and she's buying her stairway to heaven; offspring

[Nikoline]

---and she's buying her stairway to heaven

The forest is peaceful this time of year. The birds fly to warmer temperatures, the rabbits and squirrels tuck away in their nest or burrows to wait out Beqanna's frigid rage that was winter. The bay overo woman walks amongst the barren trees like a painted ghost. Each stocking legs falls with a muffled crunch as her hazel eyes look to the gray skies above.  Each breath is visible for only a moment as the air is crisp and clean. Niko inhales the smell of musty leaves and pretends she is a bird that is free to roam and leave these lands. The mare is not trapped in in the physical sense. She is no lost or wayward but Beqanna has changed in the time since she was born. The mare had not lost any powers like so many that seemed to wander but perhaps she desired a different Beqanna. One of the old lands with roaming herds and kingdoms. She quiets her thoughts and attempts to embrace the change. Not far up the path is another horse. A stallion, by scent, and black as night. "Hello." The tones expressed where formal, robotic. The painted mare believed in such greetings despite being a known face or not and attempted to offer a small quip of a smile to most in passing. "Lovely day for a walk." The green and brown eyes glance over as she nears the taller man's shoulder. Niko finds herself dwarfed at his side but not intimidated. If he should not care for some company then she will move along but if he did, well now he has found a trail companion.

Nikoline

♥dante

[Offspring]

something has been taken from deep inside of me;
the secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see.

  The dreary haze of morning dissipates by late afternoon, revealing a vivid sky and bright, unyielding sun. Its light bores into his skin, highlighting the puckered pink scars that litter the broad expanse of his blackened skin, blemished and flawed from time’s cruel hand. The frigid caress of an autumn wind entangles itself into his wild and unkempt mane, lifting it away from the dampness of his thick, sweat-slicked neck. He is captured; lost in a moment in time. The long, weary day will eventually fade into a dark, forsaken night, as the minutes will turn into hours and inevitably, the hours will turn into days. Eventually, it becomes a seamless consciousness of time –  no day is any different than the one before it, and no sunrise any brighter than the last.

  A weary sigh emerges from his tired lungs, his whiskered lips parted as his dark, blank stare of fire and brimstone lingers along the dwindling horizon. The once cobalt sky was beginning to give way to pale auburn and cerise as the sun fell beyond the mountain ridge; mingling where the stars soon would flicker and glow in its place. The path that lay before him is forgotten, his mind drawn into the deepest recesses of his memory, lingering on moments that had long since passed. The hardened line of his jaw tenses as a burning ferocity festers within the hearth of his chest.

  While ice had, at one time, encased his heart, it now burned infinitely with a dancing ember; a blistering flame he could not extinguish. The warmth envelopes the entirety of his body, leaving a thin sheen of sweat trickling down along the terse muscle rolling beneath his marred flesh. Though it had once caused him strife, he now felt numb, ignoring the dull throbbing fire that burned so brightly within. He longed for the lost days of polarizing ice, and dense, frigid snow – he longed for the dead of winter, and for its inevitable bite.

  He is torn out of his lamenting by a gentle but rigid voice, and his fiery gaze is soon set upon her. He follows the rounded curve of her cheek, his fierce eyes boring into hers, observing the green outer layer and the golden rim of her pupils. His voice, rugged and raw from disuse, rumbles from within, though his hardened expression remains stoic. ”It is, isn’t it? My daughter and I walked this path once,” he murmurs, his mind drifting to distant memories of Maribel, his sun and moon. ”a long time ago. My name is Offspring. What is yours?”

wounds so deep they never show; they never go away.
like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played.

Offspring

[Nikoline]

---and she's buying her stairway to heaven

The overo mare had not expected such kindness to exude from the dark male. His red eyes burned, tortured by something unspoken of. It was certainly not her place in which to ask. Instead the woman glances at her surroundings as a resonating smile touches her lips. Hazel eyes move to look at the well beaten path that lay beneath their hooves. Her's white and neatly trimmed, his feathered, heavy and large. How many had passed where they stood in this moment? Niko returns her attention back to the scarred, rugged features of the thoughtful man. "Nikoline, but Niko if you prefer." A smile touches her pale lips as it generates easily across her features. "I am not rather familiar with this part of Beqanna, would you care to walk with me?" She asks politely enough. It had been so long since she had seen her parents (she fears their deaths) or evena  familiar face but Niko speaks not a word of her concern so instead she looks to the tattered stallion. He could say no, fully capable in fact, so she waits with a forward ear. Autumn was a curious season and Niko wanted to drink in the blaze of colors, watch the way the squirrels scour for acorns, the 'V' of geese that fly above on a rich blue sky. Niko wonders briefly if she should retract her question. Did the stallion possess more than what met her eye? She could be naive at times since the Reckoning but in a moment's decision, she decides to trust the stranger in the woods with his knowing red eyes.

Nikoline

♥dante