"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
life unfolds in pools of gold I am only owed this shape if I make a line to hold
He walks out into the ocean.
The cold water chills his bones as it swirls in little eddies around his legs. It numbs him, nearly, makes him forget the many miles between here and his former life. Because there are so many between here and there and there and there (so many homes he’s had, so many places he’s rested his head, if only briefly). As he sinks further into the sea, he lets go of everything, lets go of himself. The waves break on his belly, sending the contents to roil, too, but still he walks. His feet find purchase on the grainy sand underwater until they don’t, and the stallion is forced to paddle to keep himself afloat.
It is too tiring, too quickly, this motion.
And while the water had at first been like a blissful sedative, now it settles like a stone in his guts. He is like the sea, Buckthorn muses in his dawning revelation that he might not make it back to shore, that he might slip under at any moment. Deceivingly calm and inviting in the shallows, but turbulent and treacherous the deeper one went. He has always loved the water. It is in him, has been programed in his genes to be drawn to the crashing, smashing waves that once kept his grandmother under without harm. He doesn’t know this, though. He only knows that the ocean will spit him back out before it fills his lungs completely. In this (and maybe only this), he has faith.
So he is tossed about from one foam-capped swell to another but is never pulled further out or down. Instead, the black and white finds the cool yellow of the shore. He stumbles onto it – just barely – before sinking to his knees in utter exhaustion. The edge of the ocean laps at his monochrome tail, unable to fully release him from the game of life and death. Buckthorn coughs and spits brine water onto the sand, the salt searing in his throat and eyes. It is a good burn, though, a reminder on his lips of his rebirth that he will taste for days to come. Long enough to keep his fire lit. Long enough to decide if this is where he will stay, for now.
It is not often that the sea offers much of interest. Nerine’s coast is so wide and varied, but still it is predictable. Driftwood and flotsam and dead sea creatures, none of which she has too much care for. No, she more often spends her time adrift in the sea of vision, flitting from one to the other, a silent, invisible fly on the wall. She has always learned so much this way, gathering bits and pieces to tuck away, to use or discard at her whim.
Often she is not even home in Nerine. Often she is out, collecting information, expanding her delicately lain web, cultivating and nurturing carefully chosen relationships. Giving an entirely new meaning to the phrase ‘oh what tangled webs we weave’.
But today, of all days, she is not.
Today, she does find something of interest in the ocean, catching her attention like a faint glint on the horizon. And so, when he washes ashore, she is there waiting for him. After all, it is not every day that Nerine has horses wash upon her golden beaches. Her gaze, cool and blue, fixes upon him as he collapses to his knees, gasping and spewing saltwater onto already laden sands. For a moment she wonders how he had survived the journey, how he had not been pulled under, claimed by the sea. But she is a fickle mistress, the ocean. And she had seen fit to toss him back, to allow him to live to see another rising.
Heartfire is something of a connoisseur of curious things, so it should really come as no surprise that she had found her way here. Besides, he seems no threat, as wet, bedraggled, and exhausted as he is. Not that she has ever worried terribly much over what might be a threat or not.
“Well,” she finally says by way of greeting, stepping nearer to him that she might better scrutinize him. She doesn’t try to offer aid; it’s clear he’ll survive. “That was not the most intelligent thing I’ve ever seen.”
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts
life unfolds in pools of gold I am only owed this shape if I make a line to hold
He has no use for treachery or deceit, no desire to spin webs or gamble with fate.
Buckthorn is simple in this way, perhaps. He doesn’t trust what he cannot see, what he cannot feel. He won’t stick his neck out on the line for a whim or the aligning of stars on a cold, clear night. He believes in the might of his own muscles. He knows that it is irresponsible (and dangerous) to take on more than one’s back can carry. He knows that if he did and his legs collapsed beneath him, it would be his own fault. This is why he’s never had a use for organizing before now, never sought out a home in the multitude of kingdoms of Old Beqanna – all they were good for was eating up lands that could have been free and wide instead of regimented and divided. He would have much rather kept a few good women on a few parcels of prairie, a harder life but a wilder one, too. The fulfillment of keeping food in their bellies, water on their tongues, and cougars from their throats would have been enough for him for a lifetime. He’s done it before, after all, has the scars to prove it.
However, this new world is anything but simple. The black and white stallion is an anomaly here. But rather than to accept his fate and be washed out to a watery grave with the tide, he had stuck fast, stubbornly. He had risen – is rising – to his feet like some seaborn messiah.
And already, he’s being greeted as such.
“Just you wait, there’s more where that came from, Miss.” Buck’s chocolate eyes crinkle as he takes in the admittedly pretty lady who’s concern simply radiates off of her. Really, he’s almost knocked back into the ocean from the force of it. “Oh, but don’t worry about me. I’ll stumble out all on my own.” And stumble he does. His knees wobble gracelessly as he strains to become upright once more. The sand is finer here than it had been near the jungle (that had been thicker, mixed with dark, rich dirt) and he is unused to its surface. The blue woman is so close that he knocks into her with his shoulder. He would have completely fallen into her, but he throws himself forward instead and nearly tastes the sand.
It isn’t the most masculine he’s ever felt, crawling around on the beach like a colt with new legs and no idea how to use them. But then, he’s never considered his vulnerabilities a weakness the way other men tend to, especially in front of women. He rather views them as learning experiences, growing experiences. Surely, he’s learned not to underestimate the current of this New Beqanna ocean (so different and yet so similar to the other). Buckthorn is spent, both physically and emotionally, so he relaxes totally in the mare’s company. “You smell like Her.” His thick, knotted mane sticks to his neck as he turns to point out the ocean he has just emerged from. The same abyssal brine rises from her mottled skin as he turns back to look at her, reverence quickly fading from his eyes. “Where am I?”
”They keep appearing like fucking flies,” Nayl grumbles as she arrives at Heartfire’s side shortly after the stallion’s ungraceful arrival. Her eyes of hardened steel sweep across him before giving a sidelong glance to her kingdom sister. ”Seriously, foreigners keep trespassing and I’m getting bloody well sick of it.” Her lip curls in utter distaste, but she inhales a prolonged breath to steady her nerves and address the matter with more composure despite the irritation already washing across her pretty face.
The stallion has humor, she notes, but she isn’t entirely amused just yet. ”And what, exactly, prompted you to take a swim and fight the current?” Nayl has only ventured as far into the water as her shoulders, refusing to ever lift herself and swim in its embrace. Although she can control it, there is still an element of suspicion that repels her from ever taking the plunge. The Jungle never had an ocean, only a river that gurgled along the border that troubled outsiders fairly often. Much to her dismay, Nerine does not have a similar bank of security; only Hyaline separates her home from the great majority of Beqanna, and she partially controls that newborn land.
While most others have wandered into her home by foot, this one has decided to stand out by washing ashore. ”You’re in Nerine.”
When Nayl looks at him, however, there are features that stand out to her even despite how soaked he is to the bone, his locks matted against his skin. Beneath her forelock, her fiery gaze narrows. Her mind reels, but she cannot yet determine why he is seemingly familiar. ”Do I know you from somewhere?” Never would she think it was her sibling. No, they’ve all disappeared… Right?
He is a rather amusing stallion, she will give him that. She cannot imagine being in a particularly good mood after washing in from the ocean. He, however, seems disinclined to allow such things to phase him. He even goes so far as to offer a rather wry, witty response at his own expense. Lips twisting into a faintly amused grin, she tips one brow as she eyes the wet, bedraggled man stumbling from the lapping saltwater.
He is rather unsteady on his feet, and in his knocking about manages to cuff her a bit with his shoulder. She does little more than shift slightly, giving him some additional room with which to regain his staggering balance. Her curiosity is as boundless as ever, and she uses the distraction to do some prying. It has become a habit of sorts, nearly second nature for her to steal away into another’s sight, to discover what they know, what they have seen. And as he is trespassing upon her home, well, it would be foolish to do otherwise.
So when he finally finds some semblance of balance, she is a bit wiser, and ever more curious. A fault of hers. So when he comments on her scent, the familiarity of it, she merely inclines her head slightly and says simply, “Unsurprising, that.”
It is then that Nayl appears at her side, her mien irritable and her eyes hard, just in time to answer the stranger’s inquiry. Heartfire glances briefly at the black and white mare before turning her contemplative gaze back to the eerily similar black and white stallion. “Some of these trespassers could turn out rather useful,” she responds to Nayl’s initial mutterings after a moment’s pause. “Even this one, wobbly kneed as he is.”
The queen’s next comment causes an abrupt wave of mirth to wash over the blue and white mare, though outwardly little shows of the reaction beyond a twitching of her lips and a bright glint in her eye. Finally, with an amused huff of air, she turns a droll gaze to Nayl. “I should rather hope so. He is your brother, after all.” Lips curved in wry amusement, she turns an assessing gaze to newcomer. “I suppose you could be forgiven for not recognizing him though, he does look rather… bedraggled at the moment.”
i filled up my senses with thoughts from the ghosts
