"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
Thick muscle thatches across tall bones with a hide woven in scars and fear. The tall man, black as your mother's silent sin, finds this new world startlingly quiet. A single ear twitches in the nest of his matted hair but it is met with pristine bird song and the sot babble of brook water. A single flat hoof is drawn up and under as he hesitates a moment before disrupting the water flow of the small creek with his foot.
Lavender-grey eyes narrow slightly, scenting the air before realizing it was all for naught. Beqanna is quiet. The blood in his veins seems to itch beneath his skin. He draws a breathe to extend the chest plate of his body wide before exhaling slowly. The autumn sun is filtered through the tree tops above to dapple his rounded haunches. Gaze slowly covers the edge of the land and Murc inds himself perfectly...bored. The length of his tail, gnarled by burrs, is licked against one side then the other. The hazy purple of his gaze is half lidded as he crosses the small stream to follow a deer path through the dry autumn kindling.
The sky melts into the afternoon gold of a storm-less evening. The saw of a crow shocks the placid aura of the forest and draws the dark man's attention briefly. Nostrils flare, ears are pivoting. There was someone or something else in the forest that the crow did not like. The thick neck of the stallion twists over one heavy shoulder to look in the direction of a peculiar scent that was creeping up behind him as he stood downwind.
The turmoil that ripped her up inside for as long as she can remember is coming to an end. It’s painful, its hard, it takes everything she has to not bare her teeth and tell them all to go do themselves. Oh wait… she did…. They wouldn’t have it, they laughed at it. They pressed her, cornered her, trapped her into talking. Then, then, she had a chance, a chance that never happens, certainly never happens to someone like herself. She got to see the one at the source of all her turmoil, got to see him, and tell him exactly what she thought of him. She could have become a terror, would have become a terror if others had not already been stepping into her life and showing her that possibly. There is a chance she’s worth caring about.
Its such a strange concept, she scoffs at it, snorting her frustration. She’s growing soft, and it’s not sitting well with her. The birds startle at her noise, she used to be silent, a ghost amongst the trees. Soft I tell you! Now her black hide glistens sleek with health. Curves lack the bulging muscle, now they are simply defined in an outline of supple skin. No longer at they developed thick and stringy in the battle between life and death against the wildlife of her home. No, now she lives in a safe place, a lush place filled with healthy grasses, rivers, and shelter. She has people who care about her.
Its just so wrong, she’s fought so long to have this, spent so many nights dreaming and longing for this. The power, the respect, the love of friends… Now she has it all, and she still has so much work to do. She loves that there is still work, thrives under the drive to make things better. But its still just so foreign that she isn’t all that comfy in it. To used to another lifestyle, she forgot what her childhood of royalty had felt like. She’s searching out a place where she can hide for a moment, where her friends can’t find her and ask her about her day. Where the diplomats don’t run into her and tell her how her kingdom messed with their lives, or recruits can ask her where they are.
She nods and speaks kindly to the recruits and diplomats, she’s learning to have fun with her friends. But sometimes you just need a moment to yourself. All her haunts, caves, creeks, dense brush, they’ve all been found, or someone close enough to her to get her away from her solitude will be there. Currently she’s seeking out a spot in the forest. Finding a place here should be easy, so many trees thickets, creeks and the main river runs through here as well. Not like there is much of a chance of someone stumbling across her.
However, it seems that this is not her lucky day. As its not someone stumbling onto her, but the other way around. She doesn’t mean to, but she’s so absorbed in her own little pity party that she doesn’t realize when a crow has announced her presence, or a horse is right there in the trail she is about to try and cross. She stops where she’s at and shifts her weight uncomfortably waiting for him to move ahead and ignore the sound of… snap… a twig underhoof, she lets out a sigh.
Nope he’s not going to keep on walking, now is he? And she’s to close for him not to find her easily. Great! Hi, she’s not feeling up to all the jazz of flowering her words like she should be, in case of this being important kingdom horse. Stepping from the dark, she looks up from watching her steps to meet his gaze. His eyes are the first things she notices about him. They grab her attention immediately. Such a strange color, mesmerizing in their own way. She finds that she can’t look away from them.
HESTIA
The devil whispered in my ear, “you’ll never survive the storm” I whispered back, “I am the storm”
Murc draws a breath in acknowledgement as he still has yet decided to move from the place in her path, large head swung over a single shoulder to ponder what the woman was doing in the forest alone when she could happen upon anyone...anything He exhales slow, her scent a mental capture of autumn leaves, a musk that was between the last tendrils of summer essence and promise of decay.
He shifts to the side with the longing pull of thick legs, thudding his weight in place so the dark woman could pass. Lavender-grey eyes do not waver, however, but stay watching her from the thickness of a matted forelock. She is a special thing in this world of plastic and false prophets. The man does not smile but merely parts the whiskered and cracked lips to utter a low word. "Murc." He taps the broadness of a scared chest as he gives her an introduction whether she wanted it or not. It is his name and she could do with it as she wished for they are but to passing bodies in the thickness of a rogue forest that was currently being enveloped by a late winter.
Murc does not notice the first fall of fat snowflakes from a grey sky as they soon nestle on his rump and name...a few pale blemishes upon a sooty coat. The world was cold enough already with the blanketing of snow that it soon promised but nonetheless, perhaps this woman in the embrace of a tired forest could be a jolt to a frozen heart and long dead hope.
03-10-2018, 01:38 PM (This post was last modified: 03-10-2018, 01:39 PM by Hestia.)
They stand there facing each other, silent. His eyes a mesmerizing color so that she forgets herself for a moment. It’s not often she gets stared at so openly. Most defer to lowering their gaze, challenge her in a battle of wills, study her face for some hidden agenda, they know is there, but cannot perceive, or they are simply comfortable enough in her presence that they have no need for more than a passing glance. She’s unused to simply being observed. She’s not sure how to react to it, a bit disconcerted she shifts her weight softly speaking in hopes to lighten the atmosphere and turn his attention elsewhere. The weight of his stare doesn’t break though, if anything it focuses more intensely on her. As if her voice only added to reasons to observe her. It comes as a startle when he reaches out to her. She jerks her head back her ears flipping against her skull. Okay she may have been getting used to reaching out to others, but others voluntarily reaching for her? It’s a work in progress.
At least she doesn’t bite and scream at him. Like stated, progress. Instead leafy colored eyes widen, and her jaw opens about to snap some indignant response at him before it shuts having not uttered a word. His voice, it sends a warmth down her spine that she’d forgotten about. This is a part of herself that she’d not intended to be awakened again. Oooo girl, he spells danger in big fat red letters, the voice is practically dancing over her miserable failure of manners. Well its not as if Hestia can’t handle herself, she speaks the comment in her mind back to the voice with just as much snark as it had. She can still feel the heat of his breath, the syllable of his name still ringing in her mind. Could she forget it? Someone so strange in this land of predictability. Who can ever be this simple? always an agenda or need. He’s given her his name, reached out and touched her scars. She can’t bring herself to move for a moment, silent in the small space provided by the trail. She almost considers staying there, wondering what it is that he wants from her. Everyone wants something these days. Unless they are close friends of course.
Before he moves to be out of her way, her eyes flutter back into focus. What was she mad at again? Her lips thin slightly, keeping her from responding. Hesitantly she begins to pass him. Finally, someone who doesn’t want to just stop and chat her ear off. She might actually make it somewhere today. She can’t seem to bring herself to break his stare and pauses just beneath him for one last look before moving forward irritated at herself and whipping her tail against her flanks. She begins walking, shivering from the snow turned liquid on her back. Why hadn’t she noticed these before?
.
HESTIA
The devil whispered in my ear, you’ll never survive the storm I whispered back, I am the storm
The woman says nothing as she meets his heavy gaze with her own, lips thinned but pursed as though there was a whisper that lay just beyond them. The pastel of his do not miss the way her womanly form moves to slip past him with the mere inches between their bodies and his gaze is unwavering as he rests it upon her despite shifting away so she may pass but there is an electricity on her skin and it draws him out from the cool demeanor of his usual stance.
The man, the loner, son of a long dead king. He had been resurrected from a tomb of silence and dreamless sleep. In a moment's notice, the very tail that the green eyed beauty snaps to drive at an unseen winter insect,
is met with sharp incisors and iron jaw. He grips it between his iron jowls and jerks back to pull her whole form back to him so she in now simply a few inches (yet again) near him. Lavender-grey eyes are hold her own, unwilling to budge. The man releases the length of her knotted tail, his eyes still on hers.
"I said my name is Murc." The voice that crawls from his throat is an octave just above a low growl.
He had been so kind as to introduce himself and had expected the woman to do the same...clearly her intentions were different but he wanted to know whether she had planned to confess it or not. The large beast expects a fight, expects gnashing teeth and sharp hooves that aim to splinter his ribs (though she will be unable to). Murc has surmised these possibilities knowing it was all worth it to know this mare's name. His gaze captures hers with his weight, ears both pinned forward and expecting her to say something.
03-11-2018, 05:05 PM (This post was last modified: 03-11-2018, 05:06 PM by Hestia.)
She shivers, and believes it’s from the cold, he feels the electricity she is to busy trying to ignore for her to have noticed when passing him. She doesn’t feel his jaw immediately until he yanks on her tail hairs. Her head snaps up and embers rise to blaze in her pupils. She has yet to gain control of this new ability, currently causing much more trouble for her than it’s worth. She knows that she’s short, knows that she is smaller than most horses but damn it all, she never thought she was that light weight. In fact, she’d thought herself quite the opposite. Oh but it doesn’t stop there, no he continues with dragging her! The nerve of the male!
She glares daggers back at him after this. To far bucko, the voice stomps its vocal foot in her mind, crossing its arms. Her own reaction results in her shaking with the indignation. The blaze tightens her skin, makes her feel trapped and in need of being released. It’s desire to be freed and unencumbered by flesh and the chains that bind it to her and the physical world she resides in. Her wings flare out making herself appear larger in the blast of flames her body is consumed protecting her from his touch, even if it doesn’t extend past her tail bone. The skeleton outline of flames on her body dims slightly at his lack of fear. She hardens her gaze, and for a half second, she remains silent. Warring within herself for control. Pondering the incredible bravery or stupidity this male must have to have reached out towards her in any manner other than timidity or deference.
She says she does not desire to elevate herself over her people, yet isn’t that exactly what she is doing now? Then again can a queen let such disrespect go and still expect to remain on top? Holding the respect of those she leads? He doesn’t stop looking at her, and she clamps her jaw shut about to grind her teeth in her anger. She turns slowly, threateningly, to face him, taking a deep breath before the flames of her body and wings turn to ash and fall from her hide, leaving it untouched. Against the ashy foliage around her. Her neck rises so that she may look at him in his face. She expects to hear an apology. Expects to watch him bow and scurry away in fear, naming the mistake as his and his alone. Yet he doesn’t, he challenges her stare, challenges her haughty attitude. I’ll definitely be forgetting you boy! The voice hisses, it’s not spoken to her in so long that she’d thought it gone, thought that it was finally choosing to leave her alone. Dear god, it won’t shut up lately, then again, lately it’s had lots of reasons to come out and play. His voice, even laced with anger has a soothing tenor. The rumble sending shivers through her body. But still she can’t let this go just off that. And? her lyrical tone is designed to cut, cold and sharp it drips with the disdain she carries over the shame of being, dragged!
She can’t resist looking him over once, who is this to be willing to risk life and limb to be acknowledged? She heard him, but her stewing mood doesn’t allow for her to stop and chat with those not involved in her mission. After this pause, as if she was willing to wait for a response she rolls her eyes with a unflattering sigh, before beginning to turn away from him once more, to walk away with her pride intact. She doesn’t believe he’ll try to stop her again, not after seeing how easily it would be for her to kill him. Irritated, and maybe trying to get the last word in she whips her tail again. This time set on catching him in its lash..
HESTIA
The devil whispered in my ear, you’ll never survive the storm I whispered back, I am the storm
He believes he will receive what he is so very polietely is asking for. She is an enchanting little thing and Murc, despite his usual steely demeanor, has seemed to of gained interest in the dark woman. She is a slim mare with a simple black skin and flashing green eyes. Murc is surpsied to see them shine in her surprise when he drags her back to him.
Murc had expected tooth or claw to rack along his thick hide but instead he is met by fire.
The fire mare, rising, frightening, and beautiful. The man does not shy away when the heat singes the edges of his mane, the scent of burnt hair invading his nostrils. She is angry and she blazes greater than any sunrise he has ever seen. The man does not look away and nearly things he will go blind for gazing upon her until...until she settles to the earth once mare..."sparing" him, if you will.
Murc is silent when she is but a woman again, the ash of her wings returning to the rubble if the earth. He is speechless and staring but the clever girl manages to -THWACK- him back into sensible reality with the length of her tail that he has so gentle 'nibbled' up. Murc shakes his head once, twice before the heaviness of his feathered legs move him right along next to her smaller form, bumping as they shared the path. His heavy head swings over to look upon her with the slight tug of a coy smirk. "Where are we off to then?" The man muses aside the obsidian woman with her cat green eyes. "I did not expect that someone so frigid would be capable of such warmth." Murc knew must be plucking a nerve at this point but if the mare had wanted to destroy him...well, he certainly would be here to tease her as so.
The man, tall and thick as an ancient oak, would walk with this mare till she either spoke or lead him to her home. He is a determined and possibly stupid beast but he was not a coward and would not release her from his watchful eye. She was a lovely thing that roused an interest in his heavy chest...one that he had not ever felt before. The pale purple storm of his eye slide over from a time or two to make sure she was still there, still steel jawed and attempting to not smile.
![[Image: 345k45w.jpg]](http://i65.tinypic.com/345k45w.jpg)