"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
06-30-2021, 06:01 PM (This post was last modified: 06-30-2021, 06:02 PM by Wishbone.)
it's a mystery to me
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
The Curse’s threats and Sickle’s experience combine into a force that drives Wishbone outside her kingdom. She’s had the same dream several times in the weeks since Gale’s arrival — he is always in the healing waterfall, watching her with the olive eyes that belong to Wolfbane, and his spine heals immediately no matter how many times she snaps it. She hasn’t forgotten the simple fact that she had found him watching the waterfall, nor the fact she found him in Tephra at all.
Tephra is a kingdom, and Wishbone is disgusted to think that a stranger would’ve had such easy access to the healing falls. She’s disappointed in her kingdom, and she’s disappointed in herself. The purple queen has truly never been one to remain quiet when changes need to be made, so after a brief conversation with Warden she turns her attention toward their neighboring kingdom.
Wishbone can remember her first diplomatic visit with Wound, when she had first met her half-siblings in Hyaline. It had felt like such an adventure to her, and it was her first time exploring beyond Tephra. She had been around the same age that the twins are now, so the queen contemplates bringing Sickle and Malik along for the trip. Malik has rarely left her side since Sickle came home bloodstained and crying, and Wishbone hopes that the visit to Loess will focus his mind on something helpful.
She leaves Sickle with Malou and Warden, encouraging her jaguar companion to let her know if there’s even a slight concern for the girl’s safety. They reach Loess by mid-morning, and Wishbone stops Malik at the border with a gentle touch to his shoulder. “We shouldn’t walk into Loess until someone greets us,” she explains. “It’s important to be polite and respectful when we’re suggesting an alliance, or even simply visiting another land.” Wishbone turns her glowing amber eyes toward the wide, red expanse of the neighboring kingdom and lets a greeting fall from her mouth into the open air.
credit to eliza of adoxography.
@ Malik
@Oceane
Any other Loessian is welcome to join as well!
He has kept to himself since arriving in Loess. He enjoys the hot springs and the hot days that almost feel like Pangea, but he appreciates all the little differences as well. No one goes off on hunting parties with him yet they do not snap their teeth and snarl when he has found a meal for himself. Slowly, he grows accustomed to this easier life.
The morning finds him basking in the sun with his wings spread wide to capture every bit of warmth he can manage. The teeth crowding his eye sockets occasionally twitch as his day dreams take him far from here. Who knows what a monster must imagine when he’s as calm as this. Maybe gore and blood, or perhaps gently crackling fire near the nest he shared with his siblings as a tiny foal.
Regardless, his small ears turn at the sound of someone announcing her arrival. He turns his great head and examines the outline of her for a few seconds. Her scent on the wind is vaguely familiar, or perhaps something he imagined in another one of his day dreams and not real at all. Sepulcher tilts his head and folds his unseen wings. Either way, it seems worth investigating.
His dark scales shimmer in the autumn sun while he makes his way to the queen and the young child beside her. Cher offers a gentle croon as he draws in closer. His long legs carry him in a loose circle as he studies them, quietly clicking to himself in thought. He even dares to sniff at them before he seems to approve and come to a stop before them.
“I am Sepulcher,” he says finally, each portion of his face shifting and flexing. He attempts a smile, revealing row upon row of pointed teeth all tucked inside his strange head.
The Isle was too far, she’d said, but he could come along to Loess.
Malik keeps close to his mother’s side, determined to show her that he had been listening, that he can behave himself. He does wander from time to time - he is a child, and he has never left his jungle home - but never out of sight, and always returning with a quickness to his step.
The heat leaves the air as they leave the jungle, and Malik grows a thicker hide (and body) without really thinking about it, becoming a young black mammoose that keeps just as near to his amethyst mother as he had as a foal. His feet are as large as hers now, but he still moves lightly, his black-on-black striped fur good camouflage in the shady woods they pass through.
His coloring becomes less protective as they make their way into red Loess, so he almost mimics his mother, becoming a pale lavender foal but keeping his blackglow stripes. Wishbone tells him of protocols and he nods with understanding, young but still a prince, and he wants to be sure that he does this all right, that he does not cause her any more worry than Sickle already has.
The thing that comes to greet them is not quite what Malik had been expecting, so much so that he is startled enough to forget his manners and ask with his father’s curiosity in his bright young voice: “What exactly do you eat with that mouth?”
She has been on edge since her return from the Pampas, the tight knot of foreboding and worry nestled deep in the pit of her stomach never letting her forget for very long that the truce between herself and Obscene is tentative, however jestful it may be. This, on top of her most recent conversation with Cheri, leaves her uncertain. Oceane yearns to give him the benefit of the doubt ─ she does not believe he is an evil man, only easily bored. She will need to find something to entertain him before he does so himself.
A unfamiliar call draws her from her worries and Oceane is thankful for the distraction, her mood almost immediately brightened at the prospect of a conversation that does not involve whatever turmoil may be brewing just beneath the surface of the Southern kingdom. She is swift to respond with opalescent wings flung outward and a leap to the skies from her favorite plateau, the thermals allowing her to coast speedily towards the northwest.
A trio greets her at the cusp of Loess and Tephra, where the canyons fade into jungle. A lavender boy rests beside who she can only assume is his mother, the pair resting opposite the obsidian beast she had begun to see more frequently around the red spire canyons and foothills. She is reminded of Ghaul each time she sees him, of the fires that had ravaged what foliage Loess was able to grow. But she has been in the business of handing out assumptions of innocence lately, and so she had settled into an indifferent acceptance of his presence. Oceane doubts the man is a diplomat, though she won't cross that option off the list just yet.
After all, Fiorina had surprised her, too.
“Only whatever dangerous things find their way into Loess,” she answers the young boy's question with a pleasant smile after she has landed and moved her lavender and turquoise frame beside the demogorgon, whose name she will need to acquire at some point, “So you have nothing to worry about.”
Her amber eyes move to the scaled man as she offers him a polite nod before her gaze returns to the lilac visitors. They smell of the jungle, a place she had never heard ill of since her arrival to Beqanna nearly a decade earlier. “It's my pleasure to welcome you into Loess. My name is Oceane.” Her head cocks to the side inquisitively as she rustles her feathered wings at her sides, allowing the strangers space to finish their introductions.
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
She has been to Loess a handful of times, a long time ago. In the moments between her call and the Loessian’s arrival, Wishbone sways under the weight of her memories. She can nearly picture Wolfbane’s gold and blue figure moving across the red landscape to greet her, that charismatic fire dancing in his eyes. They had been rulers of separate kingdoms for a few flashing years, and she can fondly remember the teasing that danced between them.
She can’t deny the irony of her situation now — a queen at Loess’s doorstep once more, yet this time she teaches Wolfbane’s grandson about the ways of diplomacy.
Wishbone blinks her amber eyes back into reality when the demogorgon arrives. Her gaze shifts briefly to Malik, curious to see if he’s apprehensive about the creature’s strange face, but a one-sided smile catches her lips when her son seems purely interested. Having seen many strange things in her life and knowing that death is not finite, Wishbone’s eyes study Sepulcher’s movements and facial structure as he studies them.
Before the purple mare has the chance to introduce herself and her son to Sepulcher, a multicolored mare drifts down to meet them from the sky. Her colors mirror those of Wishbone and Malik’s, and they make her stand out against the dry, reddened background of Loess. Wishbone leans down to touch the top of Malik’s head, amusement at the mare’s comment blossoming across her face.
“Thank you, Oceane and Sepulcher. My name is Wishbone and this is my son, Malik. I rule Tephra alongside my brother, Warden.” Like so much of Beqanna as of late, Tephra has been quiet. The queen is sure that many kingdoms in Beqanna lack an updated knowledge on the volcanic kingdom’s relations and leadership. “With our kingdoms sharing a border, I thought it would be appropriate to make some introductions and establish good relations between us.” Wishbone’s amber eyes are warm as she nods briefly to the lilac colt beside her. “And I encourage teaching my children about our ways as often as I can.”
Malik
