopy rather than continuing to chatter. She does so like the trees here. They had grated on her first, refusing to even hint at the passage of time, but as she wiled away the hours she has learned the more subtle ways of telling the seasons. Now, the canopy is dark, holding away the heaviest of the snow from the forest floor below. From time to time it will break through in a rush of ice and broken limbs, but the crackling warning gives Sylvan residents more than enough time to move to safety.
Djinni hears one such snowfall off in the distance as she turns her green eyes back to Zai. She pays it no mind, but a single flicking ear.
“Oh, the usual.” She replies, her expression twisted in such a way that says her days have been anything but ordinary for her. “Diplomatics, traveling, being…responsible.” The distaste at the last word is overexagerated so as to be comical. “I was even thinking of organizing the warriors of Sylva, what few they are.” The grullo mare doesn’t bother to hide the size of the defensive force; they don’t really need to worry, not with Djinni who does not care about fair. “Any chance you’d be interested?”
current appearance: slim build smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
