"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
She waits until they are asleep, her brother and sister together, her mother and father in the grotto with the healers. Waits until the world is dim and the sky is lit with cold, silver torches. Until she isn’t needed any more.
Then she is gone.
With an impossible grace she canters towards the edge of volcanic cliffs where they overlook the ocean, unfurls her wings, and leaps. She is careful to push off hard, thrust herself away from the stone so the wind cannot thrash her there as it might’ve when she were small and delicate and all overly large feather wings. It is unlikely anything would happen now that she is strong and grown and as wiry and any wild thing is, but it is a habit she has never bothered to break - perhaps even a tradition she finds some comfort in. The rush of adrenaline in that second of falling over black nothingness before her wings catch the wind and carry her off.
She is aware of everything, always. The thunder-crash of black waves below, the swells tipped with glittering diamond starlight before they fall and break against each other. The stink of fish and brine that, for the most part, keep her well out of the ocean. It has been different lately though, with no other way to rinse her fathers blood where it flecks like flat rubies across her skin.
Her eyes close for a second, welcome the true-dark that she has found nowhere else, and open only when she is certain the tears have been banished back into the ache from whence they were birthed. It is easy to see the resolve as it flickers across her gold and dark face, see it in the way her wings beat harder against the night, in the near-glare of those amber eyes when they sift through the night and find the tall pines of the forest swaying well beneath her.
If a corner of the world existed, she would have gone there, but instead all that waits for her are the lonely forests of old taiga. It is, admittedly, her favorite place to spend the night. She has found that most still remember what the land had been, what had happened to it. Still remember her ghosts, and leave before night finds them there. But she is too young to remember. To her, these forests, this graveyard, it is a quiet place. It is solace and sanity and everything she needs on a night like this where her heart feels as though it has beat itself to death against her ribs.
She lands, those pale cream wings folding in to settle like snow over her back, and heads for the point of the land where it stretches towards the sea. It is like white noise for her. The wind through brittle, tired branches. The waves falling over one another to race to deserted shores. Mind-numbing nothingness interrupted only by the sound of her sad, stuttered breathing as she looks out across a star-strewn night.
08-27-2018, 12:04 AM (This post was last modified: 09-03-2018, 02:52 AM by woolf.)
bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze if you must drink of me, take of me what you please
He is never gone far from this place, not truly. He is instead part of it, the breeze that ruffles his mane the same breeze that flutters the edges of his veins, the water that laps around his ankles also seeping under his flesh. It’s a romantic notion for a being who has not a drop of romanticism, instead surveying the land with the cool eyes of a scientist. It is impossible to know him and truly understand him. It is impossible to rectify the magician with the cool, aloof stallion—stained with mulberry and cynicism alike.
Such oddities, however, do not bother him.
He does not spend too much time dwelling on the inconsistencies of his character or the imbalance of his life—his lack of whimsy merely a part of him. Instead, he drifts about their world, leaving no fingerprint to speak of, except a single son with which he monitors with a disinterested eye. He has a twin, somewhere, but her independent streak means that they rarely convene in the same place—despite the fact that they are intrinsically tied together. Again, such oddities for a man who draws considerable power from his connection to his family, their vast and reaching bloodline fueling his ability to warp reality.
Alas, he doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on it.
Instead, he studies, he watches, he learns.
It is this same desire the draws him to a kingdom that holds no ties to him—something else stirring inside of him, drawing him from the shadows and very edges of the lands into the heart of Beqanna.
Perhaps that something is her.
He watches as she lands, her wings collapsing and drawing into her. Out of curiosity more than anything, he slices open his shoulder, the wound old and used to the spilling of blood, and draws from it as it splatters on the forest floor. It allows him to stretch out her story before him, allows him to watch as she takes off from the volcanic island, to feel the desperation and sorrow in her chest. And then, even further. It allows him to see her tending to her father, too weak to rise, the sickness stealing through his veins. Further still, to the happiness of her childhood, and the stark contrast it plays to the darkness now.
He furrows his brow in thought but does not deny his thirst for knowledge.
There is only so much you can learn from watching afar.
He chooses to walk through the dense forest, the mulch muffling the heavy footsteps of his feathered hooves, the stallion not bothering to hide his approach. It’s only when he’s several feet away that he pauses, dipping his head in what’s known as a greeting. “Hello, Marble,” his rich voice rings throughout the forest, Woolf not pausing to consider that it’s odd to know her name before knowing her.
She knows the metallic tang of blood the instant it hits the air, recoils from it with a faint clench of muscle along the delicate lines of her jaw. It is the kind of scent that snakes into her mouth, settles like copper on the back of her tongue until she is gagging on it, inching back with wary amber eyes. The forest around her seems suddenly darker, suddenly deeper as she narrows her eyes against the starlight to try and pick shapes out of the edgeless shadows. But she is not sure what it is she looks for - a phantom of her father, dressed in ribs and rubies? No, that is the stuff of nightmares, the creep of fear born from the unknown, slithering beneath her skin.
Still, her wings unfurl softly from her sides, wide enough to carry her off among the stars, but the even thump of hooves against rot and dirt give her pause. They lower, if only slightly, just enough that she can feel the wing-tips brush against her golden sides. Ghosts don’t have feet. Or if they do, they certainly do not make a sound.
I can hear you. She thinks to tell them, has the words in her mouth but not the willpower to say them aloud. There is a part of her that does wonder if they even know she is there, if it is luck that these footsteps draw nearer the longer she stands submerged in shadow. Probably. She is always the first to know. First to see and hear and smell. First to unravel secrets not meant for her young ears.
It does take a moment to notice that the reek of blood is growing more potent too, clinging like shadow to the edges of those sonorous thumps. It makes her uneasy, ties wet knots in the pit of her belly, slithering and thrashing though she tries not to notice. She takes another step back, ears flattening into the tangles of dark, wild mane, wings dropping low again to pinch against her sides. It’s as though she is trying to be small, trying to be invisible.
It doesn’t work.
All the hairs along her spine lift instantly at the sound of her name on this strangers lips. She frowns, brow furrowed deeply beneath her forelock, and feels every muscle in her small body tighten and recoil. “You’re very loud.” She says, and despite that the words are soft and whispered, the accusation is very clear. It doesn’t matter that he abides the norms of society, slowing to a halt and dipping his head at her in greeting - it is so completely eclipsed by the fact that her name has no place on his lips. She chooses not to say so though, forcing her ruffled feathers smooth and the tension from the muscles coiled beneath her golden coat. It is less easy to hide the exhausted tremors that steal through her, so she eases past him towards the waters edge like she was headed there all along, relying on the motion to mask everything else. There is a clench in her belly, fear blossoming in her cavern of her chest at turning her back on him, but she knows she’ll be able to hear the weight of his steps when he follows behind her, the breath in his chest build if he plans to do anything more than follow.
“Why are you here?” She asks, and she’s proud of the way her voice sounds smooth and steady despite the unease that even now continues to grow inside her. But she is impatient too, worried not just that he’s a stranger with a name that doesn’t belong to him, but that he does know her because he was sent by mother or Sibyl with news of father. What if something had happened after she left? She half turns so her eyes can settle on him easily in a dark that isn’t dark to her, prying secrets from a face made of stone.
bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze if you must drink of me, take of me what you please
She is a small, terrified thing—constantly perched like a bird ready to take flight. There is something about her that is wound too tightly, the world too loud and bright and fast. His shoulder bleeds freely as he watches her, fascinated in spite of himself, drawing upon his own blood to feed him the small power that he needs to take what he needs from her mind. He is delicate with it, unmistakable for the average mind, slipping in and out of the currents of her thoughts, feeding on the fear and the courage alike.
She moves past him and he takes a step back, giving her the space to make her pointed exit.
Still, his smile grows wolfish on his face, enjoying the flaunted display of bravery.
At her question, he rolls his massive shoulders, the muscles underneath roping and twisting, a powerful display of strength although he rarely calls upon the physical. “Perhaps, I am here for you,” is all he answers, wondering if the answer will give her pause or if it will cause the edges of her pulse to begin to flutter and tatter, wondering if she will unravel at the merest amount of pressure or simply condense into a diamond. “Would that be so surprising, Marble? That I traveled all this way for you?”
He wonders at the way the world screams at her. Wonders at the way the barest of sounds is amplified in her delicate ears—the way that she bears the weight despite the pain of it. The blood begins to flow again as he draws upon it and he begins to absorb the sound around from them. First, he draws in the sounds closes to him—the sound of his breathing, the sound of his own heartbeat, the sound of the leaves beneath his hooves. Then, he expands. He draws in the breeze and the faint rustling of animal life and the murmur of the water. Then, he focuses on the scents, the light—the world around them growing dim and muffled.
And finally, silence.
His green eyes glitter as he watches her, the two of them suspended in nothingness, although the world around them remains remarkably the same. Blood rolls down the mulberry of his coat and splashes onto his hooves, but he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice anything but the silence stretched between them.
She might have laughed at his words if not for the way they made her ache inside, speechless and guarded and so completely closed off. No one is here for me. She thinks at him, chin turned slightly away as if she means to look past him, into the dark and the forest, into the sentient trees. But she finds her gaze will not leave him, stays quietly locked in the act of learning him.
The wolfish grin on his lips that gives her pause, draws her brows down and together in a beautiful, distrustful furrow. The muscle corded along his neck and over his shoulders, along his back and even down through his hips. It writhes when he shrugs at her, thick and rippling and she suspects he has done so deliberately. She is careful not to react, not to give him anything yet.
"Only surprising in that no one knows I come here." Her tone is patient, but the words are laced with the wary way her pulse seems to come alive in her chest. "And," she pauses, her delicate gold jaw tightening for a moment while she considers him, examines his face in the dark and is sure she does not know him, "in that you know my name, and I know nothing of you."
It feels like a dangerous admission, despite that they both know they've never met and this isn't new news. It feels like admitting he has the upper hand here.
Does he?
But she is not left to dwell on it long because suddenly her world is changing. Muting. But how can that be? Her head lifts, those dark, amber eyes scanning the forest around them with an almost frantic urgency. She can see the way the wind still whispers through the leaves, see the branches rub together and know the sound of the aching creak that should come with the motion. But there is nothing, just nothing.
She does not even realize how hard she is breathing - or the graceless steps forward she's taken, the way her pale wings have unfurled wide and impressive. Does not realize because it makes no sound. She cannot even hear the drumbeat her own heart pounds against her breaking ribs, not the roar of her pulse flooding through her ears. There is only silence and the copper stench of blood on her tongue.
She turns her face to him abruptly, had almost forgotten the mulberry man was there at all in this strange, deafening quiet. But she remembers now, draws herself up in a bearing that is both wild and beautiful, and completely borrowed from some deep, fearful instinct. Her eyes settle on his face, too rich to be gold, too pale to be red. Then she speaks, feeling all her breath trapped nervously within her chest (trapped so he cannot see it, cannot find pleasure in it). "Where is my heartbeat?" Each word still whispered, or at least she thinks so, but the sound feels so wrong (so right, so soft, so gentle), so different from what she has always known. "Are you killing me?"
bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze if you must drink of me, take of me what you please
Her words remain trapped behind her closed mouth, but he hears them all the same, as if she was screaming them into his ear. He wonders at what cruel hand had been dealt to make her feel as though no one would come for her—as if no one would ever travel to see her. As if she was but an orphan. (But she’s not. She’s not.) He can feel the familial ties rooting around her, drawing her back even now. He traces them languidly, to the dying father, the worried mother. He traces them far and wide, noting how many generations it goes back before theirs cross—at the usual spots, the Adam and Eve of their land.
It is not a close enough relation for him to draw any meaningful magic from it, but he feels it regardless.
He remains still underneath her gaze, unflinchingly returning it, scrutinizing beneath the matted mess of his mulberry forelock. His heavy head is dyed darker than the rest of him and is unreadable save the faintest twitch of muscle in his jaw where teeth clench in thought. “I know you come here,” he answers easily without the faintest hint of humor, rolling his bleeding shoulder. “And I know a lot more than your name.” Her confession fails to register with him, the truth of it so blatant that he could never imagine it even needing to be acknowledged. Of course he had the upper hand. He so rarely had anything but.
“What would you like to know of me, Marble?”
There is little to know and yet everything—constellations spinning within his veins. Should he tell her of how he spent years trapped in otherworldly dimensions with his sister? How he had pulled family away from the world to keep them safe from war and ended up trapped instead? Should he tell her about the weight of the anchor that sits in him—how he and his twin rest on the border of life and death? Or should he tell her about the way his heart beats and yet he rarely feels it, the emotions that others feel so keenly somehow dulling themselves against his senses? So much to say and yet no words to translate it.
But he doesn’t have time to ponder it because he is engrossed in her reaction to the muting of the world. The way she flutters in the breeze, dark eyes growing wide, the whole of her swelling as if she could make herself large enough to find the pieces of reality’s fabric to yank it back into place. The faintest of smiles plays at the edges of his mouth and he laughs quietly at her question, amused in spite of himself. “If I was killing you, you would know it.” He reaches for the different threads of the world around them, finding the one of her heartbeat and releasing it so that she can hear it, although perhaps softer than usual.
He reaches for the breeze and redirects it, sending the cool spring air flowing through the forest to whirl around her ankles, stirring up the leaves and then flooding up her sides. He gently manipulates the senses of her as it goes, ignoring the continued dripping of blood. He lets her feel the breeze as it musses her mane. He lets her smell the damp earth and the rain that had recently fallen. He feeds her pieces of the world around them but, for reasons unknown, gives her only the kindest pieces, muffled and soft.
And he watches, curious and unsure of why he was here at all.
