"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
12-29-2019, 12:07 AM (This post was last modified: 12-29-2019, 12:10 AM by abyss.)
abyss
She had rejected him from the beginning.
Mother, he thought, with that children’s innocence blossoming in his eyes. Mother, he thought as she turned to him with endless pain and barely disguised disgust. Mother, he thought, even as her love for him withered the moment she saw his hairless body. Mother . . . he thought . . . even after she crippled herself so terribly during pregnancy that he came out like this.
Naked. Vulnerable.
Ugly.
It is that rejection that he does not understand that drives him from the mountains of Hyaline, a place his mother may return to when he does not remember her as mother. A tiny babe, hairless, easy prey: Abyss. A name fitting for a boy with an endless abyss of reasons to hate, but still finds a little spark of kindness in his chest.
So much like his fiery mother.
If only she knew. If only he knew.
—
Abyss is different now, fuller and wiser and just a little lighter. When he walks through the Forest, like he is today, he gets that same tingling feeling as when he first broke out of Hyaline. He tucks his wings tightly to his sides as the cooling sensation builds and builds until it covers his whole body.
This . . . consumption of his being means something—he just knows it—and when he is feeling particularly empty he strays back to this part of the Forest. He lingers where the trees spread apart, remembers the dead crunch of leaves beneath his hooves and the way his baby’s breath blew out in a fog like fire.
we'll have our time when stars collide
and bring this whole sham down
crying isn't like riding a bike give it up, and you quickly forget how it's done
Hyaline had not much to offer her but a nice climate - stony, cold, clean. Very good things for a land to have, especially in the spring and summer. But the residency and leadership had changed recently, and she had found herself avoiding the others there even more than usual. There was no bond, however weak, between her and the new herd. She was a loose, distant thing, and she cared for none of them.
Which honestly did not actually say a whole lot, yet it means she can take a walk outside the land without having to inform anyone, like she does right now.
The forest’s shadows conceal her frown, though the sulkiness of her teenage face is probably clear to any adults, still. She remembers the forest barely, and she walks carefully. Her mom might still be here; although honestly Yuki doesn’t remember anything about her, other than that she was weak-willed and… blue. Like her, though a little different perhaps. Yuki roans where Mura had been grey, but they’re still both icy blue, and it suits the girl well. She can’t, of course, speak for her mother.
Her father had not been much better, but at least he taught her some basic things - like how to make a mean joke when you were hurt, how to fight for what you wanted in the moment, and how feelings were shitty and unwanted things - or that was her conclusion upon seeing his.
Nevertheless, he had not been the most caring parent and she knew her mother did not care enough to come find her either, so Yuki herself had naturally adapted her no-care attitude. It was her first and second nature now - but even she had good and bad days. The scope of such an emotional scale was just tiny compared to others’.
When she spots the naked boy in the distance, hesitating to come forward into the light that falls sparsely between the trees, she doesn’t display anything - not even disgust at his bare skin, although she does indeed feel some of it. His fire is intriguing and perhaps the contrast to hairlessness makes it more interesting to see, but even with her leathery wings to her side she doesn’t feel particularly attracted to him - not even enough for a greeting. But then, if he knew her (though, no-one does), he would understand that her not greeting him has nothing to do with how he looks, smells, or behaves. She treats everybody equally, after all.
It doesn’t occur to her that he might not be coming over to this place for something or someone specific that isn’t her, as much as that he is going away from something else. As such, she just looks at him with her usual indifference, expecting him to do whatever he wants and then leave, or something.
Not like she would care about this cold-looking, too-thin fellow with his fire wings, attempting to keep himself warm while no air could for a time. Surely she doesn’t care about anything at all.
