"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
Taiga was either swallowed by water and magma or hunted by strange wolf like creatures. He assumed Deimos may have stuck around to continue to keep up the wall simply out of pleasure, knowing that letting them drown with no way out would amuse the magician greatly. The river that sectioned off Taiga from the common forest had become swollen and they had been forced to swim, he and his strange companion, to the other side.
Bedraggled and soaked, he finally climbs out into dry land with water streaming off his back. Rain continued pelting down around them but it doesn’t seem to phase him as the red eyed wraith finally turns to look back from where they had come. As calm and collected as ever, he assesses the situation before them as a single ear flicks to catch the distant screams and howls. Unable to suppress the merciless glee that flickers across pale lips.
With a single glance to his companion, he heads to the cover of the trees but stops immediately as soon as he hits the trees. His burning gaze focused on the land they had left, waiting to see who else had escaped. Who else still burned for chaos and decided to follow.
Gryffen
I would still love to generally have some bad guy bandits/assassin group still happen. Figured we could all meet up here and figure out where we want to go =D
Everything that once burned beneath her skin is drowned out with the flood. She is broken and confused. A shell of something that once wished so wholly for life.
But no.
The fairies had taken that from her. The earth had taken that from her. She knew that she shouldn't have followed him. For in some ways this was his fault. The pale wraith had started this downward spiral after all. But she followed anyway, like a puppy following his master.
"So it seems the taiga is gone."
Her voice is low, dark eyes trained upon the flooded lands. She can sense the pair behind her, their eyes trained upon the same spot.
"What are we to do now? For where are we to go?"
She wanted to see how far Gryffen was willing to go for them. Loey was not daft, and she would not follow a stag with no plan. If it were to come to this, she would leave their rag tag group of thieves. Seek shelter in higher ground. beg whatever deity there was for forgiveness.
But if he had a plan.
Oh if the Wraith had a plan then she would stay. Allow those devilish ways to pull her into the undertow and completely drown her.
The mare was filled with dread. She wouldn't, couldn't lose another lover. As the land of Taiga was drowned, she grew increasingly agitated. How long had passed, seconds, minutes, hours, days? She couldn't stomach it any more. Just as soon as she steeled herself to go in after them, suddenly a tearing sound and a watery apparition beside her. Circinae! Corvus! Jah half-reared and cries out in relief. Circinae screams a request and a demand all rolled into one and Jah-Lilah no longer has it in her to argue. They disappear into watery nothingness again but not before Jah-Lilah has their trail.
My child of the moon makes a break for it. She lunges from zero to one hundred in the blink of an eye, a trail of electricity behind her, singeing the wilting Earth. She closes her eyes and runs, and runs, and runs. She stretches her legs out so far and so fast, she thinks her heart will burst with each stride she takes. She reaches the river and launches herself across it, making it halfway in a single bound. She desperately wades across, hits the other side and is back in stride. Her lungs burn, her chest is on fire, but she must make it to them, she will not fail another mate. Her determination drives her, spurs her on like an invisible rider.
Just when Jah-Lilah thinks her legs can carry her frame no more, she sees them. Her mate and her adopted child. Her face softens and a wave of relief washes over her. Tears stream down her face in joy, she is overcome with emotion. She nears them and pulls up to a lope, then slides to a halt only a stone's throw away from them. She hops, skips, and is upon the pair. She whinnies joyously, nipping at Corvus' goldenrod rump, swinging her dome around to roughly bump and nuzzle him, squealing. She then piaffes excitedly to Circinae, muscles coiling and springing, all energy renewed when she sees half of her family. She shoves her nose up under Circinae's chin and then jaw, nosing her and sniffling at her in disbelief. They'd made it, her beautiful, perfect, sea-foam mate was safe and sound. She wraps her neck tightly around the mare, making soft cooing and whining noises. She was so thankful, so grateful, they had made it out, escaped the desolation that had so quickly engulfed their home. She was breathless, the words barely came to her as she spoke.
"Wolf-of-the-Water...my rock! You made it, I was...I was so worried! And Corvus, oh Corvus!" She whinnied and kicked her heels up, channeling her excess energy. "What of the others? Are they alright?" She scans the other mare's face, seeking answers. That's when she sees him. The white wolf, he is nearer than he's ever been she pins her ears and protectively moves to place herself between her mate and the alabaster stallion. He's smaller than she'd originally thought, but some how that makes him more sinister, at least on first glace. A couple other of his followers mill about, but Jah-Lilah's only concern currently is her small family group.
And with that, her time at the forest with the wall was over. What she had seen, she liked. She thought. But for whatever reason, the land had been plunged into nothingness, and with a silent scream she had taken a breath, been grabbed by the man who had been stalking her, pushed back through the hole she had created, and back in the forest where she had woken up this morning.
The whole thing was extremely unsettling, but even as frazzled as she felt, nothing more than the cool glimpse of what she was feeling would ever make it past her eyes. She was agitated at the sheer power that she had seen displayed. Truthfully, it had rocked her to the core in a way nothing else ever had. Deathwish held the power of death, life, and resurrection in her grasp, and indeed, she wielded it greatly… but to see an entire land be buried under the threat of fire and ash…. She had not done more than a gulp, and a nod as she was led back to the relative safety beyond the wall.
And so, one by one those are left begin to gather in the aftermath, and DW stands next to her savior, hating that scent that he was bathed in… the company of her father, no doubt… and when those great wings flew off overhead, it was all but confirmed.
She turned to him, to the self imposed wraith, and sniffed in his general direction, the chill of her voice quite calm for all that she had experienced in an afternoon. “What kind of scum of the Earth you must be, to throw your lot in with Deimos. Am I to suppose that You are the cause for what we have just endured, then?” She tilts her silver eyes in his direction, flashing a bit of a flank and rolling her lavender grey shoulder back. She is every inch her breeding.
She had run, and she had run – until her lithe and agile legs had become tired and weak, until the echo of the ground rumbling raucously beneath her weight disappeared, leaving her with nothing but the stifling silence of the dark woodland that had beckoned her forth from the wreckage. When she does finally come to a halt, with her lungs heaving within the confinement of her chest and clutching at every gasp of sharp, frigid oxygen it can grasp onto, she is all too-aware of a distinct, sharp jolt of pain sliding up the length of her left hindleg. Her grasp and poise were no match for the height of the carefully crafted wall of bristling thorns and entangled branches, and her landing had been hurried, and a mere misstep resulted in a deep ache tucked away within the marrow of her bones.
Ah, but she would not linger upon it, a sneer tugging at the corner of her mouth while her darkened gaze settles yet again upon the path she had just taken – to the reckoning that had taken place by way of land and sea. The anger she had felt (a caged dog, she had been; entrapped and foaming at the mouth) had waned, and in its place, a wry, wicked sort of laughter is rising, echoing in the thicket surrounding her, and carrying through the dense woodland as the incredulity of it all dawned upon her.
Breathlessly, her legs carry her through the darkness, a faint limp hindering her and stirring ire, roiling somewhere beneath the surface – but she has no time, nor any desire to linger on the thought of it for long. While she, herself, had survived, she could not say how many others might have perished, and there is a building dread expanding inside of her, suffocating her wildly beating heart, overwhelming her with uncertainty. Gryffen. Had he survived? Had he been taken by the snapping, fiery jaws of the magma wolves? Had he been swept away by the churning waters, and carried out to sea?
Thana had never cared before. Not of anyone who was not her beloved sister, Isra – or her birth-giver, Michaelis, who had woven the very shadow tendrils that had acted as a womb, creating she and her sister out of nothing. Out of magic. Out of darkness, and so, such darkness had taken her heart and seized it for her own, making it callous, hardened, and black - but there is a pang beneath her breast, growing heavy with each passing moment that his scent does not envelope her – with each passing moment that she does not find him.
And then she does, and an exhalation of relief filters through her dark, parted lips, while her limber limbs lost their thick and downy fur, elongating into the smooth, finely muscled legs of an equine, while her dark tresses fall across her roving black eye, while the steel gray bores into her King – into the wraith that had intrigued her so, and gently, her teeth graze along the curve of his lip and across the notches of his rib cage, before affectionately plucking at the dried leaves and pine needs tangled in his mane.
She had found him – no one else mattered; the rest were disposable.
She cared little.
When the wench to his left opened her mouth, her words biting and laced with arsenic, her own teeth are bared, while the ferocity of her gaze is settled upon her – though there is a ghost of a smirk hidden within the darkness of her mouth. ”If only the sea had swallowed you up, too – what a pity.” Ah, and there it is – the menacing cackle, suppressed into little else but a wry chuckle, but with her worry and uncertainty put at ease, she felt herself once more.
”What now, my King?” she croons, for he would always be the true King of the Taiga to her.
-Oh my love, don't forsake me; Take what the water gave me-
“We do what we came here to do.” She speaks up, in reply to Thana’s request.
They’ve come, the huddled mass of them. Come here to the forest where Gryffen has lead them - away from the destruction of the only home Circinae has ever known, or loved. She - they have lost everything in their attempt and gained nothing by their cause. Nothing but grief for the whole lot of them.
And yet, Circinae feels her anger growing in another direction entirely. Jah-Lilah is interwoven with her, cooing sweet adoration into the hollow of her throat and without so much as the blink of an eye, Circy returns the tender gestures with pliant embraces of her own: a soft kiss on her copper cheek here, a gentle nudge on her shoulder there. The lightning mare was wound tight; they all were, and Circinae wouldn’t begrudge her the necessary reassurance that lovers were indebted to pay, the rest of the onlookers be damned.
But she is here for a reason, they all are, after all. With a soothing bump of her nose the wolf-shifter glides around the taller mare, comes to the forefront so that she might see and be seen. Corvus is here, Crevan’s smell is surprisingly strong (where was that boy?!) and Jah was safe by her side. The time for worry had passed; the time for action: set into motion. “Gryffen.” She calls out, firmly but without anger. Before the downfall of the great redwood forest he had asked her what she most desired, had begun to warp her senses and she figured magic was at play - what kind she couldn’t be sure of, but she feels that she has the semblance of an idea now.
When his gaze alights on her, she’ll give him the answer he sought not so long ago. Her own eyes water, grow hazy the longer she stares at his fading white form, and then he’s gone and her world is gone too - replaced by the vision of them all as they tread over new land, marked by rolling hills and crowned by a weeping mare, her dark feathers hanging limply by her golden sides. Another image replaces the first, as quickly as she can blink, and there is another creature; painted like a wolf but with the body of a horse, lying broken and useless before her.
She smiles.
“We rebuild, however we see fit.” She answers herself stiffly, loudly, so that all gathered might hear. Only Gryffen would be privy to her true desires, and that is a secret she would rather only the two of them know. Let the rest be enflamed with their own aspirations, it didn’t matter; Circinae knew exactly what she wanted.
One by one they find their way out. One by one, they gather in a small semi circle on the forest border. The howls and screaming have faded but they all know there is no going back. Not now at least. Loey is first and he can see her conflicting emotions, so apparent in the dark pools of her eyes. She wants to blame him and yet she doesn’t instead asking what the next step was. What indeed? He remains silent for a moment, shuffling through his many plans and ideas. ”Calm yourself.” He growls softly as he thinks and plots and schemes. ”We must regroup my silver friend.”
He is slightly distracted however for his gaze remains on the burning and suffocating Tiaga. She should have joined them by now. It bothers him how he keeps looking for her, his two toned bluebird. Perhaps she hadn’t been in Taiga when it had been destroyed, perhaps she was causing mayhem somewhere else. A flash of irritation in the depths of red, it shouldn’t matter if she’s alive or dead. None of them should matter. And yet he can’t help but keep flicking his gaze expectantly at each face that joins them.
A feathered mare that pins her ears and glares at him followed shortly by the green mare he had been doubtful of, still suspicious. He had assumed she had been close to Ruan and wonders what she now thinks of them all. Would they all blame him? Or would they see the true reason their home was gone? It doesn’t matter either way. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Kingdoms rise and fall. His female companion breaks his thoughts, confirming them in a way. A soft chuckle at her pertinent dismay. ”Don’t think much of the old man do you? He has his uses.” A pause as she flashes silver eyes at him, looking at them all. ”Perhaps. Perhaps I helped destroy Taiga. Although that kingdom was slowly wasting away into nothing long before I got there.” The corner of his lip curling with animosity. ”Taiga would still be standing if my warnings had been heeded.” They could place their blame wherever they wished, wherever it made them feel better. Truth was truth, no matter how ugly.
Whatever else he may have said is forgotten as he spots the one he had been looking for. She is injured but her gaze is just as fierce and hard for him as it had been that day when she had reveled in blood and brain matter. The others don’t seem to matter as he instantly moves to meet her, his expression just as hard as hers. A sharp nip to her neck, muzzle running along the length of her mane as he presses a very hard and firm kiss to her poll. His bluebird had returned. With his focus restored, he settles beside her and allows her to remove the debris he had taken with him from the river.
Thana had apparently overheard their conversation, full of the fire and wit he had come to expect from her. What now…. What now indeed. It’s with some surprise that it’s Circinae who responds. Glittering iris’s fall on her as she steps forward, something different in her approach. He hadn’t missed the way the two mares had affectionately reunited, a little nugget of information he tucks in with the rest of the files. His name comes off her lips, lacking the anger he had assumed would be there. Determination in her face. A slight nod of his head as he slips from Thana’s grasp and stands before her. The rubies of his iris’s begin to sparkle as he makes contact with her, pulling from her everything that she truly desired most in her heart. He glimmers and shifts before her until only the two of them are able to see what he has become. To everyone else he is still the wraith of a stallion, flicking his tail calmly against his hocks.
Her desire plays before him like a movie reflected off his own body. And when it ends, she is smiling. And so is he in that familiar wolfish way. We rebuild, however we see fit.”I agree.” He is himself again before her and he looks to them all through the twisted damp tresses of his forelock. ”For now we stay here… For those that wish to stay. But believe me…” A glance at Loey, then Thana, before finally settling back on Circi. ”We are far from done.”
They followed. Like blood trickling from the wound that had been Taiga. Their short lived home. Consumed by depths of Beqanna. He had managed to slip thru the cracks. Escaping to the shadows of Sylva. He would follow...eventually.
There was a whisper upon the chilled breeze of winter. They were gathering, again. He felt himself drawn from one land to the gathering place. Things had to be sorted out. Compiled ideas then sifted through. A plan of action commenced. As he slip through the still darkness he could hear them. Not much was being discussed and even less revealed. We are far from done, the ghost finishes. A devilish grin comes to his features as he remains hidden far enough away. The glow of crimson all that was proof he existed there. The thing Ouija loved most prevalent on his mind. We must discuss this further...
Wanna play a game?
Basically he is here but not. Hoping Gryffen senses him and they can meet separately in private.
