"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
here is urgency in her chest, quickening her heart and pushing against her ribcage. After the meeting closes and those who gathered melt into Tephra’s background, Wound presses a sincere, comforting kiss to Warrick’s shoulder. It’s quick and meant to soothe the tension she can see held in his shoulders, but her words are nonexistent as she turns toward the soldier who had volunteered himself to travel with her.
It’s someone she’s never met before, a dark bay built like an ancient war-horse, and Wound makes sure to offer him a friendly smile as she approaches. “I’m Wound. If you don’t mind, I’d like to head out for Ischia within the hour.” She’d give him the chance to catch a snack or get a drink before they leave for the other island-kingdom, but the tension of their kingdom meeting and the harsh words Klaudius used have left a bitter taste in her mouth and a desire for swift action in her legs.
Although Ischia lies only miles northwest across the ocean, Wound and Krigare skirt around Beqanna’s beachfront to reach the island. They reach Ischia’s border around noon of the following day. Sand clings to Wound’s legs from their splash across the canal. She can already feel her skin beginning to tingle and itch, but after spending so many days on Tephra’s shores and in the ocean’s waves she’s grown used to the uncomfortable sensation.
Wound offers Krigare a sincere smile before allowing a call to extend past her throat. As her voice echoes over the chattering of parrots, the diplomat speaks to her companion briefly. “I’d urge you to hold your tongue in regards to your personal opinion, Krigare. We’re here to gather information on this new Ischia and its ruler, not voice how we feel about the matter. If you have any questions about Ischia, you’re welcome to ask them, but for the time being we’ll choose to be relatively private about Tephra’s business until we speak with Warrick.” Her eyes flutter back toward the thickness of the island’s jungle, curious to know what faces they might meet.
credit to nat of adoxography.
@[Krigare] / @[Brennen] / @[Warrick] just because wound did cute things and also in case you want to track it <3
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He’s in the shade of the first few real-sized trees in the jungle, looking out over the sand, knowing that tide will be low soon. Above him, the parrots are chattering away, half in unintelligible bird-speak and half in words they’ve picked up from the inhabitants, their clever tongues and beaks forming words in a way other birds and animals cannot. He’s faintly surprised to see someone coming, today. The vast majority of the time, no one crosses the ocean between Ischia and the mainland; but that’s slowly changing. Changing because Ischia is no longer mostly dead – they are working hard to make sure it doesn’t go back to being that way, he and his brothers. The duo that crosses are not anyone he recognizes; he doesn’t move immediately, waiting to see what they will do. A brisk walk is enough to bring them across before the water begins to cover the channel again, but they come to a halt on the sands and the mare calls out from there.
He takes that as his cue, and walks forward, intending to leave his chattering companions behind in the trees. A squawk is his only warning before a scrabbling in his mane and then a weight settling on his crest; a familiar inquisitive chirp lets him know that it’s just his little green friend. It’s a small bird, thankfully, who’s taken a particular liking to him, and the bay stallion has become used to his weight riding along. At first he was tentative, careful in his movements, but he’s discovered he can pretty much do anything short of a true gallop without dislodging the bird, so now he just goes about his business even when he’s doing double duty as a bird perch. He catches the very tail end of what the mare is saying to the stallion as he crosses the sand, and it’s enough to tell him that these are diplomats, rather than those seeking a home or planning to make mischief, and so he keeps his posture relaxed as he steps up to them and nods to each.
“Welcome to Ischia,” he offers in a polite drawl, as he sweeps a curious glance over the two of them. The bulky stallion is taller than him and much taller than her, and his best guess is that he’s her escort, given her not-quite-even front legs, and the way she clearly leads the two of them in this. He doesn’t blame Warrick for sending his envoy with an escort – Brennen has not sent anyone out who does not have at least some training, simply because all of his people so far have some inclination towards the fighting arts, but he is sending them in pairs anyway, especially the young and the untried. Rumors travel quickly in Beqanna, and some of the ones he has heard have been dark.
He wonders what sort of rumors this lady has heard, with Tephra being the intended destination of Ischia’s former Queen and her family. Of course members of his own family live at the foot of the volcano as well, but he has perpetually been quite baffled by the twins, and he doesn’t know what Dagny might have said to her Kingdom-mates…if anything…after she dropped her son off in Ischia. Tephra has enough of a hold on his strange twin offspring that they chose to remain there, but not enough for them to raise a child on its shores; it would be a conundrum with any normal couple, but for the twins it’s just another blip on a very bouncy radar. “I’m Brennen. How can I assist you?”
What questions can he answer, or assurances can he make?
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
i'm freezing, it's not winter yet but my fingers and toes are shivering beneath these sheets and i feel so alone i don't want to die, i want to sleep
Despite the changes that roll over Beqanna with the ferocity of waves during a tropical storm, my comfort levels have sky rocketed here in Ischia. As the brotherhood settles in, clearing away the scents of the previous residents in exchange for a masculine musk, I find myself more and more at ease. Walking along the shore and meeting new brothers - but not even that. I'm approaching two years of age, technical adulthood, and I can see the changes. My figure is filling out with muscle, and my wingspan has increased dramatically (although I've been flying since about six months of age). There's promise in the sturdy bones of my legs, and there's even more in the glimmer of my purple eyes.
I am not the colt that Andulvar found in the meadow all those days ago; I am not scrawny and moody and derelict. I have found a purpose, and with that purpose, a will to live.
The blue sky stretches out just above me, the wind tousling the alabaster strands of my mane as I fly over the grounds of my home. The warmth of summer has passed us by in exchange for the chill of autumn, but at this noon hour, the heat of Ischia is still undeniable, and I bask in it, frolicking through the thermals with that carefree attitude I've come to sometimes enjoy. As I'm diving and reopening my wings, practicing gliding and ascending quickly, I spot a disturbance along the coast.
Well, play time is over.
Eyeing the two creatures that pass through the canal, I angle myself to slowly approach them. Brennen appears soon exiting from the foliage of the jungle, and I quicken my descent until I am landing some feet away. The newfound length of my growing wings takes an extra moment or two to properly fold to my painted sides, but I approach in enough time to hear Brennen's introduction and question. Reaching his side, I brush my nose against the muscled cords of his neck, murmuring brother under my breath in greeting.
Straightening, my purple eyes go to the pair. The stallion is large, much larger still than I am, but the mare is by far the shortest among us. Despite her subtle deformation, I catch the light in her intelligent eyes, and decide immediately that I like her. There's an easiness in Brennen's voice, but I take a more stoic approach, speaking with more reservation than my bay king.
t doesn’t take very long for residents to soar down from the sky and drag away from the shadows, but it’s long enough for Wound to get a good, albeit brief, look at Ischia. The kingdom reminds her of Tephra in it’s warm weather and oceanside location and she decides she already favors it. The air smells fresh in her lungs, free of the smoke and ash that clings to Tephra’s wind currents, and she takes in a deep breath just as someone is approaching them.
There’s already a polite smile on her face as he comes to a halt. Wound’s head dips low in a greeting, her eyes darting from the stranger’s face to make sure Krigare does the same. She’s pleased to find he has, though his lips form a fine and straight line. It’s clear he won’t be saying very much in this meeting, but Wound finds that won’t bother her in the slightest. It might be best if she does all the talking anyway, with how tense this visit could become.
Before they have time to introduce themselves, a winged boy is landing nearby. He looks to be about the same age as Wishbone — a thought that leaves a bittersweet ache in her chest — and she finds another gentle smile lingering on the corners of her mouth. “My name is Wound and this is Krigare. We’re here from Tephra.” Her coffee brown eyes dance between the pair of them, gauging their reactions to the arrival of diplomatic meeting.
“We’re here to meet the new leader of Ischia, if they’re available.” She keeps her pronouns gender-neutral in respect to Ischia’s crown-holder, unwilling to reveal just how much she might know about the leadership changes on the collective islands. “We’ve heard about the leadership changes, so we’ve come to pay a visit.” Her voice is light and peaceful, even as Wound glances up between a silvery-brown forelock to see the two stallions.
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
Though most good leaders (like parents) will deny ever playing favorites amongst their underlings, Brennen would be hard-pressed to deny a growing affection, close if not equal to that he feels for his own sons and daughters, for the young stallion who lands at his side. It’s beyond the general affection that he harbors for all of the Brotherhood, and certainly is shaping up to make Trekori a favorite of his. Not without reason! Kori is hard-working, intelligent, and has the youthful exhuberance that endears the bay warrior to most young people on top of that. He returns the boy’s touch with a quick nudge of his own and a flash of a truer smile than the polite one he offers to the diplomats, and then turns to the visitors to hear her introduce herself and the stallion, and cautiously inquire about the changes in Ischia.
”Well,” he responds and if he can’t quite contain the dry humor tinting his drawl, who can blame him? ”You’ve come to the right place, then, because that would be me.” Brennen has his doubts about whether that is truly a surprise to them, word having had plenty of time to spread from their new arrivals (plus he has doubts about the ability of Klaudius or Durotan to keep their feelings to themselves) but he’s willing to play along. The fact that Warrick sent a polite and at least superficially impartial envoy to assess the situation weighs the King’s opinion of his counterpart on the favorable side. ”Ischia was languishing uselessly under Krone’s hooves, and those who have made their home here choose me to lead us into a new era. The Brotherhood reigns here now, open to any mare or stallion willing to pledge themselves to our creed and our people.”
A sticking point, amongst those who are unhappy with the change and are looking for reasons to throw a fit about it. They get stuck on the term ‘Brotherhood’ as being addressed to men only, as if it can’t be a general term for all of them. ‘Siblinghood’ and ‘Fratrihood’ just sound stupid, so they’ve chosen to stick with Brotherhood, just as it seems quite likely that Nerine will stick with Sisterhood. The part of Brennen that is focused ruthlessly on leading his Brothers into a bright future says good riddance to any who can’t stop and listen to their purpose and creed, even while another part of him he has shoved into a dark corner regrets the pain he’s caused to Krone. But - she could have stayed in Ischia and been welcomed into the Brotherhood, if the Island meant more to her than her own crown and pride. Since it hadn’t, Brennen-the-King cannot afford to waste his pity on her; that is a task for Brennen-not-the-King in the dark of sleepless nights.
”Am I right to assume that Warrick is still the Overseer in Tephra?” Amongst the other things he had given himself a crash-course in through the help of what rumors and intelligence he could gather in his well-established guise as a relatively socially inept warrior was the current rulers of the other Kingdoms and their preferred or common titles. Warrick the Overseer of Tephra, Solace the Caretaker of Hyaline, Hestia the Queen of Nerine, Lepis the Child-Queen of Loess, and Sabra the Queen of Sylva. He knows Solace and Hestia personally, even now flicks a glance towards the channel and then the sky, keeping an eye out for the return of envoys to Sylva and Loess. A pause for her answer and then he adds, ”Ischia holds Nerine as our sister-Kingdom, but we are open to discussing relationships of some nature with others as long as they do not bring us into conflict with our vows to the sisterhood.”
And with that, the floor is open to anything Wound or Kori have to say.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
i'm freezing, it's not winter yet but my fingers and toes are shivering beneath these sheets and i feel so alone i don't want to die, i want to sleep
The pair introduce themselves, or rather, the woman introduces them both. The stallion's silence is respectable however, and my mind's eye travels back to the little interaction I had with the Loessian king. That would probably have gone better if I'd taken this Krigare's approach to diplomacy... Ah, well, I went into that meeting with the knowledge that we weren't exactly trying to be friends with that kingdom. I happened to just take that information to the next level; Brennen can chastise me if he'd like to, though since Leilan and I reported to him after coming home from that event, he has yet to.
She asks about the mutiny in the politest way possible, and I slip my neutral expression over to Brennen, ears perked for his response. I can't help but smile a little at his drawling words, kind as always. But then he goes on to explain himself, and I lose the smile, remembering the way Ischia had been before the reformation. It is not a time I would ever return to, should I have the choice of it.
"All for one and one for all," I offer quietly, raising my eyes to the familiar-looking mare. Who do I know who looks like her...? But I lose my train of thought as Brennen continues his spiel, casting aside thoughts of wishes and bones and the two somehow strangely tangled up into a single entity. The bay stallion mentions our tie to Nerine, and I nod slightly. Our sister-kingdom; I love the sound of that.
"From what I know of Beqanna, Solace is the daughter of your king Warrick; and she has just sent a Hyalinian child to Nerine, making them allies by blood for a year. So that makes you friends of our friends, and family to the friends of our friends nonetheless." I glance to Brennen, making sure I am not over stepping my bounds before continuing to a final statement. "Thus I believe it would be appropriate to say that, at the least, our kingdoms are friends, too."
he is pleasantly surprised. Wound kept her expectations and presumptions about Ischia to a minimum on her trip over to the island-kingdom, but tendrils of her own thoughts did work themselves into the corners of her brain. However, the faint hint of a smile on the bay’s mouth brings relief to the Head of Peace’s mind (relief she hadn’t realized was something she had desired). Although Klaudius had gnashed his teeth and foamed at the mouth about Brennen and Ischia and their wilderness and savagery, Wound doesn’t find anything of the sort here.
They all seem to have bigger worries to the southwest.
While placing both mares and stallions in a place named the Brotherhood is immediately confusing, Wound can appreciate Brennen’s (and his brothers’) movement toward equality. It coaxes another sincere smile to the corners of her mouth, this one more beholden than the last. “A fitting slogan,” she responds to Trekori’s statement. To be so inclusive despite past traditions is something Wound finds to warm the fibers of her heart and further encourages her toward the path of friendliness with this newly-fortified kingdom.
Brennen draws the conversation toward Tephra itself (a path which, upon first arriving, Wound was hesitant to walk down but now finds herself comfortable). “You’re correct.” Warrick’s leadership began not long after Wound found herself on the volcanic island, yet he has proved himself a strong leader despite how long he has been on the throne. Brennen’s mentionings of Nerine only further reminds the diplomat of her daughter in the Sisterhood, presumably training under the guidance of an ancient Amazonian.
When Trekori adds his own pieces of information to the conversation (mentioning Solace in Hyaline and the Caretaker’s relationship with her Overseer), Wound flicks her ears in the colt’s direction in agreement. “That is true; Queen Solace is the daughter of my King Warrick.” Her eyes touch softly on Brennen’s face again and the edges of her face soften. “Tephra has a blood alliance with Nerine — my own daughter, Wishbone, was sent to Nerine in the summer.”
Her gaze shifts between the two men before glancing around their landscape again (to the jungle behind Brennen’s shoulder, to the ocean behind her own shoulder, to the skies above them, to the mainland across the way, to Tephra in the distance). “Tephra isn’t looking to form enemies when there is no need, especially an enemy who is allied with our own accomplices. I would consider ourselves friendly for the time being, but perhaps a closer bond might be in order once I speak with my Overseer... Unless you have any disagreement in that decision.”
Satisfied with their ties, Wound’s thoughts turn toward the previous kingdom meeting in Tephra. Although her visit to Ischia had been purely exploratory, the undercurrents of danger looming over Beqanna — expressed with the presence of Krigare as her protector — press against the inner linings of her stomach.
“I would like to warn you, if you are otherwise unaware; a new leader has ascended the Sylvan throne and it appears he is looking for trouble.” Of what sort, she isn’t quite sure yet, but trouble is never good. Her coffee eyes are dark with concern and her lips draw together in an uncharacteristically firm line. “We received a warning just before I left for your borders but I do fear Beqanna’s peace might shatter soon.” Her coffee eyes are dark with concern and her lips draw together in an uncharacteristically firm line.
05-14-2018, 11:47 PM (This post was last modified: 05-14-2018, 11:47 PM by Brennen.)
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
He is glad to have waited to hear what Kori has to say, because he does not recall ever having known that Solace was Warrick’s daughter, and it makes him even more inclined to be friendly with the land at the base of the volcano, for he wants nothing to do with setting Ischia against Hyaline, even advertently through Tephra. And their quiet natures seem to be something Wound finds comforting; he can only imagine what stories have been told about him as some sort of despot conqueror of the former Ischians, but he is glad to be given the chance to prove himself otherwise.
“One of my own daughters has just left to make a life in Nerine as well,” he says to the bay mare, with a little quirk of his lips that can only be described as wistful. He misses Bristol already; though he is surrounded by other youth he loves just as well, that does not keep him from missing the one who is gone. By the way her face as softened, he guesses she misses her Wishbone just as much. He has so far avoided pledging any of his children or those of Ischia at large, in part because he would selfishly rather keep their young close at home. “And I consider Solace and her protector Kagerus good personal friends, on top of the alliance between our Kingdoms.”
His curiosity about Warrick has been piqued, but he supposes at some point that dignitary and himself will have to meet, rather than leaving all dealings to their emissaries. It is all well and good to have good ‘feelings’ about this relationship going forward, but Brennen always prefers to take the measure of a potential friend or foe for himself, sooner or later. He nods in response to her words; “Ischia will consider Tephra a friendly entity, and conduct ourselves accordingly. I look forward to discussing more than that if Warrick is also interested.” They can only have one sister-Kingdom and his bonds to Nerine are tight, but there is no reason not to pursue a second Alliance with Tephra alongside the one he has formed with Hyaline.
And for good reason, because none of them are immune from the worries of what is to come, including the little mare before him. All traces of a smile are gone from the bay king’s face, and he regards Wound in solemn silence for many seconds before speaking again, and now his voice is a slow and careful drawl rather than light and welcoming. “Loess, too, has changed hands, and quite rudely rebuffed our tentative overtures of diplomacy.” Brennen hesitates, a moment too long to be feigned, and then decides to trust her with more information. “Loess has stolen one of our number, and another has gone to spy in Sylva under the guise of being stolen there, and has not yet returned. Ischia does not consider Loess a friend, and considers Sylva an enemy.”
Brennen does not know how Warrick will feel about pursuing a relationship with a Kingdom already in the middle of whatever Sylva is planning, but wherever Ischia is one will also find Nerine, and they are already allied to Nerine so he figures any attempt to distance Tephra from Ischia would be a shot in the dark at this point. Brennen waits a moment to see if she has a response, and then he flicks his amber gaze towards Krigare once more, and relaxes into just a hint of a smile once more. “The tide should still be low enough to allow you to cross, if you go now. I do not want your Warrick to worry about your delayed return, if you are stuck here overnight...though you are welcome to stay if you’d prefer.”
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
