"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
09-05-2016, 10:36 PM (This post was last modified: 09-05-2016, 10:52 PM by Lagertha.)
Her chest heaves, tight and drawn, burning around her heart that is entirely different than when they’re on the run. Then, she can make her legs work though they feel like lead. Now, she cannot seem to make the sobbing stop. It is the most un-Lagertha like thing she could ever do, and the former Khaleesi in her would have dug a hole in the ground in embarrassment. She feels Wessex nestle up close to her ribs, tucking her half-grown frame in where she once did when she was still a tufted little thing. They are too lean, and if she could focus her eyes through the tears, she knows she would be able to count the bumps of Wessex’s ribs. The girl’s resting place could not have been comfortable.
Her daughter’s black coat merely criss-crossed with scars, where hers is riddled with so many she seems to have changed color, though it might be the least surprising part about her. Is she recognizable? Yes. Lagertha’s eyes are steady, still edged in steel and drawn in flint. Her ears may swivel this way and that, and her nostrils dissect every passing scent, but there is no mistaking her calm gaze. The tattoos are gone, of course, though the onyx crown of thorns remains. Once, she marked it as ironic that is circled her injured leg (there is no pain, but her muscles healed poorly - too tight and it pulls her leg up in a funny way), and then it ceased to be amusing.
Wessex’s wings come and go, much like her immortality and armor; one day she’d wake up feeling rejuvenated, the next, her joints ache and she could swear she’d been drinking pure moonshine the night before. And so they do not notice that her silver-edged wings are gone again, and this moment does not call for invisibility. Wessex cradles her battle-axe of a mother as best she can, because it is the only thing she can do, and Lagertha is the only companion she’s ever known. The black girl’s eyes dart around the unfamiliar land, noting how brilliantly the frost on the ground sparkles, and the orchestra of sounds that almost hurt her ears. She’s known silence, and the roar of predators, and the clang of iron on wood. There, the birds do not sing. There, the snow was not this white and beautiful.
Eventually, when it seems that she has lost every ounce of spare liquid from her body, Lagertha draws a deep, shuddering breath. Wessex silently raises her head to look at her mother, and sees a look that passes from confusion to wonderment, to joy, and then back to confusion again. The silver woman brusquely noses Wessex away and stands up, frozen like a statue. Her daughter knows better than to ask question, and so she waits, wild blue eyes darting all about. “Mom?” she finally whispers, curiousity growing much too thick for a girl who was used to running.
”This is Beqanna,” Lagertha says, with a dry mouth. “But it feels… different. I’m worried it’s another, upside down world, like before.”
The last time he had seen the amazon mare, she was fighting to defend his family.
When he sees her, tired and bedraggled in the forest, he does even think to hesitate. He will help her, because to t he red and white stallion it is so obvious that she needs it. The foal beside her is far too small for the scars that litter her hide, and Kreios sees more than he remembers on the grey mare as well.
"Lagertha," he says from a safe distance, still acting as he always would - knowing that to be too close and too startling to an Amazon Queen is the best way to be assaulted. He can hold his own more than well enough, but he would rather not have to, especially not when this scarred mare is as valuable to him as his own family, even if he has all but lost them. "Lagertha, are you alright?"
What was it that lured Nayl here to this specific place? Is it the scent of Lagertha or her sliver of hope that she has latched onto? The Jungle is gone; it disintegrated and ripped itself apart as Beqanna caved in on itself that jutted out as something greater, something newer. The trees that towered above them and dappled the sunlight were suddenly gone and the humidity was lifted in almost the blink of an eye. Nayl was awestruck as it all happened, as the world ate itself then spat it back out. It felt so odd how the shifting of the earth also drained her. At first, she didn’t understand why, but now, as she has been trying to seep her fingers into the trees around her she realizes what has gone amiss.
There was no Jungle, no kingdoms, no magic.
The threads of consciousness that she would extend toward the world around her have been severed. It startled her at first, but she knew that she wasn’t alone (she couldn’t be. Why would she be?). The loss concerned her, but what pressed more urgently in her mind was how her homeland was gone and how she hasn’t yet heard the call for the Amazons to congregate. While others of different kingdoms gathered and plotted the proud women of the Jungle merely kept to the shadows as though hiding from this change.
Nayl cannot – will not – allow it to continue. Her eyes had been searching desperately when she glimpsed Lagertha in the distance with a child pressed to her side. A stallion joined her, but Nayl didn’t bother apologizing when she interrupted the scene. ”Lagertha,” she mutters with a steely gaze that also wraps around her voice, ”everything – the Jungle – is gone.” A brief pause enables her a sideways glance to the male, his scent thick with that of the Falls, but she hardly regards him as her mind is cloaked by more pressing matters. ”And Lexa is gone.” Another pause because she didn’t know the Queen well enough to truly be loyal to her, or to even feel the pain of the loss. ”We cannot let the Amazons go extinct.” There is venom in her voice, a push to ignite that fire into the ex-Queen’s soul despite the confusion clouding her mind and the child occupying her time.
”We need to do something.” Whether Lagertha helped or not, at least the information has been shared on a platter.
“That mountain,” she continues, narrowing her eyes and searching the nooks and crannies of her memory. “That mountain wasn’t there…” Her gaze travels to the rocky tor that leers high above the treeline. It is a fair distance away, and still, she knows that its height is formidable, and its paths must be dangerous. This is not the Beqanna she knows. Her heart sinks, bottoming out as it swan dives from on high. As Lagertha turns to tell Wessex the disappointing news, she notices that her daughter is not where she previously was…
No, the girl has quietly placed herself between her mother and an approaching stallion. Wessex’s ears lay flat against her head, her neck extended to its full length, while her lips draw back to reveal unimpressive chompers. She’s learned that posturing is everything; bared teeth are a universal warning sign and in the Hell of her childhood, a quick warning can be enough to deter the smaller, very rank-oriented Beasts. He is also the first of her kind that Wessex has ever seen, and she’s seen the Monsters turn on each other when one goes down - how could she know that this one that approaches isn’t looking to do the same? And if she could growl, oh the sounds that would come crawling out of her throat - did her nights not echo with the screams of the feasting and fucking and dying? They were seared into her brain. Hard-wired to jump start her muscles.
Lagertha recognizes the massive stallion, of course. Not by voice, but by sight. Twin to Kratos, son of Vanquish. Ally. King of the Falls. There is only one like him. She may only know him passing well, but it is enough to make her call her daughter off. “Wessex, it’s alright. I know him.” But in the next instant, she reconsiders her statement. If this is not the real Beqanna, is that the real Kreios? How would she know if his words were false? Wessex half-minds her, until Lagertha draws up and steps past the black girl to answer his questions, and then shamelessly assail him with her own.
“Kreios. We are alive,” she says all too grimly, as if life and death were the measure of what ‘alright’ is these days. “We are no longer in the land Of Monsters and Men, so -” she pauses, torn between trying to explain herself and not caring if she sounds like a madwoman. “- so we will be fine. Kreios, are we… in Beqanna? The real Beqanna? I can’t feel the Jungle, and that Mountain definitely wasn’t there before.” Her eyes once again dart to the rocks that must reach so high into the air that it is hard to breathe. It is impossible to miss. Her tongue slips out to wetten her lips, before she begins again. “How long has it been since the Raid? Oh god, do not tell me they still got the Desert.” She’s on the verge of asking about his family when a long-lost scent pokes at her mind, drawing her attention away from her single-minded interrogation.
“Nayl,” she breathes, for she is the first Amazonian she has seen, and she does not seem to want to rip Lagertha’s throat out and charge her with abandonment. The black and white mare is both a savior and the bearer of the worst news possible; Lagertha practically chokes on her next breath. ”No -” she sputters, looking to Kreios for confirmation. It could not be! Their beautiful, beloved home? “No…” she whispers, hanging her head and closing her eyes. Was this her fault? Was it Lexa’s? Where was the Sister, who had clearly taken up the crown when Lagertha was hurled worlds away. Still, there is fight left in the scarred and weary battle-axe. She looks pointedly at Wessex, who is not quite following the whole conversation, though she was raised on stories of Beqanna and the Jungle. “We will never be extinct. To be an Amazon is to have a certain state of being. It cannot be limited to a place.”
Nayl demands action, and Lagertha cannot agree more, but oh, so is so goddamn tired. Lagertha doesn’t know if she can muster up the energy required to lead. With another breath into her gaunt chest, she turns to look at Kreios, asking him an unspoken question. The Falls? Their allies? “What is to be done?”
The kingdoms have dissolved, but Kreios is wary. Have the chains that bound - and separated - them dissolved as well?
The Amazons and the Falls have not always been on the best of terms, but he has never known an Amazon to go back on their word. Of any kingdom native, Kreios would first trust an Amazon. He knows the same cannot be said for a member of the Falls (they are so neutral as to be unreliable, so friendly to all as to be true friend to none). Still, he knows the horses of his kingdom - the horses who still swear him their allegiance - to be faithful and loyal creatures, and above all else: empathetic.
The unfamiliar tobiano mare answers the questions that Lagertha had posed to Kreios, and the heavily built stallion nods his agreement with her reply. This is their Beqanna, but it is a new Beqanna. Who truly knows what is beyond the mist?
Kreios and his merry band are willing to find out, as several bands before them have now done.
He hesitates only a moment, knowing that whatever is in the blue and silver Beyond, it is better to face it with more watchful eyes than with none.
"I am to ask for a land soon," he tells Queen Lagertha (for she was the last queen of the Amazons he had known of). "You and the other women are welcome to take shelter with us there - wherever there is - while you build up your own strength again." He does not say it aloud, but wonders if the same strength that held the Amazons together will tear them apart in this new world. Their women were fiercely independent, and each seemed to to consider herself the best candidate for leadership. Will the same be true in this place where all are on equal footing?
"My kingdom has given their assent to myself as their leader, though I would not ask the same from you." He speaks to all three women, knowing that his offer might seem to have implied that he wishes something in exchange. He does, of course, but it is not their fealty - only their watchful gazes and their renowned battle skills as they venture in the unknown.
09-08-2016, 02:42 PM (This post was last modified: 09-08-2016, 02:43 PM by Lagertha.)
“Ask for a land?” The pitch of her voice betrays her confusion, and rightly so. Their homes are gone, but to where? And when? And why? Perhaps it is simply that all this world-traveling has made the cobwebs in her head start to overwhelm what’s left of her brain, but it all needs to settle for a moment, because the pieces just aren’t fitting together right now. “Clearly I’ve been gone for far too long. What happened after the Raid? Why are our homes gone?”
She’d like to know the truth of it, so that she may help her Sisters to the best of her ability. Which doesn’t amount to much right now. She wears her weariness in silver etchings on her skin – plain as day and almost luminescent in the moonlight. All of this – she is clutching at reserves, and the hardened warrior can only imagine what Wessex is feeling. Her daughter would never utter a word of complaint unless the pain was overpowering, or she was pulling at her last dregs of energy. She doesn’t deserve this – the girl merely had the misfortune of being born at the wrong time. Wessex doesn’t need to be run around for god knows how long, while Lagertha tries to set things right again. She should have nights of deep, sound sleep, and friends, and run only when she’s training (or, you know, feels like it).
After it’s all explained, Lagertha takes a moment to sift through it all and find something small that she can do. There is a long silence, and then she huffs. “Right. Well. Nayl, I suppose we should find the others. And Kreios…” Her gaze drops to Wessex, who is dozing on her feet at the moment and looking very much like someone in need of five cheeseburgers and a soft bed. “Would you… would you take Wessex for me for a bit? It’s a miracle that we’re alive right now, and she deserves something peaceful right now. She is a bit odd… but fiercely loyal. Just until we get things sorted out. I could bring her to you tomorrow… And I would be forever in your debt.” Lagertha swallows hard, guilt creating a solid lump in her throat. But the hard line of logic and reason forces it down into her gut, where it dissolves into some sort of relief.
All of this might be more difficult than she thinks, if Kreios has the truth of it. How will they ever unite themselves if there isn’t a clear-cut leader in the picture anymore? Who will make demands, and who will rise to the challenge? Who can the Sisters fully support, with one former Queen essentially out of commission, the other former Queen missing, and ambitions running full speed ahead?
[you can count Wessex towards your group! But she only has like... 6 pts? idk.]
