"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
Scales and sinew.
Keeper saw that too; she failed to see harsh angles and jagged edges because what she did was as comparable to the indomitable faces of mountains. She saw incontestable strength from jaw to wither to hip. In the black of that skin, she saw the contours of obsidian uncovered from the earth, fat raw chunks of it that were hard and sharp but oh so beautiful! Keeper saw the rawness and ferocity that she lacked in the plum hairs that fell down Magnificent’s neck and in the rich purple of her eyes. She saw something of the mythical dragons in that mare, and nothing else.
She did not see herself as soft and smooth. Not as unkempt as she was having come straight from the woods. Her dark hair was snarled thick with knots and brambles, even bits of branches and bones and her skin held a bit of that winter hairiness to it that made her look rough and in need of a good grooming. Keeper left bits of her hair and her fur all over this world, as much as it left it’s mark on her in thorny scratches on her thin hips and skinned up knees. Compared to Magnificent, she looked like something that just crawled out of the muck but that was okay with her.
It is after all, how each perceives the other and in their two very different sets of eyes - each saw the other as beautiful.
For just a moment, Keeper’s face falls. Magnificent does not laugh much? That is tragic. In her mind, that is absolutely tragic. Not like Keeper laughs enough herself but she understands the power of laughter, how it can lighten the heart and brighten one’s face just enough for just a moment and moments are sometimes all that matter down to the distillation of minutes into seconds, like heartbeats and breaths - quick things, almost like secrets. Magnificent had a laugh that was like her - hard, bright, and beautiful. Keeper wanted to hear more of it.
“We can fix that.” she decides, feeling determination heat her cheeks as she offers up another smile. Smiles, like laughter, have power too. She then shook her head, laughing just a little. “No one,” she promises; considering that Keeper lacked much in the way of social interactions. Odd, given that she is thus far successful in not causing someone to run off though she expected them to give her odd looks and even odder sentiments but somehow, they all seemed to just accept her for who she was, whatever that might be. Just like she accepted Magnificent as she was, grand and intimidating but too brilliant to ignore.
(Something about moths and flames might have come to mind here, but that is far too cliche for even Keeper to endure.)
It is Keeper’s turn to be stunned.
She lacks expectations. Had not anticipated that the black with her horn and her lethal looking wings would actually accept her daring request without some hesitation or backlash. However, Keeper does not hesitate and beams her happiness right back at Magnificent through a big smile. “You will not be disappointed!” she crows happily, giving a little hop before she spins around and orients herself with the proper direction of the mountains that harbor their secret lake and bountiful blossoming trees that she has never given much thought to until now. Her eyes pick out the proper path that shall take them to the first of two rivers.
Keeper composes herself and jerks her head towards the path as her eyes roll backwards to assure that Magnificent is indeed following her. “There are two rivers that must be crossed. You could fly to the other side though…” she offers up the suggestion because it makes the most sense. Keeper will ford the shallowest parts of the rivers. She’s done it before and likes the challenge of when the current finds her legs and forces her to swim, head above the water until her hooves find purchase on the pebbly bottom below. Swimming is good for her muscles, reminds her that she is not magical like any of them - not in appearance, not even in her boring old blood.
She stops on occasion to snatch a mouthful of clover or quench her thirst in a melodious stream. Stops even to make sure that Magnificent does the same, keeps her strength up and keeps pace with her own smaller self. It seems like a long trek but Keeper has never noted the hours it takes to get there. Horses never notice things like that. Their legs eat miles and hours with no difference between the two and before she knows it, they face the second and last river and are across it with no issues. Before them now looms the mountains, and Keeper only knows one trail in though there are more than she has had a chance to learn.
“Well, what do you think so far?” she asks her companion, easily coming to think of Magnificent as hers in some fashion, be it friend or otherwise. The trail is before them, upwards and steep and not without it’s own pitfalls of pebbles and sliding dirt. Sometimes it is narrow, and sometimes large enough to let a horse pass but Keeper has succeeded up this slope before and she’ll succeed again. “The best is yet to be had just on the other side,” she promises though, this time more in a whisper than anything else. It occurs to her then, that Magnificent could just fly over the mountain and see for herself but Keeper thinks that would spoil the surprise...
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless
@[Magnificent]
ooc: apparently Keeper likes to build suspense! lol <3
09-22-2017, 04:32 PM (This post was last modified: 09-22-2017, 04:34 PM by Magnificent.)
Magnificent
Concrete and pumice stone, and how she regarded herself as lovely despite it all. Perhaps it was the potential to be worn smooth by a river, to be softened and molded by a greater force than she. This detail is not one she would openly share, this buried alliance she had with the fact that something bigger than herself had control over her and her fate. It was far too spiritual of a notion for a Coveling to let slip to the wind and so she tucked it close, and tethered it deep within her. It was not to be set free, nor uttered out loud, not even in the secrecy of her own whispers. It was a caged animal, something beaten into submission, a being left without light to thrive in and so resolved itself to cower in a corner- awaiting death. Finality.
That is why, just maybe, the charcoal mare overlooked the tangles in Keeper’s mane. It’s why her jewel tone eyes took in the trapped twigs and bits of leaves and disregarded them. Scratches on skin meant little and when she let her eyes gather in the gold, her vision blurred them into perfection. Smoothed them away much like she wished the water would do to her, how ironic. The child was a wild thing, spun in nature and delicately placed in a painting of a meadow. A lone doe set among beasts and brave enough to take them on, stubborn or hard headed or even courageous- which is yet to be decided.
Magnificent can not imagine the girl a foolhardy thing, but she had taken her by surprise so much that she could not quite place her finger on what she was entirely. It was a puzzle, the pieces locking and yet the raven could not place them correctly with fumbling fingers.
Keeper somehow kept her and that is to say something quite important and unexpected in itself.
We can fix that, and for the first time in hours that summons doubt. Magnificent could not be fixed and of that she was certain. The God’s would not allow it, that greater force surely could never mend a broken thing like her, no matter if she begged until she was blue in the face. Insides as sickly void as her coat, depthless and looming. Covelings were not meant for repairing and stubbornly she didn’t want such an easy remedy. A fickle mind, unsure of what it needed and wanted. On one hand craving absolution, the other clutching at condemnation and both sides of a balanced scale refusing to tip. Deep down she wanted both, she wanted either. All and nothing and that was why she said in a somber response, “If you think you can little beasty,” and she trudged along aside the dun, keeping pace with a patient gait.
At a river she stills, pulling to a halt and tipping her head to the one that navigated. If she knew the way Magnificent would have easily stretched her wings and flown but in this moment she must follow. How very surreal.
“If there is one thing I do not doubt,” she began, creeping her mass into the cool waters before them, “it is that you will try very hard to make sure I am not.” Her left back leg slipped on a slimey stone and she plunged chest deep much quicker than she intended. No matter, she huffed, sending a spray of tiny water drops fleeing from her nose. Small beads of the liquid still clung to the tiny hairs on her muzzle when she finally emerged and reflected rainbows before she shook them away. Her damp hair clinging desperately in a heavy embrace with her neck, she welcomed the reprieve from the warmth. The short swim had cooled her from the first half of their trek and so at the second waterway she flew, drying her skin and stretching her wings that sang as the current slipped beneath them.
It takes what seemed like a breath for her to pass over the river, watching from the bank as Keeper swam, and for the first time a glimmer of strength reflected from the girl and Magnificent cocked her head. She didn’t know what to do with the emotion that met her then, it wasn’t surprise, for she had felt that often enough to name it. It was appreciation, adoration for the girl that met her in a fleeting fluttering sensation, and if she knew how to recognize it she would have laughed at herself. Somehow the fairy girl had turned her world upside down and the dragon did not know how to react to the sudden friendship that had bloomed to life in their meeting.
Magnificent did not have many friends, save for one whose name she dare not let live within her head. Not now when he had been sent so very far from her mind.
“I think,” she returned, answering the question as she peered up at the slope, “that you are quite an adventurer.” She studied the path carefully, raking the sifted sand and pitted rocks and soaking them in through eyes deep purple like plums. Without much hesitation she put her muscles to work, silently thanking her trained flesh for the stamina to successfully ascend the trail. “Keeper how many times have you done this?” the words leaving through a steady pattern of inhales and exhales as she propelled herself upwards.
Keeper is unaware of the doubt that builds in Magnificent.
Dragons should not doubt, but mares do. Except for Keeper. She hasn’t had a doubt in her mind since the moment she made herself swear to never doubt again and this has been one promise that she has kept to herself, even if she breaks all the others. Doubt was very much like fear - a mindkiller, and she refused to let it in. This either makes her stupid or brave, or a combination of both which is more than likely as far as Keeper is concerned.
But nothing ventured is nothing gained, and she is not so easily daunted and if she had known Magnificent’s poor thoughts of doubt and being unfixable, Keeper would have assured her otherwise. The gods do hear and sometimes, just sometimes, they listen and they lend more than an ear. Keeper tries to keep the old gods appeased, perhaps that is why she is who she is: brilliant and foolish, a kind-hearted beast of burden that loved to chase after deer and secrets, and a mare as beautiful as mountains and dragons both, Magnificent!
The black followed her, kept to her pace and even challenged her with her ‘little beasty’ comment that pulled a grin from Keeper’s mouth even as they came to the first river. She half expected Magnificent to just fly over it but somehow too, she had known the mare would not. At the second river, the black does just that - flies over it and Keeper is in awe as she watches her. Magnificent’s wings block out the sun, even if it is similar to blinking for a second but it was enough to blot the light from the dunskin’s upturned face.
It is a long enough moment not to make her envious of flight but rather, curious. She has never once wished for feathered or leathered appendages to sprout from her back and carry her up and up, but she has to wonder just this once, what it must be like to pass so close to the sun… Then she is across the second river and Magnificent is looking her in a newfound manner that makes Keeper squirm just the tiniest bit. She knows she is not being sized up for dinner but there is something warmer and deeper growing between them, and she had first felt it back in the field even though she had no business being there and would not have been had it not been for a trail never taken before.
(Gods work in mysterious ways.)
“Sometimes,” she throws her head back with a laugh as her black eyes glimmer with a bit of wild adventurous spirit. She leads them up and up and up untils he crests the highest ridge and beneath them, spans the breadth of Hyaline. Her gaze searches out and rests upon the crown jewel in its midst - the lake, blue as a sapphire and rich enough to give Magnificent’s amethyst eyes both a challenge and a compliment. She looks back over her shoulder, smiling just a little as she admits, “Um, just once or twice.” There are easier ins and outs, trails that are more gentle on the muscles but Keeper preferred the wild exhilaration of the climb and the sight that rewarded them as it spread out below, beckoning them in.
“Welcome to Hyaline, what do you think?”
Because if Magnificent did not like it, Keeper would turn tail and take her somewhere else.
not knowing how deep the woods are and lightless
@[Magnificent] almost a month late! I am so sorry for the delay! <333
