"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
He finds some solace, though not much, from the blazing scorch of the shimmering sun.
Standing with his hip cocked beneath the spread of a flowering tree, the black titan's lower lip droops as the sweat dribbles off of him in fat, slow drops. The heat here, and most everywhere he's been, is nigh unbearable; Skeleton Ghoul is a heavy beast, and hairy even in the hottest months. Oh, how he pines for the snow and the bitter breeze and biting frost. How he longs for the unearthly silence that comes just after a heavy snowfall when the world is blanketed in a soft coat of white.
Hmph. Summer can go fuck itself.
White eyes open halfway and he shakes his head, chasing away biting flies from his ears, not that it helps much. The damn things just resettle and resume their bloodsucking lifestyles, and there isn't much Skeleton Ghoul can do about it. They're everywhere, gnawing on his legs and haunches, but his bob of a tail is too short to help him there, either. He swings his heavy head slowly to look with consideration at the glimmering river not too far away. If it is shallow, it could be a good place to go roll and cool off.
There's no time like the present. Ghoul's joints crack once as he heaves himself into motion like a great steel monolith, little bobtail swishing around his haunches. Once at the riverside, he surveys the water critically, eyeballing the rushing water and trying to gauge the depth. It's not the biggest or widest river he's been across, but he'd just as soon avoid nearly drowning if he can help it. The stallion figures he can make it, and plows into the water with certainty.
Thankfully no one else is around, because his decision is a mistake. He ends up a quarter mile downriver by the time he clambers up the other side of the bank, water cascading down his legs and off of his belly. Pausing, Skeleton Ghoul sticks his upper lip out and shakes off, mane flapping everywhere ... and looks up. The thick fog shrouding his surroundings is finally beginning to clear in the breath of delightfully cool breeze that is whipping up from nearby, exposing what appears to be the biggest god damn tree he's ever seen. Another appears, and another, and another -- it's an entire forest of trees as thick as Skeleton Ghoul is long.
He is fascinated. Twelve years on this miserable earth, and this is the first place that has ever made him feel so small.
04-18-2020, 06:24 PM (This post was last modified: 04-18-2020, 07:08 PM by lilliana.)
The days grow shorter and her sons grow longer - their necks, their legs, their backs. Their days build with a sort of routine that fills all of their days. Yanhua and Nashua develop - their haunches round with muscle and their chests start to fill out just as their days do. As the season of summer starts to fade towards the blaze of autumn, her colts are the sweetest change in this primordial forest.
Still, they are colts and as the season lingers between change, they need more. More room. More space. More time. They are gone for longer spans of time, they venture further from her and she has to accept this.
Soon (but not yet, she comforts herself), they will be gone much too long and gone much too far.
Today as the light lazily trickles down from above, they are gone again and she takes advantage of this newfound time. The chestnut mare had hoped to find Aten - their Guardian of this prehistoric forest - and curses quietly when she does not, "Winds.”
It’s another trail gone cold, another change in the breeze that reveals nothing at all.
Her delicate head looks up, appraising how much of the day she has wasted and decides to turn back to the heart of the Taiga - back to where her boys will know to find her. It’s a silly thing but she likes to be there to greet them when they still have the sheen of adventure on them, when they are still bright-eyed with thrill to tell her what their day has yielded.
It’s only when she has turned back towards the North that she senses something. A crisp breeze runs its fingers through the treetops and aside from their usual groan, there is an unnerving sensation prickling up her spine. Someone - a new smell speaks louder than the trees can grouse - is in the Northern Forest.
Lilliana weaves through the trees, searching for the source. It doesn’t take long to find him. In a forest of giants, he fits right in.
There is no Pteron to greet newcomers anymore. Aten had become increasingly harder and harder to find so the mammoth stallion finds himself with the smaller mare in front of him. It goes back to her boys - her children who run through this forest - and that is where her mind retreats when she dips her head in greeting.
"Can I help you?” Lilliana asks, not exactly wanting to disturb him. If she had known how taken he was with Taiga, her hesitance might have faded entirely.
LILLIANA
all that i'm after is a life full of laughter (as long as i'm laughing with you)
Her scent reaches him before he can see her. It's an unmistakable aroma, even when it's just a breath on the wind; a smell he's hardwired to detect and pay attention to. As much as Skeleton Ghoul dislikes it, it smells like woman and his lizard brain immediately perks up from within the confines of his higher thinking. The stallion draws in a breath and snorts, arching his neck and stretching a back foot out, clearing his mind with a slight shake of the head.
A twig snaps, and a lithe, lovely little chestnut thing arrives. She's quite the contrast to the colossus trees that surrounds them, bright in color and smaller in stature. Empty white eyes watch as she approaches him, but his posture remains neutral, nonthreatening. Not that he can look any more bedraggled than he does right now after his dip in the river. In contrast, Skeleton Ghoul is a soggy, tangled mess of a man.
So much for dignity. "Maybe so," he rumbles after drawing in a breath. "I am unfamiliar with this territory. I have never seen a forest of this size before. My name is Skeleton Ghoul, and I apologize if I am trespassing."
05-02-2020, 10:19 AM (This post was last modified: 05-02-2020, 10:20 AM by lilliana.)
you got a cold hard truth i got a bottle of whiskey but i got no proof
She almost grimaces as soon as the words leave her mouth.
There is a chagrined look that shadows across her delicate features before she catches it - stores it away like a child might keep fireflies in a jar. Another emotion will light up her face in a moment, anyways. As a diplomat of the Taiga, she had always enjoyed greeting newcomers at their borders.
It had been one of her favorite responsibilities.
The previous winter, Aten’s disappearance, motherhood - these are all things that have somehow intercepted her time instead.
The brute is large; easily one of the biggest stallions she has ever come across and Lilliana makes no motion to come towards him. He gives no indication of harm, nothing in his posture makes her inclined to think that he intends to wreak havoc in Taiga. He’s intimidating - she’ll give him that, especially with those pointed teeth. But the little copper mare also knows that there is so often more lurking beneath the coats of horses. That there is so much more to the story than what is simply written on the page.
Her blue eyes glance down to see where the water drips from his stomach and looking up again says, "There are no trespassers in Taiga.” Not in the one that she dares to imagine, that she dreams of. (Well, perhaps one but then Lilliana has convinced herself that Nashua and Yanhua’s father would never dare to come this far North.)
The smile on her face twists into something impish, "Lilliana.” The chestnut gives her head a light shake to move her curling forelock out her face and takes a moment to admire the Redwoods with him, looking up as high as a tree could ever hope to reach. "And you won’t find another wood like this one.” The words are said with a strong sense of pride. "A forest of Immortals,” she grins as she meets the blinding white of his eyes.
Her slender head tilts towards him as she studies the soaked Draft stallion, "What current carried you our way?”
05-07-2020, 08:41 AM (This post was last modified: 05-07-2020, 08:43 AM by Skeleton Ghoul.)
if i stare into the abyss, will it stare into me?
Her eyes flick to the water dripping off of his hairy belly, and Skeleton Ghoul suddenly finds himself feeling uncharacteristically aware of how ridiculous he probably looks. He purses his lips, ears falling a bit to the side for a moment before he pricks them back up again and steps a few paces back. It isn't that she smells or he isn't enjoying the red woman's company -- it's just that he shakes off again, head, neck, torso and butt, and doesn't want to get her wet.
Skeleton Ghoul can pretend he has some semblance of manners.
"No," he murmurs finally. "I'd wager I'd not find something like this anywhere else. It's an odd feeling ... feeling so small, for once." He flicks his white bob of a tail and shakes his neck a bit, trying (and failing) to get his mane to fall on one side. "It is good to meet you, Lilliana. My name is Skeleton Ghoul ... Skel, if it suits you."
White eyes blink at her next question, and the giant stallion swings his heavy head in the direction of the river behind him. What current brought him here? "Sadly, that one. It was deeper and faster than I originally thought. No harm, though, it brought me to the forest of immortals, and gave me the chance to speak with a lovely red woman."
05-08-2020, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 05-09-2020, 08:31 AM by lilliana.)
Lilliana keeps a polite smile on her face, observing the stallion as he steps a few paces back. Her ears flick forward but she remains where she is, content to observe him beneath the massive sentinels. His admission about Taiga brings a spark of life to her eyes and smooths the tension that had been lining the edges of her tired eyes.
Her lips press in amusement as he shakes himself off and Lilliana tilts her head, patiently waiting for the larger stallion to dry himself off.
Lilliana peers up, contemplating what the newcomer to Taiga says. "I’ve found it a comfort in the past,” she admits. "It's nice to be reminded that there are things out there larger than we are.”
There is quiet laughter on her face as she smiles up at him. Skeleton Ghoul, ‘Skelly’ as he calls himself, is certainly larger than she is.
The copper mare has plenty to say about rivers and the places they wind, the currents they carve but she just watches. (It wasn’t a current that brought her here, either, but Lilliana will always forever be silent about that.) "Well,” she teases him good-naturedly, "How fortunate the Redwoods are that they brought you this way.”
It’s when he calls her lovely that it startles her; the red mare has never known what to do with compliments and its been another lifetime that a man was so direct with her. Lilliana averts her eyes to the ground wishing she could hide better beneath her red forelock.
There is a long pause between them while Lilli struggles to regain herself. When he asks if she is the leader of Taiga (do the Redwoods truly hold such a title?), she smiles again and looks up. "I’m not really sure,” she muses. "It’s hard to imagine anyone taking control of a forest this size.”
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