"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
He had watched Loess burn and he hadn’t lifted a finger to save it. The trees murmured, explaining that Lepis had taken a vow to let it all turn to ash. And so Wilt stood beneath the autumn canopy and observed with only detached curiosity, vulgar in its intrigue for the destruction. It had been simple enough to guard Sylva from the fires or any stray Pangeans who wandered too close. He summoned the roots of the ancient oaks and watered the forests with their blood. It wasn’t necessary for his home to burn in order to flourish as they intended for Nerine and Loess.
But this morning Sister informed him that Sylva was no longer their home. It hurt to hear, in a way. Wilt rather liked the crooked saplings and the eerie nights there. He tries to remind himself that there are more shrubs and fields to befriend than just his little patch of the world. This is why he sets out for the north, to see what sorts of things flourish where ice prevailed.
He arrives just as the sun peeks up from the horizon. Morning frost clings to the ash and he can hear every blade of grass crying out for his help when he steps over them on his spindly legs.
“Oh, you’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you?” he coos with a snicker. Wilt digs into that depth of his abilities and imagines what sorts of things he can craft for them here. They need things that will fight back and not the sad lichen that flourished here. No, the Nerineans need things with teeth and thorns and claws. He grins as the vines curling up his legs dive down into the soil. The blood and the soot of their war will feed something new, indeed.
Wilt is careful to work slowly, meticulously. His creations must be hardy to survive the winters here. He gives them trunks like the pines to withstand the frost. They’re small, for now, and the mouths of the new northern flytraps are just big enough to catch the shrews and stoats. But they’re eager. They snap their little mouths and test their bite at the air around them.
“Happy birthday!” he whispers softly to his creations. A dozen of them dot the landscape for now, but in time they can mature and spawn seed pods of their own. “The people here are your friends, so if they smell like your pollen, do not bite them!”
The new plants shake their needles in excitement and then settle in for a nice rest.
Wilt scattered some extra special flytraps around Nerine. They're very small still so if everyone wants to murder them, they can. Or the Nerineans can let them chomp things and get big and mean! Just know that if you kill them, Wilt will cry and never come play again.
The flames had drawn her home at last, but by the time she arrived, the Shadowborn had drenched her woodland home with the sea. On nimble hooves, the little bay leapt between the wide redwoods, their bark bearing scorch marks new and old. The giants don't care about the fires that pop up between them, though, that is a problem for younger things than them. The dragonlings would have had to try much harder to do more than clear the scrub brush and the thin pines growing in the understory, and in the end, they did not seem to try very hard at all. Their legs carry them north, leaving paltry fires that the Taigans quickly drench.
North, the Pangeans traveled, with other things in mind - the burning of Nerine, so that something else may climb from its ashes - and north, Popinjay follows, like a crow chasing the scent of war. She comes too late for the battle, it is too hot and burns fast, suffocates itself on its own rage until there isn't oxygen enough to maintain it, and what remains is smoke and steam and rain. In the midst of it, a strange child with strange toys, coaxing the toothy black plants from the charred earth. Sharp eyes follow him curiously. He looks like a creature of the Taiga, not of Nerine, though she's never seen anyone quite like him there before. Still, there are so many places to hide between the redwood kings, and perhaps the salt left behind by the ocean portals has driven him out from the thickets.
"What a peculiar gift." Her favorite sort, of course, she loves them immediately for their strange shapes, accepts them as her own without hesitation.
Wisely, or not, she fears nothing - not him, nor the wide, open grins of his young plants, and she drifts towards the one closest to her, running dark lips over its black, pine-needle leaves, barely flinching when it snaps at her reflexively. She pulls out of reach with a delighted laugh. They are beautiful and wild, crafted to withstand northern winds and the sea-fed storms, and she returns their fanged smiles with one of her own, flat teeth glistening in the misty grey light. They are not like the weeds and thorns growing in Taiga's blackwater, they are not like the bright flowers of the Pampas, they are more like animals, she thinks, like the pale, eyeless fish living deep in the hearts of the caves she explored as a child, biting blindly, hungrily, at the things that touch them.
"Thank you," Poppy turns her mischievous grin from the newly-birthed plants to their maker.
don't be afraid of the fire, I'd never let you burn
It’s only after she’s settled down after her quest that Fiorina remembers she has a home - and she travels towards the cliffs. Without her sight, she had avoided the place - not fancying the idea of accidentally taking a tumble into the ocean if she misjudged the edge.
A fair amount had happened in Fiorina’s life since she had last been to Nerine - and when she arrives she sees that it wasn’t only her who had changed in her absence. The land has been scorched and Fiorina - knowing that the land itself doesn’t really matter - finds herself annoyed that she clearly missed quite the battle.
How dare they have fun without her!
There’s a small seed of guilt that she wasn’t here to protect her home but it does not take root. She had been blind, pregnant, lost, angry, and distracted. There was only so much she could do.
With her bone wings folded at her side, Fiorina turns her fire-adorned head until she spots an odd looking creature - and the new plants that he seems to be creating. When she sees one of the plants snap - a smile spreads across this armoured mare’s features. Oh, she’s going to like these new additions.
Someone else approaches, and tests the range of these carnivorous plants, and Fiorina finds herself drifting closer - giving in to her curiosity. She focuses on the plants, on the boy that made them, instead of letting herself feel jealous and angry about the lovely feathered wings the mare sports.
“They’re beautiful.” The compliment is a little awkward in Fiorina’s naturally-rough voice, but it is genuine.
He continues gently whispering his lessons to the seedlings, cooing and chuckling at the way they snap in agreement with him. They are wonderful children and quick learners. It makes him wonder. If he could love these, his children, so easily, then why did Starlust not adore him the moment he was born to her? He pauses to think over this and frown before he is distracted by the sound of someone coming close.
Peculiar. He does not know the word, but her tone is kind enough that he does not bristle when she says it. Instead, Wilt grins and reveals his pointed black teeth as he strives to make an excellent first impression. The northern flytraps all mimic his sharp smile as they sway gently in the wind. But a frown crosses his lips while the nearest sprout snaps at her.
“No, this is a friend. See how she has the spores of your neighbors on her?” he explains to the small plant. It wags its jaw slowly in response. “They say they’re sorry. Too eager to prove themselves.”
And then he laughs, delighted when she says thank you. Wilt turns and watches the figure with the flaming horns as she gravitates closer to the forming group. Beautiful, she says. Tears swell along the brim of his eyelids before he blinks them away. They like his creations? His smile stretches further across his face.
“In a year’s time, they will be even more impressive,” he explains with a self-assured nod. The flytraps blooming in the thick vines of his mane snap their teeth excitedly and it almost sounds like laughter. “My name is Wilt. I come from Sylva.”
When Fiorina approaches, Poppy turns her gaze from the plants to the xenomorph, and the light of her horns reflects in those lightning-bright eyes. Magic has soaked so deep into the bones of both the creatures before her that their bodies have twisted into something other than equine, and she wonders if they ever appear very much like the shapes that lie underneath all that strange alchemy, if they, like she, can will away their physical oddity, or if they must wear it always for the world to see. Their novelty delights her, but Popinjay is a collector of the peculiar.
As they, perhaps, cannot change the faces they show the world, she has never been able to hide her bold nature. in much the same manner that she reached out to touch the snapping plant, she also reaches out unabashedly to touch the armored mare, planting her muzzle eagerly against the hard exoskeleton of her shoulder, heedless of the cruel barbs of her tail. This is not the first xenomorph that Poppy has encountered, but she was not given the opportunity to touch that one, so she grabs the chance with relish when it presents itself.
And then the little bay laughs suddenly, and she ruffles the feathers of her wings until fine feather dust lifts into the air (and some finds its way to Fiorina's burning horns, turning to brief glowing motes around the black mare's head, burning out to ash and nothing almost instantly,) and she looks back at Wilt as he scolds, and then to sorrowful plant.
"Trust your instincts, little Snapper, neighbors aren't always friends," her expression is roguish, but there is nothing ironic in how she addresses the dark flytrap, no more than when she speaks to the ravens nesting in the crags, and then, to Wilt, "Welcome to Nerine, Wilt-From-Sylva, will you be staying here long? I am Popinjay-From-Taiga, but the redwoods don't suit my wings the way the sea-cliffs do. You look like you might live very well in Taiga though."
