"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
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
It has been some time since she had seen him. The boy with paper wings. Her mind drifted to him often but since her misfortune with the quest and her new found ability she hadn't felt safe to come anywhere near him. As much as she enjoyed his company, he was the perfect prey. His skin was soft and the she could see the blood pulsing just under the surface. It was beautiful and deadly. The wolf came alive anytime she grew close to her glass friend. Just a touch, a bite. Just a taste.
Even now the wolf thoughts threatened to overwhelm her. At least being home, being in the Falls kept the wolf quiet. Kept her sane. Never had she been so grateful to call the neutral kingdom home. When she was within the borders she could feel the Falls take pity on her and suppress the demon in her head. It also kept the evil out of it's borders.
She takes her time wandering around the territory, avoiding the other residents and visitors, just enjoying the calm and peace that radiates within the kingdom. When she is ready she goes to find him. Contagion. She has to laugh since she's literally infected. It doesn't take long to find the glass boy once she wants to. She stands before him awkwardly, unable to quite explain why she's been gone or make idle small talk. Honestly she isn't even sure if he'll care that she disappeared off the radar for awhile. So she stands nervously shuffling her feet trying to find the middle ground between being polite and not trying to rip him to pieces. Finally she manages to meet his eye and choke out a whispered "Hello."
Silver dapple sabino|Mare|Andalusian Hybrid|Falls
(ooc: assuming you still want to hang out in the Falls haha if not I can move this to the meadow! :D )
He finds it easy, to be alone.
And even though it is easy it is not necessarily desired, not in the way he desires other things: skin that is not see through, wings that might bear him aloft – being alone is easier, he supposes. Easier because he is not so easily hunted, because he does not have to see the discomfort skirt their faces as their eyes trace the maps of his veins and arteries, so complacent beneath glassy skin.
He drifts in the falls. It’s as good a place as any. He likes the noise, the water’s strength. He catches glimpses of her, sometimes, but does not go closer. He cannot explain why.
He knows there was a quest, space and stars , old gods and new worlds, and he heard her name whispered among the chosen. It does not surprise him. She is a warrior, the kind who would be called upon for the impossible.
Then, she is there and he is not alone.
She looks the same, though there’s something in her eye, something Contagion can’t quite define. But he smiles. He is glad to see her, a familiar face, the silver patched woman who touched him as they watched the waterfall crash down.
“Hello,” he says.
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
His voice soothes her. She drinks it in and begs for more. She drops her gaze, unable to meet his eyes, so soft and sweet, so fragile. Just a taste, wouldn't that be nice? You'd get to feel his blood and flesh, so sweet, so tasty, mark him, claim him. The wolf in her head was charming, his ideas seductive. It wanted her to sink her teeth into his flesh and brand him as hers. Otherwise he was prey like everyone else.
Her hooves shift on the slick rocks as she restlessly sways in place, bringing her out of her morbid thoughts slightly. Finding the words was proving to be harder than she expected. Tyrna felt more wolf than horse sometimes and her thoughts always returned to the glass boy with the paper wings hiding in the fairytale kingdom. Contagion had become the prince in every story she told herself while she was trembling through a transformation alone in the dark. Every time she thought she was lost his image swam to the forefront of her as the impossible thing at the end of the tunnel. They were complete opposites in some regards, him made of glass and her strong as steel, that it became apparent she should just leave well enough alone. Their last meeting was sweet and wonderful, and one of the few good memories she had left.
How could she tell him, being the practical strangers they were, that he was the light that kept her trudging towards home? That he kept her nose above water and saved her from drowning inside herself? He was the impossible dream that kept her from giving into the wolf. This was the only form she could see him in.
She still can't meet his eyes for the shame she feels but in the end her heart wins out, and she manages to find her voice. The words, once they start flow easier, and with time she can raise her head to look at him. "How have you been? I hope the Falls have treated you kindly while you've been here." She asks him non-invasive, polite questions, and smiles in all the right places as she makes idle chit chat. With her last burst of courage the wolf girl manages to whisper out, "In truth, I had not expected to see you again. But I am so glad that I did." Once out all she can do is smile.
Silver dapple sabino|Mare|Andalusian Hybrid|Falls
ooc: sorry if this doesn't make much sense, it's late here ><
He sees something flicker across her face, something dark and unreadable. His head tilts, just slightly, as if it would help him decipher her, as if she was simply a language that could be decoded. She was not, of course, she was inherently more complex than that – a woman touched by the sky, a warrior, made strong and steely.
(He doesn’t know that she’s also touched a god, that there is something canine about her now, a wickedness he has not yet delved the depths of.)
He is complex too, in an entirely different way. A boy made of glass, who exists, impossible, in a world of stone-throwers. His existence practically begs to be broken, and he thinks (when he in a more morbid state of mind) that it’s a miracle he’s alive, that any day now he will fall victim to a hungry beast, a wicked wayfarer with a taste for blood. Or even something simple, something foolish – he will slip and fall, and watch his life bleed away.
He shakes these thoughts off, quits trying to decode her, quits plumbing his own depths where the macabre thoughts sit perched like gargoyles.
“I’ve been well,” he says. And he had. Time had passed. He had been alone, but that was not any different. He’s grown used to the sound of the water, finds comfort in the noise, the constant of it.
“And you? You seem…different,” he doesn’t know how to explain, that something touches her, a shadow to her face that was not there before.
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
Something different indeed. She had been touched by a god, a monster. It felt like a dream but the transformations she had from time to time had proven otherwise. Even now she could feel the coarse fur lying just under the surface of her skin, the claws ready to burst from hooves as soon as she let her guard down. She is glad to hear that he had been well, that the quiet kingdom had kept him safe. She worried that one day she would return to find his broken body lying among the rocks. Morbid thoughts were all that kept her company these days.
The wolf girl chuckles when he asks after her. She is not entirely the same brazen girl he met that day in the meadow. "I have been... well I suppose. Better, I am getting better. It's hard to keep it together when there is a constant howling in your ears." Her accompanying snort of laughter is entirely self deprecating. "I made the mistake of following a siren and fighting a god, now I'm cursed with the wolf. Something I hope you never see." There is a sadness in her eyes when she thinks of the terrible things she could all too easily do to his fragile body. Just watching his pulse jump in his translucent veins brings her inner demon creeping forward.
Taking a small step forward she reaches out to lay her neck gently against his, delicately draping her elegant head over his shoulder in a semblance of an embrace. Not enough to put pressure on him but enough to feel his skin against hers. She needs the contact, the grounding. Needs to know that he isn't completely out of her reach even as fangs start to slide out and fill her maw. She is able to stifle the transformation for now, but quickly pulls back , stepping away from him to avoid further tempting the beast.
"I hope I'm not too familiar for your comfort," her voice sounding muffled as she struggles to contain the monster that she has become. "I really enjoy are time together, and I was wondering how much longer will you stay? Will I see you again?"
He wonders, too, if she will one day find his body scattered across the rocks. His thoughts have always been tinged with the morbid – it’s a given, with his glass state. It’s made worse by the fact he finds a certain wonder to the falls, to the strength of the water pounding down, how the rocks stand strong (centuries will pass and they will be gone, he supposes, but for him to be gone would only take seconds). It is not a suicidal thought – he has no wish to die – but the thoughts of the rocks, the water, follow him and find way into his dreams.
She tells him what happened, and he wonders. He knows what it is to be cursed, though his came with birth (perhaps because he was born to a woman dead, a woman risen from the sea to return to her love). Though he would prefer a predator to prey.
The thoughts are banished when she is closer, neck to his. He can feel the strength of her, all sinew and muscle, and wonders what he must feel like in comparison. The moment is short, she stiffens and is gone, and the skin she once touched feels cold.
“You’re not,” he says, then, “I have nowhere else to go. I can stay as long as you’ll have me here.”
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
A small smile graces her rather wild countenance at his answer. The sun is shining and the birds are about. The Falls are recovering, better than they were before, and Tyrna believes she feels the stirrings of love. Though it was against her grain to admit that she could fall prey to such base emotions, they were there. Hidden deep in her heart where even the wolf wouldn't find them. She kept them safe like a bird trapped in her chest waiting for the right time to fly.
Everything about their relationship was at odds. She was wild, fierce like the creature sharing her skin, and he was so beautifully delicate. Opposites but perfect in their own way. She grins at him, the wolf receding in the face of her pack like acceptance of the glass boy. The wolf would always be on the lookout, waiting , tempting her to see just how fragile he really was. Though the wild girl was certain that as long as she held the spark of affection for the boy with paper wings she would be able to stave off the wolf's attempts to make him prey.
"What if I wanted you to stay here with me forever?" She teases quirking a metaphorical eyebrow at him. "Do you not have family you would rather return to?"
He is here because he likes the power of the falls, the treachery in the waters crashing over rocks. He is here because there is a part of him that craves power, craves what he cannot and will not ever have.
He is here because she is steel and strong and he wonders at it, how it must feel, to be so unbreakable, to walk without fear of breaking.
(Of course, they can break in other ways besides the physical.)
“My mother and father are dead,” he says. It hurts to say. They’ve always been dead, they left them abandoned on the beach, him and Adaline. It still hurts. He wonders if things would have been different if they’d had parents there to watch out for them.
“I have a sister,” his glass twin, the one who understands what it’s like to live in fear of shattering, “Adaline. I don’t know where she went. Or if she’s alive.”
(The thought of her death haunts him nightly. It’s a miracle he is alive, he cannot expect many more.)
“We were together for a long time and then she left. But she might come here, too. If she’s alive.”
There are other things to say, hanging heavy between them, but there is a call. A summons. He does not go. They do not want him. She does, and he watches, the sunlight catching inside of him and all around.
If we don't make it alive, well it's a hell of a good day to die
She watches him as he speaks of his family and an unfathomable sorrow wells up in her breast. How it must have felt for him to be so alone all this time. Not for the first time since meeting him the girl made of wolf and steel is at a loss for words. She has always had her mother, and her father though absent, was still alive. Tyrna had never felt the love of a sibling other than her adopted one. She can only try to imagine the pain he felt. She tries to offer some form of comfort by offering kind words but they feel hollow.
Then she hears the call. Her name echos in the distance and reluctantly, she knows that she will answer. It dries up the words in her throat and all she can do is listen. She doesn't want to leave but they both know she will. She steps to his side once more and presses a tender kiss against his neck. "I will never leave you. Even if I am gone for a while, just remember I will come back for you. Always." She draws away and turns to leave. As she walks a way she glances back to the boy made of glass and smiles broadly "If you ever find your sister, tell her she will always have a home and my protection while she's here." She gives him one last wolfish grin, an excitement sparkling in her eyes, then she is gone. Swept away in another adventure.
