"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
How many miles back had he lost the sun?
He is certain that it had been there and then what?
He had blinked and the earth had shuddered. Or had he imagined that?
It had taken him years to find his way back to Beqanna and it is such a dark place that greets him. There is an itching sensation of regret that nags at the base of his skull as he wanders toward the river (or what he remembers of the river). The shadows press in around him, reaching and writhing, (breathing?).
He could shed his skin, become something other. He could shake on his armor, but he has never found a use for it. It has never fit him the way he wanted it to. And he does not yet know that there are things here that he should be frightened of.
He finds the river, though it is quite by accident with no light to guide him. He has been gone from Beqanna longer than he spent here, he thinks, though there must be something of your birthplace ingrained in your DNA. Because, though he cannot see the water as it snakes past, he can remember still exactly the way it carves its way across the earth.
He peers into the darkness then and spots a lone figure on the opposite bank across a narrow spot in the river. “How long has the sun been gone?” he calls without greeting.
FALLING FEELS LIKE FLYING UNTIL YOU HIT THE GROUND
@[The Monsters] please mess with his rhino shifting!!
03-05-2021, 09:54 PM (This post was last modified: 03-05-2021, 09:55 PM by Memorie.)
one lives in hope of becoming a memory
Much to the dismay of both of my parents, my wandering had not stopped with my adventure to see Grodylin. I had now found myself in different corners of the world, exploring the darkness as I had once explored Taiga, though there seems to be a lot more to discover, now that I had to look more closely than I did before. It helps to have the soft, blue glow that emanates from my little socks, though that was not the only part of me glowing these days. They are still barely visible, but when squinting, one could barely start to make out the wispy shapes of wings growing from my shoulders.
Today, my wanderings bring me to a river. Here, there are many signatures to distract myself with, the hazy remnants of many memories that litter the shores. I had really honed my echoes to the point where I could pick up on even the faintest traces of a memory, though I could not see the memories themselves, I can feel the emotions that had once been there to go along with the memories. There are even familiar memories here. I trace the edges of a memory that bears the distinct trace of my sister and the boy that she shared a connection with. Though I cannot see the memory, I know that this must be where they had met.
I am so absorbed in my thoughts and the residue of Cheri’s memories that I completely miss the presence of another horse on the opposite bank of the river. It is only when he calls out that I am startled from my reveries. I lift my head in a jerking motion to look over at the dark shape from which the voice had come from, and I blink, slightly confused by his question before I realize that he must have come from somewhere else–somewhere where the sun still shone.
“I believe it’s been about a year, now,” I call back. The idea that there might still be a sun somewhere else peaks my interest, though, so I glance at the river hesitantly before I step into its swift current, pushing toward the other side. When I have reached the other side, I stop, looking curiously at the other horse, a grey stallion with the most unusual markings on his sides. Just to confirm my suspicions, I ask, “Does the sun shine elsewhere?”
The sun’s been gone a year now.
What a peculiar concept.
He turns his head up to the sky, squinting up at the sliver of light (so narrow that it’s barely there at all) that creeps out around the edge of the eclipse. There are many things he does not know, Rembrandt, but he doesn’t think darkness is supposed to last quite so long.
(It is about this time that he feels the second skin slip away, the one he so seldom ever used, and he feels bone ripple down the length of his spine. It is a peculiar sensation but he does not think to question it. It is so brief and the bone does not yet erupt from beneath the skin.)
When he drops his head again, the filly has crossed the river and come to join him. He exhales, surprised at the company. How long has he been alone? It feels like forever. He remembers a shy filly so many years ago. He remembers snow. He remembers a kindness that no longer fits him the same way.
He rolls his shoulders in an effort to relieve some of the tension there.
“Yes,” he tells her, though he cannot tell her where he has come from. As far as he knows, the place had no name. “I don’t know how long ago I lost it.” He hadn’t known that he should have been paying attention.
He shifts his weight. “Do you know what caused the darkness?” he asks, though she seems young enough that he’d be surprised if she remembers a world without darkness at all.
FALLING FEELS LIKE FLYING UNTIL YOU HIT THE GROUND
@[Memorie]
@[The Monsters] let's see what happens to the bone spikes!
03-11-2021, 07:35 PM (This post was last modified: 03-11-2021, 07:39 PM by Memorie.)
one lives in hope of becoming a memory
The most unusual thing happens, just as I cross the river. A shadow crosses my line of sight. Then the very air around us seems to shift and contort, as if tinged with some form of wicked magic, and the stallion changes before my eyes. The vertebrae beneath his skin along his back seem to grow and change. They form spikes that protrude from his skin. For a moment, I stand there, shell-shocked, staring at the grey figure before me. In that moment, I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to back away in terror or spew a thousand curious questions about what had just happened.
The stallion, however, seems completely unfazed by the sudden events that had transpired beneath the dark sky. Meanwhile, I just stand there looking like an idiot, staring at him with my mouth gaping open.
It is his words that break the awkward silence that surrounds us. A response to a question I’d forgotten I even asked. It snaps me back down to my current reality, the one where the sun doesn’t shine and I was trying to figure out if this stallion held any clues as to why. I shake my head slightly, my flaxen mane falling softly into my eyes so that I have to shake it back once more. The motion brings all of my thoughts back to where I had been before the weird occurrence that had produced the spikes down his back.
His admission that he doesn’t know how long ago he’d lost the sun is slightly disappointing, though, but knowing that the sun shines elsewhere could only mean that this was a problem that faced Beqanna alone. It must mean that something had gone wrong with the magic that thrived here.
The stallion asks what caused the darkness, and a soft laugh brushes past my lips. “I was just trying to figure that out, myself,” I admit, “I was hoping you would have provided some of those answers. As far as I know, though, something went wrong with the magic here. But it’s not just the darkness. There are monsters, as well.” I have a sneaking suspicion that they have something to do with the sudden appearance of those bone spikes, which I wearily cast a shadowed glance toward. “The monsters arrived at the same time the sun blinked out of the sky. I’ve heard rumors that the monsters have done something to the magic here, as well.”
He is oblivious to whatever it is that stops the filly in her tracks and it does not immediately occur to him to ask. (Though he does cast a quick glance over his shoulder into the shadows behind him, unaware that she is reacting to something that is changing on his own body. Besides, the monsters have manipulated the bone into something else entirely by the time he turns his head to look anyway.) She seems to recover quickly, joining him on the riverbank and exhaling a breath of airy laughter in response to his question.
A strange concept indeed.
A year of perpetual darkness for which the citizens of Beqanna have no explanation. They seem to have simply accepted it. He tilts his head, his brow darkening in confusion. He turns his head to peer deeper into the shadows on the opposite side of the river but there are no answers there either.
Something gone wrong with the magic, monsters lurking in the shadows. Perhaps he should not have returned home. Perhaps he should have stayed gone where the sun still shone and the shadows did not teem with monsters. He shifts his weights and draws his focus back to the filly. “Have you seen them?” he asks, though he does not know why. It doesn’t seem important. “The monsters?”
He will leave in the morning, he thinks. He will retrace his steps until he finds the sun again. There is nothing for him here anyway. He left no family here, no great love of his life. If there are things in the dark there must be a reason they’re being called monsters, certainly.
“Why are they being called monsters?”
It is a strange feeling, too, to be significantly older than this chestnut filly and looking to her to answer all of these questions. But there must have been some catalyst, he thinks, it doesn’t make sense that the sun might have just blinked out of the sky.
FALLING FEELS LIKE FLYING UNTIL YOU HIT THE GROUND
It happens again, though this time I am not as quick to notice, but it becomes hard not to, as the bone spikes disappear and the grey of his coat begins to shift and flicker, growing darker and darker until he seems to disappear altogether. I can still see him, just barely, when I squint my eyes at him, just a faint outline of his figure against the darkness. And what’s so strange is that the stallion doesn’t even seem to notice!
My eyes widen, and I take a step back. He speaks, but this time I am unable to get past the sudden change, especially since he doesn’t even seem to notice that it’s happening. “Whoa!” I say, shocked and flabbergasted by the sudden shift in his appearance. “why do you keep…changing?” I find myself stuck between humor and horror, though an even bigger part of me is completely unsure of how to feel at all.
Perhaps he knows that he is changing? I mean, Beqanna has some pretty strange magic. Maybe it is something that he is controlling? The thought does occur to me, but a nagging sensation at the back of my mind tells me that he is completely unaware, and that this is not something he has any control over.
I glance around, trying to peer into the shadows. One would think that a year in darkness might help our eyes to adjust better and our brains to make its own adjustments to help us see better, but that is not the case. But there is nothing there, no flash of movement as I’d seen before, no hint of anything nearby. A chill runs down my spine, and I shake it off, returning my attention to the conversation.
Though my attention had been elsewhere, years of practiced listening had still allowed me to catch his questions. I draw in a breath, a shaky breath. The topic was something that still caused a little bit of discomfort to run through me. “I have seen them. One attacked my sister.” I still remember every detail as if it had just happened, the sound of her terrified scream, the headlong race through the trees, the gathering of us yearlings surrounding her and the monster. The monster, however, was a blur, a shape that I couldn’t describe, made up of something otherworldly. If he asks for a description, I’m not sure I’d be able to provide one.
As for his second question, I’m not quite sure how to answer. I stop and think for a moment here. Why are they called monsters? “Well, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure why they’re called ‘monsters’. I guess we had nothing else to name them. We don’t even know what they are or where they came from. I’ve only heard rumors, though, that they crawled their way out of the bodies of horses that have been to the Afterlife in a quest of Carnage’s making.” That was the best description I could give him.
Memorie
Image by Calcifer
So disappointed that nothing happened to his camouflage! Haha.
The child reacts to something he cannot see and he instinctively casts a glance over his shoulder, gazing into the darkness. But nothing stirs there. It is just the two of them still, alone there on the bank of the river and his brow darkens in confusion as he returns his focus to her face as she retreats.
Changing?
He glances down at himself then, finds his flesh has turned even darker in these crushing shadows. There is no stirring of bone beneath the surface. His heart leaps against the cage of his ribs and he looks sharpy back up at her, forcing the spike of panic not to register on his face. He cannot feel the sinister forces that manipulate the magic that lives within him, the monsters that teem in the shadows that dip their evil fingers into his soul to contort the structure therein. But he will not allow himself to fear it.
“I don’t know,” he tells her, feigning nonchalance. He does not lie, but he does not let on how troubled he is by it either.
He shifts his weight, forcing himself to focus on the things she tells him so as to not dwell on the possible explanations for the changes in him. He swallows thickly, considering the things that might attack a child. The things that might have come back from the Afterlife. The things that Carnage might be responsible for.
He nods slowly in understanding, exhales.
“What are you doing out here by yourself, then? If there are monsters about and your own sister was attacked by one?”
FALLING FEELS LIKE FLYING UNTIL YOU HIT THE GROUND
@[Memorie]
@[The Monsters] please take his camouflage because i don't know how to spell it
