"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
Fennick: so kind, so gentle, and with a curious, lopsided grin. He has been on Shiya's mind since he had stumbled in front of her. For a moment he was able to distract her from the distance that has spread between her and Eight. Without even trying he had sparked joy in her heart. Cobwebs have amassed across it after so long of being dormant and unnecessary. She knew Eight wanted space and so she granted him that no matter how it pained her. It led to frostbite nipping at her thoughts and loneliness to create a body ache. It hurt in the beginning, but she learned to cope. In all that time Shiya never dismissed the idea of friendships and love; there are still so many opportunities for such things. The brightness of her eyes and the loss of her painful memories grant her the ability to throw herself at others without reservation and without fear of shattering again.
The virginity of her mind is both a blessing and a curse.
It opens her thoughts up to Fennick since there are so few that she knows here or anywhere else in Beqanna. Gallows and Demian were there but they didn't ignite the smile as Fennick had. In that one moment he had lifted the shadows off Shiya and kindled her hope for life.
"Hello, Fennick," she says when she finds him after a brief search through the valley and trees. The solitude has gripped her for long enough; it's time to loosen the leash and actually find joys in her everyday life instead of waiting for something to happen. With a jagged smile sheepishly stretching across her lips she adds, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything. I was lonely." And confused and lost.
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Fennick knew it was autumn by the length of his coat. Up in the mountains, the leaves didn’t brown and fall as they did in the lowlands. The evergreen pine needles kept their deep green, and the passing of time was marked by a shortening of days and lengthening of coat. Already, he was nearly shaggy. His think black fur and plethora of velvet feathers made him look less and less like a horse and more and more like a bear.
A winged bear.
If there were stranger things Fennick didn’t know of them. Still, he had a lot of eating to do, if he intended to maintain his rather impressive body weight for winter. He had no business being as large as he was, and Demian’s gift of wings made more muscle to feed. Still, if all he had to was stuff his face, the inconvenience was easily justifiable. This year he had started early, and the young stallion was gobbling like a beast when she found him. Fennick couldn’t hear much over the sound of his own chewing, but the sound of her voice, followed by his name, cause his head to pop up, mouth still full of tough autumn grass. He smiled through the mouthful and struggled to swallow. The bite was sticky in his throat. In his haste he hadn’t chewed well enough, and his eyes watered. The scene was following by two of three painful sounding coughs before he had composed himself enough to talk.
“Shiya.” He said companionably. He was glad to see her. Fennick had been wondering about the snake mare. She was mysterious, both in look and story.
“Please.” He said, a self deprecating tone to his words.
“You interrupted nothing that shouldn’t have been interrupted long ago.” He meant, of course, his voracious eating. It was not flattering, to conduct yourself like a hog, even if winter was just around the corner. Still, he did have a lot of body mass to worry about. He hoped she would assume him strategic, rather than gluttonous. He offered her another smile and continued.
“How are you doing?” He said the question softly, and somehow the tone gave it more weight. He was, of course, interested in knowing how her day was going, but he left it open ended, in case she wanted to say more. Had she found Eight? Did she remember more of her past? How did she like the Valley? Had his poor social skills scared her back to the cave? Perhaps, a more skilled conversationalist could have wheedled these things out of her. Fennick couldn’t find the words, and he had no intention of interrogating the girl. He hoped his simple question would suffice.
A sheepish grin tugs at the corners of her mouth when she watches Fennick jerk his head up, his mouth full of grass. A light, airy laughter slips from her. It's a delicate noise that even Shiya hasn't heard in quite some time. "Don't choke," her eyes watch the lump in his throat rise and fall as he tries to swallow the grass. "If I didn't know any better I would think you're trying to be a chipmunk with all that food in your mouth." This, already, is the most that she has spoken in years. Oddly enough, her soul feels more at ease when in his company, even if they are still strangers. Even if he isn't Eight.
While Fennick heartily prepares for the change of seasons Shiya is more lackadaisical. The winter is harsh for her with reptilian scales. In most situations she tries to find the sunlight and bask in it for hours at a time. Late spring and summer are her preferred times of year when the warmth is plentiful and the days are longer.
How are you, he asks, and she considers for a much longer time than most. She wants to reflect back on her life but can't as though there is a giant wall blocking her path into her innermost memories. Shiya has tried time and time again but each attempt was futile. Happy, she wants to tell him, but that's all she ever is. She doesn't know the heartache she has endured; she doesn't even know the existence of her own children. With slow, thoughtful blinks Shiya tries to find an answer for Fennick. Part of her wants to melt into his side and hope that he will somehow erase her sense of lost, but she remains standing in front of him with a furrowed brow. "Honestly?" The question is more rhetorical as her slit pupils lift to find him. "Confused," the delicacy of her voice trails off a moment before tacking another question between them. "Do you remember your childhood, Fennick? Or even your youngest years?"
Fennick had long since outgrown enduring embarrassment. He had spent so long in mortification that something had snapped inside of him, and now the feeling held very little sway. Sheepishness, however, was another story. It was his near constant companion. The big stallion coughed once to clear his throat and grinned at her. His now flightless, but otherwise functional wings readjusted on his back.
“I would be a truly alarming chipmunk. Far to big to fit into a burrow.” Yes indeed, Fennick had enough things to worry about without trying to shove himself into a hole. The idea, however, caused his lips to twitch and finally he gave way to a grin.
The wide and goofy expression softened into something more pensive as she considered his question. Fennick considered it with her, wondering about the long and twisting path that brought them both here. He had been thinking about that a lot as of late. While he had very little doubt that Shiya’s story was more convoluted and strange than his own, Fennick did find his own position rather surreal. Fatherhood, kingship, he had never imagined either would be in the cards for him. She asked if he wanted her honest answer, and he merely nodded, unable to hide his curiosity and hoping it did not seem nosy. Her answer was simple, but at the same time, spoke volumes. Yes, he could see how someone would be confused in her position. He smiled a little and answered her question.
“I do, though they are uneventful. I have a lot of half siblings, so there was always someone to play with. There are ups and downs to being a middle child with many siblings.” Fennick shrugged. Rea had been a good mother, but she had many other children, several of whom were significantly more remarkable than Fennick. He’d grown up in comfortable anonymity. After a moment he continued.
“I haven’t met my father. Apparently, he was a whale? I don’t really know what that means.” Fennick had heard that a lot. Both, that his father’s name was Whale and that the man was somehow a whale. This didn’t make a lot of sense to Fennick. He’d long ago let it go. If Fennick, himself, hadn’t turned out so strange he might have thought everyone was simply playing an elaborate joke on him. The big stallion shrugged it off. A little hesitantly, as he didn’t want to pry and couldn’t exactly be sure what was appropriate in his situation, Fennick asked.
“I can’t pretend to be the barer of sage wisdom, but I do make a pretty decent sounding board.” He paused, realizing that his offer of help, or at least of a sympathetic ear, sounded less than appealing. It was something he needed to work on. The valley king shrugged again.
“You know, if you want to talk about what’s confusing you.” There. Mission accomplished. He would almost certainly be of no help, but he had offered what little he could.
The laughter that bubbles from her throat is light, enjoyable, and somehow even beautiful as the notes twirl and dance around their ears. "You'd be the king chipmunk," she replies with a jagged smile still broadly stretched across her lips. A fleeting image springs to mind and ignites another small bout of laughter before she settles into a more thoughtful expression like him.
He remembers, she muses, as a pang of envy stabs into her. Shiya is happy for him; happy that he has memories to clutch onto even in the darkest of nights when he is alone. It built him into what he is now and for that, even she is grateful. Fennick has only been kind to her despite her confusion and aimless wandering in their home. Somehow a wall had been built that locked her here unbeknownst to her. Rather than bombard her with questions or cruelty he offered an amiable approach that reassured her that she wouldn't be harmed.
With Fennick, she is safe.
"You know your half siblings? Lucky duck!" Little does she know that she has met at least one of her siblings although there are certainly many more. The memory of Vulgaris rattles in the deep crevices of her mind, but Eight's magic is keeping it all pent in the shadows. "Honestly, I can only remember Eight." Nothing more. Every memory she has contains his strong touch, his embrace, his rumbling voice.
A chill runs down her spine.
"I know there has to be more though. I must have had more in life than Eight." And, oh, did she. Shiya has children and she has had friends and once a star-crossed love. There are so many things that she has seen, felt, and heard in life but it all destroyed her. Life poisoned her with pain and heartbreak; she didn't want to go on and Eight fed off that. He cured her but he also toyed with her in ways she wouldn't understand. He erased everything that broke her down but he also decimated everything else.
Her uneasiness of the unknown shows in the curve of a frown, but she manages a small grin when Fennick mentions his parents. "A whale?" Shock suddenly brightens her gaze as she inches toward him. Their bodies nearly touch as she searches across him. "That's funny. You don't seem like a half whale species," an inquisitive tilt of her head allows a final lookover before she withdraws away from him and meets his eyes. "We're both oddballs then," it somehow comforts her to think she's not alone, "I guess one of my parents had to have been a snake." If only she had met Larva and remembered mother. If only she knew how she was a mirror image of father. Then maybe she wouldn't feel so alone.
A breath catches in her throat as he offers his help, his shoulder to lean on. Shiya's hesitation is unexpected as she searches for something to say. "Thank you," she manages to whisper after swallowing past the lump in her throat. "I just don't know where I would begin," the lost girl says with a hint of resignation.
Fennick hadn’t aspired to be many things. He’d hoped to have some kind of purpose, something to fill his days with so he didn’t have to spend them aimlessly wandering from useless thought to silly notion. In all those wild dreams, however, he’d never aspired to be king chipmunk. That being said, king chipmunk still seemed infinitely more likely than king of the Valley. Fennick grinned at her, enjoying the image of himself with a big bushy tail.
“Then I suppose I would have to be a kind and benevolent ruler, and endeavor to lead them to many nuts.” He said that, of course, because he couldn’t imagine what else a chipmunk king would do. Perhaps a ruler amongst the monks simply had a particularly bushy tail? He could only hope that they weren’t so shallow creatures.
Fennick’s smile turned softer as they talked of siblings. He wouldn’t say he knew them exactly. There were enough of them that it was impossible to miss their coming into the world while he was still loitering at his mother’s side. Fennick hadn’t been particularly quick to leave the nest. He tilted his head curiously when Shiya spoke of Eight.
“Ah well, knew is a relative term.” He referred to his own siblings then, and paused to consider how to ask Shiya about her memories. The snake mare was unusual, like a twisting labyrinth of memories and past. He didn’t want to go crashing around in her thoughts.
“You have no memories before Eight? Do you remember coming to the Valley?” That would at least be a start. Perhaps, if she remembered coming to the Valley they could tease out how she got there.
Fennick smiled in response when her face lightened. It was good to see the frown ease from her face. He groaned a little, but it was for show, a wry smile that tickled his lips. Of course, he had to bring up the whale thing. Still, it had made her smile, and so the purpose was served. He pretended to scrutinize her, narrowing his eyes and looking her up and down.
“It would have to be a particularly large snake, and a charming one. What do you think? Are you venomous?” He leaned in close, inspecting her fangs. Perhaps, if she wasn’t venomous, she was derived from a strangling species, like a boa. He chuckled, more at himself than at his poor excuse for a joke. Sometimes it was the best thing to do, to just give up and laugh at the futility of it all.
