"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
She’d always been a bit of a wanderer. Tendrils of her mother’s spirit, woven in the layers of blood and bone that composed her body, often encouraged her to explore the unknown. There would always be a time where new haunts turn into normal haunts which turn into boring haunts. Hiding behind a new rock formation while hunting was wonderful the first time, but after the tenth time, it became mind-numbing.
The discovery of the way the ocean floor curved up toward the surface was intriguing, yet circumstances had always turned Rivuline away from that trail when her amber eyes wandered in that direction. The first time she felt the call of exploration had been while hunting with a slender blue shark. They were hot on the trail of a blacktip reef shark, both kelpie and blue shark winding expertly along the seabed where a colorful array of corals provided corners for their prey to hide among. Rivuline would have almost caught the prey if it hadn’t been for the sudden rise in the ocean floor. A wall of rock and sand rose out from among the coral reefs, decorated in patterns of turquoise and pale light from the sun shining from above the water’s surface. While both sharks were able to easily pivot away from the wall, Rivuline was not built like a shark. A sudden ascent brought her away from danger, but straight into the face of curiosity. The scent of fresh prey had initiated her hunger to overtake her wanderlust, but that wouldn’t be the last time Rivuline would contemplate raising her head above the ocean’s surface.
But as the cold-water months began to arrive, the prey and predators who didn’t appreciate the chill began their exodus toward the warmer waters. While Rivuline would normally follow them, her slender form turned toward the peculiar slope of sand and stone. Powerful ocean-wings guided her up the mountain with ease (a sea-bred form of her mother’s own ascent of Tephra’s rocky-faced mountain). Eventually, the water became so shallow she would have to taste fresh air.
Her first inhale felt thin and bitter in her lungs. While seawater was thick and bubbly in her chest, true air tasted like sharp pine and landed softly into her chest. It almost tickled as she exhaled, slivers of wind whispering a silly greeting against her throat. A strangeness coated Rivuline’s skin as she stood shoulder-deep in waves beginning to narrow into a river. As the kelpie began to walk further out of the ocean, she began to feel more like a stranger. This was not her home, this one of air and tree (though it had been once). The long dreads of her mane dripped with water, while tangles of seaweed and particles of sand wove between their colored strands. As the water dried on her skin, the powerful fins at her sides faded into the muscle and bone of her body. Yet the dorsal fin on her spine remained, flared upward to portray her emotions of discomfort mingling with inquisitiveness.
The river led between trees and grass. The plants were foreign to her, tall and bending in the winter winds, and she shied away with a threatening snort as they dipped and shook. Rivuline kept her feet in the friendly water of the river, allowing its path to guide her deeper into the strange land. Memories, hazy as morning fog, danced on the corners of her mind but the turquoise tobiano wasn’t able to pull them closer to her. They lingered there, taunting her with their knowledge and leaving her with a sense of nostalgia.
Eventually, the river split into three different tongues. Slender legs guided her down the path to the far right, leading her toward an open expanse of land where the stream became so narrow the kelpie could no longer follow it. Her first step onto land brought determination to her bones. She was a powerful hunter of the sea. Whatever this strange land with waving plants and bone-chilling winds gave her, she could at least rely on that.
Rivuline
Okay, so my first post with her & my first post in a long time! Anyone's open to talking with her; I'm still trying to feel out her character
Celina rises from the tall grass where she has been lying, and her curious ears flick toward the teal stranger. A deep breath confirms that the tobiano mare is the source of the sea-scent. What is she doing here, the pale two-year-old wonders? This is no seaside haven. She steps closer, heedless of the space she leaves between them, and peers curiously at the other horse. She does not seem much older than Celina, the filly decides; certainly old enough to do her own adventuring.
“You know you’ve got a…an um… a thing. Right there, on your back.” The pale filly gestures helpfully at the raised fin, and though she can’t see exactly how the thing has attached itself, she offers:“I could help you get it off, I think.” with a grin that shows off her serrated smile to best effect.
Her head tilts as she waits for an answer, though she does not hide the shiver that wracks her body as another gust of wind makes its way through the open meadow. The winter seems far more bitter here without the protection of the trees of her homeland, and Celina casts a disparaging glance at a few nearby shaggy-coated horses. Her own coat is warm enough, but the scales that line her throat and underbelly provide no insulation. She had begun to understand what Pteron had meant about her inability to adventure for very long before she’d passed into the common grounds. Giving up early was not an option though, and she had been determined to make it here.
The white filly, her iridescent markings all but invisible on this overcast day, is no longer certain why she had been so determined. It is cold, and she is cold, and there is nothing good out here at all. All she’s found is this poor mare with an uncomfortable looking growth on her back, which Celina gives one more pitying look to before introducing herself: “I’m Celina, by the way. What’s your name?”
Though beautiful from the correct perspective, winter was not the unicorn's favorite time of the year. The season's barren scapes and bittered winds could be harsh and rather unwelcoming in every possible sense. Sometimes the world felt empty, and in spite of the contentment she got from the vagabond lifestyle she led, that emptiness was relatable somehow. Maybe just a fragment of it, but it was still there - she could feel it. Not enough to be unsettling, but enough to be able to recognize that she and winter very likely had the most in common out of all the phases of the year. And she did not care for that at all.
But the quiet on days like today is something she can appreciate, and Catcher busies herself with the search for anything that might possess some shred of warmth. Be that a place, a thing... even a person at this point would suffice, she thought, and carried on with a steady pace through the gathering lands.
A curiously marked pairing grabs the reins of her attention, her chestnut painted body adjusts accordingly and the steps she places carry her over a path less worn. The girl with the fin is close to her own age she thinks, and the other younger based on appearance alone. When the wind shifts it rises against her, stirring an air of familiarity with it from the smaller of the girls she slowly approaches.
The fire stained mare catches the iridescent one's observation and willingness to help a stranger. It makes her own lips part in a friendly half-smile when she comes to settle a polite distance from the pair of them. " An offer of kindness isn't common to find between complete strangers," she comments with the emphasis of a small laugh, "It's refreshing." Catcher had some doubt that the marvel upon her back was indeed a thing that needed to be removed, but it wasn't beyond her capabilities to be wrong either. And she contented herself to wait as storm hued eyes moved from the filly towards the young mare, curious of her response and to learn that if in fact, the thing would require removal.
Her thoughts are initially a battle between predator and prey. The kelpie of her father tears into her throat of her mahogany mother (not unlike reality) behind the veil of her amber eyes. She is smaller than you; her flesh would be thin beneath your teeth. And yet a soft voice speaks, Is this really why you came here… To hunt those of your blood? Rivuline’s gaze narrows on the filly with the acuity of a shark scenting blood for just a moment, but her slender face softens as quickly as the hunger had appeared. There is still a serious color to her face; a stiffness lines her cheekbones and the edge of her jaw.
It cracks for just a moment to allow a husky laugh to pass through her lips. The winter air blossoms into a puff of smoke at the cusp of her nostrils, floating toward the kelpie filly’s face in the bitter wind. Before she has time to answer, a second stranger approaches (this one much more her own age and the predator whispers We can leave them, for now). “I… It’s my, um, my fin.” Rivuline knows she hasn’t spoken to anyone since she was a child —
a memory flashes like a firework: a rainy summer day spent nestled against her sister while palm fronds protected their young heads
— and the tune of her voice sounds as such. The turquoise tobiano shivers along with the filly as the winter wind presses firmly into their coats. She is not adept for the cold temperature; her coat has grown used to the constant warmth and movement the ocean has to offer. In an effort to conserve her body heat, the sailfish fin collapses, folding down to shield her spine from the bitterness of the cold. “I’m Rivuline.” The name sounds unfamiliar on her tongue, but she knows it’s her name. Just as she knows what sharks and corals and tides are, although the spoken language of the Earth is mostly unfamiliar to underwater ears. “Where are we? Is there any place warmer to go?”
The smaller filly blinks up at the turquoise with open curiosity. It does not occur to her that the stranger might be considering devouring her. Instead her, seafoam eyes dance across the older horse’s pretty face and tangled mane. That her attention lingers for a moment at Rivuline’s throat is a quirk of her instinct that she has never paid much mind to, and she never thinks that perhaps the other does much the same: and with the same golden-eyed stallion to thank for the inherited drive.
Celina’s pale eyes flick toward the newcomer with bright interest. The greying chestnut has a lovely spiral horn protruding from her forehead, the sharpness reminiscent of her own teeth. Can she use it as a weapon, the filly wonders? She has seen the deer of her homeland spar with their tined antlers, but a single spike might be less useful. Decoration, perhaps, like the hollow bits of stone that are hidden in the tangle of her navy mane. The white filly decides that the newcomer is probably Marni’s age, and the white markings on her coat deepen the likeness. Nodding at her own observation, Celina, she continues after Catche’s observation as well.
“I had a pinecone stuck in my tail once,” she tells them both, hopeful that her somber tone conveys the seriousness of the situation she describes. “And a nice lady helped me get it out even though I didn’t even ask.” With that act, the Balance was shifted, and her offer to Rivuline has been her effort to right it again. Life is a series of balances, she has been taught, with each act repaid in turn. Yet it seems that the odd growth on Rivuline’s back is something that she is attached to in more ways than one, and Celina shrugs her thin shoulders in acceptance. It’s not something she would keep, given the choice, but perhaps there is some hidden use for it.
“It’s um, very nice.” She tell the older woman, unaware that the lie is painted boldly in her small face for both of them to see.
The turquoise mare introduces herself. Rivuline, a pretty name, one that reminds her of water trickling over stones in a Taigan creek. “I’m Celina.” She announces, adding that: “It means ‘sky’” in case either of them wondered. When Rivuline asks where they are, Celina happily volunteers that they are in “The Meadow!” shooting a victorious glance toward Catcher, just in case the overo had hoped to speak first. She forgets, of course, the second half of the question, and smiles proudly.
11-09-2019, 11:10 AM (This post was last modified: 11-09-2019, 11:10 AM by Catcher.)
"Catcher is my name." Neither of them had asked her directly, but she figured she would give them that bit of information anyway. "It means I like to catch things," she says, with a wide grin, shifting her features for a breadth of a second to display a row of serpentine fangs and golden eyes. But it's there and gone with a blink of an eye and a purifying laugh. A snake she might be, and a catcher of prey on a few occasions, but she much preferred the act of catching and exploring dreams instead. In her opinion, it was much more fascinating and generally time better spent.
As it hadn't occurred to the filly, it evades her that they might be equipped with their own unique predatory instincts. The maiden might have noticed the point of their teeth, but beyond that everything else remained hidden beneath the gossamer of blissful ignorance. There hadn't been an obstacle in her life yet, that brought with it those feelings of danger and pain and betrayal and guilt or anything else unpleasant for the matter. They were possible she knew, but a bridge uncrossed and path untravelled. She had been warned, desperately by a mother who had known all of those things on levels of intimacy no well-minded person would ever dare explore.
But mother was debilitatingly afraid of something, she had been for a very long time, and Catcher was just not.
"Not really. Not unless you're willing to travel and cross kingdom boundaries," her tone thoughtful, she quickly adds to answer the sea toned mare's second question. "But if you're looking for more of a quick fix, I would suggest moving into denser woods where the wind won't reach as much. The wind is what will drive the cold straight to your bones." The dream weaver smiles, wider now, looking between the two as if to beg them the same question "Where are you from?"
This form of communication is much different from the language of the Sea, Rivuline decides. Beneath the waves, the turquoise could show her long teeth to scare away someone when she wanted to be left alone or settle near the coral reefs when she wanted companionship. The fish had always enjoyed rubbing the muck off their scales in the long dreads of her mane. For a flickering moment, Rivuline misses those colorful fish before realizing that she hasn’t heard a word of the younger girl’s story.
Something about a pinecone?
What are pinecones?
Rivuline drags her thoughts back to the world of thin air and towering trees to hear Celina’s faux compliment and subsequent introduction. Her amber eyes move to scan the surroundings now called the Meadow. In this winter month, the clearing is bitter and weary; tendrils of angry winds pick up the upper layers of the snow, whipping it across the empty spaces. The edges of the river just behind her feet are frozen and even the dead grass beneath the snow crunches as the turquoise tobiano shifts her weight. The barest hints of a sunset are beginning to appear in the sky with faint shades of pink and peach against the striking blue of the cloudless afternoon sky.
“The Meadow,” she echoes softly. Despite the cold, Rivuline couldn’t deny its beauty. It was striking in comparison to the warm blue-and-green of the ocean. Her slender face turns back toward Catcher and Celina as the horned girl spoke. “I would appreciate the warmth.” Even with her fin pressed against her spine to conserve her body heat, Rivuline finds her muscles shaking. Although Catcher had suggested moving toward the woods, the turquoise turns to head for the treeline immediately following her acceptance of the thought.
Along the way, she answers. “I come from the western ocean.” A pause as she takes a crunching step. The silence is broken by a slight gasp as Rivuline’s foot slips out from beneath her, weight unbalanced from the slick ice that hides beneath the snow. The length of her sailfish fin spreads open in an attempt to rebalance herself and give a clue to her surprise. She recovers with a floating sort of elegance. Another step is taken and her next comment attempts to smooth over the embarrassment that lingers. “Where are you two from?”
The overo mare introduces herself as Catcher, which is a very nice name, and Celina tells her so. “It’s a very good name,” she assures Catcher, deciding that it would be polite to not tell her that she already knew what catcher meant. It’s good to be polite, and perhaps Rivuline hadn’t known. For a moment, she thinks she had seen something like teeth in Catcher’s mouth, and gold rather than her current eye color. She starts to ask Catcher to show her again, but then the greying mare begins to speak about traveling and kingdom boundaries and finding a warm place to stay.
The idea of warmth is certainly appealing, and judging from the way that Rivuline shiver, the sea mare might like it even more. If they stay here a little longer though, the cold will numb their skin and it will start to feel warm again. The white filly considers offering this as an option, but a brief moment of thought reminds her that they might not be like her family. Their bodies might not regenerate from frostbite so easily, so it is comforting to see that they do both begin to head for the windbreak provided by the trees.
Celina, who had landed face-first twice in the snow by time they reach shelter, does not think twice about Rivuline’s brief slip. “Like in in the ocean?” She asks instead, turning her nestle her slim body against a broad tree trunk. It blocks most of the wind, she finds. “I’m from Taiga,” she adds, “but I went to the western ocean once, with Mom and Lilli. Mom said her Dad lives there but I didn’t get to see him. I’ve never gotten to see him.” The white filly doesn’t sound disappointed by this fact, it is just more information to tell these new friends.
“Thank you,” Catcher says to Celina with a sleepy smile. She thinks it’s a pretty okay name too, even though she had no say in choosing it. In fact, mother hadn’t even crowned her with a name until a while after her birth, unsure of what to name the only daughter she had bared. No name seemed fitting apparently, and it took the emergence of her gifts to finally discover a suitable one. The overo mare liked it well enough, but in her opinion, it wasn’t as pretty as Rivuline’s or Celina’s. “Yours is good too.”
There’s not much in the way of hesitation after she suggests moving towards the trees. Practically as soon as she had mentioned the idea, the finned mare began the snow riddled trek towards denser cover. Wide-eyed, the unicorn watches with a sharp intake of breath as Rivuline slips, followed shortly thereafter by Celina using her face to break her fall not once but twice. She makes a weird sound in her throat that might have been the start of a question to make sure that they were okay. But they both look unaffected and rather proud, so she lets the question die on her lips. Suddenly grateful for having spent four winters in Beqanna already to figure out the winter footing, the dumbfounded girl follows them the rest of the way.
Shortly after they’ve begun to settle in a place where the wind blessedly broke around them, her own question is reflected back at her. “Nowhere,” she says at first, then with an inkling of self-doubt she adds, “Everywhere?” She hadn’t been asked that before, and it made her feel a little confused and a bit tongue-tied when she thought too much into it. She exhales a sigh, “What I mean, is that I’m not really from anywhere and I don’t call one place home. I just...travel.” With an indifferent shrug, she repositions to hover her weight over a rear hoof and looks back towards Rivuline. The attention makes her somewhat uncomfortable, and she’d be glad to rid herself of it. Besides, just as Celina is intrigued, she’d like to know if the teal painted girl literally meant in in the ocean too.
The relief of the wind-break the trees provide is a blissful balm on her skin. Rivuline watches as Celina winds herself around the structure of a tree trunk. Did the tree leak warmth into the filly’s coat or did she truly love the forest so much? This is the first time the young mare has experienced the whims of the surface-world since her youngest years of life. Was it customary to burrow against the trees? The slender length of Rivuline’s neck is beginning to curve around the side of a nearby tree when she notices that Catcher is not hugging the trees. Awkward. Maybe it is just a thing to do in your childhood. Rather than continuing her movement, Rivuline dips her head so she can itch her neck against the tree’s bark. It’s a satisfying feeling, even when she had no itch to scratch.
Celina announces her home as Taiga and Catcher says she is from nowhere and everywhere at once. The word Taiga is unfamiliar in Rivuline’s mind and she doesn’t dare say it aloud in case she completely botches the pronunciation. Her amber eyes narrow in confusion at the thought of in in the ocean. Do others call the western ocean home but not truly live in it? It’s a confusing thought and brings a bubble of frustration with it. The western ocean’s tides are more familiar to her than the soft curve of her mother’s side or the sound of her father’s voice (both are faint memories that come and go only in her dreams). To think that someone considers themselves a dweller of the western ocean but does not know the constellations of coral reefs or the hiding places of the sea turtles feels like a betrayal to Rivuline.
“Yes, in in the ocean.” She gives a soft shake of her mane, reorganizing the dreadlocked tangles of white, soft blue, and turquoise that had been disrupted during her itching. As if to prove her point a one-tooth simnia, a brown-banded wentletrap, and a pear whelk slip from her mane and land with a soft noise in the snow. Three seashells scrubbed clean by salt and tide, now cold among frozen shards of water. “I saw a trail leading out of the water and followed it.” Rivuline pauses a moment and one ear twists as if listening for something. You are concealed now. They would taste smoky, I bet. Saliva rushes into her toothed mouth at the thought of their sun-smoked taste compared to the tang of the fish. The painted girl gives a rough shake of her head as if to toss the thoughts out of her mind. These two girls are nice, and the first to approach her in this new place. Rivuline needs them if she’s going to survive.
She needs to keep moving in order to control her predator-borne thoughts. “Can I see your home, Celina?”
