tarnished

[Exemplary]

repost.

I am nothing.

I don’t say that lightly—not in the way that shows I crave attention or pity. I don’t like pity, and I don’t do well with eyes judging my actions. I don’t say it in a way that means I do nothing, because while I am generally useless in the grand scheme of life, I do walk and I can talk and I tend to multitask at both fairly well. I am pointing out my never ending blankness. My little—no, even—impact on history itself. The fact that if I was to vanish, disappear like eyelash glue on your lid—transparent—no one would remember me. I wouldn’t be someone’s mother, sister, child, friend, lover. I wouldn’t be some noble diplomat. I would simply not be.

Like a snowflake melting on the warm flesh of a mammal.

And I contemplate this feeling a lot, truly I do. I, currently, relate everything to this. I internally curse myself for being so incredibly boring. I critique myself on lacking adventure and initiative. I blame myself for mediocrity and lack of depth. Even the leaves, slowing dying with the fall season, have more to show than I do. They have seen more, heard more, experienced total life. Enough so that God has decided it time to shed them from her dying roots and grow new life to take the meaning of life further.

Here I am, envious of crippling red and orange leaves.

The meadow is how it always is, eternal. It is blessed with emerald blades hardly showing thirst despite the recent lack of water. With fall always came a dry spell, and here it is feeling oddly suffocating. Leaves (I must comment on them despite my inner bickering) have grown to become multicoloured art inspirers. If I as human, I would understand why artists view them as motivation, why paint so elegantly rebirths their beauty upon a blank canvas. They are what I look forward to every year, even years like now when I am miserable with my lack of impact because their colours make me happy. The forest is a plethora of bright, vibrant pops of warm tones that accent my ebony coat. Before the chilling whiteness of snow exposes all angles of survival, and after the summer has spoiled me of all sun and hot weather.

The sun is beginning to rise. I am famous for making it to the meadow at the crack of dawn. I emerge from the hot savannah of my kingdom and feel the temperature alter and disintegrate to more a more bearable climate. It is a time where frost just begins to decorate the scene like icing sugar on black forest cake. The entire season, the time of day (though I am forever plateau…ing?) warming me like hot chocolate for a child would on a snow day.

I stop where I always do, at the tree line. Hazel eyes, watching few… hardly any…equines meander with the sunrise. It’s peaceful. The soft coo of distant birds, the sound of dead tree limbs cracking and popping—serene. And I will stand here—an awkward school girl inhaling my guilty addiction of familiarity—awaiting company that may not want to meet a blank slate.

Exemplary

I will be yours, and only yours, until the day I fade to black

[Tarnished]

I'll use you as a warning sign,
That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind.

I am everything.

It’s a fact.

I can transition from insect to beast at the drop of a hat; from wisps of mist to blocks of diamond; from one horse to another without so much as batting an eye. I can be whatever they need me to be— whoever they want me to be. The roles are easy and the women have proven themselves to be even easier to fool—willfully in denial, I suppose. But it doesn’t matter so long as I play my part right, says the Light.

There is no love in the children I have created, but I’m proud of them nonetheless.

Two of them were given life by means of violence, I keep one close while the Dreamweaver keeps the other one safe and hidden; two of them were given life for reasons beyond even my understanding, magic babes who needn’t so much as suckle from their mother’s teat to stay alive. I’ve kept tabs on the ones I can find and keep an eye out for the other. Nyxia is only let out of my sight long enough to visit the Playground and that’s where she happens to be now; a pretty little lavender girl that I’ve kept fat and full on doe milk, she’s been my everything ever since I found her. And how could she not be? I’ve had everything else taken away from me.

My brothers and sisters are gone.

I cannot find Dominion.

Mother no longer appears in my dreams.

Before I found my little daughter, I had been alone for the first time in my life.

And I found I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like the way Her voice was the only thing I heard when the silence crept in.

I look at her without realizing what I’m seeing; in fact, it’s only the shimmer of sunlight across her pitch black coat that catches my attention. I stare longer than I mean to, trying to put her face to a name—I’d spoken to her, once, back before I had been ripped apart and then stitched back together hundreds of times over. Before I’d gone on a fool’s errand and tried to save a kingdom that didn’t want to be saved. I tilt my head, following her with my eyes as she makes her way across the meadow; she probably doesn’t remember me, but I certainly remember her.

It might not seem like it, but mother trained me well and I have every bit of grace as the jungle cats—I just don’t want to startle the poor girl by creeping up behind her, so I pretend to be clumsy and I make as much noise as possible. I don’t want to hurt this one, I don’t want to make it seem like I am hunting her—though the thought, as always, crosses my mind. Always. But it’s just a thought—a fleeting one. I even snort to announce my presence, grinning as cheekily as the first day she met me; as if nothing has happened, as if nothing is wrong.

Everything is wrong.

I am… wrong.

“It’s been a while.”

TARNISHED

( Talk some sense to me )

[Exemplary]

He can be everything. A bee, a spider, a cougar, a bear. But I cannot be everything. I cannot be anything more than a doe eyed mare with four legs and an alarmingly dark coat. He can change himself, be someone he is proud to be even if only for a moment. I can only be this. I can only be simplistic and plain.

He is extraordinary.

I am ordinary.

I know not what it is like to raise a child. I imagine it is something beautiful. I tell myself I am meant to be a mother. Not the sort of mother who is convenient, or the sort of mother who means well but is short on delivery. No I am meant to be a flawless parent, with incredibly accurate parenting skills and a knack of expressing love. I am meant to have a few kids, all of whom know my true self and worship every word I speak. Sometimes I like to picture myself a worn out queen, one who has passed the torch from generation to generation, with my crowd of family surrounding as support.

That does not mean I am ready now, but surely soon… probably later… I will be ready for that.

I stand in the meadow, tail to the wind and a cool breeze tickling my neck. I am warm, the heat pouring onto my charcoal coat like fire on coal. I am not thinking of anything, really. I am enjoying the silence, feeling at peace until I hear the bristling of grass.

We haven’t spoken for awhile, but I could not forget him anyhow.

He is handsome, truly. Sometimes I feel my breath get heavy but then I remind myself that obviousness is not attractive.

Is it not sad that we live in a world that would rather scold us for honesty and reward us for hidden secrets?

After all, had society taught me a show of affection was appropriate perhaps I would not be contemplating my breathing cycle.

“It has been,” I speak though I am not sure what I sound like. A broken harp? A mangled flute? While he has become suddenly more approachable, I have fallen back into an anti-social hole. I am best at awkward interactions and over-analysed responses. A trademark of mine, surely.

[Tarnished]

I'll use you as a warning sign,
That if you talk enough sense, then you'll lose your mind.

She looks at him like she has stumbled across something otherworldly—ethereal and untouchable, it probably never occurs to her how easy it is to break him; he doesn’t let on how easy it was for a girl to get under his skin, after all. Tarnished watched Else live her life for years, meanwhile she never spared him another thought; he took her children under his wing and he kept them as safe as he could, because as much as she hurt him he couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her—he never could, no matter what he said or how much he pretended to hate her.

He thinks he loved Dominion, too.

But Dominion didn’t need him the way he needed her to.

Exemplary is… different.

Strange, because she cannot hide her feelings as well as the others. Beqannians are usually better at this, pulling up the mask and hiding everything behind a guise of ice and nonchalance—especially the politicians, his mother made sure to make him understand that all of them were almost always full of shit. He watches her carefully, wondering what it is that she finds so fascinating. Traits are commonplace now. He isn’t ugly, but there’s better-looking; she must have come across a stallion or three by now that were less scarred and much… well, prettier.

It makes him that much more curious about the look in her eye.

“Not long enough, eh?” Tarnished teases, moving closer—testing his boundaries, of course.

He was always doing that.

It’s what got him into trouble the last time.

TARNISHED

( Talk some sense to me )

[First person was not agreeing with me. :| My bad.]

[Exemplary]

Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?

Or, better yet, why Exemplary is so much like a raven?

She is ebony, a matching colour. Her coat is a glossy black sea that many, if not all, tend to get devoured in. She is a bundle of charcoal with not the slightest hint of white, a pureness few have come to own. She, also, has simple hazel eyes that on any other frame would have appeared meek, but because of her spasm of black they pop like the lightest of blues. But no, it is not because of their matching colours and simple iris’s.

It is because like a raven, Exemplary has no understanding of what her life truly entails.

A bird never flies to the sky, travelling for days before landing because it knows the end is near. The bird is a machine on instincts, it does because it’s brain urges it to. Much like when a dog cannot help but let out a muffled bark at the sound of an unfamiliar foot step, birds cannot help but fill out their life with their only purpose. Exemplary, too, has no true understanding of what her life is. And is that not a shame? Is it not the saddest story that one day, when her life is over, it is just starting again. Like a computer powering off because of a dead battery, and reviving only to reveal that everything (including your most sacred documents, the real ones) have been wiped clean from the hard drive.

Exemplary, my folks, is a ticking time bomb of immortality in its worst form.

Perhaps if she knew, she would be more bold. Instead of hiding in the shadows of willow trees and aimlessly flirting with men (taking no real step in the direction of love), perhaps she would be conquering fears or making a name. Maybe, just maybe, she would be doing a little more to enjoy this life while she can. Lord knows that many other lives await her arrival.

He scares her. He is a book with in depth history and a long record of lives he has impacted. No, scare is not the right word… intimidate. He intimidates her because he is something she will never quite be. He is someone who has loved deeply, cared deeply, maybe even hated. And while she will never know to what extent, she knows he is something beyond her level. He has experience in all emotions, while her talent is in passiveness. She is the girl men dream of in high school—the pretty, low priority one. The one who is alright with pizza (would rather have Greek but never dare say a word). He suites someone exquisite, someone who demands and who sees what they want. Someone who snaps a finger at at the flick of the wrist there before them is hundreds of desserts. He probably longs for someone bold, and courageous.

After all, Exemplary has not finished writing her first chapter.

Not long enough..

Her ears flicker into a pin, a threat, a habit. He has questioned to move into her space, but she does not want to be easy. She does not want to be simple and boring. She wants to make him try, she wants to see that he wants to try. Her naivety may work in his favour, but while he crosses the border of the unknown she will question his intentions.

She has never been hurt because she weeds out those who do harm.

“So, you wish you had not stumbled upon me so soon?” Her gold eyes glimmer with the slightest hint of a tease, maybe he would see that and maybe he would not. Maybe he would be caught up on her warning, be immaturely sore from her reaction to his advancement. Or maybe he would see the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe he would appreciate her for being more than a rump offering mare.

Exemplary

I will be yours, and only yours, until the day I fade to black