"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 is perhaps far too small to be traveling to the playground alone. But she wants to, and she does. Her mother does not stop her (will not discourage independence, certainly), though there’s a black raven sitting on the black and white filly’s back. There’s nothing particularly magical about this raven. It is, in fact, a feathered black raven that looks entirely ordinary.
Of course it is far from such. It’s the girl babysitter, quite capable of attacking (or turning to fire) should anyone try to harm the Chamber Princess. Straia may be willing to let her children out her line of sight, but only in the most literal sense. She will not let her baby girl go without a protector, and a watchful set of eyes.
This doesn’t bother Weaver though. In fact, she enjoys the raven. It flies right above her mostly, though lands delicately now and again on the girl. Of course, Weaver’s barely got the hang of her own legs (they are still gangly and long and impossible sometimes), let alone trying to walk with extra weight on her back. Raven’s are heavier than you might think, particularly for young girls with a large avian guardian.
That said, the raven is both friend and symbol. She feels loved, protected, and more to the point with her, important. Like her mother, she holds her head high and enters the playground like she owns it. None of this sneaking in and looking for friends. No, the girl is entirely convinced someone will come find her. They always do, don’t they? Act like you belong, and you’ll belong. Her mother had told her.
And so the girl does. Perhaps it doesn’t work from anyone else’s vantage point, but to Weaver, she feels perfectly content and at home. The raven caws on her back before taking off into the sky, not too far away but enough to give her some space. She shoots it an annoyed glace, both because it was being loud and because it’s not sticking around. She sort of wanted others to see her raven.
Maybe that’s not the best first impression. She’ll trust the raven. For now.
She finds it is not hard to get away from mother and brother.
Brother more so because at least, from time to time, he likes to play.
The blue girl had left them in a pool of piney shade, mother mumbling to her friends, and brother sleeping on his side in a cradle of moss.
Wandering away on her far too long legs, through the meltwater and pine needles, off to explore the murk of that endless, iron forest. She is not brave exactly, but she does like to look at things... and others, and wonder about them all. She likes to follow the beat of that odd heart sound – but she never finds its source, the exact place where the muscle is pumping away under the dirt.
She is content to accept that maybe it comes from everywhere. That somethings have no answers, or at least, none that she is smart enough to figure out. So mostly she just slips through the trees and open spaces, humming to herself to occupy the seemingly unending hours in her day. (Sometimes brother joins, and that’s a bit more fun.) Until darkness comes. And stars! And she finds her place near her family to settle, as close as she is allowed.
Today, through the legs of those great, giant tree-men, the girl catches the flutter of wings (in the Chamber, they are everywhere... those big, scary, black birds). She grasps as quiet as possible, skittering behind a pine tree. Stilled for a moment, in heavy breath and fluttering pulse, by fear – ‘they’ll eat your eyes out, how do you think poor, dear brother got to be the way he is?’ mother had warned. Because, children have resilience not only in their young bodies, but also in their resolve; and they have curiosity to loose, she tiptoes forward enough to see the raven perch on another child’s back. “Oh.”She must be brave… Or, maybe her mother has not told her about their penchant for eyeballs.
The blue girl trails behind, far back enough so as not to arouse her suspicion (no doubt that watchful babysitter has sent back to the Queen news of her princess’ follower), out of the Chamber… farther than she has ever drifted. Away from the jurisdiction of that heartbeat, and into the wider world. Now and then she is sure she should go back, tell mother at least, but she is fixated on the adventure of it all. Such a break from monotony.
The place where black and white girl stops, and the blue one too still tucked into border trees, feels safe enough – playful and protected. When the raven takes wing and finds itself a place to watch from high up, she moves to the other girl (just about her age!), every now and then, glancing in the bird’s direction with suspicion. “Hi.”
LILIN. Michealis and Aurane's ****Steps taken forwards, but sleepwalking back again. Dragged by the force of some inner tide.
Her mother has, of course, taken her to the heart of the Chamber. They stood with it beating beneath their feet, as Straia told her of Atrox, of the panther-man and how his heart beat beneath the kingdom’s dirt. She took her to the tree, told the girl to cut her leg on a rock and let the blood drip beneath the burning tree. The flames danced and twisted, showing her pictures of a life that might happen. A life that might be hers one day, if she traveled that path.
Straia has shown her the ways through the pine forests, and the girl has taken to spending time in them alone, learning the feel of the bark and the way the branches caress her hide. The black and white girl does not know if the Chamber will remain her home forever, but it will always be home. She knows it too well already for it to stop being home.
The voice finds her first, just a word on the wind, before Weaver turns to see the other girl. “You smell like pine trees.” she observes, taking a moment to examine the girl, trying to place her. Unlike Mother, Weaver doesn’t know every face in the Chamber yet, but still, she knows the smell of her pine trees. The girl smells very much like them. “Did you follow me?” She asks, not necessarily accusingly, but almost as if she’s rather pleased at this thought.
Her, being followed! It makes her grin just a bit to know that she’s already leading the others about, braver perhaps than the lot to venture out alone (she would have gone, with or without the raven – mother insisted on the raven). Perhaps none of this is even remotely true, but she enjoys the thought anyway, and decides to live within her version of the truth. “I’m Weaver,” she finally offers, remembering some semblance of manners.
That flamey tree frightens her.
She watches it from the safety of the pinewood, its dance and its bellow of smoke. But when she asks mother, she only sighs and tells the filly that sometimes the world just burns. The blue girl doesn’t know what that means, but she knows better than to ask ‘why?’
She begins to wonder whether or not mother knows at all.
But then, if mother does not know, then who does?
She remembers the grey man and his odd strange flames down his neck. Maybe it is his. Maybe he makes the world burn.
She smiles, her nose twitching and she realizes, maybe for the first time, that perfume shared by them – surely by mother and brother, too – on her skin. “Do you think?” She likes the thought of being a pine tree. Or belonging to them, at least. If she had more awareness, or perhaps less wonderful whimsy, she might just be happy that she belongs to anything. But in truth, none of them do. Not mother, or brother, or her. They are stranger shadows; mother keeping to herself and her clutch, bound by nothing but inertia.
The princess’ mother had seen that well enough.
She tucks her chin in, dropping her bright eyes, “No.” She worries the dirt with the toe of her hoof, drawing spirals and waves in the loose dust. “I was already almost here, myself, really. I come here all the time. And I saw you.” Her little voice grows in haste, grasping for words. She glances nervous up where she last saw the raven perch, “I saw the bird, that is…”
She lifts her chin, “and I’m not scared of it. Of course. So I thought I’d say, hello. I suppose I followed you a bit of the way here.”
She stops, breathing a bit heavy. “Weaver. I’m ‘sister’.” Her short, dark tail flicks back and forth against her rear. She realizes that Weaver is the first girl she's ever met, and she shivers a bit. Brother is good, she loves brother, but he cannot run or play much, really. He likes to keep to mother, and mother had a bad temper.
LILIN. Michealis and Aurane's ****Steps taken forwards, but sleepwalking back again. Dragged by the force of some inner tide.
