"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
11-17-2019, 04:24 PM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2019, 04:25 PM by Desire.)
sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
She liked the forest because it was dark.
Pangea felt bare and exposed, but here in the forest she was wrapped in shadows, and the closeness of the treetops created a canopy that all but blocked the night sky above. There were places where the moonlight managed to filter though, dappling the forest floor with its silvery beams, and sometimes if she looked close she thinks she can see a star or two flickering in the gaps.
But for the most part, she is the only glittering, celestial thing to be seen, and maybe that’s why she likes it here so much.
When she had been born her mother had told her and her twin brother that they were the prettiest things she had ever seen, and Desire believed her. Both of them bathed in galaxies and stars, and Desire with her vibrant white and Stave with his impossible black; of course they were beautiful. She did not understand the reasoning behind why her mother would run her lips so slowly across her skin sometimes, like she thought the stars were going to come to life beneath her touch. Desire never asked – she just basked in the attention, and maybe that was when her insatiable hunger started.
There is no destination in mind as she walks, peering at the world with her black eyes and subtle smile. It did not occur to her to be afraid; she had lived with Stave for too long to be afraid of the monsters that lurked and waited for unsuspecting little stars like her, and so when she hears a sound, she does not start. She simply stops, tilting her pretty head in attempt to locate the source of the sound, and letting the girlish trill of her voice sing into the night, “Hello?”
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
His eyes are open, but Pteron is not really watching where he is going. His body moves on autopilot, climbing and descending the last of the Loessian foothills, dodging the forest that grows thicker around him. Looking north causes a guilty twist of his belly, and this travel east feels less corrupt than going west. There’s nothing in the forest for him to break, his legs seem to know, and they finally stop in the shadows of a budding elm.
Spring winds push the branches against each other in a series of clicks, and the sweet tang of sad and fresh growth fills his nostrils. The air here is cool and the water he can hear in the distance flows rather than gurgles. Pteron releases a sigh he hadn’t meant to hold. His tongue still tastes of smoke and ashes, and the memory of his most recent attack (because what else can he call the war she wages on him?) is still fresh in his mind, even with all this walking.
So when a soft voice says ‘Hello’, he jumps far higher than he might have.
Before the pegasus hits the ground again he is invisible, a primal instinct that presents itself when least expected. At least this means he can find the speaker before they can find him, he thinks with chagrin, but the flush of embarrassment that colors his invisible face is more than enough to drown his previous emotions entirely.
It’s a little girl (a young woman, he hears Celina’s voices in his head say, you need to be more respectful), one that looks like a night sky that Aegean had once painted him. The memory, though sweet, is followed by a rush of guilt, and Pteron shakes his head a bit as he gathers himself back together. Once he has, he reappears, a pale figure in the shadowy forest.
“Aren’t you a little young to be wandering around in the forest this late at night?” He asks, telling his internal Celina that he really is concerned. If what Aodhan has said about the dead returning is true, there could be far more things going bump in the night than there seemed. And the little girl looks very small, he decides, and not like she’d put up much of a fight against someone who wanted to spirit her away. He hadn’t come to the forest to play at being a white knight, but if the armor fits…
sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
He appears from nothing, it seems like, and she feels curiosity stir inside of her chest. She was fascinated by the magic that others could do, because she has learned that everyone was different. Macabre though it was she always liked to watch Stave make use of his powers — it was such a dark contrast, it seemed, for a boy so strikingly handsome and covered in galaxies — and he always asked her why she didn’t practice with hers more.
Love illusionism was tricky, though. She has never really been around anyone that gave her the opportunity to hone her skills, and it was hard to create an accurate illusion based off of nothing.
And so she is surprised when the older boy materializes before her and something strange hums between them. It was a curious sensation, like an intangible hand was outstretched and offering her exactly what she needed. But she is too young to fully understand what it is — she doesn’t understand this is her innate ability to detect what someone else wants so that she manifest it before them.
She just sees him, with his pale skin framed by a beautiful blue, and those striking olive-colored eyes. “Oh,” she says in surprise — maybe at his sudden appearance, but also for the way her childish heart skips a beat in her chest. “No? I don’t know,” she says with a slight frown on her pretty face, before she laughs with a shake of her head. “How old are you supposed to be able to wander the forest?”
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
“Thirty.” Tells her without hesitation. The serious expression he wears while pronouncing the number is quite brief, and soon he smiles and laughs softly at his own attempt at humor. “I dunno,” his winged shoulders shrug unconcernedly, “Probably big enough to protect yourself though?” It is clear, not only from his earlier concern but also from the way his olive gaze flicks up and down the star-girl in front of him. She’s no bigger than Elio, he thinks, his half-grown sibling that he doubts could fend off a badger, let alone a walking hoarde of the undead. For a just a moment he stares more closely (with curiosity rather than appraisal – she is pretty, but pretty like a leaping doe or a jackdaw in flight, not like a woman) but he does not find what he looks for and draws back with a small shake of his head.
“I don’t suppose you can turn into a rock, or something?” He asks, knowing that such things are often hidden within a creature. “Set things on fire with your mind? Grow spikes on your tail?” None of these questions seem to strike a chord with her, Pteron sees, and he huffs a short sigh in response. “Where’d you come from, anyway?” He’ll have to take her back there, the tobiano decides. Narrowing his gaze, he peers into the inky forest. He hears nothing, sees no one, and turns back to the yearling with a bemused sort of resignation.
“I’m Pteron.” He tells her.
There are so many starry horses in Beqanna that Pteron cannot even imagine what family this one might belong to. Beqanna is blessed – or perhaps cursed – that a god walks among them every six years, siring children that reflect the galaxies he wears. This occurs to Pteron just as he was turning back to face her, and he glances once more at the purple stars. This could be one of Carnage’s children, Pteron thinks, and surely the child of a god should have some sort of ability to defend herself. He hopes it’s not the ability to change into that odd white rat he’d seen once, or the ability to show the phases of the moon on her neck.
sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
“But I am big enough to protect myself,” she counters with a frown marring her pretty face. “And besides, who would want to hurt me anyway?” It is said with a toss of her head and a girlish laugh as her face brightens again, as though she simply couldn’t fathom that there was anyone in this world that would want to bring harm to her. She is perhaps a little too overconfident in the idea that her brother would protect her; that though Stave was cold and impersonal there was still that unmistakable connection between them that would drive him to end anyone that tried to hurt her. She’s not even entirely sure if that’s true, but it’s a delusion she has chosen to believe in.
She shakes her head as he starts listing off abilities, all of which sound completely unappealing. “Spikes on my tail?” Her nose wrinkles in a clear display of her disdain at that idea, glancing back as she flicks her bright white tail as though to reassure herself that it was still the same as she remembered. “I can make illusions,” she informs him as she turns her black eyes back to his face, and laughing again as she clarifies, “Well, love illusions. My mom says my ability is dangerous, but not the same way Stave’s is. He can control dead things...or something.” She still does not fully understand what her own ability means– she doesn’t understand that there are some that will drain themselves dry for just a taste of love, or shatter themselves apart to try and keep it. She doesn’t understand that her own insatiable hunger that devours her heart is her own form of love starvation, and that someday she will change herself a hundred times over just for the false feeling of love she will get in return when she does.
She will know, then, exactly what to do with this strange electricity that hums from the young stallion into her bones. She will know how to manifest into someone he desired most, and he would be none the wiser that it wasn’t real.
“You know all about love, too. I feel it radiating from you,” she says in a way that is eerily calm, and almost unsettling in the matter-of-fact way she states it, as though she had just told him that his eyes were green. And for the first time, there is something faintly sinister that flashes briefly in her eyes, before it is again swallowed by the endless black of them, and her childish innocence returns.
“I’m from Pangea,” she chirps enthusiastically, not seeming to notice the way he is studying her. “And my name is Desire.”
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
It’s not really his place to answer that flippant question, Pteron decides. The things that go bump in the night – and the day – are not a lesson that he is responsible for, and Pteron is suddenly quite grateful. Grateful, yes, but also reminded that he will be responsible for teaching someone that. Reia is unlikely to teach their child an appropriate respect of danger; Pteron often doubts the golden dragon feels fear at all. But that is a worry for the future, Pteron reminds himself, today he is free of anything but the warmth of his recent memories and the small burden that is this young child who he needs to escort home.
Illusions are her talent, the star-girl tells him, and Pteron’s blue head nods slowly. He does know about illusions, enough that he is smiling at the reminder of his favorite weaver, but that slips away at the addendum of love.
“Love illusions?” he repeats, both intrigued by that ability as well as reluctant to hear more detail about whatever it is that Stave can do. He decides, in the space of a heartbeat, that he’d rather not meet this Stave. Her matter-of-fact assessment of him leaves Pteron blinking quietly a moment, feeling both somehow accused as well as impressed. She is from Pangea, she says, and how fitting. Surely a child of Carnage then, knowing a creature that can manipulate the dead, living among monsters. He’s still dubious she can protect herself with love illusions, whatever those are, but at least she is sure to have someone looking out for her, who would notice if she were missing or in danger.
“I’m from Taiga,” he tells her, and then: “Does your mother know you’re out wandering this late at night?” Children are prone to distraction, he knows, to skirting around trouble. But despite his reluctance to actually name what dangers might lurk in the woods at night, he is still unwilling to just leave her to them.
sometimes I'm terrified of my heart; of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
“Yes, love illusions,” she repeats, blinking her black eyes at him as though she’s not entirely sure what was confusing about the way she had said it the first time. “I can sense what someone else wants – or who they want.” She pauses, and there is a small frown again. “Well, I will be able to, anyway. It’s hard now. I try to practice, but no one knows who or what they want.” Her mother had been her first target, and possibly one of the most frustrating. Anyone that knew even an inkling about her mother wouldn’t be surprised to hear that, but Desire had thought it should be easy. She had been surprised to discover that it was not always her father that her mother wanted most; that it fluctuated wildly between him and others. A stallion of emerald green, and another a pale silver with wings, and sometimes the black stallion with the vibrantly yellow eyes – and recently the albino stallion with bright red eyes.
Pteron reminded her a little bit of her mother – that jumping, erratic vibe that she couldn’t quite pin down. There was one that seemed to call out to her the most, though, but the images were fleeting; she just remembers antlers and purple eyes.
“I’ve never been to Taiga. What’s it like?” She knows Taiga is a forest of evergreen trees, and she can feel an excitement spark inside of her chest. “Is it like this forest here?” She says with a gesture of her nebula-colored head, before tilting it upwards to peer at the sky that just barely peaked between the tops of the trees. She turns her eyes back to him when he asks where her mother is, a shadow of confusion cast across her face as she says carelessly, “I don’t know. Stave and I left our mother awhile ago. I don’t see her often.” It doesn’t occur to her that there should have been sorrow in her voice, or worry, or some thread of emotion. For as long as she could remember all she had ever needed was Stave; their mother was an afterthought.
finger trips across my cheek---------------- ----------------kiss me until i can't speak
There is quite a bit of wordless bewilderment between them – Pteron’s at the idea of Desire’s illusions and Desire’s at Pteron’s lack of understanding. There are a great many things that the dun stallion doesn’t understand, and while this might be the first time that someone younger considers him clueless, there is little chance that it will be the last. At least she does explain, telling him that she can cast the illusion of who or what someone might what. Pteron frowns – in consideration and thought, not dislike – and puzzles over the idea of her gift.
“How do you know if it works?” He asks curiously. “Do you see yourself as others see you?”
She asks what Taiga is like, if it is like the forest around them, and Pteron shakes his head with a laugh.
“Only in that there are trees,” the stallion tells her, “In every other way it is different. The trees are all redwoods, wider than many horses nose to tail. The trunks are red, like the soil of Loess. You can hardly see the sky for the branches, but there are meadows too, and we have two shorelines. In summer and fall, its warm enough to swim, but any other season it feels like you might as well swim off Icicle Isle.”
Pteron has lived in Taiga for most of his life, he realizes. It’s a strange feeling, he thinks, and pulls his wings unconsciously more closely to his sides. They are not of much use in the trees, after all.
That she hasn’t seen her mother in ‘a while’ seems strange to him, but perhaps the fact that he has lived with his parents for nearly all his life would seem equally odd to Desire. It’s not as if he knows where Wolfbane or Lepis are either, other than that they are not in Taiga anymore. But then, he is nearly seven years old, and she is still quite small. The black-eyed filly does not seem very inclined to help him help her, and he does emit a quiet sigh of frustration.
