"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
An impenetrable darkness hangs all around her and the air itself feels thick, hard to breathe and impossibly wet. She inhales through her nostrils but the struggles hurts, oh it hurts, and she chokes and sputters and coughs until her body is able to find a moment of respite and peace. The taste of coppery blood lingers on her tongue and she can barely remember anything else; but her legs are strong, and she continues walking: passing through shadow and shadow… through the ink and murk, and through the grasping tendrils of blackened earth that cling to her hooves.
Sarkis screams, she yells and screams: she cries too, but, the echoes are nonexistent and the sound falls to little more than a the shrill cry of wind echoing through cliffs.
Salt.
Sea and sun, the smell of the beach is suddenly thrust into her senses and she sees light piercing the very fabric of the darkness. This pulsating shadow screeches and with desperation she plunges forward towards it before the murk can grasp her legs once more. It feels endless, as this loop was made to be infinite and a trap; but every fifth or sixth blink the light grows in size and she becomes more frenzied with each realization.
Jagged rocks and stones dig into her hooves and the footing becomes slippery, wet from the sea. Those coiled hind legs push down and snap, shooting her forward and over several large stones: Sarkis scratches her forelegs on the brine encrusted stone as she legs lands and her eyes close as the sunlight is blinding.
Free, she inhales, and tastes the air: true air.
Free, she shivers, looking back to dark cave and the bloodied stones: to the hellmouth that lets out a great rumble as she turns and opens her eyes. The green tinted hazel gleaming and her body suddenly warmed by the familiar air and sun, Sarkis half smiles but in her mind she cannot push back the feeling of loneliness and misery, of pain.
Her legs wobble as she walks, and without ceremony she waits until she has found sand before allowing her legs to bend and body to fall to the ground with a sigh of relief. Weak and resting, she slowly draws herself up, slowly pushed and forces herself to stand: to adjust the eyes to sun and to recall the voracity and hunger in her belly.
“That place, where?” she begins to ask, to speak, to try and collect her thoughts. Gaze rolling across the sand and stones of the beach, the caves in the cliff walls: and more so the sea, that cold embodiment that beckons so sweetly to the sore and tested body. For moments she dips into her, Sarkis’ dusty coat washed and the cavern grime left behind: blood too was washed.
Yet with wounded and scratched legs she goes back to the shore, walks and guides herself to where the sun is the warmest, and with that she exhales and calls out a single word:
“Mother?” sweet and gentle, full of confusion. “I think I was lost… are you here?” she remembers asking before, crying and screaming, she remembers pleading. “Please don’t be gone again… I’m sorry I left.”
Her heart is breaking, but, for the moment she remembers the strength it took to escape the umbra and sheol, and so she holds on, waiting.
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
For a guard with no particular threat to look out for any more, suddenly he's a little restless. There's not just 'one' place he needs to check for safety any more - it's all of Nerine. Sharks, kelpies (Chryseis was a little too worked up on those), just annoying little jellyfish tangling up your feet when you least expected it -
Or a lost, bay roan mare calling out on the shoreline.
Wait what?
Oh, well, that's not exactly threatening he supposes. But she seems to be talking to... no-one exactly, and it silently freaks him out. Sure, his mother does that sometimes - she talks to ghosts since she has been dead and sometimes loses track of the conversation of the living. Not that he minds but, she doesn't want to admit it, so it's fun to prod her about it...
Oh right, girl on the beach. Got it. Time to work in some kind of rescue, he supposes. He finds his way down the cliffs slowly, then, towards the bay roan. Hmm. Bay roan. Isn't that just the loveliest colour ever. His family's all weird, and spread out, so well, who ever knows such things.
Closing in, out in the open, not wanting to scare her away, he calls out. "Hey!" Best first words ever, at least, when you don't know why someone looks so lost. Best ever word. "Ehm. Are you... lost?" He cocks his head, curious about her, but a little wary - she doesn't smell of the land, she doesn't seem to have much of a scent trail other than into the caves, in fact, it's like she appeared out of nowhere. And if she just teleported here, what else can she do?
This land, after all, is full of weird and strange magic.
HTML by Vanilla Custard, picture by x-celebri-x on deviantart
@[Sarkis] @[Scorch]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
In the span of time that it took for decades to form, not once did she ever forget her children; not a single one (though sometimes she wished she could forget Leilan for a day or two). They each held a special place in her heart, with memories attached to their names abounding more than she would ever be able to count. She'd only ever given birth outside of the Jungle three times: with Rain in the Valley, with Vi and Volcan in the Falls, and with Blue in Ischia. The rest? In a thicket in the kingdom of her own birth - or, of her own faux-birth, anyhow.
None of that truly mattered when she heard her daughter's cry. It wouldn't be the first time that a child of hers washed up on the shore of Nerine, bleeding and crying - she remembered her reunion with Vi as if it was yesterday, and would smile to remember that her third youngest daughter yet resided in this land. But her blind child was far from her mind when she realized that no daughter of hers would be going so close to the cliff - Blue was far too young to be allowed anywhere near them yet, even with her fascination of water.
She didn't know how she managed to hear it from so far away, perhaps a stroke of good luck with the faeries as they recognized a daughter's need to be reunited with her mother. Irrespective of how she heard her, she did; and so without hesitation, Scorch ran for the waves. The prickly needles of the pines on either side tore at her hairless body, leaving faded red marks in their wakes. It was only as she broke out into the open, near the beach, that the mare remembered that this week, Blue was in Ischia; a blessing in disguise, for she would not want her youngest daughter to meet Sarkis like this.
Sarkis.
"Sarkis!"
The name rolled from her tongue with a familiarity nearly forgotten, a confession of love uttered in two mere syllables as she galloped to close the distance between them. She slowed soon enough as to not startle the roan girl, but tears swam in her magmatic eyes as she beheld her daughter. The last she remembered of Sarkis was listening to the young girl's energetic stories about nature and life, usually with Wrynn by her side as the two girls were close back then, near the time of their parents' death. Leilan had been absent by then, or perhaps he had chosen to remove himself - regardless, he was in her life now, and she would always be thankful to be able to add another child to the list of those who remained alive in the time that she did.
Stepping closer, Scorch immediately wrapped Sarkis in an embrace, pulling her as close as she could without cutting off both their wind pipes. Her shoulders shook gently and soundlessly as she cried, charred lips moving in silent prayer as she thanked the gods for delivering her lost daughter to her.
"You are not lost any more my child, and I will not leave. I am here - please, stay with me."
Stepping back, Scorch started softly and then watched as Leilan approached. Smiling tearily, she laughed at his reproachful greeting, trembling slightly for the nerves of it all.
"Don't you recognize your older sister, Leilan? You and Sarkis grew up together, in the Jungle."
10-22-2018, 11:55 PM (This post was last modified: 10-22-2018, 11:56 PM by Sarkis.)
Her forelegs hurt, they ache and bleed: cut on jagged rock and briny formations. Blood drips along the wounds and she feels where the flesh has torn with a newfound recollection of pain, with a sensation that causes her to stumble; but not to fall. Sarkis is for the moment, lost, and the bright eyes are lit with terror as she hears the sound of the ebbing tide and the shifting sand: as shape becomes what it is and she sees, for the first time in years- another one of herself… or as close to herself as she can come.
The scaling frightens her but she does not go away from Leilan, there is something about him that is familiar and strange: something that makes her want to run to him and to throw her neck around him with some profoundly deep emotion that rouses her heart in a way she has forgotten. He speaks and all the air goes out of her lungs, out of her throat in some exhale that itself trembles- a faint squeak dying with the sound and her eyes close.
Words come slowly, and Sarkis is able to find them when she needs them, slow and timid- drawn out and quiet, barely above a whisper. “I don’t know.” she breathes, but, for all this moment she tries to remember the name of the mother she is calling for and in that instant she sees and tastes wildfire, smoke, and ash: she remembers loss and pain, grieving. Teary eyed and staring quietly at Leilan she tries again, stumbling over the very things she is trying to convey. “When am I? Where is mother, Scor-”
Its a certain degree of irony that when she begins to speak the name on her tongue there is sudden cry in the air, a sound that is familiar and a word she knows: her name. The sound of sand and water broken upon hooves draws her attention and her gaze is taken from Leilan to the rushing figure of a woman, of a creature she feels close too. Burned and draconic she recognizes the very glow of the eyes, the sound of the voice: even the scent and sheer aura of her presence.
“Mother.” she states quietly, her expression twisted into confusion and conflict and her mind racing as she is reminded again of her sore legs and exhausted body. “It was dark, for so long. I don’t remember when- just, there was a cave and I saw someone go in. I followed them, I was curious… and then I couldn’t get out. It was like the dark just kept going, like there was no end to it.” she tries to explain, weak and raspy- with her body shivering as she recalls the eerie depths of that place: of the bizarre world where time was absent.
She can feel the warmth of her mother’s body, the tightness of her embrace and she cherishes it: eases into it and slowly crosses her own neck around her. To the touch Sarkis is cold, damp, and undoubtedly bony- her body shuddering and eyes closed as she listens: as she enjoys the tenderness and familiarity of the grasp, of the embrace.
“Leilan? Brother-” she blinks as Scorch steps away, her gaze leveling onto him with conflict and yet unadulterated joy: love. “I can’t believe you’re all here.” she trembles, snorting softly and choking back tears in her eyes. The whole of her body lingering close to Scorch and yet, she glances down at her legs, at her body- at the world all around her and she flits her ears with attention to sound of waves, of water: of all the birds.
Sunlight, too, feels good on her skin and the warmth slowly spreads around her. Yet, there is an unimaginable pain in her, one that lingers in the core: in the far reaches of her heart and mind… a seed of grief and anger, of pain and fear. For a moment, she winces, noting her legs and their wounds, sighing at the blood on her fur. “I don’t remember when… how long?”
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
Well, no.
He wants to say it, but the snarky comment gets stuck in his throat because his sister doesn't need it, and honestly he doesn't care is his mother thinks the worst of him at the moment - truth is he never really clicked with his sisters perhaps. Or more that, Sarkis and Wrynn clicked with the Amazons more than he. He'd been away from the three of them, half the time, or more. Sarkis had not always been around, either, did not often have time for an annoying little brat of a baby brother that immaturely would tease his twin sister endlessly (maybe she just never wanted to be on his list of targets). He wonders now if his mother noticed - doesn't matter.
When his mother does start calling out, he sidesteps to let her through, the frown not fully gone from his face as he studies the unfamiliar familiar mare. His mother clears it up right away - like Heartfire, she seems to know all the things, ever. Like how exactly her children look like. Or all the names of their relatives. Like they don't have anything better to do at all.
Hmm, maybe they don't. With that insight, he lifts his face with a crooked, almost knowing smile, and shakes his head at his mother slightly. Growing up in the same kingdom is one thing. Having a yearling sister who'd rather spend her time with his twin sister and ignore him because he was annoying - still is - is a whole different thing. Nevertheless, he doesn't interrupt the roan bay, instead looking at her more seriously when she speaks of the lack of memory. It seemed a nightmarish place, that she describes. Suddenly his thoughts are with Breckin and her loss of memory - perhaps she was in luck for not knowing of her past, because if it was as terrible as Sarkis just now described, well, he wouldn't wish that on anybody (anybody who is alive these days at least - he might have made the exception for that lavender idiot).
Sarkis is a cute sister. Like Wrynn was. He grins at her, then presses his lips together to hide the possibly-scary teeth, and he shrugs a little apologetically at her. She's already looking down to her legs, and he steps closer to talk to the both of them, and reaches out to touch the bay roan on her shoulder. "I don't either, but I know that's not the question to ask, especially if it was horrible." Looking at her slightly amused for a second, he nods to the cliffs above, the path their mother had come racing down. "The question is what are you gonna do with your future."
Better let go of what had been. There was a world welcoming her return, and the fact that Scorch was still here was pure luck, but if her legs were a metaphor of what she had been through, it'd be better to just catch her, and then set her free into the world. To begin anew.
Honestly, he sometimes wished he could do that so easily.
HTML by Vanilla Custard, picture by x-celebri-x on deviantart
@[Sarkis] @[Scorch]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
10-25-2018, 11:15 AM (This post was last modified: 10-25-2018, 11:15 AM by Scorch.)
WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT
In the tightness of her embrace, Sarkis whispered the truths of her time in the Beyond with an exhaustion and sadness so intense that Scorch almost feared that this would be their last embrace. The things the daughter spoke of sounded to the mother almost like the dreams she'd had with the dragon and the portal, but this dream Sarkis spoke of left her with no gifts and only bleeding knees and a wracked frame. Scorch felt this pain herself, willing it on to her - but she had no magic with which to truly transfer the wounds, and so the effort remained exclusively sentimental.
"There is an end. You've found it. It's going to be okay."
Upon separation, the two women remain touching at the shoulders, as if to be completely without one another would somehow send them to opposite ends of the earth once more. Still, this close vantage point allowed Scorch to watch tearfully as Sarkis recognized her younger brother, crying softly in the happy way that only the emotional offspring of Scorch could really muster in today's day and age. When Leilan offered only a grin in response to his sister's obvious jubilation, something twisted inside of Scorch - had she remembered her children's childhoods differently than they had truly stood? She knew that Leilan had chosen her side over Wrynn's (a mistake on her part not his), but after the first few months she'd thought they'd all become a happy family... In the chaos of her and Hestoni's slow, amnesiatic death, perhaps she had lost some details of that reality.
But it's like Leilan said now, decades later: the question is what are you gonna do with your future. And only the Gods knew how much she was taking that to heart.
Feeling a different sort of sympathy for her daughter's time-lost memory (for she couldn't deny that Leilan had experience too, but his was not universal and to be fair, neither was hers), Scorch pressed her muzzle gently to Sarkis' throat-latch before explaining.
"You disappeared just after mine and father's death, some... twenty five years ago, or so." She paused, and perhaps Leilan would know why; it was difficult, speaking of her absent husband upon who she had cheated. "But there are a number of your siblings present now, Sarkis, and many, many nieces and nephews. But I do not think that now is the time to meet them - do you feel up to finding a place to rest in the forest over there?"
There are no words she can say as for the briefest second, for the shortest moment: nothing immediate because in that passing instance she looks to the dark crevices and caves in the cliffside and she sees a bizarre remnant of something, of herself. Fragile and frozen it traverses into the darkness after a shadow and then… absence: emptiness. Time unpauses and she chokes back the shock of it, of the looping memory given form. Sarkis feels her stomach knotting, feels it drop and the sensation of panic rising in her mind; but even then she can hear Leilan and Scorch… feel the dried and flesh body and all its warmth.
Hazel-green and brilliant with flecks of gold, her eyes level on Leilan as she’d previously looked away and for a moment she sees a distortion of her brother. Younger, smaller, more fragile but not without strength… the last recollections she has of him and there is a sudden emptiness in her eyes, a reality that her mind endears as she looks down and stares at the lacking gray and young muscle- at the shape that has been unaffected by years and by nature. “You were smaller.” she comments, states with no malice nor mean of offense: it is simply observation. “Younger, I-” and when she cuts off its because Sarkis furrows her brow and considers Scorch’s remark about how long it’s been.
Panic: when? When is she? Why now?
“The end? Twenty five years... “ her head turns and she listens to Scorch- truly listens and thinks, her lips parting as confusion and conflict spiral into her mind and she recalls the black darkness and all the silence. Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters- their children, lives passed on and continued whereas for the moment she feels frozen: trapped and unable to reason out why or when. The touch does not anger nor rouse rage in her, but, she steps away from both Scorch and Leilan- stepping back until she can breathe and her trembling begins. With her eyes closed, Sarkis tries to focus, tries to think and to consider the strained energies being spent all in her state of wild fear and sorrow.
When she speaks it is unintentionally loud, shouting and hurt: less anger but there is some there and the truth is… it was not meant for either of them. “I’ve been frozen for twenty five years?! I’ve been trapped in that place- without anyone?! Future?! What am I going to do with it, I don’t have all of my past and here you are with your life all in order, continued. I don’t know what to do now- I can’t even fathom to think of what I’m going to do in the next second.” biting and harsh it’s a maddened state of mind that takes over and for a second she scratches her hoof in the sand, feels the same ache and pain… the scent of blood and sea in her nostrils.
“I’m sorry.” she chokes, her eyes open and tears slowly dripping along the curves of her face: welling so deeply that for the briefest period there is a sob in her breath. “I’m so sorry.” Sarkis shakes, and there in the anger and sorrow, the rage at herself- she just looks to where Scorch has gestured, to the forest beyond the sand. PArt of her longs for it, a part she cannot remember: for the mist and the trees, for the humidity and the feeling of vines tangled and wrapped around the drooping branches. She recalls the primordial scent of loamy earth and it calms her; but more so the strange fondness of someone… something, a ghost of a memory she no longer has.
“Please.” she tries to speak but there is only silence after, only tired steps that walk her forward towards both Leilan and Scorch- back to the space where she had been… and in the corner of her eyes the illusion continues to play, Sarkis seeing the chronological ghosts of herself passing into the cave. “Please get me away from here.” she murmurs.
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
He is a lot of things these days that he wasn’t back then. Older, for one. Wiser, hardly, but perhaps a little. Scaled, pointy-toothed and accustumed to a larger vision range, since not too long ago. Immortal. A father to those who accept him to be. A lover and a fighter, though sometimes the two get mixed up.
And Sarkis has changed too. Not outwardly like he had - but she’s scarred now, and he forgot about that a moment. But when she realizes that he has changed, grown up, possibly older than she, she breaks. Scorch is still the same, at least.
A worried glance gets exchanged with his mother, but then his attention is with the bay roan girl once again because she starts to rant and cry and whatnot. ”Hold it there, sis,” he says, and putting the money where the mouth is, moves his well-trained neck muscle around hers to hold her still. ”Steady now. We’re not going to let you slip back.” Only then does he release her, and steps sideways and then waits for her to move away from this beach, ready to follow her wherever she wants to go -away she says- and adds another comment. ”I’ll have you know I’ve not lived twenty-five years myself yet, and neither did our mother go with the normal time flow. You’re not alone.”
But he’s had it relatively easy, he knows. Living a wild teenage life outside of Beqanna and finding friends and a love here (though to say it has been all without trouble here is also a lie), creating a family (albeit a too large one to be frank), having a kingdom or two to pledge his fighting muscle to, some kind of purpose - Sarkis has none of that yet, but he knows that she will. All in due time. As long as she doesn’t go panicking through all of it.
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@[Sarkis] @[Scorch]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
You were smaller. The words create a vacuum of worry in Scorch, a small tear ripping in the fabrics of something she had assumed to be safe and secure. She wondered if she should have saved mentioning the exact length of Sarkis' time away for another time, when she felt more secure - but it was too late. In the gasped, hypertense words which fell from her daughter's mouth, Scorch sensed the oncoming of panic.
She couldn't remember the last time she had a panic attack. (Perhaps since she had had so many while pregnant with Blue).
She wanted to reach out as Sarkis slipped away from them, but a terror of her own gripped her. A terror that she would fail as a mother yet again. That a step taken in what looked to be the right direction would bring her to her knees and threaten to slash the tight cords of her throat. Her daughter remained silent for a moment, slashed by the wind, punctuated by blood at every point along what ought to have been a perfect body - what would have been a perfect body had Scorch not allowed herself to die all the time ago. If she could have just been stronger.
The girl began yelling, and something clicked within Scorch. Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, even though it was the opposite of improving the traits which made her character flawed, even though it made her a bad mother yet again. As her heartbroken words howled alongside the wind, Scorch's consciousness receded until it felt as if she watched the world from behind her own mind, floating two feet above her own body; dislocated. Disassociated.
She'd never handled yelling well. Perhaps that was why she loved Hestoni. The loudest he ever became was in their marital bed - not that they had one to share, any more. Not that she knew of.
This thought did not help her re-stabilize.
She missed the way her son looked to her, though her body automatically returned the gesture due to muscle memory alone. But it is in fact when he stepped forward to hold his sister that Scorch returned somewhat to her corporeal form, urged by ghosts that neither of her children could hear. Inhaling shudderingly, the mare realized what was happening; and for not the first time, she remembered why she loved her youngest son so incredibly much. Because he knew how to handle the batshit crazy women of this family with care; he knew how to love them through their trials, no matter how eccentric.
When he stepped back, releasing his sister from his embrace, Scorch felt more herself. She looked to Sarkis somewhat apologetically, but then decided better of it and fixed her face to one more of motherly comfort. She moved to the roan girl's side, silencing her pleas with a press of her lips to neck, jaw, and lips; pressure points, to calm her newly reborn child. She asked to be lead away; and, with a glance that communicated her gratitude more deeply than it ever had before thrown Leilan's way, she stepped forward.
"Let's go then, sweetheart. It's not far. I will not leave you."
Scorch
Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle
@[Sarkis] @[Leilan]
Not sure if this is a good end or if you'd like to keep the conversation going in the forest! Thanks Leilan for being the best. Scorch sucks.
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