"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 bones finally spoke to me last night. I've been coaxing them for so long, and it finally worked. It was an accident, as so much of my life is. I didn't mean to knock over the pile of fox and badger, squirrel and deer. I was angry first, then afraid someone would hear, and investigate the clattering sound they'd made. No one did, and I set about restoring them to their rightful places.
I hadn't moved very many (a squirrel skull and a handful of opossum ribs returned lovingly to their places) when it occurred to me that there were pictures in the way the bones had fallen. They were talking to each other, and I was being allowed to listen in.
Bone and stone, claw and mummified paw. They lay on one another, between each other, opposed each other. Told a story she was beginning to understand, in the most abstract of ways. Go East, the toothless deer jaw suggested. Dawn, whispered the sparrow wing, poised daintily on the fox's scapula. I smiled ruefully, ready to dismiss the images as wistful thinking. I picked up my collection, every piece returned home until it was as if nothing had ever happened.
The next morning I woke with the sun. The filtered light was warm and coaxing as I emerged from my den, and I wondered why my mother had ever wished it gone. The sun was beautiful, and I savored a moment just soaking it in. Well. I had nothing better to do today, did I?
Almost by accident, I found myself on the eastern edge of the forest. Looking out to where the trees thinned and the grassland began. The boundary between my world and the next. It was so open, so broad, a shiver of fear prickled my skin. There was no where to hide out there. I almost turned back just then. The was no point in testing fate, in bringing destruction down on my own head so carelessly.
The breeze kicked up just then. Cold and clean and bearing the scents of something I couldn't place. But I wanted to. I wanted to know what made the air smell like that. So with tiny, hesitant steps that stretched into an unexpected run, I fled into the open, not daring to look back.
05-16-2021, 10:08 PM (This post was last modified: 05-16-2021, 10:08 PM by Obscene.)
Kiss me again Kiss me until I am sick of it
The snow melts revealing a brighter world beneath the frost. Birds sing, the sun shines, and new buds are seen on the sparse tree limbs. Even the flowers bloom early, greedy to be seen and to soak up the light that had long been denied to them. The Pampas is calm and beautiful and serene.
But there’s a storm threatening to break on its horizon.
The fae still shun him, still hide from him, still don’t return to the petals that they had once danced upon. He’s even checked the Meadow for his old friends with not a word, not a peep. He still finds signs of their presence but it’s become clear that he will not find them as long as they don’t want to be found. That ache in his chest seems a little larger, a little heavier. It's unexpected, how he misses their blunt words, their prankster ways, even the pollen that they had smeared across his pelt and braided in his mane. He decorates himself now as if that may call them back, smearing gold along his chest, rubbing it across high cheekbones with a pollinated knee. Maybe this time they will come back. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
There is more activity amongst the rolling hills than there had been in awhile but it’s still quieter then he would like. Still, it was something. He was slowly breathing new life into the place which is more than he’s ever accomplished before. Although the vibrant red flowers had returned (and their source of amusement with them) he leaves off indulging today. Usually he likes to be stoned or shitfaced before noon but today there’s a rare desire to be clear and cool headed. So he decides to explore his lands more thoroughly and to inspect the invisible borders as he supposes he should.
He spots the grassy mammoth in the distance, also newly returned from wherever it had huddled itself from the cold, and gives a sharp whistle to him. It’s enough to turn the mammoth’s head. “And here I thought you died Steve!” He gives a sideways grin as he calls to him, watching the beast raise it’s trunk in salutations (or maybe it’s an unkind gesture, he can’t be sure) before it ambles off to do whatever mammoths do all day.
Bright crimson iris’s slide away from the ancient creature as a pastel blur catches the corner of his eye. If she thinks she’s being slick, she’s failing miserable. He watches the cotton candy filly dart into the wild ocean of flowers before him as if her life depends on it. He watches her progress before picking up his own pace to follow her, notices the direction she is darted from and the hue of her color is not lost on him. It makes him wonder if this is the daughter of the pierced mare who had once tried to collect him. Perhaps this is the daughter she had spoken about.
He wonders why she is here and although he should be annoyed that she’s come uninvited, he finds he doesn’t really care. Let them come to his tiny court and indulge in its pleasures. It might work in his favor. He keeps some distance between himself and the girl, merely observing for the moment. Curious to what exactly might have brought her here. Only one way to find out.
There may be hell to pay when I get home, but for now the sunlight bathing the springtime world makes up for it. There is warmth and color in every direction, the air only just cool enough to remind that winter was recently here. Patches of ice linger on the far sides of shaded hills, but where the sun hits, it's magic.
There are flowers in the forest of my birth. Small things that reach for sunlight wherever they can, shrubs that populate the edges with tiny sprays of white this time of year. But nothing so spectacular as the blooms already spilling down the landscape as I run. My world is perpetutual autumn, the constant verge of death and decay. It gets to the point where you forget that there's anything else, until you stumble headfirst into it.
That is, as it happens, how it found me. You don't run much in the forest, there just isn't room. So when my legs stretch as far as they ever have, it isn't long until they make a mistake. Slip and fall on the glossy leaves of some sprawling weed. One moment I'm going full tilt, the next my legs have shot out from beneath me, and I am catching my breath surrounded by the green scent of crushed plant matter,
I'm laughing and crying, knees scraped from my fall. Intoxicated with the energy a fast and hard run can give you. So I roll, long and luxurious, just because I want to. Just because I can. When my head finally pops up over the breezy blooms and grasses, my breath has settled and the tiny bones knotted into my hair have been joined with scraps of plant matter.
That's when my eyes are drawn to the only patch of darkness in the landscape. A horse, watching me with bloodstained eyes. That's all it takes for me to shoot to my feet, the burst of carefree energy cloaked immediately shuttered eyes and a meek demeanor.
It's an instant and thorough transformation. I've had a lot practice, after all. Be small and quiet and don't draw attention, and more often than not they'll leave you alone. There's exceptions, but in my experience, being boring is being safe.
He can’t remember ever feeling that carefree as a child. Even in the short time he had been able to have with his parents (back when they had actually been there and not held back their affection) he had been weighed down in a sense of duty. An eagerness to please them. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth because that feeling still lingers, this inane desire to be worthy in their eyes even when they weren’t even here. Although his body is protected by his newfound immortality, the shriveled heart inside of his caged chest feels more mortal than ever.
She is a burst of energy, dashing hard through the tall grasses and sending up flowers and bursted petals like miniature explosions. It all goes wrong when her legs seem to tangle beneath her and she goes flying into the dirt, momentarily disappearing beneath the silky waves of flora. He doesn’t pick up his pace and he is far from alarmed as he ambles closer to where the filly had vanished.
Sharp laughter rises from the grass and is shortly followed by a small head that pops up over the obstructing blades. Eyes widening as they fall on him. A smirk lingers on his lips as his long pointed ears swivel directly towards her. Exposed. She seems to suddenly cower before him and for a moment his dark red gaze flickers into an unreadable expression, the corner of his lips twisting into a scowl. “You’re Sabra’s girl, aren’t you?” He asks quietly, his bloody gaze unwavering as it holds her in place.
The beauty of being tied to nothing and no one lives in the simple pleasure of making decisions. There are all kinds of choices to be made in a land like Beqanna; and to anyone more serious than Galadriel, those choices might bear more weight than your average land's choices. But that's the beauty in lacking seriousness: nothing and no one bears any sort of weight.
Yes, Rel takes herself far too seriously. All matters regarding her and the little faux universes she creates mean more to her than the consequences of her own actions (or empathy, or making a life for herself). Everyone and everything else (like the dark stallion and the pastel girl before her) are not to be considered, though. Unless, of course, they are directly in her line of sight and potentially ruining her plan for the day. And in this case, the cowering girl and the scowling man may ruin Galadriel's plan to never actually have a plan.
Now, she has to take her time to avoid them. She is trespassing, after all; and trespassers often have to put thought into their actions to remain unseen.
Rel is naive, though, at the sweet age of two. There is no sneaking with them so nearby. She realizes this as her signature sour-face contorts features that might be nice. Damn it! She wants to scream it, but decides instead to turn her coat to a rich, angry red accentuated by a shock of white mane and tail. Rel stalks forward, as she so often does when apprehended by strangers, and joins Obscene in peering down at the cowering girl.
"What are you two doing?" A demand, one she doesn't really get to make, but still she presses forward, "You two look strange."
The lack of trees, of a pocket full of hideaways that I could duck into at any given moment, is a glaring distress now that I'm no longer alone. The black stallion, such a contrast to the color of the ground he stands on, is dispassionate as I rise.
Worse, he knows my mother. Her name on his lips makes my blood freeze in my veins. Is it worth lying, denying? My mouth tightens as I'm making up my mind, and saved by the appearance of a third. Half-formed, scarlet and white and haughty. She reminds me in that way of my mother, young as she is. A girl my tumultuous dam might approve of.
"Nothing, I'm not doing anything," I assured, avoiding looking her in the eye. And then my teeth grit, a shot of venom when I do look at her. "You look strange," I snap, going from demure to indignant in the space between two heartbeats. It's a lie, though. She's pretty, and eye catching. Hard not to be, that shade of red.
In the same breath of anger, I turn back to the watching man, his eyes as livid as her coat. "It doesn't matter who my mother is," not to him, not to anyone. Maybe it only matters to me.
He can’t help it, the grin that spreads across dark lips, as another filly suddenly appears at his side. As scarlet as the dark hue of his eyes, a shock of white, an accusation of strangeness that Sabra’s daughter instantly throws back. He gives a slight roll of his own crimson eye in exasperation, children. The pastel one that had been cowering before him suddenly seems resolved with new bravery as she claims her mother doesn’t matter. “Oh it matters.” He smirks at her, letting her mind wander to wherever that might possibly mean. Although Sabra had not seemed to care much about her offspring (something that had been clear when they had last spoke) he didn’t want to take the chance of her ire.
He glances to the red girl on his left, glittering gold sparkling in the sunlight as he turns to better look at them both. “Now what to do with two little trespassers…” He muses aloud, a frown on his face and his handsome features hardening as he looks from girl to girl. Of course he has no intention of harming them but they don’t know that. “Perhaps I should feed you to Steve. I’m not sure what he eats but he might make an exception for wicked children.” He doesn’t know what the grassy mammoth eats so its closer to a truth than a lie, this speculation that’s allowed from his mouth.
Galadriel cocks her head, slitting curious amethyst eyes as the other girl's ferocity suddenly blooms. She simply watches, allowing her legs to shimmer from shades of red to pearly white in an imitation of the feeling observing Calavera gives her. Rel laughs, a quick burst in the back of her throat, at the thought of her looking strange. She's odd, certainly, but never has she considered herself anything less than beautiful.
"Clearly your dam does matter," Rel states bluntly, furrowing her brow and biting her tongue. The pastel's attitude was fascinating for a moment; but being the impatient creature she is, Galadriel is immediately tired of it. This impatience is swallowed entirely hole when Obscene manages to offend Rel to the core of who she is.
And who is she? Definitely not a child.
"You don't scare me," Galadriel spits, trying her mightiest to not grit her teeth and growl. Her eyes leave the offensive stallion to look at Calavera, wondering if perhaps they might strike up an alliance in scaring him. She snorts, stamps a hoof, and swivels her head back around to peer at Obscene. A smile quirks one side of her face, the other side appearing absolutely furious.
It's only when she's at the height of her emotions that Rel can wield her magic effortlessly, and now she does it mercilessly. The world around them slips away into a gray cliff's edge, hot lava burbling at the bottom. Steve and an Obscene doppelganger both yell dying noises from the lava's clutches. Rel looks back up at the stallion and shrugs.
I swallow down whatever thoughtless retort would have spilled from my lips. She's my mother, and there's nothing I can do about it, but I won't have that be my definition. I scowl instead, first at the gilded stallion, then at the crimson flickering girl.
For a moment I stare at the undulating colors on the girl's legs, mesmerized by the whirls of light and dark. My mouth twisted, one brow raised as if to say 'I told you so'.
It was only when the dark prince began to taunt us anew did my eyes flash and roll heavenward. For a brief moment the whites are stark against the pearl pink of my face, ghoulish in my impertinence. "If you know my mother, then you know you're going to have to try harder than that." I chide, shrugging.
My lack of interest in his drawling description seeps away along with the temperate day, entirely without warning. The field of wildflowers, the painfully blue sky, all of it fade in an instant, to be replaced with a roiling river of fire and cliffs of unforgiving stone.
My heart swoons with sudden vertigo, the illusion of height enough to turn my stomach into a writhing mess. Never mind the cartoonish screams that echoed from beneath us, my was only concern is with backing away from the crumbling edge.
06-09-2021, 04:23 PM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2021, 04:31 PM by Obscene.)
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
He has managed to worm his way under another’s skin and there’s a flash of pleasure in the depths of red as Galadriel spits at him. Maybe it’s because his newfound immortality makes everyone look like a child to him or maybe he can’t differentiate when that line is crossed exactly from foal to adult that makes him include her in the scolding. Mostly though it’s just because he’s a pretentious ass and he loves to irritate and hurt people with his words, having an uncanny ability to hit them where it bothers them most. She snorts and stamps and he raises a brow, clearly being proved right with this very mature hissy fit she was throwing in front of them. Sabra’s girl starts off as well and he merely rolls his eyes. How boring.
And then the world changes. He is standing at the edge of a volcano (so similar to that day he had almost fallen into the one beloved to Tephra as a child) and he sees himself and Steve screaming with pain as they fall into the inferno below. It is a shock to the system and it shows in the displeasure of his red eyes that darken and harden into uncut rubies. If it hadn’t been for that day with Aela and Wherewolf and his experience with his Lords duplication or Aela's ability to force him to see images, perhaps she might have gotten the best of him. However he is no stranger to manipulations and she would have to try a lot harder to shake him at his core.
“Likewise.” He retorts with that glittering gaze and smug smile, meeting her fury with a cold condescending demeanor. He looks back to the lava that was busy trying to swallow the large form of Steve, his own doppelgänger having been consumed by the molten inferno long ago. He wants to say “Pity that’s not the real one” but as always his lies die the moment they hit his tongue. Out of the corner of his eye he catches Calavera trying to skitter backwards from the cliffs edge and drawls with disinterest, “You’re scaring the girl however.”
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}