• Logout
  • 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


    Come little children // Chaos kids
    #1
    We were too weak. That's why he'd failed, returned to my side as less than a victor. That's what I'm told, by the cruel night whisperers. More blood, more bodies, to feed them and to earn their good graces. 

    I sigh into the dark, and let my skin flicker as the trees melt away from the landscape. Sound no longer muffles on their trunks, instead it flows freely as I hum a lilting melody. 

    It's a song, only half-remembered from my childhood. A desert song that I once knew the words to, but now only the fractured refrain remains in my memory. Was this a lullaby my mother had sung to me? It must be. Before she withdrew into the beautiful, empty shell of a creature that I most remembered. These are different ghosts than I've grown used to. Older, more faint. But just as violent. 

    My tongue darts out to wetten my paper-dry lips. The song stops, and for a moment I can't figure out why. My mouth twists when I realize it is because I stopped singing it. Isn't that always the way? You want something done right, you have to do it yourself. To my dismay, though, once I go searching for the notes to take up the song again, they have vanished. Gone again into the faulty labyrinth that is my memory. 

    Lightning forks again on my shoulders, my face, my hips. Scars turned electric, and now my only light in the dark. How sick is that? I stomp my hooves, breaking through crusted snow in my pique. "Fine!" I shrill at the near-silent shadows. They are listening. They are always listening. "Take my memories again. They do not serve me anyway." I am snarling, feral, and I beat my wings in a fit of directionless wrath. Thunder fills the air as I do, and I wonder if the chest-quaking noise will scare them. 

    Like a summer storm, my temper quickly spends itself. It is difficult to fight an enemy that exists only in my mind. It's a task I've been railing against many years now, and it does not get any more fulfilling. Laughter, quiet and insidious, chitters from the edges of this meadow. My maw widens into a vicious grin, my own broken cackle joining in.
    Reply
    #2

    It's the song she hears first.

    It's an odd, almost eerie tune. Whatever it's origins, it is one that Aela has never heard during her time in the North or since she had arrived in Pangea. It's not even a song she can recall from the memories she had stumbled across. These are the things that always spark fascination in her young mind.

    Where do all these forgotten things come from? From the Beyond, where Heartfire has gone?

    The song had vanished some time back but Aela followed the images that the singer had left behind. There were glimpses like lightning strikes - things that came flashing to life before Aela was left in the never-ending dark again. She followed after the trail of echoes left behind, finding herself curious about the images that she had happened across. It can be said that following a trail of memories is time-consuming when daylight still exists; when it does not, it is nearly impossible.

    Thankfully, the singer is shouting.

    At the sound of her shrill voice, it doesn't take Aela long to find her. She is a living storm; lightning is charging off her back and the gold-striped filly thinks that she looks poised to strike anything. It's an oddly thrilling spectacle to watch and the sensation of it alighting in her lean chest is the reason that girl comes forward. The opalescent woman is a wild thing. Her emotions come crashing off her in waves that have no order or pattern. She laughs and yet it feels like she could cry; when she quiets, the sense of peace that proceeds only feels like the calm before the storm.

    Aela enjoys the way to prickles against her near-palomino skin.

    She tries to be gentle with this creature. The memories she sends washing back start small, a steady trickle where Aela could summon a whole rapid. It's the song she had been singing. The words she lost.

    Would she like them back?




    image credit to footybandit


    @[Sabra]
    Reply
    #3
    There is a scratching in my mind. The quietest insistence that I pay attention, like a mouse making the slightest of rustlings in the undergrowth. What does it want? I am poised on the edge of a motion, frozen and listening as the sound continues. 

    I hum to it, trying to match the faint notes. "Sand of gold, your treasure holds, between the dunes a secret told." the words slip almost unnoticed from my lips. "Night is long, the road is old, so walk with me until we're home. My love, I'm cold, until you're home." It's as if I'm hearing the words for the first time, and that may as well be true for how long it's been. Several lifetimes, at least. My head tips to one side, and to my shock I realize that my cheeks are wet. 

    There's a pause, and it's utterly still. Even the shadows have stopped their murmuring. "I have not known that song for a very long time," I say allowed, certain I am being heard. "Where did it come from?" More to the point, who did it come from. My eyes delve into the inky dark, unsure of what I'm looking for. Is this another trick, played by a jagged toothed creature? Or something subtler. 

    This is a common place, and though they're faded, many scents still linger here. One is stronger, but I have no face that it might belong to. Strangers, strangers everywhere, and not a bite to eat. 

    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #4

    The firestorm stills and Aela finds that interesting.

    She had been unbridled energy before - passion? rage? grief? - and the air had been filled with wild things. It had intrigued Aela, whoever the singer was. It was a tune about lost things and yet what she finds doesn't look exactly lost; the opalescent mare simply looks... quiet.

    Aela tilts her refined head and emerges gracefully, her step light and full of air; she nearly floats across the ground. The almost-palomino flicks her ears forward as she listens, realizing that the opalescent mare is singing along with the memory (Aela has had many reactions to her projections but this is certainly a first for the striped girl).That interests her where the sight of a mare crying might have sent her in another direction.

    (There is little use for tears, after all. Unless Aela can use them to fuel a fire, unless she can use them as a kindling for an emotion that will make another burn.)

    When Sabra stares into the dark, it is not a monster (at least not one of the shadow-walkers) she sees. It is simply a girl with her head held at a knowing angle and a blue-eyed stare that might freeze a simpler soul in place. With Sabra, they are merely dark with questions and a desire to have them answered.

    The song - the memory of it - came from Aela but what the golden girl says is this: "You." Her voice is still unpracticed but the single word is practiced (almost painfully so, it has taken Aela hours to work through the way her tongue can stammer). Despite the dark, her eyes look wide and round. Her golden stripes glow, inviting the pegasus mare closer. "How did you lose it?"



    image credit to footybandit


    @[Sabra]
    Reply
    #5
    The flicker of an old smile passes over my face as a gilded girl emerges from the depths of the shadows. Beautiful and young, with cunning in her eyes. You, she says, and I know it's true. That song is not one known in these parts, or it would have found me again before now. No, it belongs to endless deserts and blazing sunlight. The exact opposite of our world now. 

    I remain in my place, wings held loosely by my side where anger has left them steaming into the cool air. Felt more than heard, figures fat and gloaming ooze past the edge of our sight. Curious. Watchful. I can almost make out the shape of one beyond this girl's shoulder, and I wonder what they're waiting for. What kind of mistakes do we have to make to get their attention? 

    It's been long, too long since she's spoken, and I have not. The words emerge like forgotten things themselves, detached from meaning as soon as they leave my mouth. "A casualty from several lifetimes ago," and they are cryptic and gone. 

    How many things have I lost over the years? The color of my mother's eyes. The sound of my father's voice. And thousands of other small details that once made up my existence. I have to pause to remember my oldest child's name. To remember exactly how many children I have born over the years. My mouth quirks in a twisted grin. Ah, but some things are better left forgotten. 

    The gleam of yellowish eyes blinks and shifts behind her, and I follow it with my head as the thing moves obliquely. "It's dangerous to be alone in the dark," I comment, almost to myself. Dangerous, dangerous... "Either you're stupid, or you're better able to take care of yourself than you look. Which is it." My head snaps back to her, teeth and eyes gleaming slightly in the glow she casts. 

    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #6

    "A pity," Aela says as if she mourns the song. (She finds no use in grieving for the past but there might have been something for the golden girl to glean from the song - where it came from, if it held meaning in another place or time, if there was a way for Aela to wield it into a weapon either for or against the opalescent mare). "It was lovely," she murmurs and then shrugs her slender shoulders as if its loss makes little difference to her.

    She approaches carefully because the memories of this one are potent; the things she remembers are bright and clear like the daylight in their world had once been. It makes it easier for Aela to know her but it also makes it more dangerous for her magic. She can sense the traces of anger in the air and the striped filly is mindful of it. It could be a spark for Aela and then the pair might blaze into an inferno of volatile emotions.

    Patience and practice guide her next steps.

    There is a flicker across Sabra's mind of the things that she tries to remember. There are faces that have no name and Aela briefly considers asking about them. There is normally more attached to the images; sons and daughters are remembered, some lovers wished forgotten and others remembered tenderly, friends and acquaintances were strewn across the moments of a lifetime. Enemies were remembered fierce and bright, burning behind emotions like anger and hatred and revenge.

    But there is (oddly) none of that with @[Sabra]. The emotions are there and yet they aren't attached to any particular memory. How fascinating, Aela thinks. There isn't even anything attached to how she came by the limb protruding from her blue chest.

    Her blue eyes glance towards it before lifting to see the pegasus glancing behind her. There are creatures out there. Aela has even encountered a few of them. Some of them take shapes with sharp teeth and scraping claws (and the golden girl has a wound or two from them). But they don't seem to care for her glow and they don't particularly seem to enjoy the way that she has started to force emotions on them. When Aela had projected the memory of a loss that a mare had suffered, the shadow creature had screamed and dissipated (though not before running its predator teeth along one of her long legs and had left Aela crying with another's grief).

    "They don't seem to bother me," she shares like it is some great secret, one she only reveals for Sabra. Aela even finishes the sentences with a smile and without having to concentrate on keeping her voice even. She tilts her head like she can't understand why they would leave her alone, though her eyes hold a mischievous edge. "Perhaps I'm more dangerous than they are," Aela admits casually (arrogantly). The other mare comes closer to her glow and Aela spies it again, that thing jutting from her chest. She smiles, forgoing any sense of politeness. "Are you?"



    image credit to footybandit
    Reply
    #7
    "A simple tune to quiet mewling infants," I reply dispassionately, eyes flat where they gleamed moments ago. That it was a fragment of lost memory meant more than the memory itself. Those are days I cannot return to, even if I wanted to. They are gone, and the memory of them has been trickling away steadily over the years. Grains of sand scattered by the uncaring winds of time. 

    I am uncaring, myself. 

    This girl, though, she stirs something inside of me. Not curiosity, per say, but interest. She could walk away and I would not think of her again. For now she is here though, and I wonder vaguely at the glint in her eyes. In the halting, calculated way she speaks. My head lists slightly to one side, appraising and judging. 

    Quite suddenly, I am transformed. A motherly smile caresses my lips at her wide-eyed observation, and I smell the false innocence on her tongue. Have not I used a similar voice when it suited me? Oh yes, this is intriguing. "You very well might be," I murmur like a doting dam, cooing over her treasured offspring. I am all things sweet and kind and wholesome.  

    "But I very much doubt it." 

    In the same saccharine tone, I undercut the praise. It is honey covered poison, and I wonder if this girl will lap at it or spit it out? I'm not sure which would delight me more. 

    The spear in my breast sways gently as I move, and I note that it draws her eye. It has that effect. Even now, years after the wound was first inflicted, blood seeps sluggish from the inflamed flesh around its shaft. It is an ugly, rust- colored interruption. It's become a part of me in more than simple physical ways. 

    I have not had the decency to feign good manners tonight. That she has is not lost on me, but nor is it important. Manners are a means to an end, nothing more, and I have no end in mind for this snipe. "Oh, I'm stupid, alright. Clear out of my mind. Batshit." I chime, and it's with a dazzling smile. "But stupid and dangerous are often mates." The smile hardens into a razor edge, and I teeter on the edge of violence. She did ask, after all.  

    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #8

    Aela is watching her, studying her because this opalescent mare is unlike most that she has encountered. How quickly her moods change! How swift her memories shift! Just when the golden girl thinks she has found a hoofhold somewhere in her mind, the wounded woman changes. She shifts (in a way that reminds her of Skandar, like her thoughts and memories change to suit her whims) and the palomino tilts her head curiously.

    The mare dismisses the lullaby as easily as she had and Aela is content to let it go. She is long past the age of being lulled to sleep and if this song had no purpose, well, it was better left in the past. The striped filly gives her slender shoulders a careless roll and waits for what way the mare will blow next. It happens with the multi-hued woman taking on the role of a loving mother and though Aela always appreciates praise, she already has one. Aela has her milk-mother; she has no use for another.

    It's the next words that make her smile.

    She doubts that Aela is dangerous and her smile sharpens. She wields it like a weapon because this is her advantage. (Heartfire had taught her there was little use in being a self-proclaimed anything; it was best to let them wonder. The mind could be far more terrifying than any memory she might conjure.) "Perhaps," she chimes back and her blue eyes are bright.

    That is a mystery for either @[Sabra] to discover; for Aela to divulge, if she so desired.

    (And she doesn't. Not yet, anyway.)

    The palomino eyes the woman who claims so blatantly that she is crazy. That claims her insanity as a badge of honor on her speared breast. (Her eyes widen a bit at this. Aela hadn't expected the woman to be so frank. But she is given a taste of the truth and a hint of violence tinges in the air, charges it as much as her lightning strikes had.) "Are they?" she murmurs, as one speaks to a nursling who doesn't understand the dark.

    Her smile turns impish then, almost hidden by the lack of light.

    "And where has your mind gone?"





    image credit to footybandit
    Reply
    #9
    I sway from one forefoot to the other, an erratic rhythm that pulls my mind temporarily together. My mind may have forgotten most of my roots, but blood remembers. It calls back to endless deserts and days and years and generations of nomadic travel. Holding still has never been an option, not even when the options have been stripped away. 

    My eyes track the dull shape of her, flickering between her face and the deepening shadows behind her. I want to gnaw at the half-healed skin on my chest. It itches and burns along the ragged edges of older bite wounds, sparking where scar tissue has started to form. My teeth grit and grind and then I smile, and shove the urge away like an unwanted child. 

    Her smug assurance, I can only laugh at it. A cold, icicle sharp giggle that cuts off abruptly. "Oh, to be young and insufferable," I crow, jigging half a pace closer to the bright young thing. "When life comes around to beat that arrogant look off your face, I do hope you'll think of me!" Said in much the same manner most would wish a foal a long and happy life. 

    Her next words bring my manic movement to a jarring halt. My eyes widen, and logic (or the lack thereof) slides puzzle pieces together. The smug surity. The sudden appearance. "Did you take it?" I ask, voice low and hoarse. 

    "DIDYOUTAKEIT, ANSWER ME YOU LITTLE BITCH, I KNOW YOU HAVE IT!" 

    And I am a hurricane again, the air suddenly charged and heavy with ozone as the wind stirs beneath my wings. One hoof strikes out to where I think it might collide with her, and I see my daughter in front of my eyes again. See her decaying body crumble and split apart beneath my assault. I had to do it. I had to, it was me or her and I would do it again so help me gods. 

    @[Aela]
    Reply
    #10

    Aela doesn't move away from the speared mare. Sabra comes closer and her blue eyes flick down again towards the thing that protrudes from the chest of the opalescent woman. Her expression tightens but the striped palomino refrains from saying anything more.

    Confusion clouds it when the pegasus asks a question, something low and hoarse, something that reminds her of the low rumble of impending thunder. Her golden ears prick forward and then back as she lifts her proud head. What was she asking? What could she have possibly have taken from this troubled creature?

    A slim foreleg rises and Aela pauses when the pegasus hisses something at her.

    @[Sabra] is a hurricane but Aela is an inferno (because what else could a curse-born child be?)

    "I," she spits back at the other, pausing when she feels her tongue start to tangle. "I take nothing that is n-not," she stops again. Frustration rushes the next words. "Nothing that is not mine."

    And there is nothing of Sabra that Aela wants. Her hoof strikes the ground in warning but it's too late. The winged mare is already charging at her and her front leg pushes the younger one off-balance. Aela is no fighter. Her glory will never be found on a battlefield. But that doesn't mean she will allow herself to struck, to be made weak. There is a glimmer of something, of a child.

    So Aela, always adapting and attempting to stay one step ahead of circumstance, tries to find her advantage. She  tries to push the other mare back with her mind.

    Over and over again, she charges the air with power that she knows. She knows nothing about this child but there is something behind the memory that Aela can latch on to, that catches and continues to project between them. She replays Sabra's memory of this little girl, of her frail body, and the way that it was broken apart. Aela doesn't know the reasons behind but she can feel it; something had demanded the death of the girl. It hangs heavy in the electrically-charged air, like the coming of a summer storm.





    image credit to footybandit
    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)