"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
life unfolds in pools of gold I am only owed this shape if I make a line to hold
Somehow, he finds his way back to Beqanna.
Under the reaching cloak of a dark night, Buckthorn pads his way through the last refuge of the forest. It is easy to remain hidden – not that he is actively trying to do so – because he is the embodiment of moonlight both cast and blocked by the gnarled branches above. He is alternating shadows and pops of white glow filtered through the needles and leaves. It is easy to be quiet, too, because his feet are hardy and tough and well-accustomed to the ever-changing terrain that holds up a nomad. This dirt is like any other dirt. It is made mild by spring, still soft and giving under his weight. It richly layers itself over all the rich history that is now nothing more than bones and memories underneath. It is like so many places he’s visited before but never stayed.
This dirt is like any other dirt, and yet, it feels different.
The monochrome stallion grunts as the last wayward branch scratches his hindquarters. When he steps out into the clearing, he lifts his handsome head into the air and breathes in. The faint smell of crisped prairie sage and summer sweet grass alerts him to a clawing rawness in his stomach. He ignores it. But absent is the pungent punch of the jungle’s passion flower, the dry, pervasive scent of the valley. He waits with his chin poised towards the twinkling stars for those smells to mix in with the rest, but they never come. Like his mother, like his father - they never come.
For now, he can pretend he came back for himself. The wild lands had become less so over the last few years (and he has the scars to show all that they once were: wild and dangerous and deadly). As civilization spread, so too did talk of a reborn Beqanna. Some said it was not as it was before. No longer were the lands regimented and divided by their respective histories. No longer were they like sheep, blindly following in the footsteps of those that went ahead of them. (“It is a precarious place now, a shifting world”) Buckthorn had gone right away.
He wants to see what perils the land of his birth now holds. But as he looks about the quiet field, he wonders if the others had been wrong. Nothing has changed, he thinks as his muscles quiver with exhaustion under a thick hide. I can go home anytime, he tells himself, again ignoring the protest of hunger that rumbles his ribs. But he doesn’t really believe it. Because along with the lush scent of the season still lingering in his nostrils, the newness of earth is there, too. It is a newness forged in destruction (not gently birthed) if the rumors are true. A part of him longs to find his family and set things straight, make sure they have all survived. The other parts of him (parts he’d rather not acknowledge) are far too eager to singe his heels on the scorched earth.
He can’t explain how he’s found himself here, and even if he were to search the distances of his mind to find a reason, he would come up empty-handed. He had recently made it a customary thing for him not to be wandering about when darkness cloaks the world, but instead to be nestled closely to the glowing and pulsing volcano of his tropical home. Maybe there was a tiny piece of him that wills him to try again – to attempt to stare into the depths of twilight without memories suffocating him. He remembers their names, the constellations and their stories. He used to pass the time by retelling their adventures and watching the sky light up with their brilliant display. He can’t now – the stories were blurry and he was not confident in retelling them. Only few names come to his mind and those are names he dare not speak aloud.
Despite being at war with the night, he cannot help but feel slightly comforted by the silver starlight that softly illuminates his auburn skin. It is delicate and almost forgiving as it alights against the curvature of his neck, spilling carefully into the crevices of his shoulders and hips. It is a familiar feeling and though it brings pain to his mind, physically the navy-pointed stallion was at ease. Even though his mind is churning like raging waters with uncertainty and anger, his body appears relaxed and almost tranquil.
Warrick may be avoiding whatever the darkness brings with it, but it did not make him forget his familiarity with the moon and stars.
It was deathly quiet. It always was at this time of night. Even the nocturnal animals have become silent. The blue and mahogany stallion was not expecting any others to be out wandering the field – though he pities those who aren’t. The skies were clear and radiant, every star twinkling proudly in the blue-black atmosphere. He could see every constellation perfectly. He could even make out the silver-gray of a galaxy, brushed against the sky like dust made of star fragments and light. He sighs, his inhale and exhale sharp and shaky. He cannot help being here; it calls to him.
The stallion’s brilliant blue eyes finally break from the sky above him (he does not know how long he has been staring upwards) and he finally notices a shadow of a figure next to him. The horse was not close, but in the stillness of the hour it was hard not to notice a sudden new figure in your eyesight. Warrick watches him with observant eyes for a moment, knowing that the two-toned stallion was possibly doing the same to him.
He wonders what brings another out at this time of night to stare up into the yawning abyss that was above them. Warrick knew his reasons (or at least the reasons that he would explain to another if they were to ask). He snorts softly, alerting the other of his presence. Not wanting to ruin the comforting silence but also not wanting to ignore the stallion entirely, he quietly and smoothly says to him, “It’s hard not to look at them, isn’t it?”
Of course, Warrick was referring to the stars. At least that's what he told himself.
It's always the same, I'm running towards nothing again
Coming back, going away; all things intermingled and without purpose. It’s the grand middle of things that determines one’s life. What have you done with your time, they’ll ask you. What is it that you do? Pointed, barbed little questions that peck incessantly in Hellbane’s mind and keep him out long after the rest of Beqanna has given into sleepless dreams. But out here, under the expanse of sky that seems the same after everything else has changed, there’s still restless creatures like himself seeking, hungering, searching for that purpose to their existence.
One in particular catches his eye.
The shadowy figure isn’t long in being joined by another, (they never are, are they?) but Hellbane isn’t deterred and he won’t change course now that he’s practically on top of them, easing to a peaceful stop somewhere between them. Besides, he’d come to the Meadow with a plan in mind - what was it to him if he sidetracked one evening to the Field? The worst that could happen was rejection and that had always been an easy thing for the bay-and-forest green stallion to handle. Easier than other things that had already happened to him, to his twin. He pauses, glancing up to the heavens where they both seem to be admiring the nights display, and thinks about Mortal with a pained longing.
“They call me Hellbane,” He begins, hoping he’s not so awkwardly late to the game that the two have already made arrangements, “and I hope I’m not interrupting.”
