"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
Hellbane seems to prefer the changes. Living under the thumb of nearly everyone had been a hell of a burden to carry around as a kid and it’s only just now begun to lift. He assumes the lightness in his step has something to do with the very apparent differences in the world around him, namely: the non-magic aspect. For once in his life everyone seems to be back on the same level. It’s eerily … refreshing. So refreshing in fact that he can’t help the out-of-place grin that sits haphazardly across his mouth while he makes a path through the snow-laden woods. Ice snaps underfoot as his oversized hooves leave brown, sodden crescents in his wake. The hooves, like much of his body, were a gift from his sire’s side where nearly everything came in size large.
The only hint of magic in the boy comes from his dam.
A disgraced outcast, from what he can remember, but no one is perfect and neither is his dark bay coat. Just there - where brown should melt to black - the hair sports a forest green hue. Yes, ironically, green was a color that ran nearly as strong in his blood as body type. However, neither height nor color are on his mind today and that makes for a much more interesting stroll. “A new world …” He mused, humming pleasantly to himself as he dipped heavily down a short bank.
A new world indeed, and Hellbane is intent on finding someone who might share in his oddly upbeat mood.
09-15-2016, 07:53 AM (This post was last modified: 09-19-2016, 09:33 AM by Mortal.)
MORTAL
when its all the same you can ask for it by name
That Mountain. How, why? Mortal shook his head sending vibrant green tendrils of hair across his face. How long had he been up there? He wondered this thought, almost speaking it out loud. The black manchild was not used to being uncertain, was not used to not knowing something or at least being able to find an answer. Everyone he asked on the way down hadn’t known either, it’s as if they had all conveniently had that little tidbit removed from their memory banks.
Oh and best part, he had woke on the Mountainside alone. As if this was some sort of test, some sort of game. He scoffed, he was strong enough and more than capable to survive on his own. His Father had seen to that. However, he had family too, he wanted to know that they were okay- his siblings, his parents. Where the hell was everybody?
Almost the best part. There was also the wings. No no, not the lovely bat wings he had been born with, no. These, these wings were not his, they were heavier- they were feathered. Inky black feathered wings like a bird, an overgrown bird.
A scowl took his charcoal lips, he stomped across a forest path with an unusual grumpiness. Then the most welcome sight came into view, bay and green and intimately familiar. They had shared a womb after all and though he knew not where his brother had gone, somehow he knew he was okay.
“Hellbane,” he called, picking up his pace as he made his way to his twin. “Take a little more than the end of the world to keep us down huh?” he joked, or tried to. Mortal had never really been good at it
Fear pulled at Maus' heart strings as she watched her son bounce excitedly a few yards ahead of her. Her deep amber eyes darted around them as if she expected them to be attacked at any moment. "Hurry Mother! Hurry!" The small voice of the six month old pierces the normal forest sounds. "Slow down, Pitch! Don't get so far ahead!" the worried mother calls, noting absentmindedly how her sons voice shared her russian accent. After his recent stunt of sneaking away to find the Playground, Maus decided it was time to take the young boy exploring. The grulla mare discovered shortly after he was able to walk that he was born an avid adventurer. It terrified her, to be honest, especially since here in Beqanna they were considered the oddballs. Neither Maus nor her silver grulla colt had any sort of magic or special abilities. It didn't take the mousey minx long to find out that this place wasn't like anywhere else she'd been.
"Come on! Mother!" the child calls impatiently. They hadn't even left the forest yet and he knew there were a lot of places to see. His lanky black pointed legs prance excitedly as he waits for his dam to catch up. He wanted to see everything and if she kept poking around they'd get no where. As his Mother draws within a yard of him he turns, taking off on the game trail they'd been following. "Let's race to the edge of the Forest!" He calls breathlessly as he darts down the path, throwing a few playful bucks into his gate. "No! Pitch, wait!" the grulla mare calls out, but watches in horror as her son disappears around a thick patch of underbrush.
Maus feels her blood run cold as she watches his short bottle brush tail slip out of view. "Pitch!" her voice is stranded and swathed in fear. She opens her gate, her legs stretching forward to pull her body into a run. "Pitch, come back!" she yells for her child as she rounds the bushes he had disappeared behind. Her deep amber eyes search frantically for his silver grulla form and the sight instantly causes her to skid to a halt, a blanket of terror falling over her body. Pitch had been looking back to see if his mother was following him. Having not been paying attention he didn't see the small embankment he raced towards. As his small front hooves press down into what he expected to be the ground, a startled squeal escapes his lips. His heart plummets the way it does when your foot misses a step on the stairs and the momentum from his sprint casts him sprawling down the bank. Pitch tumpled the short distance, landing himself right between the two stallions.
The Wasteland, he learns, is not the edge of humanity.
It cuts off, going from desolation and disease to a mountain range he side steps out of annoyance. He remembers landing there, waking there with his mother. He's beginning to understand her role in all of this, that his life became more and less complex the minute they appeared on the Mountain. Harmonia, stripped of her magic, could no longer keep him a child.
The fog lifted.
His limbs are thickening, the 12 years of suppression to keep him from aging wore off quicker the further he got from her. Magic may be gone, but the hold a mother has takes more than time. It takes distance. So he places more and more distance between them, stopping only for food and water. He thickens, he grows, and when spring comes he's found the edge of civilization.
"Where are we?" he asks the group. His voice is harsh, ill practiced. He'd never really spoken before, mother never let him.
Mother isn't there, though.
Seeing Mortal again strikes an aching chord against the bay’s heart. Hellbane’s twin (though the love he has for him is unending - there is nothing like the bond between two who shared a womb) represents every shortcoming that the green-tinged stallion has acutely felt since, well, since he can remember. Hellbane’s rich brown eyes alight on the pair of magnificent wings that sprout from his dark brother’s shoulder blades and that familiar, bittersweet ache pierces his breast. “Mortal…” The elder twin says, returning the sentiment with a brief laugh. Hellbane stifles that old dog jealousy and instead reminds himself that Mortal could never be blamed for being born with a gift.
His own plain nature was simply something he’d always lived with, and Mortal had never been one to cast a shadow. In the long run, Hellbane is glad his brother is here. Out of all the magical entities in this world, he figured he could handle his own flesh and blood much easier than someone else who was out to prove a point or simply be ostentatious. There’s not much time for pleasantries though because their reunion is noisily interrupted first by a rambling little fellow and then a rather irritated-looking stallion. Hellbane is a bit taken aback by the overall gathering at first, but he cranes his neck down to the foal because he assumes the dam is not too far behind. “I think you’ve gotten ahead of yourself a bit, big guy.” It’s a simple statement, but he doesn’t really want to overwhelm the thing.
The question that falls from the golden stranger’s mouth has Hellbane quirking a brow. His eyes flicker to Mortal, wondering if his twin somehow knows the fellow. “Well, your guess is as good as mine. I would assume a gathering area, but I haven’t had much time to look around this place and I’m guessing you haven’t either.” He states, tail swirling in thought. “I’m Hellbane, and this is my brother - Mortal.” He offers, head nodding in his black counterparts direction.
Was this it then? Was this was a rebirthing was like? A bunch of randoms, thrown together in the puzzle of a new world like blind men stumbling around in the dark. He’ll give it to Beqanna - the land sure knew how to shake things up.
09-19-2016, 09:15 AM (This post was last modified: 09-19-2016, 09:34 AM by Mortal.)
MORTAL
when its all the same you can ask for it by name
The grouch gremlin eases away, spilling from his features as his mind clears. His bright green eyes clear, soften and take in his brother in whole. Not too roughed up, he looked okay yes, nothing major as far as injuries stood out. A sigh of relief passes his midnight lips as the tension in his muscles also fades away, and he is standing next to his sibling in a state of relaxation. He was feeling better now thank you very much, something about finding his twin and other half settled him.
The color of warm chocolate settles on the obnoxious feathers against his back and Mortal looks away. He’d always been so sorry that his older brother had been born ungifted and he made a point to stay grounded whenever he could when with him. “They’re awful ugly,” he whispers, returning to look his twin in the face with ever an apology written against his irises. Only after he presses them in, tucks them closer to his back as if he can make them disappear.
It isn’t long at all that they find themselves with company. First a young colt racing up to them with abandon. Where was the Mother? he thought, looking over the child to the path behind him. Surely there was someone responsible for the boy around or he hoped there was. Not that he didn’t like little kids, he just wasn’t exactly ready to parent any of them. What he could manage was a smile though, something to accompany his brother’s kind sentiment. Ahead of himself, yes indeed it would appear so. “Is your Ma coming, maybe your Da? Suppose you can wait for them with us,” Ugh, wait, wasn’t he just trying to avoid the care of a small child?
But there is one more, a stallion whose voice is coarse, thick and tangled like his Father’s mane had been. He asks where they are and Hellbane is quick to answer, also providing names to the new comer. “No one seems to know much around here, asked all the way down that damn Mountain too.” His voice was gruff from clear frustration that no one had answers. “Some kind of wood though, don’t know whose,” he remarked, ever observant. “What’d you say your name was?” He returned his gaze to the stallion, of course he knew very well the other had never said his name.
Maus watched the silver grulla colt tumble in slow motion. She saw the way his eyes widened with fear as he felt his feet landing on the nothingness that he expected to be the ground. The way his lanky legs flopped and splayed out as he skidded to halt between the two behemoths. If she hadn't known better, the grulla minx would have sworn the babies long legs had become knotted together durning his fall. Mostly though, to her sheer horror, Maus noticed the peculiarities of the two stallions he fell between. One of them was trimmed in a dark green, the other obviously bore a pair of jet black wings. She watches at what seems to be agonizingly slow pace, as the green pointed stud lowers his nose to greet the child. A memory pools within her mind causing her heart to thump fearfully against her chest. Even though she didn't know these two beasts, the only thing she sees is Lokii, trickster who had caused her irrational fear of anything even remotely magical.
Even though grulla minx would have much rather run forward to herd her babe away from the two stallions, she mustard every fiber of self-control she possible could to force herself to walk calmly towards them. The last she thing needed was to start a fight with two magically inclined stallions (she, at this point doesn't know/realize that not everyone has a mental ability) that she'd have no way of winning. The distance seemed to take her years to cover but she reached the trio just as another stallion stepped up. Maus lets out a silent sigh of relief. At least this new stallion had no physical traits, that was a good thing, right?
"I'm terribly sorry." she says as her chipped and battered hooves bring her body to a halt. "Sometimes he gets ahead of himself." she adds in her Russian accent as she turns her attention to the colt who still lay at the stallions feet. "Come child, come here." She says to the silver grulla foal, her eyes pleading with him to return to her side. Pitch had other ideas. He had seen oddly colored horses and horses that physical traits, but only from afar. His Mother had made sure to skirt around them just far enough where he couldn't really see them. Ever the poster child for that famous slogan, curiosity had him gripped in wide eyed fascination.
"Mother! Look!" the child exclaims excitedly as he climbs to his feet. "They are different." He adds, his accent matching his mothers. Reaching his small blackened maw out he allows his velvety soft nose to gently touch the forest green knee of the stallion before him. "I want to be different like them." He says in a small awed voice. The words chilled Maus to the bone. "Pitch!" she says in a scolding tone. "Come here." her voice was stern in the way only a mothers could be. Ducking his small head downward, the silver grulla child obediently returns to her side, his ears half pinned in an apologetic way. "I can not apologize enough for my son." She says as she turns her attention back to the trio of stallions. "I'm Maus. This is Pitch." she adds. She wanted nothing more than to herd her son away from them and back to the safety of their little thicket but she wasn't about to provoke them.
He’s still not quite sure what to think of this new world of theirs.
He’d been in the meadow when it’d happened. He’d been munching on a particularly luscious patch of grass when the world had begun to crumble before his very eyes. The ground had begun to shake and split and the trees had begun to fall, and he had quickly moved to join the stream of horses heading to the one place that stood still - a mountain that had appeared out of thin air.
He’d arrived just in time to hear the great fairy’s announcement, to see the traits stripped away from all of the acursed mythicals. He’d grinned then - the wide, happy grin of stallion that is seeing justice served - but that grin had quickly disappeared when he had realized that the mythicals would be given a chance to earn everything back. To earn ALL of their blighted magics back.
How, how could the fairies do this?! They’d seen the damage the mythicals had caused, had seen the wanton destruction their last battle had wrought …
To give them a second chance?! It’s unfathomable to him. Why give them a second shot at harming the world they’d already come so close to destroying?
But there’s no point in questioning the fairies. They will do what they want, like they have always done, and they will never bother explaining themselves to such small creatures as Szeth.
And so he wanders, a little happy at the steep decline in mythicals, but still keeping a close eye on the horses around him. Who knows what some of these horses are close to … ‘earning’ back.
He’s slipping through the thick trees of the forest when the sound of voices catches his ear. He stumbles through a thicket and into the middle of the group before he is able to backtrack. He freezes for a moment, brown eyes inspecting the strangers. A bay and green stallion, a black winged stallion (his lips can’t help but curl into a sneer at the sight), a grulla mare, and two young colts. The mare appears … apprehensive to his eye, so he nods politely at her while keeping an eye on the two stallions. Especially the winged one. “Miss, is everything all right?”
Surgery is overwhelmed.
He spent most of his life - his fake childhood that extended unnaturally long - not allowed to speak. To be hidden. He was to calm the young children joining his mothers perverse herd of stolen children with his presence. See, another child? See? He could sweet talk the foals, lull them into a sense of security with a toothy smile and an easy manner.
Every other time, though, he is silenced.
Shut up.
Quieted magically.
Now, though, the fog is lifted and he is free to explore! To go! To do! He reaches against all the boundaries until at last he finds himself at the very edges of his previous home. The though both thrills and terrifies him. How much longer until the cord reaches its end and snaps him back? How much longer until his mother finds him and takes him for herself?
"The disruption was needed," he says, to all and no one. No one asked him, but he says it because he means it. Deep down, superficially, whatever - he needed it. Magic robbed from the land (he had no idea that it could come back - what a rain on his parade) and it was perfect. "The magic was...out of control," he says, shaking his head.
09-22-2016, 03:14 PM (This post was last modified: 09-22-2016, 03:16 PM by Hellbane.)
HELLBANE
I've all but just forgotten-
There’s so many now that Hellbane isn’t really sure what woodwork they’re crawling out of. He even goes as far as to throw his head over his shoulder to glance behind himself, on the offhand chance that someone would spring up out of thin air. But no one does, so he ends up turning back just in time to see the finely-made mare hesitantly step into the gathering. So the colt did have a mother, and her name was Maus. “No apology necessary, I was a colt once too.” He offers in a way of understanding. Pitch seems very unaware of the fear so thinly veiled in his dam’s eyes, or if he is, he simply doesn’t care. Hellbane isn’t angry with the little touch, or even the declaration that would have put him off.
Who wouldn’t want to be different? But the clash of voices seems to drown out everything else now. A spotted stallion joins them, attentions given to the single mare who (from any outsiders reasonable point of view) currently stands outnumbered, while the palomino goes on about the necessary evils of this new world. Mortal seems to be on the same page with Hellbane, dark eyes darting every now and then to the newcomers. It all seems too confusing and rather strange, that they should come together in a fashion that even Hellbane himself wouldn’t think up, yet they're here and polite rumblings won’t get them anywhere further.
Hellbane raises a hind hoof and sends it theatrically smashing against the forest floor, a muffled thud following the action. Not exactly the loudest of attention seekers, but it got the job done. “A moment of silence would do us all some good, please.” He barters, clearing his throat before beginning, “Obviously, Beqanna is different. Now I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I came wandering this way hoping to avoid the old magic-users. No doubt they’re all off somewhere stewing together as I speak.” He tells them, a brief smile flashing over his lips as he turns a warm eye to Mortal. The most damage he’s ever done with those wings is tangle himself up, so Hellbane doesn’t worry.
“I’m tired of being the minority simply because I’m un-gifted. I like being normal. It’s a talent as well, and I think the rest of Beqanna has forgotten that.” He says. He’s not really sure where this is coming from, nor is he certain that he’s ready to admit this to Mortal’s face, but something tells him his brother’s always kind of known anyways. “I’ll say it again: My name is Hellbane and I’m looking for an untouched part of this world.” He finishes, turning to look at the rag-tag band. “Why are you all here?”
-What the color of her eyes were
ooc: Sorry Tinsel and Kortnee for not addressing your characters directly! I just pictured this as a group of everyone kind of talking over each other so HB is ready to get the ball rolling <3
