[open] distance makes the heart grow fonder - anyone

[Reem]

- R E E M - We don't have to reap the fear they sow. In Dorobo, she’d been forced into anonymity - kept tucked away and out of sight from those with prying eyes. Here, anonymity was simply a truth. She was a stranger in a strange land - unsure of where she fit in and how to make a life that was entirely her own.  Beqanna was strange, that much was certain.  Dorobo was made up of muted colors - sunbaked golds and browns and its citizens seemed to blend with the very earth they were born from. Here everything was richer, seeped in colors that had been only a product of her imagination before.  She hadn’t known what to make of this place at first - and of the colorful denizens that called this place home.  The antelope girl was very much out of her element here, but her heart also quickened at the very fact that everything here was an unknown.  There were no walls here, no deception to keep her hidden away.  When her family had scattered, no one had thought anything of Reem.  She’d been her family’s best kept secret, so there was no one who came looking when revolution had come.  But she knew that she couldn’t stay in Dorobo - she couldn’t waste her life trying to fit in somewhere where she’d been so entirely excluded.  She arrived in Beqanna well past the point of exhaustion, with hazy memories of how she even found this place.  But it was of no matter to Reem.  This was her home now. Long grasses tickled her legs, and she lowered her muzzle to breathe in the sweet smell.  She raised her antlered head, bright eyes flicked happily over all the vivid colors of the meadow and the antelope girl huffed a contented sigh for the first time in what felt like ages.

image credit

[abysm]

Summer found them content and happy, falling out of war and into love. He could taste it all in the favor of their dreams. Sometimes, it evoked a pang of longing in him and roused the memory of dark all-seeing eyes before he banished it to the back of his mind (and his heart). Then he’d move on, feasting and manipulating until he grew as content as them.

It never lasted, of course.

It couldn’t and wasn’t meant to. Not when he was a thing snatched from the abyss and made to ensure this shape. He had been formless and small, a sad little shadow amidst all the monsters and nothingness. Abysm wasn’t much better now; bitter, brooding, and aloof. Except when he stole into the heads of his children and left them with bright beautiful dreams.

Only then, did the smile that touched his face seem genuine. Only then.

Now he surveys the meadow like a king without a crown; having forsaken both the lands his mother and her lover had ruled over, raising their brood of brats (some of which he loved dearly, or really just that special little half-brother…) and leaving him to well, the same old abandonment he had become so used to. His father had done the same - replaced him with a second son, probably a better one because Abysm failed at relationships of any kind.

But he looks and listens, and so, notices the girl full of cream skin and good cheer. Her horns are long and curved, unlike the antlers so much of his half-kin bears. He dreams a pair of his own into being atop his head, leaving the rest of him unchanged. Then he aisles on over, announcing himself with a chuff of breath that sounds a lot like a harmless snort of greeting and his eyes drink all of her in.

“Hello,” he rumbles, not deigning to stop looking at her. She was unique, and happy and he hungered for just a small taste of that happiness she flaunted openly. 

@[Reem] <33

[Reem]

- R E E M - We don't have to reap the fear they sow. The antelope mare found herself sufficiently distracted by a small patch of vibrant, pink flowers.  Perhaps she should have felt foolish for being so excited for something as simple as a flower. The flowers in Dorobo were tiny, hearty things.  They had to be to find purchase in the sunbaked savanna which she had once called home.  They were more weeds than actual flowers, but Reem had the ability to see beauty in even the most unexpected of places.  Growing up so sheltered had a twofold effect on the antelope mare. The isolation and all that came with it was one facet.  The other was an untainted sense of trust and wonder. Some might read this as simply naivete but that wasn’t it, entirely. There was a purity in the girl that was still untouched by the greed and darkness of others.  So while her life had in no way been easy, the girl was just as resilient as the sunbaked flora of the savanna.    Her attention is disrupted by a sound, and Reem snaps her antlered head to attention - her soft blue eyes falling upon the stranger who’d all but snuck up on her as she was blissfully unaware of her surroundings.  “Oh hello!” she said with a carefree laugh, fully aware of how silly she must seem.  Her gaze returns to the flowers, “Aren’t they beautiful! I don’t think I’ve ever seen this color pink before today.” Her soft blue eyes flick back to the stranger. “I’m Reem,” she trilled, happily, “Who are you?”

image credit


@[abysm]

[abysm]

The dream-horns atop his head are strange; their weight is foreign to him but not burdensome. He thinks he could get used to them, just like his mother did. She dreamt hers’ into existence then kept them, made them as real as the bones beneath her painted skin. 

He wonders - vaguely, briefly - if he can do that too, but not these curved-back horns of hers that he too sports. He’d pick something else; something much more majestic like a pair of lofty elk antlers to spread above his head.

Then again, he’s just a plain old stallion that can’t do much besides manipulate some dreams. He’s okay with that though. Content to mimic her for the moment, as he continues to spy on her blithe cheer and lithe presence that aches like a bright spot of sunshine amidst the bland old meadow.

She was almost too bright to behold; carefree and laughing in her greeting before the flowers capture her attention again. He knows he’s not forgotten - impossible! Abysm leaves impressions, sometimes unbeknownst to others, but he does like a dark stain in the corner of their dreams. He follows her gaze to the flowers, finding them perfunctorily boring in comparison to her.

So he lies;

“Quite beautiful! I’ve only seen that color in dreams before.” and he’s smooth and charming, so good at the deceit that spills from his lips though he has no intention of breaking her beautiful happiness. He just wants to taste it, like amaranth of the gods - a little sip, not enough to steal the brightness from her, but enough for a boy of nothingness and the abyss to know what light tastes like.

Sky and sunshine; that’s all he can think of as she looks at him again. He’s almost startled, almost loses the dream-antlers that match her own. “Reem,” he echoes haphazardly, unable to look away from her - she’s blinding! It is just enough to dazzle him, for a moment in time, but never enough to chase away the navy and ivory that have twined so deeply around the core of his being.

“I’m Abysm,” he counters in a dark deep rumble. The champagne-and-foam stallion almost adds that he could dream her an entire world of these flowers and more… not yet - the time isn’t right to tempt her and then taste her boundless joy.

@[Reem]