"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
Winter has spoiled the sparse grasses near Hyaline's mountain peaks, so as much as the gilded stallion would like to remain sulking in solitude, he must head for the inner sanctum of his home once more. The trek is familiar (he knows all of Hyaline better than he knows himself), and so he is able to navigate the pathways down to the center of Hyaline with unseeing eyes. He is lost in thought, much like he has been for the last month or so, and a small frown has worked its way onto the stallion's gaunt face as an indication of the direction his thoughts have gone ─ each day, he finds more and more to worry about.
He peels his thin frame away from the treeline and moves slowly towards his favorite wisteria, who has stood day and night without him for some time now. It feels good to nestle again beneath its branches, though they are without flowering buds for the season, and gaze out over his crystalline lake again.
Amet sighs contentedly and takes a moment to appreciate the view and forget his worries. He has much to be happy about ─ his plans for Solace, his friendships with Offspring, Circinae, and Jah-Lilah, his home. The AKhal-Teke stallion wills these thoughts to overtake all of the negative he has been feeling as of late and truly relaxes for the first time since Ciri's departure.
When Keeper appears from the treeline, Amet calls to her almost immediately. He had not seen the dunskin lady in some time and he wonders if it has seemed as though he was neglecting her. "Keeper," he says warmly as his long legs carry him into the sunlight, where his scales seem unusually dull beneath the sunlight, "It's been far too long since I caught up with you. How have you been? Are you enjoying Hyaline?"
Keeper keeps waking up in a cave on the northern face of the mountain, stinking of bear. She still cannot explain it, but she is beginning to piece things together and realizes that ever since the quest she had partaken in, she wasn’t the same. Was, but wasn’t. As confounding as that was to her so she had thrown herself into doing what Keeper did best - build a herd, bend to that basic instinct that ruled her harder than it ruled others, and so, she kept bringing them home to Hyaline.
In the midst of that, she had somehow garnered approval from the King in the form of being allowed to remain there and even gaining a rank. Both were things that Keeper had never given much thought to. She had been an errant drifter from the time of her birth until stumbling across Hyaline’s beautiful threshold and discovering that the land had taken root in her as much as she was putting down roots in it. But since that first day she met him, she has seen him attend to the land’s affairs and those of his own heart, and she has kept her distance without knowing why.
She had not even thought to cross paths with him on this day even as she breaks from the treeline and spots him beneath what she has come to recognize as his tree, that one wisteria that he loves to linger beneath. First look he is thinner than she remembers him being, and there is an air of sadness that emanates off him but she doesn’t ask him about it - it isn’t her place, he is her king and she but a lowly subject with no true relationship to him, even as a mere confidant. Still, her mouth is quick to lapse into a familiar bright smile the moment he spots her and calls her over to him.
“Amet,” she murmurs, stretching out her nose to him. Keeper was ever that creature of touch and smell, brushing her muzzle over the tip of it in a light greeting. His scales seemed duller here beneath the sunlight that baked her hairy back. (She couldn’t be sure if her pelt had grown thicker because of the winter or in part because of something else…) But she maintains her smile in the face of how rundown he looks, and she knows it is not the kingship that has taken a toll on him - most in Hyaline knew of his allegiance to the mare-of-the-stars.
It reminded her of someone, but she pushed the thought of him back and kept on with her life, living for those few short moments they had together whenever their paths were fated to cross. Still, his name rose up in her mind like a ghost that almost translated to a murmur from her lips but she caught it in time, still smiling but also swallowing back the name that begged to be said. “Too long,” she agreed. “I like it well enough, so much in fact that I keep bringing more back with me every time I venture outside of Hyaline.” she follows up with a laugh. It is obvious he has taken note of it, given her recent inclusion into their ranks.
“Thank you for allowing me to remain and thank you for the promotion. That was not something I had counted on.” Her gratitude is honest as is the latter part of her statement that is made in part confidence because Keeper had never thought to be of service to him, let alone Hyaline. She had initially thought to drift as free as a dandelion but found that she did that regardless, and somehow had become useful and productive to them.
“What about you though, Amet?” it is the most she will ask of him and how he is doing even though it is sometimes plain to see that he is not himself. Is, but is touched by something that few of them even know about. Her black eyes rest on his bronze face, keen in their compassion. She wants him to know that she is a friend to him, that she can be trusted to be told those things that he perhaps does not tell others. If he chooses to tell it, she is there to listen and if not, she is there to just be a shoulder to lean on for something as common as a bit of shared warmth on a winter’s day.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless
@[Amet] I figured she'd know about Ciri and him by now. At least in a roundabout kind of way? lol Like oh hey, you spent all your time with her and now she's gone and you don't look well kind of thing.
