"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
Reave is a curious creature by nature, but his recent conversations with his sister followed by his cousin had focused that curiosity (however briefly) on one particular subject. Though he knows beyond doubt Aela’s interests here are purely political (well, almost - she probably didn’t know he was aware of her affections for galaxy stallion, but there are few secrets where he is concerned), her interest in this territory had piqued his own.
Whether his interest is a good thing or not is yet to be determined.
Though his youth had been wild and he had explored far, he had only ever skirted the edges of the Pampas. That was about to change today, however. The trek from the northern moors is a long one. Reave does not hurry (there is no need, after all). With Rune far overhead, there is little to surprise him as he makes the journey.
By the time he reaches the rolling, flower-infested hills, he is coated in the dust of travel. Despite the evidence of his trek, his step is light, a barely leashed energy bubbling inside him as he peers forward curiously. At first glance, he doesn’t quite see what is so entrancing about the little territory. It is a place made for a soft and gentle life, so very unlike the harshness of the cliffs he calls home or barrenness of the desert he knows his sister prefers.
He doesn’t hesitate when entering the kingdom. The bone-shrouded stallion has never paid a great deal of attention to borders. It is such an old and antiquated tradition to guard them, standing sentry over an invisible, imagined line. One that has done little good in the long and turbulent history of this continent.
He pauses, staring curiously at a creature moving in the distance, the indistinct shape appearing almost like a small hill were it not for the tusks protruding from the tangle of grass where he imagines a face would be. He snorts, amused as he watches it. Ultimately however, he is not here for that. No, he has much more interesting pursuits in mind. Specifically the strange and callous stallion that had recently come to head this territory.
06-25-2021, 04:28 PM (This post was last modified: 06-25-2021, 05:11 PM by Obscene.)
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
Obscene had not inherited the overwhelming sense of duty that had weighed down his father. His approach to ruling was far more lax (he still found plenty of time to lay amongst the flowers in a haze when Aela wasn’t prodding him to scheme and plot) instead of patrolling borders or figuring out tedious tasks for Wherewolf and Aela to carry out… No. No that was not the kind of ruler he is. Of course there is still a sense of responsibility, a general care about his subjects well being and wanting to keep them happy enough to stay but beyond that… He really didn’t care. The Pampas had yet to draw the true ire or eye of any of the other kingdoms and so they maintain a rather relaxed attitude to trespassers and curious onlookers who come to meet the Fae Prince or seek the insane riddles of Steve and dealt with each visitor accordingly.
He is standing in the open field of wildflowers in the heart of the territory, the blooms stubbornly lingering despite the chill that now nips in the air. There had been another night of shifting, of hunting small mammals like chipmunks and mice as he slithered through the tall grasses. Of course he can’t remember any of it, just hazy memories that he justifies as strange dreams… Probably some sort of after effect from indigestion or expired nectar. Deep down he knows, he knows what lives within him and what comes out unexpectedly but he still can’t accept it. What he had become, what he would be.
For now the serpent slumbers and that strange sensation within him is gone although his stomach feels bloated and heavy. He shakes the last dregs of fog from his system as his dark body pushes back the flowers, seeing Steve in the distance and beyond that.. a splotchy white and brown figure. Before he can proceed, a small ghostly light suddenly comes dancing over the stream that runs through the Pampas. It glides easily over the water before coming to find him, hovering just before his face. ”My Prince.” It greets. ”My Light.” He responds gruffly, his red eyes flickering back towards the horse in the distance. ”I see you went hunting again.” Light responds rather mockingly but there is a tone there.. one he doesn’t like. One of concern. “Now now.” He says brusquely with an irritated snap of his tail as he skirts around the glowing ball of energy and makes his way towards the figure. The Wisp says nothing more and simply follows closely behind.
As he edges closer, he catches the protruding bone jutting through the stranger’s skin and he becomes a stranger no longer. Aela had told him about her brother in the North, the Guardian of Nerine (as well as the one called Gale) not long after he had come across the stallion in the common Field. That interaction had been brief but it was enough to stir his interest. He had been debating on sending an envoy to Nerine in the shape of one scowling Lord but it seemed he had left a lasting impression on the bone man as well. Enough to find him here in the heart of the Pampas. Light seems to recall that interaction as well and darts around the young stallion, lingering around the exposed bones on his ribs with curiosity. “Come to sample the flowers before the snow gets to them? If you're here for Steve I wouldn't bother, he's been in a terrible mood lately.” He asks as he ambles closer, a brow raised on his handsome face and that smug smirk firmly planted on his dark lips. Of course he doubts that’s why Reave has come all this way and follows it up with something more fitting, something that will let the Nerine Guardian know that he wasn’t completely in the dark to who was standing before him. “Or is it your sister that you seek?”
The shriek of an eagle sounds moments before Rune swoops low, winging over their heads before rising into the sky once more. Reave, who had been eyeing the wisp hovingering near the glowing bones of his ribcage, cannot help the amusement that gleams in his eye. The harpy eagle is his only moral compass, but it seems he is a jealous one.
Shifting the piercing blue of his gaze to the flower prince that had arrived to greet him, Reave eyes him with a critical stare. They had met briefly, but the bone-clad stallion had been far less interested in him at the time. Now, with the whispers of Aela’s machinations and Cheri’s suppressed affection in the back of his skull, he has to wonder just what the draw is. From the memories that cling to him, he spends a great deal of his time out of his mind on fermented nectar.
Reave has never experienced that mind-numbing haze, and after seeing the way it lingers on his glittering counterpart, he doesn’t particularly wish to. The great majority of his abilities depend heavily on his ability to remain clear headed. To fog them so artificially would be foolish. With the rivers of the future stretching before him and memories of the past in the world around him, there is already plenty of clutter in his mind as it is.
A grin slips across the red and white Guardian’s lips as Obscene greets him, hinting at the possibilities of why he might have come. But Reave has never been one to do the expected, and as luck would have it, nothing of what the Pampas Prince had suggested is the truth. “As fascinating as those sound, none of the above,” he replies easily, grin widening as a devilish light suffuses his features. Fortunately he has no interest in hiding the truth. “I merely came to see why it is that so many of my relations are indulging you.”
He tilts his head curiously, the play of memories intriguing, but not telling him the whole story. The futures that spread before him are so varied as to be nearly useless. It does make him curious though - what choices would this stallion make? What he can see of the future suggests Obscene himself has little idea. Though his gift is young, Reave has learned enough of it to recognize that the stronger one’s convictions, the more clear their future would grow.
Aela has certainly been trying hard to instill her own convictions into this prince. So why did it seem he is still drifting?
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The Wisp eventually moves back to hover over his backside, momentarily cured of its curiosity, as his red gaze lifts to the swooping eagle above him. Interesting option of a companion, he thinks. He wonders what the significance is in such a choice. His eyes lower towards the critical gaze and holds it, simply giving him that smug nonchalant smirk in return. Within him though he is wary. Wary of Aela’s brother who apparently had some sort of omnipotent powers that she had never gone into direct details of and he hadn’t thought to ask. Perhaps he should have but there is no use in crying over spilt nectar now.
Reave is confused on why he purposely puts himself into a self-induced fog and Obscene would have no answers to give him. It has something to do with a long burning rage and self loathing, something to do with smothering feelings he has no desire to feel, something to do with the serpent that slithers just beneath his onyx skin. So many somethings but no definitive answer between them. And as his powers mostly lay in being snarky, healing (strange how that was something he ended up expressing), and shifting into a beast he can’t control… He doesn’t see the point in laying off his indulgences anytime soon.
Obscene merely shrugs when the other suggests that he had come for other reasons and when he does speak aloud the truth of his appearance, he simply returns that devilish grin with a roguish one of his own. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” He responds smoothly enough and the words are easy to say in their ignorant truth. He has never understood why Aela and Wherewolf had eventually agreed to come here. What they had seen in him. When Reave speaks of plural relations he assumes that he speaks of those two, unaware of the blood ties he shares with Cheri.
Does his uncertainty make him safer from the power that Nerine’s Guardian wields? For Reave isn’t wrong, he is drifting. A twig caught in a current with no idea of where he’s going and no desire to know. In the end would that be his downfall or what saves him from a crueler fate? He finds he doesn’t care either way and never has. Not when there are so many pleasures in this world to indulge in and he no longer worries about the confines of mortality. But it goes deeper than that if he was honest with himself.
It’s hard to find something to believe in when nobody has ever believed in you. He is a truth teller in a world of beings capable of lying. How can you ever trust anyone when they could always be a lie? So whatever these relations see in him he still refuses to see. Because what if that was just another lie too?
The Pampas Prince regards his new companion quietly for a moment before he finally decides to get to the point of what he feels might be the actual reason for this visit. “So what is it that you plan on manipulating me with? Aela’s already shown me thousands of images, I can’t imagine there’s anything left to see.” He imagines Reave’s power lays in some sort of manipulation similar to his sisters and that perhaps Reave has come to imprint some more “ambition” into him on Aela’s request. It annoys him that at times she treats him like a puppy that needs to be trained and yet it's still hard to resist her when he's wrapped around her golden finger.
Where Aela had long used her feminine wiles and ability to manipulate emotions to get what she wished, Reave had used a reckless sort of bluntness. He had never seen the point in beating around the bush or dancing circles of words around what he was truly seeking. Even when he did not know what it was, he had never had qualms about saying so. Aela might scoff, but it has served him well. And it had given him guardianship of a territory at the tender age of two.
He is hungry, and he has never been afraid of it.
Perhaps that is the draw of him, this fae prince. He can sense a hunger beneath the wild curls of emotional memories that matches his. But rather than embrace it, the other stallion runs from it. Aela must know it is there too of course. He understands now her interest in Obscene in a way he hadn’t before. Already this trip is proving as useful as he’d hoped.
A slow smile spreads across his lips.
Through it all, he can see the fae’s suspicion. He doesn’t know why Reave had come, and that bothers him a great deal. To Reave’s delight, he asks outright. The red and white stallion throws his head back and laughs at that, genuine mirth rumbling from his throat. It is Aela’s staple move, to toss another’s worst memories and emotions back at them as she seeks to plant them firmly beneath her hoof. She might even have used it on Reave if he had not proven her equal in that respect.
Restless, Reave moves closer, the wicked grin still on his lips. He wonders if Obscene would find his nearness uncomfortable, close as he had come. When he finally replies, his voice is little more than a soft murmur, “You are terribly suspicious, aren’t you?” His grin widens, eyes gleaming with his reckless humor. “If it will make you feel better though, I can assure you that Aela and I are little alike in that regard.” He tilts his head then, mouth only a few inches from the bridge of Obscenes nose. “If I want something, I will simply ask.”
Which is true enough, though that does not mean that Reave would not use the vast wealth of knowledge he has accumulated to make his case. It is his ability to ferret out that knowledge the Pampas Prince should find questionable.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
Reave throws back his head and laughs. Obscene remains still and unperturbed even as the other starts to close the distance between them, as he gets a closer look at all those protruding pieces of bone that jut from his patterned skin. He can see the intrigue they weave, why his Wisp had been so curious. Do they hurt being exposed to the elements like this? Are they painful to touch? There is a slight twitch to his smirk, a curling of a corner of his mouth that moves upwards as he answers in a smooth quietness of his own. “Wouldn’t you be?” A nonchalant shrug as if it’s obvious when dealing with the likes of Aela and her kin.
He’s unsure what he feels as the other stallion comes closer still, his mouth strangely close to his nose, and merely raises a brow at this display despite the dark glittering of his crimson gaze. “And yet I find no comfort there.” He responds coolly although the smirk stays fixated on his lips, flexing his skull upwards so that it might bump against Reave’s mouth. Just to see what he would do, what his intentions are. All the while holding the stallions amused gaze with the unreadable one of his own.
“You’ve seen me now.” He states quietly in a tone that’s equally hard to read. “So why are you still here?” There is something more to this visit then mere curiosity, of this he has never been more certain. Everybody always wants something in this game of politics and there is no such thing as a simple conversation, especially when it comes to those in seats of power. Light flickers behind him, quiet and enraptured to how this meeting was playing out. He pays the Wisp no mind, completely focused on the stallion before him. Waiting for him to ask (as he had stated he would do) on what he truly wanted from him or surprise him entirely.
The Guardian has never been a stallion that inspires comfort in others. If anything, he has always been the very opposite. Though it is not a purposeful thing, his very presence seems to carry with it a sense of chaotic recklessness. He has become very skilled at convincing his companions to do things they should not, to accompany him on his wildest pursuits.
In many ways, his partnership with Aela has worked so well because they are good at very different things. Aela’s calm and intense focus, her end goal always uppermost in her mind, is the perfect foil to the tempestuous nature of his own.
Reave nearly laughs again at Obscene’s nonchalant responses. He hadn’t expected the other stallion to find comfort in his words. Indeed, he would have been surprised if he had. For all that the Fae tries to bury it beneath mindless inebriation and a biting tongue, Reave recognizes intelligence when he sees it. If he didn’t have at least some, Aela never would have bothered with him in the first place. No, if he had been unintelligent, his darling sister would have flirted until he was hopelessly in love before using him as fodder for what is to come.
Would Obscene appreciate knowing he is more than mere fodder? Reave doubts it, but maybe there is a surprise lurking here still.
When the other stallion lifts his head to tap Reave’s mouth, the bone-clad stallion’s eyes gleam wickedly as he nips lightly as the glittering skin beneath his teeth. If his southern counterpart wished to play such games, Reave has no qualms about returning them in kind.
When the Fae continues, asking Reave why he is still here, he tilts his head, eyeing him openly. A faint smirk tugs at his lips, but when he replies, there is something far more intense in his voice. “I wanted to see your future,” he replies, as though his statement were the most natural thing in the world.
He does have to wonder though, would Obscene want to know what is in it?
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
There is a flash of something in those shadowy red-wine eyes as Reave nips him. Something pleasurable, something dark. Something serpentine. He doesn’t flinch from his touch, merely pulls that corner of his lip back momentarily into something else again. A brow is raised as Reave speaks and this time he is certain they have arrived at a juxtapose, that this is the true nature of the visit. So this was the omnipresent power Aela’s brother held, the one that had granted him Nerine at such a young age. A fortuneteller was he?
Despite his reluctance and overall suspicion to all magic in general (including his own), Reave has found his biggest weakness, the one that pulls at all tricksters and Fae. Natural curiosity. He regards the other impassively but he has a feeling even the bone-clad stallion can sense the conflicting battle in his head. He had been content to just exist and float around in life till he died. That had been when he was mortal, before the Pampas and Aela, before magic had settled in his system, when death had been his only future. Before he had met Cheri in the darkness, in the middle of her storm.
But now? Now that he had a somewhat reluctant purpose and immortality that would keep him alive for years to come…
What could possibly be awaiting him at the end of it all?
It seems to settle itself rather quickly, this battle of wills, and ends with a one worded question as he takes a quiet breath and asks, “And?”
Reave is many things, but a fortune teller is not one of them. It is true he can see snippets of the future as they snake forward on the many currents of choice and chance, but it is a tricky, slippery beast. He would never destroy his own credibility by trying to tell others of guessed futures as though they are truths already passed.
Had Obscene asked, the bone-clad stallion would have readily told him it was not his ability to see the future that had brought him Nerine (no, that had all been his own ambition - the raging need for more that seems to boil so closely beneath his skin). Instead the other stallion had focused on his admission. It would be amusing if Reave hadn’t known he would before it even left his lips. It is perhaps the least useful tool at his disposal, yet it is the one others always seem to find the most glamorous. As though his only skill lay in the pittance of possibilities he has access to.
But that skill would be nothing without the others he has honed since birth.
As he watches the other stallion, the gleam of dark pleasure in Obscene’s eye, Reave’s lips lift in a dangerous smile.The glittering fae’s response is simple and pointed, though he reveals far more in that single word than he might have wished.
Tilting his head curiously, Reave eyes the other stallion with open amusement. It’s tempting to ask him if he truly wishes to know, but telling dubious futures to Aela is one thing. Spilling them to a virtual stranger is another thing entirely. While he is confident he could make well-educated guesses, it is not something he wants to make a habit of sharing. “And I have gotten what I wished,” he replies, his tone almost flippant through the impish grin teasing the edges of his lips. “So I suppose that concludes our business.” He pauses then, vibrant blue gaze going curiously flat. “Except perhaps one piece of advice.” Another pause. “You have not treated Cheri nearly as well as you should. I care for her a great deal,” abruptly, he laughs, amused by something that Obscene would undoubtedly find strange, “but it isn’t me you should worry about if you don’t.”
07-24-2021, 10:48 AM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2021, 01:08 PM by Obscene.)
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The glitter smeared stallion finds Reave is both infuriating and intriguing, much like his golden striped sister. While he can usually push back his frustration with Aela (or at least keeps it simmering beneath the surface thanks to her manipulation of emotions and a healthy dose of lust and love) there is no such affection here for Reave. While he can still appreciate the others impish tenacity, there is a twinge of irritation and it shows for the briefest moment as his eyes narrow and corner of his lip that twitches downward. It would have smoothed itself away entirely if he hadn’t stayed quiet in the pause of Reave’s “friendly advice”.
The moment Cheri’s name breaks the silence, the dark stallion doesn’t bother to hide his scowl. Cheri meant a great deal to him? A great deal of emotion swirls through the gold and black Fae as it always does when the green and onyx mare is mentioned. Jealousy, resentment, hatred. All easily rise to the surface with the soft clicking of scales over skin as a few pop through fur as that old familiar flame stirs in his chest. There’s something else that lingers beneath the other feelings, some emotion he still can’t put a finger on or understand. As Reave laughs, his expression remains dark as a cold smile slowly finds its way across his mouth. “What does it matter to you when it comes to Cheri?” He finally asks, the tone of his voice coming off as somewhat uncaring despite the rolling storm within him.
He snorts softly, finally coming to a similar place of amusement as he considers Reave’s last words. It takes him a moment to find the right words to say as everything he wishes to speak dies on his tongue, lies unable to be be spoken. “If Cheri finds me so problematic she can tell me herself.” It had never stopped her before, from marching her privileged self right into the Pampas to mock him just as she had provoked him that day by the River when she had slid into the waters next to Djuna. Infuriating and insufferable as always. He doesn’t mention to Reave that he hadn’t seen Cheri in quite some time, that the day he met her in that dark storm he had vowed to make her hate him and had seemingly succeeded tenfold in doing so. It had been for the best, safer this way. Besides, she had her soft-hearted “Prayers” to keep her warm at night, an easy and comfortable choice that seemed to fit her just as he had the sharp edged Aela that seemed to fit him. So why does he feel this ache in the cold confines of where his heart should be when he thinks of her now? When he realizes that he’s starting to forget the way light reflected off her crystals or her annoying laugh or even when she scowled at him with anger?
He hopes Reave will tell her if only it means she might show her face to him again.
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