"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
Against the sound of crashing surf, the sound of her arrival is muted. It was only the soft settling of sand far more golden than the pristine white beach of Ischia, and it vanishes just before it reaches the ground. Her hooves sink into the sand as she appears, the warmth of it a striking contrast to the cool grey that she'd stood upon only a moment past.
The air here is more temperate as well, thick and humid despite the autumn that afflicts the rest of Beqanna. It is reminscent of the jungle that the amazons had left behind, but Djinni has always found the granite cliffs of Nerine a far more fitting homeland for them.
It's for that kingdom that she is here, and at the reminder the rose gold mare straightens her posture. Surely they'll have a patrol along the beach, even at high tide. While most horses swim, there are still those that might enter through alternate routes. Routes that would be made simpler by the golden swan wings that the grullo mare wears, had she chosen to use them.
Despite her sudden arrival on the shore, the small mare does not appear threatening. She is small, built as delicately as any desert horse. The golden shade of dun striping on her slender legs matches the three rings she wears in either ear, and the expression she wears is eternally patient.
Someone will find her eventually, and she can do what she has been tasked with.
Summer takes its leave and autumn rushes in, she can feel it slightly when the cool mainland air blows in from the south. The seasons never seem to change in Ischia. It is always hot, humid. The tropical climate is one that takes many awhile to adapt to, but Krone never really cared. It felt similar to the temperature around the cove she had grown up in, and she liked it that way - she was never much suited for the cold.
She is patrolling the shoreline of the big island (as she so often does), sinking into the wet sand beneath her hooves. She is restless, and it isn't hard to tell she hasn't slept very much the past few days. Her usually poised posture is slumped, her eyes blink slowly (she nearly has to force them open), and her quick gait was replaced with a slower, more relaxed walk. The children are further up towards the forest, playing (one ear is tilted back, listening for any sounds of distress).
Krone spots the rose gold mare from afar, and her satellites perk in curiosity. Another visitor, in such a short amount of time? She forces herself to a trot, deciding to greet the diplomat head on.
"Hello," She greets as she approaches. The mare doesn't smell of sulfur and ash like the two dark Tephrans, but rather of a place she hadn't traveled to, a place she couldn't pinpoint. "I'm Krone, Keeper of Ischia. What brings you here?"
Krone
you could be the King (but watch the Queen conquer)
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
She’s right – there are those patrolling the borders of the island Kingdom. Brennen is watching over the humid islands, wings allowing him to keep an eye on the smaller chain islands at the same time he watches the main land, and he misses her arrival. One flyover his Queen is alone, wandering the sands, and the next there is a mare standing there, and Krone is approaching the stranger at a trot. He might have kept his distance but a keen sense for what is going on around him tells Brennen that her children are not too far away, and the close attention he has been paying to his compatriots from a distance reminds him that Krone has seemed unusually tired of late; these two things added to the winged horses’ sudden and suspicious appearance (he should have seen her flying or swimming on his last glance) has him wheeling down to the sand to land, quite gracefully for his size and the size of his wings, beside his Queen even as she is introducing herself to the stranger.
He gives the brown-and-green mare a polite nod as he folds his wings and turns to look at the stranger, a polite, vague, and relatively fake half-smile already in place to offer his own greeting, but he doesn’t speak right away, instead letting his eyes roam the mare’s face and body, a sense of familiarity warring with the knowledge that she should be a stranger; his amber gaze lingers on the gold decorations in her ears for a long, silent moment and he thinks he knows her identity. Whoops. Perhaps it would be better, if she is who he thinks he is, if he had stayed far away on the other side of Ischia while a diplomatic meeting was held. He isn’t sure how Nayl or Djinni feel about his inability to force himself to stay in Nerine, but he will always be grateful for Djinni having been the one to restore him his wings, when first their powers were taken from them, and to Nerine in general for being a port in the storm when he first missed his Tundra so fiercely.
And truly, he had tried to love it. He certainly admired the women who ran it – but just as he would never have been able to serve the Jungle, he was not able to tie himself to Nerine forever.
In the end, Brennen doesn’t ask her name or offer his own; he suspects she knows him, and if he is wrong, then a stranger will ask. Instead he stays a half-step behind Krone in deference to her, but clearly protective of his Queen in light of the arrival of what may well be a dangerous stranger, and waits.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
A brief shudder runs down her spine. By the time it reaches her tail, the rose gold mare has become ever-so-slighlty more slender. The thick, shaggy coat she’s grown in preparation for a Nerinian winter isn’t needed here. It was cumbersome, and so she’s rid herself of it.
The bay mare looks exhausted, and Djinni notes the way she keeps a single ear pointed back. There is someone back there, the dun mare presumes, probably a child born this past spring if Krone’s slumped body language is anything to judge by.
As the mare comes forward, they are passed over by a large shadow. Djinni glances upward, and a half-smile flickers across her mouth for a moment. She looks back down at Krone, who has just now come near enough to converse and greets her with a polite nod and neutral expression.
Far more neutral than the bay stallion’s expression, anyhow. Her dancing green eyes flick to his, and she grins as he attempts to puzzle her out. She knows the moment he reaches the answer, but there is less pleasure in his expression at the discovery than she might have expected. She doesn’t have time to figure out what’s changed, and it never occurs to her that Brennen might think she’d judge him for following his heart away from Nerine.
The green-tipped mare introduces herself, confirming both the rumors of the Ischian’s odd choice of title for their monarch and her own position as ruler of the island realm. She asks what brings Djinni here, and while she knows that the correct answer is something about alliances and treaties, Djinni can’t quite give in to such monotony.
At least not yet, and not entirely.
”I wanted to see if Brennen here was sure he really liked that size of wing. They always did seem too large for my liking.”
At this she does finally smile, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.
The dun mare does not offer her name when Krone approaches. In fact, she doesn't say much of anything. Rather, she nods politely and gives the Keeper a monotonous look, only seeming to smile when a shadow appears over them and Brennen comes to rest at Krone's side. Her head tips slightly to the side in curiosity - she hadn't met a stranger (let alone a diplomat) that acted so peculiarly upon a first meeting.
When the stranger speaks of Brennen, and his large wings, Krone cannot help but glance between the two of them.
"So you know each other?" She asks calmly, curiously. Her eyes look over to her friend, her confidant, hoping he could put some of her questions to rest.
Krone
you could be the King (but watch the Queen conquer)
@[Djinni] @[Brennen] This is short and it sucks but I'm tired so sorry in advance :p
hold me in this wild, wild world 'cause in your warmth I forget how cold it can be
Djinni speaks and smiles, and the words are not a censure of Brennen. Relief at her teasing words allows him to relax, and it makes quite the difference in the bay stallion. Unknotting his tensed muscles turns him from dangerously poised warrior to just a well-muscled creature, and with his mind more at ease his face softens, lips still quirked in only a half-smile as is his wont, but a laugh ready in his amber eyes. Even the topic of conversation, his inky black wings, loosen at his sides and he allows himself to take the last step to stand beside Krone, brushing her shoulder with his nose in a ghost of a reassuring gesture to hold her over while they banter, before proper introductions can be made; to assure that despite his own initial response, the situation is probably fine.
“Surely they must just be a reflection of the greatness I keep locked up so tightly within me,” he deadpans in a pretentiously serious voice. “It would be unfair if the rest of me was a great as to match them,” For a second he lets that hang, pondering their size himself – certainly occasionally they are a great pain in the neck and get in his way, but at his age, he has grown fond of them. He chuckles then, shaking his head lightly and refusing the rather bird-like and vain urge to preen said feathers. “They certainly have their uses at this size, and I am rather used to them now.”
But it is unfair to leave his Queen any more in the dark – he turns to Krone with the smile in place, a true expression that invites her into the easy atmosphere that has evolved from the tense silence. “Krone, this is Djinni, the mage of Nerine, amongst other titles since I have known her.” He does not know what she is up to exactly right now, though he feels comfortable enough in assuming she is still attached to Nerine in some manner since she still has the faint smell of the cliff-and-ocean Kingdom. “We met quite a while ago now, when the fae were still quite cross and had taken away everyone’s traits. She restored my wings to me, and thank goodness for that – I might have pined away to a true death if I had to go without them any longer.”
Is he joking? Probably, but even he isn’t sure – he flew almost before he could walk, after all, when his mother left him on the Beach with only the flock of crows for family. Before he found his father and the Tundra, Brennen had been very much a wild child raised by birds, and that is why flight is as much a part of him as breathing. He had welcomed back his other gifts, but only the wings had been the true wish of his heart.
hold me in this wild, wild world and in your heat I feel how cold it can get
03-12-2018, 07:27 PM (This post was last modified: 03-13-2018, 12:34 PM by Djinni.)
Her dark mouth pulls into a smile at Brennen’s words, and she adds that ”You’d be tall enough to block out the sun, I’d imagine." Djinni prefers her wings to match her own size, and the golden swan wings of this winter afternoon are appropriately sized to carry her. She rarely flies, but from time to time does meet Walter in the skies over Nerine.
That thought - that and Brennen mentioning her title - reminds her of the reason she is here. A decade ago she’d have scoffed at the idea of serving as an envoy, and yet here she stands. Something to do at least, she thinks, some way to pass the time.
”I’m glad to see you appropriately grateful," she tells him, with a lightness in her tone and brightness in her eyes that indicate her jest. Still, she sees his effort to include Krone in their conversation, and Djinni does the same.
”I’m here for Nerine as well," she tells the bay mare, meeting her gaze directly ”To offer an alliance to Ischia. Queen Hestia is rebuilding our kingdom on the coast, and wishes to secure a relationship."
Krone watches how the two interact, how they joke with one another. She listens to Brennen tell of how Djinni restored his wings after the fairies had taken them from him, and she nods. Her previous impression had been true enough - they had history between them. Whether that history has some bad parts, she would have to save for finding out later.
"A pleasure to meet you, Mage of Nerine," Krone says politely, with a modest nod of her crown. The Keeper had yet to hear much about Nerine, or visit, for that matter, so when Djinni informs her of an alliance, the bay and emerald mare hesitates momentarily. "I believe an alliance would do good..." She says, gathering her thoughts. "I would like to visit sometime, get better acquainted with you and Queen Hestia, if you'd welcome us." Krone glances over at Brennen, inferring that she would want him to come along too.
He takes Djinni's continued good-natured ribbing with little more than a grin and chuckle, because it's nice to interact this way again; this casual camaraderie he had often shared with Amazon women over the years. Djinni might not be a committed Amazon, not really, but she has lived amongst them long enough that they must be rubbing off on her. It is clear Krone has more reservations than he does, but that is only to be expected since she knows much less of this stranger who has showed up in her Kingdom.
Brennen watches Krone turn over the words in consideration and is quiet, making no comment. His purpose had not been to act as diplomat here, but as protector of his Queen if there was a threat. He nods when she looks at him, and gives Djinni another quicksilver grin. "We shall see you soon, then," he offers, to the mare who he thinks might have the potential to be a true friend someday, more than just this casual teasing acquaintance.
ooc; sorry this is short and terrible but I felt I owed a closing reply to them lol
