"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
City looks weary lately – like her age is catching up to her finally. Her quest to keep her youth, to rebirth, has been a long one. It has lasted two years at least; partly because she hates to end her reclusion and partly because she’s not found anyone with worth anything worth listening to. She gave birth to Padme up on the Mountain, on her journey for youth, and she would have died from it if she hadn’t been healed upon their arrival. She’s a gambler, apparently, and she won’t live to gamble another childbirth if she doesn’t do something quick.
The Meadow is always promising for company and conversation. She’s met many a fool here, but she’s also met many interesting individuals among the crowds here. Beqanna is a very diverse mixture of minds and magic, nothing should surprise anyone who’s lived here their whole life.
Her yellow eyes scan the landscape under the evening’s golden light, waiting for someone who might come along, perhaps the universe will deliver her with the conversation she’s looking for. She seeks information on what it is like to be immortal, to watch everything expire except you and others like you, and even more so, what it is like to be reborn anew like the phoenix.
rushed and filled with all I found more, give me more, give me more
04-23-2020, 05:57 PM (This post was last modified: 04-23-2020, 05:57 PM by Sabra.)
Sabra
Eyes hooded, I meander my way across the land to where the mountains of Loess tower into the clear sky. Beautiful, picturesque, and yet I know darker things that lurk within. Still, I will go there. I will, just not today. Not when I can graze and bleed quietly into the grass without observation or comment.
And yet, one is never alone long here. Not unless one tries very hard, and I find I do not have that kind of stamina these days. Harsh whispers in my ears, it is better to occasionally speak with those I can see than to let them overrun my every thought and waking moment. Like a blood moon rising over the moors, I see another break into the lush meadow, her steps graceful for all they seem a touch stiff. My own gait is unpracticed yet. Hesitant around the shaft of wood that goes before me like a blood stained bowsprit.
I do my best to hold my head high, however. To look as though every step is chosen for its elegance and not it's safety. Carefully placid. Completely at odds with the fact that I really shouldn't be able to move at all. "What's a pretty face like you doing in a place like this?" They're flippant words, designed to catch attention. Still, I banner my tail flirtatiously, head tilted as I approach the rust shouldered mare.
I wanna be Immortal, like a God in the sky
I wanna be a silk flower, like I'm never gonna die
City watches her come forward with perked ears, one eye covered by her long blond hair as she brings her head up to observe a little better. Out of all the bodies that are shifting in and out this evening, this one stands out. She's not sure why, but there is something about her that makes the old mare watch.
The mare's voice breaks the quiet and City flicks her long tail in response at first, looking the woman over with a hard curiousness - like a scientist might examine a cadaver. She smirks briefly, letting an amused scoff slip by. The woman must be speaking in sarcasms. A stiff old woman, blood smeared under her eyes, bones rolling in detail beneathed a scar-pocked coat. She tilts her face to expose one of her sulfur eyes, “I'm tempted to ask you the very same.” She doesn't offer a smile, but this is where she should, as she's not quite repulsed like she normally is by someone's approach.
The universe has delivered, it looks like. But did it? Is this woman blessed (or cursed) with eternal life? The gray mare doesn't pry just yet, but watches her, squinting at her details - was the woman hurt? She did not appear old, but something seemed a little off, certainly. City could push those thoughts as projection, and she waits for comfirmation with a little more observation.
in the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
04-30-2020, 02:23 PM (This post was last modified: 04-30-2020, 02:23 PM by Sabra.)
Sabra
I smirk beneath the weight of her dissector's gaze, returning it with one of my own. Eyes like shards of ice glittering in the sun trace her from maw to tail, taking in the stained and sunfaded hide that stretches over a body with more bone than meat to it. A mirror of my own worn out frame.
I am lucky though. My scars fade into flickering webs of lightning in my skin. They glimmer along the bites and stabs, the rakes and claws that have accumulated over the years, turning once bloody wounds into a map of electric silver-blue that runs like cracks in my opaline hair. Beauty from pain. But beautiful or not, they are scars still, and like the woman before me, there are far too many of them.
Two thin echoes of the grand women we might once have been, in other lives. Might still be, if I play my cards right. My wings rustle by my sides as she returns my jibe, notably not answering in the process. My head tips to one side, like a bird trying to determine if the thing she's come across is worth eating or not. It's a mirror of the way she's looking at me. My weight shifts, and with it sways the rod I'm pierced with.
"Sabra," I say, answering the question she hasn't asked. My lips part in a glittering smile, one that carries no warmth. It is as hard and as beautiful as the crystals I resemble, cold and clean. "And you are? Or are you merely some shabby ghost haunting me now." She could be, for all her aged looks. The leftover imprint of a mare long gone, another layer to the creeping voices in my head. That would not surprise me in the least.
I wanna be Immortal, like a God in the sky
I wanna be a silk flower, like I'm never gonna die
05-04-2020, 09:30 AM (This post was last modified: 05-04-2020, 09:32 AM by City.)
City does not spend much time looking her form over, her vision betrays her more and more lately anyway, but she can feel the mare’s stare on her bony body. It doesn’t bother her to know she’s being studied, as she did the same to the woman when she first approached (even though she can’t see much detail at all). She takes no insult and bends an ear to the woman’s name.
Sabra, lovely name. The gray mare digests it quietly.
“City.” she offers back in a timely fashion, quirking her mouse-gray lips at the mare’s question. “Even with a name, it is possible that I am just that.” she huffs, a smile tempting to crack across her muzzle. “..this is old, creaking, uncomfortable body I mean to shed like a snake does her skin.” she starts, breathing and talking slow, “The fae on the Mountain, they say I have to hear about the woes of immortality first.” she snorts, chuffing at the notion that it is not painful to be mortal, “Would you know anything about eternal life, Sabra?” her yellow eyes find the mare’s face when she asks this question, hardened, with stone focus.
I nod thoughtfully at her introduction, delicate mouth bowed faintly. City. A simple name, a sharp name, and I find I like the sound of it. Even if the owner is less than lovely, the vestiges remain. She says she will shed her skin, and I am suddenly met with just that image. An elderly serpent with rheumy eyes and brittle bones, breaking the surface of herself to reveal tender young flesh beneath.
It's an absurd thought, shoved back and away. Her next words are far more intriguing.
My smile is a humorless thing, like a crack in a frozen lake. "Pesky fairies," I murmured, distasteful. I've had far enough of fairies for a lifetime. For several lifetimes. But it seems I'm not the target of their sick play today. So I blew out an exasperated breath, and realized this elder mare really must be blind.
"You could say that." I paused a long moment, wings heavy by my sides. "You might not ask that if you could see the spear in my chest. My heart has been pierced twice, my throat ripped out once. And yet here I stand, breathing and talking. A bit unfortunate, really." I grimaced. Death has been denied to me more than once, granted several times only to be taken back. Dreadfully unfair.
Is that the sort of thing she needs to know? That even when you beg for the end. When you are absolutely certain that you have nothing worth living for, no purpose, no joy, you must go on. When your mind is fragmented beyond repair and there is nothing but pity and dismissal in the eyes of those who meet you. You must go on. Broken, physically and mentally, alone and forgotten. And still living. Still surviving. Whether you want to or not.
I blink at her, seeing the worn out body and envying the rest that it's capable of. That if her heart gets impaled, the wound would be mortal, and she would not have to live with the pain that should have been fatal long after it happens. She doesn't know what she's asking.
