"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
have i been lost? inside myself and my own mind
hypnotized; mesmerized by what my eyes have seen
The pale sunlight shines down, illuminating everything that is not shaded by the looming cliff as the sun slowly dips below the horizon. The warmth exudes from the sand, in spite of autumn's descent into the many pockets of land, but its embrace is not lost on the young filly as she ventures carefully over the various sharp rocks that line the cove. The leaves are beginning to change into soft but dull shades of brown and vibrant shades of yellow and orange, and it is only a matter of time until the icy chill of winter follows - but to the eager, doe-eyed youth of Misra, it was all new and unknown, and she often climbed where she shouldn't in an attempt to see the changing leaves outside the boundaries of the beach.
It was enthralling.
Suddenly, she loses her balance, causing her to squeal out in pain as a single sharpened stone scraped along her delicate skin. She paused to inspect the damage as a trickle of blood began to trail down along her backside; evoking a sigh of frustration. Grace was not her strong suit, and it was not the first wound she had received since birth. She knew not to climb, but she so desperately wanted to be closer to the sky, and it often caused her harm. She cradled her wound with a flexed wing, brushing the dark (but graying) feathers over it to shield it from harm, soon distracted from the sting of injury as she carefully moved away from the rocks to step onto sifting sand.
Cradled nearby was a small pool of sea water, trapped by low tide. It is there that her attention is fully taken by her own reflection, her own deep brown gaze searing into that of her mirrored image, observing thoughtfully as she slowly expands and outstretches her thick, glorious wings. Kirin so loved her wings, and so she had grown to love them as well. He often preened them and caressed them in a way that made her feel as if it were something special; something to behold.
And so she stands, alone, admiring the way her pelt shines and her eyes glimmer, unaware of those who may be nearby.
GLACIERS MELTING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT AND
THE SUPERSTARS SUCKED IN THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE
His time here was still too short for him to not remember the Gates or his mother. Perhaps he will never truly forget that he had been callously taken from his home for reasons unknown. Things such as petty jealousy or outright cruelty weren’t something that such a young boy could ponder quite yet. But he remained imprisoned here with no knowledge of how to make the long journey back home. All he remembered was the stiff fear of the unknown as he stumbled along near the back of the raiding party, enclosed within from all sides.
But once they had crossed the border into their territory, he had taken a small window of opportunity to slip away from his suddenly complacent captors. Of course, all he’s accomplished was learning about the somewhat perilous terrain of his new home. It wasn’t anything like the kingdom back home where the grass was plentiful and the earth was rich and soft beneath his feet.
He’s taken a reluctant liking to strolling down the beach as he’s never seen the likes before. The rolling, thunderous waves were soothing to his troubled heart and he delighted in the wheat gold sand that gave way to his weight with each determined step. This time his trip is interrupted by the sight of another winged girl. He wondered if the natives here all came winged for this was the second girl that he’s come across that’s possessed the feathered things. At least this girl wasn’t an alarming shade of purple.
He cautiously approaches her from the side as he notices she seems to be quite unaware of her surroundings. He clears his throat noisily to give her some fair warning. After all, she could just as easily be a part of the kidnapping ringleaders.
“Hey.”
As he slides to a halt beside her, his mismatched eyes happen to catch sight of a cut across her hindquarters. It hadn’t been outwardly visible at first as both her wings and the dark color of her skin hid the gleaming red blood from his sight. Immediately concerned, he impulsively reaches out to touch her wound to get any idea of the severity. Once again, his touch instigates a quick knitting of skin and he stumbles back in surprise.
He narrows his eyes in thought and ponders the possibility of possessing an ability to heal. Perhaps the purple girl had actually been onto something here. He shifts his weight restlessly, uncomfortable with his current train of thought. He eyes the now perfectly smooth patch of skin before him, the only imperfection was the sheen of dried blood around it, and directs his attention back to the other’s face.
He has taken to the tidal pools. The briny little habitats full of strange and colorful little monsters fascinate him. The majority of his time here has been spent lazing about at his mother’s feet, shading his eyes against the glare of hot sun with a pale wing and sinking into soft, green grass (that always seem to have a damp and leaves big wet spots on his side and hip when he gets up – on warm days it would catch a breeze and cool his dark skin but lately the breeze whizzing off the ocean has been a bit less friendly).
But when he does disentangle from mum to explore this new place, and if the tide is pulled back into the ocean to leave those little pieces of itself behind in the rocky holes. he always ends up gravitating to their edges.
Queer, seafoam green things that look as if they might be hairy, but he imagines them rather slimey. Pinkish-orange, rough things, like strange, dead men that have fallen too far and landed slumped over the slick, submerged rocks. Plants with weird shaped leaves and sometimes he finds hideous, big buggy things camped out under rocks coated in mussels.
But they are very hard to get to without incident.
He was made for this kind of stuff, with those flexible and dexterous feet. That is, he would be utterly perfect, absent the impish fiends.
He should be able to take rocks like a magnificent goat.
But he is not so lucky.
Falk is plagued by the pranks of unseen mischief-makers and neredowells.
The sooty black colt had managed early in the morning, by the skin of his teeth and with a little tettering, to make it down towards the slippery rocks, well below the stern and scary gaze of that hard, dark figure.
He circles slowly around the alien worlds, keeping back from the edge where the oily stones give way to nasty, grey water. His mother had warned him, and he listens to mother. She knows best. Now and then he shutters his eyes tight against a spray of cold, white water and so when he ambles away from the jaggy rocks and onto the giving sand, he is soaked and salty. When he sees the two children, he picks up speed, leaving his odd prints in the sand – his mother’s doting has made him a bold, rather confident boy, despite his inability to stay firmly on his hooves.
“Kidnapped? Scary...” he squeaks out, eyeing the other boy curiously, and coming to a slightly stumbling stop beside him. “My mum would never let anyo—” He is a second too late to see her skin sew itself up by the boy's volition, but the slick blood around the scrape still catches his eyes, “wow! What’s happened, there? You fell, right?” He grins crookedly, nods understandingly.
Then it isn’t just him?
“I’m Falk,” he knows he has seen the girl before (he blinks at her for a moment to long) but the boy (the first other boy he has ever met) is new!
it's not perfect here between us, but even angels have their demons trapped inside this twisted circle, it ain't right but it's eternal
Capture has never seen the sky. She does not know the way that splash of endless blue was bright enough to make a heart ache with longing for more, always more. She does not know the glowing moon and its cold, silver stars, and the sun is a friend only by the heat beating on her back. When she lifts her face she cannot trace the flight of birds or feel a strange sense of yearning at how they wing across the blue. Even the brilliance of autumn is wasted on her pale, sightless eyes.
The only things she can love are the things she touch, objects shaped beneath the curve of her nose or by the molecules of her water. She loves the fog and the rain, things that lived close enough to be buried by the spray of ocean water carried in the wind. Things she could imagine more easily by tracing the outline of moisture and the absence beneath. It was why she rarely left the sea, why the only one she knew was Kirin and his kindness. The few times she had strayed from the water had been clumsy expeditions rewarded with bruises and cuts carved into her knees as she struggled to keep her footing on unfamiliar ground that shifted beneath her.
Her place in the bend of beach beside the lapping waves had always been quiet but for ocean sounds, so when the cluster of small voices finds her in the wind she hesitates. She had taken to the quiet, to empty isolation that had seemed to search her out. But there was something about the pitch of young voices, voice like her own, that tugged at some desperate strand of hope in her chest. A friend, just one friend, would be so nice.
She totters forward uncertainly, those pale blue eyes drifting back and forth in what must’ve been an instinct even the blind could not resist. Twice she falls and she is sure she can smell the metallic tang of blood from her spindly knees but she is too afraid to slow down and trace the stones with water, too afraid they’ll leave before she has a chance to reach them. And then the small voices reach a crescendo and she does pause to reach out to them with a thin mist of her own making to cloak them. Three shapes carve themselves out of the black nothingness, one like Kirin with wings aloft and two others without. She wonders for a moment what they must look like, what the pitch of these voices call home. She wonders too what she must look like, for she has never seen the steel grey and emerald of her impossibly fragile body.
Suddenly she is uncertain, her legs frozen in the sand several yards away from them. In her chest her heart beats frantically, both willing her forward and away. Stay, go. She shrinks passively and pulls the mist back from them with a soft, tremulous breath. It gathers around her instead, thickening until it must look like she was standing in the midst of heavy raindrops frozen in time. And then in a small, bell-like voice she offers to the one who had claimed to be kidnapped, “My mother thought I was dead. She even buried me.”
It wasn’t until silence greeted her that she could hear the dismayed groan of her conscience reminding her that her name would have sufficed. So then, belatedly, “They call me Capture.”
have i been lost? inside myself and my own mind
hypnotized; mesmerized by what my eyes have seen
The solitude in which she had begun to lose herself in quickly crumbled into pieces, shattering like glass all around her as a soft, small voice piped up behind her after a brief clearing of the throat. She startled nonetheless, the soft downy feathers that line her wings bristling against the icy chill of the ocean breeze as she abruptly turned her dark brown eyes to the source of the interruption. She is instantly soothed by his appearance - he is young, his bronze pelt gleaming beneath the shielded sunlight, his eyes mismatched but nonetheless a charming shade of sunshine and blue skies, respectively. Her lips curve into a faint smile, her doe eyes softening as he came to her side. She could feel the warmth of his body radiating next to her own and it was comforting, in a sense. She did not often find such solace in others.
A sharp sting rippled through her nerves and she lets out a breathy gasp, her skin neatly sewing together from his touch alone. Though the wound continues to pain her as it repairs capillaries, mends flesh and stitches up muscle, she is instantaneously enthralled with him, staring at him in unadulterated awe. What had been there moments previous was now nothing but a stain; no scar left behind - unlike the scrape she had received on her left foreleg in the days previous, which was now beginning to mend on its own with what would likely be a lasting mark.
"How did you do that?" She breathed out finally, her eyes meeting with his briefly. She outstretched her coal black wings slightly as she inspected the drying trail of blood the injury had left behind, but there was nothing else to see. Her smile returns, shy but grateful as she leans towards him, nudging the bridge of her muzzle against his shoulder. "I don't know how you did that - but thank you."
Before she is able to respond to his abrupt question (the muscles above her eyes furrowed; puzzled by his inquiry), another voice pipes up, distracting her. The word kidnapped began to roll around in her brain, the gears slowly turning as her thoughts enveloped the idea. She knew the meaning of it, but not the experience of it. Her mother had brought her willingly; given her easily to the care of those she barely knew - for reasons far more nefarious than she herself could yet comprehend. Kidnapped? No. She had been surrendered. A gift with no choice of her own.
She cannot hide the same shy smile that returns as she looks to the sooty tinted colt from behind thick lashes, her doe eyes peeking out. Falk. She recognized him, and often watched him from afar, envious of the relationship he shared with his mother, jealous of the pining ache it caused her heart - but she held no ill will. He was a familiar face, and for that she was grateful. She could feel his eyes linger on her for a moment too long, but his kind and sympathetic words bring her mind back around to her vanishing wound. "I did, I'm not the most graceful .." was all she could utter before a third, more feminine voice broke through the thickening fog of the cove.
It began to swirl and lap at their flesh, enveloping them in a sudden but altogether normal weather development. Out from the mist came a soft, eerie and haunting voice, along with dialogue that sent an uncomfortable rattling up the course of her spine. The coal painted feathers once again bristled as she cradled her wings closer to her slender form, her dark eyes set intensely on the newcomer's entrancing pale blue eyes.
"Capture. Falk." She repeats softly, her voice quiet for a moment. "My name is Misra," She finally chimes, the trill of her voice lingering as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. She could barely contain the giddiness that was now bubbling deep within her - she had not had very much interaction since she had been left behind, not except with Kirin. It was exhilarating to be within the presence of others. "No - I was not kidnapped .. my mother left me here," She murmured, her voice saturated with the same forlorn longing. She managed to pull away from her distressing thoughts long enough to look up towards Warner, gently bobbing her slim neck as she nudged his shoulder a second time. "Who are you?"
GLACIERS MELTING IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT AND
THE SUPERSTARS SUCKED IN THE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE
He wondered if his prospective ability (he wasn’t certain if it was indeed healing quite yet) was truly startling. For the most part, both girls he’s come across have had similar reactions. Although, the first girl had been demanding and ludicrous at his continuous denials and she had even gone so far as to want to conduct an experiment. He couldn’t help the fact that he hadn’t ever realized that it wasn’t normal to not be marked by scratches or bruises, or how his blood never seems to flow for very long. While others might carry their marks for days, his would disappear within the day.
He watched as she examined her wound with astonishment and outstretched dark wings. In his opinion, the wings were more impressive and outwardly practical. One could strike hesitancy into others with a large wingspan. He reluctantly had to admit that the purple girl’s wings had been quite impressive as well.
“I’m not entirely sure. It just seems to happen.”
She smiles at him after her thorough inspection and he mirrors it with a small smile of his own. It was nice to finally experience some positivity in this place after days of worry and depression. She nudges his shoulder and he returns her words of gratitude with a nod of acknowledgment. The moment doesn’t last as the sound of hurried steps behind them suddenly catch his attention. He swivels his head just enough to watch another strange-looking child struggle to a halt beside them. Was there something in the water here that affected their outer appearances?
Mismatched eyes study the newcomer with naked curiosity for he was much too young to realize the importance of stoicism yet. Instead, his thoughts remained unguarded within his expressions. The other boy outwardly should appear intimidating, but he radiates a clumsy innocence in place of ferocity. Warner is slowly coming to realize that perhaps he is the only outsider for it seems that everyone else is a part of the group that has taken him away from his home.
But he can’t help but wonder if these people were truly of the same cloth as those who had raided his kingdom.
They are once again interrupted but this time by one with more of a dramatic flair than the graceless boy. A startling shroud of mist envelops the trio and Warner steps back in nervousness before directing his gaze towards the source of the disturbance. The mist wavers briefly before reforming around the form of a grey-green girl. It’s as if a frozen halo of water surrounds her and he does not seem surprised this time around. There is definitely something strange in the water around here.
Her voice cut through the silence like a wind chime and with it a sense of morbidity. He is somewhat taken aback by her frank words which are uttered with no sense of despair or rage. And then she utters her name and he cannot hide his brief moment of disdain. Capture, indeed. The only reason he was here to begin with was because he had been captured; swept away in a tide of petty greed and revenge.
The winged girl introduces herself and completes the circle of names, of course, with the exception of himself. She answers his original question and he is puzzled that their mothers had been drawn to this place. Of course, he was biased in his resentment and could not see any good that could become of his prison. Misra once again touches his shoulder and inquires after his identity. His eyes remain somewhat distracted by the mysterious water-girl and what appear to be bloodied knees. He flashes another small smile before introducing himself to their small group.
“I’m Warner. And I was taken from my home just a couple of days ago.”
He could not deny the itch any longer and he slowly approaches Capture with some trepidation for he didn’t want to be caught in any water whiplash. He does not realize her blindness and continues to maintain eye contact in an attempt to appear friendly. He merely wanted to try and figure out if he did indeed possess a healing ability. He stops right in front of her, but he left enough space between them so as not to make her feel crowded or nervous.
“Hey. Let me try something out.”
He stretches his neck out enough so he can touch her cheek with his muzzle. This time he consciously attempts to concentrate on something within himself. Just a small thought - heal her knees - was chanted in his mind. Now that he was looking for it, he could feel a slow heat coming from where their skin touched. Although he was not touching the actual site of her wounds, the heat seemed to be able to travel down and direct itself accordingly to his wishes. The process of healing had been successfully kick started and he steps back to study the results.
![[Image: HzeOUhk.png]](http://i.imgur.com/HzeOUhk.png)
