"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
how to be a monster: 1. learn the taste of dirt and pain. 2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed. 3. see if that makes it easier to breathe.
Cringe did not expect to emerge from the darkness even stronger, but he did. The eclipse passed them by – old news, now – and though Cringe did not feel any sort of physical change, he noticed, upon interacting with others, that he could actually sense their fears. This had never been the case before, rather, he could do little more than cause some unease with the shadowy aura about him. This is different. More interesting.
He's learned, too, that he can glamour things to reflect that fear. Make others see monsters or terrors that aren’t there. It’s an intoxicating feeling, to make these fears real – or, real enough. He is still unskilled in this art, fumbling with these newfound powers, but he thinks, with practice, it will be quite a delightful thing.
Cringe finds himself back in the thick of Beqanna. He has been at its outskirts for too long, but he feels ready – eager, even – to return, to make new friends, or enemies. Not that he has any of those – friends, or enemies.
He moves in the forest, shadowy wings folded against his gold skin. He is smiling, but it is not a kind smile. Still, it might fool some of them. Or maybe he doesn’t even need to fool them. Not everyone here expects kindness, after all.
He breathes in the cool autumn air and walks on, still searching.
Nothing but the heaviness in her breast when she looks at the sky. The darkness that slowly overwhelms her each month, shadows taking over her coat until she wakes with sorrow on the back of her tongue. It is that which wakes her today. The moon has disappeared from the sky and she can do nothing but feel it’s absence like a hole in her heart. A wound that will not heal. An aching loss she cannot breathe around.
It drives her from slumber, walking through the forest as dark as onyx. Not a lick of silver left on her slender body. She is a priestess with a stolen god. The devout with nothing left to worship. She has been cleaved in two and she wanders as a zombie, her eyes wide and as dark as the rest of her.
It is only when she stumbles upon him, nearly as gold as her brother but more muted, more natural in tone, that she takes pause. Her head angles toward him and there is enough of a resemblance that she cannot stop herself. She stumbles forward, branches snapping beneath her hooves with the violence of a cracked bone, and comes upon him. Her face is open and wide, her eyes searching for what she cannot define.
“Hello,” she breathes before she can stop herself, and when no other words come, she does not run.
how to be a monster: 1. learn the taste of dirt and pain. 2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed. 3. see if that makes it easier to breathe.
She stumbles on him but he welcomes the interruption, especially when it comes in such an intriguing package. She is dark and beautiful and strange and those are all things that Cringe likes. There is an indistinct sense of something missing about her, some invisible wound, and he likes this even more than her beauty.
He reaches for her fears and feels a sense of darkness. He is reminded of the eclipse, wonders if that is what she is thinking of – if perhaps she was hunted by those indescribable monsters, or if she lost someone to that endless night. His powers cannot yet delve into such nuance, right now, all he knows is a sense, but that is enough, at least for now. While is isn’t a master of patience, he is learning.
“Hello,” he says to her, and dares to move slightly closer. He tries to make himself casual, as if he does not long to know the exact taste of her fear. But he stands easily, head relaxed, and he lets a smile crawl across his lips.
“Are you looking for something?” he asks. Most of them are, here, even if they don’t admit it. Even Cringe – hadn’t he been looking? Looking to test this power, to manifest someone’s fear, or visit their mind.
Maybe he’s even been looking for her, and didn’t yet know it.
The wound in her would be deeper had she been thinking of the Eclipse and what it must have been like—what it would have been for her to have been so severed from herself. Would she have survived, she wonders. Would she have even been able to live without the light of herself shining down on her. If she could not peer upward and see that great big moon looking back to her—reassuring her that all was well.
She’s not sure, can never be sure.
But that’s not what is haunting her this day. Instead, the darkness is but a temporary blight. A grief that will soon abate as soon as the world turns and her moon once again rises in the night sky.
Until then, she wears this garb of mourning.
And she meets strangers like this in the shadows.
She stops herself from greeting him again and instead watches him carefully with overlarge eyes, the color of them a pale gold set against the impossible black of her coat. “I am not looking because what I want cannot be found,” she says simply, her voice melodic and rich, a river running through the night.
“But my feet carry me forward all the same.”
A shrug, elegant and quick, as she comes to find his gaze again.
