"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
10-10-2017, 04:49 PM (This post was last modified: 10-10-2017, 04:50 PM by Zephyr.)
Zephyr
And then, it is over. Dropped on Tephra's beaches, Carnage leaves her as if his torture had been all but a bad dream, instead of weeks (or was it months?) of agony. She remembers what she has done, she remembers the suicide, so when she feels the thumping of her heart beneath her chest, she is shocked to find it there.
She is shivering despite the heat, as water laps over her calmly - such a vast contrast from what she had just endured. Her body stays still, as she relishes in the fact that her heart is still there, that Carnage allowed her a second chance. Her eyes are drawn tightly shut, because despite being revived, she does not want to see the darkness again.
Come...and be transformed... A beckoning call on the wind that forces her orbs open...and to her surprise, what she sees is not black.
It takes a brief moment for her eyes to adjust to the new world around her; she finds herself blinking rapidly as her pupils shrink to thin cat-like slits. Was this dream or reality? Her heart leaps continuously in her chest, as she stands on shaky legs, taking in the world around her like a newborn foal.
In Tephra's early morning haze, the volcano looks like a masterpiece - tangerine and flaxen clouds swirl into rose and crimson. A thick fog shadows the base of the mountain, whose black frame towers over the lands. Tropical greenery sways softly in the gentle wind - it looks lush and plentiful. The ocean is a clear shade of azure, and as the waves hit the fine gray powder, it foams an ashen white. Seagulls call from up above, and suddenly her vision shifts to see an even closer image - silver and pallid creatures with curved orange beaks, flapping their wings and looking deep into the water for their breakfast.
What is happening? She wonders, still staring at the world around her. Never before had it been this clear - what was once a faded picture was now high-definition, smacking her in the face. A dream she had always wished for - a gift from Carnage.
Your blindness has weakened you... His voice, ever present in her mind, makes her shudder. He was right - it had weakened her. Would she let this miracle go to waste?
She cannot help herself, she moves to the waters edge, and looks at her reflection - the damage is haunting. Her eyes remain their milky shade of white, except now the film has disappeared, and in its place a dragon's pupil to see the world around her. Her right eye burns as she stares at His mark, it is carved deep into her skin, to the point the wound had scarred a nasty purple cicatrix. The tears that streamed from her eyes and mixed with its blood marking her skin with pale pink driblets. Down the same cheek, the demon's lesion had left more of a blood red scar, as did his laceration on her chest. Her pale white coat caked in a thick layer of browned blood.
And then she sees it. Her new reminder of the sacrifices she had made in His lair. The hole, about six inches wide, where her heart was. He had restored (and even heightened) her sight to see the hideous beast she had become. She takes a deep breath, looking away from the mirror and towards the sky. With her abdomen empty, with no possibility of creating a life, she would have to find another way to bring purpose to hers.
And that was exactly what she intended.
when it's said and done, we'll have our scars to show
He can give her purpose, if that’s what she desires. Fulfillment of needs and wishes are commands easily given - sometimes in order to see an object the eyes must be pointed in a certain direction, and this is where he feels his strength lies.
It lies in other places too, of course. The sloping curve of a broad, well-worked chest, leading into a tight, accented belly of steel. Legs that are long enough to give him a stalking, earth-eating stride like his father before him without adding too much to his height. Compact, built for speed, stamina, and beauty, Longclaw is appropriately cloaked in shimmering blue - but this fact only enhances the gleaming promise of white, matching fangs that jut out over his dark lips.
A predator, even in the shape of a prey animal.
When he rounds the curve of white-grain beach to find the pale mare staring at the sky, it stops his forward motion and leaves him with his head curiously tilted over her lamenting gaze. “Who are you?” He barks, easing forward again with the guise of a Tephran guard, and not that of a hungry wolf. “And what the hell happened?” He asks, glancing over her myriad of scars once he’s come close enough.
Ugh... Boredom. She grew restless in Hyaline. No one to aggravate. No new material to stifle thru. Fuck! Where does one find good entertainment these days?
Tephra
Oh ya... That's was a fucking hoot!
Her flame-kissed hide flowed easily across the many lands between here and there. It took days but what awaited her could be well worth her efforts. Remembering the whiskey mare running in panic. Collasping on the land. Classic. Her joy was short lived as a do-gooder intruded. Wrecking her fun. After which she ran into her mother! Eh... That was a train wreck. Supposedly they were headed here too. Thus her avoidance of the area. Yeah... That'll be her excuse for coming back.
Crossing the channel and thru the borders she went. Low and behold, what does she see? The same whiskey mare staring into the sky. An immediate grin creases her lips as she continues towards the mare. Her powers extend to find the mare is no longer blinded. The glee in her features subside slightly. That is until a blue thing waltzes on over to confront her. He was semi-interesting. Darker. Mysterious.
Stopping short of the pair she settles back to listen...
MOLOTOV
I'm drinking... And bored... And longclaw<3... And...I have no more excuses XD
She hears him before she sees him, her hearing still heightened from the years of blindness.
"Who are you? And what the hell happened?" The voice spits, and she cranes her neck to stare down at the iridescent blue figure. He is tall, slim, but heavily muscled to make up for lack of stockiness. She glances over his body, then looks back into his eyes with her own milky hues.
And then she hears it, a rustle in the bushes, a stalker in the Tephran grasslands. Without warning, her newfound orbs shift, and the world becomes a canvas of blues and greens around her. As she looks around, she finds the bright oranges and reds of the lurking equine. Deciding to ignore it for the time being, she looks back to the stranger, and her eyes shift back to normal.
"I am Zephyr," She begins, unafraid despite the barking, authoritative tone he has. "I live here...and as for these..." A gesture to the scars across her body, a wink of the scarred eye. "You don't want to know." She shrugs her shoulders, then turns her body completely so she is face to face with the blue warg.
What was the point in explaining this to him? He could never understand, he would never feel the pain that Carnage had put her through (with the brand to prove it). Nothing would ever be the same now - she was not the same now. While she felt beaten down and broken, she felt a new sense of braveness and meaning. She had learned her lesson about fear... but how could she prove it?
when it's said and done, we'll have our scars to show
He would ignore that slant little turn of her head to the area previously uninhabited behind him … for now. “It’s my job to know.” He tells her, a single ear flicking backwards before his head draws up to its full height. The battered mare turns about, faces him with eyes long-clouded of sight. “So you should quickly explain.”
“There. Just to my left.” He thinks with the backward flick of both ears. He won’t need enhanced sight - the mixture of predator in his cells gives him a heightened sense of smell and hearing whenever he should need it. A lifetime’s worth of hunts has honed those particular skills.
The grassy enclave where the unknown stench of a trespasser lingers suddenly bursts into blue-white flame. “Now, I’ll ask you one last time - for the sake of your own skin and your hidden friends - What happened?” He growls darkly, the glint of exposed fangs flashing while his lips pull back to reveal serrated teeth.
For the other horse - well, he’ll deal with them soon enough. If they haven’t already been kissed by his intangibly scorching flame, they’ll make themselves known trying to stay clear of it. And if they run? Well, he’ll stake his chances on hunting them down.
Just when she had almost drifted off into a peaceful rest things started to get heated. HA! Get it.
A flash of her onyx tail was the only movement she made as flames curled around the creature. She was far enough away. Hell she didn't need to be up their asses to know... Well... What was up there. Sifting through all the jargon and realizing the whiskey mare may have gotten herself into a predicament she decides to nonchalantly trot on over. Ya know... For being blue you aren't very chill, she feeds his mind before turning her bottomless eyes to the mare. Zephyr is it, I'm Molotov. You look like you've been to hell and back...though. Yep. Sounds about right, she offers her words to both parties. Now turning her eyes to the cobalt stallion, a grin curling her lips. He looks confused just as he had before. With a slight roll of her eyes she offers more, Does Carnage ring a bell?! Knock knock puddin' head...
She chuckles in amusement. Her puns were not funny if she was the only one who got them. Though she often forgets that not everyone has such amazing talents... It is not their fault, Molotov. She reminds herself.
"I don't have any friends." She growls back at him, watching as the flames that burst from his skin barely touch their intruder. The flame-kissed mare simply moves away from them, then comes a bit closer. She shrugs her shoulders; let her listen.
"If I told you, would you believe me?" Zephyr asks the blue stag, milky eyes locking on his. Could he begin to fathom the dark forces that dragged her into that lair? The smell of rotting corpses and mold? She begins to open her mouth to speak again, but their intense conversation is suddenly interrupted by their friendly neighborhood stalker, who is now using her mind to communicate with the pair.
Wait.
She knew that voice.
He's going to hurt you! Run away!
Her nostrils flare instantly, and her ears shift back to her head. So that's who ruined her once thriving relationship? How could Zephyr have been so stupid?
But the mare was right, she had been to hell and back. With a sharp, angry nod, Zephyr acknowledges the fire mare, and looks back to the warg. She does not know what the mare is telling him, but she assumes it has something to do with Carnage, so she waits patiently for his response to all of this.
when it's said and done, we'll have our scars to show
Boo hoo. Longclaw doesn’t encourage pity parties, or really care much for the sudden appearance of their stalker. “Ya know…” Rings through his mind but he has no time for paltry tricks - his flame explodes without a single ounce of effort on his end, spiraling up and out until it encircles himself and the battered, pale mare. The mind-speaker clearly doesn’t need to see them in order to be involved, so whatever her purpose had been for snooping she can keep to it. Longclaw does not wish for her attention nor will he give her any in return.
She could piss off, for all he cared.
The blue flame rises, stifling in it’s heat, until it arcs above them and closes itself into a dome. He hardens the material - creates a deadly barrier that scorches the sand beneath their hooves and then pushes it away from them. The telepath will be forced to move away because of this, but ever the thorough guard Longclaw manipulates until he’s got something like a hovering bird. A creature composed entirely of his trademark fire and he sends it outside of their enclosure, where the black-and-red mare still lingers.
It will chase her, dive down from above to peck searing, scorching kisses into her hide until she sees the folly of her actions. He knows her now, has seen and smelled the invader. “Get out, pest.” He muses with a smile. Tephra was large enough that she could roam elsewhere, annoy someone other than them. He had business to conduct.
“I’ve believed more from creatures less convincing than you.” He speaks, the hard edge to his voice rising above the whistling moan of his creation, his cage. It’s walls burn so hot that the sea evaporates where it touches, even the fine grains of volcanic sand have begun to turn to hard, bubbling glass.“Were you transformed? Did Carnage do this to you?” He asks, one after the other. The irritation of having his concerns turned to riddles by this numbskull was testing his patience.
The abrasive, rude blue stallion doesn't hesitate to make their conversation private, forming a sort of white fire barrier around them. His questions come off forceful and demanding, and the alabaster mare decides that since she is unable to get away from this asshole, she might as well tell him. What harm could it do? She's already been harmed enough.
"It was Carnage," She admits, gently shrugging her shoulders. "There were others..." She closes her eyes, remembering their screams, how they never seemed to stop, how the stench of rotting corpses seemed to get stronger with every passing minute. "I don't know what happened to them." The eyes Carnage has given her open, and she looks up at the Tephran guard.
What did you see?
She laughs coldly. Was that a fucking joke? "What did I see?" She asks, rolling her eyes. "Not a lot. I heard, smelled, and felt a lot of things. But seeing?" She pauses, remembering the darkness of her former life. "Well, I guess that answers your question." She refers to his inquiry about being "transformed."
when it's said and done, we'll have our scars to show
“There were others …” She says, and Longclaw can feel the ebb of his irritation as it fades from his mind. Visually he relaxes; it was easy to exhale and slacken after Zephyr decides to speak plainly. That was what he’d asked for, was it not? The flick of her pale eyes towards him rouses a grin, he can easily detect the traces of annoyance on her mauled face. When she laughs, it only serves to further his thoughts on the matter: One, that she belonged here, and Two, that this could mean good news for the return of his long-awaited canary, Marigold.
His little bird had yet to fly home, but if Carnage has seen fit to release Zephyr then it could mean her arrival any day. And, if what Zephyr was insinuating to be true actually was that - true - then who knows how Marigold might have been gifted.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it now?” He smiles broadly, once the pale mare has fallen into silence. “Thank you, Zephyr.”
In an instant, the cage is gone. The bird, the roaring flame - all have vanished without so much as a blink of effort on Longclaw’s part. Only the black, glass ring of sand around them is left to show what he’d created. Tephra herself seems undisturbed, even Molotov seems to have gotten the message.
His job finished, the blue guard of Tephra nods quietly before turning to move away. “Oh, He says rather suddenly, pausing in his exit to turn back with gusto and a wicked smirk, “Welcome home.”
![[Image: sScEgld.png]](http://i.imgur.com/sScEgld.png)
