"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
carried by the current of the morning miles below the surface of the dawn
Her life has been a sheltered thing, although she rests on the precipice of it.
She is no longer just a girl, but being just two means that she not yet fully grown either. Instead, she rests somewhere on the edge of maturity. Her body has begun to shed the soft curves of youth, leaving some of the angles of adulthood. Her coat is no longer the deep black that it was when she was born but has already begun to gray and dapple, leaving everything but the inky darkness of her mane and tail alone.
And her heart remains untouched—unchanged.
It rests in her chest, as guarded and hopeful and naive as the day she took her first breath.
So perhaps it is not surprising that she hears the chime. That she lifts her head upon its first ringing, her lovely features creasing with thought as she angles her head, sage green eyes thoughtful. It does not take her long to see the light, to wonder at the way that it pulses and glows, like a star brought to earth. It does not dull the edge of her wonder as she stares at it, letting its milky glow bathe her as she studies it.
When it begins to move, she does not hesitate to follow.
Larke has never been one to hunger for adventure—she is content to sit in the shadows, to watch those more bold and interesting than her—but she has a heart that does not stop expanding for wonder. She longs for such things of beauty and magic and she does not stop herself from following the star.
She lifts her nose toward it, but it dances just out of her reach.
So she smiles, dropping her head down, content to know that it is near.
They walk, the pair of them, for a while. She barely registers where they are. She has no great head for directions and has not ventured outside of the Western kingdom enough to truly learn the rest of Beqanna. So perhaps it doesn’t matter as she crosses brook and field, as the sky changes above her. Perhaps it doesn’t matter as much as the light that continues to dance away, that continues to lead her forward.
Until it doesn’t.
She finds herself facing the door and something within her clenches just slightly with fear—with worry. Her delicate features crease with concern as she studies the door, the shadows that linger, and she looks over her shoulder once more—as if hoping to see that brilliant light of her mother walking through a portal or the relived features of her father coming to bring her home. But neither come.
It is just her and a door and the decision.
Seconds pass, then minutes, and she still stands there.
Until she thinks of her brother and how quickly he would have already stepped across the threshold and something within her glows warm with the confidence. Lifting her chin, she steps forward into the dark.
this is not the place that I was born in but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong
A chill wind sweeps down from higher in the mountains, carrying with it the hard scent of ice on stone as well as the softer fragrance of earth freshly broken open by new growth. Spring comes slowly to these high crags; the grass at Pteron’s hooves reminds him of the down of a new-hatched grouse: barely there, blink and he’d walk right past it.
He does walk past it, his olive gaze sliding over a little tuft of moss no larger than his blue ear, as disinterested as if he had just eaten a full meal. The gnawing in his belly is a reminder that he has not eaten in some time – days even – but he does not stop to graze nor to quench his thirst at the gurgling snowmelt creek that rushes down the mountain and toward the valley below.
The winged stallion does not look long at anything these days. His winter was spent high on the Mountainside, the only place where he had been certain he would find no one. The few supplicants that climb toward the peak had been easy to avoid. They have eyes only for their destination; they did not look twice at the pale horse. Pteron had liked that, and then had not liked that he liked it. He has not like much of anything these past months, and that hollowness is even worse than the emptiness in his belly and the roughness of his parched throat.
Raising his blue muzzle, he glances up at the higher peaks, considering climbing even farther. He’s lifted a hoof to do so when he hears it – the chime.
It catches at a part of him he has not felt in a long time, strikes a chord within him that does not sound much different from the happiness that he has been unable to find for months and months.
With his breath caught in his throat he turns toward it. Just there, at the edge of his vision, is a light that is barely more there than the grass at his feet. But as he watches, it glows more steadily, until he finds that he is moving toward it rather than up the mountain. It darts away each time he gets nearer, and again that almost familiar chime sounds. It feels like playing tag with his siblings, like letting them think he can’t catch them just to hear the joyous peals of their laughter.
It is happiness, and even if it had been something far more sour, it is at least an emotion, and he has not felt one of those in a long time. Pteron does not hesitate at the doorway, not for a moment. The little glowing orb has sparked something in him that he had thought gone forever, and even if it were monsters behind this dark doorway he does not care a whit, because even this darkness is brighter than the world has seen these past few months.
She wakes to the sound of bells, though it is not a sound she has a name for. It sounds so soft, tinkling like the chime of icicles, like those bright gem-pebbles when they spill and clatter together from the stone of her favorite exploring-caves. She almost forgets the bells when other sound swells to swallow it - the rustle of leaves and the cooing of birds. Her sleepy head droops again, ears going soft and slack and slipping comically sideways.
But then she hears it again, that whimsical chime that seems to stir something gentle and joyful within her chest. Climbing to her feet, she pauses again, waits for the sound to tumble against her in that same fragile way Flit’s wings do when her moth companion hides itself in the cornsilk of her dark mane.
She waits, peering around with eyes the color of green crystals until she is distracted by something else entirely. Light flashes in her periphery - like a floating star or a firefly, but when she turns her face fully and steps eagerly forward, she is bewildered by its sudden disappearance. Did she imagine it? She blinks, wonders if maybe she needs a longer nap, if probably her eyes are playing tricks on her.
But no! There it is again! She bounds towards it with enough enthusiasm that Flit spills free of her hair in a tumble of powdery white wings. “There it is again!” She cries in a voice of sweet, childish delight, outpacing her much smaller companion easily before remembering herself and slowing so the moth can tangle back into her mane. “Sorry Flit.” She murmurs with sweet bashfulness, smiling at the tiny whirring chirps she knows to be Flit scolding her. FORTUNATELY, Flutter doesn’t seem to understand moth-language. Or maybe the words are just too teeny tiny and get lost along the way. It’s okay, Flit has other ways of expressing herself.
With her companion tucked safely into the tangles of her stone-dark mane, she follows the wandering star until the forest around her grows darker and unfamiliar. She barely notices though, feeling only the bravery of a child so protected by her parents from anything that might ever harm her. Brave from her gentle naivety. Or at least brave until suddenly the forest is too dark to pick out the shape of the more distant trees, until the sky is gone from overhead and only the leaves fold like gem-colored hands to blot out all else.
She wilts just a little, surprised by the change and a little wary, but the dark itself does not scare her, not when she knows how strong daddy is in the dark. It’s just the suddenness of unfamiliarity and the lack of either one of her parents by her side that makes her hesitate when the door looms suddenly ahead of her. For a second she gives it the wary side-eye and goes to turn back, deciding that maybe she didn’t care about bells and lost stars after all, you know? But, she pauses, glances back at the door all squinty-eyed and searching, scowling at it like maybe she can scare it into telling her if it’s mean.
But nothing happens, no change in the dark or the forest or the door itself, not even in the thick tangles of vines spilled all around it like her messy hair. “Oooookay,” she says aloud, sounding decisive even as that wary side-eye look returns as she inches back towards the door, “I mean, we came all this way and you’re probably a nice thingamabob I bet.” She looks doubtful though, pausing to sniff it, then jab it with her nose and recoil quickly, then touch it again more gently when it doesn’t hurt. “Yeah okay,” she announces as though someone had asked, “this is no big deal.”
Then with a quiver of anticipation, the smoky pegasus steps over the threshold, decidedly ignoring the jabber of moth-chirp buzzing in her ear. Flit probably just agrees this is a good idea anyway.
