"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
This night won’t be the first night Eyas has slept, but it’ll be the first night she dreams and that’s important to remember. Sleep for her is voidless, comforting. There’s nothing to keep her thoughts racing, no sight that would cause her eyes to jerk around underneath the closed lids. She thinks, lying down in a heather-blanketed section of Nerine, that tonight sleep will come easily and at first it does. The pegasus tucks herself in, wings close on either side to keep her warm, and she drops her head to her bent knees. The wind and the rich smell of ocean tang are the only things to keep her company. Her eyes begin to feel dry so she blinks, heavily, and then slowly they close altogether.
She’s surprised to find herself blinking awake only seconds later.
“What in the seven hells?” She murmurs, and the sound of her voice is as distant as if she were a thousand leauges beneath the sea. This isn’t sleeping. Whatever she is, wherever she is, Eyas doesn’t feel quite natural.
At first she looked around, curious about the similarities of this hazy world. The sight of it was like Nerine, all green and gray, but so was the sky. Clouds of a purple hue swam through a greenish sky and here it was quieter, close to perfectly silent. Everything felt so out of place but Eyas doesn’t fear it. She… feels familiar with her surroundings and knows she’s been here before just not in the exact same way. At the moment she’s too enamored with getting up and moving around, testing the grass with her hooves and the flexibility of her wings through the air. She doesn’t even realize why this feels so familiar, aside from the obvious.
Then it hits her: dreaming. She was dreaming.
The how and they why smack into her subconscious like a ton of bricks, almost ripping her away back to the technically ‘real’ world. She’s been here before, of course! Well not here in Nerine, more like here in a dream but not alone. Never alone. “@[Catcher].” The pony mare breathes a sigh of relief, and then louder, “Catcher?!”
“What makes you think I did this?” she asked, slowly fading into something substantial beyond the invisible wisp she had been a few seconds before. The young mare looks the same as she always had when her transformation finally solidifies, though the fire of her pelt had begun to smudge with grey and the small grin she wears makes her last question seem contrary,“Is it hard to believe that you might just be having a pleasant dream of your own?”
Catcher hadn’t meant to manipulate her way into Eyas’ dreams initially. But an ugly worry had been seeded at last encounter of theirs, where the pegasus had looked as though her dance with death was one act away from the final curtain drop. It appeared that there had been a disregard for her well-being, one that had been enough to spur the painted maiden to want to help brace against the weight of her friend’s burden - whatever that burden might be. So she had watched from a distance initially, taming the demons of nightmares back into silken darkness. Until that night, when struggle and distance and curiosity all proved to be too great. A particular heaviness had tested the bindings of her magic, and when a small flaw in her weaving had threatened to unravel the whole tapestry, the dreamer had been left with no other option than to stop minding her business and place herself alongside Eyas in their fabricated world.
Perhaps it was all for the best - she’d missed the silver tongued girl and she couldn’t deny she was happy to be there alongside her again shoulder to shoulder.
“It’s beautiful, through your eyes,” she says, moving her stormy gaze across the harsh cliffs and lacey skies. It’s not the first time that the piebald had seen Nerine, in fact her travels had directed her through the southern lands more times than she cared to recall, but the land definition here erred towards the too dramatic and problematic side for her taste. Plunging lines, coarse rock, and thrashing water was not a landscape friendly to vagabonds. But for the here and now in this world, it was a place of peace and promise. “Is that why you chose to come here? The scenery?”
-So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me-
She was sure the dream world was supposed to feel strange, but Eyas didn’t mind the pleasant surrealism or the wavy bend at the edge of her vision so much after @[Catcher] slipped out into the open. She felt oddly amused and laughed in a happy mood to see the distinctly marked mare. Not because she’d been right - it was Catcher’s place. No, Eyas laughed at hearing her friends sharp remarks and the way she’d pulled back an invisible curtain to reveal herself.
Reminded her of her own gift, looking without being seen at all.
“I came here for my great-grandmother.” The pegasus decided to cut quickly through a long reply. Catcher sounded curious, and her well-intended compliment struck Eyas in a strangely deeper way than her companion might’ve realized. Her black eyes glinted as they moved in tandem with Catcher’s, both females turning to appreciate what they’d made together. A false reflection of Nerine but incredibly real nonetheless. Eyas agreed: it was beautiful. “But she’s not here. Not anymore.” Eyas shrugged, holding back a sad grin.
The way she’d said it, that Heartfire wasn’t here anymore… it sounded hesitant. After all Eyas couldn’t know what had become of her relative, only what her vision (or lack thereof) showed her when she did reach out for confirmation. Nothing came back - like Gale, her brother, who’d passed away. Absently, the dream wind curled through her forelock and drug it gently over the buckskin’s dappled cheekbone and up against her black-rimmed ears, and Eyas swallowed a hard lump in her throat. There wasn’t any reason to lose hope, though. Heartfire had told her as much once. “The dead aren’t gone.” The black-and-tan mare remembered the Roan Queen saying that day in Taiga, long ago. “You just need to find the right pair of eyes.”
“Also these are my dreams miss nosey? The real question is: what’re you doing here?” Eyas squared her shoulders and wings, taking her eyes off the horizon and turning them on Catcher with a look of contempt.
As expected, it hadn’t been the coastal kingdom’s hazardous allure that had drawn Eyas here. Though stealing a glance at her now, the overo mare begins to think how well her friend fits atop the dramatic cliffs. This place had an aura of hidden power and stories as deep as the tallest drop into the ocean is high - an aura not unlike the one she sensed that followed the buckskin like an unseen shadow. Someday, maybe, Catcher might rouse the courage to ask her about it.
“I’m sorry, Eyas,” she says quietly. It’s hard to read the other’s emotion when she says it, but she lets it alone, settling on a simple offering and hoping it would be enough. “Is there something I can do to help you find her?” Losing track of a family member could be a hard pill to swallow, one she was beginning to understand all too uncomfortably well. The horned girl had difficulty in remembering how long ago it had been since she’d last set eyes upon her own parents. Feeling a pang of guilt that she hadn’t tried to find them sooner, she shakes out mane with a flutter of dried leaves falling to the ground.
The real question is: what’re you doing here?
A fair question.
She should’ve expected it - a part of her had expected it - but it was a sudden shot out of the blue and a turn of the tables and it’s enough to knock her off of her empathetic kilter. Catcher dares a look at the shifting pegasus who now looks back at her with such a strange look that she cannot stop her face from heating or her legs to stiffen under the sudden weight of embarrassment settling across her shoulders.
How could she possibly give her an honest answer when she didn’t fully understand how she’d come to be there either?
“I wanted to see you.” The admittance felt more right leaving her lips than it possibly could’ve felt as a fledgling thought in her mind. Maybe her subconscious wants had been at fault this whole time for this ‘fluke’, not a hiccup in her magic; it was one of the few times she’d allowed her mouth the grace to speak before her head could snuff its flame out. And so she ran with this epiphany, lifting a soft grey gaze up back up to Eyas from where it had fallen, letting her voice fan the spark just a little bit more, “The past couple of times we’ve run into each other has been by chance. I thought maybe it was time to find you.”
“But if you’d rather be alone I can leave you to your dream with no hard feelings, and I promise it’ll stay a nice one.” She smiles, unable to keep from dashing a small bit of mischief into her enlightened revelation, “I have to be a little selfish and tell you that I don’t really want to.”
-So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me-
Fuck. It’s always @[Catcher] that gets her feeling like this… like she misses who she used to be or something radical. Eyas isn’t sure, she can’t put her finger on it, but she damn well can’t ignore it when the lump blocks her throat and the offer of help - true help from someone who didn’t scare her off - leaves her momentarily speechless. She does consider it, whether or not Catcher could help her in tracking down Heartfire. Maybe there’s something in this ‘otherworld’ that can reveal a bit of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ plaguing the past Queen’s great-great granddaughter, or maybe their search would exhaust her friend’s abilities and lead them somewhere they don’t need to be searching. Gods no. Screw that. She wouldn’t dare risk Catcher’s life after the overo had risked her hide to help Eyas so many times before this one.
So the tiny buckskin deflects and turns the tables on her unexpected guest. Eyas reasoned things were easier that way; the less Catcher knew the better. There’s family bullshit going on and it doesn’t concern those who could easily be used against Eyas… which would mean she’d have to admit Catcher meant something to her. That fell under the ‘Screw That’ category. Too raw: better for her dream-snatching bestie to think Eyas was a paranoid freak. “Stay. Cool.” She breathes, realizing she’d been holding that air in for a bit too long.“STAY. COOL.” Eyas bit her tongue, feeling anxiety creeping in. Her effort to try and seem lackadaisical had backfired. Catcher wanted to see her, it turns out. And to put more heat on the flame burning in her dark eyes, Catcher would let her be if she wanted. Catcher would let her go and understand. Catcher would give her space. “Don’t go,” Eyas begged too quickly, dropping the tough act for a moment of vulnerability. The suggestion had barely left the ruddy, spotted mare’s mouth before she’d interrupted. “Please. Stay.” Was all Eyas had, then silence took over for a moment.
The pegasus mare stayed quiet and looked out toward the vast horizon. She lifted her chin and opened her nose, breathing in the smell of a dream she’s sure wouldn’t be complete when she woke up again. After estranging herself from family and Gale’s death, Eyas had been so confused and alone. Her hopes and dreams rested with Heartfire, who’d left before they could ripen into destiny. There wasn’t anyone aside from the unicorn she’d met so long ago in the Forest, and right now the vision manipulator needed her more than she’d ever be willing to admit. “I’ve known you so long and still feel like we’re strangers.” She admitted with a grin. “Can we… change that?”
EYAS
ooc: sorry for mistakes. This is wino Cal making up for sober Cal
02-23-2020, 04:42 PM (This post was last modified: 02-24-2020, 05:59 AM by Catcher.)
For a time it’s quiet, neither girl speaking or going so far as exhaling a breath. Though Catcher watches quietly through muddled grey eyes, solemnly swiveling a lone ear to the few words Eyas offers, she does not feel the prickle of impatience beneath her skin or the itch to press harder. Aside from the basics of survival and the occasional encounter with a friend, not much in this world is cause to bother her or steers her actions. She’s never known the devastation of heartbreak or significant loss or felt the suffocation of deepest fear. All things considered, the unicorn has had a pleasant existence in Beqanna compared to most and she doesn’t even know it.
But for what little drama there is in her life is made up for in time, and she has an abundance of that to give to her conflicted friend.
“ I don’t think I’ve seen you this quiet before,” she says breathing a long sigh of relief when Eyas asks her to stay. Unfortunately her ample time didn’t exempt her from the small bit of anxiety that had stayed wedged in her chest from wondering what she was going to do if the pegasus did ask her to leave. “I won’t press you but you need to know that my offer about helping you find your grandmother still stands.” That little tidbit that the buckskin mare had skipped over hadn’t gone completely unnoticed, and the dreamweaver’s somber expression when she speaks is difficult to uphold in light of the strange thud of her heart against her chest.
“That’s a dumb question,” she replies quickly in jest, a light giddiness effortlessly chasing away what was left of the severe mask she wore just seconds prior. Laughing, she halved the space between them before daring a reach to brush her ash stained muzzle across the winged woman’s black. “How do you want to go about changing that? Your dream, your rules.”
-So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me-
funny thing: when @[Catcher] said she would help, Eyas nearly felt that she meant it. The honesty behind the unicorn’s offer, even though she’d spoken gently, could be a brutal thing. Brutal enough to bring up the same feelings Eyas had nearly gotten a handle on swallowing down. So much for composure, she thought, sniffling and nodding her head. When she thought of a way Catcher could help, she’d let the fading chestnut mare know. Her concerns and heart were equally soothed for the moment, which made it easier to throw on a halfway smile and give the impression of being annoyed at being insulted.
Eyas couldn’t, however, bring herself to feign indifference towards Catcher’s sudden friendliness, or the way she was suddenly very close and touching her in only the exact way Eyas had hoped she would. She felt electrified by the idea of safely crossing an invisible threshold with the girl who seemed like a dream itself, confident now that a ‘friendship’ was growing. Eyas leaned into and shoved Catcher’s muzzle with her own, sweetly.
“You’re terrible at this, I want you to know.” The pegasus mare taunted and withdrew, appraising the way Catcher held herself. “For starters, spirit-dream-guides are supposed to look all mystic and possibly like an allusion? You went with… your normal self. I’m disappointed.” She snickered through her black lips. “Is this how you always show yourself in other’s dreams?” Eyas asked, intending to maintain the attitude but dropping it halfway through out of genuine curiosity.
“Yeah?” the painted mare replied, the hint of a smirk growing wildly on her lips. “I didn’t realize you were an expert on dream escapades. But okay. If you insist.”
In the blink of an eye the dreary gray landscape of Nerine bled away, revealing a darkness deep enough in its allowance to show off the stars in all their blinding glory. The teals, pinks, and purples of the aurora swayed lazily above Hyaline’s tallest peak where Eyas remained standing. Catcher had faded away with the Northern kingdom’s facade, but when she reappears, hovering just off the side of the mountain’s edge, her color is as pitch and depthless as the sky that she was made in the image of. Her mane, long and smooth now, flowed in billowed waves behind her, and the former gray of her eyes shone as pure and bright as the stars overhead.
“Is this better?” she prodded, her voice only slightly above a whisper against the pegasus’s shoulder.
In spite of the sudden change and the friendly mocking, the dreamweaver hadn’t forgotten Eyas’s last question before she’d launched them into the sky. In a way it struck a hidden chord, making her consider her friend’s question thoughtfully, carefully, and revealing a truth that she hadn’t known was there. Manipulating the world of dreams was simple - requiring only a clear thought and a vivid imagination, but seeking out specific dreams, that was something else entirely. It took recognition, patience, and a will to find a dreamer’s mind otherwise hidden to all else and something that should remain sacred to those that possessed them.
Touching down to match a parallel stance to Eyas, her shoulder brushed lightly against the downy feathers of the young mare’s wing. “I only purposefully go into the dreams of the people I care about.” She might’ve just made that realization, but it certainly didn’t make it any less true. And then, because she sincerely hoped she hadn’t just ruined the lighthearted mood they had just shared before, “What do you normally dream about? I really hope it’s something a little more interesting than Nerine’s boring cliffs.”
-So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me-
Eyas had lived for a while on icicle isle and every night she’d had the pleasure of seeing the ribboning color of lights play across the night sky. They were lovely - teal, magenta, sometimes aqua blue as well - and they fascinated her. She’d spent so many sleepless hours standing there, freezing, watching the sun slip past the horizon in anticipation of the nightly display. @[Catcher] took her to them in an instant; Eyas blinked and they’re on top of Hyaline’s most ragged peak, looking up into an impossibly dark sky where the stars had tangled themselves into the same nightlights Eyas watched over and over again.
It was… beautiful.
She wanted to question how long they could stay here, but when Eyas turned back to look at Catcher her friend had disappeared, replaced by the galactic entity hovering in the air nearby. Catching her breath, Eyas blinked a few times just to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. Could it really be the same mare? This dream, it felt so real and alive to Eyas. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to wake up again. There was the fear that reality would make everything seem impossible. Eyas was afraid she would wake up and not be able to prove that Catcher had really been with her.
“Much.” She only laughed, when asked if this version was the better one. Catcher alighted on the ground near where Eyas had been left standing, her ethereal hooves blending into the earth. The once-painted mare was hard to look away from: every section of her body seemed alive and moving in a delicate, otherworldly dance. “Oh…” Was all she could muster in response at first, and then, “I don’t really ‘dream’.”
It was so hard not to focus on how close Catcher was. All Eyas had to do was lean into her shoulder a bit; her satiny black-and-white wings flattened when they met the resilience of Catcher’s dream-body. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you, but my powers involve seeing what others see. When I dream, I see nothing - and it’s a great relief.” Eyas sighed. She smiled warily, unsure of how Catcher would handle this news. No doubt she’d put two and two together, so Eyas decided to do her best at reassuring her friend.
“I haven’t looked through you, I promise. I can only do it to the willing: the horses who look into my eyes with questions, or the ones I’ve bonded myself with.” She thought of her family, and Santana. Then she bit her tongue. Perhaps she shouldn’t…? But maybe she should. “I… am kind of bonded to you.” Eyas admitted with chagrin.
“But it was an unconscious decision; we were just kids. I didn’t know what I was doing, back then.” She did her best to explain, shuffling around the rocky ledge. “I would never betray your privacy, Catcher. But I do feel you with me… always.” Eyas smiled a brittle grin.
05-11-2020, 10:36 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2020, 07:57 AM by Catcher.)
As the constellations unravelled and re-wrote itself on an endless loop surrounding them, she felt…different. Not a bad different at all, just content in a sense she hadn’t experienced before, or dreamt possible. This was unlike the happiness in the cherished memories she held of Abysm showing her the world of dreams for the first time, or Kerrigan teaching her how to hunt rodents and insects, or meeting and trying to help new friend along the way. This was something exciting and unexplored and promising, and thinking about it made her heartbeat inexplicably quicken in her chest.
“Like Look-See?” She asked after a few moments of quiet while straightening her stance. In front of them suddenly sprawls the woods, and a young Catcher finding a young Eyas curled protectively in a ball. The memory impossibly feels like decades ago and somehow like it had happened just yesterday simultaneously, but that first chance encounter with her longest friend held such a heavy prominence in her mind from that point on, and she was just only beginning to understand why.
She felt it too.
“I believe you, Eyas, and actually, you can look if you’d like to,” she offers, turning a shining silver gaze at the pegasus while the memory of the two fillies faded, “I wouldn’t mind.”. Truth be told, there wasn’t a whole lot to digest in her visions from the past, just the many faces she’d met and come to befriend along the way: her mother, father, grandmother, Tana, Pteron, Firen, and more… All pleasant for the most part.
But nothing like what was happening now, how she’s suddenly aware of how her shoulder craved to feel the smoothness of Eyas’ feathers again, and how her body seemed to want to lean just enough to feel the faux heat of her golden coat. And then consciously, giving into that craving, the night stained mare gently rested against the broad side of the pegasus, careful in her placement not to bar the other woman’s contrasting wings for her to move away if she so desired. Though the dreamer fervently, selfishly hoped against that.
“I hope that your feeling me with you always is a good thing,” the weaver responds, casting a bright smile to bolster Eyas’ brittle one. “And I’m glad we’re ‘kind of’ bonded,” she started slowly and softly, her midnight lips hovering just shy of the spot where the curve of her jaw blended with her neck, “But I wonder, can that become more than ‘kind of’?”
