"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
05-03-2020, 09:39 AM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2020, 08:16 PM by Tarte.)
"
I've seen devils, i've seen saints I've seen the line between them fade
I am.
At first, that's all I know or care about.
I am.
And for a while, a few days, that's enough. I don't know that the only reason my mother feeds me, hasn't outright rejected me, is because of a thread of magic that makes me lovable. Makes her think twice about pushing me away when I'm all that she hates in the world. But as time passes, my world expands from her grudging side, and I learn. I learn that I am small, smaller than I should be. Lack of nutrients when you're gestating will do that.
I learn that I am more like my father in looks than my mother would have liked. More than makes her comfortable.
I learn that I am hungry. Always hungry, and the short nursing sessions my mother allows me never seem long enough to make the hunger fade for long.
I learn that I am, and always will be a mistake.
With these bits of knowledge absorbed and out of the way, I find my wobbly baby legs and let myself look at the world around me. For all that my magic forces mother to love me, there's a conflicting power that just as often makes her rage and rant. Unwittingly, we've fallen into the pattern. The same pattern that's played on our line for generations.
My mother doesn't know this, of course, and neither do I. It's simply the way of things in our family, despite the gaps and distances between our generations. Since my mother's mother's mother wandered the deserts and bore princes and kings, it has always been this way. Love the sons. Resent the daughters.
I am another link in the chain.
Small, shivering in the late winter chill while my mother goes about her business, my slender legs carry me away from the pool where she's soaking. My tail curls against my side so that it's out of reach, she hates snakes and my tail bears more than a little resemblance. The hard bumps on my skull are sore little things, horns, my mother thinks. I hope they don't always hurt like this.
I walk and I walk until I can't see her anymore. I'll go back, in a while. When I've seen something new. When I'm too hungry to not go back. Whichever comes first. In the meantime, the sculptured landscape of the Loessian borderlands open around me. Rocks and grassland, dotted with the forest's trees where the border grows less defined. All covered with mud and frost and the last vestiges of snowbanks.
Nothing, nothing at all; and when he is soon to face suffering in one of its most heartbreaking forms, he won't know what to say.
Capulet is spoiled, doted upon, lacking the resentment Tarte wears like a jacket too ragged to keep her warm. He wears a winning smile and proud walk and - well, it's almost haunting (his high spirits) coming from a creature with glowing yellow eyes and sharp teeth.
You're so handsome, Mother tells him, and he has no reason to believe otherwise.
The boy develops a charming personality rather quickly: from chasing butterflies to jumping out of shadows to say surprise his mother with a hug - he is charming in a terribly earnest and boyish way.
Perhaps Capulet will suffer from romanticization and naivety; but will that strike him now, in his innocence? Of course it will not, and that is tested when he stumbles upon the dark girl on a Loessian border.
He doesn't know what to say (a first for the boy). She looks thin, sad, but he can't really understand it.
"Hello," he greets confidently, then twists his ears back in hesitation, unsure if that's the proper greeting for someone so . . . forlorn. "Are you okay?" Cap adds, thinking maybe that might make it better (whatever it is).
05-13-2020, 03:55 PM (This post was last modified: 05-13-2020, 03:55 PM by Tarte.)
"
I've seen devils, i've seen saints I've seen the line between them fade
I hadn't realized I'd gone so far. The landscape changes so gradually, but when the trees are larger and the rocks smaller, I find him. Or he found me. Either way I am surprised to no longer be alone.
A startled squeak bursts from my lips. I was certain I was alone, and this boy seemed to have emerged from the shadows themselves. But he is small, like me, and there are more similarities besides. In the shadow of the trees, my coat is more black than anything, the traces of vivid pink that have begun to show absent without light to shine on it. He is darker even than me, the very shape of him lost in the color. He is an outline, with eyes that glow eerie yellow in his face. An unfamiliar smile teases the corners of my mouth.
My eyes are odd too. Vivid blue in a night dark face, they are the brightest part of me. For a moment I forget I'm too thin, too small. He's different, and I think we are the same. The rope of my tail curls over my back like a curious kitten's. "Hello," I try it out, the word awkward on my tongue.
A greeting, something I've never needed to use before. Why would I, when my mother's face is the only one I've ever encountered so close as this. I think about his question for a moment, then nod slowly. "Ye-ahh," I look away, behind me to where my mother waits an unknown distance away. He thinks I'm sad, I realize, not knowing where the knowledge came from. "Are you?" I step closer, my inky nose with it's little pink patch reaching for his. He smells like pine and ferns and dew, sweet milk beneath it all. My stomach complains at this, but I'm already used to ignoring the feeling. He is far more interesting than a rumbling belly.
Tarte squeaks and Capulet draws just a few inches back, chin tucking closely to his chest in surprise. He isn't sure if he is upset that she surprised him or that he surprised her. Shadows twist and whirl erratically in tune with his withdrawal, and when he opens his mouth just the tiniest bit in shock, sharp teeth glint beneath filtered light.
Cap can't feel displeasure for long, though - for his eyes are quickly drawn to the whip and curl of the demon girl's tail. Its elegant movement reminds him of the way his body seems to float, noiseless and dark and terribly unequine. The shadow boy doesn't feel displacement, though, being raised by a family of shadow and fog; so he doesn't find kinship in otherness, but he does wonder (in a child's way) if they're related.
The pair's noses brush, Capulet's edges blurring in the way shadows do. A smile lifts his lips, genuine even if his teeth are frightening. They look natural there, like two of the Devil's henchman crossing paths after years apart.
"I'm fine," Cap says, breaking the silence. "You look hungry, though," he adds with a lean, eyes peeking over Tarte's jutting ribs. "Did your stomach just growl?"
I've seen devils, i've seen saints I've seen the line between them fade
Our attentions flit from one thing to another, eyes roving across the strangeness of each other and absorbing the new. With curious hunger I watch his edges waver and blur. He bleeds into the darkness behind him, and I feel a spark of worry in my chest. Will he disappear into the dark?
Unconscious of the effect this worry has, my own edges begin to bleed and darken, the suggestion of shadow throbbing on my skin. It is an overlay of insubstantial glamour. Unpracticed, imperfect, but the projection of Shadow now cloaks me. Already I am learning that it's harder to leave something you love, even if that lesson is more instinct than anything for now.
The betrayal of my stomach is a curling thing, my eyes dropping from his when he comments on it. A shrug, the curt raising of my thin shoulders, answers him. "It's fine," I grind one dark forehoof into the sandy mulch beneath us. "It always does that." My nose quivers a little, feeling the thinness of my abdomen again. The glamour drops with my confidence.
I want this boys eyes off of me suddenly, can't stand the intensity of his gaze picking out the flaws of me. My first instinct is to snap my little milk teeth at him, the way mother does when I've been too close to her for too long. It's another impulse that wins though. Redirection.
"You live in the woods?" I gesture behind him, the trees reaching ragged fingers for the sky at his back. I don't know where else he could have come from. I'd like the woods, I think. Better than the rocky steppe of Loess. That's not really something I get a say in though. Not yet.
"Mine only does that when I'm hungry," Capulet states firmly, insisting that Tarte is not okay. If Mama heard his stomach grumbling like that, she would herd him worriedly to her side. She might even furiously question why he'd not told her earlier that he's hungry. Cap understands food is important, but he doesn't understand the privilege of having it all the time.
The shadow boy turns to peer at the Taigan trees when the demon girl asks. Here, they are spaced further apart and smaller, the effect of a Loessian lanscape melding seamlessly into a Taigan one. The smell of pine straw is not as strong here, and for a moment, the boy is distracted by the sweet scent of early season fruit. He turns back to Tarte with sparkling, curious eyes.
"Yeah, I live in the woods," he answers quickly, hungry to change the subject. "Do you live there?" Cap asks vaguely, eyes roaming over sparse cacti and hardy brush. He forgets that she is hungry and thin, now determined to see past the border his parents told him not to cross.
You're too young. We'll take you soon.
Their words echo in his ears. Cap IS too young, even for Bequanna standards. Food that doesn't come from his mother still upsets his stomach.
He wanders closer, a charming and bright smile lifting his lips. "Show me where you live," Cap murmurs, nudging Tarte's shoulder with his nose.
05-27-2020, 07:18 PM (This post was last modified: 05-27-2020, 07:19 PM by Tarte.)
"
I've seen devils, i've seen saints I've seen the line between them fade
He keeps prodding, and I grit my teeth. This is not how it's supposed to go. This is not how I wanted my adventure to play out. Instead of taking my mind off of where I was, he is laying my hunger before us like an invisible third to our meeting. And his thoughts, his quiet second voice is so clueless. My ears fold against my skull, my tail whipping side to side.
"No one asked you." I snap, nostrils wide and quivering. "Just because your mo-mo-mother fusses over you, doesn't mu-mean everyone's is." The words growl from my throat in a husky mutter, the choppy syllables making me more mad. The ghostly blue of my eyes glows dangerously until he catches on and lets the topic go.
I stare him down a moment, trying to let the surge of temper subside. To let it flow from me. It's a hard thing. I've been drinking poison from birth, swallowing ample bitterness with scarce milk. I am hungry and I am sore and I just wanted to get away for a bit. He's talking, and I'm trying to listen and to not be mad, and then it's not anger I'm feeling. It's sadness. Bone deep and all consuming.
There's a sniffle. A choking whine. And then I'm crying openly, fat salty tears falling from my eyes faster and faster until I can't pretend they're not. I am young too, as young as he is and I can't stand the pity he's feeling. I can pretend that everything's okay, but only as long as no one says otherwise. "No-" I gasp, trying to catch my breath. "N-n-n-no." A painful hiccup catches in my chest as he touches me, and I flinch away from the gentle feeling.
I close my eyes so I can't see his face, but that doesn't block out the thoughts that he's thinking. Truth when mouths lie. "I d-don't want to." My head drops to knee level, wishing I had a thick forelock to hide my face behind. I don't though. It's just a silly puff of black that isn't good for anything, and I hate it. A few heavy breaths heave in and out of my lungs, until I'm only hiccuping sporadically instead.
"I wanna see where you live," I whisper, hoping I haven't ruined everything with my display of emotion. Mother would have sneered and driven me away by now, disgust in her eyes and her thoughts. I'm a demon, she says, and demons have no feelings. If I cry, it's to manipulate her, and she won't be manipulated any longer.
