"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
Nerine became more stifling with every passing day. Against all odds, the arrival of more family members discouraged the matriarch from her usual position as second-in-command; perhaps not directly because of their blood relation, but because each of them could lay claim to her person without a second thought. While admittedly devoted to her role in the kingdom and in her family (for now, anyway), every passing day brought on more and more deviance in the once-Khaleesi’s behaviours.
She’d fallen in love with another man and birthed him a daughter, only to realize that she had used his friendship as a bandaid for the gaping wound which stretched across the sensitive tissues of her heart.
She’d allowed Nerine to fall into shambles at the turn of the year, watching as everyone failed to find guidance and thus dissolved into the insanity brought on by the onslaught of the contagion.
She’d failed not only as a wife, but as an Amazonian, too; but her question, these days, is whether a woman can be a wife without a husband, and whether a woman can be an Amazon without a jungle.
Deviance grew potent in her veins; she needed an out.
Without Blue by her side to care for, and conveniently without one of the many creatures who, as I said, could lay claim to her (Leilan, Sarkis, Breckin, Brennen, Eurwen, Nalia, Ardashir, and the list goes on), she struck out to find just that. Initially, she gave no thought to identifying just what this out might look like; but on the other hand, why should she give a damn?
Whatever she was looking for would find her, be it today or tomorrow or on the eve of her second death. She didn’t care; she just wanted to breathe.
When she halted, she quietly took a moment to ground herself, head slowly pivoting atop the vertebrae of her neck. She’d just skirted the Loessian border, she decided, and had landed up directly north of the ocean. Yearning to see it, though she couldn’t fathom why, the mutilated creature crept out of the shade of the forest, and sunk her hooves deftly into the grey-sand beach she found opposite it.
Little did she know that as she stood once more in the place of her reunion with Brunhild, that a life burrowed itself within her now. She had her suspicions, and in fact she felt certain that a pure-blood Amazon grew within her; but for now, she kept that secret to herself, not wanting even more attention upon herself as her levels of infidelity grew higher and higher.
it's a guarantee that he won't forget me. my body little, my soul heavy.
Stuck in her head, way up in clouds, as per usual. Though one could not call her distance “in the clouds,” could they? Naia is drifting like a haunt through her own personal hell. Having exhausted all of her resources, she droops: head low, neck tense, ears dipping forward in a solemn way that morbidly resembles a puppy.
“I wish I was in the clouds,” she whispers fervently to herself, tucking her nose to her shoulder and shutting her eyes against the tears that want to flood. The girl finds herself thinking of death far too much these days.
She remembers thinking about launching herself from a Nerinian cliff.
She remembers how later she stood on the cliff’s edge with gasping breathe and heaving chest.
She wishes she could wipe her brain clean.
Wandering is simply all she does now - restless within and without Nerine. Perhaps one day she will face the music, ask her father for a repaired relationship, get to know his new wife and kids. The girl gulps, untucking her nose and continuing her slow, aimless walk.
The scent of another draws Naia’s head to a more energetic height. She glances around her, spotting a pinkish gray creature lingering amongst the trees. Her first thought is to turn away, but - like always - the idea of turning around makes her nauseous. Besides, the mare has probably already caught wind of the approaching appaloosa. A hissing sigh forces it way between teeth she did not realize were clenched.
“Hello,” she murmurs upon approach, quickly realizing the other is hairless and almost as somber. “Didn’t mean to bother you,” follows quickly.
Of course, it would without doubt be one of her own blood who came trapezing to interrupt her moment of solitude. Not that she could claim regularity in such occurrences, considering how fervently she harboured herself away nowadays, hiding from society and from duty. Where once an urgent need to fulfil her role within her womanly kingdom sat needily in her chest, now only a vacuum lays: absorbing what remained of her innards, rendering her to be a fractional hologram of who she once claimed to be.
The filly approached somberly, barely disturbing the air between them with words far quieter than the rolling ocean not ten feet before them. Scorch flicked a single ear in the girl's direction, initially uninterested in anything the passerby might have to say; but upon her next inhale, the Matriarch identified her companion as distinctly Nerinian, or at least, having once been distinctly Nerinian. The salt-rock scent sat grimily beneath a layer of other scents, a telltale sign of a wanderer; recognizing this, Scorch now craned her wrinkled, hairless neck to peer more closely at the near-woman, scrutinizing every detail of her strangely coloured figure until at last she thought she might have placed her.
The gold and the spots were a dead give away; but in her defense for not having immediately recognized the girl: her son and his wife had only had twins to her knowledge. Obviously, that must have changed.
"Girl," she spoke brusquely, the charred chords of her vocals ringing ugly in the air between them. Her eyes, set wide in her hammer head, blazed a neon green. "Do you not recognize your grandmother when you see her? Breckin and Leilan must be busy, to not have taught you of me." A faint, almost nonexistent smile ghosted across the Amazon's lips; she felt grateful for the girl's interruption now, as her sickly mind managed to focus on something other than her own sins.
The irony, of course, was that she highlighted Leilan's sins in the enunciation of her impulsive, presumptuous thoughts.
02-03-2019, 11:28 PM (This post was last modified: 02-03-2019, 11:28 PM by naia.)
it's a guarantee that he won't forget me. my body little, my soul heavy.
Why the fuck did I not just turn around? No one cares that much. Seriously, Naia, absolutely no one cares that much about you not greeting them. It would have been the lowest tier of rude.
Am I just a fucking masochist? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Countless thoughts race across her mind, over and over again, all screaming the same exact ideas. Tornadoes of bad ideas bring miles of destruction, rendering any ability to form a coherent thought totally useless. Naia’s mind seems to only be a wasteland: where there was once cold naivety there is raw, hidden, festering vulnerability. She shies from its stink, piling flowers that eventually fill her brain with the too-sweet headiness of wilting.
It all rots. All of it. In the end - we all rot.
Her grandmother is quick with her assumptions, a quality the two have already found in common. Air rings in Naia’s ears when she rears her head, both paused halfway to the flat of her neck. Their gazes are a matched fierceness, neon green to glowing brown. The appaloosa rises to the challenge, drilling her new family with equal boldness.
Then suddenly - she laughs.
It starts soft, lips pressed together to suppress the noise, so it is tinkling and low in the back of her throat. Within seconds, though, Naia cannot contain her mirth: she is laughing loudly, previously bold eyes closed to lessen the madness of her spread mouth. The bald woman is shameless in her words, possessing a countenance the appaloosa admires. That thought sobers her. The cackle fades slowly, replaced with glittering eyes and a bitter smirk.
“I’m not sure Breckin even knows who I am yet,” is her first snipe, punctuated by a flighty glance just beyond Scorch. “As for Leilan, he hasn’t gotten the chance to teach me anything.” She does not drag her gaze back to her grandmother’s, instead opting to pass a glazed look into the blurred trees.
A much less crazed chuckle floats lazily from between her lips: “I will say, you are well met. I like you more than my own father, I think.”
02-05-2019, 12:04 AM (This post was last modified: 02-05-2019, 12:04 AM by Scorch.)
WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT
Initially, the girl showed spirit, the toss of her head reaffirmed in its boldness by the way the girl's ears press close to her skull. A skillful presentation of danger, Scorch thought, cocking a brow appreciatively; of course, the facade ends all too quickly, causing the lowering of said brow. But the laughter itself was no cause for eye-rolling or boredom; it started quietly, as if it might end there, before gradually expanding to fill the complete volume of the air surrounding them. Now again Scorch cocked her brow, sending small explosions of light and darkness into the air between them in the rhythm of her granddaughter's laughter, punctuating it just so until at last it finished.
I'm not sure Breckin even knows who I am yet.
Scorch gave pause at this, snorting incredulously; but the bitter smile lining the girl's lips spoke to the truth of the implication imbedded in her passive aggressive statement. So, her son was an infidel then; vehement rage filled Scorch right to her throat at the realization, the stub of her tail thrashing as though to snap at the unborn life growing between her sides. How dare he judge her, how dare he condemn her! For a moment, the neon green of her eyes flashed an enraged red; but the emotions passed fleetingly, and at the mention of Leilan not teaching her anything, Scorch could only laugh.
And, unsurprisingly, the sound of it mimicked Naia's. It was harsher, of course, smokier and charred in reference to the flames she had once been consumed by; but in general, its cadence and syncopation, and indeed its chaotic edges, sounded nearly identical to the girl's.
"Yeah," she said at last, in response to the girl's closing statement about her distaste for her father. "That doesn't fucking surprise me at all."
If she had second thoughts about swearing in front of a young girl, it did not show.
She rolled her shoulders, looked back out to the sea which mocked their need for escape with its ever-reaching horizon. "So, besides not liking my admittedly unlikeable son, what else do we have in common, chaos girl? Don't tell me you also got burnt to a crisp at the age of four, because I just plain won't believe you."
it's a guarantee that he won't forget me. my body little, my soul heavy.
Naia’s ears swivel round at the scorched sound of her grandmother’s laugh. Her head tilts to the right just a bit, delighted that their sounds are so similar. The indignation and ultimate companionship that radiates from the hairless woman wraps warm, familiar arms around the appaloosa. She knows the heat of anger, of pain; she may not understand its full extent, but she can appreciate its vibe as its expelled.
The bitter flavor of Scorch’s words draw a smile across her granddaughter’s face. Sure, she has not given her father much of a chance, but he is constantly preoccupied. It is hard for Naia to not feel entirely out of place amongst the bustle of a busy kingdom (and a father that helps lead said bustle).
As her grandmother’s eyes drift to the ocean, Naia’s own pass slowly over the gray and pink planes of Scorch’s skin. She studies the colors as they blend together upon gentle curves and sharp bones. The muscles that ripple are impressive, calling to her in a way only admiration and role models can. Yet another smile stretches her lips at the term “chaos girl,” softening the edges of her glazed eyes.
Both now stare into the crash of the ocean, blood and brood binding their silence over and over again.
“If I am chaos girl, you are chaos woman,” Naia murmurs, offering a glittering glance spelling mischief. “I suppose we have that in common. Why aren’t you in Nerine today?”
She longs to feel the burden of another, to forget the childish pangs she cannot relieve.
The child smiled at Scorch's bitterness, as though privately rejoicing in the fact that she was not alone in her dislike of Leilan. Truth be told, Scorch loved her son, and was just doing a fuck awful job of showing it in this moment; it came down to her own self-hatred, of course, as she remembered her son's condemnation of her the first time she bore a child out of wedlock. Gods be damned, if she told him about the child growing in her womb, she might as well just sign a deed which would kill her effective immediately.
But she doesn't have any fucking hands, and besides, she could jump off a cliff at any fucking time.
But she won't.
Because she is stubborn, and I won't let her. Bitch.
The girl then goes on to silently study her grandmother, perhaps admiring her mutilated figure or perhaps finding it disgusting. Whatever she thought, Scorch couldn't care less; at the very most, she knew that she didn't look soft or approachable, and these days, that suited her needs just perfectly. Of course, she of her own blood would not be intimidated by this; and so, Scorch accepts the presence of her granddaughter, submitting to their interaction with a visible sink of weight into a hip.
If I am a chaos girl, you are a chaos woman."
"Well," Scorch laughed, the sound curt but still lined with true humour. "That I cannot argue with."
Perking what remained of her ears, Scorch considered her final question, and finds the smile that had come to her lips slowly turning into a disgusted grimace. Children. Always asking the questions they know not to.
"Tell me your name first, and maybe I'll tell you," she began, ears flicking dismissively. When the answer came, she nodded shortly, a bob of her hammer head. "Good, then. I am Scorch."
With introductions aside, the mare had naught else to delay the delivery of her answer.
"I am taking time away from Nerine. Personal problems in the form of bastard children, paramours, and returned husbands seem to be my destiny these days." Her teeth ground together, a large part of her resentful of her willingness to share such intimate details with such an undeserving child. On the other hand, who better to talk to than one so eerily similar to herself? "I will probably come back one day, but god knows that day won't be soon."
"And now, you will tell me why you aren't in Nerine today Naia, bastard child of Leilan."
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