"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
The meadow was a fine reprieve from reality, much like her extended away. She could bask in her new silence, take turns lounging and being useless. After a childhood training (forever training! Father always drilling her) - and for what? Where others had lazy days in the sun she had long, stolen moments in the field. Sparring, mocking, drills...all while her father died. She supposed it was a better way to spend their last moments together. But what if it were quiet? What if her memories calmed to something greater?
Instead she sees war and blood, and feels war and blood - but has never done war or blood.
She returns home, then - a home she doesn't really know, doesn't recognize. Beqanna swirls again in its unfathomable way and valleys crash and crest, but Tephra is unchanged. It's survived this landscape change and for that she is glad. But what does the future hold?
Is she welcome, she wonders, as she crosses the border once more.
The heat of the jungle barrels down on him unforgivingly, seeping through the thick canopy of the tropical trees and burning onto the broad of his back as he moves swiftly through his home. He keeps moving, despite the fact his increasing heart rate only adds to the sweat that has dampened the auburn of his chest and haunches; the cool breeze he feels against his neck and face as he moves is enough to keep him continuing forward.
Not much gets by Warrick. His eyes are keen and his ears are always twitching, always listening. The minute something is even the slightest bit out of place from the normality, he is there in a heartbeat. This is much the same for today as he moves along the border of Tephra, nostrils twitching as he realizes another has joined him in the humid jungle.
He can feel the uncertainty that taints her entire being as she enters, beginning in her ears and shuddering all the way down to her small hooves. She appears frightened maybe, but he’s not sure if that’s the right word to describe her stature. However small she was, there was a proudness about her that twist throughout her ambiguity; she is strong. He does not know her, has never seen her in his life, but the way her delicate features are worn from burdens that lay planted in her thoughts, her eyes distant and unseeing yet at the same time, has seen entirely too much. Warrick moves towards her, his slender and muscular legs drawing him closer to the chestnut filly with a gentle and slow walk, his eyes soft with concern. She smells like the meadow, like soft green grasses and crisp blue sky. Yet something lingers on her skin, something foreign to him that, perhaps if he grown up differently, he would have recognized. He knows nothing of blood and war and fighting, and though part of him knows that it is a reality, he hopes he will never have to know the experience.
“Hello,” he says gently, his voice reverberating and low against the thickness of the sultry air. The deep cerulean of his irises trace her quickly, lingering on the gnarled scarring that twists unforgivingly on the side of her youthful face. “You have been here before,” he observes, noting how the high temperatures and sulfuric smell did not lead her to any hesitation – her uncertainty is found in something else entirely, though he did not know exactly what. “Is it how you remember?”
you've been here before. It wasn't accusatory, it was a statement. Thorunn knew she wouldn't stand on the border untouched long, kingdoms rarely changed - even as Beqanna did. She felt the shifts from the meadow, she knew what was happening. She didn't understand the breadth of it (whole kingdoms, gone? Whole lands, created?) but it wouldn't have shocked her. She grew up in the Beqanna of old, before these monsters replaced her forefathers.
yes
the smell of dead magma crusting the rise and fall of the hills and jagged crags the black dirt that crunched but yielded beneath her cracked hooves the feel of sulfur on her skin the sting of the acrid air in her lungs...
no
no eight no val no recognizable creatures just the empty expanse of a land that is both fatherless and motherless and sisterless and
alone. always alone.
Thorunn was cursed to bear the cross her father gave her, though it was with childish vigor. She'd be the steadfast warrior he was, she'd follow in his hoofprints, she'd shoulder his responsibilities just as he instructed her to. Covet 2.0, never Thorunn 1.0.
"Things are forever changing in Beqanna," she says, factually. She is always factual in her words, pronounced, punctuated. "I am Thorunn, I didn't catch your name." He didn't offer it, she knows, she is being (what she thinks is) polite.
He takes another step towards her as her voice travels to him, though he decides that he should not try to get any closer. She is not unapproachable, but Warrick can easily recognize the distraught that so heavily taints the tension in her body, though is not seen in her face. She seems to have perfected the craft of stoicism, standing before him with little emotion and a passive, yet aloof, gaze. The bay stallion watches her with kind eyes, the sultry air shifting its path and tossing the inky mass of his forelock to the other side of his face.
“You speak the truth,” he says in agreement, the rust-color of his eyelids coming down slowly over the cerulean of his irises as he blinks. “It changes everyone, too. Unforgivable, this world.” His last statement was perhaps not meant to be said aloud, but he could not help as it spills slowly from the cobalt of his lips. His eyes have left her now, roaming the dense tropical foliage that surrounds them thoughtlessly.
He snorts softly before speaking again. “Thorrun. I am Warrick.”
Silence fills the space between them, growing and yawning yet not uncomfortable. She is searching for something, a feeling that he knows all too well, and wonders if her search is as futile as his own is. Is she utterly alone, like he had been (is he still?) during his first few days in Tephra? Is she grasping for something completely out of reach, a past that no longer exists? His cobalt lips pull downwards in a slight frown.
Everyone has his or her own thief of joy. He wonders what (or who) has stolen hers.
“How can I help you?” Such a trivial question, so polite and so boring. He knows the answer – of course he couldn’t, not in the way she wants or needs, but these are the things you are required to ask. Pleasantries, right?
As a child it was her close proximity to her father. Attached at the hip, attached at the withers, very few wanted to cross the scarred creature that was Covet. As an adult it was many things - the scar that promised she'd never be beautiful, the unsettling orange eyes paired with the copper coat (black and orange was one thing, but orange and orange?!) and - to magicians - the silence of her mind. She wasn't aware of that fact, some trait her father wordlessly passed down to her, making her a silent entity forever haunting the edges of Beqanna.
Warrick. She gives a noncomital shrug, much in line with her rolling stoicism, to acknowledge she's heard him.
how can I help you?
find me a home give me a purpose point me where i belong where my dads shoes dont feel so big where the weight of his immenseness doesnt crash down on me where i am my own thing my own being my own woman
"I suppose I want to come home, if this even is home," she says, giving him a half smile - half, because half of her face rarely obeys. "I'm sorry, that made no sense."
Her stature and demeanor gives way to so many questions that enter his mind, wondering how it was she had found herself here, why she chose now to come, and why her eyes (bright and bold like the flowers that pepper Tephra with their brilliant colors) seem to hide so much from the world. She’s so quiet, so stern. He follows her lead, remaining a man of fewer words than he normally expels, curiosity keeping him here at the border with her.
He breathes in the thick, humid air deeply, indigo nostrils flaring, and then releases it in a slow, steady sigh.
I want to come home too, he replies silently. It’s midday, but the stallion helplessly glances upwards at the sky that opens above the trees they were standing other, casually roving the atmosphere – no stars were seen (but he knows they are there), and he remains silent, listening to the sound of his heart pulsing in his ears. He would never return home.
She throws him a smile but he is not looking at her, not yet, but he can hear the attempt in her voice.
‘I’m sorry, that made no sense,’
Warrick looks back to her now, a slight tilt to his head causing his tangled forelock to fall across the rust-color of his broad nose. His indigo mouth falls into a thin line, thoughtful. “No, no,” he replies with a fumble, nodding his head twice. “It made sense.” To him, more than she would possibly realize. He doesn’t push her, to explain how it is she’s come to know Tephra or to explain why she’s here now. He had his own reasons for being here and he is thankful that no one pressed him any further than what he allowed.
She’s young, but not too young that she wouldn’t consider becoming more than merely a resident within the kingdom. “Is there something else you seek, besides a place to call home?”
You’ll have to make it your home, it does not come easy.
it made sense
he doesn't elaborate just says it made sense no more words no more reassurance it didn't make sense she is as useless as her mother and father when it comes to polite conversation she should see her way out
She mistakes his casual glances away, his words, as a cumulative effect to politely welcome her and then, politely, leave the conversation. She doesn't blame him, she was never good at hellos. Or goodbyes. Or in-betweens. She is particularly useless at diplomacy though - to be fair - no one bothered to teach her it. Most of her lessons as a child were war based. Had Warrick attacked her, well, then she'd shine through. Instead he is hopelessly kind, nodding along, reassuring her when she doesn't deserve it.
What else did she need?
"I thought I'd ask about your army," she says, then, quickly, "I suppose our army, if I stay." if if if if ififififif
"It's all I have to offer," she admits as a last minute attempt at seeming open. She could feel the word vomit about her history of fighting, of sparring, of mocks, bubble in her throat and threaten to spill out and she stops it short, chewing on nothing thoughtfully.
He smiles at her response (which may appear out of place to Thorrun), because he know now why her calm outward appearance and shrouded eyes intrigue him. Her personality aligns solidly with Ellyse, reminding him of the golden mare’s resigned demeanor and calculating gaze. Probably a warrior’s blood causes the two to be similar in Warrick’s eyes.
His mind cannot help but wander to Ellyse when Thorrun mentions army. He has lived graciously in a time of peace, with Pangea’s falling and Tephra being far from the middle ground of Beqanna where the majority of horses seem to live. He wonders if there ever will be a war, and if so, who Ellyse had at her side to protect the volcanic land. His blue eyes gently rest on Thorrun, a young creature full of tightly wound mystery, with a twisted scar (horrible and beautiful all at the same time) to accentuate the cloudy storm that rumbles in the bright, fervid orange of her eyes. Whether Thorrun believes it or not, Warrick thinks that the young, purpose-driven filly would work well beneath the strength of Ellyse’s leadership.
“A noble cause,” he says to her with his brows rising in thought (he didn’t know that it wasn’t ‘nobility’ Thorrun is searching for, it is just the only thing she was familiar with). “A dangerous one.” She knows this. He almost feels silly telling her, and drops his head just a bit. “All you have to offer, even if it was nothing, would be enough.” His voice softens, unsure and hesitant as the words left his lips; was he too bold? Or would she (hopefully) just assume that Warrick is extremely good at greeting newcomers, optimism and all? He sighs quietly, shifting his weight on his muscular indigo legs.
“Ellyse is who you’ll want to speak with. I can help you find her, if you’d like.”
She could say no. Or tell him she'll come by later. But wandering Tephra past its borders without a resident guide is risky – Offspring would not delight in strangers meandering alone through the kingdom.
He is kind to offer his help, though Thorunn knows it's just part of his kingdom duties. She lived in many kingdoms (two.) and saw the same cycle over and over. There were the greeters, and there were the fighters, and there were the leaders. She remembers Eight and his detached way of ruling, a way she imaged her father would have been. Stoic, displaced, harsh. Perhaps even cruel. She is unsure how he'd react if slighted, she never saw anyone bother.
A twice king, though, surely was slighted at least once.
"I'll find her later, thank you," she says instead, turning her eyes to evaluate the expanse around them. "Who is king now? What is your position here?" she asks instead.
Kingdom duties. Did he even know what that truly means? Is he even doing this right? He is always second-guessing himself, shifting uneasily on the muscular blue of his legs. He is always worried he’ll do or say the wrong thing, cause a prospective resident to take their leave or allow entry to those he should question more than he normally does; a myriad of things could possibly go wrong, and with his greenness of how kingdoms and diplomacy works, he hopes he will not be responsible for any harm that may come to Tephra. Warrick trusts easily and longs to see the good in others, and though Offspring has given him the responsibility of greeting wayward strangers on the edges of the borders, the thought presses in the back of his mind that he is not hard enough, not questioning enough.
With a snort, he turns his blue gaze towards Thorrun, lingering on the twist and gnarl of the silvered scar on her face before finding the glow of her orange eyes – they remind him of the rivulets of lava that passes through Tephra’s expanse, slow moving and silent, yet extremely dangerous.
“Offspring leads us,” Warrick answers casually, not at all considering that the chestnut filly might have met Offspring before in the past, or has heard of him, at least. The bay stallion has learned that many of those in Beqanna, and in Tephra, already had some kind of relationship with Offspring – a luxury that he did not have. It’s quite possible that Thorrun also already knew the large, black stallion that towers over Tephra much like the stoic volcano that brews in the distant horizon.
He doesn’t know the actual ‘name’ of his position, and for a moment fumbles in his mind for a word that would perhaps describe it accurately. His ability to talk and learn about others is a strength of his, one that Offspring obviously recognized, and it has led him here to standing in the thick foliage with a young mare. Pressing his lips together, musing, he finally says: “I’m meant to make sure that no one enters without an escort.” A light chuckle rumbles in the deep of his chest, finding it humorous that his description could mean a pleasant meeting – such as the one he and Thorrun were having now – or perhaps a very different meaning. “A sentry, I believe would be the best word for it, I think?” He has no idea. Perhaps she does.
Warrick’s kind eyes find hers again, as his gaze had departed to quickly glance around them, always on watch. He tilts his head a few degrees, ears pricking forward as his forelock twists away from the auburn of his face. “Why war?” The question leaves his lips before he has time to stop himself, the words hanging in the sultry air.
