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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


    slowly did not speak another word, pengs
    #1
    She remembers Silver Cove more vividly than most other places, she realizes as she slinks across the borders. The winter wind, coming off the tide, isn’t as harsh when it caresses her cheek as it is in the meadows. A lazy housecat sort of smirk curls across her lips as she watches the reflection of the moon on the water in the cove. A trail of dried blood runs down from her nostrils but she doesn’t seem to mind once her hooves touch the ancient sand. Home, she thinks as she breaths deep the smells she thought she had forgotten.
     
    Within her womb, an unborn son kicks weakly in protest of her simply standing still. He seemed to prefer being rocked by the steady rhythm of her steps. She smiles a little more and turns her head to look at the swell of her stomach. Somehow, even after giving birth and bring pregnant so many times, she still believed there was some small magic in creating life. The miracle of it all could never be lost on someone like her. She sighs slowly and turns back toward the hills that make up the rest of the cove, content with seeing the sea again.
     
    The contractions had started a few hours ago and she knew it wouldn’t be long before her youngest child entered the world. She lowers herself to the ground carefully, groaning as her aching joints protest the movement while she’s still so ill. Mordgeld has never had a child born premature, she realizes, but she tries to keep her breathing steady and relaxed for her son’s sake. Once she’s laying on her side, she coughs a bit from the pressure on her lungs and begins to push. The plague makes her body hurt so much more than it normally might but she fights the way it aches in her hips. Her eyes focus on the indigo clouds easing across the night sky, miles from this pain and disease. The moon slowly crawls toward the other horizon as she continues her labor.
     
    Sweat makes her coat glisten in the moonlight before she gives one final push. Mordgeld lifts her tired head and rolls onto her belly so she can look at the newborn boy, all legs and slick mane. But he doesn’t cry out as most others do. Her instinct drives her up onto her hooves despite her weak muscles and she begins to clean him, nudging his sweet face anxiously.
     
    Nyctelios, you have to cough. You have to breathe,” she whispers gently against his cheek. The mother runs her nose up his spine to encourage him and she does her best to be patient. She’d only ever lost one child before and it had devastated her. Her nameless daughter had never even opened her eyes. She blinks away the tears forming in her dark eyes and kisses the tiny child’s forehead once more. “You have to try, sweet baby.

    MordgelD
    i am the dragon breathing fire.
    beautiful man, i'm the lion.
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    #2
    Kagerus
    { and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

    In the absence of my wife and in the excess of time I have discovered I have due to the quiet that has settled across the Cove, I have taken to some interesting habits to pass the time. Though my dreamweaving is now as much a part of me as Panthera, there are still intricacies and nuances to learn about the strange magic every day; I have dreamt the sky to be spectacular colours, I have dreamt sea monsters into the lakes, and I have dreamt hope into the hearts of my people. Though these effects last only for minutes upon awakening, they are as real as anything I know: for those few minutes, the sky is blood red and proud; those sea creatures have stories to tell me that I can only imagine; and those people may choose to embrace the hope given to them, to take it and run with it.

    Lately, I have discovered sleep walking.

    The lucidity required for this type of dreaming is uncomfortable, and for the first while while I practiced, I would struggle not to simply wake up or to not simply fall into a sleep too deep for walking. The line for this trick is fine, and without any sort of impetus for it, it remains finicky. But even as it frustrates me and leads me to stomp and mutter curses, it is a task I can work on, that I can improve on, and that keeps my mind busy on other things instead of on how incredibly in danger my wife is.

    We, too, have had an early birth; Aegean, the miracle child. Solace stayed here with him at first, leaving him only when absolutely necessary (a fact which is not entirely obscene considering that I am able to replenish the child's stomach in dreams), but she has been gone more and more. And Aegean, too.

    I am sleep walking, when a consciousness bumps into mine.

    It is young, and barely founded - a slate as blank as unseeing eyes. I draw closer to it, intrigued by the way it smells so new and so otherworldly, as if having come from a dark, secretive place. Physically, my body turns to directly approach the mother-son pair, the impetus of the child enough to secure my walking dream. I am in no way conscious at this time, but instead subject to the whims of my subconscious mind pressing its wills unto my physical form.

    Cough. Breathe. Try.

    The words sound hazy, as if the being I am encountering doesn't quite understand them; they are not his thoughts, but rather his interpretation of something just outside of his realm of consciousness. Worried now, my connection with the creature thins, the lack of oxygen reaching the foal's brain causing both of our dreams to shudder and fade. Panicking now, and still some ways from the pair, I press as much energy and want and will to live into the mind of the foal as I possibly can.

    Try! Try! Try!

    All grows dark.

    My eyes open at last as I stop just before the tall black woman, heart pounding as I look to the child; but he breathes now (hacking, really), and I release a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. Shivering, I forget myself for a moment and simply stare at the child, dumbfounded by the amount of luck it had taken for me to find him at the perfect time.

    Perhaps he would have pulled through himself, perhaps I had nothing to do with it; either way, I am grateful that the newborn will at least have a chance at this existence.

    Jolting, I realize myself. Clearing my throat, I crane my neck to look into the eyes of the magnificent creature before me; despite being disheveled by the plague, she retains an undeniable air of elegance and authority, and something else that I can't quite trace. Licking my lips, I exhale slowly before introducing myself.

    "I am Kagerus, the Caretaker of Silver Cove, head kingdom of The Sanctuary." I wince slightly at the formality my mouth chose to go with. Shivering, I look again to the boy, hoping to readjust my countenance before the mare chases me away from her foal for being an imposition. "You have a strong son."



    I took a liberty here and if you have any issues with it I am ABSOLUTELY willing to take it down!
    [Image: kag]
    dreamweaver
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    #3
    Pulse, verve, gentle thumping: the world is warm, it is wet- and it is so very strange. Alien in the way that there is no light, but there are suggestions of shaped in the darkness: there is limb bumping into limb and body twisting amidst a viscous nothingness. Safe, this world is safe.

    Yet? It is not a lonely one- no, instead there is something else, someone else. He does not know who or what: how to speak or communicate, he knows only the vague traces of his own hoofs and their bizarre and fleshy growths. Still he knows someone else is there, he can feel it.

    Not the heartbeat, but the wild emotions and serenity, and the warmth of another’s curiosity and life… yet in the instant he begins to feel something new- some piercing, overwhelming fear: light and cold, the rush of chaos and misery… as he feels it, so too does he experience it in his own right.

    Darkness abates where there is light and tension, muscle and flesh: it is cold he feels suddenly, and a big wide world of air and strange forms and life. Nyctelios- he hears this name, but more so he feels the biting chill of the Cove and Winter: of the chaos from the other person inside his mind… and he find himself strangely afflicted then.

    Kagerus is an invader where Brazen was comfortable: and she presses her dream into his mind in a way that forces him to shake and to shudder: to spasm and cough- blood and fluid on the rocks, and his first breaths drawn painfully as the boy screams.

    Not the scream of a child coming to life; but that of mortal terror and fear: the sound of someone whose life yet hangs in the balance.

    Those eyes tear open and the dark color is almost a void of black as the irises are utterly end to end, and his body spasms again: exhaustion, and fatigue.

    Weakness.

    When the scream dies down his head goes to the ground and his body rests: shivering uncontrollably as he warbles and whimpers: cries out names and words he cannot know- ”Brazen…”

    He feels her, safe- comfortable: serene where he is frightened. Touch does not wholly comfort him, encouragement and warmth: but it focuses him, and he stares up at the woman: at Mordgeld, she smells like him.

    Wobbly and unbalanced he struggles to move, to force his weak muscles to come to action; but his accomplishment is, for now, to lean and sit: to stretch the gangly limbs and look around: she’s not here; but he feels her.

    “Breathe.” he murmurs. “Nyctelios breathe.” imitations of Mordgeld’s own words; but, nonetheless he is… and to his horror, there are others and he stares hard and long at Kagerus and her form- unaware of what to do.
    PVP: On
    Severe Injury, Permanent Mutilation, and Death Permitted.
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    #4
    In them, there is sense of strange air- a touch of heaviness so palpable that Tithe finds himself choking and having trouble breathing. Tindalos says little, only seeks to ease the pain of the moment; but it’s a bizarre notion of time that resonates and he turns away: sets to where the Cover is at its most bizarre… to the place where the world is split between a dream and the void.


    He is there before the birth, waiting a bit away as to make sure the much larger mare is comfortable: pacing and walking, idly minding brush and rock as he converses with Tithe and dutifully waits- patient and eager: nervous. Those world is dark, yet, he feels little fear or issue and even the cold is bearable when he feels the body of his lover pressing against himself.


    It is not by any means a thing they maintain long, no, instead they only do so until there is a sudden movement in the corner of the eye, a shadow that seems impossible bright and brilliant- that brings with it the scent of earth and spice, of herbs and faraway. Drawn to the curiosity of this moment they walk and slither: wind together and approach the scene with slow steps and weary hearts.


    He screams, they feel terror and worry: Tindalos moving forward suddenly and inspecting the area with all the paternal eagerness and willingness to fight he musters; but Tithe is still there when Kagerus appears through the dream and he scoffs immediately and with all the attention bid to her.


    It is not malice, but, it is something dark: perhaps blame or perhaps some irritation.


    Tindalos, too, steadies himself and he places himself very suddenly between Kagerus and the child, and Mordgeld.


    Silence is their preference for the moment, listening in with patience- until of course Tithe, some feet to the side of Kagerus huffs. He is effeminate in tone, almost soft and maternal; but with a lingering accent that formerly belonged to the residents of the Taiga.


    “Sanctuary, ah- you are with the lot that came from Hyaline- slightly south west… near Pangea. Dangerous territory.” observational commentary but enough to force Tindalos to glance back with concern at Mordgeld and Nyctelios.


    He speaks with the proverbial rumble and gruffness of any unamused father, ears leaning forward and notable widened in stance- postured in a way that for the moment he seems taller. “You’ve come at quite the time Kagerus. For all of us.” simplistic enough he maintains a regional accent of the old Pangean sound.

    @[Kagerus]  @[Mordgeld]
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