"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
07-30-2020, 09:46 PM (This post was last modified: 07-30-2020, 09:47 PM by Tarian.)
Tarian - raised to always keep his wits (and wings) about him - used both to find out about Loess. It didn't take the pale pegasus long to hear the murmurs of the other travelers, of other horses who kept company in the Common Lands in this place called Beqanna to mention a kingdom that rolled towards the sea. A land that leaned towards peace, that was full of the worldly and diplomatic. Tarian - a once heir - had been raised with court etiquette and manners (even if he practiced them little these days) and so the gray stallion had taken to the skies towards the South.
A soldier can only go so long without a cause and Tarian - named and raised as a Shield - had no desire to remain without one.
What he observes from above is something that he can glean for himself. He doesn't need the wandering gossip of land-dwellers to reach him up here. His blue eyes watch as the land - ancient, imperial canyons and carved sandstone formations capturing his attention - changes below him. Having left the Meadow in the early morning, the sun has reached its highest point and is already moving towards the West by the time that Tarian reaches the center of Loess.
He maneuvers around in one large (obvious) circle before making a small, tighter one and spiraling down. It feels like a bold gesture and Tarian inwardly chides to himself that this was the kind of reckless stunt his audacious twin, Liam, would approve of. That in his desire to observe, he might be perceived as someone who disregarded rules and laws of the land. The pale stallion lands on a flat surface of red sandstone with the walls of this particular canyon rising to meet his bright (and somewhat curious) gaze with red dust dispersing around him. Protocol demanded that he wait at the kingdom borders to be greeted by a member to lead him to what he is already thirsty for; the scent of clean water wafts on the wind that he has just soared in on and leaves the back of his throat dry.
The silver stallion has always had a hard time taking orders but he can (and had). Lifting his head and folding his now dust-covered wings close to his gray sides, he gusts a loud snort while he waits. He kicks a stone and it rings throughout the ravine, echoing his arrival to any passerby.
Though there is ever an undercurrent of unease in the dun pegasus, Lepis’ is at her most peaceful on these blazing summer afternoons.
The kingdom seems to glow like an ember, warm and red and scorching. The ridges in the distance shimmer as if by magic, and every lungful of air is dry and tastes of dust. She is headed toward a small freshwater spring that she is certain is just around the next right bend in the canyon. The search for water hoards nearly all of her attention, and she might not have noticed the creature soaring overhead at all had it not been for the second circle he makes. When his shadow passes just ahead of her – large and dark and drawing near – she freezes instinctively.
Her eyes roll, but it is hard to make out much of the shape against the high-hanging sun, and there is nothing on the breeze but the scent of feathers.
That eliminates many of the safer possibilities for “creatures flying over Loess”, and Lepis takes a long breath. The peace she has sunk into her rocky homeland these last two years is thick beneath her, and it is a small thing to pull a little bit of it nearer. Those nearby might feel it too (infusing the southern realm with her nearly tangible magic has required that she drop pretenses and admit to her powers and so she less precise with her emotions than she had once been). She does not mind.
Discomfort over death, she’d argue if asked. Better safe than sorry.
And Lepis is grateful for that as she draws near to the stallion, having abandoned the water without a moment of hesitation. He is grey, as Tipper had been, and Lepis’ navy-striped brow furrows. The first eye she is near enough to see is blue, and she moves closer still, almost near enough to be impolite, to be sure that the other is not green. Like the glowing stallion she had encountered so recently, this pegasus might be dangerous, but he is not the kind of dangerous that she is fearful of.
“Did no one teach you manners?” She demands, still with a scowl at odds with the shimmer of peace around her. “Or is it normal where you’re from to just drop down into the middle of someone else’s home?” He does not smell of any place she knows, but Lepis knows her geographical knowledge is limited. For all her training as a diplomat, she has traveled little after all.
Lepis should probably step back to a safer distance, but she is acutely aware that there are no other Loessions around from some distance. That is why she likes this particular part of Loess, but it shifts the odds against the physically unimposing mare. She is aware of the reason she’d appointed a Champion as she looks up at the much taller stallion, but she holds her ground with the same scowl, clouds of suspicion brewing in her stormy blue-grey eyes.
08-07-2020, 11:58 AM (This post was last modified: 08-07-2020, 12:04 PM by Tarian.)
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.
Tarian hasn’t made up his mind what he thinks of Loess yet. (And that is, perhaps, for the better because once it’s made, there nothing more iron-clad than his judgment.) Stubbornly (and probably infuriating to his free-spirited twin) stone-walled solid, Liam had once said about the pale pegasus.
A horse would have a better time arguing with a pile of rocks than convincing Tarian to change his mind (or so Liam implied).
The stone that he had cast barely settles before somebody approaches him. His reaction to her is unusual - Tarian is usually guarded. Instead of the calculation that the dun pegasus might have otherwise received, the gray stallion only sighs. He assumes that it has to do more with his thirst and the journey here. That, maybe, both of those things took more out of him than he was prepared to admit.
His silver ears flick forward and to the side as he shifts his weight. The mare smells like water which immediately piques his curiosity. Tarian lifts his head as she comes closer because he has apparently piqued hers. The way her silver-grey eyes peer into his - like she is searching for something - brings the steel back into his stance.
"Apparently not,” the taller pegasus says with dry (much like his throat) humor to the scowling mare. "Perhaps they are keeping company with your smile?”
It touches on his pride that she comments on his lack of manners. He even thinks about clipping more words with her. However, as his blue eyes take in her smaller nature and notice the storm clouds in her eyes, he decides against it. Aggravating the residents of that reside in this rolling hills will do nothing for him, even less for the plucky little mare if he's permitted to stay. He flicks his tail and inhales deeply instead, "This is Loess, isn’t it? Do you know where I might find her Leader?”
“Didn’t want to risk dazzling you with it,” Lepis quips apace, though nothing about her stern scowl softens in the slightest. There had been a brief moment, just after he’d sighed, that had signaled weariness. She was suddenly quite glad to know where the water was, and for the fact that the afternoon sun overhead is not hidden by clouds of a summer storm. Her blue-lashed eyes narrow for another long moment, and then she shakes her muzzle and moves back a half-stride.
He is not especially easy to read, but he is amusing. Lepis has grown nearly bored in the last year(the second spent waiting for an attack that she has done what she can to prevent), and she is unwilling to let go of something that promises humor. Even if that something is a strange man appearing in the middle of her seventh favorite canyon.
“This is Loess, yes,” she concedes from the slightly greater distance between them. From here, she looks over the dusty stranger indifferently. Gray, and quite tall. He lacks Tipper’s yellow mane, she can see now, and the feathered wings along his shoulders are not quite so pale as light on fresh snow.
For a brief moment, it seems that might be all that the dark haired mare means to say. But then Lepis looks back at him from where her gaze has drifted to the distant peaks. Though her brow remains marked, her scowl has faded, and the steel blue eyes she sets on him now are only half so suspicious as before. A gust of warm wind brings with it the crisp scent of water that Lepis had been following prior to his descent. His throat is as dry as hers, if the sound of his voice is any sign, and Lepis is thirsty.
“My name is Lepis,” she tells him, “Queen of Loess.” It is not a title she will ever tire of saying or hearing, and it is one she will never relinquish while alive. “What do you need to find one of the Queens for?” She pauses for just a moment, and then turns to head toward the spring.
“I’m going to get a drink now.” She tells him with a flick of her navy tail. “If you wish to come along, tell me something of yourself.”
08-08-2020, 12:21 PM (This post was last modified: 08-08-2020, 02:03 PM by Tarian.)
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.
"Well,” Tarian starts as he stares down to the face of the grimacing dun, "now I’ve been warned.”
He might have even bantered more if she hadn’t been staring so intently up at him. Her silver-eyes narrow for a moment, revealing cobwebbing that peeks from underneath her ombre forelock. His eyes (a vibrant, proud shade of Legacy blue) linger there before coming to rest on the sea-storm gaze that she sweeps him up in.
Whatever she is looking for, she clearly doesn’t find it and dismisses it with a shake of her golden head. And that’s fine with Tarian. He has never considered himself a ‘lost’ thing; he is not someone who needs to be found. He just needs water, rest, and perhaps the chance to align himself with a kingdom again.
(And a bath. Tarian has always found satisfaction in keeping his silver coat clean. The dust has started to cling to the edges of his pale feathers and work its way into his hide - making some parts a rather unfortunate shade of orange.)
Tarian follows their conversation, somewhat unsure of this Loessian guard. Unsure of many things until he tells her one thing that he can sure of, her name: Lepis. Not guard but Queen, she corrects him. Of all the brilliant things.. Tarian thinks. Crashland in a kingdom and then gibe their Monarch.
This is why you have always stuck with the warring, he chides himself.
"Tarian,” the taller stallion states, pushing the thought away.
"Queens?” he finds himself asking, curious. That bit of gossip hadn't been mentioned in the Common Lands. "Is your kingdom weighted with so many burdens that it needs to be held up by multiple shoulders?” (Perhaps it would have been best not to have said anything about it at all but that has never been his way.) Reminding himself that @[Lepis] has asked a question first, the pegasus shows his respect by answering, "I was told that there was a colony of pegasi in Loess and I came to find out for myself if it was true. What better way to learn about a kingdom than from its leader?”
There is grace when she finally moves towards the spring and Tarian can feel the desire for water well up in his soul. He follows her quickly and answers her second question even quicker, without realizing that might it not have been the something that she had intended. Tarian answers her, instead, in his own efficient way. "I am the son of Malachi, who was the son of Valerio, who is the son of Ichiro. And so my blood blows back to the time of Legado.”
The silver stallion glances back down to her, "And what about yourself?"
At his mention of a warning, Lepis archly raises a single brow. She does so to avoid smiling, but does not make this otherwise known, instead giving only a nod of her muzzle as though satisfied that he has taken the warning for what it was. Perhaps if he had come to Loess in a less intrusive way she might have reacted differently, but as it is remaining on guard seems a better option. Or at least a safer one.
He is not Wolfbane, but that alone does not make him trustworthy.
At least Mesec had Malone to vouch for him, she thinks of her most recent encounter with a non-resident; Tarian has nothing to commend himself but the rude manner of his arrival and the fact that he had almost made Lepis laugh when she did not want to.
Before she can decide whether the last is a mark for or against him, the grey pegasus asks about the burdens of the kingdom and the necessity of two queens. That he makes the leap to hardship from the mention of a ruling plurality is telling, Lepis is sure, though she does not yet have enough pieces of the puzzle to determine exactly what it might tell.
“Oceane rules the Southern Empire,” she tells him, gesturing west and then south, toward the territories of the red Sylvan forest and the plains of the Brilliant Pampas. “I have charge of Loess.” That he has heard of pegasi in Loess is unexpectedly satisfying. Lepis has always thought this land, above all other she has seen or heard of – is best suited for the winged. Peaks and ridges that are insurmountable by foot are well within the grasp of the pegasi who call this place home, and she supposes in that at the very least: Tarian might find a comfortable home here.
What better way to learn about a kingdom than from its leader, he asks, and while on some level she accepts this as common sense, she also takes it for flattery following the revelation of her position. It is hard to shake suspicion, after all, and she answers a question that she suspects had been rhetorical.
“Perhaps from someone who has known it since birth,” is her reply, though following his recitation of names she does not know she adds: “Fortunately for you, perhaps, I am both.” Though years of her life have been spent beyond the edge of the red kingdom, Lepis had been born in this hilly place (not far from this canyon, in truth, on a little ridge in the heart of Loess) and she has accepted that this is where she will die.
What about yourself, he asks after he shares his lineage, and though it is not her intention to make light of how well he knows his own roots, her answers is not entirely similar.
“I’ve heard my father is a water monster, like his father before him. He left my mother and Loess for the sea, which I have never found especially appealing.” She prefers her water fresh, after all, and bound by an edge that she can see. There is no edge to the ocean, after all, and its endlessness discomforts her. She thinks of that as they move ever closer to the spring, and when at last they come upon it, she does not stop until she is knee deep in the water and has begun to drink her fill.
08-12-2020, 09:12 PM (This post was last modified: 08-12-2020, 09:12 PM by Tarian.)
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength
which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.
Tarian takes the moment - the one where Lepis has placed him under grey-eyed scrutiny - to let the realization that she is Queen of Loess sink in. It’s not that she isn’t regal or noble; it isn’t that there isn’t anything in the way she stands that suggests otherwise. The grey pegasus has a met a monarch or two in his travels - different kingdoms with their own kinds of leaders and with them, their own approaches.
@[Lepis] certainly has her own and it leaves an impression with the pale stallion. A good one. He isn’t so usually at ease with strangers or informal with rulers and yet here he is, already revealing his dry humor. (A low form of wit, someone had once scowled at him. He’s always thought it a high mark of his intelligence.)
He watches her when she angles her head to the West and his deep blue gaze follows briefly, going from the blazing forests to the lush plains. "Empire?” He says and his voice drops just slightly. Tarian can’t help it. Something in him esteems the word. There is power and might in it; it sounds like it has been tested and forged.
It’s faint but the corners of his ashen mouth lift. "I’ve only heard that word used once before.” A history lesson half-forgotten but he remembers the way that his father had wielded it; the word had sounded commanding coming from Lepis and when Tarian repeats it back (another one of those rhetorical questions), he still likes the control his tongue yields over it.
While he follows, he learns. An ear stays flicked forward while the other moves, catching the variety of sounds that the canyons and ravines collect like rainwater. She has been both is what she tells Tarian. Lepis has known Loess since infancy and as a ruler. It makes him wonder if she has ruled this place since birth and if she has, well, it makes him all the more sure of where he has landed.
"If you could say only one thing to describe Loess,” he asks as they walk, "what would it be?”
They finally reach the spring and Lepis, appearing familiar with it, wades in while Tarian takes a few calculated steps. He lowers his wings and savors the way that the water flows through his feathers. The gray stallion lowers his head and finally drinks, relishing the sweetness of it. Where he recited his genealogy, Lepis gives a variation of her own. She’s descended from sea monsters and it makes him glance at her again, like he might have missed fins or gills before.
(To his relief, he finds neither. The thought of following a water monster to a spring sounds more like an ironic demise.)
"I find it hard to prefer anything to the sky,” Tarian says and brings his hanging wings back to his sides.
Though its growth has been stifled by small and fearful minds, Lepis’ pride in her southern empire remains. There will be time in the future, she knows. Even if it is a future that she will not see.
She has faith in Oceane, after all, and so she nods when he questions it and briefly wonders where he had heard if before. She considers asking, and decides against it as they continue walking. Instead, she leads the way to the shallow spring and flicks back one blue-rimmed ear to catch his question.
One thing? She thinks, and nearly asks if he is in some sort of hurry, having so recently arrived. But that would be friendly, and Lepis is not always given to friendliness, even with handsome strangers. So instead she reflects for a moment, having snagged a mouthful of clover on their walk.
“Freedom.” The dun mare replies. “I would say ‘home’, but that feels a little dull. But freedom, I think, covers it.” It covers a great many things, Lepis finds, and not all of them are comfortable to reflect on, so instead she distracts herself with a drink.
The grey stallion, his wings now dripping with water, speaks of the sky, and Lepis’ faded smile brightens. “We are in agreement there,” she replies, glancing overhead at the clear sky. “This place is made for our kind, I often think. I used to ask my mother why she left Taiga for these red hills, but now that I am older I understand. There is no room in Taiga for those of us with wings.”
08-29-2020, 12:55 AM (This post was last modified: 08-29-2020, 12:55 AM by Tarian.)
Leading seems to come naturally to @[Lepis]. Or so it apears to Tarian.
The smaller pegasus nods to his brief contemplation on an Empire (he has heard and even dreamed of them but the stallion has never seen one). The dun nods and departs with only the slight signal of an ear that flickers behind. Lepis doesn't look back; she leads like she knows that Tarian, raised an Heir, and then trained up as a soldier, would follow.
Anywhere else but Loess might have made him grapple with that.
It might have even made him question her more.
Instead, she walked on and Tarian kicked up red-yellow dust at a respectful distance behind her. Until they had finally reached the spring that he had been dreaming of. The sweetness of the water drenched his senses and he drank deeply, swallowing the cool liquid slowly. They are both creatures of the sky so when she says that Loess is freedom, he thinks he understands. There should be no place on the ground that could keep them. They have to nest and roost at times but the heavens will always be beckoning with wide, open arms. In the near the decade that he has seen, Tarian has preferred that embrace over anything else.
So when she speaks of freedom, the silver pegasus thinks he understands.
"Home might be dull in a sense," he offers. "But to those denied it, it could taste as sweet as this water." As a youth, he hadn't forgiven his father for not trying harder to recover Paraiso. He couldn't understand why his silver sire hadn't tried harder to return them all to the ancient valley. It wasn't until the years after and alone, the years in Liridon, that he had begun to suspect the truth.
Paradise had been lost.
That there may never be any finding it.
He is dripping water when he raises his head and looks at Lepis - less than regal - but this does not bother him. Tarian has been here for an hour at best and yet he already feels at ease. A peace that he hasn't known for some time. This place is made for our kind, she says and there isn't a shadow of doubt on his pale face. It's a slight furrow of his noble brow that creates another one. "Taiga?" he asks, trying out the word and spitting it back out. "That damp, murky bog?" Tarian can't imagine any of their kind there. Even if the trees weren't so close together as Lepis says, there is the fog to contend with.
The sky is wide and open in Loess. Here, it is waiting for them.
"Far easier to find freedom here, it seems."
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are.
He spits out the name of her former homeland as if it is an expletive, and the following characterization startles a genuine laugh from the dun mare. There’d been no time to stifle it, but Lepis doesn’t think she would have tried even if there had been. If only she’d heard such a description of the redwood forest before she’d chosen it as a contender in her future. Lepis does not linger over what might have been – or at least, she does not do so often – but she does sometimes dearly wish* they’d not chosen Taiga. It is not even that she wanted it to be Nerine. No, she shouldn’t have ever had to chose between those two at all. It should have been Loess all along. But she’d let herself be swayed, manipulated, blinded by affection for a man who – in the end – did not deserve it.
To find someone so repulsed by the foggy forest is an unexpected delight, and Lepis finds herself thinking that perhaps this stranger might be a good addition to Loess.
They are without much of a physical defense, after all, with Pteron’s departure and Castile’s absence. Lepis knows she can keep her people safe in the long term, but there is no harm in having someone physically imposing as well. Just in case.
For a long moment she watches Tarian over the water that separates them, but her mind is on another grey stallion. Another protector she’d chosen, just in case. The memory sours some of the brightness in her mind, but her demeanor remains as clear as her still-amused smile.
“Earlier, you mentioned being denied a home. Does that mean you are in search of one?” His earlier quip about homes had not gone unnoticed. Lepis had considered asking then, but he’d not shared his feelings about Taiga then, and she had been less sure than she is now. A wiser part of her knows that such a similarity is a weak thing upon to which to build trust, but it has been some time since she laughed, and there is something to say for the value of humor in a home
Though the water that she drinks is chilled by the earth that carries it to the surface, the summer sun on her skin is anything but. Her wings do keep away the worst of it, and the way they hang more loosely now at her sides is indicative of that. If not for Tarian’s presence, she’d have had her fill and found shade some time ago. Instead, she’s been waylaid by his arrival and now finds herself torn between staying to converse and leaving him to find his own way through the kingdom.
For now, she waits for his answer to her question.
*(Lepis never wishes aloud, of course. She was raised better than to tempt her ancestors)
Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength