"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
06-17-2017, 07:04 AM (This post was last modified: 06-17-2017, 07:07 AM by Harmonia.)
Pangea was gone - good riddance. Au revoir. Too-da-loo.
Maybe Harmonia would long for the barren landscape and the way the valley was just as desolate and stark as those who roamed it - but she doubted it. She'd been born and lived time and time again in a land and another and found none of them permanent. They lacked...something. She thought maybe shaping Pangea would give her a maternal instinct for it.
But she abandoned all her kids, so there's that.
So she's sent elsewhere to harbor her magic alone and bored. The forest will do for now, it's not like she needs protection. Or food. Or anything, really. At 14hh she looks about as terrifying as the leaves that blow on the ground below her. She prefers it that way.
So she stands in the shade and makes things grow and then die. She creates floating orbs and watches them pop and scare the animals in the forest. She does thing and thing again to annoy, maim, even kill those around her.
She prefers it this way.
Harmonia
kids sure like the devil these days and i’m the devil with a black dress on
The names are foreign and disgusting on his tongue. These new lands, new names. This new fucking place. Perhaps it had been exciting… At first. He wouldn’t know, he had allowed himself to be swallowed by dark fingers and returned when he pleased. Which was now after much brewing and plotting had been done. You see when the world had been divided between three personality choices it had been complex in it’s own right. So many lived in a world of gray, a mixing of the three and belonging nowhere.
This new opportunity gave them a little more choice. You can’t escape the basics though. There’s no light without dark, no joy without fear. His world was more than just a choice between good and bad, it was deeper than that. If one must be classified then it was “evil” that he had chosen since it seemed to allow him a free reign on his special pursuits. Less frowned upon by his peers, more like minded colleagues. These days though, he had observed, there wasn’t much of that happening anywhere. Surely those with a darker and more… intelligent mindset still lurked around Beqanna. Just biding their time. Waiting for someone to reopen Pandora’s box and breathe in a new ere of chaos. Oh he didn’t dream of war and conquest, that was overdone. Dull. Boring. Let them have their peaceful kingdoms. He could pluck who he wanted from their midst to create his own sadistic fantasy.
The forest was the closest thing to familiarity. He had always been a man of mist and shadow and cold. No other habitat would suit him or the needs he has in mind. Here he lurks for now as he hunts and stalks, searching for what he needs. Every now and then he looks for the raven that had also long vanished with Straia. A useful gift, can still feel the pricking of it’s talons into the flesh of his shoulder. Quite useful, he should find another one. He had also lost his immortality when he had vanished from the Chamber. It would have been useful now. Would have helped with his plans. At least he got to keep the wings. They spread now, arching at his pale sides as glowing eyes of red thoughtfully regard the magic mare. He can practically smell it off her.
He watches squirrels flee in terror as loud flashes of light burst behind them. The way she creates and destroys. Kills. Now where were you years ago my dear? ”Surely you could find a more productive use for that talent?” Iris’s darken with his hunger to understand her magic. As much as he wishes he could open her up and discover the source of her power, he knows his limitations. Her magic is far more infinite and destructive then he can take on. Curiosity must be abated, she is far more useful alive anyways when she can do the things she can do. ”I have a proposition for you.”
She watches with bored amusement as the things she creates somersaults through the air and terrorizes the creatures in the trees, in the hedges. At first it was satisfying - raking your nails on a chalkboard, intentionally leaving dirty clothes outside the hamper - but it's not enough. It's never enough to satiate the thrum of restless magic that rattles her bones. It comes from a long line of impossible creatures - her mother, a treasured Amazonian. Her twin, a queen. Her father, the devil. All with such lofty expectations and Harmonia? She cares only for ruin.
Ruin ruin ruin.
It takes little to see the boy has the same look in his eyes. Narrowed, red, reckless, wanting to feel the same pulsating sense of emptiness between her fingers. While she didn't miss Pangea she did miss Belgrath and Pollock and all those other insufferable things that paraded around, longing for much the same. A land of misfits that did not want to be left alone. Pollock envisioned something so sinister Beqanna sought to wipe it from existence.
Another strike against the fairies for Harmonia.
"Is your proposition a more productive use for me?" she asked, eyeing him carefully. She looked like nothing, all of 14 hands and with no muscle tone to speak of, but she is not stupid. She's long since dropped her mask of infantile delights and replaced it with the real Harmonia - distant, cold, calculating.
Harmonia
kids sure like the devil these days and i’m the devil with a black dress on
See that was the problem with this place these days. It lacked structure, it’s people searched for purpose. Some went mad with the magic that thrummed in it’s blood, finding no good use for it. Unable to displace it, it festered and grew. Becomes reckless and wild. It could be useful once harnessed. He had always loved to coax those sorts into releasing what they held so tightly, give them a small taste, and then teach them to reel it back. Helped with the imagination. Don’t use it all at once, don’t waste it. Let it grow and blossom and bloom into a far more sinister finish that you never dreamed could be created.
As much as he so passionately wants to take his ideas from paper to reality, he understands that patience is key. So while his own body aches with restlessness, he bides his time. Collecting, watching, and putting the pieces in place.
They are not so different, she and him. Both on the smaller side, both giving a rather misleading first impression when there was so much lurking beneath their surfaces. A faint smile traces his lips as she speaks and he closes the gap between them. ”Yes. But one that benefits us both.” He pauses, considering her. The key, he has found, is discovering one’s true desire. They all had them, even him.
”I simply wish to give you a little direction but I would never wish to curb your creativity.” A single hoof dragging at the dirt before him as his tail flicks lightly against his hocks. ”You see I lack magic. Unfortunate but a reality. I could use your… help. I’d like to create a new brighter future. I think we may share the same vision.” Perhaps he was wrong but he doesn’t think so. He has a knack for finding like minded individuals and he’s positive that she’s one of them.
A brighter future.
"How many will be blind, with this bright new future?" she asks, drawing out the last few words intentionally. She punctuates each with a flick of her tail, a toss of her head, anything to accent her intention. Of course he lacks magic, he would have contributed to this conversation more than some mewling thoughts if he'd a horse in the race. Instead he watches her with those impassive red eyes (she is reminded of her only useful son, Covet, with his orange eyes) and waits.
"I hope a whole lot of them," she adds, a way to signal her agreement. Yes, she'd take part in whatever triumphant return this horse hoped to bring. What glory would he seek! What trails would he blaze! She laughs at this internally, missing her previous mask of a simpleton, it'd be easier to giggle her way through life and pick apart his brain.
She could, she supposes, dig through the useless marrow on his head and find out his plan.
A true magician that's been around as long as Harmonia has long since grown bored of these things. She'd rather wait until Christmas to open her present.
Harmonia
kids sure like the devil these days and i’m the devil with a black dress on
”As many as it takes.” Comes his cold reply. She’s odd, perhaps a bit mad. He trusts her as far as he can throw her and expects she probably feels the same. It doesn’t bother him, there are endless possibilities before them. For now, they each have something the other wants… Dare say needs. A mutual gain can easily soften the edges of an uneasy pact.
She is of little words and it’s rather a refreshing change. No boring threats, no need to puff one’s chest out and strut around. She knows what she can do, doesn't go about on a pissing contest that she would have won anyways. How civilized. It perfectly fits his vision, he intends on having a bit more “class” when it came to sadistic pleasures.
”Much has changed since I’ve been gone.” He finally admits. Knowledge is key, there are things he needs to know before they can go forward. ”What can you tell me?” A pause. ”Who is weak?” He still doesn’t know her name, this enigma he’s signed a deal with, but it’s such a trivial thing. He doesn’t care who she is as long as she can help him get what he wants.
She still remembers the way the land tilted and spit them all out on that godforsaken mountain and the way it felt to be powerless. Magicless. A dead thing with an empty inside. If Harmonia wasn't mad before it drove the final nail. To be born with such power flowing through your veins and then? Nothing.
A flatline.
She considers his words, then - who is weak. They all are. "The Fairies changed it all with one wave of their hands," she remarked, rolling her shoulders in a shrug. "Everyone scrambled for purchase and made their kingdoms just like the old days. There are new ones - Loess and Hyaline - still babies. But," she considers this, "They were strong to survive where others sunk into the sea." She thinks then of Pangea, eaten. Swallowed whole.
"Tephra is the most active, the most impenetrable. Nerine is where the new Amazons are," she laughs at this, as though it is a joke. It is, isn't it? What are the Amazons without their jungle?
"The rest, though..." she shrugs again, another roll of her shoulders. "They can be ruled. Or broken. Or both."
Harmonia
kids sure like the devil these days and i’m the devil with a black dress on
It may be cliche but there is only one habitat he could be comfortable in. It’s where they stand now, dark and cool. He rather misses the mists and shadows of the Chamber. Pity it hadn’t survived, he could have made it fertile again. Jungles will not meet his needs, humidity and sweat might prove useful to making one break but not in the way he wishes. Same with sunny beaches and volcanic ash would make one’s nostrils sting, make it hard to think. No… He wants cool, calm, collected. A place where one’s screams can be smothered and shadows play freely.
It’s interesting how easily the fairies had changed their world and more impressive how quickly everyone had rushed to rebuild. Impressive but foolish. Too quick, it makes for unsteady foundations. One blow could knock the whole house over.
”Which one would you like to break first?” He asks quietly, red eyes flickering, smoldering. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, ladies go first.
She does what any good magician does - she manipulates.
Playing with the mind is less interesting for her than for other horses, but she'll play ball from time to time. Now it serves their purpose - secrecy in an open field where any horse wandering might catch wind of their name. In the days of bastard, mutated magic supersonic hearing wasn't entirely unthinkable. Harmonia also knew she wasn't the biggest magician in the bunch, let alone the only one.
So, she peels into his mind.
He'll see the land she's imaging in his head, blown up in real life. He'll look side to side and see others bowing to him, the king, the leader. This is not a fallacy, Harmonia has never wanted fame or leadership. Being a king, a queen, a whatever is less interesting to her than being a weapon. It's all she ever wanted. She bends perception to show him his new land with his loyal followers, with his power, with a crown resting on his head and raising him higher and higher above the land.
The name of the land whispers across her lips and into his mind.
When the Forest returns to focus it's just Harmonia's wicked, cheshire grin.
"That one."
Harmonia
kids sure like the devil these days and i’m the devil with a black dress on
The images that flit through his mind like a flip book are nice but lacking in substance. He doesn’t mind the invasion, he rather embraces it. The ghost looks amused at what she plays before him. It’s a nice scene but she’s gotten one thing wrong. She’s either underestimated him or assumed he was just another kingdom hungry man. To be fair, the power was needed to go forward with what he wanted and a crown is the easiest way to do so. There had been no assumptions in going about it any other way. However he doesn’t want their respect (though he will play the game and gain it if needed). How many rulers had he stood beside, how many had he coaxed and whispered suggestions softly in their ears? Too long had he played the right hand man when he should have been given the freedom to execute what they had all desired. Organized chaos. Such a complex thing to raise and create. Dangerous if left to fester too long.
Smoldering iris’s look into hers and he merely dips his muzzle slightly. An invitation much like he had given Deimos. She was already in his mind, might as well look through it. Let her see where she had gotten him wrong, what he really wanted. The lab, the white coats. Everything else he had dreamed up was a means to a specific end. One that would keep the follows happy and himself amused. The power he wants is only to explore into a much deeper matter. Most would call him a madman, they probably weren’t wrong.
His thoughts linger though on one thing, continue to do so even if she is rifling through his head. The name of a land she hadn’t mentioned before, the one she wickedly suggests. Oh it fits exactly what he wants, what he has envisioned. No other place will do. A pleased grin can't help but crawl it's way across pale lips. He wants it and he will have it.
Gryffen
- - - - -
The Big Bad Wolf
Figure you'll PM me when BTS things are figured out? haha
