"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
Storms silver the air, make it shiny and electric with the nature of their intensity; she can feel it crackle along her spine and raise the finer hairs of her mane to stand on end in the air. It will storm tonight, she knows this as much as the sky clouding over says it will be so. Unlike those who talk and dream of the stars, she will not miss their twinkling coldness or the moon that changes shape as it sails along the world’s edge, sometimes fat and sometimes thin. The static electricity surges along her skin and makes her blood sing; she likes when the world burns, all lightning strikes and wildfires, just like the night she was born, illuminated in birth-fluid, blood, and stormlight. Burnt flares her nostrils and drinks deeply of the stormy air, pulling it deep into her lungs and holding it there until her lungs burn for release, and she lets the breath out in a rush. She feels alive, truly alive, only when it storms and tonight, she’ll live as she flies amongst the thunder and the rain.
Burnt is exactly like her mother, Sinew; brave and small, but there the similarities end and Burnt becomes her own beast. She is robed in bay roan frame overo, gifted in the womb with the wings of a Great Horned Owl that trail embers and smoke from betwixt the feathers, and she was a telepath. Burnt had been projecting thoughts since the time of her conception, beginning with the introduction of herself to her mother from inside the womb once her brain formed and functioned more than it should have as a simple horse. Sinew had loved her from the start, from the moment Tarnished slid off her back and left his seed inside her, and Burnt knew that - knew that she was a remnant of her mother’s fascination with the stallion, and she accepted that. She even knew that her adopted sister adored her, that diminutive mammoth-horse that should not exist as much as Burnt perhaps should not but they did, in all defiance of genetics and natural law.
She is grown now, trailed at times by her mammoth-monster of a sister until she spreads her wings and takes off into the sky. Burnt needed her space, to be away from the fawning adoration of Extinct, and quite simply just to fly especially when a storm builds. There was nothing on earth like courting the lightning like a lover, all passion and ferocity, as the thunder practically sang in her blood with each boom of the heart inside her breast. She could race the lightning along the underbelly of the storm for forever, except she does not have forever like her mother does. So when the storm dies, dry and spent, she plummets to the earth in a terrifying dizzying fall until catching herself at the last possible moment and landing in a spray of damp earth and noise. Burnt laughs, still hot with pleasure, as she folds her smoking wings along her sides, unmindful of the embers that fall and burn along her fetlocks, pockmarking the earth with tiny scorched spots.
She grows entirely too sober than, her passion cooling off like the earth as it soaks up the last of the rainfall. The smell of petrichor remains, lingering in her nostrils, and she snorts harshly in the night as it settles more firmly around her, dark and solid as a living beast that snarls up and down her flank. Not once has she said a word aloud, nor has need to - they keep their distances of their own accord, perhaps she is too strange to look at, even stranger to converse with and she is happier this way.
Thunder split the still night air and she rejoiced in it. A smile broke across her face as the lightning chased itself across the sky, its intensity something she could appreciate. It was a wild and reckless force much like herself. The monster in her chest purred softly at first, a gentle nudge towards release. When she ignored it, its calls became more persistent. A chirp and a trill, then finally an angry growl that split her mind in half. Gritting her teeth she gave into it, allowing it to surface and change her. In between lightening flashes the mare changed, emerging as something as far from an equine as was possible to be. The world was electric tonight, and she was just brave enough to touch the downed wires and ride the charge.
As the rains spilled from the sky, she plunged forward. There was no purpose to her run, it is just simply something to do. It is possibly not her birthright, at least not naturally so. But it has become her right since, and she would exercise it fully tonight. This was no run to hunt, nor pounce and kill. It was simply rejoicing in the speed and power that had been gifted to her. As the rain rolled from her leathery hide she ran, her breaths slow and measured as she crashed like thunder. Horses and other woodland creatures scattered, left to ebb in her deadly wake. Opening her deadly mouth she screamed, a feral call that matched the nature of the storm raging across the sky. It was a glorious feeling; pure, undiluted power.
As the rain slowed so did she. While she had more than enough stamina to keep going, the gentle rain was not quite as intoxicating as the blinding storm had been. As she came to a halt she got the feeling of being watched. In this, more feral form, her senses were more heightened. Turning slowly she noticed the mare, small but with a magnificent set of downy wings. Topsail tilted her wicked head and chirped, a small trill of a sound that was a greeting and a warning in the same breath. Neck outstretched she approached slowly, her clawed feet sinking into the saturated ground beneath her weight. “Hello.” she said simply, forcing her voice into the other mares mind. With a reptilian smile and a brief pause, she shifted back into her normal form. More often than not her other form was very off putting. When she was once more a small mare covered in grulla fur, she dipped her head. “I’m Topsail. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who enjoys such weather.”
She thinks this lone thought to the mammoth-mare that she smells nearby; Extinct trailed after Burnt like a bad odor, but she loved her adopted sister all the same, except that right now, as the last of the storm’s exhilaration peters out in her veins, she does not desire her company. One night apart will not kill the mammoth-mare, it might make her sad and lonely but Burnt shoves such thoughts away, pushing other thoughts into her sibling’s mind, like sleep, and dream.
Burnt is thinking of the odd scream that had reached up to her, as high as she was in her race against the lightning amongst the clouds. It was wild and reptilian in a way not familiar to her - not of crocodile or alligator, but something far older than that, something almost not of this earth any more. It should have chilled her blood but somehow, had the opposite effect and made her shiver excitedly, even aloft on stormy gales that sang back the scream to her over and over. Worse, it echoed in her ears - in the cricket-chirp of night that swallowed her up, now that she stood amongst it, her wings tucked tight against her ribcage, smoking and smoldering. A few feathers ruffled, embers flaking off and pockmarking the night soil with burns, their glow forever in the corner of her eyes as something chirped from the darkness.
She snapped to attention, her gray eyes narrowing on the strange form that stood before her - raptor and reptile rolled all into one, beautiful and lethal in the same breath. That same breath caught in her throat as the dinosaur (some instinct harkening back to the days of Eohippus thrust this knowledge into her mind) shifted back into a harmless looking mare. Burnt smiled a small smile; it was a lovely useless thing though, but she appreciated the shapeshifting show in front of her but she heard a rustle in the nearby bushes and threw back an ear, throwing too, her mind’s voice to the thing she knew was that - stay! Her eyes rolled back to Topsail and her own mind thrust back just as intrusively; “Hello Topsail, your other form is extremely lovely to look at, and deadly, I’m sure.” Her mind chuckled, the owl wings equally as responsive by shaking just a little, spilling out more embers and ash. “I’m Burnt, and over there - (a toss of the head to the bushes where a hulking dwarf of odd mammoth and horse tried to hide) - is Extinct, my sister."
As the last of the lightning disappeared over the horizon, so did the adrenaline flooding her veins. The toxic electricity poisoning the sky faded, leaving behind nothing but the heavy after-storm darkness and an eerie calm. Even the stars were able to make an attempt at an appearance, though the lingering storm clouds weren’t so easy to permeate. As the darkness enveloped her, she leaned into its embrace; a cat winding through its masters legs. This was her calling, the place she felt at home- nestled in the shadows, the monster lurking silently under the beds of children.
She heard the other mares thoughts, and upon expanding her mind, found the creature she called to. It harbored simple thoughts, good thoughts. Topsail did not pry; a simple glimpse told her enough. Instead, she turned her gaze back to the mare with smoldering wings. A small smile tugged at the corner of her satin lips, and for once, it reached up to the tawny brown of her eyes. This mare was like her. She knew it, could feel it in the very marrow of her bones. As the other mare yelled Stay! Topsail laughed a small laugh. “Don’t worry for your sister; I won’t bother her.” Despite the ruthless nature of the raptor, she would not harm the simple girl. Thankfully, she had grown past those animalistic urges.
The smile still hanging on her mouth, she cocked a hind leg. It was her way of showing the other mare she was no threat; at least, not at the moment. Not that the mare with the burning wings seemed concerned for herself, but she was clearly worried for her sister. “Burnt, it is a pleasure. And Extint.” she said, nodding her head towards the poorly concealed lump in the underbrush. A distant roll of thunder echoed through the night sky and Topsail glanced upwards, noticing on the far horizon another storm brewing in the gathering clouds. “You know, I’ve not met another telepath. You interest me.” Besides Eight, she hadn’t encountered another like her. Nor had she pushed the boundaries of her powers. She had no true idea what all she was capable of. Perhaps now, with another telepath, was the time to push the envelope.
Burnt’s pulse began to subside too, as the lightning died off over the distant horizon’s edge.
She could feel it settle back into the familiar sluggish crawl through arteries and veins, and the throb of her heart began to slow too as the storm rumbled its last and left them in the typical throes of night. The eerie calm that seemed to lay about the land, blanketed her too and she breathed in the storm’s after-hush, taking it deep into her lungs before letting it back out.
Burnt can feel Topsail expanding her mind out towards Extinct who hides in the brush as she was told to do so. The mammoth-horse was ever so biddable and it pleased Burnt to command her to no end (Sinew had reprimanded her daughter more than once for ordering the thing around and making it do absurd things to please Burnt - she had been a foal, her telepathy had known few restraints and it was easy to make the mammoth-horse think it was thinking those thoughts for itself - it had such a deliciously weak mind!), and she knows that the other mare will taste those same weak and easily controllable thoughts in her sister-pet. It brings a smile to Burnt’s lips, although ‘smile’ is hardly the correct description for the way her lips curve sinisterly and slyly against the loveliness of her face.
Topsail says she will not bother Extinct, though Burnt never really worried over that. Of course, only she was allowed to bully the thing around but… a glance at the grulla mare and Burnt thinks there are always exceptions to the rule. She is not overly cruel but Extinct has yet to serve true purpose and purpose is what their mother saw in the thing when she took it to her side and nursed it on the milk meant for a not-yet-born Burnt, and thus, she tends toward cruelty without recognizing it. Still, part of her is admittedly glad that no harm shall befall the mammoth-horse from raptor or mare.
Thunder grumbles once more and Burnt, like Topsail, turns to regard the new storm being born out of the dregs of the old. Her eyes have an odd stormy shine to them as they slide back to Topsail, considering. “It is our pleasure as well,” her mind murmurs to the other, some channel between their brains open only to them for this type of communication and Burnt - who has a voice, but cannot remember what it ever sounded like in the first place, thinks it is probably just as singed and smoking as the feathers in her wings, is far too comfortable with the mind-speak they share. “Likewise,” and her mind’s laughter is hot like a coal newly taken to fire. “You are the first telepath I’ve come across.” Burnt expresses a hint of curiosity, a curl of dark thought that spreads like a shadow from her mind to the other’s, an unsaid what if.
As the storm starts anew, the clouds building and thunder growing, Topsail smiles. It is a heavy thing, her smile, and though it creases her soft lips it does not reach the tawny brown of her eyes. Lightning flashes over the horizon, silhouetting the lead-colored clouds against the coming of dawn. The resulting electric finds her, fills her to the brim with its implications. Such a storm had brought forth other things; the faeries were angry, and their wrath would not be denied. They had robbed the kingdoms blinded, stripped them down and left them stark naked in the raving storm. Without their security blankets to cling to, they had become little more than mewling children sucking at their thumbs. But Topsail would do no such thing. She was forged of steel and thunder, with lightning coursing through her veins hot as white fire and just as lethal. Not in the literal sense, of course, but hypothetically speaking. She didn’t need sharp teeth to build an empire from rubble.
Lightning flashes caught the other girls gaze, and Topsail found her own image mirrored back to her; delicate like a butterfly, but craving something more than simple nectar. They were like two halves to a whole, comets meeting in the dead of night. “She is simple, isn’t she?” Topsail inquired, her own mind still picking up the easy thoughts of the heaping mammoth filly. The thoughts were so sweet, so primitive in nature and pure of heart. It was maybe something to be envied, but Topsail was far more ambitious than that. Moving carefully, her hooves sinking into the saturated ground, she laid her muzzle on the shoulder of the hulking, hairy child. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word…momma’s gonna find you a mocking bird…” she trilled, using a voice mostly reserved for her own brood. Stepping back, she regarded the mare with smoldering wings. “Care to take a walk?” the grulla asked, already stepping onto a path leading into the forest. She could only assume the other would follow, but if she did not, their means of communication would still allow them to speak freely.
As she walked, she noted the rustling of bedded equines in the forest. Lost to their slumber, they were otherwise unawares of the storm breaking the night stillness. “You know, I’ve not much experimented with my telepathy, other than in the more conventional ways.” she said, her voice tilting upwards with the observation. As their fellow equines slumbered, she was riding the high of the lightning; a dangerous path, perhaps, but she was feeling reckless tonight. “We could, I think, extract their peaceful dreams and replace them. They all seem so innocent, so lost to their own thoughts. A sleeping mind is a vulnerable mind.”. She wasn’t sure entirely where she was going with this, but she was eager to hone her craft all the same. Here, in this dark stormy forest, with a like-minded mare, seemed like the perfect place to do such experiments.
Topsail
Queen of the Valley
ooc - not sure where this is going, but topsail is feeling creepy
Burnt tears her eyes away from Topsail to look at the lightning that splits the belly of the horizon open and for an instant, the world is over-bright and seared against her brain in the shape of humpbacked hills and horses. She can feel the rumble of thunder in her belly as if she birthed the storm, but that’s a silly thought - she has birthed nothing but subtle hints in the brain of Extinct.
(She tried once, to influence Sinew but her mother balked at her daughter’s intrusive thoughts and took Burnt into a place that no foal’s mind ought to go - somewhere darker than a night devoid of all stars, and Burnt never tried again to pick and pry through Sinew’s mind and memories, it was far too horrific to process, and it might have added to the collection of darkness that prowled through Burnt’s own mind.)
The storm flickers, like the pulse of the land’s anger, and swells greater after tasting it - - she has picked up on the thoughts of the angry magic that yanked itself out of every kingdom by the very roots and left nothing unscathed. Some of them were forever changed, she supposed, so reliant upon their kingdom-given gifts that their lives were now sorely lacking and they must be sad to be so ordinary again. Burnt could not imagine a fate such as that, to not have her smoldering wings tucked up close against her ribs or the ability to pilfer through any mind that she desired, or to project her thoughts into another’s head… A loss like that could kill her; it made her who she was, vivid and electric.
“Yes,” she echoes, not in the least bit forlorn at the way Extinct’s mind was lacking in comparison to theirs. Extinct was almost a mare but not quite, aging much more slowly than Burnt did though Extinct had come before her. She figured it had something to do with the mammoth blood in her, and likewise as to her mental capacity and the way Extinct was essentially a simpleton. It made her quite malleable, and Burnt liked that quality about her best. She could not help the way her lips were given towards slyness in their shape, turned up in the corners in a tiny smile. Burnt makes no move to block Topsail’s course towards her sister; she is curious to see will come of their meeting.
Extinct is happy; sister is nearby - sister is safe. The storm is bad, angry, and she doesn’t like storms like that. If it must rain, the mammoth-horse prefer sweet little squalls that are quick to spit their rain down on them and then blow over. She likes the way the earth smells after, wet and heavenly. She is happy to be near sister though; mother said sister would look after her and sister always does, though sometimes sister is in her head and that scares her, the things that sister shows her are not always nice and Extinct gets in trouble with mother for those things that sister blames on her. But she loves sister, and sister would not hurt her. Sister would not let the mare that approaches her hurt her either, so Extinct merely looks at Topsail with her dumb brown eyes.
The beast did not tense beneath the muzzle laid against her shoulder - she couldn’t, the lullaby was too effective and entirely too sweet to be ignored. Extinct was careful to not stab a tusk accidentally at Topsail, but found that her head swayed to the motherly trill in the grulla’s mind-voice, as it swaddled her brain in a charming singsong cadence. She grunts the moment Topsail steps away from her, turning her dumb brown eyes towards Burnt who assures her that she will hear more songs later. But Extinct is made to bed down in the brush for the night, for the duration of Burnt and Topsail’s pilgrimage through the meadow. The mammoth-horse mindlessly obeys and nods her hairy tusked head towards the grulla mare in farewell. Burnt, she knows, will let them meet again but Extinct is happy to sleep now. Sleep is good and her eyes are heavy, or maybe that is Burnt that is doing that…
Burnt has never looked away from the two of them - Extinct and Topsail, curious to see the exchange that takes place, even though the storm batters at the back of her brain. She listens in on the lullaby that is sung to her sister-pet and smiles to see the kindness dealt the mammoth-horse; her respect for the grulla mare mounts by the minute, knowing that cruelty cannot exist with kindness, and that the duality lies within each of them and she has witnessed it in Topsail. Someone like that is someone to walk beside, because Burnt does not easily follow. She nods her head in concession to the walk, stepping after Topsail and trailing embers from her wings so that the path behind her sparks and glows for seconds at a time. Burnt grows curiouser and curiouser as to how far they will go, for surely this is no ordinary walk for either of them.
The path turns them closer towards the forest and she can hear the noises made by horses in slumber, just as she can hear the noises of other animals tucked in for the night. She can smell them too, deer and grouse amongst the horse-scent that hangs thick over the tall grasses, and her mind is cast wide like a net trawling for dreams and thoughts and things that Burnt can store up for later use. “Neither have I, beyond casual experiments with Extinct’s mind but she is too easy to delve into as you’ve experienced for yourself.” Lightning rolled above their heads, tumbling after thunder, and lighting up their backs; her wings stretched wide to catch the storm-wind that would blow through embers and feathers alike, tickling her sides. She pinned those wings back neatly against her sides, listening to the thread of thought that both their minds teased along, and her smile grew terrible in the storm-light.
“They are ripe for the plucking,” then her mind narrowed and plunged into the mind of a nearby mare that had a sleepy smile on her face. Burnt began to shape herself into a shadow within the dream, a happy thing that she encroached upon and meant to turn darker, more nightmarish with but a thought. It was a subtle thought too, a plucking on of a string of fear that made the mare suddenly shiver in her sleep as the day darkened up with storm and the foal she dreamt of grew farther from her side. Even Burnt could hear the plaintive cry of the dream-foal for the mother who spun in a frantic circle (outside the dream, her hooves dug at the earth in terrible confusion and Burnt closed her eyes in concentration) looking for her babe as the storm grew in size and threat. Rain began to pelt the mare, her fur grew slick and her fear rose up in her throat -- the mare made a noise outside the dream, an ear on Burnt’s head turned towards it, then flicked back into position. The mare struggled in her dream, whinnying in terror as thunder shook the earth and lightning dazzled her eyes, making them blind - where was her foal? Burnt could not help the cackle that was lost in thunder, both in dreams and out, as she wrenched herself rather violently from the dream, leaving the mare to tremble in fitful interrupted sleep.
“Your turn,” she says to Topsail, turning the reins of the nightmare over to her. Burnt knew they could subliminally do as they pleased, make merry things turn mean and vice versa, but together they were much more likely to be as reckless and as cruel as the newborn storm at their backs.
