made and remade continually; anyone

[glim]

Gun did not know how to raise a daughter.

Especially one as odd as her, so it should come as no surprise that she is often left to fend for herself. She has become adept at sidling up to a mare deep in the throes of grazing and stealing a suck or two of milk from her teat (she has to keep her little belly plump and full somehow!) before being chased off by indignant squeals and blunt teeth. That only happens when she cannot find her own mother in the midst of the endless wilds she has been thrown into.

Glim is okay with being left on her own. 

She’s never really alone in the true sense of the definition since she can summon and craft her own companions out of darkness. Right now, she is accompanied by a shadow-snake that slithers ahead of her, forked tongue flicking out of its mouth to taste the air. Glim summons it back with hardly a thought and the shadow-snake twines around a forelimb in a sinuous climb until it curls up on her back. She then changes its shape without much more thought and a shadow-mouse chitters in sleepy protest.

You could make more of me instead of changing my shape all the time.

Why, does it hurt? There’s nothing to you but yellow eyes, darkness, and my wish for you to be whatever I want you to be.

Glim narrows her eyes in consternation - this is how their conversations always go. She has but the one constant companion despite the innate knowledge that she could craft and command an entire army of shadow-things to do her bidding. Glim doesn’t though nor does she ever think to change her shadow-friend into something that she has never seen before. She keeps to the animals that she has crossed paths with and had the opportunity to study (stalk) for moments at a time in their natural habitat. Hence snake to mouse to who knows what it’ll be next - maybe a possum just for the hell of it. 

The shadow-mouse rides comfortably on the filly’s small back. It offers her nothing more than a yawn that she acknowledges with a flick of one ear and the quick scratch of an itch that Glim herself would be hard pressed to reach with her own teeth. She plods onward, not even the least bit envious that the shadow-mouse is asleep. The soft snores that accompany  her every step are gentle encouragement to continue on. It’s not that she is afraid but she is where one her age is not likely to be found unless tucked up against a mare’s side. 

It fills her with a delicious sense of the forbidden as she goes further afield then planned. Excitement wars with apprehension until the two are so tangled up together that she cannot determine which is the greater emotion. She decides it doesn’t matter -either emotion is a heady catalyst to her finally planting her little hooves in the grass and chuckling to herself at what she has accomplished. Glim is where no foal in their right mind should be on their own and she delights in this defiant behavior she expresses. 

Delights in it so much that she is goaded into a quick spin that flings the shadow-mouse from her back and laughter from her mouth. Now why did you go and do that? The mouse wants an answer as it peers up at her with those eerie yellow eyes but Glim merely shakes her head in an effort to hide her smile and morphs the mouse into a squirrel. How do you like that? She giggles much to the shadow-squirrel’s chagrin before casting her own dark gaze out upon the field. 

What now?

[Kagerus]

I've been dreaming of children.
Sons, in particular.
Of their birth-wet fur and all-seeing eyes. Of how they mewl and cry for mother, reaching out with tendrils of darkness for that creature: mother.

Insignificance had birthed Khaedrik, the manipulator of arcane darkness, a half-brother to me whom I haven't seen since... Since his shadows peered inside of me and witnessed my unforeseen doom, condemning me as a slut, one worthy of the death that quickly approached me. And then with Hestia - I heralded her child into this world, the eyeless, earless, mouthless freak that raped our minds with his inky voice, pressing the slime of his rank afterbirth to our innocent hides. And then me.

My son.
Curled up somewhere with his father, near the river where I always leave them, washing their scents off of me on my way back to Hyaline, or in today's case, the field. I can't bear the smell of them on me. Marking me as one of their own - as a part of their family... My body may have gilded Abysm's every fiber, but it was his father (mother) Rapt who gave birth to him in the end. For if I had, I would have died. But in the process of saving my life, I excommunicated myself from my natural role in the family dynamic... I am a milk-bag for Abysm. Nothing more. And when he is weaned, I will dissolve into the background; less than nothing. Better than dead.

And her... Well, she isn't a son like the rest of the children in my life, but she has ties to the darkness. Like Khaedrik, the manipulator; like Oblivion, the embodiment; and like Abysm, the conceived. Her little spotted frame caught my attention immediately when I'd entered the field; but it's the snake-mouse that slithers and skitters across her that keeps my attention steadily upon her. She is one of us. One of the darklings.

(For if I am anything at all, I am the harbinger).

"Hello," comes my lyrical voice, low and calling to her. It's not long before I stand before the little filly, noting her dark gaze and buckskin colouring in contrast to the nutmeg of my eyes and the blood-and-bone of my fur. I stand much taller than the girl, but I try not to act like it; I remember how I was at her age, stoic, calm, eager to be seen as one of the Adults. And since we are dark-kin, it is more than likely that we share other things in common, too, such as our childhood dispositions.

But one cannot be sure.

I offer her a small smile, revealing the edges of black fangs that match the black horn sprouting from my skull. "My name is Kagerus. What's yours?"

@[glim]

[glim]

Eventually her eyes track the shadow-squirrel’s progress as he (somehow she has attached gender to her shadow-friend but something in their shared sense of communication seemed like that of a snarky male) attempts to gather nuts and run up the roughened sides of trees. 

Dim, what are you doing?

Whatever it is that squirrels do. You made me but I still act as they do. Now if only I could gather up this damn nut...

Glim cannot help the chuckle that falls out of her mouth. She had named her shadow-friend Dim since he didn’t seem all that bright (but was in fact as bright as could be!) and was glad she had discovered the ability to make him and others like him though he was more than enough for her. His squirrelly antics proved that as she gave a small dismissive shake of her head then looked back out onto the field as a frown began to settle on her face.

She had initially been thrilled to defy the natural rules of not coming here by doing exactly that but now that her defiance had time to settle and sink out of her bones... Glim grew bored. All she saw were mares and stallions - stallions and mares. The air was abuzz with conversations that failed to interest her long enough to listen in on. Even their antics of claiming and courtship failed to provide enough entertainment to keep her eyes from continuously roving back to the shadow-squirrel. 

Glim sighed, attracting the attention of her shadow-friend. 

Dim paused on a branch over her head to inquire about it. What’s wrong? 

Why does something have to be wrong? she craned her head up to fix him with a pointed stare that had his tail twitching frantically behind him as he raised himself up into a sitting position. 

Well something is wrong or you wouldn’t be looking at me like that...

She didn’t answer him. Couldn’t - she had no idea how to express her sudden disappointment in their adventure. Instead she gave a flick of her stubby tail and waited for the sharp crack of the branch behind her. So, even shadow-things could have some kind of substance to them. It was a satisfying thought as she glanced behind her and tried her hardest to keep from falling over in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. 

Oh Dim!

Her face brightened with the north of her act - she had changed the shadow from a squirrel to a pygmy hippo and judging from the expression on his murky face, he was not impressed with this new shape she had given him. 

When on earth did you ever see a hippo?

Once, in a dream of a rich golden savanna with a big blue-brown river.

Dim shook his head which provoked another bout of laughter from Glim because his little ears were wagging. 

Not funny Glim, besides someone is watching us.

She did not have the chance to ask him who or how he knew this. There was a pretty painted mare that came to stand in front of them (Dim had waddled his fat little shadow-self to Glim’s side in the meantime) that did not overtly present herself as an adult despite the fact that she so obviously was. A glimmer of appreciation sparked in the soot-soaked pits of Glim’s eyes. She had no desire to masquerade as an adult when she knew her place so clearly as a hotheaded and brash child but that did not stop the smile from sliding across her lips as the opportunity to be regarded as more than she was. 

“I like your fangs.”

Glim says with a sincerity that cannot be faked. Even the shadow-hippo is modestly impressed or so a swift glance shared between them tells the filly so. 

“I’m Glim and this is Dim.” she gestures to the shadow-thing at her side that is eyeing the black horn and finding it more impressive than the black fangs protruding from the mare’s smiling mouth. 

(Glim realizes it is probably not wise to name that which she can make and unmake on nothing more than a whim. It lends the shadow more permanence than is allowable but she cannot help herself- he is the only constant in a world full of flux.)

[Kagerus]

Truth be told, despite my stoicism as a child, I'd lead a pretty sheltered life until the Reckoning. I don't remember my mother, having been rescued from her dying side the moment Kavi found us. From there he'd brought us to the Chamber, where he held the title of High Priest and head of the peace. By the time I aged a year, he left his post in the evil kingdom to raise me among the vines of his birth-home, where he'd once been a prince: the Jungle. I'd grown up there, learning about my deceased grandmother Kagerou, after whom I am named. Nary a day passed without my father's lips brushing my forelock from my eyes; I never wandered like this girl here. But I admire her for it; admire the way she is fearless in the face of the unknown.

I like your fangs.

"Thank you," I answer, smiling again, more aware of the onyx teeth gracing my mouth for the next couple hours. A little gift of the dreamworld - speaking of which... Glancing at the pygmy hippo, an odd vision of a golden desert and running river comes to me. Tilting my head a little, I linger only a moment on the creature's yellow eyes before quirking up at the filly's introductions.

"Dim, that's clever; shadows, dim." I chuckle easily, looking again between the pair before settling my mirth into an evened voice. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Glim and Dim. Are you from here?" My mind's eye goes to all the places they could be from; the Beyond, the Other Place, somewhere akin to Beqanna, Beqanna from Before, or present Beqanna. So many options, and they'll have only come from one; curious, that. My heart twists at the memory of the Before, but I relinquish the sadness that threatens to overwhelm me. Now is not the place nor the time.

"I have a brother with the same ability as you, Glim. He lives with my in the kingdom I'm from; Hyaline." I leave out the part about me being the Ambassador, as Kavi was before me, and Kagerou before him; I doubt that politics would interest the child before me, though I could be massively mistaken. By all means, if she expresses an interest, I will divulge such information to her in a heartbeat. "You seem to handle it with much more... finesse, to say the least." I grin a little at the thought of him struggling with his demons, but the expression falters when I remember how I used to shield him from nightmares before he... hated me.

I shake out my mane, buying me time to recover my train of thought. "My own experience with the darkness is a little different than yours."

@[glim]

[glim]

Gun - father - had known he’d had no business trying for a family. Still he tried and he succeeded but Caw and their daughter were too much like a handful of seeds picked up by the wind and scattered about. He’d always just assumed they would be scattered together but the world has a funny way of intervening for its own reasons. Glim had come to him once afterward and absent of her mother. She’d seen the questions in his eyes that he never had the heart to ask her and all too soon Glim had let the wind blow her little self elsewhere.

So she had mastered fear. Mostly. Even Glim couldn’t lie completely to herself and say that she’d never once been afraid or wouldn’t ever be again in the future. She was however, bold and made more so by Dim’s companionship and the fact that the shadows did her bidding. Which had been one hell of a discovery to make whilst barely separated from the womb. Glim cannot quote recall how she had manifested the darkness that first time but out of it cake a soft cajoling voice that told her it would always be her friend.

That was the day she saw the yellow eyes in a swirl of darkness before it plucked a shape from her infantile brain and became a dark unassuming rabbit. Dim was that rabbit and has never left her side since. He is a bit of a guiding spirit for all that he is a shadow and made up - imaginary, some might say except even as a shadow he could be seen. 

She’s not sure why she starts to remember all of this as Kagerus thanks her and smiles. Glim is still staring at those beautiful black teeth and hears Dim tell her in a low smoky voice that she could manifest a pair of her own from the darkness. It’d be for show only, he warns her after seeing the speculative look in her eyes. But the painted mare is praising her cleverness which catches Glim’s attention and causes her to smile back, rather pleased to be thought of as clever and talked to as an equal and not as a presumptuous child. 

Her thoughts of crafting a pair of shadow-fangs to poke from her lips is forgotten as she homes in on the question asked of her. It should not be difficult to answer and yet she hesitates in doing so. Of course she is from here but knows that her father was not; he originated elsewhere before stumbling here as a slim stick-legged little foal but he never said much about his life before. Come to think of it, neither has mother though she is much much more familiar with here than her father is.

“Yes...” but there is hesitation because if this is here then where is where else? Her brain is already tripping over itself at the multitude of possibilities because of course there are other lands and worlds even that lie beyond this one. Here was not so very specific to just the boring old field around them.

But Kagerus is talking again; mentioning a brother that can do what she does and her little splayed (in complete relaxation and trust) ears snap right to attention. How interesting! Someone else like her exists in the world which is more proof to her that the world is very big after all. That and they call some place home which is something that she sorely lacks since mother and father were both prone to long stretches of wandering. Neither ever showed much promise or desire to settle and put down roots. Glim wasn’t sure she would too but wanted to at least try. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs s tad shyly realizing that what the mare said was perhaps a compliment in a roundabout way. It made Glim smile again since she couldn’t always agree that she handled it well or even at all - only Dim, but he was easy to maintain and probably because he was never very scary, just ridiculous most of the time. “I think I’d like to meet your brother sometime.” The statement is simple and sincere as she scuffs a hoof at the dirt.

She turns curious eyes back up to the mare. “How so?” Glim was not well versed in various types of darkness. She really only knew her brand of it. So this too intrigued her greatly as she scooted a little closer to Kagerus, Dim hippo-waddling behind her.

@[Kagerus] <3

[Kagerus]

Not-so-deeply hidden in the child's eyes, thousands of thoughts race and cajole for right to manifest into words or actions, and I admire this unabashed liveliness with a knowing little smile. Before me stands so much potential, unrealized, and yet somehow whole despite not having reached completion; children are funny in that way. You can see that they have the vitality to make one of a million possible choices; and once they do, their character becomes firmer; but that life, that spark, it dims with each step further into adulthood. A trade off; one that almost all creatures come to see pass, no matter how bubbly or optimistic.

But for now, I needn't worry about little Glim. I haven't the power to maintain her libido whilst also developing her, shaping her; I can only hope to be a facet of both as they occur naturally, a guide perhaps as the life she will have begins to unfold here, now, today. Indeed, by how she listens and speaks to me, the unfolding has already begun; I can't help but be enraptured by the spotted buckskin, genuinely invested in the conversation at hand.

I don't press when she offers a hesitant yes, knowing well enough that deciphering exactly where one is from can be challenging, especially for a child. I inhale slightly, and attempt to catch the scent of other creatures upon her - but her mother and father must be royally absent, for Glim smells only of the forest and the creek, of the natural world and yes, perhaps of shadow, too. But of a family I smell nothing; and though my daughter's heart aches and mourns, I can't help but privately enjoy where the wanderings of this next-to-abandoned girl has brought her.

"Of course," comes my lyrical voice in response to her thank you, a reassuring smile on my lips. She ought to know that I meant what I said, about her being clever; and the more I watch and listen to her, the more astute I believe my analysis of her to be. Clever, but more than that: worthwhile. With a sincerity that's not pressed as most are, and a down-to-earth kind of way that leaves her hoof disturbing the dirt of that very land.

She mentions meeting my brother, and I smile again, lips peeling back to fully reveal the blackened fangs. "I'd love to introduce you two; he's a year your senior I believe. His name is Khaedrik, should you ever run across him organically; he looks like me, except palomino." My mind's eye roams to that creature, wondering at just where he truly is at the moment. I know that he's joined Hyaline's guard, but of his actual presence I've felt very little - then again, he and I aren't exactly on great terms right now. He might even think me dead all things considered; but no, my scent is everywhere in our kingdom, so he must know. He's just... Ignoring me.

So be it.

As her curious eyes flash back up to me, I pull myself from the revere to catch her short but poignant question. Hmm... How so? I chew on the question for a few moments before replying. "Well, I am able to manipulate dreams the way that you manipulate darkness." My eyes drop down to Dim, exchanging a significant look with him before looking back to his creator. "That is why I have the fangs today, as I dreamt them, and they followed me into the real world for a few hours. But..."

And here I pause, not knowing whether to inflict such dark knowledge upon a life as new and fresh as Glim's; but I've went this whole interaction treating her as an equal, and my stomach balks at the thought of changing the dynamic now. Besides, it's not like her parents care whether or not she leads a protected life anyways. "But, as you might know, dreams often turn into nightmares. And I have power over those, too." I leave it at that, not caring to bring up the memory of birthing a literal demon into the hands of Nerine's queen, nor of the story of my own son who has a mother as absent as Glim's... I bite off the thought, refusing to allow the guilt of that thought to sour my expression.

"But, if you want to meet my brother, I'd think we'd better start moving soon." My eyes go to the setting sun, and I estimate that we'd have just enough time to get to Hyaline before dark; about three hours or so. "There's plenty of other people there too, and I think you'd take a liking to them. But by all means, it's up to you."

@[glim]
((I never write this much, you give me hella muse))

[glim]

Dim is never very far from her. His hippo-snout touches her hip in what could pass for reassurance but is also a conduit of communication between them though she would always know his thoughts as if they were her own. Once shadow and skin start to meet, Dim becomes less substantial and hippo-shaped. He starts to flow over and around her as if a second skin and a second set of consciousness. 

In truth he is but he has always been so much more than that as he pours off the other side of her into a dark puddle that gains yet another new shape. This time he is a bat of night and fang that clutches at her wither. His yellow eyes are piercing and continually take the measure of the mare before them but he can find no fault in her - no reason to turn Glim aside from the naturally occurring bond that has sprung up between them. So he gives his blessing: I like her.

Glim manages to keep her chuckle to herself but knows that Dim can more than sense her amusement and approval. It meant so much to the little filly that he approved of the decision her little but stubborn mind had already made up - one way or another, she was going to trail after the painted mare with the black dream-fangs. Nor did she have to tell him that throughout the exchange between Kagerus and herself, that she had come to respect and admire the mare - she did not hold back the words from her tongue and did not coddle Glim as if she was some dumb foal fresh out of the womb. She afforded as much respect as she was given and Glim took an instant shine to that.

It put her in mind of her absent mother. Caw was like that: impressive and engaging. This was despite the obvious difference in bone structure or the fact that her mother was as shiny and black as an oil slick and Kagerus was more blood-and-bone. Amazing she could recall that much given the amount of time she’d been on her own. 

Glim felt herself leaning dangerously towards the mare as if the entirety of her world had distilled to that one moment of singular importance in which the shadow and she made their decision before even being asked for it. Everything tapered to a sharp point (like a fang) of feeling just right as she is given the keys to the precious knowledge surrounding the colt that is like her. Glim feels like she has been given a great gift - a name by which to call him and a color to recognize him by. Even the shadow-bat digging claws into her wither to secure his perch is swift enough to keep this knowledge close to his shadowy breast lest his mistress ever forget it. 

“Khaedrik.”

She says but once. The tone is curious and the name strange in her mouth but holding no more weight to it than a swallow of water, light and necessary. His name would not be lightly forgotten and if anything, it births a small flicker of a flame inside her to find him. But there will be time for that later once she has settled into the mare’s home. Hm, home... she never thought she’d have one of those. 

Sounds nice doesn’t it? Dim offers wryly from her back with a flex of his wings. 

Quite, she returns as her lips catch and curl in a dreamy vague sort of smile. Glim cannot find fault with her parents for never providing her with this. They were not the type of creatures to be bound thusly as she might be, even if only for a little while. The allure of permanence was too tantalizing to resist for one like her that had been roaming since her formation in the womb. She’d just always roamed the pathways of umbilical awareness that had once kept her connected - (tethered) - to her mother. 

How quick she’d been to shrug off the mantle of blind obedience and parental constraint! The flicker of the far-off on the horizon had proved too much for young Glim to ignore. That was before Kagerus became the embodiment of inspiration - surely she was what belonging to somewhere and something looked like! Good health and importance that conveyed itself modestly in her step and the hang of her head. Smiles that found themselves genuine and kind in their stretch of the mouth. Even a shine in the eyes that Glim’s couldn’t match yet but maybe one day... maybe one day. 

Dim then feels the weighty look of the mare’s eyes on him. He meets that look and holds it because it is a significant look. How can he deny that Kagerus knows dream as intimately as he knows his place as procured shadow and nothing more? Manipulations. It is all about manipulations but he never once thinks that she’ll manipulate Glim in error. It all passes between them unspoken - shadow and dream not so very different from one another, almost like siblings for all that they only share but that one part of heritage that is mixed and made up of brain matter, soul, and imagination.

Glim nods in understanding. Sometimes, her shadow-creations only last a few hours. This could be attributed to her lack of mastery over the power and a general inexperience tied to her lack of age. Or it could be that manipulations like theirs’ just aren’t meant to last except for Dim. She has no explanation as to why all the others that she conjures up come and go but he remains as intact and faithful as ever. 

Her attention has wavered as it can only do in the very tender at heart. She has seen the carcasses left behind by those that raid the land in predatory need and desire. Glim is aware that for every smile there is a frown and for every dream, a nightmare. It is only natural that Kagerus has dominion over both and what a burden that must be! 

She cannot imagine what that must be like to grant a flight of fancy one moment then unleash a tribute to terror the next. The mere thought was exhilarating... all that power in such a package of grace tempered by humility! Glim did not think the mare would set her nightmares running across the land in reckless abandon. No, there was a trace of chivalry to her that might rein in the much darker impulses and Glim thought them quite conquered and brought to heel before this grand master of manipulation that could dream up something as simple as a pair of black fangs for added flair. All that she can reply with is this: “Balances must be kept.”

Yet she is an exception - the manipulation of darkness comes with no balance in her flesh. She cannot summon light as she can shadow. Perhaps the world deemed it to be too much for ones like the brother and herself to carry both. Glim is not stupid enough to disbelieve in the presence of those that can craft and command light. Balances must be kept after all. 

However she does not think the world is so black and white when it comes to being a manipulator of darkness - she does not believe she is evil because the dark is in her. But at that moment before the gravity of such heavy thought can drag her face down into a ponderous expression, her eyes flick up from the ground and her two front feet to follow the painted mare’s own line of sight to a horizon fast aflame in sunset colors. She squares up her little spotted shoulders causing Dim to squeak out a batty protest before alighting into the coming night (he swoops back to hover above Glim’s little head) and says, “Let’s go. Daylight is almost gone.” 

Which is so blatantly obvious as both of them had just looked at the setting sun but Glim was bound and determined to make sure Kagerus knew that she was coming.

@[Kagerus] ditto, I never write novels like this! kag gives me so much muse! <333