"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
08-29-2021, 05:51 PM (This post was last modified: 08-29-2021, 06:11 PM by Sickle.)
sickle
Sick. Malik was ill and she needed to go to him. It took no effort at all for Sickle to follow the lead of the three adults, sure that this was safe if her cousin was involved and her worry for her brother clouding her mind. Her companion didn't even leave to go find Wishbone as suggested - he stuck close to her, Sickle didn't want him to be out of her sight. The brilliant blue of his fire-feathers flicker across her coat in her distress and she remains entirely in her own head, not even finding the ability to ask any more questions as she is fond of doing.
She doesn't know that Nerine is further north, having never ventured anywhere other than the common lands on her adventures. Even when she had gone to Hyaline, she had been teleported there - though she knew there were mountains and there were clearly none of those here.
Sickle even doesn't understand why Malik is in Nerine at all - she had been so sure he had been in Hyaline with their cursed father - but this is another one of those things she just can't bring herself to ask.
Once they arrive in a land brilliant with wildflowers, she cannot help but frown at it despite its beauty. Not far past the border she stops in her tracks and her phoenix companion circles overhead, his bright eyes keen for any recognizable faces.
“This is Nerine? Where is Malik?” She asks in a quiet voice, finally speaking some of her questions - doubt creeping in. It was a beautiful place to be, but her brother was sick. She wasn't really focusing on the landscape.
Her gaze focuses on who she believes to be her cousin, hoping that Sundari will be able to give her some answers. As her unease grows, the shades of the blooms around them begin to scatter themselves on Sickle's iridescent blue coat, tracing the lines made from her brindling.
@Obscene @Aela @Wherewolf no obligation to reply if you don't want to but I wanted to get something up! <3
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
His inability to lie was rarely a hinderance when one can simply rely on cleverness in their choice of words and questions. However he cannot deny the brilliance of the falsity that Wherewolf weaves into the filly, playing on the one thing Sickle wants most. And that seems to be Malik. There is no hesitance after that brilliance (a flicker of appreciation in his red eyes at the cover of Nerine) and she is surprisingly quiet as they lead her swiftly and quickly from Tephra.
There is no need of Aela’s powers when he can see the uncertainty slowly dawning on her open face, the doubt when they finally reach the Pampas and its many fields of flowers. He is silent, coming to a halt just a little behind her as he brings up the rear of their party. Sickle was most comfortable with her “family members” and so he had left her in their capable hands as he did his best to cover some of their tracks, his natural suspicion bothering him the entire way home at their lack of interruption.
It had been too easy. Something didn’t feel right.
He has not forgotten the jaguar mare his sister had spoken of, still lurking in the depths of the volcanic jungle.
He knows he will have to go back and the acceptance of that makes him gnash his teeth.
Sickle needs to be dealt with first though. Her voice is quiet as she frowns at idyllic beauty of the Pampas and he matches hers with one of his own as he looks at the shifting colors that bloom across her backside. “He’s not here.” He finally says quietly, not bothering to look at his companions to see what they think of this different direction he’s taken. It had taken simple lies to bring her here. He thinks the truth might just make her want to stay and there is nobody better to give it to her then he. “I believe he’s with your father. In Hyaline.”
There is only one brief moment to try and catch her before she falls back into her doubt and fear and so he does his best to quell it, coming around to stand beside her. He looks out at the home he had built with a smooth unreadable expression, not glancing down at her once. “You were no longer safe in Tephra.” He finally says and is surprised by how easily those words leave his tongue. But it was the truth wasn't it? Gale had known where she was in the first place. ”Do you know what I am Sickle?” He asks her quietly, finally looking down at the young girl who they had stolen. “I am Fae which means I cannot lie.” He lowers his head, red eyes piercing as it meets her level. “If you can trust us, we might be able to help you.” And in turn perhaps help themselves. For he has no intention of returning the girl to Hyaline just yet.
08-30-2021, 05:20 PM (This post was last modified: 08-30-2021, 06:04 PM by Aela.)
The girl is looking up at Aela - thinking that she is still Sundari - and while the palomino would have gladly kept up the rouse (she is always wanting to push the limits of her magic), there is no mistaking the way she relaxes as the Empath closes away her gifts. The lovely cream-and-white filly becomes the even lovelier Aela, glittering and shining beneath the Pampas sun.
Now she doesn't have to pretend to be someone she isn't, and while Obscene explains that this field of flowers isn't Nerine (thanks be to Carnage), her expression remains neutral as she takes in this child of Gale and Mazikeen. She had known that the Prince was torn on what to do with her; return her to Hyaline or keep her in the Pampas. Obscene knew how Aela felt about it. Once Gale got what he wanted, what reason did he have to keep his part of the bargain?
She had learned enough stories about her Cursed father to know it would be foolish to trust the brindled stallion just by his word.
Her blue eyes are masked as Obscene goes on to explain that Sickle might not have been safe in Tephra. As he explains what he is and what he can do. As he encourages the yearling - the one that they have just blatantly lied and illusioned and taken from her home - to trust them.
If Sickle is truly a relation of hers, Aela expects her niece to be a far smarter creature than that.
She studies the youth, and considering the speech that Obscene has given, she decides against saying anything. The girl was most likely overwhelmed and having three strange faces talking at her wouldn't help put her at ease. So the palomino flicks her flaxen tail and gives the child an empathic nudge: infusing the small area around them with just a hint of trust.
It does not occur to him at all that the child may be hurt by his lies - it was, after all, his false words that ultimately gained her compliance (and her silence) until they were home again. Until the Pampas' fields of color stoked her suspicion and Obscene finally revealed the truth. The dark mask of his face is twisted into a scowl, but he keeps his silence. He has no magic to convince the girl to stay and he would not use it now if he did.
He does, however, scoff audibly at the idea that they will help her very much. He thinks they're wrong, wrong to break the lie, and wrong to even consider keeping Sickle here. They're wrong to think that they're less of a target with or without her, but trying to convince either of them feels like more work than he wants to put into this.
Perhaps Obscene does not truly understand the Curse. Does Aela, he wonders? Wherewolf does not pretend to, but he does not think it is something likely to be bargained with. It will destroy them regardless of whether or not they have its daughter - the daughter it could easily have brought home on its own as easy as blinking. It will destroy them because it wants to, and, maybe, if the scant rumors can be believed, it will bring them back so it can destroy them again.
Wherewolf is keen to act as if he does not care one way or the other, but if the Hyalinians come to burn the Pampas, he will be long gone.
Sickle feels her stomach drop and a hiss escapes Oceanus as he circles overhead once the truth is revealed. She does not want him to leave her but he takes off for Tephra, for Wishbone, much later than he should have. For now, the yearling girl doesn’t notice his absence - she’s staring wide-eyed at the long-eared stallion, and then the mare who wore the face of her cousin. Distress seeps in and her form begins to flicker in time with her rapid heartbeat. Sometimes a filly, sometimes something else - each shape gone too fast to name so that she seems to blur.
She’s never heard of a fae before, her mismatched eyes blink red and then two different shades of blue before returning to their natural state when she looks at the one who’d spoken. That he cannot lie could very well be a lie in itself, how could she ever know?
A strange desire to trust them rises in Sickle but she fights against it. She steps away, just enough that she is facing them all and her body finally settles into a form - that of an iridescent blue dragon. Still the same size as her yearling self, but she feels a little better for having armoured scales and sharp teeth. The colours of the Pampas flicker more wildly across her coat as she battles her distress (she’d let herself be taken from her home again) and joy (did this mean Malik wasn’t sick?).
She has nothing to say but questions as her attention flickers between the trio - the next words that come out are shakier than she would like, filled with hope “Is Malik okay then?” With their frightening father, as she had suspected since he had disappeared, but if he was not ill that would be some comfort.
There’s a little more steel in her next question. Her will to fight does not come from her father's side, it finds its source in both the mare who raised her and the one who had given birth to her - though she does not know these aren’t the same.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
Some children are incredibly foolish. Sickle does not fall under that category, she is a suspicious and untrusting child and he can relate, being a suspicious and untrusting man himself. Her birds departure is noticed by all of them but he keeps his eyes on her, unbothered and remarkably patient as she blurs before him into a variety of shapes in her distress. When she steps away and finally lands into the body of the small blue dragon, he simply smiles and runs his gaze across her scales with familiarity as he recalls a black and gold dragon gliding across a blood-red sky.
His own scales shimmer and a few more find a place along his star imprinted chest as he regards the reptile. The two adults beside him are silent but he doesn’t need magic to feel the Lord’s disapproval or know what’s lurking in Aela’s mind. Personally his thoughts run the same as Wherewolf’s and he wouldn’t disagree with the logic there. Gale could easily destroy them all but to think that there would be anywhere to run, that there would ever be anywhere safe to hide from the cursed thing in Hyaline, was an even more foolish thought. They had been doomed the moment Gale had sliced open Aela’s chest and sampled her flesh like an hors d’oeuvre. It didn’t matter if they returned Sickle or not at the end of the day. He had known that the moment Gale had opened his mouth.
As long as the indigo stallion lived and breathed, there was no such thing as safety.
Better to take a chance then roll over with an exposed belly.
Better to take a stance on the board of this "long game" they were all playing.
And perhaps this child was their chance. There had to be a reason that Hyaline hadn’t collected her themselves. There was a reason the child was in Tephra to begin with. This girl that collects all the colors of the flowers and scatters them across her scales. What else could this changeling child do?
She asks about her brother again and there is a flicker of irritation but he drives it down, choosing to simply shrug instead. “I don’t know.” He responds honestly. “I did not see him when your father asked me to find you.” He thinks that’s a good enough response for both questions and he’s sure he has her curiosity now. “Do you want to be found Sickle?” His voice is still smooth and quiet as he looks down at her with his glittering stare. "Do you want to go back to your father?"
09-06-2021, 11:32 AM (This post was last modified: 09-06-2021, 11:37 AM by Aela.)
It didn't matter what they did with Sickle, and yet the child was clearly important.
Perhaps Gale had asked Obscene to steal her as a distraction from something else. Perhaps while they had gone to Tephra, Gale had intended to sweep across the Pampas as a fire-tailed Phoenix and send the flower fields up in smoke. Aela had half-expected that her fraternal sibling would point the Flower Court in one direction while he decimated another.
But the theft of the girl had been quick and easy and quiet.
Maybe Gale had never really wanted this child. Maybe he had needed her out of the way for some reason. Perhaps, she wonders as she thinks of fiery Mazikeen, he had wanted to separate the girl from her mother as Wolfbane had once done with her and Lilliana. Just another way to inflict pain, without having to dig claws into the skin or pointed teeth to pierce it. Her mind considers these reasons, and then Aela smiles slightly glancing down at the yearling.
(She always thanks the Gods that Heartfire had found her. Had she been raised by anyone else, Aela would have always been ordinary.)
Obscene answers the iridescent filly's question, stating that he doesn't know where Malik is or if he is safe. That is something that Aela knows and she shares it, wondering what the reason was that Mazikeen's daughter was in Tephra while her son was in Hyaline. "Your brother was in Hyaline," Aela tells her simply, and gives a careful roll of her gold shoulders. With Gale, but she also adds: "With your father and mother."
Aela knew a little more than that and she wonders if this information might help Sickle decide if she wants to go to Hyaline. If she wanted to leave the "safety" of the Pampas at all. Her guarded face slips and for an Empath as talented as Aela, it isn't hard to project sorrow into herself and the air around the group, to be perceived as the grieving aunt who only wanted to keep this niece safe where she had failed her nephew. "They took my nephew - your... cousin Bolder - and have him there as well."
They doused your soul in water, but the flames raged higher. And they called you devil's daughter, such a pretty liar.
@Wherewolf maybe aela's sorrow can make wolfey feel a little bad about murdering his mother lmfao
Is his silence conspicuous? The words that drew the girl were his, but now that she is here, he keeps his silence, glowering slightly. Aela's sadness lodges in his throat and pricks at his eyes, but it only makes his scowl deepen. He shifts his weight. Wherewolf does not care about Bolder, and he does not want to feel sad. His heart rebels against the artificial sorrow, rising up in anger, instead. The gold-dappled Lord steps back, shaking out his wings so that their dust drifts through the small gathering. With a snort, he leaps skyward in a great gust of wind, circling as he gains altitude before barrelling toward the common lands where he can breathe.
There is a lot of information dropped on Sickle and she feels her sorrow rise up, dragging her down and down and down and not realizing it is coming from an outside source. She watches as the gold-dappled stallion flies away, using the opportunity to sort out her thoughts and the information that she’s been given and the questions she had been asked.
Her dad wanted to find her again, after giving her back? Did she want to be found? And Bolder was her cousin?!
It’s another question that comes out first though, adding to the collection of those that she’s already spoken. She isn’t sure she’s ever had an interaction with adults that wasn’t just her asking for more information than what they had given her. Those orange and blue eyes of hers shine with tears even with the flutter of hope she feels at the mention of her mother. “My mom is in Hyaline?” She asks the golden mare before her gaze shifts back to the black stallion and she replies with what she means to be steely resolve, but which just ends up being whispered words “I don’t want to see him again.”
An idea comes and she holds onto the growing hope that tries to eat through the sorrow. “Maybe I can stay here until my mom comes to get me?” She says, still thinking of Wishbone. If the purple mare was in Hyaline, that explained why she hadn’t been in Tephra to stop this collection of horses from whisking her away. And if anyone could get Malik - and her cousin - away from her dad, it was definitely her mom.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The dark Prince has never been someone that anyone would ever call nice. He wasn’t the worst thing roaming Beqanna, far from it, but he wasn’t a soft squishy lovable idiot either. Over the years he had hardened himself, pushed emotions in that deep dark hole inside him, told himself he didn’t care. And for a long time he truly believed that lie because he had been so good at it, telling falsities and making other’s believe them. Perhaps that had started to change when he became Fae and could no longer stretch the truth like he once had. Or maybe it had started with Cheri when she had looked at him briefly like he was someone worth knowing all those years ago in a dark and stormy meadow. Either way, inadvertently, he stopped trusting what was said around him as he remembered that everyone else was not bound like he was. And those lies he had told in the beginning, he started doubting them too.
Once he had found a dark delicious pleasure in making other’s cry, making them fold and break beneath the weight of a well-timed word or sharp sentence that he could hone like a blade. He looks down at the tears welling in the girl’s eyes and instead of that pleasure… He feels something else tug at him, an emotion he had forgotten. It almost feels like sympathy. He leaves the explanation of Sickle’s mother to Aela (as the golden striped mare could explain their insane family better then he could) but when she looks back at him and whispers those words, his smirk fades as it curves into a small thoughtful frown. “Then you don’t have to.” He says firmly back to her and if Aela is annoyed or upset by this decision then, for once, he truly doesn't care. He finds he doesn’t want to give the filly back to Gale even if it means saving their own skins. Not if it means she is merely a sacrifice for him to carve up and serve as he pleases. What kid deserved that?
“You can stay here as long as you like, Sickle.” He finally says, struggling with the unfamiliar feelings that she somehow stirs in him. There must be another way of using the child to their advantage, one that doesn’t require handing her over to any of Hyaline's wolves. He glances at Aela, a discussion to have at another time. He looks up to where Wherewolf had vanished and it seems he is concentrating for a moment. Then, after a few minutes of silently gazing off into the horizon, a small glowing orb begins to move towards them. When the Wisp finally appears at his side, he looks back to the conflicted foal with a thin pressed smile. “This is Light. He’s agreed to stay with you until your bird returns if you would like.” It’s as much for his sake as it is for hers, something he trusts will watch over her that won’t scheme behind his back. And if she finds some comfort in the brightness, something that might stop her tears, he wouldn’t mind that either.
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}
