"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
He finds himself at the bank of the crystalline lake, his ivory nose hovering carefully above the quietly lapping waters that dampen his hooves, the wet and compacted sand giving way beneath his weight. The springtime wind is lush and gentle, twirling the blue and starkly white of his mane and tail within its cool fingers, playing with the red and black feather that lies curiously behind a single ear, entangled within his mane since his birth.
His brow is furrowing the longer he stares into the water, snorting anxiously as he inhales the scent - fresh and clean, without a trace of salt or brine or smoke. He’s used to the ocean with its rolling and constantly changing tides, that slam into the volcanic rock of Tephra with frothing and rhythmic crashes, angry and sweltering and unforgiving.
Here, however, the water is completely clear and barely moving, save for the gentle ripples that the spring wind causes across its surface - otherwise, the young stallion is staring into glass. He lifts a single foreleg, white and bright with the green mountainous backdrop behind him, and paws curiously at the shallow water’s edge, turning up little smooth pebbles with his hoof. Once out of the water, he lowers his muzzle to examine them, sniffing at them curiously. He glances upwards with a tilt of his head, the mixture of white and blue cascading over one of his curious and even-bluer eyes as he stares out at the wide lake.
Svedka is completely fascinated by it - its unnatural stillness and impossible transparency - and without much more investigation, he picks up his feet and dips himself into the waters (cold but inviting, very much unlike the warm and tumultuous ocean of Tephra), his gold and white painted skin shivering as the water rushes up to meet him, lapping gently at his shoulders and haunches. He lowers his head to drink deeply, eyes roving to look beneath the surface - his legs were completely visible, as was the heavily-peppled bottom. He snorts sharply (and sprays water everywhere) as he realizes that he can see the shining silver sides of fish as they dart quickly around him, some brushing up against his legs in their movement. They are larger than he has ever laid eyes on - not tiny minnows in the warm shallows, or even the ones he has seen predatory birds carry away in their talons.
“I can see the fish!” he says with a toss of his head upwards.
He glances around quickly, hoping to find another close by to share his findings (he hopes for Solace’s figure on the bank nearby, but the spirited stallion would shout his discovery at whoever he found there).
12-02-2017, 08:56 PM (This post was last modified: 12-02-2017, 08:59 PM by Solace.)
Solace
The lake - the heart of their home calls to him the way it does so many others. She had only to look out across the turquoise surface to see several different groups close to the shore, the charmed waters seem to draw them all. Solace is not surprised to see her twin along the shore, splashing and exploring his world even when he stayed put, but it is a sight she will never grow tired of.
Warrick's daughter watches the colt for a few minutes, not ready to disturb him. But it isn't long before she weaves between the red maples to find her way to the bit of shore he has claimed. Tangerines son - Solace sees his mother (their mother) in that moment when he calls out to her before he is sure precisely who he calls to. It makes her chest fell tight.
How many times had she looked over her own shoulder for him over the last year? But she won't think of that now, chiding him would not bring him closer, and she needed him close now more than ever.
"Svedka," she calls lightly as she closes the final distance between them. The cool water wraps around her ankles and pulls a quiet gasp from her lugs as it makes its way to her knees - the lake may be pure and clear but it was never warm compared to the streams of Tephra.
"I wouldn't be surprised if there was something much larger than these fish living in this lake." Her pale side presses to his for a moment, but she doesn't lean against him. The cautious girl half expects her brother to spiral away at any moment.
The idea of a large sleepy lake guardian was a thought she had taken into her head during the winter when she had spent so much time alone, and now it was a hard one to get rid of. "But if there is, I think it is a kind sort of creature - a benevolent presence."
And then she smiles, because she sounds more like her mother than she should, but with him by her side, it is hard to be as stern as a Queen should be.
you are my sunshine
@[Svedka]
@[keeper] or anyone else who would like to meet him - feel free to jump in! Solace just couldn't resist XD
Keeper-the-bear had curled up for a nap not far from the lake.
She had gone for a swim in the transparent waters and even managed to snag a fishy snack or two, the bones of which still lay in the grass next to her and a few scales still glimmered on her lips. Keeper-the-bear is a heavy sleeper, a snoring sleeper unlike Keeper-the-horse who does not snore and wakes at the slightest sound because that is what horses do. The bear though, fears nothing here. Considers herself the top predator in this land and thus, sleeps with an ease that Keeper-the-horse will never know unless in this shape of shaggy brown fur and great hulking muscle.
Keeper as a dreamer, thought she dreamt someone shouting from the lakeshore about being able to see all the fish, silver and darting, in their watery environment. But she slept and that shout gave way to the things that only bears dream about - cubs, full bellies, hibernation, salmon and good fresh meat. Sleep though, is not meant to last forever and the bear roused at last for a drink. So Keeper-the-bear lumbered down to the shoreline and paused to eye the clusters of horses that gravitated to it, and noticed two in particular not far from where the bear had lain down for her nap. It recognized one as the little queen, and the other seemed to bear a striking resemblance to her.
Curious, the bear did not realize when it had begun the subtle but painful shift back to horse until Keeper stood there, suddenly aware that she was staring at the beautiful pair of painted horses in the lake. There was something intimate about the way the two stood together but it was the intimacy of siblings not lovers that she recognized and it made her heart constrict briefly as she thought back to how she used to sidle up to the side of her half-brother and promptly tuck herself beneath his proffered wing. She loved that cocoon of feathers that held her in tight and found that in the midst of the memory, her hooves had carried her forward towards them though she had no inclination to intrude.
But there she was nonetheless, looking sheepish as she eyed the pair of them in the lake and called out to them, “Hello Solace and friend!” because she assumed at least, that he was friend indeed to the little queen if not a brother or more.
It is not long before she comes to him. It is like clockwork, the twins. The other cannot go too long without the other, so when she laughs from the shoreline, he does not hesitate to stride nearer to her, pushing through the water of the lake with broad strokes of his muscled legs. She brings herself to him, and when she falls by his side he is breathless from the quick swim from the middle to the shallows, his ivory and blue mane plastered tightly against the pale gold of his neck.
“Like what?” he asks, as if she was not him expecting to, “Did Amet say there is something there? We should find it - you know, just in case it’s dangerous.” He adds the last part as if it’s supposed to convince her to go searching for some mythical sea monster, and he grimaces when he realizes that he probably did the exact opposite. “Or, like what you said.” He bobs his head towards her, water cascading from his forelock and splashing down into the lake. “Kind and gentle. Probably reflective of the ruler at the time, and all that.” He noses her with his ivory muzzle, soft and damp whiskered lips tracing the white of her face meets the burnt-gold of her cheek and neck.
He wants to ask how she’s been, how the crown has been now that it sits upon the crest of her head, but part of him knows that she finds him for the specific reason that she does not have to be the Queen, and instead, just his sister. So he remains silent, his blue eyes curiously watching her with a small smile.
Svedka glances upwards as a voice finds itself on the summer air, his ears pricking forward inquisitively. On the shore, just a few meters away, stands the wild-looking mare he had seen before, his blue eyes widening as he turns to look at Solace excitedly.
“Hello then!” he shouts back to her with the same intensity as she had given him, leaping through the water without much hesitation and splashing loudly as he did so. Pale golden legs brings him up out of the water, his coat fully wet with the lake water still clinging to his fur. With a breathless smile he says to her: “Hi, I’m ‘friend’. You can call me Svedka.”
He gives the stranger a bit of a nod, lakewater running rampant down his ivory and blue mane, and pooling beneath him as it drips down his body. She smells of wood and damp earth and of musty fur, though it couldn’t be her that smells musty, because the woman’s coat is smooth and sleek with the summertime warmth. It is curious, and though most times he would blurt out his questions, he waits for Solace to join them. She seem to know this mare and perhaps she knew more about her than he did.
Solace laughs as his whiskers tickle her cheekbone, her eyes casting out to the center of the lake, "you would probably be happier if it was something awful and ferocious that you could persuade to be your friend."
But the off-hand comment is quickly forgotten as a voice calls to them across the water and four blue eyes turn to face the sound. Pony-Keeper, not Brea-Keeper, stands on the shore and Solace's lets out a high nicker in response to the other mares call. She is about to invite her friend into the lake for a swim but Svedka, always the one to take action, has other ideas.
A ringing laugh escapes her had she watches her twin cascade towards the dunskin in a torrent of brilliant gold and lake water. "Hello, Keeper!" Solace calls above the splashing, but she waits a moment for the waves he makes to level before following Svedka onto the shore.
The young Queen places her body at an angle to both so that she is not picking a side, allowing them to face each other. She smiles warmly at Keeper, happy to see that she seems to be more at ease than the first time they meet. "Keeper, this is my twin. He has just come from a long journey, and I'm going to see how long I can convince him to stay." It is with poorly-hidden pride that Solace looks to the sleek form of her twin. "And Svedka, this is my friend, Keeper. She was one of the first horses I met after coming here with Amet."
Solace stops herself from sharing more about keeper, as the first thing that comes to mind is her bear shifting. She would never want to intrude on her friend's privacy and she leaves the sentence there.
01-18-2018, 11:04 PM (This post was last modified: 01-18-2018, 11:04 PM by keeper.)
The pair of them makes her heartsick for the older half-brother that mostly raised her. Keeper had siblings too numerous to count or bother with despite the fact that she’d grown up around a small handful of them. Her father had thought that burying himself repeatedly in the looms of mare’s that caught his fancy would provide him with children to dote on endlessly but his darkening grief against the world had become too much.
Sometimes even a hard heart cannot be softened by the adoring and innocent face of a child. So Keeper had learned and turned her affections to the deer she used to chase after, the grandmother that told her origin stories of animals and gods, and the half-brother that used to tuck her beneath his wing until she was pressed up right against his side. He told her stories too - of birds and the air and what it was like to taste a cloud. Making her laugh or smile had meant the world to him, Keeper knew that but in time, she needed more and her longing to follow the deer had grown too great to stay at that brother’s side.
Watching them, she cannot help but think back to more innocent times and how she’d taken them for granted. But all too soon the stallion is returning her enthusiasm and surging towards her out of the lake, throwing water up everywhere. She cannot keep the effervescent smile from finding her face as he nears her and introduces himself. So ‘friend’ had a name!
Keeper was on the verge of introducing herself when Solace hailed from amidst the turmoil of waves churned up by Svedka’s eager leaving. Laughter dances off her lips in a merry manner as Solace pulls herself from the lake and the three form a triangle of happy horseflesh. “I thought you two bore resemblance to one another...” she admits with more laughter.
The pony-sized mare is growing more and more comfortable in her own skin as much as she is in the bear’s. It doesn’t seem like the proper time to mention that particular aspect about herself though when is there ever a good time to announce one’s ability to shift their shape? So she just nods her head in time to the words that come out of her friend’s pretty mouth before adding more of her own.
“It is a pleasure to meet the twin to our land’s Caretaker. You too seem awfully close so I hope you can be convinced to stay here longer than usual.” Keeper gives Svedka a questioning look but is still all smiles. He has a rather electric personality that commands attention in a respectful way and she hopes that Solace will be successful in convincing him to stay. Hyaline could use someone like him... and Keeper is curious to know more about him - there’s something wild about him that beckons to the wildness in her.
ooc: sorry it has taken me forever to reply to this! @[Svedka] @[Solace]
Solace joins him quickly after he makes his breathless introduction, water spiraling down from his tangled tendrils of blue and white mane, dripping in a cascading glimmer of clear lake-water down his shoulders and haunches, still pooling beneath his hooves and into the soft earth of Hyaline. The sun is warm on his pale-gold back, already attempting to dry his two-toned skin with its gentle and loving rays. Solace introduces the wild woman to him and he to her, his brilliant gaze never leaving Keeper’s - the brightness of his eyes soaks in her features: the mousy brown of her dunskin color, the markings that stripe her legs in an ancestral way, and her doe-like eyes (and though he would not say it, that feature could possibly be his favorite thing about her at the moment).
Solace’s coy remark about her trying to convince him to stay is greeted with a warm, robust smile that finds his pale lips. His gaze still rests easily on Keeper, trying to pinpoint what is so strangely alluring about the pony-sized mare before him, bobbing his head lightly so that his chin bumps against his chest. “So far, Solace has successfully kept me entertained, so Hyaline has not yet lost its luster.” He replies to them both, laughing softly as he reaches forwards to nip carefully at the delicate skin on Solace’s slender cheek. He brings his attention back to Keeper, his blue-streaked tail flicking against his heels and sparkling with droplets of water from the lake. “Hyaline keeps surprising me. There is always something new to be discovered or a new friend to be made.” He directs his comment to Keeper, reaching his neck forward with sparkling eyes to exchange breaths with the dun mare, interested in learning more about her.
He brings his chin back to his chest, surveying her thoughtfully. She smells of the mountains and the damp earth that resides in the forests of the valley, deep within the shadows of tall trees and quiet wood. “The mountains call to you,” he tells her, “is that why we haven’t formally met yet?” He laughs, a smile brightening his face. “I have yet to venture up into the upper parts of Hyaline’s valley. Is it worth the hike?”
(be my escape)
Svedka
@[keeper]
@[Solace]
pretending this is still in the past and svedka hasn't left to go to the common lands yet <3
