"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
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
Uncle Reilly, Mother, Kali and Badden, Father, Kharon, Queen Ea, and now Ivar too.
One by one they had left her, and Kylin?, she is unable to follow their footsteps. It is not like she’s shackled to the island – she could have just as well been – but she simply does not have another place to go. Once she thought of moving to Loess, just a fleeting thought, but no point in showing her face there. Not when the kelpie king has returned to the sea for once and for all.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not as if she hasn’t tried to follow them. The sea’s call has grown immensely stronger lately, but even she could not take away Kylin’s pain and loneliness. With the ache ruling her heart and mind, the lavender tobiano woman was failing in looking after herself. She no longer grew hungry, or thirsty, and who cared if her pale coat was covered in dirt? Kylin clearly didn’t, as there was nobody anymore she wanted to look appealing to.
Before it had never really mattered, when they still had been around, so why would she even bother? Everybody would just leave her in the end anyway, better to not even get acquainted in the first place. Better lonely now, than coping with just another heartbreak in the end.
Because yes, Ivar’s absence hurt her in a way she had never admitted. Not to herself, and definitely not to him, or so she thought. Onlookers would no doubt have questioned her after seeing her around him. But he, too, is no longer here.
Her world was limited to one of the smaller islands north of Ischia’s main one. It was more quiet here, and nobody to disturb her. Or, like Kylin thought, nobody she could disturb with her presence. Nobody wants her – not even death – and thus it is better to remove herself from their lives fully. According to the little voice speaking to her in her dark, dark world.
She considers finally arriving at her father’s new homeland a grand adventure, and so she does not go straight to the big island. Instead the girl skirts the islands, staring down into their depths as if she can divine the best place to explore even from the height she is currently maintaining. Finally she settles, somewhat arbitrarily, on a small island north of the biggest one, and circles once to identify a big enough break in the trees to accommodate her – and then she folds her red feathered wings close to her side and drops from the sky like a stone, the only sound the exuberant laughter the wind tries to steal away from her.
At the last minute, she opens her wings to arrest her descent and with a snap of noise they fill with air and a few strong wingbeats lower the bay girl to the ground, where she extends her wings and carefully preens some errant feathers back into place. When she is satisfied, critical eye finding nothing out of place, she gives them a last settling shake and then folds the deep red appendages tight against her side and peers up into the trees, where the parrots startled into fleeing by her free-falling arrival have begun to return, chattering to each other in squeaks and squawks as they peer down at her, some creeping closer and closer.
“Hello,” she says into the canopy, smiling as they stare. “I don’t suppose any of you can give me directions to fresh water?” They don’t speak, so she assumes they only speak bird, and walks away into the forest, hoping to find fresh water to drink. Or something exciting she can take to her father – but what she finds is another girl. When she first lays eyes on Kylin, Bristol blinks in surprise (she’s purple, with some sort of fin, and whoa) but then she smiles and calls out a greeting. “Hello! Is there fresh water on this island?”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
It is the same island where Queen Ea had long ago moved to. During Father’s reign she had never been truly away, but had lived her peaceful life, here, on this island. Nobody had ever disturbed her peace. Kylin’s quest for solitary does not have the same luck.
A friendly greeting disturbs her snooze. Kylin blinks her eyes a couple of times, then slowly tears her gaze away from the sea. Lately she is always watching the sea; water and the sea were practically the only thing that hadn’t left her. The lavender woman is still drawn to it, even if she doesn’t know anybody who shares her interested. Ischia had changed, no longer a home to water loving creatures such as herself. Instead, she seemed more and more home to those of the sky.
Her eyes roam over the bay mare’s winged form, then she nods. ”Little inlands from here, there you should find a small pond” she answers the stranger’s question. Kylin is no longer part of Ischia – doesn’t feel like she is – and has no right to claim this little northern isle as her own. ”It shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
It’s not the pond where she had recently bathed, under Klaudius’ watchful eye. Though Kylin had not bothered to groom herself in any way since, she’d have to admit that she still looks better now than she had back then. Probably the only reason why she hadn’t scared the stranger away before even exchanging a few words.
Kylin offers the bay a small smile, and a dip of the head. After all, she’s expecting the bay to leave now she has the directions she asked for. They are no more than strangers, randomly meeting on the street, only to ask for directions. Now the directions are given, what more would be for the strangers?
Bristol smiles at the stranger, turning her eyes briefly in the direction that the purple-and-white girl directs her to; she is thirsty, she has flown quite a ways today, but she is also lonely. She certainly didn’t grow up alone like she has been keeping herself lately – Brennen had raised Bristol alongside any number of rotating siblings, cousins, and distant relatives, and she had never had any need of being alone until she had separated from her father and set off on her own for a time – she’d wanted to find her mother, but had no luck on that front. Prague had once again vanished into the aether.
Brennen had originally intended to settle them in Nerine, Bristol knew, and she might have met some of her mother’s people there, in what was left of the Amazons. Perhaps she still would go, just to see; they might be just the Kingdom for a daughter of Prague and Brennen. But father was not there, he was here, in Ischia, and so for the time being so was Bristol. Ischia was a better fit for a proud Tundra man than trying to fit into a new Jungle. So a sense of loneliness draws her to the other girl and she stays.
“I’m Bristol,” she offers her name with a smile, stepping forward just a bit. “Do you live in Ischia?”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
She had thought the conversation done. Not because she is not interested in it, she does not dismiss the bay mare – nor think she is in the right place to do such thing – but simply because she wouldn’t know a reason for the mare to stick close. Kylin is a mess, and there is no way to hide it. Even her transparent fins cannot hide the slight show of her ribs, or how her hips are a bit too pointy. But the bay lingers.
Kylin’s haze gaze wanders back, a little confused and at the same time a bit too blank. All Kharon’s fault. Ivar’s too, just as Father’s, Mother’s, Kali’s, uncle Reilly’s and Badden’s. Their all to blame. Or is it Kylin herself?
Slowly her ears flick forward, and even more slowly her hazel eyes seem to focus on the winged mare’s silhouette. ”I do, I think, if she will still have me..” she answers, the twitch of her lips sad, but not unfriendly. Kylin feels like she’s part of the island, rusted in place, and at the same time she could not feel more lost. Ischia didn’t seem to need her, like many had claimed.
”My name is Kylin” she offers in return after a brief silence, not really sure how to move on from this point. It seemed like a logic move, following Bristol introducing herself. Perhaps she could use the next thing she had said too, even if she finds it hard to move past her grief. ”You live here too?”
OOC: I'm all over everything today, and it makes my words messy. Sorry for this.. :/ Hope the next one will be beter!
03-12-2018, 11:52 AM (This post was last modified: 03-12-2018, 11:53 AM by Bristol.)
bristol
the past tense of regret is indecision
wing appearance: red feathered, then to match the parrot, then to match kylin.
If Bristol can read any of the mare’s signals of wanting to be left along, she gives no sign at all of understanding them. She is too busy tracing the mare’s white spots with her eyes, as if she can read a novel written into the girl’s skin. It means she takes note of the sharp hips and prominent ribs, but they don’t really mean anything to her. She just assumes Kylin is skinny. Or not hungry. Or something. A chirrup overhead brings her attention to a parrot inching closer, and for a moment the bay girl is distracted, lifting her wings a couple inches from her sides and letting them change to patch the prominently green colors of the bird overhead.
But she wrinkles her nose in distaste over the green color, and it fades back to black, the natural color that matches her father’s. That’s when she realizes Kylin’s asked her a question, and she tilts her head, considering the answer. “I guess I do,” she murmurs, eyes not quite focused as she thinks. “My father lives here, so I do too. But I don’t know what I want to do with my life, what I want to achieve” her voices changes there, going drawling and serious, and it’s clear she’s mimicking oft-spoken words by her sire. “So here I am, exploring his precious islands instead. Hey, is there anything super cool on this one?”
She’s forgotten she’s thirsty. Now her eyes focus sharply on the other mare, waiting on a response to her question, and she remembers that this girl has wings too. Or something. She eyes the transparent appendages with interest and then her own wings shift again, to something quite alike to Kylin’s fins. Bristol waves them experimentally, considering their usefulness for flight. It seems a low possibility. But – maybe they serve another purpose?
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
A part of Bristol’s observation is right. Kylin is not hungry, like her loved ones had taker her appetite with them. Not just all at once, but gradually, one by one they had disappeared and like that her world had little by little been broken down.
Her eyes move, searching for the parrot. She likes them, and she remembers watching them for hours with both Kharon ánd Ivar. For a moment the corners of her lips twitch, into a real smile, before the fluttering of Bristol’s wings catch her eyes. Wings, just like Kharon’s. Like Klaudius’ and Krone’s too. Bristol fits into Ischia’s fly club. The days of the water club were long over. Though both – Krone and Klaudius – are closely related, they don’t share the water loving nature of her family.
Unlike Kharon, and the others, Bristol wings show all the colors one could think of. This has Kylin tilt her dished head a little to the side, lazily blinking her hazel eyes. The array of colors is almost hypnotizing – just like the coming and going of crashing waves – and Kylin only realises she had been gotten lost in thought when the colors stop changing and Bristol talks to her.
Kylin frowns, not sure what Bristol means, until she realises that the bay mare merely answered the question Kylin herself had asked. Oh right.
Hearing that Bristol still does have her father, is like a slap in the tobiano woman’s face. Her lips press together in a thin line, and she glances away momentarily to fight the tears that threaten to well up in her eyes, again. ”Your father?” she manages to get out, voice soft and shaky. ”That must be nice.” That her father is here, not knowing what to do with her life is something to which Kylin can relate. Her eyes are back on Bristol, somewhere between actually looking at the mare and staring through her. For a while she pauses, pondering a little. Kylin does know what she wants, she simply wants to not be alone anymore. Longs for Kharon, and Ivar, and all the others. ”What do you desire?”
From there Bristol should be able to decide what she wants, right?
Bristol’s wave of her wings make Kylin pull her fins tighter against her sides, but not after moving them a couple of times. The two smaller ones are almost completely hidden by the lager two, covering them as she tucks them against her side like one would tuck his or her wings. Her answer is a slight shake of her head. This particular island does not have anything special, not the type Bristol is looking for, and that is exactly why Kylin resides here. ”More parrots, a pond with a waterfall, a grassy meadow with flowers..” she sums up, shrugging her shoulders as it is nothing that cannot be found on the main isle.
”But not all is explored..” Who knows what gem might be hidden. Perhaps there would be something special and shiny, like the shell that is now engraved in Krone’s forehead. They had found it all on the beach, sudden, out of nowhere. It would just be Ischia’s thing to hide another somewhere on a quieter place.
03-20-2018, 03:12 PM (This post was last modified: 03-20-2018, 03:13 PM by Bristol.)
bristol
the past tense of regret is indecision
wing appearance: black feathers and then red feathers.
Even through her own mocking of Brennen, Bristol doesn’t miss the way the other girl flinches when she talks about her father, looking away from the bay mare for a moment while she composes herself, and then offers that it must be nice to have her sire here. Her amber eyes darken, her own mouth closing into a thin line and for a moment she contemplates what having Brennen here means to her. Unlike Kylin who wants her family closer; Bristol only dreams of what it would be like not to live in her father’s shadow.
It’s not enough to be the daughter of an infamous warrior, no; Bristol had to be the child that looked just like him, too. Her white-tipped legs are her own, and the ability to change her wings, but the rest? She inherited her color, her wings, her eyes, her stature – all from Brennen. What she didn’t get was any of the powerful magics, because the whims of the fae were cruel. She had nephews, nieces, and siblings who had inherited the special powers, and gotten their own looks, but Bristol is the physical mini-me with none of the perks.
And as to what she desires – she wants to do something to differentiate herself from said sire, but what can she do to make a name for herself that Brennen hasn’t already done? What can she do, to stand out from his shadow? If she knew, she’d already be doing it. “I don’t want to be my father.” she answers the question finally in a flat voice, “And I don’t want to be the child who disappointed him.” When she’s thinking logically, Bristol knows that it would quite hard to disappoint her affectionate and loyal sire; hell, her brother had fallen in love with a crazy woman who burnt up half of Beqanna (or so the stories seemed to go) and Brennen still loves him. Bristol would have to be the crazy woman lighting the world on fire to lose Brennen’s regard.
But the heart isn’t ruled by logic, and she sees him training with the others, her family and his recruits, and she can’t help but be jealous, especially when she sees him with the children of the woman who is living on the far side of the island – because Bristol only ever gets stories about her mother, but he likes their mother enough to keep her around all the time. The girl forces herself to focus when Kylin talks about what’s on this island, and a smile lights her face back up at the mentioned of unexplored territory. “Well that sounds like a plan then, we’ll find something new.” she chirps, and the uplift in her emotions sends her wings back to bright red as she sets off purposefully for the tree line, only belatedly looking back at Kylin. “You coming?”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
How they went from “Nice to have your father around” to “I don’t want to be my father” and “I don’t want to disappoint him” is a mystery to Kylin. Well, yes, she’d asked Bristol what she desires, what she wants in life, but this hadn’t been the kind of answer she’d expected. So all she can do is blink her hazel eyes at the bay mare, her dished head tilting slightly.
”You’re not him..” she thus says. How could Bristol be Brennen? Yes, she kind of resembled him, but so did she and Kharon resemble Father. And Kali resembled both their parents. (The memories another pang in her chest.) Nevertheless, Kylin would’ve been perfectly content to live in the shadows, Kharon’s preferably. And thus does she not understand Bristol’s struggles.
When she had started talking about the smaller island on which they are currently standing, never had Kylin imagined it would lead to Bristol’s proposal. Honestly, the idea of someone wanting to do something with her is rather unsettling and definitely confusing. Who would want to hang out with her? In Kylin’s defence: everybody else had already left long ago. So why would Bristol be different?
She is so flabbergasted that she doesn’t move along. Instead she stares at the Bristol’s color changing wings as the mare moves away from her, blinking her eyes slowly as she attempts to process what just happened. Kylin’s breath stocks when the bay stops and turns to look back. Would she have changed her mind already? Bristol proves otherwise. Did she really just invited Kylin to come along?
Their gazes meet, Kylin’s eyes growing wider, and then her ears flick forward. Just as quickly they turn back too, hesitant. It does not stop her from speaking though: ”C-coming!” And so Kylin does. By the time she reaches the treeline where Bristol stands, both her lavender ears are pointing forward again. ”The pond is to the left from here.”
After all, hadn’t Bristol been looking for water when she first approached?
She’s perfected doing the opposite of what is expected of her, ninety percent of the time, and leaves a very similar confused look on her sire’s face often enough that Bristol doesn’t even notice the way her companion fumbles to keep up, confused at her interest. Of course, her sire’s bafflement is usually accompanied by affection, because despite their differences Bristol has led a good life; Brennen is an excellent father even when his children are strange creatures.
Kylin reminds the bay girl that she’s not her father and Bristol just looks at her for a moment, silent and head titled, before shrugging it off. No, she’s not Brennen; but that doesn’t stop people from expecting her to be. She says nothing else about that, intent instead on having an adventure (and not by herself this time!). The purple girl lags behind but then catches up, and that is enough for Bristol, who sets off down the path with verve.
“Cool, I really would like a drink before we get too far. It really sticks, having all this salt water and so little fresh water around.” She hums a little as they move down the path, and picks up a trot when the unmistakable scent of drinkable water reaches her nostrils; hooves slide into the shallowest of water and she lowers her muzzle to the cool spring, taking a deep drink before looking around. A clear path leads off to the left, but deep undergrowth in the right has only the faintest of game trails. “What about that way? It looks like fun,” she nods towards the barely-there trail.
