12-07-2019, 10:09 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Alex Brush|Assistant|Annie Use Your Telescope' rel='stylesheet'><style>.Leilancontainer {position:relative;width:500px;background-color:#0F0E12;border-radius:3px;border: 1px solid #dcf3ff;} .Leilanquote {position:relative;width:500px;top:10px;font-family:Annie Use Your Telescope;font-size:12pt;color:#AC5330;text-shadow:0px 0px 2px #FEFAFB;} .Leilanname {z-index:2;position:relative;top:623px;left:180px;font-family:'Alex Brush'; color:#dcf3ff;font-size:30pt;} .Leilanimg {position:relative;border-radius:5px;bottom:0px;} .Leilantext {position:relative;z-index:3;background-color:#0F0E12;width:460px;font-family:'Assistant';font-size:10pt;color:#FEFAFB;margin:30px 0px -95px 0px;} .Leilan-name-sub {position:relative;z-index:3;top:612px;left:155px;font-family:'Assistant';font-size:7pt;color:#FEFAFB;} </style><center><div class="Leilancontainer"><div class="Leilanquote"><i>We got older and I <font color=#dcf3ff>should have known</font><br>that I’d feel <font color=#dcf3ff>colder</font> when I walk alone</i></div><div class="Leilantext">The pin cushion figure of Leilan (his desert-lizard-scales protecting him where his mane and tail still meet his body) moves into the oasis with one purpose; re-hydrate. He gets a few heartbeats to do so; greedily he swallows the water, somewhat re-stocking his body with the fluid, as the ice cracks and frost flowers reform on his scales, and ice can be felt once more in his throat.
It’s only a little bit, and not enough to stop the hallucinations. Transported like the first time, he finds himself staring at a mare looking desperate, a mare edging to a waterfall’s cliffside.
A mare he vaguely recognizes?
Yes, she was the Lost One in the forest. The one looking for the Deserts, which ironically he told her no longer exist, and yet is where he just came from. But when he walks up to her, she does not see him, does not hear him - a phantom is what he is to her, and when she teethers to the edge, he realizes that he isn’t here to change her past.
There is no saving in a memory.
Is there?
One can try - she needs an active choice, not a fever- or madness-induced one. Choices are what he always stood for, after all. Always but that one time, and he’ll never make that mistake again.
But there is the matter of not actually being there.
Aida! He doesn’t know who that is, but he knows the tone of her voice - not a lover, but family, someone who was once in their care. A younger sibling? A child, perhaps? When he finally gets fully mad, he wonders, will he be the same? Calling the name of his firstborn, who might not be alive any more?
Before he can do anything, the vision changes; the deserts again. An eye roll follows, but then the palomino is challenged by a dark-coloured stallion (maybe he has a heat stroke as well). There’s hatred in her eyes, there’s pain in his, until the black male crushes the ribs of the mare and all the heated pain of his eyes turns to hatred for himself.
Leilan’s seen it. Felt it. It’s an all too familiar feeling.
Is this enough, mother? Ah. Mother. A mother who hates her son, a son who doesn’t know how else to get rid of the image of her hatred in her eyes.
There is a choice here, to save one of them. He feels it as he is taken back to the oasis and can take one step left or right; one towards a mirage of cliffs, one towards the desert ground.
It’s not an easy choice, but Anatomy was the easy one. This time when the scene plays out, she does react to little sounds he makes, to things she sees, even if she is mad and here to off herself.
”I did that, once.” His voice is calm, as if he was telling her a bedtime story. ”Needless to say it wasn’t a pleasant experience. There are better ways to go.” She stares at him and he at her, the past-Anatomy who doesn’t know who he is and frankly, even in the present they are practically strangers still. She on the edge, still ready to step over. If he moved towards her now, he knows she would go. Instead, he takes one step backwards, the river next to him, and lowers his head to the water. Not to drink, even if it seems so at first.
From the place where he near-touches the water, the fluid instantly freezes. Thick ice spreads across the river, ice cold fluid falls, until the fall is temporarily frozen. Why? Because a frozen river is as frozen time; lifting his head, ice blue eyes stare towards the dark mare a moment. ”Jumping off that edge won’t help Aida.” Now he walks towards her, across the ice, leaving her to think, probably, that he’s some sort of ghost, some sort of fairy (ha-ha), something strange, at least. A fidget of her imagination. But that’s the point. That’s exactly the point.
This time she stands still as he edges towards her, his cold-looking body before her and equally facing certain death, her mirror image. The ice beneath him is cracking, creaking, time and the river both threatening to start running again. Chunks of the cold stuff break loose from the waterfall, tumbling down deep into the abyss, showing her exactly which rocks she would hit on her way down.
He looks, she looks. Then he looks up and into her eyes. ”You would set an awfully bad example to her.”
So as she shakes her head, finally understanding that this won’t help, the waterfall breaks through the ice, and he goes down with it.
Oh, it’s only temporary, he knows. He’ll be back for the next part. All this, it’s probably not even real.
Besides, one of them had to go.</div><div class="Leilanname">Leilan</div><div class="Leilan-name-sub">no. 7 | ice forged in fire</div><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HJ5BtXG.jpg" class="Leilan-img"></div></center>
yes, he sort of died. don't worry, he's immortal, so he can be back before the next part of the quest.
It’s only a little bit, and not enough to stop the hallucinations. Transported like the first time, he finds himself staring at a mare looking desperate, a mare edging to a waterfall’s cliffside.
A mare he vaguely recognizes?
Yes, she was the Lost One in the forest. The one looking for the Deserts, which ironically he told her no longer exist, and yet is where he just came from. But when he walks up to her, she does not see him, does not hear him - a phantom is what he is to her, and when she teethers to the edge, he realizes that he isn’t here to change her past.
There is no saving in a memory.
Is there?
One can try - she needs an active choice, not a fever- or madness-induced one. Choices are what he always stood for, after all. Always but that one time, and he’ll never make that mistake again.
But there is the matter of not actually being there.
Aida! He doesn’t know who that is, but he knows the tone of her voice - not a lover, but family, someone who was once in their care. A younger sibling? A child, perhaps? When he finally gets fully mad, he wonders, will he be the same? Calling the name of his firstborn, who might not be alive any more?
Before he can do anything, the vision changes; the deserts again. An eye roll follows, but then the palomino is challenged by a dark-coloured stallion (maybe he has a heat stroke as well). There’s hatred in her eyes, there’s pain in his, until the black male crushes the ribs of the mare and all the heated pain of his eyes turns to hatred for himself.
Leilan’s seen it. Felt it. It’s an all too familiar feeling.
Is this enough, mother? Ah. Mother. A mother who hates her son, a son who doesn’t know how else to get rid of the image of her hatred in her eyes.
There is a choice here, to save one of them. He feels it as he is taken back to the oasis and can take one step left or right; one towards a mirage of cliffs, one towards the desert ground.
It’s not an easy choice, but Anatomy was the easy one. This time when the scene plays out, she does react to little sounds he makes, to things she sees, even if she is mad and here to off herself.
”I did that, once.” His voice is calm, as if he was telling her a bedtime story. ”Needless to say it wasn’t a pleasant experience. There are better ways to go.” She stares at him and he at her, the past-Anatomy who doesn’t know who he is and frankly, even in the present they are practically strangers still. She on the edge, still ready to step over. If he moved towards her now, he knows she would go. Instead, he takes one step backwards, the river next to him, and lowers his head to the water. Not to drink, even if it seems so at first.
From the place where he near-touches the water, the fluid instantly freezes. Thick ice spreads across the river, ice cold fluid falls, until the fall is temporarily frozen. Why? Because a frozen river is as frozen time; lifting his head, ice blue eyes stare towards the dark mare a moment. ”Jumping off that edge won’t help Aida.” Now he walks towards her, across the ice, leaving her to think, probably, that he’s some sort of ghost, some sort of fairy (ha-ha), something strange, at least. A fidget of her imagination. But that’s the point. That’s exactly the point.
This time she stands still as he edges towards her, his cold-looking body before her and equally facing certain death, her mirror image. The ice beneath him is cracking, creaking, time and the river both threatening to start running again. Chunks of the cold stuff break loose from the waterfall, tumbling down deep into the abyss, showing her exactly which rocks she would hit on her way down.
He looks, she looks. Then he looks up and into her eyes. ”You would set an awfully bad example to her.”
So as she shakes her head, finally understanding that this won’t help, the waterfall breaks through the ice, and he goes down with it.
Oh, it’s only temporary, he knows. He’ll be back for the next part. All this, it’s probably not even real.
Besides, one of them had to go.</div><div class="Leilanname">Leilan</div><div class="Leilan-name-sub">no. 7 | ice forged in fire</div><img src="https://i.imgur.com/HJ5BtXG.jpg" class="Leilan-img"></div></center>
yes, he sort of died. don't worry, he's immortal, so he can be back before the next part of the quest.
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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