"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
A white hare sat beside a crimson barberry bush, a downy ball that made a pretty picture in front of the red berries that clung to the shrub's naked branches. Leokadia watched it from the shadows beneath a juniper tree all tension and curiosity. Her stance was wide, pink hooves sunk into the loam and snow. She'd extended her neck and her crystal blue eyes glimmered beneath the edge of the scrubby juniper's scaly blue-green fronds. The expression was one of clinical interest, not the innocent gaping of a child. Having been born in the midst of winter she'd seen very little fauna, the occasional bird or deer did not escape her notice but today's proximity to the long eared mammal before her was exceptionally interesting. She observed it's watery eyes, black and nervous in it's little white head and it's trembling nose that searched with anxious twitches for scary smells.
The creature's small loveliness made her feel a tightness in her jaw. Lo flared her nostrils and she clenched her teeth as she raised a hoof to step forward. The hare twitched as it sensed movement and that anxious prey-animal motion unfurled an inexplicable desire in the filly's chest, an urgency for motion in her limbs. She embraced that flow of energy and burst from her cover in an instant. A hind limb slid in the snow but she did not fumble and shot forward toward the little animal. She wanted it. She wanted to touch it, to embrace it, to dash it into redness in the fresh snow.
Today she would not quench that unnamed desire. Her quarry escaped in a flash of brightness and when Lo arrived at the barberry bush a few moments too late she dropped her head to breathe in the frightened fur-bearer's scent and pawed up the gentle indent where the hare had sat until there was only mud and bright red berries beneath her feet.
she's an arsonist in her pastime
and i've been burned for the last time
The current tides involving Lepis and Loess had her sick of politics for a while. With the need to clear her head, Ilma ventured out to the common lands in hopes of finding a distraction. The air would be clear enough for flight (remembering her meeting last summer with Vulgaris, who had the decency not to act on his advantage then but had still made her wary through almost their entire conversation); her white coat was illuminated by wings made of sunlight should the need to fly arise. Sometimes she missed her usual downy feathers, but the workaround was well and good. Besides, there wasn’t much to do about it except going to the mountain, and she was not prepared to actually bother the fairies with such a mundane issue of not being able to fly at night.
It was on this day in the snow-covered forest that she noticed an almost equally pale figure, alone, chasing a white hare out of it’s hiding place. She reminded her of her younger self, and of her friend Nymf although the filly had no copper points of course. She was young; perhaps a magic way of Beqannaor a new arrival, with bad timing. But she was not in the adoption den, which had Ilma wonder what she was doing here all alone.
”Hello there, darling girl. What are you chasing our furry friends for? I doubt that it was taunting you,” she asks, but she does so with a joking smile and a light in her eyes. Ah, children. Best distraction she could have hoped for, for sure.
She does not lose her smile when she continues in her warm tones. ”But where are my manners? My name is Ilma, and I live close by in the mountains. Who are you?” And do you have a mother close by who clearly isn’t paying attention right now? Or perhaps you’re better at running away than my own children... Ilma supposes that she had the luck of not having a cremello baby of herself (yet, she muses) who’d be great at hiding in the ever-snowy parts of the mountain landscape; instead having had two black fillies and one dark grey colt. At least, she considers Ember as much her own as the others. So if this filly has no mother, or a homeless mother, she figured she should take them home to the sanctuary for the duration of the winter at least. Unless they’re greatly opposed to that idea.
@[Leokadia]
Idk if you want Jayhawk to join, for now it’s not needed yet, per say
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
09-12-2018, 08:11 PM (This post was last modified: 09-17-2018, 09:58 PM by Leokadia.)
;
Leokadia
When she'd stopped her churning the snow Lo had picked at the sour berries that clung to the bramble, they lacked toxicity but their bitterness made her spit them out again. A mare with bright wings approached through the trees but went unnoticed by the girl until she spoke. Then her attention snapped toward the stranger though she held her ground and gave no indication of shyness. Her gaze left the mare's face and lingered on her bright wings which were quite striking here in the shadowy trees. The white mares angelic glow impressed the filly but the words made her recall her previous activities.
"You're friends with that furry thing? Can you make it come back? I want to touch it." She waited expectantly for a reply. She didn't have the words to explain what she had felt when she had stalked that weaker being. In any case she looked like nothing more than a curious child chasing bunnies.
"Oh! I'm Lo. Leokadia really but I like Lo sometimes." She wanted to talk about hares, but was well behaved enough not to change the subject back. "I live...here, I think." It had not occurred to her that she needed to live in any one place. Her life so far had consisted of following her dam through snowy woods and meadows when allowed and waiting alone for her to land again when left behind, until the day she had been left permanently.
she's an arsonist in her pastime
and i've been burned for the last time
@[Ilma]
I wanted Lo to muck around unsupervised a bit, but @[Jayhawk] can join in if and when she likes. :]
And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
The girl's not shy, but, neither is Ilma although the white mare is much more reserved by nature. She stops in her tracks near the young filly in the bush, and shakes her head with a chuckle. "I can't force it to come back to you. Hares like to run, especially when someone ten times their size comes for them." She wonders if the filly could consider something huge chasing her, but as it is with the youngest children, she is already distracted when Ilma tells her name. "Please to meet you, Lo. And I suppose it's as good as place as any..." she trails and looks around. "Although perhaps a herd would suit someone young like you. Where there's other children."
She shakes her mane to get rid of an itch, and looks at the young filly. "But perhaps you'd rather chase the hares through the trees?" she pries. Oft as not, it's the babies that initiate play, but this was an unusual time for her, and her own children were old enough that they didn't easily run around her any more or invited her to come. Teenagers.
and shooting stars cannot fix the world
@[Leokadia]
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
A herd meant a group of others, and in a group of others she would not be so likely to be alone like she has so often been. She considers this, her expression gone rather serious. She had no experience with other children, or many other adults for that matter, of course if someone left her in a herd there would be others there still. She wouldn't be alone. She was playing alone until Ilma had approached and she had been content, absorbed in her activities, but it a little while she would have looked up and realized that no one was waiting for her. Jayhawk perhaps, somewhere in the wood, but that was just one new person in her life who could easily go away like the first mother had. A herd seemed like a contingency, a bunch of back up mothers, in a way. "I want a herd. Can we go to one? Do you have one?" She paused, remembering that she had acquired Jayhawk and the 'soon' babies. "I have a new mother we could bring too, but I don't know if she wants to come. Can I just come?" In Lo's world thus far people came and went as the pleased. She inhaled, little chest filling after the long rush of speech left her a little out of breath.
"I would like to chase hares!" She says, springing forward toward Ilma, and stopping before her and then adding seriously, "but I can do that later." Raising her little wings she walks slowly around Ilma's left side to inspect the bright appendages on her back and then trots around her the rest of the way. "I can't fly yet. Can you fly?"
she's an arsonist in her pastime
and i've been burned for the last time
And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
The white mare chuckles at the cremello baby girl. "I have a kingdom, which in itself, is one big herd. Our queens had triplets last spring, so there should be enough playmates. I'm sure you'll be allowed to play. But," she continues when the girl asks if it's okay if it's just her, "you should ask your mother to come. And if she doesn't want to come, you can just visit later." she agrees, half-way. Looking around, she had not spotted a mare yet to claim this foal, but the girl's attention span was luckily, short enough that Ilma had time enough to entertain her.
"I can. Had lots of practise, of course. I'm afraid you'll have to train very hard first. Have you glided before?" she questions. The girl's wings are definitely not strong and big enough yet to keep her aloft, Ilma knew. But that did not mean she couldn't encourage training, after all, that's how wings grew strong enough to lift a horse.
and shooting stars cannot fix the world
@[Leokadia]
@[Jayhawk] uhhm so this child of yours is just going with strangers? xD
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
It didn’t bother Lo that Jayhawk had not appeared to claim her, but now that Ilma had offered the opportunity that hinged on Jayhawks’ agreement the filly was eager to see her appear. She studied the surrounded trees, trying to pick out the direction from which she’d come but she’d wandered away a little carelessly and wasn’t entirely sure where the spotted mare who had adopted her might be. She gave a shrill little whinny, calling out for Jayhawk. She accepted without thinking that her new mother might not come at all. People left.
”No. I don’t know how.” The girl replied to Ilma’s question, spreading out her underdeveloped wings and frowning at them. Her birth mother had been so displeased with those as yet flightless things, and by extension Leokadia was also unhappy with them. ”I don’t think I could.” She admits, vexed. She then folds the appendages back against her sides awkwardly, the motion lacking coordination. In time she would be able to use the wings, but they still had some growing and feathering to do.
she's an arsonist in her pastime
and i've been burned for the last time
The palomino appaloosa mare was just about to go looking for Leokadia. She knew how adventurous and outgoing foals were. She walked down a pathway that took her back to her sleeping area until she heard the small whinny of another. She hoped the call was from her adopted daughter. The palomino mare was busy with the birth of the twins that she didn't notice just how far the young cremello filly had gone. She looked behind her at the cremello appaloosa and chestnut appaloosa foals who followed behind her. When the trio had finally spotted Lo she was with another mare. She smiled as she stopped a few feet away from the pair. Jayhawk said "Hello Lo, ma'am. My name is Jayhawk but please call me Jay. These are my twins Jenelly and Gato. What is your name miss?"
@[Leokadia]
@[Ilma]
Hope you don't mind I had her new baby twins follow her
And there's a lesson waiting to be learned the firestarters always get the burns and the good guys never get the girl
Ilma's question seems to upset the filly for the slightest of moments; then, she calls out and forgets the whole ordeal of being away from her mother. With a hint of a smile, the white mare sees how Lo shrugs it off and tells her she hasn't learned to use her wings at all. "Then I'll teach you, if you want." she offers, but then another mare greets them already.
Taking in the situation quickly, to Ilma it seems that Jay is a little in over her head with three foals to care for and living out here in the forest. Sure, on her own or even with one baby, it would be an okay way of living. But three? How was she possibly able to look after all of them?
Still, she manages a polite smile instead of the frown that threatens to surface at the idea. "I'm Ilma, ambassador of Hyaline. I just offered Lo here to see the kingdom, but I wouldn't want to take her away from her mother." She nods at the twins - they're beautiful. "You have such a nice little family." she compliments her without thinking.
and shooting stars cannot fix the world
@[Leokadia] @[Jayhawk]
Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
09-28-2018, 08:14 PM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2018, 08:15 PM by Leokadia.)
;
Leokadia
Jayhawk comes. She really comes. Leokadia had called out and her new mother had arrived very quickly. She stared in surprise at the appaloosa mare who appeared, and then trotted forward, only to forget Jayhawk and eagerly touch muzzles with the babies instead. She was only a little bigger than they were, but it was nice to be bigger than somebody. Remembering their mother she bumps her nose against Jayhawk’s shoulder as Ilma addresses her, managing not to interrupt but eager to speak when there was a lull in the adult’s speech. ”Can I go? We can all go! Ilma is my friend and she can teach me to glide so that you can stay with the babies.”
It didn’t occur to Lo that Jayhawk might have a reason for choosing the forest as her home, but she did know that the only thing she’d wanted more than catching one of the white hares in the forest was to go to the kingdom where Ilma lived. She knew that Jayhawk could ignore her request or even say no. She’d likely find her way to Hyaline on her own, but it seemed like now that she was a part of Jayhawk’s family people might expect her to remain within reach of her mother.
she's an arsonist in her pastime
and i've been burned for the last time
;
