"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
Even though chaos often followed her, even though her life was a domino effect of mistakes and turmoil, it was never something she actively sought out. Leliana’s worry during their last conversation had stirred an unrest in her own heart. She has witnessed countless Beqanna conflicts; some she started, some she managed to coax into reluctant but peaceful agreements. But this was a different Beqanna. This was a Beqanna where magic ran rampant, where not just the actual magicians wielded the most power. If Loess was as ruthless as Leliana thought, she didn’t want to imagine what would happen in Tephra.
She didn’t have to wonder on it for long.
When the first stallion came breathing fire, she had already secluded herself, the unborn child inside of her having decided that now was a good time to make an appearance. Even from where she paced restlessly in a clearing surrounded by thick foliage, she could smell the smoke. It caused her already elevated pulse to jump, and when the smell grew stronger along with the strength of the pain that rippled and grasped her sides, she knew she had to leave.
Her world is plunged into darkness as she makes her way towards the Tephran border, the sun suddenly cloaked by shadows so thick that not even a moonless and starless night was ever so dark. She had lived so long in complete blindness that she did not often call upon her infrared vision, but now, with the pain so persistent that it nearly drove her to knees, she deftly switches.
The tropical flora slowly begins to give way into the edge of the forest that flanks Taiga, and where usually the temperature would have dropped the further she moved from the volcano, this time it continued to suffocate her. The heat from the fires that ravaged the lands wrapped around her, even when it suddenly began to rain – not regular rain, but a torrential downpour, ice cold and mixing with the sweat that foamed at her neck and flanks when she finally was forced to the ground with a groan, beneath the shelter of a tree, whose branches still managed to only deflect some of the rainfall.
She has done this numerous time, but never in this situation. Never in the middle of fire and war, with smoke still choking her lungs even though the rain saturated her taut and straining muscles. She didn’t know what she was going to do once it was finally born; how she was going to get a newborn standing fast enough to outrun whatever else Loess decided to unleash. Her mind is flooded with every possibility as she bites back every sound that she can feel burning in her throat, refusing to attract unnecessary attention to herself even as she struggles.
When the baby is finally born, it only brings a minuscule amount of relief.
Despite her weakness, she calls on her remaining adrenaline to stand. Her long mane is plastered to her neck, from rain and sweat, and the one side of her porcelain-skin is caked in mud and debris, and she looks every bit of the mess that she feels. It is not until she turns to look at her newborn that she realizes her vision has once again been stripped from her. That was nothing new, and it hardly stirs even an ounce of alarm, although she has no way of knowing it was done by Heartfire, and not Carnage. Instead, she feels her way blindly to find the newborn girl’s face, hurriedly cleaning and trying to encourage her up. “Aislyn,” Her throat is raw from the smoke inhalation, and she tries to keep her voice level even though there is fear and worry so potent in every fiber of her. She cannot see the bright, vibrant pink of the girl’s irises – nothing like either of her parents. She cannot see that her coat is the same endless black as her father’s, but decorated by smatterings of white, like her. She would have maybe been amused by that, if she could see, and if she had the time. But right now, all she cared about was getting her out of Tephra.
all i want is to flip a switch before something breaks that cannot be fixed
As a boy, he would’ve guessed that the man he’d become would be the kind of man who would hear the cries of war and come running to help. Someone valiant, strong, heroic like his own father would be - or even something more gentle, more kind like his mother. But that boy could not have guessed at the twists his life would take, or at the way these twists would break all the goodness inside him until he was only what he had been made into. Something beautiful, but with darkness at its heart, a rot that only ever spread until it lingered just beneath the surface.
He can feel it there, that quiet festering.
He can feel it, and it scares him.
That little boy of dark and light, with angel wings and soft gold eyes still lives someplace deep inside him, trapped like a prisoner within the barbs and thorns of a mind that rejects him. He cannot be that boy, cannot be the man that boy would have wanted him to be. There is no place for gentleness in a world like this one - a world that constantly rises up to ruin them, to slam its fists down on lands that break apart, on continents that crumble and rebuild. He knows better than to think there is anything worth believing in, anything worth giving any part of his festering heart to.
Yet -
When the smoke drifts like fog through trees that sway and bend softly with their leaves whispering at him of the fires burning in not-so-faraway places, there is some uncomfortable sensation that tightens beneath the dark and white of his skin. His nose flares, harsh lines of muscle cutting welts across a jaw so tight he can feel his bones complain beneath the teeth he grinds together. His eyes are hard and flat, crushed gold moons swallowed by the dark of his pupils as they narrow at the bordering trees.
He doesn’t care if they burn, he knows where his family is, and they are certainly not through that forest, not bleached by smoke and ash and choking on air too heavy to breathe. None of them call Tephra home, and that makes absolutely none of that murmuring chaos any of his business. He tears his gaze away from the forest, turns his back on a sound like distant thunder, that rumbling din of a war he has no skin in.
And yet.
He growls and turns back again, and the sound is something furious as it rips itself free from his chest. His eyes return to the place where the border sits just beyond the Taiga’s thick forest, and for a moment he does nothing but watch. But that feeling never sheds from his skin, and, without understanding why, he’s abruptly moving towards the low grind of chaos with long, impatient strides.
(Later, and in the solitude of his own pointed thoughts, he would blame it on the pull of the shadow magic beneath his skin. Nothing more.)
He emerges inside a world that is hardly recognizable through the starless dark and the boom of storming, draconic bodies. Ash falls like snow against his face, landing on lips he licks reflexively, and then curls as he spits with a snarl of disgust. It might have been almost beautiful if not for the way the thrashing rain turned everything to a slurry of grey and brown, lit as it was by fire in every branch and stretch of grass. The screaming took away from it too, if he was being fair.
It is out of some innate reflex when his wings lift and unfurl from his sides, angled arrogantly behind him in rows of stark black and white feather. There is no ripple of muscle at his shoulders though, no sign of flight beyond that. Just an impossible conceit long-learned from the language of birds. He is completely still for a moment, focused on something at the heart of the darkness, though it is not those faded gold eyes that have found it. It’s the strain beneath his skin at the supernatural darkness unfolded like a cloak over a world that should be lit by day. It sings to him, this magic, dives in through his mouth and down his throat, festering like a drug beneath his skin as he closes his eyes to the heady thrum of it. It is easily more power than he possesses himself, but Illum is still able to tear apart the nearest shadow beasts when they come slavering at the scent of him.
He is losing himself to the dark inside him, to the memory of so much strength used against his will for violent means. Against his will, but hadn’t he fallen in some kind of twisted love with that feeling? With soft bodies and softer bones bent to his will, to his (no, her) wicked whims. It builds in him, this serpent strength, the dark and the shadow until he blurs at the edges with it, until he hears a sound, a voice and those beautiful blind eyes might never know how close he came to strangling the life out of that pale, delicate throat.
His spins to face her - face them, a mother and a newborn still covered in the goop of birth, that metallic stink that makes his nose think they’re wounded. There is still shadow roped around her throat - his shadows, though it takes a moment for him to remember himself - and when he does it dissipates like black fog against skin the color of ash, and he is left hard-eyed and heaving, watching as she coaxes her child to stand. He’s already forgotten the word she used, a name, he guesses. But it doesn’t matter because these aren’t his people, aren’t his problem, aren’t his concern.
It is a wonder, then, when he drifts a few silent steps closer, the sound of him lost in the hiss of the shadow-beasts he keeps at bay and the crackle of fire as it consumes a path towards the place they stand. Perhaps even more curious is the way those pale gold eyes go so soft when they settle on the face of the newborn filly, lost in shades of pink and black and lily white. There is a roar as something very dry and very nearby catches fire, a blast of punishing heat and flame he blocks with a combination of shadow magic and his wings, and then with a low snarl of pain, he says, “Hurry up.”
So easily does she fall back on her previous instincts, and she feels him even though she cannot see him. It is the sound of footsteps, soft and quiet but somehow incredibly loud despite the crackle of fire and the drumming of the rain. She hears them, and it’s almost too quickly that her head lifts and snaps in his direction, those currently sightless, endlessly dark eyes uselessly searching for him. He is a stranger, and his presence with her small newborn brings a sudden elevation of her heartbeat.
But then, there are his shadows.
Anyone else may not have felt that almost intangible feeling of darkness when it wraps like a noose around her neck, but she is no stranger to being ensnared by such things. She feels that featherlight, barely there, whisper of a touch against her skin and her breathing stills, but her heart doesn’t. It beats faster, as it always does when in the presence of something that evokes fear and anticipation, heightened by her inability to see. For just a fleeting moment, she forgets the sound of destruction that roars around her, staring in the direction of the unknown stallion as though somehow if she looked hard enough her vision would return. But the sound of Aislyn continuing her quest to stand, and the insistent crackle and hiss of the fire as it consumes the nearby brush rips her from her twisted reverie.
Almost roughly, she pushes the small filly upwards, unable to see the way the little girl flattens her ears in protest to her mother’s aggressive behavior. But stubbornly, Aislyn manages to get her minutes-old legs underneath her, and though she wavers unsteadily she finds her balance when Ryatah catches her with her nose. She hardly has time to relish her success before her mother is urging her forward, away from the heat and further into the forest. She tries to steal glances back at the man following them, her vibrantly pink eyes searching for him through the shadow and smoke, but every time she begins to slow, Ryatah presses her on.
When they break the barrier between Tephra and Taiga, it is like stumbling into another world. The shadow cloak that Litotes had blanketed Tephra in dissipates, and the smoke thins and fades away. But most surprisingly is the startling light of being able to see again – something that Ryatah is all too familiar with, and yet it catches her off guard every time just the same. She blinks in confusion at the harshness of the sun, even though it is muted by the tops of the trees, and even though the air is fresher, she doesn’t stop moving.
It is only once she is certain they have outran the danger that the pale mare turns, and this time when she looks for him, she sees him. Disheveled and wild, her almost black eyes seem to smolder when set against the stark white of her face, watching him with an unabashed curiosity. He seems to glisten in the dappled light that filters through the trees, and it doesn’t occur to her to be ashamed of her own appearance. Her usually smooth, porcelain-like skin is smattered with mud and rain and sweat, and her mane falls in ropey tangles along the curve of her neck. But the delicate lines and angles of her face maintain their elegance even in her feral-looking state, and when she speaks to him her voice is quiet and lilting despite the rawness from the smoke that choked her moments ago, “Who are you?”
Aislyn has tucked herself into her mother’s side, her black and white mottled coat a startling contrast against Ryatah’s white, as she stares wide-eyed up at the stallion. The confusion on her face was evident; she had been born into a burning world, and wherever they were now seemed so quiet that it was almost unsettling. And the man that was here, she still isn’t sure how he fits into her world, or if he even fits at all. All she knows is that her mother hasn’t stopped staring at him, with suspicion and curiosity reflecting in her dark eyes, and it made Aislyn press all the closer to her.
