"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 had agreed to come to Nerine, but she regrets it.
Foolishly, she had allowed herself to become briefly captivated by the girl she had met in the forest. Unlike most, she had not been so easily put off by Brinly’s abrasive attitude, even though she had never entirely softened during the encounter. That in itself was enough for her to become enchanted; even if she hadn’t shown it. She had somewhat perfect the art of appearing as stone and marble on the outside – unyielding, unforgiving. But on the inside, her heart was skipping.
For a moment, she almost dared to hope there was something there.
For a moment, she almost let her thoughts run away from her, she almost let herself imagine what it would be like to not be angry, to find some sort of trust in someone.
But doubt always beat hope, and by the time she reached the cold, rocky shores of Nerine, the doubt had swallowed her whole again.
She can feel her pulse begin to quicken, and her throat tightens with nerves. The sea breeze whips and snaps at the long tendrils of her mane, and she does nothing to rid her forelock from her eyes. She should look for Brazen, she thinks. She should find her, and maybe her frayed nerves would be soothed, and maybe being here wouldn’t feel like such a mistake.
Or, she could leave.
She could leave, before anyone saw her, and Brazen would never know the difference.
cold in the violence after the war hope is a fire to keep us warm
The thing about Brazen is that she had grown up learning about unpredictable tempers. On the surface, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly useful thing to know or talent to have. But in the moment when they’d met, when Brazen had stepped back and finally truly looked at Brinly, she had seen her. Not just the stony surface and protective shield of anger. She’d the uncertainty and fear it had covered. The loneliness she tried so desperately to dismiss.
And she knew, without question, the very last thing Brinly would ever want was pity or sympathy. Brazen knows, because that is exactly what she wouldn’t want too. Too many times she’d seen it in other’s faces, when they’d looked at her and realized her truth. When they’d discovered the true agony she suffered through every day.
Even in the beginning, she’d tried to hide it. Now, she had gotten much better at it. Because if there was anything worse than living with it, it was seeing the pity on someone else’s face when they realized it.
And so she’d met her with teasing and humor. She hadn’t tried to ask what she ran from. Never mentioned the way she always shied away when she forgot herself and tried to move closer. Never pressed and never pried. And when the opportunity had arisen, she’d invited her to Nerine. Not because she felt bad, but because she wanted to. Because, for all her friendliness and many acquaintances, Brazen is lonely too.
And she’d desperately wanted a friend.
She hadn’t been entirely certain she would come, but when familiar scent catches the breeze and finds Brazen where she grazes absently, she jerks her head up abruptly, twisting around to peer in the direction from which it had come. It takes her only a moment to recognize the owner of that scent, and without thought she is bursting into a sprint, hooves a steady clip on the hard earth as she barrels towards where Brinly vacillates at the edge of Nerine.
It’s easy enough to see she’s debating whether or not she should just leave before she’s noticed. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how one looks at it), Brazen isn’t going to give her that chance. Skidding to a halt just before she slams into her, a wide grin stretches her lips. Windswept and wild, her eyes leap to hers, a breathless “Hello,” escaping her lips almost before she’s come to a complete stop.
She had debated her escape for too long, and soon she is met with the sound of Brazen’s rapid hoofbeats. Tension brews beneath her skin like a storm, and she tries to ignore the way her throat tightens as the other girl comes closer. This was a mistake; she could already feel it. But like small prey caught in the crosshairs she feels frozen in place, even though in her mind she is disappearing back into the mountains.
She is afraid to admit that she had thought of Brazen, and that that is why she is here. She is afraid to acknowledge that the other girl had sparked a strange, unfamiliar hope inside her chest. It was still just the smallest of embers, but inside of it rests a newborn hope that, maybe, she could be a friend.
And yet, there is an even larger part of her that would rather smother it than to ever let it grow into anything more than a flame.
Just as before, the two nearly collide with each other, but this time Brinly is prepared. She flinches visibly as she slides to a stop in front of her, and that same fear – fear that always expressed itself as anger, a fleeting flash of fury in her dark brown eyes and a clenching of her jaw – that she had grown so accustomed to causes her to skin to grow hotter than usual. “Brazen,” she does not mean to say her name as curtly as she does, but it is a difficult habit to break. She diverts her gaze for a moment, refusing to meet her eyes, though she does not utter an apology. Instead, she looks back to her and swiftly continues on, though the edge to her voice softens considerably. “I wasn’t sure if I should come or not, but, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to at least...look.” She glances away from her as she says this, peering towards the rocky cliffs and where she is sure the waves crash against them. When she looks back to Brazen, she offers her a tight smile. She was entirely out of her element, and it showed. “Were you born here?”
cold in the violence after the war hope is a fire to keep us warm
Though Brazen makes no claim to great intelligence, it would have been impossible for her to grow up with a mother like Heartfire and not gain at least some ability to read others as her mother does. And Brinly, with all her curtness and irritability, is surprisingly easy to read. She almost grins at the thought, but she doubts the auburn woman would appreciate such an insight.
Brazen has no desire to send her fleeing after only a few seconds. She’s pretty sure once she breaks past the stubborn shield she’d find something wonderful. And, well, Brazen is quite possibly even more stubborn than Brinly. A trait easy to overlook in the face of such overt friendliness.
In the wake of her wild entrance, she halts in a flurry before skittering back a couple steps as she remembers to give her companion the space she so desires. Touch is so second nature to the armoured girl that it’s easy to forget sometimes that not everyone feels the same way about it. But she’s learning. And for Brinly, she’d try a little harder.
Her grin is easy as the glittering brightness of her eyes comes to land on her newly arrived friend. (Perhaps Brinly wouldn’t call them friends yet, but Brazen is not nearly so shy.) Any abruptness to her greeting is entirely lost on Brazen as she tosses her head slightly, russet mane fluttering against pale bone and mottled, blood-stained skin. “Well, I’m glad you came,” her gaze is earnest as she siddles slightly closer once more. “I can show you around, if you want?”
She doesn’t wait for a response though, already edging closer, pressing her towards the shoreline, knowing Brinly would skitter away the moment she got too close. In exactly the direction she wanted to go.
Her question gives her pause however, a faint trail of nostalgia flitting across her features before she fixes her gaze more firmly on Brinly. “No,” she replies easily enough, after only a moment’s hesitation. “Mom had me and Dagen in Island Resort. I stayed there with Dad until the plague ended.”
Much like Isilya, Brazen’s friendliness was almost anxiety inducing rather than reassuring. It’s a flaw on her part, of that she is sure; just another abnormality, that she would rather someone fight with her than show her any sort of kindness. She can’t remember if she has always been this way – she can’t remember if the white-hot poison that altered everything inside of her had twisted her personality as well, or if she has always been this bitter in the face of joy.
There is a chance that she is just a miserable individual, and that she would suffocate everyone around her with her negativity. And normally, this is when she plays the martyr and tells herself that someone like Brazen would be better off without her. This is when she tells herself it would be easier to walk away now before she can let her down, or hurt her, or mess up in all the many number of ways she usually does.
And so it is a mystery even to her that she wants to stay, though everything about her facial expressions say otherwise.
When the other girl doesn’t even seem the least bit put off by the way she had nearly snapped her name she feels a twinge of annoyance. She doesn’t know if Brazen is purposely unwavering because she knows someone like Brinly would find it insufferable, or if that’s just how she is. Either way, that in combination with the way she tells her she’s glad that she came is enough to cause her ears to flick back towards her mane, casting her an irritated glance, but otherwise saying nothing.
She sidesteps away from her effortlessly when she edges closer, not even bothering to issue her usual warning, but instead playing it off as though she was about to move anyway. She is almost certain that Brazen is attempting to see how far she can push her, since she should know by now to not touch her, or get close to her. Other than the way she clenches her teeth she does nothing besides step off towards the shoreline, but her muscles slowly relax when Brazen begins to talk. “The plague. I forgot about that,” she muses mostly to herself out loud, her gaze focused on the white caps of the waves in the distance as they break against the shore. “I missed most of that, since I was busy avoiding everyone,” the smallest of smiles conflicts with the dryness of her voice, and for a moment her gaze flits sideways to look at the girl next to her. “Did you get sick?”
