"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
05-02-2021, 12:14 PM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2021, 12:18 PM by Elegance.)
Elegance has traveled to many places lately.
It had started with her father when the Hersir of the Isle had finally agreed to take her with him on a diplomatic trip. She was supposed to be learning something about the etiquette required for traveling from kingdom to kingdom but the nearly all-white filly had gotten distracted by the jungle, with its vibrant palm trees and the odd structures that looked like trees but were not trees. There had been even more to see and though there hadn't been many horses (the leader - the Chief - she had learned, was a relative and so the growing pegasus considered the journey more a family visit than a political one), she had been glad to meet horses outside of the North.
They could be too stuck in their ways sometimes. Change was coming to Taiga - thanks to their Uncle Yan - but even that change was still too slow for Ellie.
She'd been out exploring again. More hours than she had intended but the blazing sunset she had seen on the Tephran coast had been worth it. To watch the view from (nearly the top) the summit of the volcano, even more so. But when she leaves the Western kingdom, her pale coat has the stench of sulfur clinging to her and if she comes home smelling of the deed that she intends on keeping a secret, her father will make the next trip that much harder to take. These escapades of hers have only been made possible thanks to the triplets distracting Noel and Nashua; two pairs of eyes were needed to carefully three sets of small bodies and that left the twins to their own devices.
Night has fully enclosed Taiga by the time she creeps home. Elegance is careful to move quietly and use her vision to see if any horse was nearby (to run into Father would ruin everything and if it was Uncle Yan, well, Elllie imagined the horned stallion would merely chuckle and say that her secret was safe with him). She is lucky to go undetected (or so she thinks) and when finally returns home, the striped filly moves to join her twin sister in their usual sleeping spot. As she brushes past wingless Luminesce, something catches on where Ellie's white mane has knotted.
The adolescent jerks her head back while her fireflies scatter the air around her, cursing hotly under her breath: "Winds," and then does the only appropriate reaction. She yanks on it.
ELEGANCE
image credit to insane<3
@[Luminesce] lmao so Ellie tried sneaking in after missing curfew and caught her hair on one of Lumi's chicken nubs
She had returned late from the mountain, the small nubs that would grow into wings testament of the plea she had made. She couldn’t even pretend to be surprised Ellie hadn’t returned yet when she finally made her way to the small glen they usually slept together in. Her sister had been wandering more and more as they grew. Lumi desperately wanted to blame her even though she knew she couldn’t. Even though the lump in her throat had grown larger and larger every time she watched her sister fly.
She hadn’t told Ellie of her jealousy though, despite everything else they shared. She’s not certain her sister would understand. And so, when Ellie had snuck away, so had Lumi.
She had been pleased by the fairies response, but the nubs now sprouting from her shoulders were… a little embarrassing. They looked ridiculous, and she had spent a great deal of time trying to think of ways she might hide them until they grew into fully fledged wings. With these musings still rattling around her head, she had finally drifted off sleep.
That is, until a sharp tug on the sensitive bud on her shoulder startles her awake with a pained shriek. The cluster of stars that had settled as she slept abruptly rise into a chaotic dance as she flails for escape. It takes her a moment to recognize her sister through the thrashing of her own limbs, but when she does, a scowl forms on her lips before she butts her sister. Hard.
“Ellieeeee,” she whisper-shrieks plaintively, “that hurt.” Scooting away from her sisters dangerously tangled locks, she shakes her head in an attempt to resettle her own mane over the small wing sprouts (as though Ellie might have somehow missed their existence in the midst of all that) before glaring at her twin. “And you’re late.”
05-09-2021, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 05-09-2021, 08:20 PM by Elegance.)
It's hard to see in the dark but as Ellie turns her head sharply to regard her twin, her vision changes. The shades of night - deep purples and blues - take on another hue: the world becomes ablaze in the colors of red and yellow. Elegance looks to her sister and while her delicate features are hard to make out, her overall shape is not. The white pegasus looks down to see an odd growth coming from her twin's side.
She doesn't yank her head again but the pale girl moves slowly, trying to untwine herself from the tangle that she had gotten caught in.
@[Luminesce] moves away when they finally free themselves and Elegance takes a step back, tilting her head curiously towards her twin as the world regains its usual coloring. "Yes, well, I didn't expect -," and the striped adolescent dips her face towards her twin shoulder, where the odd ... thing was. Her blue-green eyes glance down but her ears fly back when Lumi insinuates that she was late. (She was, but that was beside the point. The important part was that she came home at all.)
Lighting up her curiosity from her striped ankles, Elegance glows softly and glances towards the growth. "What did you do?" she asks her twin, wondering if she had eaten one of the newly-discovered mushrooms in Taiga.
Even in the darkness, illuminated only by the soft glow of their golden markings, flitting fireflies, and hovering stars, Lumi can tell Ellie is trying to figure out what was different. She can only be grateful that in the darkness the shape is so easy to hide. As her shoulders strain in an effort to flatten them, she feels them brush against her spine, startling her.
As the small wings splay with the startled flutter, Lumi whips her head around to peer hard at wings that have - to her complete and utter shock - grown a bit larger in the time since she’d descended the mountain. The nubs now resemble something like miniature (though still completely useless) wings.
Flattening them against her shoulders once more, she turns her gaze back to Ellie, ears flattening as well. Her sister is clearly annoyed she’d pointed out how late she is, but Luminesce is equally annoyed at her accusatory question. “I didn’t do anything,” she replies petulantly, as though that were not a bald-faced lie made obvious by the new features now sprouting from her shoulders. “I could ask you the same thing.”
With her next snort, a bit of her annoyance bleeds from her features. With that annoyance gone, her stiff pride wilts. No matter how much they might bicker or tease, Ellie is still her closest friend and confidant. And young as she is, Lumi could never have hoped to keep her own dejection from her sister forever. So, finally, in a slightly wavering voice while refusing to meet Ellie’s eyes, she mutters, “I didn’t have a choice.”
05-15-2021, 01:04 PM (This post was last modified: 05-15-2021, 01:06 PM by Elegance.)
Elegance can no longer see the obscure shapes that hang near her sister's side. Her infrared vision only works for short periods and so she can't see the way that they continue to grow. What she can see is that Luminesce - who is always so steady and almost always so certain of herself - is skittering this way and that. There had been a scowl on Ellie's face moments before but genuine concern softens and then eventually chases the expression away.
There is nobody who gets under her skin quite the way that Luminesce does; but then, there is nobody who knows her as well as @[Luminesce] does.
She continues to look at Lumi that way until her twin snakes her head back to her. And in the typical fashion of their youth (what one sister did, so didn't the other), Ellie's white ears flatten in a mimicking reply. The young pegasus huffs in return, "I was -," she bites her lip before explaining quickly, "Well, there was the volcano in Tephra and I just wanted -" But even as late and dark as it is now, there is no missing the feathers sprouting from Luminesce's shoulders.
Oh. She thinks for a moment, almost dumbstruck at the realization that her sister was growing... wings.
How were they going to explain this one to their always worrying father?
Her blue-green eyes are still watching changes happening at her sister's sides until she hears the waver in Lumi's voice. They snap back to look at her, fixing determinedly on the planes of her twin's lovely face. "You always had a choice," Ellie says in a fierce whisper, suddenly remembering that they had three young siblings nearby. But what did she know about that choice? She had been born with wings like both her parents, like all three of the the triplets had. Softly, she bumps Luminesce on the tip of her white nose.
"You didn't like...," she asks hesitantly, realizing where her sister must have gotten this gift from. Her head inclines to the wings still-forming at her back, "Offer up your firstborn child or one of the trips for them, did you?"
Though they might often snap and huff at one another, Luminesce knows without a doubt that her twin would always be there for her, just as she would be for Elegance. It is why, in spite of their frequent rivalry, she unbent long enough to uncertainly bare the heartache she had buried deep for so long. She had always known Ellie couldn’t possibly understand why she hated being the odd one out so much - not when she had been born with the same thing everyone else in their family had - but she also knows Ellie would support her in the end.
Even if she did ask annoying and slightly insulting questions in the process.
In an instant, Lumi goes from dejected to affronted, head snapping up as her ears disappear into the tangle of her mane. Without conscious thought, a snort escapes her nostrils as she glares at her sister. “Of course not,” she hisses, pure insult in her purposely muted voice. “How could you even think...”
Chin coming up in a haughty gesture, she waves it vaguely in the direction of their siblings, though her eyes never leave Ellie. She leans back then, lips compressed into a thin line as she glares silently at her twin for a long moment. Later, she would find the thought of trading one of the triplets for wings entirely amusing. Might even tease them and tell them that’s what she’d done all while refusing to tell them which one the fairies would soon come to collect. But for now she just wants to be thoroughly insulted that her sister would imagine she’d be so careless.
Finally, with a huff, she clarifies, “I just asked nicely." Sniffing daintily, she lifts her chin even farther, gaze shifting deliberately to a point well past her sister’s ears. “Which is clearly something you know nothing about.”
05-30-2021, 05:19 PM (This post was last modified: 05-30-2021, 05:22 PM by Elegance.)
Like the two distinct personalities that they are, Lumi and Ellie swing their conversation back and forth. There is a moment where they both seem to understand that Luminesce has stood in the presence of great power and Elegance is impressed with that. She's even proud that her sister would be so bold as to petition the Mountain for something that she wanted.
There were plenty of horses in their world that would content themselves with their lot in life.
"I don't know!" Elegance counters to her twin. Her white ears flick back and she glances over to where their three younger siblings sleep. One stirs and Ellie murmurs a prayer to whatever Gods to keep them asleep. "Magic is... funny." Ellie whispers.
Her sister glares at her so Elegance scowls back.
"What if they don't stop growing?" she asks, suddenly wary of the wings that @[Luminesce] has draped against her sides. Even in the dark, it still takes a moment for the pale girl to get accustomed to the sight. She flares her own wings and glances back at them, just to make sure hers haven't grown larger or turned green or started to turn into mist. It takes everything in her not to roll her eyes at Lumi.
"I'm sure you did." she tells her sister and doesn't attempt to lift her head in competition with the other pegasus. "I don't think the faeries gave you a longer neck, Lumi." Elegance mutters and pins her blue-green eyes on her twin.
For Luminesce, it had been the only option that made sense. Simply contenting herself to be somehow less than the rest of her family had never been an option she could have lived with. Despite the stories they had all heard, the whispers of their wrath, there had been just as many of their benevolence. Lumi had climbed that mountain, heart in her throat, praying that if she asked kindly enough, they would be kind in return. And they had been.
She most certainly does not appreciate Ellie’s questions however. Her frown deepens, brows furrowing as he glares at her sister in poorly masked consternation. Of course she knows magic can be funny, as her sister put it. But she’s quite sure the fairies wouldn’t pull any mean tricks like Ellie is suggesting. They wouldn’t.... would they?
Lumi lifts her small wings uncertainly, flaring them before flattening them once more against her ribs. She huffs, shaking her head to rid her thoughts of the horrendous suggestions her twin had just made. “Of course they’ll stop growing,” she argues with far more confidence than she feels. “Maybe you’re just worried they’ll turn out better than yours.”
She sniffs haughtily then, doing her best to hide the laugh that suddenly wants to rise. She doesn’t for a minute believe they’d be somehow better, but it is amusing to imagine her sister green with the same jealousy she has felt since they’d been little. Not to mention the joke that Ellie had basically just begged she play on her. Without looking at her sister, she tilts her chin as her neck begins to grow ever so slightly, lengthening by infinitesimal millimeters until it is noticeably longer. “And I’m positive they did not give me a longer neck.”
