there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand; dayé

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

She doesn’t know how long she spent, spluttering and spitting up saltwater on the edges of the beach. She doesn’t know anything except the pain that rattles in her chest, newly marked with the tattoos of the angry red slashes, commiserating where her own claws had torn herself apart to free the pieces lodged inside her. She doesn’t know anything except the foam at the edges of her lips, the feverish heat inside of her that doesn’t break—this stubborn, impossible disease that has somehow become worse upon waking.

As if the touch of oxygen set it ablaze inside of her, tearing through her every cell.

Eventually, eventually, she rises.

She stumbles to her feet, and she is surprised by how weak she feels. How long has she been out? She is thinner than before, her body malnourished, her face gaunt and she doesn’t know where to turn. All she knows is that she cannot stay here. She cannot let herself rest inside this diseased, corrupted land.

So she leaves.

She leaves and she follows the only scent that feels familiar.

It takes her a long time to reach Dayé’s home. Too long. The journey is filled with stumbles, Sochi falling to her knees more than once, coughing up blood that splatters across the ground in wild designs. But she doesn’t stop and she doesn’t give up. She had not died beneath the surface. She would not die now.

Gritting her teeth, trembling, she finally makes her way into Loess.

When she sees Dayé something like relief floods within her. She is suddenly gripped with another bout of coughing, the sound hoarse and rasping, the knuckles of the disease running up and down her ribs. When it subsides, her silver eyes are flat and dull and she looks wildly for the wolfish-mare.

“Dayé,” she groans through teeth. “Dayé, is this real?”

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land

[Dayé]

when i run through the deep dark forest long after this has begun,

The filly has shed away and a golden woman stands in her place - poised and full, with flickering of electric blue across her skin when the Loessian sun hits her just so. She still clings to what some may call the wildness of youth - her tangled mane and tail, the clay and dirt that is smeared against each of her slender legs, the fierce proudness in her almond-colored eyes - but to those who knew her well, they would know it is something more than the tight grip of youth that still clutches to her.

It is not youthfulness that racks her appearance - it is the wolf.

Even now, equine in shape and mind, Dayé’s thoughts are ever predator-like. Though in her half-brother’s territory she is more relaxed, she still finds herself keeping to the borders of what she deems her pack’s land - searching for daring intruders that she would not hesitate to throw out and keeping the small yet close knit herd of Loess protected. Perhaps if the scent of a hare or another wild animal caught her attention among the moss-colored stones and craggy outcroppings that shroud the hilly landscape, she would shift and satiate the hunger that always burns deep in her belly.

The smell of blood catches the mare’s attention.

It’s coppery and metallic on the wind, sliding over her tongue with bitterness that causes the mare to champ her lips together mildly, turning her head in the direction of the oncoming breeze. It nearly makes her shift; the tangy smell, old blood mixed with new, a weak and fragile beast ripe for the taking. Even if the animal was large in size, Dayé considers taking it on even then - the smell of it wreaked of death.

It’d be an easy meal.

As her eyes sharpen, her ears flicking into the tangled paleness of her ivory mane, the wind brings another detail to Dayé’s now agile trotting body as she scouts out her target.

It alarms her as the scent suddenly rings familiar (almost familial instead, she nearly muses to herself). 

Sochi?

Her once light-footed trot now breaks into a cautious run, nostrils widening to intercept each morsel on the wind that brings the scent of her tigress closer with each stride, fear and worry suddenly etched across the normally stoic and fierce woman’s face. 

Dayé immediately is at her side, the flash of blue unmistakable as it crosses over the gold of her skin to press herself against Sochi’s obsidian flank - to do what, she had no idea. To offer support? Perhaps. Her mouth deepens into a frown, her brow furrowing with concern and confusion while her eyes flash with gentle anger and accusation. Who has done this?

Dayé.

She speaks her name and there is a flutter in the woman’s chest. 

“Yes, Sochi, I’m here,” the wolf-woman replies, her voice deep and low, only to be heard between them.

Is this real?

She wishes it wasn’t. Instead, she doesn’t reply, swallowing hard the feeling of dread that rises from the pit of her stomach. Dayé noses the soft, ebony skin where Sochi’s neck meets her jawline, huffing tenderly. “You must rest,” she says suddenly, lifting her head in the direction where she knew a half-circle formation of rocks hid sweet spring grass as soft as downy - Dayé’s den.

Dayé

where the sun would set, trees are dead, and the rivers were none.

@[Sochi]
word vomit, here you go <3

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

This moment has the pitch and frequency of a fever dream.

(Pangea has risen.)

It all feels like a dream, like a nightmare, and she struggles to discern what is realty from what is not. Had she been called to the beach? Had she felt the pieces of earth worm their way into her? Had she killed that mare? Had she died herself? none of it makes sense. None of the puzzle pieces fit together and her head swims and then aches as she tries, trying to pull them apart and lay it flat so she can trace her path back.

She had been in the field. The meadow?

(Pangea has risen.)

She cranes her neck down to where her chest burns, the tattoo aching as if freshly torn. She glances back up, half blind in her pain, muscles shivering, bones trembling. She moans in her throat at the soft touch of Dayé’s velvet nose to her skin and leans into his, silver eyes closing as she savors the feel of it.

This is real. This is truth.

(Pangea has risen.)

The other mare’s words can be heard, but it as if it is through a fog and Sochi rages at the weakness that claims her limbs. She was not meant to be this. She was meant to be a predator—a fighter. Not to succumb to some disease planted in her by the dark god himself. She wants to spit on his face. She wants to tear his throat out with her own teeth, feel the dark and vile blood cover her tongue.

Instead she coughs and leans heavily against Dayé, nodding slowly at the suggestion.

Yes, she needs rest. She needs to lie down.

She needs…she needs to tell her something.

Her brain slowly ticks, the cogs working as she coughs again, leaning away and then back into the mare at her side. “Dayé..” her voice is weak, quiet, strained as she tries to piece together the syllables.

What was she trying to tell her?

She stumbles through the mental fog, grasping for the edges of a thought before it comes screaming back to life. Her eyes widen and she twists, the shivers in her body turning to trembles—fearful, loathing.

“Pangea,” she coughs, trying to spit out the words. “It’s back. It’s risen.”

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land