"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
02-06-2016, 02:33 AM (This post was last modified: 02-06-2016, 02:33 AM by Zayn.)
He’s ready.
Zayn has been training the boy for months now, setting him at first on small creatures and working all the way up to larger and more feisty creatures, like elk, coyotes and wolves. It hasn’t always been easy sailing - Siberian is still a boy after all - but ever so slowly, the young colt has been turned into a most effective weapon.
And now it’s time to try his effectiveness on something that isn’t an animal. Something that matters.
Something he’s wanted to set the boy on for quite some time now.
He calls out for the boy, and waits for him in their usual meeting place near the fiery tree. He appraises the boy as usual as he approaches (growing still, day by day) and remains silent for a moment as the boy stops in front of him.
“I have a task for you Siberian. A very important task.” He’s been considering his approach for some time now and he’s come to the conclusion that he must go with a lie. “There is a mare. A very evil mare that has been plotting to hurt the Chamber with her powers. Our queen Straia has weakened her, but Straia has been injured and cannot finish her off. We need your help.” He pauses for just a moment, letting the boy absorb the information. “In your bear form you are stronger and faster than the rest of us. You can slip in to the cave in which she is recovering, and take her out before she has the chance to hurt anyone else. A situation like this is everything I have been training you for.” The boy may have an inkling that it is a lie, but if Zayn knows anything about youth, he knows that Siberian will want to believe it. Will want to believe that there’s been a reason for all that’s happened to him, and that he can do some good in the end.
And in the end, if Zayn is wrong, well, he’ll just have to improvise and find another more … creative way to convince the boy.
Months. It had been months, since the day the little ground squirrel had met its end in his teeth. And that had turned out to be just the beginning of the training that Siberian had been right to fear. He still remembers them: the prey animals and the fearsome predators alike, every time he so much as glanced towards the surrounding pines, but especially when he shifted into his grizzly form. It had an influence upon him that the Budyonny could not deny. It was very nearly seductive, in fact. In his ursine body, all his worry about the condition of his soul, his belief that life was precious....well, all of that floated away to the back of his mind. Things got much simpler. Zayn found some unlucky animal, pointed him at it, and he unleashed every bit of his frustrated anger that he felt for everything that had happened to him since the day he had been foolish enough to venture into Beqanna upon it, as if his captivity and darkening outlook were all its fault.
He was not so small anymore, no longer of weanling size. He was quite leggy at present, beginning to grow into a young stallion's stature but not there just yet. The black colt listens to Zayn's spiel with a not-quite blank expression, doubting his tale from beginning to end and wondering what this mare might have done to cause the older male to hate her so much that he wished to set her up as a target now. Perhaps, she too, was a captive. Perhaps she'd denied Zayn of something that he wanted, or had even defied the Chamber itself. His gaze drifts to the fiery tree when the palomino paint finishes speaking, wondering just how he'd found himself standing so much closer to it this time. It still unnerved him with how it burned and burned but still lived, yet there was almost a hypnotic effect within how the red and orange flames danced and writhed. Were he to keep staring at it, he'd probably continue until the brightness destroyed his vision, and so he wrenches his dark head back towards Zayn, forcing himself to look away.
His heart, poised just above the abyss slowly forming within his chest, lurches at the thought of killing another horse in cold blood, no matter if she were truly evil or not. But the boy does indeed cling to that hope dangled by Zayn, that somehow all of his misery and the things he'd been put through were only to further a good purpose; and so he pauses only long enough to ask for the mare's name and a description before clicking that little furry switch in his brain that left behind the horse and brought forth the bear, setting out towards the caves that were supposedly where his next target had hidden herself. Settling into his skin (easier and easier each time), he huffs softly after the short climb, gazing about the area. Nose upraised, Siberian sorts out the various scents until he catches one that is an unfamiliar equine, wafting from one of the shadowed cave entrances. He approaches, unaware that he is beginning to growl softly, and pauses at the opening to let his eyes adjust before venturing further within. He speaks one word, an inquiry, a sought confirmation. "Fiasko? "
02-10-2016, 02:40 AM (This post was last modified: 02-10-2016, 02:40 AM by Fiasko.)
fiasko
Her life is nothing.
Day after day she stays in the caves, thinking back to the life she once had.
She’d been a queen then. A mother. A lover. A someone.
But now she’s nothing. A simple prisoner of her own design. She will never see the Gates again. She will never see her children again … or at least, she’ll never see the twins again. What’s the reason in even being alive?
But there’s the irony isn’t it. They are the reason still, even though she can’t ever see them again. For her very being here promises their safety. Her continued existence in the Gates guarantees that the kingdom will remain safe.
She clings to that. It’s the only thing she has left.
She’s still clinging to that hope when the unfamiliar voice rings out across the gloom of her prison. She rouses herself from her dank corner, single eye peering through the darkness. A shape stands at the mouth of the cave … a massive, unrecognizable shape.
The scent of a predator fills her nose and panic begins to rise. “H-hello?” What is this thing doing here? What does it want with her, of all people? Her eye darts about the cave even though she already knows it’s useless. There are no other exits in this cave. There’s no way for her to escape. There’s no other choice to meet whatever this creature wants head on. “Can I help you?”
02-14-2016, 12:59 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2016, 06:09 PM by Siberian.)
Hearing her speaking, asking what he wants, the bear-shifter falls silent, the soft growling coming to an end. The horse inside the cave is indeed Fiasko, for she responded when he had called out her name. Siberian doesn't answer, instead taking a deep breath to try and steady his nerves now that the actual moment has come. He doesn't know if he can do this, even if she was as evil as Zayn claimed her to be. In fact, the boy knows that he can't. But instead of turning away, he focuses inward, letting the bear-form and its instincts take center stage. Siberian is just the passenger now, and the grizzly can scent the prey, hiding within the cave they stood just outside of. It knows what to do, it knows that Fiasko is weakened and an easy target.
With as threatening of a roar as their half-grown body can manage, the bear rushes inside, quickly locating the mare and tearing into her with teeth and two paws' worth of razor-sharp claws. It is in the aftermath, when Siberian realizes that the bear intends to begin devouring the battered body at its feet, that he wrests control back, their open and hungry mouth barely an inch from the fallen equine. The knowledge that he's done it, taken another horse's life, sinks in now. No matter the reasoning behind it, he knows that he can never cross back over that line of innocence; he can never go back to his home and family. Refusing to look further upon Fiasko's body, he lets out a horrified moan and flees back to where he where he had left Zayn, by the enchanted tree.
