"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
With her fire hardly caged, with all her anger and self-hatred once more boiling to the surface, she fled back into the safety of the forest. Away from them, away from him, away from everyone and anything that could possibly turn her into the fool again. She had known it was a risk coming so close to the main parts of this land; she had known that her need to make sure they knew they couldn’t get close would cause her to lash out, to put up guards so high and fierce that they would look at her and think she was hardly worth their time.
And why would she be?
She had never done anything that made her worthy of someone getting to know her. She was not sweet and kind, she was not smart and pretty. She was broken, and she cut everyone on her jagged edges, and if they somehow managed to make it past those figurative weapons, they were only going to get burnt. She couldn’t control the heat that lived beneath her skin, she couldn’t control the imaginary fire that seemed to lick beneath the surface, like some cruel, hidden trick that couldn’t wait for someone to fall into the trap.
Into the shadows of the forest she disappears then, turning her back on him, but making sure that she had watched him do it first. She runs, a flash of auburn that nearly blends with the trees, she runs to put as much distance between herself and the rest of Beqanna as possible. For a moment, she almost thinks there might be tears that prick her eyes, but they are quickly eradicated before they have the chance to fully form. No. She would not cry; she has been here before. She has lost so many would-be, could-be, might-have-beens, and she has always found a way to survive. She had learned so long ago that she didn’t need anyone, and all that encounter had done was solidify it.
Her lungs burn, and her legs beg her to stop, and finally, she obeys. But she is still moving too fast as she comes around a wide tree, and she is so lost in her thoughts that she almost doesn’t see the other girl in time. She stops, her hind legs sliding beneath her on the slick, pine-needled ground, and she can feel the panic rising in her throat when she almost, almost, collides with her. “What are you doing here?” She exclaims, accusatory and furious with her chest heaving. Her adrenaline spikes so high in her veins at the near catastrophe she knows she almost caused, and the image of what could have happened comes to her mind, unbidden. She sees the other girl’s skin burning and simmering, she can hear the cries of pain, and the fear that this evokes she only knows to express as anger. There is a hardness to her dark brown as she gathers herself, backing away from the stranger, afraid that she already may have felt the heat that rose from her skin.
She learned nothing from what had just happened earlier in the day. She is prepared to fight this girl, too.
cold in the violence after the war hope is a fire to keep us warm
She is as lost in thought as the girl even now racing, unbeknownst to either, towards her, though her thoughts are likely much less dark. For all that the world had seen fit to bestow them both with uncomfortable abilities, Brazen much prefers to ignore her discomfort than to dwell on it. In a way, it’s so much easier to push her body to the limits, to remind it over and over that her pain is strength, until it became almost easy to bear. Until her body had grown so familiar with its limits that they no longer feel like limits.
She doesn’t hear the sound of hooves thundering through the trees until it’s too late. Until the girl abruptly rounds the corner and is all but crashing into her. She flinches reflexively, her body straightening as she braces for an inevitable impact that never comes. Truthfully, she wouldn’t have minded so much. She had been such a rough and tumble child that these kinds of crashes had been rather commonplace for her at one point.
Of course, when she feels the heat radiating from the woman as she skids to avoid contact, she knows this would have been different than any other tumble she has taken. Almost without thought, her skin hardens, the red and white stiffening until it becomes as unforgiving and unmalleable as stone. Her bones ache as her skin squeezes at the jagged edges rupturing through, bone warring with stone for supremacy. Neither win, of course, instead pressing into an aching draw along the edges where they meet.
Sucking in a startled breath, Brazen skitters sideways, her bright blue gaze jumping to the angry features of the woman who had so nearly collided with her. Beneath the anger, she can so clearly see the pain that fuels it. Something she has seen too many times not to recognize it now.
“Are you okay?” she asks almost immediately, brows furrowing behind the bone mask shielding her face as she steps unconsciously forward. Closing the distance rather than retreating, as anyone else might. “Is someone chasing you?”
Abruptly, her demeanor changes, eyes jumping in the direction the woman had come from as a certain ferocity suffuses her entire body in preparation of an unknown foe.
Her chest still rises and falls, and her legs feel weak as the surge of adrenaline slowly begins to ebb away, leaving a strange exhaustion in its wake. But her eyes don’t go soft, and instead they remain hard and guarded; her jaw clenched, and her muscles coiled taut beneath her mahogany skin. There is a flicker of guilt when the other girl doesn’t lash out in response to her misguided anger, but it doesn’t show on her face or the defensive way she draws her nose near her chest and backs away another step.
But she takes a moment now to look at her — to really look at her. And she sees the bone that she wears like plates of armor, and the way her skin suddenly turns to stone. There is a moment where her breath becomes caught in her throat, and a strange feeling of longing and fascination breeds in her chest.
She wishes she could be made of stone instead of heat.
She wishes she could protect herself without unnecessarily hurting anyone else in the process.
And just like that, her longing evolves into envy.
“Nothing was chasing me, am I not allowed to run?” The heat of her words crackle like flames, as her dark eyes narrow to lock with hers.
She recoils abruptly when the other girl takes a step forward, her ears immediately falling flat and becoming lost in the tangle of her black hair. “Don’t.” The word is sword-sharp, and is not a request or a warning — it is a demand. She doesn’t know if she will understand what she means, if she will feel every message that resonates in that single word. Don’t get close. Don’t touch.
cold in the violence after the war hope is a fire to keep us warm
The sharp crack of the stranger’s words draw her attention, diffusing the abrupt readiness of her body to engage an unseen enemy. She blinks once, twice, before turning her gaze to the russet girl standing so stiffly nearby, a faint confusion growing in a gaze only partially masked by bone. There is anger simmering deeply within this girl, a fact so obviously seen. Something that burns with an intensity equal to her skin for all that her words do not actually injure flesh.
“I…” she begins slowly, not entirely certain how to respond, “suppose you are.”
It does not even cross her mind that stepping closer might actually be dangerous. That her unexpected companion might fear what would happen far more than she might fear anything that might chase her. Brazen had always offered touch so freely, without thought or reservation, that it takes a moment for the woman’s unyielding demand to register.
She stills abruptly, head lifting as her brows furrow beneath the bone obscuring her face, ears twitching uncertainly atop her skull. She stares at her, her steady breathing a contrast to that of her new companion. It’s not often Brazen is caught off guard. So much so that she isn’t entirely certain how to respond in the face of such directionless hostility.
After a hesitant breath, she steps back, giving the red mare the space she’d asked for. Her blue eyes are still warily confused, but she visibly seems to collect herself, picking up the slack reins of the conversation they had each dropped between them. “Well,” she begins anew, her voice stronger now, more certain. “If you want to run, I won’t stop you. Although, you’ll be sore in the morning if you keep up like that.”
Her lips twitch faintly at the last, her natural humor reasserting itself with startling ease. A glint of humor slips across her features, gleaming in the blue of her eyes, lifting the mobile corners of her mouth. “Worse, if you run into a tree while you’re at it.”
