"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
There were deaths, like mother and father, that racked what little stability a coddled child could have. There was abandonment shortly afterwards - the way Beqanna shifted under her feet and threw her off into oblivion. She'd made a home, she'd lost it. She'd found Eight, she'd lost him.
She'd lost her face.
She'd lost so much.
In the silence that followed she was humbled, quieted, resting in the eaves. What did she wait for, she wonders? What sign would pull her from the reverie, tell her to take the steps necessary to cross the border to go home?
Is Tephra home?
The meadow will do for now, she decides, and rests in the shade.
Alone.
He indulges her, always has. That’s what big brothers do to little sisters, even if it is only minutes that separated them at birth instead of years. How could he not indulge her when she is like this, unarmed and herself? The fire is dormant somewhere beneath her skin, tucked back in the hot folds of her heart, where other things like greed and love also lay.
Spear cannot see the sleepy smile that rests on her face but he can feel the way her teeth sometimes grasp a strand of his mane, testing it with the smallest of pulls to see what kind of reaction he’ll give her. He responds with a teasing nip to her pale shoulder, a light brandishing of teeth against skin that makes her lift her head from his back to give it a shake then resettle herself there, stuck like a fly to him. If she thinks it annoys him, she is wrong and he’d love to tell her as much but he merely chuckles.
They could stay like this forever.
But neither of them has forever, like their mother does.
All they have is right now, and in the midst of it, comes a familiar smell: Tephra.
Both sets of nostrils flare, suck in breath after breath until it seems like they ought to hyperventilate like one great big eight-legged beast. Neither of them could ever mistake or miss the sulphur-ash scent of that place, since it is on their own skins and ingrained in their lungs for all time or as long as time allows them. Almost as one, both their heads turn for Spark is shoulder to shoulder with him now, and two pairs of mismatched eyes look for the source of the smell.
It is not one that is recognizable to either of them, but they set off in search of it, forsaking the bright sunlight that has warmed them into a lazy stupor for the cold reach of the shadows beneath the trees. The scent grows stronger here, and then they find her tucked up against one such tree, smelling of home but looking for all the world like a lost thing.
It must be hard to scrub the smell of acid and sulfur from your spine.
Why are you alone
because I chose it because I want to because I cannot put myself so near another being and not feel my skin on fire because I don't know how because because...
She lists the reasons off behind slanted eyes, regarding the duo with hesitation before deciding they are possibly harmless. It was a childish reason she didn't see the violence in Violence, hence her scar. Now? She regards the pair with the same distance she'd give a porcupine - probably harmless until riled. Probably.
Maybe.
She combs over a list of things to say to them, thoughts racing a mile a minute - just as father taught her. Sort through them, prioritize, line them up in steady succession until you can lay claim to a decent, original one. Speak only as needed, don't elaborate.
Short sentences.
Always end with a period, never an exclamation.
Who is Thorunn without Covet's voice in her head?
"I didn't want company for some time," she allows, realizing a beat too late they might take it as a reason to leave. Truly, though, the ache in her throat from not speaking for so long is as mental as it is physical. It feels good to stretch those muscles, to activate her brain, to speak. To be heard. "Times change, I suppose, and now I do. I am Thorunn, who are you?" The question is a blanket - you meaning two.
Must be, because they reek of acid and sulphur too.
Tephra makes certain her children can recognize one another.
Even if she had not smelled like them; they’d still have come over to her because she is all alone with just the tree to keep her company. Both of them know that trees can be delightful companions that provide shade and relief from itches on their skins, but trees are quiet friends that doesn’t answer back besides the occasional shake of their branches and leaves. Unless a squirrel breaks into the conversation…
The chestnut is quiet for a long time, like the tree next to her and for a moment, each of them begins to wonder if she is mute or cross at their interruption. She looks at the two of them like they’ve got two heads and poison leaking out of their pores, though neither is true - far from it, despite the fire that simmers just beneath Spark’s skin. They’ve noticed the scar, but neither asks about it.
“Oh,” Spark murmurs, a little crestfallen as the chestnut mentions that she wasn’t looking for company.
“But why?” Spear persists, always more insistent than his sister especially when intrigued and something about the red’s quiet but hesitant manner made him want to tuck her close like he used to do with Spark or rather, like Spark used to let him down but rarely did nowadays.
He touches his nose to Spark’s cheek, cautioning her to wait for she almost turned to go --
“We’ll keep you company as long as you like, I’m Spear and this is my sister Spark.”
Like usual, he takes the lead and Spark just smiles from somewhere near his shoulder which is the most common place to find her, sort of but not quite behind him, just beside - always beside him.
It's not accurate to assume that the scar that marks the right side of her face is the reason for her personality, though some might assume. She does not react when their eyes slide off it - she's long since come to peace with it. It's the one part of her father left behind that means something to her, that's aided her.
lovely scar child
father was a map of scars, a constellation of them, they told stories like the illyad like homer like socrates about his past and his battles and they DEMANDED respect and he didn't need to be pretty so neither do i
She believes it, oh she believes it, that her looks (or lack thereof) are irrelevant. Neither parent was lovely, so she won't be either. Doesn't aspire to be.
No, she knows the distance that she creates between herself and every other living being is her own doing. Nothing about her face (scar aside) says "pull up a chair and tell me a story!" Nothing about her demeanor lends itself to deep conversation, to long drawn out talks about the weather. No, Thorunn is a stony bridge, an impossible thing. Yet the words don't stick like they usually do when the mare begins to turn to leave, she almost yells "Wait! Wait!" but he stops her, and for this she is glad.
Maybe a smile, maybe a ghost of a smile, but something near relief.
But why?
She lets the words tumble now, unafraid of her sudden nakedness. "I grew up under the shadow of my father, and I didn't know how to get out. So I found my own shadows, and realized that I'm not much one for darkness." It's the truth, isn't it?
06-22-2017, 07:43 PM (This post was last modified: 06-22-2017, 07:50 PM by Spear + Spark.)
Scars stood testament to the unbending will and determination to survive.
Scars fascinated them; having seen plenty upon the bodies of their mother and father, they had a healthy respect for these puckered, parted, and put-back-together bits of story and survival and skin. They loved best their mother’s pink hairless lightning-shaped scar that cut up and through her red furry breast. What they loved best about it was the story of how she came by that scar, how the buffalo-beast hooked his horn in her and killed her, but something kept her from true death, pulled her back from the fields above, up in the clouds and kept her on this earth.
Each of them thought the crooked scar bisecting her red face was beautiful.
Neither of them mentioned it; they just knew, in that way that only twins know. It might have been telling enough in the look they shared between themselves before casting their eyes back to her.
Spark used to be the kind one - the one that bled her heart all over and leaving Spear to pick it up and put it back in her chest, shut tight behind glistening muscle and bone. She used to be sloppy with her attentions, unable to resist those that stood apart and alone. Now Spear assumes that mantle; his sister has become a bit more elusive with her newfound power leaving him to trail after the firebrand and her cruel careless whims. Like how she started to turn away from the red mare but he stopped her. He’d never quite be able to say why, but he sensed Thorunn was in need of a respite from the familiar.
(Or maybe he lied to himself, maybe it was more his need than hers’ for a break from shadowing Spark.)
Something in her face confirms his suspicions - a smile, perhaps, or the ghost of one. He finds himself smiling back at her because of it. “If you prefer the light, then why hide from it?” Her talk of shadows intrigued him, and he supposed it must have something to do with the beautiful ruin of her face and he is possessed by a mad whim to reach out and trace the path of it with his lips… not yet, he tells himself and feels Spark’s cautioning muzzle on his neck as if she guessed at his intentions. Somehow, she knew it would spook the red mare if her brother acted so brashly.
“The pleasure is ours,” she mentions, offering her own small smile as a token of apology for almost having left Thorunn alone. She is the one that moves closer, just near enough to stroke her nose lightly across a red shoulder. Spark understood best, she had always lived in Spear’s shadow.
The twins are so peculiar to Thorunn, a twin herself. She can barely remember Val these days. What was once a brilliant sisterhood between two strong mares was now a shadow of a union. They were opposites, the way that two sides of a coin can be similar and yet different. Both were copper like their mother, but Val took after their mother while Thorunn stayed close to Covet's side. Thorny and Val, Val and Thorny.
Now it was just Thorny, though no one called her that. No one knew to call her it. Even if someone tried to dig into the recesses of her mind they'd come up blank - thanks dad. Though, she didn't know of this power. It is often this way with invisible traits.
Spear and Spark were nothing like her and Val, but she wouldn't hold it against them. She suspected if she'd grown up with Val closer to herself they'd have the same bond. If she closed her eyes she couldn't even hear her sister breathe. Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was alive.
"Habit," she offers with a rolling shrug. "You know, when you are raised one way it's hard to go the other way." Her smile is the same ghost of sadness, of times long since gone, of emptiness. "What about you, do you prefer the light or the dark?"
What about you, do you prefer the light or the dark?
Divided; must it always be this way?
Each of them is caught by her question, undecided and unsure. Spear thinks that there is room for both; light to fill the shadows and shadows to quell the light. Spark though, once there would have been no question for her and she’d have said the light. Now, she wallows in indecision because there is more than enough light in her when all her skin burns back to pure flame and she is nothing but fire and her own bright source of light and conflagration. She could burn up all the shadows, brighten them with her presence but she balks at the decision to do so - something about the shadows makes her think of him, and she shakes her head as his face comes unbidden into her mind.
“I don’t think it is as easy as picking one over the other,” she comments. Spark decides she is not too keen on that smile of Thorunn’s, it holds an emptiness that she is fast becoming familiar with and while it looks beautiful but sad on the red’s face, she thinks it’d look ugly on her own because of how pinched with spite it’d be. She cannot help it, thinking of the dark brings back memories of someone that used to light up the dark with the stars he made out of… well, she never quite knew what he conjured them up from, but they always made her smile, made her love him more because he made them dance and spin just for her.
“Spark…” he calls, cajoling as his shoulder bumps into her hip - he sensed the change in her mood, knew the fire would be close beneath her fur if she kept on this path. “We’ve never given it much thought,” he elaborates on his sister’s sentiment as he offers a weak smile. “Never had to choose, really, since we all have the potential to favor both as much as one or the other. Things in the dark love things in the light and things in the light are drawn to things in the dark, isn’t that the way of it?” He is more loquacious than he means to be, embarrassment hot on his face as he ducks it momentarily out of the red’s line of sight.
