"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
08-18-2015, 12:46 AM (This post was last modified: 08-18-2015, 01:23 AM by Ledger.)
There’s a tree in the Gates now. It’s something new that hadn’t been there before and he finds it’s magic both appealing and wanting. Appealing because of the gift that it was and yet sorely lacking for it didn’t really seem to do anything. He had listened to the stories, eavesdropping on the mare schooling her child on history. It had all revolved around the tree and he found that sharp pangs were stabbing through his heart. There was no mention of the kingdom he had grown up longing for, no mention of the beloved man that had meant so much to him nor his beloved Joelle. Nor the little gray mare but that wasn’t a surprise. Nobody had cherished her except for only two in a sea of many. They were long forgotten. But he didn’t forget. The memories still stirred deep within him as if it had been only yesterday, as if their bones weren’t scattered and bleached amongst sand and sun.
All he wants is to rest and belong. All he wants is the peace that has been fleeing from him all his life. A grown man in flesh, still that lost child in spirit. The Gates had been his only chance, his last hope. The few that he had met had been kind and accepted him quickly and for that he is grateful. Yet it’s not how he remembers it being. It was different. He was different. His expectations had been so great and no matter how many times he whispers his prayers to Magnus, gold flecked eyes pleadingly turned to the skies, nothing happens. Still alone. Still restless. Despite everything that has happened, he can find no anger. He can’t explode or shake a fist to the night and curse everyone that had done him wrong, stolen his childhood and set him up for failure.
A single ear swivels amongst the mass of tangled flaxen locks, a quiet figure in the meadow on a moonlit night. The moon is swollen and hanging low in the air, illuminating the land and it’s inhabitants with a cold silvery light. Warm brown eyes never waver from it’s presence, the flecks of gold shining brighter than ever. A constant stream of words thrown silently, tinged with desperation. Please Dad, I can’t do this much longer. I don’t know where to go anymore. A heavy sigh falls from his lips, his chest heaving with the turmoil that churns within. What do I have to live for? I have nothing. I am alone. His mind grows quiet, closing his eyes and bringing his muzzle to his chest. Knowing already what the response would be.
— A D A L I N E —
your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
The stars are overwhelming tonight in their beauty, and she feels breathless in their presence, her alien head flung back to take them in—soak in the impossible infinity of their existence. Her pulse is pounding and it is enough to make her breathless, the excitement and wonder pushing the fragility of her body to its brink. How does one stare at the constellations and not revel in them? How do they live so wordlessly beneath the heaven’s reign? Never once staring up in awe at the swirling chasms above them.
She was not given the luxury of living so carelessly, so ignorantly. She was born into a life that demanded she appreciate each moment, each second. She knew that no one was guaranteed the years that seemingly stretched on forever before them, but she also knew that hers were especially precarious. Few feared for their life in the way she did, save her brother. Few knew the delicate balance of her life.
After all, few saw walking as a life and death act, but she did.
Her beauty was otherworldly in a way that most could not understand: long, slender skeleton made of glass bones, sheer skin pulled too tight, large eyes pink and raw. What should have been her crowning glory, her wings, were a mockery of the freedom that they should have offered. Instead of giving her the gift of flight, they gave her the empty potential of it. For where feathers should have sprouted were only torn edges and protruding, glass bones. She knew her brother had tried once, and oh she had loved him for his bravery, but he had ultimately failed and been given shattered bones as a gift for his courage.
Tears sting the corner of her eyes, and her breast heaves in a half-sob, the cruelty of her existence sinking deep into her bones. All she wanted was passion and adventure and adrenaline; oh, all she wanted was the vicious pain of a life well-lived. Not this empty shell, not this masquerade. Closing her eyes, she swallows and then takes a deep breath, steadying herself and finding calm in the quiet.
That is until she hears the sigh of the stallion she had not noticed nearby—the one with her agony mirrored on his features. Intrigued, the alien-dreamer moves forward slowly, her head tilting to the side as she takes him in slowly. “Hello?” she breathes, her voice as unsubstantial and soft as one might expect—barely above a whisper. “Are you alright?” Perhaps, she thought, they could be not alright together.
Fear is an old friend. They had lost touch as of lately but it would pop up now and then to remind him that he was still around. He knows what it’s like to fear for his life. Chernobyl’s voice cuts through his dreams with a hiss, quickly turning to a nightmare and making him feel like a newborn all over again. Tell anyone who you are and I’ll kill you. In the nightmare he runs, something he wasn’t able to do in reality. Chernobyl always catches him and he awakes in a cold sweat, panting. Maybe it’s a good thing he sleeps alone. That torment is long dead but the dead has a way of rising around here and he never truly feels safe. For he had told, he had found Magnus and told him who he was even if it was far too late. Someday it was going to catch up with him he figures. Someday he’s going to come back and remember his promise. As an adult, he shouldn’t have this fear. It’s unreasonable. But it lingers.
A voice, soft as a pin drop, calls him back from his dark thoughts. Eyelids slowly open as he raises his head and turns…. Seeing a mixture of beauty and monstrosity. The pregnant silence that follows comes from a sudden speechlessness. His mouth is dry and he can’t seem to form a sentence. Moonlight filters through her, a silvery pink translucent being with raw eyes. His gaze doesn’t linger for too long, the sight of what looks like her muscles making him a bit queasy. Her wings remind him of a boat that’s been lost at sea, found later with the sails torn and shredded. He can’t look away from them because there are parts sticking out, sparkling in the light.. Almost like.. ”Glass.” He whispers in awe and then quickly shuts his mouth, realizing his thoughts have slipped into the air.
Shame rushes through him, it wasn’t like him to be so rude. A thousand apologies line across his features, brown and gold meeting the raw and pink as he offers her a genuine smile. Now that he has met her gaze, he can see the sadness that resides there. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. It must be hard to look like that, he can only imagine what it must have been like. Seems to make his own hardships pale in comparison. Her voice slips through the silence, both ears having to swivel forward so he doesn’t miss the soft words. His heart is immediately touched by this simple act of kindness, worry for a stranger that she doesn’t know when she must carry the world on her own sheer shoulders. ”Yes.” The lie falls easy from his velvet lips, a lie he has told over and over again where it has just become habit. ”I’m Ledger…. Will you join me?”
— A D A L I N E —
your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
There are many things that plague Adaline’s thoughts at night, plenty of fears and worries and concerns that cause her breast to ache as she chases what is often elusive sleep. But the fear of being a monster has never been one of them. She knew that was alien in appearance—she knew that she was different from her peers—but that deep-rooted knowledge had never manifested into a self-conscious thought. She had never once given time to fretting that she may not fit the traditional mold of beauty. That is, until now.
Something in the way he stands speechless before her and the way his gaze takes her in and then cuts away as if she was too repulsive to see shakes her to her core; she feels herself warm with the utterly new feeling of embarrassment. Wrapping the gossamer-thin wings around herself, she stammers in her lilting voice. “Yes, glass,” she says quietly, ashamed of what she was for reasons that she could not understand. How foolish of her to think she would be accepted as normal when she so obviously was not.
Her mouth pulls tight and she takes a subconscious step backward, unsure of how to proceed. Still, good manners reigned. “Nice to meet you, Ledger.” She cannot bring herself to meet his gaze and she looks everywhere but him, frowning down at the grass flooded with moonlight. How simple it would be if she was anything but she was; how pleasant to be seen as another being and not an otherworldly creature.
“That is alright,” her voice wavers here slightly before she stiffens her metaphorical upper lip. Forcing herself to catch his gaze, she gives a weak smile. “I just wanted to see if you were okay. I didn’t want to intrude.” Shifting uncomfortably. she takes another step, “Have a good night, Ledger.”
08-18-2015, 02:58 AM (This post was last modified: 08-21-2015, 11:15 PM by Ledger.)
Mentally he is kicking himself, realizing he has only added to her pain. He had always failed miserable at hiding his thoughts, his expressions an open book. Who was he to judge her? While parts of her were very (very) different and took some getting use to, there was still a beauty about her. Seeing the pink sinew of her insides would take some getting use to but the sheerness of her skin was lovely. And the glass bones that pull through the torn skin of her wings, the sparkle of them was pretty cool. She was the closest thing to an angel he had ever seen, an angel that had been pulled apart and thrown back together messily. But an angel none the less.
The corners of his mouth tighten as she takes slow step after slow step away from him, her wings wrapping around her as a shield. To protect herself from him. It made his throat constrict with anxiety, so uncomfortable that he had made someone feel so badly. ”Please.” He asks softly, angst in his voice. ”Please stay.” Hesitation as he searches her face, trying to make eye contact. ”I’m sorry.” A flash of an encouraging smile that drops quickly with his panic that she would go. ”I would very much like you to stay.” He finishes quietly, his body drooping slightly in defeat that he had pushed her too far with his lack of manners.
The silence spreads and now he too looks to the ground, a hoof striking the earth repeatedly in his shame. Throwing a glance at her now and then. ”I like your wings.” His voice gravelly but soft, throwing his gaze back down to the small hole that was deepening beneath his striking hoof. A hole filled with anxiety.
— A D A L I N E —
your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
Her heart breaks when she sees the anxiety rip at him, and it eases the sore edges of vanity that had been cut so harshly but a second before. She sighs and stops the backward motion, her alien face slipping into a soft smile. “Alright,” she says, tilting her head to look at him. “Alright, I’ll stay.” She was not sure why she had decided to stay—after all, she had nothing to prove to him—but she knew that if she left, she would be doing far more damage to him than he had done by the one unshielded look he had given to her.
He compliments her wings, and her laugh is weak, looking back at the sad facades that stuck out from her shoulder blades. She moved them slightly, the wind rushing through the tattered edges. “They are a little sad, don’t you think?” she says before looking up to catch his gold-flecked gaze. “I always thought so…” her voice trails off as she wonders at what it would have been like to fly—to use them as she wanted.
But she doesn’t let that thought simmer for too much longer, forcing a smile that she was sure looked just as fake as it felt. “My name is Adaline, by the way,” she says the name quietly, wishing that there was something to fill up the space between them other than the painful silence that currently resided.
Relief floods through his system, smoothing the lines from his face. ”Thank you.” And he means it, beaming at her happily. It’s the first time in a long time that he hasn’t been this solemn statue, so close to falling apart. She’s an unusual but pleasant distraction that came at just the right time. The tattered edges of her wings flap in the cool breeze, the glass bones glittering in the moonlight as the shadows dance across them. It’s hard to tear his gaze away. It’s almost as if he has turned into a raven that’s found a shiny new object he can’t stand to leave without investigating it first. ”No…” He disagrees, shaking his head and sending his already messy mane into even more disarray. ”No I think they are quite wonderful.” He can’t understand why she is so ashamed of them. Although they are obviously damaged and he realizes that flight must be a near impossibility for her, he still finds them entirely fascinating. ”I’ve always wanted wings… You’re lucky. I think they make you special.”
Wings. Wings that could have granted him escape and an entirely different life. And if they were in bad condition, he wouldn’t care. He would have found a way to make them better. It brings an idea to fruition, one he asks her with a surge of helpfulness. ”With so much magic here, maybe you could mend them someday? Or find someone who can?” Quietly his enthusiasm bubbles down as he sees the forced smile on her lips and the way her quiet name is given with sadness. His own smile begins to fade. Her wings seem to be a touchy subject and he’s once again filled with anxiety, having found a way to upset her again. ”I’m sorry Adaline.” He stammers again, his hoof finding the dirt hole again. ”So what brings you to the Meadow?” Grasping at straws, anything to make this meeting better.
— A D A L I N E —
your mouth is poison; your mouth is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
His words are kind enough that she is able to forget the painful first encounter, releasing it to the wind with ease. She was used to the pain; one like her could not survive if she did not learn to heal and forgive quickly. She laughs softly at herself at his suggestion and ruffles the wings at her sides again. “Perhaps,” she says thoughtfully before looking up at him again, “although it may be for the best that I cannot fly.” She pauses for a second before shrugging her fragile shoulders. “I wouldn’t exactly survive the fall.”
The tragic story of her life.
But, right now, that did not seem to bother her. Not when she was in the company of a stallion with kind eyes and an even kinder smile. “Company,” she answers honestly when he asks her why she had arrived to the Meadow today, although the answer is probably not as honest as it could have been. If she had been truly honest with him, and herself, she would have told him she was here because she was always looking for something: adventure, passion, love. Because she was foolhardy enough to think she may find it.
”Well, don’t give up hope. Perhaps one day you’ll know what it’s like to be in the sky.” He steps closer to her, closing the uncomfortable distance they had been giving each other. Such an awkward encounter, this. ”You’ll have to tell me all about it when you do.” He smiles quietly at her as she speaks of being safer on the ground and gives a thoughtful nod and an even more thoughtful gaze. ”There are always other ways to fly Adaline.” He murmurs softly, turning his gaze from her and back to the silvery sphere in the sky that seemed to be illuminating more brightly than before. The soaring of a heart in love, the thrill of an adventure. Not that he has experienced much of the first thing himself, probably why he lusted after it so often.
Why was he here? It should be a simple answer but he hesitates. Wrestling with some inner turmoil, he finally seems to come to a conclusion. ”I can’t seem to settle in one place for long and the Meadow seemed good enough for a night stroll.” For a moment he thought of telling her the full truth. I can never sleep due to the night terrors that plague me every time I close my eyes. I’ve returned to a home that barely recognizes me and is filled with regrets and ghosts. I am so terribly alone and it aches at the core of my being. Instead he simply smiles at her and enjoys the brief minutes he has of being with someone. She’s a far cry from the wraiths that claw at his dreams despite her strange looks. ”Do you live far from here?” Always happy to direct the conversation away from anything that might make him dredge up that darkness.
your breath is poison; your breath is wine
(you think your dreams are the same as mine)
She doesn’t believe him (of course she doesn’t), but that doesn’t stop her from giving him an encouraging smile, the curved lips softening the harshness of her alien features somewhat. She hoped that he was right; she hoped that one day a wayward magician would take pity on her plight and grant her more stability, but she knew that was a hollow wish—even for her. She came from a family of breakable things, and they had never once been given reprieve from what they were. Her mother, the water-bender, had been sick with love—obsessed with it. Her sister had been as breakable as she and as eager to break. Her father was a dying man with death rattling in his lungs and the promise of it on his infected kisses.
She came from a longline of the sick, the broken, the dying.
Adaline knew better than to think her future would be different.
Although, still, she caught herself dreaming (foolish girl). Still, she caught her heart racing in her fragile chest at the mere thought of flying or falling in love or having adventures that made life worth living. They were the most secret of hopes, the ones she was ashamed to admit even to herself, and she certainly was not willing to drag them to light in front of Ledger. So instead of admitting her heart’s desires, she gave a dreamy, hazy smile, her eyes blurred. “Perhaps…” her voice trails off, and she looks through the stallion before her to the horizon where starlight kissed the edges of the meadow.
His voice brings her back, and she frowns at his admission.
“It seems that we were of one mind then,” she says quietly, tilting her head so that her long, oddly translucent forelock fell away from her pink eyes. “I often come here for strolls. I find that they settle me.” She gives a delicate shrug. “I am not well-suited for things as permanent as homes.” What she does not admit is that she lives in the Falls with her brother and who she believes (fears) is his love. What she cannot admit, even to herself, is that she cannot live apart from her brother as equally as she cannot live near him and her.
What she cannot say is that she is as sick as her parents, as her siblings, and that her heart desires things that should not be her own. Instead, she gives a weak smile and mimics him by pawing gently at the ground, her delicate hoof scratching lightly at the grass and making little mark. She cannot help but feel like it is symbolic. That she was but a ghost in this land; that she, too, would not leave her mark. Here today, gone tomorrow, and no one the wiser.
