"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
02-19-2021, 11:57 PM (This post was last modified: 02-20-2021, 12:08 AM by aestas.)
It had been weeks since she has last seen Islay—just a few weeks and yet so much had changed. So much had shifted in their entire world. The land had gotten dark, unruly, and she could feel the change within her. Could see the worry in her parent’s faces as they exchanged glances that they thought the children couldn’t see, as her mother ran herself ragged trying to create a sun for them that didn’t exist.
She escaped this morning—this evening?—when her mother finally took her rest, going to the beach.
The tides were as unruly as ever. With no sun and no moon, there were no laws for them anymore and although Aestas had never truly understood them, she certainly couldn’t now. She watched them washing up on the beach, hearing the rattle of seashells against the sand, and took a breath that she hadn’t even realized that she had been holding in her chest. Would her friend come? She tilted her head back to look into the darkness, peering into the endless black—wondering at what lie out in the beyond.
She had no idea of knowing if Islay was safe.
If she remembered that they would meet.
If she was even able to make it.
She had considered asking her mother to check, but Leliana had been so focused on her other tasks—trying to look after their brood, trying to keep brief moments of light for them—that it didn’t seem fair. So she kept her concern to herself and snuck away, coming to the beach on the day she thought they meant.
There’s a brush of something cold against her and she shivers, reaching for her gift and letting it flare to life around her. A wave of heat erupts from her, billowing out, and she relaxes into the self-made sauna.
It wouldn’t last for long—she was still too inexperienced—but, for now, it was a temporary reprieve.
so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies
@[The Monsters] - mess with her self-healing please!
@[Islay] - hi! i decided to start them a new thread. :)
03-04-2021, 12:26 PM (This post was last modified: 03-04-2021, 12:27 PM by Islay.)
It's been just a few short weeks since their last meeting and yet their world has been turned upside-down. The sun rose one day to greet the moon and then the pair had stayed like that, intertwined in the sky above, frozen. All that remained was a dim halo that lit nothing.
Their world had plunged into darkness.
Though Islay knows the safest place to remain is Islandres with her family, she can't ignore the tug that pulls within her breast with each coming tide. She had tried to stay, for a time. Gale was their steady protector and yet every time she heard the flapping wings of Erne, Islay would look across the ocean to Tephra - to the Mainland - and long to be here.
So when the tide goes low and Islay thinks that Aedan won't notice, the painted filly takes one step towards the sandbar and then another.
(She is careful. She cloaks herself in the dark and the shadows, becomes nothing more than the soft hoofsteps on the damp sand. Becomes nothing more than a dark glimmer of something on the edges of someone's vision. Islay might not be able to pull her stars and her moon from the sky anymore but she can still wrap herself in the shadows so that she becomes nothing.)
The full moon hadn't come but Islay did, regardless.
Her white-and-blue hide is still concealed when she finally reaches the Tephran shore. And the warmth that floods her - that feels like sunshine - tells her who is nearby. The girl reveals herself suddenly and there is a bright smile to greet @[aestas] when her sun-marked friend finds her. "Aestas," she says and then adds, "I'm so glad I found you."
And not the monsters, she thinks.
@[The Monsters] please mess with her acid generation
She nearly feels the shadows of her friend before she sees her, and she angles her pale head to peer out into the darkness, trying to fin the shape of her against the rest of the darkness that creeps up alongside them. There is no such luck, not away, and she frowns slightly—annoyed that she could not have better vision in the darkness or gifts that would help her make out things. It is only then that she realizes that she could sense the heat of things, perhaps, and the idea is such a compelling one that she drops the heat that she had been cocooning herself in to reach out for it, trying to map out the various waves of heat around them. She can feel the various temperatures of the plants and the sand, the wind, and when she comes across a pocket of something uniquely and definitively alive, she nearly laughs with relief and then joy.
How brilliant, she thinks, although she does nothing to manipulate the heat other than sense it.
When her friend finally does reveal herself, Aestas’ face lights up with joy, her coral eyes sparking with recognition as she quickly moves forward to close the distance between them. “Islay,” she greets her warmly, reaching out to bump her nose against the other girl’s neck, grinning. “I was hoping you’d come.” She sidles closer so that the two of them can stand hip to hip, and she glances out across the water where Islay had made the journey across the damp sand, wondering how long it had taken her.
“Things have certainly changed since the last time I saw you,” she remarks, knowing that it is the silliest way of trying to broach the subject of all the ways their world has nearly collapsed.
A pause as she ventures further forward again.
“How have you and your family been?”
so you should get on board with someone whose course is steadier than mine you should get on board with someone whose eyes are on the horizon, not on the skies
03-24-2021, 08:42 PM (This post was last modified: 03-24-2021, 08:46 PM by Islay.)
The heat that wraps around Islay feels almost like an embrace and so she had dropped all her shadow camouflage. Islay had dropped her veil the moment she had realized that it was Aesta's warmth rushing towards her. It's wonderful, the two-toned girl thinks as she basks in the heat that feels like a balm against their dark world.
Like a secret language that is Aestas' to share or withhold, and she has deemed Islay worthy of knowing it.
"I'm sorry that it took me so long," she says, the edge of her smile tugging towards a rueful grin. She had waited and waited to see if the stars would return. She had wondered what hung the moon in suspense, what it was waiting for. And in a final attempt week ago, she had called to it with her magic to see if it might tell her.
But there had been no song from the moon and the stars had fled to further galaxies, where Islay couldn't find them.
It makes her all the more glad to feel Aestas' skin brush against hers. So much has changed since their last meeting but some things have stayed the same. Aestas is still the brightest soul she has ever met. She is still shining, despite the current circumstances of their fallen world.
Islay's pale tail twitches and it slaps against her pale hind legs as she tries to explain how the world has changed and yet stayed the same on Islandres.
The tides are always coming and going, she teases. As always. But some things have changed, she shares. Her expression is cloaked by the darkness but the pause in her voice almost trembles with the unspoke troubles. Until Islay shares them. Her father is worried about her wandering mother, who has been gone longer than she ever has been before. And even Gale - who has always been as steady as Islandres' tides - seems withdrawn and harder to locate of late.
"What of you?" she asks @[aestas], after another moment of hushed silence and shadow.
