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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


    [Colb pony] When the sky above us fell, we descended into hell;
    #1

    Beneath the glittering surface of the water she hears the ebb and flow of the tide, hears the clicks and calls of creatures that few have ever seen, and more so she can piece together the sudden turns of fish and beast: the vibrations tickling her skin. Yet these are not her waters, these are sunny and bright: laden with bait-fish that form massive shoals and tantalize seal and shark, dolphins and whales. Hers are deeper, darker and colder… a place where pressure threatens her bones and muscle, and where she can heart the cracks of the earth beneath the sea.

    Leviathans bones and Kraken beaks little the floor amidst broken shells and ash, and all the light is gone: only cold and black water, only the feeling of eye and the reflections of colors dancing in the distances… the bioluminescence fading in time. She dreams here, wanders and sleeps: dreams and imagine the great bones as skyscrapers and all the world as a city of madness and ominous sleep. The non-euclidean geometry is too impossibly perfect in its form, and the streets glitter with dried blood and mother of pearl.

    Barnacles and algae, the watery kelp stretching… she dreams of it: of the place where the Stone rests and all the darkness whispers profanities and heresy.

    Yet, she is dreaming again, her eyes closed and mind roving as she moves through leaves and brush- through vines and nettle. Ancient and impenetrable, the forest is calm: sunlight piercing the canopy and Yidhra forced to endure as its light touches and burns the porous and hairless skin. Watery and wet she gleans, the mist and fog aiding in this; but she smells of salt and of the sand. Displaced and curious the Kraken-esque mare allows the mass of tentacles where her tail should be to grasp and tug- to root out leaf and grass, and flower… feeling, smelling, and tasting all at once.

    Those on her shoulder reach higher to place frosted leaf and fruit: to brush the mass along her neck into place as she skirts through the wintery depths of the primordial forest and finds herself entirely fascinated by all the newness of her senses. Insomuch that, for the moment, she cannot hear the crushing of snow drifts and fragile brier… the dull thudding hooves that carry someone closer and closer.

    When she turns the appendages on her face sink and Yidhra exposes the glossy beak beneath, chattering and clacking it together in a snapping sound the mimics laughter. “Oh, hello.” she speaks, smoke and heady: her voice is deep and touched by an accent lost to time. “Dreaming? Or awake?” she muses, considering her newest guest. 

    Yidhra



    @[Colby]
    Reply
    #2
    you were a vision in the morning
    when the light came through,
    i know i've only felt religion when i've lied with you ;

    ______________________

    Even though it hurt to breathe, her wanderlust could not be stifled. She was restless, perhaps even more so than usual. She was already so tired of being sick, and the illness had hardly begun. Her body was rebelling against itself, her lungs feeling heavy with the fluid and infection that was festering inside of them, but she still stood on trembling legs beneath a thickly branched tree in the forest. Snowflakes fluttered around her, clinging to strands of mane and delicate lashes as she blinks them away, and she watches in silence as they collect on the ground. She coughs, a horrendous and deep sound, sending small droplets of blood that stain the white snow. Trying not to look at it, she leaves her post beneath the tree, slowly beginning the journey back to Nerine.

    She does not make it far.

    With fever-glossed eyes she blinks, unsure if what she was seeing was real, or perhaps a result of delirium. The gold-blazed filly was born in Beqanna, but in the two years of her life, she realized she had only been exposed to the glittering and vibrant creatures; the wings and metallic markings, the shimmering scales and the dream makers. Others, as the mare before her, were made of darker things. She has not met the skeletons and demons, the poisonous and the ominous. She is not sure, yet, if this creature is any of those things, but she watches the twisting tentacles, listens to the clacking of a beak, and thinks that, maybe, she is in the midst of a feverish dream.

    ”Um....hi.” It is not often that the blue roan filly is at a loss for words. It is even rarer that she does not want to immediately touch someone — their wings, their scales, their shiny markings — but, unable to take her eyes from the writhing appendages (did they have a mind of their own?), she thinks better of it. The mare asks a question, but she is not sure if it is directed at her, or if the kraken-creature was musing it aloud to herself, though it is fitting because it’s exactly what she is also wondering. ”My name is Chryseis,” Her sweet voice is courser than usual, and she fights to muffle a cough as she speaks. There is a part of her that knows she should be quiet and not ask questions, but in her weak and illness induced hysteria she has less control of her mouth than usual. ”What are those?” She extends a delicate muzzle, reaching towards a suction cup lined limb, though she does not touch. There is not a trace of disgust or fear in her young voice, but instead, only an inquisitive eagerness.

    chryseis.
    and i'm still waking every morning but it's not with you


    @[Yidhra]
    Reply
    #3

    Children are creatures of wonder, and of unadulterated emotion: of an innocence that… even when their souls are blackened and rent with fury or sorrow: they may yet proposer and grow from it. A unspoiled fruit in bitter soil.

    These, perhaps, are her weakness: children.

    Noah had been the first to show that, and she thinks every day of how she plunged between the girl and her father: how she demanded the illy run, all so she could carry task and purpose out; but no matter, Chryseis is not Noah- she is a child, though, and Yidhra sees this as her shape manifests and as her form becomes something of a reality in this place where she feels herself dreaming.

    Slowly the spattered gray mare draws herself up to full height and stature, not to intimidate; but to be wholly visible, and she turns herself slowly and allows the watery porous flesh to glean in what light it can. She looks like a rock- black and blue, smattered with a gray dusting of frost; but more alarming are the otherwordly features and kraken-esque nature of her shape.

    With brilliant teal eyes the barbel shaped irises narrow into little more than paper thin black slits and the orange flecks brighten as she watches the girl coming closer and closer. Prey in the depths is like this, hapless and fumbling: drawn to bioluminescent flickers or ambushed from the inky black reaches and impossible shadows; but this girl speaks and Yidhra tilts her head a moment: not prey.

    The tendrils on her face slowly stretch and begin to take shape of an almost v-like or triangular form and they hand over the chitinous black beak: hiding it. The fleshy limbs where her tail should be writhe as they please and curl around the grasses and snow: around rock and plant… she tastes them and feels their textures in the suctioning cups, and yes- she even smells the earthy and floral nature of them.

    Her neck is no different but those cling off and on with themselves: with her skin, and slowly, as testing the air between them Yidhra lifts the paddle-shaped tentacles on her shoulders and into the air- away from Chryseis at first but then slowly she drops the left one just beneath the girls chin and turns the side of it as she seeks to stroke the bottom of her jaw whilst the right tentacle extends to her her nose.

    The points end curling slightly as she presses the suction cups down upon her girl’s nose, gently attaching to the velveteen before releasing and rather boldly tickling the end of it. “Chryseis.” she confirms, unavoidably her words while toned with smoke and a deep husky voice and the rich, ancient accent: but more so the clattering of her beak likes beneath the pointed tentacles of her maw. “These are to me what might be to you… legs, a nose, teeth, and more. You must be unfamiliar with the great seas and its vast depths?” she asks without malice, with only curiosity.

    Formality, however, interrupts her thoughts and Yidhra recalls with some concern that this girl knows nothing of her name or nature: knows nothing of the leviathan manifested in shape. 

    She would smile, if she could; but when she tries there is only a clicking sound made by her beak in what might have been the softest mockery or parody of laughter she could perform. “I am… Yee Tho Rah- Yidhra.” she elaborates, states it twice, not because she believes her incapable; but the ancient accent and waterlogged voice are crude things.

    A tendril is taken back and the remaining reaches again to brush the forelock of the girl- to keep it from her eyes and pat her gently as if it were a hand or a tender touch from a nose. “You are ill, I am terribly sorry- I hope your symptoms are not long a burden to you.”

    Concern, or a mimic of it fills her words, and considers the girl with intrigue.

    Yidhra



    @[Chryseis]
    Reply
    #4
    you were a vision in the morning
    when the light came through,
    i know i've only felt religion when i've lied with you ;

    ______________________

    She does not waver beneath the sea-mare’s scrutiny, for she still felt hazy with fever and sickness. Her brain is sluggish to trigger any sort of warning, and she hardly can muster the strength to flinch at the sight of the tentacles reaching towards her. Her glossy brown eyes cannot stray from the mare’s face, even as the alien-like appendages stroke against her skin. However, when one such suction cup attaches to her nose, and then gently pops off, it elicits a snort of  surprise, and she falters backwards a step.

    There is a moment of clarity in her eyes, the start seeming to have roused her for a moment from her fevered, trance-like state. The surprise quickly wears off, as a smile breaks across her dark lips along with a raspy laugh, ”That tickled.”

    Her trust is won far too easily, and not only because she is feeling weak and ill. Chryseis is fearless only in the way a child can be; she thinks herself invincible, that even though death is a real thing, it is still untouchable for her. Much like the kelpie stallion, she fails to see the threat the mare might really be, especially not when her words seem so friendly.

    She questions her knowledge on the ocean, and Chryseis shakes her head. ”I grew up in the mountains. I have hardly seen the ocean at all, truthfully.” Many of the oceans myths are foreign to her; kelpies and sirens she knows, but most other legends she has never heard of. Her body shudders, then, with another cough, turning her head away from the sea-mare in effort to keep the blood from spraying in her direction. She turns back to her, her brown eyes watery from the exertion of her coughing spasm. ”It’s just a cold, I’m pretty sure.” She feigns a smile as crimson blood trickles from her nose, dripping to land on the ground below.  

    chryseis.
    and i'm still waking every morning but it's not with you


    @[Yidhra]
    Reply
    #5

    Chryseis laughs and Yidhra smiles, in her own way, the beak beneath the mass chattering and chirping: the sound of the chitinous plates muffled by the tendrils on the end of her face. Still she watches her step back, and notices the way the girl sways and moves: how graceful she is even in sickness. Yet Yidhra feels it too, she is not absent the effects and while hairless: her skin is laden with heat and feverish shuddering at times, and while she watches Chryseis’ nose spattered in blood-the jettison of her sneeze… the Kraken tastes her blood on the radula of her tongue. 

    “Reall? I could tell you a story,” she comments in the aftermath: waiting a moment before slowly drawing her arm-tentacles back and folding them across her chest. “It is something very familiar to me, something that many are aware of; but little know about truly.” shrugging at the notion of it, Yidhra clears her throat. 

    “Beneath the surface of the water, you can often find the glittering shallows where sunlight brightens the great coral gardens and beds of anemone and fish. The stretch for a time and here and there you’ll see silvery dolphins, and shoals of all different colored life: perhaps even catch a glimpse the tiny insect-like creatures wandering to and fro: the stars that move and are alive.”

    Pausing and idle, she drifts and fades: feels the world around her rippling and tangible it ways it should not be; but Chryseis demands her attention and she focuses on the girl: watches and takes note of her- idly studying and contemplating the reality of this child. “Beyond this is a great ridge, where the water becomes black and impossible thick: so cold that only a few creatures can travel these depths. There slumber giant beasts whose teeth are sharp and dangerous- whose tentacles, like my own, reach out and grasp things that swim. Leviathans and krakens, and great sharks: strange songs they all sing, and there is something more.”

    Looking to the side she reaches a tentacle out and grasps a flower: bending and plying it from the brush before placing it on Chryseis’ mane: twining it in. “Tentacles and hairless flesh, bodies impossible to imagine: shapes you have never seen nor dreamed of; but it was one of these creatures who slept for quite a long time and then awoke one day to find that all around them the world had changed. It sighed and longed for company, but found nothing: and so it slithered about in search of others; but the Kraken would not befriend it- nor the Leviathan, or the shark. All ran and fled from it, afraid that it would eat them.”

    Crossing her tentacles once more she shook her head slowly and tenderly. “So it came to the shallows, hoping to find a friend: and all the beasts fled too… and in despair it brought itself onto the beach and cried out: will no one be my friend? There it met a girl- fearless and mighty, and she answered- she would be its friend. They played, and played- and when night came the creature watched the girl leave to go slumber. It begged the moon to give it a shape to be better suited for the world- it begged every star  and every rock, and every tree: it cried and wailed.”

    She pauses to breathe.

    “And then from the darkness the shadows between the stars answered: it would give her shape, and she became like the girl- thus they were unite again, playing and free. Not a very good story, I know.” she’d have grinned by she cannot, and instead she lingers- thinking of the end: of the tale, and the truth.

    Yidhra



    @[Chryseis]
    Reply
    #6
    you were a vision in the morning
    when the light came through,
    i know i've only felt religion when i've lied with you ;

    ______________________

    Any apprehension she had about the peculiar mare vanishes. She is both too weak from the fever, and also too intrigued to think anymore of it. She can see that the mare is offering her form of a smile, and it makes Chryseis smile in return, the blood that dripped from her nose having slowly begun to dry to a dark red. Her cough has settled for the time being, and she is able to relax and focus on Yidhra, if only for a moment.

    Her new companion seems surprised at her ignorance of the ocean and it’s mysteries, and she can do nothing but smile sheepishly, with a slight roll of her shoulder that resembled a shrug. Before she can say anything else, the offer of a story is laid before her, and immediately her small ears prick forward.

    She is silent as the kraken-esque mare weaves her tale, her dark brown eyes growing wide with wonder. It is easy for her to imagine the darkness that she describes, but she is not sure if she can fathom it. But she has explored dark caves of Hyaline, and has descended so deep into the hearts of mountains that light did not reach. She thinks that the ocean might be the same, but without having ever experienced it, it’s difficult to grasp.

    If she coughed at all during the narrative, she doesn’t notice it; she is too focused on the mare’s words to remember her illness. She isn’t sure if it was meant to make her feel this way, but her story leaves a feeling of sorrow in her heart as it comes to an end. She takes a step forward, a curious tilt to her head as she asks inquisitively, ”Was it you? Did you come from the ocean?”

    chryseis.
    and i'm still waking every morning but it's not with you


    @[Yidhra]
    Reply
    #7

    “I did,” she confirms: wordless and blinking- considering the truth in it. She had spoken of it long ago and to a few, often a cautionary warning of magic and Gods; but- in this moment the child is fearless and she steps towards Yidhra in a manner that reminds her Kalleis’ golden hair and her inquisitive nature. “I was not always a creature of the sea though.” she adds, allowing a single tendrils to reach out in an attempt to brush the girl’s cheek in an affectionate manner.

    Takes a breath: she relaxes. “Where I was born, many centuries ago- hundreds of years. Perhaps thousands… my brothers and sisters all had great dark wings and our patron deity was a Raven whose cleverness could be rivaled. I felt, back then, that I was undeserving of my wings and so I shattered them- I broken every bone and tore them from my body. I left, too, walked the vast and endless world until I heard something.”

    She swallows a lump in her throat.

    “It was fragment of stone: a shard, part of a creature so old and timeless that it had no end to its power and twice I served it as a keeper, mother, and protector. I was given shape as a reward: mutable and molded into a creature like this but more. For a long time I hunted the oceans, stalked prey and lived a life tormented by the deeds I had done. No one would be my companion, and none would heed the warning I had to give; but then I came here, I stood on the shore and saw others.” Yidhra thinks about it, shaking her head softly.

    “I have no companions still; but there is a fear of me, of what it means that a monster has come ashore- but you? My Darling little girl, you have no fear: and I see a sparkle in you that none else possessed… Chryseis: princess.”

    In the moment she can see the reflection of Kalleis in the girl, see the flame and spark: all the fire she had… and Yidhra feels a pang of guilt and misery, a sorrow in her heart that is heavy and burdened. Like a blow struck on an old wound she can feel the pain and agony: the regret. Part of her wants to take the child, run and protect her; but she thinks of her enemies- of her allies, and she ponders if even they would stay their violent nature.

    They would not.

    Rue is her nature, magic and the consequences of it, and Yidhra thinks for a moment before speaking again. “Darling girl, do not strain yourself in feverish haze, you may need rest: it is often an ill-advised thing to go wandering about when you are sick.”

    Yidhra



    @[Chryseis]
    Reply
    #8
    you were a vision in the morning
    when the light came through,
    i know i've only felt religion when i've lied with you ;

    ______________________

    If there had been an ounce of apprehension still left in her, it is chased away by the gentle touch of the tentacle-appendage against her cheek. Still so naive, and so desperate to believe everyone is good, her doubts are easily soothed by the story-telling mare, and even if the fever is leaving her vision blurry and her mind hazy, she still manages to smile at her new companion as she accepts the kind gesture.

    But there is a frown that mars her pretty face at the next part to her story, where she broke and tore off her own wings. It makes her think of her Rhae’s wings — the silken feathers that she was so fond of touching, and how as a little girl they had been the first thing she noticed about him — and the idea of someone, or himself, destroying them made her heart clench, for him and for the sea-mare, too. But she doesn’t say anything, only watches her with a quiet contemplation, listening to the tale she has woven in silence.

    It is a tremulous smile she offers her, when she comments on how she seems to be fearless. Chryseis does not think herself fearless or brave — a little foolish, perhaps, but hardly brave. Something stirs inside of her though, a desperate need to make the mare with such a troubled past to not feel so alone. She closes the gap in between them, pressing her fever-hot body into her side, ignoring the writhing tentacles as she says softly, ”I’m your friend, Yidhra.” There is something a little delirious about her laugh, the way it trembles from her lips and she shakes her head in disagreement to part of the statement, ”I’m not that special, though. I’m nothing, actually.” Beqanna is full of legends and powerful horses, ones that make a difference and etch their names in history — some permanently, and some only for a short time before their names are forgotten. Chryseis doesn’t think herself likely to fall in either category, but the gold-blazed girl is determined to make her mark somewhere, on someone.

    She touches her satin-soft muzzle to her companion’s neck, sniffling back blood that begins to drip from her nose. ”I’m full of not good ideas,” It is said with a wry smile, emitting a laugh that turns into a cough. ”Nerine has been quiet, though, and Icicle Isle was too cold right now.” With a curious tilt of her head, she asks her friend, ”Where do you live, Yidhra? You can come to Nerine with me.”

    chryseis.
    and i'm still waking every morning but it's not with you


    @[Yidhra]
    Reply




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