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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


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    show them the joy and the pain and the ending; Briella, any Nerine residents
    #1

    The moment Carnage had sent out that message, she had known nothing good could come of it. She might have warned Dovev, had he paused to listen. And now, when the earth trembles beneath her feet, she knows instinctively things have begun to change.

    She has seen it before, after all.

    The message comes, swift on the heels of the rumbling earth. A vision from Beqanna’s gods, to warn them of infection. To give them a safe space to flee. Immediately Heartfire sends her vision into the wind, seeking and finding. Just off Nerine’s coast, a land newly risen. A land safe from disease.

    It is with barely a second thought she turns to find Briella. There is never time to waste in these moments, and so she does not. Moving swiftly, she collects the chestnut filly, whispering softly in her ear as she does so. “Come, Briella. We must go somewhere safer.”

    She finds her way easily to the edge of the kingdom, having already determined the best place to ford. As she pauses on the stony beach, she glances into Nerine for a moment. It takes only a thought to send her vision into the ether. To find those she can nearby and show them the rocky beach, the ice-laden isle that promises safety. A request to come, to follow, those that would. With that accomplished, she turns and splashes into the waves, drawing Briella along.

    She holds the young girl close as they make the crossing, keeping her safe through the chilly waves. The air is icy against her water slickened skin when they wade onto the far beach, causing shivers to race across her skin as she presses against Briella, offering what warmth she can. Brushing her muzzle gentle, comfortingly, along the girl's narrow crest, she peers around her with an assessing gaze, eyes hard and calculating.

    It is not much, but it is safe. And now, it is Nerine’s.

    i see your sins
    and i want to set them free

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    #2
    Briella
    your eyes are lined in pain, black tears don't hide in rain

    Nothing could stop what happened next, nothing could prevent it: the sudden whisper on the wind and voice of Carnage as the mad God-Mage laughed and all of Pangea exhaled its fetid breath.

    They had caused it, they brought it back: the rise of Pangea, and the death of Rhonen and Harmonia.

    Briella could not comprehend it, did not know about it: she was an innocent, fresh from the beyond and stumbling in and out of lives. Beside Heartfire she trembled, and in the wind carried over from the vast expanse of Pangea, there was suddenly a rapidity to her pulse. Heat that grew on her skin and a coughing that wracked her tiny lungs.

    She sputtered, and Briella looked at Heartfire with fear.

    Flight is natural, the running is something that was expected; but her spindly legs cannot keep up so quickly- no matter how hard she tries. Water and land: all the ways she travels, she follows Heartfire without question and only stops to breath when the coughing demands it and she cannot fight the growing fever.

    Hunger has once wracked her body, ravished her; but now there was simply a loss of it, a lack of desire: of the want… and yet she still knew the pain from it, the need for food. “Safe?” she chokes, continuing and stopping only when she knows she can: when the older mare is still.

    “Where… not Nerine. Cold.” the rocks are icy, jagged and slippery, the land is spattered in white and she steps into snow with a shiver. “Shadows-” she whimpers, looking at the darkness of a cave and very suddenly shoving her face behind her own legs.

    Fear trickles through her mind and she ponders many things, but nothing in particular: instead she can only look to Heartfire with hope for knowledge, with expectation of the answer. Still, she coughs, and her tiny nose wrinkles as she shivers again: staring at the way her breath curls into steam around her face.

    “No shadows, just cold.” hair loss is not something she experiences, and the wet flaxen locks glisten with bits of ice and snow: the powdery substance sticking to her sooty form and leaving patches on the baby-soft fur. 

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    #3

    She is not a woman prone to worry. Always, she had preferred to take action, to let loose her voice and make her plans that they should unfold just so. But today, she worries. She worries for the child at her side, a ward she hadn’t wanted but had somehow come to care for regardless. She worries for her own children, her family cast into the wind. It is as unfamiliar as it is unwelcome.

    As she holds Briella close, she feels the shiver, the cough that shudders through her body. And she knows. They had fled but they hadn’t escaped.

    Brushing her muzzle softly, comfortingly, against the small girl’s skin, she knows she must do something. And it does not take her long to find where to start. Pressing her lips against Briella, she sighs softly before lifting her head to peer over the icy landscape. “We are safe,” she answers quietly, already investigating the landscape thoroughly. “I know it’s cold darling,” she drops her head briefly to touch Briella comfortingly, “but we will make it work.”

    Finally, she sends out her vision once more, this time targeted. For Woolf, the half brother she had so recently met. But he had agreed to join Nerine, and so she calls upon that. Calls to him, asking him to help Nerine (to help her) in their time of need. She is prepared to do what she must, and she does not doubt Woolf would know this.

    Finally, attention returning to the island, she finds a likely hollow in the landscape and moves towards it, encouraging Briella to follow. Swiftly, she digs into it with her destructive power until she uncovers earth beneath. Until she has carved out a shallow divot that would protect them somewhat from the elements. They could do more later, but this would suffice for now. Curling into it, she pulls Briella into the warmth of her embrace and settles in to wait.

    i see your sins
    and i want to set them free

    Reply
    #4

    bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
    if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

    Woolf does not care to get himself involved in the shifting of Beqanna.

    He is apathetic as Carnage’s message takes over his magic, annoyed at the intrusion in his mind, but he knows better than to pit his magic against the Dark God’s. He is powerful, but he is not stupid, and he knows that he would need more than just his own blood to even attempt magic that could withstand Carnage. But neither is he interested in obeying the call, bending his head toward the wishes of the grey stallion and so he doesn’t. And, as luck would have it, he is busy at the time, preoccupied with his sister and the trouble that she’s managed to get herself into with her child and the wolf and the girl of glass.

    More problems that are now his to solve.

    If he could, he’d pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

    But then his vision is taken over again and he growls low in his throat, thoroughly frustrated by those who deem to wield control over him in any capacity. Except this one comes with a message more pointed. This one comes making deals and he finds that he is intrigued. He chews it over for a few minutes before he decides to follow up on it, making sure his affairs are in as much order as they can be, before he teleports himself to the isle. Blood runs down his leg, matting along the feathers, and he scowls at Heartfire.

    “I am not a house pet to be summoned when you wish, sister.” But there is no real heat to his voice, just the idle shadow of one. He knows he is weakened by the sudden onslaught of sickness, by his sister’s exhaustion, and the idea of a new source is tempting—tempting enough that he remains before her still. His eyes narrow as he takes her in, the sickness becoming more prominent on her features. His gaze slides to the girl at his side but return quickly to her. He has no real concern for the child, just yet.

    “You couldn’t have picked a warmer spot?” Annoyed, he slices open the spot alongside his haunches again, the area more lacerated than usual and the sting of it more than usual. Temporarily, the area around them warms considerably until he grows more comfortable and he shakes the dust off his coat, frustrated by the toll the relatively minor magic took on him. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you had in mind.”

    woolf

    I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

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    #5

    Leilan
    Glaciers melting in the dead of night
    and the superstars sucked into the supermassive
    She’s such a quick thinker, this queen of theirs. And his niece, too. He’s later than them, because he had to spend some time finding his wife in all the chaos, and talk to her, and get over the fact that she’s carrying a child, too - before rapidly following Heartfire towards the island.

    Lay a claim on it and worry about it later.

    But isn’t this a sight to see; she has a foal with her. Sees them hug and hears the girl’s words. Cold. ”Cold indeed, niece. Do you think it will work? Living here?” He says. He sees them shiver, hears the cough. They’re already sick. Awesome - but at the very least, here they can’t spread it.

    The mulberry roan who joins them mere milliseconds after that, says he is Heartfire’s sister, and Leilan gives him a more amused look at his summoning. ”Yet here you are.” he comments dryly, his icy blue eyes taking the sheen of aqua as he pipes up the little joke.

    The other stallion continues about a warmer spot, and he stifles another laugh, instead relaying his focus to the little girl, a much warmer tone to his eyes and voice as he pays full attention to her. ”Hello there. I’m Leilan, Heartfire’s uncle. One of two, actually.” A smile follows, though he can’t think of Simeon and Shah right about now, they’re probably busy finding their own kind of safety. ”What’s your name?”

    Woolf is a name he’s vaguely heard in passing, a child of Ilka’s. Not related to him in any way, other than that they both roughly care for Heartfire in a way. The man asks for what Heartfire had in mind though, and so his ears flick back to their conversation, though he has still the body language focusing on the little girl, instead.

    you set my soul alight
    HTML by Vanilla Custard
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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    #6

    She has never been a woman to second guess her decisions. And this one least of all. She had done what had needed doing. She has never been one to ask permission, and for this she had needed none. For the good Nerine, it’s people, for those she loves and calls her own, she would do it again without second thought. Breckin would forgive her her or she wouldn’t, but that was not her largest concern in this moment.

    It does not take Woolf long to arrive, heeding her summons with more alacrity than she had expected. She would not quibble with it, however. They could both stand to gain from what she had to offer.

    Leilan is there, however. Interrupting before she can make her response. She eyes the draconic stallion with a raised brow before shrugging faintly. “We’ll make do, Leilan.”

    As they always do.

    Her lips quirk into a faint smile at Woolf’s complaint. If the choice had been aught else, she would’ve gladly chosen a place with more warmth. She had been born to the Deserts, after all, and is not made for these harsh, icy climes. But she is also not given to complaint, merely accepting the icy chill for what it is. Still, she gladly accepts the warmth he offers.

    Her features quiet with his final request, blue eyes shifting to him with a hardened intensity. They could be beneficial to one another, she and him. She knows enough of his odd magic to know how valuable she could be to him. And she would leverage that value if she must. She would not fool herself into believing he would do it from the goodness of his heart, or even for the good of Nerine for that matter. He is too much like her in that respect

    “I think we could come to a mutually beneficial agreement Woolf,” she begins evenly, holding his gaze. “You know the power you could have from my blood. And it could be yours when you need it, for the duration of this plague, so long as you do me one small favor.” She smiles faintly then, though it does nothing to warm the stillness of her features. “By healing those I ask you to heal.”

    i see your sins
    and i want to set them free

    Reply
    #7
    Briella
    your eyes are lined in pain, black tears don't hide in rain

    She is a child, lost and frozen: out of time and out of place.

    In precious moments she is able to forget about the shadows and darkness, the edges of rocks that resemble smoke more than a solid mass; but now, here- in this moment, her small mind goes back to it and recalls the vast expanse of inky black and cold, lifeless air. Stagnant and dreary the smell of mold and algae burns her senses and she feels herself pulled away from Heartfire, from Woolf and Leilan- from the Island.

    “Briella, listen.” the voice roars in her mind. “Remember what I taught you.” stern, calm, and yet: loving, and she knows this voice, she recalls the muscle and velvet nose- the tall body with its muscle and all the psatter of color.

    “Pell!” she chokes, and to Heartfire and Leilan- to Woolf she is shouting at nothing, staring out into the snow and shouting a word, a name… one lost to time. “Pell! Wait.”

    She begs, she pauses, and she watches the shadow in her mind leave: the vision gone, and her whole body forced back into the cold, into the spindly legs and soft baby-coat. Those wide eyes staring and her body pressing against Heartfire as she sniffles and shivers: as fever turns her blood to ice-water and burns her skin. Briella can only look where the shadow was: start to walk, to step away from her caretaker.

    “Expelliarmus!” she growls, fevered and maddened, angry… a thing she’s never been. “You left me, you left me behind. The Valley- the Chamber.” her head turns and she peers at them before walking back, confused and frustrated.

    Looking for an answer with wide eyes, she coughs and there is trickles of blood on her nose.

    Heartfire has been the comfort she’s known, the sole-friendly face in all this wild mess outside of Dovev- and to the mare she clings again. Her small ears pressing backward as she studies Woolf, stares and peers at him with full attention. His form is mutable in her mind as fever wracks her brain and she sees his form wobbling: fading and darkening, but, she is not hot enough to lose conscious and so she stays awake: watching and listening.

    He speaks and she mouths the words, mocking and mimicking… learning. Sister, he says, and she looks between them, cautious and curious- speaking up with a more defined voice. “Uncle.” she chirps, staring deadpan at Woolf.

    The Dragon, however, perks her attention; but only because he demands so much of hers. She studies, faces, and considers him with her small head pulled back and ears leaning forward until she is able to muster self enough to reach her nose out and sniff. “Leilan…” she mouths, softly mimicking the name and testing it a moment before responding. “Briella.” she puffs her chest out, stands and presses into Heartfire’s side.

    Slowly her tiny head snakes around the mare’s leg and she peers at Leilan from there, perhaps unsure or simply lacking confidence; but regardless she blinks and watches him. “Great Uncle.” she thinks and states, an addendum in her mind.

    “Woolf,” she speaks after Heartfire. “Woolfie.” blinking and looking up at the mulberry blood mage with her head tilting. 

    The conversation of blood however, escapes her, and she lacks the knowledge of such things to comprehend what is discussed: rather she responds to the rush of fever, and of sickness. The spindly legs wobbling and her body slowly dropping to the ground beneath Heartfire, half-resting while looking up at them all. “Dovev… da-.” she cuts off at the latter, almost mournful, her small ears flopping to the side. 

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    #8

    bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
    if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

    He doesn’t have much time. He knows that much.

    He knows that sooner rather than later he will need to return and tend to his own affairs. This knowledge makes him short-tempered and grumpy, more impatient than usual. When the dragon stallion arrives to the group, he swings his heavy head toward him, green eyes glittering, mouth pressed thin. “What an observant thing you are, Uncle.” He watches him, unimpressed before huffing, his air blooming in front of him. “Woolf.” His name is a staccato thing, a bullet leaving his lips, and he doesn’t bother to elaborate.

    Instead he dismisses him mentally and turns his attention back toward Heartfire, mulling over her words. He was weak. He knew that. Beneath the brave front, he was weakened by what happened to Bright, to what happened to their family. To have access to her free pass, whenever he needed it. It was intriguing. His eyes go hard and he shrugs. “It will have to be on my own terms. I will not always be this punctual.”

    He would not come to heel simply because she whistled.

    Even if she offered an intriguing carrot.

    The child erupts forward and he watches with a frown, his face pinched with a frown. She was speaking nonsense, rattling on and on about the kingdoms of old, and he tilts his head to the side as he considers her. When she finally collapses, he quirks a brow and then glances up at the blue mare. “I suppose you want me to start with this one.” He has no warm paternal feelings, no desire to heal her of the sickness that even now crawls through her veins. “I can do it, but I need you to uphold your end of the bargain first.” If he could heal himself and Bright through Heartfire first, he could be bothered to heal the child.

    woolf

    I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

    Reply
    #9

    Leilan
    Glaciers melting in the dead of night
    and the superstars sucked into the supermassive
    In amusement, now fully emerald eyes flicker to Heartfire's half-brother, and the mulberry-coloured stallion receives a sly grin. Observant, right. Actually, he is - though perhaps more in the literal sense of the word.

    The girl is cute but, also feverish and delusional. He flicks back his ears as she shouts at nothing, names he doesn't know, then names he does know - Valley, Chamber. His eyes snap to Heartfire with the big question in them. "Where'd you pick her up?" while the girl is still rambling.

    But then Briella is back to the living, and he doesn't need her answer any more. He'd love to comment on the Great uncle part - obviously he's super great and all, ahem - but when she names Dovev as her da, he figures that maybe it wasn't Heartfire's idea to take the girl in; he flashes a smile at Heartfire at the statement Briella made.

    Woolf states the obvious as much as Leilan did previously, but the latter doesn't want to comment on it. Instead, he listens to Woolf's demand. Now, Heartfire is free to make deals as she pleases, but... well. He feels the need to chime in. "I'm pretty sure Brennen would do it for free." he mumbles, though he also knows that for the Kraken-King to appear and heal them, they'll need more patience. He'd likely want to make a deal with Nerine, first.

    you set my soul alight
    HTML by Vanilla Custard
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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