"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
Heat spread over her body, the air thick with smoke, the crackling of fire filling her ears...Shadowmere thrashed as a weight pressed into her and a ragged shriek of fury ripped from her throat. Those green eyes flashing in the embers, the panther she despised so had come to end her. She went to thrash again when a sharp jab to her ribs woke her from her nightmare. At first, the flash of green eyes that had met her own made her lingering fury burn until the furrowed brow and scowl upon the small horned head of Nadja, not Naga, finally came into focus. It was just another damned dream... She thought as she panted, and the sweat coating her lithe body soaking into the filly beside her. "Ugh gross! Mom! What is wrong with you!?", Nadja spat in a high pitched whine at her mother with undisguised venom. Shadowmere scowled at her and snaked her neck to nip at the filly's shoulder, of course the little demon was a smaller mirror of herself. "Mind yourself, Nadja!", she snorted with an exasperated tone. She was in no mood to deal with her daughter's attitude right now with how frayed the tether on her sanity was....lest she hurt her.
Those green eyes haunted her dreams almost every night, and the flash of defiance in her youngest daughter's own emerald gaze stirred confusing feelings within her. She shook the remaining fury and confusion from her head and heaved herself to stand. She needed to cool down, badly. Nadja, who was now old enough to eat grass on her own still followed close behind as the dark queen brushed through the low hanging pine boughs that concealed the hollow within a densely covered copse. Her ears flickered back at the sound of Nadja's soft hoofbeats and she signed. The filly was a royal now, she would possibly be her predecessor if she ever deigned to pass down the crown...now that she finally had it, she was more than determined to keep it. She snaked her head back toward Nadja and hissed in her graveled voice, "You and your brother must learn to hold yourselves in a manner fit of Chamber royalty, child. We are an example, a symbol of vitality and strength within the land. Do you understand?", she was never a soft mother but she was determined to raise these children better than her children of the past. Nadja nodded with a roll of her dark emerald eyes, "Yeah, yeah. I get it.", Shadowmere doubted she did, but decided not to argue with her about it.
After taking some time to drink in the river that ran through the forest and tear up some of the lush autumn grass between hungry jaws, the pair wandered the borders of the kingdom, ensuring nothing was amiss. As usual, the lands were quiet and calm, aside from the familiar voices of residents within and the chorus of birdsong and crow caws from the treetops. She still felt like the peace within the lands was odd, so different from the tumultuous past of Beqanna. There was never this much quiet, there was deceit, war, and stealing of mares. There were lands of light and peace, and lands of dark brutality. There was once even the separation of mythic beings from the mundane but that was a long, long time ago. Nadja snorted, "Remind me why we even bother to do this every day? What is the point?", Shadowmere whirled on her haunches with a swiftness that made the filly flinch back a step and faced her head on, swishing her long, wispy silvery tail in annoyance. "Do not let this peace make you complacent. No matter how quiet, there is always a possibility for threats to our land. We patrol the borders to ensure there is no danger. We keep our lands and it's residents safe. Now, lets keep moving if you want to stay with me so badly. There is still plenty of land to cover, and I better not hear any more whining.", she said with a finality that had Nadja hold her tongue for once. The pair continued onward in silence, covering a good portion of the territory. The dark queen knew Havelock would be patrolling the far side of the territory by now and knew he was strong enough to take on any possible threats on the now rare possibility that there could be one. She figured it was safe to head back to the heart of the Chamber now, and nodded to Nadja briefly before leading the way back.
{ Shadowmere & Nadja }
The Dark Queen and Princess of The Chamber
OOC: Sorry for thr naked post until I can make a new html, idk how to fix Shadowmere's last html that keeps breaking...
Word Count: 768
What am I supposed to do when I want to talk about peace and understanding
But you only understand the language of violence?
Mountains rose and fell throughout her travels, valleys sunk into the face of the land, deeper and deeper, as if it were a beast who had lost its teeth; she saw much, and spoke very little. Even when the green grass grew tall and yellow, then small and pale, until the ground became sand, and sifting pyramids rose and fell like the mountains she had climbed before. The sand become grass, and the grass grew tall and yellow, then short and green again.
Until it became jungle.
And the jungle became a beach.
Sol stood on the beach for a while, the ocean lapping at her black hooves; the afternoon sun warmed her back, and the wind teased her silvery mane and tail that were quickly becoming matted with grime and sea salt.
She pressed forward, pulling herself slowly, step by step, against the current and the waves. Some horses broke free from the treeline of the jungle; new friends who would now know what she was and hate her for it. Friends who would live in fear from that day on.
Friends who would believe every little bad thing that happened to them would be the result of some curse. A curse she carried to them from that terrible place across the black sea. She rose from the water a giant with a serpent’s head, and they stopped screaming her name. Now they screamed for a different reason entirely. She blinked, her eyelids first and and a clear cap of film slid smoothly across her gold-and-red eyes. She flicked her long, black tongue, tasting the air before the cerulean-scaled monster dove back down into the ocean.
It was time for her to return home—to the Land of the Gods, as outsiders had come to call it. As revered as it was feared.
Sol only knew it as Beqanna.
**
There was much to be seen at the bottom of the sea, but she kept its secrets as well as it kept hers.
She wasn’t sure how long it had taken her to return, time meant nothing to the ocean—and it meant nothing to Beqanna. As soon as she touched its soil again—a great, black-blue beast with sharp death and cold eyes—she felt compelled to return to the only place that had ever felt like home.
Blood always called to blood, after all.
And her family’s blood was smeared for miles across The Chamber.
**
As much as the blood of the little one in front of her.
Of course, Sol was unaware of that. As much as they were unaware of the red-and-gold eyed raven watching them from her pine needled perch. She hopped along the length of the branch, then took to the empty air—and the crows and the other birds and even the other ravens grew silent.
She wasn’t sure why she did it, even now; she soared in sluggish circles, scouting the areas ahead for a danger that would never appear. Twice, she dove down to furiously harass a lone wolf that would have crossed paths with the mare and her child. The second time, she erupted into the size of a creature that was half raven, half prehistoric raptor and she snapped her jaws shut on its tail as it fled.
Bloody-mouthed, the now-mare sneered in the wolf’s wake before she turned to trot back to the last place she spied them. She caught the end of the Queen’s lesson, her ears swiveling forward and her chest clenching tightly; it reminded her of the lessons Nocturnal had given her.
Her mother had abandoned her, though, in the Land of the Gods—and Sol had to find her way through it on her own. “Your mother is right,” Sol said, stepping forward from the dense cover of pine and shadow. “You never know what—or who—is out there, after all.”
09-27-2026, 11:08 AM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2026, 12:55 PM by Shadowmere.)
nobody knows your meloncholy mind, little queen
She figured this jaunt would be like the rest, uneventful and dull...but she noticed the forest grow silent before she heard the voice. Something wicked this way comes, and she was ready for it. Nadja's green eyes lit with a moment of surprise and anxiety as the stranger's foreign salt and sea scent mingled with blood struck her flared nostrils, but quickly mirrored her mother's calm yet strong demeanor in the face of potential danger. She received the true answer to her question now. The matching silver black pair, one a miniature mirror of the other but sporting a thin mane and premature nubs of spiraled bone where horns would be atop her fine head, stood with heads held high in a stance that exuded regality and unwavering boldness. Shadowmere's aura of glittering night coiled up from around her hooves, reaching and clawing at her and the air around them like a living, starving thing.
The stranger's words dripped from a blood stained maw that had Nadja fighting to keep her composure, but Shadowmere only eyed the silvery female with mild interest. The dark queen huffed with amusement and swished her long tail of spider silk white in an fluid motion that oozed easy confidence, she had been alive for several lifetimes over, had seen and witnessed more carnage and strange beasts than one could see in a normal mortal's lifespan. This bloodied mare did not scare her, she was more so intrigued by her than anything. Her voice was gravely and low, the corner of her lips curled in a crooked smile that did not meet her inky eyes. Indeed...and when that being unknown to us appears from shadow of the pines, we do not cower or flee. We face it head on, child., Nadja did not take her eyes off the newcomer, now glittering with a burning natural malice and pride that had Shadowmere feel a pinch of satisfaction. This child was unlike many of her prior daughters...she was like her in many ways, almost as if she had spliced herself into something alike yet new. She only flicked her eyes to the yearling for a split second, but was soon back to sizing up the silvery bay with a curiosity.
"Now tell me stranger, what brings you to The Chamber?, she says as she slowly prowled her way around the newcomer, like a predator stalking its prey. Her crown of bones and thorn rattling against her spiraling black horns with each calculated step. Nadja only watched in awe, not moving a muscle as she saw her mother in a new light. In her young eyes this was a true, fearless queen. One worthy of The Chamber's throne of which had been lacking of strong leadership ever since it's return from cataclysmic ruin. The dark queen was ready to not only defend this place, but sought to fill it with strong, fearless bodies. Build the kingdom back to it's former self, alive and chaotic. A place once known as an unrelenting force amongst the kingdoms of Beqanna that she wished to see again, and to be the one to finally lead it to that former glory. This one seemed a possible candidate for recruitment, seeing as she was painted with blood already. The metallic scent of it a comfort to the dark queen, who had relished in her fair share of bloodshed. Maybe this one could prove a valuable addition should they be looking for a place to call home...
09-28-2026, 12:45 PM (This post was last modified: 09-28-2026, 12:45 PM by Sol.)
What am I supposed to do when I want to talk about peace and understanding
But you only understand the language of violence?
Sol’s red-and-gold eyes shifted smoothly between them, fascinated by the similarities between mother and daughter. The original wound, Sol would probably never recover from her mother’s sudden disappearance; of course, she had no idea about the deal Nocturnal made with Death to bring her back and no memory of a hell where she was ripped apart and put back together again by unimaginable monsters.
In Beqanna, she had simply been another orphan.
In reality, she had been saved by her dragon mother’s final act of love.
She grinned at the Queen’s question despite herself, revealing rows of sharp, too-white teeth. Her mother’s history lessons would finally prove useful for something, for once. “My mother always spoke highly of The Chamber—she was a princess herself here, once. Her father was Tatter. And his father was Set. And his mother was Starlace. His father was her General, Chain. Starlace’s mother was Lady in Red.”
Generation after generation of Chamber royalty.
Tatter had died with no real heir, and it seemed The Chamber’s glory had gone with him.
“You have no army,” Sol stated matter-of-factly, meeting the Queen’s stare. She didn’t move for a while, not until she broke the stillness with a sharp flick of her tail. While scouting above them, Sol had noticed the distinct lack of bodies besides the other species that called The Chamber their home. “You have no real defenses. If I wanted to, I could tear straight through you.”
She considered the Queen’s reaction to her words with the slow, careful calculation of an apex predator. Ready to spring away should the other mare become overwhelmed by her ire. “I want to be your army,” Sol stated, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I think you’re capable of restoring The Chamber to what it was. I have no interest in it beyond that; I am terrible at politics, but I am very good at dealing with problems.”
She remembered the names, their faces. She had known the Chamber then, when it was thriving and held under royals both ruthless and great. She wanted what they had, the power, the command, the armies who would burn the land to the ground at her call. She could see this one was most definitely fearless, and with a lineage such as that, the Chamber was in their blood. "You have quite the grand lineage, I remember your ancestors well., she said with a look of intrigue, assessing this mare's potential. The names brought her back, remembering what was and what could have been...had the cataclysm not ripped the lands apart like a raging beast. This new Chamber was strange...while it was still the Chamber, it felt like a shell of the former. She couldn't stand it any longer.
When the bloodied woman speaks again, the dark queen couldn't help a rasping laugh that seemed to echo through the space. Nadja's eyes were wide now, trying hard not to break composure at what she considered a threat. She would not falter, it was as her mother said...she was an example. But Shadowmere did not balk, she only eyed the woman in consideration...she spoke only truth. Not many of the residents wanted to step forward to be her Shadowsingers when she first addressed her kingdom as their queen though they did not oppose her. No, they only wished to live here in peace. There was only so much Havelock could do as a solo shapeshifting guard. She felt ire, but only for how soft and complacent her court had become in this era of quiet peace. It was true, if this mare had come through these woods to tear her down, the residents had no true safety without warriors to defend them. She considered her words, her dark eyes glittering like the aura of night that surrounded her. "You speak true. Though, I know not how you know but with the Chamber etched in your blood I have no doubt you could tear through our enemies as well as you could try tearing through an immortal...I like your drive., she said with a gnarled smile tugging at the corners of her scarred black velvet lips.
This woman's faith in her leadership only fueled her desire for power, to lead this land back to glory. She would finally be like the queens she envied through many lifetimes. "Well then, welcome home Shadowsworn...I expect will not let me down. Now we just need more warriors and spies...would you be willing to help train new blood should we recruit others?, she said in a smooth tone, her body still locked in a stance of bold determination. This was only the beginning, and she knew it was coming. She felt it in her bones, there had been too much lazing and complacency amongst the residents. This was what she needed. Now they just needed to gather more who would be willing to become her Shadowsworn...as well as Shadowsingers. She would restore the kingdom, no matter how long it took.
"Oh and by the way, the name is Shadowmere. We are finished our sweep of the borders, you can come with us to meet the others if you'd like. See the land of your ancestors..., with that, she turned on her haunches in one smooth motion that betrayed her otherwise angular and gaunt body and headed back toward the heart of their home. She did not look back, and swept past her daughter who only stood there for a few moments looking between the new Shadowsworn and her mother with a slightly mistrustful expression before she too swept after Shadowmere with a swiftness. If the mare chose to follow, that was her choice.
Shadowmere
