"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
It has taken her some time to determine exactly what emotion she was feeling.
For a creature that only ever flutters between elation and mischief, the uncomfortable pang in her chest was entirely foreign. Something of it reminded her of her parents, or maybe her siblings or the Desert. When she realizes what it is, she is gone from the woods of Sylva in less than a heartbeat, appearing not-so-far from @[Nayl] with a crooked grin.
“Have you missed me?” She asks with a shake of her dark head. Saying aloud that she is the one who has missed Nayl – that she has finally developed enough as a person to have actual friends – is not an option. She’d rather keep things as frivolous as possible. Sobriety leads to less than pleasant thoughts, and Djinni has no desire for that again. Once had been enough, and she still smells the smoke in her dreams some nights.
She reaches forward to tap Nayl gently on the shoulder, feeling a shiver as the Nerenian wind blows over her recently pond-bathed skin. “Has anything new happened while I’ve been gone?”She doesn’t feel like it’s been so long, but as she sees the ice beginning to drift in along the shore she realizes that it’s been almost a full year since she left for Sylva. She’d arrived there at the tail end of autmn and now it’s come around again.
current appearance: natural build - slim smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
02-26-2017, 07:51 PM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2017, 07:51 PM by Nayl.)
She spun the stars on her fingernails
Nayl didn’t expect to see Djinni so abruptly.
There had been the sound of crashing waves and the calls of seagulls overhead. Entranced by the lull of the kingdom, Nayl is close to startled by the sudden rush of Djinni’s scent in her nostrils following an unexpected greeting. It has been almost a year since they’ve last crossed paths, but she has let slip by with hardly notice. Although they possess a mutual friendship, they also have split agendas.
”But of course. How could I not?” She replies humorously while adding, ”I already know you missed me so there is no need to ask.” Or so she assumes that to be the truth since Djinni is here now with her eyes cast both on her and their surroundings.
But it isn’t the pleasantries or soaked coat that lure Nayl’s attention; it’s how heavily smothered in Stillwater’s scent Djinni is. The familiarity sends a bitter chill down her spine, but her expression does nothing to betray her. She doesn’t even bring up his name, tucking it far into the depths of her mind where she hopes to never let it surface. They’ve split and parted in their ways. They’re done.
But Djinni has apparently taken this opportune moment to mend what brittle relationship she initially had with Stillwater. With her body soaked in his scent, Nayl cannot help but wonder. It crosses her mind briefly to toss in a comment about it, but she refrains with a small grin and shrug. ”Nothing really. Nerine is still doing well. And what of Sylva? I’m assuming it has truly captured your heart since you are rarely here nowadays.” The Nerinian Mage is often absent, and yet Nayl doesn’t want to entirely let her go or demolish the rank she holds. Their friendship has its benefits.
Djinni’s bright grin is reflected in Nayl’s humor, and it grows brighter as the other tobiano replies in turn. She has missed Nayl’s sharp sense of humor and self-confidence, and she is grateful that she’ll not be made to actually say it.
“Of course,” she says instead, unaware of exactly what is spinning through Nayl’s mind. She has never asked either Nayl or Stillwater about their relationship. What she knows she has pieced together from offhanded comments the two of them had made over the years. She knows that Nayl had denied Stillwater (he had said as much), and that Nayl thinks he has no feelings for her anymore. That was enough for Djinni, and combined with the little that the black stallion has said of Nayl over the last year she has made the logical assumption that whatever might have been between the two of them was long over and that it had never really begun to start with.
Most importantly, she hadn’t really meant to do anything, and so it doesn’t really count.
No one will ever know what happened between them but Djinni and Stillwater; why shouldn’t a mare and her consort not spend time together? Of course, their time together had been minimal until recently, and after their encounter it will take far more than a dip in the pond to scrub away exactly what had happened. The scrapes and bites along her neck have already begun to fade, and perhaps it is their presence that has her eyeing the same places on Nayl with more intense scrutiny than usual. She does not doubt that the pied queen has her pick of suitors; even Djinni would have gladly volunteered to warm her bed (at least before they’d become friends; she would not want to ruin that).
“I’ve been sending you recruits to soften the blow of my absence,” she says with a crooked smile, mocking graciousness “How have Heartfire and Brennen been?” The bay stallion had even said something about bringing his granddaughters to Nerine; Djinni hopes they’ve done more than just boost the head count beside the sea.
If her reply has evaded Nayl’s statement about her heart, at least she doesn’t neglect to answer the question entirely. “Sylva’s been doing well. Growing, though slowly. We seem to have the only allied kingdoms in this new Beqanna.” Her experience with politics is the same as many others; she is conditioned to allies and treaties and enemies. This newer, slower way of life is relaxing after what she had been expecting. Still, she cannot help but worry that something lurks beneath the surface of apparent calm.
She’d rather avoid thinking about that so she distracts herself. “But that’s politics. How have you been?”
current appearance: slim build smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
Nothing had truly ended between her and Stillwater, but then again, nothing truly began. That’s the reason why she is confused by her own mind and how jealousy is aroused when she breathes in his scent mingled with Djinni’s. Her heart quickens for a brief spurt, but she forces it from her thoughts and settles herself easily enough. Lior, she tells herself, and her eyes stray from Djinni as though in blind search of the male. Their actions – the caving of their temptations – stirs in her gut as something greater is created. Nayl realizes what is happening, what repercussion, there is, but she doesn’t shrink away from it anymore. When her body shifts, she wonders how long it will be until she shows and until she can no longer deny her virginity. For now, she is safe, but she can’t help the offhanded glance over her shoulder to confirm that.
As to not seem suspicious and to appear simply deep in thought, Nayl continues to idly look back until Djinni mentions Heartfire and Brennen. Another grin appears then, but not quite as broad, as her head looks ahead again to more easily see the mage. ”Well. They’ve been doing well. Brennen is interested in teaching the soldiers some new skills. The only downfall is that we don’t have too much of an army – never did.” There hasn’t exactly been a use for one since the renovation of Beqanna, but she still prefers to have the caste just in case the need were to arise. ”It’s still rather quiet without your fiery self,” she manages a chuckle as she reflects back to her ascension to the throne. Both her and Djinni’s tongues were barbed and ready for the confrontation that ensued. Since then, however, it has been quite subdued in Nerine. Everyone quickly accepted their newest Queen.
In reference to the alliance between their lands, Nayl can only nod at first. She contemplates when she visited each kingdom and saw the slow progress that was being made in each. The topic of interkingdom relations never arose. Each land was still in the process of its new creation with their own, individual aims. It had still been too early to construct treaties and anything of the sort. Djinni, ever quick to stir some excitement, was quick to follow Nayl’s orders and obtain Sylvia so that their lands could be bound. Now, Nayl is looking even farther. ”Part of me wants Ischia,” she admits almost lackadaisically with a shrug, ”but perhaps use Brennen. He could make it his own,” she pauses in consideration as her eyes meet Djinni’s, ”but I’m not sure I can trust him to that extent. He isn’t the type to take a knee to me, even if I were to somehow give him his brotherhood back.”
But this is still all politics, a topic that Djinni is beginning to steer away from. Nayl mulls over her own personal life since the genie was last here. Unable to admit her pregnancy just yet, she merely says, ”I’ve been well. Trying to work on the whole manners thing and niceties.” She airily chuckles before reciprocating the question. ”And you? How have you been doing?” Stillwater isn’t mentioned, but his name is treading water and trying to surface from the depths of her mind.
That Brennen is doing well does it surprise her. Athe bay stallion had seemed the type to need a purpose, and Djinni is glad that he has found it it Nerine's army.
"No one seems to have much of an army," She replies, an easy admission of Sylva's z weakness. The two of them are no normal allied monarchs; Sylva is an extension of the kingdom of Nerine and so it is Nayl's right to know of its weaknesses (and in turn protect them for it) as well as its strengths. The autumnal forest is no powerful ally, but when Nayl speaks of adding Ischia to her collections, Djinni only grins.
"Empress Nayl," she says with a thoughtful nod. "I like it." It seems fitting that the steely Nayl would be the first to attempt such a thing in this New Beqanna. Perhaps she is the first to try in any Beqanna. The Blood Alliance of old had no central leader - only family ties. She looks at the other tobiano appraisingly for a moment. Yes, she decides, if Nayl were to set her mind to ruling Beqanna, she could succeed. Perhaps she will even let Djinni assist, and give the grullo mare something to do that doesn't require any true sense of responsibility.
"Perhaps a council," she suggests, "Knowing he has a voice in your decisions." Equal representation might even be alluring to other small realms; protection from the empire in return for taking a knee. When they veer from politics at her request, Djinni finds the next subject equally disconcerting when the questions are aimed at her.
For a while she watches the waves, searching for the right way to answer. Djinni does not mind that her hesitation is clear; she trusts Nayl. The grullo mare is looking for the right words, not thinking of a lie, and just as she'd wait for Nayl to find them she knows that Nayl will wait for her.
It has been a long time since Djinni has had a friend, and she's blissfully unaware that the sorry she's trying to find the words for might tear at the foundation of this friendship.
"Stillwater." She finally says, but the words that she'd meant to say after it feel to raw in her throat and she holds them back. The grullo mare is reluctant to admit to her own lack of knowledge, nor reluctant to be honest with Nayl (though she knows it might seem that way).
"What do you know of him? Before he came here?" What is he? She doesn't say, but the question is in her sea glass eyes. The air in her chest feels stale but she cannot force herself to let it go. It burns, not unlike the way she had. But the wind flicks a damp hank of hair across her neck and she feels it on the scars that she'd wished concealed by it. Djinni had forgotten how windy it was in Nerine. Another gust blows it back again and she pays it no mind, hopeful that the smokey black mare beside her will dismiss them as paired with the barely visible hoof scrapes on her sides. They are adults, Nayl and Djinni, they can do what they please with men and feel no shame.
”I suppose there is no drastic need for an army,” she shrugs, but there remains a tone of disappointment threading through her words. She wants there to be soldiers, active challenges, and yet there is minimal activity in the ranks. Somehow, it’s reassuring to hear that Nerine isn’t alone in this, but she also doesn’t want to hear that their subkingdom is just as weak. She doesn’t doubt they would be strong grouped together, but she hopes to not be tested, not yet, not before she has reached her full potential.
A smile appears in response to Djinni’s musings. ”I do rather like the sound of that,” she chuckles and toys with the term empress, letting it roll delicately in her thoughts, her name always punctuating it. It would be a difficult venture, an accomplishment so rarely seen, but she has to contemplate how. There lie obstacles in her path, but she doesn’t plan to take the crown in Ischia. No, a raid is from an old Beqanna, not new. That isn’t what she wants at all. She simply wants to help strengthen it, to assist, to observe. ”Yes, perhaps a council,” she thinks aloud of the possibilities, and she would have continued had it not been for his name – the name that she so often tries to oust from her thoughts.
Inwardly, she hisses in malcontent, but her expression is devoid of such things. Her body only moves by the rising and falling of her breaths, and the flickering of her eyes as she searches Djinni for a reason. Nothing comes up, of course, and Nayl tries not to dwell on this for long. Her head tilts away and a breath sighs from her lungs. ”Stillwater,” she doesn’t utter his name with the same respect she once had, the admiration for him depleted over the past year. ”All I know is that he can’t be trusted.” She wanted so badly to trust him when she first acquired the throne, but she has since learned her mistakes. He was a mistake.
But she let him close enough to be considered as such.
”I don’t know much of him before he arrived here,” she shrugs, disappointed that she didn’t learn enough about him, but she quickly deviates from him. The truth is roiling in her gut, stirred by the mentioning of Stillwater. The anger rises in her blood, but she continues to hide it, but this time behind a nonchalant voice of admission. ”I have a surprise to tell you,” her eyes brighten enough to cause suspicion as she ankles herself to look down at the shore briefly before finding Djinni again. ”It seems I will have an heir in the spring,” a brow raises knowing well how the news will spread lke wildfire, ”with Lior.”
It has never occured to Djinni that Nayl is hiding anything from her. Why should it, when it has never crossed the grullo's mind to keep anything from the iron queen? She lies to herself, of course, but if she doesn't admit the truth even to herself then she can't really be held responsible for what she does and does not share. (So says the logical part of her mind that she shuts away in preference of more immediately pleasurable thoughts).
When Nayl repeats Stillwater's name, there is enough of a change in her voice that Djinni turns back from the sea, pins the tobiano mare with a sharp green gaze as the queen tells her that he cannot be trusted.
That is not what she had expected, and it shows.
The last the the two smoky mares had discussed the black stallion, Nayl had been teasing (a cover, though Djinni doesn't suspect) and this time she is anything but. Djinni had brought the news that Stillwater was now ruling Sylva, and Nayl had congratulated her, telling her she had done well. Yet now he is not to be trusted?
Something is not right, but Djinni cannot quite put her hoof on it. She tries, but has little time before Nayl is moving on. The grullo mare knows the swift subject change for what it is, but she is not sure if she should press at it, and forgets it almost entirely at the news.
Djinni has always loved surprises, and while she does not think of children as the beloved blessing that so many do, she reads the pleasure in her friend's eyes and reacts accordingly. It takes her a moment to place the name Lior, but then she remembers a tall man with light eyes and dragon wings. He is here in Nerine, she realizes now, that is why he had seemed so familiar when they crossed paths in the skies above Sylva.
He is a man of the Queensguard, like Stillwater was (had been?). Is that why Stillwater is no longer to be trusted? Had she taken him from Nayl? She refuses to think of that, for surely Nayl would have said something were that the case, and instead expresses the genuine happiness for her friend that she feels.
"Congratulations," she says as she reaches out to press a gentle muzzle to Nayl's dark shoulder. It will be a less ugly foal than most, she is quite certain, and even if it's not, what good is her magic if she can't ensure that everything from Nerine is perfect. "Have you picked out a name?"
Nayl has appreciated the safety of her thoughts. No one could ever read her; they never knew why she was there, talking to them, or if she was at all lying. They could never know if she had ulterior motives.
But with Djinni? Nayl could only hold back so much. With the evolution of their friendship there has been an establishment of trust and respect, but there has always been one secret that Nayl was keen to withhold: Stillwater. She isn’t sure what they had been or what primal emotions were blossoming between them. It seems like so long ago since she last felt his hot breath against her skin as he wanted her and fought himself not to touch her. When she blinks, it’s longer than usual as she remembers him and how the water dribbled down his skin. The temptation to fold into him was overwhelming; she had considered letting their bodies melt into each other while pushing everything else in the world out of her mind. There had been a time that when she stood with him, he was all she could see. She had been drawn to him like a moth to a flame, but they were dangerous together. They were so wrong for each other. His final snarl still rings in her memory when her eyes open to see Djinni watching her.
”Castile,” she admits only after a deep breath of composure and thought, ”If it’s a boy, then Castile.” The name rolls like water off her tongue, so perfect and fitting as she tries to picture a son shadowing her footsteps. A fleeting smile disappears as quickly as it shows when she tries to also picture herself as a mother. ”Not sure how it’ll be with a kid following me, but we’ll see how it goes,” a shrug ripples through her shoulders under the assumption that she won’t excel at the new title. At least Lior will help her with any shortcomings.
She remembers the trail of kisses down the arch of her neck, his silent promise to be with her, to stay with her, to protect her.
But that isn’t what holds her attention most.
It’s still the scent of Stillwater that lingers on Djinni’s body. It’s the change in the mare’s estrogen and the way her stomach seems to show just a little more than from eating habits. Nayl wonders, and she assumes, but she doesn’t immediately jump to accusing her friend. No, she reiterates her unanswered question, but there is a subtle sharpness in her voice. ”And you, Djinni?” Their eyes meet as a wind tousles her mane. ”You didn’t say how you are doing?”
OOOC: so I hope you’re cool with me jumping time to present day D:
Can we pretend Djinni has had wings up until this point?
djinni
For a moment she ponders the name, repeating it silently once and then giving a satisfied sort of nod. “Castile. I like it.” She can see him now, a little pied colt, smoky black like his mother with his father’s dragon wings. A worthy heir of Nayl, even if his mother still seems a little apprehensive at his imminent arrival.
Not ask, but accuse. Accuse is what is done to the enemy, to the guilty. Djinni is neither, and so she says without guile as she raises her feathered wings to reveal her pregnant belly: “Equally nervous, I think.” She smiles, a little abashed at having been hiding it from Nayl at first. “with, ah, Stillwater.”
There she is hesitant, but it is not because she suspects a past relationship, but rather because Nayl has just finished bemoaning the father of her child. It is only right to be a bit bashful. There is nothing she can do to change it (though she has never tried). The wind is picking up pace around them, hinting at a coming storm. Djinni squints against it, turning her body so as not to be looking directly into the wind. “I’m hoping for a girl.”
