"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 knows she is taking advantage of Gryffen's absence but she cannot bear the dreary chill of the mountains any longer. Soon enough the snows will come and there will be nothing but bleak winter days filled with silence and regret. Her one consolation will be the numb relief the cold will provide for her aches.
Minette crosses into the meadow, littered with brightly colored leaves. Autumn has rolled in gently, softly, like a caress. She lets herself imagine that she is anyone, an ordinary mare untainted by the defiler's touch. She can still feel him with her, sometimes. His deceptively gentle touch, the cadence of his voice like phantoms in her waking days. The sensation of choking on smoke curling from the burning remains of her body. The horror of watching her older self torn to pieces by savage wolves, knowing that to save her would only result in both of their deaths.
In her darkest nightmares, the face of the white wolf and the dark god merge together into a frightful tormentor who always demands more and more and more until there is nothing left of the girl she once was.
Minette doesn't sleep much anymore.
She looks older than her six years. A brand of jagged triangle and star is etched into her left haunch, standing in dark relief against the cream of her pale skin. Though her body is still young and slender, she moves stiffly. Her steps have grown more fluid with practice, but she can never hide the pain completely. She is pretty, still. A fragile sort of beauty with dark eyes that possess depths of iron will alongside a shrinking horror of the world.
She has seen the mouth of hell. She knows the truth of rotted corpses below the wild roses.
She chooses a spot near a creek, stepping into the running water. Though the stream here does not run as frigid as the mountain ones she knows , it still provides relief to her pain. A soft sigh escapes her lips. She closes her eyes, feeling the long held anxiety ease, here where no one knows her and no one demands anything of her.
Where she is only Minette, and no one else.
Tears begin to trickle down her face. She cannot stop the flow. A hiccuping sob erupts from her chest. Horrified, she dips her head in a vain attempt to hide her distress. She cannot remember the last time she cried, the last time she felt it would make any difference at all.
you and I both know that the house is haunted and you and I both know that the ghost is me
Today, Magnus’ restlessness drives him from Heaven toward the meadow, the first place he had found after his rebirthing into this world. It is comforting, in its small ways—more comforting than it had been in his first life—and he finds that he spends more time here than he had previously. Here, he can slip into an ocean of anonymity, seeking casual companionship—often female. Born and raised in the Amazons by their once ferocious Queen, he had learned at a young age to love the ways of women. He loved everything about them, their smell, their softness, their strength; they molded him into the very best version of himself.
So it is no surprise that the buckskin stallion startles a little when he sees the weeping mare, his face falling into soft lines of concern. Altering his course, he makes his way through the foliage and trash that brushes against the inky of his knees. When he is several feet away, he pauses, washed in autumn light.
“Hello?” his voice is smoke, husky, the sound of rivers falling over stones, but it is also tentative, the greeting very much a question that she could decline. He would never force his company on another. Not moving a muscle, he tilted his head, the scar visible as it ran down his golden cheek. “My name is Magnus,” still as quiet as a soldier, as still as a statue. “I just wanted to make sure that you were alright.” And he would stay, as long as she needed the company, or he would leave, if all she wanted was solitude.
10-17-2015, 11:44 PM (This post was last modified: 10-18-2015, 09:26 AM by Minette.
Edit Reason: calli can't spell late at night so she fixes her mistakes in the morning
)
la jeune fille marquée
Minette knows restlessness. It has become second nature to her, a guise she put on and can no longer take off. She wasn't always this way. The pale gray mare remembers, like a distant dream, a time when she felt at peace. When hope and courage and belief were the foundations of her being. Now she is haunted by exhaustion and fear. But even that is better than the days of numbness. She is afraid that she will never recover the woman she was. Her past self is lost amongst the debris, her heart just so many pieces of wreckage.
Her uncontrolled weeping is interrupted by a stranger's gently inquiring tones. A buckskin stallion, his voice quiet, stands in the afternoon autumn light. He is scarred. She notices this first. It's soothing for reasons she cannot understand.
She blushes, taking in the mess she must be in contrast to the stallion's kindness, and shakes her head as if to physically stop the tears. An air of embarrassment gathers around her and her words finally spill out apologetically between quickly fading sobs.
“Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm afraid it's been a rather rough year and I didn't- don't worry about me. Please excuse me. I-I'm all right now.”
She steps out of the stream and onto the bank. Min knows she should be making an effort to be friendly, to recover a little of her old self, but the strength it takes is difficult to recover. She manages a shaky nicker of welcome.
“Magnus.” She says gently, her voice husky from tears. “I'm Minette."
The pale gray mare gives him a warm smile, her eyes bright with unshed tears. She shivers a bit from the cold. Her aching joints are temporarily soothed, and the chill is a small price to pay.
"I'm sorry you found me under such circumstances. You don't have to go if you don't want. I mean, I'd like it if you'd stay." She offers him a playful look, only a little strained. "I'm gathering up conversations to store for the winter.”
When I'll be alone again. The thought springs unbidden to her mind but she forces it down with the same strength of will that gave her courage to rescue her daughter. She is not wholly broken, this mare, but each day the weight of living grows just a little more.
you and I both know that the house is haunted and you and I both know that the ghost is me
If there was one thing she could say that would almost certainly prevent Magnus from leaving, she had said it. Her shame, and her apologies, cement a deep-rooted and spreading fear within him—his concern branching out through his very being so that his next step forward, although slow, comes unbidden. It is not within his nature to leave a distressed female by herself. “Please don’t apologize,” he says gently, his voice low and kind. She moves forward, and he notices her shivering; although his instinct is to warm her, he holds back, instead motioning to where the sun washed the field. “It may be warmer over here.”
The day in and of itself was not particularly warm, not with the winter chill beginning to creep into the wind, but it would be at least easier to warm up there than in the water. “I can help, if you’d like,” he offers, moving slowly, speaking slowly, as if he would be able to keep from startling her. It was easier, he had found, to focus on the aches of another rather than the deep wounds of his own. He often threw himself full-bodied into the effort, his focus so narrow he could block everything else out for a moment.
“What do you mean?” He shakes his head a little, “I’m sorry, I mean, of course, I will stay.” His smile is just a little sad, his gold-flecked eyes worried, “but why do you need to store up conversations?” The more seconds pass, the more his concern becomes panic on her behalf, warning bells going off in his mind. “I would be happy to find you in the winter and replenish your supply,” he forces a smile, trying to keep the conversation light, although something gnaws at him relentlessly, and he suppresses the urge to hide her away. Something dark was shadowing her. He didn’t know what, but he would find out.
Minette cannot remember the last time someone was truly kind to her. Gryffen has been trying, and his current demeanor is a marked improvement on the sadistic rapist once he was (and still is, although she doesn't know it). Yet even his strides pale in comparison to the few gentle words that Magnus has already spoken. She feels tears threaten again and she blinks. When was the last time she didn't feel like she needed to apologize for every move she makes? For breathing, for existing, for taking up space? For not measuring up to the woman she feels she should be? She knows she had faith in herself once upon a time but that seems so long ago.
She nods mutely, and moves closer to him so their bodies are side by side. He towers over her, but most horses do, and it doesn't cross her mind to be afraid of him. He could easily break her, but he would find from the cracks that she has already been broken and remade. Like many things in her recent life, Minette does not take the time to ponder why she does not fear Magnus. She simply accepts the warmth of him near her as easily as the sun rising each morning.
A weary sigh bubbles up from her chest, a broken sound. But this time it a release, and she relaxes, some of the tension fluttering from her muscles.
“I shouldn't be here.” Minette murmurs into his shoulder. “He won't like it.”
She glances up into the trees then. A flutter of wings appears and dissapears, and though she can't tell for certain, she knows it is a raven. She is always shadowed by them. Gryffen's spies and Straia's pets. Even though Gryffen says he trusts her, that he is learning to care for her, the ravens are always there. Her dreams are filled with them.
Minette looks away from the black bird. Her movements are quick, practiced. It would be hard to see the look of hatred in her eyes if the stallion had not been watching. The birds have become the symbol for everything that has damaged her, for every thing that has scarred her body. They were there when she was raped. They were there when Gryffen beat her near to death. They were there when he chased her into the mouth of hell to be tortured by Carnage. They are the backdrop to her life.
“That would be lovely.” Minette says with grateful look. “But I don't think Gryffen will want me to leave the mountains in the winter. It gets hard to travel, and he's protective.”
Not to mention she will probably be carrying another of his children. If she thinks of it at any length, she knows it is a child she doesn't wish to bear. Gryffen has been gentle and considerate, but in this he is insistent. Minette hates the violation of herself, of the months of reminder that she is little more than a reliquary for her stallion's offspring.
Oh, but she loves her children, she thinks with guilt. She doesn't regret them, Anguisette and Leck. Just the making of them. It's a dichotomy of feeling that tears her apart.
“Thank you, for your company. I'm often lonely and my thoughts are not always kind.” She smiles again and it softens the lines of her face and brightens her dark eyes.
you and I both know that the house is haunted and you and I both know that the ghost is me
With each passing moment, his fear for her becomes more and more justified, but he does not reveal it or even hint toward it in his interactions. Instead he just sidles closer to her, letting her lean on the warmth of his coat as he gently noses at her neck. Her words cause his stomach to clench, for fury to course through his veins, but he only frowns slightly, the corner of his lacerated lips pulling downward. “Why wouldn’t he like it?” he prompts gently, hoping that she would reveal more—that she would give him more clues.
If only Magnus knew the truth about the man behind her terror; if only he knew about his lineage. Gryffen’s mother had been a dear friend to him, and his father. She had even considered asking Magnus to raise her red-eyed son at one point. Perhaps then Gryffen would not be the monster that he was today. Oh, but instead, Gryffen was more like his father—a stallion with whom Magnus had a bitter rivalry. There was no love lost between Magnus and No Crosses Count. Only hatred and righteous anger.
It would seem that history was set to repeat itself.
When she finally speaks his name, it tastes dirty, and although he has no information to tie toward it, there is an instant reaction in the buckskin stallion. He had felt this way before, and if this Gryffen was bringing harm to the mare, he knew what he was capable of—what he would do in his rage. It took everything within him to ignore it. “I don’t mind hard travel,” is all he says with a friendly glint in his gold-flecked eyes, gently touching her neck once more. “I would be happy to make the journey to you.”
There is a husky laugh, and he looks up, frowning at the shifting of the birds in the trees. “There are worse things than a long journey to ease the burden of loneliness for a pretty mare.” He looks back at her, drawing a curtain over the flinty look in his eye so that all she would see is a good natured wink.
She feels at ease. The world becomes this moment of tranquility, a brief space in time that she can recall in difficult days to come. He breathes steadily, his heart beating in time with a reassuring tha-thump in her ear. The closeness of their bodies doesn't occur to her as strange. Minette has craved physical comfort. Gryffen doesn't prefer it and Leck despises touch of any kind. Magnus seems an answer to an unspoken prayer.
“He doesn't let me leave without asking first.” She hesitates, tentative, but her confidence is drawn forth by Magnus' gentle manner. “He's been away though and I was lonely. Sometimes the mountains feel oppressive and I really haven't seen much of Beqanna except there.”
She attempts an unfettered laugh, trying to ease her anxiety, but it only comes across as strained.
His next words make her genuine laugh bubble forth, a light musical sound. The idea that she could be pretty or appealing anymore is foreign. All she sees in glimpses of herself are the scars. The arching scar above her left eye from the first time Gryffen beat her. The poorly healed cuts along her legs and chest. The pain reflected in the darkest parts of her eyes.
She grins at Magnus, a playful scolding look in her gaze.
“And perhaps on your way to visit that pretty mare you can say hello to me.”
Her teasing look fades into one of panicked horror and she prances nervously, bumping his side and wincing apologetically. “Oh, but you couldn't. Not really. Gryffen is-”
Her voice trails away, as she searches frantically for words, any words, to describe the white wolf. The one who has been so many things to her. Kidnapper, rapist, potential lover, father of her children, abuser, comforter. There is no one word that can sum up the years she has spent under his rule. The thought of it makes her unbearably tired, as if the past is a weight pulling her constantly to the depths.
“He's possessive of what is his.” Minette finishes lamely. It isn't adequate and she doesn't see the danger in her words. She only know that this is the truth of Gryffen. Whether lover or abuser, what is his belongs to him alone.
you and I both know that the house is haunted and you and I both know that the ghost is me
His heart is in his throat, but Magnus remains calm and steady, giving no exterior signs to his inward fear. “Well that’s odd,” he comments off-handedly, giving a husky laugh and nosing her neck in good natured teasing. “Is he concerned that you will get lost? Because I’d be happy to escort you if you would like to see more of Beqanna. I have a lot of free time on my hands since I came back home.” Not entirely true, but he also didn’t think she wasn’t free from the mountains because of an awry sense of direction.
Her laugh eases some of the tension from his shoulders, and he just gives her a grin, “Now, now, we can’t be having any of that.” His inky forelock splays across his wide forehead, and his gold-flecked eyes are bright, open, friendly. He takes a chance and reaches over to muss up her forelock a little, “There’s a pretty mare staring right back at me right now.” But his smile bleeds from his face at her next words.
It would seem that the playfulness was only to be short lived.
“Possessive?” he echoes, his throaty voice thoughtful as if he had never heard the word. “I don’t understand.” Magnus shakes his handsome, scarred head a little and then catches her gaze a little. “You aren’t just something to be owned,” his voice drops a little as he nudges her a little, dread settling into his bones. “He doesn’t treat you like you are, right?” A heavy pause. “Does he treat you well?” And even though there is kindness lining the words, it is impossible to deny the steel that underlines every syllable.
10-20-2015, 08:23 PM (This post was last modified: 10-20-2015, 08:23 PM by Minette.)
la jeune fille marquée
“I-no, I don't think so. I mean, I don't often get lost... but I, I mean, thank you...” She trails off uncertainly, unable to explain. She never has the chance to get lost because she never leaves the mountain herd. This trip to the Meadow is only her second foray into the world. No, third. The first was a privelige granted by Gryffen during which she spoke to no one. The second was to meet the Amazonian mare Liz and arrange for Sette's escape. And now the buckskin stallion is the culmination of her solitary adventures. The only horses she's spoken to since arriving in Beqanna she can number quickly and with little thought. Gryffen, Liz, Felinae. And of course her own children.
A warm smile graces Minette's features and her eyes fill with gratitude. She casts a regretful look over the scars both Gryffen and Carnage have left. “You are kind to say so, Magnus.
She laughs, high and tinkling like a chime, as he ruffles her forelock. The pale gray mare cannot think of a time when someone has treated her so informally, but in such a way that she doesn't mind. She finds herself hoping he will touch her again so she can gather up gentleness like flowers in a daisy chain. Minette looks up at him with affection.
His next question drops a stone into the calmness she has been cultivating for months. Doubt begins to ripple across her mind.
“No, of course not.” Minette rushes to say, “At least, he doesn't treat me that way anymore."
Her dark eyes fill with confusion. Does he treat her well? A year ago she would have said no, unequivocally, although there was no one to tell of her mistreatment. In the last six months she would be just as quick to say that he had changed, that his manner towards he was warm, even affectionate.
But did he treat her well?
Minette become edgy, suddenly, realizing how this conversation might appear if it is reported to Gryffen. When it is reported to him. She glances back up at the trees and it is impossible to miss the dread and tension tightening her muscles. She feels the ancient urge of fight or flight, but she is helpless to respond to either. She freezes.
“I'm afraid I-... I don't really know.” Her dark eyes dart upwards, and then to the ground, refusing to meet Magnus' gaze. “I mean he used to be... different. But he hasn't hurt me in so long...”
Again she leaves her sentence unfinished. She doesn't know what is next.
you and I both know that the house is haunted and you and I both know that the ghost is me
‘He doesn’t treat me that way anymore.’
The words sear against his throat, and his gold-flecked eyes burn intensely, his lacerated lips pressed together in thought as he lets her continue, each fumble splintering his bones, the tension in her body causing his mind to race. He does not miss her quick glances to the trees, and he feels his body react to it, the stallion feeling on edge. If they were being watched, he would have to be careful—although he found himself wishing that Gryffen was there. It would be nice to just settle this with an old-fashioned brawl.
He wouldn’t mind teaching the red-eyed wolf the proper way to treat a lady.
Worried that he would frighten her with his anger, the fury pouring through his veins like magma, and even more worried that she would take it as directed toward her, he reached out to touch her neck gently, stepping closer in a protective move. His husky voice dropped. “Minette,” her name burns on his tongue and lingers there for a moment. “Just say the word and I’ll help you. I’ll protect you.”
His gold-flecked eyes flick toward the trees and whatever was waiting there, whether it be spy or Gryffen himself, and there is a challenge in the way the buckskin holds himself. He’d gladly take on the other stallion. Turning back to her, he touched her again softly, “I’ll do whatever you ask of me.” Another pause, and his heart breaks just thinking about what she had been through. “You can trust me.”
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