• Logout
  • Beqanna

    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


    [open]  into the amber (any)
    #1
    The absences in this room
    don’t sleep. Like gods,
    they walk through rooms
    unnoticed.

    -  -  -  -  

    The evening is alive with sound and shy starlight. Is it nostalgia or twilight that paints the world in shades of amber?

    Could it be both?

    It's a funny thing, this life. Days melt into seasons into years-- until you look behind you one morning, and you cannot see where your path began. And looking back on that crooked path, there have been so many twists and turns, loops and knots, that it is overwhelming to think how the world could be so immensely different if she had said the things that needed to be said.

    Regret fills her, and in response she comes to the meadow.

    North is reaching for something, anything familiar. She has memories here, dusty and sun-bleached memories, white as bone. So she ambles into the knee-high grass, into the evening fog and the symphony of crickets and frogs. The colors deepen as the sun sinks farther and farther below the horizon, and the hymn of the night rises in response.

    She shivers even in the warm breeze. This place does not feel the way it used to.

    The mare closes her eyes and begins to hum a sad song as the moon emerges, and on her mane its light glows ethereal. It suits her, for tonight she feels like a ghost.

    -  -  -  -  -
    N O R T H
    Reply
    #2

    I’ll break you a hundred different ways
    and I’ll make you remember my face - - -

    The last time he tried to meander through the meadow he was forced into an almost-altercation with Leilan. He hadnt meant to stand between the roan stallion and his vendetta against the plant life, but as luck would have it, there he had been. Of course since neither stallion had actually been keen on truly fighting it had dispersed on its own, thankfully, since while Raed was far from a pacifist  he also erred on the lazy side. If he wanted to spar he knew where to go for that; the meadow was meant for amusement and sometimes engaging conversation. Or in his case, standing off to the side and watching the coming and going’s. Beqanna has changed drastically in his lifetime, but the one thing that has remained the same is that the meadow seemed to be the heart of the lands. This was where the ghosts reappeared, haunting the hills and gasping back to life just when you thought they were gone for good.

    Under the velvet cloak of night he slips seamlessly through the meadowlands tall grass, his bright blue coat somewhat camouflaged by the shadows. Ever since the explosion of magic that had spewed across the lands, he was no longer an oddity. Vibrant colors, grand wings, and whatever else the fairies could vomit up could be seen on nearly every horse, to the point it was almost nauseating. The only thing it did was relieve him from their staring eyes. He remembers when he was born, and there had only been him, and the green stallion his mother doted on, and that other lavender stallion from the Tundra. For someone that kept to themselves he had despised always being stared at under their microscope.

    The plain mare stood out because of this. It was the moon glinting off her silvery mane that first caught his eye, but it was the look on her face that drew him towards her. It was a look he had seen often, and he does not have to delve into her mind to see what he already knew. ”You are from the times before,” His voice is flat, hardly raising or lowering in its pitch, but it rolls smooth like river water over rocks. ”I am too. My name is Raed.”

    R A E D
    the cerulean son of
    trashlip and ryatah


    @[North]

    Hi. Never getting rid of me.
    [Image: Raed.jpg]
    (click for full size)
    Reply
    #3
    The absences in this room
    don’t sleep. Like gods,
    they walk through rooms
    unnoticed.

    -  -  -  -   

    Her mother always said that with the stars above we are never alone, never alone.

    So why do we feel lonely?

    She does not turn when she senses his presence. She can hear the grass parting as he moves through it, and then she see the dark shape of him in her periphery. He comes closer and closer, but she remains motionless until he speaks. "You are from the times before..." The crickets, aware of a new audience, hush at the sound of his smooth, toneless voice. North's first reaction is surprised pleasure. She wonders how he had known. "Do I look so old?" Her tone is shy but playful. We're told the word for that is coy, but coy is a word for women who want something.

    North is not coy. She is simply hiding a fire inside of herself. It is silver and it is hungry.

    She inclines her head to look at the stranger, a small but wild smile on her lips. He is built not so dissimilar to herself, although taller (but most everyone is taller). Perhaps they share distant relatives, some arabian who lived in the time before the time before. What was her name?

    But when North meets his eyes (when not veiled by the darkness of night and the shine of the moon, are they as deep dark blue as they look now? What about his skin?) she holds his gaze for only a moment before looking away. She does not know what else he might see in her, and she is not eager to give all her secrets, all her stories, away in a single, long glance. It is an act at once shy and defensive-- she cannot let him see her bruised emotion, her regret. Some wounds heal better in the dark.

    She doesn't know that he does not need to look in her eyes to read her mind.

    "Raed?" She tests her name on her tongue. She's always been fond of names you can exhale in a single syllable, names the wind can sing. If you listen now you can hear it now, whispered through the tall grass- Raed Raed Raed.

    "I'm North." This, too, the wind sings tenderly- 

    North 
       North 
          North
     

    When the breeze suddenly dies down it is just the two strangers and the moonlit space between them. Still she doesn't look at him except from the corner of her dark brown eyes. "Where did you live? Before."

    -  -  -  -  -
    N O R T H


    @Raed
    hi. never want to <3
    Reply
    #4

    I’ll break you a hundred different ways
    and I’ll make you remember my face - - -

    If for a moment his eyes flickered with amusement at her remark, it remains lost in the shroud of darkness that stretches between them. It is gone just as quickly as it had come, however, the flat-water surface of his eyes reaching at her through the gaping black, and somehow his voice seems to melt into it.”I can see it in your eyes.” It was something not many would understand. They are in an entirely different era now, with new dynasties and new lands. Their history has become ancient history, and names that were once legends lay forgotten in the sands of the beach. If he were the type it would maybe make him nostalgic, but Raed can only acknowledge the difference. He doesn’t feel it, the way some might.

    Briefly, he catches her stare. It would have been easy, then, to slip into her mind. To explore the parts of her that surely no one has touched, the parts that she did not know existed. He could seek them out, every thought and every desire, every weakness and every strength. From that knowledge he could drink, until he was intoxicated with the power of it, but for some reason it is something that Raed rarely does. The mere idea of knowing that he was capable of it is enough for him. No, her thoughts are safe with her tonight, but of course, she never knew they were in danger to begin with.

    ”North,” her name fits easy on his tongue, but he doesn’t think he knows her. He was terrible at remembering faces and names, even the mares he had children with. He wasn’t good at many things, honestly. This might already be the most memorable conversation he’s ever had, if only because it didn’t involve some dim girl thinking she was the first to make some clever comment on his bright blue coloring. ”I lived nowhere. My mother lived in the Dale and my father the Chamber. I never could find interest in the mind-numbing kingdom life.” He is aware that she might have been one of those kingdom-driven horses, but he does not mince his words. His mother had bled - literal blood - for the Dale, and it was something he never understood.

    R A E D
    the cerulean son of
    trashlip and ryatah


    @[North]
    [Image: Raed.jpg]
    (click for full size)
    Reply
    #5
    The absences in this room
    don’t sleep. Like gods,
    they walk through rooms
    unnoticed.

    - - - -

    In the young spring night, the air is cool and light. It is full of unrealized promises that slip past idly, as indifferent as leaves in the wind.

    She is by no means remarkable. She is happy with that, or at least content. That is her way and always has been. The man beside her does not seem very remarkable either, at least not beneath the moonlight. Knowing nothing else about him, she likes this. It allows her to forget that it takes just a glance to see her silver hair and her sorry eyes.

    "I can see it in your eyes," he voice eases across the nighttime air as though it were not a man but a darkness that speaks, and maybe it is. She does not reply to this.

    She would not call kingdom life mind-numbing, not if you do it right. A private smile flits across her lips as if amused by a joke the stars told her. "We might have crossed paths before," she says suddenly, instead of replying to anything in particular he had said.

    North is not a particularly fanciful creature, but she is in sore need of a friend, so she pretends for a moment that they've met before, long ago. Maybe here in the meadow, maybe on the road between Dale and Chamber, maybe somewhere else. It does not matter. She pretends it is not a sullen stranger that shares her company but an old friend.

    It does not make her feel any different.

    "The night sounds the same." She closes her eyes, reaches her senses out into the darkness full of sound. The frogs, the crickets, the wind in the grass, it is all exactly the way she remembers.

    "I feel like it should sound different, don't you?" She begins to feel like the earth owes her something. It makes her angry, that man and beast should live and die by the thousand here and yet the land is left unchanged.

    Eyes still closed, heart still beating slowly, slowly, to the beat of rivers winding downstream, she pictures herself years ago. She was just as stubborn and sly as today. Just as angry, deep down, at the meaningless of it all.

    All these years and not a damn thing is different. Tell me there is such a thing as change.

    - - - - -
    N O R T H
    Reply
    #6
    In most ways, Raed actually is unremarkable. His bright blue coat is just a color — even the sky and birds are blue, and now, amongst the kaleidoscope of colors that Beqanna has, he is almost plain. His mind reading and his vision are well-kept secrets that he chooses not to flaunt, only using them when provoked. With his flat voice and normally stoic nature, there was little about him that stood out. He didn’t mind. He preferred being able to choose his company, instead of having it come to him unwanted. He had chosen North, in a way, instead of letting her slip past the way he might have with someone else.

    ”Possibly,” his voice is a low vibration against the stillness of the night, and he doesn’t tell her that the likelihood of them having crossed paths before is highly unlikely. He also can’t say for certain that they haven’t.

    Beneath her voice, there are the sounds of the night, a quiet chorus that he hardly notices until she mentions it. He tilts his head for a moment, listening to it, and contemplating her question. ”Do you think they know everything is different? The birds, the bugs, the wildlife.” It is not a sarcastic question, but a genuine one. They are often self absorbed, thinking that this land eats, sleeps, and breathes only for their existence. It is easy to forget the other creatures that called Beqanna home. ”Perhaps the night only sounds the same because we haven’t paid close enough attention.”

    @[North]
    [Image: Raed.jpg]
    (click for full size)
    Reply
    #7

    "Possibly." He says this in a doubtful tone that suggests probably not. She scowls at him a little, displeased by the suggestion in his low voice. A practical woman by nature, she doesn't often let herself get carried away in wonder. But when she does, she does not appreciate third-party skepticism.

    "I don't know." The question surprises her. She had not considered the mortality of bugs before, but if she can be alive after all this time, aching for a lost world, why can't they? Even if they weren't alive to see that lost world, perhaps they can still feel it there in the shadows behind them. Change has a weight to it, sometimes.

    "Possibly." the word is a teasing reflection of the way he had said it. She grins for a moment, but it is gone before she speaks again. "The trees, if anything." She thinks, sometimes, she can feel the way they ache for the past. How they reach deeper and deeper into the soil in search of something familiar.

    She looks at Raed once more, instead of the lush night. There is nothing at all familiar about him. How has it come to be that she feels more in tune with the trees than the beasts of the world.

    "I've been paying attention," she says this with a very subtle tone of mock indignation. Everything with her is subtle, until its not. The truth, and surely they both know this, is that she hasn't been paying attention at all. She's slept away the years and awoken in a strange land. Magic is not always wondrous, certainly not always kind.

    Suddenly she changes the topic. "Have you lost anyone?" Are those ghosts she sees in his dark, gleaming eyes, or is it an unusual lack of them?


    N O R T H
    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)