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  • 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


    you know i'm never alone
    #1
    CrownS
    He watches the sun rise with a tinge of disappointment. The monsters wither and die around him before his eyes can quite determine their true shape, which only furthers his sorrow. Crowns breathes a sigh before slipping from the forest’s tree line and making his way toward the meadow. He will carry the memory of the longest night with him and this thought brings him some comfort. And besides, he reminds himself, there will be infinite little nights to keep him company here.

    He blinks and his eyes catch the reflection of the newly rebirthed sun in them, taking some of its light for their own. It tingles down into his skull and he pauses, one hoof hanging in the air midstep. Another blink and the tingling subsides. He is too young to know the gentle touch of Beqanna bestowing gifts to her children, but he feels a sense of calm from it just the same. Perhaps the light will not be so bad after all.

    The meadow has suffered from the lack of sunlight with the grasses remaining stunted in their growth. The night had consumed his thoughts so entirely that he hadn’t considered how it may affect things that rely on the sun to grow. A frown flickers across his handsome face as he continues on his way further into the commonland. Plants are not his forte in the way they are for his grandmother and Isilya, but he lets his magic come flowing from his hooves so every step deposits a fraction of his strength to the soil. The grass turns from sickly yellow to a vibrant green in his wake, just enough to get it started in its regrowth.

    His glowing eyes examine the meadow before him and he wonders if Tephra has survived well enough with the aid of its people. It’s been ages since he went home, he realizes now.
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[Risa]
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    #2

    Risa is not pleased about the return of the sun and she shrinks into whatever shadows she can find to avoid it a little longer, though its arrival had spread warmth across her body (and she has not yet noticed how her dapples shimmer in its light now). The world that the new sun illuminates is not exactly filled with vivid colour yet but it is bright to her, bright and burning, after so long in the afterlife where everything was a haze of grey.

    Although she has not returned to the beach, she knows with a sinking feeling that it is too late to wander back into the world of the dead the way that she had wandered here. If she wants to go back, she’s going to need to die again. For now, it remains only slightly tempting. She tries to tell herself to give it time, see if she’ll adjust. This time, death will surely be permanent.

    She is sheltering behind one of the large oaks (not a great shelter, since she is unable to crawl into its branches the way she wishes) when she spots him - her dark eyes widening a little as he moves through the meadow and the plants shift to life behind him. It is both beautiful and terrifying how much colour there is in the world now. She's not yet learned to feel self-conscious about how little of it she holds. Even her blue eyes are nearly black.

    Risa is not feeling particularly brave but she forces herself out from behind her not-shelter and a little more into the light when she asks in her wraith-thin voice “Is this what the world is supposed to look like?” Her gaze not on him but on the revived plants in his wake.



    @[crowns]
    Reply
    #3
    CrownS
    He’s surprised at how the bright colors of the reviving plants almost hurt his eyes. Crowns had gotten used to seeing everything in a veil of blues and purples, it seemed, and now the reds and yellows felt like fire in his pupils. But he savors the burn and lets the plants continue pinching off little nibbles of his magic for themselves. The blanched stalks of grass and the wilted flower petals make a feast of these crumbs and stretch into their old shapes so easily with just a little encouragement. Of course, he doesn’t speak to them in the ways his grandmother or Isilya do, but they keep their flower-faces turned to him as though he is their sun. This is more than enough for him.

    Crowns lifts his gaze to the stranger when she comes peeking out from behind a tired old oak. Her voice is almost snatched off by the breeze, but he manages to catch her words just enough to make them out. He turns and considers the blistering brightness of the wild grasses a moment. She asks an excellent question, he thinks. Who knows what the world is really meant to look like? So he initially offers only a shrug.

    Maybe parts of it. But it can’t all be the same or it becomes monotonous, don’t you think?” he asks with a gentle chuckle. “Some of my favorite parts of the world don’t have much color at all.

    He thinks of the perfect white snow and how it reflects the sun so bright he has to squint to see, or the blue-black of the ocean when he plunges deep enough beneath the waves. Colors like this wouldn’t stand a chance in those places. But they don’t belong there - they belong right here, in this meadow.

    My name is Crowns. What’s yours?
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[Risa]
    Reply
    #4

    Risa doesn’t know what to say in response to his first question, or if it was even one that she was supposed to answer. She didn’t have an opinion on whether the world would be monotonous if it were all the same - except maybe to think that would make things a lot less overwhelming if it were. Then nothing would surprise her and she’d be able to find her footing a little easier. That was what she had liked about the darkness, it had made her transition easier.

    She finds the second part of what he says more curious but before she asks about it, he introduces himself. An instinct from another life has her reply automatically, her soft words accompanied by a small dip of her dark head. “I’m… Risa. Risa.” She says it twice, the second time to make up for how unsure she had sounded the first time.  She knew her name, though she didn’t know much else. She had forgotten it for a time when she had been dead but then she’d run across her father in the afterlife and he’d remind her. Her mother too, would remind her, for the short time Agetta had been there.

    Right on the heels of that quiet introduction is her curiosity, infusing her voice with a little more strength. She isn’t sure she wants to know the answers to all the questions she has about this new Life but this one feels safe, this one is tempting enough and something like hope flashes through her near-black eyes. “There are places without much colour?”



    @[crowns]
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    #5
    CrownS
    He has existed so briefly in this world that he has not yet considered what existence may be like beyond this plane. Youth keeps him naive and ignorant, only dimly aware that death occurs at all. And it certainly doesn’t occur to him that she may be one of the wandering souls who found their way through the veil during that strange night. Instead, he assumes she is only another shy girl finding her way through this world. (This is not to say that her seemingly fragile state does not intrigue him, though.)

    Risa,” he repeats when she seems more sure of the name. He offers her a gentle smile in thanks. “I like it.

    Before he can compliment her further, she asks her question and he tilts his head curiously at it. Had she never seen the perfect chill of a northern winter? It seemed so commonplace to him even in his few short years. But he is careful not to furrow his brow or let his expression be mistaken for judgement in any way. Instead, he nods in delicate affirmation.

    The north is mostly white and gray. But I like it there, with all the snow and the cold. It feels peaceful.

    He carefully shares the memory of the frigid winter with her, then. Crowns relives the chill of the wind against his fevered head and the way it wrapped around his shoulders until he felt at ease once more. It was something like the first drink of cold water on a terrible summer day. He breathes a sigh of relief even now at the thought of it.

    Color isn’t necessary for something to be beautiful, I think,” he says at last as he withdraws the recollection from her.
    you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.

    @[Risa]
    Reply
    #6

    It is good to hear her name spoken by someone who is not a ghost, who is not a dead relative, and Risa smiles at Crowns - grateful for that little kindness.

    A small gasp escapes Risa when the memory is shared with her and a shiver runs down her spine as she feels both this magic and the chilly breeze against her skin. She doesn’t remember winter, though she had lived through a few of them. She thinks that she would like the snow, especially now. Risa does not remember the cold but she finds something relieving in the breeze that she’s so sure she can feel against her face.

    There’s a dreamy smile on her face, faint and soft like the rest of her, when the memory fades away. Part of it lingers, imprinting itself into her mind. It is a memory that is not her own but that feels stronger than most of the others she has of the world. When he remarks that colour is not needed to make a place beautiful she is quick to nod, now that she has seen one of those places for herself - courtesy of what he had shared. “I agree.”

    Before she can even think about it, she continues speaking - explaining something that he hadn’t asked to be explained. But the thoughts have appeared in her mind and Risa has not yet gotten back into the habit of keeping her thoughts and her words separate. “The afterlife was very grey.” Her dark blue eyes stray from him, to the vibrancy of the flowers and plants that have bloomed in his wake and the contrast to the brown world that is recovering from the sun’s absence. “So the world has been… overwhelming to take in since I returned, with all the shades that I have not seen in a very, very long time.”



    @[crowns]
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