"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
Star decided to leave Gemstone Ridge and explore alittle, she had finally filled out and more comfortable about her body. She walked into the meadow, sniffing the fresh summer breeze. She started to trot alittle feeling the wind beneath her legs and through her mane. It felt good to be free and in a home that welcomes her. Life was finally good and it was time to make friends and maybe flirt alittle she pranced showing off alittle she giggled. It was nice to get away for alittle me time she thought. The warm summer sun beamed down on her almost white pelt. She glowed she was so white. It was almost dangerous for her to venture out on her own. But she wanted to explore and enjoy life.
She found a cliff that over looked the meadow, she lifted her white crown, the breeze blowing through her mane and tail. She closed her eyes enjoying feeling the breeze. The wildness and freedom of her life. She loved living at the Gemstone Ridge with Nier but it was nice to get out on her own. She remembered what he told her on her first day. Don't get hurt or do anything stupid. She just stood on the cliff awaiting to be noticed by anyone. It was a nice day and it was too nice to stay at home and do nothing.
The meadow was becoming my haunt, the shadows of the copse of trees that spotted the vast clearing made perfect darkness for me to blend into. My inky frame slithers through the trees, snapping bark beneath my feet as I travel, a quick jog, limbs pushing and pulling, pushing and pulling. I'd been concealed by the night, bidding farewell to my ghostly queen, ready to be her pawn in this game of chess. But my haunting lady, Chantale, her cold skin, her dead eyes, they were after something more than checkmate. I listen to the sounds of the day, the chirping of birds, the torrents of the river. All is a background noise to what I really hear.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I crane my head, hearing it, faintly. It's close, the pulse of flesh and blood, the ripe heart ready to pluck from a warm, beating chest. I lick my dry lips, in visioning what it's like. Chantale had said things, in her cold melody. I was in rapture then, my own ideals pressed against her like a gun to my own head. I twist beneath it and all is lost, but do what we both want, the world, it would be ours.
I can be such an idealist at times. I smirk then, a crooked feature tainting my ebony lips. I step out of the shadows and climb rocks, expertly a shadow merely staining the cliff face. The closer I get, the louder it feels against be, within me.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Tender and red, ripe and fleshy. I lick my lips again and finally emerge from the rocks to the top of the Cliff, where I spot the life source. I confuse our heartbeats then as mine quickens in delight, in wonder. I have knowledge to obtain and that comes from eating hearts. Where else could one possibly begin to learn of the world? The heart seemed to rule many, it would just seem apt to take that part away.
I step closer, my lofty frame quite a tower compared to the dappled mare, my long, curled tresses damp against my neck as the sun beats down upon me with hot, sticky fingers. I come close, closer, reach out my velvet muzzle and speak, a serenade, a haunting lullaby, sickly sweet and as innocent as daisies popping up from graves.
'Precious little thing like you, all alone. Care for some company?'
The heavily pregnant Star was trying to weather being pregnant and managing to get around. She couldnt walk far distances at a time she just kinda waddled at this point in her pregnancy. She heard someone speak to her from behind her. She turned and noticed another like her behind her. Why hello she said, she hadn't seen or heard from her stallion for a few days and she was lonely. Looking for any kind of company she could fine. She stretched her neck out to the mare letting her know she was invited to be around her.
She wanted company, it would be nice to hang out with someone or talk with someone else besides talking to rocks or plants. Her herd was kinda quiet right now. I would love some company thank you. She smiled, What brings you here? It was finally winter time, which means the pesky pests of the insects made her being pregnant a whole lot easier. This was her first pregnancy and everything was still new to her. She was alittle embarrassed on how big she has gotten. She shook her mane trying to clear her mind of her pregnancy and enjoyed the scenery around her and her company that had joined her.
My inky pelt is rich, dark stains of burgundy taint my chest, my neck, my forelegs. Tarnish my muzzle with a healthy glow of crimson. As I smile, all teeth and glee, I cannot help but picture the years of memories gone by. I may be young but my books have been told, the pens have written scrawl after scrawl on parchment. And here in Beqanna, they continue to write. I watch her, dark eyes, oblivion, deep and never-ending black, they watch her with a predatory curiosity. She is ripe, like summer fruit. Her barrel heaving with the seed of life. I inhale then, she smells of ocean spray and grains of sand, of something bittersweet and soft. My nostrils pique, fluttering against the strange smells. They are nice and delicate, soft and pale. Everything I am not. I am shadow and night, dark and harsh. Every inch of my friesian frame a mass of hair and sinew, of a feral grace that goes unnoticed. Until now.
The pale maiden is as sweet as the fresh spring grass, as pale as the clouds in the summer sky. She is the epitome of all that I had left behind in my father's herd, and she is a memory that cracks and creaks in my head. I reach out my dark muzzle, inhale, deep, deeper. 'Companionship. Strange feeling, no?' I query, taking long steps around her, pounding the loam with thickset feet and feathered limbs. I eye her up again, drinking in hr presence. She is with child, ripe and ready, soon to spring upon the land with little hooves and weak eyes. There is a pang, rigid and hard, that hits me. It lulls me for a moment in a false sense of hope. A child. a beautiful child. Flashes of memory come to me and I feel the coldness prick my bones, knot my muscles. I had a child, once. Born dead and cold. The shiver runs down my spine and ends at the tip of my long, flowing tail. 'Why does one wander so far from home?' the question sparks in the air, like electricity.
I stalk forward again, an imposing shadow upon her sunlit day. The pounding of her heart, ripe, the life within her, equally as loud in my mind. taunting me with something I had in my grasp but lost because of hellions and fools, and my own damned young body. 'Dangerous things lurk the lands. One in your condition... I dread to think what might happen.' there is a serenade in my voice, a singsong that is as blissful and sweet as the nectar in wildflowers, but as poisonous as the sting from the barbs of a flytrap. 'I'm Nykeln.' because introductions are always necessary, even on death beds and murderous plots. I swing my neck around, looking down to the meadow below, a quaint glaze in my obsidian eyes. 'I live here.' a long, deliberate pause, a flutter of earlobes and a brief snort. 'And you look very far from your home.' I stalk closer still, imposing, walking her closer and closer to the edge of the cliff face. Rocks skittering by my feet as I kick them carelessly. The thud, the delicate pounding of her heart and the child growing within, it entices me near, draws me close. Life and death, such fragile things, quaint and lithe, like butterfly wings.
She looked around the place looked safe to her. Plus she would never put herself and her unborn into danger, plus she might look like a mare that would be a push over but she was not. She knew how to take care of herself and it wasnt the first time she was alone or had no protection from anyone. She had wondered from Gemstone Ridge because she missed the interaction and the conversation. But every once in a while you had to venture out and find some friends to get you through your loneliness.
She heard this mare talk about that she called this place home, she definitly had a home, she was the lead mare of Gemstone Ridge and queen to Nier. Im the lead mare at Gemstone Ridge, i can come and go there as i please. She had finally recovered from her sickly looking body and tired eyes. She was in her prime and wasnt afraid to venture out and show it off. She knew when to return home if need be, she never really wondered off too far. She chuckled at this mare. She was afraid of danger, and she usually handled it quite well. I havnt come across any danger yet that made me scared. She smiled, this foal im carrying is my prized posession i wont let anything happen to it. She moved her muzzle over her stomach feeling her baby move with in.
She was usually alone when Nier wasnt around, there were only 2 other mares besides herself at Gemstone to keep her company so she went looking else where for it. Im never alone, i always have my thoughts and daydreams. Nothing that i cant handle. She smiled, But she was wondering about the same. What was this mare doing here all alone. With her knowing the dangers, and being here all alone.
There is a sickly sweetness about this mare, she is a walking daydream, dressed in frilly lace and beautiful silk. She has eyes as large and as imposing as the sky itself, and I find it unnerving. She does not falter as I step nearer, my shadowy form a grotesque stain upon the earth, she does not wander from her saccharine words and that smile... It tugs at the core of me, pulls unbearingly at the memory innards. A growl comes from the deep recesses of my chest.
'You have a place in this world. Lead Mare of Gemstone Ridge.' My voice is almost mocking, yet not. Smooth and dark like the throes of black magic. My obsidian orbs settle on her blossomed abdomen. Life grows. Life grows, and yet is taken in a heartbeat. And it's that delicious heartbeat that entices me nearer. 'You were put on a pedestal... Those pedestals can easily topple.' My voice, dark, foreboding, it fills the atmosphere with the creepiness of a moonless night, the sinister tellings of an imposing Storm.
She is all talk, this girl. Sweet words and blinded eyes. I lick my lips, wetting dry and cracked skin with even drier Crimson. I stalk closer, so near now I can feel her resounding heartbeat. I step even closer, my towering frame a shadow of pale form. I extend my muzzle, course velvet against soft skin. I reach out to touch her abdomen, to feel re squirming life. To feel what I had never felt, but longed for all the same. I was burdened early in my life, yet never got to reap what had been sown. The small little black colt had been nothing but dead skin and failing organs. My ebony plume swats my hinds deliciously sharp. 'Oh, precious possession indeed...' I breathe them in, both her and the swell of the child. 'Do you feel the blossoming love, burden you already?' I question and my eyes glaze over, the sharp memory digging with harsh probing fingers into the depths of my dead heart. 'What would happen if that was ripped from you, your precious little possession? And you, broken, left with nothing.' My tone is cold, bitter like winters wind, harsh like the splintered Rock ledge below.
I stand then, tall and proud, dark eyes rimmed with a sparkle of something, something quite dark and sinister. 'Daydreams often turn to nightmares, precious. And I tread those sinister worlds with sure feet.' I reach out again, ivories grinning in a strange sort of fashion. Cigs and wheels achingly squeak in the forefront of my mind.
'Some days, it's better to stay in the safety of your home.' A promise, s threat, I wasn't sure. But the ringing in my ears, the pounding of my deadened heart matching the lovely, lively crescendo of the pale mare, that is all I hear.
.:: onyx femme had caught Blue's scent on the wind. femme had watched the ridge, a concern in her for both the maidens and their cargo. it was coming time to birth and the longer the days felt. flints carry lithe form across the topographies from gemstone ridge to the meadow. nares catching the iron lady's aroma. the emeraldines dead in winter, ice crisp on the airstreams. ::.
.:: femme's cerulean pools find her lead mare, up on the ridge, harsh loam. fatale finds troublesome as she scales the mountainside. flints digging into rock earth. finally she is up and azure pools lock onto the shadowy fatale circling Blue. femme calls, piercing. Femme's round and bulging barrel swings as she traverses over. ::.
Back off.
.:: soprano sings a harsh song. ::.
Our babes are not for your sick and twisted mind. Go and hide. Go and skulk in the shadows like you should.
.:: femme watches with piercing cobalt orbs at the shadow maiden. she is dark minded and twisted, femme could see the way she stalked, the way she reached out. fatale collides flints with the loam as she trots closer. ::.
I think jealousy is an ugly emotion.
.:: femme knows it is hypocrisy as she had been jealous once before. but onyx arabian knows now that jealousy grows into hatred and hatred destroys. onyx dial turns to the iron maiden and orbs scan her frame. ::.
She pinned her ears as, as she heard the words she could stay here. But she had a home already at Gemstone and she loved it there. She had just come out to explore the Valley to see what it was all about. It had gotten quiet at Gemstone for alittle so she went exploring looking for friendship nothing more then that. She had a home and a herd, then she heard a voice saying if she was alright. She turned her head and saw it was BrokenStar. Yes i am fine, no worries. She kicked at her stomach cause her foal was bouncing around alot. She placed her muzzle on her stomach to ease her bundle of joy down alittle.
BrokenStar im okay, just exploring different areas until Nier comes back and thats IF he comes back. She snorted at the other mare that she was not familiar with. She didnt want confrontation at her state. She was just there to explore some and see what all was outside of Gemstone Ridge. She pressed her muzzle against BrokenStar's neck to calm her, its alright this stranger means no harm. Im sorry i have come we should be heading back to Gemstone BrokenStar.
Years of abuse had shaped me like a worried scar, a frown upon the brow that never went away. It's those years of abuse at the hands of my sire and his many bachelors, that makes me stand hard and fast against verbal insults; my shadowy frame remains just that, a dark shadow, a stain upon the background. Oblivion eyes watch the mare, and now an addition. Both swollen with life, both as swollen with egos and pride. My ashen hoof pounds the earth, scrapes the dry flint with a concentration of a hawk eyeing it's prize. Two vulnerable hearts, ripe for the picking, two planted seeds, ripe fruit for the taking. I inhale them, my nostrils fluttering, dried blood marring the ashen pigment into a deep, dark burgundy stain. I breath them both in now, lungs flaring with a strong gasp. Salty waters, sandy shoals, they smell of the ocean with it's frothy currents and rocky pools. They have a home, somewhere, and a stallion -- a man that most likely has them beneath his hoof, having already had his wicked way with them -- a steed who is still not rearing his head. Alas, his two maidens, ripe with his seed, and he is nowhere to be seen. Such a shame.
'There you both are, ripe with children that soon will grace the earth.' my breaths come ragged, the memories tainting me, making my skin perspire in a nightmarish swear. The tiny black bundle, slick with life, but cold as death's handsome touch. I feel the deadened heart within me quiver and quake, a sneer pulling my lips all places, my eyes alive then, watching the two with a whole new perspective. 'You come here, you flaunt such life, is it only right that someone might be offended?' my words are black magic and frostbitten whimsy. I stalk forward, willing them closer to the edge, my towering frame imposing and pushy. I snake my neck outwards, teeth barring, snapping with a ferocity that taints my darkest dreams. My tail snaps at my hocks, wavering over my tender loins. I scrutinise them both, the pale princess, the black maiden. My eyes resting upon their thickset barrels; the life within them ripe and fresh, it sends my mind into a downward spiral, right there, right then. 'Home is so very far, don't you think?' I threaten, my lofty frame growing inches taller as I stand prouder, stronger. Heavily feathered limbs shifting, standing strong on the shifting ridge. 'Perhaps it wasn't the wisest choice, to wander so far, in your conditions.' my eyes snap from one to the other, cold, like the frostbitten winds in winter, but alive like the raging infernos of summer's promised heat. There is anger, hot, blistering anger lacing my words, 'To risk the lives of your children, before they even get to see the light.'
♆
the dying scream upon lips; vagabond of the meadow
html by magpie77 - photo mani by magpie77 - character by magpie77
NYKELN
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the haematoma in your chest,