"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 water churns tonight and the young girl does not quite know what to make of it. She is too small to understand the way that quick bursts of storm can ripple the edges of water. How it can stir the heart of it into a frenzy. She has no history to draw upon, save that which the water can tell her. She merely knows that there is a different energy to it tonight. Something slightly out of the ordinary, for the weather should be mild and sweet but it is not. It is chaotic and she feels it, that alienness of it that pushes against the edges of her mind—that tells her something is wrong and that she should not be here.
Except this water is hers. It is her.
How could she be anywhere else?
So she stays in her liquid form. She lets herself get tossed and turned by the water. She feels herself come undone on the atomic level until she feels like she can truly see to the core of herself—but, even then, she is not certain that she understands. Perhaps that is the curse of being young and trying to pick apart things that even the immortal have not discerned or perhaps that is simply the nature of being water.
Of being constant.
Of never staying still long enough to be one thing.
Whatever it is, when she finally rises as herself—a supernaturally beautiful young girl—onto the shore of the river, she is exhausted. It is raining and she can no longer pick apart where her body ends and the storm begins so she just tips her childish head back and lets the water flow down on her regardless.
heaven help a fool who falls in love
@[Malik] - this time I remembered the right character
05-28-2021, 11:35 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2021, 11:36 PM by Malik.)
Though he’d promised to not go too high, Malik had immediately broken that promise the moment he was out of earshot. His wings had carried him very highland very quickly, and the last remnants of the storm winds pull him southeast more quickly than he ever would have believed possible. It is all he can do to stay airborne, and when he collapses in a small clearing beside the River at last, he does not get up for a good long while.
Down here on the ground it is raining, and the water seeps into his dark skin. The wings made of light disappear from his sides as he lies still, his two-toned eyes closed. He can hear the patter of rain, and while he is cold he is also too sore to roll over.
He’s pretty sure he isn’t cold enough to die, anyway, and is considering a nap when he catches the smell of something other than waterlogged greenery.
Malik rolls to his side as he opens his eyes, fixing them on the beautiful girl that comes out of the river. He has never seen anything like her.
“Hello.” He hears himself saying, and finds that he has rolled to his feet and approached her. He is still very muddy, more brown than black, though the rain does wash away some of the worst of it as he stands there in front of her. She must be a magical princess, he decides. Nothing else could be so lovely. But she is standing here in the rain, and surely no princess would stand in the rain.
Unless... was she in danger?
“Do you need help?” He pauses for a moment, though his gaze remains insistent and his tone sincere and concerned, and continues. “Because I do. I'm super lost.”
She doesn’t hear him until he’s speaking and although her heart leaps at the surprise, she manages to remain composed. Instead she tilts her childish head down and toward him, her bright red eyes curious more than startled. She doesn’t reply right away and instead watches him with her interest piqued, lips pressing into a delicate smile, pulse fluttering at the thought of having someone to visit her.
“Hi,” she breathes, hoping that he is not an illusion to be shattered from the first word. Oh how she hopes that he is here to stay—how she hopes that he is real and not someone she merely imagined.
“Help?” she responds, a frown crossing her delicate features. “I don’t think so,” she replies honestly, wondering what he could mean. As he continues, she laughs, the sound silvery and sweet, nothing in it pointed. “Oh, I’m not lost. I live here.” She glances around them and to the river that rages in the storm, something in her pulled toward it with an undeniable gravity. “It’s difficult to get lost in your home.”
At his admission though, she takes a step toward him, shy and meek.
“I could maybe help you though,” she offers. “If you aren’t staying,” this is a little softer, the idea of it too precious for her to say loudly. She doesn’t begrudge him that he must leave, but she cannot deny that the thought of keeping someone for herself in this river beats against her breastbone incessantly. It’s a dark emotion, something born of her nature, her loneliness, this thing that her father has twisted in her.
She is too young to know it for the dark thing it is.
So she just watches him quietly, ignoring it for now.
Hyperia’s laughter sounds like birdsong, but better, and Malik wants to make her laugh again. She is kind and beautiful and he suddenly feels very gross and muddy. Make good impressions, their mother has told them, and perhaps this is not his best.
Well, today has not been Malik’s best day in many ways. Yet she’s still smiling down at him, and she offers to help him, and when she expresses what sounds like sadness at his depature, Malik forgets his soreness and his plans to return home and promises:
“Oh I will stay with you!” It is too enthusiastic, but he is young and does not know better. As soon as he agrees though, he remembers home, and Mazikeen’s loyalty and Gale’s adherence to promises made rise guiltily in his gut.
“But I can’t stay for very long. I promised my mom I wouldn’t fly very high but then I did.” His confession is quick like his mind, and he glances back at the water behind her.
“My mom says all water is connected. Is that true? Does your water touch the ocean? I live by the ocean.” Most of Beqanna is by the ocean, so perhaps @Sickle is not the most feeble-minded of the twins after all.
