"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
Burn slow, burning up the back wall Long roads, where the city meets the sky Most days, most days stay the sole same Please stay, for this fear will not die
A waste.
That's all she has been, since she was born. A waste. Of space, of air, of existential material. And she knows it - or rather, she feels like it. She feels within her that bile-ish burning of out-of-placeness and disappointment. But it's only a feeling, with no direction behind it. The woman has no clue where to direct the feeling of uselessness, and has no idea from where it stems.
She has no idea it's because her mother, who died because of her, is alive again, and roaming; coming closer and closer to meeting her with every rise of the sun. She has no idea.
Her arrival to the field is begrudging and spiteful. She hates it here. Volcan was born in the Before Beqanna, and has never forgiven it for the way it changed and moulded itself. Nothing is the same, and the young three year old holds that against the land itself. She still remembers being birthed from the literal sands of the Deserts, coming into being in such a way that nothing organic should. Alone, bleating, and in the middle of a bleak kingdom with little in the way of hospitable land. She remembers; and that feeling of not belonging has tagged right along with the memory, despite her efforts to destroy it.
When a stallion with wandering eyes and drool practically falling from his mouth comes too close to the tall, homely mare, Volcan reacts. Like Scorch, she reacts, the impulse barely even worth consideration or thought. With her teeth bared and her ears pinned, the mare sends an onslaught of pebbles towards the leering stallion with enough speed to make him think twice before coming towards the silver girl with such intentions. When the man turns and leaves, kicking towards her indignantly, Volcan snorts and tumbles her straggly mane.
Starlin drinks from the warm stream, her dark mouth twisted in displeasure. This water is lukewarm and tastes of clay; it is very different from the crisp snowmelt in her northern homeland. Scowling, she shakes a few drops of water away as she raises her head, and the grulla mare takes in the view around her.
She has come to find recruits for Nerine, to see if there are any men or women willing to devote themselves to the granite land. The seaside realm is not Starlin’s birthplace but she has grown to love it as though it was; she knows that others will feel the same. It is her task, now, to find those others.
Her blue grey eyes rove over the horses around her.
Many she disregards instantly; too old, too young, too weak. Her tendency to see the world as black and white (without shades of grey) allows her to be efficient. It is possible that she passes over diamonds amid the rough, but she would rather not waste her time on something that might turn out to be just a bit of broken glass.
A loud exclamation shatters the quiet murmur of field conversation, and Starlin spins to identify the source. There is no hesitation in her movement, she turns and tenses, prepared to react to whatever might have caused the noise.
It is only a mare telling off a stallion, she finds, though it had seemed louder as a result of their nearness, and the clatter of pebbles that are just now falling to the ground from where they have struck the stallion and surrounding fauna. They’re from the mare, the tobiano filly realizes, and her head tilts curiously.
“I’m guessing you didn’t know him?” She asks, her voice pitched to carry over the distance between them, though she is also coming closer. She stops a comfortable speaking distance away, close enough to hear, but far enough away that she has full range of motion and respects the roan’s personal space.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He is roaming the Field, looking for an interesting conversation. Recruiting has never been his favorite, but Ischia needs bodies and he needs to bring some home. It will not do for Ischia to be like the Tundra – the place is too alive for the small amount of brothers who had managed to fill the Tundra with life. It needs more. His head is lowered, nonchalantly grazing at the sweet summer grass while he watches, but a sudden motion brings his head up and around, amber eyes locking on the silver-roan girl driving away the overly-amorous stallion.
Brennen smirks, and starts in her direction. She reminds him of someone – of many someones. But he has no real way to attach her to her fascinating mother, so that twinge of recognition will pass, assigned to any number of the fierce mares he has known over the years, in and out of the Amazons. It’s too bad he can’t tell who her mother is; it would certainly give the two of them something to talk about. Perhaps they can instead talk about missing the Beqanna of before; Brennen doesn’t resent the change as strongly as this child anymore, but he is not pleased either.
A part of him will always long for his Tundra.
The grullo-pinto girl reaches his target first and he pricks his ears to catch her words, wondering at the slight feeling of recognition he gets from this one as well. This one, though, he can place. She has her mother’s coloring, after all, and he realizes as he draws to a halt a polite distance from both of them that the pinto reminds him of Djinni. That gives him a very, very brief guilty feeling (he’d left Nerine after all, along with its intriguing women, and he is sure it hadn’t exactly pleased them) but surely no one would expect him to stay somewhere he had never truly felt was home.
“You did send him away quite neatly.” He regards the first girl again with an approving look. “I don’t suppose you’re looking to join an army?” He needs bodies for Ischia in general, but in particular Brennen would love to recruit his own. Brothers and sisters in arms.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
12-05-2017, 01:28 AM (This post was last modified: 12-18-2017, 07:27 PM by Volcan.)
volcan
Burn slow, burning up the back wall Long roads, where the city meets the sky Most days, most days stay the sole same Please stay, for this fear will not die
A young grulla tobiano mare is the first to react to Volcan's erratic behaviour. Her pitched voice carries over the field to the silver mare, causing her to raise her head from its low and hostile position so that she can examine the girl more thoroughly. Though younger than Volcan, as observed by her less-developed frame, they are the same height. One, however, is clearly soft and gentle - at first impression's persuasion - and the other more hardened, aggressive. Genetically and environmentally predisposed - born of Scorch, abandoned at rebirth. Anger is her first nature.
"How'd you guess," she answers bitingly, her tail swishing at her hocks. The chance of her powers turning against the filly is minimal; she represents no observable threat to Volcan's well being, and besides, she knows where she is. She knows the purpose of the land she stands on. And although she refuses to be claimed, she needed to keep her other options open. She speaks again, less clipped, but just as hard. "I'm Volcan."
Her name escapes her lips just as a second stallion approaches, his nature far more acceptable to the mare than that of his predecessor. Still, the mare eyes him skeptically; although she had been raised by Vanquish, the mare has grown to distrust practically everyone. Beqanna changed - and it changed her ability to trust, too. Little did she know that of all the men in Beqanna, this pegasus is possibly the best chance she had at recovering information of her family - and that chance barely exists at all in the first place. And if he had been listening to the rumours during the time of Scorch's death, or her birth at the Falls, then perhaps something would click. Perhaps.
"I suppose that's the only place I'll fit. Flattery doesn't come as easily to me as to others," she states implicatively, looking right at the bay.
Her eyes travel back to the filly then, and seem to reconsider her; then, she performs the same action on the stallion. These are her options. These are her possibilities, her could-be futures, her tomorrows. The grass around the trio twitches non-organically, reacting to Volcan's trepidation and consternation. She awaited further information.
“I’m Starlin,” she replies with a polite nod of her dark head, “Warrior of Nerine. Well, warrior-in-training, anyway.” The grullo filly has not yet completed her first battle against a genuineopponent. Mocking is not an accurate test of skill; she needs a true victory under her belt. Volcan’s assessment (that Starlin is soft and gentle) is not entirely inaccurate. The scars on her piebald hide are far from impressive against Volcan’s, but they are there nonetheless: albeit fewer and far more superficial.
The difference between them is less than either compared to the bay stallion that approaches them. He is all but covered in scars, but it is the large black wings and his inquiry about an army that solidifies his identity for Starlin. He must be Brennen.
Not dead, after all, as Nerine has assumed, but rather gone to serve another realm.
At least it isn’t Hyaline, Starlin thinks with a small smile, and at least Nayl is no longer queen of Nerine. She might have been inclined to feel something stronger than curiosity toward the bay Brennen, bound by kingdom loyalties and all. As it stands, she gives him a friendly smile and a wordless nod in greeting.
Volcan’s answer to the stallion’s question gives hope to the young filly; perhaps she might be an asset to their kingdom. City is their leader of war, but Starlin has learned enough to know that the more of them there are, the better. Even the mightiest of warriors can be outnumbered.
“We could use you in Nerine then,” she tells the silver bay mare. “We are rebuilding our army in the hopes of creating something even greater than the Amazons of old.” The blood of the jungle runs strong in the seaside kingdom (even if it is thin in Starlin herself) and the ideals of a glory do not fade quickly from bloodlines like Echion’s. Starlin can’t know that this mare has jungle blood as well, only that she seems likely to be a valuable member of her kingdom and its army.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
Brennen likes the way she meets his gaze, bold and forward. He settles into place, tail swishing idly, though the slightest movement of the grass beneath his hooves in the absence of an actual breeze or wind gives him food for thought. He doesn’t know enough about either of them to assign the cause to a person, but his gut says it’s Volcan, not Starlin.
He lets Starlin fill the silence, and she makes the case for Nerine, for their fledgling army and cause for rebuilding the Amazons. Brennen gives the little grulla mare his full attention while she is speaking, his mind turning over her words like a child might carefully consider the many rocks and shells on a beach. She sounds sincere – but the determination of those trying to rebuild Nerine has wavered many times, and he is not sure that she will be more successful than those who came before her. He says nothing, though, for a variety of reasons. That lingering guilt…his affection for the young…his remaining admiration for the Amazons of old.
When Starlin is quiet, that makes it his turn to plead his case for his own Kingdom. “I’m Brennen,” he introduces himself to both, unaware that Starlin has already identified him. “Of Ischia. It’s nice – a tropical island.” He didn’t pick it because it was beautiful, that was a convenient side effect, so he moves on quite quickly. “We’re in a transitory state at the moment, with a new Queen, but that leaves a lot of room for new blood to prove themselves. I’m sure we’re in need of diplomats as well but personally, I’m looking to fill my army.”
The bay is many things – a warrior, a father, a diplomat when needs must – but he is also a teacher. A leader. He will grow his army into something to be respected, whether that is from recruiting talented fighters or making them. She has the fire for it; only time will tell if she has the skill or the perseverance.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
Burn slow, burning up the back wall Long roads, where the city meets the sky Most days, most days stay the sole same Please stay, for this fear will not die
Starlin introduces herself, and Volcan perks her ease in mild surprise at the announcement of her warriorhood. Figures, that Volcan would misjudge her so flippantly, and be entirely wrong. Her demeanor towards the girl doesn't change, but she considers her more fully now - her eyes trace the scars on the mare's hide, breathes in the scent of her sweat. The home she offered had potential, and so did Starlin, herself. Volcan considered her.
The stallion speaks then, turning his Arabic head to focus on the brutish mare. He describes Ischia as a tropical island, reminding Volcan of the oasis in the Deserts, where she was born from the sands and raised by the king of old. It appeals to her. Although her mother (who she knows not) was born in and ruled the Amazons, the reality was that her blood was of the Deserts (and the Tundra, but women had no place there). Scorch was born from the Desert Queen Katriel - in a way, Volcan had lived the childhood that her mother might have lived, in another world.
"Both of your homes sound promising," Volcan husks. "I won't keep you waiting." Her head turns to Starlin. "I am going with Brennen - but I will meet you on the battlefield, so that we may both prove ourselves." There is no animosity in her voice, though to hear friendship would be a delusion. Instead, it as an offering of what little she has to give - of her body. "We will meet soon." Her hammer head dips in a crude likeness of politeness; but coming from her, it was the epitome of grace and refinery.
They turn to leave, then. "Lead the way." And a new legacy begins.
