"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
Freedom tastes like the first touch of fall scenting the air with its pleasant decay. She breathes it in deeply, hungrily, and smiles. The world is spread out before her in dips and rises like an easy lover ready for the taking. Even in the beginning of death (the crisping, crunching leaves and the sway of the brown tallgrasses) it is appealing in a way that her life before had not been. Nothing had ever satisfied her. But this, the freedom to go where she chooses and surround herself with whatever company she wants? This is as good a start as any.
She moves languid and cat-like between the trees. Her pale legs and underbelly are stark and bright, even in the depths of the forest. It is not her final destination – not that she knows where that will be – but she walks slowly enough to take it all in anyway. She is careful as she goes. Careful not to scrape her soft violet sides on the rough bark she passes. Careful not to let the wild red berries stain her wings as she tucks them in and steps gingerly around the bushes.
The delicate mare hears the sound of water in the distance and changes direction to find the source. When she emerges from under the treeline, the view opens up before her. It is a river, great and swirling as it cuts through the land. On the other side, the trees are sparse as the meadows stretch bare and browned by the season. She stands atop a steep bank and looks down into the waters’ depths, deciding on her next move.
Precedence would have suggested the field as a first stop. But she is not cut from the same mindless mold as those that would venture there. Out here, real lives play out without pretense, without expectation. Wind rich with the last breaths of heat tosses her straw-pale mane against her neck. As she watches the eddies of dark water stir beneath her, Sirin wonders who will move her.
fire in my bloodstream, water in my lungs
@[Calcifer] or any: this is a pile of steaming garbage. next will be better, promise!
Oh, the River is not so far a walk for one as young as she. Nyxa likes the idea of a challenge, after all, and mother is busy. Always busy. Everyone is busy, for that matter. Brother Corvus, Father Canaan, Aunty Jah … even the other resident filly of Hyaline was nowhere to be found, though Nyxa had searched high and low for sight of her. “Why must adults be so booorrriiinggg?” She whines loudly, pushing through the tangle of growth along the riverbank.
It never occurs to her that children are, by far, considered annoying. Even as she tramps wet earth and rips loose ungrounded sprouts of weeds, the only reason she can fashion to her family’s absence is that it had something to do with things she simply, ‘didn’t quite understand yet.’ Whatever the hell that meant. “Ouch!” She protests as the snag of a bramble sheds a few watery feathers from her back.
“Useless things.” She grumbles, ruffling them while the empty spaces fill in with newly-shaped, water-filled points. Some days she wonders if they’ll ever be capable of anything more than keeping her back damp, fragile as they are. The small filly sighs, shakes her head to resume her earlier complacency, and turns about to look across the bank and out into the rush of headwaters.
Opposite her, a brightly-colored thing from myth contemplates her own reflection. Nyxa is hushed with excitement over the discovery, afraid that any sudden movement on her part will spook the horse and send it flying away - and then what fun would there be? “Hello there!” She tries instead, tripping unceremoniously down the bank in her rush to meet the glimmering mare.
“Don’t go, I’m coming, I’m coming!” She calls again, trudging waist-deep through the midst of the River.
Suddenly, her body is gone. The water has jerked her feet from beneath her and Nyxa, struggling to stay afloat, is being dragged beneath the froth of crashing waves and battered against the boulders on her journey.
It is enough to draw her attention up and away from her own reflection staring back at her in the water. Sirin flicks her fluted ears forward as the crashing commences through the woodland. She looks ok: no hair is out of place, no thorns pinch her sides, and no mud clings to her ankles. Her vanity had at least prompted her to check herself in the stillwater along the riverbank. God only knows who – or what, really, the way they are rattling the ground – she is preparing to meet. It could be a rugged stallion, bulky and scar-laden and eager for something soft to lean on. It could be the prince of an exotic kingdom, somewhere hot and humid and in need of a crown jewel (her exact shade of amethyst). Her heart races to think of all the possibilities. Her future could be barreling towards her now, tearing apart the forest in order to find his lady in waiting. She puts on her most charming smile as the foliage parts…
And still wears it – briefly – as the other girl mirrors her on the other bank.
Quickly, it fades from her face. What replaces it is not nearly as pleasant. Her lips purse together into a thin line as she stares down the intruder of her would-be bliss. This is not how it is supposed to go. A filly is not who she intended to spend her first free-time with on the road. She is meant to be curled into the strong side of a warrior or pressed under the neck of a wayward prince. Sirin ruffles her wings in the pale girl’s direction, turning to dismiss her in dramatic fashion. She hears her ‘hello’ but doesn’t care; the child has ruined enough. But just as she takes a step back into the treeline, Sirin hears an odd sound.
She spins around just in time to see the odd-winged filly crash into the water below. It sends an unkind tinkle of laughter into the cool air from the mare’s violet lips. A taste of mud is karma enough for the kid’s interference. But then everything changes. Her heart lurches for altogether different reasons when the girl goes under and disappears from sight. The water takes her, claims her for the transgression of getting too close. Sirin stands helpless for too long. She thinks it is over until a cream head bobs up out of the dark water downstream. Then she launches herself off of the slippery riverbank and into the air.
The splashed-colored mare pumps her wings hard to stay afloat with no lifting currents of wind beneath her. The only currents that exist here are the ones that carry the girl further and further away from where they were, deep currents that carve out earth and chisel away rock. The same ones that now make the filly a plaything, pulling and pushing her this way and that. Sirin sees her again and calls out, “hold on!” Hold onto what, though? Her spirits, which must be sinking as quickly as her little body? Her wits, which are likely too panic-stricken to be of much help now? A log? Yes! The log. The log that is going to overtake her if she doesn’t move fast enough. “Hook your front legs over that log rolling up.” Her eyes dart to the river ahead. There’s a sandbar in the same trajectory as the log. If the filly can only reach it…
But there’s no way. She can see it now, the girl will miss.
She draws a deep breath in, considering. It would be so easy to fly away, so easy to find that muddy patch at the edge of the woods and try again. She could try somewhere else too, somewhere more populated and free of stupid children who do stupid, stupid things. “Fuck!” The pegasus falls into the ice-cold water a dozen or so feet ahead of Nyxa. Her wings are like weights that threaten to pull her down but she is too pissed to let that happen now. “Get over here! Grab onto me,” she commands the girl, because she is the halfway point between her and the log. She will carry her over if it’s the last thing she does, damnit.
If she had died, Nyxa would have readily blamed it on her lack of supervision. For goodness sake! Who would let a child just roam freely where she pleased? Clearly, as she dips below the surface and opens her eyes, she can see that the winged mare wasn’t coming to her aid. She only sees the swirl of convoluted river water, feels herself thrown violently against the rough shoulder of a lonely stone, and is left to pump useless legs against the current which is slowly suffocating her.
For a moment, she touches ground. Her pale head breaks the surface, nostrils flaring to expel a spray of mist while her mouth pops open to gasp for air. But the seconds pass quickly and she’s drug under again, mouth filling with the same dark liquid she’d tried so uselessly to purge. Up and down the filly bobs, the faint cry of her rescuer drowned out by the angry roar of the River. Nyxa can only rise and gasp; be baptized again. Rise and gasp. Baptism.
The black spots begin to form at the edge of her vision.
“Mother-” She thinks.
Her wings flutter at her sides, animated by the thrill of adrenaline as instinct overtakes reaction. Beneath the choppy surface her strange feathers spread wide; she jerks them forward, like flying underwater.
The action is as smooth as it would have been in the air. Composed of the element that struggles now to end her life, they meet with no resistance and instead slice against the current to give her aid. It’s just enough: her body rights itself, Nyxa scrabbles against the belly of the beast and erupts from the watery grave in time time to hear, “Get over here! Grab onto me,” and so she does.
She’s not sure how, the right wing is still splayed open wide - maybe it acts as a guiding rudder. She can’t be sure. Nyxa only drifts until the bars of Sirin’s legs force her into a stop. Trembling, sputtering and half-dead, the soaked filly struggles to scramble onto the nearby bank and when she does, exhaustion collapses her into a puddle of ragged tears and sobs of thanks. “You… saved…. meeeeeeeee!” She cries, the tiny pearl of her chest rising and falling with each word.
“I … I’m sorry.” She chokes, “Please, please don’t tell my mother. She would kill me.”
The girl is like a buoy bobbing in the merciless, churning water. But instead of navigating the way to safety, she’s on a collision course with death. Sirin sees that acting as a dam will offer her only chance of deviating from her fatal path. It’s not a solid plan but it’s all she has. The look in the filly’s eyes is enough to say it is worth trying, anyway. And even if the late autumn air chills the water to impossible temperatures that make her numb, she is lit with inner resolve that feels like fire. Too stubborn to let the girl float away. Too pissed to let herself succumb to a watery grave either. She braces for impact as the tiny body rushes her way.
Thud.
Nyxa hits her legs, her side, but the feeling is distant and muted by the cold. The girl struggles onto the bank without grace, and Sirin is close on her heels (though her own stick in the squelching mud). She watches as emotion overtakes the would-be victim and looks away in a hurry. The tears of little girls are harder to deal with than deciding to save their lives at a moment’s notice. She’s no mother, no imparter of wisdom or clichés, so she lets her have her recovery time. Mostly, she herself needs to recover her breath and her warmth. Her stint as selfless hero is short lived, and good riddance, she muses.
The river runs ragged and wild behind them, eager to devour more and more on its journey through the land. At least it won’t feast on young fillies today. The violet mare looks disgustedly at her muddied feet before finally fixing her eyes on her temporary charge. She’s thanking her and carrying on about her angry mother and it all makes Sirin’s gut tight with annoyance. She cuts in before the girl can say anymore. “Yeah, yeah. I want to kill you myself for turning my blood into ice and making me look a mess, but then what was the point of this whole exercise?” She shivers and pulls her bedraggled wings in close to show her suffering. “Listen, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t tell Mommy if you take me home with you.”
Her mind turns like wheels even as she says it. Perhaps the girl is of some importance somewhere, and maybe she won’t keep her mouth shut about how she saved her, despite her little promise. The splashed woman eyes her carefully, her gaze holding all the sincerity she’s absolutely lacking in reality. She realizes that she’ll have to play the part, have to muster up some sort of concern for the poor child all alone in the deep wilderness. “Sorry, I lose all my manners when I’m hungry. I’m Sirin, and you are? Let’s fill our bellies and I’ll make sure you get home safely.”
Whatever Nyxa had been expecting from this interaction, it certainly did not pertain to bringing someone home. Her expression turns from wayward distress and plummets into quiet confusion while Sirin rattles away, and then it hits her: this is not the stunning sort of mythos she’d expected when her steps had first led her into the precarious River. Nyxa had expected grace, poise, maybe even a bit of mysticism.
What she gets is a bitter pill. The start of a reply is ready and willing, just on the brink of exposure when Sirin tilts an intrepid eye to the soaked filly. A change overcomes the elder woman, the attempt at niceties a bit less effective post-rant. “I’m a nuisance to everyone, Sirin.” The girl spits, “nice to meet you.”
Sullen, more than aware of how unnecessary her existence was after a complete stranger seemed put off by having to rescue her, Nyxa turns away from her winged peer and glares down to the rough bank beneath her. “I don’t care why you did it, I’m glad that you did.” She mumbles, scuffing a narrow hoof over scattered pebbles. “But don’t demean me for an honest mistake.”
A ragged sniffle interrupts the broodiness. Turning back to look up at Sirin with wide, purple eyes, the strange child exchanges sulking for curiosity. “I owe you, though, so I’ll take you.” She decides, dragging herself up the embankment once more only to collapse in an exhausted heap where the grass seems softest. “After a nap.”
A yawn overcomes her and with lids half-closed, the girl murmurs "You can call me Nyxa."
