"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
04-01-2020, 02:53 PM (This post was last modified: 04-01-2020, 03:12 PM by Levi.)
Levi didn't know how the witch had found him, but once she had, she hadn't stayed long. The midnight-blue unicorn had passed him the weanling and declined his offer of "stay the night?" without breaking stride. She had turned to go and tossed some awful name for the child over her shoulder, and he had frowned. He didn't remember that name now, but he had called the girl Coal.
After that, it seemed that returning to Tephra was the obvious thing to do. His boyhood home had maintained a constant pull on him over the years, one that led him towards the distant smell of smoke whenever he didn't know where to turn. He was getting tired of keeping on eye on the filly all the time, and the support system a well-organized kingdom offered would allow him some relief. Hopefully, there would be a few younglings to entertain her... hopefully, some mare would develop a fondness for the wild little thing.
His chest constricts when he thinks of the women he had left in Tephra, it had almost been enough to keep him away. But the pull of the land itself was more powerful, and no matter what he told himself, discomfort wasn't the only thing he felt when his mind traced the lines of their beautiful faces.
Days pass, but finally the soft scent of pine is lost in the offensive, balmy cocktail of spring in the tropics.
Under the cover of dusk, the mismatched pair follow the coast until the volcano smokes at their back as they face west. A little more at ease, Levi allows them to halt for the night, just as a chill was binning to creep across the sand. His broad head turns to peer into the jungle behind them, thinly veiled suspicion easy to read as the flames of his mane dance across his face, just of the sound of splashing and laughter reaches him.
"Coal," he calls in a low grumble as her little dark head bobs out of sight. She was already running out of the ocean and up the shore, "come back, now."
She listens, though not as quickly as he would like, and returns to him dripping ocean water with mouth-full of twigs.
"I want to go look around, now," she says, dropping her find. "Tomorrow." He returns, without hesitation. "Please?" "No." "Why?"
Silence.
"Well, then you have to tell me a story... one about the Volcano."
There is no response, but a fire sparks where she had dropped her pile of twigs. This was their ritual: he keeps the fire burning until she falls asleep, and she stays within the glow of its light.
"There was a tall, black mare," he begins, his voice is low and soft, so she almost had to hold her breath to hear him.
The story rambles on - the language is not beautiful and the plot is only mediocre. But Coal listens, not recognize either of these things, and it is not long before her head dips down into the sand, and Levi is left silently staring into the flames.
Levi
so scream you, out from behind the bitter ache.
i got carried away with this starter so don't feel like you have to match this post for length <3
It is not often that the red and bone mare can be found away from her family - especially in the evening when sleep should be beginning to settle over quiet minds. But there is a restlessness in her heart lately, an unease she cannot name, a feeling she cannot place. It finds her when she is at her quietest, growing in the moments sleep makes her limbs feel heavy and her mind feel gentle. It comes in place of dreams, in place of the contentment she usually finds nestled beside her favorite shade of grey.
The sky is just as it always is, and swears she has every single constellation memorized. She watches it for a long while, having wandered towards the ocean for the breathtaking view it always provides. There is very little quite as humbling as standing in shadow at the edge of endless water while it reflects the black and diamond sky forever.
She might’ve stood there for hours, just listening to the quiet shoosh of waves against the sand, the soft clatter of shells and driftwood washed ashore. But a voice catches her attention, an unfamiliar one with a note of begrudging affection that makes her smile for its familiarity. She opens her eyes - though she hadn’t recalled closing them, and turns to follow the voice like a leaf caught in a current of gentle wind.
She finds them with a gentle smile, those seagreen eyes so soft and gentle as she watches a father tell his daughter a story in the orange glow of firelight. It is an awkward moment to stumble across though, and for a long while she is left hidden in the shadows so as not to startle them. But the longer she stays, the stranger it feels, and just as she considers slipping away again, the story ends.
Her breath sounds loud in this brand new quiet, and she knows at once that he will notice her without a story to preoccupy himself. So she takes a step forward, out of the shadow and into the firelight, her delicate head bowed gently in an almost appeasing gesture. She means to make herself seem as unstartling as possible, but what she has forgotten in so much time spent with a family so good at loving her, is that she is frightening.
She is pale copper and silvery gold hair, soft sea green eyes the color of warm oceans. There is white on her legs and over most of her face, sweeping low over either cheek, and it shines pearlescent in the soft ethereal glow of her illuminated body. Even her hooves are pearl, bright and beautiful and enameled with so much soft, shy color. There are red flowers in her mane and tail, and even more twining in the branches of her antlers. She might have been beautiful if not for the bleeding protrusions of bone spread like armor over her delicate body.
“I don’t mean to intrude.” She whispers, and her voice, though soft, does little to soften the lines of red that spill down her chestnut skin, or the way the bone plate across her face is stained rust around all those crisp white edges. “I couldn’t sleep and heard your story.” There is so much gentleness in her face as she looks down at the sleeping girl, then back up at the bay man - and then soft surprise as she realizes there is only flickering flame where his mane and tail should be. “Do you know any stories of small chestnut mares?” She asks, that smile almost shy on her face.
His story fades off, and the sounds that rise to fill its absence are potent reminders of his past. The rhythmic hiss and crash of the waves, the crackle of the embers dying down, they are heartbreakingly familiar and warm - a bittersweet balm on his weary soul. He is often practical, but as he lays in front of the fire with his unfocused gaze cast towards the horizon, the press of so many memories on beaches just like this one is not something even he can resist. One memory stands out above the rest, one with a beautiful blue girl and a shy smile that had brought him to his knees. The moon had been a sharp sickle crescent on that night too, he remembers, but he hadn't had eyes for it as he does tonight.
He too had been given a chance for a family, dysfunctional yet no less meaningful. But he had let it slip away from him, he had no one to blame but himself. Rapture had been everything he wanted, he had dreamed of her for years. Yet, when the ugly, broiling storm in his breast has risen, he had ridden its winds wherever they took him, and they had taken him far from home. But the sound of someone approaching, soft breath just off-beat of the churning ocean, pulls him back to the present.
Levi's weight shifts as he turns to look back over his shoulder, mistrust and suspicion are easy to read on his face although he had planned to keep a stoic calm. The firelights dances across the points of the stranger's armor, and as his eyes look out into the dark that is all he sees. She is a constellation of her brightest points and reflected firelight, distilled down to her summits, and he doesn't want his vision to adjust. But he invites her closer with a gesture of his broad head, and spares a glance for his daughter, still sound asleep.
The stranger steps into the firelight, and finally more of her is revealed. Her mannerisms offset any discomfort he may have felt at her appearance, he was well acquainted with unfriendly greetings and a harmless exterior was just as likely to be hiding terrible power as any monster.
He had returned to Tephra to be interrupted, to be found. He could have wasted years more in the common lands, and he may have if it weren't for Coal. That the intrusion comes in the form of a gentle whisper and a soft, almost smile sets his mind, and body, at ease.
They have more in common then they know - all these feelings they can not name, or maybe just feelings they are afraid to look at. This could be what keeps him looking at her instead, what keeps him grounded where he lays and hoping she will join him.
"I can only tell one story per night," he replies, but his voice never regains the gruffness he usually placed between himself and new faces. "It's policy. If I break the rules once, that one will never let me rest." Another gesture, but this time to his daughter, and his mismatched eyes never leave Wonder's face.
"But If you're here to pass the time, I would like to hear that story of the chestnut mare."
She is relieved when he invites her closer to the circle of his small family and the fire smoldering like a tamed sun at his feet. He doesn’t even stare for all that long considering this is likely the first time he’s met anyone who wears her bones on the outside of her body. In fact, she cannot detect even an ounce of surprise or disgust, just that single glance as he takes her in like she is one of the plainest creatures he has ever laid eyes on, and for a moment she wonders if he cannot see well.
It’s tempting to ask him if that’s the case, and maybe that feeling is reflected in the delicate lines of a bone-bright face and shadows made from the rust of dried blood. Even her brow furrows, though that too is hidden beneath bone and forelock and a tangle of antlers. She is so delicately confused, bewildered by what can only be described as kindness, that she nearly thanks him for not recoiling when she stepped into the firelight.
But she holds her tongue.
And she is glad for her choice when that almost-smile slips across his mouth and suddenly hers curves too in a silent echo. “She has a point though,” Wonder finds herself saying, easing forward another step into the warmth of the smoldering flames, “one story is hardly enough. It would be so much easier to rest after two, I think.” Her expression stays so gentle, and that wonderment never quite fades from the seafoam shade of those faded teal eyes as they rest quietly against the lines of his face.
Her eyes widen though, sudden and surprised, when he asks to hear the story of a chestnut mare, of herself. She likely should’ve known her words would lead to him asking, but truth be told her interactions seldom got this far. She blinks and takes an uncertain step back, her eyes so soft and almost a shade of worried. What could he possibly want to know about her? Certainly not about her ghosts, not nightmare things - she pushes those thoughts far away as she glances down at the little sleeping child.
Still, when her gaze returns to his face it is gentle and uncertain, and she finds herself looking for comfort in those mismatched eyes of his. “I’m afraid the only story I know is a bit boring.” But only because she is specifically leaving out the painful bits. “Of a small chestnut mare with a few too many bones and a family she loves dearly. Six children, two of which were born as wolves but are very much horses -” and she smiles, shaking her head as she remembers that moment. “She lives with her family in the shadow of the volcano, and she is happier than she ever thought she deserved to be.”
It is the use of the word deserved that ultimately quiets her again, because a careful man might wonder what happened in her life to make her think she didn’t deserve to be happy. “And what of you? I don’t suppose you have a story to share with me? I might even settle for just a name.”
But he is years older than he looks, blessed with immortality and old enough to have seen monsters who smiled and demons who stretched out a helping hand. He has walked aimlessly for too many thousands of miles alone to shun any woman with a gentle smile, no matter her other features.
But it is good she does not press him on this, not at first, for he did not fully understand it. He only knew that the softness of her stance and the gentle caress of her voice made him want her near. She soothed something in him that roiled and burned too hot, and made him forget the way the darkness crept in all around him.
His question spooks her, and for a moment he fears she is leaving. She fights a quiet battle, and he watches it play out across the fire-lit angles of her ghostly face. But then her eyes lift to his, and the concern he forgot to hide is gone.
Her answer is evasive, but there is enough truth in it to satisfy him. Ghosts are hiding between the lines of her story, he doesn't miss that, but he doesn't feel the need or right to press for more. The things left unsaid are enough to make him curious: enough to comfort him that she will not balk if he were to suggest the ghosts in his own story. There are threads of their lives that sound alike, and he smiles with her as she mentions the wolf pups. His own pups probably had struck off on their own by now, but their mother - he wasn't so sure she would have ever left.
"Do you know a girl, painted and blue, named Rapture?" Another woman who had made him wonder why he ever wanted to be alone, who had spoken soft words across his skin until he knew he would die for her. But fate never called him to such drastic action, and he had failed at much lesser tasks.
He too had been happier than he deserved to be, and he had turned it to ash.
Shadows of thoughts like this complicate the formerly content expression on his face, the flames that dance along his body flaring angrily before he draws a deep breath into his lungs. But her final question draws him from the shadows he is falling into, and he returns his tired eyes to her face.
"Levi," he replies, trying to hide the way he is suddenly feeling. "Once Heir, once soldier. Once hunted and five times a father - but not a very good one."
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