"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
01-11-2016, 05:12 AM (This post was last modified: 01-12-2016, 08:51 AM by Umqra.)
The forest is dark, so dark, and eerie sounds come from every direction. The sun had yet to rise and the dawn isn’t able to lighten the forest, not even a little bit. The small green filly blends almost perfectly with the forest’s vegetation. It is the sounds of her movements, as she steps on dead tree branches or as she pushes through some bushes, and her light panting that gives her away. Umqra doesn’t remember how she had ended up in the forest. She remembers that she laid down to rest when the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, but everything between that and waking up in this forest is a black gap in her memories.
She calls out, to her mother most of all, but anybody would do right now. It’s shrill and high pitched, obviously voicing her distressed state. Umqra feels like she has been walking for hours, her legs numb and tired, but the panic and fear doesn’t allow her to lay down yet. Instead she stumbles on, trying to find her way through the forest, running away from the sudden and unfamiliar sounds. Every time she comes to a halt, holding her breath to listen carefully, there is something that scares her. The forest is slowly awaking and the darkness – that slowly gets chased away by the sunlight – is enough to scare the mantis green filly.
As the sun eventually rises and the forest isn’t as dark as before anymore – although the eerie feeling stays – she collapses. She is no longer able to keep herself up and although it goes right against her nature, Umqra is just not able to keep standing anymore. She simply is too tired. Her body is trembling, partially because of the fear, but also because of the cold that seeps into her body from the ground.
01-14-2016, 07:09 PM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2016, 07:49 PM by Vineine.)
‘And stars, in their orbits, shone pale, thro' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon, 'mid planets her slaves
Herself in the Heavens, her beam on the waves.’
She has allowed the girl to take her other form more and more. To master the differences in that body and that soul. To know when to run, and when to hide, and how. It is imperative that she know all this. Because she cannot turn away from her dichotomy. It is in her. Not just a way she can transform her flesh, but a part of her as inborn as her equinity. The Mother’s own hand had soldered her to the remaining stuff of that unfortunate kit.
They were one in the same. Born in similar sightlessness and deafness. Brought into the world as hairless and pink as the other, but as one had exited (so untimely) the other was just readying herself to enter.
Vineine would be asking for the rest of her life, why the Mother had chosen her to act through. In the weeks since her strange delivery, she has woken up at night unsure and drawn to pace and mull. She had given herself almost entirely to the pursuit of understanding Her. Until she came to understand instead that this is too lofty a goal, and so she spent her hours understanding Her ways and works. But nature is always evolving, and always mutating; it is cyclical and predictable, and it has its many surprises every day.
She had not expected when she reached to comfort the rabbit youngling that she would become a vessel of Her will.
Longear stays by her side in her filly form, stopping here and there to look at a monarch’s orange and black wings, or a squirrel chattering away on a branch angrily. Vineine watches patiently, explaining this and that, and nibbling at grass. This is she used to, the daily time spent sating the curiosity of a babe.
She picks their path habitually today, bringing the girl to places she knows well. But it is Longear, as it tends to be, that diverges and drags her mother behind. “Longear!” the rose grey mare hisses, with the ragged edge of tested patience.
The scent of wolf fur stings her nostrils, the sharpness of memory along with it. “Longear, be careful!” She catches up to her filly in a few rushes strides, roughly reaching down to nip her shoulder and push her body in front. She looks around, frenzied in her movements, and her daughter responds with a raised cottontail and nervous ears. Vineine’s nostrils flare, and she dances away from the scent again, pushing the buckskin filly back.
And then, against the cold, bare earth, huddled in green shade she sees the pup.
At first she thinks of only the mother. Where she must be, and yet and the little one seems so desperately alone and uncared for.
The warbler nestling. The kit. Her life has been punctuated by lesson told through ill-fated young. They are impressively effective subjects, and the Mother uses them liberally. But this one is not dying, not like the warbler, or the kitten. This one is simply alone, and the mare holds back her filly and sighs, because she can do naught for it but leave and let it be. And alone is as good as dead.
And yet she stays, as she had with the warbler and the kit, to wonder on the wisdom in this. I understand that life is indiscriminately hard... I do...
magic-borne daughter of Prague and Elladora - amazonian and mother -
Her legs are folded underneath her body, not comfortable and relaxed enough to lie down flat, and her muzzle is slowly lowering closer and closer to the ground. She cannot fight her heavy eyelids and right on the moment she is about to fall asleep she hears something. First it’s only faint and Umqra brushes it off as her own imagination, too tired to wonder about it, but then it’s the rustling of something. And it is close. The green girl opens her eyes, blinking a few times before she manages to get them fully open.
Instantly she sees the pair and the green filly lifts her head with a quick jerk as her green yet dark pointed ears perk forward. ”Umma?” she asks out loud as she eyes the pair, wondering if her eyes were betraying her or not. It is only then that she tries to get up, her long limbs still tired and now also rigid from the cold. Umqra – in her green filly form – is only able to stand up after a few attempts and once she stands she is hesitant to approach the mare with child. Something in the mare’s – possibly her mother – posture seems hesitant and even slightly hostile.
The girl flinches, casting her gaze down as a sorrow-ish feeling takes over. Her mother looks like she had done something wrong and the green girl is suddenly afraid that the mare would punish her for running off like this. Not that Umqra remembers that she had wandered off, but in her mind it was the only way to explain the current situation. ”I’m sorry umma, I didn’t mean to do it.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper, matching how small and vulnerable she feels right now, as the tears roll down her cheeks.
It’s only after her apology that she dares to look up, taking a few steps closer again. She isn’t sure if her mother would accept her near right now and she doesn’t want to anger her any further. Yet at the other side she longs for the support she might offer. Umqra is scared, still scared and honestly doesn’t understand what’s going on. She doesn’t understand why she awoke somewhere in the forest, all alone and out in the open for any predator to take down. But now she stands closer she makes out the differences in their scents. Her mother smells equine and it is a calming scent. But the bunny tailed girl besides her smells different. Her lips curls up, tasting the scent more thoroughly, but she still isn’t able to make out what the difference exactly is.
let it out so it can breathe
umqra
WORDS BY SAPPHIRE HTML BY CALL
OOC: Umqra is in her horse form, but I guess she does smell like wolf. And she assumes that Vineine is her mother, as her memory is a blanc gap because of the shifting of last night. And Longear smells different because of the bunny shifting and prey thing XD. Sorry it took me this long <3
