"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
10-06-2020, 01:55 AM (This post was last modified: 10-06-2020, 01:56 AM by rosemary.)
.rosemary.
As sweet as the summertime fruits Rosemary seeks, the girl bats her long lashes over curved, striking cheeks. She picks her steps carefully, soft summer sun dappling through a loosely woven canopy lighting up a golden sheen on her hooves. She smiles to herself, perhaps humming every few minutes, much to the dismay of large, shadowy feline creature padding silently to her right. They are quite the pair: beautiful, decadent innocence radiating next to dark, begrudging wisdom.
Rosemary does not think of that, though. No, she is delighted with her hellcat, even offers the creature a dazzling smile when she sways close enough for her shoulder to brush its head. The feline looks up at her with a gentle purr, giving the girl a softness no stranger will ever know. You're so lovely today, Rose, Calypso compliments. The girl smiles wide: "Thank you, Calypso. You're darling when you let the sunshine on you."
The pair weave between thick tree trunks, looking more and more like nymphs meant for brushing ferns and dangling branches. Rose is determined to discover the sweet apples and pricking blackberries her father has mentioned hide away deep in the woods. He will frown when Rosemary returns with a sugary stomachache and a few thorny cuts, but the girl is confident in the sharp eye of Calypso (and she knows Litotes trusts the hellcat, despite the chastising that rings in her head).
"Oh!" the girl cries when the trees suddenly break to reveal a small clearing decorated with tightly packed apple trees. "I think we've found them!" It appears we have, dear, Calypso replies, loping ahead to sniff out the shadows. Rose does not think of danger, though, following with a lazy smile and sparkling eyes. She reaches her mouth forward, wrapping galaxy-kissed lips around a bright red fruit. The delight splits in a half with a sharp crack.
"Ah, Cawypso, wu haf to twy dis!" Rose says through white flesh and juice dripping down her lips.
10-07-2020, 06:26 PM (This post was last modified: 10-07-2020, 06:26 PM by Yanhua.)
Yanhua
Yanhua often thinks about Straia and what she’d promised them that fateful day in Nerine. A better Beqanna, and it had sounded so very tempting because in truth, Yan would love to be the change this world needed. But he doubts his ideas of change align with Straia’s; in her ideal world there seemed a need for division, a desire to have a horse’s differences be the reason they refuse to cohabitate. What he knows of the old Beqanna before this one is admittedly limited, but Yan does know that the Kingdoms had been divided between the powerful and the powerless. It hadn’t worked - and why would it? Scrubbing the less-gifted only bred hatred.
Ah, but that’s youth for you: always believing they can do it better than before. Never listening to wisdom, only living in the moment like Yan was now. He was far from Taiga, having left the territory days ago on his journey to the Plains, but had chosen to rest in the grove of apple trees after discovering them by accident. With a mouthful of apple he was left to quietly consider his perfect version of Beqanna: one where borders were defined by family houses and values, one where horses of all shapes and sizes were free to live and roam, one where nature would flourish - he stopped chewing and suddenly froze.
A creature slunk out of the woodwork to stare him down, and Yanhua swallowed the lump in his throat while he glared in fear at the gigantic, black predator. What the fu- He tried to breath normally, wondering where in the seven realms of hell this thing had come from. “Easy there,” He spoke calmly to the hellcat and took a careful step backwards, “Nice kitty.”
He felt like an idiot, but he kept talking.
“You don’t want to hurt me.” Yanhua’s voice was the softest it had ever been; he took another step backwards and felt the sensation of a low-hanging branch tickling his rump. Shit, no more room to back up. “And I don’t wanna hurt you, yea?” Yan stopped and took a breath, slowly beginning to tuck his chin into his neck. He didn’t want to, but he had no choice: if that thing lunged at him he was taking a swipe back, too.
“Let’s play nice, huh kitty kitty?” Yan pleaded, almost laughing from the initial shock of being cornered by surprise. Stallion dies on way to Alliance tournament, eaten by mutant panther... He could hear the whispers already. Maybe there was a silver lining? If he died today, he wouldn’t have to endure the embarrassment of being alive and being mauled before he’d even made it through the first round of fighting.
Calypso isn't the coy-type, but when she spots the startled, bearded man, she can't help but to release a secretive chuckle. He clearly thinks her some threat (and she very obviously could be, if she so wanted), when the hellcat feels as if she has been tasked with nothing other than protecting Rosemary. And Yanhua is no threat to Rose--at least not now--so the hellcat merely perches on her haunches and lifts her right paw to her mouth. After a few pointed licks, she looks over at the still chewing Rose.
Rose? she asks.
"Cawypso?" Rose calls back through a mouthful of chewed apple.
Can you tell this stallion I'm not going to hurt him?
"What?" the colorful girl asks, very suddenly jutting her head around a clustered group of tree trunks. Her pale eyes grow wide when she spots the startled man. She swallows painfully, desperate to clear her mouth and chastise her companion. "Calypso!" Rose cries with a frown, then slowly drags her eyes back up to Yanhua. A hesitant--but still gleaming--smile lifts her lips as she finds his gaze.
"She won't hurt you!" is a blurt followed by a sheepish grin. "Unless you want to hurt me . . . ?" Rose cocks her head coquettishly to the right, still leaning curiously around the trees. "No," she adds decisively, "you don't want to hurt me." The smile that follows is certain and glittering, as sweet as the apple juice sticking to her chin.
"I'm Rosemary," the girl calls, stepping carefully out so that she might be fully seen by Yanhua, "and that's Calypso. Who are you?"
The big cat sat, then licked its paw. Yanhua waited in disbelief, one breath still painfully stuck in his lungs until he heard a muffled sound in the quiet distance. His ears flicked up - he wanted to turn away and look but instinct prevented it. What idiot took their eyes off a hellish beast like this one? Paw licks or not, Yanhua was two seconds away from making a run for it when that distant sound grew closer, and the sharp chirp of “Calypso!” stopped him dead in his tracks.
Wait, what? He pondered silently when the voice took on a shape, appearing from between the fruitful trees like a dark dryad. If he was confused before, now Yanhua was awestruck; who was she? What a strange little mare! Dressed up in her best black and wearing colors he’d never seen before (though the tint of her mane struck a chord for Yan - she reminded him of Amarine and her blue jewels.) And what, he wondered, was a thing like her doing with a creature like that?
“Rosemary…” Yan looked at her with the softest of blue eyes and smiled, half-amused. She gave her companion’s name and suddenly, Yanhua realized he’d forgotten all about the big cat! He turned a sheepish, apologetic expression toward Calypso and dipped his horns silently.
“Who am I?” Yanhua relaxed and reiterated the question playfully, brows rising. “According to you I’m a friend.” He laughed broadly, causing the pale tassels of hair hanging from his chin to quiver. Rosemary wasn’t wrong: Yanhua wouldn’t hurt her. However, aside from his genteel manners that might be hard to discern off first impressions. For starters, there was nothing small or dainty about Yan that would suggest his being soft or sweet. He was lean, muscle-hardened from the few years of patrolling all alone in the Taiga wilderness, and impressively tall given his lineage. Where he’d acquired it from, no one knew. The athleticism could be blamed on his environment. Winters up north could be harsh; not an ounce of flesh on him was wasted by unnecessary fat.
If that weren’t enough in and of itself, Yanhua’s backward-arcing horns made him seem even taller than normal, always casting shadows and reflecting light when he swung his head around or scratched an itch. He’d always assumed that he gathered a somewhat imposing aura around him, and here was Rosemary to put all that nonsense to bed. Perhaps she’s gifted, Yan considered, curious enough to just barely open up the channel of empathic magic he had in hopes of catching an echo that might unveil a bit of the mystery surrounding the strange duo, but he received nothing and promptly closed it off again.
“My name is Yanhua, Rosemary.” He picked up not a moment later, continuing where he’d left off as if nothing had passed through his mind at all. “I’m on my way south from Taiga, headed for the Alliance tournament. Didn’t think I’d run into something like your Calypso there, but here we are.” He smiled handsomely, happy for the company that only moments ago he’d been dreading. “Is this your grove of apples, then?”
A bubbly laugh and an mhmm follows Yanhua's teasing. Rosemary's father taught her caution and observation but her mother--why, her mother taught her boundless love and patience. She grew up watching a sweet woman watch an endlessly wounded and lost man. What does she know of caution? When Lilt did not come away burnt by Rose's father, the girl threw caution to the wind.
So, who WASN'T a friend to Rosemary? Sometimes she thinks she could find understanding in even the darkest hearts. After spending her childhood tussling with her father's shadow creatures, even the darkness was a companion.
An affinity for compassion and a spoonful of naivety makes for a graceful, grinning fool. Rose doesn't know that, yet, though. All she has to show for are a few skinned knees and a puddle of tears shed while fighting with her twin. And perhaps she doesn't even know the true meaning of compassion, not yet. She thinks she feels it now, after watching Yanhua's body fall from tensed to relaxed. And fear? The thief of the joy she knows so intimately? She'll find compassion in that, too. Whenever she finally feels it.
"The Alliance?" Rose asks with a curious tilt of her head. Her mouth twists into an eager, becoming smile. "Are you representing a land?" Certainly not Sylva or Silver Cove, but perhaps the sticky pine scent sticking to his fur speaks of somewhere wondrous Rosemary has yet to see.
Eyes sharp with the clarity of an ever-turning mind, Rose casts her gaze out to the apples dangling from the trees, then back to Yanhua's handsome face.
"And why? Are you trying to steal my apples away?" A question accompanied by a musical laugh. Rose carefully steps forward, eyes alighting on a particularly shiny red fruit hanging to Yan's right. She reaches her muzzle out to grab it: "I don't know if I can share."
