we could run away together // bean

[Clegane]

Violence had shaken him. She had shaken him until the memories had come free, and those which were not ready to fall, despite the shaking, she simply tore from the branches. 

He had shaken for days, trembling with every kiss of the wind to his skin and the night sounds had caused his entrails to churn and fear to seep from his pores.

He had left the meadow. He had run for the river where Solace had taken care of him when he was a boy. She had held him in terrible months after his mother's death, while his face knitted itself back together with thick cords of scar tissue.

He had called out for the blue and gold pegasus at first; he had thought she would simply be right where he had left her. But no one had answered his call, and he had stopped calling before the night fell, as not to wake the shadows. 

But weeks have passed now, and he is beginning you yearn for the golden open space of the meadow again. He is tired of being alone. He is tired of being sad, and there is no Solace to be found in the Riverlands. 

"One more night," he whispers into his shelter of ferns, sinking to his belly as they sway closed above him like a damp, green trap door. "One more night like a mouse, and tomorrow I will be a stallion of the plains again."


@[bean] here take this big sad boy

[bean]

Bean likes the river. 

It is simple. Twisty, but simple. It has moods like she does; calm on some days, and jumping the banks on others. The river is also long and unending, like she hopes her life will be and it has been so far. She is not the tenderfoot she once had been though Bean is still relatively unchanged.

Or is that unmarked by her experiences in the sense that her sense of self is still unshaken? Bean is Bean, as ridiculous as ever, like bathing in the river like a luxurious and furry naiad. Her tail floats on the top of the currents, and her fur grows damp and heavy with each dunk of her head and shoulders. These immersions bring no conversations with fish to the forefront or songs of river-fronds to her waterlogged ears. 

Just a moment of quiet reprieve from the sounds on the shoreline. Sounds that she chooses to otherwise ignore. Bean is not fit for company at the moment, or feels she isn’t. Still brown all over and hairy as an illusive sasquatch (she is certain they are real after all!) and becoming less dirty as the river washes the grime away. She almost looks sleek, like thick-pelted animals do for a moment until they start to dry out and fluff right up. 

Then she’s a puffball of brown in the light. Which suits her, she’s Bean after all. But even the light eventually dies and all she’s left with after filling her belly full of river-grass is the wind in her ears and the stars in her eyes. It’s almost enough to make Bean look lovely. But she doesn’t, as she pushes her way out of the open and into the secretive dark of the nearby trees. 

She putters around beneath the creaking boughs, sometimes humming wordless tunes to herself. Up ahead, the soft green glow of ferns look enticing. As much as the stars overhead and the twisty dark paths that only deer and wolves know that unfurl before her in beckoning ribbons. Bean pauses, one foreleg raised before her in careful thought. That single step is decisive, it always is.

Bean just had no idea then, how decisive it would be or what it would yield at the end.

The ferns it is! If nothing else, she’ll eat them or sleep in them. She hasn’t decided which and might possibly do both. A snack and a nap, all under the midnight sky. Except as she beats the inviting green nest, a smell arises that seems at once familiar to her and her heart begins to thump a little harder in her breast. The pale feather in her hair still sits snug against her neck, forever a reminder.

She pauses, how could she not? 

Surely he’ll have heard her coming because Bean is never quiet or stealthy. 

The breath comes and goes from her in short almost gasping bursts as she struggles to rein it in. Bean has never reacted like this but something about him made her instantly happy, more so than usual - more so than Bean probably has a right to be. She tries to creep a little closer to get a peek at him, as he’s clearly curled up there for the night just like she had thought about doing.

Bean hears whispering but can’t quite make out what is said, which is probably a good thing because she’d have a million and one questions for him otherwise. Instead, having tiptoed over as best as she could and almost but nothing quite nosing the ferns aside to see him, she simply says his name into the air like it was magic and so much more. “Clegane.”

@[Clegane] better late than never! ❤️❤️❤️

[Clegane]

As his words fade, he hears the steps of another, causing his heart to jump into his throat. He holds his breath, inwardly moaning at his bad luck as he squeezes his eyes shut. The stranger comes closer, and closer, sending Clegane's mind is reeling with one hundred different options for escape. Luckily, in his moment of panic, he isn't able to settle on a satisfactory plan, and he remains where he lays as the scent of her reaches him. 

With a little gasp, his eyes snap open as he realizes that this is no stranger - that maybe his bad luck was just the opposite. 

"Bean!" He never thought he would see her here, that she would see him here, like this. But he does not have enough pride to wish she hadn't found him, or to shy away from the smiling face that comes pushing through the ferns. Often he had thought of the meadow, when his stomach was tied up in knots too tight to let him sleep, and she had always been there. Slanting golden sunlight and Jumping Bean; playing their encounter over in his mind had given him a soft-warm kind of comfort that made his dreams easier to find, and sweeter once he found them. 

But for now, sleep is instantly forgotten and he rises awkwardly to press his bumpy muzzle into the soft velvet of her own with a whuff. He doesn't stop to think that maybe she wouldn't want to touch such a nose, not until they have come together. But the thought is gone as quickly as it came because he liked Bean, Bean liked him, and her smile is easy.

"I don't know how you did it," he laughs, the gloom he had been simmering in suddenly feeling far away and unimportant, "but I'm so happy to see you."  Somewhere far away a wolf's howl cuts through the damp and a shiver ripples across his silvery-brown shoulder. But his eyes fondly take in the mist colored feather in her mane, and his jagged smile doesn't falter. "I hope you aren't just passing thought, or if you are... maybe I could go with you?"

[bean]

The yearning to push more of the ferns aside to look at him blossomed inside her, full and beautiful. It felt as heavy as a bruise on the inside of the skin but as weightless as water slipping through her lips. Bean could not explain why she needed to fill her eyes up with the splendid vision of him; she just knew that the need weighed on her like an itch she couldn’t shake. 

She wanted to be reckless like she always is but something about the way he whispered to himself and lay curled up inside the shelter of the ferns made her hesitate. Bean did not like that hesitation, it felt unnatural and foreign to her. Yet she couldn’t just barge in on him like she normally would have done. 

There was almost a warning in the way the wind shook the leaves on the branches overhead, subtle and imagined but somehow there nonetheless to take care in disturbing him. So she did, pausing after having said his name as if she wasn’t quite sure what kind of fairytale she’d stumbled upon in the darkening woods. Would it be a trick of light, shadow, and magic and she’d discover it’s not him at all but a figment of her rampaging imagination?

How cruel! To which she then sucked in and held her breath, afraid to let it go and have the moment shatter like glass right in front of her. Her ears fly forward at the small barely audible gasp, and she realizes that he is indeed as real as she is. Bean would have but herself just to confirm that suspicion but she was spared from having to do so by her name flying from his lips. 

The breath she’d been holding came out in a rush on the wings of a smile that transformed her plain face into something radiant. Before there had still been the smile but it had been soft and uncertain. Now it beamed and broke on her face like a ray of sunshine through storm clouds. All because he said her name in such a way that made her heart leap like a salmon swimming upstream against the current.

His muzzle presses to hers and his scent overwhelms her in a way that is inexplicably good. She inhaled it deeply, certain that she could drown on scent alone and she thinks that might not be such a bad way to go… it never occurs to her to shrink away from his scars; they don’t matter to her or if they do, it is only to the extent that she would always know him by those scars and how his skin felt against hers, bumpy but unforgettable and oh so good!

Had she always longed for a touch like this? Maybe, girlish dreams and hopes aside and here they are, heads bent close together and noses touching for what feels like the span of one agonizingly short heartbeat when all Bean wants it to do is stay forever. “Did what?” she asks, distracted by his easy cheer that matches her own, beat for happy beat. She is clueless to the gloom that held him in a tight horrific grasp only a moment ago. 

Has no idea that she is like aloe on a sunburn, cool and soothing and just what was needed. But his comment keeps her afloat on a tide of emotion that feels a lot like more than a silly crush and she smiles on, not entirely oblivious to the wolf howl and the resultant shiver that ripples through his silver-brown skin. Bean just doesn’t ask about it, despite a pinprick of curiosity that makes her want to - his secrets are his own, for now. 

She feels it has to be something he’ll share in time and she is content with that, the curiosity subdued by his smile and the fond look in his eyes that she drinks in. Bean could look at him for hours on end, admiring the silver-brown and patchwork white of his skin. Even his scars, that she is sure he has stories about. In time though, and she’s not sure where this newfound patience comes from - maybe him?

He makes her less rowdy and wild, which Bean kind of likes. It’s nice to be calm sometimes, instead of a wild harridan chasing after something, since even she is not sure what. Maybe the sun and the moon, maybe she’s an errant star on an earthbound mission, or maybe she’s got way too many fairy tales on the brain. “I’m beyond happy to see you too,” she admits with affection clear in her voice.

Bean lifts her head up to stare at him, surprised but also secretly thrilled that he’d say such a thing. It doesn’t sound ridiculous to her at all. How could it? She wants to echo that very same sentiment to be honest. Every bone in her body is begging to make him come with her into the great unknown, and not just because there is something undefinable in his tone that makes her heart hiccup and suspect he’s seen things that Bean never has and thankfully, might never. 

(Oh! But if she had known of the terrors he’d suffered, she’d have gone to the mountain to beg of the fairies and this land’s magic to make him whole and untroubled again. Or at least give him some measure of peace from all the nightmares that plagued him. Bean though, just doesn’t know.)

“I’d like that. You coming with me or me going with you. We could go anywhere, you know…” she trails off, mulling it over because she hasn’t fully explored all the lands here. Maybe they could find one together. Bean, perpetually smiling, leans into him with her plump pony-sized frame and asks him, “What direction should we point our heads in?” It probably sounded a little dreamy and anticipatory, and in all seriousness, it was. That was just how Bean was, already dreaming of the trails they’d take and the sights they’d see.

@[Clegane] ❤️

[Clegane]

She wants to stay with him! Suddenly the great unknown feels like an experience to be enjoyed, instead of an obstacle to be conquered. The little mare's affection is beautifully clear, her easy to read tone leaving him feeling a warm sort of blooming in his chest.

Her response to his question is equally quick and honest, not giving him enough time to think that maybe he is asking too much. @[bean] is as wild as a summer storm, and he wants nothing more than to see where her winds will take him. 'What direction should we point our heads?' She asks, and the world seems infinite, but not overwhelming. What did it matter where they went, when he intended to see the whole of it? Clegane is about to pick a direction at random when a memory strikes him, and his silver eyes grow a little wider.

"When I was little," he begins quickly, "my grandam would take me to the place where the river ran into the sea, and across the water, we would watch the sunset over the Pampas. Some nights, when the breeze was blowing just right, we could smell all the wildflowers," he says, unable to hid the dreamy look which falls over him. These were the stories he liked to tell. He wished that all his younger years had been built on sunsets and blue corn-flowers, and if it weren't for his face no one would ever know otherwise. " I have always wanted to see them up close."

He has forgotten that he was bedding down for the night, that he was terrified of all the little sounds that seemed so loud when he was alone. There is an energy in his belly now, and heat to his fast-moving blood that makes him want to see how far he can run. "Let's not wait then," he says, never fearing that she will quench the fire that he feels, "Let's go now and trade these ferns and mud for waves of grasses and poppies." His baroque form is suddenly in motion, his wings fluttering in anticipation.

"Have you ever seen a poppy," he asks with a laugh - so ready to be anywhere be here. "I haven't but I know they grow there and I know we shall see so many we will be sick of them."

To be sick of flowers! To be sick of sunshine! It was all he wanted, to gorge himself on laughter and Bean's smile until there was no room left for anything else.

[bean]

Bean is sinking rapidly into lalaland as she continues to lean into him. Her brain has leapt ahead of her hooves and gone gallivanting off without the rest of her body on all the adventures that she anticipates having with him. She can feel the faint hum of excitement building up inside of her and it feels a lot like an itch in need of a good scratching. 

What’s got you all excited?

Bean jerks against Clegane; gosh, how could she have forgotten about the damn goat? It had gone from goatling to grown and become more of a nuisance, but she had escaped it for a little while until now. She looks frantically to the left then the right and spots the little monster moving towards her at a plucky goat-trot and she groans.

How on earth was she going to explain this to the stallion beside her? By now, she’s certain that he has caught sight of the small hairy goat making its way towards them and must be wondering what on earth a goat is doing there, let alone one that is much hairier than Bean is and has a lengthy chin-beard growing. An exasperated snort escapes her as she cranes her head up to Clegane with pleading eyes.

“Now’s the time that I should mention that I’ve got a unique situation… see that ah goat there?” she gestures to Snjor with a flip of her nose as the goat stops right in front of them, eyeing the stallion up and down with what looks like disapproval on his goat-face. “Somehow we’re linked together and I know this sounds strange, but I can hear him in my head!”

You make it sound like that’s a bad thing…

It is, you little brat! 

Bean shows her teeth to the goat who just emits a disgruntled bleat and resumes chewing his cud while staring the little brown mare down. She plants her hooves firmly in front of her (but splayed) as she lowers her head to snort menacingly at the shaggy pest. Remembering that Clegane must be finding all of this strange, she straightens up and flashes him a smile.

“I should introduce him, this is Snowball.” and she has to clamp her mouth shut to keep from laughing as the goat lets out a louder bleat of disgruntlement. She wants to laugh so bad it makes her stomach hurt from holding it all in. But it was the least she could do as far as returning the embarrassment to the goat, not that he cared much anyway. Bean did, but the two bickered like there was no tomorrow!

Damn goat came and ruined the lovely memory that Clegane was recounting to her and she wanted so badly to see a thousand or more sunsets with him and smell the wildflowers that blew across the distance to them. It all sounded so peaceful and magical! It’s like a strange little secret he shares with her, and she forgets all about the goat in that moment, seeing the picture that he painted her with his words. 

“It sounds amazing!” and she’s about to shout more words of encouragement and excitement but the goat stamps his cloven hoof, drawing her attention back to it. She tries to shake the conversation he wants to start out of her head and shoots the goat a disapproving glare that stops his antics short. He’ll come too because well, he can’t not come with them, turning their twosome into an oddball threesome that makes Bean want to send the goat back to wherever it is he came from.

She refrains; too caught up in the way Clegane leaps into motion and she’s starstruck again by how handsome he is. His laughter rings in her ears more than his question does; it’s infectious and she’s laughing too, delighted to see him so animated and thrilled at the prospect of seeing things together. “No I haven’t but it sounds pretty!” Because to Bean, most things are pretty and even poppy was such a pretty word as she said it over and over again in her head.

(What she didn’t say was how pretty he looked just talking about poppies, and poppies be damned as long as he looked this way for the rest of forever!)

She smiled and even spread her cheer to the goat, telling him to come along via that weird mindlink they shared as she pranced up alongside Clegane and added her laughter to his. “Let’s go then!” Bean is eager to frolic with him and see that handsome face smile all the time. She feels as giddy as a foal in springtime at the prospect of this new venture and with someone as cute as him! So much so in fact, that she doesn’t even mind the antagonistic little goat that will surely trail them. 

@[Clegane] now they can go live happily ever after in the pampas with her goat lmfao ❤️❤️❤️