"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
04-14-2023, 08:22 AM (This post was last modified: 04-14-2023, 11:45 AM by assailant.)
Winter is really the only season he finds disagreeable, so he rather enjoys the fact that the days seem to grow even hotter, to herald the arrival of the summer months. But should the snow cap the ground and cold settle into his bones at this very moment, a newfound internal torch would continue sending warmth radiating through his body.
Her very presence on this journey to see Beqanna’s newest changes lends itself to the impression of utter contentment, even joy, within him (though, for whatever reason, he still refuses to admit this to himself, let alone aloud to her). A flicker of another unnamed emotion ripples across his senses as he recalls the start of their little jaunt just a few days ago.
He had sensed the influx of energy hunting for a means of expression, but he also noticed how quickly she stopped it in its tracks. Neither were sure of what exactly was being cultivated in the forest, but he found himself somewhat disappointed in her restraint. Still, it failed to dissuade him from making his request.
Ever the coquette, she had chirped with laughter at his invitation, teased him cheekily for his clear captivation by her natural charms. He answered with his same amused smile that had become part of his repertoire of responses for her. He could have made light of her accusation, he could have said anything, really. But he did not know how to give a voice to his feelings or his intentions, so he just waited.
In the end, she agreed to join him and, with a careful but electric graze along his body, had set them off toward the destination of her choosing.
The echo of her deliberate touch still lingers as they wind their way north along the river with him now a few steps ahead of her. As they pass them, he recognizes a few of the landmarks from the most recent events on his timeline. The lush greenery of the meadow that rises at the peak of the opposite riverbank’s incline. He casts a long glance at the frozen glory of the catalyst for his personal crusade as they skirt its base and eventually pass it by.
This sets him to thinking. Sure, he is curious about the older lands that have reappeared, wondering if they are remotely similar to those he knew in the past. But is he looking for something else? It would be of benefit to know more of Beqanna’s people, they could offer insight for the things that ail him. Perhaps someone out there has been around long enough that they could fill the gaps in his knowledge of Beqanna’s history.
Or maybe he’s just looking for a home. He does miss the privacy of his own little province, but do such places exist anymore? He does not know what type of hierarchical structure will take shape in this next chapter of history, nor does he know if he wishes to give his alliance to a single ruler (or matched pair, as it could very well be). Would he be willing to live under someone else’s command?
He comes to a stop, the feathers of his wings tremoring with the currents of his silent musings and the sudden indecision that accompanies them. Yet again, he grasps for some semblance of rationality behind his course of action. Maybe the truth is that he is still looking to rebuild the lifestyle he was used to. Old habits die hard, after all. But he catches a glimpse of Adriana and her outward appearance alone is enough to remind him that time marches along regardless of how desperately he wants to cling to the past.
The hills of the Dale lie just ahead of them and as he debates whether to follow the path he can just barely discern among their swells, or continue moving along for whatever waits further to the north, a cloud shifts above him and a sharp, metallic glint catches his attention. Curious, he moves in to investigate and finds a lone flower resting among some greenery with no apparent attachments to the other plants. A strange flower, what with its startlingly white petals spattered with glimmering gold spots. Bemusedly, he calls Adriana’s attention to it.
“Something else I’ve never seen before,” he gestures to the flower that lies at his feet then looks toward where the path to the Dale disappears from view. “Perhaps we should head that way?” His eyes gleam with the reflection of his high spirits as he lightly presses his shoulder to her body. “Maybe they will have more pretties for the pretty..” His head drops low to pluck the flower from its resting spot so that he can nestle it among the tendrils of her mane..
know thyself
ASSAILANT,
--plato
image by LeonovichDmitriy
@Adriana
they're still just outside the Dale, but anyone can jump in at any time :)
All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
Ischia had been lovely for him, Eva, the children. They were independent creatures though, each and every one of them, and sometimes she would prefer the darker male. Aodhán liked him as well, and the odd family they created was just the perfect thing.
Sometimes he would visit the Pampas, though, since the roan mare no longer lead it but a dark stallion had taken over he frequented the place much more anonymously. White snakes with gold spots, a snow owl that definitely didn’t belong in that climate; an oddly mutated albino-like bat, or a butterfly if he felt like it. He even had tried being a flower on Steve’s back.
Today, the sun was bright and warm on his face. Their face, technically, because a flower wasn’t male or female per say, like many of the shapes he could take. No, the equine-at-heart never bothered with trivial things like gender, himself, though he was born a male and would revert to that state when he thought of nothing else, and so he thought of himself as a he.
That’s deviating from today, however - the sun was shining, his face was warm, and his roots were well-fed and moist, so it was a perfect day for a flower and he was mostly oblivious to everything else (that being, the Pampas was no more and he had been drowned with it, but magic would that he resurfaced, and appeared near the Mountain’s base, nearer the border of the Dale).
But perfection couldn’t last forever, and a shadow came over him. Waiting patiently like flowers do, he expected the animal that cast it, or the cloud up in the sky, to pass.
They didn’t. No, instead, there was a disturbance, the sensation of someone touching him and… pulling!
He opened eyes in shock, eyes he hadn’t had before, emerald green within a flowery head. ”Hey!” he yelled from a mouth underneath petals, and waved a leavy arm about to shoo the horse attempting to pluck him.
It was then that the flower grew to be a young stallion (young in mind as he was; about as young as he had been when he’d first changed shape, when he had been cured of the Plague). Emerald eyes in an otherwise almost-white face stared shocked into the other, then found the next horse nearby. ”What… this isn’t the Pampas.” he stammered, looking left and right. It looked like… Hyaline maybe?
i never wanted saving, i just wanted to be found --
Outside of her immediate family, Adriana had grown accustomed to being alone.
She would not necessarily define herself as a solitary creature—she craved companionship and touch just as much as anyone, and of course flirting was a favorite pastime. But she had never bothered to form any kind of connection with anyone, mostly out of disinterest, but also an apprehension that she could not deny.
Connections could be severed; trust was easier to lose than it was to gain, and she did not want to find out if a broken heart beat the same as a whole one.
She knew that agreeing to spend any amount of time with Assailant was a risk—that it would be harder to avoid becoming attached if she did not keep that wall between them—but he had caught her on a day she was feeling just reckless enough to take it.
To journey with a constant companion was strange at first, and she could not entirely discern if it was a good strange or bad strange. The warmth that flushed just beneath her skin desperately wanted to believe that it was good; that the exhilarated way her pulse sometimes raced when they accidentally (or not so accidentally) touched could not possibly be her imagination. She found herself stealing glances at him when he was not paying attention, wishing that she could read his mind, or at least find the courage to simply ask him all the things she wanted to. That maybe he would just tell her that it was all in her mind and she could stop losing herself in girlish daydreams.
But she never does, and the longer she skirts the subject the more room fear and doubt have to crawl in, until they lay side by side with all her wanting and longing, stilling her tongue and convincing her heart it does not have a reason to race.
She was not used to being afraid, and she was finding that she would have done just about anything to rid herself of the wretched feeling.
It is both a relief and a disappointment when they arrive just outside the Dale. The selfish part of her wanted to keep him to herself, thinking that she would finally find the courage to follow that pull that was getting harder to ignore. Another part of her was relieved for the distraction, as she stops alongside him to stare along one of the paths that would lead to what she assumes is the heart of the kingdom. She had rarely left Tephra before she was forced to, and so she does not even notice that this kingdom bears a resemblance to Hyaline.
She turns her gaze to the flower he gestures to, and there is a small smile that lifts at the corner of her lips as she pushes aside the way her skin again flares hot beneath her icy scales when he presses against her.
But of course since this is Beqanna, a flower cannot just simply be a flower, and she wishes she had been more surprised when the flower shouts a warning before erupting into a stallion, but she isn’t. You can only live here for so long before you just start accepting how strange everything is without thinking too hard about it. She does startle backwards, though, and her vibrant blue eyes briefly flash with something similar to annoyance. She recovers easily enough, her expression smoothing, although her tone is dry and unamused when she addresses Assailant, “If there’s more of that, I don’t want it.”
Yet true to her nature, the initial irritation passes quickly—just as quickly as the cloud overhead. She offers the stranger a small smile, before giving a subtle shake of her head. “I’m afraid the Pampas is gone. It was flooded when all the lands changed.” She finds herself staring at his golden spots, admiring the way they catch in the light, but it does not occur to her that their gold could have stemmed from the same bloodline—the rest of their appearance is too different for her to make a connection, and Adriana knew nothing of her family beyond her parents and siblings. “I’m Adriana. The man that rudely tried to pluck you is Assailant,” she glances at him as she says it, a barely-there simper ghosting across her lips before her attention again focuses on the stranger. “And you are just outside the Dale, not the Pampas.”
He still can’t help but continue to draw lines of demarcation between the old and the new, especially when the new is always finding a way to force him to face it. In the old Beqanna, the old Assailant could have had his choice of women (even though he had always kept his herd fairly small), whether they wanted him or not. In the new Beqanna, the new Assailant still enjoys the pretty faces, but doesn’t feel the same carnal compulsions dictating his decisions. The old Assailant could have harvested a flower or a berry from one of old Beqanna’s shrubs.
Instead, an unfamiliar male voice disrupts the relative quiet and the new Assailant shies away from the white and gold stallion that now stands where the blossom that he’d been reaching for had just been. A groan of frustration, of longing for the simpler days escapes him as he works to slow the beats sending a flood of adrenaline churning through his system.
Thank god for his immortality. Without it, his ancient heart could never survive the constant twists and turns this new Beqanna keeps carving into his path. The fanciful colors and seemingly impossible wings, such as those possessed by his traveling companion, were one thing. A boy that can turn into plants? Wild.
Though stunned as he is, he cannot help but admire the sarcasm behind Adriana’s little quip. He tears his gaze from the stranger to look at her and feels a faint smile finding its way to his lips. “Duly noted.” He knows he should not be surprised by the composure she possesses in the face of this sorcery, but he is. Of course, this was likely a garden-variety occurrence for her.
Maybe someday he’ll reacquaint himself with such evenness, hopefully someday soon. He is more than a little tired of being so disoriented all the time.
For now, he steps closer to Adriana. It is a gesture that could be interpreted several ways and even he is unsure if it is the inherent protectiveness bred by his old life, or if the comfort of her familiarity that presses him to her again. Or both. Whatever it is, he is acutely aware of and grateful for the galvanizing undercurrent of her frosted touch.
His gaze returns to the stranger, taking in the bewildered look on Aodhán’s face that surely mirrors the one Assailant had just been (and might still be) wearing. He is glad for the knowledge of the ever-changing status of Beqanna’s lands she holds, for he could not give Aodhán the answers that he seeks.
The sound of his name on her tongue pulls his attention to her again, but he does not catch her eye before it moves away from him. It doesn’t matter. He had felt her eyes on him just now and many times throughout their traveling. His own had found her just as often, if not more so, as thoughts like her own had peppered his mind. Those thoughts come creeping back now, but he gently pushes them to the side as he looks to Aodhán again and puts on a charming smile.
“Sorry to disturb you.. I haven’t quite gotten used to things not being what they appear to be.”
His head tilts inquisitively as he continues, “We are heading into..” He pauses, just long enough to hint at his uncertainty in the name of the land before them. “..the Dale, would you care to join us?”
All that is gold does not glitter; not all who wander are lost
Beqanna had never really been void of magic, though some individuals still were. There had always been something, somewhere; even after the Reckoning he’d been told people could petition the Mountain. Once it had been in the lands and nowadays it ran rampant in genetic lines, for better or worse.
And Aodhán… he’d been born without, cursed with a magical Plague first, then cured with fairy magic and it had left him… different. Young as he had been though, it was part of him for far longer now, than the period before.
The young mare in the back seems to almost roll her eyes when the flower of course isn’t just a flower. Aodhán would have sympathised with her statement more, or linger anyway, if he hadn’t been completely baffled by the words she speaks next: everything is gone, the lands changed. ”Again?” he sighs, a little dismayed. He doesn’t just mean the lands changing, though. ”I’ve spent time as a rock before. Wasn’t the best experience waking up, either.” He sighs.
The spotted knabstrup-hybrid smiles a little at the both of them. At least he didn’t get eaten by a mountain goat. And they looked friendly enough. ”I’m Aodhán,” he responds in kind, pronouncing his name as Aeyan like his parents had. ”I’d love to get to know these new lands, and wouldn’t mind the company if it’s all the same to you.” he agrees. Not that he would entirely want to cling to them and be their obvious third wheel, but it was better to have friends wherever one went, even if he did have technically the power to become a volcano and swallow anyone who threatened him.
i showed him all my teeth & then i laughed out loud, because i never wanted saving, i just wanted to be found
If she notices that Assailant seems disoriented by the vibrant display of magic, she does not show it. Just as he cannot fully grasp the way Beqanna is now, she cannot understand just exactly how tame Beqanna had been so long ago. Magic had always existed, of course, but it had been reserved for a select few—mostly the magicians themselves, and a few anomalies that possessed wings or horns, or something simple such as color changing. It was nothing like it is now, where Adriana herself is hardly anything unique — scales and beauty were everywhere.
She had been born into a world saturated with magic, where it dripped from every ledge and sank into the earth, cycling itself back into Beqanna’s residents at an almost alarming pace. She just had no concept of how alarming compared to someone that was accustomed to what Beqanna used to be like.
Where flowers simply did not sprout into stallions.
She does not move away when she steps closer to her, and she does not stop herself from being pulled in by his gravity, again noticing how shockingly warm he always felt against her frost-covered scales. It is a strange thing, how he can both steady her and also make her pulse jump at the same time, but for now the stranger before them is enough of a distraction that she does not follow the tension that pulls between them.
“Yes, again,” she answers him, the words lilting with amusement. She knew it was maddening the way the lands here always changed, but it was a bit entertaining as well, if only in a disbelieving kind of way. How many places could say their entire landscape changed nearly as often as the seasons themselves? “I suppose it’s a good thing you weren't a rock in the Pampas this time around. That might have been a more alarming wake-up than being plucked out of the ground.”
She looks again down the path that would lead them into the Dale, and it’s only then that she steps away from Assailant, taking a few strides before turning her attention to Aodhán. “Are you familiar with the old lands at all? I’ve heard stories, but that’s about it.”As much as she missed Tephra she had to admit, she was growing increasingly curious of these lands that had once only existed in stories and history, and she feels an excited thrum in her chest when she looks again to the path carved into the tall hills.
Difficult as it has been to contend with the complete newness of Beqanna, he wonders what it must be like to have witnessed all of her changes over the years. Certainly he has spent much time longing for the old days, but more out of a desire to return to a time where he was comfortable. He has no wistful memories to associate with any particular lands, no devotion to any of the old kingdoms, very little to no fondness of any kind, as these two have in abundance. So he is quiet after extending the invitation to Aodhán, letting Adriana steer the conversation about the lands as he absent-mindedly lays a series of gentle nips along her shoulder.
He does offer up a mild snort when she mentions being a rock in the Pampas, assuming that she’s suggesting Aodhán would have woken up beneath the water this time around. He finds the idea somewhat amusing, as his own ‘awakening’ and return to Beqanna had been something along those same lines.
Her head turns to the Dale as though it has called her name and he is slightly frustrated that she breaks their contact to move towards it. However, it lures him in as well, so he trails after her with a touch of shared enthusiasm in his step.
They travel for some time, he in continued silence so that he might learn more of what they know about the lands. Out of nowhere, an errant thought crosses his mind and he tugs lightly at a strand of her mane to draw her attention. “You know, I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your home before.” He hesitates, acutely aware that it might dampen her mood. “Are you willing to tell us about it?”
His eyes drift to Aodhán and he quickly presses on, hoping to diffuse any sourness he might have roused in Adriana. “And I’d like to hear more of the Pampas.. it came well after my time, so I know nothing of it.”
assailant
"The comfort zone is always the most desirable place to be. But in settling for comfort, there is a price to pay and it comes in the death of ambition, of hope, of youth, and the death of self." -Simon Barnes
