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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


    ...and I'm home - Sochi, anyone
    #1
    I hope that you catch me, ‘cause I’m already falling
    Ilma


    Ilma has been shaken up by the recent events that, not too soon after leaving her daughter in Nerine on perhaps a slightly tensioned base, caused her to retreat. But no more - she's done with that, it doesn't help her, doesn't make the baby magically disappear, doesn't undo the fact that she will carry life once again. And never again does she want to approach a male in fall, at least, that's how she feels now.

    With winter pouring it's crystal blanket down from the mountains into the valley, the white mare has healed the few shallow wounds and the two cuts on her shoulder from scraping against the rock. She no longer stands out in the snow-covered dale, this is the only season that she doesn't, in fact. She's grateful that Hyaline has a winter worth mentioning; Nerine is much muddier, and Ischia and Tephra aren't too kind to Father Frost. The only alternatives are the common lands and of course, the now overrun forests and hills, of Loess and Sylva - but she imagines she will not set foot there easily any time soon.

    But all this does not take away the fact that giving her only daughter away meant that Hyaline received a visitor in return. Sochi is a shifter, she remembers, a tigress that with her orange-black body should stand out in this season. But yet, she hasn't seen the girl very often since the ending of the fall season, and she wonders if she likes Hyaline at all.

    This is why she carries her rounding white bodice out of the vale and into the pine trees, sloping upwards. Sochi has been separated from everything she knows, too, and perhaps she wants to learn about what it means to be in Hyaline - apart from just running around the place.


    don't let the fear of flying stop you from falling



    @[Sochi] figured she should have at least one Hyaline thread xD
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    #2
    It goes in phases. It was exhilarating, at first, leaving her mother and Nerine behind for a new adventure in Hyaline. And then she was homesick - she is only a yearling, surrounded by strangers, away from her mother for the first time. That had led her to shifting, ever braver with the cat, and when she had discovered how perfect the fall and winter mountain jungles were to the cat, it had become a grand adventure again. The horses tended to stay lower in the valley, where it was easier for hooves to trod and there was sweet grass and clear water, but Sochi revels in the sheerest of cliff faces and the tallest of towering trees with horse-sized branches sprouting from them.

    She’s plenty warm in the snow, crouched on the top of a particularly flat rock, stalking a family of deer. So far, she’s never been tempted to actual kill and eat anything (her horse is as revolted by the thought of meat and blood as the cat is by eating grass) but she enjoys the games of stalk-and-chase, and her curiosity about the diet of her alter ego grows stronger by the day. There’s an older doe in this herd, the perfect test subject, and her cat is well on its way to winning the argument when the crunch of snow under hooves makes her swivel her head, silver eyes finding Ilma, and she stands up from her crouch.

    Of course, when the orange and black tiger appears on top of the rock, the herd of deer flees. Sochi rumbles a friendly greeting to the mare below, but doesn’t shift back yet. There’s no way off of this slice of rock in equine form, not without hurting herself, so it’s in the tigress’ body that she descends the nearly sheer surface, in two great leaps that bring her almost silently to the earth. She’s not as lean as she was, though only part of that is due to age and filling out with muscle; the rest is because she’s simply covered in long hair.

    Sochi can speak as a cat, but she rarely does so. With a thought, she’s back in horse form, her coat now a solid sheet of black marred only by the strangely iridescent blue blaze. “Hello,” she chirps the word now, and smiles.
    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    #3
    I hope that you catch me, ‘cause I’m already falling
    Ilma

    As the white mare's hooves crunch the snow underneath her feat, she catches the predatory scent that is mingled with horse scent, and smiles - knowing she is on the right track. Following it becomes a whole different ordeal; unlike the tigress, she has no claws to get a hold on tree bark and no grip on solid rock. But she climbs anyway, swaying left or right depending on the obstacle. She could fly, probably, if she'd thought of that, but alas, at the moment she does not.

    And it's not needed either, because as soon as the black and orange comes into view, the wild cat drops her stalking act - scaring away a herd of deer - to greet her. As Sochi climbs down, it becomes apparent to Ilma that once again the girl has grown - soon many won't say that she is a girl, but a young woman instead. She smiles at how quickly she responds to her visitor though - eagerness, perhaps, is what defines youth today.

    As she is greeted, she nods warmly in return. Sochi has conveniently shifted back into horse form, which to be honest, makes it a little easier for Ilma to talk to her. "Hello Sochi. I was looking for you," she begins. "I thought maybe you wanted to know a little more about Hyaline while you're here, and perhaps if you have wish to train or learn with any of us, we can appoint you some kind of mentorship too." she asks - she supposes, that when she's so obviously been looking for the girl, she would be wondering why if she didn't tell her directly what it was about.

    don't let the fear of flying stop you from falling



    @[Sochi]
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time
    #4
    Sochi remembers the pale mare’s reluctance to leave her own daughter in Nerine, in part because she was worried about the supervision. It had been a strange thought for the little black mare, even then almost a year old, because while Sloene was a caring and attentive mother, her daughter had always been a little more wild and free-roaming than perhaps her dam would have liked. Perhaps it was because she was part wildcat, perhaps it was something about her sire, or perhaps it was just the way the filly was wired. Sochi wonders if Ilma felt cheated, having received in return for her shy youngster a half-feral thing, who had spent the better part of her time so far wild in the mountains.

    Ilma, if she has such thoughts, politely expresses none of them when she speaks. “The mountain is quite a place,” she responds with another smile. “I would love to see the rest of Hyaline, if it is as beautiful, and perhaps you could tell me about the Kingdom as we walk.” Sloene had brought them to Nerine to give her young daughter a home and a people, but it was the grulla mare who had found something in Nerine to fill a gap in her heart. Sochi was open to other options - which was part of why she had volunteered, to go abroad and see something else.

    An ear flicks towards Ilma then when she speaks of things for Sochi to learn, and the filly hums a little while she thinks, as she turns to follow the older mare back down towards the bottom of the basin that forms the better part of Hyaline. “I do not know what I want to do.” Now she sounds her age, instead of years advanced. It’s the uncertainty, as compared to the aplomb with which she has spoken before. “Maybe I could meet with representatives of both castes, if they have time for me.”
    [Image: sochi.png]

    I was less than graceful, I was not kind
    be out watching other lovers lose their spine

    #5
    I hope that you catch me, ‘cause I’m already falling
    Ilma

    The winged mare often thinks back on the exchange - Hestia had not spoken to her for a while, so that she had addressed the other diplomat in that gathering - apparently rubbing both Hestia and Scorch wrongly with her concerns. But she's all but forgotten the meeting - the important thing was that Tähti was there to learn and Sochi was here in her stead to do the same. It was kindly familiar that the girl before her had roughly the same colouring as her daughter, safe for the touch of blue that somewhat reminded her of two siblings right here in Hyaline, both so near to her heart.

    She agrees quickly with the girl. "Of course I will. If you don't mind, I'll go for a little sturdier footing," she smiles, and starts her trek down the slope of this mountain. But she doesn't return to the lake, figuring that Sochi would have seen it by now, she takes another route through a pass, which ends near the cliffs at the sea. A trek is possible at that side, too, but not too long one. Still she thinks Sochi may appreciate the view. "What do you know of Hyaline's history so far?" she asks the girl. Perhaps someone told her things of the past, but perhaps she just hasn't had too many lessons.

    At her question of what she would like to do, Ilma nods. "That won't be a problem. I'd be happy to tell you what I know about diplomacy, and I'm sure we'll be able to find Kagerus to teach you about our warrior caste." She thinks that perhaps even Svedka would like to speak with Sochi from time to time, but his approach is a more general one - but to Ilma, he mostly represents what Hyaline stands for, to welcome all that are good or good enough of nature into their kingdom and to protect when necessary. He's not bound to any caste, and she imagines that for Sochi it will be good to talk to him about that, too. Because sometimes, a horse just doesn't fit into one box - Ilma thinks it will probably broaden Sochi's horizon.

    put your arms around me, and I'm home



    @[Sochi]
    Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this: men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.
    Robert Jordan, Wheel of Time




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