"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
He is alone; stands aloof in his contemplation but prominent upon a knoll at the meadow’s edge.
The trees sway and swish nearby in the spring gales that blow warm breath down upon the land, awakening the grasses green and the flowers sweet and nodding still caught up in their winter sleep. He sees it, but the beauty of it is momentarily lost upon him because he is too brutish to heed the blossoming meadow and her sweetness. Maybe it is that he has no care for it, except for the long sweep of grass that beckons to him and starts an itch in his feet that causes them to knead the top of the knoll in angst - he wants to run, but restrains himself, the muscles bunching beneath the simple brown of his flesh, then relaxing as stillness finds him again.
He can remember the last time he was here; but a foal and at his mother’s side, so alike to her as to have been a twin more than a son, and though the medicine-hat mare never coddled any of her foals, she might have paid him more affection than all the others, for he was like her - not ageless, but not like them either, wholly horse but something else altogether. His uniqueness only ran so far as the horns atop his head, three twists to them and about thirty-three inches long and heavy, so heavy! He has grown used to their heaviness though, and distant is the gaze beneath them that searches long for something he has no name to. It could be a sense of belonging that he lacks, whether to land or someone, for all he has ever belonged to was himself and before that, Scalped, the mother with the long puckering scar over her red-shielded breast.
Mandan though, can feel the grass calling to him again and before he knows it, - for he is but stallion flushed with the vigors of all that youth and muscle! - he is running, a full gallop that sweeps him round and round the meadow’s edges, hemmed in by the forest and the trails that branch off here and there, none of them the least bit enticing to him because he is too deep in the throes of running to see all else but blurs and the vastness ahead of him into which he speeds headlong and brash, his addax horns spiraling back from the flyaway strands of black mane that flap out sideways like crow’s wings.
The rose stained limbs hold her frame stiffly while she ducks under the embrace of a willow. Ygritte was trying to put herself out there more these days. She seemed so content to stay alone and quiet. She was more amused to watch others rather than join in their conversations but now that she was a t the Falls, she needed to hone her communication skills.
It was rather painful at times.
The bay skull poked from between to limbs of the willow when the scent of a stallion tickles her nostrils. Pools follow him quietly when he brushes past her. Drifting. He was very similar to Ygritte in color minus the salmon hue where black should be on a bay equine and also those magnificent antlers. They were certainly a sight to see and they drew Ygritte from the safety of the old tree. The land is renewed in spring. Little bits of blooms from the willow cling to Ygritte's own tangled name as she nears the stallion.
He romped and spurred in the meadow. Splitting the long grass and stirring the new grasshoppers. The mare is curious of him and even the faintest touch of a smile curled her pink lips. She finally takes a breath and a leap of faith and nears the stallion, softening her expression. "Hello, you look like you're having a lovely time." Vocals are low and velvet-smooth as she falls into a bit of embarrassment...not like Ygritte at all. Lashes raise to meet his gaze. "I'm Ygritte." She extends her maw to the crowned male.
He runs; his hooves strike a rhythm from the earth - like a drumbeat, to be perfectly cliche - that is as ageless and primal as the bloodline of the horse itself. It would be a lie to say that there is no freedom in the simplistic act of running, that he does not glory in it as a horse should for he does! It is clear to see in the way his horns skewer the air at every toss of his head, the way that his eyes are clear and bright, in the way his crest rounds in a stallion’s proud arch as his hooves find purchase in the soft loam and send it scattering to the wayside at his slapdash passing.
Mandan was born to run, but not like the sleek racehorses that he has little knowledge of, but like those wild and wooly ancestors of his that used to run the plains beside the vast herds of buffalo (his mother told him stories of those great shaggy beasts that moved like small mountains beside the proud, fast horses) beneath the guidance of lean brown legs and slim brown hands gnarled in their manes. He thinks of man, that strange beast his mother told him of, though he has never laid eyes upon any such creature upon two legs other than the bears that stood in the rivers with fish in their mouths. This means he is thinking now, and thus his pace slackens, and this is how she comes upon him - slowed, pensive, his face shadowed by thought and the fleetest memory of his mother that dims the brightness of his eyes.
He smells her, for he is a stallion first and foremost and her female scent caused his nostrils to flare in surprise at the fact that he was so near to another, so he slows further, his pace akin to hers’. She is odd like him, though her oddness lay in the salmon-pink points of her flesh that were otherwise blackened on him but he likes the contrast of her and his lips slide into a haphazardly boyish and charming smile. “I was,” he says, his voice as coltish as his smile - some parts of him still haven’t quite grown up, though a trace of the stallion in him lay underneath the lanky tone of his words. “I mean I am,” he amends swiftly, laughing a little as he looks from her to the meadow then back again.
“Ygritte,” he tastes the strangeness of her name, foreign to his tongue but it seems to be a name as old as his perhaps. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says, remembering his mother’s lessons on politeness even though the response seems to him, contrite. “I’m Mandan, by the way. Care to join me?” Mandan inclines his heavy-horned head to the side indicating the meadow and the path they seemed to step upon, for it seemed to him to be a good idea to cool down with a walk after his wild run.
She likes him. She likes the way he is wild in the ways she is not. She likes the way he tosses those spiraled horns on his skull. She likes the way he dances without noticing anyone, not even her.
She feels bad for when he does notice her near him, breaking the spell and ending the game. She doesn't mean to startle him. "Mandan. Lovely." Vocals are velvet smooth on the warm embrace of fresh spring air. She smiles at her new acquaintance and nods in agreement to his offer. Slender limbs pull to meet the stallion's pace. It has been a long time since she had given herself over to freedom and carelessness. Absentmindedly, a smile pulls on her lips as long lashes fall over the honey pools and she inhales the scents of the meadow deeply.
Like a pair of lovers, their bodies move in sync through the dapple trees and tall grasses. Hoof beets and heart beats. Ygritte looks to her companion with a soft smile and laughs after she realizes she makes eye contact for too long. "Sorry." If horses could blush, she would have matched her salmon tones all over. "It's nice to meet you too." The young mare realizes she had not returned the compliment when Mandan had first spoke it. "Those horns of yours are quite striking." The compliment is sincere and sweet as she looks to them then to his eyes. In their brief encounter, Ygritte finds herself liking being near this coltish stallion. His spirit has lifted her own. It's amazing what a good run can do for you.
By that, she meant that he could scent danger on the air, could hear the subtle hitch in another’s breath, and knew things instinctually but that too, he was a bit of a dreamer. She had seen the sky in his eyes - an oldtime term for those that saw too much and nothing at all, like her son did. Mandan knew this, and knew it made him different - even careless, but he never bothered to correct this character flaw, and someday, he suspected it might be his downfall.
He did not know that she sensed this about him, this lovely little mare that walks beside him so demurely. Mandan is as taken with her as she is with him; she lacks his wild ways, is more refined, he would dare not think her tamed but gentled somehow, more gentle than he is ever like to be and not in the sense of kindness and things, but in that wild way that she senses in him that separates him from the rest, her refinery sets her apart too in a way that he appreciates. One could almost say he is smitten, so thoroughly charmed by her and so quickly! But then he has had sparse interaction with mares beyond his mother and that one time he spent in his half-sister’s care for a day.
Ygritte says his name is lovely and he throws her a rakish smile; he could say the same, that hers’ is foreign and lovely and sits heavy on his tongue. It tastes like an old pebble sloughed off from an older mountain and smoothed by waters of an older river and time. There is a bite to it too, godlike and hard, of ice and snow. Mandan knows of these things, even if he is a large plains pony - a true throwback to his mother’s breed, so unlike the trickster-magician-father he doesn’t know about (Scalped kept nothing back from her children except this, with him, the culmination of her immortal years in this once-tiny and now wholly grown son). Her smiles are just as lovely as her name and frequent; he likes the constant company of them.
His rangy stride is kept short to keep abreast of her, so she does not have to over extend herself to keep up with him. They pass from tree-shadow to tall grass, going round and round again as if this is something they have always done together. Maybe not the two of them per say, but some mare and stallion, together, always, walking as natural to them as breathing. Their hearts synced as much as their hoofsteps, beat for beat, and he finds himself smiling too, ever that coltish quirk of his lips that leaves his countenance boyish and promising as if he has the whole world to himself as well as all the time left in it.
She laughs!
It catches him off guard from the lovely (he is stumped, incapable of coming up with any other word than that to describe everything about her from the way she looks to the way she laughs) sound of it; it is sweet, apologetic, girlish, and it thrills him to the point that being tricksy himself, or rather, mischievous at times, he is already thinking of ways to make her laugh again. He had felt her eyes on him, their eyes would meet and hold pace to match their hearts and their breaths, then he would slide his away, so animal-dark in their gloss, almost unnaturally black but bright, bright, bright.
Mandan ducks his head, not shyly but as if brandishing his horns at an imaginary foe for her benefit. He is a stallion after all, and after such a compliment, he swells with pride and a measure of modesty; “Thank you, they may be striking but they are heavy.” he concedes, faintly serious but only for a heartbeat and he throws her that coltish grin. “No more striking than your points, they are as pink as the bellies of salmon.” The salmon-belly pink accentuates the bay of her, more so than the black of his points does for him. He thinks he should ask her something else, to keep the conversation going, to make the sound of her voice fill the air and his ears so he asks the usual trite thing that could be asked - “So, are you from around here?”
12-05-2015, 06:10 PM (This post was last modified: 12-05-2015, 06:20 PM by Ygritte.)
She is intoxicated by him. His smile, his voice, his eyes--oh Beqanna gods above and below---his eyes capture, caress, hold her. A mare once so alone. Brick by brick she had built those walls against the world. She had thought that solitude had suited her so well. She wore it like a shield-maiden in battle, hardened and strong. But in a bat of a lash this stallion dissipated all that she though she knew. His magic waved away her guard like brushing a few loose hairs that had fallen over her eyes in a soft and loving touch. He made her head so dizzy. She felt like a little filly chasing butterflies over the meadow, giggling and jumping except this butterfly did not flee from her. And in that very instant she felt her heart break the iron cage that had kept it prisoner and it soared.
Her breath catches in her throat and her heart skips when she realizes that it no longer belongs to her. She is alarmed and scared that this stallion...no, Mandan now held this precious piece of her. Never had this ever been intended and never so quickly! Ygritte was powerless and never had she been prepared for this but her heart is now lost to her. Gone, gone, gone. Mandan, this bashful bay boy, was her heart's capture. He had stolen it when she wasn't looking. But oh, she can't stop it...she doesn't want to stop it.
Through the fog of her delirium his words drift through like little snowflakes on an October morning. Each note tickling and enchanting and making her wish for more. "No..." Her voice is soft and dreamy as she meets his gaze. Her own girlish smile touching her lips effortlessly as she stays at his side. "I was born here but it has been a long time since I have been back. I am currently residing in the Dazzling Waterfalls." The Falls was a home for now. She didn't know if it was to be hers forever but for now she felt content living near the healing waters. It provided for the few horses that still lived there. "And you?" Melodically she speaks, eager to learn about him. His life, his past, his passions. This wild boy was everything she wasn't. This heart thief. This stallion. The reason she is smiling more than she ever had.
He cannot help the way his gaze flicks endlessly over her, like a snake in the grass flicking the air with his tongue, searching out the heat of her.
Mandan feels a strange stirring in his heart that was not there before. He has no name for it because it is unlike the love his mother showed him, the love of a mare for her foal. This feels similar but oh so different! It makes him wonder how he can ever stop looking at the lovely shape of her head or the way her neck curves down into her back, she reminds him of the antelope on the plains with their light, leaping grace. Despite her grace and loveliness, he senses a vast reservoir of strength in her that binds him further to her.
He won't admit to it just yet - the fact that his heart is no longer his own. The taking of it had happened all too suddenly in such a subtle way that he was unaware of it's doing. She bewitched him, but he is cautionary in his heart’s keeping, afraid to let either it or his pride be gravely wounded by admitting that she owns the most sacred part of him. He almost sighs her name aloud, but hears the slightest hitch in her breath and his gaze flies swiftly to her face.
She is fine; dreamy, girlish, and vague and he is smitten by her charms - by the very voice that tumbles out of her in a clear soft river of speech. He can't hear anything around them save for her and he realizes that his whole world stands right there beside him close enough to touch but he swallows the hard lump of words that catch in his throat - he can't say them, not yet. She talks of the falls; his mother had been there briefly, if memory serves him right. Then asks him and his face fills with the light of a thousand campfires undimmed, his passions bright as his dark animalistic eyes find hers’.
“Here, in the meadow but we left soon after my birth for my mother's lands.” Mandan is back amongst the prairies bordered by the badlands; he has never seen another land go from soft grass to harsh canyon in a matter of miles, and the ancient eccentricities of that earth had seeped into his bones. “I came back,” and he knows that he doesn't have to say any more than that because she'll understand. He places his mouth against her neck boldly, his teeth scrape a trail down the cant of it until he breaks from her with a teasing nip on her shoulder. “I like it here,” and his thought trails off, he refuses to admit aloud that he likes it here all the more because she’s beside him.
They exist in a secret world. Intertwined and lost with their own hearts and bodies. The salmon and sienna can not help but take her eyes from his face, his beautiful faace. She can not help but watch as his lips moved and formed each precious word. She feels her self tumbling, giving in. A dreamy smile blooms on her lips as he tells her of his birth and briefly of his mother. Ygrrite wants to know everything about him.
This feeling is intoxicating and she does not fight it. He speaks of the meadow and it as his home and the mare wants to be swallowed up under his embrace and in the scent of flowers. His eyes tell of a hunger when he meets her gaze. They are dark and full and the woman drinks them in as they speak. In their depths she can see herself and she can also see him and she can feel his passion. She shivers in excitement but in her moment she suddenly feels the stallion at her neck. She gasps with surprise but as quickly as he nibbles that he moves and dances away. Incisors clip her withers and she whinnies high, pulling up her front limbs in a little bunny hop.
Dark eyes flicker to the stallion's own, mischievous and dark as she happily takes his invitation to play. She sides near her stallion and lips one lobe gently before nipping it playfully with her own teeth before spinning away with a laughing squeal and putting distance between them before spinning around to watch. Long limbs lifting high and showy (and a little wiggle in that bottom). "Mandan, I wish we could stay here forever" The young mare speaks lightly, her heart is happy. He makes her happy.
The woman nears the bay stallion and sides close to him. The chisled crown extends to his withers and rests when their chests touch they are heartbeat to heartbeat. Boldly, she lips his withers with soft lips, little kisses. Never had this mare ever thought to act as such but it was soemthing he did to her. He shaped and molded her in his hands but she did not fight it. There was no other place she's rather be than with her stallion.
They are sheltered - shut off from the world around them; he hears only her, sees only her, and forgets that there is an entire world humming and buzzing around them, busy and full with life but his life stands beside him on four pink-pointed legs, smiling. He drinks her smile in like someone thirsting for water after so many days without it. Mandan never wants to see her without that smile, the kind that only (selfish!) he knows he can bring to her lips.
She shivers beneath the scrape of his teeth; hops at his playful nip and when his eyes meet hers’, he can see the mischief that darkens them. That same mischief crowds the chilly air around them and makes him stick close to her in their play. Her lips grasp his ear gently before delivering an equally teasing nip and she has spun away from him, dancing away on her light quick feet. All he can do is stand there dumbly and stare at her - she is so beautiful! Her dreamy tone pulls at his ears but the wistful note in her voice catches at his heart.
He looks long and hard at her as she comes back to him, nose to wither and their chests touching until their heartbeats sound as one. Only then does he answer her around nibbling mouthfuls of her skin, “Why can't we?” To him it is simple - they are happy here, like this, what else is necessary? He lacks the drive to start a herd, knows it is in him but not what he wants - he is committed entirely to her, his devotion hot and burning, a brand that is her name, her every look. Nothing can compare to these hours they spend together.
Mandan, usually so fearless, is afraid to ask if there is someone or something else. He feels like they are on the brink of a discovery they don't want to make because it will destroy this perfect moment.
Over and over again it echoes in her mind like the hammering of her own heartbeat that only he can bring. It is written over if face, over his body. She never wants to leave his side, not to eat nor drink. She wants to stay in an eternal embrace with the handsome, sweet, devilishly wonderful man. If he asked her to leave the Falls right now and run away forever she would without even saying goodbye...she was so alone there. She hardly even saw Texas around anymore and slowly all the horses had left and so Ygritte remained, burdened by guilt to help the land flourish.
The headiness of her beginning estrus has her swimming. Though Ygritte is young, she knows her body is changing and yearning but she is powerless against it. She does not want it to stop. Their heartbeats synched and moving together. They are united as one. This beautiful boy with his shaggy hair and sweet smile. Mandan, her stallion. Lips catch wisps of the mane and tug gently as she nuzzles against him, craving him. Hind swings to pull the woman along his side so they stand head to head though he is taller. She can not help how she rubs against him, her own crown pressing lovingly under his jaw before she gently nibbles his cheek in little kisses.
Ygritte