"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
Castile can try to keep her from Ghaul, but it’s never going to stop her, the angel-dragon has decided. As much as she loves her home and the family that has taken her in, things have changed and other things have broken in the recent months that probably won’t ever go back to the way things were. Take Sochi, for example - no one has missed her abrupt departure from Loess, or the awkwardness that followed. Clarissa is the least judgmental of anyone around, but she wonders what Castile had done to her - and she has to admit, though she didn’t know the tigress, she misses her presence around the kingdom.
She doesn’t want to leave Loess and her family, but Ghaul has made it clear that he has no plans to leave Pangea - and Castile has made it well known that the draconic boy is not welcome to cross Loessian borders any longer. So a decision has been made, and though it hurts the innocent girl’s heart to turn her back on her home, she knows that she must leave it permanently sooner or later. Sometimes, sooner is easier than later - and if Castile knows of her plans, he may try to keep her there.
The young dragoness doesn’t stop until she is barreling dangerously close to the Pangea border, and only then does she stop, folding her feathered wings tightly to her sides as she lands. Anxiously her talons dig into Pangean earth and she shivers nervously as she waits for Ghaul - or anyone - to appear. “I’m home,” she whispers to herself as she takes in the kingdom before her, her molten gold eyes bright with unshed tears. She is scared, but she is so ready for this next adventure, especially at the side of Ghaul.
Hopefully a white-and-gold dragon standing at the border doesn’t attract too much attention, but perhaps she will.
01-31-2020, 12:53 PM (This post was last modified: 01-31-2020, 02:36 PM by ghaul.)
GHAUL
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
He had only intended to take the baby as a birthday gift for Clarissa, a little child for her to practice mothering. The black and gold creature had followed him and done his best to fight off the chimera. It was a noble effort! But reading Ghaul’s thoughts gave him no insight to his next moves as the boy moves purely on instinct. When Malone dived in for a kick, it had been so easy to meet him with waiting talons that dragged him to the ground. His wing snapped as easily as Jenova’s but this one he decided to leave attached.
Ghaul remembers what it felt like to crush his face into the spring mud with one awful set of claws as the boy struggled. “Follow,” he had commanded, and then he herded them off to the canyons of Pangea. Malone obeyed with one drooping wing hanging limp over his side but he isn’t sure where the child has gone off to.
When he sees Clarissa waiting for him at the border, he grins eagerly and skitters forward to meet her, draping his leathery wings over her in a soft embrace. His captive hesitates but follows after him, one eye swollen shut and terribly bruised beneath the brilliant gold of his handsome face. Ghaul croons softly and kisses at the curve of his twin flame’s jaw before gesturing to the silent shadow behind him.
“I took captives from Nerine, and two from Loess,” he explains excitedly. “You can eat his wings if you want. The other Loessian is a fresh baby for us to practice.”
Malone’s uninjured eye narrows and he takes a step back as realization begins to dawn on him – talons, torn wings, and a hunger for torment. He grows dizzy and his captor takes note of the way he begins to sway. Ghaul snorts and assumes he is weak from his battery and the journey. “Go find a corner to lick your wounds. I’ll find you, where ever you go,” he warns, his tone frigid until he turns back to his darling wife. “The little baby is so small and fragile. I like him.”
@[clarissa] @[Alcinder] this post is weird i'm sorry lol
02-03-2020, 09:09 PM (This post was last modified: 02-03-2020, 09:09 PM by Alcinder.)
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
Mama had said never to leave their hidden sanctum to the northern part of Loess without her because it was unsafe, so naturally the young boy waited until she and the visiting Ischians (his new friends!) were asleep before heading for the sandstone pathway out of their den. He had walked as gently as he could to keep the clack of his small hooves against the hard-packed earth from awakening his mother; and, foolishly at the time, he had been excited for the small canyon to peel away and reveal the small foothills of the rest of his home ─ and above them, the wide and untamed sky. He watched the stars with his silver eyes for a time, reveling in his first experience with true silence and solitude.
But he had not been alone for long ─
And the creature, one plucked straight from nightmares Alcinder had not yet dreamt, herded him from the familiar comfort of Loess. The young boy had glanced over his winged shoulders countless times, hoping to see his Mama racing after them, but the only movement he had seen was something he blamed on his imagination. And after seeing the talon-footed stallion deal violently with the other young boy who traveled with them ─ the handsome black and gold one ─ the tobiano newborn had not felt very much like fighting back.
Trailing behind as far and for as long as possible, the son of Oceane and Castile shivers coldly in the dark of the night. His confusion and fear ebb just slightly, however, as the glowing gold of a scaled creature appears in the distance.
What is this place?
The stallion with horns for eyes wraps himself around the gilded reptile and Alcinder shivers at the impossibility of the creations before him; he holds his opalescent blue wings tight to his lanky, gangly body and when the eyeless beast mentions him (though not by name), he finally speaks up, albeit tentatively ─
"Bring me home. I want to go home."
A L C I N D E R @[clarissa], @[ghaul], @[Cormorant] " "
i have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings
02-05-2020, 06:02 PM (This post was last modified: 02-05-2020, 06:03 PM by Cormorant.)
It had been a long day, all walking and talking, meeting mama's friends and getting to know them. Al was a fun playmate, who didn't seem to mind that the orca colt was built a little differently. They had admired each other's unique limbs, splashed in the little pool of snow-cold water in the canyon they'd been brought to, and made a general ruckus of themselves until the sun had gone down.
Cormorant had nestled against the warm wall of his brother's flank drifted easily off to sleep against the familiar warmth. It easier to fall asleep than to stay asleep in this new place, however. Shrilly nightbird calls broke the night's stillness. The rustle of small rodents in the stoney crevices tickled his ears, disturbing his light sleep. Weak moonlight had filtered into the protected canyon and illuminated everything in a soft, misty glow. The sea colt blinked drowsily at the scene, confused for a moment as to where he was. Then he remembered. Loess. Mama's friend's home.
His sleepiness faded as he recalled the days events. The moon was high, he was in a new place, with a new friend. There was adventure to be had! With extreme care, he rose to his feet, looking for the dark outline of Alcinder. His ears flicked uncertainly as he realized he wasn't finding the shape he was looking for. "Huh..." He breathed, stepping cautiously away from Halcyon's side. Maybe he'd stepped out for a minute?
Glancing back at the softly snoring forms of their families, the blue and gold boy moved out of the secluded alcove. His tail flipped up and down as his eyes adjusted to the night, scanning the unfamiliar landscape for signs of the winged colt. "Al? Alcinder!" He called, voice hardly more than a whisper. He didn't want to wake up miss Oceane and get Al in trouble for no reason.
Far off to the horizon, he spied a steadily moving shape that could just be a young horse. Maybe two? If last look back at the dark canyon entrance, and he was off in quiet pursuit. If Al thought he was being sneaky, well, Cormorant could be just as sneaky. Sneakier, even.
The fun of the idea was short lived. The more he walked, the further away the shadowy figures appeared, getting harder to track as the landscape changed around them. His smooth head developed a scowl as the game turned more into a chore. Where on earth did Al think he was going? It was one thing to go and muddle around by the boy's home. This long walk was much different. It was going to be morning by the time he caught up.
He wasn't far off in thinking that. The horizon glowed eerily by the time his quarry slowed enough to be caught up with. The rocky landscape of Loess had morphed as they'd traveled, now crackly underfoot with dust clinging to his naked skin. He could make out Al's unmistakable coloring now, and the trio of taller horses who surrounded him. They seemed to have stopped, which spurred the young boy on. His tired limbs stretched out the last distance until he popped around the scrubby hills with a smug, if tired, look.
"Your mom is going to be soooo mad when she wakes up, Al!" He piped, looking at the assembled group dubiously as he approached. The creepy horn-eyed stallion kept most of his attention, but it was the pretty shiny lady he smiled at. There was a third, but he was sulking somewhat separate from the others. "Why's your eyes like that? Is he ok?" He asked the scaly man, nose wrinkled in blend of curiosity and distaste. "You're pretty. Why are you crying? Do his eyes scare you?" His focus shifted to the winged lady with the lightning speed of one with a very short attention span.
Dreamscar is always on the edges. Nobody puts him there anymore, it is simply where he stays, accustomed to the solitude except for the quiet murmuring of his dam, speaking nonsense to the sandstone walls around them. Her voice blends into the whisper and moan of the wind that forever twists between the canyon caves. Sometimes Dreamscar wonders if the indecipherable voices on the wind are words that have been stolen from wagging mouths, or if they are just a trick. Sometimes they sit in his ear and he knows he should understand them, but he can't. Sometimes they curl over his shoulder and make him wheel about with a snarl to find nothingness, or his dam, sleeping off the high of the strange plants she has just eaten, ignoring their acrid flavor.
Sometimes, the voices are real and true, ones he recognizes. One of them, anyway.
Ghaul's gravelly proclamations are familiar and ludicrous, but he feels a curiousity for the meaning behind them today. Captives? From his lounged position Dreamscar can see little so he eases to his feet, shaking red dust from his pelt and stepping around the bend that brings him closer to the border where a small crowd is gathering.
Fear.
He growls softly, taloned feet pressing into the hard-baked sand, making it crack. One dragon shines, the other is grisly and unkempt, bloodied. The blood no doubt belongs to the loudly color young stallion leaning broken nearby, but it is the youngest that grabs his attention. His voice is tremulous, but there is bravado in it as he pushes back against Ghaul and the shining dragon mare. The mimic's ears turn back against it, then forward, and he wonders...
He has never tried it this way before, and his brow furrows with the effort of navigation, head cocked, birdlike, he hums a trill. His magic reaches out for the colt and perhaps it makes him dizzy for a moment, if he notices it at all, a warm rush like falling headlong into feathers, a gentle burn in his belly, or perhaps it feels a different way entirely. Love them. he wraps the other end of his magic round Clarissa and Ghaul, attempting to tether it there, to connect the colt to them as he has done with his mother to himself.
This is your family. This is your home.
He cannot tell if it will work, or if it does, if it will only be temporary, if it requires him to stand there, holding the Love in place. As he is finishing, a second colt charges in, finned and bold and strange. He threatens to undo what has just been created. A sudden boldness overtakes the young stallion, unwilling to see his experiment snapped apart so quickly, and he strides forward with his strange bobbing gait, pressing himself into the fray. This colt shifts from topic to topic and the beaked beast takes the advantage of the distraction he causes. One taloned foreclaw reaches out to grasp the colt firmly- it is designed for reaching, for grasping, in a different way from Ghaul's own - the claws curl and grip without breaking the strange finned boy's skin.
"This one. Noisy." His flat amber eyes glitter hard as stone, staring into the curled horn where eyes should be on Ghaul's towering head. "Mine."
It is as though he has sensed her arrival, how quickly Ghaul arrives at her side. A smaller stallion, beaten bloody and broken, follows along slowly behind him, and Clarissa watches him curiously as the pair approaches. She leans into Ghaul’s warmth as he drapes his wings over her back, a satisfied sigh escaping her lips. Even in her dragon form he is bigger than her, and though many may think him cruel, she feels only pure joy as he wraps himself around her and presses kiss to her jaw.
When he indicates the gold-and-starshine stallion that follows him, she turns her full attention to Malone, her golden eyes curious. She had never met this particular Loessian, but she knows that the kingdom is vast - he probably doesn’t know her any better than she knows him. “Oh, Ghaul,” she murmurs as he suggests Clarissa eat the captive’s wings, her heart going out to the poor man before them. He is beaten and broken, one of his wings dragging the ground, and for an instant Clarissa nearly bathes him in healing fires - Ghaul understands her pure heart, she knows, but it might upset him if she were to heal his prize. Instead she tears her eyes from Malone, gazing around to look for the child Ghaul has stolen her.
“Oh, Ghaul,” she repeats, but excitement colors her voice, and her eyes brighten as they fall on the blue and white boy who was trailing even further behind than Malone had been. “He’s perfect,” she whispers to Ghaul as the child settles in before them, demanding to go home. With an angelic giggle she sheds her dragon form, settling back into her normal blue-and-gold horse form. “Sweetheart, this is your home now,” she tells him as she approaches, reaching out to touch him gently. “You see, you even look like me. I think you’ll find I’ll be a wonderful mother to you, love.”
Before she can say anymore, another colt emerges from the brush, chastising the colt he dubs Al. He is bubbly and talkative, and Clarissa hesitates before speaking to him, realizing that her eyes are indeed still damp with unshed tears. Perhaps because it is so much all at once - she is overwhelmed. Blinking swiftly to will them away, she gives the boy a sweet smile. “Because I am so happy,” she tells him, and it is only partially a lie. “My beloved has moved mountains for me to be happy, and I am so incredibly happy because of it. But… perhaps you should go, young one.” She doesn’t mean it to be mean, but this boy is not the one that Ghaul had stolen away for them; his parents might raise even more of a fuss if they were to discover him missing as well.
Clarissa doesn’t want that.
Before he can respond though, another appears, this one as different from them as Ghaul to another horse - he has a strange beak, and talons that wrap around the second child. Eyes wide as he claims the boy as his own, Clarissa steps forward in a show of bravery she doesn’t really feel, nudging Ghaul away as she does; he can tend to his captive, she will handle this.
“You will not harm him,” she tells this stranger, eyes hard.
