"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
01-10-2021, 10:15 PM (This post was last modified: 01-11-2021, 01:15 PM by Alyssa.)
The darkness disconcerted at first. The monsters, too. Their shapeless forms haunting her every periphery made for an interesting few nights until Alyssa decided to treat them with the same lethargic apathy she treated most everything else in life. Once that mental state kicked in, not much changed for the Andalusian mare in the great night; having left her mother and father many moons ago with the promise to return on occasion meant that she needn't care about much else anymore. Not even monsters.
Until the curiosity kicked in.
In the breadth of the all-consuming darkness, Alyssa found space for thoughts and ideas that never occurred to her before. Wonders about the wider world, a slight flicker in her chest which longed for more than the nothingness she wore on the inside and now, on the outside, too. Did the rest of the equines hereabout not feel the same way? She heard them screaming, sometimes, screams interspersed with the sound of monstrous glee. She wondered what they had that she did not which sicced the monsters upon them.
But, she never stopped to wonder at their predicament long enough to find the answer, nor long enough to help them in their recovery. Her lethargy had not waned that much. Instead, she meandered through the small stretches of land which she knew until even that bored her more than her boredom could handle. The boredom, the darkness, and that time-old curiosity came to a head tonight: tonight, when she struck off on a worn but unknown path. She could not find the ends to its width in the daytime night and figured that must mean that wherever she headed, she might find others there, too; she tried not to wonder about her motivation for following this trail too much. But still that tickle in her chest persisted, resistant to her dampening efforts.
And so, she appeared in the field that night. Her ebony hide blended with the darkness surrounding and encouraged her to pick her way to the middle of the area, assured that many would pass her by before a few stopped long enough to find her. This way, with her orange eyes giving the edges of the field a lazy twice-over, Alyssa stood, wondering against wonder just what might come next.
A firefly! Awesome! Oren had inspected the little blip of light for some time now, and the bug initially hadn’t responded to his antics. It seemed to Oren he was lonely, because the little insect was, in fact, the only one of his kind around.
He couldn’t be more surprised when the small speck of light moved towards him, buzzed around his head, and landed on one of his ears with a hum that Oren immediately interpret as assent. Why he did this, why he knew how the insect felt, he wasn’t sure, but it felt quite right. ”I’m gonna call you Ray, okay?” Again the firefly hummed in agreement, so Oren now continued on his way with a little speck of light in tow.
He can hardly wait to introduce him to his mother, but at the present timing, what with the darkness and all, she had asked him to go out and find if anyone was in need of assistance. Now, she didn’t exactly say how far he was supposed to go, nor did she specify who to ask and who not - silly him, everyone of course had a right to Taiga’s help.
In the darkness, Oren picks his way carefully around the roots. Most of the things he can still see quite well, though it’s not as bad as for Rosey - she complained about her flower garden getting not enough sunlight, about the colours looking off, and more of that - so he decides he can go a little further. In fact, he goes out of Taiga, and when he’s out in the open, the firefly now hidden somewhere in his dark mane, he gets the idea to meet some new people. There may be someone lonely in the Field and we can’t have that. With the monsters out and about doing their magical attack thing that changes some and leaves other alone, Oren figures it’s safest if everyone comes to live together in groups.
Besides, he’s a grown up now. At two years of age, he may not be fully grown in muscle, but he has certainly reached his final height. He tosses his head a little, the firefly, disturbed, flying around his head once or twice - oops, sorry Ray (he totally forgot the tiny creature for a moment) - and focuses on the heat signal of a young mare. Well, she’s possibly a little older than him, but not that much, is she? Nah - and even if she was, that other mare hadn’t made a problem for it. Least one can do is be polite.
”Hello,” he says, a little ways away from her. Aware that she might see a little less than the dragon-eyed Oren himself, he keeps a polite distance. He doesn’t seem to realize that the firefly illuminates him and the metallic golden blaze on his face, or at least, he doesn’t very much acknowledge this - he might have taken another step or two then. ”I’m Oren,” (always start with a name first, so you don’t forget) ”I’m from Taiga!” he chimes in just a bit more so she wouldn’t be completely thrown off guard as to why he was here. ”Are you okay? What with the darkness and all?” Normally, that would be a strange question, but the bay roan colt honestly feels like it’s appropriate now. Well, if he’s really honest, he usually thinks every question is justified, but some people sometimes disagree.
She smelled him before she heard him thanks to the wind's direction. Young, male, active. Her ear flicks in discomfort. She wondered if her first interaction here would be with a child. But when the gaited sound of the approacher's hooves befell her ears, Alyssa realized that despite his youth, the stallion coming up opposite her was of age. Her ear flicked again.
Hello, the stranger said. I'm Oren. The sound of his name seemed pleasing so Alyssa rolled it around in her mouth in silence, feeling the twin syllables to compliment how she'd just heard it said. I'm from Taiga! Her brow furrows at this. What is Taiga? She pondered; her mother spoke of places such as the Gates, the Desserts, the Valley. No mention of a place called Taiga. But Alyssa bit her tongue as a surprising amount of questions built up in her throat, listening instead to the young stallion's next words.
Are you okay? What with the darkness and all?
With that, every question and thought contained by Alyssa's zipped away into remote, inaccessible recesses of her mind. The sound of some others roaming about in the darkness filled the void her silence provided as she felt her tongue turn to ash in her mouth. Even trying to figure out why such a simple question silenced her so felt impossible; the harder she tried, the more she felt incapable.
At long last, a light appeared in the Oren's mane. Its peculiarity there, amidst the ever-darkness, unlatched a single avenue of thought in Alyssa's mind, and before she could question herself back into shut down, she ran with it.
"You have a bug in your hair," she states in a flat voice. Her face contorts into an expression of displeasure and embarrassment at her social inadequacy (had she really been scared of speaking to a child?), the expression fully realized as she believed the darkness to hide the details of her features. She dropped her orange eyes away from the shape of Oren anyway, ears tipping back to her skull.
Sinking deep into a pit of self-blame, Alyssa relinquished her grasp on the small hope she'd had of making it on her own out in the real world and allowed her words to come without thought. Though, they also came with a big sigh. "I'm fine, thanks. The darkness hasn't tried to eat me yet so I can't complain."
Young, male an active is the only right description for Oren; that, and naivety combined with a short attention span. Himself, well, he doesn't mind - honestly there's so many interesting things about the world around them, he doesn't wonder about himself for long, let alone make comparisons with others. He is who he is now, and maybe later he will lose a bit of that spring in his step, but the future holds many mysteries. Who's to say he won't discover it in his own tempo?
The summer child doesn't get bothered much, though her uncomfortably shifting eyes are a warning to the sensitive boy. Nevertheless he waits for her to come up with something, and when she comes up empty, he asks if she's okay. When she seems to shut down further, he bites his lip to wait a little longer, just give her the chance to actually reply.
She doesn't - instead she comments on the firefly. But instead of feeling offended, Oren's face lights up (that is, for as much as that is possible in the deep darkness that surrounds them). "Yes, I found him all alone in the forest. His name's Ray." Possibly not the most imaginative name he could have come up with - but was it even him who came up with it, he thinks? There's something about the little light bug that he understands on a deeper level, a connection that tells him how the firefly is feeling. How come, he doesn't know.
The mare doesn't seem so happy though. Oren tilts his head, wondering if there's anything to do about that. Then, there's a bit of a half joke that he can latch on to, and he chuckles. "It'd better not. You're far too young to be eaten." he states with a certain certainty (of course, it's as much stolen from the way his mother says such things as anything else that accounts for wisdom in the young male).
He ponders for a moment, then tilts his head at her. "Where are you from? Do you have a home?" he wonders. She hadn't mentioned much - oh, not her name either, maybe he should have asked that instead, whoops - but maybe this means she knows of a safe spot. Or maybe she's lucky. Or maybe she's new to Beqanna - apparently there are people who come from other places, he has learned that much by now.
