"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
12-03-2015, 01:24 PM (This post was last modified: 12-03-2015, 01:36 PM by Anhedonia.)
Anhedonia was a product of the small grouping of trees she’d called home for the last five years. What she knew of others was gathered primarily through observation, from watching silently through branches and listening to conversations meant to be private. If some pair of horses retired to the trees for privacy they quickly left – she looked more creature than horse, all scars and ash.
She spent her days around creatures that looked like her and spoke like her and fought like her. Their blood was the same color. They could breathe the same air.
But she was other.
In silence she always lapsed in to the white and almost imperceptible drone of the earth, imagined solar radiation. She could close her eyes and forget anything else in the metronomic melody of expansion, stars devouring their cores in the centuries-long race to eventuality. Here she often imagined things beyond comprehension, a mind that curled in and out on itself a thousand times over when she was alone, thoughts connected with the turning ease of the removed. When she left the silence she was surrounded by billions and yet alone in a way that had no resolution, sitting cross-legged on the other side of a gulf created not by her isolation or deformity, but by a fundamental differing of biology and time.
It was a thing she couldn’t even explain to herself, but she felt caged by a million lightyears of galaxy to roam. Not enough.
And yet when she leaves the safety of her trees at night, she sees things, like a soft smile widening to crawl towards either side of a head until the whole thing had melted backwards, opening to a soft release of green and blue stardust, flecks of light dancing in swirling smoke as he disintegrated in to a perfect replication of the beautiful Orixon Nebula.
When she blinked it was gone.
The meadow was quiet for the evening and she lowered her head to the last of the snow, pushing it aside with her muzzle in an attempt to get to what tender, spring grass she could find beneath.
Anhedonia
i've grown familiar with villains that live in my head
they beg me to write them so they'll never die when i'm dead
She fits into shadows comfortably. Drawn close to the breast of the reflective blink of eyes and the sightless wink of stars, the red woman feels embraced. When still, it wraps around her like another layer of flesh, sleek around the edges and breathy. She does not feel particularly free nor invigorated by the darkness, her misplaced arrogance makes her equally as bold in the clear light as in the sunless muck. *****There is a certain eroticism about nighttime, though. A snug place, tucked away from prying eyes. Shamelessness in its reduced form — pure concentrate.
*****But when she moves she flickers like a flame. Bright, red heat.
She weaves past the skeletons of oaks and maples, their buds coming in, making their near-nakedness all the more obvious. They look cold and tortured to her, thin and pushing for death. She blinks, (the woods she moves within moan against the shackles of their cold and brutalized bark. Their whines are low and primordial. They twitch and shiver, great gaping, downturned mouths open to reveal broken and jagged dentition. Their eyes are dark scratches. Blinded by a million tiny claws scurrying up their faces.) She rushes from them, bursts forth like an errant ember to smolder in the open.
There is nothing special to her about the stars. They have a soulless, distant quality. Carcasses, long since having imploded in on themselves. Their light is a haunting and unbearably old glow. She moves with a feline weightlessness, picking paths around the puddles of cold slush and stubborn snow. Stepping high, a contemptuous motion. The regal gait of an executioner queen, her dark eyes barely hiding a thirsty, chaotic glint. And they find her. (We always find something.) Another curiosity. She's been collecting them, a strange and eager discovered of freakishness. (Eyes. Quiet. Death. But who are you?) *****This one has subsumed herself to night. The red woman's lip twitch with interest. She is similarly distant. Similarly lonely.
Aurane disturbs the night, moving to her casually. Every muscle in her body reaching for composure, her mouth struggling to learn a new position. A smile, untoward and soothing. But it spasms now and again, like an underworked muscle holding under immense demand. “Hel-lo,” But her greeting is predatory, spoiling the charade. What are you? it says, instead. She blinks, but this woman is real. (How do you know?) “What are you called, then?”
Aurane. ****Death makes angels of us all, and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claw.
Everything Anhedonia knew of the creatures around her had been garnered through observation. At first, when she'd left the cover of the trees she called home, she'd been certain that was enough. She had an unfaltering ability to read the intentions of others through small cues, practice made perfect after watching hundreds of conversations - hundreds of lives - play out in front of her hidden gaze. But she had learned little was so cut and dry when it was her in the conversation. She could still read another horse like a book - usually even if they were lying or trying to mask their intentions - but figuring them out was much harder where her emotions and involvement came in to play.
The mare that appears makes words dance behind Anhedonia's eyes, descriptors she applied to every piece in the play. (To her, the whole world had been a stage, full of actors that might not even have been real. She spent so much time alone.) Rictus. This one is called Rictus. She comes with a false grin that seems pinned to her cheeks. It is disturbing and Anhedonia can feel her heart pick up the pace when Rictus speaks.
(Something leathery, sinking downwards to some unknown blackness, sliding against her skin, gliding past her. On and on and on it went, great musculature curling around her own. Just as the sun ceased to reach her she saw it – one red eye large enough to blot out everything but fear, watching her as he sank. Minutes passed by. Hours. The hum of pressure against her eardrums steadily gave way to n o t h i n g at all. She couldn’t even hear her heartbeat. Hours. Colder. Weightless. When she hit the sand at the bottom she knew silence. It would never end. Here at the bottom she would dissolve – slowly, disintegrating in exactly as much time as it took for Rictus to process Anhe for fuel – and join all the others that made up this sea floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. Little grains looking up and waiting for another pale silhouette to join them.)
She takes a breath, forces herself to really look at the creature that has pulled up at her side in the night.
"Anhedonia," she answered quietly, reluctantly. "I already have a name for you."
Anhedonia
i've grown familiar with villains that live in my head
they beg me to write them so they'll never die when i'm dead
She smirks, and it twitches at the corners as if containing some mighty excitation. As if it means to collapse inwards with teeth and hot breath. She moves closer, pressing into the warm and raw scent of the tattered mare. She eyes her with that dark, starless gaze like a pollinator does a flower — with hunger, and obsessive duty; a duty to pick apart, piece-by-piece, to feed itself. “Oh really?” The red woman's voice trembles. Give me a reason. “Do you now?” (This is our game: Eyes, Quiet, Death and Dying, Shadows and Fire. This is our playtime.) *****These are her curios. Her little things. *****Some more agreeable than others. She doesn't bite. *****Death and Dying would love the smell...
“Well then, go ahead.” There is caution and irritation, at the suspense and at the boldness. (Our game.) Aurane's lip curls, her eyes falling flat as she traces the borders and inland seas of the continents mapped out in raw, red flesh on her body. A wretch. An unfortunate. (Eyes, Quiet, Death and Dying, Shadows and Fire. And Meat.) She extends her neck a tiny bit, nostrils pulsing as she pulls in short and sharp drafts of air. Raw flesh, maybe some blood, infection. A queer and heady perfume.
The red mare draws her head back, making small, displeased noises under her breath. “Oh,” She tuts with compassion and pity, or perverted variations thereof, “Life has not been kind, has it?” How very unfortunate, indeed. (Do the buzzards try and pick at it do you think?) “I imagine so,” She mutters to herself, slowly moving around Anhedonia, inspecting her over.
*****Death and Dying would love this. She blisters with jealousy quite suddenly, and reaches out to clamp her teeth between two patches of peeled away flesh on her hip, before pulling her chin back towards her chest.
Aurane. ****Death makes angels of us all, and gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as raven's claw.
Hope the light nip (or attempted nip if you want) doesn't bother you.
