"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
Erupt is not an ambitious creature. He has been content to live his life quietly amongst the heat and humidity of the volcanic kingdom. Lava hums a comforting rhythm all around him - beneath his feet, in the rivulets that pockmark the earth, in the mountain on the northernmost slopes. There is little more he could wish for in life. Little he could ask of the gods to make him happier.
Perhaps there are a few things. Tiny things, really, though he never spoke them aloud. As he had aged and discovered all the corners worth discovering, he had found life had grown a bit… dull. As a tempestuous youth, the three sisters he had met upon his arrival here had added a spice to life that he sometimes misses. A thrill and a temptation that he finds himself lacking these days.
Were it not for the call of the magma so rich in this kingdom, he might have been tempted to leave. To wander the many climates of this continent. To discover what else made the days and nights turn in an endless chase. But in his few brief excursions, he had found the thing he loved more than any other sorely lacking. The vast, mysterious reaches of the forest, the winding trail of the river, the serenity of the meadow - they are all missing the one thing he craves. The heat and energy of the molten rock that is his calling.
And so on the days he longs for something more the most, he finds the volcanic heart of this kingdom and basks in it’s heated depths. He pulls thin streams of liquid stone from beneath the mountain and watches the way it eats everything in its path until it finally hardens. It is a ravenous beast, and Erupt is equally so.
Today however, he finds himself near the edges of the jungle, quietly coaxing one of the meandering streams of vibrant red magma to carve a path towards the edge. As he watches, he wonders just how far he might convince it to go before the cool weight of the world forces it back into a stony prison.
08-06-2021, 06:39 PM (This post was last modified: 08-06-2021, 06:40 PM by Aela.)
YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS
While Erupt is coaxing a stream of magma, Aela doesn't bother hiding that the blue tobiano is being forced through the Tephran jungle.
It had been an accident, this theft. She had gone because Gale had once been Chieftain of Islandres and Aela had thought to find something of her half-brother's past. Perhaps one of the old residents might know something useful: a spot that he often favored, perhaps he had a favorite fruit. The palomino wasn't entirely sure what she was searching for, only that she had planned to cross paths with the brindled stallion again and Aela was determined to be prepared.
What she hadn't planned on had been the little tobiano mare grazing quietly on the saltgrass. It had been easy to gain her trust - all it took was a small manifestation of the feeling - and the young woman had told Aela everything that she had no use for: that Gale was charming, that Gale was kind, that hopefully, he'd come back to visit Islandres soon (blissfully unaware that he already had). All it took was a little more prodding and Aela found that the current Chieftain possessed a power that she hadn't encountered before.
Intrigued, she decided to bring Islay back to the Pampas.
Unfortunately, Islay hadn't wanted to come. And so a few jarring memories later (the armored predators in Pangea, Gale and his dark abilities, the breaking of bone and splicing of flesh, Skandar and his furious gaze scorching the skin of an unknown), the argument had been settled after... something happened to Aela. She had been herself, she knew that. But the deep blue eyes of the other female had widened when her skin had started to feel like it was on fire, different from the way when she had summoned her aura. With Islay's mind wide open, there had been a flash of something fearsome and terrible. Aela doesn't know how or why it happened but that wasn't unusual for her.
Surprising even herself had become her new normal.
"I'm tired," Islay seethes at her captor and Aela sighs, as if she didn't feel the tiring effects of her magic. They had been traveling for hours and while the striped mare had managed to bring the Pampas' newest hostage this far, she wasn't sure how much longer the fear she held over the other mare would last. "You'll be more than tired if we stop," Aela says, lilting the warning as nonchalantly as one might discuss the weather. There is nothing savage on her lovely face now but Islay - having already learned that the golden mare was - flicks her pale blue ears back. Her two-toned head glances back towards the island they have left and though there are still hours to go until nightfall, she considers making a break back to the beach.
Aela - who had been behind the slight Chieftain - smiles. She is tired, like her 'companion'. Her Magic is draining and the palomino is resolute in getting them both back to the Southern Kingdom. Her temper sparks and she can feel it, small flames that have started to shoot up behind her, licking the dry summer grasses. That isn't the only heat she can sense; someone else is nearby. "Care to join us?" Aela calls out in her usual fashion - something that could be taken either as an invitation or a warning.
The pale stallion had been paying little attention to his surroundings, but the scuffle nearby draws his attention. The stream of molten rock continues its unhurried journey as he lifts his head to glance in the direction of the noise, amethyst eyes filled with quiet curiosity. It is not often anyone here bothers to notice him, so he does not expect this pair to.
To his surprise however, the golden one calls out an invitation. One even Erupt cannot mistake as being anything less than dangerous.
Of course he would respond to it. There is little that tempts him quite like the kind of threat she issues. It reminds of the three sisters. Of the fire they had hurled at him before they even knew his name. Only the lava curling around him had stayed their more vicious tendencies, finding it intriguing enough they had chosen to invite him in. And he had been glad to accept the invitation.
Such things don’t seem to last however, and now there is something new. Something equally (or perhaps more) intriguing. As he moves towards them, the lava twists around much more swiftly than it would naturally. It follows him, continuing forward even when he stops - winding a path around the two women, burning everything it touches. Fueling the fire that sparks behind the golden woman.
Violet gaze impassive, Erupt offers her the smallest of smiles. His eyes flick briefly to the blue and white woman, curious at her purpose here. She does not appear to be a willing participant. Perhaps that should bother him, but it does not. As he looks back at the woman who is clearly in charge, Erupt considers whether he should be impressed by her or not.
He would guess the answer is yes, if he bothered to ask. Instead he tilts his head and says nothing. He had joined her, and as far as he is concerned, that should be answer enough.
If Islay had thought the approaching stallion might help her, the idea vanishes as her navy blue eyes drop to the ground and the lava streams that flow behind him. The sparks that Aela had planted behind them dissipate beneath the magma that the approacher controls. The blue-and-white mare starts to pull her shadows against herself, tries to draw them in and create those wings that Mariner had onced showed her.
But between the sun overhead, and the heat surrounding her, there are only small fissures of darkness against her two-toned sides.
”Please,” Islay says in a quiet voice. ”Please, you could just… let me go.” The young mare looks to the stranger first, because he looks at her and there is a chance that he might be kind. Kinder than her captor. But the Islandres herd leader turns her head back to Aela, thinking that there still could be a chance to change her mind. The shore wasn’t far; it wouldn’t take her long to return back to her tropical paradise and they could all pretend this never happened.
It could be a nightmare, something tucked in the furthest recesses of her mind like the Eclipse.
Aela, though, had made up her mind on Islandres. Whatever little Islay was was clearly powerful and the palomino means to bring her back to the Pampas.
Her golden face remains impassive to the pleas of the younger mare. She almost wished that the painted woman would have fought harder or twisted her powers again to draw the night closer, just so Aela could burn it out of her. There was no going back to the little island, but feeling her own concentration slipping, Aela knew that there would be no completing this journey on her own. Her options were to take a risk and use the last of her waning gifts to coax Islay into coming to the Pampas; flashing images of the flower fields and shimmering sunshine while flooding her senses with a longing for a place she had never been.
The other option was to try and do whatever it was she had done that scared Islay enough to succumb to Aela’s demands in the first place.
Both ran the risk of backfiring and if Islay returned to Islandres, she could alert the Western Kingdom of the attempted theft.
When Erupt arrives, it seems almost too fortuitous but Aela never misses an opportunity. He surrounds them all of them with his twining rivers of lava and her brow quirks slightly, rather intrigued. He says nothing but he also doesn’t condemn Aela - or offer to help Islay - so the mulberry stallion gets another mark in his favor. To better set the mood, the slender Empath adds a few more flames to the magma surrounding them; something that takes little effort and as she can’t control where her fires blaze, it makes the moment all the more thrilling to her. Islay makes a sound that gets trapped in the back of her throat (aided by the fear she projects) and Aela turns her head back to their silent companion, curious as to what he made of the flames and the woman wielding them.
When the blue and white woman pleads for her freedom, the situation begins to grow clear to Erupt. He had been correct in his assumptions that she is not a willing participant in this particular charade. Gaze shifting to the thief, Erupt eyes her, a thread of curious amusement winding through him. He had always rather enjoyed these types of spectacles.
Shifting back to peer at the captive, Erupt finally shrugs, simply responding, “I am not your captor.”
He cannot offer her freedom when he does not hold the ability to grant it. Her words are wasted on him. As he looks back at the golden woman, his idle interest and casual posture make it abundantly clear that he would not intervene. She is the one who had issued the invite. He had only responded out of curiosity. Until she has made clear the motivations for her invitation, Erupt would withhold judgement.
As sparks flare up behind her, they draw his attention. The sight of the flames brings a faint smile to his lips and a queer sort of eagerness to his mauve and white features. The memories they stir are fond ones, bringing affection he had once felt back to the surface. He has never feared flame, even when it singes his skin. But of course, one could hardly control lava if they feared heat and fire.
She does not speak then either, and as Erupt turns the intensity of his purple gaze back to her, he considers her with quiet speculation. Finally, after several long heartbeats of silence, Erupt asks, “Why did you call me here, thief?”
She had wondered if the pale brute would try to intercept the young female, or try to divert Aela away from her attempted steal. But his violet eyes rove along her trail of fire and the palomino can feel her smile start to emerge as her flames do. The emotion that he radiates out isn't indignant, or even upset. The Tephran seems curious as to the scene playing out before him and Aela has always enjoyed being an actress.
"Thief," she nearly purrs back to the stallion, not objecting to the nickname. If anything, it's the most appropriate one that she has ever been given. Islay eyes the pair warily and Aela lifts her head with a silent warning; if she makes a fuss or a struggle, the fires will only grow larger as her patience grows shorter. The blue-and-white mare dips her head, temporarily acquiescing to the Seneschal's demand.
Would he be as easy to manipulate as Obscene?
Aela thinks its might take a little more than the alluring sway of her hips, but golden mare isn't above trying. She takes a small step towards the taller horse. "It's rude to eavesdrop," she tells the strange stallion with a voice slightly louder than the crackle of the fires around them, in a tone that is anything but chastising. Her coy smile emerges again as Aela continues, "but I might be willing to overlook that if you tell me what to call you."
He watches the play between them, the dynamic of the two strangers, without a word. It’s a curious thing, to see the way the blue one cedes so readily to the golden. There is something more here, something beyond the small snapshot he has seen. He is never bothered to learn how to attune himself to the hum of power that always radiates from those with it, but if he had, he might have sensed the coils of it here.
Even his unpracticed senses tingle with it now, though he cannot quite pick it apart from his own.
She purrs the nomer he had given her back, bringing a small smile to his pale lips. Idly, he draws a curl of the lava steaming behind her towards him. It slithers through the air, shifting sinuously as it draws into a shape sharp enough to slice. Until it begins to cool between them and the shaped stone thuds heavily to the earth.
As she steps towards him, the smile pulling at his lips deepens, a satisfied hum vibrating in his chest.
“Is it?” he replies easily, clearly unbothered by the insinuation. His amethyst eyes remain steady on her. “You were speaking so loudly.” He tilts his head curiously then, the horn spiraling from it’s center catching the light, glinting coyly. “I am Erupt,” he finally accedes. He pauses a moment before asking pointedly, “Am I to continue calling you thief then?”
The way that the unicorn curves a stream of lava behind Islay and Aela makes the painted mare tense. Her nerves tighten in between her blue shoulders and she watches as the Tephran twines it in the air, cooling it enough that it slams to the ground with an audible thud. She stares at the larger horse, threading her shadows out and contemplating what might happen if they were to press against the furious light of his magma powers.
Perhaps she could keep his lava and Aela's flames in check.
'That's what she is,' Islay says, turning her anger back on her captor. Her shadows emerge then, blanketing them in darkness for a moment before Aela presses terror into the Chieftain. Her blue eyes blaze and more fires erupt all around them. Her vision flashes red, reminding the Empath that much more of this and there will be no Magic to get her latest recruit back to the Pampas.
"Did nobody teach you manners?" Aela asks him, though there is a warning in her gaze as it glances back to Islay. Another attempt like that, it implies, and the palomino will do much worse than summon flames.
Her newest companion - Erupt - hadn't seemed to mind her veiled threats to Islay earlier, but she continues to watch the horned stallion. Something might change his mind; sometimes a brute can't help but play the white knight to some poor damsel like Islay. "You can call me what you like," she coyly replies to him. If her powers weren't so drained, Aela might have tried seeing what a little lust might have done but her lovely head tilts impishly, hoping her mischevious expression will suffice.
Aela doesn't bother to hide that his title of thief suits her rather well.
"We're on our way to the Brilliant Pampas," she tells him, while Islay jerks her head back in the direction of Islandres. "And my friend could use some persuasion." Aela glances down to the cooling lava that he had manipulated earlier. A rather delightful trait, the Fire Summoner thinks. Her blue eyes spark at the thought as they look back to Erupt. "Perhaps you might join us?"
If they had asked, Erupt would have readily told them he is no gallant savior. Compassion is not something he finds himself easily inclined towards, and even in the face of the blue and white mare’s clear fear and trepidation, Erupt finds himself unmoved. He has never been the kind of creature that toys with the fates, and if fate had decreed one woman to be prisoner of the other, then who is he to judge?
It does occur to him that perhaps the fates had placed him in their path for a reason, but what the reason is, he has yet to determine.
He watches the shadows flare with a detached curiosity as his twinned streams of magma continue their slow march around the two women. The thief does not appear to appreciate the seeking shadow, her eyes flashing like the fire that flares around her. He watches her, brows wrinkling briefly at her accusatory question before smoothing with his faint shrug. “No,” is his mild reply, no hint of self-pity or guilt in his jewel-bright gaze. “Why would they?”
His mother certainly hadn’t cared to. She had been a bitter woman with a biting tongue who had not bothered to find him when he wandered off, never to return.
The golden woman does not give her name, and Erupt does not care enough to push for it. Instead her smile turns sly and inviting, and the ombre stallion cannot quite dismiss the faint frown that touches his lips. Her invitation is designed to tempt. Had Erupt been a creature given to whimsy, he might have accepted without hesitation. As it is however, he is far more given to the sway of logic than the bite of intrigue. And when his lava is here rather than there, it is hard to find a reason to follow.
“Why?” The question is abrupt, filled with confusion rather than any darker emotion. He genuinely cannot fathom it. His gift would be of little use if he could not find a fresh source. “Is there lava there?”
If the question had been asked to Erupt, Aela would have smiled.
There are no saviors. Not in her presence. Anyone who needs saving will sink in the face of Aela's ambition. And those who would turn back to play the hero would get swept away in the current of it. There would be those who would learn to rise with it, and then there would be those who would drown if they got in her way.
Islay - for as much as she struggles - seems to come to an understanding of this. Her own Magic is still reaching out, dragging against the shadows of the leaves and trees, making the branches dip and stir with phantom touches. But she seems to be realizing that she could come along with Aela, and the journey could be rather easy.
Or she could make it difficult, and learn that Aela would only make her suffer horribly for it.
A smile quirks at Erupt when he mentions that he has no manners. Perhaps he might think that they were alike in that regard. She is clearly not a Tephran, and she is clearly taking another horse from an unknown territory to the Pampas. All of these things could be labeled as... impolite, but the multi-hued stallion seems unbothered by her lack of manners as he is his own.
"There isn't," she tells the other beast truthfully. The Pampas was filling up with captives and Aela had no intention of spreading themselves thin by taking on more than they could handle. But she thinks that Erupt would fit in nicely with the others that share similar abilities: Skandar who can craft himself into anything. Fyr who can command flames better than she can. "At least, not yet." Aela corrects herself. Islay bristles against the Seneschal and her ring of fire, trying to snake a tendril of shadow through the flames.
Another frenzy of fear - one that almost drains Aela completely - flies through the air without her usual precision. Islay still flinches and the shade retreats.
Aela uses the magma surrounding them, to summon more flames. They catch fire quickly, though she has no control where they burn or if they vividly rage into an inferno. "Help me, and I'll help you." She says, still wearing her trademark wry smile despite the smoke and smolder surrounding them. A look that said she was familiar with making deals with devils.
He could decline, and return to his volcanic home. But Beqanna was almost always changing - from the Plague to the Darkness - and that could very easily extend to Tephra. It was a fair trade, Aela thought; Erupt could help bring Islay back to the Pampas and Aela would help him bring fire and brimstone the Pampas. Change that he could be at the helm of.
