"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
She has grown accustomed to the loneliness that has colored her entire life. She has bore witness to kingdoms rising, and falling, and rising again. She has watched as new life has been birthed, grown old, and passed into the next life. She has seen happiness wrenched from the wombs of those who cultivated it, replaced by hatred and anger. She has watched the world, and all it’s inhabitants morph, and change, and grow, and fade…..yet she is ever the same…unchanging. She is the only thing in her entire life that has not evolved. At times it is maddening, at others it is the sole comfort she has in this world. She has been alive, and yet she has never really lived.
She has always been an oddity amongst oddities, though in a much more simple way than per the usual. She is average in every way, though delicate in her build from blood heavy with desert influence. A simple bay pinto horse, with a gentle dish to her head, and a mane and tale that glitters in the sunlight. Aside from her unusual adornments, she is immortal, a gift from a father more steeped in legend than a physical reality. She knows nothing of him, though, and his significance to her existence has dwindled as she’s grown older.
She once again finds herself in the Field, though many things in this land have changed, the Field remains as Katastrophe does, ever unchanged. If she were to quickly glance it would be as a picture from her youth, the same faces and cliques gathered round in heavy discussion. Recruiting, and claiming, and squabbling. But as it is, most of those faces are long since dead, and the faces here today are entirely new to her keen eyes. She cocks a hind leg, and allows her eyes to close and her mind to wander to fitful sleep. This is a game she is all too familiar with, and she knows she will not have to wait too terribly long for a body to approach her, and really, what is time when you’ve got eternity at your fingertips? It is insignificant, at least to Kat. It seems to her, she could sleep a thousand years, and not a thing would be different when she woke.
Her mind drifts, wandering back to days gone by, to children she’d raised, and men she’d only ever lusted for. It brings her back to a bubbling stream, and laughter as she fled a winged man’s possessive embrace. To squeals, and nips, and a heavily rounded middle housing perhaps her most exceptional of accomplishments. She wonders where her son is now, before her dreams take her to darker places.
He can always tell the virgins from the veterans of the field. There are always little ticks, twitches, darts of the eye or lack of that can give one away. The pinto mare becomes obvious to him as he is wandering aimlessly around in the fading afternoon sunlight. For months now he has had no real goals or destination in mind, just wandering and when he tires he rests his greasy bones next to the rolling rapids of the River. Every once and again he’ll pass by the field and not be able to resist a stroll through it just to see who can find and what they might be doing. Truthfully he has no real plans of whisking anyone away – who would want to follow a stranger with no destination? His speckled body is melded perfectly, seamlessly, into the umbrage of undergrowth and their dancing shadows. Within these dappled blankets of no light he remains camouflaged completely; even his bright eyes fade into the darkness.
He watches her for a while as her eyes seem to glaze over and her dreams take her away. He cannot see much but the side of her face and part of her patch-pattern ribcage. She’s not new to Beqanna, surely, she’s most definitely native born. He forces himself to make the decision now, before the sun sets, will he say hello to the pretty lady or keep walking and be on his merry way?
He breaks through the green arms of the blooming hobble-bushes, their white flowers shedding milky petals as he comes forward into view. As the pliant branches let go of him, the shadows do too. His inky body slips into to the warm yellow glow of the evening sun slanting over the field. The bone-white paleness of his face is splashed over by a long slick of salt and pepper forelock. He’s sure she heard his footsteps, those big feet of his but he lets out a snort anyway as if casually clearing his nostrils. “Oh,” he feigns surprise pretty well, “I wasn’t sure I’d run into anyone out here.” He laughs kind of awkwardly. They are somewhat near the eastern border, so perhaps that will pass for not creepy – maybe. His closest eye is not hidden beneath spiraling coal hair, looking her over her bum to head as he walks up to stand beside her in the tall grass. He positions himself as if he’s going to keep walking after a brief pause, stepping out in front a pace or two. “It’s going to be a nice night, anyhow. Do you have a place to go, traveler?” he turns over his back, putting on his most innocent face.. Think pure thoughts. Nothing of how her curves are quite nice and that ageless skin looks like skin to touch.
Could he possibly convince her come back to the River with him? Such an idea strikes him as utterly delightful and he cannot stop the grin pulling at his lip’s edges. He does not want to give himself away, not yet. Only for a night or two babe, then you can go wherever you want. It has been while, hasn’t it? Tail is a little harder to come by with no land and no herd. Note to self.
Somewhere in the deep pits of her subconscious, she is aware that she is being observed, though this knowledge does not rattle her. She’s broken bread so to speak with some of the most wicked, vile, lecherous, and dangerous to ever tread these lands, and to her girlish disappointment she’d come away from these encounters utterly unscathed. Many times her flesh could’ve been sustenance for some of the more base folk that had called Beqanna home, and yet here she is, perfectly and completely whole. She is now of a mind that if it is her time to go, it is her time to go. Worrying about who watches from a distance only causes you to suffer twice, and so her brain does not wake her from her dreams. She sleeps quietly, cocking one bleached hind leg in utter relaxation, until she hears a rustling of the green blades that stretch over the field like emerald carpet, heralding the approach of another. An ink tipped ear cocks in his direction, even though crystalline eyes are sluggish to open.
She stifles a smirk at his snort, and finally opens knowing eyes when he exclaims that he’d not been sure if he’d find anybody here today. If she were younger perhaps she would’ve believed him, as it is she regards him quietly, with polite interest. She offers a half smile, and a shrug ”Just me for the time being, I’m afraid.” she offers, turning sky stained eyes towards the vastness that stretched out around them. ”It is rather empty today.” she observes. Where earlier had been cliques of horses talking or grazing, now there seemed to be only the sleepy sun and singing crickets. He overtakes her, ogling her overtly and pressing on past her in a silent invitation. She watches him for a moment, silently musing her own blossoming interest of him. This was not her first trip around the merry-go-round. She steps with him, deciding that she’s quite interested in seeing in where this could go, and how long before he discovers just how calculated she is in her dealings with others. Commitment wasn’t her thing, and if it was a short term jaunt he was after, there was no regretful morning after or awkward goodbyes to be had with her. Zero expectations of any sort of follow up.
”As a matter of fact, I don’t.” she offers with a tinge of irony. She wonders if he has hopes for the long term, but something in the way he looks at her tells her that this is unlikely. The thought makes her smile. ”Do you? Or are you just passing through as well? I find I never stay in one place for too long.” there is a hint of warning in her final words, a ghost of a touch as she comes to be shoulder to flank by his side, before she takes a smooth half step away again, quietly meandering onward, content to allow him to guide her should he so please. Kat was rather sneaky that way, she had mastered the art of mimicking the ‘compliant female’ though it never took long for the façade to fall away once the urge to socialize, or otherwise, had been sated.
When she speaks and her aqua eyes tilt up to him it is like two pieces clicking together seamlessly. He cannot control or sense the grin creeping across his charcoal lips; his lungs thrumming with a deep breath. Ah, he muses, she is not a dullard.. He stares unabashedly over to her, the cogs of his mind churning and creaking, those eyes finding each corner of her face. His head quirks just slightly to the left as he watches a few strands of her black hair tumble over her face. He chuffs, grinning truly and wide now, his eyes hungry and set even with hers. “Perhaps we’re kindred then,” he steps forward as if he may lead the way to somewhere interesting, turning to look over his speckled back. “Because I cannot seem to be still like a stone either, more wandering like the wind.” He cannot stop the twitch of his eyes as they dive for her bum, her thighs – his favorite meaty parts. He takes himself away though, don’t scare her, and trots off down over the small hill, hoping she may follow.
To the River then? He’s not quite sure, but he anticipates the patter of her smaller feet where his just carved deep wounds in the soil. Where will her take her if he follows? His heart seems to stir when he thinks of the carpets of moss and forest flowers lining the river’s banks. He’s known the land for some time and she’s been kind enough to show him some hide-aways, it makes the common land a tolerable home for now…
He heads for the River whether she’s behind him or not, but he certainly hopes she is.
c h e m d o g
in absentia luci, tenebrae vincunt
hey sorry for the wait!
so feel free to post in the river to him or if she wants to stay and wait for someone new to come along that's cool too
