"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
Mother had never really been around, so it wasn't much of a shock when she vanished completely....her father? She met him once...she was a pretty wild chilf as a result. Freely moving about Beqanna as she pleases. She claims the resort as her home...a land she always returns too, but she still enjoyed exploring...plus the resort was pretty quiet and she was pretty social.
She travels in her equine form, nearly an adult now. Her body was done growing, but she still had room to fill out. Her blue speckled pelt blended in well with the night sky. She found it much easier to travel at night, equines tend to stalk the borders much less at this time.
She meets the border of....Taiga? At least she think's it is Taiga. She really didn't know, but it didn't matter either. She can enters past the border, she should have possibly stayed...but if everyone was sleeping she would have never gotten permission!
She traveled until she found a body of water, a small river. It was night time and the water was nice and cool which was refreshing after her long travel. She expected to just linger the territory in silence and slip back home without being noticed...
Taiga was peacefully quiet. Brazen had come to check up on him, Elaina (whose nature he found hard to resist - the more he got to know her, the easier it was to see why his mother loved her so fiercely) had wished him a pleasant goodnight, but even after settling into his most beloved of nighttime haunts, Yanhua couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Maybe it was the headache he’d been battling. They came less often, but when they did he felt exhausted after a day's worth of throbbing pain. Could be because the ferns he’d bedded down in were just too soft, a bit too springy. Or maybe the nearby murmur of the babbling river was having the opposite effect tonight, keeping him awake when normally it helped him ease into a dreamless sleep.
Whatever the reason, Yanhua sighed in frustration and rose from the ground to shake off the wet soil clinging to his narrow belly. Pointless to sleep when I’m so awake, he reasoned with himself, flicking his little tail here and there, better walk it out.
The growing yearling stretched his neck, shook out his shoulders, and paced off into the dark.
Night here wasn’t so terrifying since he’d grown up in Taiga. As a colt it was the source of infinite terrors: a favorite setting to any monster stories he, his dam, and Nash would spin out on nights like these when sleep didn’t come easy. But now that he’s maturing it’d lost a bit of the mystery. He found it hard to dislike the dark here, especially on pleasant spring nights like this one - when the hum of the forest was alive with nighttime critters and the lightning bugs gleamed like so many twinkling lights to guide him.
He made his way steadily to the River, intent on refreshing himself, but as he neared the hidden water a faint energy radiated through his skin. He knew the sensation of his own powers immediately, pausing to flick his ears up and wait for the residual echo soon to come. Surprised, he caught a faint image of what he’d been reminiscing on earlier - that of himself, tucked close into Lilliana’s side, staring out into the heavy Taigan night with an expression of mild terror - and when it passed he blinked a few times and moved calmly forward, calling out a mild, “Hello? Is anyone there?” followed quickly by, “Please don’t be afraid.”
Whoever was out there could hear the warmth in his voice. “My name is Yanhua and I live here… can I help you?”
He paused, placing one cracked hoof ahead of the others, and waited to see if the stranger would heed his greeting or not.
@[Serabi]
She had hoped to remain alone tonight, mainly to avoid any confrontation from a defensive Taigan...but she was not alone, yet her company seemed anything but defensive.
She hears another call to her, first unsure if they are alone...then letting her know not to be afraid. She snorts at that comment, but before she could respond he speaks again. This time he introduces himself, Yanhua.
She couldn't see the lad, but she was stil stuck on his comment. Afraid? He surely had not met her, she had powers to shift into any monster she wanted! She moves towards the caller, her hooves move with angered weight.
She did not have to travel far, the chestnut boy was easy to spot under the moonlihght. Afraid!? Who would be afraid and venturing into your home? She snorts boldly as she stops before the boy. He had two horns that poked out of his head...and a small beard growing from his chin. He was not like the other equines...but neither was she.
What are you doing out? Shouldn't you be sleeping? She pokes at the age of the young boy, they barely younger than her. He was nearly as tall as her...but maybe that just speaks on how short she is.
There wasn’t any guarantee that he was an expert at understanding his own powers. Actually, wasn’t it common for the young horses on this island-continent to be reckless? Or moreso expected of them? Yanhua tried to the best of his ability, but he’s only given glimpses of events to associate emotions with, and it's common knowledge that emotions are as varied and multitudinous as each individual blade of grass or grain of sand. So he’d mistaken her apprehension for fear… so what? He’d seen a vision of himself; at the time of that exact memory he’d been feeling several emotions, in the present he’d gone with the most obvious of them in relation to what the stranger was feeling nearby.
He had no idea that mistaking cautiousness for fear would whip the spotted female into a frenzy, though.
Yanhua’s head drew back into his neck the instant Serabi confronted him, her anger washing over him in quick flashes of images: seawater slapping and breaking against a thick boulder, rain lashing at a redwood tree. He’s lucky that so far the majority of his attempts at sharing such images had only been capable with Lilliana’s help - otherwise Serbai herself would be privy to the flashing pictures as well. Maybe it would do her some good to have all that pent-up rage echoed back to her, but Yanhua had never been the vindictive type. That meant he had to swallow her anger in uncomfortable waves of energy, but he did it without saying a word.
There wasn’t any way she could’ve known that her verbal lashing was nearly as painful as a real one, just like Yanhua had no idea what loneliness and hunger did to a wandering vagabond.
“I should be, actually.” He can’t help but smile through the rigid, pulsing waves of red light. “I’m pretty sure you’re the reason it was interrupted.” He doesn’t say aloud. “And you shouldn’t be trespassing, yet here we are.” The taller yearling kept his voice level as the pain began to cease and the lightshow in his head began to dull. He focused his energy on calm, bringing up lovely memories of his mother, and after a deep breath he was in control again. Now it would be a tiny bit easier to resist this strange mare’s wild savagery.
“No need to be upset.” Yanhua did his best to soothe her as well, and the tenor of his voice melted into honey and silk. “I’m not going to sound any alarms or threaten you. I was curious, that’s all.”
@[Serabi]
05-27-2020, 11:04 AM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2020, 03:25 PM by Serabi.)
Serabi
Serabi had a sharp tongue...one perhaps more sharp than it should be. Guess she took after her mother more than she realized. Although...it was really just a defense for a life lacking of love, allowed to roam the world as she freed...
She found the golden haired boy, and his head was tucked into his neck. She found it odd, but just assumed he was much more shy in nature than she was.
He agrees that he should be sleeping...but was quick to retort that she shouldn't be trespassing. The words nearly sent her in a spiral of laughter, but instead a few chuckles escaped her maw.
Instantly, her body relaxes and she has moved on. He tells her that he wasn't going to tell anyone about her and she just smiled in return. Being defensive was the only approach she knew...she had met some equally snarky equines and she just simply didn't know how to be...'friendly'. But she gives an attempt, they were close in age...and he didn't seem to want to cause her harm.
I didn't think you'd have quiet the comeback....my name is Serabi. I assume you live here? What keeps you up tonight? She asks as her eyes glance to the night sky, the stars illuminating the ground below it..
06-06-2020, 02:38 PM (This post was last modified: 06-06-2020, 02:39 PM by Yanhua.)
Serabi calmed down and so did Yanhua. Instantly he felt right, and it was enough of a feeling that he unlocked his tense muscles and uncurled from his defensive position. Yanhua’s neck stretched long and low, and his tuft of chin hair moved when he smiled back at her. From one minute to the next he was changed, and it would take him years and years of practice before being able to remotely deflect another’s emotional energy. For now all he could do was encourage the emotions that suited him best, and to him it seemed like Serabi was easily calmed as long as he stayed calm.
Yan sighed again. “Yea, good assumption. I was restless is all. These things -” He looked up to where the horns sat invisible to him on his head but clearly Serabi could see them, and continued, “- give me headaches when they grow.”
That seemed like a reasonable explanation to him, at least. Headaches equal no sleep. But his curiosity over having found the tri-colored filly out here all alone won out over thoughts about his lack of sleep. “What’re you here for, Serabi?” The faintly glowing colt asked her aloud. “And why did you come in the middle of the night?” He wondered pointedly, flicking his ears towards her.
She seemed mostly harmless, aside from her flaring temper. But Yanhua knew better than most that appearances could easily conceal darker motives, and despite his outward friendliness the young stallion trusted no one aside from his family. Serabi might seem like an unobtrusive passerby, and she might be cute and disarming enough to bring a bit of heat to his cheeks, but she wasn’t family… and the stench of her certainly wasn’t Taigan.
@[Serabi] hiiii I think you need to add
Just as she had changed her approach, the boy had settled himself, a smile even peeking through.
When she asks why he was awake he notes his horns. Her eyes travel up his face to the small horns that will one day grow larger. He says they give him headaches, her head tilts slightly. She has the ability to shift into many forms...although she has never transformed into...whatever it is he is..nor has she worn horns atop her head.
Interesting, what gives you those horns? She asks curious if it was a mix of another animal?
Alas, the conversation shifts back to her intrusion. He asks why she was here, her eyes dart around before settling on him. I don't care for the company of others, she snorts. She had lived most of her childhood alone...why did she need anyone? Friends...useless.
Serabi was just a ball of emotional pain, waiting to explode at any moment. Anything or anyone could trigger her, she preferred staying alone it saved everyone an emotional upset.
Yanhua shrugged. He hadn’t the slightest clue what gave him horns, and he wasn’t sure which (if any) excuse would satisfy Serabi. Yan had no way of knowing if the mutation giving him horns and splitting his hooves apart was passed down from his father’s side, his mother’s, or just some product of Beqanna working its magic over him. Lilliana, his dam, had told him more than once about a pair of magicians living here who’d given every child born in Taiga a little gift of their powers, so maybe it was them? Or maybe not. In all cases, the golden-haired chestnut could only speculate why he was having growing pains.
“Oh… okay.” The colt murmured half-heartedly. He didn’t exactly care for the company of others either; then again he wasn’t sneaking into unknown territory at odd hours during the night. “To each their own, I suppose.” Yanhua thought to himself. His eyebrows rose in mild disbelief, unconvinced that the shadowy pony didn’t have ulterior motives, but in the near-dark his expression was hard to read.
“Y’know,” He tried again, shuffling his hooves around in the wet, dark soil to find a more comfortable stance, “there’s quieter places than a central territory.” He meant Taiga and her location as a tri-kingdom passageway. “Icicle isle is barren. Pretty quiet, I’d assume. Island resort is renowned for its solitude. I’m actually not even sure if anyone lives there anymore.”
Sadly for Serabi, it looked like Yanhua was a bit too curious to let go of her short dismissal. He’d like to (for her sake) but having never really gotten the opportunity to intercept a stranger before, Yanhua stubbornly persisted in asking her questions. “Are you on your way to Icicle isle, then?” He tried a more direct approach, blinking once or twice in the soft light of his forelock. “I could walk you north if you’d like. I’m pretty familiar with these woods.”
