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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    I'll be the guard dog of all your favorite dreams // Catcher
    #1
    He'd promised Eyas that she would find him rested and ready in the morning, and so the milk and cream stallion made an effort to bed down not far from where they'd agreed to meet come dawn. A pair of fat rabbits, rounded out with a sedate cropping of bunching grasses and he was ready to settle in for the night. 

    Like a dog, the winged stallion trampled a circle in the thick bracken ferns before lying down. Through the lacy intertwining branches overhead, he watched the sky shift from dusky blue to fiery pinks and oranges, and at last settle into a star flecked night. The steady chirp of crickets and a lonesome owl's cry lulled his racing mind with their night song, soothed the anxiety that had been building since he'd found the pegasus mare on her island hideaway. 

    Sleep claimed him. And he dreamed...

    He dreamed of water, crystal and clear. It washed his hooves, drew curving lines in the golden sand with its ever changing brush. Tana smiled. Boyhood happiness illuminated his features, for he knew this place well. It was Ischia, where he and his brother had spent the bulk of their childhoods chasing parrots and racing on the sea strand. He could feel warm sun on his wings, and taste salt on his tongue. Happier days. If only he'd known it then. 

    He turned to move along the shore, and found the sand shifting and wobbling beneath his feet. The unstable surface threw him to his knees, made his wings flare out in a losing battle for balance. Every time he he tried to rise, he could get no more than a step or two further without the beach squirming beneath him and dropping him back down. 

    Snorting in annoyance, the pale stallion tried to fly. His wings wouldn't cooperate. Instead they hung leaden by his sides, refusing to lift high enough to beat the air. He tried to shift, and found no answering fire in his mind to call on. A parrot, red and green and blue, flew in a careless circle above him, cackling all the while before landing just out of reach of his nose. 

    "Did you think it would be that easy?" It taunted in Eyas' voice. He snarled at it in frustration. 

    "It will be! Just let me get my feet under me," he asked, somehow knowing it was her fault he couldn't stand. Her fault the earth kept tilting out from beneath him. If he could do that, then things would keep going, and he could set things right. It made sense to his dream-self. If only he could stand. 

    @[Catcher]
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    #2

    Of darkest nights and starry skies - she dreams.

    She dreams of all things pleasant and good; of glittering glass waters, and thick emerald meadows; of brilliant, dancing fireflies and the willow fronds that glow with their ethereal light.  She dreams of the faces and people she loves, and her contentment in knowing that they are out there somewhere, sleeping and beautifully lost in the same world that she willingly gives herself to time and time again.

    But there was one in particular that she hadn’t the pleasure of finding succumbed to the dreamscape, and the weaver selfishly sets her mind to reach for them.  And like a pearly, beaming string, the tether is illuminated against the blooming grass.  Pausing suddenly in hesitation, the painted maiden considers the best way to get there and with a wispy twist of her lips, a mischievous smile blooms.

    Instead of the scrubby gray unicorn, a crimson amphithere dragon stretched her leathery wings, catching the shimmer of the moon against her silver dusted scales.  Her body - long and muscular like her serpentine heritage - coiled beneath her weight, and with a powerful heave, became airborne.

    It doesn’t take long to find him, standing amidst the sands of Ischia’s shore.  But she hesitates when she recognizes the pale jeweled silhouette, hovering over the crystalline sea and trying to grasp what exactly it was that she was bearing witness to, watching as his body was battered and tossed by the aggravation of warped sands.

    A swooping flash of red draws her attention, and her chest tightens at the sound of the dream raptor’s voice.  
    What was that about?  But his quip in response to the chastising cuts through the sudden foggy murk in her head, and her attention refocuses onto the trouble stallion beneath her.

    The dream walker flies to him, stopping to settle near him without touching the crumbling earth below the drake’s hooves.  This was his dream, and she felt less compelled to alter it than she would her own; there was often meaning behind such tumult, and he would have to find the power to try to change it himself.  

    With her help, of course.

    “Fly Tana,” she says into his mind, her strange, slitted eyes begging him to return her gaze, “You don’t need wings here.  You have control.”
     
    CATCHER
    caught in the afterglow


    @[Santana]
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    #3
    His body twitched, kicked out at nothing. 

    His mind spun, fighting a battle seemingly against elements out of his control. Really though, he was only fighting himself. He was always fighting himself. The only difference was that this time he had an audience. 

    His jaw ached with the tension he was holding in it, every attempt to rise thwarted before it had really begun. He panted in the sand. The red bird sat preening before him, seeming to have forgotten he existed at all. Then something else came into view, red as the parrot, but many times larger. It was a serpentine shape, vivid and taking over much of the treacherous beach. 

    Words came, directly into his mind, and again he recognized their speaker's voice. Eyes wide, the pale stallion glared down at the sandy terrain, teeth bared. The parrot-that-was-Eyas whistled shrilly in his ears. It was overwhelming, inexplicable, and he felt his heart pound rapidly to keep up. With a gasp, the dragon winged stallion shut his eyes. Breathed as deeply as he could and opened them again. 

    The scene changed. 

    Where the facsimile of Ischia had been, now a deep forest stretched. Trees, ancient things with gnarled roots and reaching crowns, cast dark shadows all around. This was a far older forest than the one he'd fallen asleep in. The only light was where they stood. A brief clearing, with the sun's light filtering on their backs. Tana breathed again. The weight was gone from his wings, and he could feel the coil of magic in his belly once more. 

    "Catcher," he said, lips parting in a somewhat weary smile. "Imagine seeing you here." Butterflies black and blue tumbled by, and he watched them with vague interest as they split apart and four smaller copies spun away. He shook his head, bemused. Seeing his old friend again was far more interesting anyway. 

    @[Catcher]
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