"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
She cannot imagine that Malik is happy in Hyaline, not if their father is there with him, but she can’t bring herself to say this to her kind friend. And she does hope that he is, hopes that his days and nights are not filled with the same fear she had experienced in her short stay in the mountains. So she just says “Yeah, maybe he’s happy.” and tries to sound like she believes it.
Her already aching heart sinks into the depths at Asterope’s answer. Even though she knew it had to have been something like that - but she hoped that maybe they visited the nymph on the days when Sickle didn’t come. It is not comforting to know there are other fathers like her own in the world - but where her own scares her, this young filly feels only anger towards Asterope's for trapping her here, away from her sisters.
Were there other ponds like this one, scattered throughout the forest - each holding a sister? So close and yet far enough away there might as well be a continent between them?
Sickle shifts before the thoughts can fully form in her head, and before she can second guess herself again. She slips into the water as a small otter and when she resurfaces she’s a hippocampus, her long shimmering tail moving slightly in the water as she reaches out to embrace Asterope. A simple, small touch just wasn’t enough - and again the young girl thinks of how much comfort she had taken from touch in her life and assumes this must be the same for everyone.
Against teal skin, she quietly says “Maybe I can find them for you.” Even if she couldn’t bring Asterope to them, she could bring news back and forth. The idea settles itself into her mind and her resolve too - she’s going to come back here at least every month. No matter what happens.
She inhales a shaky breath and then pulls back enough to look at her friend - wearing a smile in her mismatched eyes she only mostly feels. “And... maybe we should try to be happy too, for when they wonder about us.”
She is such a terribly sheltered creature, Asterope, shackled to this pond in the middle of no place at all with only wild things to call her friends. (Aside from Sickle, of course, who she considers her most cherished friend). She is oblivious to the nuances of conversation, the ways it is possible to lie and make yourself believe it.
There is hardly any conviction in Sickle’s response and the nymph knows without having to ask that the chances that her friend’s brother is happy are very slim. (Asterope does not know how to heal a broken heart.)
But she retreats from the edge of the pond when Sickle shifts and slides into the water and her own heart twinges and spasms because she is well and truly not alone as long as Sickle is here in the pond with her.
(And she has the brief and terrible thought of what might happen if her father found her friend here. Would he send her away? She understands that she is being punished for something, though she has not been able to work out what, and she’s almost certain that the shadow creature would not approve of her having friends.)
But Sickle surfaces as something else entirely and embraces her and Asterope forgets about her father and Sickle’s father and all of the horrible things that must exist out in the world and sinks into the embrace. And there is such a soft, sad smile that ties up the corners of her mouth when Sickle speaks again.
“Maybe,” she agrees, just as quiet. “They both look just like me.” Three identical triplets born in the dark of night, glowing softly, warm and then so terribly cold.
And she laughs then, but even this is a sad kind of sound as she nods in agreement. She hadn’t thought about it that way, hadn’t even considered her sisters wondering about her, too. “You’re right,” she says and extends her wings across the surface of the water and gives them a shake, grinning something real as ripples spiral outward away from them.
“I never thought about them thinking about me,” she admits, her tone thoughtful.
these who are shaking
Drops of dew from their hair
Asterope doesn’t seem upset with Sickle for entering her pond, which soothes away those worries. It is easy to find a smile when her friend returns the embrace - and, at least for a little while, neither of them are going to be alone. The thoughts of Malik and her father that make this iridescent girl want to sink fade away into the back of her mind, soothed by the presence of someone who understands maybe exactly what she’s going through.
The weight will be waiting for her when she inevitably needs to climb out of this pond and leave, but that feels like a far away thought right now.
If her sisters look just like Asterope, Sickle assumes they’ll be easy to find. How many bodies of water in Beqanna could there possibly be? It would be an adventure to check them all, sticking her head under the surface to see if there are any pretty fillies hanging around.
Her tail moves slowly beneath the surface, keeping her afloat, but seeing the way Asterope moves her wings gives Sickle an idea and some iridescent fins grow from her shoulders and fan out beside her and she finds this helps with her buoyancy. Rather proud of this, Sickle is grinning too when her friend mentions she hadn’t thought about her sisters thinking about her and a reply is quick to come. “Who wouldn’t think about you? I did.” It’s an easy confession, her mismatched eyes bright as she says it before she tips her head up and falls backwards to float on her back, looking up at the canopy.
She's thinking about how this is a dark place for a father to leave his daughter, but as she lazily moves her fins she asks instead “What colour flowers do you want me to bring you next time?”
How strange it is to have her loneliness punctuated by something so lovely as her friend.
Because there are weeks that pass with nothing at all, the woodland creatures venturing to the edge of the pond to drink but never staying. And then there is Sickle, who comes and stays and brings her the most beautiful gifts.
It is like a feast after so long spent starving. She cannot get enough and she knows that Sickle’s departure will be hard to swallow, even if there is a promise that she will return. Because knowing how sweet it is to have company here in the dark makes the solitude even more bitter.
But she wills herself not to focus on the inevitable. She wills herself to enjoy things as they are now, with her friend sprouting fins from her shoulders, grinning when she says that she’d thought about Asterope. And Asterope has no choice but to smile, too.
“I’ve thought about you, too,” she admits, though there is something bittersweet in it. There has been nothing else to fill her time except missing the sweetness of her company. Perhaps it is this that has driven her to the brink of madness.
But again, as if privy to her thoughts, Sickle swiftly changes the subject back to flowers and Asterope softens, glancing at the tropical flowers still floating on the surface of the water. “I don’t know,” she admits with a funny little grin, “these flowers make me think that there are colors in the world that I don’t even know exist.”
It’s the truth and she feels no shame in admitting it. It is merely a fact of life that her world has been reduced to this body of water and the drab trees that press in around it.
She cannot allow herself to dwell on this either, though, and summons up another smile. “What is it like to be able to change yourself?” she asks, eyes alight with her own kind of wonder.
these who are shaking
Drops of dew from their hair
10-19-2021, 07:39 PM (This post was last modified: 10-19-2021, 07:39 PM by Sickle.)
Sickle’s smile brightens when Asterope says she’s thought about Sickle too - the sort of smile that she can feel right down to her stomach. And even though her eyes are up on the canopy, they shine.
Even though it’s impossible for it to be purely happiness. Nothing changes the fact that Asterope is trapped here. Should she offer to stay all the time? Would that be even remotely fair to either of them? Leaving was always the worst, even though she knew it wouldn’t be for long. She hated how isolated this pond was. Sickle wasn’t the jealous sort, as far as she was aware. She didn’t want to keep Asterope to herself (though she did hope that her friend would always like Sickle best) she just… wanted more.
Again the idea that she could somehow find Asterope’s father flicks through her mind - but her thoughts turn to other things. As she floats, she listens to Asterope’s response to her question about the flowers and smiles. “I’ll bring you one of every colour then. And then you can decide which is your favourite.” This is said with determination, as though this is the only possible answer to such a dilemma.
And she likes it - an excuse to keep coming back. Not that she needed one.
Asterope’s question has her tilting her head to look at the other girl. “It’s pretty fun. I haven’t found anything that I can’t do yet, though I’m sure there’s a whole world of animals I haven’t seen yet.” Just like Asterope and her flowers. She doesn’t mention that Malik can change too, just not into as many things, or how their mom can’t. Because she knows she gets this from her dad and she doesn’t want to think about any of that and break this moment where they are trading smiles.
As her tail moves lazily, she thinks of the water beneath them - and of how she’s never tried to really swim like a fish before. Maybe this question will seem random when she says it but to Sickle, the connection is easy in her head. “Is this pond deep?”
Her heart twinges and spasms with a stab of fondness for her friend when she promises to bring one in every color so that Asterope can choose her favorite.
Asterope does not know what it means to love someone in the same way you’d love a sister. She had never been given the chance to love the two other nymphs before they had been spirited away, shackled to some other body of water. (At least, this is what she chooses to believe has happened to them because she cannot bear the thought that the Reaper had killed them instead. Or, worse, allowed them to live a life free of bondage when he had seen it fit to condemn her to this dark heart of the forest.)
But she thinks she must love Sickle in the same ways she would have loved her sisters if she’d been given the chance. (Though it is strange to think that she is capable of loving anything in any way.)
“I’m so glad you found me,” she confesses, quiet, before she submerges her mouth beneath the surface of the water so that Sickle cannot see the way it crumples around something like sadness.
And she steers the conversation swiftly away from this and to something much safer, though her heart twinges again when Sickle says that there aren’t many things she can’t change into. She wonders if Sickle could change her, too. If she could take away her useless wings so she could stop dreaming about taking flight and leaving the forest and its pond behind.
The question does strike her as strange but she plunges beneath the surface of the water, swimming fiercely for the bottom. It is not far, just deep enough that she cannot touch the bottom anywhere. (She had known this, of course, she has spent almost every moment of her life exploring this pond and its depths, but it had felt good to demonstrate, too.) When she breaks the surface again, she smiles and says, “it’s a little deep.” And there is a kind of hopefulness in it, as if she’s hoping this is the right answer.
these who are shaking
Drops of dew from their hair
Sickle doesn’t notice the way Asterope’s smile is touched by sadness, she’s far too distracted by the warm feeling in her heart at the quiet confession from her friend. And it is effortless to reply with one of her own as her mismatched eyes are soft to match the tone she uses. “I’m glad I found you too.”
The whole truth feels much bigger than those words but they are nonetheless true. Whatever other turmoil in Sickle’s life, she is so glad she has Asterope.
After her question, a soft laugh escapes Sickle when Asterope disappears - presumably to go scope out the depths of this bond. She waits instead of joining her friend, still feeling like she should ask first (even if that had been the next question), though she does lower her head beneath the surface to watch - noticing the way her glow brightens underneath the water as the light from the sky becomes muted. Cool blues, purples, and teals reflect on the plants and bubbles and Sickle focuses on this for a few seconds when she cannot see Asterope for a few seconds.
Movement in the depths catches her eye again as she’s playing with her tail and she marvels at the chance to see her friend actually swim.
It was a tragedy that she was stuck in this one pond but there was no doubt that her friend was made to exist in the water.
Her head emerges from the surface and the smile that’s already bright in her eyes increases at the one she sees on her friend’s face. And then, finally, Sickle actually asks what she should have just asked all along.
To her, the answer seems obvious.
(Yes, of course, a thousand times yes.)
And there is some inkling itching at the back of her mind that tells her that her father banished her to the darkness in the wood but had not thought to anticipate the kindness of strangers.
(How could he? He who knew nothing of kindness himself.)
Sickle smiles so brightly that it puts a furious ache in Asterope’s bones. Because she will have to leave, her friend, and Asterope will be left alone again. (Is it worse to miss something you’ve never known or spend your whole life oblivious to the magic of friendship? There is a bitterness that lives in her, certainly, a part of her that wishes she could simply dissolve into the madness she feels gnawing at her brainstem.
But the part of her that revels in her friend’s light is so much bigger, so much stronger.)
So the answer is obvious.
Yes, of course, a thousand times yes.
“Of course,” she answers, eyes alight.
Because the pond belongs to her, but it also belongs to Sickle now. Because they are friends, because they were born from the same tragedy, because sharing the depths with someone else means that the darkness does not seem so terribly dark.
What she means to say is: please. Please know the crushing depths so that they will live in someone else, too.
