"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
Nayl almost recoils when she hears her name spoken on familiar lips. She had heard sentence after sentence from the Amazon, and so there is no mistaking Naga creeping from the treeline to join her. The tranquility that had enveloped Nayl’s mind has been carefully unpeeled by the kindness cushioning Naga’s statement. Their meeting isn’t abrupt, at least. Quietly, the girl turns her head to look at the proclaimed leader, her eyes reduced to near slits. ”Why are you sorry?” but her question is quickly answered as the shifter settles comfortably in front of her, their gazes burning in unity. There had been tension, but most of it had been concocted by Nayl’s brash personality and her mistrust for strangers.
Her eyes roll away almost in disinterest, but her ears are closely listening, hungrily devouring Naga’s words. The shifter mentions the truths and what lies in her perspective of the situation. The information is offered on a silver platter with an apology as the grand topping. Nayl mulls it over with steadied breaths and an occasional shift of her body to brace against the cold. Her heart screams for the Jungle, its history lining the walls of her veins, and yet she can’t bring herself to openly trust Naga, a fellow sister. She sighs and blinks slowly. Without looking at the mare she replies, ”Don’t apologize.” Her pride is rattling the bars of its cage but Nayl fights to suppress it. ”You did what you thought best,” and everyone thinks they know what the right path is but in reality it is never up to them. Beqanna always weeds them out; things happen for a reason. ”I will admit that I didn’t appreciate such a quick grab for power when all of us were just relieved to see one another,” there is still an edge to her tone, but it’s just barely subdued and dulled by her sigh.
”I’m slow to trust,” she finally admits, but she assumes that the sisters have at least gathered that much about her, ”so yes, a bad first impression.” She won’t lie nor will she sugarcoat. Her brashness will either help or hinder her one day, but she never takes it into consideration. ”Just know that I do not hate you. Had anyone else been that way, I would have reacted the same. The Jungle has had its share of women who were eager to claim the throne but fell inactive and idle immediately after. They just wanted the title, to have their name marked in history.” Their eyes meet, Nayl’s orange to Naga’s green. ”I won’t allow that to happen again.”
She didn’t want to lead – not yet – but her soul is tied to the sisterhood and its success. Her life – her creation – is to help her home in any way she can.
09-25-2016, 11:45 PM (This post was last modified: 09-25-2016, 11:46 PM by Hybris.)
i hope it's okay if i jump in ^_^ im unsure if this thread includes naga as well, but if so then please just assume that hybris would have greeted her as well. if i'm not supposed to join then just ignore me! <3
I want to walk with you on a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
Her path whispers of wildness.
she was the stranger. the newcomer. the unknown.
strange, all of that. strange to be unknown in an unknown place. to be the face that nobody knew. to join them in a time when the world was turned upside down and their beloved jungle was GONE.
the loss still tugged on her heartstrings, even though she had been gone many a year. hybris remembered the jungle intimately and was certain it would have remembered her. she had yearned for its embrace, its caress, and to be denied it was painful. that combined with the silence in her mind was almost more than she could handle and it was all she could do to keep the smile on her lips.
they were all strangers, they were all sisters. hybris used that latter thought to push herself on, to approach the stranger and seek to erase the former thought. she did not want to be unknown.
"hello," such a simple, simple start. she breathed out, quietly, and took a soft step to shorten the space between them. "my name is hybris." and i belong to the jungle. but surely she would know that.
Come away with me, in the night
Come away and I will write you a song
The waves lap at the sand and rush forward to kiss Nayl’s hooves before receding back to the abysmal ocean beyond. It sucks her in – the sounds, the soft touch, the lullaby – and she finds her mind briefly cleared of her doubts and her troubles. When her autumn eyes grope for the blue tides farther away Nayl succumbs to a strange serenity she has not yet before experienced. It blankets her in solace with a salty wind kissing her face. This isn’t the Jungle, but it will do. It lacks the palisade of trees, but it still possesses a sense of promise and hope.
When a breath is drawn into her lungs, it latches onto the soft tissue inside. The saltiness seeps into her bloodstream and sours her insides with every passing second. Her mane and tail are tousled by the wind, unruly but somehow still beautiful. The land is trying to create its first children, trying to embrace them as they scatter across her sandy shores and rocky cliffsides. Nayl, hesitant toward change, almost inches closer to the ocean until a voice – so gentle against the wind – reaches forward and stops her. A breath catches in her throat as she pauses mid-step to turn and see the source. They don’t know each other, but they are in a sisterhood together.
Strangers they are and yet also sisters.
”Hello,” she returns with a voice much softer than her norm, ”Nayl.” The way she says her name is steadier, stronger, but still somehow more subdued than she has ever been. ”Have you been here long?” In the territory, on the beach, she doesn’t elaborate. The question hangs between them while Nayl settles her eyes across the mare. Her skin is porcelain, whiter than the seafoam bubbling at their feet. She wants to break the silence between them to learn more of her unknown sister, but Nayl’s lips are pursed tightly shut and her eyes begin to roam with a periodic flash toward Hybris.
Nayl
covet and myrina's creation
No, I'm just dumb and forgot to paste the correct psot with the html lmao. Pretend that post said she was alone on the shore thinking quietly haha
I want to walk with you on a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
the water touched her hooves and for a moment her attention is snagged. earth eyes slide down and focus on the foamy cusp of water, the edge of the sea that is so big she cannot fathom it. it is wild and untameable and she wondered if THAT was why this home had been given to them. they of the jungle were wild and just as untameable and though they may miss the lushness of foliage hybris sought to find a reason for it all.
if the jungle was to be taken and the SEA to be given what was the reason?
the pale mare exhaled and then looked back to her company. "i am hybris." had she been here long? "an eternity, it seems, though by now i am surely forgotten." she had been here long, but she had been gone long, too.
"and you, nayl? have you always been a sister?"
Come away with me, in the night
Come away and I will write you a song
For the first time in a long time, his eyes were clear. There was no hint of madness in their amber depths, flecked with the golden light of the sun. The heat of it trickled down as gently as the rays glittering across the surface of the dancing sea.
It was an odd place. Not at all like the home he would have recognized. But the air hinted to the warriors here, returning together with their familiar must of the jungle, his home. So long ago, his home.
He'd been born there. His mother, the fiercest General the Amazons had ever seen, raised him alone. He trained side by side amongst the younger generation, working his hardest to be the best, just for her, a leader in her own right. He'd done well; she'd been proud. He was a force to be reckoned with, thanks to her.
A fierce Brother, a fatal weapon.
And now he returns, this prodigal son. One day he's consumed in despairing madness hidden deep within a forest of isolation, seeing visions of his murdered child and losing consciousness to a raging monster in his mind that lashes out and attacks complete strangers.
And today, awakened. Rebirthed. But so lost. His nose brought him here, like a confusing dream of memories. He recognized no one, he'd been so small in his last memories. Hadn't he grown up with them though, in that formidable jungle? But all he remembers is childhood.
His golden gaze falls to two such strangers as he trudges slowly toward them, eyes glowing from a dark face. His coat was the deep red-gold of a prideful lion, marks of a tiger striping the tips of his bay-dun limbs. Neither predator truly described him, though, this child of a wyvern warrior and a king.
He slinked carefully into their presence, not caring to intrude and catch their conversation. So many years he'd spent in self-condemned confinement, isolated from the world in a prison of silent sentinel trees to protect the world from him. He was uneasy in so much glaring sunlight, like a terrible beast set free in the world, seeing the sun again after years of darkness in his cage.
He tipped his chin to each of them, just barely. They seemed to have introduced themselves to each other, judging by the way they kept themselves separate from each other, but with just a hint of edging closer in new familiarity.
"I am Ainlif," he said carefully, his voice deep and foreign to his own ears, so used to only the sighing of the trees.
He was so lost, so alone now that he'd pushed -no he swore he wouldn't think about it. His soul ached for a connection, a link to his past, to himself. Who was he anymore? That was what he wished to learn here. He could not truly have a life until he found himself again, and he'd had a rude awakening; it was time to live. Before he lost everything again. If he hadn't already lost her.
Would they remember him? Could they help him?
"Do you know me?" he asked awkwardly with a slight tilt to his head in question. Who am I? he seemed to say. So desperate to find a little hope, and no longer versed in how to speak to others, he dimly wondered if he had made a mistake in coming here.
The General has been lax lately. They all have been, after the initial panic and flurry to find a new home. Now that the Coast (ah, excuse me - Nerine) is safely in their grasp and named, everyone seems to have disappeared again. Lagertha briefly wonders if the other lands have experienced the same die-off, though she knows it is the way of Beqanna. A new ruler, a momentous event - it rustles the shadows and draws the curious out of the woodwork. The sleeping giants wake and wonder if they should deign to comment on the change. Some come and renew their pledges, but with peace - well, it is all very boring, now isn’t it?
This peace is different; the landscape has changed and they should be exploring the other lands. Lagertha is not, and has never pretended to be, a diplomat - but even she wonders why no one has come knocking on their doors. Soon the scarred gray mare will call Nayl and any other warrior-types to her side to go over the land, charging them to learn the land intimately and to resume training. Her powers have returned and a healthy routine of rest and repast have restored her to the woman she was before the Raid.
Here, strangers cannot hide so easily. The Jungle offered plenty of cover (assuming a sister never smelled the intruder), but Nerine is open, save for the saves on the edge of the beach. The musky scent of a stallion (indeed, one she met while she was Khaleesi) is quickly carried to her on the ocean’s breeze, and without anything to do, Lagertha decides to investigate. She follows it to find Nayl and two strangers, arriving on the heels of the stallion. “I know you,” replies, and then quickly follows it with, “Or I’ve at least tried to run you through awhile ago.” A wry smile. Her way of apologizing, if he wants to take it that way. She nods to the white mare and Nayl and then introduces herself to the two newcomers. “I’m Lagertha. This is quite the party.”
”Yes,” her reply is exhaled with a disheartened sigh, ”I’ve always been a sister just as my mother, and grandmother, and so many before them. They were bound to the Jungle,” but their jungle has been devoured and in its place lies a coastline that they are now staring across. The thick forest has been replaced by palms and sand, their jaguars decimated and the wild parrots gone. She reflects on mother and how inconsistent she had been with the Amazons and so she only really mentions her grandmother in hopes of stirring some memory that she can clutch onto. ”Echion, my grandmother, was Queen a long time ago. Did you know of her?” It isn’t to boast her extended pedigree, but to have answers, to maybe see a glimpse of what the tribal queen had once been like and to find their shared qualities.
Unable to hold a steady gaze Nayl casts her autumn eyes back out across the waves and listens as they lap at the sand. It masks the approach of the stallion, but fortunately his scent found her first. The turn of her head is slow and thoughtful, her gaze sweeping across him curiously. ”Hello,” her voice is flat as she fathoms having a male here in their matriarchal society, ”I’m Nayl.” Hearing her own name somehow incites an inner strength and reminds her of what – who – she is. He, on the other hand, lacks a grasp on his identity. Curiously, she looks on with her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ”I don’t think we’ve met and yet I feel like I’ve seen you before or heard your name.” There are few stallions she has come into contact with. The frigidity of her heart always seems to steer her away from them. Mother was always distracted by the opposite sex; they ripped her loyalties to the Jungle in ways Nayl never wants to experience. So she avoids them as though they’re plagues to this world.
The sisterhood is all she has cared for, the only thing that keeps her heart beating in its cage. Despite who the Queen is, she will always be a sister.
”Lagertha,” she says the General’s name sternly though not unkindly, ”welcome to this party.” Their eyes meet and a fleeting grin stretches across her lips. ”Did you have a good nap?”
I want to walk with you on a cloudy day
In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high
"no," she answered after a short pause, "i do not remember that name. though i must admit my mind is not as sharp as it used to be." many years she had lived and now she had returned with none of the same voices to guide her. strange to ache for the very thing she had once cursed.
"i lived in the jungle around the time of prague's rule. there was also nativity and oliphander. before your grandmother's time, most likely." hybris was far older than she appeared.
it was a good conversation, a simple getting to know one another, but then they were joined by another. and another. the first was a stallion and though he seemed almost desperate for them to recognize him, hybris could not say that she did. while his name rang some small bell she imagined that it was only because it held a similarity to another - she had been gone far too long to know many here. "i am sorry, but no. i am hybris, though. it is nice to meet you." that was all she had to offer, and then they were joined by another. this one did know the stallion, and hybris felt as though she should hush, now.
"hybris," she gave, and recognized the name as the leader of the warriors. it was a caste she had considered joining, but she trusted that her fighting days were behind her. hybris was no spring chicken and while she still had the heart of a warrior she knew that there were those more capable of defending with their flesh and blood.
Come away with me, in the night
Come away and I will write you a song
"I know you," her words cut into his mind and he shifts to keep her visible. "Or I've at least tried to run you through a while ago." His eyes narrowed warily, but he knew it was not a threat. He remembered her, and he'd seen exactly what her threats really looked like.
"Hello," the next greeted. Her gaze openly took in the sight of him, an oddity among the women she was more likely accustomed to. Even growing up in the Jungle, he had been only one of the few males living there. His childhood friend Quantum was the only other he could bring to mind. And by the time Ainlif had left the Amazon, starting his own family, he'd been Vichomeraki.
"I don't think we've met and yet I feel like I've seen you before or heard your name," she continued. She greeted Lagertha, then the other spoke up. His eyes slid to her as she spoke, "I am sorry, but no. I am Hybris though. It is nice to meet you." She seemed the softest of the lot of them, kindness in the polite way she fell silent at the General's approach. It pulled at him, tugging at the man he used to be that was now so buried he wasn't sure he could ever be him again.
"I suppose it has been a while," he said as though it explained their lack of recognition. His isolation after his mate and child died was likely the true reason, otherwise he'd still been an active figure in the Jungle as they entered it. "My mother was the General of the Amazons at one time. Asterix." It felt odd to recall his mother; childhood was such a long time ago. With the exception of Lagertha, he could probably have sired each of them.
He fell quiet, feeling out of place but unsure how to proceed. If they hadn't recognized him, he was sure his mother's name would also receive the same reaction, or lack thereof. Perhaps for now he'd just observe them and take comfort in the feeling settling over him in their presence. They felt like home.
Ainlif
ooc: soooo sorry for the wait! i think i'm still recovering from getting so sick, so also a little rusty!
