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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    runnin' away to the riptide; kreios
    #1
    @[kreios] @[Kahzie]

    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    She is nobody.

    Once, she was an orphan. A tiny thing, alone, her mother dead beside her in a pool of blood. And then she was one of many – the mouse-gray girl in the swirling galaxy that was Nera’s foal herd. But they couldn’t stay there forever, because they grew up. And Nera wanted to place them in Kingdoms and places of power, but none of the Kingdom representatives who’d spoken had captured the pony-girl’s interest. They were impassioned about their homes, that much she’d noticed, but there was something they were missing. How odd, to be defined as a person by where you lived.

    So here she is, picking her way across the Field, alone again. Nobody, because she doesn’t know how she wishes to be defined. A murderer? There was no denying the blood, her mother’s still body beside her in the den (her fault, her fault, her fault)…but she has not killed since then. It does not lurk underneath her skin, the urge to kill, though she has recognized that drive in strangers she’s met since leaving Nera. A child? No, no longer. She has not grown tall but she has grown an adult’s body, and adult’s mind. A mare, then, a woman? Yes, but to what end?

    Sloene stops, looking down at her own reflection in the clear water of the stream. Ice melt has gorged the trickle of water to several meters across, but shallow and reflective. She is white-gray now, the frosted ends of her winter coat obvious. But where she’s started to shed, a darker color shows: like many of the more primitive creatures, she will be a much darker, sleeker creature come summer. But not beautiful – not like the swirling colors that were her Brothers and Sisters in Nera’s herd. Just gray and white and black, and nearly invisible in the murky twilight. Were it not for the bright full moon overhead, even her reflection would be invisible.

    Maybe that is what she is – the invisible girl.

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
    Reply
    #2


    kreios

    don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash

    The nights here are warmer than they are in either of my homeland. The temperature there drops with the sun, and while I will enver considering leaving them permanently, there is something pleasant about a warm night. Spring has only just come to BEqanna and many of the residents are still shedding their winter coats.

    I see one such mare, looking like silver in the moonlight. I’ve not grown a winter coat since I reached adulthood; snow does not fall in the Desert or the Orange Country. I can remember it, falling soft and white in the Dale, but I prefer warmth year round and the lack of worry about available food. The mare appears to be looking at herself in the still pool of water, and so for a time I leave her to her contemplations, not wishing to interrupt.

    Since I see no one else with her I do finally approach, careful to move slowly. I’ve been told I’m rather imposing and I believe it; spiraling horns, impressive height and a brightly colored hide make it hard for me to be missed in a crowd. “Hello,” I say with a friendly smile, settling a comfortable distance away from her – not too close that she’s pressured, but near enough for ease of conversation.

    It had taken me a while to adjust to the differences between recruiting for a kingdom and finding mare for a herd. For the Desert, a willingness to serve and remain loyal are necessary, and the ability to fight and speak properly are always desirable. For a herd mare I need only one that is willing to live with me (and I’ve heard some stallions don’t even bother with the willingness part), and all other attributes are only cosmetic. Someone that gets along with others, I’ve learned, and who is not bothered that I cannot devote myself entirely to them alone. I serve the Desert still, and while I do split my time between the kingdom and my herd, that split time is for her herd and not a single mare in it. I’m fond of them all, of course, but each day spent as a herd stallion makes the concept of the monogamous love between my parents more and more unfathomable.

    “I’m Kreios,” I add, “from Orange Country.” Closer, I realize exactly how much smaller than I am she is. She reminds me a little of Pevensie despite the obvious differences in color. “What’s your name?”

    Reply
    #3
    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    Even moving slowly, his sheer mass makes his footsteps audible. The girl’s head swings up from the water, ears swiveling forward, raising her eyes so that she can find his face. For a moment she simply blinks, taken completely by surprise. She’s used to being little, standing several inches below most strangers she meets, but this stallion is nearly a foot taller than she is at the withers, and large in mass as well. Her silver eyes widen at bit as she takes in the spiraling horns protruding from the man’s skull, but there is a smile on his face and a friendly tone in his voice that puts her at ease anyway.

    She steps away from the water, towards him, not closing the distance entirely but the quiet of night seems to call for hushed voices, and she wants to be close enough to facilitate that. He offers a name, a home she doesn’t recognize – but he smells of heat and sand and rocks. “I’m Sloene,” she responds, lips curling into a quiet smile. He is as bright in the moonlight as she is not bright – white and red and large. “I’m of…well, nowhere, but I guess you know that since I’m here in the Field.”

    Orange Country – she is enough of a Beqanna child that she knows it’s not a Kingdom. A herd, then. She turns that idea around in her head, knowing that it won’t be the same as where she grew up. Nera and Branka had been two mares, raising a flock of children – no stallion involved. A traditional herd was a stallion instead, with a flock of mares. Could that define her, she wonders – a small sisterhood and a stallion to protect them? She supposes she won’t know unless she tries it, since she knows nothing about herds. She knows little about herself, even; she doesn’t know if her mother and father served a Kingdom or lived in a herd. Some days, she can’t even remember their names. “Your herd – is it large?” She was one of a mess of children once, and a part of her wants to know something smaller.

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
    Reply
    #4


    kreios

    don't you tame your demons, but always keep them on a leash

    She seems nice enough – neither harsh nor terrified of my approach, and that gives me some measure of courage. “It’s nice to meet you, Sloene.” I say, nodding politely to accentuate my words. She says that she of nowhere – or from the Field, we both know they are the same. That doesn’t surprise me; for all the pleasantness of this place’s climate there is something discouraging about an extended stay. The Meadow, though quite similar in all other aspects to the Field, lacks the strange sense of urgency that always seems to imbue the Field. I feel it as excitement, as a rush, but I imagine that for those without a home it must be an entirely different sensation.

    Sloene asks if my herd is large, and I immediately shake my head. I’m about to say as much when it occurs to me that perhaps it is large. I’ve no metric against which to judge a herd’s size. I know only that it is smaller than the kingdom I serve. “There’s just myself and three other mares.” Two, really, since I’ve not seen hide nor hair of Illusen in several weeks. It’s always possible she’s exploring – the land has plenty of hiding places. “So I don’t think it’s too very big?” I leave that up to her – perhaps four herd members is too many. Or she might want a larger herd; I can’t be sure until I ask.

    “Would you like to see it? It’s a nice place, and not too far from the Field.” My offer is sort of a trick, I’m aware, but I don’t’ feel guilty at all. It’s not me that tends to keep the mares there after they’ve seen the herdland, it’s the land itself. I prefer to think that I’ve found the very best of available lands in which to settle, and the pleased reactions of everyone I’ve shown it to has just further cemented my certainty. “If you don’t like it you don’t’ have to stay, but I’d love to show it to you.”

    Reply
    #5
    lady, runnin' away to the riptide
    taken away to the dark side

    She waits patiently to catch his words, feeling slightly better about her own uncertainty when he hesitates before speaking. Perhaps not every other thing in Beqanna has a purpose – or, if they do know their purpose, at least they aren’t completely sure of all of their actions all of the time. The stallion gives a hesitant number and she quirks a smile again, shaking her own head. “No,” comes the murmur of a reply. “That’s not too large at all.” Sloene can’t even count the number of pseudo-sibling she grew up with; she’s not even sure she met them all, though certainly Nera had known each of them by name.

    He offers to show it to her, this Orange County, and the little dun mare wonders if she’s simply imaging the enthusiasm (hope, even?) in his voice. If she’s projecting her own bubbling, hopeful feeling about having a home and a family into his quiet words. She’d like to think not – it is nice to think he’d be happy to have her join them there, or as happy as one can be about taking a stranger home. “I’d love to see it.”

    SLOENE
    I've got a lump in my throat
    cause you're gonna sing the words wrong
    Reply




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