"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
Slumber had slipped from black unconsciousness to troubled dreams rather quickly for the growing colt, twisting in upon themselves and re-shaping time and time again the feel of slick blood, (was it his or someone else’s?) the sharp acidity of stomach bile, and the nameless, white-hot fear of death until, at last, he sprang into life once more with the shock of his dark eyes ripping open to pale unoffending sunlight.
There, prostrate on the muddied earth, Crevan had gasped in expectancy of pain only to find that none accompanied the action of rousing to consciousness. “Shock, you’re just in shock.” He tells himself while two, then three steady gulps of air fill his healthy lungs and ballon his sides outward. But the agony he’s so certain of never comes and with a more pleasant sort of revelation he drags a heavy, completely perfect, wolf-shaped body up in order to stand. “Jesus, god almighty…” The beastly creature mutters, turning a thickly furred skull from side-to-side while he appraises his ivory coat.
Neither hair nor hide is out of place.
Crevan, standing alone and rather stupidly in the heart of the great Meadow furrows a tan browline and tries, without much success, to puzzle out reality. The browning grass beneath his paws seems real and harmless enough but that anchor of normality can’t seem to quell the sharp jerk of his ears and the sudden tenseness that turns every muscle bunched beneath his skin to stone as a rustle nearby startles him. Hushed and poised he lowers himself, eyes upraised, to watch as a lonely doe perks from beneath her grassy cover to bound airily into the woodland.
No threat, then. No shadows and night here, no creatures that lay in wait. Just deer and, with the backwards turn of his head, other horses who’ve come to enjoy another listless graze. “Did I dream it?” He murmurs aloud, nearly unaware that he’s shifting into a horse until the shade of his nightlock mane tumbles over matching eyes. “Or am I dead?” He hums, feeling out of his body, out of this place and above the world itself.
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
The change into fall also brings a heightened need to be near her. With her. He wants to occupy her time, occupy her body. The few snippets of sleep he is able to catch is now consumed by his desire for the champagne stained General. The feeling of feathers tickling his sides as he moves on top of her, the soft ragged gasps of emotion that betray her feelings. Obviously he avoids sleep, these dreams just as anxiety ridden as his nightmares. He has walked all night, leaving the ashen lands of Tephra and following the newer paved roads to the Meadow. He has plenty of time to think, too much time. He needs a distraction.
Pale sunlight filters into the open meadow as night fades to day. His pace is constant, trotting with no purpose as hooves churn over browned grass. His anxiety is briefly forgotten though as something is thrusted a few feet before him. It literally appears out of nowhere, as if pushed out of a portal that he can’t see by invisible hands. It crumples into a puddle of mud, almost lifeless.
Hesitantly he takes a single step forward. It’s large and furry, gasping for breath. Slowly it stands up with a cry of Jesus God Almighty, and he freezes. A wolf. A large white wolf. He barely realizes what he’s doing, the first time he has shifted so quickly with little pain. The bear instantly takes over, his flaxen mane elongating as white fur scours his body. Hooves turn to large paws, his muzzle extending as sharp teeth protrude through his gum line. Only the single gold flecked eye remains of the horse that had once been and it watches the wolf warily, suspicious.
The bear that’s been unleashed surprisingly does nothing, there’s no bloodlust here. Instead he feels a thread beneath himself and the creature he has become, they both feel it. The magic, the rememberance of how they came to be tied together. The wolf seems out of it, looking about blearily as if it didn’t belong here. A soft call of a bird behind it makes the predator jump and flinch, very unlike a hunter to do such a thing.
Slowly the bear shuffles forward, cautious. Even as he comes closer, the wolf is morphing, changing. Turning into a horse. The bear also retreats but within it’s cage inside his ribs, it still reaches it’s claws out as if to grasp the cobwebs of magic that linger about Crevan. The strange horse seems unaware of him, talking to himself. His own lips tug slightly into a frown. ”I dare say you’re alive.” There’s a hint of recognition in the depth of the lone eye, it’s not one that makes him happy. ”And probably lucky to be so.”
Crevan turns on him, the poor newcomer. Swings his head in a cracking arc back to where the stallion has approached him from his blindside and peels his lips back into a feral snarl, squared teeth flashing now as white fangs and molars. His equine ears are pressed firmly against his neck and the mostly-horse backs swiftly away, every line of muscle and sinew tensed for battle.
In almost the same manner of time he stops himself. “God, Crevan!” He chides internally as the teeth fade back to normalcy and his breathing steadies, sweat trickling over the undulating valleys of his shoulders, ribs, belly. “You’re fine, you’re fine …” The mantra continues, easing into soft tremors of some partially forgotten post-traumatic ordeal. The colt swallows and blinks, swallows again and shakes his head before letting it fall limply towards the earth. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to … you know …” He supplies, finding the words still hard to come by as the haze of his sleep continues to clear.
“I didn’t mean to freak out.” He says, exhaling deeply with the weight of safety now cocooning him. “You startled me, is all. One second I was somewhere else and now I’m -” He stops, hardened navy eyes rising to meet the single, incredulous hazel one staring back. “Nevermind.” He huffs. “It doesn’t really matter.” The sandy-colored boy surmises. Crevan glances around them, finding that in the brevity of his reaction no one else had been stirred to turn their attention to the two, so he still has ample time to scrap together the semblance of normality.
“This is Beqanna, right?” He begins, turning his head back to where the hollow-eyed horse waits. “Taiga still stands, doesn’t she?”
Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
The wolf/horse swings around on him and the bear instantly returns, protecting it’s own interests. It might be amusing to a bystander, these two shapeshifter’s that didn’t seem to know if they were coming or going. A few minutes pass and the stranger seems to calm himself, apologizing to the earth as his head hangs low. Slowly the one eyed stallion relaxes, morphing back into the flaxen chestnut form he had been born to. There is grief in the depth of his eye as he looks at the young colt, giving a soft nod of understanding. For he knows this all too well. Hard memories already stirring and pressing at the sides of his brain.
”It’s alright. I…” He pauses for a moment. ”I understand.” His empty socket, marked with those three long claw marks, exposed as he shakes his head slightly. His words don’t seem to matter, the boy already withdrawing into himself. Trying to pretend like whatever he had been through had never even happened. A low long exhale, his heart rendering for the boy even as a slow sense of dread crawls upon him.
”Yes this is Beqanna. We are in the Meadow.” He states slowly, not because he thinks the colt is stupid but already knowing he’s overwhelmed. Hesitating about Taiga, a land he is unfamiliar with. ”I would assume so.” Little does he know. ”My names Ledger, I’m from Tephra.” Another pause, extending his muzzle slightly. He needs to know, he needs to know if the threat was back. Slowly, hesitatingly… ”Where… Where were you?”
“He understands?” The colt ponders curiously, at first. Everything else: that the chestnut was a shifter, that he was from Tephra, that the two were oddly at ease with one another - flies right out the door. Crevan stares at him for a moment, just plain stares and then, when it seems that the moment has gone on for a bit longer than it should, he nods.
“Good, good.” He says in reply to his previous questions. The shaking, foreboding sort of mood that had shrouded him since he awoke begins to rise and finally, his reality settles firmly into place. With Ledger’s closing, hesitant question the colt’s ears shoot forward and his head perks subtly. “I was… god I’ve no idea what to call that place.” Crevan shudders, extending his own rounded nose so that the two might exchange scents. A kin move, perhaps - something long forgotten by the regular palfreys of Beqanna but kept alive by those who trade their skins. With that soft greeting Crevan has it; Ledger’s calling card, his unique scent - and he tucks it away for later recall, should he need it.
“Creatures that you couldn’t dream of, battles I never expected to win. I thought,” He pauses, head rocking slowly side-to-side as his neck curves inward once more “that I would surely die there.” The boy finishes, allowing the words to drift seamlessly into the breeze. “Perhaps you did.” His conscious supplies. He doesn’t debate it. “But here I am, healthier than ever, actually.” The boy finishes with an upturned glance at the hidden bear.
“I’m Crevan.” He remembers suddenly, and the name slips free almost as a bark. “And you’ve been there before - the Underneath place?”
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
His brow creases as Crevan mutters to himself, staring at him. Had he been like that when he had been spit out of the dark caves? Probably. More than likely. The one eyed stallion tries to not be judgmental, knowing that this boy had probably been put through the ringer. Forcing himself to remember the pain and fear. The colt hesitantly bumps his small muzzle against his own, a long lost greeting that he has never forgotten. Taking in the musky wolf-like scent the colt exudes and filing it away.
Slowly the wolf-colt starts to explain the place he had been, what had happened to him. He nods thoughtfully, worry in the depth of his remaining eye. What could this mean? Had Carnage returned? It sounded vaguely familiar, the unsaid words lingering in his own head. For had Carnage not broken him apart, had he not killed him with that icicle and brought him back to life? Forged anew.
The colt seems to come and go, half in reality and half still wherever he has been spat out from. Had he been in the Underneath place? Ledger hesitates, unsure if that’s what that cavern could be called. ”I’m not sure Crevan…” Another long pause, wrestling within himself to withdraw the memories he tries so hard to forget. ”I remember fighting creatures and my own trials I thought I would not survive.” The long claw marks over the empty socket a cruel reminder of his time with the Dark God. ”I remember being taken into a cave… There were others locked in cages… Caught by a Dark God for his amusement.” He falls silent, unable to go into detail of what he had seen, what he had done to escape. Wondering if the shifting he had seen earlier had anything to do with that dark cavern, if Carnage had returned.
Similar, but not the same. Shifters, but one is a bear and the other is a wolf. Crevan knows they’ve shared something special, just the two of them - he can see it in the faraway glaze of Ledger’s adept eye while the words creature and trial take their own shapes in his mind. But at the mention of others, all likeness between them severs. If there was some dark God at play in Crevan’s waking nightmares, it wasn’t this torturous being the flaxen chestnut so readily described. Even if it had been, the point had not been to suffer but to reveal.
He still feels the phantom pain of having layer after layer exposed to the fey. Sick little imps. “He sounds like a little-dick prick, if you ask me.” The boy suddenly spouts in a bout of rage. It summons bile in his throat, a glob of thick phlegm that he spits ritualistically onto the earth at their feet. “Let him and the rest of his like go straight to hell.” Crevan prays, snorting in disgust. That anyone should feel themselves master of another living creature was too much - Nature outdid herself in those moments and revealed how truly tipped the scales had always been.
Magic was a perverted twist of moral ambiguity.
With a battered huff he shakes his head, rocks his platter-shaped jaw from side to side and lifts his ears to the wind. That’s when he first hears his twin, it perks up every sullen corner of his face and straightens his neck. “I have so many questions, still.” The two-toned colt offers, turning his eyes back to where the elder stallion lingers. “But duty calls.”
He’s hopeful - there’s yet so much to learn from age, and what with Ledger being a shifter, too … it’s all so much for him to ingress in one afternoon anyhow. Better to clear his mind, finally go home where his mother was surely missing him, to go where Corvus waited for his arrival. “Can I pay you a visit sometime? Soon?” He asks hesitantly, one hoof already rising to lead him away. He won’t simply up and leave - Crevan can’t bring himself to disrespect the pale bear, nice as he’s been.
