"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
07-30-2019, 08:26 PM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2019, 07:07 PM by Kagerus.)
K
oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...
River run and river flow
River turn and river grow
River come and river go
River... river... river...
In the wake of the quest, all fell silent.
The voices I once knew intimately spoke no more; similarly, the light shone not. Within moments - or lifetimes - I became critically aware of the nothingness surrounding me. Nothingness that denied me access to it, plucking its own strings in a tuneless melody. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Even that sound evaded me. Eventually, as the blackness swallowed what remained of my subconscious, thought ceased.
Death began.
The journey to the afterlife was hazy. Vaguely I recall catching glimpses of a leopard stalking by my side as I navigated through what I could only describe as a wormhole, as something even my dreams could never muster. That time, too, felt eternal. Although I embodied nothing close to a corporeal form, a breeze tingled against me every now and again: one of salt. Stale, lifeless, salt.
By the time I arrived there, the previous two forms of death fell by the wayside of my memory's capacity. Perhaps next time I arrived here, I would recall; a strong sense of deja-vu; something I swear I had seen before.
Two important things happened in the afterlife.
The first found me silverline and purring, her wide eyes as alive as the day I first met them. "Hello, horse." The spirit's mouth moved as she spoke, but I did not find this strange; instead, I smiled dazedly, not properly registering the grey mirk around us. My ghostly lips found the tip of my familiar's ear. It felt insubstantial. "Now, now," she chuckled; her voice matched that which had filled my head for years previous. Matronly, playful, wise. Shaking herself away, Panthera took a step back. From this new vantage point, my eyes grappled with the apparition of a flower and vine upon the leopard's chest; a symbol, of what I knew but could not recall. My lips parted in question - too slow. "A story for another time, dear friend. For the next time we are together."
"What do you mean?"
Her lips curled in a characteristic grin, revealing her predator's array of ivories. "What, you don't think I'm going to allow you to stay here, do you? No, darling. Beqanna has far too many plans for you yet." Again, she chuckled, and again, I made as if to speak; but a disturbance in the surrounding murk left me speechless once more.
"Hello, Kagerus."
"Grandmother..."
She looked as I remembered. She looked like me. Eye to eye, we stood as duplicates (save for a single detail: on her chest, a flower and vine. On mine, nothing). Yet suspended in my reverie, I watched without interrupting as Kagerou leaned to affectionately nuzzle my familiar, a wide smile stretching her lips. They know one another, I thought to myself. Knowingly, they each looked at me and nodded their heads in silent affirmation. Something itched in the back of my head, but death dulled me; I simply smiled in return, happy for my family to be as one.
Questions would come later: later, when it would be too late to receive any answers.
"Kagerus," said Grandmother. I met her gaze. "You will return to Beqanna now."
"Now?" My voice cracked anxiously. "But I've only just arrived!"
My sire's dam's smile quieted sadly, though the knowing glint of her eyes remained steadfast. "It has been longer than you might guess, child. Long enough for your wife to be caught between here and there. Long enough for your children to be grown. Long enough for your kingdom to be... dismantled." The rawness of her words spoke to how personally she meant them, as though perhaps she had experienced as much herself. To be fair, I rationalized, she is also dead. She has been since you were born.
Born. I rolled the word over in my mind, speculating at such an event.
"Yes," Panthera said, stepping closer. Her tail wrapped affectionately around my granddam's foreleg. "It is time for you to be reborn."
I nodded, a grin splitting my childlike lips. "I can't wait to meet you there, Panthera."
"You will have to make this journey alone, my friend."
Their images faltered. "What do you mean, alone?"
Panthera's eyes held mine firmly. "I love you."
"For your efforts, Beqanna has granted you power beyond what your material form can host. Panthera will be staying here with me." Though her voice wavered and threatened to disconnect, her words struck me to my core. An urgency lit within me, a tugging sensation in the pit of my stomach warning me of... birth. Desperate, I reached to embrace my family one last time; though their figures were like paper, the beating of their hearts restarted my own.
"I love you both." I felt myself being pulled through the wormhole.
"I love you -" The blackness returned.
***
River run and river flow
River turn and river grow
River come and river go
River... river... river...
Where am I?
An overcast sky cages me here. A forest.
At my chest, the frigid river water laps. Wake up, it burgles. Wake up.
But my head... The moist loam yields to the pressure of my arching neck, wetting the place between my ears. Confusion results. My antlers?
A vision comes to me. One of a mare and a leopard, their markings eerily alike.
Panthera?!
But no answer comes.
With the whites of my eyes showing and half my body immersed in the freezing spring waters, I lay: reborn.
08-03-2019, 11:37 AM (This post was last modified: 08-03-2019, 10:49 PM by lilliana.)
Life hadn’t been perfect – but then again, when was life ever perfect? There are too many shades, too many dimensions that hint at things much deeper. Perfection, to Lilli at least, is something that exists on the surface of a smile or the sparkle of an eye. Murmuring Rivers hadn’t been an ancient kingdom. It had no claim in history as the site of something illustrious or important. There were no rulers that came from the small realm that had helped shaped the lands around them or did anything notable enough that was able to be recalled by later generations. Murmuring Rivers had been just as it sounded – a land of many flowing streams that were protected by the imperial mountains that surrounded them.
The herd had been a small band. It had mainly been the remainder of her father’s mares that hadn’t wanted to or couldn’t go to Windskeep. It had been the young and the old, the pregnant and the sick who had stayed behind when the war cry came. By the time that Lilli had arrived, Valerio’s last-child, the land had been quiet and still. There had been no abundance of foals to play with. There had been no aunts or uncles to tell her stories. The life that her elder siblings had known had been long gone by the time Lilliana came along and she only knew the remnants of it through their own words and memories. She learned of the many family members that had once dwelled together in a place called Paraiso, the place where all her siblings had been born and the place she should have been born as well. She learned of the siblings and cousins that raced and romped in groups across the open meadow at the heart of the ancient valley. She was told time and time again about the glistening lake that lay beneath the mighty falls whose majestic roar could be heard from almost every corner of their paradise.
Life in Paraiso hadn’t been perfect but it had been theirs and it had been a place where her family had been all together. To a little girl yearning to know so much about the father and the family members she never knew, it had sounded magical.
If Lilli had any inclination of the things that were to come (if she could have been blessed with the Sight like her cousins Marcelo or Ori), she would have clutched those precious days in Murmuring Rivers even closer to her heart because while her family might have been small, it had not been broken. Not really. Her family had been different in from the traditional sense of having a mother and father. Lilli had her dappled dam and then there had been Malachi, trying to follow in the hoofprints left behind by their heroic and honorable father, attempting a role as a father figure. But then there had been kind Marcelo and sweet Brynn with her own large brood that always found themselves tangled in with her siblings. And then Elaina had come, giving Lilli the sister she had so badly needed.
Valerio might have been gone and Murmuring Rivers might have been a paler, minor kingdom in terms of glory and grandeur than Paraiso had been but it had been the home Lilli had known with the family she had grown up with.
On a gray day in Spring, when Lilli is feeling lost and lonely, she loses herself in memories. The way that Malachi’s dark mocha eyes warm when he laughs. The look on Kalina’s face as she glances over to her children as they play. The sweetness of Kildare’s laughter as he runs. The determined and fierce gaze of her silver mother, brave and resolute in her conviction to provide for her children, for Brynn and the others left behind in the wake of war. The shocking silver blue of eyes so like her own as they gaze down to her, realization coming on Valerio’s face as he looks down to his daughter for the first time. The mischievous smile of Elaina as she bumps her shoulder into Lilli’s, daring her to tell a secret or to test yet another boundary. Orani as she cries into her shoulder insisting that she fine though Lilli feels like the world has fallen apart. The intensity of Broch’s gaze as she drowns in it, his beautiful lilting voice asking when he could see her again.
That tugs at her heartstrings, a hard tug of grief and guilt and she has to banish all of them away. She doesn’t know why she comes back here time and time again, why she relives all the things that hurt her so badly. Part of the reason for coming to Beqanna had been the point to leave all that behind her, to not be left behind ever again. How foolish she is to still think that. There is still enough youthful innocence in Lilli to not yet understand that sometimes there is no other choice than to leave, hoping the ones you leave behind you can someday forgive you. And Lilli, as the one who has been left behind twice now, has struggled with finding that forgiveness and only finding a way to blame herself.
The wave rushes through her, twisting her heart in a knot until it falls into the pit of her stomach where it threatens to linger. The gray of the clouds above matches her current mood. There is nothing bright or shining about this spring day. Her beloved flowers kept their petals closed and the shades of spring come so much duller today than they have in the past. Her mind is numb, empty because if she opens it the emotion will come rushing in and cripple her. The barren is a safe place to hide today. Her movements are instinctual and she walks to the place that has always brought her comfort – the running sound of water as it pours over the rocks, as it rushes it way past her. While this isn’t home, there is something familiar in the scent of clean and sweet water.
So Lilli, with absolutely nowhere else to go, goes there.
She draws closer to the side of the river, can see the current dancing and hear it bubbling as it moves. The long grasses move just enough in the light breeze to part and for the briefest of moments, Lilli thinks she sees something. There are colors there that don’t belong to the drab sky above or its reflection in the moving water below. It is a stark shade of rich brown exposed in ribbons through the grasses, the fresh scent of water replaced by something more earthy and like herself, another horse. There is an urgency in her steps that weren’t there before, replaced by the worry that there is something actually in the stream. The grasses are pushes aside and her blue eyes come to find the form of Kagerus who seems so beautiful, something about her so pristine to Lilliana.
But her brief admiration for the loveliness of the overo is replaced with the more immediate concern that she is laying in the river. She ambles down the small slope, her own chiseled face reaching towards Kagerus, hoping for what? There is panic at the back of the mind as she wonders what she will do if the painted mare is hurt or injured. What can Lilliana possibly do for her? ”Miss,” she tries, hoping her voice comes out steady. Her attempt to reach Kagerus has been more of an amble, of sliding down the bank until she finds herself in water past her ankles. It is bitingly cold as it moves past her. ”Miss,” Lilli tries again as the whites of Kagerus’s eyes show, ”Can you hear me?” Her blue eyes scan urgently over the mare, looking for signs of harm or injury. ”Are you hurt?”
Nothing above you but sky.
The clouds move to the sound of the running water, fluid in their vastness. Nothing upon you but the stink of death.
And yet... And yet.
My brows furrow, body momentarily struggling against its current conditions before weakly submitting to a strange unreality once more. The voice in my head rings eerily familiar, but its key rings an octave higher - less occult than as it had been when it plagued me. In my previous life.
Oh please, don't wax poetic about which life is which. It's all the same, and I'm still here, aren't I?
Still just as sassy, I see. And still just as wont to coax you to death... But alas, I've lead you there once now, and the thrill has worn off. I've decided it will be more fun by tormenting you to life.
I smirked, eyes still rolling, body occasionally twitching. An unrecognized source of power dismantles my nervous system as its hardwire installs itself into the core of my being; a pseudo-magic, hiding itself in my deepest recesses. Distracted by the voice (and quite stuck in a dream-altered trance that may as well be a hallucination), I fail to notice its sly influence, to notice the traction it grants me as I regain my feet in this hell of a fucking life.
So, to life you must go.
How thrilling. Oh now, don't be the drab one. That's my job.
I suppose I do have to find Solace... And the kids... See what became of the Cove... God, I don't even know how much time has passed! And won't it be a joy to find out, hmm? Now wake up.
The world shudders - momentarily, in the space between the mare who approaches and I, the dismal light flashes bright, flickers dim, and adjusts once more to normal. Fluctuation. A turbulent rebirth. The environment responding to the subtle change within one of its charges.
Miss?
The sound of legitimate speech brings my rolling eyes to a hazy stand still, pupils narrowing and widening as I attempt to focus on the figure before me. Everything seems normal, except that I am vaguely reminded of the time my wife pulled me from the depths of the lake, wherein I would have committed suicide many years ago... Strange, strange, "Strange," I mutter, brows furrowing and eyes closing once again. Found nearly dead twice in one (two?) lives by women - one who loved me, and this stranger. Reborn post-rescue. The motifs betray themselves to me.
Can you hear me?
This time, my eyes open more quickly, the world more at peace with my return. The mahogany and amber hues of my guardian angel grow more cohesive my neck cranes, an attempt to behold her in her entirety. Not so easy from my current angle. Forgetting to answer her, I am instead forced to think about her last question, one which exits her ashen mouth with a lilt of fear, a warble of genuine concern. She is very sweet, I think to myself, half in a motherly fashion and half in an admiring fashion. My eyes fall to the mud clinging to her hocks and pasterns, evidence of her treacherous slip down the slope to find herself by my side.
A wayward branch scrapes painfully across my lower legs as the river carries it along its journey; with my nervous system finally stimulated beyond the numbing of the spring-water, I revive.
"I'm --" But I say no more as a sudden compulsion brings me lurching to my hooves. Gravity seems to shift directions a dozen times before I restabilize, the vertigo of death's wormhole clearly still having an effect on me remortalized self. Like a newborn, I stand splayed-legged and woozy. Though a dumb expression decorates my face, the captivating feature found thereupon is admittedly uglier: the scar which proves my love and infinite fidelity to my wife. Thoroughly healed but endlessly grotesque, the ice-scar travels from my left ear to my right nostril, splitting what once was a beautiful face in two. Without my antlers towering above me, the scar receives no distraction: all attention must fall upon it, or at least, this is my only thought as I try not to pass out.
Luckily, sanity further returns, and vanity takes her bow.
"I'm, uhm --" Vigorous shivers interrupt my terrible monologue. For a once-queen of a veritable empire, I fucking can't talk proper right now. A quick thrash of my head seems to clear it; still shivering, I force my wandering eyes to focus on Lilliana, gathering my limbs beneath me as I do so. "I'm not hurt. Just. Recently dead."
Right, because that's better than stuttering.
Swallowing, I make as though to join her closer to the bank - but an obsidian hoof catches against a rock below, sending me tumbling forward. I catch myself awkwardly against my angel saviour, chest colliding with her shoulders and head bouncing against her flank. From there it's an awkward process of straightening with the help of her counter weight, my head still spinning. It would be flirtatious if I weren't so deluded.
"Can we go somewhere quiet?" I ask trepidatiously, unsure of exactly where or what I want to be. Everything feels too much. "I - can we - you don't have to -" But as I stumble again, I realize that she does. Without her, I wouldn't have left the river - without her, death would have been yet another inevitability. "Please," I finally decide on, head drooping low such that my black nose brushes against the river's water. "Please will you help me."
08-10-2019, 09:21 PM (This post was last modified: 08-10-2019, 09:22 PM by lilliana.)
Lilli stands, the water rushing past her in a way that makes her all too aware of how bitterly cold it is. Each moment that Kagerus languishes in the river, Lilli feels her pulse race faster and faster as she struggles not to panic. All she can think of is that if this mare is seriously injured, her options of what she can do for her are severely limited. What limited healing abilities she had have long vanished since her arrival into Beqanna and her knowledge of this land is even more limited. If she is needed to find a healer or any assistance at all, her mind is reeling through the options of what she knows and where she should go. The thought of leaving Kagerus here is something that is unbearable. It is another agonizing thought that Lilli grapples with - if she would even be capable of leaving her.
Kagerus speaks and Lilli feels a rush of relief though she knows the mare isn't out of the woods yet. She lowers her delicate head to the mare, the ends of her mane becoming soaked by the waters current as they float on top. "Miss," she tries again, making sure her words are clear and concise. She doesn't know what is strange but Lilli thinks that if she can beckon Kagerus to awareness then they stand a chance of getting her out of the water, away from the frigid current and away from the imminent death that would have awaited her there if she remained. Her blue eyes seek out Kagerus's, locking as she peers out into the world. An expression of pain and struggle crosses the features of the other mare and Lilli lowers her head, even more, wanting to offer some kind of comfort to the painted mare. She tries to speak again and Lilli takes a careful step away, still observing her with concern.
Kagerus stands and Lilli watches closely, trying to gauge if and when her help is needed. There is still a sense of urgency from where the chestnut stands, her stance alert and gaze attentively as the other mare finds her footing. When the mare does stand, Lilli gazes over her again with a close eye, trying to discern for any obvious injuries that might prove fatal or at least critical. For the briefest of seconds, her gaze does take in the scar that adorns her face. It reminds her of the one that Valerio brought home from battle, the one that should have claimed his life. It should have been an ugly thing, a blemish on an otherwise perfect and impressive physique. Instead, it served as a reminder that he had almost been taken from him. A reminder that each and every moment of this life is fleeting and precious.
The thought is there in Lilli's mind as she wonders what battles this mare has seen, what struggles she has endured to earn such a scar. But the shaking of her body disrupts that and it is immediately addressed by the petite chestnut. It is only words that follow that catch her off guard, that startle her. "Dead?" she asks, the expression on her face perplexed and not fully realizing the full extent of Kagerus's words. She wants to ask for an explanation, an elaboration of the words that she has given but there is no time for that. The two-toned mare steps forward and Lilli takes a step as well to meet her, trying to come to where Kagerus is. Instinctively she angles her body in such a way that she hopes to catch her, steady her somehow but Lilli fails.
Kagerus stumbles and Lilli offers her body again hoping that she might be able to find some source of stability from her.
"Of course," the chestnut answers without hesitancy, replying to Kagerus's request. Lilli stands strong against the current, ready to accept the weight of Kagerus if she wishes to lean into her. The other mare drops her head low, almost greeting the river and worry comes again in her own gaze. "Please,"Lilli says, welcoming and inviting the other mare to rely on her. "How can I help?"
As my numbness fades at the places Lilli's flesh touches mine, clarity further becomes me. A blink sends some fog away. A twitch of my ear clears some ringing. And a deep breath - that of all things gathers what powers I have at my disposal into one spot, deep between my ribs. My rescuer asks how she can help (not knowing that she already has). Feeling her willingness to oblige me like a familiar weight on my subconscious, my eyes flutter closed, the only sign that I am embracing the dreamscape.
After all, sleep is a very appropriate reaction to trauma.
Awakening on the other side (after the strange experience of being brought to sleep by a force besides tiredness, one of a settled heaviness, one of free falling, one of hyper-awareness combined with pure oblivion), everything is less. Less noise. Less light. Around us: a twilight lullaby, soft and easy going. Though turmoil and confusion lurks just beneath the thin gauze that is the bandage I use to hold myself together, for now, our dreams are simple. In this vulnerable state, much of what we see here together is malleable, even at the hands of the likely-confused Lilliana. The fibers of the dream light up like gently shooting stars, weaving above our heads and below our hooves, emphasizing the otherness of this reality.
"Ahh..." I sigh, allowing my body to dematerialize. Before Lilli's very eyes, I escape the burden of corporeal form, assimilating into the mist around us. Hoping - but not quite enough to moderate my behaviour - that she won't be too disoriented by this, I reach to her and set a calmness upon her, modifying what parts of the dreamscape she experiences such that they sooth her nervous system instead of stimulating it. When I think the dreaming mare is ready, I speak, my voice in her head rather than before her.
"I owe you my life and I don't even know your name..." A soft weight comes down on her shoulder, the exact size of a hand, a pressure to convey how deeply thankful I am to her. I doubt she has any understanding or knowledge of humanity (a branch of reality gifted to me by the fae and their own dreaming), but the sentiment speaks for itself. Sending reverberations around the dreamscape like a three hundred and sixty degree drop into a pool of water, I chuckle. "Nor you mine."
Before her eyes, a seam splits, revealing an image of myself with Solace and our many children. Solace glows, golden and beatific, her cerulean eyes finding Lilli's inexplicably. In the image, my neck curls into hers, a reunion that seems - even from this disjointed distance - a long time in coming. Eventually, after Lilli has had her fill, the seam closes.
"My name is Kagerus... Tell me about yourself. Please."
08-20-2019, 08:44 PM (This post was last modified: 08-20-2019, 09:15 PM by lilliana.)
She should be afraid. This place is wrong somehow, tilted and skewed in a way that the waking world isn’t. The world had fallen away, had melted and shifted. It had been an effortless thing, as simple as breathing, to follow Kagerus here. But the how and why of it are hazy, blurred lines that have receded to this place.
She should be scared. Lilli knows that fear should be claiming her mortal mind. The River, the place where she and Kagerus had been just moments before is gone. Somehow the world has fallen away and the chestnut mare finds herself here, in this place of everywhere and nowhere. Her mind tries (and fails) to grasp for a reason, trying to find a thread of thought that will be able to turn this reality into something logical.
But for as much as she reaches for it, it slips past her, refusing to be explained.
Peace. This is all she knows. It wraps around her like the security of Elaina’s golden form under Hyaline's night sky, like the enveloping embrace of her mother.
Stars fall around them both and it takes Lilli a moment to realize that Kagerus is here and that she no longer struggles. She searches for the lovely painted mare, blue eyes gazing and glancing through the veil of dream. She thinks she feels her beside her but when the crimson mare can finally make out forms and shadows, Kagerus vanishes into the mist around her.
She should be afraid but she isn’t.
Kagerus speaks but she isn’t speaking, not in the normal way. The gentle incantation of her voice comes from within the walls of Lilli’s mind, from the place where her own hopes and fears guide her. A touch, featherlight and redeeming comes on her shoulder. The muscle doesn’t flinch and the girl finds herself welcoming it. She relishes it instead of unease or worry. Lilli can’t feel those emotions here; she feels freer, lighter than she has been in.. since she can no longer recall.
”You owe me nothing,” she whispers, mystified and still searching through the haze of this place. And then she smiles, a hopeful thing that graces her features. The expression on her face changes as she feels the laughter of Kagerus around her – a wonderful, bubbling thing that wakes the joy inside Lilli. ”Will you tell me?” she asks in a quiet tone, awed and marveling at what wonderful thing Kagerus might be.
Goddess? Deity? Divinity?
The seam splits and Lilli feels like she is being told a secret, that she is being shared something sacred and special. The young mare sees Kagerus as she had known her before the dream, in the form of a mortal equine. Love touches Lilli’s face. She warms with it and it expels the last of her shadows, takes away the last of her doubts. Everything about her is bright and surges with joy, is overwhelmed with happiness for Kagerus and this golden mare, for their family.
Love, after all, is the great illuminator of life, able to drive out all darkness.
”Kagerus...” she murmurs, repeating the name softly to herself. She clings to it, some part of her afraid that this really is a just dream and she will wake up to remember none of this beauty.
Somehow, in a way that she isn’t sure of (and much like the magic of the Mountain), she is able to conjure images for Kagerus. Had this been anywhere but the dreamscape, the chestnut might not have revealed so much. (It is, after all, much harder to put emotions and memories and lives led into words than to simply show.)
So Lilli reveals her most beloved of memories, pours them out in a torrent of love – scrawny and wild Elaina at their first meeting, amber eyes blazing with fire. Aletta, her silver mother, bathed in moonlight and star shine in such a lonely way that made Lilli’s heartache. She shows her golden Valerio with his stoic blue eyes, her father so impossibly sure and brave in a changing world. She shows her siblings, her family when they had been thriving and unbroken. Each memory rolls along and Lilli revels in it, a ferocity that builds in her chest with the ache of missing and loving them.
”I’m Lilli,” she says to the dreamweaver as the seam fades. On the edges of twilight, she looks again for Kagerus, searching for some particle of her. ”What are you?” comes her voice again, hushed with wonder. ”And what is this place?”
Her whisper fills the scope of the dream, gently folding into its edges as only a whisper can. Quiet and full. Her weight against my phantom hand brings a smile to my nonmaterial lips. How strange, to trust a stranger this intrinsically - with my life - to touch her like this, to know her with such an unabashed immediacy. If only this were life. The thought leaves my smile cold and forgotten. If only we could stay calm forever.
She asks me to tell. The seam splits: obliging her wish. A picture of two women in love, of children in harmony... Far from diety, far from divinity. A figure tired and exhausted and at peace. No more than other mortals. No wisdom to share beyond the wounds inflicted upon me by a bitch called life.
When the seam closes, the liver girl trys out the form of my name with the muscles of her mouth, feeling its every curve and edge.
Without needing a reason to transition (dreams often follow no reasonable laws), she opens her own seam. It is clear even before the murky images become clear that this painting is one of love, love in all shapes and sizes but love undeniably. Horses I've never met and never will come and go in the image, their names unknown to me but their significance to my companion powerfully clear. With a knot in my throat, I commit each face to memory... The thought of losing my loved ones to an insurmountable distance leaves me wrought with a secret anxiety, with the sickness that comes to those plagued with excess empathy.
The tension lessens some when I know, irrevocably, that I am at least one new family member for this lost girl now. That we have made a connection in this open-ended world.
I'm Lilli. "That's a beautiful name." What are you?
I can't help but smile at the wonder in her voice, at her wide-eyed mystification. Gentle. Slow-moving. And what is this place?
Gently, slowly, our surroundings shift. The warm gray around us takes on hues of purple, a cloud of dawn hosting our dreams. The air is cooler but not uncomfortably so; the weight on Lilli's shoulder softly fades, replaced by me gradually materializing in front of her. It shouldn't seem strange here, where anything is possible, but I appreciate that she finds it wonderful. My head snakes out, nose jostling hers gently, another laugh reverberating around us; an attempt to get her to interact more with the dream.
"I am but a humble dreamweaver, sweet Lilli." I pause, straightening, allowing my voice to find a certain gravity. "Even more than that I am a woman in search of my wife. Solace, you saw her next to me. That is my true identity. Hers." The words come out like facts, romantic to be sure, but also unquestionable.
Hers. I am hers.
My expression returns to one of slight playfulness as I glance around us, sending scents of lavender and sage around us in an arc. "And right now, we are in a dream... It's easier for me to be here than out there. And for now, we can stay here... You can do anything you want to here. Fly. Take the form of another creature. Sit on a star and gaze into the depthless void." My nutmeg eyes find hers. "But eventually we will have to wake up... and I'm afraid that I'll return to the state you found me in."
My breath catches.
"I can only hope that you'll guide me in the day, stranger as I may be to you... I am happy to supervise your nights in return. If you'll have me."
08-26-2019, 09:30 PM (This post was last modified: 08-26-2019, 09:37 PM by lilliana.)
She wonders if blushing is possible here. Can she feel the heat in her cheeks, creeping up her neck? It’s not the first compliment she has heard concerning her name but coming from Kagerus, it takes on a new meaning. The edges of her mouth curve up in pleasure, her blue eyes warming with delight. The world changes again, ripples and waves into something new, something no less beautiful than what was before. The pressure on her shoulder lifts and the chestnut mare finds her gaze searching through grays and pastels of the dreamscape, trying to find where the lovely wonder has gone.
From the blending of the colors, from the place where the sunrise and horizon meet, Kagerus dawns.
When the overo mare reaches out to Lilli, the crimson girl finds herself voluntary reaching towards the other mare. Their noses meet and the smile spreads, shining through the silver-blue eyes that meet Kagerus’s own. The laughter dances around them, twirls like a girl might around her first Maypole. “You are beautiful,” the chestnut replies. It is meant as a compliment but there is a determination in it, a stubbornness in Lilli that refuses that Kagerus could be anything but the ethereal being she is. Her voice comes softer now but the conviction remains, ”Surely you come from where the sweetest dreams dwell.”
The words are breathless, full of the dream itself.
Her ears pick up Kagerus’s next words and Lilli lifts her head, eager to hear what her sleeping companion has to say. That is my true identity. Hers. It is a beautiful, dazzling truth in this place and Lilli’s heart catches in her throat. ”You are two halves of the same whole,” she muses, half smiling. But the dream billows again, concern coming out in echoes around them. ”You lost her?” It is a story that Lilli knows well. Her gaze drops for a moment as she remembers. Was that was love then? Losing yourself again and again until eventually, you found it in someone else?
Somehow her heart has found its way back into her throat again. But the pain is paler here; the anguish and the regret are not so easily evoked here as they are in the light of day.
Kagerus invites Lilli to look around again, summoning the magic and miracle of this place. She listens to the melody of her words, the lightheartedness of them. Her smile catches again, unable to keep away from the charm of the dreamscape and its hostess. Lilli’s companion invites to her test this place, to create, to imagine, to dream without limitation. This place is full of infinite possibilities. There are so many things that Lilli has wondered about, has yearned for and in this moment that yearning comes as something else. It starts as a single word, a thought simply dwelling in her mind.
The chestnut tilts her head, a shy smile forming on her lips. ”Can I show you something?” Tentatively, hesitant like hands afraid they might shatter something fragile, she summons the thought into a line of words. Home. Home. Home. The word comes over and over again from the recesses of her mind, bounces of the edges of the dream until a trail appears. It hugs the edge of a bank and where the path isn’t immediately bonded with the stream, Lupines appear in all their early summer glory. Blues, purples, pinks and white all dot the river bend they find themselves in. The air is sweet with their scent, full and rich with the smell of summer.
Her lips part and she can’t catch the sound of longing that comes from her throat. This bend is imprinted on her heart, etched on along the cracks and places that Lilli so desperately longs to hide. Her face is a picture of yearning. She had been a girl when she had seen this place last and perhaps its perfection is a telltale sign of a child’s memory. But this, this was where she had been happiest. The days spent in this very spot where she and Elaina had vanquished dragons, toppled kingdoms, had shared the deepest of their worries and the highest of their hopes.
She swallows and turns her attention back to Kagerus, wondering if the other mare can know how beholden Lilli feels to her. Her blue eyes meet the nutmeg of Kagerus and Lilli smiles again. There have been days, so many days, where she feels like she is drowning and at this moment it feels as if the dreamweaver is the one who pulled her from the water.
Kagerus has restored something lost to her though she struggles to determine what that is through the haze of this place.
”Tell me what I can do to help,” the young mare says softly, as steadfast in this wish here as she had been in the corporeal realm. ”Whatever aid I’m able to provide, I promise you have it. I’ll take you anywhere you wish to go. I’ll help you find your wife. Whatever I can do to help, I will.”
LILLIANA
i left home on account of snow (buried all the things i know)
@[Kagerus] sorry for any typos.. Lil was excited <3
"Yes," I answer simply, the ache of loss accentuated by my smile as I ponder her truthful statement, that Solace and I are two parts of one whole. "And I must find her." It's not something I need to say - that need is implicit in every fibre of my being - but I say it nonetheless, finding myself craving the connection which makes itself so readily available in the depths of Lilliana's eyes. Her willingness to see me and hear me, for who I really am and not for who I pretend to be when the world is watching, is warm. It's safe.
When she shyly asks to show me something, I only nod. The ease of sleep settles on me as I entrust the dreamscape in this young one's palms, watching with the utmost trust as its weight settles there, round and comfortable. Surprise evades me as I watch the scenery gradually change; so often we long for somewhere, someone, something. This longing, I've found, cannot be satiated; our needs as conscious creatures in this plane of existence mimic the universe, expanding infinitely. And yet we so often become stuck on the past.
Remembering what no longer belongs to us as though we might reach out and touch it.
Dreams, in that way, are so often nightmares with pretty faces.
But I stop myself from impressing this sad life-view upon my hopeful and sad companion, instead allowing her to flesh out her dream to the extent she sees fit, watching her reactions to what so clearly is home. The colours are like nothing I've seen in Beqanna, and the scents far sweeter than even our most abundant wildflower field. While Lilliana yearns and grieves simultaneously, I only admire, recognizing my privilege in having been brought somewhere so intimate, so sacred. Virtually no one else save myself will ever be able to see Lilliana as transparently as I do now, as vulnerably as I do now; and as she looks to me with reverence upon her simple and beautiful face, I hope that mine manages to convey the gratitude that I feel.
And, as though reciting a prayer (though by the end of this all she will be convinced of my humanity), she makes promises. Not explicitly, but their presence is implicit in her tone, in the loyalty that exudes from her porous aura, in the way her blue eyes grapple with mine: in search of connection. With sleep-heavy eyes, I accept her, once again settling that weightedness on to her shoulders. It's going to be okay, I impress upon her. We are both going to be okay again.
"Thank you, Lilliana." My muzzle finds the curve of her jaw before gently sliding down to her shoulder. "Your companionship will be all I require - a companionship that I will always cherish."
And, with that safe, weighted feeling leading both of our eyelids to close, the dreamscape fades, and a black, full-night's sleep carries us to morning.
![[Image: kag]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/2e8039018ce4dff6112c167ec23e886a/tumblr_p72zjit7wC1s5a0qvo1_100.png)
