"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
Thorunn has put on her brave face for weeks now. The shifting of the lands upset her, threw her off her balance, tore down that delicate facade she put up. It was a mask of her father, just throwing his dead carcass over her own childish body and hoping it stuck. Some of it did, she had his orange eyes and his stocky frame. She had his short temper, his brutish strength, and his lack of way with words...but the rest? Did she really have his empty gaze? Could she do the things he did without any remorse? Could she...could she truly be him?
I guess the shifts are a way to sink or swim.
So she decides to swim. She finds others from the Valley...though part of her wants to branch out, to find her own right. Get out from under his shadow. She figures the best place to do this is...well, the open lands. Find others like her. Find anything, really, to help her decide what she wants. She'll try to shed her fathers cold ways and find some sort of friendship. Friendship would never hurt.
"Hello!" she says, her voice artificially cheery. She doesn't know how to do this. It's foreign, this lilt, these words heavy on her tongue. She swallows. "I'm Thorunn, who are you?"
09-06-2016, 02:18 PM (This post was last modified: 09-07-2016, 10:40 AM by violence.)
violence
She took what meager things her parents could offer – she comes from magicians and monsters, but ultimately, they were fools, her father too feral to be of much use and her mother too wrapped up in some complicated worship that Violence has no taste for.
(Such a waste of all that magic.)
She was ready to be the revolution, the woman who walked with bones, until the world turned upside down and everything was taken from her, left her violated, left her with a stupid, glistening horn like she was some beauteous forest creature instead of a beast to be feared.
She has not adjusted well, she has been restless, and angry. She wants blood spilled, wants punishment enacted, a sacrifice to the lands so they might reconsider and grant her back her powers.
(She hates it. She is not the begging kind.)
And this girl – this random stranger, whose path she crosses because fate (a smiling, wicked thing) decrees it – this girl is suddenly too there, calling out in a cheery, chipper voice that grates across the fraying coil of Violence’s mind, and so –
So she stands before her, dark, drawing herself up. She is no bigger than the girl, has no real advantage – except, perhaps, her furious, the idea that something she deserved was taken.
“I’m Violence,” she says – a name she loves, a name she wants to embody; wants to taste mayhem spreading on her tongue.
In the sunlight, the horn gleams. She is not a monster – she doesn’t even have her bones – but there is something monstrous about her, all the same.
If only she wasn't so young she might have understood the gleam in the mare's eye. She would have identified that endless pounding in her chest as a warning, not as a silly childish fear. Break through your barriers, break them! she echoes to herself. The edges of her smile tug, the inside of her chest feels smaller - yet she keeps that false, wavering smile on her face. Something was very...off about the mare. Her cadence, her smile, the way she eyed Thorunn.
It's all in your head.
It's all in your head.
"Violence," she echoes, unable to keep the snag from her voice. "That's a...well..." she trails off. "At least people can pronounce your name!" she adds suddenly, rushed. She is exposed. She is sweating. She can't quite...
She could run – she could turn on her heels and flee, clued in by the fever-brightness in Violence’s eyes, by the way her gaze was unwavering. Violence is not subtle – she gravitates to the theatrical, the flourishes.
She thinks she can hear the girl’s heart beating. It’s like music.
She steps closer. Part of her is still waiting for the girl to run. Violence is not yet a stealthy hunter. Perhaps she never will be. Perhaps she won’t need to be, not if they’re all like this, wide-eyed babbling fools.
The girl is looking at her, and the expression in her eyes offends her – most everything offends in, in all honesty.
“Indeed,” she murmurs in agreement. Another step. They are close enough to touch. The girl’s gaze still offends her, so—
She moves quick. She is not a practiced fighter, even less so with the new horn, but she knows the general idea – quick slashing motions – and knows her target – the girl’s face, and more so, those stupid, gleaming eyes.
Was it the shock or the pain that hit Thorunn first?
One moment the mare is taking a step toward her, a look on her face that speaks both murder and madness. Thorunn doesn't know this - she is young and stupid and naive and...and she should have trusted her gut. Her instinct. She should have known deep down in the pit of her stomach that something like this could happen. Instead...hah! Instead she took a step toward the mare, thinking she was letting her in on a secret. Indeed. Indeed. The words were the start of a sentence more than anything else, they weren't the end.
But the sudden pain that seized her was both surprising and revolting. At first she doesn't react, shock painted on her face, eyes wide. Then the blood begins to drip, then pour down the front of her face. It gets into her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Panic, her heart is racing, which just lets the blood come in a quicker, heavier stream. She falls to her knees, a scream finally breaking from her lips. "Why!" he asks, looking up to the mare between shades of rose.
