"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
Dark amethyst eyes looked out over a dull grey sea. The salt clung like a desperate lover to the fog that rolled through the edge of the tree line she had found solace in. Her breathing was growing labored as her sides swelled with evidence of a child. A child she refused to acknowledge yet, of course she would love it like all her others born of her blood and adopted, but this one was created out of emotions she refused to feel.
The scars from her meeting with Leilan, that ran horizontally from her sides towards her haunches were healing, they were pink jagged things matching the one that crested her muzzle. Her golden, chocolate dipped coat was dull, much like the sandy beaches she grew up around. Her purple glow, on the other hand was a brilliant beacon that broke through the fog around her. Maybe it was the presence of life inside her that made it so, maybe it was the confidence she had found since her encounter with Leilan and accepting her responsibility on the council, maybe it was just a coincidence.
She stepped away from the cover of redwoods and made her way slowly across the rocky beach until her front hooves dipped slightly into the freezing sea water. I wonder if the sea will be just as cold once I've gone back to the mountain. Once I've added to who I am. Will I still be who I am? The purples of her eyes began to swim with the sea, lost in thought, lost in foam, lost in all the maybes of her life to come.
He isn’t one to force himself upon anyone (in a way), to force someone to live with him and accept him for what he is, does, and represents. As circumstances are, however, the ice dragon finds that he cannot escape Taiga altogether; especially not when both of it’s leading mares seem to need something of him - a rock to rely on, breaking the waves that might otherwise drown them.
Find Lilliana - check. Help her find herself? That’s another thing altogether. But could the same be needed for Lethy - he supposes so. She had been lost in a different way and he had failed to see it before she had jumped off a cliff and forced his hand. It’s not his fault for scratching her, then, but it is his fault for taunting her - perhaps similar to when Sabra had wanted to die, to rest.
But that hadn’t had the outcome he had hoped for, either.
He finds her by the sea today, quite on accident since he just went to Taiga to check on Lilli, even if he told himself he did that for Nashua. Instead he found Izora by the shore, or rather in the water, and he changes direction. The scaled roan does not hide his approach, but doesn’t do his best to make noise either. She’ll either hear or she won’t.
Just short of greeting distance, he stops a moment to study her. She looks worse than when she had just been wounded, in a way. Not because of the raw marks on her or the pregnancy, but the look in her eyes. She reminds him of Lilliana - also haunted when he had displayed his hurt to her in a similarly sulking way. Perhaps that was his destiny then - to sulk through the world and make everyone he met question themselves for it.
”You look like shit.” he concludes, tail lashing slowly past his hocks as waves splatter a little higher up than a moment before.
nothing burns like the cold
Leilan
@[Izora Lethia]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
She is pulled from her thoughts, from her day dreams and terrors by the deep rumbling voice of Leilan. So captivated before, the first time she saw him, she finds it odd that after everything that transpired she finds him still just as magnificent.
The wonder doesn't last long in her eyes however when reality nips at her in his words. She scoffs at him, "It could be worse.. I could look like you." She pokes at him with jokes, but it does not evade her though that one day soon she would very much look like him.. in ways.
The corners of her velvety lips lift, giving her some of her youthfulness back for a small moment. "It is good to see you, though." she adds.
There was much to talk about, though she had thought after their first and last encounter that he may not speak to her again. She turns slowly away from the waters edge and retreats back closer to the tree line where the air was not as brisk. Her sides heaving and jumping from the effort, her deep, amethyst eyes find @[Leilan] once again, "I wasn't quite sure you would ever talk to me again, honestly.".
For a moment, her silence stretches and he thinks perhaps the damage is too great. His remark is one that between them and what happened, might pass for a bad joke, if he didn’t one hundred percent mean it.
She takes it as one, though - adding a jab of her own in return. His mouth curls into a grin, no longer hiding any of the pointy teeth that seem to accompany mischievousness - like an ingrained, bad habit, his eyes and teeth show up when he doesn’t need them, and sometimes it’s just too much effort to hide them. ”You’d have to start eating meat,” he mentions almost dryly, the idea of Lethy being anything other than a herbivore strange and almost unimaginable to him. If anyone doesn’t have predatory ambitions, well, it would be her. As evidenced by her next comment, it seems that most of what transpired hadn’t been blamed on him.
He nods, unsure if he wants to accept or return her welcome, leaving that in the middle as he studies her. From a purely predatory, draconic point of view she now looked easy prey, a thought that likes to sit on the forefront of his mind as she wobbles forward and her sides heavily heave. When she looks at him however and their eyes lock, it seems that in their time apart she has started to understand just a bit of the emotional burden she had put on him before. ”I wasn’t either,” he admits. Brutally honest as he is by nature, he doesn’t spare her for friendship’s sake. Lilli’s questions come to mind for a moment - what does he even want for them, for himself, for their lands? But it has no place here, he cannot waste his thoughts on the why of the moment. He’s here now and he had chosen not to turn and leave, so to question himself now is pointless.
”How’s the healing?” he asks, as if perhaps it’s any kind of regular issue they’re talking about - he also wonders what she’s told other, if she told them anything or just hid away with her wounds at all, but that is something he feels he should not ask directly.
nothing burns like the cold
Leilan
@[Izora Lethia]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
She had spent plenty of time looking in pools of water, staring at herself in the eyes of her son, and listening to the concern in Lilli's voice to know that in fact she probably did look like shit, but she had not told anyone what had happened between her and the Icicle Island Dragon. When Leilan cracks a very draconian smile in her direction she can not help but display her own wide mouthed grin, dipping her face towards the ground beneath her. Her dark lashes blink slowly while she takes in the idea of eating meat. A thought that she had not considered when she had gone to the fairys seeking help in protecting her home.
Shit
She returned her gaze back to Leilan's taking him in as he wavers in the middle of her greeting, in between her and the sea beyond. She wasn't afraid of him, was never afraid of him. He was in all physicality and demeanor the opposite of her. Damn the meat eating, she could be like him and still be her. She tilted her head slightly at him as he asked her how the healing was going. With a shrug of her shoulder and a cock of her mouth she nearly dismissed the whole thing, "It's healing like it should. I have bigger things to think about." She hesitates for a moment her ears turning back and forth, she wanted to apologize over and over again about jumping and forcing his hand but apart of her knew that it was in the past - what was done was done and forward was the only way to go.
"I hope you have bigger things to think about too. I would hate to be a reason you stay up at night." she says matter of fact, knowing damn well that in that moment she had burdened him with a decision. That she had forced him to hurt her, maybe unintentionally, but what she did had to have consequences. The fact that he was asking now had to mean something? "I am sorry. I don't know what I would have done if I was in your position, though maybe one day I will."
She seems a little lackluster in a way, with the way she dismisses her wounds. Still, he supposes she now understands the possibilities - consequences of her actions. He is still grim about the situation, though she is right, there are in fact bigger things to worry about. For one, she is heavy with child, a thing that he wonders about because had she been pregnant right then, already? The thought makes him suddenly sick to his stomach, but thankfully the buckskin mare looks down, and not to him, and he plasters his face back to neutral when she looks up once more.
It is then that the apology he had been waiting for blurts from her mouth, and he takes it with a nod. ”I’m sorry I hurt you so bad, too. I guess with that fall being the other option though...” he shakes his head. ”I acted on instinct, but that might have unforeseen consequences. For one, your blood tastes no different than a deer’s.” he grimaces, then looks away. Why does he feel the need to say that? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that whatever transpired, in the long run might not be a good thing. He is a predator after all. No matter if he puts on a prey’s pelt or shows a pretty face.
He’s going to have to deal with this sometime, and they might find out that the way how to deal with it does not change him into a good samaritan. The fact is, horses should be his prey. It’s only because he is born as one that that thought doesn’t usually cross his mind.
Something she said though... he looks at her sharply, scrutinizing. ”What do you mean one day you will?”
nothing burns like the cold
Leilan
@[Izora Lethia]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
When her eyes return to him and her apology settles in the air she holds her breath with uncertainty. He could dismiss her and easily be on his way, he could hold what she had forced upon him against her for the rest of eternity and she would not blame him one bit. Only when he nods in acceptance and offers an apology of his own does she lit that anxious breath sizzle slowly from her lips.
It had never been her way to cause conflict, in fact she would ordinarily run from confrontation as quickly as she could in the opposite direction. But, maybe that person now existed in an entirely different life time.
He tells her that there were unexpected consequences, ones he struggled over still, by evidence of his next words. She does not look away when he tells her her blood tastes no different than a deer's, only when he grimaces and looks away does she allow a small shiver to cross her worn down back.
She wasn't afraid of what he may now see her like, prey amongst the land maybe? She was prepared for this, had spent months wondering what it may be like for her to hold the same predatory smell, taste, and instincts. Her eyes sharpen with his tone when his eyes connect to hers once again, bright and deep.
For a moment she stared into the empty air between them, gathering her thoughts and future. With a deep intake of breath and a focus to his stormy eyes she nods, "When Taiga was falling apart, and her future was uncertain.. when my mate.. left me." she chokes on the last bit, never admitting to herself or anyone else that he didn't simply disappea, he left them, and stole their child away on his own accord." I went to the mountain. I sought out the fairies. I asked them for a gift, one like yours and like Aten's to protect my home and those I loved." her voice quivered but not because she was scared of what would happen when she returned to the mountain but because she worried what would happen to her home if she didn't. "They agreed to give me what I asked for." her eyes glance towards what she could see of the sea that wasn't obscured by Leilan's giant form. "I've been searching for those who have used their powers to protect, but had unexpected reproccustions or against all odds their powers had changed their hearts." She wasn't dumb she knew every action had a consequence, it was the latter that she hoped to avoid for herself, scared even that it would happen to her.
His question may have seemed simple when it left his lips, but he knew then the answer would be far more weighted. Grave expressions cross Izora’s face, the pregnant mare an epitome of foreboding darker times - and of darker times that have already passed. Part of him stirs at that, realizing that his own troubles often seemed so big, but that there were multiple others facing similar difficulties. Nevertheless he refuses to let that little fact change him, at least not right now; storing it away for a more peaceful time to analyse later on.
Bigger fish still need frying, and Zora’s is one of those.
She has trouble speaking of when Aten left - he notices the omitting of his name, much like he never thinks of or mentions the spotted mare; like and unlike Lilli, Izora is a mirror as well but in her own regard, and Never briefly crosses his mind, thinking perhaps she fits somewhere along his spectrum as well - and she had sought the fairies’ help. He nods at that briefly - with her mate disappearing, perhaps it was only logical to ask for a similar thing. Still, the fact that he is used as an example makes him blink and tilt his head in true surprise.
”I’ve never thought I was a good example,” he admits softly - but the story is not done yet. The fairies had agreed to give her something, in exchange for a quest - to make sure she knew what she asked for. ”Well,” he starts, turning his eye towards her in all the seriousness he has (which is in fact plenty, but he usually covers it up), ”I think you know now. Accidents happen and magic is fickle, no matter your good intention. Do we have what it takes to control it? I don’t know - and the fact is you cannot know beforehand at all. Time has a way of catching up,” he shrugs, ”I knew a dragon who had been born with his powers and who lost the battle late in life, regardless. I’ve seen a dragon born with it who never stopped burning and never stopped to think about it. I’ve known one who was gifted the power like you would, and have never seen him after one, though noble, deed. I’ve seen a dragon in Tephra, but she’s just guarding her realm for others to sleep at night.”
He shrugs then. ”Never assume the predator inside you sleeps, because it doesn’t. But if you still want to contain that kind of power - if it’s any consolation, I think you might be one of those who may be able to handle it.”
May be - because through the shifting, the mimicry, the looks and emotions that come with it - nothing is certain. But Zora the Dragoness - well, that just might work, he supposes. The odds are in her favour.
nothing burns like the cold
Leilan
@[Izora Lethia]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
As she listens to him, her own serious eyes finding solace in the grey pebbles and sand at her feet, she nods in an almost automatic way, her brow crinkling at the stories of dragons he tells. Peering up beneath heavily lashed eyes only when he tells her that she may be one of those who can handle it.
Handle the weight of change, the duty of responsibility, the power that she will surely feel.
"And what of you? What is your story, did you seek out the fairies? Has it been hard for you?" she didn't mean to pry. She doesnt ask these questions in hushed towns to chastise him or place judgement for she would soon be in his position and the coming of what will be has weighed heavily on her since she had come down from that mountain top.
She knows how to reverse and flip a conversation, doesn’t she? He smiles briefly at the thought and knows a good diplomat when he sees her. It’s not, in fact, something he particularly enjoys when he’s the subject, but she may be a stronger force than many give her credit for and having her in the lead when it concerns Taiga seems a good choice to him.
Regarding the subject of the conversation and the questions she throws at him, he smiles a bit as he tilts his head. ”I’m certain they were involved the first time, though I cannot pinpoint it. I did ask for the... little upgrade as it were, myself. I didn’t like the aura people adapted whenever I peeked around the corner.” He shrugs a bit. ”Of course, that’s been largely me.” So many things had happened, so many phases to his life and to his traits existed, that it’s hard to pinpoint the single moments and feelings that had come with it. Besides, this conversation had been about her, hadn’t it? So he makes off with the short version, thinking perhaps this is enough.
She’s learned enough from their meetings, he thinks - the rest is up to her.
nothing burns like the cold
Leilan
@[Izora Lethia] A shorty, wasn’t sure if you wanted to end it here?
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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