"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
Her childhood was gone, slipping away from her before she could grasp it tightly enough to keep. Sarkis had been robbed of joy the last few years, sinking into a deep depression that caused her to flee into the Jungle depths, away from all the others. Everything had grown so dark, so jaded in that time and she had almost lost herself to it. Almost.
Had it not been for the Jungle spirit she would have lost that fight. Truth is, Sarkis was no fighter, she was far too soft, too kind for such things. She had started to forget how beautiful she once found the world, how full of possibilities she had thought life was. She had for a while lost her sense of wonder. She had started to identify with being a has-been, a former Jungle Princess, and she had lost her parents. Everything had been ripped away from her so very quickly, and with a harsh abruptness she did not know was possible.
Sarkis sighed softly as she stepped out into the mid-afternoon sun. The light played shadows of dapples through the trees onto her roan backside. She smiled, if only just, at the feline spirit creature as it purred softly and slipped into the ferns. There was no question that she would visit with it again, the weight that bore down on her lifted and dissipated into the foliage with jaguar. A laugh blossomed from her parted lips for the first time in forever, and it brought with it the soft calls of a macaw. They filled the small clearing with a chorus of sound until her face simply hurt from smiling so brightly. Maybe all was not lost.
A familiar path finds it's way beneath her and though she did not know where she was going, she was not concerned with her destination. She simply wished to soak the Jungle in, to let it fill her the way it had when she was little.
asked someone to look after Sarkis as well as Vi. Grief does things; it drives one inward when often the best medication is go outward and keep one’s self busy so it doesn’t threaten to overwhelm. The world is rough; it can, and will, beat you up and spit you out, bloody and bruised and broken. And then it will move on and it will not look back. That is why they have the Sisterhood. It is a safety net to catch them when they fall. And to be waiting with open arms when they decide to return from the Jungle’s depths.
Perhaps the Jungle spirit wanted Sarkis to rediscover the awe she had for the world; perhaps she needed the girl to see a softer side of the Warrior Queen. In truth, Lagertha was well hidden, away from any of the usual footpaths, and closed off on one side by a thick tangle of heavily thorned branches, leaving a half circle open to the rest of the Jungle. Here she stands with her newest child, Vidar, a little blue roan bundle that lays asleep at her feet. He is in the post-first-feed state, drunk on milk and the Jungle’s heat. She is dozing until the sound of hooves approaches, and she snaps awake, calling out sharply, “Who’s there?”
i don't dance, don't ask......i'll be over here, oh here..
The heat was reviving to her, the roan could not complain. The Jungle had made her, was a part of her like many that still roamed the lush labyrinth. Like those that would roam it in the years to come.
A growl, low, and compelling issues forth from the feline watcher. It looks at her, a flick of its tail in impatience, and it waits. It seemed to wait anyways, because though Sarkis had once been known to speak excessively, she had not learned to speak jaguar.
She follows the growing spirit creature into the foliage, pushing past the spindly fronds and into the Jungle depths. "Where are we going?" She asks of it in whispered tones, but as usual it does not answer her. Not in any way that she had the means to understand. A deep mewing noise presses past its sharp teeth, littered with a growling grunt. "Right of course," she responds, pretending there was real meaning in the cat noises. Surely they meant something to someone.
Soon enough another path is beneath her, one of the lesser used passages, but a path nonetheless. She smiled cheerfully at that and trotted to keep up, the slinking spirit was better built to navigate the close set roots and vines than she was.
Perhaps she hadn't paid close enough attention, colliding with a wall of thorny branches, and becoming lodged in the barbs. "Ow!" She cries out, struggling to free herself, unsure exactly how she had caught. The sleek Jaguar has left her, disappeared again somewhere into the greenery, deserted her high and dry.
Another voice sternly advances on her ears, Who's there? and the young mare freezes. What a terrible predicament to find oneself in, especially in the presence of a Sister. She huffs, feeling herself warm with embarrassment.
"Ow, h-hello? Ugh. I'm kinda..uhhh, stuck." She grunts, fighting against the coil of spines. "Rotten cat!" She mutters, but loudly and angrily enough to receive a distant growl.
victory is all you need,
so cultivate and plant the seed
Everything is dark and small until it isn’t.
He comes to life in a world that is too bright and too loud, so very different from the space he’s just occupied. He can feel the vastness of it at once. Great big pillars rise into the air all around him, stretching to the sunlight that manages to filter through the thick canopy. He blinks against it. The songs of exotic birds reach his swiveling ears from both near and far away into the cluster of pillars, giving him a greater scope of the world. It doesn’t faze the little blue boy, however. He takes it in with an almost scientific curiosity, a growing acceptance of each new finding he makes.
Most of all, the colt is reassured by the presence of his mother. She cleans him and coaxes him and names him. Vidar, she breathes, her voice strong and smooth. Finally, he turns to her. Already, she’s standing, and from his place on the ground, she looks as tall as the trees. This impresses him until he manages to stand himself. He learns that perspective is everything – that his eyes can and will play tricks on him, that it’s best not to believe everything one sees. But he doesn’t think his mother will ever change or deceive him. As he takes his first meal and they bond further, he comes to know this deep within his baby-bones. She is his safety, his protector.
And eventually, he grows sleepy enough to let her play her role.
Vidar is awoken sometime later ( though he could never say how much later, as fresh to the world as he is) as a new sound reaches his ears. Curled up beneath her, he can feel the press of his dam’s leg into the small of his back. He yawns, shaking away the dark lock of hair that had fallen over his face as he slept. “Mother?” His voice is small and still tired as he looks up at her, but he senses the immediate change in her. She becomes harder, more pointed; lines of tension radiate from her face. Vidar scrambles to his feet just as the sound of another voice reaches them. Distress, he thinks. That’s the sound of someone who’s in trouble.
The prey instinct in him makes him want to back behind the steel grey of Lagertha. He knows he should, knows that there are bigger and meaner things out in the pillars that could snatch him at any time. But Vidar moves towards the voice instead, looking back at his mother before actually reaching the girl. Even from here, he can see that it’s another horse like him and his dam. She’s caught up in some pointy plant, though, and he has no idea how to free her. He knows his mother is a protector and wonders if it will translate to this girl, too. “Don’t worry. My mother will help you.” Vidar feels the corners of his lips instinctually rising in a smile as he watches the other.
Vidar
ooc: ugh, this is crap. but he and Sarkis are cousins!
Lagertha quickly identifies the voice as Sarkis - in her haste to leap to attention, she neglected the immediate identifying information. Silly mother. Stupid Queen. At Vidar’s query, she immediately relaxes, and nods, letting him go to investigate. Curiosity is healthy and should be encouraged, and the only thing that could harm her in her own home is a hungry cat who hadn’t learned to avoid the horses yet. Rhy usually takes care of keeping the new adults away with lightning bolts and her larger feline stature. But some of them can hardly resist the smell of afterbirth.
Luckily, the tell-tale acrid cat-piss smell of jaguars (now that she thinks about it, their spirit didn’t have that smell at all…) is nowhere to be found. Just a sister, and one that she has actually forgotten is her son’s cousin. “Sarkis?” she calls out, sheathing her sharp tone this time. “Just a second.” The iron gray mare turns and moves towards the back of their little den, peering into the mess of thorns. “You should watch where you’re going. That looks incredibly uncomfortable,” she muses in a half-teasting manner. But there is an easy solution to this, and it includes an opportunity to impress the two youngsters (she’ll probably always think of Sarkis as young).
“Stand back, Vidar,” she instructs the boy, as she coats herself in a thin layer of protective bark. It broke in the right joint-places to allow her to move freely, was lightweight, and provided just enough protection against the barbs. Starting from the outside, she slowly steps into the bushes, trampling them down where she can, and sprouting small branches from her sides, to hook the thorns and pull them back. She couldn’t grow a tree off her body, but armor was a loose definition, and as long as it wasn’t too big, she found it would do her bidding. After a while, there is a relatively clear path for the roan mare to escape, bringing her into the clearing with them.
11-28-2015, 02:10 PM (This post was last modified: 11-28-2015, 02:20 PM by Sarkis.)
i don't dance, don't ask......i'll be over here, oh here..
She struggled to no avail in the the thicket, a small voice now reaching her ears. They flicker to it, wondering which small child this is. It's an unfamiliar one, though Sarkis doesn't claim to know all those who inhabit the Jungle. How could she?
The outline filters through the thick twists of bramble, a little blue thing, roaned like her own coat. It's difficult to discern from the voice of the young as to the gender of the foal, but the voice assures her it's Mother is coming. It's Mother will help her. She sinks then steadying herself for whoever was to be her rescuer, surely they would have an opinionated glare at her predicament. Amazons shouldn't be caught up in a bramble in their own Jungle. Amazons should be strong and fierce. Sarkis wasn't really any of those things, Sarkis was light and kindness. She was concern, curiosity, and candor. She was at times a klutz, a blabber-mouth, and perhaps that was the worst of it. Normally, Sarkis was always talking. To anyone, to no one, her mouth and her words ran away with her- lately though she had been silent. It's not certain if this stillness would last.
Sarkis Her name, a question, and a voice. One she aught to have known from the start, one she now recognized. Lagertha. The army leader her Mother had placed good faith in to lead, to be Khaleesi.
She shrank, she can't claim she didn't, though she can not go far without a literal thorn in her backside. Wincing, snapping her eyes shut as the thorns rake her in retaliation to her movements. When she opens them again, she can see most of the Khaleesi peering into her cage. Uncomfortable, of course it was she huffs. "It's not me, it's that cat!" She protests in a juvenile manner, certain that she wouldn't just walk into the thorny trap on her own. "It tricked me." She reveals and sulks, because that part was probably her fault. Should have known, shouldn't have blindly followed the creature.
Sarkis can hear Lagertha telling the child to stand back, Vidar. A boy, the child is a boy. She wonders how they Khaleesi felt about that, how the child would feel about it later. She makes no comment, though she feels an air of resent at the thought. Her brothers had been more or less shooed away, the men in general had really. Her ears are flat as the armored mare steps forth, her features display a sense of sheepishness, though it is eventually replaced with curiosity. Sarkis had never seen the Khaleesi don such magic armor, part of her wanted to touch it, the other part told her not to. What was it? What was it made of? How did it work?
The vines part soon enough, pulled back by hook and branches that sprout from Lagertha's body. Her body? Is it her body? Sarkis isn't sure as she steps out and into the clearing with a "Thank you Khaleesi". She looks around confused, unsure, tail swishing in awkwardness. The boy is there, a young, freshly made thing. She gives him a half smile, "Oh- Hello there new Prince."
