"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
The screams deafen me still, like bullets numbing my brain. The shrill cries as sharp as the daggers that cut the deepest into flesh. I ran, just like he had said, my eyes a feral white, lost within. I saw nothing, just the blur of trees, of spring grasses as they flashed by. I had no destination, just forward, anywhere away from there. My legs powered me across the lands, strong and powerful and unyielding, even to the damp marsh of a forgotten winter. Mud splattered, blood speckled, I was a mess. Buttercream mane streaked with crimson, my tail, loins, blood soaked. Leaking into a blossoming burgundy rose across my ribcage, blending in with the rich chocolate of my skin. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, I ran until my lungs screamed protest, and the las few breaths came like acid, harsh, sharp and burning in my throat.
Run/
I continue running; a full speed gallop, blindly cascading through naked trees and barricades of brush. My mind is blank, like a cloudless sky, not a single thing upon it. within it. Wisps of memory, pain, harsh pain stabbing me, fingers burrowing deep into my skull. They strangle me, the memories, until finally something clicks. Cracks like bone splintering against sharp flint. And everything goes blank. And my wild gallop still breaks through trees and underbrush, until I reach a vast clearing.
Everything is green, viridian and bright; it is almost too blinding to my eyes, the soft coffee orbs closing, tightly, wanting the sharp daggers to stop driving deeper into my skull. As soon as I break through the shadows and into the afternoon sunlight, they do just that. My mind, empty, my eyes glazed with the sheen of frost upon crystalline waters. There is nothing, a large expanse where all the memories, all the pain, has gone and stopped. The walls are cavernous in my mind, dark and empty, like the dark woodlands I had sped through. Eerie and cold, forgotten and lost. My lungs scream, expanding and threatening to burst from my ribcage, my nostrils, their pink innards trickling rivulets of fine blood. Exertion threatens my body with full tremors, like lingering leaves, clutching into winter trees, I tremble. My chocolate skin throbs with veins and my winter fur is matted with sweat, mud and blood.
Yet I am calm. As though those snapping bones in my head have taken me to a serene place; and it is certainly serene. the trees are billowing softly in the spring breeze, the grass beneath my feet is springy with new life, and the waters in the distance are as enticing as the sea to a long lost sailor. Once my hooves touch the viridian grounds, I stop. Deadly still, my eyes drawn and looking out into the distance, focused on the treeline in the very distance, but nothing else in particular. Statuesque now, my lofty frame stands tall and silent, like a sentinel in the woodlands, a sturdy oak tree. My mane billows, matted with sweat and sticky with crimson, the creamy tresses knot even more as the wind strokes me with a genteel caress. Sweet kisses against my skin, the cool breeze is welcoming, cooling my feverish skin, calming my wrought nerves and pulsing veins. Yet, I am numb, my insides quiver with life, yet my eyes are dead, lost within the stars, lost within the woodlands left behind.
My tongue is stuck, blood coats it, mars my pink lips with a metallic twang. My nostrils still gasp for breath, lungs threatening to burst even still. My sides heave with exaggerated gasps.All I know there is grass beneath my feet and beautiful trees surrounding me. And the wind seems to call me with a gentle lullaby, lulling my mind into a security that blankets me in thick foam, almost suffocating.
Run.
I ran, and where I am, it seems like I have broken through the veil of Hell and found paradise, indeed.
Jason had a lot on his mind. It wasn’t unusual for the blue stallion to be sifting through files of thoughts. He managed to sort through most of his responsibilities and place them in neatly filed cabinets, but his feelings were another challenge. Thankfully his intentions had not been questioned nor had he been placed in a decisive spot. Jason strolled through the tall trees of the Gates. He wove his thick, muscular body through the hanging vines and large trunks. Every few steps required him to lift his hooves higher to avoid roots springing from the soil. He exhaled heavy breaths with little thought of where he was headed or whom he expected to see.
The night that the good fairy had come Jason felt his magic return to him with full force. In the days that followed he grew stronger and more protective of his homeland. There was no telling what else had changed. Jason placed an invisible barrier along the border of the kingdom. He did not intend to keep anyone out, but rather be aware of when someone came in.
The border had not been tested so when a small alert sprang until his mind Jason was caught off-guard. He stumbled over a root that stuck a mere inch out of the ground. His hoof caught the culprit with just enough leverage to send the stallion tripping forward. He regained his fumbling legs before he focused on the intrusive thought. A location and face materialized, and Jason turned from his current course and sought out the new horse.
The image his mind had created did not do the mare justice. She was a striking silver black with specks of dirt, muck, and blood sprinkled throughout. ”Hello” Jason clearly spoke when he emerged from the thick line of trees. ”Are you alright?” He motioned his nose toward the lines of blood ”Are you hurt? My name is Jason.”
The crimson pulsates, clots and slips from the laceration on my shoulders, my flanks, my ribcage. I've been torn apart, ripped to pieces and patched together with no recollection of anything. All I remember is the leathery face, bared teeth and the snap of words, run. I ran, I ran as fast as my legs could go, as fast as my lungs could take, until I could not take no more. My nostrils still flare, veins in my body pump, pulsate, stark against my rich chocolate body. Each breath feels like iron, like fire. I inhale but it is sharp, painful. My flanks heave with every breath and the fine trails of blood that slip from my nostrils fall to the floor, by my feet.
I'm as still as can be, as if a tree, a statuesque oak. Sturdy in my non-moving appearance. Silvery tresses coil in the slight breeze, tainted with scarlet and thickly matted with thorns and brush, I look as though the hedge won, every tree had beat me through my journey. It does not take long before someone notices. My black ear curves, listens to his hoofbeats against the lush ground. My dull eyes watch him move, closer and ever closer until he is right before me. I watch him, can every inch of him, tilting my head to the left, then to the right and then just staring. My mind, blank and nothing, processes everything, but cannot store it. When your mind is empty, what can it store? No memories decorate the vast corridors of my mind.
'Hello.' I mimic him, my voice a fragile, fine glass flute, near cracking. 'Jason.' my tongue rolls over his name, tasting it, chewing it thoughtfully. bleak and hollow eyes then meet Jason and a toothy smile, cracks my strained face. 'Reuen.' All is ruin, all is Reuen.
He points his muzzle to my frame, the blood, the pulsing wounds, they do not sting no longer, more or less a dull ache. I cannot remember them not being there, not hurting, not tainting my body. I force myself, looking at the treetops for an answer. The wisps of the clouds that pinprick the cerulean heavens. It was never this beautiful there. There was fire, there was pain, lots and lots of pain. I swallow a breath, hard, like a nodule that refuses to slip down my throat. 'Pain. Much Pain.'
They stand parallel as stark contrasts to each other. Jason with his pristinely kept blue coat and shimmering, almost translucent mane stands out like a sore thumb amongst the growing trees and rotting underbrush. The mare on the other hand folds into the backdrop. Jason recognizes the twigs and brush woven into her mane as unintentional remnants of her trip to the Gates. The blood and the confusion- those two Jason could not be certain of their source.
The mare speaks, and Jason leans his head forward with ears directed toward her. Her voice is quiet yet intriguing. He wants to know her story, and it is almost given to him in her name. Jason returns the smile although it isn’t completely out of sincerity. Part of its joy had been replaced with concern- concern for all the blood, for the pain.
The mare pauses again, and Jason takes this opportunity to step closer to her. He gazes over her body and the wounds that covered it. It was good that she stumbled into the gates and not another territory. It was good that she came to him. Jason closed in with hope that the mare would not step away. ”Nice to meet you, Reuen.” He spoke quiet, delicately. His nose slowly outstretched toward one of her wounds, and he attempted to touch her for just a moment. If successful in touch he hoped to dull the pain with his magic- even heal the edge of the wound that he touched. ”Where do you come from, Reuen? Can I help the pain stop….?”
Is it just me,
Or do you wonder if we're put here just to see,
He is questions, a myriad of words that spill from his blue tinged lips and into my ears. They are monstrous echoes that bounce from the empty walls of my head, filling me with a nothingness that numbs me even deeper than my wounds alone. My hollowed eyes watched him, half-lidded, so tired. Exhaustion wraps her encompassing fingers around me, like fine filaments slowly strangling me to a death far worse than my wounds could give. My veiny neck extends and my coarsely velvet muzzle touches the steed's shoulder. Presses into him and feels his warmth, his life. As I do this, he touches the crimson trail along my skin, instantly, ever so strangely, the wound feels cold, like ice, the numbing feeling leaving me and returning with an underlining pain.
Pain. It marred my features, my body like crimson paint. Every muscle screamed, and yet I was silent. My mind blank, exposing the matter of blankness. My lips tugged into a grimace, eyes straining to remember, to remember anything. And yet it still was blank whiteness, dust and empty halls. I swallowed a breath in my throat, a gasp that fell from my lips, tightened my lungs to an inch of their existence. 'Reuen.' I say, and I swallow once more, my dark eyes lifting to gaze up at Jason. 'Much blood. Much pain.. Hot, sticky blood. Sharp, sharp teeth.' I shiver, every inch of my body gooseflesh.
Without warning, my knees buckle. Exhaustion, I am not sure, it's something, something pulling me to the ground. My knees touch the soft grass and my body follows, a lithe mass of chocolate and crimson marked flesh stark against the heavenly green of the Gates. My nose lifts up and I whicker, my voice course, as crackled as splintered bark. 'Reuen. Ruin. Jason... Jason help? Pain stops.'
How much heartache we can take,
Without hanging from the tallest tree? - resident of the gates -
