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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    we're not meant to stay forever
    #1
    Her head was aching and the sound of the snow crunching beneath her feet was grating on her. The throb behind her eyes made her squint against the white glare of winter, but she resisted closing them . Step after stiff step Agnieszka took herself away from the nothing behind her. She couldn't remember why she was bleeding from her neck, chest, and shoulders. Blood had clotted and cooled on her skin and her dappled hide would be long stained by it. A gash beneath her right eye still oozed.

    Through deep drifts and over frozen ground her bruised hocks and scraped knees bore her. Finally the right hind limb would tolerate no more abuse and the mare faltered. Trying again to put weight on the leg led only to another founder. The mare all but dropped to her left side in the snow and ice but scrambled with a weak squeal and righted herself on three legs. Agnieszka pulled the useless leg up close to her belly and kicked it downward twice in pain and frustration.
    A moment's rest then.
     
    The wind had long ceased driving and in the still cold her breath puffed out in weary little clouds. Her lowered head hurt less now that she'd stopped and the silver mare blinked against the bright afternoon light and did her best to remain alert. A twinge of anxiety sent twitches of energy over her skin. The cold was settling in and further stiffening her muscles. She'd need to move soon. In the still mid-day she was safe enough for now but what sunlight shone behind the overcast glare would be gone in a few hours. Nights chill was not a memory lost to her and the fear of darkness was innate. Raising her head the bloodied mare cast around for a direction in which to move. Shelter or company that could see her through the hours ahead. A frozen waterfall came down out of the rocky cliffs to her left. Turning towards this landmark she stumbled forward on three legs, determined to keep going without any idea of what lay ahead or behind.


    agnieszka
    an unequaled gift for disaster
    Reply
    #2
    djinni

    She does not often leave her cave, but today is an exception.

    Something had pulled her from the shadowy depths, and the rose gold mare now blinks bleary green eyes at the brightness of the sun on the snow. A moment ago Djinni had stood at the sandy mouth of her northern cavern, and the next she is here, in the Field. All arround her there is a soft shimmer – the finest grains of impossibly golden sand – but then it is gone, leaving her nothing but a winged pink mare standing along in the snowy meadow.

    She is not alone, Djinni finds – ahead of her is a bruised and bleeding mare.

    Is this what had drawn her out today? A frown wrinkles the primitive cobwebbing of the mare’s forehead while her delicate ears prick forward curiously. She isn’t sure if the mare has seen her, so she calls out a gentle: “Hey!” from where she stands fetlock deep in the cold snow. When she has caught the mare’s attention, she speaks again, more gently now.

    “Do you need help?” The answer would seem obvious, but Djinni has grown cautious in the last decade. The misappropriation of magic has become less common with time, and the lightly-built mare is no longer given to blatantly flaunting her abilities. There is concern in her sandy voice, oddly rough for a creature built on such delicate lines, and her sea-green eyes flick across the cuts and bruises that litter the piebald mare in front of her.

    all my fragile strength is gone
    D J I N N I
    genie | rose gold tobiano dun | trickster
    Reply
    #3
    Stillwater
    It was always so fun to watch them walk in pain, stagger with no strength left but the last instinct for survival driving them on to kill themselves in their pathetic attempts to live. Although sometimes he was impatient and offered to help speed up the process. They both benefit from that. This one though, this one was fun to watch. She faltered and blinked around, struggled. But the best part..

    She turned right to him.
    Straight to the water.

    A sweet smile slid across his black lips in anticipation, and his face softened. He was plenty prepared to play the hero, help her in to some shelter - the shelter of his water. But as he hid beneath the surface, that beautiful face morphed into something more sinister and malicious. His eyes sparked with both hunger and rage.

    There was only one in this world he couldn’t turn from.

    He smoothed his features once more, skin not included, and rose from the water with whispering rivulets begging him back in as they slid down his dark legs. Droplets fell from twisted tendrils of silky hair, as black as the rest of him. The only part not black, in fact, were those bottomless blue eyes, the color of shadows beneath the loch.

    ”She’s safe now,” he stated softly as he stepped in closer, voice as smooth as the deep cavern walls, as gentle as the trickling water. They always found him trustworthy, it was just his nature, the nature of the beast. He wasn’t fool enough to believe he’d get away with this one, but where’s the fun in not giving Djinni a hard time. They’d enjoyed those before.

    ”Brown is better,” he added quietly, a secret light in his eyes and a twitch in his smile.
    come down to the black sea swimming with me
    go down with me, fall with me, lets make it worth it
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    #4
    One of her senses at least should have hinted where she should go. She wasn't blind. The tunnel vision of a slow fading migraine dimmed her visual acuity. She wasn't deaf. The ring of tinnitus distorted sound. She could smell the air. It smelled like blood and snow. She felt her wounds. She tasted copper. And she moved onward thus impaired.

    Still, she flared her bloodied nostrils when a blush-gold stranger called out to her. Attention redirecting in haste fueled by some final shred of her spent adrenaline. Ears pricked toward the voice whose tones some how managed not to set them ringing again. Pausing in the snow and balancing herself Agnieszka took several deep breaths. Overwhelmed to have encountered someone else after her indeterminate journey alone.

    "Yes." She replied with the candor of one who hasn't any memory to forestall honesty. "Yes, I need help." Her voice broke, either from emotion or lack of use, even she couldn't be sure which. Watching the stranger Agnieszka wondered if she would remember her face. The thought was inconsequential now, when another night in the cold would mean the end of her... but still she wondered. It would be a nice face to remember, if she could hold it in her mind. As far as she could tell nothing else had stayed more than a few hours. She lost things bit by bit in a fog of exhaustion that would not abet until she found a place to rest.

    The stallion that rose from the water moments later did not escape her notice. She hadn't the energy to wonder at how he bore himself from such chilly depths but did her best to store the image. The sight made her feel afraid, but somewhere deep and visceral and it was a dull sensation beneath all the others. She took little note of it. She did not, however, feel safe. Not because of him, or any other tangible thing. She might not ever feel safe.

    "....brown?" murmured Agnieszka before taking stock of herself. She wasn't sure if he meant that for her or if the comment had been intended for the other mare's understanding. The russet stains that lent further mutilation to what had once been a lustrous dapple splashed pelt did not seem in any way appealing. How had so much blood soaked into her skin? The idea that it might not all be her own set her heart to pounding.


    agnieszka
    an unequaled gift for disaster
    Reply
    #5
    djinni

    There is much she could do - make the pied stranger entirely whole, wish the entire accident to have never happened. But the cuts are the worst and it is those she tends to, stitching together the skin and replenishing the blood lost with a single blink and a shimmer of sand that disappears before it reaches the snow at their feet. The wish to feel better is less specific, it might lessen the migraine or lift her spirits or something else entirely; that is less predictable. Much depends on the subject with such vague wishes.

    To the black stallion, who rises not only from the water but from her past, she gives only a long moment of uninterrupted eye contact. The visceral reaction to his arrival is unmistakeable, but Djinni has spent years wishing away the emotions, and so those are easier to suppress.

    "Brown?" She repeats the last word the other mare says, but there is more incredulity in her voice than confusion. "Fine." And then black Stillwater is suddenly brown, deep and dark like the mud at the bottom of his lake, like the cold walls of his cave where they had conceived their son. It looks wrong, but Djinni finds it tightens her control; the brown stallion is not what she remembers, and so she can continue to live inside the life she's crafted for herself in his absence.

    Best to not look at him much longer, she decides.

    Instead the rose-gold genie turns back to the dappled mare ahead of her, and clears away the blood - fresh and dried alike. There are still bruises, and puckered ridges from where her wishing clashed with biology, but there is no denying the other mare looks a far sight better than she had a moment ago.

    "I'm Djinni," says the Nerenian, now completely ignoring the ghost of her past that lingers between Agnieszka and the water. "What happened to you?" The question is probing, but the tobiano expects an answer - even if it is just that the other doesn't want to talk about it.

    all my fragile strength is gone


    @[Agnieszka]
    @[Stillwater]
    ooc: to clarify djinni just healed the visible cuts agnieszka had to whatever level of healing you'd like them to be healed to (wether that's 100% or just not bleeding for a few seconds) and then wished away the blood stains.
    Reply
    #6
    Stillwater
    It was her again, it was them again.
    They were the moon and sun, circling at opposite ends of the earth until that special, rare day they clash, when they meld to one in sublime eclipse.

    They're crashing again, by his choice, by his need. Could she see the wild buried deep in his lake-blue eyes? I need you. Need that taste, that beat, the pulse. The only one that can't die.

    But there were other matters at hand.

    He was secretly grateful that Djinni healed the woman's wounds. Not because he cared, why should he? But because that metallic tang of blood was driving him mad, lightening his eyes, fueling the hunger. His control was not what it once was, his patience so much thinner, his grip fragile. He knew how to hide it, at least. For now.

    Until he doesn't.
    But there were other matters at hand.

    What more--
    The question clipped short as his eyes sank down. The damned witch. There beneath the gleaming, ornate band around his wrist - that she made him, that she refashioned to suit a king when she set him free - was no longer sleek black skin of bottomless depths. Now brown. Dull, plain, inelegant brown. Not at all like her eyes used to be.

    His face twisted in disgust, but he remained silent. A cursory glance of annoyance is all she received in acknowledgement before his attention was solely on the stranger once again. She would change it back... When she saw fit to and no sooner.

    You are safe now, he repeated, casually sliding into place beside Djinni as though she belonged there, right there at his side. My Queen and I can protect you from whatever ill fate has found you. He smiled warmly, just barely a hinted emphasis on My Queen

    How do you feel about forests? he asked with another glint of amusement sparking to life in his still-water eyes.

    Reply
    #7

    She remembered magic. She remembered it like remembering the corona of warmth when someone you covet stands close but doesn't touch you. The vague recollection was a comfort in the midst of Djinni's merciful workings.

    In a blink the gashes and cuts became pink scars, puckered as if with weeks of healing. Very few of them were the angry keloids they might have been without intervention. Along her cheek the scar would be forever fierce but in time would fade to match her hide.

    Pain remained, but she found herself able to stand square again.

    Agnieszka was bright and clean before she could turn her face back to Djinni and Stillwater again. Her head ceased aching at once and  she blinked and welcomed the clarity, violet eyes flashing back to the pink tobiano with gratitude. "Thank you. Truely."

    "Brown is better." Her voice more steady though still sounding out of use. A weary amusement, lacking malice. The stallion's familiarity with Djinni left Agnieszka to believe that this prank was of little consequence. Were they friends? She hadn't acquainted herself with them long enough to muddle it out. She'd lost too much of herself to measure their body language against her personal experiences.

    When asked what had happened, she opened her mouth to reply and then hesitated. Attention turning inward, riffling through whatever she could find in her head and coming up empty. "I don't know. My name is Agnieszka, and I've come a long way but I can't say from where or why....there's ...nothing." Her words ended in bewildered sound, almost like a question. She could find her name but little else. A few shadows. Though she felt far more normal there was still a vast emptiness in her.

    "I feel as though I'm waking up far from where I went sleep." Agnieszka murmured, mostly to herself. Directing her attention back to Stillwater as her assured her of her safety. She flicked her eyes at Djinni, and then back to the stallion, still handsome in his mud-brown suit. A King and Queen then? She dropped her head a degree in instinctual deference to the implication.

    ...forests? The change in her body language was immediate. Muscles in her shoulders shuddered and her grey hooves shifted to chip up the frozen earth and snow. Shapely ears dropping back into her tangled black streaked mane, voice tight and hard. "No." No forests. Her eyes became flat chips of amethyst in her silver face. "I've no interest in forests. Thank you."

    She felt all the more unmoored by her own reaction but it was too late to take it back. Her heart raced and then slowed leaving a hole full of embarrassment in her chest. She had received warm reception here and repaid it with what felt and looked like madness. Expression softening she said "I'm sorry. I am still very tired."


    agnieszka
    an unequaled gift for disaster
    Reply
    #8
    Djinni has always appreciated gratitude (effervescent praise is preferable, but she will take what she is offered), and so when the amethyst eyed mare thanks her, the genie wishes away the worst of the aches. There will still be injuries - Djinni is not a healer, after all - but the most agonizing bits of them will be smoothed over, at least for a time.

    The repetition of her statement brings a sudden grin to the rosey mare's face, delighted amusement that only grows when she sees Stillwater's visible distaste at his new hue. It is easier to see him bothered, flustered. The charm of him doesn't fade (she could have covered him with boils and that would still remain), but she looks away before she lingers too long on the still familiar curve of his shoulder and the deep blue of his eyes.

    The story the mare has to tell - or rather, to not tell - is not especially thrilling. Still, there must be something more. Horses come to Beqanna with fair frequency, but to come covered in blood and without a memory of how it might have come about? For a moment she considers prying, digging deeper, but the thought is fleeting. The genie is not so flippant with her magic anymore, and she has grown (at least minutely) more respectful of other's privacy.

    "You're in Beqanna now," Djinni tells her. Before she can add more, Stillwater is moving beside her, and her ears flick back briefly before she steps aside. Distance between them is better; that much she is sure of. There is too much danger in his touch, though his promise and use of a long-forsaken title give her something else to focus on.

    "He means Sylva," Djinni says, her green gaze on Stillwater though she addresses the mare with the long name. "Where we ruled a long time ago." She pauses, frowns. "A very long time ago." Has he lost his memory too, she wonders? Forgotten that he left her alone in the woods with a young son and twins on the way?

    "I could take you somewhere to rest," She offers to Agnieszka. She could wish her rested too, but too much magic often goes awry. It's easy to sprinkle more here, more there, and then wind up on the Mountain with a raging headache to remind her that she stretched too far. Djinni won't risk that again - not for something that time could mend just as well as magic.

    @[Agnieszka]
    @[Stillwater]
    Reply
    #9
    Stillwater
    He quirked a brow just faintly at the woman's amusement with his color situation. She's cute.

    And naturally he noticed how Djinni edged away from him, standing too close to her. Yet not close enough, really. His hunter eyes followed the movement, studied her deliberately from hoof to face, making a slow survey of her body language with a ghost of a smile. The language, not just the body. His gaze met hers and held there as she continued speaking to the woman, speaking of their home, of his former prison, his beautiful captor Queen.

    He'd been such a good pet, then.
    Raging in silence, maybe. But he at least only killed that old king when she was away.

    His lips spread in a smile when she said "we ruled", like they had been a real couple, and he couldn't help but wonder if she ever thought back to how they began. Back in Nerine where a panther queen with her hoard of rough women chose to trust him despite him being male. Oh how they used to hate males. Djinni hadn't seemed too pleased about it, and he had offered her a favor to smooth their rocky start. A dangerous thing for him. It ended up a far higher price to pay than he'd expected.

    But that was all history now.

    He didn't react to Djinni correcting him about Sylva. Nor to the woman's obvious adverse reaction to forests, save for an interested glance at her distress. He would love to earn her trust and break that, see her overcome such a useless fear. Keep her safe until she did. Maybe teach her a new fear later on. Maybe. Maybe not. But this was Djinni's person now, so he remained quiet. As silent and stoic as he had when attending political visits with the panther queen, keeping her safe from the pathetic rot in Pangea.

    And then they were done speaking, and he was growing increasingly bored. So with a long breath, and a dip of his head to Djinni, he excused himself. I'll be out of your way. She would find him later. If she wanted. Or needed to teach him another lesson. He looked forward to it.

    Then a small nod to the woman as well, Pleasure to meet you, Agnieszka. He straightened and paused, considering.. Then smiled warmly. Should you ever find yourself in need, or just want a little company... a brief smiling glance at Djinni then back again, I'm typically found near fresh water. It feels like home to me, he added with a soft, smooth chuckle and little casual shrug.

    Then turned to walk away.
    Reply
    #10






    Agnieszka



    Agnieszka found it difficult to drift through the empty rooms of her memory. There were walls in places where there ought to be doors. Everything had been rebuilt inside her mind, closing off something between the new and vacant places. The absence of history was a source of anxiety but it had become smaller for the moment when the thought of an area of dense tree cover sent her into an panicked spiral. She hoped she could be better and more predictable company. The tobiano girl valued the kindness that Djinni had shown her beyond measure even if she had only demonstrated this with demure but sincere thanks. She would never forget it....she hoped not anyway. Her recall scores were in the negative at the moment after all.

    "Beqanna. Okay. It was a beautiful place, and she took in the scenery anew without the distortion of pain and fear. While her gaze traced the horizon she missed the way the slender woman who was speaking sidestepped away from the dark male, her frown. She was not a fool, but newborn into herself and not quite as aware as she ought to have been.

    "Yes. I would appreciate that, Djinni. If you know a place I would be welcome." She replied. She did feel rather like a liability after her outburst, a little less than confident, but it did not stop her from stepping forward on steady legs after the withdrawing brown stallion. "Wait. I didn't get your name. I would like to know what to call you when we meet again." Knowing no one here, in this place called Beqanna, and she felt a strong desire to attach herself to whoever and whatever familiarity she could.She looked back briefly toward Djinni with a gentle smile that begged her forbearance as she delayed thus.

    an unequaled gift for disaster



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