"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
09-28-2020, 02:16 AM (This post was last modified: 10-04-2020, 07:42 PM by midsommar.)
MIDSOMMAR
It's on the cusp of dusk that Midsommar emerges from the shadows of Pangea, Malachai close to her side. Her pace is faster than her typical curious walk. Malachai is irritated and shows it every time the noise of Sommar crashing through foliage disturbs a creature he could catch for dinner.
Sommar, why are you rushing? he finally huffs, putting their trek to a halt when the sun is halfway through sinking into the ground.
Because we left late and I know the sunset is so cool on that riverbed we found. Her answer is calm when she turns to peer at him. Malachai is unamused: I'm hungry.
You should have hunted while I was napping.
Prey doesn't often come out during the day, Sommar, you know this!
The chestnut girl merely shrugs, throwing herself back into her mission at an even faster pace. You can catch something to eat while I stare at the sand. The maned wolf growls low to himself, knowing he won't leave her side while he thinks she might be vulnerable. Sommar knows this, too, and can't help but to take it for granted.
They arrive in an area of the river wider than Sommar has ever seen. The water is low and in most of its area, damp sand rises and gives the illusion of puddles. The spring sun hangs low, casting deep orange and yellow light across the water reflecting its brilliance. Here, the pair stop, all the colors reflecting in their eyes and the pink, purple, and blue gemstones scattered across the girl's body.
"Incredible," Sommar murmurs, leaning on a hip to get comfortable. They'll be there for a while, watching.
" It does no good to die kicking and screaming and lashing back at the inevitable. It corrupts the soul. "
10-06-2020, 11:07 AM (This post was last modified: 10-24-2020, 07:57 AM by Gale.)
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
The brief rest he’d meant to take had turned into a long afternoon nap, and by the time Gale wakes the sunlight that streams through the thicket is rich and red. The brindle yawns and rolls his neck, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. He must have been more tired than he’d thought to sleep so long.
A thin bird call sounds far overhead, and Gale apologizes silently to Erne for making the osprey keep such an unexpectedly long watch. The bird responds with something that sounds like a joke about Gale not being the only horse that cost his companion a dinner, but Gale has never been the best at interpreting avian humor. He emerges from the brush and shakes bits of twig and leaf from his pale wings, his blue gaze caught by the glint of the river to his right.
The place had been nice enough in the early afternoon, but the sunset has transformed it.
Gale takes in the view for some time, a distracted smile on his navy face, and only when a gust of summer wind tugs and his long mane and brings the smell of another horse does the pegasus realize that he is not alone. A chestnut mare with glittering jewels across her pelt watches the sunset, and beside her stands a creature that looks a little like a wolf. Its nearness to her suggests a bond not unlike his with Erne, and the punchline of the osprey’s joke finally sinks in, and Gale smiles.
The water is shallow, and he makes no effort to avoid the puddles. It is cool on his legs and striped belly, leaving him in a pleasant mood when he is near enough to talk to the other horse (while giving her toothy companion a respectable amount of space to act as a barrier between them). “This sunset is pretty cool, huh?”
Never one to mind company, Midsommar doesn't flinch at the arrival of Gale. Her indigo eyes flit curiously to him, from the curve of his horns to the blue of his hide to the stretch of his mane. He reminds her of her family, strange and beautiful and maybe a touch awkward. Sommar never minded the strange, nor the beautiful, and especially not the awkward.
"It's gorgeous," the chestnut answers in agreement, shaking out her bleached mane and casting a wayward glance at Malachai. What? he says, genuinely perplexed. He described the sunset as 'cool.' Isn't that cute? Sommar answers. The wolf merely frowns up at her, shakes out his coat, and steps delicately into the water. You do the talking and I'll go hunting while you're distracted. Sommar smiles and watches Malachai wander off to peer intently into the water. She hardly realizes several beats too long has passed between her and Gale.
"Oh," she murmurs, not startled but remembering, face once again turning to peer at the deep blue man. "Malachai is fishing, I think, but I doubt he's very good at it," Sommar says by way of explanation, though it hardly spells out a full story.
"My name is Midsommar. Do you watch the sunset often? I was obsessed with it as a child. I suppose I still am."
@[Gale] i'm naked posting to save you from the teeth html you dont like hahahahaha
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
Intrigued, Gale follows the exchange between Midsommar and Malachi. His blue eyes are bright and curious, wondering if this is what it looks like when he converses with Erne. At the second repeated thought of himself, the distant bird overhead begins to descend. It is unhurried, but the bird means to have a good view of the situation . He watches the wolf – barely more than a reddish dot from this distance – move away from the pair of horses.
The silence that passes between them is a long one, but Gale – staring intently at the setting sun – is far too absorbed to notice. Doing so causes an ache in his eyes, the constant damage and healing of his eyes. Eventually he abandons it to watch the shifting colors in the clouds. There are shades he does not have words for, soft blues and purpley reds, shot here and there with brilliant orange and gold. When his attention is drawn back toward the girl by her soft exclamation, he finds that the crystals along her skin reflect a myriad of sunsets. He watches them as she speaks, half-hearing the explanation of her companion’s departure.
“Perhaps Erne can teach him. He’s a fishing hawk.” His tone is distracted, even if his words are impressively on topic. They name their companions, and Gale thinks that perhaps he could ask Midsommar some of the questions he’s had about the bond they share with their animal counterpart. That stray thought and her introduction pulls him from his contemplation of the sunsets in her crystals, and he realizes that he has drawn quite close.
He takes a step back, and tries to recall the last time he had watched the sunset for such an extended period of time.
“I usually watch the sunrise,” he says, “The early bird gets the fish, and all that. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a sunset over anything other than the ocean.” He finishes, realizing the trusth of that even as he says it. Six years that he has called the island his home, time that has somehow passed all in flash.
“My name is Gale,” he continues, introducing himself belatedly. “And this is Erne.” The osprey has made his steady way downward while Gale spoke, and he lands on the navy’s stallion’s rump with a flare of his black wings. Like all the native wildlife on the island resort of Islandres, Erne is pitch black with peering yellow eyes. His sharp talons dig into the thick white mane that extends down the length of the pegasus’s topline, sparing the horse’s skin from his sharp toes.
11-06-2020, 12:38 AM (This post was last modified: 11-06-2020, 12:39 AM by midsommar.)
Shepherded by an extremely private and somber family, Midsommar often finds silence teaches her more than spoken word. But there is power in storytelling, as there is power in the stories told by generation after generation, and she quickly finds Gale's absentminded murmuring to be quite endearing. Inbetween Mother's melancholy murmuring and Father's recent anguished, angry cries, Sommar thinks the blue stallion must possess some new power, some secret brimming behind smiling teeth.
Sommar gasps out a laugh: a strange, stuttered, perhaps strangled noise. "I think Malachai would try to eat him. He takes offense easily," she answers as she turns a delighted indigo gaze to Gale. It's true: the maned wolf is company Sommar loves, even if he remains on a terribly pretentious high horse. He doesn't take kindly to strangers and even Draco is too much for him sometimes. Sommar doesn't divulge that, though - Malachai's particular nature isn't something she thinks to take too much consideration of as she is the exact opposite: constantly finding delight in the crass and strange.
Can you be quiet? You're yelling your thoughts at me, comes a distant projection from Malachai. She can sense his annoyance but brushes it off.
"I don't often watch the sunrise. Malachai and I are quite the night owls," Sommar says, musing to herself. "Though I am determined enough to wake for one if I want the view. Over the ocean, you say? I've seen the sunset over Silver Cove plenty of times, but never the sunrise. You're not from the Cove, though, Gale," she rambles as she watches the osprey settle into the blue stallion's mane. A distant smile curves her mouth upward as she wonders about how certain she can be he is not from the East. He has no Eastern smell and she is certain her cousins would have tales of this ram-horned man if he were to live with them.
"It's a pleasure, Gale," Sommar adds with a cock of her head, bemused smile coloring her tone. "And you, as well, Erne. What oceanic land do you call home?"
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
The thought of Erne being harmed isn’t a new one, though Gale hasn’t ever considered the possibility that his companion might be eaten. The osprey soars at the peak of the food pyramid of his native Islandres and understandably prefers it, especially when faced with something like Malachi. It is obvious that Gale has relayed Midsommar’s words to the seahawk, for the bird turns his head sharply to peer in the direction the red wolf had gone off.
Her voice is smooth and soft, a contrast to the hard edges of the crystals along her scarlet skin, and Gale watches her curiously now, the same way he’d inspected the sunset a few moments before. The filly doesn’t look quite his age, which is young adult, the very start of that nebulous state of adulthood that the magic of Beqanna so often gives its immortal residents. Her hair is pale, with a touch of flaxen that his own white mane lacks, and her eyes a deep shade of indigo. She’s very pretty, he realizes abruptly, and he’s been staring at her for quite some time. Is there a power that gives a horse the ability to melt into the ground and disappear whenever they want, Gale wonders? Perhaps he should seek out a fairy on the Mountain and ask.
He looks down at the shallow water he stands in, and his reflection takes a step forward, and then another, a perfect replica that flares its white wings, and then disappears. (He’s very sure that Eyas had told him that girls like it when you show off).
“Islandres.” He replies. “I decided to shorten the name after becoming Chief. It was the island resort, but that was too much of a mouthful. You’re from Silver Cove then?” Gale has never been to the Silver Cove, at least not in this life. It belongs to the East, and for as long as Gale has been alive, the East has meant Pangea, and Pangea has meant danger. But Midsommar does not look dangerous, the brindle thinks. She looks…
“I think you might be prettier than this sunset.” The words are less certain than his tone and he nods just a little, his electric blue gaze narrowed in consideration.
11-17-2020, 07:40 PM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2020, 07:41 PM by midsommar.)
A shy creature might balk beneath Gale's staring, but Midsommar has never been one to hesitate. The dark indigo of her eyes roils with thought upon and thought and she finds herself wondering what could he possibly be thinking in all this silence? Not that Sommar is a stranger to silence or uncomfortable company, but she doesn't often start a conversation for it to be ended so abruptly, being the persistent creature she is. It strikes, rather suddenly, that she hasn't been reading his thoughts this entire interaction - and for the briefest moment, she feels so silly for wondering what he is thinking.
When she opens her magic to take just the barest peek into Gale's mind, Sommar finds he thinks she's pretty. A rush of pleasure heats her cheeks, a sensation she is very starkly aware she is not familiar with. Now she stutters, almost uncertain, head tilting just a degree. If Gale looks closely enough, he'll see the little startled signs in her face: a crease in the corner of her eyes, tightly pressed lips, and slightly flickering ears. Sommar doesn't rear away from the feeling, instead diving deep and finding the sensation leaves her heart pounding in loud, sporadic bursts.
Please shut up, Malachai says, very suddenly interrupting the pleasant headiness Sommar let intoxicate her. She whips her head around, genuinely miffed by her companion's cattiness. Perhaps you don't like the attention being off of you, Malachai? she answers with a question that might be just as catty if Sommar were not a genuine and curious girl. The wolf does not answer, but Sommar hardly notices.
I think you might be prettier than this sunset.
"Oh?" she answers, voice lilting in that way questions do. The pleasure from returns, though this time Sommar is ready for it and it merely warms her skin supple, excited waves. She's flattered, truly, being a plain, chestnut mind-reader born into a fantastical family.
It's not often that Sommar is struck speechless, but she quickly finds that oh is all she can muster in the moment. She settles an intense, fascinated gaze on Gale and tries spectacularly hard to come up with words: "I think you're pretty, too." She does. He's as blue as the sky, striped with sparkling and irridescent white to offer little clouds. "I like that your mane goes all the way down your back. It's cool," she adds soon after, very suddenly finding her words.
"But no, actually, I'm from Pangea. My father used to rule there. What's Islandres like? Does Erne find good hunting there?"
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
Unfortunately for Midsommar, Gale is always looking closely. But he is rarely sure what he is looking for, having lost the sound in his remembered images. He can picture a thousand faces he has never seen, experiencing a range of emotions he cannot name. Though the brindle knows from Eyas that they were part of their childhood lessons in diplomacy, the value in them is lost to him. Midsommar is feeling something but he’s not certain what it is. She’s not frowning though, and she’s not run away. It must not something terrible then, and he saved from asking by the quick way her gaze snaps to where Malachi has gone.
The pegasus takes that moment of broken eye contact to look back down at his absent reflection, a release the bits of magic that made it so. In the water, he sees Erne stretch his black wings, and Midsommar look back toward him. Raising his head, his bright eyes meet hers just in time to hear that she thinks he is pretty too, and that she likes his mane. There’s a brief shadow that passes behind his eyes, a sharp memory of his father, but then it is washed away in the warmth that comes from the compliment she’d meant it to be.
“Thank you,” he replies, saved from chattering more but Midsommar’s elaboration about her home. She is not from the Silver Cove after all, it seems, but from Pangea itself. There are monsters in Pangeaa, Gale thinks, but apparently there are creatures like Midsommar as well. He begins to wonder how much truth the rumors hold.
What is Islandres like, she asks, and Gale thinks of the last time he was asked that.
“It was described to me as peace and quiet, and it is, but it is also beautiful. I could show you, here, if you’d like?” His offer indicates the use of some magics, and he waits curiously for an answer in the affirmative before showing her the same visual memory that he’d shared with Aedan and Jesla: Islandres from the air. The island is a riot of color, ringed by black sand beaches and accented by the turquoise of the inner lakes and waterways. The mountain at the heart is a sister to Tephra’s, Erne had told him, but it has slept for a dozen generations longer than its sibling. The reason for the colorful trees and plants escapes Gale, as does the pitch-black coloration of the resident animals, but they are part of what endears the place to him.
“Erne has excellent fishing there. The grazing there is good too; the lavender grass is my favorite.”
If Midsommar was allowed access to more than just thoughts, to near entire memories and emotions, she'd probably spend the rest of her lift lost - wandering between the already experienced lives of strangers. She'd lack her own world, her own discoveries, instead so infatuated by stranger's stories that she has no desire live a few of her own. If she were to know of Gale's power, and to think any of these things, she might be grateful she didn't know vision manipulation. She might wonder if she'd ever experience the flush of a handsome stranger calling her pretty.
The monsters in Pangea are not entirely monsters to Sommar, but still she is slightly surprised Gale doesn't ask her questions about her upbringing (and that's at the very least, most of the time she imagines others balking in disgust or slitting their eyes in suspicion). She isn't displeased; in fact, she is a bit delighted he doesn't act as if it's impossible she was born there. Sommar wonders what he must actually think of Pangea, and dips just a tiny bit into Gale's mind to see he now questions the rumors because of her. A pleasant smile follows that discovery.
When magic is offered, Sommar dips her head eagerly and gasps, "I would love that!" Her indigo eyes sparkle with excitement as they meet Gale's, almost forgetting the other question she asked. "Maybe Erne can really teach Malachai to fish, then," she giggles, allowing her gaze to trail back to her companion. Unlikely, he answers faintly, before trotting far enough away to effectively cut her out of his thoughts.
"I've never had lavender grass. Maybe you can show me that, too?"
Gale run away with me-- lost souls and reverie running wild and running free
Midsommar is visibly delighted at the prospect of magic, and in her bright, wide expression, Gale finds that that the indigo shade of her eyes is not unlike the deep shadows of Islandres’ waters.
Somehow, her happiness is spilling over to him. It is a little like when Pteron shares, but nothing about this feels fabricated by magic the way his brother’s happiness projection always did. It warms him, melting away the cold edges of discomfort that often plague his conversations with strangers. Her laugh sounds like rainwater on lava rock, and that is one of Gale’s very favorite sounds.
“I can only show you the images,” Gale admits, “You’d need to come to Islandres to really experience it for yourself.” What she has said earlier gives him hope that she is not opposed to coming to take in the place with her own eye, but Gale is a realist, even if an optimistic one.
“You could come see it now?” He proposes casually, and then: “as long as I’d not get in trouble for stealing you away, of course.” Though Gale had not commented on it at the time, he had not missed the fact that the girl in front of him is the daughter of a king. A former king, perhaps, but Gale has recently been reminded that as Islandres grows, so does the weight of his actions. Gale thinks nothing of inviting a friend – a pretty friend, who thinks he is pretty too – back to Islandres, but he must also think of his family there. And what of Eyas and the monsters in her nightmares; what harm might encountering a Pangean do? Islandres is a place of peace and quiet, and he sets that firmly against the way her gemstones glitter in the light.
“Perhaps you might tell me about Pangea, on the way?” He does not rescind his offer, but there are places on the island where they are less likely to encounter anyone else. If Gale is still unsure when they arrive, he can always show her the billowing – but dry – lavender meadows on the southern shores. With this decided, he looks back to where Malachi has trotted into the dusk, and then back to Midsommar. “Are you a good swimmer?”
Gale