06-05-2017, 06:41 PM
She had been dreaming of family again, of the days before the Reckoning, before the world was torn apart and remade into something new, something different. Something that, although she tried not to notice, felt somehow less. Maybe it was because in those days, her family had still been whole. All her siblings, by blood and by bond, and her parents still together in the hills and caves of her Tundra sky-kingdom. But now, in this world, everyone was different and scattered, so apart. Mom and dad still lived in Tephra, but Nevi and Lieschel had disappeared. Eione, too. She saw Argo occasionally when their visits overlapped, but certainly not often enough. She might’ve gone to find him today, to nestle into his warmth if only she knew where to find him, but the stallion drifted just as she did, never staying in one place for too long. At least Maribel had taken up residence in a kingdom with her ever-growing family, so it is to the Taiga that Australis wanders with homesick in her chest.
Homesick for a place that no longer existed, a time buried so deeply in the past that even her dreams had started to forget the details.
She travels northwest from the forest, wandering through an endless maze of trees until she comes to a river she knows splits this half of the land from the other, connecting the opposite sides of ocean together. She crosses it without concern, wading in to her knees, her chest, her chin, until she felt the soft riverbed beneath her feet again and climbed up on the opposite shore. The trees were different over here, thicker than she was long, and tall enough that she imagined the stars must get tangled in the topmost branches each night. It was damper here, too, with such a network of branches overhead that it blotted out the sun, kept it cool and shadowed and foggy here in the below. She had skirted this place before, stayed politely on the outskirts in a desire to not intrude. She could remember how much they had disliked people wandering in unaccompanied to her snowy kingdom of before - so much that even a wall of immense ice and snow had not been enough to soothe them. A smile curls hazily across her mouth.
But today she does press further, her body soft and curious, submissive, her face solemn with the ache in her heart. She wanders over ground that is soft and almost spongy, a strange shade of rust and gold and brown, tie-dyed with the stages of decomposing pine needles from the branches all around. There are faint furrows dug into the ground between some trees, paths she realizes belatedly, lowering her nose to trace the outline of a hundred curved crescents. She follows one for a while, expecting that it will lead her to a resident or a guard before she can trespass too far, someone she can ask to see her sister, her Maribel. But a smell in the damp air carries to her, a smell she knows in the deepest parts of her heart, and she turns, suddenly frozen, eyes straining into the dimness of the trees.
A voice carries to her, so quiet, a faint humming etched in the same weight she felt in her chest. It was almost involuntary when she left the trail, glancing back once with an apologetic kind of softness, and made her way through the forest with the growing volume of the voice to guide her. She isn’t loud, doesn’t stomp, but she isn’t silent either, has never been predator-stealthy at anything in her life. Still, she is glad to find that he is curved toward her when she comes, not away, that it is easy enough for him to glance up and see her through the whirling, skittering snowflakes.
She does pause, does hesitate when she notices the small teal girl in the crook of his side, her small gleaming face soft and slumbering, pressed to the warmth of his armpit. Should she leave them alone, this girl and her father? He was clearly upset as he rocked her, tears damp on a dark, handsome kind of face, with winter swirling all around him. It was a fair guess that the winter was him also, fair if only because it was so out of place in the fever-heat of summer. One of them must be manifesting it, and the girl seemed too small, too asleep to create something this strong, something that swirled like a wayward blizzard around them.
She takes a step, another, and another. She cannot help it. It is the combination of this impossible snow she loves so much, of a dark face with bright eyes so sad and broken, of a father curled so lovingly around his girl. More than she can walk away from. So she approaches quietly, carefully, body soft and submissive, dark eyes peering out gently from a head that droops low to the ground. “Hi,” she breathes when she is close enough, standing away from the small, translucent child out of respect (she remembers how overprotective her own father had been), “my name is Australis.” She reaches out reflexively to trail her lips along the crest of his mane, tasting snow and ice with closed eyes and an aching heart. Oh, she misses it so much. Her expression falters from its soft solemnity, deep furrows in her brow and cheeks betraying the longing in her chest as she crumples to the ground beside him gently, her nose under his mane to stroke his neck in an absent, distracted way. “You have no idea how much I needed this.” She says quietly against his neck, vulnerable, those soft brown eyes lost in the swirl of snow falling around them. “I came from before, from the Tundra. I still dream about that place. I never needed anything more than the snow and the mountains and my family.” But they’re all gone now, she thinks, all scattered. Still, as the snow settles over her, too, darkening the gleaming red-brown dapples of her skin, she feels almost quieted.
Her face turns and her eyes drift to find his, that startling blue reminding her of how bright the sky had looked from the tops of her Tundra mountains. The furrows soften a little, those copper-flecked eyes hesitant from behind the unruly tangles of a dark forelock as she reaches out to brush her lips across his forehead, smoothing his hair aside in a quiet kind of way. “I came to see my family, Maribel and Romek, but,” she pauses, hesitant, leaning back to trace the hurt in his face, “can I stay here with you instead, for a while?” Her voice is barely a whisper, barely a hum, as she glances back down at the girl sleeping so peacefully beside him. "You make this hurt less." Her nose drops to touch her chest, to gesture at the broken heart beating beneath.
Homesick for a place that no longer existed, a time buried so deeply in the past that even her dreams had started to forget the details.
She travels northwest from the forest, wandering through an endless maze of trees until she comes to a river she knows splits this half of the land from the other, connecting the opposite sides of ocean together. She crosses it without concern, wading in to her knees, her chest, her chin, until she felt the soft riverbed beneath her feet again and climbed up on the opposite shore. The trees were different over here, thicker than she was long, and tall enough that she imagined the stars must get tangled in the topmost branches each night. It was damper here, too, with such a network of branches overhead that it blotted out the sun, kept it cool and shadowed and foggy here in the below. She had skirted this place before, stayed politely on the outskirts in a desire to not intrude. She could remember how much they had disliked people wandering in unaccompanied to her snowy kingdom of before - so much that even a wall of immense ice and snow had not been enough to soothe them. A smile curls hazily across her mouth.
But today she does press further, her body soft and curious, submissive, her face solemn with the ache in her heart. She wanders over ground that is soft and almost spongy, a strange shade of rust and gold and brown, tie-dyed with the stages of decomposing pine needles from the branches all around. There are faint furrows dug into the ground between some trees, paths she realizes belatedly, lowering her nose to trace the outline of a hundred curved crescents. She follows one for a while, expecting that it will lead her to a resident or a guard before she can trespass too far, someone she can ask to see her sister, her Maribel. But a smell in the damp air carries to her, a smell she knows in the deepest parts of her heart, and she turns, suddenly frozen, eyes straining into the dimness of the trees.
A voice carries to her, so quiet, a faint humming etched in the same weight she felt in her chest. It was almost involuntary when she left the trail, glancing back once with an apologetic kind of softness, and made her way through the forest with the growing volume of the voice to guide her. She isn’t loud, doesn’t stomp, but she isn’t silent either, has never been predator-stealthy at anything in her life. Still, she is glad to find that he is curved toward her when she comes, not away, that it is easy enough for him to glance up and see her through the whirling, skittering snowflakes.
She does pause, does hesitate when she notices the small teal girl in the crook of his side, her small gleaming face soft and slumbering, pressed to the warmth of his armpit. Should she leave them alone, this girl and her father? He was clearly upset as he rocked her, tears damp on a dark, handsome kind of face, with winter swirling all around him. It was a fair guess that the winter was him also, fair if only because it was so out of place in the fever-heat of summer. One of them must be manifesting it, and the girl seemed too small, too asleep to create something this strong, something that swirled like a wayward blizzard around them.
She takes a step, another, and another. She cannot help it. It is the combination of this impossible snow she loves so much, of a dark face with bright eyes so sad and broken, of a father curled so lovingly around his girl. More than she can walk away from. So she approaches quietly, carefully, body soft and submissive, dark eyes peering out gently from a head that droops low to the ground. “Hi,” she breathes when she is close enough, standing away from the small, translucent child out of respect (she remembers how overprotective her own father had been), “my name is Australis.” She reaches out reflexively to trail her lips along the crest of his mane, tasting snow and ice with closed eyes and an aching heart. Oh, she misses it so much. Her expression falters from its soft solemnity, deep furrows in her brow and cheeks betraying the longing in her chest as she crumples to the ground beside him gently, her nose under his mane to stroke his neck in an absent, distracted way. “You have no idea how much I needed this.” She says quietly against his neck, vulnerable, those soft brown eyes lost in the swirl of snow falling around them. “I came from before, from the Tundra. I still dream about that place. I never needed anything more than the snow and the mountains and my family.” But they’re all gone now, she thinks, all scattered. Still, as the snow settles over her, too, darkening the gleaming red-brown dapples of her skin, she feels almost quieted.
Her face turns and her eyes drift to find his, that startling blue reminding her of how bright the sky had looked from the tops of her Tundra mountains. The furrows soften a little, those copper-flecked eyes hesitant from behind the unruly tangles of a dark forelock as she reaches out to brush her lips across his forehead, smoothing his hair aside in a quiet kind of way. “I came to see my family, Maribel and Romek, but,” she pauses, hesitant, leaning back to trace the hurt in his face, “can I stay here with you instead, for a while?” Her voice is barely a whisper, barely a hum, as she glances back down at the girl sleeping so peacefully beside him. "You make this hurt less." Her nose drops to touch her chest, to gesture at the broken heart beating beneath.