"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
02-26-2017, 03:14 AM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2017, 03:25 AM by The Tin Man.)
The Tin Man didn't really remember what happened after the storm that washed him up here. Hell, he didn't even know if the storm was real or not. He did accidentally drink seawater when he landed. Partly because he was still confused, and partly because his left hind leg didn't feel right. It wasn't broken, since he wasn't flailing in agony, but he'd need to go easy on the galloping for a good week or two. And cantering. And trotting. Anything above a brisk walk, really.
As the Appaloosa stallion limped into the field, salt flaked off a black mane and tail, with white snowflake spots all over a darker gray coat. He was the taller side of average at best, but in the browns and reds of autumn, he looked nearly metallic. Bits of him still glittered from the salt, a stark contrast to his wide, coltish brown eyes--but the big eyes were less because he had a youthful wonder or innocence, and more because he'd been swimming for hours and everything hurt. The barely-dried wound on his leg started cracking, and the faint iron smell of blood seeped into the air.
"I... don't think I'm in Kansas anymore," he slurred.
More seawater problems: Was Kansas his home? The word itself didn't sound right--he was pretty sure he'd missed an O somewhere--but the feelings did, because looking at the field of horses sparked a half-remembered wash. He had a herd there, good grass, and...
Water that didn't have salt in it.
He caught the smell of the lake almost before he saw it, and promptly limped over.
It took a lot longer than it usually would.
Also, he nearly bumped into a couple of horses on the way.
The spots are not what she is looking for, but they are similar enough that Djinni’s breath catches in her throat. She blinks her pale eyes and swallows, the sensation of hope squashed in an instant. It is just a black stallion freckled with white; she does know better than to wish otherwise.
The grullo mare nearly moves on, but the spotted stallion’s jerky movement keeps her attention. He stumbles into nearby horses (not her, she is too far away where she stands by the lake) and seems to be favoring a leg. Kindness is not one of her larger personality traits, but she is always curious, and the lanky stallion is certainly a curiosity. She would have been content to watch him from a distance, but then he seems to be coming closer, and she sidesteps a bit. Uncertain.
No, she realizes, he’s coming for the lake. She does move to the side this time, giving him enough space so that he’ll avoid knocking into her the way that he has a few other horses on his hobbling way over. She can smell the salt on him and it reminds her of the sea. He is not Nerinian though, that much is clear. She cannot imagine Nayl letting someone so discombobulated leave the shore without assistance or guidance.
The mid-autumn sun is still warm enough to keep her comfortable, and it shines off her well-kept grullo coat. Djinni looks nothing like the spotted stallion, from her pied coat to her graceful movements as she steps a bit closer at last.
“You look a bit lost,” she says as she steps closer, her voice rough but her smile bright. “Can I help you with anything?”
current appearance: slim build smokey grullo tobiano sea green eyes
02-26-2017, 05:12 PM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2017, 06:20 PM by The Tin Man.)
The Tin Man's nose is nearly in the water by the time another horse speaks, and luckily he snorts from surprise instead of inhaling.
Tobiano, he thinks automatically about the mare, like he calls himself snowflake. Their coats are common where he lives, and it sparks another pang of longing. But he's never seen a horse with green eyes before. Blue, pink, or lighter brown--not green. The Small Ones have green eyes, his memory tells him. They have even more colors than us...
When he tries to remember what the Small Ones actually looked like, he also remembers that the mare asked him a question. "Oh. Uh... Sorry, I'm not very fast at anything today." The water's done a lot for getting rid of the scratchiness, and his real voice starts coming back: A surprisingly young tenor, as if his voice stopped growing past two or three years old. He shakes his mane--or tries, since it's still stiff from the seawater. "Really, I'm just glad if nobody tries to kill me before I can run properly. My name..."
He already knows his name, but another memory comes unbidden: Don't worry, little guy, someone said about him. He looks hard as fuck, but he's a softy. Just listen to him talk!
Well, apparently he intimidates foals when he's not lost with a gimpy leg. "I'm the Tin Man."
For a moment she’s not sure that he heard her, and the grullo mare is left standing – somewhat awkwardly – as she waits for a reply.
But then he’s looking up and apologizing, and she smiles. Now that he’s not drinking, she realizes how tall he is. She has to look up to meet his gaze (though that is typical) and is not surprised to find that he sounds so young. They almost all sound young to her anymore; there are few her age or older. It doesn’t bother her anymore – she has always enjoyed playing at benevolence.
“I’m sure no one will try to kill you,” she tells him, and then winks. “If they try, I’ll protect you.” She is a small pied mare, barely more than a pony with a sleek build. She looks no more intimidating than a child, but something about the certainty in her expression and tone suggests that she is more than capable of keeping her word.
The autumn wind blows a hank of her frosted mane across her face and as she shakes it away her gaze catches on the bright trees that ring the Field around them. They remind her of Sylva and what she has left behind, so she pushes it from her mind and turns back to the Tin Man. “I’m Djinni.”
current appearance: slim build smoky grullo tobiano sea green eyes
"Thank you, Djinni," the Tin Man says readily. Well, his personality was definitely holding to the "outside scary, inside softy" description of his (male?) former herd-mate.
The stallion's attention hovers between drinking more water and taking a mouthful of grass, and he decides for the latter. It's then that he notices (or just relaxed enough to notice) that the land smells different from home. Along with the strange tone lurking in her voice and her green eyes, Djinni smells different from the horses he knows. Not just the usual "strange horse" way--something's pulsing in her blood, the same thing that quivers in the grass and the water. Notably, his own blood doesn't smell anything like it.
Magic, a Small One's voice drifts into his thoughts.
Not all of the horses here smell like Djinni does, but the Tin Man tenses and lowers his head just in case. "What's this place called, by the way?"
She smiles when he thanks her, the expression mirrored in her bright eyes. Her head nods as well, wordless acceptance of it. Djinni is always a little tricky, but she's rarely purposefully insincere.
While he takes a bite of grass she swallows a mouthful of water, content to let the silence drift between them. When he pauses though, she looks back over, her dark head cocked curiously. There's a question in her eyes, but he only asks what the name of the land is. He is a newcomer to Beqanna, she confirms, but perhaps not so glad to have found their refuge as some are.
"This is Beqanna." She tells him. "Though this particular area we call the Field". There's enough of an emphasis in her voice to suggest the pronoun; the land around them is not just any field. "I take it you're not from around here?"
She has never quite figured out how strangers end up in this isolated land or what drives them to the Feild. It is something beyond her knowledge (perhaps beyond her power) but it has always resulted in the bettering of Beqanna. New arrivals keep the blood new, stops the native Beqannians from suffering the same fate as many island-bound populations.
"I'm definitely not from here," the Tin Man says to her. "I was at the beach and then I got caught in a storm. I'm not sure exactly how long I've been in Beqanna instead of the sea, but it's been at least a day."
He takes another mouthful of grass.
"Is there more to Beqanna than the Field? I know there's that mountain past the lake, but what's beyond it?"
When he says he was at the beach, she knows he does not mean their Beach. No one speaks of the Beqannian Beach with such flippancy. It is a somber place, marked here and there with lasting memorials made by talented mourners with bone-white sand that never quite feels comfortable beneath one's hooves. Djinni prefers to not think of that beach, and is relieved when the Tin Man's story leads elsewhere.
"Welcome to Beqanna then." She tells him, a small smile settling on her face as he explains his circumstance. He asks about what is beyond the Mountsin, and the grullo mare turns her head to look in the direction of the towering peak. She is not fond of it and what it represents, but she does think it looks rather striking, silhouetted against the bright sky. It is so much taller than the surrounding hills; the ridge that separates Pangea from the rest of Beqanna is entirely hidden.
"There's much more." Djinni says, and knowing that he's likely to want more than that, continues. "There are more common lands - here, the meadow, the forest - places where those without a true home tend to linger. And there are other lands to the north of the commons lands, where horses stay permanently: kingdoms, for the most part. I live in Sylva, the forest land north of the Mountain. There is also Nerine on the coast, and Tephra and Taiga to the east. Ischia is an island north of Tephra, and they call the wasteland Pangea."
She has said quite a bit so she pauses, her pale eyes searching the Tin Man's face for a reaction, suspecting he'll have more questions and the soft smile on her face suggesting that she's more than willing to answer.
"Sounds exciting," the Tin Man says, drifting a foot or two away for another bite of grass. It's a harmless move, and he's not very agitated, but he also can't get over the strange smell of the land and Djinni herself. "Taiga... is it cold there? I've heard that word a couple of times, from the... the humans."
It comes out a bit hitched--he was about to say "Small Ones" again, but getting some food into his system was probably helping out his memory.
When he puts space between them she doesn’t really notice: he’s only grazing after all. Djinni stays where she is, not particularly interested in pressuring what she thinks must be a somewhat wary-natured creature.
He asks about Taiga being cold, and Djinni pauses to consider. “I’m not sure – I’ve only ever been there once.” When he mentions humans she looks curious. She’s only ever seen them from a distance, and she is about to ask more when she realizes that perhaps the hitch in his voice has been hesitation. She returns to a safer subject then, since he had asked about the Taiga.
“It’s a large forest, I remember. Redwood trees, misty, close to the eastern ocean.”
