"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
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
He sleeps fitfully with Ciri by his side, woken sporadically by odd nightmares with beasts and sirens and his own hammering heart. Each time his amber eyes snap open in the middle of the cloudy Hyaline night, the young King checks on his silver-eyed companion, his gold-encrusted frame adjusting slowly on the damp shoreline to avoid waking her while he checks the muddy mixture that the flame-kissed soothsayer had painted on her tattered flesh. When finally the darkness breaks and the distant horizon swirls with pastel blues and purples, Amet presses his muzzle to Ciri's neck and gently nudges at her. "Ciri," his whispering voice tests to see if she has awoken yet before he taps tenderly against her neck again.
"Wake up, Ciri," he wills her with a tentative and dream-laced voice before he shifts his own frame away from her to stand. He's suddenly cold in the dewy Hyaline morning, uncomfortably aware of the chill now that he is no longer pressed to her feverish body. The temperature awakens him more quickly than he would have liked, though there are still sleepy cobwebs that attempt to coax his eyelids closed once more. Amet grumbles in the dawn light as his amber eyes skim the quiet lake, fighting his drowsiness while searching for any sign of the flame-kissed soothsayer that had left them hours earlier - the only indication that she had ever entered Hyaline with her electric fireflies was the muddy paste she had mixed for him to coat Ciri's wounds. The Dragon King frowns under the realization that he'd never even asked her name, but remembers her invitation for when Ciri is healthy once more. He tucks her words into his mind to mull them over later and turns his attention back to the smoky black mare who still lays prone on the shoreline.
"Wake up, sleepyhead," he lowers his golden head to nudge her again and attempts to lighten the early morning mood with a sleepy smile, "I think your friend from last night has a medicine hat hidden somewhere." His amber eyes wander over her frame where the mud has dried and cracked over her wounds before turning his gaze back to her silver, swirling eyes. "She gaze me instructions to take care of you, and I intend to follow them."
"Do you think you can make it into the lake, Ciri? We need to wash the dried mud from you before I can put the fresh stuff on it," he states matter-of-factly, curious whether or not she will object to his help.
Her dreams had been vivid and eccentric. A dark handsome stallion, half skeletal with bright eyes weaving between the nightmare of the Underneath and the history of the stars. She’s not sure who Atrox is, that is his name, it rings quietly in the night every time he appears. His heart had once been buried in the ground of a long lost kingdom, the stars show her. No longer here and yet a link.. To something. She’s not sure.
With the coolness of his scales pressed against her heated flesh, she’s able to sleep mostly peacefully. Every now and then her body shudders with nightmares, with questions she seeks, but she finds comfort is not far away. Reassured by the golden stallion, the soothing sound of his rhythmic breathing. She’s unaware if she talks in her sleep, of the words she had whispered aloud in her confusion.
The sound of birds faintly reach her, a twitch of a smokey ear as he whispers her name. It takes her a few minutes to rouse, her eyes reluctant to open. The pain was still subdued but the fever was on the verge of breaking. Waves of hot and cold coming and going. Shivering, teeth threatening to chatter, she blearily lifts her lashes to meet his warm gaze. She too takes a moment to glance around, looking for the electric woman that had appeared in the twilight. It hadn’t been a dream, she had been real. The scent of the Underneath lingering around the driftwood piled with muds and herbs.
Amet coaxes her attention back to him. A promise to look out for her, to nurse her back to health. She says nothing, torn. Not wanting to burden him, not wanting to be left alone. ”You’re the most loyal friend I’ve ever had.” Quiet words, raw and meaningful. Not that she ever really had a friend before but it doesn’t make the statement less true. Nodding slightly in response to moving towards the lake. Slowly, painfully, she places her forelegs beneath her. Hooves bracing in the mud. It takes her a few minutes, using him as support, before she finally stands. Her body trembles violently, the cold reaching into her bones.
”I’m ready.” Stuttered through chattering teeth but there’s a hard resilience in the swirling silver, moving more quickly then it had last night. Determination on her furrowed brow.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
Amet watches the brightening horizon patiently, but keeps an ear twisted to the side in case Ciri should begin to stir. Hyaline is peaceful in the early dawn, quiet except for the awakening birds and cozy within the circle of trees that impede on the crystalline water. He smiles wistfully at the scenery before them that has unfolded in the dawn - hazy fog drifts over the warm lake waters, and the only damage left from the Lost Boys attack is his sad, charred wisteria tree that stands erect and gray by the eastern side of the lake.
The Dragon King's gaze lingers on his favorite wisteria before Ciri finally stirs behind him. He's quick to react, pivoting his gilded frame to face the smoky black mare with a smile and his sleepyhead prompt. The space between them disappears and he reaches for the shivering mare as her bleary, unfocused eyes search for the red wytch from the night before. "She left," he offers kindly, "but she asked for us to find her when you are well." The electric mare's words about the Wolf of the Water drift through the Akhal-Teke's head, a riddle to be solved later on. For now, his gaze and thoughts remain on Ciri, who has turned her own silver eyes to him with a look that makes him think she wants to tell him something.
"What is it?"" he inquires gingerly, his voice full of curiosity.
You're the most loyal friend I've ever had.
He could have missed the words if he hadn't still been standing over her with his muzzle pressed to her shivering frame. His heart swells and he couldn't have hidden his proud smile even if he had tried, "That's a title I'm determined to uphold," he quips back to Ciri before he lets her concentration turn back to standing on shaky legs. He offers his leather-plated frame for support, gently leaning into the smoky black mare until she is able to find her footing on the wet shoreline. Her body quakes and Amet frowns, doing his best to slowly lead her into the warm waters of Hyaline's lake.
Only stopping when the water laps at the middle of his chest, the Dragon King pivots in the depths and dips his own muzzle into the water. When he pulls it back up again and extends his neck towards Ciri, his amber eyes watch her tentatively. "I'm going to wash the mud off now," he whispers in warning, "Tell me if you need me to stop... if it starts to hurt too much." And then slowly, methodically, the young King works to uncover her wounds from beneath the red wytch's ointment.
”We must find her again.” She manages to say quietly. ”Either to thank her or you’ll be going by yourself to avenge me.” An attempt at her old harsh humor, trying to make light of everything that had happened recently. With the solidifying of their unusual friendship, breathing in his proud smile like an elixir, she allows his help into the lake. Wobbling on her legs like a newborn spindly babe. The water hits her and she inhales sharply, not prepared for it. Warmer then it should be but the fever chills have grown. The liquid laps gently against her sides as they make their way further into it’s depths.
Slowly the wounds are uncovered, still angry and raw from severed skin. The mud has pulled out the toxins, the nasty puss and infection. While she bleeds freely once more, copper tang heavy in the air as it drips down and ripples the surface of the lake, the wounds are pink and fresh at their core. The mare’s magic had worked, having removed the slow killer with her home remedy balm. Her body is sore with the steady work as he cleanses out each one but she is patient. Jawline tense as she clenches her teeth, her flesh shivering from the internal chill. Bracing herself with each renewed stabbing pain. Not once does she cry out, instead her silvery gaze remains steady on the opposite end of the lake. Her chattering teeth grabbing at the base of his mane (his scales too slick) when she almost topples over, wondering if he can feel the vibrations.
As he works, her gaze wanders to find something that may distract her. The burned wisteria, charred remains of it’s former glory, catches her attention. ”W…W.What happened over there?” She manages to ask past clacking teeth, grimacing as he peels away the crusted layer of mud along the long slashes of the siren’s mark upon her shoulder.
09-11-2017, 10:06 PM (This post was last modified: 09-12-2017, 04:18 PM by Amet.)
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
"That's not funny," Amet offers quickly in response to the mare's comment regarding the potential need to avenge her death, but his words are bolstered with unconstrained laughter that contradicts his terse statement. He's impressed with Ciri's ability to share humor with him while he assists her into the lake to cleanse her wounds - there had been a time that the Akhal-Teke would try to lift the spirits of his younger siblings following a particularly brutal encounter with Him, though none of the trio had been very apt to appreciate humor while they lived in the Dunes. They've all changed so much since then, and Amet has come to find that comic relief can be just the thing to make someone's worries seem less daunting.
The gilded King can't remember the last time he'd been swimming in the lake. Surely it had been before the Lost Boys attack, which had left the water basin gray with ash and putrid with the scent of boiled fish carcasses, and that had been just over a year ago now. He revels in the warmth of it (thankful that the water is clean and inviting once more) and in the way his sleek, plated frame slips through almost soundlessly. Rivulets fall from Amet's muzzle as he reaches for Ciri and washes her torn flesh gently. His nostrils flare instinctively to inhale the scents of the lake water and the smoky black mare that intermingle, no longer marred by the smell of a festering wound. The skin beneath the red wytch's ointment is pink and tender, though it looks much better than when he'd first encountered the silver-eyed mare on the shoreline, and the realization coaxes a small smile from the Dragon King.
Cleansing the paste from Ciri's smoky black coat proves to be arduous, and even more so when he has to compete with the chills that wrack her entire frame, but Amet works methodically and unhurried, offering the mare a steady shoulder whenever her legs threaten to give out. He finally begins to coax the mud from her most gruesome injury, the one that ravaged the skin and muscle at her shoulder, lost in concentration until Ciri's voice breaks the silence.
He stills, his damp muzzle still tucked against her shoulder, his eyes hesitant to move in the direction she is facing. He knows even before he turns that she's gazing upon his sad wisteria tree, the one that had offered him shelter and shade beneath its magnificent purple boughs for the first year he and Iset had lived in Hyaline; the one that stood like a silent and peaceful sentinel lakeside, where he could watch the residents of his home mingle, and where they could always look to find him.
"Hyaline was attacked during Autumn of last year," he says finally, as he returns to his work at her shoulder, "A group of intruders came in the middle of the night and burned all of the forest to the east. They ripped up the earth, toppled trees…" he pauses to inspect the flesh he'd revealed from beneath the muddy paste, "they boiled the lake until all of the fish died. Most of it has regrown, except my favorite tree." The young stallion works to keep the bitterness from his voice as his amber gaze turns to linger on the charred topiary.
"Come," he says quietly as his gaze returns to Ciri, warm and friendly, "it's time to put more of the paste on you. Use me for support, please, if you need to…"
Everything about Amet is soothing, warm, kind. The thought of him undergoing any harshness can’t cross her mind. Instead she imagines he must have been raised in a wonderful place with a wonderful family. How wrong she would be. He is steady and patient, working methodically over her body. Her gaze lingers on the charred wisteria and she can feel him tense beside her, as he suddenly becomes still. Curious, she turns her head. The silver strands moving slowly, searching him. Almost reluctantly he looks at the tree, knowing exactly what she was asking.
Confusion mars her complexion as she looks back at the tree, noticing the faint scorch marks that still remain. The thought of this peaceful place on fire is hard to imagine. Looking down at the calm waters, seeing the corpses of fish floating at it’s top… gone…wasted…Making her sad. ”Why would anyone want to attack this place?” She whispers softly.
It dawns on her that she could have washed up anywhere, in any kingdom. Hyaline could have been filled with people who would have harmed her, kill her. Instead she ended up here. With him. It has never been doubted that this was a good place, that he was good King who cared more about others then himself. With a soft frown that tugs at her soft lips, she looks back to the tree. It obviously hurts him, a painful reminder. As he leads her from the water, she glances back at it once more. Perhaps she could find a way to restore the wisteria. It would be the least she could do.
”Amet…” She asks softly, her legs folding quickly beneath her as she sinks back to the shoreline. Already exhausted from the brief movement to and from the lake. ”I want to know more about you.” Sterling gaze finding his, there are some things the stars could not show her in dreams. Some things that needed to be discovered for themselves. The soft slope of her curved ears swiveling forward to catch his words, settling in as she prepares for the next step in the healing process. She had all the time in the world to listen to him.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
Amet wouldn't know what to do with himself if he didn't have others to care for or look after. Even before he had been a year old, the gangly light bay colt had watched after his mother's well-being while they traveled from one civilization to the next. He'd never known his father, nor had she ever mentioned him (she had met with him one other time, when Iset and Sakir had been conceived, but even then she had snuck away into the darkness without Amet), so it had just been the two of them until Shalla's pregnancy had forced her to find a more permanent home. When mother and son settled into the Dunes with an invitation from Him, it was only a short while before Shalla had traded Amet's autonomy and welfare in exchange for the throne beside the Dunes' King.
He had been vicious and mean-tempered. Hehad pushed Shalla away until the love in her eyes for her son was gone, replaced by indifference. And then the twins... Iset and Sakir, the keepers of Amet's heart, born into the trauma and pain with never a chance to experience anything better. The young boy had cared for them, too, when their mother wouldn't. Iset hadn't ever been accepting of his help; she'd preferred to fight with any sort of authority, including His, and now her scars still serve as painful memories of the past. Amet had been closer to Sakir, the compassionate boy that kept he and Iset from fighting with each other when the real priority was survival.
When the two-year-old had escaped from the Dunes in the middle of the night, he hadn't been prepared to care for the twins on his own when he wasn't even sure he could maintain his own safety. He had abandoned them (You need to forgive that boy, Tang had told him), and that had been the only time in his young life that he hadn't had anyone to care for but himself. Iset had followed Amet weeks later and Sakir had followed Iset, bringing their familiar dynamic to Beqanna and leaving the Dunes behind. The young King hadn't ever considered claiming a territory or caring for a herd, but sometime between then and now he had realized that being a caretaker comes naturally to him.
"And why would anyone want to attack you?" he asks Ciri sadly, answering her question with his own as he thinks of the story the soothsayer had spun for him the night before. The Underneath had sounded awfully terrifying and the tale had made his heart ache for the two women, and for the others who had succumbed to its terrors. Never once did he doubt or question what the red wytch had said - Beqanna is, above all else, a place of great mystery, and Amet is simply glad that the wounded Ciri had found her way to him and Hyaline. "It was a child's game," he says finally of the dangerous transgression, "they wanted to stir up some trouble, and it ended up out of hand."
He tries not to think of Iset or the shame in her young eyes when she'd come to him and confessed her involvement; he tries not to think of the harsh things he'd said to her, or the way they'd driven his sister from Hyaline. A frown beleaguers the stallion's usually happy-go-lucky expression as the pair moves slowly from the warm waters and back to the shore, where Ciri rests her smoky black frame once again. The Dragon King takes a quick moment to be sure that she's found a dry, grassy spot to rest, as opposed to the damp area upon which he had first discovered her before pushing the driftwood and its muddy paste gingerly closer to her.
Ciri whispers his name, drawing another small smile across the gilded stallion's face. His amber gaze meets her silver one and he nods almost hesitantly before beginning his work with the paste on her wounds. "Tell me what you'd like to know. I promise to be mostly truthful," he adds with renewed playfulness in his voice.
Despite his warmth and the way he dotes on her, there is an air of sadness about him. Something that the swirling silver can barely detect in the depths of his amber eyes. It makes her curious, biting at the corner of her lip slightly as she ponders. As he redirects the question back to her, she gives a soft flare of her nostrils as she snorts. Realizing he had a point. Still she can’t keep the flicker of fire from her metallic gaze as he explains the culprits of Hyaline’s attack. ”Children or not, they should have known better.” She grumbles quietly. In the Underneath, monsters roamed freely. It made sense that she had been attacked. But not here. Not by hooligan teenagers of all things. ”What child would see that as a game?” Musing out loud to herself as her shining gaze rests once more on the withered remains across the lake.
There is hesitance about him even as he offers her a smile, a guarded look about his face. Her muzzle brushes gently against his before quickly pulling back, tucking it to her muddied chest. ”Mostly?” She teases but deep down she understands. There were somethings that were better left held close to your heart. ”Anything you want to share so I can know you better. And I’ll do the same in return.” The mud is cool against her sliced skin as he continues his work and although it originally stings, sometimes making her gasp with a sharp hiss between her teeth, it ends in a pleasant tingle.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
There's fire in Ciri's silvery eye that distracts him from the severity of what had happened to Hyaline and instead coaxes him to think about the way her lips curl gently in her frown. His eyes linger for a moment, his own mouth drawn into an amused smirk. "I agree," Amet says with quiet laughter, willing his thoughts not to turn back to Iset or the damage that had been caused.
Ciri's touch is unexpected, leaving the gilded stallion frozen for a fraction of a second. His eyes search hers, watch the way she sheepishly brings her maw back to her chest, before returning to his task with an elevated heart rate. Amet had grown fond of her during her short stint in Hyaline, but it had never crossed his mind that maybe she would see him as more than just a king ruler doing what was right. "Yes, mostly," he responds with a playful wink as he draws the muddy paste over Ciri's dark frame.
"I came to Beqanna when I was two. My younger siblings, Iset and Sakir, followed after me," he says easily, fondness for them evident in his voice, "They're twins. And they're a handful." Iset more so than Sakir, but those are details for another day. He moves to the wide gouge at her shoulder and gently coats it with the healing paste, pausing uncertainly when she inhales sharply. "Sorry," he whispers apologetically before continuing swiftly so he could end her suffering as quickly as possible.
"I arrived here just as the Fairy granted Beqanna more herd lands, so Hyaline has been my home ever since. My end goal is to create a sanctuary-type place for the island's young horses," he gives her a sheepish shrug as he takes a step back to admire his work, though admittedly the added space between them makes him pine to touch her again. "It's been difficult, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'd rather be here than anywhere else. Back in the Dunes, where I'm from... my mother is Queen, but not a kind one."
He sighs quietly, trying to keep the pleasantness on his face as his thoughts turn to the Dunes. "And her partner is worse." Amet lowers himself to the grassy earth beside Ciri and gives her another nudge on her cheek. "Your turn, my dear. Tell me everything."
It had only been a few days (a week, maybe a few?) since she had arrived in Hyaline. Time blurred together since she had been spit out of the lake and she had only spent a short time with the golden dragon King. However, it felt like forever. The ease they had fallen into such companionship despite the awkward circumstances, bonding over her pain. She had not felt such care since the limited amount of time she had spent with her mother. She had been separated from her before she had even been a year old. It hadn't put her at a disadvantage, the stars had always been watching. Perhaps even intervening if needed.
Her metallic gaze is almost serene as she watches him work. Already her fever is abating, the medicine paste working it’s magic. Quietly her silver iris’s trace the pattern of his neck to his cheek, watching the determined line of his lips as they press together in concentration. She had never been put off by his unique scaling, finding it only made him more special then he already was. She had seen so much in her short life, a stallion of scales fell far on her list of surprises.
While the few of her acquaintances had usually been male, she had never allowed herself to get truly close to any of them. She had never truly had someone to call a friend. It’s a warmth that fills her chest like a hot shot of whisky. Soothing and pleasant, curling in her breast. When she touches him though, just the softest brush of contact, she can swear there’s some sort of jolt that she's never felt before. It’s a new experience, confusing. Not sure exactly what that feeling was or meant. It only heightens that pleasant sensation, time spent stuck on the shore went by so quickly when he was around.
He speaks of his sibling’s with obvious affection and she feeds off his emotion, the swirling of her silver iris’s conveying her wonder. As far as she knew, she was an only child. She had never known what it was like to bicker with a sibling, to look out for them, to have that confidante to share secrets with. It’s easier to grit through the pain when she is able to focus on something else, so she remains focused on his words even as the wound on her shoulder surges with a stinging sensation. She closes her eyes to better focus, wondering what it would be like to live somewhere else. Beqanna was all she had ever really known. Wherever she had traveled in her absence had not been far, just somewhere on the outskirts of the lands. Luckily she had been in them when the Reckoning had broken and remade itself, considering it was a land now surrounded by ocean.
He finishes his brief history and she’s left with more questions then answers. There’s something in the tone of his voice that keeps her from prying further. Realizing that he had escaped from his homeland, that this was a better life. The stars are alight in the core of her pupils, realizing that he hadn’t just made Hyaline a sanctuary for children. He had also created a sanctuary for himself.
”There’s not much to tell.” She admits with soft laughter, bright and airy like the stars she calls home. He has finished his work, now it was time for the sun to do the rest as it dried along her skin. ”Let’s see… I was born in the Dale. I lived there for a short time with my mother. I never met my dad.” Pausing as she considers, only vaguely remembering the face of Atrox but still unable to put two and two together. The vision unimportant she thinks. ”My mother and I were separated before I became a yearling.” She hadn’t seen her since. ”Since then I’ve mostly wandered. I don’t have a home or anything.. I’ve always just… Drifted?” She raises a brow, realizing that her tale must pale in comparison to his own. ”I’ve just tried to do right by others really, help those that can’t help themselves I guess. Just seems like the only path to follow for the past few years.”
Her path had just happened and she has been easy going enough to follow it good-naturedly. It had helped develop her sense of right and wrong, to understand the gray matter in between. Between helping a lost child find it’s way home in dangerous woods, fighting off predators, to protecting a mare being bullied by a too confident stallion. The stories were small and insignificant, but many. ”Then I fell into the Underneath. Now I’m here.” She smiles slightly at him, the insecurity of her situation darkening her spirits.
Soon she would be better and he had a life of his own. A kingdom to run, perhaps a family to take care of. It’s with a flush of guilt she realizes just how much of his precious time she has taken. ”Once I’m better of course, I’m sure I’ll pick up where I left off.” Her smile now hesitant, not quite meeting his eye and looking past him to the chilly hills. The pang in her heart making her doubt her path for the very first time.
