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  • 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


    a smile made for war; any
    #1

    rhonen

    molten eyes and a smile made for war

    He takes his eyes off of her – his daughter, the last important thing he still has – and she disappears. Rhonen spends days – or was it hours? – desperately searching for her, and contemplating what he would do if she was gone forever.


    The answer certainly wasn’t ‘go on existing in some fashion of a reasonable life’.


    At some pint after he panicked and before he did something rash, she’d reappeared in the Meadow, stumbling and half delirious, clearly ill and honestly confirming every deep-seated fear he’d ever had about allowing himself to care for someone again. But whatever was wrong with her, Noah had insisted on one thing: they had to go to Pangea.


    Rhonen isn’t living under a rock, so even he has heard that the once-feared Kingdom is actually an underwater city now. However, his increasingly delirious child is insistent, and every time she gets upset about his hesitation, flowers start sprouting out of season at her feet, so the chestnut stallion props her up and they make their way to a Kingdom that is – to his chagrin – not underwater.


    Noah’s sleeping, fitfully, in the shade of a tall tree. The stallion is standing watch, still wary of the land which clearly shows signs of having been recently underwater, though of course that doesn’t even make sense…though neither does the wound on his daughter’s chest or her newfound ability to cause plants to grow when she experiences strong feelings. It feel suspiciously like the time he saved the world and got cursed with the seal of conquest, so the stallion is jumpy and unhappy.


    Understandably.

    [Image: U5duKtst_o.gif]
    Aubri & Rhonen [twins]
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    #2

    Ruined geometry and saturated land, the murk and loamy soil flattened and ridden with algae and kelp: rocks jagged, had become sanded down from tide and the ebb and flow no longer controlled the vast expanse of what was. Wind, instead, swept through and air breathed life anew across the sun-touched remnants of chaos and cataclysm. Trees, rooted or not, shook and their monolithic appearances only seemed to shadow and bring about darkness to the corners formerly untouched; but it was these malignant umbras that suddenly grew swollen and bloated. Their edges fraying and giving way to brush that rattled and shivered.

    Her hoofbeats are not light, they impress upon the ground and leave pattern and trail and Yidhra cares little for where she was: only where she goes.

    Unnaturally thin and malnourished, her figure is skeletal and sickly- the fur shaggy and areas matted without shine. Beastly, she was little more than the grotesque mannequin of an equine: a husk and shape, but one who paused and turned the head slowly. Dulled eyes barely illuminated and the teal took on an eerie grey-green and swampy nature, their stare heavy and burdened as cough rattled the throat and she wheezed painfully and deep.

    “Wander, to and fro.” she spoke, or seemed to be speaking. Her voice a low rasp and smoky tenor, deep and touched by an accent unplaceable. “Where he steps, only he will know.” pause and break, singsong in nature she brought her lips into an easy and mockingly warm smile.

    Feign or falsehood, no matter- Yidhra lingered as she was and her head lifted slowly and mechanically without fluidity to her motions. Snapping from place to place there was a corpse-like behavior and a yellowing in the milky-whites of her eyes. That voice continued, and she purred in an unholy manner: turning herself fully and peering over the man with peaked ears and interest.

    “I failed to deliver greeting, but, take no offense or grie in such a thing: I am Yidhra- wanderer and observant. Forgive intrusion; but, have you walked this murk long?” the tease is there, the light-hearted chuckle and smile; but underlying illness and famine remain as she shivers from the cold: all skin and bone. 

    Yidhra



    @[Rhonen]  Smile  hello fren
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    #3
    Perhaps she would have surprised him, if the ground was not so wet. Instead, he pivots to keep her in his sight at all times, the squelching sound of her hooves pulling free of the mucky ground quite loud in an otherwise very quiet place. The chestnut stallion keeps his sleeping daughter behind him as he follows her motion, brown eyes suspicious as his fine-pointed ears pointed forward to catch the words, noting the smile as well as the tone of the words.


    Others would perhaps be turned off by the mare’s appearance – but one of Rhonen’s few and dear friends had been similarly sickly in appearance at all times, and he had grown used to looking beneath the surface. He’s not totally trustful (Noah doesn’t need to catch something on top of whatever is ailing her if it is a sickness) but he’s not one to lash out and drive away the stranger with no cause, either. Well. At least not physically. His tongue can be quite razor-sharp, intentionally or unintentionally.


    She turns towards them but does not come too close in such a way as to make him (any more) antsy as he considers her question. “No,” he finally answers shortly, voice clipped and taking a step back towards the yearling sleeping behind him. Only she isn’t sleeping – he freezes in place with a parent’s instinctive protectiveness when his retreating haunch gently bumps the girl who is now standing, peering curiously at their visitor, inquisitive despite her own clear illness.


    “Hello,” she says quietly, offering a little smile that is in direct contrast to her father’s scowl. At her feet, the damp grass grows greener and the tree behind her has new out-of-season leaves blooming. Noah takes a shaky breath. “Nobody has walked here long. It was underwater. The god-mage had us raise it.” She smiles again, dreamily, and he glances between the two mares and shifts. Rhonen is still uncertain of the veracity of his delirious daughter’s ramblings, but he certainly knows that Pangea was underwater, and now it isn’t. “Rhonen,” he grumbles his name in half reluctance, the edges of the word still quite sharp. “My daughter, Noah.” he touches her crest, gently.


    He hesitates, but says nothing else. He doesn’t know if she has lived here – maybe she is sick with whatever is causing Noah to be sick. But she doesn’t seem to know about Pangea, so perhaps not.


    ooc; sorry XD They're weird @[Yidhra]
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    #4

     Rhonen holds her attentions initially, the sunken in eyes watching and her ears pointed forward through the mess of spidery-black hair. His scowl, she sees it, and she knows it: mistrust and uneasiness, and the motion of his body mirrors that of those she dreamed of before… of those who are long passed. Silence renders between them as in a slow gesture the creatures head moves and looks to Noah, those teal eyes narrowing only for seconds as contemplation dawns on her face. Yidhra speaks, but her tone is softer now, and though she still carries depth and rasp to her voice… an eerie harmony begins to make its way into every word. 

    “This is not the first land to be raised from the abyss or its depths” she pauses, her fixation on Noah growing and a weak smile draws on the skeletal creatures lips. “I saw barnacles stuck to trees, and coral buried into earth and rock. Brackish holes with algae where the water has grown stagnant, and the corpses of leviathans rotting anew beneath the sun. Two or three hundred years ago another land rose like this one’ but not here in Beqanna.” for a moment she grows silent, shuddering and wincing as if in pain.

    With closed eyes she flinches and frets, coughing for moments and muscles spasming beneath the skeletal wreck and ruined flesh. She spits blood onto the ground, reddened and black: her breathing only stabilizing after a moment; but she maintains all distance. “Pressure sickness.” she speaks frankly. “Worry not for contamination, it only comes if you walk as I have… in the vast trenches where the bones of giants have becoming dreaming cities.” her shoulders roll back, shrug, and Yidhra draws up to her full stature.

    Tilting her head she looks at the both with little to no emotion, only intrigue and curiosity glimmering in her eyes, in her thoughts. “It is a pleasure to meet you Rhonen and Noah, pray tell what has brought you to these lands- is it this God-Mage? Again, I apologize if this is intrusive; but I have long forgotten the societal pleasantries of our kind. We are much nicer, much more formal at times than the cradling teeth and gnawing whispers of the ones below.”

    Lacking hesitation she smiled, faintly and warmly: with her posture so elegantly shifted to hide the ugly curves of bones and skin, of weakness and time. 

    Yidhra



    @[Rhonen]  ooc: nah its cool, this is just a weirdening.  I love them.
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    #5

    rhonen

    molten eyes and a smile made for war

    He’s still cautious, prickly, and trying to stay between the curious filly and the stranger. This becomes rapidly more difficult, as the roan filly listens intently to Yidhra’s description of the undersea world – she had wondered, at times, if she had dreamt her underwater adventure, but the presence of Pangea really risen had been the first clue that it had not been. This accurate description from another who had been under the ocean – images that have been on her mind since the journey – are the next clue that she may have had a real experience.

    The mare starts coughing, the movement wracking her thin body, and Noah scowls at her father when he stands impassively, not moving to help at all. She is young, but she has never understood why Rhonen refuses to use his skill for good any more than he would use it for evil – he says any use of it at all might cause problems, but Noah can’t believe that. She wants to make people feel better. As the stallion listens to the mare before him describe her illness and mentally compares the symptoms to Noah’s, wondering if they suffer from the same illness, she has carefully wormed her way to the front of her preoccupied sire, and now she dances forward towards the mare, tiny nose outstretched in greeting.

    That draws his attention and he fidgets, beyond worried, lowering his head and ears flicking backwards towards his skull as he has a good idea what his daughter is doing. “Noah, no,” he growls, and she turns an accusing glare on him, and his heart stutters because it reminds him of her mother (not always a good thing, but sometimes he misses Kellyn’s quick wit and firey temper). “I might be able to help her,” the filly argues, sidling closer.

    His dark eyes flick between Yidhra and Noah, and though he scowls, something in his eyes seems almost apologetic as they rest on the mare, as if perhaps his bark is worse than his bite. “It’s not that kind of sickness, Noah.” He insists on this, because even though he does not use his powers or even want to have them, he can feel disease when it is present, and he does not feel it in Yidhra. “You need to save your strength.” As if confirming his words, a fit of coughing overtakes the girl, and she stumbles back to collapse against her father, struggling to breathe. Rhonen takes a minute to close his eyes, touch his muzzle to her side, and curse himself for refusing to use his own power, even for Noah.

    He simply can’t risk it. Can’t risk the seal being unleashed.

    “Noah insisted we come here.” Rhonen answers the mare’s question, perhaps reluctantly and in a voice as soothing as sandpaper on flesh. “She claims she  went underwater and brought a piece back, at the behest of Carnage, and that allowed him to raise it from the bottom of the ocean. She wants to make it pretty again.” he gives a short jerk of his head, an obvious gesture towards where there is, once more, fresh greenery sprouting at the hooves of his delirious daughter.



    @[Yidhra]
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    #6

     Where Rhonen lacks attention, Yidhra finds her own to be focused and observant: quietly locked on the willowy child and her every movement. Were she a fish there would be been a flash of silver or gold, of scales gleaming in the sunlight that broke the surface: and each gesture and turn would’ve been so effortlessly graceful that none could’ve matched her. Rather than run, however, she approaches and Yidhra noticed how she remains absent fear and filled instead with mystery and confusion, with questions and the need for answer. Slowly she watches Rhonen then, and her teal eyes blink slowly as she reaches out the half-cut nose and repays the gently greeting sought to be given.

    She lacks cruelty, lacks malevolence: in this quiet second there is something else, something strained and ancient- fragile and almost forgotten. A sensation of old joy rises in her chest and there is a moment where her heart begins to beat faster; but for all the blood, she remains frigid and cold- still as Noah withdraws and the pair flit and argue.

    “I do not believe you can help this.” she begins calmly and softly, the rasp and smoke of her voice eve present. “It is not disease, not infection, and not anything of those natures. It is simply the result of living beneath the surface and of remaining in the crushing depths where there is no light and no food. Do not be concerned for me.” she finalizes it with a slow breath, with the matted hair swept aside and her her eyes widened so suddenly.

    Noah coughs, she sputters and struggles to breath, and Yidhra narrows her eyes: stares at the girl’s nostrils and her mouth- at her eyes. She peers at her with curiosity and interest, but seems to almost mirror a scientist’s manner.

    Cold, sterile, and surgical.

    This time she listens, her ears twitching and gaze turning to Rhonen with ears perked. “I have often learned that when acting on the behest of Gods or higher powers that there is always consequence and the results are never what you desire. They present you a task, give you some gift and power that you cannot comprehend; but then in that same breath you find yourself standing before a mountain of corpses taller than the gold you sought. Stripped, bare, and empty… forced to remember that your soul is blackened and what remains of it? Is no longer yours; but the creature that you served. Willing, or unwilling.”

    Shrugging, she finds herself considering the Stone and the voices: the dreams and nightmares that felt like bizarre memories from another life. Less severe and softening to looks to Noah with a pained expression, perhaps she was reminiscent of herself.

    “Even in our dreams, traveling to the ocean’s floor is never easy. There is only darkness and miles of emptiness, sand littered with broken shells and bones, and volcanic ash from the vents. The pressure is so painful that it shatters bones and forces water into every part of you… and the drowning is the least harmful. When you do find light, it is a hunter, and often you are forced to seek safety in the dying husks and bodies of leviathans. If she has water in her lungs, it may saturate them and become infected… if it supernatural, then I cannot help you.” she freezes, aware she lacks healing powers.

    Paused and biding time she begins again, this time glancing to Noah. “I cannot offer any sort of medicinal or magical remedy; but if you inhale for ten seconds and breathe deeply- hold that for ten more seconds and repeat until you feel the heaviness in your chest lessening if there is any. I am sorry that you had to experience the dreams of drowning, they are not always so fun.”

    The notion of plant life only prompts her to blink, to take moments to think and consider: to imagine possibility; but alas she puts it behind herself, aware that commentary is unneeded. 

    Yidhra



    @[Rhonen]
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