"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
05-31-2018, 02:32 PM (This post was last modified: 05-31-2018, 02:35 PM by Lepis.)
I'd found a small cave to rest in, a narrow cavern of stone just barely large enough to turn around in if I kept my head low. The entrance is hidden in a thick bramble of greenery, and as always I wait to make sure the coast is clear before emerging.
It is early morning, a time when most of Sylva still sleeps, wearied from their midnight cavorting and pre-dawn cackling. It is a time when I can be alone, I have found. The trail to the stream is straight and narrow, but I circle wide, meandering through the woods as though I have come from an entirely different direction. My senses are primed for noise, but there is only the wind and the soft calls of the birds overhead.
Overhead, the sun shines down, barely muted by the fiery canopy. The light dapples my buttermilk coat and brings out the brightness of my navy markings and the sheen of my tucked-tight wings. In my reflection, I recognize my familiar crooked blaze. 'Crooked like your father's smile', Mother had told me once, though I was never able to find out if she meant that as a compliment.
I wonder where she is these days. Maybe she'd found my father after all. Or perhaps she'd found someone better, since her stories of my absent father did not paint him in the best of lights. I see her sometimes, in the shape of my reflection. I have her face, open and happy even when I am neither. I have her eyes too, I realize as I stare into the rippling water.
Broken eyes.
Eyes that match the scarred expanse of my dun hide, torn and scarred in a hundred places. The scars are thickest along the sides of my ribs where their hooves scrape, and along my crest where they hold me too tightly with teeth that are not always dull.
I sigh and move away from the stream. I had not wanted to dwell on that in this rare quiet moment. Instead I turn my face up to the bright sunlight, stepping forward to where a fallen tree has cleared a bit of canopy, and the morning light beams down warmly. The birdsong and the trickle of the water are calm and soothing, but despite my momentary relaxation the tension never truly leaves me.
He had told her where he was going, and without having to be asked, she suddenly knew where she was going, too.
The forest had been the closest thing to a home that Merida can remember, and it is only remembered as so because of Crevan. The moment he had left it no longer rang with comfort or purpose, and so she had left with it. But the forest calls to them, and as their embraces and hunts became more intimate, the vixen knew of no better place to settle herself - deep within damp earth and pine needles, with many places to burrow and cold nights to warm herself at his side.
It was perfect - or, it would be, because Crevan would make it so.
Slender, soot-colored legs pull the vibrantly colored fox through the familiar woods, deep into the hearth that despite all its new smells and residents, Merida found rather comforting. The fox thrums with delight beneath the burning leaves as it scampers over roots and pine needles, leaping onto smallish boulders and bounding once more into the shadow, eagerly following the wolf’s scent - a scent she would follow to the ends of the earth.
The trickling sound of water stops her graceful leaps and bounds, planting her solidly into musky soil that the pointedness of her snout dives into, inhaling deeply to ensure she is still on the right trail. Her embered gaze flickers up to see the woman whose scent had intermingled with her target, and the little fox lifts her head curiously. The glaring white of her breast gleams in the morning glow, as dew sparkles around them in the dusty, golden light.
Most likely already mistaken for a normal, stupid fox, Merida crawls pointedly over the bubbling stream to leap onto the fallen tree, her claws clicking against the dead bark. She comes to rest a few meters away from the soft gold woman, a little snort leaving the velvet black of her nose. She then follows the girl’s eyesight into the bright canopy above them, nose wrinkling as the sun stings her eyes.
He’s just a newborn colt, to be honest. Ever-curious and full of life. But whatever his father inflicted upon his genetic makeup also afflicts his personality too, and he just loves to practise moving around silently.
Like a ghost, he is.
Or tries to be anyway.
Today he ghosts upon a perlino and dark blue mare, who sighs to herself and really doesn’t do much. She has scars, and he wants to know where they come from, because she has them in places he doesn’t understand yet why. But she doesn’t notice him, so he doesn’t want to break the magic of secret stalking either.
But another does. Not a horse, but a fox with a horse voice, and so he creeps forward. The vox is even more interesting! Could he hunt it like Kreeps mama hunts the deer? Probably not on his own. That means no dissections. But perhaps she can satisfy him by answering questions.
”What are you?” his childish voice casts out, while the bay appaloosa reveals his place from the shadows just earlier.
Rajanish
son of a dark god
Love is hurting if it screams - oh, if it's screaming out loud
The patter of little feet does not worry me; these woods are full of animals. I like watching the squirrels as they race up and down the thick trunks, and the deer as they leap gracefully across the stream. When I open my eyes, I do not expect to find an animal so close, but my blue mouth splits into a delighted smile at the little fox that has joined me in the sunlight. They tend to stay in the shadows, I've noticed, and I take the opportunity to look more closely at her russet fur and dark little feet.
I am startled when the fox suddenly speaks, and my smiles darkens immediately to become a frown. Talking animals are not animals at all, I know. They are shifters, their true form hidden in the shape of another. Is this some trick, designed to lull me into a false sense of security? The fox is looking up at the sky though, not at me, and the day is too lovely for me to let it be spoiled so early by paranoia.
"Not really," I reply, "Just enjoying the sunshine."
I regret my decision as I hear another voice ring out, but a swift turn of my head reveals that it is just a small foal. What is he doing here, without his mother? These woods are not safe. I peer into the shadows behind him, but he seems to be alone. I am not certain if that worries me more or less.
The woman is almost comforted by Merida’s presence as she lowers her haunches to sit on the damp, fallen tree. The fox’s tail curls around sooty paws, a murmur of amusement tracing the sharp features of her face as the little smile that graced her mouth falters, eyes becoming glazed and dark. Merida snorts unpleasantly, large ears tipping back slightly as she realizes she is no longer being admired by the golden pegasus. The bright red ember of her irises are framed around black lids as they narrow, wondering why there was such a sudden change in expression. Not that Merida truly cared about why the stranger was frowning, but is moreso interested as to why her voice had caused it. Of course, Merida cannot feel the sense of foreboding and paranoia that came from the tall forests of Sylva (she didn’t notice it when Gryffen ruled, and wouldn’t notice it now), but instead occupies her mind with thoughts of sunshine and her wolf, or if there were any grubs beneath the trunk of the tree she currently sits on.
The presence of another is given away, and the fox’s ears tip back towards him before her head spins around. A child has found them, and a little huff leaves Merida’s black-lined lips. The question is directed at her, and though she has nothing against children (she had one once, she remembers vaguely), there is a look of boredom that crosses her face as she turns back towards the mare, stretching out across the moss-covered bark and a yawn escaping her throat. “Rude,” she murmurs quietly to herself in a mumble of breath, wondering why is it that if she was equine the question would have been ‘Who are you?’ and not ‘What are you?’
But children are fickle and unassuming, so with a quick inhale the fox musters a cunning smile (nearly terrifying as canines are revealed, sharp and shining in the sunlight) for the boy, lifting her head to sniff at the smell he brings with him. “You’ve never seen a fox in these woods, boy?” Answering his question with her own, her red and eccentric eyes flickering towards the pegasus.
“I’m Merida.” Her name is offered to both her and the child, despite her gaze resting on the cobalt and gold of the mare before her. “I used to live here, you know. I’m thinking of staying this time.”Now that I have a reason.“Do you live here?”
Curiosity killed the cat, one time long ago. It would kill the cat again if Raj would be curious enough to find and kill one to see how it works, perhaps to try out what Lokii had been so kind to show to him, a heart still slowly beating, revealing how the blood flows inside an animal. He’s not by a long means found out how everything works in a body yet, and until he does he has no time yet to think of how the mind works also.
Instead, he pointedly ignores the whispers the fox mades, and stares at her quite defiantly. ”Not a talking one,” he almost adds ‘dumbass’ to it, but just in time remembers that if the perlino and blue mare is on the fox’ side he is outnumbered. The fox with a mare’s voice talks to the other mare then, and the colt shrugs as he is not the one to answer. Of course he lives here, what young boy would be on his own in here otherwise? Surely Sylva isn’t a place to tresspass. Which also means that the shine-and-navy mare lives here too. On what conditions, he is not bothered. He creeps a little closer to her, lifting his nose to trace the scars on her sides, wondering how such cuts are made. Would a fox do that when it hunts? Maybe she’s been tunnelling where it’s too tight?
Rajanish
son of a dark god
Love is hurting if it screams - oh, if it's screaming out loud
so timeline wise lepis is back in loess now, but we can pretend that she just got shy and left raj and merida and ran off into the woods if you two want to continue the thread without her!
