"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
Once, she loved rivers.
Once, she followed a girl into one, and the water splashed over her, baptismal, and maybe it was there that she fell in love with her. Maybe it was there the stars aligned, the pieces were set into motion, the great and terrible love story that matters to no one except her, because she’s who lived it. Survived it.
She could write books about what happened after the river, the years that followed of loving and leaving and wildflowers and lighting and blood and lighthouses and shipwrecks, all the fucking metaphors of their love that ended up not mattering in the end, because for all the metaphors she has not a single damn one saved her.
But she doesn’t want to write books, so we’ll shorten it: Once, she loved.
Now the sight of rivers makes bile rise in her throat, because it was by a river where she found the bones, where a heart was taken in. The river symbolizes grief, symbolizes falling to her knees, though all the wailing and gnashing of teeth had done exactly as much good as you’d expect.
(That is to say: none.)
This is not the same river, of course, this is different – everything’s different – but the sight of it sets her teeth on edge. Across her silver skin, lightning crackles, a living storm. She should turn away, go back, but she’s so sick of the sameness that she walks on, the sound of the river crashing over rocks in her ears. To most it’s a calming sound, peaceful, but to her, it sounds like derisive laughter.
(Once, slick and wet and laughing, she loved rivers. She loved the girl in the river. She loved.)
The sound of the river was calming to Jah-Lilah. Her and the river were kindred spirits. Always changing, always moving, never in the same place. She came here to cleanse herself. It was tiring, spending each day so in tune with everything. She felt down to the core of her being, felt for the trees, the grass, her fellow equine, and she was tired. Each night she came, drawn here by the white noise the rushing waters provided. It centered her, helped her shed the negative energies of the day she'd taken in. So it was that she found herself ambling towards the water's edge.
She is semi-tuned out, hooves knowing their way on their own. She takes in the scents of the various groups of friends and lovers all around her, noting each one's position. The snow silenced her steps, only making a soft crunch as she approaches. She has seen many creatures since her arrival in Beqanna, but this is the first one she's mistaken for a spirit. The silvery mare before her does everything but glow in the rising moonlight, Jah-Lilah inhales sharply. She is beautiful, but she is vexed. Jah-Lilah blows loudly, clearing the snow and debris from her nostrils, searching for the scent of this girl. The shimmering mare before her looks tense and wary. It's the river. A voice whispers in Jah-Lilah's head. Could be her intuition, could be her crazy, but the voice is right. Jah moves closer to the female, making a soft noise. She bobs her head in greeting, watching the girl curiously.
...Take what you like, but close my ears and eyes.
Sometimes she feels like a spirit; like a ghost. She’s died enough to be one, all those deaths at His proverbial hands, every bone broken and reset, skin stripped and remade. Such is the terrible power of magic that she was allowed to die and come back, over and over again.
She is haunting and haunted both, her eyes are full of ghosts. A terrible thing.
She sometimes thinks of dying – more, now – but she fought too damn hard and long to escape, to live, that even now, wracked with misery as she is, she couldn’t stomach it. She lives, even if she does not know what she lives for, for she is alone here. Spyndle is gone and her children are scattered to winds, lost to her. Not that she blames them, she was never much of a mother.
(One child left of her own accord. One taken. One lost to space and time.)
Her throat is tight as she walks the river’s side and when she hears the noise of the other mare she startles, and her lightning crackles, for a moment she is encased completely in brilliance, a star fallen.
But then she breathes – she settles – and the lightning settles back into her skin, a low crackle of electricity.
The girl is striking in her own way, and she stares at Cordis with wide eyes, and she wonders, briefly, what she must look like to an outsider. A silver woman dressed in lightning, walking the river with muscles wound tight as springs.
Haunting and haunted.
She dips her head in a slight greeting, watching her.
“Hello,” she says.
07-08-2017, 07:33 PM (This post was last modified: 07-11-2017, 10:01 AM by Jah-Lilah.)
Jah-Lilah
someday, we will foresee obstacles
I keep going to the river to pray...
This is not the first time Jah has thought she's seen ghosts. She used to sip from the lake of the moon and dream. Her visions were often terrifying, and haunted her long after she awoke. Sometimes characters from her reveries would follow her into the world of the living. She could hardly tell sometimes who was real and who was just...empty. One of the only fantasies she couldn't tolerate was when the stallion made from stars came to visit her. She despised the feelings it gave her, she didn't know how to cope. This mare jerks her back to the now with a flash like a camera.
No, not a spirit, Jah-Lilah confirms to herself, but still ethereal. Cordis fills the air with an energy, it's incredible, dynamic. No literally, this mare is snapping with electricity. It seeps from her pores and leaps from her body. She has control over it, but barely. Jah-Lilah is absolutely enraptured. What amazing beings reside here, each day a new surprise for my red wytch of a mare. Her expression changes to one of genuine inquisitiveness, venturing nearer. She is cautious in her approach, not out of fear, but out of respect for the immense power vibing off the mare. My flower-child saw Cordis nearly bolt upon her unintentional intrusion into the girl's private moment. Why does the water make her skittish? The voice asks. Jah ignores it this time. "Hale, Lightning-Has-Struck. How are you? She is quite a sight, draped in electricity, standing by the water.
She considers, as she often does, running.
She used to run much more, back when her escape was new and she had been constantly hunted by His hellhounds, their hot breaths chuffing at her heels, skittering movements in the corner of her vision. She’d run, and run, His brand burning hot on her hip.
She ran. She told Spyndle, I can’t. And left. She would leave many more times. So would Spyndle. It was a commonality between them.
(Leaving didn’t matter in the light of returning. Of the way her breath would catch when she saw her again. How she could never fully recall the beauty of her until it was before her eyes once more.)
Fear had been a constant even when she learned of her own magic, the thing that had lain dormant in her veins for so long. Her time in His lair had wired her brain to be full of fear, and this was not a thing easily undone.
But now –
Now, she does not run. She still has fear, a tumor of it that sits inside her, but her breath does not come wild, and she knows to walk, now.
So she doesn’t run. Even if the thought seems appealing. The mare means no harm, surely. And even if she does – Cordis is not afraid to harm, herself.
The woman calls her something - lighning-has-struck - and she does her best not to think of another time lightning struck.
(Will you, will you come back for me.)
“My name’s Cordis,” she says, “I’m exploring the river.”
Which is a lie of a question to how are you - to answer with an action rather than a feeling. But she is so, so sick of feeling.
“And how are you?”
07-11-2017, 09:59 AM (This post was last modified: 07-11-2017, 10:00 AM by Jah-Lilah.)
Jah-Lilah
someday, we will foresee obstacles
At most, I'm sleeping all these demons away...
This mare had come down a long and winding road. She wore her story like a coat. She was scared, flighty, nervous, despite the great power she had. Instantly Jah-Lilah's heart hurt for her. Upon closer inspection, there was a mark upon her rump, a deep burn. A brand? Jah-Lilah recoiled internally, she knew the pain that it entailed. She shook her head and snorted, trying to shake her own memories away. Jah-Lilah had felt fire long ago. Her travels had took her through a series of cliffs, where unbeknownst to her, a dragon still lived. A whole can of them, actually. They had been red, so red they made rubies pale in comparison. They were not nearly as aggressive as she had heard, with the exception of their Queen. Jah and her small band of companions had stumbled upon her nest, complete with hatchlings. My redbone knew she was only protecting her young, but it had took the better part of a year for Jah's hair to grow back and her burn to heal. No, she would never wish that pain upon anyone.
She edged closer, speaking softly. "I'm alright." She exhales, wuffing quietly. She speaks, but doesn't look at the ghostly girl. Her gaze is trained on the moving body of water. "I don't know what you're searching for, but it's not in that water. I think you know that though. What are you searching for?" Jah-Lilah asked curiously, always more obnoxious and intruding than she meant to be. She turned back to look at the mare, emerald eyes looking to meet her amber ones.
...Your ghost, the ghost of you it keeps me awake.
you give me something to think about that's not the shit in my head.
The river was nothing to him, simply a river. Maybe once upon a time it had been more. Once upon a time, it held stories. Fragments of his life that played out by the banks. When he looks at the coursing waters, it stokes nothing. Just a soothing sound, a pretty part of the landscape. Something to be admired, to sate one’s thirst. Nothing more than that. Whatever it once played in his life is gone, missing with the rest of his memories that were lost in the abyss of the afterlife.
Maybe one day he will understand the ghosts that haunt Cordis’s eyes. He had only died once, not nearly as many times as she. Sometimes once was enough. In purgatory feelings are mute, discarded. They lose meaning and shape. They are nothing, you are nothing. You watch from above and you may think you feel amusement but it’s a hollow shell of what you once felt. If he hadn't lost his memories, how they would overpower him now. Guilt and regret. Mourning for those lost and mistakes made. Joy at simply being alive again. But he doesn’t. Amnesia… Such a tricky thing.
Nerine is dull for a place filled with women. Although he won’t admit it out loud, he misses Nocturnal. She’s been keeping to herself it seems, grieving over things he can’t comprehend. He lets her go as he knows he must but he misses his only friend just the same. Lately he’s taken to spending more time in the common lands. There’s always something new, something to occupy his time or discover. It helps keep his mind off her.
Today doesn’t disappoint and brings him an interesting sight. Two mares in the river. One sparkling silver, the other with feathers tangled in the long locks of her mane. Crimson iris’s flash as his interest is sparked and he moves closer to them. His body is still ravaged from scars earned in battles he can’t remember. His body is muscular and fit, a spring of youthfulness in his step. One would never have guessed he had lived to see many things. Wars, kingdoms fall and rise. So many things. Lost in time. Muscles ripple beneath the dark mahogany of his coat, closing in on them in a matter of seconds.
The silver one seems skittish, muscles wound so tightly as if she might spring at any moment. The feathered one is watching her carefully but is much more relaxed in her body language. He pauses in his approach, keeping the distance long between them. Knowing that perhaps if he comes closer, she would bolt. He’s just as memorized by her as the calm one, he can see why she stares so curiously at the sparkling woman in the river. The feathered one is coaxing soothing words to her. He stands silent, simply observing. He would have greeted them properly, given his name, but it’s not the right time. Not when the silvery mare seems so close to flight, as if she might become one with the rapids themselves.
07-16-2017, 01:06 PM (This post was last modified: 07-16-2017, 01:07 PM by Cordis.)
She doesn’t know dragons, doesn’t need to. He had been all the monster she needed, and though He could have taken whatever form He liked, He most often kept to horse form. He hadn’t needed much to be terrifying, that was wielded in the wicked heat of His gaze, in the proverbial snap of fingers and the way pain would radiate into her very marrow.
The mare is odd, and speaks as if she knows Cordis, knows the years spent in heartache, years spent in love – years spent, spilled like coins from a purse. You know nothing, Cordis wants to snap. But she’s quiet. The mare has done nothing wrong. What are you searching for?
A loaded question.
“Nothing,” she tells her. Even if she could articulate it, she wouldn’t tell her. Such things are hers, and hers alone, to bear.
After she speaks, there is movement, a bay stallion who watches them. He keeps his distance – wisely so, she suspects – but it’s clear he’s watching them. She assesses him, sees no immediate danger – not that that means anything, of course, she of all women knows things about the dark, terrible places in one’s heart, in their desires.
“Make your choice,” she tells him. Not hello. She is not so polite. Come over, or leave.
(She used to be better. She used to smile. Now she dresses in a prison of lightning and stands solitary. A dreadful life.)
