"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
02-10-2017, 09:46 PM (This post was last modified: 02-14-2017, 10:33 PM by Kena.)
Kena
Their vocals, echo between her ears, her kingdom mates, her family, her friends. All of them shrieking violently, hailing out cries for help. But there is no avoiding it, as the faerie's words break through the atmosphere, a blinding light engulfs the horizon swallowing everything and everyone insight. Then everything is silent, pitch black. She tries... to find them, her mother, her father, her friends. But she's all alone.. and she remains alone. For months, for years. Resting in a deep slumber, unawakened, and unaware, until now.
Inky black eyelids, flick open revealing sapphire iris's, silver flecked eyelashes blink away the sleep within her eyes. Her legs have grown numb, from her long slumber, to the point where she had almost lost feeling. Her joints ache, from the lack of exercise, as she tenderly rises on sore ebony appendages. And with an agape mouthed yawn, relieving an effortless sigh before allowing herself to absorb in her surroundings.
Everything is different, entrails of the past beqanna linger within the yellowing foliage, Brush and tendrils of long grass keep the ebony maiden hidden. As she intakes the scents of the area, nostrils flaring, sweat riddled with body odor reaches her scent glands. And with that she recognizes it, where she was, the field.
Kena strides out of the the yellowed brush, where she had slept. Her cobalt eyes meet the glances of other equine, some familiar others strangers. A lostness lingers in her pools, she doesn't know where she is anymore, she wasn't meant to be here. She was meant to stay in the Gates, the Gates was her home, but now she didn't belong, she had nothing, she was nothing.
Immortal Daughter of Wichita x Rapscallion
Pretty much.. she was a sleep for a while sort of like a waylan situation. and she woke up and she's a little sad that the gates is gone.
don't you tell me to deny it; i've done wrong and i want to suffer for my sins.
Time had gone by, as it always does, seeking permission from none and caring little as to who it affects in the process. The sun had risen and fallen, day after day, unrelenting. The leaves on wiry branches had become brittle, dry and fallen, only to sprout anew with the delicate rainfall after an icy, dormant winter. It was obstinate and steadfast, as the days turn into months, and the months turn into years.
Her youth was beginning to slip away from her, leaving faint but hardened lines along the corners of her eyes, and a weary gleam within her hazel eyes – it felt as if the upheaval of everything she had ever known or loved was nothing but a forgotten, distant memory. She tried so hard to ignore the heavy lump that weighed so heavily in her throat at the thought of her own father, of her sister – so many had been lost in the wrath of the land, and so many had been lost. It was easier to pretend it had never happened, that the world had not been turned upside-down, that the lives of all those she knew had been changed forever.
Alas, every now and then, there is something that stirs the memory from the deepest, darkest recesses of her mind, reminding her of the turmoil of a world wrought with ire and trepidation. Something that awakens the familiar ache of anxiety, drawing the stark, vivid images of the ground shifting, moving, changing just beneath her. The darkness of the incensed sky, alight with fire and ash, as white-hot magma built upon what had been too easily torn apart. The memories wrack her brain as her eyes observe something – no, someone familiar. Someone who brings back a memory so long forgotten, it nearly sets her heart alight with fury once more.
It dwindles within seconds, and instead her brow is furrowed with an emotion that does not often come to the surface for her – pity? No. Sympathy. She knew too well how frightened she had been, and how uncertain the ground felt beneath her in the moments and even hours following her own awakening. It had been so long, though – so much time had passed; what had kept her? Ellyse knew she would likely be rebuked, and her presence unwelcome, but she knew how deeply Magnus cared for every individual that had once called Heaven their own – she knew how his heart still ached at the thought of failing anyone, of leaving anyone behind in the aftermath.
He still hadn’t forgiven himself; he still felt the immense burden of guilt upon his shoulders.
A guilt that he might not have, if it were not for her .. if it were not for her own temper.
Quietly, uncertainly, ”Kena? Kena, I don’t know if you remember me –“ or if she’d even care to. ”- it’s Ellyse. I – it’s gone,” she utters, eloquence lost in the moment, her brow ridge furrowed together. ”the Gates, I mean.” And finally, ”You’re not alone.”
She had never felt this- this feeling of being alone. A dark emptiness lingering in the depths of her heart, trailed by a soft thud thud pulsing within her lobes. Thud thud-who would she turn to? She had no one to stand by her side... to guide her.. to aid her. Thud thud-Where would she go? She hardly knew what this mixmosh of Beqanna was.
Tears beginning to well within her cobalt eyes, Kena turns to a familiar voice. Streaks of oily tears trickle down her cheeks, as her lost eyes meet the familiar face, Ellyse. A mare she knew briefly in Heavens Gates, before she had been exiled from her grounds. "Ellyse.."She states softly. "What do you mean she's gone?" Her tone grows worried... She can't be, Heavens had always been her home, her family had roots that were deeply rooted into Heavens Heritage. Her mother, a diplomat and lady of the court, her father a soldier and General. But now all of that, her own heritage. The very last remembrance of her mother and father had been destroyed.
With a moment of realization, she let out a shuttering cry. Her mother and father's memory, had been lost. The homeland that both of her parents had dedicated themselves to, to make safe for her, and the others that once held residence in the gorgeous country. All of it had dripped down the drain. "She can't be gone..." She mutters between sobs. Her inky black tail whisking at her hocks in a rather glum state. But then Ellyse speaks of her not being alone.
If Ellyse was here, then wouldn't have Magnus made it out as well? He had once known her mother, and maybe even perhaps her father... Maybe something had been saved, something of their memory and hard earned work. Something to be cherished and remembered, to remind her of her heritage. He would know.. "Ellyse. Did Magnus make it out?" She questions between sorrowful sniffles.
don't you tell me to deny it; i've done wrong and i want to suffer for my sins.
Alone.
It was a word she had always found to be liberating; she needed nothing and no one to be whole. Her life had been a tangled, weaved web of complexity, and her heart was less burdened and her mind less burdened when isolated – or so, she would quietly insist. As the years went on and as time etched its way into her hollow bones and the fine lines of her chiseled face, her resolve had weakened, as her heart opened to allow for the warmth of motherhood.
Seeing the young girl before her crumble and collapse unto herself with unyielding, raw emotion causes a pang of sympathy to settle within the pit of her hollow belly. Her eyes, once unreadable, held hers, hazel to a deep, endless blue, a lacing of compassion encircling her pupils.
”Everything has been .. rearranged,” she utters hesitantly, crafting her words carefully. ”no, not rearranged – everything has changed.” A lopsided frown tugs at the corner of her lips, her gaze averting away from Kena to alleviate her own uneasiness. ”The world is different. None of the lands we knew before exist. There is no tundra, there is no valley – it is all gone.”
She is far from being at ease confronted with such raw emotion – it causes the nerves beneath her skin to crawl and quiver, stirring a restlessness within her at the sight of her unraveling before her. Empathy does not come naturally to her, and it leaves her breathless and weary – a gentle murmur, “there, there,” is all that she can muster, her weight shifting from one leg to another. Her body is wracked with deep, shattering waves of tears, and she is at a loss of how to comfort her.
The gentle breeze carries through, weaving delicately through the winding branches above and through her finely preened feathers, and for a moment, her mind is carried away with it – until a single name is uttered. Magnus. At last, the faintest semblance of a smile appears, though it soon changes into something resembling more of a smirk. Her slender neck dips, if only slightly – a nod of confirmation, her mind drifting to the image of mottled gold and sinewy muscle, a pillar of strength in the aftermath of a devastating storm. He not only made it out; he had thrived - but she had never had any doubt that he would.
”He did. He is alive, and well – there is a land to the east, on the border of the sea. It is a volcanic island, known as Tephra now. He has chosen not to take the title of King, but he is the leader. Come with me. I know that he would want to see you,”the guilt of not knowing what had happened to so many still weighed on him so heavily; his heart was guarded yet still somehow worn on his sleeve.”he would want you to come.”
Her mother, and her father's legacy was gone. Something she had always wished to live up to, to pave a path even further in their footsteps. But now, her chance, her one and only chance to grasp onto her parents is gone.
She breathe grows shakey, as Elysse speaks of this new time, this new age of Beqanna. All of the once existing kingdoms vanquished, along with her homeland. Family members, and comrades of few still missing. Except for them, Magnus and Ellyse. Friends... her own people, and they had a new Gates, written in the image of peace. A sanctuary, ideals the last king of Heavens stole from Magnus. To create a refuge for those who needed it the most, their new gates, Tephra.
Her azure gaze, faulters for a moment, as tears still flooded down those ebony cheeks of hers. "Ellyse... I–I will come with you to this Tephra. For Magnus."
Immortal Daughter of Wichita x Rapscallion
Short.. but you can go ahead and post in Tephra. I'm very excited!
