"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
Much of his youth was spent roving aimlessly alone. His feebile attempts at friendships, having ended before there was even a breath of life. Family had abandoned him, or he them. It mattered little now. The frail colt presented before his blood-eyed father, had grown into a young stallion. His frame thickly muscled like that of his father's lineage. Each fall of his onyx hooves shook the earth below him. Stamping his presence into the dirt below.
After having parted ways with the two mares in the commonlands, he had set out to find Hyaline. His father at some point mentioned it and an alliance, but that was long ago. So much has changed since then. His bulky, cream frame drifted over the many landscapes between the lands. Never staying in once place too long, but not hurrying either. On rare occasions he came across something of interest that held his roaming for a day or two. Usually a trail of scent that fed his curious mind.
All things must come to an end. He has come to a stop just on the territory border and looks up to the jagged landscape of Hyaline. Towering peaks of rock reaching high into the azure skies made the hefty stallion feel minusquel. Hazel eyes scanned the terrain for any sign of life. Nares drawing in deep breaths to pick any scents off the breeze. Long ebony dreads hung loosely at his flank and neck. Only turning as the air movements saw fit. He has settled to wait for another resident to find him, but he wonders if the rugged landscape would hinder their ability...
It is not his ‘job’ to greet newcomers. In fact, he didn’t have a job in Hyaline at all. He prefers not to worry about the politics and diplomatics as much as his twin sister, though if he did have any sort of duty it was to advise and accompany her in faith and loyalty - and to Svedka, that was not a job at all. It has been what he’s done since the moment of their birth, and Solace treated him the same way. They are two parts of a whole, forever intertwined in a friendship that will survive the eternal rise of the moon and setting of the sun. However, it is not surprising that Svedka is out adventuring through Hyaline, searching for something unique and different to satiate his wanderlusting appetite, something to explore or something brand new to discover deep within Hyaline’s craggy outcropping of rocks and mountain.
The snow of winter mostly rests on the mountain’s peaks now, but the ice and snow only just has begun to thaw, leaving a muddy earth beneath his hooves and a damp, wet chill in the air. By the time he reaches the near borders of his sister’s home, the yellow-gold and white stallion is covered with wet earth, his ivory legs now stained a muddy brown from his traveling through the thaw. Spring will soon take hold in the valley and Svedka cannot wait - the water will be a delight to swim in once again, and all of the flora of vivid colorful tapestries will decorate the entire hillside. It is the most beautiful thing he has ever encountered in the natural world.
Again, Svedka doesn’t have a job here in Hyaline, but he is not capable of passing by a stranger and merely ignoring them. When his cerulean gaze falls on the stallion, he snorts softly with interest and quickly tweaks his direction so that his brisk trot will lead him straight to the stranger. His ears are pricked forward, a curiosity blazing on his handsome face, taking in the shape of the silvered man with dark, muscular legs. The son of Warrick and Tangerine draws to a halt before him, his blue-streaked mane and forelock carefully falling around his face. He expels a breath as his mouth turns upward in a smile, vapor leaving his lips in the cold air.
“Why hello there,” he begins, bobbing his head. “I’m Svedka. Were you waiting for me?”
Svedka is unaware (or he cares not) for the politeness that is waiting beyond the borders to be welcomed in, and is finding it rather funny that this stallion had been stoically poised here, as if awaiting his presence before him.
Keeper has taken to patrolling the land in her bear shape.
She is too soft and small for fighting as a horse but the least she can do for Hyaline is utilize her more predatory shape for something useful. The bear would not tolerate nonsense in its borders. So it should come as no surprise that the bear scented the stallion first before the fact that it was a horse registered in the brain shared by bear and mare. For a long time, the stallion just stood there and seemed to be awaiting further invitation.
The bear almost lumbered over to him. Almost. But another beat her to it - another that she had become quite familiar with and knew him as the Caretaker’s twin brother which brought a smile to even the bear’s lips. Except it was a rather toothsome smile that looks downright ferocious on a bear’s face where it would otherwise look normal and sweet on a horse’s. Keeper has never shown this side of herself to Svedka or most of the other Hyaline inhabitants though they’ve often smelled the bear’s musk on her horse-skin. None of them had asked her or guessed except for Solace who Keeper had shown her secret to one day long ago by the big blue lake.
So it should come as no surprise that Keeper’s brain lights up with an idea - one that she blames on the attraction of Svedka’s wildness to her own, as she remains in her bear shape and at last, lumbers towards the two stallions. The painted palomino is full of pluck as usual, joking in a casual but friendly manner towards the more silvered of the two who still stands there in expectation. She comes amongst them as a good sized grizzly sow that manages another toothsome smile and words that somehow growl their way out of her predatory mouth, “Well hello to both of you!”
Keeper suspects that Svedka might guess it is her; he’d looked at her a little strangely the first time they’d met as if he’d seen her about before and he probably had. She spent a lot of time climbing the mountainous slopes and taking long walks beneath the plentiful boughs of the trees that she had come to know Hyaline as well as she’d ever know the contours of a lover’s (okay, a friend’s since she’s had no lovers yet!) back. But she did not think he’d ever seen the bear lumbering about. Not that she could be sure about that since she spent as much time in her den on the north face of the mountain as she did beneath her favorite red maple tree.
Looking across the countryside, he takes in the view at his leisure. Warming rays of sun are a welcome change at his back. Anything beats the drab wool of winter caked with mud that he regrettably sported still. With a sharp crane of his neck he reaches to an itch at his withers. Straining to bend his bulking form in awkward ways to rake his teeth across the bothersome prickle.
Alas he gives up as his ears track a sound approaching. Hazel eyes find a bright form approaching him head on. Soon sending a greeting to fill the space between them. A smile of equal proportions find his ebony lips as he greets the kingdom dweller, "I suppose I am. It's nice to see someone finally. I'm Kasanova." With a gentle greeting nod of his cream head, his eyes remain on the stallion. "I come from Sylva and I've heard you offer a sanctuary for the young at heart. I'd be very interested to learn more of your kingdom here and what it offers it's.... what's. that. smell." Turning is head to his left his ears pin immediately to the creature lumbering nearer. A sheepish grin reveals enormous canines as...it speaks?
His first instinct brings his rear farthest from the bear reach. Ebony ears hiding at first within the mess of his equally hued forelock. When the creature speaks his tension eases slightly. He is no stranger to the shifters of Beqanna (his mother is a blood sucking bat). A feeling of uncertainty can't help but caution him in his stance. Ready for fight or flight to kick in if need be. "Hello?" He half questions, half offers with an apparent look of confusion on his face. Eyes slightly shifting from the bear to the equine. Waiting for their next move with anticipation...
The silvered man introduces himself, a stunning name to match the stunning face. However, Kasanova begins to slow his speech and glances carefully behind Svedka. It does not take long for something much like displeasure to prick at his withers, and Svedka is unused to the feeling. He frowns, a tiny little pout on his ivory lips, as his crystalline blue gaze turns confused, glancing around him and Kasanova with a concerned step towards the buckskin male. He smells it just as Kasanova does, and with trembling flesh he brings himself nearer to the other stallion, muscles quivering as he readies himself for whatever predator lurks among the borders. He had never seen any wolves or bears in Hyaline, and though he has never seen one in person, his instincts flare wildly inside his chest and he wonders if it’s time to run. But before the thought could get his legs moving, a voice erupts from the mammoth of a mouth that is the bear’s smiling jaws, and Svedka’s brows quirk amusedly.
Bears don’t talk.
So, this is not really a bear.
He has heard of shifters, though he has also heard of a many other things (psychics like his mother, magicians and elemental wielders), but he has never seen one. He steps towards the grizzly, nostrils fluttering as the familiar scent of damp earth and musk fills him, trying to pinpoint why the bear’s scent strikes a chord within him. He searches his mind, inhaling deeply as he stretches the length of his neck out towards the bear cautiously, it’s breath warm and hot against his face.
With a wrinkle of his nose and a snort, he retreats his head by tossing it quickly, ivory and blue tendrils spilling around his golden face. “I know this bear!” he says suddenly and loudly, though his mind is still working to figure out why. Svedka’s eyes narrow, lips pressing together thoughtfully. “I do know you, right?” He asks the bear, his voice quieter and less confident than it had been before.
(be my escape)
Svedka
@[keeper] @[Kasanova]
so technically svedka is outside of hyaline atm, so we're pretending this is before he left <3
