"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
BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE
When she and Kreios had first carved out their bit of the new world, it swelled with tall trees and colors of the deepest lush greens. Sylva was an ancient place blanketed by mist and solitude. It's secrets were embodied in it's residents long before they could realize how the fertile soils had embedded in the cracks of their fracture souls. The Reckoning had thrust them all into the deep dark of angered deities to expose their vulnerabilities and raw needs.
The salmon tinted mare had found her former kingdom with ease. Sylva had called to her soul and so she was powerless to answer. As a blush tinted dove, Ygritte followed the coast where mist and sea joined as one. From the edge of the warm Pampas when the trees grew tall and proud, Ygritte find a place to drift to the ground. A horse forms where the small dove had found a soft place to settle, rich amber with orange-pink limbs and smooth mane.
Her left eye, her only eye, watches for a tender moment with soft breathes filtering the clean air. Others inhabited her now when she had expected the land to be dormant but there is a rise of pride in hope in her chest that others had picked up the torch of the nearly forgotten territory. Begonias of delicate pink grow from the right socket, a reminder to the day she was blinded, but they are a beautiful scar she wears like a crown.
One legs draws up and over to pull her forward in a casual walk with ears forward and the ghost of a smile on her lips. She would travel deeper into her homeland before alerting the other Sylvians of her presence. Ygritte was old now but she had been blessed with the eternal beauty of young marehood to keep her youthful...and alive. Some time passes as she walks the familliar deer trails with the chatter of birdsong to guide her. It had been far too long since she had left Sylva to seek her lost king but enough time has since passed that Ygritte had given up hope.
A low call, melodious but firm, clips off the ceaseless calls of birds. Ygritte is a polite creature and thus knows she should make her presence known rather than be found in a pile of soft pine needles. There would not be much time before someone approached her with questions and concern. Ygritte was surely a long forgotten queen and she did not intend to divulge this information unless asked. Ygritte could be a keeper of the forest, a storyteller for when the world was broken and Sylva was born.
It had been years since she had felt the bloom of hope in her heart.
I was a poor boy; you were a bright light I was a sinner and you were a snake
Brigade had not returned home immediately after dying.
He supposes, in a way, that has become a pattern for him. He had never returned to Tephra, after all, and after he had flung the chains of Loess from his back, he had never returned there either. Instead, he had taken up residence within the Sylvan forest—with no-one other than the sharp-tongued leader as even a faux friend. So perhaps it is strange that he considers the land eternally trapped within autumn to be his home but it’s the only place he feels he has ever chosen; even if the choice was partially coerced.
Still, he doesn’t return immediately upon waking. He takes his time to find some center of gravity—to learn the art of breathing again—before he takes to the skies and lands gently on the borders. It is comforting to take in the familiar scents and it’s a strange thought that it is, familiar, that is.
Even so, he does not have deep roots here. Does not know the land’s history—knows little of Beqannian history in general. Does not know the politics that sink into its soil or the sins that have been committed here in years past. To him, it is just the quiet forest where he has managed to carve out even the smallest of peace. The smallest of creature comforts and it pulls him back like gravity—even subconsciously.
After he lands, Brigade folds his auburn wings over his back and moves forward into the forest. His body still feels weak in so many ways, but he knows that the muscle and strength will return with time. Death does not loosen its grip on a man so quickly. When he sees the flash of salmon against the bark, he swings his antlered head up, stormy eyes narrowing slightly in thought and the realization that her scent is not one that is familiar to him. For so long, it was just him and Starsin—and, later, Lilian and Starsin’s brood.
But, then again, he has been dead for some time so who is he to say who is stranger?
Curious but hardly welcoming, he walks toward her, pausing only when he is several feet away. He is quiet for a moment as his stern features settle, his steely eyes studying her before he dips his head.
“Hello.”
Not the warmest of introductions but certainly not his worst.
shook like some old souls when our bones broke swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame
BETTER BEWARE, I GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT DEVIL-MAY-CARE WITH A LUST FOR LIFE
If she had been human, her soft hands would have folded politely in front of her frock in a modest gesture of harmlessness. She was a stranger in lands so familliar and it was best to offer the respect earned by the current residents.
He is heavily adorned in wide antlers and of the most attractive hue of red that she has been blessed to witness. A dark eyed, shy stallion trapped between a world of the thriving dramatics and the solitude that Sylva offered. A smile draws over her salmon painted lips in response to his stoic actions. He is wary and cautious (as he should) of the smaller mare and her appearance amongst the stark trees.
Honey thick eyes are watchful and noting how he is just off enough in case she was a wolf beneath long lashes and tumbling salmon hair. Ygritte knows and understands him better than he could imagine but her heart is exposed and open for his investigation. Ygritte shifts her hips from one leg to the other in a slow, deliberate manner to convey the genuine smile that brushes her lips. She is ready for his dissection, offered willingly.
"Hello." The word slips between the pink lips softly as she studies him from heavy lashes of her left eye. Ygritte finds herself nervous and vulnerable beneath the steel of his gaze and must break their eye contact briefly to glance away at nothing. They both know there is nothing to take away from her concentration upon him but her breath clutches in her breast momentarily. A shyness spreads like new snow over her whole demeanor as she attempts to catch a small chuckle in her throat but it escapes jaggedly. "I'm Ygritte." The taste of rain and honeysuckle alight her tongue as she divulges her name to the wine stallion.
Her eyes lift away from the fabricated distraction as to meet Brigade's. She presses her lips together once more, a bit uncertain what to say next, as a comfortable silence grows between them. The bay mare has never wavered from interaction but it had been some time since she had spoken, interacted, enjoyed the company of simple conversation. Such little trials could open the desire for needs.
Conversation. Interaction. To be seen again.
It had been easy to escape and hide, to never age and live the life she had been given, but Ygritte had returned to her former home as greedily as a suckling foal. Something drew her away from the sanctuary of her forest home and she met it's call. She felt the need to belong once again. Kreios lived in the depths of her thoughts but she knew that she must move on to thrive (and that he would have wished it). The low sigh of her held breath escapes when she had not realized she had been holding it. Ygritte allows Sylva to fill her, to creep into the crudely stitched wound of her heat, a rise of hope to fill the void left.
"Do you live here?" The words drip from her lips in a swan's song. She smiles openly now, genuine and kind, her eyes bright with growing curiosity. She is eager, hungry, to know of what she has missed.
12-29-2019, 03:29 PM (This post was last modified: 01-04-2020, 02:26 AM by brigade.)
I was a poor boy; you were a bright light I was a sinner and you were a snake
He wishes he could peel himself away from the swirling shadows of his thoughts.
The darkness of them has only deepened with time—turning opaque with his pain, his confusion, his fear. Death has not done anything to lessen the weight of living and he finds that his spine still curves under the pressure of it, still aches with the sins of his past. He wishes he could cast them off and enter into this second life anew, but he has no such luck, no such skill, and instead he glowers at her, reflecting his bad mood back onto the woman with no rhyme or reason for his temper except his very existence.
For several moments, he is silent, simply watching her with the shadows stretching long across the wide expanse of his winged back, and he realizes how unfair he has been. He has no penchant for conversations such as this one—he has never been one for spinning words and putting others at ease—and he has no real reason for engaging her with conversation today. He has nothing to offer her except for his presence and he knows better than most that others are better off without it than with it.
Still, he doesn’t leave. Instead he just angles his head to regard her with his light eyes, his lips remaining stubbornly still as they press together. He considers her question for a beat too long before he rolls his shoulder, wincing slightly at the muscles not quite used to the movement of the living just yet.
“You could say that,” his voice is rough on the edges, gravel and soot, and he wrinkles his nose a little. “I did before so I imagine that Starsin won’t cast me out immediately.” Although he is certain that she would like to. After all, the pair of them haven’t exactly had the warmest of interactions together.
“Do you?”
shook like some old souls when our bones broke swallowed the sickness, a fever, a flame
Ygritte
