"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
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
The Nerenian beacon is bright to Gale’s sharp eyes, a pinprick of light on the western horizon. It has been blazing for weeks now, never dark while he has watched it, and the curiosity had finally gotten the better of him. He’s crossed the ocean on black wings, wearing a shape that matches the Islandres osprey that flies beside him in every detail save his own electric blue eyes. Erne’s are golden, the only part of the sea hawk that is not midnight black as all the native fauna of his island home. The sea passes beneath them in darkness, only the sound of choppy waves and the briny scent wafting upward differentiating it from the shore they keep ever to their right (first the coast of Tephra, then Taiga, now Nerine). When the eastern peninsula of Nerine juts out in front of them, they land.
At the edge of the cliff, Gale shifts back to his equine shape, landing at a gallop that slows until he’s circles back, his hooves once more at the ledge. Erne had circled a moment longer, though now he, too, lands. The brilliantly white mane of the brindle stallion is an easy target even in the dim light, and Erne digs his talons firmly into his companion’s spinal mane for balance. Meanwhile, Gale rolls his wingless shoulders for a moment, and then shifts partially into the Gale that he once was, with a pair of brilliantly white wings, the left marked with a blood-like crimson V. It is a drain on his shapeshifting ability, but it remains the most comfortable shape for him, and so is worth the sacrifice.
He does not wear the wings for the reminder of his red wrist, or so he tells himself.
Shake his navy head, the stallion looks around. There is little to see in the darkness with his unadulterated eyes, so soon he searches for heat instead, attempting to identify whoever will come to investigate his landing before they are too close. By landing near the bonfire, Gale hopes to catch the attention of whomever tends it.
She isn't always by the fireside. Poppy is a creature constantly in search of new things and she has been delving deeply into the spaces of her home, heedless of the dangers lurking in the dark - when has she ever been stopped by such things? - so perhaps she is not very prompt when the blue stallion comes like a moth to the flame she has built. Perhaps he is forced to linger in the flickering firelight and wonder who has built it, or who is watching him that he cannot see in the obscurity beyond. Then again, maybe he sees in other ways. Ghaul had tracked her easily without a single eye to speak of in his horned head.
It's a lot of words to say there is a wait. Popinjay is hunting through the wild heath for monsters, and there are more than she expected to find in the rolling heather plains. There are, of course, the usual sort, the strange shifting gremlins that cut and bite and steal and never look quite the same to any two horses, and there are, occasionally, red-eyed beasts without skin, whose breath withers plants and animals alike. They are horse-like, but wrong, a second head atop their middle and long ghastly arms. From above she has watched them, the way they avoid the freshwater, the way they burn paths through her kingdom, and she wonders if this is why no-one comes to live here except those who wish to be left so terribly alone.
It is not a bad reason.
In the dark, cloudy sky, her eyes catch the flicker of a shadow pausing against the beacon of her fire, a flash of blue that matches no-one she knows, and the Rook wheels away with a thunderous beat of her wings, catching the southeast thermal back to the Flame. She circles it once, a great shadow in the sky, but it is not the bird that lands there in a rustle of feathers and beaten air. The singed feathers of her left wing are a lingering reminder of why she makes this choice. She had forgotten, once, that although lightning started the fire, it is not lightning anymore and she has no protection against the licking flames. They deserve greater respect than she had given them, it was not a mistake she would make again. Even Popinjay the daredevil could only press things so far, but she aims to be a master of walking that line. She lands in pulsing darkness and presses boldly forward, the curls of her forelock tossed aside so the star on her brow grins as brightly as her lips. Her dark eyes dance, full of lightning and fire and the twilight reflection of the salt-sea stranger.
"Hello, hello, hello!" Her muzzle reaches out in greeting without waiting for permission, eager for the scent of someone new, "Welcome to Nerine, mind the monsters. Especially the ones without skin."
She hasn't seen them come to the fire, but she is not convinced that they fear it.
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Though no one comes to greet them, Gale knows that they are not alone.
Does the fire that keep the monsters away, Gale wonders? Or does it draw them in, so that they circle it at a distant, light-drunk and dizzy.
Far below, the water crashes hard against the granite cliffs, and the wind that pushes at his back and sends his hair and feathers into disarray has no hint of spring at all in its cold fingers. Gale shivers, and draws his wings closer to him. Erne suggests returning home, but Gale has not left his island undefended for this long to return empty handed, and the pair of them continue to wait.
At last something emerges from the darkness, so large and dark that at first he braces for a clash with a Monster.
Instead, the enormous bird is a mare when it lands, a mare with red-streaked wings and more lightning in her dark eyes than Gale has ever seen at once in the sky. He’s not seen anything quite like her before, and combined with the relief that he will not (at least immediately) be fightning for his life against one of Nerine’s skinless monsters, Gale is rather delighted by her friendly welcome.
She smells like lightning too, Gale finds, but she feels solid against his nudge of greeting.
“Is this your fire?” He asks when he pulls away, casting his blue eyes for just a moment into the darkness around them to ensure that they are alone. There are some monsters that appear from shadows, so Gale chooses to keep his back to the fire so that he might see any that rise up before they are too large to avoid. They are not the worst of the monsters, the shadow-risers, but Gale is not eager to experience the cloud of melancholy that so often comes with them.
Gale
