"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
06-10-2021, 11:57 AM (This post was last modified: 06-10-2021, 04:21 PM by Nereza.)
so tell me why my gods look like you?
The forest is lively with songbirds and furry critters; bucks, does, and even fawns meander along down their own secret trails, and Nereza pauses for a moment to allow a wayward little fox kit to scurry along after his siblings and their mother before she continues on with a soft sigh and a smile.
“Be vigilant, Rezzy,” Oop warns, appearing with a ‘pop’ near her right shoulder. “Centurieses ago, this place was… it barbaric, okies?”
“What do you mean?” Nereza tilts an ear back towards him, though her gold eyes remain on the path ahead and the ever-brightening opening of the forest that would give way to the place they were going. The only sign she shows of unease is the slight twitching at the end of her wings.
(Surely, should trouble arise, she could fly fast and far away from here?)
“They awful,” he mutters, fluttering around her head to face her. His ruby red eyes narrow. “Trusts no one and runs if things gets bad, okies?”
“Yes, yes,” Nereza sighs again.
Oop puffs up his chest and glares at her, now flapping his tiny wings as fast as he can so that he can hover a few feet in front of her. “Am being serious, Rezzy. You dunno… dunno all the thing they did.”
“I promise you that I’ll be careful,” the spotted mare comes to a halt, regarding him seriously—for once. “We don’t know how we got to the Forest, or why; no one can see you, I can tell that much. That’s why they look at me so funny when I ask questions for you. We need answers, but first? We need to find some place to call home—a base, does that not sound safer than wandering around by ourselves?”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
It is Oop’s turn to sigh, but he nods his head to signal he has relented and disappears much in the same manner he appeared—a ‘pop’!
Nereza knows he isn’t gone forever, he has been popping in and out to check on her ever since she woke up, and she smiles brightly when she thinks back on the hot pink pixie’s concern.
(Is it warranted, though, I wonder?)
Stepping out beyond the soft greenlight of the trees, Nereza has to squint until her gold eyes adjust to the sudden brightness of The Field and she gasps. It doesn’t look like a place of barbarism and death, quite the contrary, it looks beautiful in its own quaint way with its tall rolling golden grass and its stream and waterfall. She even takes the time to stop and admire a patch of wildflowers before remembering to carry on her merry way.
“I wonder why he thought this place was so horrible?” Nereza muses aloud, and somewhere, Oop hopes that she never has to find out.
There are legions of creatures that skitter and scurry and flutter through the trees and underbrush. They lie in wait, both seen and unseen. And any one of them could be Reave’s eyes, an unexpected visitor peering invisibly through. It is a skill that requires a great deal of practice, of fine-tuning. The creatures are easy enough, though the more intelligent they grow, the more difficult it becomes. But they are all just a little bit different, picking up things one would never expect, seeing greater or fewer colors than he could ever hope.
It is dizzying.
Such a useful skill does not deserve to lie unused however, and so today Reave had found himself skirting the edges of the meadow and the field, practicing. Peering. Seeking. And finding.
He finds her and is immediately intrigued. To the swallow’s eyes, she talks only to herself, muttering in exasperation that she will be careful. It’s easy to ignore the boring, bland individuals that so often putter through here, but she is far from that.
When she steps from the trees, Reave is resting idly at the edges of the expansive field, bright blue gaze drifting curiously over her. She is lovely with her inky dark spots and her striking gold eyes, wings tucked against her sides. Reave on the other hand is far less so. Oh, he would be handsome enough were it not for the bones that break so harshly through the red and white of his skin. Their glow is muted in the brightness of the day, but still shining against the gleaming red of his coat. Against the blood that had dried as it trickled from where bone warred with skin.
When he moves forward to intercept her, it cracks anew.
The few spare moments he had spent watching her had not been idle ones. No, he had spent them watching the play of her memories in the emotions her excursion to the field brought. The curious creature visible only to her eye.
As he closes the distance, he hears faintly the question she asks to no one in particular. When he comes close enough they could conversate comfortably, he answers. “Because the horrible things never announce themselves.” A grin begins to curl the corners of his lips as he watches her, coming to a halt a short distance away. “I don’t think you’d enjoy meeting them though.”
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
“Oh I disagree.” His voice cuts through the momentary pause that follows Reave’s voice as the wildflowers almost seem to part before him, a black and gold entity with long ears that point at the tips. His red eyes survey the situation, that smug smirk firmly on his wicked dark lips, as a small white ball of light hovers over his shoulder. “She might enjoy meeting some of them.” A pause as he joins the little group but doesn’t distance himself from her quite as much as Reave does. “And this one has no problem introducing himself.” A flash in the dark red of his eyes, a roguish grin replacing the smirk and momentarily twisting the smooth indifference of his expression into something else. “I’m Obscene.”
“Haven’t you heard? Obscene means to fill his Court with the loveliest and most powerful that Beqanna has to offer.” Aela had known exactly what she had been doing when she had dropped those words in Loess. She also hadn’t been wrong. It’s what brings him from his rolling meadows of flowers to the usually barren common land today. Just in case there was something worth snatching. And while he isn’t sure if this young stranger will eventually classify as powerful, she certainly fits the criteria for beautiful.
His gaze lingers for a moment on the red and white stallion, a curious expression reflected in his crimson iris’s as he studies the protruding bones. Light still hovers beside him, the wisp never seems to be able to stay still but manages to appear always in that same place above his golden smeared shoulder. He nods as if it speaks to him. “Interesting.” He says quietly, almost as if meant for himself, those fiery eyes that remain steady on the chestnut male somehow giving off a feeling of cool appraisal. It breaks, finally, to turn his handsome Fae face back to her, threads of gold woven in the thick black strands of his mane dancing lightly against his arched neck as the fingers of a summer breeze pull through his hair.
“You would fit easily amongst the wildflowers, child.” He states, the indifference settling back on his features. As if he couldn’t care less one way or another how this little meeting would go. Beneath that smooth surface he is already bored with the tediousness of this kind of task and hopes to wrap it up. Quickly. With her agreeing to join him in the Pampas.
It’s the stillness of the forest behind her that forces Nereza to freeze mid-step. Her ears lay back against her head, almost disappearing into the blackness of her mane; suddenly, the voices of lesser creatures become silent enough that the ebb and flow of the water nearby and the ever-present hum and buzz of insects feels disorienting.
The spotted mare places her hoof down gently, noticing the approaching figure from the corner of her eye—though the sunlight, at first, makes it hard to see them clearly. Nereza draws her muzzle up close to her chest, angling the horn at the tip of her snout in such a way that it almost looks like she knows how to use it.
He looks terribly injured; she can smell the blood on him despite the distance and something in her chest tightens. It occurs to her that she should run, and though her legs are trembling ever so slightly, her feet stay firmly planted to the spot. She isn’t sure what to make of him, especially not when his skin splits open, and blood begins to dribble from the new wound. He keeps getting closer, though, so close that her heart has started hammering wildly in her chest and her black pupils widen ever so slightly.
“Huh?” Nereza blinks, shaking her head to clear it. Her body is tingling, she doesn’t feel… right, and whatever he has said doesn’t quite seem like real words until she pieces the sentences together again. He’d heard her.
“Ha, really now?” She cocks her head, visibly relaxing—she hadn’t noticed how tightly she’d been clenching her wings to her body until it had begun to hurt. “What are they, then? These terrible things I’ve heard so much about?” There’s an edge to her voice, a challenge—though she means only to tease him. “Maybe if I knew what to watch out for, I would know what to avoid.”
Nereza’s golden eyes wander to the visible fragments of bone, tracing the cracks they’ve made in his skin. She wonders how he got this way, if he was cursed—what she doesn’t notice are the pebbles rising from the ground around her. They float through the air absentmindedly; twirling lazily and looping around in sleepy circles, some of them appear to ripple and change colors. Nereza barely opens her mouth, intending to ask him if it hurts, when another voice chimes in and startles her. Suddenly, the pebbles fly forwards, tinkling harmlessly off the chunks of bone armor she had been focused on.
“I— “the words catch in her throat, she isn’t certain what to say, her eyes flicking between the two stallions rapidly. Was she sweating? She certainly hopes not, now was not the time to sweat.
‘Relax. Breathe.’
“I…I’m so sorry, I don’t know how that happened.”
‘Don’t freak out, don’t freak out— ‘
Obscene.
Horrible thing, he admits.
The spotted mare watches him carefully, raking over his gold-smeared body the same way she had his opposition; he is impossibly pretty, that is undeniable. When he tells her she would fit among the wildflowers, she almost shrinks away. This being? Thinks she has a place among flowers. He must be joking, surely, he is.
Somehow, she finds enough sense to straighten herself up to her full height and clears her throat. “I’m more of a weed, if anything, but thank you. My name is Nereza—it’s nice to meet you,” she bows her head slightly, then looks to the red stallion. “And you, what’s your name?”
@Reave @Obscene
For the sake of clarity, she's still two in this thread. Sorry I took so long. <3
The grin sits easily on his lips, unfaltering beneath her initial uncertainty, only deepening when she begins to relax. She questions him about the horrible things, but his attention is caught by the pebbles that shift and rise, morphing before his very eyes. They spur his curiosity to greater heights, untempered even when they are flung at the bones jutting from his skin. He doesn’t flinch beneath them, instead laughing as his attention is drawn back to her.
He merely shrugs at her apology before turning his sharp gaze to the stallion that had just joined them, wild claims upon his lips.
His eyes rake over the newcomer, seeing far more with that one glance than most would discover over hours of conversation. With the grin on his lips morphing into something decidedly more wicked, he clips back with humor on his tongue, “I might have asked if you always enjoy such pretense, but I can already see that you do.”
Turning back to the spotted mare, Reave’s grin widens. “I would describe them for you, but they often defy description.” He pauses, head tilting slightly before adding, “But perhaps one day I will show you.”
It would be so easy to imagine Reave himself as one, despite Obscene’s ready claim to it. With the carnage of bone and skin he wears, he certainly appears far more fitting of the part than the fae beauty and glib tongue of the other stallion. A barbarian and a noble, side by side.
The irony is not lost on the bone-armored Guardian.
Though Obscene is ready with compliments, Reave is not. Nor does he even try. He is not a man for spouting nonsense, nor would he become one for even a creature as lovely and obviously talented as the young mare before him. Her reply draws a brief chuckle from his throat as he slides a wry glance towards the silver-tongued stallion. “Ah, but flowers can be weeds too, can’t they?”
He grins at Nereza, impudence lining his shrouded features. “I’m Reave.”
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The grin of delight is real enough as his red eyes follow the trajectory of the pebbles that hover around her, glittering with amusement when they connect and bounce against the bony protrusions of the other young stallion. The girl immediately seems flustered as she tries to get out her apologetic words but the object of her abuse merely laughs, seeming to find the situation as amusing as he did. As Reave speaks he merely dips his head in a mocking bow, those vermillion eyes sparkling sharply and catching all his hard edges. “Alas, I speak nothing but truth.” He says with a curve of his lip and a deceptively smooth tone as he eyes the patchwork boy and his many oozing wounds.
He isn’t here for Reave though. He’s come for the girl.
She seems to fold beneath his thinly veiled compliment and he catches the sly look from the other when she compares herself to a weed. Reave responds and he chuckles, seeing he is not the only one with a way of words. “You would be surprised by how a weed can bloom into something... unexpected.” He adds nonchalantly, letting his gaze linger on her a little longer than necessary with the implication to his last word. He will not deny his interest in the bone-clad boy beside him but he doesn’t allow his focus to stray today. He ambles a little closer to the filly, keenly aware of the spikes running down her face. “If only given the proper environment.” He finishes like an afterthought although his penetrating gaze never strays from her.
Light still hovers by his shoulder and he tilts his head towards the small glowing orb as if listening again, his pupils narrowing as his smile spreads into something devilish. “My companion seems to think you have a connection to the fae, is that true?” He asks quietly as his own ghostly tie to faerie gleams a little brighter beside him.
Nereza eyes Reave curiously; despite his appearance, there is something about his demeanor that seems soft, but certainly not weak. Gentle enough to soothe, but strong enough to make them bleed; he has seen the horrible things the Pixie spoke of and managed to survive despite them. Surely, no one comes out of encounters like that the same—she remembers fangs, and blood, and pain, and that unbearable ache in her chest caused by betrayal. But then the memory is gone again, she forgets once more, and thinks the way her eyes water has something to do with the weather.
(Somewhere, a certain Lady of the Woods sighs in relief.)
“When I’m ready to see them, I’ll come find you,” her words hang in the air like a solemn promise, and it is, though she hasn’t quite realized it yet. She’ll want to know how to be gentle like him some day; first, though, the hidden monsters in their world would make her strong.
Oop pops into existence at Obscene’s side, opposite of the ball of light when he asks if she has ties to the Fae. ‘He knows,’ the pixie mouths, gesturing with his nose and front hooves between the beautiful stallion and his companion. Nereza can tell there is something serious about this revelation, but cannot help the big grin that forces itself across her mouth. Their compliments seem to fall on deaf ears, which works in her favor; she isn’t used to anyone telling her she’s beautiful, much less males, and doesn’t want to start squirming again. Oop rolls his ruby red eyes, muttering insults aimed at her for being so immature under his breath, and she coughs to conceal her laughter.
“It’s true,” she admits, following Oop with her eyes as he flutters between them. Nereza doesn’t turn her attention back to the two recruiters until the chubby pink creature disappears once more. “Are you Fae?” The spotted girl wonders aloud, giving her tail an absentminded flick. She doesn’t know much about them, besides Oop, and he’d been attached to her since giving her his light though the glow isn’t visible now during the day.
Still, she digresses.
“I know what the Field is for,” she tells them, Oop floating past her head—angry, rotting. He always rots whenever he is upset with her. He wants her to hurry. A home would be safer. “You both give me the impression that your time is very valuable, so tell me, what opportunities do your lands provide?”
“Asks all the questions,” Oop murmurs, floating past her head, unseen by all except Nereza and Wisp.. “Seeks out all the answers.”
“What do they value? What do they treasure? Can you teach me to fight?” Nereza asks the last question with a pointed grin; somewhere behind her, Oop cackles.
“You?! Fight?!” He howls with laughter.
Nereza snorts, shaking her head; the pixie can laugh all he wants, which he does, flopping and kicking and snorting through the air, unable to contain it. If they insisted on calling her a flower, so be it, she will be a rose and all who know her will learn to mind her thorns.
“The truth can be so terribly subjective,” Reave replies lightly to the fae’s claim of speaking truth. Of course, when the other stallion’s memories lay bare in his flickering emotions, Reave can see enough of the truth himself to know. The stallion believed himself a monster, but he had never met true monsters if he thought himself one. Regardless of what might coil beneath his skin.
Reave has enough of his own subjective truths to know just how dangerous they can be. A different sort of danger altogether.
As he focuses on the spotted mare, her solemn words draw a faint smile to his lips. “When you’re ready then,” he agrees, blue eyes steady and sharp despite his upturned mouth. There are memories that linger, shoved into dark corners of her mind. He can almost see them on the edges of his vision, but something keeps them tucked away.
He is not nearly so kind and gentle as she imagines, but he retains enough honor to resist trying to pull those memories out. At least, until she asks him to do so. Curiosity is such a fickle beast.
Reave’s gaze flicks briefly to the gilded stallion as he questions her fae connections. Though he had said nothing of it, his abilities had already shown him Nereza’s invisible companion. He cannot see the creature with his own sight of course, but he does not need to.
Secrets upon secrets and truths upon truths today it seems.
Abruptly she draws the subject around to their current location. A laugh builds in his throat as she fires questions at them, intent now upon learning what she can of their homes. The laugh finally breaks from his lips when she asks if they can teach her to fight. In truth, he hadn’t come here prepared to sell his home. Curiosity had drawn him more than anything.
“Where to start, hm?” he begins, eyes still gleaming with amusement at her barrage of questions. “I cannot tell you what Nerine treasures because it is made up of individuals,” he finally replies after a brief pause. “You’re better off telling me what you value so that I can add it to the list.” He tips his head, wry grin curving his lips. “Fighting though, that I can do. Or my mother. She would be a much better teacher than I.” A brief flicker of something almost like sadness crosses his gaze, swiftly hidden. “She taught my brother, and she tried to teach me.” He laughs. “I was not a very good pupil.”
He tilts his head then, devilish humor lighting his masked features. “I do have some flowers you might enjoy too,” he adds. When he continues, his head tips towards Obscene in a brief gesture. “Much different from the ones littering his land.” Obscene had insisted on comparing her to one. Perhaps she would like his carnivorous garden better than the weed she had insisted she is.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
It is clear that Reave will be one to watch. His smirk only twists deeper on dark lips at the comment of truth, finding nothing to disagree with. Perhaps the stallion oozing blood and exposed calcium was right, perhaps he wasn’t a monster. But he knew better than to think that monsters could only be classified by things with sharp teeth that stole away children at night. Monsters could wear many faces and even if he wasn’t truly one himself, despite whatever lurked beneath his onyx skin, he was at the very least a villain whose intentions were questionable at this stage in the game.
“I am.” He says quietly, clearly amused by the way all this was going when she asks if he is Fae. Surely the pointed ears and glittering adornments gave it away but then again not everyone had been abandoned and raised by fairies. What he had thought would be a tedious and rather dull encounter had turned into something surprisingly more interesting. The Wisp leaves his side and follows behind the rotting ghost that only she (and Light) can see but that all know is there. His gaze trails the orb for a moment before it flits around Reave and his curious bones.
“Where to start.” He says and Obscene merely watches him closely as he settles for whatever story is about to be told. He learns much in what the stallion has to say. About Nerine. About him. That flicker in his eyes had spoke to something but had vanished before he could place it. Something different flares in the fiery pits of his own red gaze when Reave speaks of his mother but that disappears quickly too. There is no mistaking it for the anger that it is though.
It’s easy enough to slip back into something smooth and indifferent when Reave steers the conversation back to him, a smile coaxing the corners of his lips into something amused while his glittering iris's remain hard as gems. “I’m sure you do. Though I doubt they are half the fun that mine are.” He says with a smooth rumble, turning his attention back to her. “I can tell you that the Pampas holds the most powerful and beautiful but that would be a lie.” He says to her, pensive. “But it will one day.” He says with a sly slip of his lips, letting his ruby gaze linger on her horns thoughtfully and not realizing just how true that statement would one day be. “I hold a court of pranksters, schemers, and dreamers.” He finally says after a moment, the Wisp finally coming back to his side. “We are a motley crew of misfits.” He says with a small grin but what he really means is that they are family, regardless if they liked it or not. “I’m sure someone can teach you to fight. Aela, my Seneschal, perhaps. Even if she couldn’t I’m sure she would know someone that could.” He finally finishes, thinking of the golden mare briefly and how pleased she would be too bring someone so moldable home with him.
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}