[open] Watch it all fall out.

[Padme]

“Here.” City’s frosted voice is low, subtle like the sand in an hour glass, but sharp enough for her daughter’s ears to pick it up. The pair of mares traveled together from the riverbanks where they’ve been for some months now. Padme was born on the Mountain and has spent her whole life following closely behind her mother, listening, watching, and mostly listening. And now the Field, the rite of passage almost every Beqannian citizen does at least once if not hundreds of times. The mother, pale and scarred, blood stains painting her face beneath her distant yellow eyes, gives only a gentle nudge of her muzzle to the tobiano’s shoulder before spinning away and disappearing into the ether.

Padme looks onto the expanse of rolling emerald hills with a stone in her gut. It isn’t optimism she feels, but dread. Its apparently something her mother requires of her, or the world requires it of her, or something – she isn’t sure, but she surely has no interest in it. Talk to strangers? Yuck. Find a place to permanently stay? Gross. Adopt friends and acquaintances? No freakin’ thank you…but alas…here she is.

She’s been delivered like a ham for easter. Standing there nervously in the rose-gold light of a quickly fading afternoon she looks as uncomfortable as she feels. It would be a fool’s errand to take her for truly being alone, for her mother surely lurks in the shadows, and will no doubt follow whomever tries to lead her daughter away. 

PADMÉ
the high black water, the devil's daughter

8

so padme needs a home
her mom made her do this
city is lurking somewhere close and is likely to follow, if thats otay 
and anywhere but icicle isle is cool beans <3

[jamie]

It is such a terribly long journey. The breathing is thin and labored by the time he reaches the Field, the chest heaving and the ribs aching. What a feeble thing he is, compressed darkness, and when he bleeds the blood is black, too. He is hardly a child now and the legs ache with all the growing he’s done, the process faster for a shadow thing than it has been for his sister, and he might have been handsome if he’d been given the chance. He might have looked like his sister, who looked like their mother, who looked like their father. But he is a shadow thing and he hardly has a face at all.

She is the first thing he sees, standing there all alone, and fog coils around his legs as he moves toward her. Slow. Feeble. There is nothing threatening about all that darkness despite how unnerving those big, round eyes and those sharp, sharp teeth. But he smiles, placid, as he stops just short of her. The breath is still labored, the chest still heaving. Such a terribly weak thing. There is something empty in the smile, something odd in the way he tilts his head.

“Hello,” he says and the voice is thin, too. “My name is Jamie,” he tells her, though she hasn’t asked. He has met enough wayward souls in Pangea to know that it’s polite to introduce yourself. He studies her a moment, thinks her roughly the same age as he and his twin sister. So, he blinks those big yellow eyes and asks, “are you lost?”

Because his sister is certainly too young to be in a place like this, so she must be, too.

from the destruction, out of the flame

you need a villain, give me a name

@[Padme]

[Padme]

There is a moment of suspended time between them as they lock stares. Hers is like amethyst glass, almost lavender in the evening light. She doesn’t move, only flicking her ears up and eyes widening a little to take in the approaching shadowman and the curling fog creeping in with him. He approaches sort of slow, like he is tired, like he might collapse at any moment. She can hear him breathe, so he is a living being at least. Still though, something isn’t quite right.

His introduction hangs in emptiness for a moment. The breeze rustles the leaves and bends the long grasses, and with a hesitant exhale she finally speaks, “No.” she squints, her soft voice cannot manage to be sharp or cold like her mother. It doesn’t slice, but pours. “Padmé.” she tilts her head to the side, trying to get some sort of read on what he might be…

“Are you?” suddenly it seems like a good question to ask.

PADMÉ
the high black water, the devil's daughter

8

@[jamie] <3

[jamie]

She is not lost, but she looks it.
And he cannot help but wonder what this means. He slinks a little closer, tilts his peculiar head, studies her pretty face. That soft, soft voice like the fine hide of a rabbit. It folds around him easy, makes him shudder. He is a cold thing, not used to all that warmth.

“Padmé ,” he echoes, but his voice sounds nothing like hers. It’s soft, certainly, but soft like fog. Thin, like his father’s.

She turns the question on him and the only indication of his smile is the flash of those sharp, sharp teeth. Because the mouth is dark and it blends in with the rest of him and he exhales something that might have sounded like a laugh if only he were someone else, somewhere else.

“No,” he says and shakes his dark head without drawing those wide yellow eyes away from her face. “Are you looking for a home?” he asks after a single pulse of silence, the stare unnerving. “I can offer you someplace to stay,” he continues, “should you need one.”

from the destruction, out of the flame

you need a villain, give me a name

@[Padme]

[Padme]

He is….creepy. The way he moves, the way you cannot hear him breathing, or smell him on the shifting air. Padmé can only smell something akin to the scent of fresh rain, of a fog after chilly showers fade and a warm sun comes. As he draws near, his voice emitting ghoulishly, the hair on her spine stiffens and a cold shiver runs through her.

His eyes, his sharp teeth, his eerie voice ̶ everything about this smelled like a trap. She looks around, over each dark shoulder, her mother is nowhere in sight. She tosses her tail nervously, his next question brings her head to a tilt curiously. That is exactly what she’s here for, turns out.

She swallows hard, her mouth suddenly dry. “Yes,” she exhales, blinking anxiously, “I do.” she isn’t quite wise enough to ask about it before she agrees, taking a step forward. She would wonder once they were on their way, once it was too late. Silly girl.

Her mother does lurk. A jaguar crouched quietly in the darkness. She will follow her daughter and this...creature to wherever he takes her ̶ and, later, she will thoroughly scorn her daughter for being too dull to ask more questions of this shadowman offering her a home.

PADMÉ
the high black water, the devil's daughter

8

because i am impatient and she truly is a little naive thing, this is her first trip to the field XD
feel free to do the next post in Pangea (or wherever they're going haha)
@[jamie]