"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
don't be afraid of the fire, I'd never let you burn
Fiorina will never admit this to anyone other than the cold boulders of the mountain, but she had cried a little when she got her sight back. It was so good for one shining moment to see the sky above her and the slopes of the mountain.
And then her new wings rattled against her side and she saw them - bone wings. Absolutely useless for flight. She wanted to tear the mountain apart right there, to find the fairy that did this to her and sink her teeth into her and tear her apart until she was nothing but glitter.
That would accomplish nothing, however, and instead an unfortunate mountain goat herd suffered her wrath - their carcasses left for the vultures since she didn’t even have the stomach to eat anything past a few mouthfuls.
A few days had passed, and though the blinding rage was still present, it was fading. It flared only when she stretched her new wings and they tangled on the spikes of her side, or when she flicked her tail and it scraped against the long bones with a grating sound. All things she is sure will pass as she gets used to them - but patience never was a strong suit for her.
Still, her sight back is something to be happy about. And when she catches a familiar scent in the meadow one day, she feels her heart leap.
The trail leads her to a white girl with black markings - so close to being an adult now that it causes that leaping heart to constrict. Fiorina knew Drear without seeing her, but it still was painful to finally see her and see her for the first time and know that she was almost all grown up.
“Drear.” Fiorina keeps her doubt out of her voice, instead there’s something like wonder there that makes it softer than usual. Being a mother never did come naturally to her, but there’s a special fondness for the child she shares with Roz since she wasn’t the one that had to go through the birth. It is only good memories tied up in the green-eyed girl. Her black eyes are no longer clouded with blindness and they blink with a careful smile as she takes a step closer to her daughter.
The Meadow had become so familiar and as close to a home as she could ever know in her young life.
Her mother preferred to keep moving across the nomadic lands and hugging the lines of the territories and kingdoms. For a while she had followed along - not that she had much choice as a foal - but the travelling had become tiresome. Mother was an unsettled creature, the spotted woman had outright said as much when Drear had prodded as to why they kept moving throughout the seasons, never staying long enough to establish any roots. But the vagabond lifestyle wasn’t entirely something Drear had longed for, and the black marked maiden had grown tired of the aches in her legs, the burn in her lungs, and the untethered thoughts of her mind.
She had parted ways with her mother some time ago now, and often they’d cross paths whenever her mother had wandered through.
Those days were happy, but many times she’d catch herself wondering about her armored mom’s absence; wondering where she was and what she was doing. Drear had never been lucky enough to come across Fiorina since she’d gained her independence, but she held out hope that one of these days that some good fortune might find its way to her.
She’d hardly been paying attention to where she’d been heading, her thoughts lost in revelries and musings of how funny it was that the clouds above could take so many different shapes. That one in particular looking an awful lot like a bird with a very large tail.
Recognizing the sound of her name from a softened source, she stops, turning fully to gaze upon the most wonderful sight she had seen in a long time.
“Mom?” she questions, eagerly filling the space that laid between them with a few long strides. There’s no hesitation in her approach, and she quickly wraps her soft neck around her mom’s plated one in an overdue embrace. “I missed you,” the young mare said, closing her eyes, and unwilling to let her go - for at least a little while longer.
Yeah baby, we could set the whole thing ablaze
Watch the crowd's eyes open amazed
@[Fiorina] I'm sorry this is awful and apparently she's a hugger
don't be afraid of the fire, I'd never let you burn
That smile in Fiorina’s dark eyes grows cautiously as her daughter approaches and turns into an expression of startled surprise when, without hesitation, Drear hugs her. Fiorina could not remember the last time she had been hugged - she wasn’t sure it had ever happened. The intimate moments of her life had also been tinged with violence.
Most of the time she has pointedly avoided all chances of physical contact so it is easy to count them and consider them. None of her biological family, surely, nor any of the stallions that had sired her children. She remembers caressing Roz, knows they shared touches that danced the line between gentle and rough, but a hug?
Her first instinct is to squirm away but the armoured mare forces herself to freeze where she is - rigid at first but relaxing slightly into the hug and carefully moving her head to drape across Drear’s neck. Her discomfort is only due to awkwardness and a desire to not accidentally harm the flower-crowned girl by accidentally shifting either her bone wings or the armoured spikes that protrude from her shoulders.
“I’ve missed you too.” She responds in a quiet voice that is gentler than she’ll ever admit to.
Apologies are even rarer than hugs in her life and she’s not sure how to express the sadness she feels for having been away for so long. For the ill-timed quest that kept her angry and distant. It wasn’t her fault so the flicker of guilt in her stomach is confusing.
“I like your flowers.” She says instead, tugging gently on one of the blood-red blooms as she finally steps back to look into Drear’s green eyes and wonder how she could have helped create such a beautiful girl.
