"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
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
It almost felt like she was a stranger in her own home. Almost, but only because she keeps telling herself that Ischia had been her home before any of them had even set foot on the grounds. However, it does not help her relax. Circinae’s words had done that, and the knowledge that she wouldn’t get kicked out had been a huge relief to her, but that didn’t make the changes much easier.
On top of that, some of the new habitants caused some old memories to resurface. Before, only Kharon had been gifted with a pair of wings, though Badden – her adopted baby brother – had followed soon. The sound of ruffling wing makes her want to lean into Kharon’s hug, snuggle closer at his side as he drapes one of his wings across her back. And the sound of someone flying makes her heart jump in anticipation, only to have her realise that it is not Kharon who is descending from the sky.
Who would have thought that you could feel this lonely, while being surrounded by so much other equine. Equine she didn’t, or barely did, know.
Kylin had found her way to the north of the island, away from the sandbanks that offer the only way to enter for those who couldn’t fly. Some would be able to swim through the tide, but the sea and its current too strong for most. Kylin had always preferred to cross the water by foot, but far as she knew that was something only her family had been gifted with.
She stands alone on the white beach. A fresh spring breeze gently tugs on her mane and tail, and also carries the scents of the blossoming flowers. Ischia was beautiful, but it was the sea that surrounded the island that made it so perfect. A small smile tugs at the corners of her lips and soon after Kylin finds herself standing there where the waves roll onto the sand, soaking it. The salty smell eases her, and invites her to come closer. She does, but only a couple of steps until she’s standing knee deep into the water.
Hesitance holds her back. Never before had she swam in the sea at this side of Ischia. At the other side the water was less wild and the current less strong, the mainland was too close for it to get too dangerous. At this side was nothing. Only water as far as the eye could see. And the lavender tobiano girl doesn’t have gills to help her breath underwater. Getting caught in a too strong current could very well mean that she would drown.
She'll say it once, she'll say it twice, she'll say it a thousand times - she adores Ischia. ON days she is not recruiting, she is wandering around, socializing with other residents, making herself useful, or just enjoying the island's tropical climate. Spring in Ischia was beautiful, and it gave her a feeling she hadn't felt in what seemed like ages - the feeling of being home.
Today though, as she is soaring above her newfound home, her mind wanders to the the lavender belle she had seen just a few short months ago. She wonders where she has been hiding; she hasn't seen her around since that very first day. Seeing her here, all alone with none of her family members around, had changed Krone. It had made her think, the thought rolled over her mind almost constantly now.
The thought that maybe she wasn't alone in her pain.
An unquenchable urge to talk to the mare had consumed much of her free time. A desire to befriend her, to maybe give her some type of family, or at the very least a friend.Krone had always wanted a friend. Loneliness was constant and irrevocable, and not many could understand the hurt she kept so perfectly hidden in her heart. But for some reason, the green-pointed mare had a feeling the lavender girl would know what she was going through. Maybe they could be of some comfort to one another.
Then she sees it, that flash of light purple going somewhere Krone hadn't ventured yet. She figured now was as good a time as any to try. From her vantage point, she flies into the forest, landing delicately between the trees. She forces herself to move her suddenly heavy limbs towards where the mare had gone, and finds herself at an impasse. The current is strong, unwavering, but the mare is a decent swimmer, so she attempts it. She pushes her breast into the water, keeping her wings high above her head to avoid them getting too waterlogged. The water pushes, pulls her, bullies her the entire way, until finally she manages to crawl up from the water and onto the beach.
The lavender mare looks content to be alone, looking out towards the never-ending sea. She seems lost in her own thoughts, and Krone simply watches for a moment, wondering if she, too, looked like this when deep in concentration. She hadn't had much courage to speak with her up until this point, and now here she is, so close to the equine she sought.
Krone wants to tell her that she understood. That she grew up in the cove, with so many brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents - a whole slew of family members in a place all their own. She wants to tell her she knows how the loneliness feels, because she too doesn't know where her family had gone after the fairies stripped everything away from her. She wants her to know that she didn't move to Ischia to intrude, but because she wanted a home again. A new, fresh beginning.
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
The longer she stands in the water, indecisive if she should continue or just retreat to the beach, the higher the water starts to rise. Each wave reaches higher than the previous one, but only barely. The change of tides didn’t go that fast, though it was known to surprise the unknowing. Kylin wasn’t. She knows the water like she knows Ischia. And deep down the lavender and white woman – she was no longer just a girl – knows that it would be safer to return to the beach.
Just a little longer, she tells herself. Little by little her coat gets more and more soaked, but with Ischia’s tropical temperature the water was never cold. It’s comfortable, soothing almost, and it makes her relive the moments when Kharon draped his wing across her back to pull her in. The water wraps around her in the same way. Her fins gently move with the push and pull from the water, and for a short moment she considers continuing. To let the sea lull her, to have it erase her pain and Kylin is ready to give in.
It is a hello coming from the direction of the beach that calls her back to earth. Slowly she bends her neck, so she can glance back across her two toned shoulder. She remembers seeing the bay and green pointed mare when the group of strangers had arrived at Ischia. ”Hi” she eventually offers in return.
She needs a little longer to pull herself together, but with one last glance at the ocean she turns herself back towards the beach. With the help of her fins it’s not hard to get back to the pearly white sand, and with each step Kylin rises higher, climbing on invisible ground until she walks on top of the water. The current couldn’t bother her like this.
For a moment she studies the winged mare, and her gaze lingers a little too long on the feathered wings on the mare’s side. Then the green, which makes her wonder if she’s related to Circinae in any way. Not that it was important, Kylin was just curious. After all, she and her siblings were a direct ty to Kerberos. And from what she had been told, Father was purple like his own sire. She pushes the ache in her chest away, or at least tries to, and offers the bay mare a small smile. ”Krone, right?”
OOC: Omg, I just realise that Krone and Kylin are related xD. She is a Kirin granddaughter, making Krone her aunt!
To her relief, the stranger before her is not startled by her presence, and simply turns her head to let out a soft "hi" in the green-pointed mare's direction. Krone can see the aching in the lavender mare's eyes as she studies the mare's emerald wings (it is the own aching she assumes her own eyes reveal when she thinks of her father, or any of the family she lost). She does not push her, simply allows her a moment of time to react.
"Krone, right?" A murmur through pursed lips, and for just a moment Krone forgets that Kylin had been there when Circinae claimed Ischia as her own. The lavender mare tries to smile, and Krone offers her own grin in return.
"That'd be me," She replies, continuing to keep her distance. The bay mare doesn't want to be pushy, or come off too strong. She feels for the mare before her, and wants her to know she isn't alone. "I don't believe I caught your name though." She admits, staring at the shimmering lavender of her coat, trying to shake the uneasy feeling the comes any time Kirin crosses her mind.
@[Kylin] (sorry no HTML, they're being stubborn right now *eye roll*) I knew that lavender coat had to indicate something! How fun! I can't wait to see if that comes up soon
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
A soft breeze coming from the sea carries the signature salty scent with it. It would stick and mingle with the scents of all those who lived in Ischia, this bay and green mare in front of her wasn’t an exception. Soon Krone would smell like the sea too, like Kylin herself and all the others who were lucky to live near the sea. The smell reminded the lavender and white woman of home.
She settles not too far away from the winged mare, a comfortable distance between them without being too pushy or too far away. The wind helps her relax too, even making her coax her left hindleg into a resting position as her tail gently sways. ”I’m Kylin” she introduces herself with a nod and small smile. The meeting on the beach wasn’t one of her fondest memories, but Krone was right, Kylin had failed to introduce herself and had fled instead.
The sudden uneasiness makes her sidestep a little, only to end up back in the same place as before. Kylin doesn’t know how to deal with these feelings, or what to think of them. What if Krone – and the others – would think bad of her? She’d been pretty oblivious to Ea’s disappearance and she hadn’t been most welcoming.
The longer the silence stretches, the more restless she becomes. Her gaze wanders off to the sea, but it doesn’t give her inspiration to continue the conversation. Next is the beach, and from there her hazel eyes travel towards the jungle. That makes her lips curl up slightly. ”How.. How do you find Ischia? Is it to your liking..?”
Krone is not bothered by Kylin's silence, or the uncomfortable way she shifts and moves her body. She knows the anxiety the lavender and white mare was experiencing stems from her island being overrun by too many strangers all at once. What else was she to do? Krone cannot say that she herself wouldn't act in a similar fashion to the subject of 'intruders' in her home.
And while none of this comes out, she senses her hazel eyes will tell Kylin this, when and if she decides to meet her gaze. After a long stretch of silence, the lavender mare decides to speak, asking Krone what she thought about the island home.
"I love it here, Kylin," She says tenderly, peeling her eyes away from the other mare and towards the ocean. "I imagine you feel pretty lucky to be born here." She says, not really a question. It is simply how she feels - how lucky was Kylin to be able to live here since birth? To know the island like it was her own friend? She could only hope one day she had a similar relationship with it.
She lets another long silence envelope them, unsure if she could continue on with her own feelings. "I'm sorry for such a...blunt intrusion." Krone allows herself to speak of her first day here. A touchy subject, she is sure, but needed to let her apology out to the one descendant left of the island.
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
She isn’t sure what she had hoped to hear when she asked that question. Would she be relieved if Krone would tell her that Ischia wasn’t much special? So that she could hope that the mare – and others – would leave the island. Or would she be disappointed to hear the same thing, because that meant that she would be alone again.
Kylin has enough for being alone though. The first couple of years she’d always had someone at her side. She and her twin brother could’ve been Siamese twins, the way they never seemed to separate. But it hadn’t stopped at Kharon, one by one other members of their family had left, until Kylin had become its only habitant. Now, now she wasn’t anymore. And Krone seemed to love Ischia as much as Kylin herself did.
”I guess..” she mumbles in reply, her gaze following Krone’s to watch over the ocean. ”I’ve never given that much thought, honestly.” Just like it had been normal at first that she was surrounded by family, and loved by them. However, Krone was right. She was lucky to have been born here, and able to live her most of her life. Though their trip to Hyaline had been more of a vacation than moving elsewhere.
The apologize comes as a reply, and it’s all what is needed for Kylin to look at Krone again. For a moment her hazel eyes study the graying bay and green mare, but then she nods. ”Thank you..” she murmurs. It had been rather blunt. Out of nowhere so many strangers had suddenly flood her home. Also telling her the harsh truth of Ea’s disappearance. ”I should have given you all a much warmer welcome..” She should have, but at that moment it had been too much for her. A weak excuse, but the truth nonetheless.
”What are your plans?” She doesn’t specify what she means exactly. From what she’d seen the mare had ambition and seemed to genuinely like Ischia. Would she try to follow Circinae’s footsteps? Or was she more suit for the quiet life, like Kylin. It was how her family had lived on Ischia, happy and quietly, sticking mostly to themselves. Had that been a wrong thing to do?
Krone had never really minded change as an adult. It was a necessary part of life, at some point everything would change - whether is be someone's physical self, or their mindset, or the world around them.
But she had never really accounted for the feelings of others. How change could deeply affect them, how it could hurt them. Kylin had lost everything but her life and that island, and who was she to judge how the young mare coped with this fact? Krone remembers how lonely she herself had felt when everyone had left her...before accepting it as an inevitability.
Kylin's acceptance would come with time, perhaps.
"Your welcome was to be expected," She replies honestly. "You did not know what was going on, and I would've felt the same way." An admission! Something she knows only Kylin would be able to understand.
What are your plans? The lavender mare asks. Krone hadn't really thought about it. Diplomacy was in her blood, it was second nature. It's what she was taught from a very young age. What she would do with, she wasn't so sure.
"Honestly, Kylin, I do not know," Her shoulders move up into a shrug. "I guess I haven't thought about it until now. I just want to make Ischia and her inhabitants...proud..."
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
Her life in Ischia had been rather uneventful. And that wasn’t a bad thing according to Kylin. She had liked the way it had been just Fahter, Mother, uncle Reilly and her siblings. Queen Ea’s family had stayed too, but moved to one of the smaller islands that were part of Ischia. But like that Ischia has barely been submitted to change. Until Circinae had shown up. Ever since, Ischia hadn’t stopped changing.
Krone’s words are comforting, and makes Kylin smile a little. Even though she shakes her head. Father had once greeted horse of another kingdom in a rather unfriendly way, and from then on she had told herself to be more welcoming. But the lavender tobiano accepts the new keeper’s reply. ”Thank you..” she murmurs softly. It relieved her to know that it wouldn’t be held against her.
The answer Krone offers her isn’t one Kylin was expecting. If she had been in the bay and green mare’s footsteps she wouldn’t have plans either, but Kylin wasn’t made keeper. Her dished head tilts a little to the side as her hazel eyes study Krone. ”I’m sure you’ll do fine..” she offers, simply because Kylin doesn’t have any advice to give. She wasn’t a ruler. And she wasn’t the one to plan Krone’s rule for the mare.
”Ischia has chosen you.. And that means something..” To Kylin it did. She had lived on the island almost her whole life – except for the little vacation to Hyaline when Ischia had been overrun by her grandfather – and nothing made her even think of not following its decisions. Time would have to tell. ”What tells your heart you?”
How fun! I can't wait to see if that comes up soon 
