"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
As she snaps back to reality, as she comes to her senses, she can feel the other world on the very tip of her tongue. She feels the way it had felt to lead the pack—to know what it meant to carve a new path for herself within the confines of this world. Similarly, she feels the loss so deeply. The loss of her children (although they are already scattered to the wind), the isolation, and the divide of herself from the tiger.
It is why the first thing that she does is shift, finding herself sighing with relief.
She turns her heavy head toward the magician and there is no victory in her gaze—nothing that speaks of the fact that the other mare had witnessed such personal truths of her. “Unclear,” she finally says with a twitch of her feline lip, a flash of white teeth. “I will let you know as soon as I decide.”
And then, when the other mare disappears, Sochi turns and does the same. She ignores those around her, especially the dragon because it still hurts too much to look at him. Instead, she slips into the shadows and immediately begins to search for the trails of a scent—something to dull the grinding ache in her stomach.
When she has found, and fed, she rests.
When she awakes, it is dawn. The light streaks pink across the sky and there is still the chill of winter that has yet to bend to the beginning of spring. She shakes the dust from her feline coat and feels something roil within her that she has not felt for months—something more than the pregnancy swelling her belly more and more every day. It is ambition and a steely resolve and she fully intends to capitalize on it.
She makes her way, for the first time in her life, to the field.
It is barren, and she is not surprised. She herself has never sought to find a home here and she doesn’t truly know if she is seeking that now. A purpose perhaps—or a deal. She doesn’t know exactly, but she knows that she has something worth bargaining with, and she intends to make the most of it.
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
Sochi is seeking a home / a deal with her shiny new magical entity.
a dragon who couldn't be hurt on the outside could have so many ragged holes inside
Dammit, he’s gonna need help with this.
The stallion enters the field with icy spikes still clinging to his tail, and only after a few - three, four - good shakes of his body he finally gets rid of them. He’d tried so hard to shift partially, so that he was still somewhat in control of his body, and still now and then he failed. That didn’t mean that something as highly emotional as another dragon rampaging his home could happen again - he’d already been in that dragon shape when he met Sab - so he was still a bit on edge about the whole ability.
But he was taking advantage of the fact that he was mostly-horse today, to come to the field. He was gonna need help with that, too, he figures - but if he wants help he’s gonna have to get at least the help itself, himself.
He scrapes his scaly head across his legs to get rid of an itch, then starts to wander around. It doesn’t take long for him to discover the feline-predator scent of the tigress, though it does take him a moment to place her. She’d always played on the background, though not because she needed to. She just preferred the shadows, he thinks. ”Sochi, was it?” he asks just to be sure when he nears the mare-in-tiger-form. The scent of Loess still clings to her like a desperate child trying to keep its mother from visiting a friend, as if crying and begging would hold back a woman like her.
She had not been sent away halfway, like the little Taigan girl. She has been among those with dreams that Straia approved of - in fact, she’d picked her as favourite. But she had left Loess.
The Field, then. ”I found myself here not too long ago, willing to try anything that was different.” the roan looks at the striped cat before him before bowing his head to the grass. Best take advantage of a meal in this form while he can. After a while though, he looks back up. His eyes have one, bold question. Did he guess correctly?
@[Sochi]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
The field is a strange place, a place to advertise yourself and your search for a home, but the dappled mare never sought a home, instead she always trusted her feet to carry her forward. They had brought her to Nerine and there they stopped, for a time. The kingdom sits heavy on her shoulders, but mostly it is the expectation that she must do something, there are so many threats that gather at every corner and it is her home that they all want to peck at and destroy. Even some of her friends are eager to pull chunks from Nerine, she imagines. Suspicion, not paranoia - her skepticism has saved her enough that she trusts the misgivings that linger in her breast. These are the thoughts that divert her as she drifts through the oft-empty Field and finds it occupied instead.
"Looking for something different, but you ended up right back where you were, Old Man." She approaches the pair with her usual brashness, eyeing the familiar face of Leilan, back in his horse shape but reeking still of dragon. He took the Isle while Jesper was trapped in Loess and unable to protest, an underhanded move, really, and perhaps she should return the blasted Isle to Brennen's grandson on his return. Perhaps. Will Jesper want to take it back, burnt and melted and stinking of sulfur as it is? It is not the winter wonderland that he left, thanks to Castile. She turns away from Leilan, leaving one bear cub ear to follow him, and her cloudy gaze falls on the tigress whose breath still smells of blood and meat from her hunt. It's as good a sign as any that she is not an immediate danger from the creature, but cats are always hard to predict, even ones that are really horses. One thing is easy enough, nobody comes to the Field unless they are seeking something. Neverwhere has no taste for discussing niceties, the weather or the way her stripes blend so nicely into the sun-dappled grass, she will not dance around the question.
"My name is Neverwhere," Her head tilts to the side, she had only just heard the shifter's name on Leilan's lips as she drew near but even he seemed uncertain. She does not use it, instead she wonders why Sochi is even here. She does not appear to be someone accustomed to asking for help or home and the dissonance piques her curiousity. "What are you looking for?"
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
He watches as Neverwhere leaves her roost in Nerine and curiosity sinks its teeth into him. He has an insatiable itch for trouble that sends him slinking along after her, occasionally clicking or chittering to himself as little twigs are crushed beneath his talons. The field is entirely new to him and he is delighted by the bouquet of new scents that filter through his nostrils – though some are more familiar than he realizes. Ghaul lifts his chin and sniffs at the air as he tries to place it, eagerly kneading the spring mud with his claws before skittering forward.
Small ears perk forward at the mention of her name and a crooked grin overwhelms his face. Sochi. His black tongue traces the scars across his lips as he bridges the gap between them, ignoring the other two for a moment. Ghaul lowers his horned head and croons softly in greeting as he bumps his nose to her cheek. They had each been busy and he had failed to check up on his “friend” for some time. A flutter of delight fills him now to happen upon her once more.
“Sochi. I miss your claws in my face,” he rasps with a chuckle. His thin tail flicks excitedly as he turns to the other two, as if only now remembering their presence. The grin remains across his face as he considers Neverwhere for a moment before drawing closer to her. The hellbeast leans in, attempting to lip at the stub of one ear in something like a friendly gesture. “Following you is fun. I will continue to do this long after you free me.”
He laughs, and the sound is dry and coarse. But then he turns to Leilan and his joy seems to fade. The outline, the scent of scales – he snorts in disgust.
“Putrid,” he snarls before his attentions circle back to Sochi.
She is not surprised when she is soon greeted after she comes to the field, although perhaps she is the slightest bit surprised for it to be a draconic stallion. Of course it was. Her lips peel back slightly in distaste, not quite settled from the dreams that had pit her against the giant lizards, but she does nothing other than bare her fangs for a moment. Instead she gives him a steely glance, not quite answering his question of her name but not outright dismissing it either. Instead she just watches him cooly.
When a mare joins them, she turns her feline gaze, studying her unabashedly. It was not often that you saw someone so clearly their own, and she finds that she likes the brazen look of the mare. Someone who cared little for pleasantries, who did not parade around. She had the look of someone serious—and Sochi found she could appreciate that. She gives her a tiny nod before her attention is dragged elsewhere.
Ghaul.
The feral boy is draconic, which would be enough to turn her stomach, but she knows him well enough that she is willing to look past it for now. Was her life always to be plagued by dragons? He comes up to her like their last meeting had been the warmest of moments—and not the blood-soaked fight it had been—but she finds his strangeness comforting. She pushes her head against his nose for a moment and shifts as he turns to regard the other two. He finishes talking as she shakes her mane over both sides of her neck.
“I wouldn’t mind a home,” she says with a familiar rasp, her lips curving into a hint of a smile, although it does not quite meet her eyes. “Although, I find that I may have more to offer you than you me.” A rolled shoulder, nearly cavalier in nature. “It’s not often that you have a magical entity to bargain with.”
Her silvery eyes flash as she watches them.
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
@[Leilan], you're up next!
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine
We got older and I should have known that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
Of course, someone as interesting as the tiger woman who previously was a dragon king’s consort, does not attract the attention of just himself. Of all people, it’s Neverwhere who approaches them first, with a mutated dragonling in her wake. Eyeless, too. That’s funny knowing her history, and he snorts a little, amused.
”So nice of you to give away the clue before the story ends, Mildew. Oh, and there’s something on your nose - oh, never mind. My bad.” he shakes his head before she gets time to react, turning to Sochi. ”Leilan, Icicle Isle - or what’s left of it thanks to your... ex?” He shrugs a little. It doesn’t really matter to him if she left him or not, just something she might want to know before choosing to get involved or get away from it.
It may be a good thing that Ghaul interrupts them, though he only does so by calling Neverwhere ‘interesting to follow’ and to Leilan he simply says ‘putrid’. To that, the older stallion grins a bit. Talk about an opening. ”Nice to meet you, Putrid.” Though, to be frank he doesn’t know what about himself is so off-putting to another dragonling. He’s just a horse with scales today, after all. No more dragonlike than the horn-eyed male himself. Horny-eyed? Oh, he’ll save that one for later if need be.
Sochi seems to have enough of it, the same mood that caused Leilan to take over the Isle. She is direct, putting her cards on the table, waiting for them to bid. This brings a smile to the ice-scaled male’s face. ”You know what I have. I bet you know what the others have, too. I’d rather want to know what you want.” As a person. Not what she wants for her new land, or for her magical semi-deity. He’s got the feeling that she may have neglected what she really wants, when she lived in Loess. Not because she didn’t like it there, but because not many had heard of her as a person - other than ‘consort of the dragon’.
That’s something he’d like to see change.
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
@[Neverwhere] your turn!
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
04-10-2020, 11:41 PM (This post was last modified: 04-10-2020, 11:42 PM by Neverwhere.)
Hey all you cool cats and kittens,
"I don't know if I can give you a home, belonging is a complicated thing," There is a strange twist in her breast at the thought of it, of her own insistent roots, "But there's no lack of space in Nerine, and nobody who will care too much about what you do with your time, either, if you prefer to be left alone."
Neverwhere says nothing to say she even notices when Ghaul draws up from behind her, no twitch of lips or ears or eyes as he presses into the tigress with a familiar greeting - after all neither his occasional chatter nor the heft of him could be considered conducive to sneaking and so his appearance comes as no surprise. It does not trouble her much to be followed by him, for all his draconic monstrosity, though when he tries to lip her ear she aims a nip at his chest, teeth glancing harmlessly off the golden scales.
"I don't care where you go," she hisses at him, "but touch my ears again and I will let Brazen and Eurwen crush you like they wanted to do in the first place."
It's an empty threat, both because her only real control over either of them is some nebulous title that she does little to reinforce, and also because it's as likely to make him do it again as the opposite, but her face tightens into a threatening sneer and she shakes her head, turning cloudy eyes away from her giant scaled stalker to the simply large scaled stallion that has taken over her Northern territory. At him she merely blinks slow and languid as a cat, unbothered by his antics. He does love to talk, though, and Neverwhere settles back slightly, lips pressed into a firm line, while he identifies Sochi as Castile's former consort. She wonders, idly, whether their separation came before or after the destruction of the Isle, but she suppresses the thought, letting Leilan lead the questioning.
A home, she had said, and a magic entity. Neverwhere shrugs to herself and considers not touching on the subject. It always comes back to magic. Beqanna poisons them all. It twists them, like Ghaul, it transforms them, like Sochi and Leilan, shifting back and forth and phasing through their various shapes. Magic gives them the ability to control, to see, to heal, and even she has proven not to be immune to the grip of it, though the multitudes within her are well hidden from others for the time being, though she still finds it breed misgivings in the darkest parts of her soul. She breathes deeply through ruined nostrils.
"Is this entity looking for something so simple as a home, too?"
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
Ghaul is entirely pleased when Sochi offers a brief headbump in response to his affections. He even gives a soft croon, followed by a placid purr as he settles in beside her. The scaled prince does not care for recruiting or persuasions but he listens to her all the same. Anaxarete has taught him to be courteous to those who do not enrage him. A home, she says, and he tilts his horned head curiously. Her bargaining chip is simply words to him, something he does not understand. He clicks quietly to himself in thought.
His talons tap across the dirt as Neverwhere tries to command him. The monster only grins as he imagines her armies trying once more to restrain him. “They are too slow, too weak. I will do as I please,” he rasps with a short laugh before turning to observe Leilan.
He tilts his head as the pretender speaks, and he sighs boredly. This one thinks he is clever. Ghaul finds himself annoyed by the tone he takes with Sochi and the hellbeast turns briefly to assess her body language. Does she want him to rip Leilan’s jaw from his skull as a gift to her? A grin finds his lips and he chuckles at the thought. “Sochi will take what she wants. She just needs the right foundations,” he observes, the stars across his cheeks gleaming awfully. Maybe he projects too much of himself onto his friend, though.
He leans closer to Sochi once more and sniffs at her curiously. There is something different on her skin, something he does not recognize. Of course, he has no young of his own and his own birth was entirely unlike most others, so how could he? Ghaul makes no mention of this foreign scent, however. He simply kneads the dirt with his claws as he continues to observe.
It is amazing to her, just how quickly she sours on the interaction.
Her mood turns from neutral to dark in an instant, her silver eyes hardening with each passing moment as she watches them interact. Why did she think that she ever cared about this kind of politics? Why did she think for a second that she would want to be in this situation, this position? Her mouth twists into something that does little to hide her bad temper, her shortening patience a fuse recently lit.
They ask her questions, tell her things, and she barely hears them.
All she hears is the roar in her head—that wild need to break free of tradition.
After several silent moments, she turns her attention to Ghaul. She levels her gaze on the strange draconic stallion, the only one who seems to understand the predator in her, and she nods.
“I need a place where I can start a new life,” she says. “A place where I will be given the freedom to do that—even if it means gathering my own group of people.” A pack, she thinks, remembering the dream that she had. Remembering the slow burn of moving toward a future where she got to make the rules.
“I’ll come to the Cove with you if you can promise me that.”
She has a feeling that he will agree, that he will give her the space she needs to start her new life (however slow and purposeful she may be in building it), but if he doesn’t, she will find another way.
she said a war ain't a war before both sides bleed
04-25-2020, 07:06 AM (This post was last modified: 04-25-2020, 07:08 AM by Leilan.)
We got older and I should have known that I’d feel colder when I walk alone
He should have guessed - Ghaul is looking more interesting than the actual horses to the tigress. Every word is going over her head, or perhaps under if her head's in the clouds - and when he doesn't get an answer directly, but she directly speaks to Ghaul about building a new place, the ice dragon loses interest. Fast. Disinterested in the glares that he gets, he scrapes his hooves into the earth and is not quite surprised to find a taloned foot dragging an odd line where his right hoof once stood. He's hungry, moody, and growing impatient.
A new life was literally all he could offer right now, but she turns to the familiar places and familiar faces to get it, instead. "Fire dragon to fire dragon - I can hardly agree that it's an actually new thing for you, but it's your choice." He doesn't say it to change her mind. Just to let her know his boredom and disappointment.
He yawns, then with a snap of his previously-hidden pointy teeth, turns his head to Ghaul to address the barely-adult stoically. "We're opposites. Stay that way." And the hell away from him or his home, too - hopefully the half-dragon understands, but one can never be certain what another hears in his words. At any rate, he's growing more and more impatient - they might understand, he thinks, but that doesn't mean he agrees with either of them, not even with Neverwhere.
Now both claws dig into the earth where hooves stood before, the changes not fully under control yet, and still he holds himself together enough to keep his composure - if only for the few seconds it takes him to turn and leave the group. It's possible that no-one really notices his little changes. It happens - a lot, really. They all seem to think he isn't capable of ripping their throats out in a heartbeat. Think they are faster and better - especially the young one.
But he keeps the ruse - most of it. He doesn't show all of his cards, even if he doesn't know exactly why. His scales harden silently underneath their icy top layer, but he walks away without another word. Only when he's far away enough that they don't really pay attention any more, he lets his wings out, and speeds towards the south-west. The river, after all, usually holds a good catch.
Leilan
no. 7 | ice forged in fire
Not patient enough to stick around for the whole day/probably hangry. @[Neverwhere]
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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![[Image: sochi.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/rs3xFJR0/sochi.png)
