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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


    It's a trap! - Megz Pony
    #1


    you look like yourself
    but you're somebody else.

    It has been years. Aldric has been far from home for long enough that he does not recognize the Beqanna he returns to. He had been little more than a boy when he’d gone, escaping into the great unknown without purpose or direction. The years away have been kind to him, and his red dun pelt blooms with good health and lean muscle winds around his framework. His white splashed limbs pound out a rhythm that carries him deep into the familiar-but-unfamiliar land, though he isn’t looking for anything at all as he streaks through the redwoods, skirting the bay and diving back into the forest. It’s only the river that stops him, he gallops along it a short while before it curves sharply away to his right. It is in this bow of land that Aldric slows to a trot and then a walk. His coat is reddened, dark with sweat but the autumn air cools him with it’s crisp caress.

    Drawing to the waters edge he lowers his badger marked face and takes the briefest drink from the fast flowing river. He has tasted these waters before, but the memories are vague, leftovers from what he recalls as happy childhood spent on this continent. He’s returned now because it seems right to, because his blood sings a song of this place that he cannot hear but somehow recognizes. He shakes his head when he straightens again, and then some out of place noise makes him frees a little and flick his left ear once, twice. Turning slowly he breathes deep the scent of decaying leaves, and river, and something muskier.

    Aldric recognizes that smell, though it’s vague and brought to him only by chance because of his location downwind. Turning he notices a heavily use trail leading out of the trees toward the waters edge. His green eyes follow the path into the darkness of the trees. Something is waiting for someone to come down that trail. A deer maybe, or a family of foodhardy quail. Aldric frowns, but life does need to go one for prey and predator alike. He will not disturb the creature he imagines is perched on a rock or tree branch overlooking the trail, to chase it off to find another meal (perhaps of someone like him… or even him if he weren’t wary). 

    Quietly Aldric begins to turn away to cross the river and head out toward the coast. But then, his ear flicks again, the sound of leaves and earth beneath someone’s feet, someone too big to be a deer or a rabbit. Someone is coming down the path, he cannot see them but he knows they are making their way towards the bow in the river. Someone is going to walk right into the lion’s trap.


    only it aint on the surface

    Aldric

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    #2
    They had escaped far from Beqanna, many years ago. Someplace safe for them and safe for their family, especially after what had happened to Gran. A wave of sadness washes through her at the thought, it had been so long since she had last been seen that they had decided to call her deceased. Furia has followed along, let them all believe she believed the same thing, but she had a feeling deep down in her heart that it wasn’t quite the truth.

    So she had grown and learned from her father and papa on how to fight, to defend herself. She had hugged them all goodbye for now and slipped away on her travels. She didn’t tell them where she was going, knowing it would cause a fuss. Beqanna was not a safe place for them, for anyone, but especially for a mare. Not that she remembered much more than their safe little home. Where they had played as freshly born foals. But she remembered leaving and she remembered the hours of walking and sleeping and walking some more.

    It had taken her a little bit longer than she remembered to find her way back and as such she was exhausted. She felt it the moment she crossed into Beqanna, she wasn’t quite sure what it was but it was a ripple of something that slid down and around her body. She pauses, turning to blink and look back behind her, wondering if maybe she could see it.

    She shakes her head, exhaustion dragging at her hooves as she makes her way through the trail in the forest. She needed to find a place to sleep for just a little while and then, maybe then she could get up and go about her random rediscovering of her birth place. If she noticed the smell of a giant cat, it was lost on her, in another life time….well, that’s another story.


    (sorry she's kind of rough still. ^_^ @[Aldric])
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    #3


    you look like yourself
    but you're somebody else.

    Slow weary footfalls down the forest path. Aldric needs to make a decision to intercept the traveler and likely put himself directly into the big cat’s trap, or to find some other means of preventing the impending attack. He could call out and just let the stranger coming through the trees fend for themselves, but who could know if they would escape away or try to flee right under the predator and end up in just as much trouble if he’d said nothing.

    Knowing he is probably going to regret the decision Aldric plunges down the path and is just in time to see the painted mare drawing near a dark panther crouching in the rocks above the path. “Stop!” Aldric’s deep clear voice rings out through the trees. He doesn’t see if the mare heeds, because he turns his full focus onto the cat which looks at him first with surprise and then with angry determination.  It seems to be considering which of them to turn on and Aldric stomps to demand it’s attention. “Come now, you’ve got enough to worry about right here.” He tells the feline, taunting it.

    The effort to call the cat down toward himself works, and the badger faced stallion is rewarded with a face to face meeting with a furious two-hundred pound cat. Aldric’s muscles coil and his lungs fill making himself look as large as he can. Neck arched and teeth bared he  brings his hooves down hard on the path between himself and the panther but the creature doesn’t budge, only yowls a challenge that reverates against the rocks but doesn’t shake the sabino stallion’s focus. At least the thing has decided he is the one that needs eating.



    only it aint on the surface

    Aldric



    @[Furia] Sorry! Here he is! <3
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    #4
    “Stop!” The voice echoes around her, causing her to stop immediately. Her ears prick from their tired position and her eyes instantly narrow some as she tries to find the source of the voice. She seems him then, his red and white form barreling for her. She steadies her weight, evening out her body as her both of her father’s voices echo through his mind, battle advice freely given to keep her safe.

    Anything to keep them safe.

    But then she realizes that his eyes aren’t on her. They are on a rather large cat that she hadn’t noticed. She snorts as he draws it’s attention. She also didn’t mean offense but her heavier draft build was going to be a bit better of a match than his hot blooded form. But she takes advantage, her hooves instantly eating the dirt between them until the cats ears flicker backwards towards the oncoming sound.

    By then of course she’s already too close and rears up only to stomp her hooves on the cat’s tail. “Go on, get outta here!” She bares her teeth, flashing them and snapping them shut close to the cat’s body. Her hooves stomp down landing on the flicking tail of the cat, making it yowl. Her ears are buried in her tangled mane, but she doesn’t quit fighting the cat until it runs off.

    Which shouldn’t take long. If it was smart, it would realize it wasn’t getting fed tonight. At least not with horse. When it does, she turns her eyes to her savior with a smile. “Thanks friend. I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention.” Her Papa and Daddy would have given her a stern lecture about it. “Name’s Furia.”
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    #5


    you look like yourself
    but you're somebody else.


    It’s good that the woman dives in from behind and attacks the cat. Aldric does not stand there like a fool and watch however, he lunges for the animals as it twists towards the painted mare lashing out with quick blunt strikes against its light ribs. They quickly overwhelm the predator and it flees with a swiftness that probably surprises the animal itself. Aldric watches for a beat longer after the panther disappears. It would have to be stupid to turn back and face them again, especially after the ferocity the mare has shown.

    “Glad to be of service. The wind was taking his scent right away from the trail, I only barely noticed he was out here myself.” He is glad he turned back to intervene. ”Though I think you could have handled him on your own.” He says by way of compliment on her quick response when he’d distracted the feline. “I’m Aldric. Where are you headed? I’ll join you if you don’t mind to company.” After all he has nowhere to be, though he’d like to walk out from beneath all these trees again just in case the panther circles back on them.

    He turns down the path. If she doesn’t want to walk together he’ll just be on his way. “Are you from around here?” He continues, looking her way again. He wouldn’t mind learning more about Beqanna as it is now, maybe get some ideas for which direction in which he should head.

    only it aint on the surface

    Aldric



    @[Furia]
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    #6
    She almost feels bad for her thought earlier as he compliments her quick actions. She should know better than to underestimate someone just because they were smaller than she was. It’s not his fault her dad was a monster of a horse and so on down the line of their genes. And so she merely bobs her head in agreement, her lips curling into a smile. “Thanks, it was good you were here though, otherwise I would have a lot of new fancy scars to show off.” And while she didn’t mind scars, she hated the whole part before with the healing and the itching…

    No thanks, right now.

    “I don’t rightly know. I am looking for some family members and really just to see the place I was born before it all went sideways and our father whisked us away.” So she continues walking with him at her side and she is comfortable in the silence between them until he speaks again. “Aye, although I cannot remember the spot that we lived, nor the name of it. I just remember being safe because our family was there.” She rolls her shoulders in a shrug. “So yes, but no.” She says with a laugh. “I was going to take in the sights as I searched.”
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