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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


    [open]  Gourd of the Rings [any]
    #1
    He makes his way down the mountain carefully, the Fairy's words running through his mind again and again on an endless loop. I will take away your gourd shifting, she had said. Just like that, a flick of an ear, a wing, a tail, the twitch of her ethereal nose, she was gone and... well, and he presumed the shifting, too, was gone. He did not want to think that she might have been lying, that she had played a trick on him.

    I will take away your gourd shifting.What was left? A normal life stretches ahead of the green boy, one free of that panic, that fear, the suspicion that creased his brow and made him purse his lips, that made him shrink away from others the way his sire does. The sun shines brightly on Florian, picking his way down the mountain and finding footing again in the lush meadow. Warmth and relief loosen muscles he did not know were held tight and his head lowers slightly on a relaxed neck, the sunset pink and orange curls of his hock length tail waving loose. The yearling snorts and shakes, throwing tension from his body and then, with a tentative grin on his dark lips and laughter in his claret-red eyes, he bounds deeper into the grassy field, bucking and filling the early autumn air with joyful squealing.

    I will take away your gourd shifting.

    For the first time ever, he is free to revel in heightened emotion without fear and happiness swells his chest near to bursting.

    Florian
    This is the table equivalent of pajamas
    Reply
    #2
    Aodhán

    The meadow, and any common land really, still attracts the Ischian shifter, even if it is colder on the mainland. He’d easily change himself into something with longer fur - suddenly remembering the strange encounter with a bear shifter, he wonders if he’ll ever meet her again - but he chooses to only manipulate his natural fur into a wintery coat. Perhaps his hair is a little too long now, but he could care little about his looks - always able to change it.

    It is in fact the look of another, a young stallion, that makes the mostly-white stallion perk his ears. The young man seems jubilant in his ways, walking around with almost a spring in his step, and the green-eyed baroque lifts his head and perks his ears, watching the oddly colored colt buck and rear through the meadow. Curious, but with a grin on his face, the white spotted male follows him a while, then calls to him to catch his attention. ”Hi there! What got you so happy today? Or should I say who?”

    from the ashes a fire shall be woken


    @[Florian]
    Reply
    #3
    At first, the voice settles on him and all the old fears rise like bile in his throat, but then he remembers, and Florian turns to the stallion with shining eyes. Freedom makes him over-bold and he follows the turn of his head, redirects his steps to come closer to the shaggy white stallion with an effervescent smile. Small ears press forward, wine-colored eyes searching the stranger's face eagerly.

    "Fairies!" he replies to the other's question. Freedom from an affliction, he might continue, but the thought threatens to pop the bubble of happiness in his chest, a memory of darkness and forgetting that he would, quite fittingly, prefer to forget. The boy has already resolved to never speak of the trouble again - except to find his father and tell him what he has learned. Freedom can be attained upon the Mountain. It does not occur to him that the stallion before him might ask what task he has been set to, or what he had been tasked with gain his boon, because, of course, he has no frame of reference. The Fairies have been generous to him, he does not stop to think that to others they may not be. Instead, he tilts his green head to one side, the short locks of his young mane flopping childishly from one side to the other.

    "Have you ever met a Fairy?"

    Florian
    words are hard


    @[Aodhan]
    Reply
    #4
    Aodhán

    The fairies - he hasn't met those in a while. Fae were more fickle than fire, he was told, and dangerous in their ideas of games and challenges of mortal souls. He had, of course, ignored all that talk. For a boy roughly the striped colt's age, no, younger even - they were every bit the attraction they made themselves to be.

    Aodhán had never gone up to the mountain for a quest for himself; his questions would not be easily answered, and besides, did he still have any at this point? Maybe just the one everyone always has. Why?

    Why bother at all with the mortals below, were they just bored, he would wonder - and then he would stop wondering, because the world was made of pretty things, and he wasn't one to hold grudges. Why they had needed his sister for to make a cure against such a plague, he wasn't sure - nor why the Cure did more than just heal a sickness. He also remembered getting caught by a sand monster - or just quicksand, he realized in retrospect. It was a game of give and take. "So, you finished your quest?" he asks the brindled colt curiously - it's not like Aodhán really is bothered if the young male before him hadn't - sometimes things just happened. Laconic, he tilts his head at the younger man and smiles when he answers the question. "I have. Prettiest blue in the whole world if I ever saw one." But he would never see her again, he knew - the Resort was just what it was, right now, and it needed no fairy to watch out for it.

    And so, he shrugs. No matter the outcome, it was all well and good. "I'm Aodhán, by the way."

    from the ashes a fire shall be woken


    @[Florian]
    Reply
    #5

    Florian's mood could best be described as incandescent and he barely pauses to ask the stallion about the Fairies. He nods eagerly in agreement when Aodhan says his Fairy had been pretty - indeed she was lovely. She had not been blue, though, but small and white with a mane and tail of braided wisteria blossoms in miniature. A different one, perhaps - is it madder to assume that there is more than one, or that there is not and that Beqanna is ruled by one entity that takes hundreds of forms? The question threatens to dim his brightness with a new curiosity, so he pushes it away for now, and grins again at the stallion before him, flashing white teeth with a childish laugh, his young voice still pitched high.

    "I wasn't given a quest," and this does give him pause, his head tipping slightly left as he considers it because he knows that this is not usually the way, "I went to ask for a way to protect myself, and instead she took away my reason for needing protection."

    This statement makes him feel very brave, despite the way his youth is written across his body, and he arches his neck, shifting his weight forward to puff out his chest. A family curse wiped away, something that lurked in his blood, his father's blood, plucked out, is it any wonder he is so happy? Perhaps he should be more cautious, perhaps he should be suspicious, certainly, others might mistrust the generosity of a creature known to be tricky and fickle, but the colt is a creature of good faith

    "My dad's lived with our curse for years," the boy dances in place, dropping the proud stance of just moments before, "I can't wait to tell him that the Fairies can just fix it. Easy as blinking!" He stops his jigging to peer up at Aodhan with one ear turned back curiously, " I did think it would be harder than that, but she was so nice."

    And then the boy shrugs it away, "@[Aodhan]. My name is Florian. Why did you go to the Mountain? Did you have a curse, too?"

    Oh. My. Gourd.
    Image by Tekke-Draws

    Reply
    #6
    Aodhán

    He tilts his head, as the colt's answer surprises him. Nevertheless, he smiles. "That's very brave of you." To go up and have a trait taken away - not many have dared, fearing the consequences of being a traitless horse. Aodhán himself never was one, though he remembers only being able to 'glow away' some snow and ice flakes - a trait he technically doesn't need nowadays, but still, he associates it with his being himself.

    Along with his other mutation, that is - not that he ever complained about that side effect of the Cure; it had been far too much fun to be able to change. The boy, however, during his own mesmerizing continues to talk, and the thoughtful spotted baroque quickly snaps to attention. His father? "It's not always easy for everyone, to give something up that's been with you for years." he tries to interject, certain that perhaps Florian might overrun his father with questions and get upset when the answer might be negative. He wouldn't give up a part of himself either, he thinks; even if it might be an inconvenient part. "It makes him, him, doesn't it?"

    "Oh, I came once when there was a call for volunteers. You see, back then, there was this horrible, sort of magic-sickness spreading. Fairies needed us to collect seashells from the safe haven - Island Resort was where I went. See, I still have the marking," he points to his blue shell on his left side, easy to see if you know to look past the golden spots (though, not many do). He omits the part where others of his family did the same, the part where his sister almost died - it's not necessary. "Quests can be dangerous, though." he shakes his head. His story is short and simple, where in reality, nothing about it was - especially when adding a sickness of the mind and body to the story. Damn, he'd almost drowned; it seemed to him to be one of the reasons he never visited that island again.

    from the ashes a fire shall be woken


    @[Florian]
    Reply
    #7

    Florian draws himself upright, pleased to be called brave. He is brave, he thinks. He can be brave now, without the risk of becoming a gourd and breaking apart under hard hooves and heavy bodies - or eaten of all the awful possibilities. His chest puffs out slightly, and his grin grows brighter, only to dull a bit when Aodhan remarks on his father.

    "My father is very brave too." he answers, a hint of sharpness creeping into his boyish voice. Is Aodhan suggesting that he isn't? The colt isn't sure and his brow wrinkles slightly, head cocking to one side, as he rolls the thought through his mind like a pebble. Does the uncontrollable shifting make Malkin who he is? Did it make Florian who he was? It forced them to face the world a certain way, tentatively, suspiciously. It made them misanthropic. Florian without the curse is better than Florian with it, nervous and hiding away among the autumnal leaves of Sylva.

    No, Aodhan is wrong.

    "You don't--" Aodhan doesn't understand - how could he? - but Florian doesn't have an opportunity to explain, the stallion is already discussing his own time questing on the Mountain. It didn't stay there, he weaves a story of sickness and a cure made of seashells, and for all the indignation that flared in his breast, Florian is still a boy drawn to adventure - now that he can be - and his ears flick forward again, claret eyes shining bright when he leans over to see the marking hidden beneath Aodhan's spots.

    The shape is mesmerizing to a boy that has only known the soft curves of the forest.

    "Island Resort." The words don't feel dangerous on his tongue when he tries them out and he looks back quizzically, first at the Mountain and then to the baroque stallion, "Dangerous?"

    Nobody had told him the Mountain could be dangerous. Nobody had told him quests could be dangerous. He had been respectful of course because that's only proper, but suddenly the clouds that hide the Mountain's sharp peak seem full of hidden hazards where before he had only seen the shimmer of the bright sun glinting off them. He wouldn't have gone if someone had told him it was dangerous and resolves not to tell his father, either.

    Malkin is very brave, but there's no reason to burden him unnecessarily. The trip up would take so much longer if the stallion had to make it as a rabbit.

    "How did seashells from Island Resort cure the sickness? Do they cure other things?"

    Maybe they could avoid the Mountain altogether. Aodhan healed the land with seashells, perhaps Florian can heal his father, too.

    Oh. My. Gourd.
    Image by Tekke-Draws



    @[Aodhan]
    Reply
    #8
    Aodhán

    He does, of course, see the boy flare up under his suggestion, but he chooses to ignore it - he will either find out later, or maybe if he's the sort, mull over it before he talks to his father. It's not Aodhán's place to truly correct him, and besides, on the topic of fairies and quests, he can only chime in with what he knows. Of the trait - or curse - that Florian talks about, Aodhán knows very little; the boy hasn't even told him what it was.

    He does question how the Resort is dangerous, and Aodhán nods. "Not the Resort itself, but the way towards it. I almost drowned, having gotten snatched up by the treacherous sandbanks on the way - quicksand I think, but it felt almost like a real sand monster at the time." Of course, the young yearling had had too much of an imagination, he believes - or hopes so, anyway. "The Island Resort, Icicle Isle, Silver Cove, and Brilliant Pampas were all newly made lands after the sickness was created, safe havens if you will. So we were sent to gather an ingredient of each to make the Cure. My sister helped with that too, I think - she gave me a sample, and now I can be anything I want - or don't want. I've spent a good year as a half-sentient rock." He grins there, thinking of the time Pteron and Izora Lethia woke him up in Taiga - not the best of times, since some political struggle was just starting at the time, so he hadn't stayed to watch it all play out. Instead, he shrugs a little about it, dismissing the idea. It's not important - not then, and most certainly no longer now.

    from the ashes a fire shall be woken


    @[Florian]
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