little drops of anguish will all run together; Kreios

[burr]

"Mandrake?" She says his name questioningly. Eerie stillness greets her and a tremor seizes her spine, stiffens it with fear. "Mandrake?" She calls again, growing frantic by the minute. Still no response and she chokes back a sob that clogs her throat, leaving her spluttering and gape-mouthed. Panic sets in - they've never been far apart from one another - ever. He couldn't be far but she cannot catch his scent on the air, what remnant haunts her nostrils is from yesterday and not now as it has always been - it smells old, only by almost a day but she is afraid that the smell of him will fade faster until forgotten. Burr turns around and around in a tight circle that seems like it cannot possibly grow any smaller unless she trips over her own feet and she does just that - trips, a hind catching a fore hoof and the pain lances up her leg and stops her momentary madness blind. She almost calls his name again to the fog that has crept in to match her forlorn mood. How could he have left her behind like this? They were womb-mates, and he had sworn he would always be there... The bay sighed dejectedly; she made no decision to seek him out further beyond the few plaintive cries of his name but some stray instinct spurred her to motion, knowing she could not stay there, stagnating. Her bizarrely striped head (courtesy of the zebra blood in her pedigree, attributing also to the same wider zigzag bands on her belly) cast about uncertainly; she knew not which direction to take, only that she must be away from here and the memory of their last sleep together, her side already colder for the lack of his pressed to it. Finally she sucked in a breath, shut her eyes and blindly stepped forth. Trusting to an instinct for water or grass (it mattered not which need was the greater, because it was her inability to cope with the sudden loneliness that she inexplicably felt that made her shiver), she found herself leaving the fog and their borrowed thicket behind. The former soon burned off the stronger the sun became, and despite the heat that warmed her flank, she found herself spooking at shadows, both timid and hopeful all at once and so easily disappointed to discover that none of those that she passed bore his likeness or his scent.

[Kreios]

kreios don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash I have never had the chance to blend in with the background. Though I might hide my heritage - born the son of a King and a Queen – by not speaking of it, there is no hiding my physical presence. As large as my Percheron father and carrying the bold spots of my mother and a bloody red coat hidden in both their black hides, I never had a chance. I am not ungrateful for what I have been given – I am healthy and able (now) – but there are times that I have wished that I was not who I am. Times like these. My former queen – the wife my father had replaced my mother with even as she birthed my youngest sister - had called me back, and while the sight of my dead father walking the sands was not unheard of in the magics of Beqanna, it is something that I do not want to deal with at the present time. I long for the soft sway of yellow savanna grass against my sides, or even the echo of my hooves in deep canyons of the Orange Country. I want anything except to stand beneath my father’s judgmental eye and the broiling Desert sun. So I have come here, to the Meadow, a place I frequented from time to time when I still called Beqanna home. The faces I see are unfamiliar but they each receive a passing smile; even when ill at ease I am incapable of rudeness. I walk aimlessly, round the meadow first in a wide circle and then in a figure-eight, moving just to move and to not think. I had not thought much while I was away; there was no need. Instinct was enough, and emotions were unimportant. The need for food and water were what drove me, and I follow them until I stand beside the shallow stream. I lower my head to drink and for a moment it almost feels as though I have never returned. The mare that approaches matches my trouble mind in appearance, a blend of childhood horse brown and the stripes of my most recent herd. I do not know her but she seems frightened, and the urge to comfort her is as instinctual for me as the need for water. “Hey there,” I say, lowering my head in a way that I know makes me seem at least a little smaller, a little less threatening. “Are you okay?”

[burr]

Burr nears the stream that cut through the heart of the meadow; all she can think about is how they have never been apart. Not for more than an hour or so, and always for less than a second and if apart - they kept well within one another's line of sight. She cannot fathom how this had come to be, their separation, although it is thirst that stops her feet at the edge of the stream.

She stares at her reflection, a striped face with sad terrified eyes staring back at her. Burr snorts; she doesn't like the pitiful look of herself and dashes her reflection with a hoof, making it waver and ripple outward. She feels anger then, that he could so cruelly and easily leave her without so much as a parting touch or word. How could he! Her hoof strikes the stream again and she is too caught up in her angst-filled attack on the stream to notice the behemoth’s approach.

(It is likely that he had been there all along, beside that stream and bore witness to her silly burst of anger; that she simply never noticed him in her pathetic self-absorbed way.)

Burr spooks visibly at the quiet boom of his voice; he is so large and concerned, unlike her brother was. It makes her wary but there is only the stream and the spotted giant that dwarfs her in comparison. “Yes,” she says and knows it to be a lie instantly. She feels frayed, nervous, even though he is nothing but kind;  “No, not really.” said with a sigh, a wayward glance towards anything but him - not because he is reminiscent of her lost twin (they are so opposite one another!), merely that she feels undeserving of his comfort.

It is not lost on her that he tries; she's just thoroughly lost and the light dims in her eyes at the poor reality of that. For so long she has been MandrakeandBurr and now she's just Burr and she doesn't know who that is. “I'm lost,” she murmurs, beseeching him with her eyes for understanding.

[Kreios]

kreios don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash Though I had come into existence beside my brother, it did not take us long to separate. I have seen strangers closer than my twin and I, but perhaps those strangers had been treated fairly by their fathers; Kratos and I cannot make that claim. While our mother loved us equally, even she had been fonder of my brother. He was smarter, faster, cleverer – and he could speak clearly. The link between us had been severed long before we had left Mother’s side, and so while I share her twinness, I have never experienced the fear she feels at the loss of her womb-mate. I have only ever been glad to be free of Kratos. He is often in my mind, but I do not think of him as I watch the brown mare paw at the water. Instinct tells me she is ill at ease because she is not with the rest of the herd, but I quell that drive before I step across the water and herd her towards contentment (or at the very least a defensible copse of trees). She says that she is fine, but I do not have to name it for a lie, since she admits it nearly in the same breath. “Where are you trying to be?” I ask when she admits that she is lost. I do not know Beqanna extremely well, but I have the education befitting a prince of two kingdoms, and can do better than the average herd stallion at giving directions.

[burr]

Burr has never been anything but MandrakeandBurr; her brother was the leader, and she was just a lowly follower to his every whim, patient and forgiving of all the harsh nips and slurs she received from him. Mandrake was not entirely unkind to her, he was just the way he was supposed to be - the big brother, the older twin, the stronger of the two but she never expected him to sever their tie so neatly or quickly and leave Burr bereft of all that she has ever known since it was always the two of them after being weaned off their mother’s milk. Even then, at the mare’s side, it had been the two of them and Mandrake in his infancy had taken better care of her than he did the moment they became a stallion and a mare, then something changed in his face, became horrible and foul towards her and she suffered his cruelties out of sisterly adoration for him. His largeness unnerves her in a way that is not entirely unbecoming of him; the difference of it almost soothes her too, knowing he is protection against predators but that is the combination of zebra and horse instinct and genetics telling her that his size is indicative of a good leader. She could be as simpleminded as that, to simply fall into line beside him and let him lead her wherever he wished to, but part of her balks at the idea - she is Burr, oddly independent even if not by choice but rather through circumstance, but her pride wars with her ability to see that he is kind and trying. Burr knows she needs help, the problem is whether or not she really wants it or wants to remain lost and alone. She looks up at him, her head on a tilt, “It’s not where but who,” she tells him. The correction apparent but only to herself and she knows that she makes little sense to him, but then, she never made sense except as MandrakeandBurr. “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be any more,” and Burr cannot help herself, she gives her striped head a little shake and seeks refuge in his too-big side into which she presses herself, needing to feel his warmth and realness even though she can smell how real he is but she thinks her eyes still deceive her. Her little nose swipes against his brawny shoulder and she sighs, “I can’t expect you to know who I’m to be either.” and it sounds so forlorn, that she tries to laugh afterwards, to break up the misery that chokes her throat. “Sorry,” she offers, by way of scant apology, looking up at him again then back out towards the stream, not quite sure what to say now.