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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]  calling to join them, the wretched and joyful
    #1

    elio

    some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
    and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

    Mother's stories of the Afterlife always kept Elio's curiosity sated. He didn't know the loss of the death, of mourning, of ghosts. He didn't know what it meant to be haunted. He didn't know--he didn't know so much. He feels he knows too much now, with his wings strapped to his back by invisible, weight-bearing tethers.

    He feels he knows so much and yet knows so little, wearing a dunce cap as he trudges blankly through Beqanna's common lands.

    Far and away, dipping between heaven's clouds and earth's soil, Elio merely exists (and that just isn't, no it just isn't enough). It's a punishing world, one that chains him to his worst thoughts, his worst actions, and his worst fantasies. Regret, one might say; it's regret that haunts him, not his mother's translucent form, not his father's curse, not the cool absence of his siblings. He could have seen Lepis more in the months that led to her death. He could have, he should have, he would have--oh, he would have, if he had only known.

    Again that emptiness of so much he does not know leaves him hollow and airy while the immense weight of guilt keeps him tied to the earth.

    Just wake up, pleads the man barely holding his head above water in an ocean of life. An Elio of old--a bitter Elio, but an alive one, an Elio with even a shred of hope. His muscles are tired as he fights the ocean water, searching for the barest hint of sand against his hooves.

    Lepis would not want him to drown, but it's not the hope in her lasting impressions that he focuses on. It's her face and his own suffering, the smell of burning flesh and the taste of salty tears. The regret, the ghosts, the memories he'll lose over the years.

    He hates himself.




    elio stop being dramatic challenge
    [Image: elio-by-dozymare-ddo34i6.png]
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    #2
    Bzzt. The sound is soft and distant, but just enough to reach the young boy’s ears. He’s not sleeping like he should; he’s far too alert right now. Mamma always says sleep is important, and while he accepts this and knows this, it’s a wholly different thing to actually do it.

    Bzzt bzzt. There’s that bug again. This time, Oren stretches his brown ears and much lighter roaned neck, trying to find the little creature. Bzzzzt. There! He rises from his place near Rosey (she always curls up super tight in her sleep, so he doubts that she notices) to investigate.

    The cicada beetle is reddish brown, hiding against the sequoia. When the young colt rises though, it flicks away. Bzzzzt. It almost sounds angry! Oren deflates, barely keeping himself from snorting - ah! but There it is! - and trying not to spook it, he sneaks after the bug.

    The bugs leads to a butterfly, the butterfly to a squirrel, the squirrel to a hare and the hare to a bird, and the bird to a stallion. Oh, but he has feathers too! Just like the bird!

    ”Hello!” he calls out enthusiastically (Oren knows nothing of fate and death, knows nothing about the fires that killed this man’s parents - a man he might have called brother if he ever learned about their shared relations with their siblings). The bay roan flashes a happy grin towards the horse in the distance. His ears are perked and for this briefest moment, he has nothing to offer but his own childlike happiness. ”What are you doing? I’m Oren! Do you know the name of that bird? How old are you? My brothers are super old, you know? Mama says the trees are older though. Can you imagine?!” Just how cool is the world, is life! Just how awesome is it to experience it all!

    @[elio] uhm, I’m sorry :/
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    #3

    elio

    some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
    and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

    Elio is not prepared to meet a stranger in his state, much less a fresh colt straying too far from his mother. Rotting and sullen, he is almost perceptibly thin and exhausted. His eyelids lay thick and heavy, the corners of his eyes full of the crust of too long sleep and poorly kept skin. When Lio blinks it should be easy, but the his eyes are dry and his lids are like sandpaper--if he had much white to show it would be bloodshot.

    Given that the boy is just that (a boy), the stallion does not fault him and his endless stream of questions; but he does grow mildly irritated, moody gray eyes drooping to distant slits. A child this small has no business wandering, much less wander alone, happening upon an unkempt stranger. Elio wonders where this child's parents are. If Lannister were able to walk the earth, would Lio sleep a wink with the worry of him being so curious yet so small and defenseless? Oren can't be much different from the foal Elio has watched age.

    With a sigh, he opens his closing eyes and settles on a few of the child's questions. The knowledge that wherever the parents may be, they'll likely be grateful their boy stumbled upon a kind stranger is what gives him the strength to answer a few questions.

    "Hi, Oren," Lio states with a fake but strong smile. "My name is Elio. I'm not doing anything out here. Just walking. I'm six years old," he adds, then pauses, eyeing the boy up and down. "How old are you, Oren? Are you out here by yourself? Does your family know you're out here?" A little bit of life colors his voice as he continues to speak, followed by concern.

    Elio feels silly, wondering if all he needed to feel better was a distraction.



    @[Oren]
    [Image: elio-by-dozymare-ddo34i6.png]
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    #4
    It is true, of course - Oren should definitely not be out and about on his own. But he had been preoccupied with the beetle, the butterfly, the hare and the bird, none of whom had wanted to talk go him. This man, though as unkempt as he may look (Oren honestly hadn’t noticed that, since it’s only his mother who grooms him, and he often ends up tangled up within an hour or so), is far more interesting in that way. He actually talks back! And answers questions! It’s Oren’s lucky day!

    It is, indeed, a good thing he ran into a kind stranger, though not for the way Oren thinks (kind people answer questions!) but rather it is true what Elio thinks. Nevertheless, the conversation continues and the wide-eyed colt gasps with the answers. ”How can you walk and do nothing at the same time?” Wasn’t walking a thing? A deep thinking crease is momentarily visible (he would laugh and say he looked like Momma) but then his gasp coincides with a shocked look on his face. ”You’re six!?!” That must be even more ancient than Yan!

    It is when Elio asks a question of his own, that Oren’s shock is turned from a weird-surprised into a fear-one. ”I’m... three?” he frowns his face. Three months that is, not three years. But with his life being so short he has no references. He looks down at his hoofs though, past the golden shimmer. ”I forgot to tell momma.” He shuffles his feet a little nervously, then looks up at the man. ”Please don’t tell her. She’ll be so super worried. Sensitive as he is to another’s feelings, he had picked that up quickly. She always calls him back when he goes too far away, even if he can see her, it is not always the other way around.

    @[elio]
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    #5

    elio

    some say I should learn to cry but I only learned how to fight
    and I know everything must die but nothing fades like the light

    Mmm, Elio sighs, watching Oren with eyes as resigned as they are moody. A child bearing childlike questions, he can't say he begrudges the boy his curiosities. How can Lio walk and do nothing? He slips away into thought, just for the briefest of moments--until the colt drags him back with another round of chirping.

    "Yes, six years old," the stallion says on a quiet laugh. The noise is nearly sincere--he nearly means it, can feel the dregs of reality dragging him back into the ocean of life--but not quite, still the slightest bit forced. He wonders if Oren knows the difference between forced and real laughter, and mourns the idea of being the one to teach him such a concept.

    Surely this boy deserves a brighter childhood than Elio had.

    Yes, he deserves just that.

    "Three?" Lio gasps. Three months old, out in the wild without a care. He will be damned before he allows the woes of Beqanna to trample someone so young so early.

    "I won't tell her," he offers as consolation, thinking that if he says I'm taking you home to your mother right now, the child will be more likely to run from him. "I used to live with giant redwood trees, rounder than your whole length. What kind of trees do you live with? Maybe you can show me? And I can answer some questions on the way, too." Lio finishes and stretches just the tiniest tendrils of calm toward the boy, hoping the boy will feel peace and run with it.



    @[Oren]
    [Image: elio-by-dozymare-ddo34i6.png]
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    #6
    Oren waits with curious wide eyes as Elio muses over his question, and he expects the man (older than Yan and Nash! Wow! He must know everything!) to come up with an answer, or maybe teach Oren how to do nothing and something at once, or maybe he didn’t mean to say nothing nothing, but he means a different kind of nothing -

    The brown and gold colt is already distracted again, thinking he likes this mister, even is he is actually quite old and looks a bit sad. But Oren knows it is rude to ask sad people why they are sad - maybe he lost someone, and the colt does not want to make him sadder than he already is. In fact, when Elio laughs a little, Oren gives him a childlike-reassuring chuckle as well, well, a giggle really. He’s already far too relieved that the buckskin male agrees that Momma shouldn’t know how far he had gone on his own, and so he nods eagerly when the man tells him about trees the size of yourself. ”Yes, those! Momma says they may be as old as Beqanna itself, but we don’t really know how old that is, so...” then he jumps and bucks a little from excitement. ”I bet they’re older than you!” So now he has found the oldest person that he knows, and still the trees were super old when Elio was small. Oren’s gonna have to find someone even older than him, then, to ask if they were as old as Beqanna.

    Elio wants to see the trees again, so Oren nods excitedly, his head looking a bit like it’s a rather loose attachment to his neck, bouncing so hard. [b]”We can go see the trees! Maybe the bug is still there, too?”
    He forgets that Elio knows nothing about the strange bug that Oren had started to chase that morning, but his mind is already (or again) reeling with the hundreds of possibilities, and he doesn’t even notice if the winged make would look a little confused.

    @[elio]
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