"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
When the sky darkens, paints itself indigo with pockmarks of starlight, and the moon claims the heavens- Jenger feels a serenity come over her. She spends her days in darkness, the lack of Sun does not quell her condition, but the night brings a peace all the same.
Each glittering constellation, dapples her frame, reflects itself in her now deepened coat, mimicking the overhead veil of night as it appears.
If only she could see it-
A waning Moon boldly brightens the girl, a magnificence unburdened by cloud cover, that unrelenting thief of the Sun. They are the same in that way, bandits that cling onto something that they hardly owned, robbing from their partners.
He the Sun and She, this unassuming creation of a God, Him in return.
Neither of them asked for this, yet here they were, circumstance isn’t something you can escape. If it were, would they have the will to carry on?
Ah, maybe the Moon, but she- she is a peculier girl.
“Hello little singers,” a whisper to the insects that raise a harmony in the stillness. Unseen makers of music, delighting her ears with their harmonic chirps and twills, accompanied by the peep of frogs. Bass that takes a rhythm with the tempo of her own heart, matching the steady thump that beats against the cage of her ribs.
04-12-2020, 04:00 PM (This post was last modified: 04-12-2020, 04:02 PM by Arantha.)
Arantha didn’t mind the dark. The cool and calm, the quiet. She was a soft and timid thing, and the hush that as the sun did left her with a sense of peace. Like she could finally release the breath she didn’t know she was holding. She often felt self conscious in the light of day when she wasn’t wearing her second skin. A delicate beauty with long, graceful limbs and too wide eyes.
She wasn’t used to company anymore. She thought she had found someone, but as Beqanna changed and shifted, she was just one of many that had been lost and displaced. The Forest had offered it’s kind shelter to the cervid girl, but tonight she sought sweeter pasture. The lush grasses of the meadow would surely be empty and she could get her fill before venturing back beneath the boughs of the trees that had sheltered her.
The soft blades swished pleasantly against her legs as she wandered into the open expanse of the meadow. A soft sigh of pleasure slips through her lips as she begins to nibble at the grass. It isn’t until she hears a whisper in the darkness that she realizes she isn’t alone.
“Hello” she replies just as softly, “I didn’t realize anyone else was here. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”
04-12-2020, 07:32 PM (This post was last modified: 04-12-2020, 07:33 PM by lilliana.)
Beneath the smothering darkness, below the twilight dance of purple and midnight blue is Lilliana. The chestnut mare has tucked them in for the night beneath a mighty Oak; a noble tree that would have even made Jay admire it for its quiet strength. It’s a noble piece of Beqanna history, whatever testaments it has seen beneath its branches.
The summer wind sighs through them and the evening song has already started by the time she has finished her story - one of her favorites. A story about the Four Winds and why they blow as they do - how they gallop from all four corners of the known world (this one and others, not just Beqanna) and the changes they tend to bring. She presses an adoring kiss to one, lightly brushes against the flaxen-tufted mane of another while explaining that the West always runs warmest. She tells a story of how his brothers chase him and sometimes they race too fast, so fast that the sound of their clattering hooves can be heard from the heavens!
(The world itself can spiral a little out of control from their thundering - the wind can howl, the heavens bellow and the sparks fly as they try to run each other down.)
She barely has time to get to the moral before one copper boy has laid down his head and the other has already closed his blue eyes. Lilliana is left alone with the endless expanse of evening sky and cricketsong for company. She nearly tucks her legs down to join them, to position her body in a way that prevents Yanhua’s mane from shining out into the night like a guiding star.
It would seem the trio aren’t the only ones out in the Meadow tonight.
There is a girl who has been claimed by the cosmos - starshine dazzling on her coat - and Lilliana can’t help herself. The stars (though they might have fallen silent, though it has been so long since she has any word or sign from them) have always been a friend to her. They have names and families and dreams just as the mortals down here do; she wonders, briefly, if the celestial creature wandering out into the open hears them as Orani once did.
It’s enough of a tug at her past - at her heartstrings - that she is willing to step a few paces away from her colts.
"The night is almost too sweet for dreaming,” Lilliana muses softly to the first mare. She’s teasing but there is no hiding the admiration that illuminates her gaze. Another mare - slight and doe-eyed - stands not far away and the Taigan mare dips her crimson head in greeting before asking, "What has you both awake?”
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter (as long as i'm laughing with you)
That emptiness, the unspoken void that lingers in her breast, she feels it creep up on her now- as it has done so many times before.
Her ears, wrought with melodies, do nothing to undo the hole that burrows itself in her soft heart. Ironic that she takes on the expanse of the evening, with an infinite self-doubt that brings furrows to her brow, even as they look on nothing worrisome.
Feeling things, it is overwhelming at best and bewitching when one least expects; especially for a girl that was not born with her Mother’s blight.
“Hello?” head arching and turning to find the speaker, uncertain ears bend, the tensing of her muscles is merely habit at this point.
Each cloudy eye is lightless, unable to see the two before her, but their scents are distinctly female- if not something familiarly woodsy. If she could only see how she is taken in now, the way in which she is perceived, she might blush; turn shades of crimson in her cheeks until it collides with the master of her guise. There is no controlling it, each turn of vibrant skyscape, J is a vessel- nothing more.
“No, you’re not disturbing me,” the first voice is answered, nostrils flaring open, then shut; showing interest in the peculiar smell of that one. It’s something she’s smelled before, though she doesn’t know why (remnants of a deer in the woods), and it causes her to wonder why that might be.
“Many things,” it is but a whisper, faint and far away- much like the tender, unseeing gaze of her eyes.
“I was enjoying the nightsong,” her voice lilts to the second. A correction to her previous lapse, modifying the lost, apprehensive poise of before, and there is a curve that threatens to take her indigo lips.
Silver ears flicked at the sound of a mare significantly closer than she first expected. Even with eyes adjusted to the dark, it took her longer than she would have liked to make out her companion. Shapes and shadows, a reflection of the constellations wheeling above their heads. She took two cautious steps closer intrigued and somewhat comforted. There was a sense of familiarity that soothed her. When she could look up at the stars that guided her and saw them scattered along the ground before her how bad could things be? The sky mare's tone was sad and sweet, the beauty in soft, quiet things. It drew her in and left her buoyed. She felt safe.
That is shattered in an instant. The second voice calling out of the dark is low and kind. Warm and motherly, but also so sudden. Arantha feels herself jump as she's startled. Not that she's normally well composed anyway. There was a reason she stuck to the trees.
Loud noises terrified her, sometimes the crowds of people in more comfortable regions made her skin crawl and tingle. Just the press of politics and everything just a little too fast made her feel to the safety of the trees time and time again. It wasn't that she didn't want to be social. That she enjoyed having no friends or family aside from a flighty mom that couldn't take things seriously. She yearned for ties to anything, anyone, but felt little more than a ghost that disappeared when the lights came on.
She counts to ten and forces herself to stay. The urge to flee, to shift, to run far and fast, faded slowly. Shivering slightly as the cool air hit damp skin she responds.
"I apologize... I didn't see you there." Not that the chestnut was hard to miss now that she looked. She listened to the sound of the first mare's voice as she replied and felt that sense of comfort once more.
"I came seeking greener pasture's." Her voice is soft and hushed, still embarassed from her episode earlier, "It's a nice night." She stumbles over her words, mumbled and awkward. Why, oh why, was she like this?
04-16-2020, 07:46 PM (This post was last modified: 04-16-2020, 07:52 PM by lilliana.)
There is something in the arc of her neck where she stands - where her delicate head is raised - that comes to settle in between her shoulders. Her sons are behind her and though she longs for nothing more to lay down beside them, to forget the day gone and dream for the one yet ahead of them, the sight of these two young mares calls her away from that.
She glances behind her, one more look to assure herself that the two softly glowing colts are still resting.
They are and she breathes easier because of it, the tightening in her chest grapples itself free as it emerges as a dark sigh from her dark mouth.
All the mares here take their own spins and twirls at this dance - their own movements at testing the midnight waters of the shadows intertwining around them. It’s only when the constellation - the fallen star - looks her way does she see the same clouded gaze of Neverwhere, of Tyr. Do the stars guide her as well, she wonders? She has maps and compasses glowing all across her star-hued hide. Surely, they wouldn’t let such a girl amble in the dark.
(But they might, she knows, thinking of another girl marked by the heavens. She had been marked for greatness and they never offered any insight from the heights that she would fall from. They could.)
The other girl makes her think of a doe, of the fleeting and swift graces in which they run. Of the way that life - always watching, always waiting, always on the edge of a heartbeat. Lilliana lowers her head to her and makes no motion to come any closer. So long as her children are soundly resting, there is no need for her to move from where she stands.
"Forgive me,” the copper mare murmurs softly into the creeping night. "It wasn’t my intent to startle you.”
Dark or day, there is barely anything about Lilliana that could startle anyone. It’s the very thing that keeps her out here - in the Meadow. (Peace is what she'd offer them both if she could - but that's such a hard thing for her to do these days when she can barely comfort herself.)
Her attention goes back to the fallen star and there is an upward curve against her dark mouth, hidden by the cover of night. Her voice remains steady, quiet. It’s a tone she takes with both her sons, the same voice that spoke of legends like fierce Ichiro and brave Rahown. Knights and battles and noble kingdoms from days long gone.
It’s a voice that lingers on the hazy boundaries of a dream, soft like the embrace of Taiga’s fog. Curious, she asks: "and what do you hear? What song is the night calling to you both?”
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter (as long as i'm laughing with you)
Each word is faulty, almost quaking as it leaves her midnight lips, teetering on the edge of a voice crack. She did not want to break now, not here in the presence of strangers, and what should be happiness in the moment.
Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go, meeting others, the presence of her own kind that have not once tried to push or send her away?
(she remembers the forcefulness of being dismissed, the coldness of the shove, and winces. Withdrawing inward, tucking her head towards her chest as if to hold herself.)
Jenger was awful at lying, and in truth, she has come to believe over the years that she was awful at most things.
Connecting, first and foremost, and believe me she has tried, God’s how she has tried.
Mother never responded, it’s one of the first things she had learned as a girl.
This time it’s no different, though she somehow bares it, swallowing and tracing a warmth to her face. She didn’t want to be their burden too.
“It is a nice night,” her words bend to agree, sift against the nerves, to wrap around, and comfort the first skittish voice like an embrace. Internally her thoughts turn circles, wondering how’s and why’s and finding no answers in return- she doesn’t have a remedy for it. The starlight against her back is unable to guide her through the motions of friendship, disappearing come morning, easily blending into a bright blue sky or hiding behind a cover of clouds.
“It sounds as if they’re trying to sing the Moon to stay,” the words are wistful, nearing a sigh more than a sentence.
“Sometimes it sounds like they say my name too,” there is almost a laugh there, it sounds silly now that she has said it. “I’m Jenger.”
04-25-2020, 03:54 AM (This post was last modified: 04-25-2020, 03:58 AM by Arantha.)
She listens oh so carefully. Ears strained against the whispers of the wind through the grasses to catch fragments of the night time melodies that Jenger speaks so wistfully of. There is a nostalgia to her, a sadness. Something that makes Arantha want to reach out and touch the stars scattered across her midnight pelt. But she doesn't. The little grey mare was never very good at comforting others. Hell, she wasn't good at anything really. She merely listens and waits, holding onto the name like a lifeline. She didn't have friends among the other equines as it was, so this was as good a place to start as any.
The chestnut mare that had joined them was also kindly and soft spoken. Both qualities that she deeply appreciated. Standing in the presence of these two was a balm to her fragile nerves, and slowly, so slowly, she felt herself relaxing. Accepting the company of others for the first time since her mother had left her alone with only the fairies to watch over her. She reaches her delicate muzzle over to softly huff in the chestnut's direction. She smells faintly of pine trees causing a tilt of the little doe's head. The familiarity of forest scents calming her even further.
"I'm Arantha" she sighs, her voice coming back to her and starting to lilt pleasantly. Musical notes hanging on the ends of her words waiting for someone else to pick up the harmony. She feels like she hears it, the night music that Jenger had spoken of. Drawing them all into the cadence waiting for them to play their parts. If only she knew what that was.
05-02-2020, 11:30 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2020, 11:34 AM by lilliana.)
you got a cold hard truth i got a bottle of whiskey but i got no proof
It’s a nice night, the starwearer says.
Lilliana considers this; it’s hard for her to find a summer night that isn’t pleasant. As long as the storms don’t thunder, so long as her dreams remain empty, the nights during the warmer months are easy. Life takes on a tone of leisure and it’s easy to lull a horse into a sense of contentment when bellies are full with lush field grass and the days end to nights like this one.
Where the only thing to consider is the cricket song and the company that a mare might keep after sunset.
"If only they could,” the chestnut mare says and there is something mournful in the way that she speaks it, like she is already grieving the absence of the moon. She doesn’t dread the dawn - the opposite - but there is something about the moon that enchants and she has felt it magnetic pull so many times from her lonely beach in Taiga.
It calls more than just to the tides and it makes her smile a little to think that maybe somebody else hears it too.
"I’m Lilliana,” she finally offers, though she doesn’t hear her name in the evening music. She hears whispers and echoes of things gone with daylight - the grass as it dances in silver moonlight, leaves rustling tenderly in a sweet summer breeze. The loudest silence of all? Her stars.
The grey mare huffs in her direction and Lilliana turns her slender head to look at the girl, her ears pricking kindly and a soft smile starting to glow across her face. "Arantha,” she says, finding her name sweet, graceful even. "And Jenger,” she turns her attention to the fallen star, "are you both of Beqanna?”
Or somewhere else? she doesn’t ask. Maybe a lost piece of sky, she thinks looking at Jenger. Maybe a quiet, peaceful place in a spring forest, she thinks looking at Arantha.
