11-11-2018, 12:54 AM
Nocturne knew nothing of plagues or fairies, dark gods or horseman’s seals or any of the like. He heard no call to kill a man and set darkness winging across the land infecting all it touched, splitting families apart, forcing Beqanna’s residents to flee to shelter or risk catching the sickness that was spreading through the population. When he opened his eyes to the light of the full moon touching his pale face for the first time, all he knew was the blood and viscera that surrounded him and the scent of death in the air.
He frowned, raising his tiny head and looking around at what remained of his father, the one who had whispered to him as he grew, whose heartbeat and murmurs had been the soundtrack of his gestation, comfort and warmth and safety wrapped around him and holding him close. He had crooned delicious, wicked things in Nocturne’s sleeping ears, given him a name both to honor and to spite his grandmother, made him promises of how they’d win daddy over now, keep him forever. Nocturne’s existence would fix what had broken between them when they had split in the womb, and everything would be right again.
Everything would be as it should.
But his father was dead, blood still running from the gut wound that had birthed Nocturne and set him sprawling out onto the grass with blood staining his soft moonlight-pale baby coat. His eyes widened, heart racing as panic flooded him for the first time, and he jerked upright, limbs flailing as he fought to control them, fought to make them obey. He threw himself against his father’s corpse, trying to wake him, trying to bring him back. He was supposed to be there, tucked inside his father’s belly, which was absolutely not supposed to be gaping open like that.
When that didn’t revive his father, Nocturne keened softly and crawled back inside amidst the organs and fluids that had always cushioned him so far, cradled him and kept him safe. He bit one edge of his father’s torn-open belly wound and tugged it back down over himself, trying to drag it back together, to put the pieces of his father back together but it didn’t help. A soft whimper escaped his throat and he curled in on himself, rocking and shaking and making a soft, high-pitched whine as he closed his eyes against this sick nightmare the world had become. The tight fetal position did nothing to comfort him, but he tried anyhow, curled up inside his father’s body as it cooled until his teeth began to chatter and the flesh around him began to stiffen, rigor mortis claiming his corpse and making it less comfortable.
He might have stayed longer, defiant and with nowhere else to go, but the fairy’s call reached into his chest and tugged him forward, sent him tumbling out of his nest of blood and guts and bone and sprawling once again on the filthy bloodstained grass. Flies buzzed around them - him - and settled on his skin, making a meal of the fluids that were congealing all over him and staining him red that slowly faded into old blood brown. He twitched his skin, flicked his ears, shook his head, but they persisted. So he tuned them out, like he tuned out the sight of his father’s body, stiffening limbs splaying and a rictus grin on his face, eyes glazed with death. The fairies called and he had nothing else to do, certainly couldn’t stay and watch his father slowly decompose, or watch scavengers come devour him bit by fleshy bit. So he followed.
The tugging led him across the beach and onto a wide expanse of plains, and he plodded and tripped along, already weary long before he made it to the Mountain. Blood and fluids dried to a crust that coated his skin and hair, flies buzzed around him and followed him the whole way, and still he stumbled forward, putting one tired foot in front of another.
Eventually the Mountain loomed before him, and his eyes filled with dread and exhausted tears at the thought of the climb ahead of him. But they beckoned. And if he stopped, he would have to think, have to wrap his young mind around the horrors that had already befallen him and what worse ones would come. So he kept trudging on, climbing the Mountain one step at a time until he made it to the gathering of fairies and horses. Finally, he let himself stop and catch a breath.
Only to be frowned at and glared at and sent on a journey for only the brave of heart. Help find a cure for some pestilence, whatever that was, and do it without any of the gifts the fairies had so graciously allowed him so far. Gifts like what? he wondered, staring at the one who spoke. Did he wish to strip away the taste of Nocturne’s father’s blood from his mouth? or the thick crust of dried blood and visceral fluids that had matted his coat? Perhaps he wished to take back the smell of death from Nocturne’s nostrils, or the bits of flesh and abdominal fat that clung to his scruff of a mane? The colt didn’t have the energy to snark out loud, and probably that was for the best anyhow.
He had a pond to find, apparently.
Fuck it. With an apathetic shrug, Nocturne stumbled back down the Mountain, one weary, plodding step at a time. He made his descent in the other direction, managing through sheer dumb luck not to trip his way down and break his neck. Was this what life was? One endless journey after another, in search of what certainly seemed like meaningless souvenirs for the powers that be? How futile. Still, a better idea hadn’t occurred to him, and they seemed to think it was terribly important that someone retrieve...frozen stems of water.
He certainly hoped that made sense by the time he got there, or there would be bigger problems than keeping his footing walking down a rocky mountainside. Not to mention the question of how he was supposed to transport frozen stems of water back to them across the sea and along whatever pathway led there and then back up the Mountain. But what of it? What was there but to try?
Forest looked easier than walking up and down the endless mountains of Hyaline, so he picked his weary way through the trees. His thick coating of filth kept other horses at bay, though how he managed not to draw an endless parade of predators was anyone’s guess. Maybe the fairies offered them some kind of protection during their quest, or maybe it was just that the bears were all still deep in hibernation - probably that, given the icy fairy’s admonitions and warning that this journey would be made unaided.
Perhaps there was an upside to the weather that chilled his bones, even if a very small one. Or very imagined.
At any rate, he managed to come out the other side of the forest uneaten, whether by luck or just by being deeply unappetizing, he couldn’t say. He traversed the rocky foothills of Loess, hooves dragging and head drooping with exhaustion but still he powered on. Maybe life was short, just pushing yourself as far as you could before your body gave out and you collapsed to the earth, never to rise again. At least he had a goal, and if he failed? Who would care?
There was no one to miss him anyhow.
The foothills eventually gave way to another forest, this one made of towering trees wider than he was from nose to tail, and spaced nice and far apart so it was easier to walk through. The thick carpet of pine needles felt good on his feet now that the weird rubbery tentacle-like coating had long-since worn off from all this walking. Only trouble was, his tiny newly-spawned feet tended to sink deep into the needles, making his muscles work harder when he was already so damn tired.
Not much farther. It was a damn lie, but he kept telling himself that anyhow, every few steps or so. Not much farther now, only a little longer. Just keep walking, almost there. So close, just a little more. He kept telling himself pretty little lies all through the forest and out onto the stretch of grassy land that was Nerine, and even managed not to break down into more exhausted tears when flat ground stretched out before him for eternity and showed him how very far he had yet to go.
He saw a glimmer of ice and snow in the distance, and made his painstaking way north by northwest toward Nerine’s icy northern shore, keeping half an eye out for a path down to the water. One step at a time, just one more step, keep going for just one more step. Slowly the distance fell behind him, devoured by step after implacable step of his tiny hooves. After a stupid long time, he made it to the tip of Nerine where the two land masses stretched out closest to one another, not even close to touching still but it was the best he was gonna find. He clambered down a path he managed to find that led to a frigid beach where the wind roared in his ears and the waves crashed and washed most of the way up to the cliff face.
Tide was low enough that he could walk along the beach for a few strides before hitting the edge of the water’s reach, and he stared out at the sea, already shaking with cold and exhaustion, wondering if he was going to make it across or if the sea would devour him. But there was nothing for it but to try. So he took a breath to steady his nerves and stepped into the water, wading in with a gasp as the cold sucked the breath from his lungs and set him to shivering straight away. Maybe it would get better though. Maybe he’d get used to the cold and it would be fine.
Or it’d leech all the warmth from his blood and his bones until his heart gave out. Probably one of the two.
He walked deeper into the water until the waves started to lift him from the bottom, until he lost touch with the sand beneath his hooves and started kicking against the water to propel himself forward instead. So. Cold. He was so cold he could barely breathe, could barely keep his head above water. Couldn’t, in some cases. A stray wave crashed over his head now and again, leaving him scrambling for the surface and sucking air desperately into lungs that felt frozen solid.
At least it washed his father’s crusted, dried blood from his coat, leaving him a softly-shining pathetic drowned moonrat instead of a massacre painted red and brown. He struggle forward, fighting the waves, wondering with every desperate breath if the sea would claim him before he could touch ground again. It seemed though that the sea didn’t want him any more than the rest of the world did, and it spat him back out on an icy shore, leaving him shaking and shivering and barely able to support his own weight as he dragged himself out of the sea and onto the farthest eastern edge of the frozen wasteland of an island.
He sure hoped the fairies knew what the fuck they were doing, 'cause he didn't have a clue.
He frowned, raising his tiny head and looking around at what remained of his father, the one who had whispered to him as he grew, whose heartbeat and murmurs had been the soundtrack of his gestation, comfort and warmth and safety wrapped around him and holding him close. He had crooned delicious, wicked things in Nocturne’s sleeping ears, given him a name both to honor and to spite his grandmother, made him promises of how they’d win daddy over now, keep him forever. Nocturne’s existence would fix what had broken between them when they had split in the womb, and everything would be right again.
Everything would be as it should.
But his father was dead, blood still running from the gut wound that had birthed Nocturne and set him sprawling out onto the grass with blood staining his soft moonlight-pale baby coat. His eyes widened, heart racing as panic flooded him for the first time, and he jerked upright, limbs flailing as he fought to control them, fought to make them obey. He threw himself against his father’s corpse, trying to wake him, trying to bring him back. He was supposed to be there, tucked inside his father’s belly, which was absolutely not supposed to be gaping open like that.
When that didn’t revive his father, Nocturne keened softly and crawled back inside amidst the organs and fluids that had always cushioned him so far, cradled him and kept him safe. He bit one edge of his father’s torn-open belly wound and tugged it back down over himself, trying to drag it back together, to put the pieces of his father back together but it didn’t help. A soft whimper escaped his throat and he curled in on himself, rocking and shaking and making a soft, high-pitched whine as he closed his eyes against this sick nightmare the world had become. The tight fetal position did nothing to comfort him, but he tried anyhow, curled up inside his father’s body as it cooled until his teeth began to chatter and the flesh around him began to stiffen, rigor mortis claiming his corpse and making it less comfortable.
He might have stayed longer, defiant and with nowhere else to go, but the fairy’s call reached into his chest and tugged him forward, sent him tumbling out of his nest of blood and guts and bone and sprawling once again on the filthy bloodstained grass. Flies buzzed around them - him - and settled on his skin, making a meal of the fluids that were congealing all over him and staining him red that slowly faded into old blood brown. He twitched his skin, flicked his ears, shook his head, but they persisted. So he tuned them out, like he tuned out the sight of his father’s body, stiffening limbs splaying and a rictus grin on his face, eyes glazed with death. The fairies called and he had nothing else to do, certainly couldn’t stay and watch his father slowly decompose, or watch scavengers come devour him bit by fleshy bit. So he followed.
The tugging led him across the beach and onto a wide expanse of plains, and he plodded and tripped along, already weary long before he made it to the Mountain. Blood and fluids dried to a crust that coated his skin and hair, flies buzzed around him and followed him the whole way, and still he stumbled forward, putting one tired foot in front of another.
Eventually the Mountain loomed before him, and his eyes filled with dread and exhausted tears at the thought of the climb ahead of him. But they beckoned. And if he stopped, he would have to think, have to wrap his young mind around the horrors that had already befallen him and what worse ones would come. So he kept trudging on, climbing the Mountain one step at a time until he made it to the gathering of fairies and horses. Finally, he let himself stop and catch a breath.
Only to be frowned at and glared at and sent on a journey for only the brave of heart. Help find a cure for some pestilence, whatever that was, and do it without any of the gifts the fairies had so graciously allowed him so far. Gifts like what? he wondered, staring at the one who spoke. Did he wish to strip away the taste of Nocturne’s father’s blood from his mouth? or the thick crust of dried blood and visceral fluids that had matted his coat? Perhaps he wished to take back the smell of death from Nocturne’s nostrils, or the bits of flesh and abdominal fat that clung to his scruff of a mane? The colt didn’t have the energy to snark out loud, and probably that was for the best anyhow.
He had a pond to find, apparently.
Fuck it. With an apathetic shrug, Nocturne stumbled back down the Mountain, one weary, plodding step at a time. He made his descent in the other direction, managing through sheer dumb luck not to trip his way down and break his neck. Was this what life was? One endless journey after another, in search of what certainly seemed like meaningless souvenirs for the powers that be? How futile. Still, a better idea hadn’t occurred to him, and they seemed to think it was terribly important that someone retrieve...frozen stems of water.
He certainly hoped that made sense by the time he got there, or there would be bigger problems than keeping his footing walking down a rocky mountainside. Not to mention the question of how he was supposed to transport frozen stems of water back to them across the sea and along whatever pathway led there and then back up the Mountain. But what of it? What was there but to try?
Forest looked easier than walking up and down the endless mountains of Hyaline, so he picked his weary way through the trees. His thick coating of filth kept other horses at bay, though how he managed not to draw an endless parade of predators was anyone’s guess. Maybe the fairies offered them some kind of protection during their quest, or maybe it was just that the bears were all still deep in hibernation - probably that, given the icy fairy’s admonitions and warning that this journey would be made unaided.
Perhaps there was an upside to the weather that chilled his bones, even if a very small one. Or very imagined.
At any rate, he managed to come out the other side of the forest uneaten, whether by luck or just by being deeply unappetizing, he couldn’t say. He traversed the rocky foothills of Loess, hooves dragging and head drooping with exhaustion but still he powered on. Maybe life was short, just pushing yourself as far as you could before your body gave out and you collapsed to the earth, never to rise again. At least he had a goal, and if he failed? Who would care?
There was no one to miss him anyhow.
The foothills eventually gave way to another forest, this one made of towering trees wider than he was from nose to tail, and spaced nice and far apart so it was easier to walk through. The thick carpet of pine needles felt good on his feet now that the weird rubbery tentacle-like coating had long-since worn off from all this walking. Only trouble was, his tiny newly-spawned feet tended to sink deep into the needles, making his muscles work harder when he was already so damn tired.
Not much farther. It was a damn lie, but he kept telling himself that anyhow, every few steps or so. Not much farther now, only a little longer. Just keep walking, almost there. So close, just a little more. He kept telling himself pretty little lies all through the forest and out onto the stretch of grassy land that was Nerine, and even managed not to break down into more exhausted tears when flat ground stretched out before him for eternity and showed him how very far he had yet to go.
He saw a glimmer of ice and snow in the distance, and made his painstaking way north by northwest toward Nerine’s icy northern shore, keeping half an eye out for a path down to the water. One step at a time, just one more step, keep going for just one more step. Slowly the distance fell behind him, devoured by step after implacable step of his tiny hooves. After a stupid long time, he made it to the tip of Nerine where the two land masses stretched out closest to one another, not even close to touching still but it was the best he was gonna find. He clambered down a path he managed to find that led to a frigid beach where the wind roared in his ears and the waves crashed and washed most of the way up to the cliff face.
Tide was low enough that he could walk along the beach for a few strides before hitting the edge of the water’s reach, and he stared out at the sea, already shaking with cold and exhaustion, wondering if he was going to make it across or if the sea would devour him. But there was nothing for it but to try. So he took a breath to steady his nerves and stepped into the water, wading in with a gasp as the cold sucked the breath from his lungs and set him to shivering straight away. Maybe it would get better though. Maybe he’d get used to the cold and it would be fine.
Or it’d leech all the warmth from his blood and his bones until his heart gave out. Probably one of the two.
He walked deeper into the water until the waves started to lift him from the bottom, until he lost touch with the sand beneath his hooves and started kicking against the water to propel himself forward instead. So. Cold. He was so cold he could barely breathe, could barely keep his head above water. Couldn’t, in some cases. A stray wave crashed over his head now and again, leaving him scrambling for the surface and sucking air desperately into lungs that felt frozen solid.
At least it washed his father’s crusted, dried blood from his coat, leaving him a softly-shining pathetic drowned moonrat instead of a massacre painted red and brown. He struggle forward, fighting the waves, wondering with every desperate breath if the sea would claim him before he could touch ground again. It seemed though that the sea didn’t want him any more than the rest of the world did, and it spat him back out on an icy shore, leaving him shaking and shivering and barely able to support his own weight as he dragged himself out of the sea and onto the farthest eastern edge of the frozen wasteland of an island.
He sure hoped the fairies knew what the fuck they were doing, 'cause he didn't have a clue.