They do not like the way the black mare eyes them;
She looks as if she will scold them for being the children that they are - bright, curious, playful things.
She looks as if she hates them, because they are Offspring’s and a mare’s but not hers, never hers.
They can see these things in the way her stares are hard, almost hateful towards them.
So they stop playing in the river, stop sniffing the black-brown rock of the volcano’s craterous foot, and they go back to the only place they do not have to deal with such judgmental stares - the Meadow.
“I do not like her.” He mutters, bruised inwardly by the black mare’s callous nature towards them.
“I don’t either, but she is one of father’s followers.” She nuzzles his neck, smoothing an unruly strand of hair that likes to curl away from the others. “Besides, I think she is jealous.” He pulls away from her, curious as to why she thinks this but he does not need to ask - Spark explains it to him; “I’ve seen the way she looks at father, and I do not think she likes the fact that he strayed from Isle a couple of seasons ago, and made so many more than just us.”
Spear still looks as if he isn’t getting it so Spark sighs and nips at his whiskery chin, “She didn’t get to bear one of his foals, silly.” Spear pulls his head back from his nip, and snorts out his laughter - stallions and mares, he’d never understand it, but only because they are still yearlings, happy and bold, and relationships beyond their own of brother and sister are of no concern to them.
The bay mare nears them; moss and sleep seem to have been her only companions recently, and she looks bedraggled still, adorned in bits of both - moss here and there, and particles of sleep that cling to her eyelashes. She asks them if something has happened and they share a look with one another, “The earth grew angry and she took everything back but the field, the meadow, and the forest.” Spark is gentle as she says this, but Spear is not as he barges in - “She took more than that though, she took everything from everyone that ever had anything but themselves.”
Beqanna did not bother them, they were only two horses and the only strangeness to them was the red left eye on the cold and the red right eye on the filly. But they understand the bay mare’s meaning, and they know that she is one of those that had something taken from herself and they can sympathize to an extent, but all they lost was the Tundra.
ooc: I had originally wanted to post to Sunday's 'any' thread so you get this because I'm slow lol. <3
Spear & Spark
[style].sundaypic2{background-image:url("http://barbellsandbeakers.com/beqanna/witchflygif.gif");width:500px;height:500px;z-index:1;border:black solid 1px}.sundaytext2{z-index:2;width:400px;height:370px;position:relative;top:20px;overflow-y:auto;color:#ffffff;text-align:justify;font-family:times;background-color:#000000;opacity: 0.4;filter: alpha(opacity=40);padding:10px;}.sundayname2{z-index:3;position:relative;top:30px;color:#ffffff;font-size:25pt;font-family:times;letter-spacing:10px;}.sundayquote{z-index:7;position:relative:bottom:80px;color:#000000;font-family:times;font-size:8pt;}[/style] The children are curious creatures, two sides of the same coin - yet different varnishes, different luster. She can see their similarities plain as day, but part of them is so alien from the other. Sunday often marvels at children, they ellude her, despite having a few herself. Long gone, long run elsewhere. It doesn't bother her too much - her duty was always to the Amazons.
Which she'd long since given up findings.
The twins confirmed her earlier suspicion - it's all gone. She trudged along the edges of the earth and ended up right where she started, though turned around. Her internal compass was off. Everything was off. And her magick? She assumed her deep sleep is what took it away, but now she was learning that everyone was missing something.
"I suppose there are worse things," she admits with a shrug. As a child her invisibility had been a curse - it left her friendless and alone, the butt of every joke. Her magick was something she earned much, much later in life. And now that, too, was gone. That left her normal, striking and still. She was almost relieved.
"Do you know what she was angry for?" Sunday asks, curious. The way Beqanna was both a place and a being was a mystery to her. While others felt she was a god with a magnifying glass Sunday always felt she was benevolent, gentle. Guiding. She kept Sunday alive, didn't she? After all these years?
"I am Sunday," she says at last.
SUNDAY
never put your faith in a prince. when you require a miracle, trust in a witch
Curiosity may be their downfall one day, but until then they bask in it as children are wont to do.
They marvel up at her with bright eyes that are both black and red, testament to the mixed breeding of the stallion and the mare that made them. She doesn’t look a day older than either of their parents, even beneath the trappings of moss that cling to her. It makes them wonder in their minds, separate but the same, at all the things that she has seen or has her life been terribly short? One of them almost asks her about it but she is speaking first, and they mind their elders (sometimes).
“Probably,” they echo back to her, still as one.
They’ve heard the cries of those that look for loved ones; the anguish hurts their ears as much as it hurts their hearts. It seems not all came back as the Mountain did, and then there are the parts of others that were snatched up and taken back, that other horses throw tantrums over. They sputter and stamp their feet, as if that alone could make the Mountain pity them and give it all back. Others, they’ve heard, talk in gilded tongues of the things that god and land want to hear - they repent, and are granted reprieve from their normalcy. Spear and Spark are forever glad that the only strangeness to them is the red eye that each of them possesses.
“Not really,” says Spear.
“At us, mostly.” says Spark.
It is a generalization; she does not think the bay mare will think the twins themselves caused this. Impish and impetuous, they still could never cause the confusion and consternation of an entire thing that was both land and godlike being, could they? For a moment, they share a look of long consideration then dissolve into a mess of giggles before regaining control of themselves and turning their twinned gazes back to her. “She said we took and took, and deserved punishment for our greed. To punish us, she took in return.” That is what Spark has heard all the rest say on the matter, she pieced it together from the piecemeal of conversation that adults had thinking they, as children, could never comprehend.
“I’m Spear and she’s Spark.” he talks, then she takes over again because her brother was never much for pleasantries. “It is a pleasure to meet you Sunday, you weren’t here in the Before were you?” She cannot help it, her curiosity rivals Spear’s and she asks the thing that has been burning in both their minds - why does she seem so mossy and out of touch with the earth as it is now?
Spear & Spark
[style].sundaypic2{background-image:url("http://barbellsandbeakers.com/beqanna/witchflygif.gif");width:500px;height:500px;z-index:1;border:black solid 1px}.sundaytext2{z-index:2;width:400px;height:370px;position:relative;top:20px;overflow-y:auto;color:#ffffff;text-align:justify;font-family:times;background-color:#000000;opacity: 0.4;filter: alpha(opacity=40);padding:10px;}.sundayname2{z-index:3;position:relative;top:30px;color:#ffffff;font-size:25pt;font-family:times;letter-spacing:10px;}.sundayquote{z-index:7;position:relative:bottom:80px;color:#000000;font-family:times;font-size:8pt;}[/style] Sunday understands.
Even before her empathy was granted - an extension of her magick given by Beqanna - she understood things without needing them stated. Situations like this were a mix, she was left out of the flooding of the Desert, the great wars that ravaged Beqanna while she slept under the Amazon jungle floor peacefully. Everything that transpired evaded her, but the twins gave her enough information to understand.
She knew the caring nature of the fairies - without them she would be dead somewhere. Or worse.
Someone took advantage of her, or - it sounds - they all did. Stripped naked of their abilities who did they become? Sunday felt the same, or at least similar. She knew life before magick, and she'd know life after magick. It never occurred to her to earn it back, just to exist. See what happened. Live.
"As is her right," agrees Sunday. Though, she has a catch in her voice, a calm concern over what this means for...her. Or everyone, really.
Where did her sisters go?
"It's a pleasure to meet you two as well. Where do you live?"
And then -
"Yes - the before. I was here, for a long time. I was born here long, long ago, then left...then came back. I used to live in the Amazons."
SUNDAY
never put your faith in a prince. when you require a miracle, trust in a witch
To them, the Mountain took.
(They’ve never seen fairies, to be honest. Their minds though, could easily conjure them up out of imagination and stardust.)
So the Mountain took, and neither of them missed a thing.
They were born plain and they’d most likely go to their graves the same way - as plain as any day could be, and neither of them begrudged their lot in life for this. Besides, they were twins, and they each had one red eye to make the question of their parentage undeniable. To them, they were not as plain as they seemed for all that they were just ordinary horses.
Others though, could never be as simple and happy as they were.
Others griped and moaned, and eventually thought themselves deserving of the Mountain’s time and attention. Few it seemed, were turned away and every day, they watched more and more come down with all the accoutrements of Before. They did not think nary a one of them learned a thing for their time as ordinary horses; no, they thought still selfish and concerned only with gaining back that which had been taken. Few realized these were still gifts given them at the time of conception, and that what is given can always be taken back.
They agreed with the bay mare;
It was the Mountain’s right - to take, to give back, to take again.
“Tephra, one of the first lands to come out of the mists.” Spark tells her; it has been home to them though not like the Tundra used to be. Spear is more curious about these Amazons that she mentions, and he grins before asking her about them. “What were they like, before all of this happened?” They’ve not yet heard that the Amazons are trying to rise again, that they’ve gained land and a new following but Spear is always curious about the history of things. As for Spark, she just likes stories.
Both of them focus all their attention upon Sunday, eager to hear her speak.
Spear & Spark
[style].sundaypic2{background-image:url("http://barbellsandbeakers.com/beqanna/witchflygif.gif");width:500px;height:500px;z-index:1;border:black solid 1px}.sundaytext2{z-index:2;width:400px;height:370px;position:relative;top:20px;overflow-y:auto;color:#ffffff;text-align:justify;font-family:times;background-color:#000000;opacity: 0.4;filter: alpha(opacity=40);padding:10px;}.sundayname2{z-index:3;position:relative;top:30px;color:#ffffff;font-size:25pt;font-family:times;letter-spacing:10px;}.sundayquote{z-index:7;position:relative:bottom:80px;color:#000000;font-family:times;font-size:8pt;}[/style] They were in luck - for as much as they liked stories, Sunday liked telling them. She always thought herself somewhat of a teacher. Not in her younger days, though. In her younger days she was a fearing thing, hidden beneath her own invisibility, hoping desperately never to be seen again. She was mocked and tormented and it made her nicer, somehow. It wasn't in her nature to be cruel, even in the face of cruelty. To her the Mountain was really teaching her a lesson, and she is learning it.
True, not being born with magick make the transition easier. While she longs to hear the thrum of the earth and the hum of the trees she's now content to listen to the others of Beqanna. Perhaps this is her lesson, to just listen to her peers? Her sisters? To help bring peace to a place that was war torn and ravaged for so long? She likes to think so.
"The Amazons?" she asks the red eyed child, and her smile is soft. "When I first came they were ruled by a great dragon queen, with scales and no hair. She was fierce, and she was loved. When she became ill and could no longer rule a great warrioress, with poison dart hair came to rule.
But we were defined by more than just our queens. We flourished in the great canopies, and we bore tattoos of our commitment to the land. We were marked, but beautifully so, by our great kingdom. No matter what the sisterhood stood, through famine and flood and fire." She smiles her dreamy smile into the distance, watching the shoreline for some promise of the sisterhood, just beyond her reach.
"And while the other kingdoms fall, the Amazons have always stood. As has the Tundra."
SUNDAY
never put your faith in a prince. when you require a miracle, trust in a witch
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