"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
She emerges something new.
The womb is scarred, even still.
Scarred from where the child clawed his way out.
But that was years ago, wasn’t it?
And she is something new now. Something whole.
Something impenetrable.
She sways beneath this new weight.
How long was she dead? She has no memory.
And she does not know, either, that the child that killed her is now also dead.
How could she know?
But she is restored. Put back together with gold.
Every inch of her, gold.
Protected from horns and claws and teeth.
She could not save her own life then, but she is something else now.
She is alive and she will not be so easily destroyed.
Not that there is any piece of her that is worth keeping.
No part of her that is worth protecting.
And yet, here she is. Gold.
And she must get reacquainted with being alive, with moving as an alive thing might move.
While also acquainting herself with what it means to be made of gold rather than flesh and bone and sinew.
She draws in a long breath. Long and low, as if she is worried she might overextend the lungs.
And she releases it just as slow, careful.
She surveys the landscape and thinks about how much has changed since she was last here.
How much she has changed since she was last here.
again.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
01-03-2021, 09:18 AM (This post was last modified: 01-04-2021, 10:47 AM by Chemdog.)
Every few years he disappears once whatever harem of women he’s coerced into hanging out fade off. Many simply leave his presence, or some die, or another comes and draws them away. He’s never tried to keep anyone from going, but each time they depart, especially the last of them, it does sting a little. His pride, anyway, emotionally he gets over it pretty quick. He’s tried his hand, in his prolonged years, at most every mediocre role one can have in Beqanna. His favorite role has always been a herd stallion, simple and yet if you’re doing it right, an appropriate amount of work to keep one stimulated. There’s socializing, sex, joy, labor, conflict, and sometimes even babies. The whole endeavor is generally, he thinks, a good time and ever so gentle a hand the purring ego that is always lording over his thoughts.
He has no business being here, lurking among a patch of young hemlocks and watching the field come alive from behind the veil of deep green fingers. At first it seems empty, a dead atmosphere, but with his own stillness he can hear and feel the air come to life around him. Horses mill about, as do the deer and fox, whatever other creatures like it here. A safe haven for the equine to commune and find homes. Being without official residence, if the River doesn’t count, one would think he’s here to change that. He’s certainly not.
For hours he watches and nothing of substance catches his attention until a mysterious glint causes light to bounce oddly across the ground in front of him. His half white head tilts to the side, cocking one ear back with puzzlement. Beqanna was full of weird stuff that makes no sense, but still he’s perplexed enough to want to see what it might be. He reaches out with a snort, stepping forward into the open to see that it isn’t material, like a wisp or similar, but indeed just light, like a reflection off of something shiny – and there it is. He’s rather dull to not have spotted her before, a golden mare, of actual gold not just in shade, stands not far in the grassy distance. He unceremoniously begins his approach as soon as he sees her.
“Well,” he begins with a rumbling chuckle once he’s close, “among all of the interesting types I’ve seen in this place,” His grin his greedy, but genuine in its glee, “a gorgeous mare made of gold is by far one of the greats.” he watches her face for expression, for what she might think of his familial tone and his casual way of addressing a complete stranger. Some did not like it, some respond well; it’s a very effective way to gauge the temperature of how a particular interaction is going to go pretty quickly. “I'm Chem, and I was just travelling through before I became distracted by your...shine.” his grin fattens and both ears flick forward, a forelock of jet-black locks cast over one of his bright teal eyes while the other keeps with her.
She had been coy once.
Or, at least, she thinks she must have been.
She must have been because she smiles when the stallion wanders closer.
She smiles like a reflex, though her eyes stay dark.
Like there are generations of secrets hidden behind her pupils.
And perhaps there are. She had been dead a long time.
She had been dead and now she is not.
And he’s laughing, though she cannot tell if he’s laughing at her.
Or just the strangeness of the way she has been rebuilt.
She looks at him and thinks, you could have torn me apart once.
She thinks, you could have sunk your teeth into my flesh and I would have bled.
But she doesn’t say these things out loud.
She just smiles like a reflex.
She breathes, which is strange because she had been dead so long.
Because it does not seem that something unbreakable should have to breathe.
He smiles back at her and her own smile slips.
Has she ever wanted the things that wanted her?
She cannot remember now but she is unaffected by his flattery.
Can something made of metal be gorgeous?
She ducks her head and presses her mouth to her own chest.
She cannot feel the heart beating underneath.
She has not spoken in centuries.
She does not know if, should she open her mouth, any sound will come out at all?
But she lifts her head and blinks at him, tilts her golden head.
“Where were you going?” she asks.
The voice is not as metallic as she might have expected.
It is not lyrical, no, she had never been that kind of soft thing.
But it is not gritty or abrasive either.
She does not sound like a thing that has been dead a long time.
“Someplace better than here?”
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
@[Chemdog]
(of course it's okay!! and i left my reply vague if you want to incorporate the crazy darkness or not, totally up to you!!!)
01-21-2021, 08:33 AM (This post was last modified: 01-21-2021, 08:34 AM by Chemdog.)
Her impassive reaction to his slimy flattery interests him, but his motives shift in the moment he realizes she isn’t the type he will be able to lure off into the shadows with him to have his way with her. How would cold metal feel on his warmblood flesh? Upon closer inspection he realizes she’s solid, not dipped, and he quirks his ear to the side with idle wonderment. Hm. He chews nothing in his mouth, a byproduct of contemplating what sort of equine he might be looking at. She touches her nose to her chest like she’s checking her heartbeat and he speculates whether or not there is even a beating muscle inside her chest. It’s not really that important to him, truthfully, but so far she’s a very curious find even if she isn’t as receptive to his charm as he likes.
“To see a friend,” he chuckles with genuine mirth at the thought of Leilan’s arctic being called ‘nice’. “It’s not that nice, no.” he has no clever jibe for that, really, he doesn’t find it that spectacular of a place. But he does like Leilan and the others, and the dragon King has never refused to let him live there free of obligation to be of use. And that’s always pretty nice – being a freeloader with permission. His teal eyes focus on her golden face and his head tilts slightly to the left, “Have you been here before?” he looks around to the Field’s various happenings, recruiting, claiming, fraternizing in the warm sunlight and then back to her. Does she know what happens here or is she just wandering?
There isn’t much time for the metal mare to answer, because shortly after the stallion inquires something in the air shifts. A smell, foreign and immediately recognizable as not good washes over them. Rumbles happen in the distance, the ground trembling and the echoes of the earth cracking open reverberate across Beqanna. It rattles the senses, taking over smell first, and then a shockwave of ear-piercing screams kill one’s hearing; the blood-curdling screeches of lost souls desperate for help along with demonic voices screaming to escape. The sky turns gray, and then black, and the light is completely gone so quickly that even a casual dumbass like Chemdog is breathing heavy and his heart jumping up into his throat.
“No.” his deep voice is forced out under his breath, it is a thought that came to the surface without his consent. He would never want to sound like he’s scared, but he’s unable to stop it, his primal instincts are screaming from inside him that this is not good. This is actually the worst. The worst is happening. And as if the scenario needed extra prodding to be absolutely horrific – things now start to growl, snap and snarl in the darkness beyond them. Sounds of attacking, murdering, dying screams and gurgles. “Yikes.” he cannot see her, but he talks aloud now, trying to steady his voice. Was she even still there, or did she flee? His senses dulled, but slowly coming back as his body tries to adjust to the sudden darkness and flood of adrenaline.
Where do you run? Probably no where.
Things are not well.
01-31-2021, 03:48 PM (This post was last modified: 01-31-2021, 03:48 PM by bible.)
She does not see the appeal in going anywhere that isn’t nice.
Perhaps it is because she had been dead so long.
But she cannot imagine doing anything she does not want to do.
She is the master of her own fate.
She will not know happiness until she digs it out of the earth herself.
It occurs to her that she should say something.
She should ask him why he’s going if it’s not nice.
She should ask why he should bother to do something that does not please him.
Though, perhaps, these are the things that please him.
The ugly and dreadful things.
She understands the impulse to surround oneself with filth and rot, she thinks.
She tilts her golden head and watches him, unblinking.
The eyes had been closed so long that she does not want to close them now.
She wants to keep them open forever.
She does not want to miss anything.
Not because she is sentimental but because she is curious.
Curious about all the ways the world has changed in the time that has passed.
His question is easy to answer.
She smiles a metallic smile and nods.
“Yes,” she tells him.
“It looked different the last time I was here.”
The whole world had looked different then.
She cannot tell if it has been rebuilt with better or worse stuff.
Certainly she has been rebuilt stronger.
She had been dead so long that the fear she feels when the ground begins to shudder is muted.
Weak.
Hardly there at all.
She is not afraid to die again.
But a strange, abrupt darkness descends upon them and she turns her gaze to the sky.
The shadows move. Clamor. Reach.
She does not flee.
She turns her gaze then in his direction but cannot see him through the terrible darkness.
She is only vaguely aware of the sound of his voice through the dense shadows.
She is much more aware of the sound of suffering.
“Are you there?” she asks the darkness.
She is not afraid but she says, “please don’t leave” all the same.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
Maybe it’s because he has been alive for so long – the reason he will try anything once, just to see, or climb that proverbial mountain (or literal mountain) just to look at the world from it’s top. When time is nothing there is no harm is wasting it once and again.
Sometimes silences are not awkward, like now. Sometimes they come on naturally and the conversation seems beyond lips and ears and tone of voice. He doesn’t mind the way the air feels around her, the way she smells – which is such a foreign smell compared to that of flesh and fur, or hair and feathers, or scales even. He’s seen many odd things, peculiar bodies, odd markings and eyes, textures that range leathery skin to glass. But never metal, not until now; the living monument of herself.
He’s about to say something like “it’s always different when you return”, but that is when the world begins to warp and darken around them. He doesn’t get to say much of anything after that, not until he hears her in the darkness. It’s something he did not expect, even if delivered with the same hardened level tone she’s possessed the whole time. Her voice is distant even though it’s pouring from her very own lips. “I won’t.” comes forward in the softest tone that’s ever left his mouth. He reaches out like she’s someone familiar, finding the cold feel of her smooth surface. He’s not sure what part his lip grazes, a hip, ribcage, shoulder – he can’t tell. Or maybe it is only hallucination? A symptom of his mind and body failing him – could it be death, or a dream? Or both? “Hey,” he whispers, having calmed his nerves a bit now. If she speaks again then maybe it is all real…
Would she have told him?
Would she have told him what life had been like?
If the darkness had not so suddenly descended upon them.
She cannot remember now.
Cannot remember what she had been like in her last life.
Before the child had killed her.
Had she been the sort of woman who volunteered information even when she wasn’t asked?
She cannot remember herself, cannot remember who she had been.
She can remember only the things that had happened to her.
The violence.
And the violence is here again.
But she does not fear it.
His voice comes swimming at her out of the darkness.
His touch finds her, too.
(How peculiar it is to be touched by something warm when you are so cold.)
Does she choose to move toward him?
Or is there some unseen force that pushes her closer?
She cannot remember making the conscious decision.
But in the space of a breath she is pressed against him.
Has she ever been handed a promise like this before?
Certainly this is the kind of thing she would remember.
To ask someone not to leave and have them tell her they won’t.
Could this be considered a weakness?
She doesn’t care much about weakness, though.
Not when the sounds of suffering still close in around them.
And she bends her head close to him.
Leans a golden ear against his shoulder.
Asks, “have you ever died before?”
Pauses only briefly before she exhales and tells him,
“I died and I was reborn something so much greater.”
Although ‘reborn’ is perhaps not the right word.
She sprung forth from the earth fully formed, gilded, spectacular.
“Are you afraid to die?”
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
@[Chemdog]
i dig them too!
and sorry my posts are so short but i'm stuck in this weird post format with her lmao
maybe someday i will write normal posts with her
03-25-2021, 04:31 PM (This post was last modified: 03-31-2021, 07:09 AM by Chemdog.)
When she presses her ear against him, he feels his skin go cold, like a flash of frozen air blasting over him before it then feels like hot milk wrapping him. He’s always relished the touch of a woman, but this is a little different. Her metal feel is nothing he’s ever sidled up next to before, so the sensation is perplexing, yet magnetic still.
“Not that I can remember.” he eludes to reincarnation, his voice hollow of emotion when he says it – so matter of factly the words leave his lips into the night. He listens to her poetic voice, but when he tries to form a word or two in retort, she asks him a bold question. It draws a feeling of dread from his center and to his surface, he swallows hard – “I am afraid to suffer.” It wasn’t quite pain, or even terror that shapes his tone, but it is not a monotone as before. It has weight, gravelly and deep, and honest. He is rarely so honest about the stirring beneath his glassy exterior. He likes to keep things light, unattached, and most of all, shallow.
These few moments after the darkness sinks in, the howls and growls raging in the distance. The world is crumbling, cracking and moaning as it changes, as the magma boils and the underworld begins to pound at the doors. These moments feel deeper than any moments before them. It makes him realize is not afraid to die, but afraid to writhe in agony, or die trapped, to die desperately wanting.
“Well did that hurt?” he inquires, changing the current of his thoughts, yanking them away from deeper things and back to something a bit more in his comfort zone. Something cracks the bushes to their left, its footsteps loud and weighted, its growling rising, glowing red eyes seeming to float their way – things were becoming more dangerous now, they’ve been spotted. No time to answer his question, “We’ve got to get out of here…” he whispers into her neck, and if it were not dark you could see his breath fog her golden ‘skin’. He nudges her in the gentlest way he can toward the River. He’s not sure if it would be safer there, but it was a somewhere very familiar to him. He would not force her, or push her hard, but he would keep pace if she chooses to come and help stave off the dangers the world has now presented them with.
chemdog
astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
SORRY FOR THE WAIT
things have been.. a lot lately!
and you write this lovely girl any way you want! i love it
sorry for the weird post, hopefully they can continue in the river?
@[bible] <3
@[bible] )