"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
with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts, he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The mountain has left her drifting, a dusted pale moth weaving between rock and rubble, heeding a call from the forest to melt into it’s woody embrace. She is safe here, they whisper their words of endearment and silent cries of rejoice that their mother horse has founding her seedlings, now grown and flourishing.
Beqanna could be burned, broken, left blood soaked in a wake of terror but still the grass creeps between empty eye sockets and crooked teeth to take back what was once wild and green. The soft glow of the cherry blossom dryad hovers and moves as she picks her way soundlessly upon wooden points. The delicate pink of her blossoms shiver and cling to the branches of her mane and tail as a silent protest to the cold cloaked nightfall.
The sun drops behind the naked fingers of the splinter trees, her breath escapes in hollowed, frosted plumes. She is scare, confused. Nikoline does not know why she is resurrected again in dangerous land but it was not for loss. Decaying were leaves waft from between the fracture frost of a late snow and it makes her heady. She is a fragile creature that was ethereal and otherworldly, a foreigner in a land that forged her from nightmare and ecstasy.
The small plumes of her jagged breathes expand and she must find support against an ancient oak, her brow pressed to the deep winkles of it’s dormant bark. Magic crept just beyond the shadows of her doe-like eyes and yet it still eludes her. The lids of her wide eyes feel heavy, heavy, heavy...
A messenger wind suddenly divulges the scent of other equines in the forest. It draws her forefront quickly and she finds her breath clutched in her throat. Was there something familiar about it? The dryad pushes herself from the oak to stand, listening. She seems as if she has frozen in her place as she waits for the bearer of the nameless musk breaks through the small thicket to reveal themself.
It is not often he breaches out from beyond the solid depths of darkness and stone of his cavern; he has become sensitive to light with his days and nights spent down in the bottomless pits of dark and twisting catacombs, thus making it a true feat to push through the deep green of the vines that frame the mouth of the cave and out into air that does not hang heavy with must and rot. But there are some nights when the whispers push him towards the yawning mouth, where others roam, coaxing him away from the comfort of his choking shadows. Nights much like this: where the moon is new and hidden amongst the pitch blackness of sky, where the trees and their long branches weave together to even darken the stars from the mortal’s eye.
Like a shadow of a ghost he fumbles through the forest, blue mottled skin stretched thinly across bone with dark eyes sunken and nearly unseeing. He attempts to pick at the moss and fungi that grow sporadically through the forest floor, in between thick roots that trip him as he meanders. They only allow him enough to sustain himself, never enough to feel truly satisfied.
He is drinking from a murky puddle, slurping loudly while the chittering of his demons fill his ears, their whispers and shadows draping him in a hellish picture only he would see and hear, reminding him that night does not last forever and soon he would be forced to return to his cave. The wind against his dull skin makes the stallion shiver, wondering to himself if he were to just stay here in the forest and to wait until daylight takes him away. They are quick to remind him, as always, that this was not an option.
You’ll never die.
Their dastardly purrs are drowned out by the sound of a very real noise - branches snapping beneath the weight of a stranger, causing the stallion to pull his attention from the shadows only he can see. As his crystal gaze lifts upwards he realizes that he is the one that is moving and it was his hooves that he had heard. He does not know why he is suddenly drawn to a place before him that seems to glow with life and as he persists through the darkness of the thicket, they pull at his skin and champ at his ankles, set on discouraging him from moving forward.
The smell of cherry blossoms fill his dark nostrils, his eyes settling on her with little emotion on his jaunt face. The forest goddess, who knew him before insanity plagues him like it does now, stands before him with the same wide and curious eyes he remembers. She looks the same - beautiful, gentle, peaceful - and he is like a moth drawn to her proverbial flame. He creeps towards her with questioning eyes that come alive in her soft glow, a rattling breath leaving his dark mouth. Kill her. She isn’t safe here, but this time he cannot find the words to warn her.
“Do you remember me?” His voice is grating and rough against the gentleness of night, coming to halt and swaying uneasily before her as he feels the warm breath of one of the demons licking its jaws beside his head.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts,
he thrusts his fists against the posts
and still insists he sees the ghosts.
The moon has slyly cloaked herself in darkness, a cruel trick to play upon the dryad mare as she struggles to pick her way though tangled vines and cracked stones alike. Thankfully she has merged with the flora and it weaves a small path of guidance, the marks of cloven hooved deer are proven passage that she is not the only one to awaken during the witching hour.
Lids fall over her dark eyes as she halts her advancement to draw a frozen breath. A deep draw, her sides expanding, as she filters the layers of the dark night. The taste of salted sweat and fear, black waters engulfing the weak, the meager wails of an early spring born fawn. It is all overwhelming.
From a distance there comes the sound of weighted body and creaking bones. Hooves cracked and flecked are crushing stone and stick alike. Her eyes snap open with a breath captured in her throat...something is just beyond her eyes...
The plants whisper their warnings against the soft glow of her skin. They beg her to turn and flee, to melt into the bark of the cherry blossom tree camouflage, to do anything other than just stand there...
He is masculine, the taste of his scent is musk and hide. The stallion slithers near with a snaking head and unreflective eyes...dead eyes. Nikoline barely hears his words above the rapid beat of her heart. She flutters from one wooden point to the other, teetering briefly like a caged bird.
”I remember all.”
The years leech into her skin, knowledge, fear, memories are flooding her at the male’s nearness. He contours memories of demons and fear. Her skin tingles and electrifies despite her inability to make out more than a shadow in the darkness. The glow of her skin simply outlines a mouth and nostrils. ”The demons...” Niko begins as she attempts to swallow her fear but it swells in her heart. He is different...changed...dangerous.
”Wh-what happened?” The dryad stammers softly, her pink tongue flashing as she trips along the slivered edge of her own words. She knows she will not like the answer she will receive but is powerless to not inquire.
A quagmire of memories threaten to drown her just beyond the ridge of her consciousness, quicksand words slipping between gritted teeth.
His crystalline blue gaze never leaves the deep dark of her own, timidly creeping ever closer to her. Her voice - but a whisper upon the silence that surrounds them, but all the same firm and laden with sad truth - causes him to halt, frozen with a blank stare beneath a hooded brow. I remember all. He snorts, the dampness of their tongues and breath pressing into him at all sides. Her confession causes them to writhe, soft cackling of their laughter humming in his ears - they remember all, too, and they remember her. She mentions their names and they burst forth like the tide, shoving him into a stumble as they rush forward, their gnashing teeth and slick bodies desperate to mar the perfect glow of her skin. Balto watches helplessly, straightening from his tumble forward with a sadness in his eyes.
She, of course, would not feel the way they violate her - it is all in his mind, and though the mantra it’s not real had kept him sane for so many years, its truth has worn off and does little to aid the mess that is his brain. Her voice is frightened, scared, and Balto’s expression softens as he takes a shaky step forward, unable to keep his eyes only on her gaze. The shadows claw and swarm at her and he winces, knowing that wishing them away will only anger them more. “They stayed,” he confesses timidly, dropping his head.
The shadows sizzle with delight, swirling around her like a black mist. Tell her what you’ve done. Their voices are slithering and poisonous, their eyes shifting to gaze at him almost fondly from where they spiral her great branches, and he sighs defeatedly. Tell her she’s next.
She’s next.
“No.” He hisses to them between clenched teeth, his eyes looking past her at only shadows and demons visible and audible to him. They howl with displeasure, the majority of their ghoulish forms coming back to him. He closes his eyes tightly as their familiar touch ravages him, knowing their anger can easily burn through whatever control he had over their demands. “Kill me,” he begs suddenly, “before I do something else. Kill me, please.”
The demons laugh and laugh, howling with excitement in his ears.
