"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
06-09-2017, 11:16 AM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2017, 11:19 AM by Grimdark.)
THEY SAY IT'S OVER AND I'M FINE AGAIN
He is moving down the coast on the opposite side of the channel, sand and salt coating his hair as it lay in tangled dreads around his wrinkled face. He is squinting hansome hazel eyes against the bright sun, looking at it through his thick dark lashes. He shakes his body, lithe and athletic. He is grown, albeit young, and his devil-may-care look shows he is from some place not of the mainland. Born and raised in Ischia, away from the politics and the drama. He rode the waves, and the rusty sound of his voice was only mirrored in the rust color that patterned his legs and face. Thick streaks of silver patterned in his hair, and it was the son of Deimos and Ea who had decided long ago that he would break the mold. Where his mother cared too much about things that it had driven her and his twin sister away from the rest of life—even more isolated than Grim had chosen to be.
But, in his own hypocrisy, he had bolted. Given the right big fuck you to his family, and had gone off on his own, growing up in the privacy of his own thought, developing a point of view on life that was very different than the way his mother had taught him to be. She had said he was the son of Ramiel, come to visit her in the midst of her dreams. But there was a darkness in him that always made him wonder.
Always made him yearn.
A growl settles in his throat as he curls a dissatisfied lip at the island behind him. Good riddance if he never saw it again. Turned away from the ocean, he looks at the copse of trees. He follows them down to a River. Settling with a thick step that flashes the line of his flank, he lowers his head to partake of food and drink. His thoughts are blank, only focused on what is before him.
A solitary pirate. A devil, and an angel.
GRIMDARK
deimos x ea, dragon vision, twilight manipulation, twin to allure
Praise stumbled out of the forest that finally thinned enough for her to find her way out of it. She had a scratch on one hip, some twigs stuck in her mane, and damn it all if her nose still didn’t smart from her run-in with the mean crab before all of this began! Misadventure seemed to favor her long before she had thought to leave the boundaries of Tephra. What had seemed at first an exciting notion to explore had become a bad idea that leave a bad taste in her mouth, which might have just been nothing more than a terrible thirst.
The latter amplified by the sounds of a river both mighty and promising that poured into a sea much like the river in Tephra did, and the sight of it made her heart constrict in a small complicated measure of relief to see something familiar by association even if this particular river was not known to her. Just staring at the river caused a longing such as she had never known to rise up in her, and she realized that she stood there like a fool just staring at it, mouth hanging half open in mute shock until she shut it and regained a small measure of composure.
She started towards it, reflecting on how dry her throat was and how beautiful the river looked when she noticed him standing there, alternating between grazing and drinking. He couldn’t have been all that much older than her, not that she studied him long enough to see if he was before she rushed by him in her haste to get to the river and quench her thirst. Praise slurped long and loud of the cool water before lifting her head, the sunlight catching the droplets that clung to her chin and making them sparkle against her pale apricot skin. She looked back at him then, not in the least bit apologetic for first staring then running past him or for noisily drinking from the river.
It just never occurred to her to apologize or offer up an explanation. But all the same, she started to turn to better look at him with her pale green eyes and said, “I see we had the same idea. Mind if I join you?” It wasn’t all that like her to be so courteous but she must admit to some curious urge to munch on the same spot of grass as him, maybe because after her time alone in the forest, she was hungrier for things other than grass and water.
There was a quiet moment when Grim thought about the area around him, taking into account that it, being a river, was something that he should probably expect people to also arrive at. Because, it is a river. People drink at a river. Because of water. And stuff. But, he is Grim. And so when he is seen, and spoken to, he still jolts annoyedly, a look crossing his face that was very much like the father he’s never met.
His silver eyes look her up and down, and his chest heaves with a great breath. He tilts his head, and then lowers his lips to the water again, taking of the last dregs of the water. Raising his head, he swallows the last of his thirst down, down down deep into his belly, before stepping into the water, the chest going up his back as he dredged to the middle of the river. It was quite wide in this part of its journey as it bisected his homeland. However, he was not sure where he would end up if he followed the river this way or that. He had simply followed the river to where he was, and when he got thirsty, that is where he happened to be.
And when she happened to be there, and asked him, he had simply… well. What could he say? No, you cannot join me, I have purchased this water and it is all for me?” Of course not. That is silly. And so, in the end, she stands with him in companionable silence, drinking her fill while he cools off. Silent company. Sort of. Through the tattered hair that falls haphazardly in front of his eyes, he looks at her. Young thing, not much younger than him… though he feels much older.
Like a Pirate. Because Pirates are cool.
GRIMDARK
deimos x ea, dragon vision, twilight manipulation, twin to allure
Praise stares back at him; he takes a drink then steps into the river as if away from her - curious, she thinks, concluding that he has plans to ignore her. Except he doesn’t continue to move down the river despite how often he glances up the length of it. So in a sense, they do share a companionable silence as he basks in the water and she drinks from it. His abrupt manner reminded her a bit of her father, and his long silence reminded her of her sister; Prevail could be like at times, quiet to the point of being almost too quiet, and staring - just staring, like she wanted to dissect her pale apricot sister, or that might have just been Praise thinking those thoughts and imagining that her twin felt the same way.
(Everything bore dissection or vivisection until she had the heart of it in her line of sight; sometimes, she touched and tasted too. How else could one learn?)
Praise keeps her mouth shut; her lips linger just above the water as she stares at her reflection, occasionally interrupted by ripples from things like fish breaking the water or leaves spinning lazily across the top of the river, and maybe even from the smallest movements he might make in shifting his weight from foot to foot. She snorts the moment the mare breaks through the bushes near them, huffing and puffing like an angry worn-out beast. Her head jerks upright and her light green eyes roll in her pale apricot face as she looks at the oily black picking burrs off her skin and spitting them into the river.
She almost laughs, there is something sad and comical about it - even about the way the black suddenly freezes, as if caught in the act of something terrible and secret. “No need to apologize,” she says with a shrug, or what could pass for a shrug in a horse. “You’re hardly intruding on anything but I’m Praise.” Mother always said to mind her manners, though in this, she sometimes took after her father and was a bit more uncouth than others. Who cared about manners anyway? Her eyes slide to him, as if waiting for him to add his two cents in but she just mutters, “It’s a free river anyway.”
They are not alone long before the other comes bolting through the rush, tearing burrs off of herself and flinging them into the water like she was a madwoman. That he was possibly related to these girls is not something that crosses the boy's mind. Grim's only recollection of any real relationship is his twin sister--and he has not seen her in ages. His silver eyes level these two warily, dark gaze upon is face as he continues to wade in the ever colder water--the time of the year is changing, after all. His tattered hair is in watery knots that hang from his face obcuring his vision somewhat, but the small exchange of pleasantries rumbles in his gut--
--pleasantries. Yeesh.
This space was becoming far too crowded for the young stallion's comfort. He preferred to be mostly solitary. One was fine--two... well it was two too many. And so he gets out of the water and shakes the droplets off his skin, his mane and tail flailing uncontrollably.
"Grimdark," he says by way of greeting, not concerned in the least if the water has blown over the girls. It was not he who had to apologize for intrusion. He was here first. And while it was a free river, his time was not free, and he stands off to the side, giving them a dark nod, before reaching out to take the heads off the taller grasses that lined the river.
Around him, the scent of the salt air that was washing in from the nearby ocean was calling to him. He wanted to get back to it. He needed to taste the sand again. needed to be on the water again.
Being so landlocked was leaving Grimdark distinctly unsatisfied with his current lot in life, and it was affecting his mood.
GRIMDARK
deimos x ea, dragon vision, twilight manipulation, twin to allure
