• Logout
  • 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


    the heaviness in my heart belongs to gravity; kensley
    #1

    carried by the current of the morning
    miles below the surface of the dawn

    Larke does not know much about loss.

    She has not been schooled in all the ways that a life can fall apart and the loss that she has experienced has been dulled by the persistent, beating of the rivers of her optimism. She barely remembers what it was like to be born and watch her mother become something else entirely. To watch her mother walk away in a cloud of magic and confusion and to see the pain fracture her father’s face in the aftermath of it.

    But such things fall apart in the new memories she has made with her family.

    Such things become distant memories and her remains secure—remains sheltered, safe.

    It is this sheltered heart that she protects as she walks through the meadow, leaving Ischia for the first time since she was given her leadership position. She feels that familiar melding of nerves and uncertainty that brew in her chest—that fear of the unknown that she is not quite able to discern. It drives her forward, walking the paths of the meadow until she nearly runs into the stallion the same color of a storm.

    “Oh,” she exhales as she takes several steps back, widening the berth between them and shaking her fine head. “I am so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” She feels heat rise in her chest, and she exhales slowly as she tries to find some sense of stability. “My name is Larke,” she introduces herself almost out of habit, and then falls silent again, studying the strange lines of his face and the unspoken that lies beneath it.

    this is not the place that I was born in
    but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

    larke
    Reply
    #2

    i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
    i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose


    It feels too heavy to carry sometimes.
    Sometimes he could swear that he can feel his bones bending beneath it.
    He carries her with him. The gasping of her breath and the gurgle in her throat.
    The weight of it is unbearable.

    But he is nothing if not his father’s son and he steadily puts one foot in front of the other. He does not know what he’d expected in coming back here. Perhaps he’d thought he might find some comfort in coming home. But his home is not the same and he is not the same and he finds absolutely no comfort here. He is a stranger in a strange land. He supposes it’s true what they say: you can’t go home again.

    The breathing is even, measured. He wonders how long he could hold his breath. Would it matter? Would his lungs ache for air? Would the heart shudder in the cavern of his chest? Would it beat itself against its ribbed cage?

    He chooses to think about these things – this strange gift – rather than think about how they came to be. All thoughts evaporate, though, when the two nearly collide. She scurries backward and he blinks at her in surprise.

    It’s all right,” he says, even, in the wake of her apology. He shakes his head and wonders what about him is so repellent. Can they smell it on him? Do they know that he fought as hard as he could but it wasn’t hard enough? Do they worry that, should they get too close, he might find some significant and unforgivable way to fail them, too?

    She offers up her name and he clears his throat. “Larke,” he repeats, trying it out. “I’m Kensley.
    He thinks himself undeserving of the name now but hasn’t thought of anything better to call himself.



    shattered son of jarris and plumeria
    Reply
    #3

    carried by the current of the morning
    miles below the surface of the dawn

    There is so much of her that wants to be able to understand that kind of depth.

    To know what lives behind her mother’s eyes and the currents that tug beneath the gentleness and the sweet way that she still presses kisses to her forehead like she is a small child. To know what makes her father as twisted around his pain; to know the kind of guilt that drives him to be as good as he is now.

    But she has no such understanding.

    She has no way of knowing the way it can pull you under.

    Still, her heart bleeds at the look of gravity around him and she struggles to try and discern the ache in her chest that spreads with each moment. “Kensley,” she repeats quietly, committing the name to memory. It has a weight to it that feels like a stone on her tongue, and she has to wonder at what made it such.

    For a moment, there is nothing but silence between them—and she hears the wind more than she feels it, the pull of it as it winds around her and threads between her legs. She can feel the healing unspool in her chest, threatening to reach for him and sink into his bones but she holds it in check. For now, at least.

    “What brings you to the meadow today, Kensley?”

    Her head tips again and she watches him, wishing desperately she had something more interesting to say.

    this is not the place that I was born in
    but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

    larke
    Reply
    #4

    i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
    i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose


    She repeats his name and it makes him feel somehow even less deserving of it.
    He wants to shake his head and tell her that he was wrong.
    He was Kensley once, but he’s not anymore.
    But in doing so, he would have to give her something else to call him.

    Shattered, maybe.
    Failure.
    Traitor.

    But he merely smiles, a cold and joyless thing as he nods. For the moment, he can pretend that he is still Kensley. Good and decent and kind.

    He knows that he should fill the silence but he is tired. He is tired and heavy and he has gone so terribly astray that he wouldn’t know where to start. He could ask where she’s from but her answer would mean absolutely nothing to him. He does not know this world as inherently as he had known the Beqanna that had been his home. He knows that the meadow is more or less the same, though, and he supposes that is all that matters.

    He considers her question, casts a glance toward the horizon and rolls his shoulders. “I’ve been away a long time,” he says, “and this is the only place I recognize.” It’s an easy thing to admit.

    What about you?



    shattered son of jarris and plumeria
    Reply
    #5

    carried by the current of the morning
    miles below the surface of the dawn

    She has heard of how Beqanna has changed throughout the years.

    She has heard about how it shifted and changed and the way that the world woke up one day to something that was entirely new. Her mother had been born during the division of that time. She had been born on the mountain with the newness spread out before them and thus has never known anything differently.

    But she still told the stories to Larke.

    And she still carries them with her.

    So his answer, as vague as it is, stirs something in her breast. Enough for her to angle her head and look at him a little more curiously. Her ears prick just a little between the waves of her mane and forelock; her sage eyes brighten just a little. “Were you of the old Beqanna?” she asks before she can stop herself, not even realizing that to some, it may be the only Beqanna—the only truth in a world constantly changing.

    “My mother tells me stories of it and the kingdoms that reigned. The Chamber and the Gates and…” her voice trails off a little as she laughs under her breath. “All the names that you must know better than I.”

    Silence again that stretches between them and nearly snaps.

    But she breathes again when he returns the question.

    “Wandering. Just trying to clear my head, I think.”

    It feels strange to be away from home without her family—especially her brother. She has never been one to adventure, or converse strangers, but she finds that she does not mind passing the time with him.

    this is not the place that I was born in
    but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

    larke
    Reply
    #6

    i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
    i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose


    The old Beqanna, she says and it puts a sharp twinge in the center of his chest.
    He drags in a shuddering breath and nods.

    She is young, he realizes. And it shouldn’t matter, but it does. He should thank her for her apology and her impulse to share with him her name and go on his way. But he is tired. Certainly too tired to take his leave, so he stands there and listens to her instead.

    The Chamber and the Gates and the Valley. The Tundra and the Amazons. It makes him ache and he swallows the urge to fill in the blanks for her. He feels no overwhelming need to draw any attention to his age. He feels ancient. And tired. And timeless, too, which he hates most of all.

    Times were different then,” he says for no reason in particular except that the silence felt thick and uncomfortable. He clears his throat and redirects his gaze. He does not know how different things are now except that the land has taken different shapes. He wonders why but wouldn’t know who to ask.

    She offers up her own answer and he nods again. He should ask her something else, prolong the conversation. But he is tired and he doesn’t know what to say. He can feel the weight in his chest begin to slant and he braces himself against it as he drags his focus back to her face.

    This was always a good place for clearing your head,” he muses, quiet.


    shattered son of jarris and plumeria
    Reply
    #7

    carried by the current of the morning
    miles below the surface of the dawn

    She feels her youth so acutely some days that it is difficult to breathe around it.

    She is not the child that she once was, but as she approaches her third year of life, it is difficult to not feel herself clinging to the edges of it. Clinging to the innocence that she was afforded when she was but a girl roaming around Tephra under her parent’s watchful eye. Now, she approaches adulthood and feels like it grows within her like a weed. She has been given a herd to watch, a home to protect to the best she can.

    It is this she reminds herself of when she sweeps her gaze up to study him.

    “I would love to hear more about it,” her voice is quiet but steady and she doesn’t stutter as she just sits there beneath the steadiness of his face. The exhaustion that pulls at the muscles too tight, the fatigue that she knows so well. It draws at the healer within her—draws at the golden light she can’t hold back.

    It unspools even further, reaching for him.

    She lets it sink into him and find its way through his body. It weaves through his muscle and bone and finds all the different ways that he may hurt, may ache, may fall apart around the edges.

    When it is done and she draws the healing back into her, she ducks her head.

    “I’m sorry,” this is quieter. “I should have asked.”

    this is not the place that I was born in
    but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

    larke
    Reply
    #8

    i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
    i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose


    Does he remember it?
    Is it worth talking about?

    It had been a home worth coming back to but he does not know if it was a home worth talking about. The corner of his mouth quivers in a kind of patient smile as he shakes his head. “I’m afraid my stories aren’t worth telling,” he muses and looks away. “I was born here, in the meadow,” he shrugs. “I lived in the Chamber briefly, but I don’t know enough about the old world to be much of a storyteller.” And he pretends that his voice does not splinter around the sharp edges of the word ‘Chamber’. The place where he’d fallen in love once.

    There is a silence that settles between them.
    And then there is a heat that spreads through him.
    Heat and a light he can feel but he cannot see.
    It eradicates the exhaustion in him, dissolves the aching in his joints.
    It allows him to catch his breath and he exhales a weary sigh.

    When it is gone, he feels new. But whatever power she had was rendered useless by the weight of all he carried with him. So, the muscles do not quiver with exhaustion but the soul is still tired.

    Her apology elicits a shake of his head. “It’s all right,” he says. “Thank you.


    shattered son of jarris and plumeria
    Reply
    #9

    carried by the current of the morning
    miles below the surface of the dawn

    She expects him to be angry at the way she heals without asking.

    She expects him to be furious for her lack of boundaries and she braces herself for it, but instead he gives a shake of the head and a weary thank you. It baffles her just a little and that confusion shows on her delicate features, wrapping around the thin edges of it like filagree before melting before the kindness.

    “You are welcome,” she manages, and she takes a step forward almost without realizing and then, catching herself, she pauses. She thinks that if her brother was here, it would be easier. Chronos always seemed to know what to say in situations like this and she had become accustomed to riding his coattails in social settings. It was easy to be the quiet twin when you had someone to carry the conversation.

    But Kensley does not bear the burden and she cannot escape the weight of it.

    So they remain trapped in this moment, and she becomes buried by it.

    Except she remembers that he had said he had lived in the Chamber and it snags the corner of her mind. It catches her attention and she walks back to it. “What was the Chamber like?” She asks suddenly, studying  his face as if she could find some of the answer there. “My mother said our relatives used to live there.”

    this is not the place that I was born in
    but it doesn't mean it's not the place where I belong

    larke
    Reply
    #10

    i took the poison praying you'd feel it, too
    i wrapped my neck and prayed that you'd feel the noose


    She takes one step toward him.
    Stops herself short before he has to ask her to.

    Please, he would have said, don’t come any closer. I cannot stand the kindness, I don’t deserve it.
    But she saves him the trouble and he supposes he’s grateful for it. Perhaps he’d been worried that she might touch him. That she might taste the blood and the grief on his skin. That she might think differently of him should she catch a glimpse of the reality of him.

    Would it be the worst thing?
    She has afforded him mercy that he does not deserve in healing the tired muscles and the aching joints. How strange that he should come across someone whose magic allowed them to heal while his newly inherited magic only allowed him to destroy.

    The silence is thin but he makes no effort to disturb it.

    She asks her innocuous question and then volunteers information he wouldn’t have known how to ask for. Something cold and dark stirs in the center of his chest. He swallows thickly as he levels his stare with her face again. “Who is your mother?” he asks, quiet. Because he’s not certain he wants to know. Because he’d loved the queen of the Chamber once and she had also looked as if she’d been born from a storm cloud.


    shattered son of jarris and plumeria
    Reply




    Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)