"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
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
Etro is not in and of herself dark, but that does not stop her from being drawn to the shadows. There was something in her that was curious about the sharp edges and the bloodstained fingers. She could feel herself drawn to it, opening herself up to the darkness in ways that she did not. Such darkness came in many different forms—in the flat shark-eyes of Kingslay, in the desperate brokenness of Sleaze—but it came all the same, and she did not attempt to stop it. In fact, she welcomed it. Her poor mother.
Today was no different. She moved through the meadow, taking care to skirt alongside the borders. It wasn’t that she was anti-social; she just considered it rude to barge into conversations when she knew that she could affect them without their knowledge. She had seen it happen before—the traits melting from their bodies or the frustration when accessing their abilities made them feel as if they were underwater.
She was a heavy blanket on most conversations; she smothered out all of their fire.
That, however, did not stop her when she saw it. Her ears swiveled atop her head, and she peered forward, mouth pressing together in thought. She had seen a lot in her life (sand monsters created by her mother’s whims, Kingslay burning with ash and soot, her father being brought back from dead), but she had never seen anything like that. Part of her knew she should leave—should bow out—but she could not help herself. She moved slowly toward the creature, blocky head lowered, until she was several feet away.
Silence fell over them for several seconds, the only sound Etro’s deep breaths that fell in steady rhythm. Finally, because she could not stand not knowing, Etro whispered: “Hello.”
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
It grows feral.
It was always feral, of course – a creature apart, an alien bred in magic and mayhem. But it had been Hers, previously – it had been made to guard, to hunt for her. She had spoken to it in its language, a series of birdlike chirps and trills. She had guided it to meat, had set it to hunt.
But She had left it, whispering things it did not understand, leaving it alone with a hollowed belly amongst a world of meat that it feared to touch without Her telling it.
(Some of the meat was Bad, She had said, it will make you sick.)
It subsists mostly on carcasses, disgusting meat tasting of rot and maggots. It keeps it alive but oh, it misses hunting, it was made to hunt, made to guard, and it does neither, now.
It is near gaunt, now, the skin drawn tight across its bones. Its body is ridged and strange, teeth clicking in its protruding maw. It is bred to hunt, body armored. It is bred to kill, its tail a knife and its very blood acidic, burning sizzling holes into the earth.
And it is here, feral, alone, adrift.
It makes a noise, a birdlike trill (it finds the meat’s language mushy, hard to imitate, much prefers the sharpness and directness of chirps and trills), though it does not expect answers – no one has answered it in a long time.
But, there is something.
Meat, brown and boring, but the meat watches him with a soft gaze that feels too kind and makes its stomach twist. It trills again, a bit of a warning, but meat does not know its language so instead the meat speaks, that stupid mushy language. Hello.
It knows that word – it knows many words. Knows it is a greeting. It always feels strange when meat talks to it (meats scream, they do not talk, talking is strange).
But it is lonely.
So it tries. It does not hunt.
(Yet.)
“’lo,” it manages back. The noises are hard to imitate, its maw cannot bend around the words the way meat can.
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
It is different than anything she has seen before, dangerous—clearly a predator, although her senses to such dangers are dulled by generations of horses living in relative civility. Still, there are warning bells that ring in the back of her mind, and her nerves are set on fire with the need to run. But she doesn’t. Like always, she ignores that faint calling to save herself, to preserve her life, and she just takes another step.
Her mouth twists with pleasure at his attempt at a greeting, and she nods in response. “My name is Etro.” The only of her family with such a different name. The rest of her siblings were named in her mother’s tongue—names that were rich with spice and beautiful in that foreign language. She, however, had named herself, or at least that is what her mother had whispered to her. A name without meaning. Just a name.
She wonders if it has a name, if it has ever clicked and growled syllables to refer to itself. She thinks it hasn’t, but then again, she also has a hard time imagining such a thing being born. It looks like something that simply crawled out of the ground and became something out of nothing. Such a thing could not have a mother, could not have been cradled close at birth, loved from its first breath. The thought saddens her.
“Are you by yourself?” She looks around them and does not see anything, anyone, that belonged to it, but she feels the urge to ask anyway. Perhaps because she wants to know if there are more around (some faint attempt at staying aware of nearby dangers) or perhaps because her heart aches for the bladed creature before her. Perhaps her feral heart simply couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being alone like her.
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
It is a thing perverted – bred of aliens and magic, meant to be a guardian but left, abandoned. It is a thing alone – there were others, once, a pack of them after She left and it hunted with them for a while.
(It had liked that. Had liked the bodies that looked like its own. Had liked the trills and chirps, their easy language, shared. Had liked the meat, most of all, behaving as meat should – with running, with screams.)
But the pack had left it, left it alone and fed on carrion, muddy filthy dead<.
It does not quite feel sorrow, such emotions are not of its kind. It does not quite feel loneliness, it is not a pack animal.
But it feels something, a twist in its soured stomach, a willingness to shape its maw into their soft and mushy words.
It knows it has a name, but the name is worse than all their words. It is a growl of consonants that its maw cannot hope to grasp.
(It is named for monsters, for Great Old Ones. A hopeful name, thinking of sea-gods and terror. It knows none of this.)
“Cth-,” it manages, but nothing else, does not even try to continue the rest of the name. It trills instead, high and birdlike – partially a greeting, partially a warning.
(Some meat is so forward. It recalls the she-meat that spoke with it, once. It had not hunted her. It had been good, behaved.)
This she-meat looks at him with eyes that seem too-large and it wonders why she isn’t running.
It is used to running. Running means chase. Running means hunt.
Things that stand before it without running are strange and incomprehensible and it is never entirely sure what to do, unsure if it’s a trap, or simply easy prey.
“Yesth,” it manages, and the word almost sounds like its name. The words are so mushy, slippery, falling into each other. It hates them, sometimes.
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
None of this makes sense to her; none of this triggers any form of self-protection or memory or anything to prepare herself for this meeting. She knows that she should do something—should perhaps leave before that bladed body and sharp teeth are turned against her—but she is powerless against her own curiosity. She is powerless to stop her fate from drawing her time and time again to the edge of a cliff, just waiting for the next breeze to push her over and into the abyss. She is fated to live so close to death, it would seem.
“Cth,” she tries to mirror the half of its name it gives and shakes her head at its trilling. “I’m sorry. I’m trying,” she says in her silver bell voice. “Yesth,” she echoes again and this time, she manages it—at least a little—her tongue wrapping around the strangle syllables. “Did you have a family?” she asks, wondering what it meant, if it meant anything at all. If it was named or simply given the syllables to itself.
When silence falls again, she takes another step toward it, forever bold in the face of danger, and although she is tempted to touch its flesh—fascinated with the way light reflected off of it—she refrains. Drawing a deep breath, she simply looks at it, questions unasked and forever unanswered hanging between them. “Cth, do you want to have a family?” She wonders if it even knows what that means.
-- vanquish and yael's forgotten trait-negating princess --
Instinct cries out inside of it. Its brain is largely reptilian, alien, made to hunt but bred to protect Her; yet it can do neither, not when it is alone, abandoned. It is a thing armored, venomous, with a language unlike theirs and a maw too hardened to speak like them, the mushy words they spill so easily from soft lips.
The she-meat should run. It knows this even as she does not. Instead, the she-meat stands, repeats its words back to it. It is confused, exasperated (hungry)
but it listens.
Family is a word it has not heard in a long time. It knows packs, it knows Her, but it was hatched from an egg with a stillborn twin and knew little else.
(The twin had not been like it, it had been meat and nothing else. The twin was its first meal, its first hunt.)
“Her,” it says, but only thinks the name: Cthylla. The names matched, almost, the queen and her guard, but the queen had abdicated her post and left the guard roaming with a hollowed belly and unable to speak its name.
The she-meat steps closer and it smells the blood inside her but it does not smell fear. Shouldn’t she run? But instead she asks a question, asks want and family.
“A…pack?” it says, because pack is easier than family, pack sits right on its tongue.
Packs protect. Packs hunt.
Things are easier in a pack.
in the hushing dusk, under a swollen silver moon, I came walking with the wind to watch the cactus bloom
There are worlds inside of it she will never understand. There are things that shape him, it, that are alien to her in almost as severe of a fashion as the bladed plates that compose its body. She would not understand the relationship between it and its mother; she would not understand the way its tongue cannot wrap around the syllables so natural to her; she would not understand the hungering for meat that would make her own stomach turn against her. Still, she does not fear him. Never fears what she should.
“Yes, a pack,” she nods with enthusiasm—pleased that she was making some sort of progress with it, although she does not trust that the progress has been much. “Do you want a pack?” She is not sure why she is asking; it is not like she has a pack of her own to offer him. Once, she might have been able to offer it that. Once, she had been princess of the desert (is again, she supposes) and had run wild among the dunes. Once, she had been blanketed by stars and promise—the hope of forever pressed into her shoulder blades. But such promise, such hope, had been stripped from her, and she had no such thing to offer.
Now, she was merely a vagrant. She wandered the meadow because it was the only place where she did not feel the magic of the land creep into her belly. She stayed alone often because she could not stand to see the light fade from her companion’s eyes when their wings melted from their body or when they struggle to utilize abilities as familiar as their own flesh. Etro had been born to be a social creature, but she now found herself a loner. Kingslay had turned and left—disappearing into the rustle of brush where life beckoned to be taken. Sleaze had gone too, although she trusted that one day he would return.
She was just alone—and she was lonely.
“I don’t have a pack,” she admits, more to herself than anyone.
-- vanquish and yael's trait-negating desert princess --
It cannot comprehend their world, their strange culture. It lives on instinct, on a reptilian hindbrain. There are forays into their language, soft mushy attempts that end with frustration and a longing for the shrill chirps it was bred – made? – to have.
But it does not need to comprehend their world. Lions do not contemplate zebras or gazelles, wolves do not contemplate bison – and nor does (should) it contemplate their world and the things it might encompass.
Yet.
Yet it finds itself curious, sometimes. It finds itself with meat in front of its hungry jaws, trying to make their noises, saying pack rather than family because pack was so much easier on the tongue and on the mind.
Do you want a pack? the she-meat says, and it isn’t sure. It is not supposed to be a pack creature, but it is not supposed to be alone, either.
It is a creature of in-betweens – in between the meat and the monsters; in between packs and solitude.
“Yesh,” it says, remembering Her, remembering the other creatures, the ones like it.
It contemplates.
“No,” it says. It knows that word. Meat says it, often, screams it.
“Yeshno,” it says. It doesn’t know the word for maybe, or I don’t know.
The she-meat says she doesn’t have a pack. Stupid. Meat should have packs, have protection. Meat alone is singled out, easier to hunt. It wants to tell her this. Why? It should not make it easier for the meat to avoid being hunted.
Regardless, it lacks the words. So instead it tilts its strange head and trills at the she-meat, to see if there’s something there.
