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    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


    the lights are gonna find me; grye
    #1
    Glim is more like her mythical mother than she first realizes. She used to nurse heavy and long from the teats of the oily black mare that spat her out from those same loins until she took to wandering. Then she stole milk from other mare’s until they caught on that she wasn’t theirs. Usually they’d chase her off with kicks of theirs heels and snapping teeth. She couldn’t help it - the myth of her mother had been built up after a fashion by her father because of his love for the mare.

    How could Glim ever live up to that kind of love or expectation? She couldn’t. Never realized she didn’t need to. She was just as cherished by both of them in different ways for different reasons. Still that didn’t stop the spotty filly from answering the call of the wild, even if she really was too young to be off on her own. Neither parent saw fit to bring her back to the warm tether of their side. 

    Instead they trusted that she could look after herself. Or somehow knew that she would survive. That was probably because Glim was never truly alone. She had her one constant shadow-friend Dim and she could shape him into anything she wanted him to be. Usually it was an animal she’d already tracked and studied the habits of, preferring to keep her yellow-eyed companion in a more realistic form easily found in nature.

    It was a hard lesson to learn that others typically ran away from a huge dragon trailing oneself even if that dragon was entirely made up of shadow and imagination.

    Dim was oftentimes the voice of reason inside Glim’s head. How a shadow could be so smart was something that she had never once questioned. She just accepted it as it was - as he was, smart and snarky for something she had conjured up into creation once she unknowingly tapped into her shadow-power. Now they’re inseparable and often found insufferable to one another for some reason or other. 

    Like now as Dim tries to warn her against randomly straying into places that she so very clearly should not be doing without permission. Glim played loose and fast with her life though and sojourned on boldly. It left her yellow-eyed companion no choice but to follow her even as she morphed him into a mighty little monkey. 

    Stop tugging on my tail!
    Well you turned me into a monkey and this is a bad idea.
    But I want to see the water glowing blue at night.
    It’s not even night though!
    I know, we got here early. Isn’t it great?

    and so the conversation between the almost-weaned foal and the shadow-monkey went as they moved from sandbar to sandbar. 


    @[Grye]
    Reply
    #2
    Against everything he had worried about, he is quickly learning to be happy here.

    He thought he'd miss his parents, and he does still, especially at night when he settles down to sleep. He's rarely alone, usually hunkering down near Galilee and Khaeli, or with the twins, but it's not the same as being tucked between his parents every night. But for every time he misses Dagny, he is treated to a moment of true motherly affection from Galilee even though he's not related to her in the slightest. For every time he wants to play tag with Olivier, or feel his paternal pride, there is a game to be played with someone his own age and that is beyond anything he had before.

    Grye didn't realize he'd miss the sulfuric scent of the air at home, or the taste of the salt-sweet grasses. But here there is an entire undiscovered world of jungle, and the parrots are better than any animal playmate he could find in Tephra. But maybe his favorite thing about Ischia is the water. In the daytime, it teems with life: fish and birds and funny creatures left behind by the tide in deep divots and rocky holes. At night, the glow of the creatures left behind to paint the sands is like nothing he ever saw in Tephra, and the song of the sea is even more soothing. More nights than not, he wakes and slips away from whoever has corralled him for the night, and spends a good chunk of time playing in the surf before traipsing back to the others and collapsing for a few hasty hours of sleep. He hasn't been caught yet, but not sleeping at night takes a toll, and he often finds himself looking for a nap during the day, stealing away from his keepers again to take that nap with the lullaby of the ocean in the background.

    The creamy-colored boy is picking his way across the sands, looking for a good napping place, when motion across the bay catches his eye. And, to his vast surprise, there's a girl out there! He stops in his tracks and stares, enchanted by the very idea of freedom she represents. Grandfather has forbidden all of them to leave the Island without an adult escort, and even though Grye doesn't chafe at these restrictions as much as his twin uncles, but it still makes the outside world look tantalizingly interesting. He canters to the edge of the area he know is allowed, little wings spread to help him balance, and nickers to the stranger, even more excited to see a strange creature following along in her wake.

    Excitement, coming to him! He might finally have the first story on something exciting, before Dario or Drax.
    Grye
    Olivier x Dagny
    devin's∇designs
    Reply
    #3
    They move from sandbar to sandbar, splashing in the sea in between. 

    Glim doesn’t know it yet but she has a symbiotic relationship with the sea. This sea in particular. She’s never been able to decipher dream from memory all that well. Who can when you’re but a fetus in the womb afloat on a different sea of sorts? Still she sensed a kinship to the salty tides that dampened her skin.

    Little did she know it was because her mother had ties to this sea. Kraken. Hippocampus. Her mother had swum these seas in one form or another when little Glim was even littler inside her. The sway and temperature had soothed her inside her own darkwater-world. 

    Glim and Dim get sidetracked between the last two sandbars before the main island. They are having a splash fight that the spotty filly is quickly losing. Giggles and the noise of splashes fill the air. 

    No fair, you’re winning!
    Not my fault you gave me this shape. Monkey paws are better at splashing water than your hooves are.

    The shadow-monkey stuck his tongue out before slapping the water with both paws and drenching his companion’s face. Glim coughed and spluttered, unprepared. She shoved her snout in the sea and sucked up a great big briny gulp that she held in her mouth. 

    You wouldn’t dare!
    She nodded her head once before advancing on him and promptly hosing him down with the big mouthful she’d just taken. Now it was his turn to cough and splutter as she giggled and drifted languidly up onto the last sandbar. 

    Dim followed her but not before launching a starfish at her that he’d scooped up from the shallow sea. It hit her spotty blanketed butt with a wet thwack then slid off to the sand. Surely the starfish was traumatized as Glim was not. She just craned her head around and stared at the shadow-monkey who tried to look innocent. 

    Really?
    What?
    Cheeky monkey.

    A nicker splits the air and both of them turn their heads to the source of it. 

    Look, a boy!
    He doesn’t look as if he could even stand up if it wasn’t for those wings of his.
    Dim, that’s not nice.

    Was her companion jealous?! Glim shook head at the silly thought and ran all the way to the edge of the sandbar. She leaned out over the water, straining on her tippy toes as she called back to him with a long loud whinny.

    Don’t be so loud!
    Why, because we shouldn’t be here?
    Yes, exactly! Technically were trespassing.
    Oh phooey! You worry too much.

    “Hello! Stay right there, we’ll come to you!” Glim gave the shadow-monkey one last look - Coming or not? She knew he would. He’d never leave her. Or she’d just zap him back into nonexistence with a thought. Without awaiting his answer, she threw herself into the sea and swam the last stretch to the shore. 

    She emerged from the rollicking surf with a toss of her head. It might have looked a whole lot cooler and flung off way more water if she’d had something other than a half-maybe straggling down her neck. Instead she just looked ridiculous and nearly tripped over a large intact conch shell. “Oh!” She cried aloud before recovering from the stumble that nearly sent her to her knees. With a smile at the colt, she kicked the offending shell out of the way.

    “Hello again!” she said happily with a grin.

    @[Grye]
    Reply
    #4
    She runs to the edge of the dry area she’s on when he calls, and calls back, and the colt is instantly enthralled. She says she’ll come to him, or rather they’ll come to him, and Grye is glad. He’s not much of a swimmer, though he knows he needs to practice sometime. After all, if he wants to stay and join the Brotherhood when he is bigger he’ll need to pass the test and there’s swimming in the test; but he can’t even try until he’s two, so he has plenty of time to get bigger and stronger before he needs to prove he can do it.

    Grye notices that she doesn’t seem to have any trouble swimming, but she’s also not burdened by big old wings (his aren’t that big yet, but they’re also too baby-downy and so they absorb water more than shed it, and it’s just a huge hassle. His heart is in this throat when she trips, but then she’s righting herself and seems fine as she smiles and greets him, the shadowy creature behind her; he spares it a glance of curiosity but he’s seen enough strange things in his short life that he’s not afraid, and he’s way more interested in the filly.

    “H-hi!” he stutters, not somewhat shy faced with her right near him. She’s the first person he’s met who isn’t a member of his extended family, other than a super brief encounter with the mare who’d helped him find his parents when he hatched and what if she doesn’t like him? “I’m Grye,” he offers, knowing that an introduction is typically polite. Contrary to what some might believe, his parents aren’t actually heathens, though they do seem to like to give that impression. “You’re, um, you’re a really good swimmer,” he continues with a bashful smile.
    Grye
    Olivier x Dagny
    devin's∇designs

    sorry this sucks still getting a feel for him :|
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