"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
01-26-2019, 12:32 AM (This post was last modified: 01-26-2019, 12:32 AM by Leokadia.)
you should see me in a crown
your silence is my favorite sound
The impact of her landing, four hooves striking the ground at once is sudden and steady. Drying mud crumbles, oozes, and sucks at her soles. Her vast wings are the same pale shade as her pelt and she settles them in a relaxed way at over her back and sides, a cloak of creamy feathers.
After only a few steps she stills. She does not expect to be long unnoticed in her trespass. Raising an equine brow as she methodically looks in a handful of specific directions, arching her unadorned neck when she finds that no one is yet approaching. It had been a rather abrupt entrance, she will forgive them.
Leokadia is used to going unnoticed, being unimportant. There was a time when she was very small that it was a problem. Now it’s a boon. She can be whatever she needs to be, whatever survival requires.
Her eyes she had filled with Loess as she passed overhead, and one glimpse of it printed a map within her mind. Her recall is perfect, crystal clear. Every tree and rock and sweating stinking body she’d laid eyes on is a picture perfect memory. She knows where every one of them is, these Loessians, and what they look like, their color and variation not lost in even the smallest fraction despite unfamiliarity.
At three years of age she has never spent time time enough in any one place to call it home. There has been no attraction in belonging or being kept. Though she does look for something to occupy her time. Pangea had appealed at first, but she was bored by the concept of a dark god. When she spills blood she does it for herself.
The plague has the cremello mare, it has turned her ribs to cages and plucked away every strand of her pale mane. She has been ill so long that it has stopped mattering. She might even be pleased with how haunting her white-blue eyes look inside her gaunt narrow face.
Leokadia
Hi Lo and I are trashcans please reply to us even though this sucks. :3
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
She, too, is a victim. Her skin is pulled taut across her bones, and her coat is dulled by the residing infection. Castile watches her, his mismatched eyes hooded but nonetheless observant. Not long ago, his body struggled to move but he forced himself to live, to survive. When he soared high above, his muscles trembled and his lungs screamed. Although not yet entirely healed, he has at least found someone able to mask the symptoms enough so that he may eat and run and fly effortlessly. Each week, when the symptoms surface again, he revisits the imprisoned angel so that he may have another taste of relief.
Castile is a monster in almost every way. Blood is on his hands and his body can contort into a titanic beast, but amid all of that – hidden far beneath the turbulent surface waters – there is a beating and caring heart. It climbs up now to breach, and it pushes him forward until he stands in front of her.
Not prey, he reminds himself as his gaze slips across her in fascination. His steady heartbeat overwhelms the creature that lies in wait within him, chaining shut its mouth long enough to handle a conversation. Preceding with a grin, he offers a simple introduction. ”The name’s Castile,” it flows easily from his tongue even as his voice rumbles like a throaty growl. Sunlight catches his bronze locks as his head inclines to shift them from his view. Silver and orange. They are intense, much like a predator, but they are complicated and somehow alluring. ”And your name?” He doesn’t end it there though as his gaze hungrily scrapes across her once more prior to leveling on her blue eyes. Although she seems harmless enough, his natural instinct is to be wary. Rope-like muscles contract beneath his skin and ripple as he casually shrugs. The summer heat incubates him further, but he thrives in the warmth. His touch – if he were to reach for her – would be abnormally warm due to the fire churning within him.
Alas, he doesn’t yet provide her that comfort or reassurance.
Instead, he remains somewhat formal, attentive. ”Loess,” he spares a sideways glance to indicate the landscape that unravels behind him, ”Will you be staying with us, or are you simply visiting?”
03-02-2019, 10:51 PM (This post was last modified: 03-02-2019, 10:51 PM by Leokadia.)
you should see me in a crown
your silence is my favorite sound
A stallion smelling of smoke greets her and Leokadia looks at him with her strange white-blue eyes and her unusual mind memorizes him instantly and completely (at least this physical representation). She catalogs forever every tiny strand of color in his mismatched eyes, the exact timbre of his husky voice, forming the most perfect picture of him without being able to help it.
”Castile.” She repeats, as though she needs to do it to help herself retain his name. Measuring his responses to see what he needs from her, what he hopes to find in a sickly little mare dropping into the middle of his home. Her small ears are trained on him, nostrils flaring as she shifts in a hot blooded way at odds with her frailty. Maybe he desires her, maybe he wants to eat her… she’s seen stranger things in this world. “Leokadia. Call me Lo if it pleases you.” He is attractive. She is supposed to notice those kinds of things at this point in her life, but attraction is a weapon she has not yet tried to wield and the sharp points of her hips do not seem suited to playing the temptress. But maybe he likes his women or his supper to be knocking on death's door.
She does not come here expecting much more than a greeting and a bit of posturing, it’s what she’d seen in Pangea before she’d helped kill whats-his-name (she doesn’t remember, it had been before her head had become a repository for everything). Castile surprises her by being more friendly than the strange creatures she’d encountered in the risen-land.
“Loess. Yes.” As her own gaze flips over the land (monotonous, familiar after these 10 minutes standing in it). “I would like to stay. If you are offering the opportunity?” He implied it, but it seems appropriate to ask as she adjusts her wings to settle more tightly against her back and sides rather that cloaking her slender body, as though she is relaxing herself to remain here on the earth beside him.
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
She notices the intensity of his stare, and her mind reels with reasons, but Castile provides no other reasons to be afraid.
His voice, though laced with rigid formality, is still warm and heated by the flames in his gut. She – Lo, she soon offers – does not quake beneath his curt manner, but instead faces it with a languidity that he appreciates in silence. A break in his stoicism invites a shadowed grin to wrinkle the edges of his mouth. ”Lo it is, then,” he agrees with a slight nod of his baroque head while clutching her name tightly. With an easiness to her company, Castile is admittedly pleased when she provides confirmation – and hope – to remain tucked within Loess as another resident. As the kingdom expands its reach and influence, he cannot deny the bouts of pride that bloom in his chest. There have been multiple that he watched the kingdom from his rocky precipice. Beneath his rule thus far, it is thriving.
Loess is strong, and Ischia will be, too.
They will become a force. They will be formidable together with siblings taking the thrones.
To increase Loess’ strength by another – with Leokadia – Castile hums low in delight. ”Wonderful to hear,” he begins prior to pivoting away so that he no longer blocks the land’s entrance from her. It unravels and is immediately an enticing lure to her future and potential accomplishments. ”Tell me, Lo, do you have a purpose? Or perhaps an interest that you think would help Loess or contribute to its rising power?” Ranks will be implemented, of course, but he takes into consideration the diversity that he is harboring within these walls, and the assets they possess. Each one of them has a talent to assist in the kingdom’s success and growth, even if it is as low-maintenance as motherhood to help raise children. ”Let us walk so you may see your new home.” Slowly, Castile turns to begin their slow amble, their conversation holding his interest even as his eyes rove across the springs and rocky outcroppings.
