[open] perhaps it was but a fever dream

[Buonarroti]

An early light filtered through a thick canopy of cottonwood, sequoia and oak giving way to a flood of sprouts growing feverishly throughout the sloping and slanting ground below. Its rays soaked Buonarroti's dappled back, glistening with the dew as he gingerly lips through the shoots and savors each burst of sweets. It had been a while since he enjoyed such delicacy, his journey here long and arduous, mostly marked by bramble and a taste of loneliness that lingered bitterly. He had grown some despite the diet, his body lean and muscular – no longer the awkward colt, but a fine specimen of his Iberian and Friesian pedigree. Time spent away from Beqanna had done him well, though he could not say the same for the lands he once knew. 

There hardly seemed to be dry land, the forest a welcome reprieve from the endless bodies of water he encountered. At least here he was greeted with the sounds of songbirds flirting amongst the creeping vines, repeating the stories and histories of the lands that have come and gone. Curiously, they tell him of a strange place far above the waters where others like him, cursed ones with wings live in plenty. Birds, however, were known liars and Buonarroti thought them to mock his misfortune. The ugly thing, a lone wing, held tightly against his side, was of course unmistakable and he had felt the weight of its disgrace since his birth. He would never know flight and the idea that others like himself soared like hawks through the clouds was just another cruel joke. Still, it was nice to listen in on the idle chatter. It had been so long since he had heard anything beyond the howling winds across the icy plains of the North, and he admitted it was far more comforting than the endless rush of waves that appears to have overtaken his homeland. 

Except...

And it was this exception that stirred his mind awake – an unmistakable scent, though faint, wafted through this forest and through his thoughts. It was impossible to ignore, reminding him of mildew and graveyards long since forgotten. It ran through his blood just the same as his earliest memories and there would be no mistaking it.

Carnage.

Despite all that had changed, it was this scent that made him certain he had found Beqanna. 

BUONARROTI

haven't I fallen far enough?

[Famkee]

Familiarity became a darkness that loomed, reminding her that perhaps she really was going in circles. The scent of pine, summers gift of growth, and really, just every trunk looked the same locking her in a sense of confusion. In the forests throes of winter, Famkee thinks the woods haven't changed much since she'd first arrived, somehow finding her way back to the endless swallows of timber. Only this time, Famkee enjoys the weather, taking a deep inhale to absorb the heat into her lungs. Slow, calculated steps carry her through the woodland, despite living inside her past, she manages to keep herself divided, escape the torment long enough to at least stay alert. Destruction hung stagnant in the air, despite the lands ability to heal, to mask the magic that had poisoned the soil, Famkee is brought back to the familiarity of it all. Suffering, rebuilding, pain, mending, numbness. A cycle she's become intimate with. 

Her golden pelt nearly makes her invisible inside the forest, shadowed with darker extremities blending her into the fallen leaves. She uses this to her advantage in the summer months, when the greenery and her brother sun cast through the canopy to camouflage. In the winter she sticks out like a sore thumb, so now she can move a bit more comfortably through the brush. Her horn was always a hindrance with low hanging branches, the lengthy bone jutting from her forehead would only pull the stretchy limbs and smack them to land with a whip on her skin. With this, she keeps her nose low, ears vigilant in their forwardness. The mare is stocky, muscled and capable, she isn't worried who she'll find, what she is worried about is the possibility of it. Being a socialite was never her strong suit, battle, the ancestral drums of war even now whispered her name on the warm breeze. Once a soldier, always a soldier. It's not like she could forget. 

She hears his footsteps before she actually sees him, peering her head round the foliage to locate the sound. He stands exploratory like her, dappled like her, though unlike her, he seemed a bit more careless in his ability to be found. He's grey like a stormy morning, colors more fit for the cold she thinks, drab. She's uninterested, enough to walk away but upon not seeing a wing adorned on the side that's facing her, she's sees another shuffled onto the opposing side, it's white feathers stark against his foggier coat. Only one? that's a first. This does intrigue her enough to linger, she tries to remain out of sight to ponder the cause. Perhaps an injury? Wouldn't the appendage grow back? Her horn has been severed several times only to grow back to its lethal points. She'd been around winged equines, but never one with a missing pinion. Striving to keep herself elusive, her curiosity never fails to betray her, as her weight against one of the pines frees a pair of cones to fall sharply on her spine, clattering to the forests floor. She freezes on impact, maybe the stud wouldn't even notice with how oafishly loud he scouts. She doesn't say a word, fervent golden eyes trained on him. 

if my heart is in your hands will i die

Famkee

@Buonarroti Hope u don't mind me popping in, she needs some more interactions

[Buonarroti]

An immediate unmistakable sound of danger pulls him from his thoughts, only he is surprised at the glint of gold through the shadows. There were no more annoying birds this time – no, something else, much more pleasant. The female’s scent betrayed her location despite the forest keeping her mostly from his sight and forcing him to home in on the awkward thing jutting out of her skull. Some type of mythic, he supposed. He had heard of them as a child along with vague whispers of alliances before the war tore him away from everything he knew and loved. What were they capable of? He did not know. Instinctively, the lone wing rises to face the threat, making Buonarroti appear larger and more predatory. He supposed he ought to thank the birds for that little trick. The knub on his shoulder perked as well, though useless and obscured by the shadow of the former, it did not know any better.

“Widowmaker,” he comments, his voice even and untroubled. 

Buonarroti takes a step towards the source. His thick, muscled neck snakes around to angle his vision to better see this horn and it is then that she materializes before him. As lethal as she looks, he decides quickly that she is also beautiful. Indeed, it had been a while since he had seen anyone, let alone a female glittering before him, but already he admired her strength and poise. He did not think her lost soul stumbled upon him, instead vaguely wondering if she meant to threaten him. Maybe these mythical creatures fed on the blood of strangers like him? Horns were meant to impale after all. That would be an amusing death, he thought, if it were not for the pinecone that betrayed her presence. He had had a stroke of luck. Instead of being devoured he would fancy a chat with a beautiful stranger. The day was headed in the right direction, at last.

“From the Sugar Pines,” he continued, gesturing towards the massive pinecones that lay scattered across the forest floor, “have been known to kill an unsuspecting stallion or two.” 

He pauses, letting his gaze wander back across the forest as if unseen dangers lurked about them. The wretched wing had never allowed him to blend in. Even in the unhospitable Tundra there had always been gawkers. He could feel her golden eyes weighing in on the thing, dissecting it with her thoughts. Nothing good, he supposed. He let released another sigh of amusement before meeting her gaze and holding it there.

“Mind your step, lady.”

BUONARROTI

haven't I fallen far enough?

OOC: Not at all! I am trying to get used to him again <3

[Famkee]

As oafish as the stallion might have seemed, Famkee neglected and perhaps underestimated the breeze offering him her scent, flowery and pleasant on the wind. She holds the breath that begs to be released like it's going to prevent the gusts from wafting his way, unsuccessfully she realizes. Was she bound to run into strangers this way? What she ran from seemed to chase her with gnashing teeth and quicker feet. Maybe it was time to quit running. Easier said than done she thinks, being solitary for an extensive amount of time took a toll on her soul, or was it her proceedings, she can't count the imminent monsters that haunt her thoughts. The power simple memories hold is frightening, something even Famkee can't escape. 

He eyes her horn, something not surprising upon first impressions, but something lingers inside his gaze that speaks of legend, not mere curiosity like most. Stories told for centuries about horned equines and their capabilities. She doesn't deny her worth or her past, but his gaze makes the mare wonder what experience he holds with the species, momentarily that is, she can't trap herself in what the stud could be thinking of her. Does she even care? "Widowmaker," His low voice slices the silence of the forest, for a moment she doubts if she actually spooked him watching his breathing as her eyes drift over the muscles of his chest, remaining even, calm enough. The one wing he does have splays open impressively, white feathers resemblant of a swan, or maybe some sort of fallen angel. Fitting. She doesn't mean any harm, after all if she was hunting the stallion, he'd be long since replenishing the forest floor with his flesh.

He continues with wiseacre remarks regarding her mistakes revealing her presence though her intrusive thoughts win, not without a fight of course. She listens despite the word vomit, debating even entertaining him. The unicorn is an observer, words were useless against the walls of action. "Will it grow back?" Her voice is soft as the leaf litter rustling against her hooves. Golden orbs wash over him unabashedly, making their home on the absent appendage, strange as it was she couldn't help her velvet lips from inquiring. She doesn't want to move, this spot she's revealed herself in stakes its claim, but not wanting to appear timid Famkee takes a few steps forward out from the cover of the thicket. The suns rays peek through the umbrella of the treeline, making the Aurelian gold of her horn seem like a mirage in it's glow, powerful bodice prepared for anything awry, yet the mare emits composure. If her brother taught her anything, it was not to show fear. Despite not knowing wether her lost twin even breathed the same air any longer, he's with her in spirit, a constant ghost floating over her shoulder in times like these. "I have my reasons to be careful." She says, ears threatening to pin to be lost in thick tendrils of ebony mane. To appear a threat was one thing, to be one was another. The latter suited the soldier, though the stallion has yet to prove his intelligence, especially making a deafening presence of himself, how the mare stumbled across him in the first place. "Do you?"  

if my heart is in your hands will i die

Famkee

@Buonarroti

[Buonarroti]

It is the soft tone of her voice that truly startled him. He had expected the hiss of a snake, not unlike familiar females of the shadows that raised him. They had sprouted just like the shoots beneath him in the dark ages of malicious plots, seeking out the seductive rays of the sun only to harness the power for their own purposes. These were women that brought the mighty to their knees, that mocked his appearance, that kept him beneath them, crawling like a worm to so much as be allowed to share the same air they breathed. It was quite normal to be ignored and equally normal for him to taunt their affection if one could call it that. But this voice, in stark contrast to her physique, fluttered into his ears and landed as though a butterfly, entrancing him with far more intrigue than even the horn which beckoned to him. 

His weight shifts, allowing the lone wing to settle back in its place at his side. That is where it really belonged, tucked neatly and tight as if a shield to her question. She had meant the stub; he knew because everyone he had ever met had stared at it with accusation. But startled as he was by her voice, he hesitates, not knowing the intention behind it. Was she being sarcastic? That was something he had grown accustomed to growing up. Smart remarks about his inferiority, rhetoric concerning his disgrace and his replies all the same of the lowly worm since that was his place in the kingdom. He thought at first of an instinctive reply, but it did not escape his lips. Instead, the pause lingers in the air, far longer than is polite as he considered her form and function further. Again, her beauty lightens him, and he supposes her voice suits her, or at least the idea of her that he has begun to build of her. Pretty things ought to have pretty sounds, he decides. And then, what of her question? 

"No," the stub twitches in response to an underlying muscle, "I was cursed from birth with a twin whose body made no room for its growth. A cruel joke played by the gods to craft a flightless heathen in the kingdom of the wretched or maybe some kind of karmic atonement for all the devils that came before me."

"Does yours?" he says, bringing the attention back to her magnificent horn. 

His thoughts now wandered back through his memories of the pale sister he shared his time with. She was a sickly thing, all bones and not a trace of natural pigment in her albino eyes, and he tried to remember the sound of her voice, but he could not. He had lost her when they were children despite his best efforts to protect her. She had become a toy, a plaything of the perverted men who passed her around like a maiden du jour. He had been too weak himself to fight them off, and even if his screams bothered one, there would quickly be another to tear them apart. This was the way of Hell, and he was meant to accept it. His heart wept for her, but it was locked inside his ribcage, silenced, and kept in line because Bunoarroti knew his place as all creatures did who dwelled in the dank chambers. In the end, he would never know what became of her, though he often wished and dreamt that she had closed her eyes in reverie, her body knowing the warmth of the sun in some wildflower spotted meadow and was released from her torments. It was the kindness thing he could think of -- there was no place for them beyond death that could offer such reprieve from the life they had been born into. 

"No," he responds to her voice again, a gentle tug back to current circumstances.

This strange forest, the faint scent of Carnage wafting through comes back to him. Whatever happenings filled this place, they hardly concerned him. It would be difficult to draft him as a soldier in another war he had no ties to. He had been forgotten as he wished, defeated and ego dismantled. There was nothing that could sway him into the Devil's politics, nothing left worth suffering for. He had paid the price for his freedom and his consciousness was at ease. 

"Although," he says, "I wouldn't mind taking on your dangers."

Bounarroti seems to laugh at this, gesturing back to the pinecones. He had always fancied himself a white-knight, protector of the innocent -- knowing full well there was no such thing. He liked to imagine places far away in which idle creatures went about their lives without looking over their shoulders. A place absent of dark whisperings where he stood watch, a faithful servant to Peace and Happiness. It was a silly remnant of his childhood, certainly, he knew, but these were the sort of daydreams one has when they rebel against their upbringing.

BUONARROTI

haven't I fallen far enough?

OOC: Sorry for the delay -- I caught the stupid covid! argh

[Famkee]

Violence, bloodshed and battle were fit for stallions, men of the enemies they've killed, blanketing egos with their flesh, filling bottomless pits of vacant souls that craved the feeling of fulfillment, satisfaction, validation. She's witnessed it many moons now, wether it be inside the ring sparring, or like today, carefully watching beside her twin. A mare even of her bloodline was looked down upon nestled so comfortably inside the activities, duties of men. Egos were bruised, beaten to a pulp that she could execute her skills better, faster and the best of all, unexpectedly. Under the wing of her brother of course, everything she knew, everything she achieved she owed it to him. "Never trust a horse without scars or ailments. They lack experience, discipline." Her twin uttered the words to her, ones that she'd have trouble forgetting. Horses full of wounds fought with knowledge, softer spots untouchable now that trials of flesh against flesh brought wisdom. "what if you're talented enough to not get hit? Scars aren't fit for a mare, brother." Magic wasn't something brewed in the womb, it was earned, fortified in belief, confidence in your craft. Famkee always thought of it this way, once earned, it increases the value, the power. "your day will come, the balance is inevitable. you can't always win key."

Losing everything, after winning for so long. He was right after all, though never in the way she wanted, never in the way expected. She supposes that this is the punishment meant to live out her days, without him, without her home, without anyone. Only left with the memory of it all, materializing in times like these, distractions, she wishes it was as easy as swatting a fly off an ebony hock. The dappled stallion seems to release tension at the sound of her voice, lean muscles losing their strain and softening. It was hard not to let her eyes wander, the primal nature of a survivor, a male who hasn't succumbed to his demons, his past, but grows fruit from it makes something spark inside the depths of her amber gaze. She doesn't even know him, yet she recognizes the pain. All too familiar. He's quiet after her question, was she too forward? She studies his facial lines, hard and chiseled with hesitancy. Her brow wants to furrow, velvet lips taught. She doesn't see the harm in asking, but before she can think much more of it, the stallion is speaking again. "No."

No? He also shared life with a twin, only he speaks of his absent wing with malice, a curse. Perhaps it was a karmic gift, decisions made in past lives that bled from generations. Only, Famkee thinks of it as a warning, a visible defense. "It suits you." She says plainly, overlooking the stubbed skin like it was a scar, earned. "Think of it as a weapon in the eyes of strangers. If you hadn't told me, i might've thought a dragon ripped it off in your narrow escape." A sly grin wants to pull at the corners of her mouth, and it does with purchase. "Does yours?" The grey stud asks and she answers with a simple nod, the lethal tip of her horn just grazing the edges of the pines branches. "Indeed, though if i don't break it, it will continue its growth." She gestures to the annoyance of its length, always disturbing the plants above her. Akin to a cancer, a tumor that feeds on death, only satisfied when it's being put to use. She hasn't had the chance to sever the bone, at least not in many moons. It's nearly impossible to crack, a worthy opponent hasn't shown it's face, evident in the growth of the unicorns machete. "No," He responds again, and Famkee finds herself wanting a yes. Everyone had something to hide, something to be cautious of, glances over their shoulder, something to run from. But who was he to be honest, he didn't owe her the truth. Her voice continues its path of softness, laying him a blanket of solace in the throes of the conversation. 

"I wouldn't wish them on anyone." Her dangers that is, her rotten sense of the world. In his lightheartedness, she remains serious, stoic almost. Her pretty face wasn't meant for a frown, tail swishing to be snagged by the snarled vines. The stallion held his misery, but an innocence shines through his laughter. Famkee is pulled from her throne of thorns with a grin more suited on her lips. She doesn't ask him of his title, where he was from, what his journey held, that was for him to reveal. What she does reveal is more of herself, still slightly obscured by the forests thick undergrowth, carefully meeting the stallion fully without anything to hide. The sun begins to fade underneath the shadows of clouds, thunderous rumbles signal the arrival of rain, and just as she glances to the sky, the first drop escapes the canopy landing on golden skin. 

if my heart is in your hands will i die

Famkee

@Buonarroti No worries!! Hope you are recovering well <3