i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland--
This land is magic, and already she is entranced.
She had found it purely on accident, though she liked to think of it as kismet. A great wind that had come from nowhere and pushed her far off course, into clouds so thick she could not see the ground below—not a single tree or mountain peak, only white clouds that rolled and crested like turbulent waves on the sea.
By the time the clouds cleared and the ocean below glittered into view her wings were aching with exhaustion. But up ahead she could see the sunlight as it touched an emerald hillside, like a beacon, and from the moment her hooves touched the soft grass and she was able to breathe a sigh of relief, she had been certain she found the closest thing to heaven.
She walks now through a flower-dotted meadow, the sheerness of her wings nearly shimmering beneath the golden light of the sun. She did not know that this land had recently been shaken to its core; she did not know that lands had crumbled into the sea and that they were currently all trying to navigate through the tangled mess that had been left behind. She was blissfully unaware, as could be seen by the faint smile that rested on her pale lips, staring out into the meadow with that same look of wonder in her eyes that she couldn’t seem to shake.
She didn’t know where she was, but she is going to stay, she thinks.
-- my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you
allaire.
12-05-2021, 08:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-05-2021, 08:57 PM by phaetra.)
i screamed out, how'd it get this bad
It is withering to be so angry.
As fresh as an under watered flower, Arcturos rots beneath the weight of his anger. Beneath the weight of a mother that does not understand him (or even see him—she has never seen how beautifully his fur shimmers beneath moonlight, how his brow furrows the exact same way as her brother, how his eyes twinkle with wonder on those brief respites from rage).
But still, he persists. Steps low and dragging, head held with no pride or strength. He persists in the way that one does when they don’t know how to give up. He doesn’t see an end in sight but what else is there to do? Laying down and succumbing to malnutrition sounds worse than whatever he feels now, and he can’t bring himself to tumble head over heels off a cliff. There is no choice but to apathetically feed and water himself, as he were some disembodied caretaker exhausted by the task of keeping his empty body alive.
Except for when he is angry.
Typically the sensation comes when he is at his limit. His body is swaying, his eyes closed, he thinks he might have the will to give up. His rage practically a line of cocaine, he hyperfocuses and chatters endlessly, finding irritation in even the smallest slights.
Unfortunately, Arcturos feels no energy now, leaning haphazardly against the wide trunk of a tree. He’s watching the passing of strangers through the Meadow. The full summer-bloom of the flower before him might as well be the yellowed grass of winter, for his face is impassive and unfeeling as he refuses to bask in the beauty.
When Arcturos sees Allaire, it is not her loveliness that draws him. It’s how delicate she looks. So opposite him. He’s moving toward her before he can think, certain she won’t be able to see him, but just a touch determined nonetheless.
“Lovely wings,” he murmurs once he’s within earshot.
and the thunder answered back
arcturos
@ Allaire
01-02-2022, 01:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 01-02-2022, 01:56 AM by Allaire.)
i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland --
She did not come from a place of hardship.
While her homeland was not quite as vibrant and brimming with magic the way this place seems to be, it had still been a place full of light and its own kind of charm. She had been sheltered from adversity and darkness, shielded with a naivety that she did not realize the rest of the world was meant to break. It wasn’t that she thought bad things didn’t happen. She knew that with life there came death, but with her sheltered upbringing that’s all there was. She did not come from a place of kingdoms and politics, of the constant struggle for control and power. They all lived and existed and eventually died, but everything that happened in between felt stale.
And so thinks she has stumbled across some kind of paradise, a piece of heaven she had found beneath misty clouds with its rolling hills and wildflower meadows—and a sense of magic that hung in the air like electricity just before a storm.
She is still busy taking it all in, distracted but with that smile—so faint her lips have hardly moved, but it shows instead in the brightness of her eyes — on her face. She can see some others in the distance but she is suddenly overcome with a somewhat uncharacteristic shyness, and also a hint of unease. For the first time since landing it has occurred to her that perhaps newcomers were not welcome here; perhaps a place so lovely and perfect did not wish to be tainted by the outside world.
She is startled by a voice, and when she turns to find no one there she feels a knot of nerves begin to gather in her chest. Was this some kind of trap? Had this land lured her in with its lovely views only so its invisible monsters could sink their teeth into her?
That idea felt foolish, and not only that but she immediately feels guilt at assuming the worst about someone’s intentions.
“Thank you,” she says, her light colored eyes looking up, and then turning herself in a circle before coming back to stare again in the direction the voice had come from. “Um…” there is a slight frown that colors her face, her wings fluttering nervously as she says with a soft laugh, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t….see you.”
-- my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you
allaire.
@ arcturos
“For the last time, Arcturos, where are you?” Saint calls out, voice tinged with the sinking anger of an inexperienced, impatient, and exhausted mother. The growl that follows her question strikes fear into the boy’s heart, but still he does not reveal his location.
Curled beneath several low-hanging elephant ear leaves, Arcturos even holds his breath to ward off his mother’s dragon hearing. Next to him, snow-capped mushrooms lined with the palest of pinks thrive in the damp Tephran undergrowth. He busies himself counting between breaths and studying every perfect and imperfect piece of the billowy mushrooms.
Some feet away, Arc hears the heavy swish of his mother’s spiked tail wipe away dense jungle foliage. The boy tenses, preparing for the wrath Saint will bring down upon him once she discovers he’s been so close the entire time.
But it never comes. She never bothers to use her infrared vision. She doesn’t even snarl again. What he overhears her mutter is more crushing than her poorly-executed punishments.
“Not abandoning him to the Elk is my greatest mistake yet.”
It wasn’t her fault, Arc is thinking absently as the memory resurfaces. He’s lazily studying Allaire, glimmering eyes rolling here and there. What was he doing here?
Her fur. Yes, the pale pink and white of her. Like the cloudy mushrooms beneath the elephant ear. She, delicate as the fungi, is so unlike him. That’s why he’s here. To know something other than himself and his mother.
“You’re welcome,” Arc answers after an awkward few moments. He huffs a sighing laugh to himself and adds, “Most can’t see me, and those who do, do not want to.” Not wishing to elaborate, he quickly asks, “What’s your name? Mine is Arcturos.”
i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland--
She cannot see the way he studies her, but she swears she can feel it. Thinks she can feel invisible eyes as the sweep across her pearlescent skin and along her sheer wings—wings that now are pulled uneasily to her sides, as if they, thin and fragile, could possibly protect her. But despite her apprehension she makes no move to leave. She cannot see him but she desperately wants to believe that he is not malicious; that his invisibility is not being used as a weapon but is instead perhaps a curse.
She is still young and dangerously naive; she does not want to believe the worst in anyone, and defaults to assuming the best.
This world, she thinks, will either strengthen that belief, or it will crush it.
“Arcturos,” she repeats his name in the light lilt of her voice, and she offers him another smile along with her own introduction. “My name is Allaire.” She longs to ask him what he means by those that could see him wish they could not, and the curiosity sparks in her pale eyes but she knows better than to be so bold. “So you can’t control it?” Is what she asks him instead, daring to take another step closer in the direction of his voice.
-- my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you
allaire.
@ arcturos
Saint had never wanted children—and wants children even less after her experiences with Arcturos. It’s why he hardly feels rage when he reminisces on her wrath more than her affection. He knows what he is: an accident. It’s not that he’s come to terms with his fate, but that he is terribly apathetic. Is there truly anything that will heal him? He doesn’t think so.
“Sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable,” Arc says quietly, now-somber eyes studying Allaire’s subtle body language. He’s grown adept at reading others ticks, wondering if that’s what he might look like if someone were able to observe him.
Drawing his chin close to his chest, Arc clears his throat and repeats: “Allaire.” A curious, timid smile lifts his lips and there is almost laughter in his voice when he says, “It suits you.” An airy, light name for an airy, light woman.
Arc isn’t shy in showing surprise on his face when Allaire dares a step closer to him (not that she could see it). The hesitant smile leaves his mouth as he brings his head high, both exhilarated and frightened by her vanishing caution.
“No,” he answers, and because he is innately afraid of allowing other’s gentility in his life, Arc tells her why.
“You have to witness someone die to be able to see me.”
@ Allaire
i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland --
“You’re not making me uncomfortable,” she tells him, even if she still cannot quite mask the uncertainty in her voice. Straightening herself, she clears her throat slightly, and says more assuredly, “I’ve just never met anyone that’s invisible.” She is beginning to realize, though, that perhaps there are many things in this land that she is not going to be familiar with. That perhaps this land was more different than she had initially thought—that it is not just pristine skies and verdant fields.
The thought threatens to distract her, causing her to second-guess her decision to stay here.
Perhaps she wasn’t going to fit in as easily as she had thought, and she was beginning to wonder just how starkly she stood out.
But she can feel the tension begin to ebb away at the almost laughter in his voice when he comments on her name, and when she responds with a smile there is a hint of heat that colors her cheeks. “You like my name?” she says softly, suddenly shy. Has anyone ever told her that her wings were pretty, or taken any notice of her name? She can’t remember; back home, she thinks she had looked like most everyone else. There hadn’t been anything about her that set her apart from the rest, and she had grown accustomed to blending in.
She does not have the chance to get lost in these thoughts for long, because his answer to her last question causes her lilac eyes to widen a little in surprise. “Oh,” she breathes a quiet exhale at his explanation, and what reflects on her face is something deeper than pity—more like sorrow. She isn’t sure what to say, then, because an apology feels wrong. The silence that pounds in her ears is deafening, an echo of her heart that hammers uneasily in her chest as she searches for the right thing to say, but she can’t find it.
“Can I touch you?” is what she asks, surprised by her own words, but it’s too late to take them back.
-- my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you
allaire.
@ arcturos
Arc nods his head grimly when Allaire says she likes his name. He clears his throat, well aware that she could not see his responses, but feeling too frozen by company to offer any verbal confirmation. All the muscles in his face and neck tense, trying desperately to contain the panic of knowing she isn't brushing him off.
The sorrow that changes Allaire's face completely clears Arcturos' mind. He straightens his entire body and blinks rapidly in surprise. The thestral has seen all manner of instinctive reactions to what he is, but never one so sympathetic. Disgust, pity, even anger. He's made a game of it, finding his plight terribly funny or else he'd go mad, but there has yet to be a score for sorrow. Arc makes a notch in his mind; but more than anything, he feels a new kind of ache in his heart. One he cannot name yet, but he knows will linger with him forever.
Can I touch you?
Arcturos says absolutely nothing for an uncomfortable few seconds. He is initially miffed - perhaps more baffled than anything - and thinks such a question an offensive thing to ask. Saint often only ever found him with touch, and such instances were either cold or cruel or both. It does eventually strike him, though, that perhaps physical touch is the only way for one to fully get to know him. He swallows, hesitating precariously on a response, before finally answering with a quiet, "Yes."
Slowly, each step almost agonizing, Arcturos comes close enough to Allaire that he might reach out his nose to hers.
"I'm right in front of you."
Then he very lightly presses the side of his nose to her cheek. He draws back with a sharp inhale, feeling more desperate to be seen than any other moment in his life.
@ Allaire
i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland --
She thinks she can hear his footsteps, or perhaps she is only imagining the sound of grass rustling underfoot. But when he speaks his voice is closer, close enough that had her eyes been closed it would have been easy to imagine the shape of him; a shape that is suddenly very real, and solid.
And so she does just that, closing her lilac-eyes, and when his nose touches her cheek she does not open them. She follows the feel of him, finding the slope of his neck with her muzzle. She follows the curve of it down to his shoulder, discerning that he is taller than she is. There is a temptation to trace all of him, until she has created an image of him in her mind, but she is suddenly all too aware of how much she is touching him and she all at once withdraws.
There is a heat in her cheeks, a heat in her chest and under her skin, and she swallows hard in an attempt to rid herself of the confusing thoughts that are tangling in her mind.
“I’m sorry that I can’t see you,” she apologizes, even though she knows it is not her fault. But she wishes that she could; she wishes that she could be the thing he needed instead of just another source of disappointment, another one to misunderstand him. It would be a heavy price to pay, she knows, but right now, she has nothing precious to her—nothing that would cause her any lingering pain to lose. It makes the idea of witnessing death seem easy; a thing that might haunt her dreams, but would be otherwise intangible, a mere discomfort. “Have you…have you ever met anyone that could?”
She doesn’t know why she hopes that he says no.
She doesn’t know why she wants to be the first.
-- my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you
allaire.
@ arcturos
To say that Arcturos was never gently-touched growing up would be a lie; but Saint loved him in such fickle spurts that the thestral often feels as if he’s never known physical affection. He knows that’s why he shies from others in both verbal and physical ways. It’s why his entire body tenses as Allaire traces his bones. Arc trembles, both out of fear and exhilaration.
An empty ache thrums in the spot where Allaire once was. The thestral can still feel the ghost of her warm breath, the tickling and hesitant graze of her muzzle. Arc closes his eyes and breathes out unsteadily, wondering if he ever got the courage to ask her to touch him again, would she do it?
Would Arcturos ever be so brave? He trembles with the remnants of her touch. For a moment, he understands the weight of all he must heal to be able to accept such affection.
“Please don’t apologize,” Arc whispers. I don’t think I can take it, is what he doesn’t say. The burning hatred he has grown accustomed to returns in a violent wave. All the guilt and fear he feels targets how he must be making her feel terrible by just existing. Why did I tell her the truth? he hisses to himself.
“No,” the thestral answers simply, but he spits it more than says it. All his bitterness colors the one syllable. “I would never want that for someone.” Though that is a lie, isn’t it? Sometimes he wishes so terribly to be seen that he thinks he could commit murder himself.
“I mean, I don’t know,” he adds tiredly, after a few moments of tense silence. “Maybe in passing. No one I’ve ever met.” The words are exhausted and sad, despite the anger pulsing quietly beneath them. Arcturos swallows, a question popping into his head and out of his mouth before he can control it:
“Do you want to see me?”
@ Allaire
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