"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
He had liked the meadow at night because he had found a girl of stars there once. He had found the playground at night to be frustrating but interesting because it had led him to the strange boy who had claimed he was a fairy (not knowing that he lived amongst one of the Fae himself). It’s the Forest he likes best of all though, he thinks. It always feels especially forbidden this late at night when he wanders through it. Dangerous and full of mystery in the deep black nooks and cold crannies, so many things he can erupt in flames, so many shadows his souls can hide in. This Forest is when he feels most himself because it holds that feeling of wrongness. That feeling of terrible. Just like him.
He thinks he is doing well at trying to be all those good kind of terrible’s that Aela had insisted he could be. Yet he can’t shake that darkness within him, that fear at his core that he was something bad just as his mother (and those brats in the den) had suspected. Maybe it has something to do with the way the Prince’s red eyes would narrow on him (unaware that the spots that adorn his coat fester bad memories in the Fae’s mind). Or the fact that there were still some that flinched from his shades and flames. He tries to remember the lesson the striped mare had given to him, the one he repeats like a mantra. That they were scared because they don’t understand.
He was already growing tired of so many not being able to understand.
The jaguar colt glows brightly where the moonlight filters through the trees and he becomes a faulty lantern as he moves through the eerie silence, blinking in and out of of his golden glow like a lightning bug. A new soul follows him tonight, one that seems sad. She is a pale gray mare, transparent as all the souls are. She had said something about a child, her son, but had yet to give him a name. He had tried to explain that she was dead and he had no idea who her son was, as kindly as he could, and she had not spoken since. She drifts beside him, passing through the trees in her non-corporeal form, and he finds he doesn’t mind her melancholy company (despite the silvery blood she is covered in) and so he does not banish her. He was still working on that, on calling them and dismissing them when he wanted to and not on the whims of ghosts that took advantage of magic he was still learning to control.
She disappears in a flash though when there is a sound behind him and he whirls, a guilty expression on his pale face and uncertainty flashing through his feral eyes. “Whose there?”
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Of all the personal tragedies that have marked Firion’s life, his parents have never been one of them. He was the son of a love match, an impossible thing, and he had never known anything but the fact that he was wanted. He had been raised wild and free in the Hyaline mountains, watched over by parents who had taken the time whenever he had desired their attention. Even his father, as cruel and cutting as he was with all but his mother, had taught him to hunt. How to use the sharp canines gifted to him from birth. Had imparted on him a wicked sense of humor and undying appreciation for sarcasm.
And his mother?
Firion would go to the mat for her, whenever it was needed.
Instead, his failures come from what he kept from them. The things his life had stripped away from him. Taking the golden boy who had every creature comfort and cursing him before damning him.
He rolls his shoulders, as if to remove the irritant of his thoughts, before picking up the pace and moving through the meadow. The headache that often built through the day was beginning to dull and, in turn, his mood was indeed improving. In response, he can feel his shadow companion stretching out and batting at his legs, pleased to see the dark cloud above Firion’s head easing into something less frightening.
Smirking down, Firion nearly misses the glowing boy and the specter by his side—and were it not for the faint glow, perhaps he might have. But something rings through him in response. A recognition that he has no name for, a bell that tolls inside his mind, and he pauses, hoof breaking a branch beneath him. At the sound, the colt turns on him and Firion settles his weight more firmly. He quickly casts a golden gaze over him, taking note of the coloring and the glow, the ghosts by his side like those his father calls.
It’s enough to make him wonder.
Firion is not an idiot enough to think that his antics during breeding season would not have consequences. He knew that what was a moment of pleasure or a run-in with a stranger could lead to…something. He had just never stopped to think that he would come face-to-face with it. Unwilling to dive into the boy’s mind and dredge up the face of his mother to confirm and unsure about how to go about tracing his own lineage, following the thumbprint of the one in front of him, he just frowns and says simply: “Me.”
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
There had never been any conversations with his birth mother about who he was or where he had come from. There had been no time when he, only hours old, stood alone in the den and his dam was nowhere to be found. It hadn’t even been a thought to ask about his sire and how he had came to be. Why he was wrong. Being raised by the wildflower court had muddled his senses about what family should look like and despite the awareness that most children had two parents, he doesn’t ever think to be bothered that he has none.
He is curious though on why this golden stallion wreathed in shadows looks familiar to him. The glow around him does not dim as he takes a small step towards the “Me” in the woods. Feral eyes looking at the bright gold skin and the familiar patterns that they both wear. “Am I… you?” He finally asks, unable to put together the obvious pieces of the puzzle laid before him. He is a boy surrounded by magic and seeing an adult image of himself (even though their differences are apparent enough) makes more sense to him then discovering his father by happenstance.
Fyr had discovered that most of those lurking in the night where like him, misunderstood. Hiding from those that were afraid of what they could not understand. He wonders if this stallion was also considered terrible, sensing a darkness around them that he doesn’t think only comes from himself. He tries to grasp the shadows, tries to recall the soul that had fled, but he is too distracted to truly focus on summoning from the void. So instead he offers the frowning “Me” a different piece of himself. Like the flower he had once raised from broken twigs for the striped mare, he now forms a detailed rose of fire (ten times better than the one he had made months before) from the decaying leaves and dry branches before them. It blooms and wilts before their eyes and the boy smiles at the man, hoping he will be pleased. “I’m Fyr.” He finally says and then frowns (looking much like the stallion before him) as he realizes that if the horse in front of him is himself then he would already know his name.
Firion has spent much of his life hiding from himself, pushing the truth of him into the shadows because it was unbearable to look at. A boy raised wild and cursed before maturity hit. A boy warped into something new. He had risen one day with ash and death on his tongue and no understanding of where it had come from. He had spent years upon years stumbling through the night, his mind leaving him, his body betraying him. And when he had finally broken free of it? When he had found magic instead?
It had damned him, not saved him.
So he considers himself terrible, but for different reasons then this boy might. He has looked upon the truth of his heart and found it wanting, found it ugly, found the pieces of him not worth saving.
And they are the pieces that scream at him to leave now before he does even more damage. To turn from this young boy before it is another victim of his selfishness, his callousness, his greedy heart. But it is another part of him that keeps him anchored, his heavy jawed head tilted to the side, his expression contemplative. “I very much doubt that,” is all he answers as his shadow companion twists around his legs, turning back into smoke before coming to rest curled upon his back like a small cat.
His expression grows curious as the rose of flames blooms before him. “Hello, Fyr,” he says and with a simple twitch of his shoulder, the entire space around them bursts into flames. Harmless illusions of fire, although the heat is real enough. The sting of it on his skin a welcome reminder as the smoke curls toward the sky. With a twist of his magic, the flames bend toward his will and they turn into a meadow of the very flower that Fyr had presented him with. A blanket of wildfire blooms that spread out around them.
The light flickers against them as the flames bank and then settle, crackling like candles at their feet.
“I’m Firion.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
The look he gives his sire is a contemplative one that matches his own. “Oh.” He says solemnly, looking at the wisps of shadow winding through the stallion’s legs. He’s not quite sure he buys it, his golden guardian had told him of the wide variety of magic and powers that could stretch an imagination beyond its normal limits. He grows even more suspicious when the world around them erupts into flame but it is drowned out by the pure joy that fills the darting bright yellow eyes trying to take it all in.
He can feel the flicker of heat, a feeling as real as the embers he could alight on the bristled mane of a foal. The wildfire flowers flicker around him and he looks up at Firion (so similar, suspiciously, to his own name) with wild excited eyes. “Oh…” He exhales sharply. “You’re terrible too.” And as he looks up at this older version of himself like the hero he had quickly become, he grins with delight. “You’re terrible… like me.”
As the flames crackle and smolder around them, he gathers the thread of magic around himself and feels a wonderful burst of power as he comes to understand seeing himself through the eyes of another. How he could shine as brilliantly as the sun that the starlight girl had mistaken him for. “Can you teach me?” He suddenly asks with open curiosity. “How to manipulate my flames like that?” How to make them as wild and realistic and as big as he had done. If he could show Aela something like that, perhaps she would think him god-touched too.
He wanted to be more than just “talented”, more than his flames and darkness. Something real and tangible, something like all the good kind of terrible he could possibly be.
Terribly powerful. Terribly handsome. Terribly respected. And deep down...Terribly good.
The frown that has haunted the corner of Firion’s mouth deepens as he listens to the boy exclaim. Whatever he had been expecting from him, that certainly wasn’t it, and he isn’t quite sure how to reply. Isn’t sure how to take the fact that the boy is so confident in his own terrible nature the it is a relief to be able to label someone else it too. So he tilts his head, curious and feeling a sense of dread.
“Who the hell told you that you were terrible?”
For all of the words that Firion has labeled himself with over the years—and there has been plenty—he cannot imagine that being one of them. At least not usually and definitely not with such enthusiasm. His preferred method of branding was darker. More pointed. Usually centered on his abandonment. His weakness. The things that haunt him at night and prowl behind him during the day.
Did he have that when he was this young?
Another frown.
He’s not sure that he did.
But the conversation continues and he lets the boy move forward into the open curiosity with fervor. “Flames are not my typical medium,” he comments and around him shadows bloom into being. They rise up like pillars from the ground, the earth trembling beneath them before they dissolve, falling like sand.
“But I could do my best to teach you what I know.”
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
Small champagne ears fold back over his growing mane, thinking instantly that he has done something wrong again. So he hesitates and fire ripples down his backside in uncertain waves as he glances down from the brilliant stallion to where their flowers had once been. “My mother.” He says simply with a small shrug, not knowing why that still felt shameful. Finding Firion’s face again, he gives what he is sure is his doppelgänger from the future ( the only logical explanation left) a small smile. “I have a new one now, though” He says, his confidence rising as he remembers Aela’s lessons.
We don’t apologize for who we are.
He slowly warms back up to the familiar stallion, visibly pleased when the shadows rise and crumble around them, feeling the earth rumbling beneath his small hooves. “I think I would like that.” He decides aloud, looking back up to him and feeling unusually shy. “I have the hardest time controlling the things that nobody else can see.” He admits after a moment, wondering if this too could be something that he would help with.
“Do you live here?” He suddenly asks, wanting to know more about this older version of himself, tries to catch a glimpse of what his future holds. “They say its filled with monsters but I’ve never met one yet. Just a bunch of misunderstood souls.” He says solemnly then smiles at the shadows that writhe around his companion, thinking of both the ghosts that follow him and the haunted living left behind.
Firion doesn’t know how to respond to that, to the fact that this boy’s own mother would burden him with a judgement when he was so young still, and he frowns further. “Your mother was wrong,” is all he says before shrugging his spotted shoulders, “but hopefully your new one knows better.” He can only hope that anyone who would claim to be a mother, who would raise a young boy, would know better than to saddle them with something so heavy—knowing that it could completely shape who they would become.
But he doesn’t force the boy to dwell on it or open up when he is just a stranger.
He just shrugs and feels the shadow forming around them, the way it climbs higher and higher before falling back down again, swirling around his legs like a cat. “What can no one else see?” he manages with a tilt of his head. “I can do my best to help but it is difficult without knowing what we’re dealing with.”
At the question, he looks around them, frowning as he does so. “In a manner of speaking.” He glances back at Fyr. “I don’t really have a home right now so this is as good as any.” He thinks of Hyaline and how he had once called it home—how it is now Mazikeen’s. There is an ache at his chest at the thought but he pushes it aside. “Monsters are usually just that,” Firion confirms, growing silent for a moment.
“Would you like to see the monster that I once was?”
As though it does not still lie within him.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)
A crisp nod is what he gives in return, yellow eyes brightening at the mention of the mother he now had. “Oh yes.” He says with a small smile, his previous dam and her harsh words momentarily forgotten. “Aela is teaching me how to be terrible in all the good ways.” And now he flashes a quick grin before his nerves eat it away, letting his gaze fall back to the shadows that writhe around Firion’s legs. Noticing how they rise and fall in a concerto that only they seem to be able to hear.
As the older golden stallion tilts his head, the younger paler one mimics him. “Well they are dead of course?” He says, confusion screwing up his face until it twists into slight disappointment. “I thought maybe you could see them too.” He says with a soft frown as he looks up at his sire and then glances nearby to see if the bloody mare was still around. It seemed he had lost his grasp on her in the excitement of meeting Firion and hadn’t even noticed. Oh well.
When Firion acknowledges that he doesn’t really have a home, the young colt nods in sympathetic understanding. He had once not had a home too. Perhaps this really was himself after all, surely this couldn’t be a coincidence. ”Monsters are usually just that.” The older him agrees as well and this little bit of knowledge settles firmly into his brain with that confirmation, knowing this is just as important as the word “terrible” and it's many connotations. "You can always come see my home... If you want." He offers awkwardly. "It's not as nice and dark as here... But you could visit. If you wanted to."
At the offer of seeing the monster that he once was (and remembering now that monsters are usually just misunderstood souls like the ones he summons), he nods eagerly and a flicker of fire courses down his spine with a thrill of anticipation. “Yes. Please.” He breathes out, feral eyes widening as he wonders what else this future him could do.
