"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
He tread quietly through the common gathering place. The frequently used trails the only thing barren of snow. He was unencumbered by the frigid air, his youth in the tundra had always served him well in the winter. He’d always been an awkward man, shy of social contact, and yet he found himself craving it, tired of the solitude. Solitude was good for the soul, but only for a time. Too much, and it could play tricks with the mind. He was on the cusp, teetering on the ledge of self conversation. It was high time he emerged from the outskirts and into the ebb and flow of regular society.
Awkward….he watched trying to figure out which face looked amicable enough to approach. They all looked the same, these faces, all minding their own business, engrossed in their own affairs. Who was he to trespass on their time? To what end? He grapples with the urge to simply turn and leave, but something holds him there, captive in his own mind, warring with himself. He is an odd figure against the stark snow. Standing there, ostracized by none but himself.
OOC: Forgive me it’s been ages. I’ll improve, I swear!
She had grown up in the Tundra, too, had fallen in love with a world so big that it could be both busy with new faces and quieter at the outskirts. Unlike her father, she had never loved the political side of the kingdom, had no mind for war or peace, or even castes at all for that matter. She had only been a princess by blood, never by choice. In that way she was much more like her mother, wild and untethered, but bound to the Tundra by her love for its King.
Australis stayed because she was bound to the mountains, to the aching blue sky swept with stars overhead.
But all that was gone now.
The day is bright, the kind that leaves you with a headache at its end for the way the sun makes you squint when it bounces and flashes in a thousand different places across the gleaming snow-glaze. It is still her favorite, though, this winter season, this little sliver of home that continues to thrive in an otherwise changed world. The cold is like a balm against her skin, and she doesn’t notice the teeth of ice in the wind when it rushes through the tangles of her dark mane.
She turns her gaze out across the meadow, those eyes soft and bright and dark all at once. When they pause it is on the face of a stranger, and in some way she recognizes something in him that pulls a smile across her mouth. It’s the conflict she sees etched in the shadow of his face, a tension or a worry, and it reminds her of Tobiah and how much he disliked socializing. Before this stranger has a chance to turn back and disappear into the shadows, she pushes forward to join him, pressing her nose against his neck in quiet greeting. This close, she can see the starkness of his skin, the places where new snowflakes land and hold for a second before melting into a velvety black. They remind her of stars, of the sky above her mountains.
“Hello,” she says, and her voice is soft, gentle, just a chime of sound at his shoulder because she does not want to shatter the peace of the day, “I’m Australis.” Then she is quiet again, content as she turns her gaze back out across a landscape that still feels new even though the old kingdoms have been gone for so long. With a sigh, a solemn sound, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to not seeing the Tundra mountains beneath the skyline,” and then, belatedly, “they were home, once.”
initiate the heart within me until it opens properly
He touches her neck in return and his gentleness earns the soft curve of a smile against her whiskered lips. It isn’t always like that, the kindness. Sometimes the gesture earns her a grumble or a scowl or the pinning of ears. But the family she came from was whole and strong and so deeply tangled that embraces came easily and touch was meant to soothe and comfort. It is reflex now, after so many years, a learned habit from watching her parents together, from being well loved and well protected.
Uconn. He tells her, sharing his name with a sense of hesitancy she doesn’t quite understand. So she tilts her head at him gently, pausing, touching her nose back against the snow-damp of his shoulder. “It’s a good name,” she tells him with another smile, “it suits you.” She smiles again and pulls her chin back to her chest, remaining close enough to his side that she can feel their shared warmth steaming between them. This is how she remembers the Tundra – the wild beauty of the cold forcing strangers together, and how the awkwardness had been erased by a shared desire for staying warm.
But his sigh disarms her, and she can almost feel his sorrow when it comes rushing in around them, battering them aside. Her eyes are dark and bright when they lift to his face, steadying there in time to catch the confession that spills unexpectedly from his dark lips. “Oh!” She breathes, surprised. “You came from the Tundra, too?” There is something good about this moment, something right, like the feeling of finding family you hadn’t realized you were missing. She reaches out instinctively, brushing her nose against the curve of his jaw in a way that showed him exactly how she felt. Family.
And then there is snow and distance between them, just a little, as she steps back to see if she recognizes those patterns of white and black, or the beautiful wings that arch from his withers. But his face, albeit a kind one, is wholly unfamiliar and she can feel the way her brow furrows with disappoint. She settles in beside him again, comfortable, peering up at him sideways from beneath the tangles of a dark, unruly forelock. “It is different,” she agrees, especially for him she realizes as she traces the feathers of his wings and wonders if he had lost something else, “but the closer you look, the more you’ll recognize it.” She sighs, her tongue tracing the ridges of smooth teeth inside her mouth. “A lot of the old kingdoms came together again. The Tundra, Chamber, and Valley honored their old alliance and claimed Tephra together.”
She pauses, quiet for a heartbeat before continuing again in a voice like whispered birdsong. “It is different, though. Enough to still hurt a little.”
initiate the heart within me until it opens properly
Embraces are new to him, a foreign entity that he’s heard of…seen from afar even, but never something he had ever had the privilege of being privy to. His childhood hadn’t been one of love and reassurance with gentle caresses and kind words. It had been an indifferent raising, callous at times but not ill intended. He is relieved when his return gesture is met with a smile instead of a grimace, and relaxes a bit as she settles near him, sharing the warmth his body put off, melding it with her own until the space immediate to them was quite comfortable, despite the claws of winter all around them.
She comments on his name, mirroring his thoughts and he thinks it odd for a moment how well named some seem to be. He remembers overhearing two expectant mares having a conversation about how names shape the destiny of a child. He’d thought it fascinating, and wholly illogical all at the same time, but as the years pass and his experience of the world broadens, he cannot help but wonder if there isn’t a smidgeon of truth to that old wives’ tale. He returns her smile, a gentle upturning of dark lips that would be so easy to miss if you weren’t really looking, the gesture is a quiet one, more visible in the softness that comes to his eye than on the expression on his face.
The conversation takes a more somber turn, his yearning ache for his homeland unleashed by a quiet comment about the newly changed skyline. The ache is eased at the sharpness of her complete surprise, another hint of a smile ghosting across his features at the honesty of it. He found he was quite enjoying the simplicity and rawness of their exchange. There didn’t seem to be any smoke and mirrors in this moment, just two beings drawn together from the cold. It felt good, and it provided a dam for that churning sense of loss that plagued him. ”I was born there, and spent my childhood exploring every nook it had to offer.” he confirms, leaning gently into the caress she brushes against his shoulder. He was finding there was great comfort in those simple gestures, something he’d never known he’d missed out on. ”Were you born there? Or did you migrate?” he asks, suddenly curious to find how she’d come to this moment.
He studies her as she studies him, drinking in her features, trying hard to place her face with a particular memory, but he draws only blanks. He’d never met her before, and this does not surprise him. He’d been young when he’d left, still clinging to the stubborn remnants of boyhood. He confesses how the strange new landscape effects him, and his gaze falls back to her scarlet features as she concedes that everything is indeed different before running a gentle touch down the dark length of his wings. There is a brief desire to open the appendage, to shield her from the gently falling snow, and offer her more of his heat, but he does not want to ruin the moment with an act of chivalry he isn’t sure will be well received. He hums in quiet agreement that the closer he looks the more things are similar, and an ear flicks in her direction as she sighs, his attention wholeheartedly shifting back to the here and now with the death of that sigh. She tells him how many of the Kingdoms had merged and claimed new lands, and he wonders if he should not go to the Tephra, and try to make it home. Those thoughts are cut short at what she says next, the words hanging in the air, fragile as the flakes of snow still steadily raining down. He frowns, understanding in his own way, exactly what she means, and yet unable to take the sting away, though he wants to. The most he can do is breathe a gentle warmed breath against her neck, disturbing the dark tangled locks with a feather soft touch. ”I’m sorry, he tells her quietly ”we can only hope the rebirth is worth the demise.”
