"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
09-25-2018, 10:54 PM (This post was last modified: 09-25-2018, 10:55 PM by Maertin.)
Spring has made the flowers bloom, the air is warming, and he is chasing a fleeing grasshopper through the tall grass, and more than a little excited about it. About being out and about beyond the sandy shores of Ischia. Father would never let him out of Ischia by himself, not intentionally, but Maertin has found the advantage of having many siblings of various ages. Brennen had been busy with one of the boy’s sisters at just the right moment when the water was low, and the colt had made a break for it, across the channel and onto the mainland.
Maertin knows that as soon as father notices he’s missing, Brennen will come retrieve him and take him home – and keep a pretty close eye on him for a while. He has to make the most of the freedom he’s claimed. Still, he doesn’t want to push his luck so he heads for the safest place he has heard of – the playground – rather than some other territory. Each step is a leap, or a dance, or a spin; the chestnut colt is fighting invisible monsters, playing out the battles that great warriors like his father have fought.
(He’s totally forgotten about the grasshopper).
One too many whirls bring him face-to-sudden-face with a stranger, and he stops. His legs are splayed, yes wide, nostrils flaring for a startled moment. A heartbeat later, he relaxes with a nervous laugh and a little shadow of a smile, straightens up. “Hullo,” he offers, “I’m Maertin.”
She is thrilled when mother finally agrees, reluctantly, to let her come to the playground.
Adna has been insistent—and if there is anything the little girl is good at, it is being insistent. She has a stubborn streak a mile wild (some might call it resistant or rebellious or something less flattering, but her mother doesn’t have the heart to deny her precious daughter anything and thus it is labeled just stubborn).
Sometimes, Adna is so stubborn that her mother finally just sighs, the soft breath the only sign that the girl has finally worn the winged healer down. (The sigh is always quickly followed by a kiss to forehead.)
Like today.
Today, her stubborn will means Leliana—and her hero of a scaled father—finally agree that she can leave the safety of Loess to venture toward the playground. With the understanding that Leliana will accompany her and be nearby in the meadow (no doubt fretting) and that her time here will come to an end as soon as the afternoon sun begins to make its descent. Which is fine. At least it is a few hours.
As soon as her mother finally leaves, Adna grins, the look mischievous and delightful.
She is finally alone.
ALONE!
Laughing, she spins on her thin hocks and begins to make her way toward the center of the playground. Or, at least, she had thought that she would except the sudden appearance of the bright red boy in front of her. Her nostrils flare, dark green eyes blinking rapidly. “Oh!” Her voice is still thin and girly, pretty enough despite her harsh appearance, and she takes a quick step back. “I didn’t see you there!”
The surprise fades quickly though, replaced by a childlike curiosity.
“Hi, Maertin!”
She doesn’t stop to think that her appearance may surprise him. After all, she has grown up with the constant mirror of her father—and Vulgaris was perfect to the little girl. So she doesn’t look at her mahogany scales as anything but perfect. Her fangs are small, now but someday they would be powerful like her dad’s. Her reptilian eyes mirror his perfectly and are therefore a point of pride for her.
She doesn’t stop to think that maybe to someone else, it may not be the same.
So she just stretches her small fanged mouth into a grin, fluffy tail swishing behind her.
10-09-2018, 09:15 PM (This post was last modified: 10-09-2018, 09:15 PM by Maertin.)
As his heartrate settles, the colt lets his gaze flicker over his new companion, noting the scales and the eyes with undisguised interest. There are people with scales in Ischia, but somehow they’re differently scale-y. He has no idea that this is because most of the Ischians are fish-y type people, while his new friend (for they must be instant friends, in the way of children) is a snake-y type person. But no matter the source of the scales, the boy is interested and observant but not fearful. It’s hard to be fearful of anything, when you have lived in the shadow of a heroic father your whole life; this she might understand, though they have no concept of their similarities.
Adna smiles, and that is enough for him. The chestnut colt can’t help himself; he dances back and forth on light feet, so excited to have a playmate that isn’t a sibling or a Brother. “Yes!” he agrees enthusiastically, looking around quickly for more playmates; but for the moment, it’s just Maertin and Adna. “My favorite game is chase – but what’s yours?” The boy tries to still his feet, but he can’t quite manage it. Daydreams interfere with him for a moment, as he thinks about games. His twin will play chase with him, but his sisters are too fast for the twins – they prefer hide-and-seek, but Maertin has begun to suspect that they are unreasonably bad seekers because they aren’t really seeking, instead leaving the twins in hiding while they go off to do other things.
10-10-2018, 02:13 AM (This post was last modified: 10-14-2018, 04:31 PM by adna.)
Adna
He is delightful and her fanged mouth spreads even wider in a grin.
This was going to be so much fun. “I love chase!” she exclaims, her voice thin and girlish and stained with all of the excitement now beating in her youthful chest. At home, she’s never been given much of an opportunity to play with other children and playing chase with dad was only so much fun when you knew that any given moment he could actually start trying and the game would be over.
But he was a much more even match which meant that this would be a lot more fun.
Without waiting for permission or approval or anything similar, Adna streaks forward, bumping her nose against him and then shoots past him, clumsy legs nearly tangling as she runs.
“You have to catch me!” she shrieks as she scrambles over the summer-dried thickets. The ground beneath her childish hooves is just soft enough to give her purchase, but not hard enough to really give her the kind of speed she craves. Still, she thrills when she races forward and has to jump over a low log (a branch, really, but no one was here to correct her grandiose thoughts). Grinning with delight, she tucks her head into her chest and leaps over it, giving it far more clearance than it deserved.
Thrilled, she lifted her head and whinnied, the sound joyful and bouncing off the trees around them.
“C’mon, Maertin! You’re going to have to be a lot faster!”
Perhaps he should not be startled by her enthusiasm, after all his own chest thrums with the thrill, but he is momentarily at a loss when Adna tags him and is just a quickly gone, already racing across the field. The copper boy scrambles to catch up, the gently cushioned ground underneath his hooves quite strange. Adna longs for a harder ground to push against, but Maertin is used to sandy soil, loose under his feet, and he is momentarily distracted by the way the ground here does not give as easily as the shores of home. Still, he is almost caught up when the branch looms ahead of them. Maertin shies at the last moment, stumbling to a stop and catching up against the tree from which the branch had fallen.
His amber eyes are wide as he watches her leap through the air, fearless, but he is uncertain. The colt is a strong swimmer with an affinity for water, but he spends precious little time pushes his physical boundaries, preferring to baffle his family with songs and riddles and mind-games, playing only innocent and unchallenging games with his compatriots in Ischia. Still, he is Brennen’s son and competition runs in his blood; the filly is drawing away with ever scattered heartbeat. Maertin steels his nerves and trots a circle around the big oak before picking up a canter and heading for the branch, closing his eyes at the last moment even as he makes the jump, easily clearing the distance and huffing out a relieved breath when he lands.
Putting on a stubborn burst of speed, he mostly catches up and strains forward, stretching his nose to try and tag her rump. “Gotcha!” he exclaims proudly a moment later and throws on the brakes, hoping to change directions and get a head start on his escape.
Adna is delighted by how easily he gives into the game, chasing her without hesitation.
She doesn’t have many friends her own age, although she’s trying to branch out and meet more, and it’s a delight to be around him now. She doesn’t bother to look over his shoulder and track his whereabouts, although if she was officially training her father may scold her for her willful ignorance. Instead she just keeps her wide reptilian eyes on the path before them, jumping over the small objects and weaving around the trees, and feeling the faint but welcome burn in her lungs at the constant exertion.
When he hits her rump, she squeals with delight, tucking her butt underneath her to transition into a sliding stop—or as graceful of a version of one as she manage. By the time she’s untangled her legs and turned, he's already racing in the other direction, and she quickly follows, her laugh ringing out again.
“Hey! Wait up!”
She knows, of course, that that’s not how this game goes, but she can’t stop herself from trying, hoping to distract him so that he can slow down for her to catch up again. Regardless, however, of how he reacts, she begins to level out, getting used to the particular springiness of this land and starting to better understand how it’s mapped out before her. She begins to stretch out, teasing a little more speed out of her coltish legs and draws even with him. Looking over her shoulder, she tosses him a wide, fanged grin, her eyes bright. “This is so much fun! I’ll race you to that tree over there!” And then she’s off.
