[private] eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81) +---- Forum: Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=98) +----- Forum: Nerine (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=91) +------ Forum: Taiga (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=86) +------ Thread: [private] eyes like sinking ships; cheri (/showthread.php?tid=29111) |
|||||||||
eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Targaryen - 04-05-2021
At first, Targaryen had been two seconds away from crying at any given moment. When the world began to look unfamiliar, the boy assumed he had just taken a wrong turn. Yet unfamiliar became strange and strange became foreign. He had danced between hot and cold — one moment he was burning with anger, the next he felt terror sweep over him. He felt disgusted to have found a place he could call home and have it be ripped away so suddenly. He felt even worse knowing that it was his own doing that led him away from Taiga in the first place. And that deep anguish, so tangible it felt like a handful of rocks in his chest, had made Targaryen’s eyes threaten to burst. As time went on (and he knew it was too much time, months even), the anguish settled so absolutely that the boy wondered if it would ever go away. It trailed him like the shadows, nipping at his heels and mirroring his every step. Cheri was a dream; the girl’s face and laughter and smell and smile and voice echoed in Targaryen’s mind for every second of every day. And he ached. He prayed to the trees, touching his forehead to the bark and asking them to bring him home. He screamed at Jedar, wishing the eagle would guide him to Cheri. He cursed the dark, making it known that if the night were tangible, he would have pulverized it. Yet the trees remained quiet, Jedar told him to politely fuck off, and the darkness seemed to laugh. Targaryen had wandered for so long the world began to blur around him. The shadows shifted around him, seeming to pull images from his mind so they peeled away into things he treasured and things he tried to forget. Some days he would run blindly with Jedar cawing angrily in his ear. Some days he would stand in one place until he felt spiders make homes between his feathers. Targaryen felt his life swing into a rhythm that dredged sadness from its small hiding places and made it grow in his chest. Suddenly, during a spell of nothingness, the light comes. It is too bright to ignore, unlike the stinking pieces of meat-flesh Jedar would drop from the overhanging branches in an attempt to feed the skinny boy. It burns into Targaryen’s eyes, so hot and fierce and welcome that he shudders and dances simultaneously. With the sun comes a warmth soaking into his feathers, adding a layer of shine to their color. And also with the sun — the knowledge of geography, of direction, of his home. Though his wings are thin and sore from disuse, Targaryen spreads them wide and flings himself toward that newborn sun. He flies as quickly as his body will take him, and his eagle mirrors each movement the dark green boy makes. Targaryen doesn’t stop until he finds that familiar break in the redwoods, the place Cheri considers her favorite. “Please,” he whispers to the wind, to the reborn sun, to the mighty forest. “Please.” His landing is terrible and clumsy and painful. By the time he lands, he is gulping for air and his wings burn like hell. But her name falls from his mouth like a prayer, breathless and soft and pleading. @[Cheri] RE: eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Cheri - 04-06-2021 The light that meets the dark @[Targaryen] RE: eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Targaryen - 04-07-2021
“Cheri.” It is nothing more than a whisper, but his heart wants it to be a scream. His lungs quiver within their cage, desperate for air from a throat that only wishes to call for a green-eyed girl. And for a few moments (enough where he begins to ache from the sheer tension of it), Targaryen’s body is at odds with itself. It must decide whether to continue breathing or to repeat her name into the empty clearing. The tobiano knows what his answer would be, but this is just another opinion adding itself to the chaos that battles within him. And eventually, instincts take over. Targaryen sucks in a breath so deep that his lungs squeeze painfully. Yet the breath fills him, bringing life back into the tired cells of his body and offering his heart a chance to steady itself. The rational part of him knows that it would be ignorant to call her name again — the only sign of movement in the empty clearing is an arctic fox who peers at him with twin orange eyes. Its summer coat blends easily into the dead foilage of the clearing, and the sound of its paws crackling against the dry grass makes Targaryen think suddenly of his mother. Noori has always been a creature of the woods, woven from bark and leaf herself. Yet Targaryen has never learned if his mother survives like a horse or like a tree. When the sun still rose and set, he would find her dormant body rooted into the soil deep in the Forest and wait for a day at a time, watching for the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of her chest. Since the darkness, he hasn’t been able to find Noori (let alone the mighty, ancient redwoods of Taiga). Now his chest tightens at the thought of his mother gray and brittle somewhere, shriveling without the energy of the sun. So Targaryen focuses on the sun, hoping that its return will bring life back into Noori. The sun’s warmth hits his back so fiercely it seems that it missed them just as much as they missed it. The tobiano closes his brown eyes, enjoying the way the heat soaks into his skin and seems to collect itself into the colored feathers on his wings. At the sound of a voice — older, to be sure, but a voice that has echoed in his mind for months — Targaryen feels as though the sun has found a home inside him. The sudden shifting breeze does nothing to dim the burning that seems to light him on fire (and he wonders if burning simply by hearing her voice will doom him to a future he still does not quite understand). Targaryen turns slowly, anticipating those green eyes to spark with anger. The burning becomes something softer, sweeter, smoother and Targaryen relaxes at the sight of Cheri’s slender face. “Cheri.” He feels something release from within — a tightness among the cords of his heart — and assumes it is from relief. He is grateful to be back in Taiga, after all. The redwoods had become home during the time he spent before getting lost, and he has come to associate Cheri with the land. Perhaps that is why he is burning, then simmering, then relaxing… It certainly must be because Cheri reminds him of the first home he has come to love… Right? Targaryen doesn’t know if an explanation will soothe the anger she must feel, but it comes spilling out of him before he can stop it. “I went for a walk, but it was so dark I couldn’t find my way back, and then I got lost, and I didn’t know how to get home, and no one could help me, and I was so scared, and I am so glad to see you.” Because she reminds him of Taiga, and Taiga has become home… At least, that is what he thinks. @[Cheri] RE: eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Cheri - 04-12-2021 The light that meets the dark @[Targaryen] RE: eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Targaryen - 05-04-2021
It feels as if an eternity stretches between his explanation and Cheri’s response. Although it is only a brisk moment in their lives, Targaryen’s mind moves so quickly it might as well have been years. Doubt prickles at the back of his mind, unwelcome but bold. What will he do if she shuns him? He isn’t sure he can handle staying in Taiga, knowing that she’s angry at him. He isn’t sure if he could face Yanhua and explain that he’d hurt Cheri. He doesn’t know where to go, aside from that lonely woodland where his mother stands. And it is these thoughts — that he doesn’t know where to go, that he can’t handle looking Cheri in the eyes and seeing her anger — that echo in his mind while the seconds slowly tick. When her answer is warm and her smile even warmer, Targaryen is relieved. He is suddenly embarrassed at his doubt, at the way his mind had raced to come up with an escape plan. He should have known better. Cheri has always accepted him, always healed him, always welcomed him. He could have expected her to give him a smile that stops his heart. When has she ever pushed him away? In fact, she does exactly the opposite after soothing his worries. Lost in the dark, lost to delirium, the woods had often looked like Cheri’s slender face, and the dying brush had felt like her soft touch. He had dreamed of her embrace and how their wings brushed against each other while they ran together. Targaryen had thought the images and memories felt sweeter because of their distance, but as Cheri tucks herself into his shoulder, he cannot imagine anything feeling nicer. He can feel their overwhelming heat combining, but her dainty nose brushing against his feathers and the soft touch of her shoulder to his chest overpowers his concern. Ever since he officially moved to Taiga, Cheri’s touch has ignited something the stallion can’t quite identify. Perhaps if he knew his older brothers or even his dad, he might be able to put a name to the intensity he feels. She draws the tightness in his chest and the heat rising from his skin from their respective places, making it migrate someplace he isn’t expecting. It makes him feel primal. It makes him force his eyes up toward the perfect blue sky, lest the drift toward the young curve of her spine. Targaryen feels like there is something wrong, but deeper than that, he feels something very right. He’s grateful when Cheri moves away, fearful of a storm that seems to brew inside him. The heat lingers, but his friend’s remorse draws his attention away. The tobiano might’ve joked about being a ghost, but the sadness that darkens Cheri’s eyes stops him. “It sounds like we both had an adventure.” He watches her quietly for a moment, studying the lines of her face. Her expression slowly changes from regret to thoughtfulness, and he wonders what she is thinking about. He’s about to ask when she suddenly looks away from and at him. At first, Targaryen’s eyes follow hers out toward the meadow, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary. When his brown gaze finds hers again, there’s a question in them. It’s a big question, one that might unfurl something beyond their knowledge, and Targaryen knows he isn’t ready to ask it yet. So instead, he says, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen the sun, I don’t even know what to do.” @[Cheri] RE: eyes like sinking ships; cheri - Cheri - 05-10-2021 The light that meets the dark @[Targaryen] <3 TIME FOR A NEW LOESS THREAD <3 |