"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
05-04-2020, 05:47 PM (This post was last modified: 05-04-2020, 05:47 PM by Zylah.)
The frigid chills of the winter air did little to comfort the filly as she shivered beneath the cave ceilings she'd been sheltered in for the however many number of days she had been here, now traumatized as she was after being swept up by the storm and carried far from her home. Never before had she wished so much to once again be a foal, to nuzzle up to her dam's side and suckle the warm milk to fill her belly before tucking on for sleep, knowing there was such a strong presence to watch over her.
A presence... no longer of this world...
The sound of the crashing waves brought Zylah back from the memories of the past, the filly looking around, alert, her nostrils flared to try and pick out what didn't smell right. Things seemed to be okay here, for now, and despite the small measure of security hiding in a cave that hopefully not many knew existed, Zylah couldn't, didn't want to, stay here forever.
But she was tired... so, so tired, from fighting the thrashing waves and the rain pouring down over her. Even after having been on land, she was chilled to the bone, grateful for the winter coat that had grown in prior to this fiasco. All she wanted was rest, but hunger stabbed at her belly like a hungry feline predator, and Zylah's more basic need outweighed her wish to rest.
She still took her time to leave the cave, worried the waves would eat her alive again. However, they did nothing more that lick at her hooves like a hungry foal, leading the filly to realize that the ocean must have receded as she sometimes saw it do in her time here based on where the sun was in the sky. Deciding to not risk getting trapped, the filly hurried off of the beach and up onto the land where the sand turned to dirt, or, in this case, snow.
When the white powder surrounded her hooves, a shiver ran through her again, reminding Zylah that she would need to find shelter after she ate. Still, the naive one couldn't help the spark that lit up her eye when she glimpsed the vast landscape stretching out before her, hardly disturbed except for where a stray horse might have wandered in search of adventure. Upon closer inspection, smaller holes in the snow were there too, most likely the smaller animals that made burrows in the ground and tree roots so they could endure the winter's sleep.
When her eye caught the horizon as far as she could see it in the winter's stretch, a flame of excitement burned in her veins until the filly could no longer take it. She burst forth in a powerful gallop, her ebony form speckled with frost and snow kicked up by her display.
She pushed forward as hard as she could, wanting to really run, but finding it a bit difficult in this area since the snow layer was quite tall. But the further inland she moved, the shallower it became, and soon, she was racing over the land, her eyes locked on the big stretch of meadow she could see not far away.
Zylah crested a small hill that would lead down into the meadow, and when she reached the top, she stared down at the wonder before her. Her nostrils were flared as she stood proud, her eye scanning the terrain. Small cliques of horses, not quite herds, were scattered throughout the landscape, trying to pick through the snow for the grass underneath. Some of them looked to have bigger bellies than others, a sight that brought fonder memories to the somber filly.
No, she couldn't think about that now. There was far too much to see!
With a happy whinny, the filly loped down the small hillside and through the meadow to take it what it had to offer. Though greatly masked by the snow, she could pick out sections between the trees on the far side that seemed to go off into the woods, well worn paths marking the way. A large lake stretched out to the side of her, along with a mountain lining the other side so that the lake was flanked by both hills and the meadow. Though not completely frozen over, the water wasn't falling at a rapid pace either. It must be partially frozen either further upstream where the water came down the mountain, or was starting to freeze as it fell over the cliff thanks to the frigid temperatures.
The filly was careful to watch the ground so that she wouldn't accidentally go hindquarters over hooves into the lake by stepping through any ice, so she slowed down the closer she got to the waterfall. The snow was chipped away by her hooves until she was on the bank, and she lowered her fine head, sniffing the ground to check for anything her instincts deemed suspicious.
When she figured there was no trouble, she moved her muzzle closer to the water, lowering it slowly in case her muzzle came in contact with ice. Not feeling it, the filly dipped her muzzle in to take a long drink, doing her best to ignore the frigid cold running down her throat.
Hunger stabbed at her belly again, and Zylah turned away from the lake, knowing she had to find something to eat. Copying some of the other horses, along with how her dam taught her, the filly scraped at the ground with her hoof, leaning down to nibble on the grass once she'd found some. The snow on her back had melted away by now, leaving her coat it's usual silky black, the color bright against the wintry backdrop
OOC: Zylah is free to be claimed by a herd stallion or recruited by a kingdom.
05-05-2020, 06:30 AM (This post was last modified: 05-05-2020, 06:31 AM by Chemdog.)
Hunting the Field’s drifting grasses and aspen hollows has a different feel now that he’s on the barren Isle. He’s been so busy looking for food, scouting for food, fighting for food, planning around food, ̶ he’s had no time at all to tend to his diminished collection of women he’s always been fond of keeping. He’s always had a concubine or two, sometimes four or five, he’s always loved the feel of a girl against him, under him, beside him; he craves it again.
There’s been a small lull, winter has been exceptionally easy for the band of stallion’s in the north. Well, easy compared to what it could be without the assistance of some more lush territories...and a little force. This small break allows Chemdog to slink away for a week or so and go south to do some more scouting for the Isle and himself.
His bulky form is starting to fill back out, the gray hairs that pepper his hide starting to fade away. His health is returning, and his immortal blood lets his body recover from the aging it naturally wants to do. Each time his health depletes, his age shows, his bones poke from under his black hide, his eyes fade and his coat starts to gray in certain spots. Being in the north with no food had him looking shabby for the summer and fall, but winter has brought him back, the revival of the Isle has been hard on him but with some of the band’s recent discoveries in the west, he’s looking much better. Almost back to his normal self.
He watches her from the shelter of some closely huddled balsam trees. They hide his hulking black form fairly well, the snow on the long arms of the pines matching the bone-white splash across his broad face; he is camouflaged while he spies. It may be that he’s quite found out already, he would not mind much, it would not change his approach at all.
“I know of some much better grazing….” he grins, standing closely behind her suddenly. She may have spotted him walking around the hills and coming up behind her, again, he wouldn’t mind that much, he would still sneak up from behind her and stand too close, close enough to reach his nose out and touch her (which he does not do, for now). He looks down at her with bright teal eyes, trouble most assuredly brewing behind them, a crooked grin on his black lips.“I’m Chemdog.” his smile straightens, but there is still something bad about it.
chemdog
astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
chem would love to whisk her away to icicle isle! =D
@[Zylah] ❤️
05-05-2020, 06:42 AM (This post was last modified: 05-05-2020, 07:12 AM by Aodhan.)
Aodhán
Ischia’s winters are no different from her springs and falls, and going to the shore always brings a certain chill, except perhaps if he were to visit Loess in summer - or Tephra. But despite a summer heat, no climate is ever exactly a match to his home, no matter how close some might come. Yes, it is home now; he’d tried many a year with the Pampas, but after the debacle for leadership so long ago, he never felt that he was trusted by the lead mare, despite both their efforts.
He’d been dormant there - not what he could be.
What he was, what he could be, what he had wanted to be and have was a herd. A small one, really; he hadn’t any great ambitions, but he wanted a few people close to him, a family. That’ he now could grow in Ischia - part of the family he shared with Eva and her other mate, Velkan. Part of it he shared with Carwyn, though she always claimed to belong to another. It was complicated and yet the gold-spotted knabstrup hybrid thought it was simple enough - one did what one desired in the moment, with the one or ones who were closest to them, and if that meant that all of their ties were criss-crossed lines that no other could make sense of, then so be it. It wouldn’t bother the handsome baroque, as long as no one else got hurt. And it was the latter condition that saved him a lot of trouble, that had caused him and Eva to truly come to the understanding they had long since needed.
Life was good on Skye, the small island she had given him to nurture. He’d shown Aeolus around already, though his son was not of the age to stick around with his dad so long, these days. And now a sibling was on their way, and although Aodhán could not help but think it would be Eva’s last for a while, it was the best feeling in the world that he knew, to be expecting.
Still, he left Ischia a little more often these days. He’d visited his ever-growing family in Nerine, a little shocked to find his sister had birthed twins - but then, he had children too she hadn’t known about. Nowadays, he figured that the Field and the common lands would also provide great opportunity - perhaps, after all, he should do his share to keep Ischia a blossoming territory, the land abundant with horses; the sanctuary that the nereids had built on the warm, white-sanded shores needed not only preserving, but new members as well.
He still half-regrets going in the winter season, however; he activates a magic inside of him that he’d not needed for a long time; glowing and radiating heat like a flame, he starts looking around to spy if there was anyone alone.
Or just in need of a bit of warmth, you know?
He doesn’t immediately find a lonely horse upon entering the Field, but that doesn’t deter the spotted male. He makes his way over to the waterfall, finding it half-frozen, and seems to stare at it almost longingly before turning away from it - a reminder of a past almost forgotten, as fuzzy as the memory of his fire trait, the memory of his birthplace might be.
But he hasn’t come here for the past, he’s here to help make a future. It may be fate, he thinks then, that the moment he turns around with that thought in the back of his mind, his eye falls on the dark young mare nearby.
She’s pretty, in a way he hasn’t seen for a time; lots of horses he knows in Ischia are wildly coloured, he himself actually one of the least. She’s not plain however, as her dark coat is shiny through the snowflakes. Now, he has snowflakes on his own and not at all natural ones like hers, but Aodhán thinks it might be good that he draws no more attention through those, right now. His metallic gold spots where perhaps brown or black ones should have been, and the fact that he is currently glowing as a side effect of keeping himself warm (and possibly his close surroundings), are quite enough.
When he approaches, another beats him to it - standing closer to her than the spotted male has been taught to be polite, but so be it; that didn’t mean she was claimed just yet. It would be nice to offer her a choice, then, he supposed. Tell her that, if she did not want to be a herd mare, Ischia was... perhaps a little more free-thinking than most places.
His green eyes light up with an energetic sparkle that would be familiar to those who know him; ready for play, a little mischief if needed, or just his bubbling personality being a whirlwind that one could step into. He closes the distance between them easily, looking up to the extremely-large male almost fleetingly, and suppressing the urge to match his height - his birth-height matched the young mare’s, after all. ”Hello there. I’m Aodhán, of Ischia; decidedly warmer than the Field in winter. I was wondering if you wanted any help with that?” he proposes, nodding to the way she scrapes at the snow to find the underlying grass stalks. And indeed, behind him, he has trailed quite a few hoofprints of perfectly round marks - of melted snow.
The filly can only inwardly curse as she realizes she had left herself vulnerable enough for a stallion to get as close as this one had. Not only that, but so close that Zylah so much as had to flick her tail and it would brush up against the black and white spotted coat he sported that stretched over his muscles.
Luckily, Zylah had not lifted her head, so unless the stallion lowered his to meet her at eye level, there was no way he could've seen yet. The filly was quick to brush her head against her foreleg, making it seem like she was absently scratching at an itch, when in reality she was doing all she could to help put her forelock in place so that it blocked out her milky white right eye. When she felt it was sufficient enough, she lifted her blue eye to meet the stallion, to get a better look at him, but was careful to keep her head turned just enough.
She turned her body so she didn't feel her space intruded on; it hadn't been pleasant to suddenly see such a large stallion standing positioned behind her hindquarters. The filly couldn't help but flick her tail in slight irritation as she moved her body out of the way of his 'grabby' hooves it seemed, watching him with a calculated gaze.
The stallion tells the filly he knows of better grazing than what she is getting here, but any opportunity of food would sound ideal for a hungry equine right about now. Zylah couldn't let her basic needs overcome her instinct to survive and avoid trouble. Right now, looking at the stallion, despite his more relaxed posture compared to her tense one, something just didn't feel right.
His eyes are several shades brighter than hers, not unlike a blue in color, but with more green that caused it to appear between the two. They were watching her with the gaze of a hungry stallion, and by that, in the sense that Zylah figured she knew what he wanted.
Despite the danger lurking behind those eyes however, the stallion surprises her by introducing himself before making any other sudden moves. This leaves the filly momentarily floored; was he not subject to the same behavior as many other stallions back in her homeland? The ones she remembered at least? Hardly, if any, a ward exchanged between mare and stallion before the latter would begin snapping at the former's hindquarters and flanks to make her move toward the herd, and wouldn't let her venture far out before it became clear the mare accepted her fate.
That had happened to Zylah a number of times, actually. But various reasons, including the one she was hiding behind her forelock, led the filly to be booted out and on her own again.
Zylah didn't know what to say to the spotted stallion at first, sizing up the rest of him instead. He was a good deal taller than her, and boasted an impressive body style, much more 'refined' than her own more compact frame. Her dam said that each horse was built a certain way to highlight what it was best at. So what did that mean for this stallion, who seemed to strut about the meadow and carry himself with the presence of a herd leader showing off for the mares?
The only factor that impressed Zylah was his confidence. Most likely, because he didn't have the weight of a curse pressing down on his conscience. She was a talkative creature, sure, but knew she presented herself as closed off considering she never let any creature stand on, or see, her right side.
Not long in silence passes before the filly's senses detect the presence of another approaching, and her head goes up, her ears pricked and alert. Her tapered muzzle was in the air as her nostrils flared to detect the scent of the creature closing in.
She saw it before it got too close; another horse, perhaps a stallion by the looks of it, but Zylah did not judge based on size. Quite a few times she'd met mares who were taller than her. He is spotted, like the other, she can tell since she sees a few markings on his breast and neck. But the closer he got, the more her jaw dropped, for instead of a more natural coloring to the spots like the black and white stallion, this new one sported something much different.
Spots of darkened sunlight! Well, that was the closest thing Zylah had to compare it to. There were mares she'd met in the past that sported coats of spun wheat they had referred to as a palomino, but this stallion's markings didn't seem to fit that description. Not quite the color of golden wheat, but not as bright as the palomino coats. It made him stand out in a different way that the black stallion, but neither was an unattractive specimen, Zylah had to admit.
The golden spotted stallion looked at the black spotted one, but Zylah can't make out what the former might be thinking about the taller of the pair. So, instead, she watches the newcomer to see if he has anything to say. Indeed, he does, introducing himself by name as well as the name of the land he hails from. Given she had spent her time on the coast since her arrival, Zylah did not yet know that such lands existed in these parts. Yeah, definitely much different than her home.
Zylah does not see the perfectly round patches of bare ground that Aodhán had left behind him while walking over here. However, hearing that both stallions could potentially help her find some more delectable food, she was all for it.
Since Aodhán's offer seems more immediate, the filly was all to happy to accept, her instincts pushed down by the kind offer since she was hungry. The filly nodded excitedly, stomping on her front hooves a bit, hoping that maybe they'd either help her find better food beneath the snow, or knew of some that was still blooming in the forest.
05-07-2020, 09:01 AM (This post was last modified: 05-07-2020, 09:02 AM by Chemdog.)
For as crass as Chemdog can be, as rude and touchy, forceful even (at times), he stopped trying to drive mares home the archaic way. It once worked for him in older times than these, with the years passing liquidly to him, he has seen Beqanna and its inhabitants change in many ways. How fun it once was, he pondered, to gather your pretty girls by flattening your ears and biting their plump asses as they giggled and kicked.. or roared and fought, whichever you like better. Today though, that does not work. Things have changed, voices have been found, options have been broadened.
He fails to notice her hiding her cloudy eye, or her behavior to conceal it thereafter. He is daft to the notion that the pretty little thing might hide any such thing about herself. Of course he’s not very sweet, so he wouldn’t bother to tell her she’s pretty, that would just be too much of course, ha.
Another stallion comes forward, spotted, friendly enough looking. He pays Chemdog hardly any mind outright and the drafty stud is quite thankful for it, returning the indifference. He gives plenty of conversational room for her to respond, for the spotted stallion to add more. She doesn’t respond out loud, but she’s clearly listening. Her demeanor shifts when he mentions his home. The idea of roaming beside Chemdog did not delight her, and he could not blame her for it.
There was not much reason for him to linger, though he did love a good juicy eavesdrop. He gives her a half-hearted nod, and another to the Ischian stallion before moving off quietly northward.
It's not every day that he has competition, and Aodhán can feel his blood rushing from the very idea - usually, he is alright with sharing - attention, mares, love, his home - but that can only be the case if all parties are willing to do so. Right now, it occurs to him that the stallion who's scent he can't quite place (Icicle Isle has changed, and not right away for the better, and he doesn't recognize the combination of ice and ash) - would have the mare come to his home and therefore, 'sharing' is not an option.
He might, however, be in luck. It does appear to him that the dark mare had never seen the likes of his metallic-gold before - which likely means she is very unfamiliar with Beqanna, where such unnatural colours can be earned - or perhaps just that the too-close behaviour of the other male was less appreciated. Either way, he comes out in a good light, he'd think; though that doesn't mean that a handsome male such as the large paint could not still win her over. That, perhaps, is the cause of his small adrenalin rush; this man is quite handsome too, and Aodhán knows it will be the mare's choice, not theirs.
Or maybe he's just interested, too. His recent transformation into a girl (only meant to taunt the kelpie) had opened a whole new world of opportunities.
His grin widens a bit as the pretty mare seems all too eager to accept his offer, and Aodhán steps forward to show her how the fire-trait works. His glowing up to that point had been relatively dim, as he only used the ability to keep himself from freezing, but now his heat radiation would have to work a little harder - and that was always accompanied by glowing like a lighthouse (or, well, he'd pass for a lighthouse if he meant to set something on fire, so maybe not that bright). Still, he warns them both, "Might not be pleasant for your eyes," as he concentrates the heat magic on the ground. Indeed, the snow melts easily, and after not too long a while, the snow is melted away in a patch surrounding him, allowing for some easier grazing when he steps back.
It seems though, that the other handsome male has left in the meantime, and his face falls a little, disappointed. He'd rather impressed them both, after all, but perhaps Chemdog is not interested in showing off to see who's the better choice for her. Personally he thought Ischia was better and hoped he himself might be a good choice for her, too, but the latter remained to be seen still; but that doesn't mean he dislikes competition.
Musing a moment longer, watching the male's backside disappear, he turns back to the mare. "Ischia is possibly a better place to be grazing, or picking fruits really. But it's a long way west." he informs her - it's not likely that she'd make it on an empty stomach, especially considering that she has to walk and swim the way.
