"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
Stars shone through the thick blanket of the night, bathing the boy in a milky white haze.
His mother was gone, only staying long enough to hide him away from the harsh gaze of predators.
His name was a soft whisper on the wind, the word catching and floating into the sky.
Rhysand.
A name given to a colt who's mother was never going to come back for him. A colt who now laid alone, head tucked beneath his lanky legs. Spring offered him comfort, the earth's hands extending to cover him in grass, protecting him from the night's cool breath.
He feebly called out for his mother, petal shaped ears falling against his curved neck. Green eyes opened to search for her, though he knew nothing of what she looked like. He took a look at himself, dark bay mixed with blankets of white. He then looked around himself, grass that protruded from the ground was arranged protectively around him, shoots of it curved over his head.
He lifted his gaze to the sky beyond the canopy, eyes searching the stars. It landed upon the brightest one and stayed there. His head moved to rest against his legs once more, though his gaze stayed on the star until he could stare no more, and sleep over took him.
The night was filled with bursts of sleep and wandering eyes. At times he found himself calling out to a mare he had never met but knew had been his dam. She never came for him, never called for him, and so he gave up now simply calling out for anyone.
He had grown restless. The ins and outs of his breath had no purpose. No meaning. His joy was his children but all were gone now. Deceased for ages it has seemed. His sky blue eyes look to the stars above, one shines a bit brighter than the rest.
His stride lengthens with purpose as he traverses across the sea green grasses of Nerine. Through the commonlands of the river he crosses it's waters easily. Climbing the banks of the other side. Soaked was his thick, tangled mane and tail. Water dripped to the ground as he made his way to the Field. He has been here before.
Tonight the same bright star guides him. Not straying from his sight for more than a moment. It's calling to him.
But why?
A whispered voice was heard upon the night breeze. He slid to a stop. Massive head rose and ears flickered atop it. Swiveling to catch it's location and source. Nares flared to decipher the scents upon the same breeze. There was a newness in the air. A scent he has been blessed to know many times. Muscles rippled under taunt silver hide as he twist to the right. Blue eyes scan the dimmed lighting for a body.
He hears him before his eyes focus upon the fragile frame nestled in the new spring grass. The pale splotches more noticeable than the rest. His immediate thought is someone, a mare, must have hid him here. Eyes dart about the landscape anxiously looking for a mares wrath for him being so close. The lands are still, eerie still. Brow cocks in question as he lowers his crown. Nares flare once more before his rough voice calls back to the child, "Where 'tis ye's dam, young one? 'Tis dangerous 'ere alone."
He rests patiently near the foal. Expression soft yet concerned...
The voice came out of nowhere, a strong and reassuring tone to it.
Who ever it was wanted to know where his mother was.
Where was she?
His head rose weakly, muzzle breaking through the canopy of grass to peer out at the stallion. He stretched out for him, maybe this was his father? Maybe.... He found himself afraid to tell the stallion that his mother was gone. Yet he was still unable to grasp the fact that she had left him. He was still afraid to admit that he was an orphan.
Though with the stallion's identity unknown, maybe he wasn't. This could be his father or someone who knew where to find his parents?
The boy struggled to stand, giving up after two failed tries. He wanted to go to the stallion, to seek a home in his arms, or to be comforted in some way.
"I don't know where my mother is."
His voice was a hushed whisper, one on the brink of breaking. Hoarse from his cries moments before.
07-19-2017, 09:01 PM (This post was last modified: 07-19-2017, 09:03 PM by kahzie.)
She’s been wandering of late, travelling more in these last few weeks of her pregnancy than she has in the last five years. It’s more of pacing really – from the Sylvan woods to the field and back again, over and over and over. She’s not found anything worth pausing over and she does not expect this night to be any different.
Even when she passes the grey stallion that smells of Nerine, she doesn’t stop. He looks familiar in the way that kingdom mates often do, though Djinni is an infrequent presence on the coastal grey beach of late. It’s not until she hears the voice of a child that she hesitates.
With one front hoof hovering a half inch from the ground, she stops. She lowers it slowly as her dark-rimmed ears flick to catch the next sound. There – behind her. In the direction the Nerenian stallion had just gone. It’s probably just the hormones that surge through her that makes her turn, probably just the maternal instinct that has her looking for what she knows she will see in the shrubbery in front of the stallion.
There.
A rattle of movement in the leaves as a colt struggles to stand. He is successful – eventually – and when he rises to his feet, Djinni is there a few feet hind the stallion’s shoulder, her green eyes round and curious.
“Hey,” she says softly, her attention on the child. He doesn’t know where his mother is, he says. Of course he doesn’t; no mother who wants to be found leaves their child unattended in the Field. This Beqanna may be a quieter one than the Beqanna of old, but it is still foolish to leave a newborn alone. She should tell him the truth – that his mother is gone and he is all alone in the world, but she can’t quite bring herself to do so. Instead she watches him from afar, her eyes on the little patches of white across his sides, patched like her own, patched like her firstborn Ivar, patched like the unborn twins that stretch out her wide barrel. She smiles.
The frail child struggled to rise. Collasping to the ground with a slight thud. His ears thrusted forwards in confusion. Nares flared as his muzzle brushed the shoots of greenery surrounding the colt. A reassuring whicker was emitted from somewhere deep inside his chest. Reminding him of finding Azar within a thicket not far from here. The filly had been more aloof. She had not been lost, only not found. He wondered for a moment if the colt had a similar faint. Maybe he wasn't lost at all.
The child's next words were semi-concerning. Perhaps he had been purposefully left here and was to be collected later. Or maybe he had been abandoned. Since neither was sure on her whereabouts he figured he'd wait around. "Are ye hurt?" A concerned tone to his voice. Not being able to stand was a death sentence to any horse. "Try again," he coaxed the colt to stand...
"I 'tam Orion. Do ye have a name?" His gentle blue gaze settled upon the blotched foal.
He shook his head in a simple no, so far he felt fine. So far he only felt afraid, and not by his guest.
Rhysand did not fear the stallion before him, nor did he move away when he stretched forward, quietly pressing him to try again. The boy did as he was told, finally forcing his splotchy hide to stand tall. As he did so, another approached. A mare who he had seen leaving only moments before.
She let out a simple greeting, a wicker to which he replied with a small version of his own,
"Hi."
He whispered, finding himself quietly overwhelmed by it all. New smells, new sights, new horses were all filling into his head at once, and he rushed to keep up with the jumbled mess of it all.
Had the stallion spoken again? Rhysand rallied to remember what it was he had said to him....
The stallion had called himself Orion, but the mare had not offered up a name.
"My name is Rhysand."
He stuttered, the name was said 'rhee-sand' though the boy struggled with this and it came out 'rhis-and'.
"Are you my dad?"
He inquired, almost nervous to ask the lumbering gray stallion. He had a dreadful feeling that he was not. A feeling that sunk his heart to the lowest place in his chest. But the boy had hope held higher than anything, so he let the question hang.
Graceful steps approached within the wispy grasses of the field. His crown rose slightly. Her scent identifying her before he could make out her form in the darkness. Though they may have never met officially, or conversed previously he knew who she was. Knew her tie to the coastal lands he called home. A courteous dip of his crown as she joined.
The colt wobbles to a stand as his gaze shifts back. A quiet hello escaped his lips before announcing his name. The silver stallion smiled, "Nice to meet thee Rhysand." He glanced to the mare expecting her name to now be spoken...
His attention swiftly shifts as the child asks if he is his dad. His mind is conflicted as he looks to the mare again. A puzzled and sadden looks falls upon his face as he hides it from the boy. Does he lie and claim him as his own blood...? Or does he confront the child with the truth? The colt may never know the difference if he had lied, but he knew the truth was always best.
"No Rhysand. I 'tam not your dad," his voice softened as his blue eyes looked to the boy. "But 'twould ye like to be my son? I 'twould love to be ye's Father" He hoped the boy would accept his offer. There was a difference between being a dad biologically and father. He'd explain one day soon, if the child would allow it...
The grey stallionseems concerned, attentive to the boy’s needs. He’s encouraging and gentle, and Djinni is not surprised to hear the boy ask if he is his father. Djinni would have assumed much the same thing had she not come across them when she did. The grullo mare watches the interchange curiously until the older mare looks back her way. She’d approached quietly after all; she doesn’t expect to be immediately noticed.
She does, however, appreciate his courteous nod of recognition. Djinni does so love being recognized.
“I’m Djinni,” she tells them both, her sea green eyes moving from stallion to colt. The dappled stallion seems sincere in his offer to parent this lost boy, but Djinni cannot help but wonder exactly what he plans to do with him. Are there nursemaids in Nerine? Djinni struggles to picture Nayl being willing to nurse a foal (or rather, a foal of unknown heritage – there might be some lineages of enough value to persuade the Iron Queen).
The warm spring wind blows her dark tail against her haunches, and for a moment she looks up to the sky. The stars seem smaller here than from between the golden canopy of Sylva. She could step away now, she knows, leaving this potential new family to make their way to Nerine. The boy might starve though, and now that she’s found him she feels the heavy weight of responsibility again.
“What will you feed him?” She asks Orion. She doesn’t mean to maim his offer, but a dead son is not a good son.
She looks now to Rhysand, stepping abreast of the grey stallion as she lowers her head to his level.
“You could come to Sylva with me,” she tells him. “You’ll be safe and well fed, and we’d visit Orion often if you’d like.” She does not offer to be his mother, because she knows that he has one – wherever she might be. Perhaps she’ll even come looking for him in time.
He was unsure of who he needed to answer first. The stallion. Orian had offered him a home, but with this he had made the child's greatest fear real.
This was not his father, and the mare certainly was not his mother. She would have said so by now, he knew that much.
He also knew that as soon as the mare spoke of how he would be fed, he grew hungry. So hungry that his spindly legs spread to keep him steady. She was speaking to the gray stallion, her voice distant as the colt thought. The mare could give him food, but there was no promise she would let him stay when he grew old enough to be weaned. Rhysand was unsure if he could be abandoned twice in his life.
He also didn't want to starve. Death was not an option for him. He had already fought so much.
Dark ears flicked wildly, eyes widening at his decision. He pleaded quietly that his mother, whoever she was would just come for him and take him away from this tangle of confusion.
"I- I..."
He muttered, tumbling over his words. He wished the earth would open up and swallow him. Why was he so afraid? He had two horses offering to take him in... Two horses willing to be his guardian, and yet he was terrified.
With a heavy heart, he awaited to see what the stallion would say.
He has seen her before, the pied mare, at meetings in Nerine. She speaks her name and recognizes it. He allows her to join him near the colt unafraid she had any ill tempered thoughts. The heavy weight burdening her body made it clear to him she was expecting her own soon. She seems to be lost in thought for a moment. Indecisive on what to do next. His attention had shifted from her to the troubled colt.
She is then speaking again - words of truth- on his lack of nourishment for the child. He looks again to her with a discouraged look. She was right and he wasn't afraid to acknowledged it. A nod of his large profile was offered as he contemplated her question and statement. His thoughts brought to the only mare he had known other than the Queen was City. She had a foal last season but has seen little of her since. He would not burden the Queen with such a task either.
The colt is consumed with uncertainty. He stumbles for words. Knowing his future rests in the hands of the others.
His mind clears and he knew what he must propose, "Sylva ye say." He pauses in thought then turns his sky blue eyes to the blotched colt, "I 'twill ask for residency there as well. Just until he is old 'nough to come to Nerine with me. I 'twill not abandon him. What say ye?" His gaze examines the colts reaction before turning to Djinni. Grey washed tassels swish haphazardly in waiting.
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