"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
With his new magic he feels brand new. So far he is not that great, or smooth at it, the only things that come easy to him are shifting into a unicorn or pegasus – equid based bodies. He can manipulate some small things a piece at a time, scales, feathers, griffin beak, paws, claws, that sort of thing. He’s tried the foreboding bodies, dragons, were-tigers, - Fenrir! But none of them happen correctly. Either one- or two-pieces of the creature fruit or he’s a severely dwarfed version. It has no combative power yet. He’s confident that it will, like Gale’s, he grits his teeth; which he flashes, and they’re sharp.
He’s grown himself some wings this morning, getting smoother and stronger at bringing them on. He can see himself getting comfortable with them. They’re deep onyx like his coat, bearing no white in a sea of shiny black feathers. His teal eyes twinkle against the sun as he soars though and open springtime sky. The world below is so green and glowing with flowery colors here and there. A patch of particularly bright cherry trees, pinks and magentas, buzzing with bees and butterflies.
As gruff as Chem is, he loves flowers. A guilty pleasure, perhaps.
One of many.
He dives for the little group of vibrant little trees soaking in the mid-day sun. He lands inside, looking about, reaching out to smell the closest blooms as he folds his wings and they disappear in a puff of thick black smoke. Two large moths flutter out of his ribcage, translucent and glowing an odd pale blue as they fly up into the branches where Chem smells the flowers. He walks under the beautiful display, his little ghostly moths flitting this way and that as they follow him.
She enjoys reacquainting herself with life in the simplest of ways (smelling the air, dancing in the wind, tasting the varying sweetnesses of the grasses this land has to offer), and often without a sense of time to accompany the enjoyment; ironic, given her malleable relationship with time, and yet fitting beyond measure for just the same reason. The little mare feels no rush to partake in the great events sure to lay claim to this reality just yet, instead content to rummage through nature with gentle laughter and a sense of unshakeable serenity.
That sense of serenity pauses a moment today to the intrusion of another winged equid -- one far, far larger than she! She gasps at the beast's landing, scurrying backward with rib-clutched wings and wide blue eyes. A flutter of her heart reminds her that she feels not fear but rather a serendipitous excitation, which, all things considered, tops the charts for most intense feeling she has felt since her rematerialization some... time... ago.
Yet her wonder (yes, wonder suits the feeling best) only grows as she watches the stallion's ashen wings burst into smoke, smoke into which two glowing moths fly. How lovely!, she thinks.
Loveliest of all, and that which in fact draws her from her hiding place behind a cherry tree, greets her as through the man's greeting of the flowers: with a gentle inhale and a sense of quiet respect. Quietness, one should know, suits Lillia almost most of all.
With careful steps and a sharp incline of her haloed head, little Lillia approaches the serendipitous newcomer and breathes a soft-smiled greeting to him.
06-05-2021, 08:12 AM (This post was last modified: 06-05-2021, 08:13 AM by Chemdog.)
Her voice melds so smoothly with the air it’s like a droplet falling into a still pond. Chem’s attention alerts right away, his moths poof away in a plume of curling black smoke. What a strange smoke-beast he’s become lately, eh? He smiles to himself, crooning at his own thoughts; such ego this one.
“Well, hello.” he chuffs gently through big black nostrils, clearing them to he may take a bold inhale of her smell. So, small, he ponders, and it makes his smile deepen. Her halo, her pink points, her milky colors – the swan-wings tightly pressed to her sides. He’s seen a lot of things in his lifetime, a lot of variations of magical infection in a horse – but – an angel, he never has, and her tiny size, somehow, only adds to the wonderment. He lowers his head, like he might when he talks to a child. He doesn’t speak, but quirks his head to the side, a tinkling teal eye revealed to observe her, a smile pasted proudly on his onyx lips.
06-05-2021, 03:49 PM (This post was last modified: 06-05-2021, 03:49 PM by Lillia.)
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Well, hello, chuffs the stranger, widening his nostrils at Lillia as though to swallow her essence whole. Lillia, for her part, just blinks at the man, a pleasant indifference at worst and curiosity at best colouring her expression: with time always within her arms' reach, she often finds no need for expressions much greater than these.
Something about the way he tilts his head, lowered to her level, causes her to reassess the situation; not much, but enough. She slows time. With a gentle swing of her head, the angel drops the stranger's intense gaze and gives his strong, scarred body a soft but thorough once-over with the crystal blue of her eyes -- like a woman washing an elder, with gentle strokes and an unworried care to find every part she must to ensure her patron's care.
In this way, Lillia notes his dissipated magic, the way his massive figure swells with a contorted essence of hope which, for all its contortions, she can barely discern and never mind label. And so, with the string of time wrapped about her fingers, Lillia allows them there to stand, awaiting her inspection's finale in the quiet timelessness of her own making.
At last, she releases time and brings her eyes to once again find his.
"Tell me," she breathes, her face neutral; "Are you kind?"
