"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
On lanky legs, the navy and white filly moves at a speed which makes her mother nervous. The soft earth and lush grasses of her home have softened all her falls thus far, and Sibyl doesn't see any restrain her excitement.
"Mama, This way!" Warrick's daughter calls breathlessly, as she picks up a wobbly canter. Soon, her mother is far behind her, but she can not bring herself to wait.
"Faster, Mama!" The little filly pleads as she runs, yelling over her shoulder to make sure her point is not lost on the wind. But as she catches sight of Tangerine trotting (annoyingly slowly) along behind her, she decided that it doesn't really matter if her mother manages to keep up or not.
Sibyl knew where she was going.
With a rebellious toss of her tiny skull, the Overseer's daughter leaves her mother behind, and it isn't long before she sees the object of her search right where she knew she would find him. Sibyl isn't old enough to suspect that the way she simply knows things is unusual, or that she is the only one who so vividly sees stories in the stars.
"Papa!" she squeals with joy as the dark figure becomes recognizable. Lengthening her stride, Sibyl gallops over the final stretch of grassland between them, before sliding to a halt a few paces further than she meant to. Turning back, she closes the gap between them with a bound, placing herself at his elbow. "Found you," she says through her haphazard smile, her eyes full of laughter and adoration.
The sunlight is warm and robust as it hits him, the green-gold grasses of the inland plains gently swaying in the afternoon breeze. Low tide has opened up a larger area around him, where tiny pools of warm and shallow water remain stagnant until the ocean returns. Here, crawdads and other shellfish frequent the sea grasses, as well as silvered minnows and wayward crabs who have lost their way from the black shoreline of the coast. The Overseer is returning from the border, where his patrols have become more frequent, carefully picking his way through the inlet until the muddy silt of leftover saltwater turns into hardened ground - the plains in between the border and the coastline.
In the distance the volcano looms brilliantly, it’s dark and shadowy canopy somehow comforting to the blue-bay stallion. His heart his heavy, which is why he walks almost defeatedly into his own country, the buzzing sound of insects hovering above the gold grasses gnawing in his ear. Everything he had known has slowly loosened and unraveled, revealing a life that he thought he had known, thought he had figured out. And though his soul trembles at the idea,
(it’s a lie, you know it’s a lie)
his mind cannot help but quickly interject (you knew the truth, you’re so blind).
Warrick has no more time to understand what has happened with him in the meadow, and though the weight still heavily drags behind him, his face rearranges to one of awe when he sees Sibyl coming towards him at a full gallop, a breathless grin on her dainty features. The Overseer halts, lifting his head and returning the brightening smile with his own, reaching out with his muzzle to nip lightly at the air between them as she overcalculates her speed and passes him. Warrick turns his head over his shoulder as the little filly comes up to his side, and he immediately presses his muzzle into her poll, huffing gently and inhaling the sweet scent of childhood on her skin, and the faintness of Tangerine that lingers there. “Sibyl,” he murmurs into her navy and alabaster skin, “you will always find me.”
And it is the truth.
He looks up, turning his head towards Tangerine’s approaching form. She is as he remembers her, from the day they had met in the field, and the heaviness of his turmoil seems just that much lighter in her presence. He wonders if she has seen already (there is no way he would be able to hide this from her, he knows) and though his eyes are full and loving, there is a solemnity there that only Tangerine herself would recognize. “You’ve been behaving, Sibyl?” Warrick is still looking ahead towards his lover, but the tiny grin on his face and the direction of his voice is pointed at his youngest daughter playfully.
Sibyl is gloriously oblivious to anything but happiness. She takes her father at his word, accepting his warm greeting without a second thought or deeper look. He wuffs her scent, and the midnight and moonlight filly laughs when his breath tickles her ears.
"Yes, Papa!" she says in response to his question; she was pretty sure it was true. The only thing she knew about misbehaving was that her mother liked to sigh big, heavy sighs when she did something which may fall under that description, and she couldn't remember her mother sighing this morning.
That same woman is finally catching up, and Sibyl rears up as she sees her father's attentions sifting. Her spindly front legs dancing in the air by his shoulder before two delicate, cream hooves alight on his shoulder. With blue-black lips, she reaches for a feather half-hidden in the tangle of his dark mane. "Take me to the ocean, Papa! Can we go now?"
Tangerine greets Warrick with a deep nicker, but her friendly repark dies on her lips. She senses that something is not right at once, and with a tightening in her gut she wonders what she has missed. But whatever it is can not dampen Warrick's fondness for his youngest daughter, and she watches with a wavering smile as he suppresses his troubles for Sibyl's sake.
"Lead the way, Sibly." Tangerine asks with a gentle nudge to her daughter's shoulder. The girl consents, returning all four of her hooves to the earth before bolting in the direction of the beach. Tangerine takes this opportunity to press a soft kiss to the corner of Warrick's muzzle, reaching with her mind for any hint of what may be wrong. But that was not the way her peculiar foresight worked, and her amber eyes resort to searching his.
"What has happened?" The painted mare ask softly as their daughter callops out of range. Her heart beats a little faster as the thinks of Svedk, Solace, and even Wishbone.
Sibly had assumed that they would follow in her gleeful gallop, but as her long strides were not echoed by those of her parents she halts. Starting to feel like she had been tricked, she wheels around and scrambles to the top of a grassy knoll. "Com'on guys!" she yells to the two sedentary forms with a stamp of her hoof.
Her voice - as beautiful and radiant as the rising sun - is all that he needs to bring him back to reality, to anchor him to the volcanic ground and remind him that he is so much more than his lineage. Angelic and doe-eyed, Tephra’s youngest princess presses the softness of her hooves against the slope of his mahogany shoulder, causing the King’s eyes to quickly shift to her, a rumble of laughter sifting in his chest. The ocean. Warrick’s gaze is steady and gentle, leaning his head towards his daughter to tenderly put his navy mouth against the bridge of her alabaster and navy nose in a sweet, loving kiss. “Of course, my daughter,” his voice murmurs into the untainted blue and white of her skin, eyes blinking closed momentarily to inhale the sweet scent of her one last time before she moves from him. “You know the way, Sibyl.” Soon - far too soon - she would not need them to venture to the blackened coastline. But for now, Warrick revels in the little moments where he is needed by her, holding onto them as long as he possibly can.
His deep, oceanic eyes follow her form as she gallops away, though they close briefly when the pale pink of Tangerine’s mouth finds his, a sigh erupting from his cobalt lips at her soothing touch. His auburn eyelids open to reveal a storm of trouble brewing in his irises, hidden away from his daughter but not so easily hidden from Tangerine. She asks him like he knows she will, and with a slow turn of his face he gazes into her eyes - he cannot hold back from her, but he wishes he could. The realization he holds close to his chest is cold and foreboding, and it hurts him that voicing it will hurt her too - in more ways than he can imagine. He had not been at the merciless hand of Carnage, tortured and bent and broken, and his telling Tangerine about what happened in the meadow will only make her relive those moments, and perhaps even resent him for the relation.
But he cannot hide from her, and he never will.
“In the meadow,” he begins, and he wonders if she can hear the wavering in his voice that is so out of place, or the way his voice is low and nearly muted as shame and discomfort coil bitterly in his stomach. He pauses, Sibyl’s wayward voice calling to them, and the stallion begins to move forward in the direction of the ocean, eyes cast on his daughter. He cannot look at her directly, not until the terrible words leave his lips could he even bare to do so. “I know who my father is. He visited me...in a vision, I think.”Or in reality.
Warrick pauses, knowing the next piece of information will take whatever excitement Tangerine might feel about the identity of his father and tear it down with a single word.
His face screws up with emotion, brows furrowing and a frown deepening his navy lips. He continues to watch Sibyl, and focus on his steps as he walked through the inland grasses, suddenly finding it harder to breathe.
“Carnage. My father is Carnage.”
Everything you have, I had first.
It echoes coldly in his mind, sharp and mercilessly cutting through to the bone. He holds his breath now, the taste of bile rising onto his tongue at his admission and how utterly disgusting and shameful it made him feel.
In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
Like so many times before, Tangerine loses herself in the moody blues of his eyes. In their crystalline depths, she finds that once again he needs her in the way he had when they first fell in love. On this volcanic shore, with tears in their eyes and love's first fire in their hearts, she had been his anchor, his sunshine, until time and work had dulled the loss of his mother and sister.
He needed her less in that way now - in that broken, craving way - but she see that look again now, the pain and the confusion, and she once again falls into her destined role.
Nothing he could say could change her heart - it had been his, and only his, since their fist dance on the planes of her homeland.
Tangerine doesn't allow her spirits to rise at the words which should bring her joy - she knows him too well for that. A heaviness clings to him, pulls at him and she steps forward to share the burden, already wondering if the sickening thought worming through her mind could have any validity.
Carnage, he says like a curse, and her mouth goes dry. Instinctually, the seer's ears pin to the mass of her dark mane. That name had brought with it a visceral reaction, a repulsion and suppressed terror from the days of her torture at the hands of the dark god. She fights the frightened animal in her chest, caging it again for the sake of her lover.
"You are Orani's son," Tangerine states with determination, and a fire in her heated amber eyes.
"He," she spits, unable to say his name, "in his boredom, wants to see you stumble. He is nothing to you, to either of us, don't give him this power." She seeks to chase away the shame which drags down his handsome feature. It is an unjust shame, a sin which he would never condemn another for.
"You are a just King, a good father, a protector, and a noble man. You are better than him in every way, and not like him in any."
You can just assume sibyl is over there being impatient
His children, all of them, are his beacon of hope; a light in the darkness that threatens to consume him. He can hear Sibyl’s laughter amidst shouts of impatience, begging them to walk faster to the ocean’s tide. Her voice echoes around him and Warrick can feel himself desperately trying to pull himself out of the shadow and into her warmth, her youthfulness, her innocence. Then there is Tangerine - not only a light but its creator, an anchor and a steady totem of peace and tranquility. But he does not come to her with a broken heart or a longing that could never be filled, but with a breath of turmoil in his breast, a lingering of darkness that pulses through his veins - he’s no longer her lover, the man she deserves, but a creation that quite literally came from the darkest of her own nightmares and reality.
Warrick’s eyes finally find the courage to meet Tangerine’s - waiting expectantly to see the unraveling of realization, for her to know that the father of her children came from such a ravenous and merciless god, that each and every one of their beautiful children are tainted by the darkened blood. He swallows hard, the muscles in his jaw clenching as his teeth grind. Tangerine does not recoil, however, and instead anger flares up inside the usual softness of her eyes. A rightful reaction and one that causes him to close his eyes tightly, sucking in a deep breath through the clench of his teeth.
Orani.
Instinctively upon hearing her name, Warrick’s chin turns upwards to the skies. Even with his mother being a saint, isn’t his own bloodline diluted by the dark god’s? Despite her admissions, her truths (a good father, a protector, a noble man), no amount of goodness could quell the blackness of Carnage’s blood - he wonders idly when he will see the fruition of the dark god’s intentions. Will it be in himself? Or will one of his children be cursed to love terror and hate peace?
“The knowledge,” he breathes, opening his eyes slowly and delicately, as if the light of the sun was blinding, “is far more than I can bear, Tangerine.” He looks to her, sadness wrought on each curve of his face. “What he’s done to you -” Warrick pauses, his breath caught in his throat and his lungs burning with lack of oxygen. Finally he exhales, a shuddering breath that racks his entire being. “He is succeeding, my love.”
She is right.
She always is.
But there is that ever small and clear voice, quaking on the inside of his mind:
Everything you have, I had first.
It’s tainted - all of it. Poisoned by simple words of a dark, evil god.
“No amount of goodness will cleanse my blood.”Nor the blood of our children. The truth; the terrible, terrible truth.
In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep
Gently, she reassures him with her touch as he threatens to crumble. Tang runs her muzzle along the line of his jaw, appreciating the strength, admiring the curve of his brow with half-lidded eyes. She lets him feel, but only for a moment - too much will not do.
"You are strong," with her voice full of faith and hope she interrupts his brooding. It had taken her a year to put her life back together after Carnage had shattered her world - but as a King, he did not have that luxury and she tries her best to bring him back. "When I dream I see your line stretching out into the stars forever, each generation with a glowing crown on their brow. You have made yourself into your own man, and your children speak of their father with pride in their voices. Carnage's blood has burned away; they will never know of this." She hopes he understands her, she hopes that she can repay him for the way he had carried her back to sanity not so long ago. She will keep his secret, just as he has kept so many of hers.
"There is something else, my love." She pauses for a sigh as she thinks back on a single dream which had not been as pleasant as her dreams of their children. Her voice once again takes on a heat that is unusual to hear. "The purple stallion, he is a traitor. He seeks to overthrow you, and he hides from you while he lays a trap. When I see him in my dreams, nothing good comes from his actions, and misfortune of his own creation follows him." Her blood boils at the thought - as she puts what she had seen into words. Knowing that Warrick, in his quest to be good and just, had allowed their family into Tephra only to be wounded this way.
"I saw you two together on the great, clay plain. The autumn sun hung heavy overhead and both of you were drenched in the sweat of battle. I believe he will challenge you soon."
As she expected, worry has found its way into the deepening line across his brow, but instead of comforting him once again, a sly smile creeps across her face. Tang whisks her dark tail against his hocks, and she nips gently at his whiskered chin before continuing.
"Shh, don't fret too much about it." She says, leaving him in suspense for a moment longer. "I saw him defeated and broken. And I saw your heir growing strong and noble in the shadow of the volcano this spring."
At just that moment Sibly decided that she has waited long enough and she gallops towards them just in time to catch her mothers last few words. Wiggling her way between her parents, she looks up into her father's dark face. "Papa, what's an Heir?"
Auburn lids fall across the brooding cerulean of his eyes as her touch traverses the planes of his strong jawline, a welcoming yet shuddering sigh exhaling from the cobalt blue of his mouth. She continues the gentle reassurance, though her voice is much stronger than he ever remembers it being; perhaps that it is Carnage, a formidable foe that though brings her painful memories, also a rage that keeps her unwavering and steadfast, despite the way he feels wayward himself. He leans into her, like he so often does, and his eyes flicker open to look beyond them, where Sibyl’s shape bounds and plays in the distance. The Overseer turns to brush his navy lips against her smooth cheek, pressing a fervent kiss onto the pale ivory and honey-gold of her throat. Nostrils quiver and he inhales her deeply - reminding himself of everything that was before Carnage’s idle boredom and confession of being his father. Warrick clings tightly to it, holding it tightly to his heart and mind. Though darkness and shadow still loosely grasp into the crevices, the light is able to permeate now.
There is something else, my love.
He is pulled from his reverie with a soft, thoughtful snort expelling from his nostrils. There is a calm in her voice that he finds haunting and instantly he has forgotten about his worries and tribulations, his brow creasing with concern. It is the same voice that comes with her dreams, yet the sound of it is foreboding; it brings him closer to her, whuffling into her face with gentle breaths, his body tense.
Tangerine’s sight of Klaudius does not truly surprise the Overseer. The lavender stallion feels too much and allows his emotions to control his actions where Warrick is able to separate his own pride and sadness from the good of Tephra. He pulls from Tangerine as she explains her vision, his ears falling into the tangled mass of his mane, his eyes leaving hers to focus on the navy and white of their youngest daughter. There is a large inhale from the bay stallion and a tiny shake of his head. Perhaps Tangerine’s vision would not come to fruition, but Warrick could feel the tension already brewing within his kingdom, an added uneasiness now placating the already thick unrest stemming from Sylva.
The seer brings him back to her with a coy nip to his chin, and despite the news, he cannot help but allow the tiniest warmth of a smile to break his otherwise stoic expression. “I hope I am able to fulfill your prophecy,” he murmurs to her throatily, high on not only the adrenaline of the potential of battle, but the fact that an heir would soon join them. His lips brush heavily against her neck, leaving a plethora of passionate kisses against each soft curve. His affection is cut short by the sound of tiny, soft hooves thrumming on the sandy ground, his eyes turning towards Sibyl with a warm grin.
He reaches forward as his daughter wriggles between them, nipping at her small neck and then huffing gently into her poll, before tugging at the tufts of ivory and cobalt gently. “It means you will no longer be the youngest, Sibyl.”
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