"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
The words stick like glue, thorns pressed into her side. They burn, they stab, they hurt.
May you never see the horrors of the world.
That’s the reassurance of a mother who doesn’t yet know how to handle a child that truly cannot see, that cannot take those as words of advice. The stinging truth rips fresh wounds into her soul daily as she realizes everyone else can see, but she cannot. Mother’s voice was meant to be loving, but Atrani noted the repulsion and the agony in her voice. The child had said nothing as the clamor of rage and defiance rippled through her eardrums for the very first time. Atrani’s first breaths – first minutes – in this world were made bitter by angst, regret, and jealousy.
She will never forget it.
Mother is conflicted in whether she wants a child that plays as a cruel reminder of her sins. Motherhood isn’t her forte, she claims, and she debates whether to follow in her family’s footsteps or actually play a role in her daughter’s life.
May you never see evil. That’s how she welcomed her newborn into this forsaken world – by solidifying the fact that Atrani will never see evil, or even good, or nothing at all.
The reminder bites her again and forces another sharp, jagged turn into nowhere and nothing. Mother is in the trees, silently observing, and Atrani is wandering her world of black nothingness. She follows voices, dodges footsteps, brushes her muzzle across grass. Handicapped, but unstoppable, hindered but not trapped. A breath of air is drawn in and she takes pause, imagining the evils that she will never see and the lying faces she will never witness.
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
He has trouble with the world, because he is angry and scared. Rhonen knows the way to behave – he knows how to be kind, and friendly, and polite. His parents had certainly taught him better, and while young Rhonen may have been headstrong, mischievous, and a little arrogant, he wasn’t the creature he was now. But he doesn’t know how to get back to his old self.
Rhonen doesn’t know if he wants to get back to his old self.
He’s back in the Meadow, watching. Waiting for the evil to return, because he fears every day that it will. That the lack of heavy, oppressive weight in his chest means that Conquest will be free, and that if the other three who had journey with him in that terrible place were also stripped of their powers, so will Death, Famine, and War. He is afraid that this peaceful lull Beqanna is experiencing is short-lived.
While he is watching, he notices her. She is bright like him, but splotched with white. And – eyeless. He raises his head, looks around, but can’t see anyone with her. No one guiding her as she wanders around the Meadow. Rhonen feels something lurch inside of him – is she as angry and scared as he is? He steps forward, coming into range of her, and calls, “Hey, Blondie,” eyeing the lighter color of her mane and tail. “Are you alone out here?”
He wants to be friendly, but still the words come out rough, clipped. The turbulent emotions are always on the surface, no matter what’s inside. That is what he has become.
More sadness, more turmoil. It’s all she knows, all she can familiarize herself with in this dark, imageless world. What happiness is there? Does it exist? The shouts echo in her mind, scream into her ears even days after they originally had. In her solitude, she is reliving her first hours where it seemed that she had been forced into a place she shouldn’t. She was put into a situation she couldn’t run from, and one that is already molding her.
Most newborns are ignorant and blissful in their ways, but Atrani knows only darkness. A dark cloud looms over her thoughts often just as it had moments following her birth.
There is no one guiding her, no one to show her love and compassion.
Again, does that exist?
A breath – sharp, aching – catches in her throat when she hears footsteps. They don’t come and go like most. They approach her, loud in comparison to the rest of the sounds that she tries desperately to shut out. Without vision, she desperately hones in on her other senses, concentrating as the boy comes to her with a greeting most uncustomary. She flinches and her head shakes. ”No, Atrani, not Blondie.” What does she look like to immediately inherit the name? Perhaps a question for a later time; she is focused on listening to him and noting the sharp edges of his voice. That, she is used to. ”I was alone until you arrived, if that’s what you mean.” There is a hollowness in the way she speaks, an oddity in the way her head blindly tilts to one side, hunting for more of his voice.
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
Everyone else moves around them as if they are inconsequential. Perhaps they are – a young man and a foal, certainly they aren’t something everyone stops to take notice of. But maybe they just aren’t looking closely enough. They see what they want to see. They don’t take notice that she is sightless, or that he has something dark boiling beneath his copper coat. The first glimpse reveals nothing, and the world around them doesn’t bother to take a second look.
He pauses when she flinches – hesitates – and then finishes his approach a little slower. Rhonen supposes he should have expected her to flinch away, but he hadn’t though it that far through. Again he looks around, but still he doesn’t see a protective parent or guardian hovering nearby. It doesn’t matter if she is angry – he is angry for her. She is vulnerable, despite the fact that she seems to be rather independent, and he thinks someone should be watching out for her.
Despite everything that has happened since, he has warm memories of his childhood. Of how much his family cared for him and his twin.
“Atrani,” he tries out the name, savoring it, considering. It’s nice, he supposes, though Rhonen isn’t sure what kind of name would be not nice. Atrani does roll off of his tongue pleasantly, reminding him of the sound of his sisters’ names. Nairne. Aubri. Will he ever see them again? “You are a Blondie, though,” he teases, wanting to reach out and lip at her mane but he forces himself not to touch. The laugh in his voice smooths out some of the sharp edges, but nothing can make his voice sound completely harmless. “I’m Rhonen.”
She tilts her head towards him, says she is alone, and fury and pain race through him in equal measure. “Surely someone is here looking out for you,” he says, even though his own glances have revealed no one watching that he can see. Sharp. His voice is too sharp, and he takes a deep breath, forcing it back to as light and friendly as he can manage. He doesn’t want to be someone who scares children. “It’s awfully dangerous out here for a kid by herself.” Without the white, she could have been his twin when they were foals. He spends most of his time lashing out at other adults, but this draws him to her. He doesn’t want her to be alone, or as scared as he is.
She doesn’t see his anger and how it burns in his eyes every time they sweep across the meadow. He is searching for her guardian, but there is no one.
No one cares enough about her.
She wonders why he is here, talking to her, edging closer to her, because no one ever wants to be close. Atrani is a monster, an eyeless freak that will never see the evil – or good – that this life has to offer. She cannot fall foolishly in love with the way someone stares at her, or fall victim to a lie that so convincingly shades the eyes of the guilty. Such a bittersweet curse it is, but nonetheless, it should make her a monster. So, why is he still here?
”Am I?” She asks with her head tilting curiously to one side, her ears twisting to listen for his edged voice. ”I assumed I was black like what the rest of the world is to me,” a dry chuckle, one that lacks humor, tumbles past her velvet lips, but then her head shakes after having tried to make light of her cursed life. Joking isn’t for her. Bringing others laughter and joy is far beyond her reach.
What she is familiar with is the underlying warning that entwines with his final statement. That is how she knows this world to be – dark, threatening, lonely – and she exhales softly while weighing his words carefully. ”It’s dangerous for anyone,” is her reply only moments after him, her mind taking her back to mother, father, and that strange man with them. ”No matter your age, there is always something that goes bump in the night, always something to bring you unhappiness.” It could be as obvious as a murderer lurking in the hidden depths, or as subtle as a lover’s web.
Reeling back to her inherited nickname, she can’t help but ask, ”Rhonen, what do I look like?”
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
Rhonen gives up on looking for someone watching her, and he gives up soon after on figuring out why he is so drawn to her, beyond the fact that she reminds him of Aubri. He doesn’t want to care about her, so he tells himself that he would do the same for any child wandering the world by themselves.
It’s a lie, but it’s one he’s comfortable with.
When she speaks again, making a dry joke, Rhonen slips into a smirk, a laugh in his eyes, his usual response to humor. It is only after a long moment of silence passes that he realizes she can’t see him laughing, and he wants to kick himself. He opens his mouth to say something, but then she is responding to his other question, moving on. He doesn’t want to move on, he wants to turn back time and force a chuckle for her effort, but with some reluctance he follows her train of words into the present.
Her statement is worlds wise beyond what he could have come up with when he was her age, and the chestnut boy is left staring at her for another long moment, dark eyes softening from their earlier anger to a sorrow for her, that she already knows more of the dangers of the world than she should. “Yes, I suppose it is,” he agrees with her then, nodding absently while he speaks, “But that isn’t all there is. For everything that brings unhappiness, there is something out there to bring joy.” The words are solemn, voice rough still, but quieter to match hers. Rhonen realizes he believes his own words – despite his fear, his anger, his desperation, he believes that it will get better. He might have to drag that happiness to himself, kick and screaming, but it cannot be like this forever. He wants her to believe it, too.
But she changes the subject again, and he blinks in surprise, and this does draw a chuckle (however rusty) from him as he considers. “Well,” he drawls, eyeing her head-to-tail again, “You’re kind of bright. Chestnut, like me actually, like a color out of a sunset. And white, too; you’ve got some spots here,” he touches a few of them, feather light, as if she might break, “and white on your legs. And your mane and tail are blond, kinda yellowy-white, like the seed pods on the tops of wild grasses.” It’s all too much, he’s aware of how soft and friendly his voice had gotten as he described her, so he finishes more brusquely: “And you’re kind of a scrawny little thing, really, but I’m sure you’ll grow out of that.”
02-05-2017, 10:47 PM (This post was last modified: 02-05-2017, 10:50 PM by Dovev.)
Touch her again and die, he snarled roughly, the ruthless intent behind his words hardening them to steel. He was a weapon forged by a magician for just this purpose, guarding what was most dear to him. Killing any that got in his way, without hesitation. He'd die before anyone took Cerva's Happiness from him -and it seemed to take a great deal for him to fall.
She was his everything.
Black eyes pierced the boy like sharpened obsidian, a lethal warning. He didn't often give warnings, and knew he only did so now for Atrani's sake. Otherwise the bastard would be entrails and brittle bone fragments beneath his feet, and he'd be a mile away without a touch of remorse. Without even a second thought as he moved on. Taking lives never bothered him. Not in the least. And he would be no different.
His teeth bared silently as he came to stand before her, pressing his one clean hind-leg firmly to her shoulder. He was there with her, solid and sure, and hers. The rest of him was coated in blood -some his, most wasn't- and plates of sturdy bone armor slowly erupting from within him. His sunken form said weak and yet he had more power in his frail-looking body than he'd ever had before, built and trained into him under his master's ruthless hand. An unnecessary deceit of appearance, because he never needed the element of surprise.
His heart burned brightly, a barely-contained wrath in his eyes as he locked on to the male and dipped his head fluidly and gently to his Heart. Warm breaths sank into her perfect little crest of a mane, and black velvet swept over her brow, and hollow eyes, and beautiful cheek. Rage built at the foreign scent lingering on her, but his stance remained loose and gentle. His little Cerva, his heart. His Atrani.
Come, baby, he crooned softly to her, We go home now. He placed a light kiss on her little forehead and tucked her to his side where he would remain an impenetrable wall between them, eyes burning with threat. Don't even think about following.
02-06-2017, 09:16 PM (This post was last modified: 02-06-2017, 09:20 PM by Atrani.)
Atrani
Darkness is her life, the only constant thus far she can trust. She sees nothing; her world is an abyss of blackness, consuming her and consuming her thoughts. It’s all she knows, all she is truly familiar with at every hour of the day. Without eyes, she can’t even take note of when the light bathes her or when she is shrouded in the shadows. She knows nothing, sees nothing. Perhaps that is why she is unafraid when Rhonen advises her of the terrors that lurk in the night.
What she cannot see cannot truly harm her.
And what would it be like to die – to be killed? Would it be more darkness?
That doesn’t frighten her, because that’s what she experiences daily.
She can’t see a murderer lurking nearby or see the lying faces of ill friends.
So what is there for her to really fear?
Atrani is bold in being alone, but when she draws in a breath – deep, calculating – she realizes that she truly isn’t alone. Rhonen is closer to her, his scent stabbing into her nostrils, but it isn’t his that’s sounding alarms in her mind. It isn’t he that is sending her heart into a panic. While she worries inwardly, she betrays nothing of it to the boy. Instead, her voice falls sullen and her head slowly shakes. ”Happiness is only temporary. All good things come to an end.” Like now.
Like touching her.
The contact is familiar, as it’s a method she communicates without her vision. Feeling his nose graze across her skin sends chills down her back and legs. She enjoys it, but she frowns and forces herself away from him. ”You shouldn’t do that,” her voice is barely above a whisper, ”He’s watching. I can smell him.” She wishes that she could have warned when father was approaching. She wishes she could tell Rhonen what father looks like, but she doesn’t even know. Before she can swallow another breath, she hears Dovev’s voice above all else.
Feverish threats. Ferocious.
Dad is a monster, she tells herself as he tucks her away from Rhonen. There is no way she can battle someone she cannot see. Her world is ever black, an endless tunnel. She doesn’t know what is left and right, who is in the wrong, or where is can even escape to. The only option she has is gliding her lips along father’s ribs to his shoulder to the base of his neck. His throat rumbles from the ferocity of his voice, but that doesn’t even frighten her. A hesitant step berths space between them. ”But he’s my friend,” she lies because, in reality, they hardly know each other. She enjoys Rhonen, nonetheless, and resists her father as he clutches her close.
Through the pushes and threats and uncertainty, Atrani wiggles forward in the direction where she hopes Rhonen would be and she asks, ”Am I pretty?” Am I as beautiful as mother? Or am I truly a monster as I fear?
dove into her eyes and starved all the fears
picture by haenuli shin- HTML by Call - words: ________
She steps away from him and for a moment he doesn’t breath, self-loathing sweeping through, as he assumes she draws away because she can somehow feel the anger and fear that has settled in his chest and is rejecting even the tenuous thought of friendship, but the words that follow make him reconsider, frown again, but before he can even ask ’who’s watching’, there is a snarl of words and he instinctively jerks away from her, staring at the creature who has appeared, cursing himself for being so absorbed in his admiration of the filly that he didn’t hear or see him coming.
And he is a creature, a monster. As beautiful and bright as Atrani is, her copper and white and flaxen, this thing is dark and bone protruding from his very being, and Rhonen sneers in distaste at the metallic scent of blood even as his eyes trace the remains of it coating his black in viscous, sticky liquid. On the heels of his instinctive, powerful fear is more: fury at the threat from the stranger, revulsion at his appearance, fear for her rather than himself which threatens to choke him as it rises up. A vision of his twin in her place, falling beneath the dangerous hooves of this monster.
As if a switch is flicked, when his fear for her overwhelms his anger at his own circumstances, he feels the uncomfortable power that he associates with Conquest’s deathly touch flow through his veins, and the weight of the seal settles once more in his chest. It is heavy, he forgot how heavy, and he struggles to breath around the overwhelming power of it for a long moment of silence, watching the stranger press himself to her (imaging the blood scraping off of him and staining her bright coat), and then as she steps forward towards Rhonen, a protest on her lips.
Shaking his head, he forces himself once more to breathe through the pressure, the shock, and form a response of his own. “Don’t threaten me,” he says the words in a nearly flat tone, a far cry from his bubbling anger and spitting spite from earlier, but it is because he is no longer the helpless boy he had been when he found her.
He knows that he can cause real damage with the power that once more runs in his veins, and he struggles to keep it contained as his feelings threaten to send it frothing over.
But he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to make such snap judgements, and he doesn’t want to hurt the monster if he is really is just trying to protect Atrani? Though Rhonen finds this hard to believe, given the blood, and the fact that she had been alone. And he? He is, to all appearances, a barely-grown young man, one many would consider half a colt still himself, and certainly wasn’t threatening her in any way. His control, too, leaves something to be desired, and he doesn’t want to hurt Atrani by accident. Anything but that. Breath in – breath out. Don’t lunge at him, don’t start anything. Act like an adult.
Rhonen can’t help it, though, when she steps forward past the monster towards him, uncertain as if she doesn’t know if he is still there, he reaches out to touch her copper shoulder with his own copper nose, just the briefest of touches. “You’re pretty,” he says gruffly, quickly, struggling to force out the words past the other seething feelings. “You might be beautiful when you grow up.” Beautiful like his Aubri, but he doesn’t say that. He rushes on, before the creature can try to separate them again. “Do you want to go? If you have to go, perhaps I can come visit you.”
He only did so now for Atrani's sake, because she was just a babe, his babe, and she had yet to learn of his darkness that would always shield her, always protect her. This dark strength was born into him and expertly tapped into by a powerful sorcerer, shaped and honed then released for just this purpose. This fool had received two free passes and still didn't listen.
His first was used when he touched her. Dovev had no qualms against killing him instantly without a warning. He never gave warnings. Never.
His second was used when he ignored the generosity of such a warning, given for Atrani's sake only. And now he would die. Because he dared to touch her again. Did he think Dovev liked the sound of his own voice? He said he would die and he meant it. That time was now.
Still no warning. Still no shift in his posture or flicker in his eyes. No mighty roar.
A flash of movement and Dovev shot into him. The brute force of a point-blank cannon transferred from the bone plate at his shoulder to the youth, possibly knocking him back or down. But he didn't give him a chance to recover, did not give another free pass at life as he followed through with vicious teeth towards his throat.
Because that's what he did. He killed. Swiftly, without warning. Without regret.
Atrani was the most precious thing on this earth, his one treasure. And he was recreated for precisely this. He would die, gutted and in pieces, before anyone took her from him.
Buried in his one-track mind, locked tightly away where he couldn't reach it, was the pain of her pulling away from him. The sharp stab of her shunning him, rejecting him. Even Cerva had never done that, even as she lie wilted and broken at his feet she had still allowed his touch. Even as she saw the physical changes in him, the grotesquely skeleton-thin body replacing his mass of muscles, the repulsive plates protruding forth from within him where smooth, flawless skin used to be. Even then she had loved him.
And her Happiness, his perfect Atrani, conceived from their love, destroyed him.
Buried in his solid chest was his obliterated heart.
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