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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


    [private]  One day it's here and then it's gone; Magnus
    #1
    titus
    one day it's here and then it's gone,
    how are you still holding on?
    He tosses and turns during the early hours of the morning. Sleep has yet to come. For days now he has been absent of a soundless slumber. Titus doesn’t recall the lull of a restful night or the dreams that used to captative him as a child. Only a wandering night of a thousand thoughts, dark and murky, keep him awake, never bringing him rest.

    The restlessness drives him mad at this point. He is frustrated by the direction of his life. The drive for nothing, not even anything holds him down. There is no purpose for him. No path to follow. His life has come to nothing, and he wonders if it will always be this way.

    But he cannot live like this.

    Perhaps Loess is no more.

    Perhaps there is more for him beyond the boundaries of the only place he has known. The only place that has made him a captive. He is nothing here. He was nothing ever here.

    Titus stirs from his quiet place where he often tries to find sleep when the night comes. If he cannot find rest here, perhaps there was somewhere else he could find. A place that needed him, but he does not have a direction. Only his heart could lead him, but his heart beats for nothing. Nothing excites him or fills him with purpose so all he can do is wander.

    Leaving behind the kingdom of Loess. Titus doesn’t know if this is forsaking the place he swore his allegiance to, but he cannot help abandoning it for it has abandon him. There was nothing there for him anymore.

    So, he follows worn out paths that had been deserted for months now as the plague clouds over Beqanna still. He has the stir of something dark in him weeks ago. A stiff cough tickles his throat now and then, but he pushes on from such things. He knew Loess was not safe, but neither were many other occupied lands. Perhaps the plague would be his ending. Then again, it was too saddening to end a life like his just like that. So, he presses on, following the path without direction (but unknown to his knowledge he follows the path towards Tephra).

    He crosses through the never-changing autumn land of Sylva. Climbing towards warmer climates as the spring days pass. There was no stopping. Titus continued to move forward, neglecting the dark hours of the night where he should try and find sleep. But he knew sleep would not come. It would never come until he settled somewhere. Until he found a purpose.

    It wasn’t until the crisscrossing off small streams of lava that he found his way to the volcanic land of Tephra. The muddy pegasus stops suddenly, barely over the border of the territory before knowing he was crossing into a place he had never been before. Naturally, his nutmeg eyes follow the stream that flows further inland. It follows bright and flowing stream of lava, until it crosses over the trees and plants and lands on the very tip of the volcano.

    Titus inhales, smelling the scents of ash and sulfur. It is sharp and crisp, igniting his lungs. He exhales with a snort, taking a step forward into the land and stopping again. Nutmeg gaze glances further into the land, spotting no one, he proceeds forward without care.
    son of rome and porcia
    male, classic champagne appaloosa
    ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
    character info: here | character reference: here

    @[magnus]
    #2

    Magnus rises with the dawn, much like he does all days.

    The sun is soft in the spring and the heat mild, varying little from the rest of the seasons. It is one of the things that he loves most about Tephra—the way that the weather changes little except for the rare storm. It is beautiful and thin-coated as he is, he finds he has grown acclimated to the moderate seasons. He stretches as the watery light begins to filter across Tephra, and the corners of his scarred lips curve.

    It has been quiet in his home of late, but he knows it has been quiet in most places. Beqanna, as it so often does, has fallen into a state of slumber, a lull. It is as if sleep begins to creep up with the tide, taking over those usually the loudest and leaving the rest in a sort of haze. Things move slower. People visit less. In his youth, it may have frightened him, left him wandering the borders in a constant state of worry.

    Now? Now he is able to accept it with a little more grace and understanding.

    As with all things, it is not forever.

    Still, he is a strategic mind and he knows that he needs more in leadership positions than he does now. Those he had once considered natural fits for his Council have faded into the background, and while the weight of a crown no longer leaves him as weary as it once did, he knows better than to think he can do it all on his own. So he looks for promise and interest in the quiet. He looks for those worthy of the roles.

    Perhaps it is fate that he runs across the pegasus when he is in the middle of such thoughts. His face does not alter from his neutral state, but his lips curve upward in one corner. “Hello there,” he calls when he is close enough to be certain that his voice has carried. He walks up alongside the stallion, not expecting him to stop and not asking him to explain his presence within his home. “My name is Magnus.”

    MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name



    @[Titus]
    [Image: gqYjsHr.png]
    #3
    titus
    one day it's here and then it's gone,
    how are you still holding on?
    As he continues deeper into the volcanic territory, his mind shifts into a perpetual state of emptiness. For the first time, and in a long time, he does not hear the crashing and thrashing of the thousands of thoughts. It is only him and what he sees around him—the path ahead of him, leading him towards the volcano that grows closer by each step he takes.

    Titus smell the scent of another stallion lingering the further he enters into Tephra. The winds shift and sway, sending a warm spring breeze his way, but still he does not stir at the growing scent of the stallion.

    Even when the buckskin male notices Titus and sends a greeting to his way he does not stir. His mind his focused, latching onto something he is too astonished by. The captivating beauty the volcano holds pulls him in, giving him a sense of purpose. A goal to reach the highest part of the volcano.

    It sounded silly, but he is drawn to it. Drawn to the beauty and the might it holds. The chance to find a purpose at the very tip of the mountain calls him to climb it. To find what lays at the very top. As if the volcano had the answer to the direction he was looking for, the right path he should take now in his life.

    The presence of the creeping body at the corner of his gaze pulls him away from his once uninterrupted focus. Suddenly, the rush of a thousand thoughts come crashing into the emptiness that lingered seconds ago in his mind. Titus shakes his head, keeping his continued pace still, determined to find the peace he had just had.

    But the voice, the warm greeting of the buckskin draws him in. Magnus, he calls himself, doesn’t stop him, but simply follows alongside him. Titus peers with his nutmeg gaze at the stallion curiously, and then suddenly stops.

    “Sorry,” he says softly, uncertain of how to explain his presence and current state right now to a stranger. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” The carelessness before consumes him now. He certainly realizes he was in someone’s territory, but where he does not really know. “Titus,” he says softly. “I’m Titus,” he says again, but a bit more louder.
    son of rome and porcia
    male, classic champagne appaloosa
    ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
    character info: here | character reference: here

    @[magnus]
    #4

    Magnus has spent many days tracing the same path that Titus now walks. He has found himself on the same trails, setting his gaze on the volcano that blossoms over his home, indulging in the stretch of his muscles as he carries himself closer and closer to its base. It has been a goal and it has given him a purpose and it has served as a place where he has found his daughter and taken his friends. It surprises him how much the volcano has come to mean to him; how much Tephra has come to claim his heart.

    Once upon a time, the Jungle had this kind of hold on him.

    The Gates too, to a weaker extent.

    But such feelings have faded with the tide of the years that have since passed. He no longer wakes in a cold sweat, nightmares chasing him as he dreams of the homes that have long since been swallowed by the earth. He no longer feels that invisible tie, anchoring him down. Tephra has slowly but surely been able to replace that, serving as a counterweight in his heart—giving him the peace he now enjoys.

    Still, he senses that he perhaps doesn’t feel such peace and perhaps that is why he remains so intrigued. Perhaps that is why he steps in line with him, feeling the ache of muscles as he continues the pace, his stride long and unencumbered. “You’re not intruding. Tephra keeps an open border.” It is the truth, although Magnus keeps a close eye on those who come and go. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Titus.” He wants to ask more questions—why he is here, what he is running from, running toward—but he doesn’t press such things on the young stallion. He merely continues walking, letting the other have his peace.

    MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name



    @[Titus]
    [Image: gqYjsHr.png]
    #5
    titus
    one day it's here and then it's gone,
    how are you still holding on?
    He doesn’t feel anchored to anywhere.

    He has never had a place to truly call home.

    Nerine some would say would be his home, but it is not for him. It is only a birthplace, a place where he resided for a time before being taken away to the southern land of Loess. Nerine only holds dreams and nightmares. Memories of a life he enjoyed as a young child, but dreams that could and should have happened. His memories now are only of nightmares when Nerine comes to his thoughts.

    Now Loess is only beginning to become the same.

    Perhaps he is simply a nomad. Maybe he will only know how to drift one place to another. Without a purpose, only to keep moving forward and never looking back.

    But it is harder to not turn to the past. Titus often finds his thoughts there, searching for where things should have changed. Where he should have changed. Maybe if he had not been so stubborn to return to his family in Nerine it could have been different. But he could not help at the dreams of being a mercenary when he was a boy, and then becoming something finally when Wolfbane gave him the title.

    It was all gone though.

    He only had the simplest of things. To live a life.

    But what life was worth living if there was no purpose?

    He has neither truly.

    It was strange to Titus to suddenly have someone else at his side. Magnus was merely there, not pressing or accusing him of passing into the territory he finally discovers he has travelled to. Did he really make it all the way here? Shouldn’t he know this was Tephra—the volcanic territory. He smiles slyly at the realization of it all. Of course, he should have.

    “Tephra, huh?” He simply says in response as he slows down his pace and comes to a stop after moving at a distance with the buckskin at his side. Titus keeps his gaze onto the buckskin now, analyzing the older stallion. “Well, I knew that.” He admits because he had insisted before on knowing what every land was like—though it had personally come from questions. The young stallion may not have visited them all, but when he became the Head of War it should be a requirement.

    He knew each of the leaders though, or at least tried to keep up with the changes—Magnus was the leader of Tephra still. Well, he hoped to at least be right in that. Right in something still because it felt like he was failing at everything now.

    “Thank god you have open borders,” he says with a laugh, trying to ease the awkwardness that slowly creeps and consumes around him. “I guess you don’t have much to worry about being so far up here then.” Titus eyes sparkle with a bit of humor at the unfolding situation now. “It’s nice to meet you as well, Magnus,” he adds.
    son of rome and porcia
    male, classic champagne appaloosa
    ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
    character info: here | character reference: here

    @[magnus]
    #6

    Magnus has spent so much of his life anchored somewhere that he cannot imagine what it must feel like to float free into the ether. How strange it must feel to have no ties to a land, to not feel that heaviness of duty tying you down. How strange to not feel both caged and set free by it. He does not regret his life of living kingdom bound—in a childhood such as his, there were no real options otherwise—but that does not mean he does not sometimes wonder about the life of a nomad, the freedom that exists within it.

    Still, today at least, he does not give into such fancies.

    Instead, he occupies himself with his curiosity of the shifter by his side, letting himself imagine what brings him to Tephra’s humid shores. He feels no awkwardness, his crooked grin merely widening at the other. “It certainly makes things easier,” he says easily, although it did make the more tense interactions with less trustworthy kingdoms like Sylva a little more stilted. After all, it was significantly more obvious when Magnus had no intention of chauffeuring someone further into the belly of the kingdom.

    Regardless, this was a different scenario entirely, and he feels no need to play gatekeeper with Titus. Instead, he comes to a stop with the other stallion, relaxing his posture and letting the edges of his sun-bleached tail flick at his sides. “I don’t worry overmuch,” he says with a laugh, although he knows that there are plenty of dangers that lurk around the border. “But I do my best to keep an eye out all the same.”

    “So what brings you to Tephra today, Titus?” There’s no pressure behind the words other than casual curiosity, but Magnus watches him all the same, wondering at what the other would have to say.

    MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name





    @[Titus]
    [Image: gqYjsHr.png]
    #7
    titus
    one day it's here and then it's gone,
    how are you still holding on?
    Perhaps Titus would have been bound to a kingdom if the beginning of his life had turned out differently. The firm foundation, the ancient history of family and loyalty, that is instilled into Nerine did not blossom into him. Nerine was simply a place. But it is a place he longs for within his life sometimes. A place where loyalty is valued, and the importance of family is remembered. Titus longs for a place where he won’t be forgotten, where he can grow, and where he will always have a place to call his own.

    Nerine was not that.

    And so far, Loess was beginning to be the same.

    It was only his dear friend, Graeme, that has stayed consistent within his life. But how long would that last? He isn’t sure. Everything he knows he is beginning to doubt. Even the good things he has held onto when he needs to remember there is still hope.

    But hope was a fading light for him.

    “I suppose it does,” Titus replies. However, he isn’t certain how one could manage keeping track of an entire land and knowing it would be safe from harm. The muddy stallion has only known to be protective and to fight. He only knows that strength and the threat of battle gets what you want—at least being part of the mercenary kingdom taught him that. Wolfbane’s ruling had entirely shifted after that for some time. Perhaps it was the plague that had changed it all for the drake stallion. Castile was entirely different. He was brutal to the point that he would take what was most valued. Healers were one thing to recruit but imprisoning them from their own family and friends had not settled well with him.

    Magnus seems much at home with it all though. He watches as the buckskin stallion relaxes and finds comfort at the side of him. Him, a stranger that just waltz right into his own land. But Magnus knew something. He knew more about the world and how things worked. Titus might know the name of the leader of Tephra, but the man who leads it all he didn’t really know quite well. It interested his curiosity even more.

    He grins at Magnus when he laughs. “I’m one to let my own worries take the best of me,” he adds. Living simply, worry-free seemed entirely impossible. There didn’t seem a day where he could be worry-free for long, or he has forgotten what it is like.

    Titus shifts his gaze away from Magnus at his next question. There is no pressure in his question, only an honest interest. He was a stranger in the man’s kingdom. It was obvious he would be asked what brought him here. But he doesn’t really know why he has come here in the first place. There was a lot of things he might not be able to answer. He only knows he is looking for something.

    “I’m looking for something,” he finally says after a few moments of silence. His nutmeg gaze remains away from Magnus. It remains onto the volcanic mountain in the distance. The only thing that pulled him forward, hoping to find the answers to what he was looking for. He snorts softly with a hint of irritation. “I’m not sure what I am trying to find though. I feel lost and uncertain of where I am supposed to go now in my life.” Titus didn’t feel weird for spilling out his internal turmoil. Something within his heart told him it was safe to trust Magnus.
    son of rome and porcia
    male, classic champagne appaloosa
    ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
    character info: here | character reference: here

    @[magnus]
    #8

    Magnus can only be quiet as the stallion works through whatever turmoil wrestles in the other’s chest. He can only be quiet, listening with an ear cocked toward the other. It has been so long since he had known this kind of unsettling, being set adrift, and he can only be a calming presence for him. He does not know the other well enough to be a stabilizing force, but he can at least serve as a rock during the storm.

    “I have been ruled by my worries more than I care to admit,” Magnus says with a soft laugh, the sound a blustering in the back of his throat. “I have fought because of them, abandoned my kingdom because of them, been lost because of them.” He glances upward, finding Titus’ gaze and holds it for a minute, studying the other’s nutmeg eyes as if it looking for an answer. “I decided to not be ruled by them.”

    Another laugh as he rolls his shoulders.

    “Of course, a decision does not make reality. I have to make the decision every day. I have to fight them every day, and I do not always win.” Goodness knows that you could look into his past and find it riddled with mistakes made from rash decisions. Those made with a hot head and an anxious heart. How often he has overreacted; how often he has altered the course of his path with just one moment.

    Still, he does not appear weighed down it now. Centuries of life provide a certain perspective, and he can only hope that share it with this other. “I know men like you. If you look for something, you will find it.” He looks away again, giving the other the space that comes with the breaking of eye contact. The day is quiet, and the breeze from the sea comfortable. “Perhaps the beauty is in not knowing though. Perhaps the beauty is in making your life as you go and giving yourself the freedom to be the author in your story.”

    A crooked smile as one corner of his scarred lips rise.

    MAGNUS | I don't belong to anyone, but everybody knows my name



    @[Titus]
    [Image: gqYjsHr.png]
    #9
    titus
    one day it's here and then it's gone,
    how are you still holding on?
    Pouring out his worries and turmoil are quickly answered by the buckskin stallion. It seemed that Titus was not the only one to be plagued by such significances. Things that should only trivial to him ever.

    But they are not simple things. These are things that cannot merely mean nothing. It is his life on the line, a pick part of what makes him live and breathe. Happiness.

    Magnus laughs softly. Titus turns his nutmeg gaze back to Magnus, leaving the scene of the volcano in the distance. He peers at the buckskin stallion curiously, intrigued by how the older stallion laughs simply at the worries he had before. Will it ever be like that for me? He asks himself silently. It seems hopeless at this moment.

    Could he even pull himself out of the rut? Titus keeps slipping into it over and over. No matter how many times he tries to pull himself back up, he falls back down into the darkness.

    Perhaps the darkness is always where he will be. Searching for the path that will lead him to where he belongs. Where he needs to be.

    Magnus makes a point though. It strikes him hard when he realizes he has allowed things to take control of him. He has allowed his past and others to dictate the sort of life he is living now. It was the same thing Graeme had told him not long ago. But why was he still letting it happen? Why couldn’t he just simply tell it all to fuck off?

    Even the buckskin tells him how he struggled. Struggled to find his own way almost every day. Maybe that was where he needed to start. Maybe he needed to just take it day by day. Titus cannot remember if he had even done that. It seemed only the long sleepless nights over and over again have made him forget what it is to live one day at a time. His worries keep him up, and he finds it hard to find sleep for months now.

    “It seems so simple the way you put it,” he says with a laugh. But there was no simplicity in the way Magnus had said it. He could see by the way that the stranger opened up to him that there was strength and hardship. The weight of Magnus’ words was true. And he needed them more than ever to hear them if he wanted to find what he was looking for. “I need to live my life day by day if I am going to ever find what I am looking for,” he adds.

    Feeling the breeze from the sea is comforting. He doesn’t remember the last time he felt the ocean and a quiet day that surrounds both of them now. The smell of the sea reminds him of happier times, and he holds onto that for a moment as Magnus speaks again.

    Find it? Would he truly ever find what he was looking for?

    He should be able to if anything. But not giving into the darkness, the demons that made a home for themselves in his dark thoughts say otherwise. But Magnus next words draw him even more into what he says. “Not knowing?” He asks softly. What was the point in not knowing or going without a plan? It felt foolish to not plan your life out. But his life had never been that way. Titus never had a strict plan that he followed. His entire life had been built on going as he went. So, why was he questioning what he has always done?

    Titus laughs softly. Of course, he is just being foolish about it all. It was always right there in front of him. He just needed someone to point it out. To point out how blind he had been this entire time—even Graeme had pointed it out too.

    “I couldn’t agree more,” he says, answering Magnus with his own crooked grin. “I guess sometimes we can be blind by our own worries and fears.” Titus had a lot to learn though. He couldn’t let simple changes in his life dictate him. It was always out of his control. He could never truly be in control of everything that came and went within his life. “My life has been nothing but making it as I go. There were millions of things I could not control that has brought me here now.” But maybe this is where he was meant to be. Maybe this is where his new journey was to begin.
    son of rome and porcia
    male, classic champagne appaloosa
    ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
    character info: here | character reference: here

    @[magnus]
    #10

    but she's bringin' the moon and stars to me -

    Magnus finds that such conversations are easy for him.

    It is easy to slip into this moment with Titus—to feel his way through advising the younger stallion. He has stood where the other stands, after all, and if there’s one good thing that has come from it, it is the chance to share what he has learned with the younger generation. (Although, when you have lived decades upon decades, when you have watched the earth shift and change, everyone is younger.)

    Still, there is something of his younger self in Titus and it makes him sentimental, nostalgic, and nearly parental. His gold-flecked eyes are warm as he watches the stallion work through his own decisions, watching his mind whirl as he considers what he has said and what it means for his future.

    “You have a bright future in front of you, Titus.” His lips quirk up in the corner and he rolls his shoulders, letting the tension melt away as he exhales. “Even if you’re just making it up as you go.” There’s a soft chuckle there because, after all, weren’t they all just making it up as they go? Magnus had yet to meet anyone who truly was able to steer their ship in one direction or another.

    It was all about the decisions made every second.

    The way they built on one another—moment by moment.

    “And you have a home in Tephra,” his gaze finds the other, holds it tight so that the soldier can see just how serious he is. “If you are looking for a place to start over or to find your feet, you have here.”

    He feels the volcanic breeze lift his mane and he breathes in deep.

    If someone like him could find a second beginning then surely Titus could too.

    - Magnus



    @[Titus]
    [Image: gqYjsHr.png]




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