"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
The soft touch of Gale jolts her back to reality and an apologetic grin finds her lips as her swirling gaze turns to him. “Hyaline was definitely missing something back then.” She jokes back, her muzzle extended to land a playful nip of retort on his own broad shoulder. Appreciating the reassurance of his presence as she deals with this internal struggle and clinging to his humor as if she was drowning in the lake all over again. It shouldn’t be this hard but some hurts last a lifetime and this seemed to be one of them.
His gaze is on the sun and there’s a moment when she knows something is off with her friend, a slight tug at the back of her mind that perhaps “sun gazing” wasn’t a normal activity. Then she remembers how he can shift parts of himself and perhaps that includes a vision like she had acquired briefly in her time Underneath. So she shakes it off and it’s quickly forgotten.
“Maybe you should make new memories.” A soft nod is given, he’s right. She knows he’s right. “I can’t argue with that logic.” She starts to laugh but falls quiet when he mentions the monster in the lake. The image of the siren comes back, rising in the middle of a dark lake. Shrieking as its talons slashed through her skin, peeling back her flesh as it tried to take the very essence of her. That creature had seemed to like shiny things as well. Had it come back? Did it openly live in Hyaline now as an accepted part of the flora and fauna?
There’s a cold sweat that breaks out over her dark brow despite the chill in the air. “What kind of monster?” There’s a soft ringing in her ears but surely the monster from the Underneath hadn’t found its way to the lake above it. Besides, Gale was her friend. She had told him of the Underneath and everything she had faced there. He wouldn’t do that to her. She’s just being silly, she tells herself. It couldn’t be the Siren. She trusts Gale, she has no reason not to.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Gale’s earlier reminder to himself to be more cautious results in a wide and playful grin when she bites back about his presence in Hyaline. He might have pushed back harder, his well-muscled shoulder against hers, but he also sees the way she falls still at the mention of the monster in the lake, and realizes what he had said.
“She’s a kelpie.” Gale adds swiftly. “Not a siren.”
He doesn’t want to have ruined her trip to Hyaline so quickly in a moment, so he steps forward to reassure her, simultaneously showing her what he has Seen of the creature in the lake. A white mare with teal along her topline and a pair of glittering wings; seeming not at all a creature of nightmares.
Gale has always assumed that because Sabal was Mazikeen’s friend that the tales of kelpies and their unending bloodlust must be false. Ciri will be as safe beside the water as she is up here on the mountain.
“I’ll even go in first,” he adds as he pulls away again, and there is a playful sparkle in his eye again, as if the worry of a moment ago has just been forgotten.
“Or!” he exclaims, having found another idea, “You ever seen baby rock sheep before? They are very cute.” Gale had thought he’d seen a cloud sheep with them in the fall, and he is curious if it had made it through the cold mountain winter.
Gale is swift to ease her mind and she starts to release the muscles that had reflexively started to coil with tension. A kelpie? She wonders and then releases that thought to him as an image suddenly appears in her mind. Her swirling eyes widen slightly, unaware of this hidden skill of his. ”Oh!” She exclaims softly as she sees the white and teal mare in her head with wings as shiny as the beloved stars in the sky. “You’re full of surprises Gale!” She laughs, her moment of fear suddenly forgotten as she wonders what other secrets her new friend might have.
“Are kelpies dangerous?” She asks with a slight tilt of her head, still unable to ignore the flutter in her gut. She had never met a kelpie but her experience with being dragged into the lake is still vivid enough to make her wary of anything that calls deep water home. Although he offers to go first, she quickly jumps at his second offer. It's not exactly that she's scared to meet this creature but she wears her caution like a cloak, unable to dive head first blindly into danger. Not anymore.
“I don’t recall ever seeing one before, let's take a look.” She grins at him as she pauses for a moment, slightly chagrined. "Plus I don't mind staying dry." The sun rises higher in it's rotation of the sky as she once again follows his lead. Rock sheep… had those always existed when she had lived here? What else had changed in the lake?
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
@[Gale]
PS. If you want to speed up to early evening, I'm game to meet the Curse ;p
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
What Gale knows of kelpies is limited. He’s seen them beneath the clear water of the eastern sea, and knows the stories. Kelpies they are the violent ones, the dangerous ones, the naiads with teeth.
He’d told himself to be cautious, and then he’d still volunteered to show her something that would remind her of the Underneath. His attempts at being a good friend are going very poorly indeed.
“Sabal isn’t dangerous,” Gale reassures her, and then apologizes for being less than thoughtful with his offer.
“Rock sheep it is!” Gale gestures west, and then leads the way through the mountains. The path is narrow, more easily climbed by the feet of goats, but by the time the sun begins to sink toward the horizon ahead of them, they have found the rock sheep.
A flock of fifteen or so, mostly gray and black like the cliffs, with a few paler like the streaks of marble that run through the heart of the mountains. Half of them are lambs, spry and light-footed little things that make Gale feel like a lumbering oaf.
Gale tells Ciri what he knows of them, and laments that they’d not found the cloud sheep he’d been looking for. He gets distracted, talking, and doesn’t notice he’s begun to slip away before it’s too late.
He is looking away from her, toward the sheep, and he cannot move his body. He can talk though, Gale thinks. At least a little. “Ciri there’s something I have to -” He manages to get out and then he is gone.
Distracted by its brief tussle with Gale, the Curse does not realize that he’d been saying something just before it had pushed him aside. It blinks, and shakes Gale’s head as if he is puzzled, and says as Gale often does when he gets distracted by his own thoughts: “Was I saying something?”
She blames her overwrought nerves, frayed by the emotions this land holds for her, for the extra caution that settles on her scarred back. Normally she wouldn’t back down from a challenge and she hates that perhaps her friend may mistake her emotional pain for fear, for weakness. The star-kissed mare had her share of demons and most of them congregated here.
The rest of the day passes pleasantly enough as they climb into the rocky hills. Gale makes an excellent guide as he leads her through the mountain pass and easily picks up the trail left behind by the flock. As the sun starts to dip towards the craggy peaks, they find the flock and they are everything Gale had promised them to be. As she watches the newborns bounce amongst the dangerously thin paths and balance precariously on sharp tall stones without a second thought. “I love them!” She finds herself giggling with delight and for a moment she is that young teenage girl again that she had been when she came to Hyaline all those years ago. Blissfully ignorant to what was happening beside her.
Gale is talking about the other variety of sheep to be found as she bends down her head to greet an extremely brave lamb that wanders over to them that scurries back the moment it hears its mothers scolding. A single ear flicks towards him as he says her name, only half listening as she watches another lamb playing tag with its friends.
“Hmmm?” She hums distractedly, taking a moment before realizing Gale had asked her a question. Her hovering blanket of stars start to glow as the day begins to fade into an early twilight, the swirls of silver bright in the early evening light as they look back up to him. “Something about cloud sheep I think.” She gives a sheepish grin of her own as she laughs. “I’m sorry, I’ll admit I wasn’t fully listening. They are quite silly aren’t they?” Her gaze flicks back to the flock, at ease beside her friend. At ease beside the Curse.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
The Curse smiles at Ciri lack of attentiveness, turning Gale’s mouth up in a handsome expression, then shaking his white-maned head.
Gale had been much stronger when he had met the black mare, with the Curse only able to fight its way free in the dark when Gale was distracted by sleep or powerful emotion. The Curse had little control back then, but now Gale is the weaker one, emerging only when the Curse is bored.
It finds Ciri interesting, with her sad story. Like Gale, the Curse enjoys stories, and it wonders if telling hers will make the star mare cry.
It hopes so.
“Do you mind me asking...” it begins hesitantly, like Gale would. “Who was he? The chestnut stallion in your memories? Did he live in Hyaline?”
Her blood freezes in her veins, all distractions forgotten as her awareness comes into hyper focus. It was the last kind of question she had expected from him and so she chews the inside of her lip, thinking as she tries to calm the sudden onslaught of emotions. Gale had been able to show her the images of the kelpie, was able to do many magical things it seems. Although she doesn’t like the way he’s been able to see her most intimate memories she figures it’s something he can’t help. Gale seems uncertain as he looks at her, as if he’s tread too far. She tries to give him a reassuring smile that she’s not angry. He’s only trying to help, to be a friend after all.
“He ruled Hyaline.” She finally says, her starlight swirls looking back to the rock sheep but not really seeing them. The image of his gold scales and kind laughter are easy to recall, she can almost feel the way he had pressed herbs and mud to each infected wound, can feel the murmur of his breath on her neck. “His name was Amet. He found me when I came out of the lake from Underneath.”
Casting her metallic gaze towards where they had come from, seeing the dark ripples of the lake below, as twilight continues to creep into the sky and a cool breeze follows. “His dream for Hyaline was a sanctuary for children but as we got older it became a sanctuary for those that didn’t fit anywhere else.” "I was it’s Heart, I was his Heart" she thinks but doesn’t say. Hyaline had been a place of dreams but that was all it had ever been. Dreams.
Glancing back to the shimmery navy stallion, she offers him a soft sigh and a small smile. “I suppose I think about him a lot don’t I?” She doesn't mean to and she wish she didn't. Enough time had passed that the hurt should have lessened by now. She blames Eternal and the raw pain of seeing her son calling Jah-Lilah mother, not knowing just how much Jah had taken from her. Of knowing closure was just out of reach and then snatched completely when she had been sucked back into the portal and transported back to this place.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Melancholy reminiscence is not at all what the Curse had been hoping for. Heartbreak, betrayal, death; those are the preferred components of a story, and Ciri’s has none of those.
She hadn’t even cried.
How boring.
The resting expression of the brindle’s stallion’s face is curiosity, so the Curse has not had to strain itself to give the black mare the impression that he is interested in her dull tale. At her question, it nods, as much in relief that it is over as it is in an answer.
She does think about him a lot.
“Have you ever seen the future?” It asks, the abrupt change of subject not at all unusual for Gale. The Curse is thinking of the burning pine tree and the visions that sometimes come with inhaling the smoke. Perhaps it might take Ciri there, and maybe she’ll even see something terrible!
The Curse looks up at the edges of the mountains, where the sun is beginning to sink. Gale's protestations grow weaker as the twilight deepens, his efforts to save Ciri abandoned in the attempt to hold onto his sanity as the Curse applied ever more pressure. In the rising darkness, the soft glow of Gale's cremello scars and markings begin to appear, a soft and steady light.
Ciri's stars, too, grow brighter as the night approaches. A pretty trick, but ultimately too likely to draw attention. If the Curse were ever to kill her, it would be sure to avoid her heart in its feast.
It’s a good thing for her that the Curse is an impatient therapist, that it loses interest before she can lead up to all that heartache, pain, and betrayal. It’s a relief to both of them that he changes the subject. An abrupt transition but she’s come to expect that from Gale, how the wheels of his head seem to turn quicker than most. Had she seen the future? She thinks for a moment, the stars around her brightening as the world darkens around them. “I’ve been to other worlds, perhaps some of them had been in the future? Time can be tricky when traveling through space so it’s hard to tell.” She finally says and it’s not a lie. There had been many worlds she had fallen through when she had initially been sucked up into the portal before she had landed in Eternal. Some didn’t follow the laws of time at all so it was a complex question to answer.
Her swirling silver gaze flick over the glowing marks on his iridescent skin before meeting his own electric stare. “Can you see the future Gale?” She’s curious, for he seems to be able to do many things. Multiple shifting states, talks to birds, could even see her memories of Amet and place his own in her mind’s eye. It wouldn’t surprise her if he could do this as well and she wonders how he had gained all these powers. He was powerful. There’s a flutter deep in her belly, that gut instinct that rings a little bell that maybe that’s not a good thing. But this is Gale. Inquisitive Lightning Boy who had never been anything other than kind despite his bluntness. So she laughs it off, physically and mentally, as she asks him with a grin, “Is there anything you can’t do?”
As the twilight gives way to a clear night, a smattering of moonlight glistening off the dark mirror of the lake below, she instinctively reaches for the stars above but does not pull them down. There’s no need to do so yet, she’s safe here with Gale, but she had learned long ago that it was a smart move to anchor herself to them. Just in case.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Gale would have been enamored by her theory of different times existing in different worlds, and probably engaged in hours of speculation with her on the topic. The Curse simply nods its head and shrugs in acceptance. It does not always have the patience to accurately imitate its host, and this is one such occasion.
The night is too near, and wasting the twilight in chatter grates at the edges of its mind. Gale grates too, grates and scratches and claws for an escape. The Curse quiets him.
Ciri asks if he can see the future, and the Curse adjusts Gale’s face in what it knows is a handsome and knowing smirk, accompanied by a playful twinkle in his blue eyes.
“I am sure there are some things,” it replies, thinking of the way it is unable to take as many shapes as the Alpha and the lack of flames or ice or lightning to bend to its will. There are a great many powers in Beqanna, and while its host has impressive ones, the hunger for more remains.
Ciri is still looking content after hours spent in Gale’s company, something the Curse has found indicates some attachment. It had arrived too late to degrade the relationship between Mazikeen and Gale, but perhaps it’s not too late to help this friendship implode.
Slowly, it tells itself, they have all night.
“I’ve brought some of the entities to Hyaline,” it says. “One of them is Straia’s tree. It tells the future sometimes, if you look hard enough into the flames.” Gale is impressed by the entities, and it shows in the tone that the Curse uses.
@[Ciri]
i dont know where this is going but i guess we’ll see lmao
