"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 has been, and was supposed to stay, dead. While death had not been welcomed, exactly (certainly not in the way it had come about, violent and brutal, blood soaking the sands of her home), it had been deserved. For a woman who had parceled out violence, a violent end had been fitting. Never mind that she had not been violent, in the end, that she had lived and loved and pretended she had never been wicked, that madness did not rot inside her. History always catches up. For a woman who had killed her own mother, death by her son’s hands had been fitting, too.
She had not been a ghost, either. She had walked into the darkness and then she had ceased to exist. She haunted no one. She watched no one. The world moved on and she was nothing. So when her eyes snap open, she is confused, and then she is furious. She does not know that decades have passed since her murder. She is brought back to that moment, and she looks around, wildly, expecting to see his hooves crashing down. But there is nothing. Quiet, all around. She exhales - her first breath in years - and begins to actually take in her surroundings. She is no longer in the deserts, but instead in a forest, entirely unfamiliar. Her heart speeds up and her breath tightens, feeling claustrophobic amongst the foliage and shadow. Such fecundity reminds her of other kingdoms, she had long since forgone them in favor of the desiccation of the deserts, all burning sun and shifting sands. There are pathways before her, but she does not know where any of them lead, she is entirely lost here, confused as to how she came about at all.
She inhales again, trying to steady herself, to make sense of what has happened. Of why she is here. The last thing she remembers is Garbage before her, the orange eyes rolling on the sand, hooves crashing, and light, light all around, surrounding her, drowning out the cries of is this enough? What happened? Why is she here? That she died does not occur to her, especially since she is unscathed, now, unbroken. Perhaps Garbage’s appearance had been a dream, guilt manifesting, and she was waking now. Yes, she decides, settling herself, that must be it. And she must have sleepwalked, too - surprisingly far, as this land feels unknown to her. The mind can do crazy things sometimes. She, of all people, should know this.
She follows a path, and it spills out to a riverbank. The river, like everything else, is forgein to her. The water charges along, so different from the oasis she knows so well, and the sound of it makes her eyes twitch. Something is wrong - she knows this - but she doesn’t know what. Only that the air is different. She is alone, at the river, but just because she cannot see anyone doesn’t mean they aren’t there. She reaches out with her mind, casts a wide net, and sends her signal, hoping someone will hear and be able to turn her back to her home. I am Craft, queen of Dewdrop Deserts, and I seem to have lost my way.
11-04-2019, 06:27 PM (This post was last modified: 11-04-2019, 06:29 PM by Epithet.)
If the magic of her birth still pulsed in the depths of her veins, Epithet would have felt the gentle plea of the disoriented queen. Beqanna changes from day to day and the fall of each bloated sun takes countless souls beneath the crush of it's golden embrace. Epithet has been fortunate to defy the nature of typical equines by using her abilities to just simply exist.
Often, the small mare was a mist on the meadow, burning away as the sun rose. It was a much easier, much simpler, way to exist without having to be present. There was no desire to carry on lengthy conversations. Epithet, when younger, had though the more words she crammed into the space between her and another meant they truly cared...took interest in the small enclosure that had consisted in her world but the world was far crueler than that.
But that was long ago when she was naive in the wilderness of the world, a pretty virginal sacrifice to the wolves.
Dark feet sink into the softness of wet pebbles and sand as she walks the river. It was peaceful this time of year as others too refuge in their harems, the beds of others, keeping warm in the winter nights. Epithet enjoys the feel of icy wind nibbling at the tender warm places of her body. She did not chose any other skin or form other than her God given body (a nicely assembled porcelain gray that defies all logic of aging) to walk the edge of the joyfully gurgling waters.
Up ahead, struggling, a pale gold smudge seems to dangle against the bland grey of winter sky. It steps with uncertainty and it draws Epi like a shark who smells blood in the water. Carefully...collectively, the smaller mare approaches with wide, dark eyes. The other is a woman...and-
d e a t h
Epithet shivers and recoils slightly but attempts to quell the reaction. Something is not right, Beqanna has taken and given before but this...this is unnatural. Epithet is centuries old but still does not know this mare. Perhaps a reincarnation? No. Her eyes are far too wide and and watching...old and gathering. Epithet smells the earth in her throat, a sweet scent of rot from something unearthed and unholy but without her magic there is no way for her to know much more than the five senses available to her.
'Hello there..." Easy enough, a greeting that is cautious but still offered. The grey mare is careful to avoid any trickery as she remains distant but inclined to know this other. Magic existed in Beqanna since the beginning of time but even this was something Epithet never thought existed (nor would she ever thought she would meet!) Tales of Craft and her reign were bedtime stories for the young and foolish and little did Epi know that she stood in the presence of such lush royalty embedded deep in Beqanna's torn history.
There is more to Craft than she knows, that with this wretched awakening came more. This has not come to pass with her, yet, she knows only the powers she had for years, her telepathy, her hypnotism.
(Stolen, they’d been, tricked from her mother - a parting gift before she had bewitched Scissors into walking into the sea. It will be years before she puts together that Scissors had been a magician, and should have stopped it. Love was a dangerous thing.)
Death has not crossed her mind, other than the fright she last remembers. Her strange, vivid nightmare. She knows something is wrong, just not what. But she stays steady, or, as steady as she can manage.
And from afar, does she look dead? No gravedirt dusts her brow, her body shows no sign of rot. There is something, perhaps - not a physical thing, but a sense, because she is an anachronism, whether she knows it or not.
But she is beautiful - that remains. Gold with cornsilk mane. Planier now, perhaps, as the world grew fuller with fantastical creatures, horses of all colors, shimmering and shifting into mythical things. It may be that she no longer stands out as she once did, dwarfed by the magic of the world.
Someone comes, finally, a gray mare. Craft looks at her, curious, almost grateful. She is grateful that she is not alone anymore, that perhaps this mare will know the way to the deserts. There is no recognition in the mare’s eyes - her message slipped by unheard, then - but it doesn’t matter.
“Hello,” she says, voice soft. There is no sign of disuse in her voice, it seems that it, too, snapped fully back into existence. She smiles.
“I’m Craft, of the deserts,” she begins. She’s often announced the two together, not wanting her name separated from the land that had healed her.
“I think I was sleepwalking, to end up here,” she says, shaking her head, smiling, as if this was a common thing, something to be laughed about.
Truth was, she’d never sleep-walked in her life.
The other offers a sweet calm air about her as her eyes are wide and watching, beautiful as she glitters in her gold skin and pale hair, so much that Epithet's mind drifts to even gently running her lips against the silk...but that is dangerous and should be regarded as an omen (perhaps).
Winter drifts around their capsule of conversation. Epithet relaxes before the taller woman as she does not scent a threat beyond the bright eyes. It is eerie and enchanting to have stumbled upon the lovely creature in the midst of a usually dreary day and it draws Epithet closer.
A single grey leg extends to bring her a breath near, smile blossoming upon her lips, Epithet nearly feels the blush of her curiosity warming her cheeks...but it all slips away when the mare offers her name...it's the ice of Beqanna's winter. "Craft..." Epi repeats. A state of awe, surprise, damn near fear ripples over her skin before being punctuated with, "-of the deserts.", from the shining mare.
The rest of Craft's words dissipate upon a drunken winter breeze. Epithet feels it wash over her...how in the name of all Beqanna's gods is it possible? Suddenly she feels nervous, a chill crawling through the vertebrae of her spine. This was unnatural magic. "The deserts..." She can only begin as the words fight their descent. It had been so long since anyone had spoken of the deserts.
"I-", stuttering and foolish, "I'm afraid the deserts have been gone for quite a while." Epithet tries to salvage what she can, watching the mare carefully, heightened to a display of potential outrage. "The gates, deserts and falls...gone with the reckoning." Her tongue suddenly feels thick and sluggish as she attempts to build an explanation. "How is it possible?" The question is asked with a shrillness she had not intended. "You've been gone...dead for so long...but here you stand..." The words fumble and knot but Epithet knows this mare and knows her name well and still she can not bear to rip her eyes away from the pristine features.
"I am so sorry...I'm Epithet." Surely the shock of it all will drown out her name but she would still try. The smaller pale mare would not attempt to reach out or console the honey mare for repercussions could come from such boldness but how she longed to do so. Dark eyes wet with her eagerness to understand, Epithet falls silent and allows the chilled silence to consume them.
The mare is strange, repeating herself, sounding awed, or frightened, and Craft is almost impatient. All she wants is to return home, to forget this strange night, where she dreamed her own death and woke somewhere strange and unfamiliar, with no idea how to make it home. It’s all highly unpleasant, and she wishes only for her sands, for their warmth.
She is not prepared for the mare’s next words, had almost tuned them out (not out of an intentional impoliteness, she is merely very tired, the anxiety of being lost gnawing at her strength). Gone…gone with the reckoning.
Craft knows of no reckoning, the only reckoning will be the one she wreaks if she cannot be pointed home.
The mare keeps talking, claims that she – Craft! – has been dead and gone.
She thinks, again, of the dream. The realness of it. Blood stinking on the sand. The pain searing through her as her ribs broke.
She inhales, sharp, and she takes in the breath easily. She is unbroken. No blood dries on her skin.
It was a dream. It was a dream.
“Don’t lie, Epithet,” she says, and her voice is colder now. She has grow kinder, as she aged, as she found peace in the deserts, but that Craft is further gone now, as she tries to right herself, to understand why this stranger has found her, only to spout lies.
“I had a dream,” she says, “and I sleepwalked here. I was just in the deserts. I’m only trying to make it home, I don’t know why you’re trying to make this difficult.”
Craft
@[Epithet] sorry to make you wait 100 years only to have her be mean -_-
Nish knows this place is Beqanna in name, but it is certainly not home. He combs the forests looking for familiar ground, searching for something--anything--that might lead him back to The Amazons or The Deserts but there's nothing to be found.
His eagerness to return home becomes panic when realization starts to set in. Dread pricks at the edges of his heart and he shifts, again and again, from the mundane to the magical. Whatever might get him home faster, whatever form might help him find a clue that would point him in the right direction at the very least.
He's an exhausted, wide-eyed little black cat when a voice whispers in... his ear? That doesn't seem right. It's too quiet. Distorted. Like someone speaking through a dense wall. But the feline manages to make out the word 'Deserts' quite plainly and it tugs him sharply in the direction of whoever sent the message as if there were an invisible hook in his chest.
From cat to sparrow, from sparrow to crow.
Nish settles in a branch above them, ruffling his feathers and tilting his head this way and that.
And then he hears Epithet speak those terrible words, confirming his suspicions.
The old queen starts in, accusing the poor mare of lying and this is when Tarnished chooses to hop down from his branch. The transformation is quick, if they blink they will miss it, and the large dark stallion stares them down coolly. "She isn't lying," he murmurs, lowering his head. His ears swivel back. He withholds the fact that his mother ruled the Deserts long after Craft's death and then his father after her, fearing he might overwhelm the poor ancient soul. "The Deserts was my home as well."
Vanquish x Nocturnal equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity
The gold queen’s ears snap flat to her skull as the dark stallion manifests from nothing (a bird, in the corner of her eye, and then a horse, an unsettling magic). She steps forward, muscles tense, when she feels something thrum through her own body, a strange, foreign sense, electricity zipping through her nerves. What had that been? She’s never felt such a sensation before. Her own powers, the ones given to her by her mother, were rarely used, far less strong.
Of course, she’d used them once, right after taking them, a sin she tries to forget, as if it was easy to forget you’d killed your own mother, hypnotized her into walking into the sea. Never mind that madness had held her in the chokehold, the action was, ultimately, hers.
The stallion speaks, backing up the mare’s words with his implication. Craft feels dizzy, ill, and with a faint and insensible fury throbbing in the back of her mind like a headache. The deserts can’t be gone. It simply can’t.
“What…” she says, struggling for the words, still convinced – still hoping, desperately – that this is some stupid, cruel joke that they’re playing on a queen. That it makes no sense – that they are all strangers, that the stallion had happened upon them, that they have no reason to lie – prickles at the back of her mind but she tries to shove it back.
“What happened?”
She searches their face, hoping again to find evidence of deceit. That she could, perhaps, simply hypnotize them into truth-telling has not yet occurred to her – or perhaps it had, and she is still too frightened of the truth to allow such a thought to surface.
12-22-2019, 10:27 AM (This post was last modified: 12-22-2019, 10:28 AM by Epithet.)
Epithet listens with a tilted ear, it acknowledges but does not flicker and flinch as the old queen accuses her of fabricating cruel lies. Her dark eyes are somber and despite the sharp edges words licking over her porcelain skin. She understands for she is old like the golden mare...there have been times her own deep slumber had left her jilted and confused.
A shadow of a crow passes over it shifts rapidly into that of a dark stallion (Epithet smiles to find another shifter but it is her secret for now). His voice is low but it concentrates on Craft...vibrating against her metallic skin. It felt good to be defended and not have to persuade the old queen that the way of the world has changed. Epithet can offer a small curled smile with wide, wet eyes. Normally the small mare took on a much more less tolerable attitude but she feels for Craft. Beqanna has changed so much while the mare had slept.
The dark eyed mare offers a nod of a appreciation to the unknown stallion but she already can feel a thrum of strength and magic with his bones. Clearly he is more like her than he realizes but in the mean time she silent between the two. "The residents became too greedy..they were punished...we ALL we're punished..." Her eyes drift away for a moment as she reflects on when she had discovered her own abilities had been gone...her own magic lost (not that her shifting was any less amazing) but she had felt so naked and raw without it.
"The world fell apart and the faeries took it all back...we had to work, to earn the world before you. I'm sorry none pf this makes sense..." There is an actual sincerity in her voice instead of a flat sarcasm that usually dominated her tone. Epithet has not felt such clear ache in so long that it plucked her heartstrings in the small cavern of her chest. She felt for Craft...sympathizes not pitied, wanting to help ease the confusion that no doubt crept in the corners of her mind.
