"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
Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
He rests beneath the heavy boughs of the River's massive great oak, thin champagne body leaning against the gnarled bark of the trunk. Smoak's hazel eyes flutter gently closed, coaxed into dozing by the hazy heat of Beqanna's summer afternoon. The young stallion floats just on the edge of sleep for some time, ears twitching lazily and instinctively at the occasional breeze or caw of a bird in the distance but he remains otherwise unmoved.
Usually, the bone-armored stallion would rest his weary limbs on the eastern shore of Hyaline where the roiling ocean can lull him to sleep, but he had been roaming the southern border of his new home in search of residents he had yet to meet, but Smoak had become lost in thought and had ventured much farther south than he had originally intended, stopping only when he reached the bank of the River.
When his hazel eyes flutter open finally, it has reached the late afternoon and most of those who had been meandering around the River have disappeared. Smoak hums quietly in his solitude, tossing his bone-plated head to stretch the muscles of his neck before leaning away from the massive tree to make his way back to the heart of Hyaline.
She had seen a white lump... stoney and boney, resting against a tree. And of course, she had gone to investigate. She remembers looking up to see if it had been snowing.
Nope. No snow.
It was June.
So what was with this big white boney stoney thing? She had seen it from across the river, laying all quiet and still-like. And her curiosity—it kills cats, not ponies, right?--had gotten the better of her. Having gone a bit downstream to see if she could find a shallow place to cross, she had stepped on the stones carefully, before a quick squeak had landed her on her butt. Wet, and uncomfortable, she waddled her little fluffy turquoise butt out of the water, and had clung to the treeline... little droplets hanging from her rear.
As she drop-drop-dropped away from the river, she was careful to quiet her step again, until she had come up to where the lump was. Only, as she gained closer to it, it was almost like a white stoney boney mountain. She poked it, and it... squooshed.
And then it moved. And made a growling sound.
Sandee Claws!
Provoke gulped. She poked it again... and then, it started to move. Woke up. Yawned. Got up, and scratched its butt against the big tree... And then when it turned to leave, it ran right into--
Provoke.
Big blue eyes looked up and saw how tall the stoney boney mountain was...
And she started to sob.
"Please don't eat me...."
» death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily «
Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
Drowsiness clings to him, hazel eyes hesitant to open and remove all last tendrils of his daytime nap. When finally he coaxes himself awake, the champagne stallion peers out over the river for a brief moment before shifting his weight away from the large oak. His lanky appendages help him to pivot back towards Hyaline and he comes face to face with a small teal and purple creature, eyes wide with terror. Smoak takes his own step back, alarmed by the sudden appearance of the foal and by the prospect of whatever had scared her still hanging around the river.
But when she backs away from him with her own stuttering steps and a shaky voice, Smoak's face twists up in confusion and he shakes his bone-armored head to reassure her. "No, uh, I won't eat you, I promise," he watches her closely, unsure of the best way to approach a situation such as this. "I only like to eat grass. I'm pretty picky." He forces a small grin, ears twisting forward to face the cotton candy colored filly.
"Can you tell me why you're so scared?" he asks tentatively, hoping that whatever had terrified her was nowhere near them now. He hasn't much experience in actually fights, just what Mom and Scyla have taught him in the past, and now he realizes that perhaps he and Svedka should have practiced fighting more often than they had.
And he was huge. And when he speaks, she tilts her head - her massive eyes are bulging and her ears are flopping around her head ingloriously. She opens her mouth, and then closes it again, and then promptly sits down. Her wet butt was cold, and sitting on it would provide some warmth - even if she did look incredibly silly doing it.
And then, she finally decides to speak - the babbling brook behind her forgotten as she moves her head, her eyes rolling all over his body, looking at all the stoney bonies. Her fear is forgotten - in the way that distracted children do, and she is full off questions.
"Grass? How can you be picky about grass? And you don't bother trying to eat berries? I like berries. My mother says I shouldn't have berries because they are supposed to be dessert, and because they stain but there was this one time I ate some and she had NO idea. I was neat. I didn't make a mess." She smiles up at him.
"Did you know you look funny? What's it like to have stoney boners all the time? Is it uncomfortable? Is it heavy? Where do you come from? Were you born here? Where do you live? Do you like me?"
She just keeps talking, no sense of a breath in sight. She stands up, fluttering her little purple tail. "I'm Provoke." She peels back her lips, and smiles big and innocently at him.
It did not occur to her in the least that she might be annoying. She's a baby.
She was bloody fucking adorable.
» death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily «
Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.
Smoak is unsure how much time has passed since he had last seen Joaquin and Joplin. He's sure that, at this point, his younger half-siblings are nearly considered adults and thus have lost the innocence of childhood (an innocence that had been removed from all three of them, when their parents had been abducted for Carnage's entertainment), but he still likes to think on the newborn versions of them, when they had been carefree and full of laughter and endlessly inquisitive.
The cotton candy filly reminds him of them as she plops her rump upon the soft earth, her ears haphazard and mane askew as she regards him with boundless curiosity that only children seem able to master. And, much to Smoak's amusement, the young girl seems quite comfortable now that he has assured her that she is not on the dinner menu ─ her questions spill in quick succession, giving him no more than a millisecond between each, and so the bone-armored stallion laughs good-naturedly but waits until her lungs have expelled all of her breath before even considering responding to her questions.
The filly stands back up, her lavender tail waving this way and that as her face breaks into a wide, sweet smile as she introduces herself finally. He nods his head to her playfully, mane falling over his hazel eyes, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Provoke," the champagne stallion offers with a quiet chuckle, "My name is Smoak. Sometimes I like berries, but I have to be in the mood for them. Apples are pretty good, too."
He pauses, thinking back on her questions, the corners of his lips upturned. "There's nothing wrong with looking funny! Sometimes I forget that the bone is there," he shrugs, "but it comes in handy if I bump my head on a branch or if someone tries to bite me. I was born in Tephra, where the big volcano is, but now I live in Hyaline, with the big crystal lake. Where do you live? Who is your mom?" he inquires, throwing more questions back at the cotton candy girl.
"And yeah, you're pretty cool," he chuckles again, "and it looks like your mane and tail turned purple from sneaking too many berries when your mom wasn't watching."
