"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
Pangea is a boring place for a young girl. Nothing lives there but a tentacle-face lady and some Carnage-cult people. No little animals. Carnage is the one who told her to kill that red stallion, she knows that now. She also knows that she wore the man Rhonen’s blood like a badge on her pretty skin, until the winter wet had washed it away. Now she is just muddy, maybe stained a little rusty, but that could be her own blood too.
Leokadia’s nose drips a persistent red, half dried against her skin but running bright against her little pink muzzle. Her mane has dropped away and been left in tangled clumps through every bramble and tree from here to Pangea but the rest of her hair remains in it’s place--though it’s sweaty and matted in it’s winter length. She is still somehow vital, trotting on her long legs through the thin, undisturbed snow. Her life of early struggle has given her an unexpected fortitude. She is a small yearling, looks younger, feels older.
She hasn’t met another since leaving the risen kingdom, but she isn’t looking. Not for horses. Beqanna is sick, she’s seen the flagging mares and stallions. What else is stricken? What prey can she discover weakened by this curse. She is ill, and a fever polishes her light eyes into tumbled moonstone but she desires the thrill that came upon her when she bore down on Rhonen.
Along the edge of the meadow a buck digs and grazes. Lo pauses to watch him, his antlered head looks heavy. A girl at the slaughter had antlers like that. She blinks slowly watching the creature, it is stupid and skittish. It sees her and looks like it wants to run but instead walks quickly away and disappears into the trees. The filly snorts, listens and stares in the direction the thing went and then boredly continues her walk across the meadow. The heat of her own skin is becoming and aggravation and she takes only a few more steps before lying down in the slow and letting her bloodied nose drip a vibrant stain onto the pale ground.
Leokadia
OOC: Open to whatever, just want to get her out there. Come try to get infected. Come teach her to kill something. Or tell her how nice she looks without a mane. Or try to step on her head. Want to develop her more and embrace her sickness.
Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner.
The veridian-coloured mare wandered the meadow, as she would other places. She knows abuot the Plague of course but, how bad could it be? Surely, those who has it would survive. If they died too quickly from it, it wouldn’t spread so fast.
And of course, there would be fights over the safe lands, so she didn’t think that was the place to go.
She steered clear of most obviously-sick horses, of course. But mostly she was just living her normal, peaceful life, and being less peaceful to other horses in her spare time.
When some young, sickly-looking cremello (bleak as ever, especially compared to Maiko’s veridian coat and pink streaks) walked across the meadow and right into her own grazing path, she came to a halt with a surprised snort and then irritated slash of her tail against her hock; ears falling back when she realized she had nearly touched the sick girl. ”Ew, you. Contain yerself, ugly babe.” she bitches, stepping back to avoid her.
She wasn’t sure how contagious it was, perhaps she was already doomed now, but she couldn’t be sure what these dumb horses that had heeded the god’s call had unleashed, and perhaps it wasn’t too late yet.
@[Leokadia] rooood mare alert but maybe Lo won’t mind. I may be a bit less fast with her than with others but the Plague is a good excuse to get her out more!
11-03-2018, 11:03 PM (This post was last modified: 11-06-2018, 08:06 PM by Leokadia.)
ashes, ashes,
we. all. fall. down.
“Ugly?!” Leokadia says in a lazy indignant way, sitting up part way to glare at the green mare. The filly snorts, and a fine fan of red disappears into the snow near her face. “No uglier than you.” She adds primly and stands, shaking her unadorned neck and then planting her pink hooves. So much for cooling off in the snow if every freakishly colored odd talking horse is going to try to graze right over her.
Leokadia is used to being fawned over by strange mares, usually they want to talk to her and ask here where her mother is and admire her pretty pale coat. She narrows her eyes, wondering why this one is so different. Schooling her face into stillness, and eyes into the empty innocence of a child’s she steps one, then two steps closer to the stranger. “Why do you think I’m ugly?” She asks, her voice taking on a delicate timbre, her lips tilting toward a pout at the end of the question.
Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner.
She is not every other mare.
She’d been broken at a young age - even this filly just assumed that she would be adored if she pouted long enough and oh, hadn’t she tried waving her bright blue eyes at bystanders who might take her in. But nobody ever did. Mares would have their own to care about, or would think she stood out too much. Maybe she was indeed, ugly like the sick girl said.
But after over a decade of this stupid life she had reached her point of no return. The girl can have her little win. Not like Maiko would care. She just backs up slowly, inch by inch, trying not to get noticed she’s shuffling away. The girl sneezes blood, oh she has it bad, brr.
And then she changes and puts up her puppy eye face.
”Think that’s gun’ work on me?” snorting, she stomps her hoof on the grass. ”I don’t think ye’re ugly, I know. You’re rottin’ darlin’. Falling apart. So - leave me alone, bloody hairless zombie.” She shakes herself for good measure, hairs remaining rather upright, and takes another step back.
The baby-sweetness and feigned innocence falls right off Leokadia’s face. In its place a feral grin parts her lips, her white teeth bloodied and bright. In her eyes a fever-mad glitter. Though it may not be fever, it may be her..the Leokadia that’s been living quietly in the body of a sweet child.
In this child something has broken too, a little at first when she’d been disgusting to her dam, a little more when she’d been abandoned. She has lost interest in being coddled and cared for, is quickly bored by gentleness. This green abomination clearly wants nothing to do with her. Leokadia is thrilled.
“Hairless? Who needs a mane anyway? Yours looks ridiculous.” She coos, her voice strong and sweet, no longer wavering like a frightened child’s. Her shining eyes fall to the mare’s feet as they take incremental steps back. Then she looks back at the green face with a tip of her head --a curious corvid expression. So she’s rotten. The girl knows she is ill and that she has the bloodbath in Pangea to thank for it. She also knows she isn’t the only one. “Everyone is going to be sick soon, Greenie. You might just walk backwards into someone who is a bigger zombie than me.”
To emphasize her point she leans slightly to look around the unfriendly mare. Then returning to her previously squared stance. ”Nope, nothing back there. I suppose you’re okay for now.”
