"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
08-13-2015, 01:47 PM (This post was last modified: 08-20-2015, 06:32 PM by Ephrelle.
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the ones that love me, i tend to leave behind
For months now she has hidden, keeping deep in the southern Jungle were the paths are overgrown and the leopards have hungry yellow eyes.
At first shock had kept her away, shock and the overwhelming lack of control over her own body. She dreamt of Nerissa every night for a month, waking in a panicked sweat from dreams about her own death. The dreams had faded in time, but what had happened to her in the magic world has shown no sign of fading. The lack of control has been slowly replaced with an iron tightness; practice and solitude have her shifting in the blink of an eye. Ephrelle still has no words for what had happened, but she is finally comfortable with what she is.
A monster.
She has accepted herself and only now is she ready to see if the Amazons are still willing to accept her.
She is doubtful, for the flower and vine have been gone many months now, and her golden honeybee is nowhere to be found. Instead, she wears the mark of the monster on her elegant black nose, the scalloped golden edges of scales where scales have no right to be. Still, she knows she must return, and so when summer begins to fade and the heat is lifting ever so slightly, she comes home.
At three, she’s not entirely grown, but she is not the lanky young thing that had disappeared. The flecks of white have spread across her smoky black coat, leaving her head and legs black but turning her body mottled grey and white. Her mane and tail remain black as well, though the muscled, spiked appendage she wears behind her is nothing like the silky-haired tail of before. She is not so drastically changed that she thinks no one will recognize her, but it is not their recognition she wants – it is their acceptance.
Ducking beneath a low hanging liana, the young mare makes her way back into the heart of the Jungle, and waits to see what awaits her.
e p h r e l l e
if you know about me and choose to stay then take this pleasure and take it with the pain
The call of home is usually too strong for anyone to resist. It seemed to be ten times more strong in regards to the sisterhood. Maybe it was the pact they made, silent or spoken aloud, that the jungle belonged to them and they belonged to the jungle. Tattoos or not, this place left a mark on them all. You could never escape the Amazons. Hiding in the jungle is something she knows well. Since her return, she keeps mostly to herself in the depths of humidity. Every now and then she ventures to the border, finding her only usefulness is as a silent invisible protector. Rarely does she speak, there hasn’t been many opportunities for it.
Today she toys with the idea of seeking out the warrior mare she had met when she first returned to the jungles embrace. Lagertha she thinks. Not that she didn’t like Scorch but the Jaqqa embodies everything she has ever learned or remembered the Amazons being. The mare reminds her of old days, a tangle of good and bad memories. Lagertha reminds her of strength. Strength was what she had given this place once, a purpose for living. She doesn’t doubt that Lagertha could give this place a good swift kick in the ass and turn it back into the respected thing it was. The jungle seems so dead, lackluster to her. Just as it had been before the mutiny, before she had claimed the throne. Lifting her muzzle to the slight breeze that finds it’s way pass leaves and vine, inhaling slowly. Winds of change, she thinks. It would happen sooner rather than later. Nothing remains stagnant for long.
Her thoughts are broken by the sound of another coming through the growth. Her head tilts slightly, golden eyes narrowed on the approaching creature. The jaguar mare takes a few prowling steps forward, as is her nature, and she wuffs softly out to the other who is still an odd shadow in the faint light. ”Who’s there?”
this will never end, ‘cause i want more, more, give me more
Beqanna has an odd way of playing with fate and bringing together those who need one of the three things: whatever they need the most in that instant, a slight nudge in one direction or the other, or whatever they want the least. The thoughts that have been hovering in the forefront of her mind are threatening to burst forth, pushing her to take some sort of action because she can feel the life slowly ebbing from this place, and it makes her angry. What can she do, but train her small faction? What can she do, but make sure she knows the sisters? What can she do when her ambition and passion were thrown back in her face, and the one they chose now chooses to pop out kids like a machine instead of rule a kingdom.
What can she do, except find an alternative?
She knows that there are a few she can count on, and a few who will never be on her side. The others, she must feel out, as a swordsman tests the weight and balance of a new blade. Not to be used, of course, but as partners. A warrior is only as good as her comrades and her weapons
Today, the Jungle spirit seems to lead her; she’s caught glimpses of the dark, half-grown feline, and looked back at her expectantly, it’s tail twitching, before moving through the undergrowth. With a soft chuckle, she follows as best she can, though the spirit always seems at least five steps ahead of her. A couple of times, the General loses her guide, but it always returns with a teasing eye and occasional swat, as if to say, hurry up, you can do better than that. She is far more quiet than the General, though the gray mare likes to think she knows a lot of the Jungle very well. Maybe not the Southern parts, where Ephrelle was hiding - but it was rather far away and Lagertha needs to be easily accessible.
The three of them seem to converge in an unusual spot. The gray mare is the last, so when Tantalize calls out Who’s there?, she answers without hesitation, continuing forward (though her guide seems to have vanished into thin air… such is the way of cats and spirits, she thinks). “It's Lagertha. Hello, Tantalize… and Ephrelle, right?” Lagertha doesn’t know either of them particularly well. Theoretically, they’re both in the army, though she’s seen neither hide nor hair of them. Ephrelle’s got something spiny going on with her tail. She eyes it with calm curiosity, before flashing the two ladies a small, reserved smile.
Lagertha has seen many crazy things and has been eaten by the Langoliers after impaling her sire’s beloved on her own spikes. She’s been to space and she’s fought hideous, acidic creatures. Ephrelle’s condition is strange, but hardly rejection worthy. Besides, if the youngest sister looks carefully, she might see that Lagertha’s tattoo and personal markings are gone as well, to be replaced by a growing pair of horns and fledgling wings. Perhaps it is Ephrelle who will not recognize her.
lagertha
carnage x grim reaper; amazonian general
[arghhh i keep forgetting she has horns and wings x.x ]
08-20-2015, 06:05 PM (This post was last modified: 08-20-2015, 06:25 PM by Ephrelle.
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the ones that love me, i tend to leave behind
Ephrelle’s first breath had been taken in the humid forest air; she was tied to the Jungle before her life truly began. Yet Ephrelle is not like those others, those girls that can trace their lineage through warrior women enumerable. Her mother did not serve here and her grandmother was no Queen. Her great-grandmother has never even been to this rain-addled part of Beqanna, and yet here Ephrelle was born despite everything in her ancestry that suggest anything but this place.
Very far back, she supposes, she probably had family that lived here. She doesn’t know their names (she can’t even trace her own lineage past her maternal grandparents and on her parental side it ends at her father’s name alone) and she doesn’t really even mind. Ephrelle’s from-birth devotion is a choice, a choice she made as a newborn and a choice she made when she swore herself to the Jungle, and a choice that she makes every day.
This is her home.
She had not seen the bay mare, disguised as she is with the spots and her own stillness. Ephrelle freezes, her muscled tail rising to the left unconsciously as she tenses her shoulders to duck. But the voice she hears is not adversarial , it sounds as startled as Ephrelle. Perhaps she is safe, she thinks, and her tail begins to lower.
It ascends just as quickly, her heart pounding in her chest as yet another voices echoes out into the jungle. How had she been so blind to her surroundings? How had she missed not one, but two(two!) horses in the trees? There is no cool logic to her thoughts, no steely voice commanding each of her actions so that she resembles nothing more than she does a horse hewn of ice. Cold, Unflappable, Proud. Ephrelle is none of those things, least of all every one of them at once, especially not in moments such as this.
The second voice introduces itself as Lagertha, and Ephrelle suddenly wishes she has stayed away just ten minutes longer. Of all the mares she could have run into today, the Khaleesi would have been the only one worse than Lagertha. The varnish roan filly is a part of the army in name only and the General knows it. She knows her name too, Ephrelle hears, blinking wide green eyes.
“Ye…Yes.” She manages to spit out, but it is a near thing.
“My name is Ephrelle.” The other mare’s name is Tantalize, the smoky black horse surmises, but she does not recognize it. The only Khaleesi she has ever known is Scorch, and she could not name the bald mare’s predecessor if her own life depended on it. She assumes that the dull silence of the Jungle is the way the place has always been. To Ephrelle, the Jungle is warrior women in name only – she has only ever heard of Lagertha participating in an actual battle. On edge, she does not notice the grey mare’s lack of tattoos, but that would have done much to calm her if only she had glanced down.
e p h r e l l e
if you know about me and choose to stay then take this pleasure and take it with the pain
It is quite unlike her to be spooked so easily but then again she is quite unlike her old self these days. Constantly hunting down her past, trying to put pieces together. It’s all an effort to regain her old sense of self again but perhaps it was a lost cause. She is stagnant, a shell. The small glimmer of steely hope in her core is flickering with lackluster, close to burning out. Perhaps her and the jungle are more tied up then she is aware of, both dying a slow and lingering death.
Lagertha.” She greets quietly, her muscles slowly contracting and loosening as she exhales her tension. A hint of a smile turning the corner of her lips as her gold eyes find that of the spiny mare and the warrior. A slight nod in greeting is given to the unfamiliar as she brings herself further out in the open. ”Ephrelle.” How odd that she was just thinking about the shield maiden and then there she was, bringing another with her. Her gaze turns to that of the silvery jaguar cub and she stares at it for a moment before asking bluntly. ”What is that?”
A few Amazonian’s had tattoos when she had ruled but it hadn’t been the norm, hadn’t been a gift till after she was gone. The whole thing doesn’t confuse her or throw her off as it might for the others. She can tell who belongs and who doesn’t simply by the way they held themselves, the shortness of their coats, and the telling scent of the jungle. It was the old ways perhaps but they had always served her just fine.
this will never end, ‘cause i want more, more, give me more
Oh good lord. Putting Lagertha in the same category as Scorch is the best way to get on her bad side. She knows there are similarities - they can be notoriously difficult to get along with, and definitely rub each other the wrong way. Lagertha can be so direct as to seem cold at times, stating her opinions bluntly and (usually) without hesitation. That one of her own sisters could be afraid of her? Well that was simply baffling. Especially when all she has said is hello.
Lagertha tilts her head a little, confused as to why Ephrelle seems so taken aback. Is she afraid, or simply hesitant? She’s about to ask what’s wrong with her when Tantalize speaks up, indicating the half-grown jaguar cub that seems to have stuck around. In Lagertha’s experience, it doesn’t do that very often, so maybe it’s curious about what will happen here, with these three who hardly know each other. The feline has taken a very relaxed position up in a tree, lounging with her tail down and twitching every now and then. Lagertha chuckles. “That’s our residential spirit of the Jungle. Literally. When Beqanna took our tattoos she gave us the cub to watch over and protect it as it grows. I dont really know what she does...” The general drifts off, her dark eye turned toward the cat’s own gold ones, as it blinks down at them and yawns, revealing some rather sharp incisors.
She turns back to the two of them, waiting to see what they think, or have to say about the jaguar. Or anything, really.
Lagertha and Scorch are precisely the same to Ephrelle – they are both her leaders, the mares that keep the Jungle in order and govern the lives of the women inside it. Perhaps to someone like Nayl (someone wily, someone willing to do whatever is necessary to advance oneself), Lagertha and Scorch are different, but not to Ephrelle who is nothing more than a friendly, polite follower. Her desire for personal power is nonexistent, and she has never yearned to lead anything but herself.
She only doesn’t want to be a disappointment, and that is why she is hesitant.
Tantalize points out something to the side that Ephrelle hadn’t noticed before. She turns her green gaze to meet the yellow eyes of the cat lunging in the tree, her ears flickering to hear Lagertha’s explanation. Ephrelle’s eyes fly to the grey general’s chest where –sure enough – her tattoos were also gone. So it is not Ephrelle that has sinned against the Jungle after all. She feels her heart lighten at the thought, and her body language certainly reflects that as well.
“It seems…nice?” She says hesitantly, not wanting to offend the Jungle Spirit but also unsure exactly what else she should say about it. “How’s the Jungle?” she asks, turning her green eyes back to Lagertha. “I’ve been…away lately.” Lagertha certainly knows that - Ephrelle hadn’t shown up for their meeting – but she doesn’t want Tantalize to think that she’s uninformed by choice.
e p h r e l l e
if you know about me and choose to stay then take this pleasure and take it with the pain
Spirit of the jungle eh? So it had taken an actual shape and the form it used was quite fitting indeed. The russet mare, who shared the same spots as the lounging spirit above her, moves closer to the cat and stands directly beneath it. She gazes up, golden eyes meeting golden eyes, and smiles to herself. There is no fear with this jaguar, instead she feels a kindred connection. In fact she feels almost like her old self, standing so close to it.
They have all sinned against the jungle in one way or another. Losing drive and not serving in the way they should, giving up, disappearing, making bad choices. However the jungle forgives them, sometimes repeatedly, and second chances are usually given depending on how bad the betrayal was. For those first few days she had returned, the jaguar mare had barely slept. Fearing repercussions for what she had done, leaving her sisters when they had needed her most. Her dreams turned into nightmares, vines twisting across her body and holding her hostage. She remembers that nightmare well, when the snakes had crawled inside her and she was being torn from inside out thanks to the cougar that had captured her in his cruel grasp. But that had only been a dream..
Shaking her head, she returns her golden gaze back to her sisters. A single ear flicks in the direction of Ephrelle, catching her question. ”The jungle is… Quiet.” A glance at the General as she wonders if they can detect the hint of distaste in her voice. Part of her feels that she has no room to talk after what she has done. However the jungle had fallen into slumber once before and she had roused it awake with a little help from her friends. Experience in this situation could be of use if anyone wanted it that is.
this will never end, ‘cause i want more, more, give me more
Lagertha laughs freely at Ephrelle’s comment - an event that must seem rare and almost out of character for the General. “I suppose so. Hopefully she will grow to be both fierce and nice.” The jaguar blinks her golden eyes and there is a rumble in the back of its throat, though the meaning of it is unclear. She glances towards it, for though Rhy is her lioness and the epitome of their home is another large cat, there is still a slight sense of unease. Perhaps it is due to the thoughts in her mind and the plan she is about to nudge forward.
Tantalize echoes her sentiments exactly, and the corners of Lagertha’s mouth twitch upward for a moment. Yes.
“Too quiet,” she adds dryly to the former Khaleesi’s assessment. And then adds as an afterthought, “though it is no single sister’s fault. We are lax.” Her gaze shifts between the two women and she continues slowly, trying to pick her words with care. “It would be good to see some new faces, Ephrelle, or… perhaps a steal to remind others that we still exist? Whatever strikes your fancy, if you are up to it.” A General cannot be hard all the time; she must understand and provide gentle, but firm guidance when necessary. A little direction, perhaps, for those who seem lost. “And Liz - may I call you Liz? I would love to pick your brain about something later…” And then in her brisk, ever on the move manner, she nods decisively to the both of them, a thin and pressed, but genuine smile on lips.
“If you’ll excuse me, ladies. There is something I need to tend to.”
Working, always working. Time to see what the Meadow held for her. She diverts herself around the two of them, leaving them to whatever conversation they might want to continue, but hopefully, with activities in mind. The jaguar watches her leave with hooded eyes, but stays behind. The tree is comfortable and it is time for a little cat nap...
