"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
11-10-2017, 02:36 PM (This post was last modified: 11-10-2017, 09:38 PM by Jah-Lilah.)
Jah-Lilah
Childhood living is easy to do, the things that you wanted, I got them for you.
The red mare opens her eyes, looking around. She is shrouded in darkness, and the moon is still high in the sky. She still has hours before dawn. With a great sigh and a grunt she shifts from her side to her stomach, tucking her legs beneath her. For all the warmth and glory in the heart of the island, there is a chill in her bed again tonight. She is alone. It is a new, profound sense of loneliness that overcomes her nowadays, emotions certainly brought on by her ramped up hormones. The knowledge that she feels this way because of her pregnancy does nothing in the way of comforting the dull ache in her heart. She misses her family, she misses her lovers. It feels like ages since she's been wrapped in the warm embrace of her water goddess, and she can't remember the last time Circinae quelled the flames in her loins. The ache is becoming less and less easy to ignore.
With a surge of power that resonates outward from her skin, she rises to her feet. Her belly seems to grow by the day as she nurtures the seed inside of her, and it's beginning to make her feel awkward and ungainly. She steadies herself, then snorts. Is she being silly? Is she being selfish? My firefly can't help but second guess herself. Her mate was off, coming into her own. @[Circinae] wore the keeper title so well, wore it so proudly, and the sea-foam mare was doing a smashing job at everything. Jah-Lilah had never doubted her, only longed for her. It was becoming harder and harder for her to keep her mind occupied, even with the plethora of visitors they had had since arriving in their new domicile. All part of the job, she supposed.
Dark hooves take her out of her thicket, onto the beach she loves so much. The waves crash gently upon the shore, and she wanders close enough to allow water to lap at her feet. A part of her water traversing lover, she imagines. Her eyes wander out onto the shoreline, and for her a moment her breath catches in her throat, fooled by her own creative mind. She had thought she'd seen her busybody out there, parting the water, but alas, she was wrong. Disappointment again washes over her. Turning to her barrel, she coos and kisses, rubbing her nose on the babe inside, then carries on. When she finds an inlet that calls to her particularly loudly, she traipses out to the end of the sandbar. Her eyes are closed, her head is raised and she just feels. She draws a breath in and leans back on her haunches, sitting down the way a dog would. My flower-child is mimicking what she's seen, trying to create a connection where there is none, trying to be like the wolves. Her nose in the air, her face to the moon, she attempts her best howl that a horse can do, as awkward and ugly as can be. My girl is not self-conscious, not pressed about anything else, she pours all her sorrows into that noise, and cries deep into the night.
Graceless lady, you know who I am, you know I can't let you slide through my hands.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
Circinae had been meaning to see her.
The new Keeper had been meaning to do a plethora of things, but the recent visit from Amet and Solace, coupled with her journey to Loess, had left her on stranger shores. Change came swiftly to Beqanna and when it did, it was always a struggle to not be swept into the current of danger. The last tsunami had been Taiga’s fall, an event that had left her disillusioned in her choice of a mentor and simultaneously invigorated by new tactics given to her by Gryffen.
Circinae had since then been a sharp believer in observation to gain understanding, and that (above all else) had been her guiding key to unlocking trust and admiration in others. Majority of those she had a chance to converse with ended up seeing reason above all else, even if it went against their personal standards. Most just needed someone to listen. The rest are cast in between. “Except Ivar.” The pied mare muses quietly to herself, thinking of the new Loessian face with a hint of irritation in her otherwise cluttered mind.
His attitude and her need to be one step ahead had driven her to the shoreline for contemplation, only she finds there’ll be no quiet brooding in store tonight. Not when the gurgle of a mangled bray strikes out against the peaceful solitude of Ischia’s starry backdrop. Stopping in her leisurely walk, Circinae shakes a darkly-framed head in loving mirth at the noise. She’d know it’s owner anywhere, in fact she finds it humorous simply because she knows no other equine would attempt such a call.
But that’s her Jah; always has been, always will be.
She goes from standing to flying, the navy banner of her mane and tail streaking behind her as she rolls unencumbered over the dunes. In some ways the feeling has her suspended in deja vu - all she had to do was close her eyes; then she’d be transported back to childhood, where the burning sands of her home were the ocean. Her mouth tilts skyward, freeing the low-hanging note of her kind in a drawn out ‘OOOOoooooo’ that will respond in likeness to the longing she can hear in her Flame-and-Spark’s heartsong.
Though they speak a different language, the meaning is never lost. Circinae crashes through the glowing waves, driven by the ardor of seeing the silver outline of her lover illuminated with a heavenly glow. She won’t stop until she’s come alongside the sitting mare, until she casts a jaded neck into the tangle of a red one and fills her senses with the acrid smoke of her holy wytch. “I'm here, my Heart.” She murmurs, slogging through the shallow sandbar to press a fiery kiss to Jah’s waiting cheek.
Groaning as she rises, heart heavy with sorrow, she peers around at her swollen belly. Distended and sore, it is still beautiful. A cold winter raged all around, but Ischia has been good to her and her foal. Despite slim pickings everywhere else, she has grown fat, her coat grown shiny, her tangled mane long and flowing. Jah-Lilah has never felt closer to the Earth-Mother than she has the last ten months. The closer she grows to her Goddess though, the farther she drifts from her emerald lover. For a moment she thinks she hears feet behind her, but knows it's nothing but another mirage.
My red mare would never admit it to anyone, not even herself, but she is rendered terrified by the impending arrival of her offspring. A cold fear seeps into her as she wonders can she do this, raise a babe. How will she know if she's doing the right things, teaching the right lessons? How will she instill the right values and the knowledge necessary to grow and flourish in life? How can she do this, motherhood? It is so easy for her to guide others, to be the serenity in the storm for those around her. Who will be there to center her? Eyes closed, she allows herself to be bathed in moonlight, to soak it into her, to draw strength from it.
All the things swirling around her, she would give them all up to just be close to her family again. The three of them had been so close at one point, inseparable even, now she barely saw the sea-foam female. In her heart she knew that her Wolf's absence was for the good of their tribe, but her love was an emotional creature, caught up in feelings of envy, it was unsettling to her. A certain uneasiness was attempting to make itself at home within her mind, she did her best to fight it off.
Suddenly through the night air a sound reaches her ears, and her jade eyes snap open. Her head whips around as she strains to confirm what she thinks she's hearing. A lupine sound, howling in the cool night. Rotating around, she moves to meet the noise head on, and then she sees her, @[Circinae]. As feminine and gorgeous as ever, the two-toned girl crosses beach and water to meet my firefly. An emerald nose along her cheek, then tucked into the softness of Jah-Lilah's neck, and abruptly they are one again. Entangled together, they hold each other, relishing in the long-lost touch. Breathless from the effort of awkwardly standing up, the mare grins and nibbles along her partner's shoulder, cooing and wuffling softly.
"It's been so long, Wolf-of-the-Water, I've missed this more than you know..."
I watched you suffer, a dull, aching pain, now you've decided to show me the same.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
First Canaan and now Jah-Lilah.
Has she missed some cataclysmic event? Was there a time where she went wrong when she should have gone right? It seems odd to her that Canaan feels her slipping, he’s always been a free-spirited individual and she’s done her best to respect that. Jah-Lilah too has spent hours out on her own agendas (was she not a healer in her own right, traveling to do good works?) but Circinae has never come to the conclusion that she and her flame lover might be growing apart.
Suddenly, she feels a cleaving of herself from them - Canaan and Jah-Lilah. They mourn for her loss and she can’t understand why. “I’ve missed you too, busy bee.” She offers, taking to the grooming with equal enthusiasm returned. Only when her soft nose brushes along the tight curve of her dark belly, when she feels the flutter of movement beneath her mouth, only then does she pause.
“Busy indeed.” She coos, turning a wicked and knowing eye to the silver-lined dame. “Were you ever going to tell me?” She asks, unable to keep the edge out of her tone with the thought (I haven’t been keeping things from you, I still trust you.) All the same, she exhales and drapes a short neck over the rise of Jah’s withers. “It doesn’t matter; I’m happy for you. For us.” She cements, pulling the mare closer, tighter in the starry dark.
A thrill of fear shoots through her veins. “Is there something wrong, with you and Canaan? Have I done something terrible?” She asks, all the while her mind is turning gear after gear, (I gave you a home, I gave you my heart, I gave you a kingdom.) There’s a mixture of concern and anger, a fine line of why? and what the fuck? she tries hard to maintain control over.
“All I ever wanted you two have given me, time and time again. Have I been a selfish lover, Spark-and-Flame?”
