"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
Laurelin was a big fan of the changes that had happened to him ever since that weird freaky thing happened on the beach. He had already forgotten the terror of being chased by the kelpie, one that bore the same colours as him. What was fear compared to basking in the new glow that you had? Or watching sparks rise from your hair and fade off into the sky?
Even in his dreams the fear found it hard to take root, chased away by the long-reigning innocence and confidence of the youth. When things started to turn into a nightmare, Laurelin would wake to find the comforting blue glow there, to feel a steady warmth pulsating from his body, and then when he slipped back to sleep all would be peaceful.
It’s early evening now as he wanders along the river, and of course he’s aware of what a pretty sight he makes. The glow comes on stronger the darker it gets out and the breeze stirs the sparks rising from his hair.
Someone more aware of his surroundings would perhaps worry that one of those sparks could accidentally start a wildfire - but Laurelin has no such worries. The only thing he is worried about is that no one will come over to say hi or appreciate just how pretty he is.
He is not the only one who has changed since the last time their paths crossed.
They have both been changed by magic.
And the change has not been subtle in either of them.
But she has no way of knowing all of the ways that he has changed. The last time she’d encountered him, the sun had rendered her blind. This is why she does not immediately recognize him when their paths cross now.
Perhaps if he had had the power to heat the air around him then, she would have known that it was him based on this alone. But the only heat that day had been provided by the sun.
Things are swimming into sharper focus now, as the sun sinks heavy beneath the horizon and casts long shadows across the landscape. She sees him now for the first time. He emits a soft glow and maybe this is what draws her to him. Or perhaps there is some subconscious corner of her brain that knows who he is, knows that they have met before. If this part of her brain exists, she is unaware of it.
She goes to him because he glows as she glows.
And how has she changed?
The strange figure at the mountain had tricked her, though perhaps she had asked it to.
It had given her something that she had not wanted.
A taste for blood.
And it had softened the plains of her face, too, made her more alluring, though she has no way of knowing this.
“That looks dangerous,” she says, gesturing to the sparks his mane and tail throw into the air around him. And then, to soften the blow of her observation, she smiles.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Truthfully, Laurelin would have been happy to try to charm and delight anyone that he met tonight, though there’s a special joy in seeing her again. He does, of course, recognize her instantly. She’s quite pretty herself, you know, not to mention going around with the northern lights splashed across your body did have a tendency to be pretty unique. Plus, he hadn’t forgotten the filly that had been dayblind and unable to appreciate him in his glory. Little had he known then that he would get even prettier thanks to a only mildly traumatic visit to the beach.
It’s distressing that the first words out of her mouth aren’t “you’re gorgeous” but Laurelin is not discouraged.
He shakes his neck a little, causing a small flurry of the sparks to rise up and fade into the darkening sky as he replies with a bright grin dancing in his eyes. “Dangerous! Oh no. What’s dangerous is running out on our first meeting before we could properly be introduced.”
There is an uncomfortable moment where Laurelin isn’t sure she knows who he is - if she couldn’t see him last time… would she remember his voice? It’s a good voice, but his looks are what he prizes.
So he asks in a gently teasing voice, hoping to spark some memory - “Can you see me better now?”
12-30-2020, 06:28 PM (This post was last modified: 12-30-2020, 06:29 PM by chasmata.)
chasmata
She feels some sharp stab of horror when he speaks and she realizes that their paths have crossed before and she has no memory of it. Heat pools in her cheeks and she opens her mouth to fashion up an apology she can only half-mean when she does not remember their last encounter.
Or, at least, she doesn’t think she remembers it.
He speaks again before she can stammer out some explanation and everything slips sharply into focus. The Playground. How she’d walked right into him and he’d been the first soul she’d confessed her defect to and she had not fully understood the depth of her embarrassment at being so thoroughly blinded the sun until she’d turned tail and fled. (Or the closest she could get to fleeing when she could not see and did not want to suffer the same fate she had just run from).
She is embarrassed still, but she is distracted from it by the sight of him. He is the most handsome thing she’s seen, of that she is absolutely certain. Were she more of a romantic, perhaps she might have even swooned.
Instead, she merely studies him for the space of a breath and is grateful that her dark color conceals the flush of heat in her cheeks.
“Oh!” she exclaims and then summons up a smile, “I can!” And she laughs, something quiet and restrained but warm all the same.
“I’m sorry for how I acted the last time we met, I hadn’t learned how to handle my embarrassment yet.”
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Laurelin’s feeling rather smug at the moment - first about how she can actually see him (thank the gods, he’d be heartbroken if she couldn’t) and because he makes her laugh. Or, he’s pretty sure he’s the one that made her laugh.
And then she apologies to him and everything feels right. This is how interactions are supposed to go. He’s delighted by so many things - and not least of all the fact that the colour of their glows does not clash with one another. She’s soft greens and he’s blue and he fancies that where they meet in the darkness there’s the most wonderful shade of turquoise.
His smile is lopsided when he replies, his tone easy and smooth. “Oh that’s alright. The important thing is that you can see me now.” There’s an easy way that he says this - it’s arrogant, of course, but he could be commenting on the colour of the grass. It is just a fact for him, undisputed, and though he enjoys pointing it out there’s nothing overly haughty about the way he does it.
“I’m Laurelin.” He offers, pleased to finally get the chance to say it. His mom did a good job naming him, he must remember to tell her that the next time they meet.
She doesn’t know much about arrogance, certainly not enough to recognize that what he says could be considered arrogant. It seems to come only from a place of indisputable truth and that truth is that he is something worth looking at. They are both unique but he is unique in a way that makes him more universally appealing.
Should she tell him that he’s handsome? No, she thinks he must know it already. Should she tell him that she’s glad that she can see him for more reason than one? No, that doesn’t feel right either. So she just smiles and hopes that her expression doesn’t come off as vacant. She’s still learning how to navigate interactions like these, the ones that take place at night, and she finds she doesn’t always know what to do with her face.
He saves her from having to come up with something interesting or charming to say, though, and she is immediately grateful. “That’s a nice name,” she says and her smile deepens, “it suits you. My name is Chasmata.” She sinks a little closer then, like knowing his name gives her any right to be close to him, so that she can get a better look at the sparks thrown from his hair.
“Do they burn?” she asks, quiet.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
“Chasmata.” He repeats her name, committing it to his memory (he has forgotten names in the past, but it’s not his fault they weren’t interesting). Hers is unique, it doesn’t feel like liquid gold on his tongue like his own does but it pleasant in it’s difference. Any hope there might have been that he’d return the compliment she had given about his name is lost when she moves a little closer.
He does not mind the closeness - in fact he’s having a hard time trying to decide whether he enjoys it more because he can look at Chasmata’s markings, which are unlike anything he has ever seen - having spent no time in the north, or because it seems right that she should want to be closer to him.
Her question surprises him a little and he turns his head to look at the sparks that rise from his hair. “You know, I don’t actually know.” They had never harmed him, but then he had never tried to catch one of them.
There’s an impish smile when he looks back at her and speaks again. “I hope not, but if you’re feeling bold - you can try.”
Were her ego more fragile, she might have been wounded by the fact that he does not return the sentiment. He does not compliment her name, though she cannot blame him because it’s not as nice as his. There’s a harshness to it that does not always suit her, but she has never faulted her parents for this.
She studies him and finds that she quite likes the way their glows combine to set them both ablaze in a strange new color. Part of her is grateful that she could not see him the last time they met because to see him in the daylight almost certainly would have been a waste. She’s certain that he is most enchanting in the darkness, just as she is.
She is not as bold as she is curious and she glances at his face with a slanted smile before she ventures closer still. She pulls in a long breath and holds it before she reaches out her nose, keeping careful watch as she plunges it down into the depths of those flickering sparks. She pulls her head back sharply as one slides past her mouth, just barely singing the soft skin there. She presses her velvet lips into a thin line and exhales a breath of laughter.
“They burn,” she tells him with a lopsided smile. She reaches for him carefully again then, not because she hopes to get burned again but because she had felt a supernatural warmth in the air around him. “You’re warm,” she observes then, her head tilted as she pulls her nose back into her own space.
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
Laurelin finds that he cannot, or does not want to, look away as Chasmata comes closer still. The feeling that there is something… right about the lack of distance between them deepens. Like things are fitting together just as they should for the blue stallion. It was practically a crime that he spent so much of his time alone.
The smile that had been growing as the distance shrank disappears when she pulls her head back after sticking her head in the rising sparks and there’s something that’s awfully close to worry that makes his heart drop at the idea that he had (accidentally) just hurt her. But this feeling uncoils itself when she laughs, and then when she smiles it brings his own back instantly.
“Sorry.” He says and (surprisingly) means it. “I didn’t think they could actually hurt.” He was going to have to remember that, not use that as an excuse to lure someone pretty close to him. But she doesn’t seem put off by it, as she tests the air around him, and Laurelin’s grin grows - eyes dancing in the light of their merged glows.
“The warmth is benign, though. Just comes with my company.”
It is difficult to quantify the ways that she has changed.
Even just since their conversation began.
She had gone from embarrassed and apologetic to bold and curious.
She wonders if this is the natural progression of things, if friendship (are they friends?) has a way of changing you, or if there is something specific about him that has helped to sway her toward this new boldness.
(The skin continues to fester where the spark had grazed past her mouth, though she is too distracted to notice at the moment. She does not know much about her natural aversion to fire yet, though there is a good chance she will have to learn the hard way. Perhaps this means that the sparks are actually harmless, but singe her skin only because she has no natural protection against fire.)
But she shakes her head at his apology. “I wouldn’t ask you to apologize for being yourself,” she says, smiling still. How could she? She’s glad to see him smiling again and she’d sink closer still to siphon off some more of his warmth if she were not becoming increasingly aware of the stinging of her skin where the spark had touched her.
“Where are you from, Laurelin?” she asks, when what she means to ask is, what are the chances that our paths might have crossed twice?
the moonlight, baby, shows you what’s real
but there ain’t language for the things i feel
