"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
07-05-2017, 03:28 PM (This post was last modified: 07-05-2017, 03:28 PM by Iset.)
Iset
goddamn right you should be scared of me
No one was ever supposed to get hurt. No damage was supposed to be done. She made it clear. To Levi, to Maugrim, to all of them. This was never supposed to happen. Horses were hurt, the earth was destroyed, she had hurt her home and her family.
And all out of boredom? She was turning into Him…something she never saw coming. She had to go, to let the land and the people heal far away from the destruction that was her. Even though it was never actually her that hurt anyone or anything during the rampage of her home, it had been her plan all along. Her doing, her fault.
She limped to where her brother was standing, the marks from where Maugrim had ensnared her long legs were still red and raw, but it felt almost some sort of penance for the marks she had caused the land around her to bear. She nudged his shoulder lightly, cautiously with their own, unsure if their unspoken language was still accepted in Amet’s mind.
“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry,” it wasn’t enough, would never be enough. But it was all her strangled throat could manage. She met his eyes with her tear-filled ones, silently begging forgiveness she knew she didn’t deserve. “I-it wasn’t supposed to happen like that. No one was supposed to get hurt, I made it clear. I made it so clear…” she trailed off and dropped her eyes, not wanting to see the hatred that would inevitably would fill his.
The next time she spoke it was to the charred grass beneath her feet, "I can't stay here. I love you. I'm sorry," the confession was no more than a whisper, but she knew her shaken words reached her brother's shiny ears. "Tell Sakir I love him. And tell everyone else..." Tell them what? What would make up for the damage she caused? And with that, she ran.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
He stares, unseeing, at the cloudy lake before him. It had been so beautiful, so clear, and so obviously the focal point of Hyaline. Now, nearly three weeks later, it is still barely translucent through the ash from the trees and grass that Levi had burned, and small fish carcasses dotted the shores as they washed up, gradually, from Maugrim's destruction.
Even his favorite wisteria tree, the one that he still stands beneath, his charred and black. Hyaline is bleak these days, and he, even bleaker. Hoof steps break the silence (a mass exodus of the birds) and Amet almost smiles, because who else could it be but Tang? But when he turns his head, his leather-plated neck glinting in the late autumn sun, the King of Hyaline comes face to face with his sister.
He is immediately tense, every muscle in his lithe frame coiled as Iset approaches him, sorrow drawn into her face and an obvious limp in her step. Almost like Tang's, he doesn't say. She reaches for his shoulder just as they had always done, her own metallic coat a bright spot that contrasts Hyaline's current gray. Amet doesn't move. He can't. But he doesn't reassure her with warmth, either. He allows his younger sister to whisper her apology into his shoulder, her breath warm against him, as he spits his response, "It was naive to think that they would not take advantage of your trying to impress them."
I can't stay here. I love you.
Amet's jaw clenches and she steps away from him. He keeps his gaze, hurt and heavy with impending tears, locked on Iset's eyes, despite her own averted gaze. "I will always love you, Iset. But you need to come back when you are ready to be a Queen to these people."
And you are far from ready, he doesn't say, as she turns and runs from him.
07-18-2017, 01:02 AM (This post was last modified: 07-18-2017, 01:05 AM by Sakir.)
Dead. It was all dead. Charred, rotted, the soil still infused with ash. The lake, once glorious and a true wonder now no more than soupy pit of death. The rotting fish leaving it sour. Sakir lingered not far from Amet who stood ever solemn beneath his dead tree. He’d found a strange comfort in being near his brother without the need to express words. Perhaps a silent sentinel of sorts. He was here if Amet needed him though his brother had handled the chaos like a king. Resourceful and pragmatic. Whilst he’d remained numb. And still was…
He’d been there. Watching and waiting for his twin having not seen sight of her for days. He’d seen Iset bring that colt into the kingdom, secretively and stealthily through the shadows of night. He’d known it had not been right, he had felt it. It chilled his heart to realise that such an uneasy feeling had been warranted. Was it true what they said? That Iset had been the one who led destruction into their home? Was it so black and white? No. He refused believe that. Couldn’t. There had to be something more. Surely it hadn’t been willing. Iset understood what unnecessary pain and suffering was. She’d lived it time and time again from him. Surely she would not inflict such devastation willingly upon them all.
And as if materialising from his thoughts, her hoof falls bore into their silence. Iset came to them. No, not them. Iset went to Amet. Her legs marked red with hurt where those tendrils had caught about her and strangled her tight. He knew now that was Maugrim’s doing, the boy who had trailed her. How she freed herself from those restraints he did not know. But he felt her pain in the pains of his own. From his scabbed over cuts and the bruising still present unseen beneath his dark hairs though he felt the incessant ache of them. His left eye could not yet open properly and his head still throbbed from the swelling.
Instinctively he moved to go to his siblings and took but one step when something held him in place. This moment was for them. He could not hear her words, nor his brother’s, though he could read the hardness in the way Amet held himself. Sakir held his breath. And then Iset fled.
He surged forward. It did not take him long to reach his brother’s side. “Where is she going?” he asked. And then he noticed the wet streaks trailing down Amet’s cheek and he suddenly felt nauseous and dizzy and panicked. “Amet.” His brother’s name solid on his tongue. “Is she coming back?” He feared an answer he did not want to hear.
if there's a light at the end, it's just the sun in your eyes
Amet's chest is tight, so tight, it suffocates him as he watches Iset run away. Her metallic coat is bright against the gray, dead backdrop. It's all he can see. And then Sakir is suddenly at his side and the dragon King is forcing himself to inhale. It's nearly a gasp, but then he snorts and turns his bleary, teary-eyed gaze towards his younger brother. Amet can't find his words, not immediately. Instead, he extends his muzzle to Sakir and rests it gently on his neck, near the younger boy's scaled withers. He never did tell Sakir how much he loved that they both had scales now, did he? His frown deepens.
"I don't know... I don't know where she's going," he whispers into Sakir's shoulder, the idea of Iset being on her own in Beqanna forming a deep and uncomfortable pit in the stallion's stomach. He is angry, furious, boiling mad - but he had never wanted his sister to feel alone in the world, and now she has distanced herself from even Sakir. Amet can hear the panic blatant in his little brother's voice. "She said she loves you," the leather-plated stallion whispers as he pulls away from Sakir, amber gaze focusing now on his face instead of past his plated back. "She will come back. She knows she did wrong."
Amet takes a shaky breath and watches Sakir's face, his brother's despair breaking his heart even more. "She will come back," he repeats, with a bit more confidence, but then an unwelcome confession finds itself falling from his lips: "I've failed you both."
The silence between his question and the time it took for his brother to answer seemed almost unending. In the building pause between words, Sakir realised that his brother’s eyes filled to the brim with sorrow suddenly said more than words ever could. And instinctively, in a small moment when sorrowful eyes met with worry, he already knew that the words yet to form on his brother’s tongue was an answer he wouldn’t want to hear. He gulped back the unease of it all and steadied his panic as Amet reached to comfort them both, his muzzle resting on the small scales that had begun to protrude through the dark hairs there. Don’t waver, be steady… he willed himself. He needed to be strong for them both now, to be his brother’s unwavering pillar as he had so often once been Iset’s.
‘I don’t know… I don’t know where she’s going,’
It felt like his heart turned to stone and sunk through his chest like a rock. “She… she’s leaving though…” he mumbled softly though it wasn’t really a question but rather a voiced acknowledgement of his family once again breaking apart.
‘She said she loves you,’
His mouth felt awfully dry and his mind pounded heavy. “I know, I don’t question it.” Iset needed him now more than anything, she was breaking, alone, hurt…. And… and Amet had let her run away. Why did he do that? No, stay impassive, remain calm. Amet was searching his face, though Sakir found his sturdy composure was easier to maintain if he didn’t look back at him. “No, if you’ve let her go, she won’t be back, she’s too stubborn.” He’d need to go after her, pull those pieces back together.
‘Iv’e failed you both.’
He pressed a reassuring muzzle against his brothers scaled neck. For a long time, as far back as he could remember he’d looked up to his brother, that his guidance and fortitude was beyond anyone else’s. But so much was happening, so much had changed, it must be impossible not to sink with such a weight. But Iset was one of them, and she could not be let to slip away. “Whatever she’s done… whatever any of us do, it doesn’t matter, this Kingdom can’t be ahead of her, no one can.” And with that he left his brother’s side and wandered off in the direction his wild twin had fled into.
@[Amet] -- don't worry about replying this was heaps long overdue
