"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
The newness of spring has unraveled on all of Beqanna, but as always, Tephra remains unchanged. Hot, sweltering, and humid, filled with thick and ash-filled air that almost looks like snowfall against the lush greenery of jungle as well as creates the haunting black shorelines of the ocean.
He stands on the shoreline, hooves planted firmly into the compacted, wet sand beneath him, his cerulean gaze staring upwards. This time of night brings on a certain stillness; the waves are gently lapping at the charcoal shores, pulled back and forth only by the power of the full moon. Not even the cobalt of his feathers move within the stillness, lying flat and freshly groomed against his auburn sides, smooth against his ribcage. The moonlight is cool against his skin, its silver light illuminating the taut muscles of his shoulders and haunches, highlighting in the sharp angles of his jaw.
Warrick’s heart and mind soars with the clouds and the night sky, drifting in between the stars and the silver light of the moon. His thoughts are swirling, much like the slow drift of billowing smoke into the midnight sky, sparkling with gentle pinpricks of glowing ashes fresh from the volcano’s belly. The stallion reflects on Tangerine (his mind never far from her), and how much he has missed her during winter - and still does. Home is where the heart is - but his heart is elsewhere. He then wonders of his children, still sight unseen upon his return to Tephra, and does his best to swallow the pang of worry that churns in his stomach. They are grown now, and he has taught them well, and he must trust them. He cannot help, though, to wish they were with him at this moment.
His thoughts flit to Offspring - to Dahmer and Nymphetamine, to Ellyse, to the rest of Beqanna. Unrest between the kingdoms has reared its ugly head (peace does not last forever, he reminds himself) and soon, he fears, it will be transformed into something much greater. Perhaps the fact that Tangerine is nowhere near the high tensions of these political affairs are a blessing - he knows with her in the Great Plains, she will be safe.
He sighs deeply, his thoughtful gaze still scanning the constellations spread out before him, intently watching as they play hide-and-seek between the mixture of cloud and smoke. It is late; most of the other residents should be sleeping. He wonders quietly to himself, however, if it is only him who had trouble finding rest.
Wound had come to Tephra in the midst of winter. Though she knows that spring has arrived (the scent of it lingers on the edges of the borders and the itchy feel of it spreads through her body) there is no sign in the change of seasons. She’d spent the majority of the past weeks exploring every inch of the land. Although her bravery had been abundant in the field, she had been steering clear of the more socialized parts of Tephra.
The threats whispered by her brothers in the evenings often kept her away from finding friends. Nearly every day of her childhood, her older siblings would tell her that the outside world did not accept abominations like themselves (the outcast, the flawed, the unpredictable). They would sing to her stories of adventuring past the eyesight of one another and being ripped apart by dangerous tooth and threatening claw.
For years, she had believed their words. Some of their words rang true - destruction and death did linger in the world like a potent virus - but some of them were lies. The evidence was found in the field, when she limped in with a raised chin. Frightened, intimidated stares had been tossed her way (children had been pulled closer and wanderers had moved away) but there had been no shredding of flesh. Her brothers had told her there was no life past their little band, and yet she had been able to prove them wrong.
Wound had always loved the water. As a youngster she’d enjoyed stepping in up to her chest, allowing the liquid to shield her malformed leg as though it never existed. When she found out Tephra was really just an island among the sea (and each border was met with a shoreline), her adoration for the territory grew. However, she couldn’t swim during the day. With the heaviness of humidity and heat weighing on the backs of all who lived in the kingdom, the shores were often speckled with those enjoying the coolness of the ocean.
So she went there under the cover of night, when most everyone else curled around their loved ones and slept. She is wading along - chest-deep in the salty, lapping waves - when her eyes catch sight of a figure on the shore. The moon is brilliant, illuminating feathery wings and a strong build of a man. Wound’s heart seizes in her chest for a moment before she compels her steps to head toward the shore in his direction.
If the splashing of her legs against the waves does not draw his attention, certainly her uneven steps would. The rhythm of her footsteps is an unnatural song compared to the traditional beat of walking, and it often alerted those not looking of her uncomfortable appearance. She stops her steps at a hesitant position, still unsure of how to approach strangers.
“Can’t sleep?” Her voice is low yet smooth while her coffee eyes inspect him with a curious expression.
11-21-2017, 10:31 AM (This post was last modified: 11-21-2017, 10:31 AM by Warrick.)
like the sun swallowed up by the earth
He raises his brow in slight interest, though he is not surprised that another wades in the surf as well, awake and alive beneath the Tephran moonlight.
The water is strangely calm tonight, and he watches as her body pushes through the ocean, splitting at her chest and rippling around her. The starlight illuminates the silver on her body even more, and with the moon that hangs full and low above her, she is a picturesque figure beneath the gaping, starry sky. He hopes she joins him, he hopes that she is a resident; his absence had been far too long and he truly missed greeting the new equines, learning their names and their history and their stories - oh, he hopes she will share with him. And he will share with her, he always will, if asked.
He smiles gently as her wading takes her straight towards him, pulling herself from the dark waters and onto the black shoreline. Water falls from her silvered body, running down her sides and legs in rivulets and quietly slopping into the wet sand before rejoining the soft waves that lap against the shore. He notices the unnatural gait, which piques his curiosity, and to show that he is welcome to her presence, he walks to meet her halfway, where his fetlocks now tickle from the warm waters’ kiss.
It is dark, but the full moon illuminates the duo and the world around them in a monochromatic glow. The severity of the deformed leg is hidden beneath darkness, but the shallow silver from the moon gives Warrick an idea that this stranger has quite the story to tell. He greets her with a quiet nicker, as if afraid to awaken the world around them with their voices.
“Not at night,” he admits with a deep chuckle, his voice robust and warm on the night breeze. He glances up at the brilliant constellations and galaxies that shine above them, a beautiful sight that is hidden during daylight, but reveals itself in the quietness of darkness. “I never miss the unveiling of the stars,” he says, returning his gaze to hers. The night is the only time he feels close to his family.
The cobalt of his wings shuffle gently against his auburn sides. “What brings you out so late? Besides not being able to sleep?”
Wound has always been fond of the night. She is particularly fond of the moments between day and night — when the noise of life either fades to sleep or builds to activity, when the light of day fades into shadows or climbs into warmth, when the world around her is painted in rosy, lazy hues of pinks and purples and blues and oranges and reds. But the quiet of the night and the sights of the constellations always capture her attention with admiration.
To think that something might have created this world amazes her.
She enjoys the way the stars unfold as the darkness progresses, she enjoys the way colts and fillies settle down against their mother’s breasts (and how she prays to become one of those mothers someday), she enjoys the shadows as they envelop her in their familiar embrace. Wound has lived in the shadows most of her life, cocooned against their sheltering arms. They had hid her — with her deformed leg, with her often itchy, swollen skin, with her never-quite healed cuts and bruises — from the world with lingering touches, whispering of how she is better off with them.
It had taken Wound a long time to push herself away from the shadows. Yet still, though she calls an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people her home, she finds comfort in the dark of night.
He moves to meet her halfway, sand softly shuffling against his hooves. Wound’s ears twist toward him, watching as he grows more defined as the space between them is lessened. His words hit her eardrums with unfamiliarity. The songs of other voices are still abstract to her mind’s ear — she is used to hearing the low swoon or slippery slope of her brothers’ voices.
A smile finds her dark lips. “They are beautiful, especially when there is nothing to stop their light.” She has often found herself disappointed when clouds or branches or fog hinders the faraway glow of the constellations. His question sends a chill down her spine, but she plays off the shake as though she were to rid herself of the salty water still dripping off her body.
How is she supposed to tell a stranger that the reason she wades at night is to hide her deformity from the sights of others?
“Swimming at night calms me.” Her eyes glance back toward the open water. The waves reflect the brilliance of stars and full moon, glowing almost a liquid silver mingling with the depth of navy. “It’s like wading through a sea of stars.” Wound is distracted, for a moment, watching the tide push the waves onto the beach only to suck it back in. She can already feel her skin swell and itch from the dirt and grit of the sand, so she gives herself another rough shake.
The moonlight spills across his back, pooling into the shadows where his muscles grow taut beneath his auburn skin, gently illuminating the soft, supple feathers that lay against his sides. He moves beneath the night sky with familiarity and confidence, blossoming beneath the comfort of its thinly veiled cloak. Ever since he was just a colt he and his little family would stand beneath his stars, while his mother told him and his twin sister amazing stories of their ancestors that reign in the night sky - that one day they too will join in their nightly dance above the heavens together.
The memory is bittersweet, for despite his love for the stars and the magic he is sure they hold, his mother and sister joined into their family’s constellation’s far too soon, far too young.
Even as the years pass, the bay stallion still cannot help the lingering dread that comes with being left behind, alone in the terrible and broken world that is Beqanna.
However, finding Tephra and serving his earthly home (and finding friends, nurturing his children, experiencing love) keeps him grounded, filling a void that had once been empty when he had been just a boy.
Her response easily alights a smile on the dark cobalt of his lips, blue eyes sparkling with understanding; her appreciation of the stars delights him, and he is glad she has found him this night. His eyes follow hers, staring out into the calm of the sea that ripples gently beneath the moon and stars, dark yet inviting as the wind begins to stir from beyond.
“It’s like wading through a sea of stars.”
He decides that he likes this stranger that has come to him from the midst of the sea, dripping with saltwater and starlight. He is still staring out at the ocean, lost in its depths (it felt strange, to stare at the reflection of the constellations instead of the constellations themselves) when she gives him her name.
Wound.
The stallion turns his head towards her with a tiny curve of his auburn neck, the thick navy of his mane and forelock cascading over him. “Wound,” he repeats with a tiny dip of his head, “I’m Warrick.” A pause, and then: “Shall we take a dip, then? I always fly through the stars - never have I swam through them.”
He is the picture of a hero, shroud in the cloak of night and brave stars. Wound can see the rise and fall of his muscles. Their firmity paired with the gentleness of his feathers almost seems to mimic the personality of a hero from a dream — a firm stubbornness to keep moving past obstacles flush against soft kindness. So far in Wound’s life she has only come across the sniveling, wailing, petrifying creatures that crawl into the cobwebby corners of Beqanna for their sleep. This man — found upon the shore along the sea of silver — is nothing like the others she has come across.
His kindness is refreshing.
Wound feels a blossoming of warmth among the crevices of her heart at his smile. Her brothers have often flashed bright grins in her direction at her poetic words, but never has she received one from a stranger. A breeze pulls itself across the beachfront, slightly cool in its midnight temperature. Her skin shivers but the chill is welcome.
He gives his name (Warrick, a handsome name that suits him well) and invites her to swim with him more. Wound feels relief shadow her shoulders. The silver depths of the water would shield her disfigured leg from her new friend’s eyes. Although she knows he will find out sooner or later, Wound plans to prolong that encounter as long as she possibly can.
Her lips curl up into a soft smile. “I’d love to.” Wound turns back toward the waves and splashes in with a look over her shoulder to see if Warrick follows. The ocean is still warm from the day before and it provides a bit of relief from the cool of the wind. Once the water reaches Wound’s shoulders, she turns toward the auburn and navy stallion.
“What is it like — flying?” She’s always watched the birds careening through the sky, fast as shooting stars, and felt her heart soar with them. It must be enlightening to take off into the sky and suddenly be in another place in half the time it would take to walk. The silver reflects of the stars illuminate her face with an otherworldly glow. “I imagine it was difficult to learn, at first.”
She turns away from him with a smile, and he cannot help but notice the way her shoulders relax slightly now that they have decided to continue their conversation within the dark, crinkled water of Tephra’s ocean. He falls into step beside her, the rippling waves lapping against the navy blue of his legs as he enters the warm, tropical waters. He doesn’t remember the last time he swam, and the excitement begins to billow in his chest as they move out farther into the depths. The ocean is calm and inviting this night; a perfect mirror-like reflection of their shadows as well as the luminous starlight and nearly full moon above them. His chest pushes through the water, soft waves leaving his body as he allows it to absorb into his feathered wings, flexing the thin bone gently so that tiny droplets of sea and salt sparkle on the soft, cobalt color. He snorts gently, the current of the ocean light and tender against his legs, the soft push and pull lulling him into relaxation.
“What is it like — flying?”
Cerulean eyes flash to meet hers, a knowing smile pulling at the darkness of his indigo lips. He glances to the now-folded wings that sit carefully in the ocean’s water, ruffling the feathers slightly as he studies them thoughtfully. “It’s hard to describe - the feeling of it, you know?” His voice is quiet, whimsical, as if lost in a dream within a dream. “It feels like...like freedom.” At the word freedom his gaze moves to find hers once again, a certain seriousness on his face that would let his friend know that he means exactly what he says.
Being able to soar up into the sky, with broad and powerful wings that carry him through clouds and sun, and most importantly, to his stars - his wings meant the world to him.
“It’s terribly difficult, yes. I wasn’t born with them, which made it all the more trying.” he continues, “But I think the faeries knew the deepest desires of my heart, and gifted me in only way they knew how.” Warrick tosses his head, his thick forelock falling over the side of his face to veil one of his curious blue eyes, while the other remains focused on Wound. He wonders if she would press him and ask him more; that his explanation wouldn’t suit her for an answer and she’d pry into the curiousness of the way he spoke - and he hopes she will.
He watches her for a moment, and though he cannot see exactly what causes her unnatural gait (or her endearing shyness), he glances down into the water as if trying to see something beneath its surface. “You have a story,” he states, not as a question, and his eyes flicker back to her. “And I am a brilliant listener.” Warrick pauses, empathy etched on his kind blue eyes and in the way the corners of his mouth dim ever so slightly. “Would you tell me your story?”
It’s something Wound’s only felt a handful of times. Most of her lifetime had been spent curled into the protective chests of her brothers. She is grateful for them, but they did not allow her to venture much past their careful, watchful eyes. Wound spent a few years among the wildlife of Beqanna and she supposes that was when she was the most free.
Surprisingly, she doesn’t care for the solitude that often comes with freedom. Wound craves for the connection of being tied to someone — in love, in duty, in loyalty — and she knows that is the opposite of freedom. She is tied to Tephra, but for once her restless heart feels as though it has been stilled by a gentle hand.
They meet eyes across the word (“freedom,” he whispers) and Wound finds herself smiling softly. His next words keep her gaze on his face. The gentle breeze tugs at her silver-brown locks, dragging them across her neck like loving fingers on a lover’s skin. It reminds her of the larger things in life (the faeries, the dark god, whoever created the world they live in, all the gods or goddess others from Beqanna believe in) and her eyes darken with thought.
She is curious to know more about the faeries. She’s never met them before, but she’s heard of them. Part of her is bitter toward them; they might’ve been able to fix her various deformities upon her birth (or any of her brothers’ births as well). But Wound knows they are relatively peaceful creatures. There must be a reason why she has a deformed leg, itching and swelling from the sand, and endless bleeding.
“Did you meet them?” Her questions itch under her skin like the fever of a child, yet her shyness keeps them at bay. Wound only asks the single question though the way she ends it insinuates she wants more. What do they look like? How did they know you wanted wings? What did it feel like?
When you don’t have much of a childhood, it is easy to get swept up into the curiosity of the youth.
His next words nearly choke her. The water feels icy around her and the wind less comforting. She’d never told anyone her history, especially not a stranger. Wound’s anxiety causes tremors in her limbs, but she bites her tongue and meets Warrick’s empathetic eyes. “I was raised by my three older brothers.” A faint smile brims on her lips upon the thought of Malfunction, Smear, and Skid but it quickly dies as her nerves eat away her soft emotions. “My mother took care of me long enough to wean me and then passed me off to my siblings. I haven’t seen her since.”
It’s a bitter thing, a childhood without a mother. None of her brothers understood the trauma of puberty like her mother would have. Wound had watched, from the shadows, as mothers cherished their daughters. “We’re all a bit… odd.” She sucks in a sharp breath. Malfunction would have seizures during lightning storms and the world was a bit gray. Skid always had saliva dripping from his mouth and slurring his words and his hind legs were connected as though they were one. Smear had never spoken a word, had a clubfoot of right leg, and had lumps and mushy bumps all over his body.
“My brothers wanted to protect me from the discrimination of the world. I left them a few years back and Femur found me in the field and brought me here.” Her heart is pounding against her ribcage. “I’ve been staying in the shadows since then, but I want to get involved somehow.”
The curiosity in her voice pleases him; did you meet them?
With a gentle smile, the navy and bay stallion shakes his head. “No,” he answers almost solemnly, “one morning I woke and the wings were there.” Warrick pauses, his eyes falling downwards to look at their reflection in the ocean’s waters, as well as the stars and constellations that ripple there. “Everyone calls them faeries, so I do too,” he muses with a certain dream-like voice, brushing the tip of his cobalt nose into the surface of the water, stirring the stars. “But my mother - my family - we believe that the stars are the ones who guide us, who gift us. The stars gave me my wings.”
He stares at the water until it settles, and then glances up at Wound with a gaze that is almost sad. Perhaps the two share more in common than previously realized, and as the stallion listens to her, his heart begins to ache. She is frightened, even now as she retells her childhood, and she shivers beneath his kind stare. “I did not mean to upset you, Wound,” he tells her quietly, carefully, “there are few that have happy stories to tell.” He has stepped closer to her as he spoke, cautious but attempting to be a comfort in the dim-lit ocean.
“The Reckoning took my family - my mother and my sister. They are as far away from me as the stars.” He pauses, his throat tightening. He hadn’t spoke of his past and has not shared the details with anyone besides Tangerine, but his heart felt eager to share it with her. “I have created my own family here, in Tephra. I found my way to this volcanic island not long ago and I, too, was confused on what to do next. I craved purpose and I craved hope and I craved my destiny. Tephra took care of me, and it will take care of you.”I will take care of you. He realizes that would become his oath to all those who live in Tephra, as he takes up the crown and becomes protector and guardian to all who inhabit it.
Warrick smiles at her, an encouraging smile despite the solemnity of their conversation as the moon moves across the sky. He wants to ask her about her leg, not because it feels like it will hinder her, but because he wants to know how he can help ease her anxiousness, but he remains silent about it for now, knowing that in time he may be able to help her without asking. “What would you like to be involved in, Wound?”
