"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
08-31-2018, 10:00 PM (This post was last modified: 09-18-2018, 08:40 PM by Adria.)
Adria
Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky
Once upon a time, Adria’s granddam had called these ancient redwoods her home. Nyxa, her mother, had told her stories of how the late Circinae had roamed Taiga as a wiry brown she-wolf, digging out a hollow den in the roots before the great disaster.
In boredom, the growing nereid filly had decided it was time to see if the stories were true. Find the den, find the truth, find the beginning of her own existence, she reasoned. Simple, right? Only, as she breaks the surface of the choppy, slate-gray waters to glance over the unused beach, she realizes that her endeavour might be a bit more than she bargained for.
The woods themselves are encroaching on the sand, stopped only by the heavy salts that restrict freshwater plant growth. Her once invigorated steps seems to falter as she leaves the comfort and safety of the waves, mane plastered against her shimmering neck, and for a moment the lovely young Ischian wonders if she’ll even be able to breach the tightly knotted undergrowth fighting for expansion and light.
“I’ve come all this way …” She muses aloud with a light sigh, having made sure already that Tyr was well looked after before she’d gone. “A whole day blocked off.”
Still, the tri-colored shifter can only contemplate silently about the best point of entry from where she stands, completely alone on the shoreline. Maybe inspiration would strike … or maybe she’d just cut her losses and go to the common lands.
"There's a path, you know," he said bluntly, his voice just naturally irritated, really. Wasn't anything she'd done. Yet.
He stood not far away, all gold and sooty black with white wings like Father's. Massive wings, actually. Larger than normal which was a little embarrassing. What reason had they be to be so big and obvious? Other than to attract people's attention, which he hated. He was fine with the handsome black mantle over his shoulders though. That looked good.
"Over there," he decided to add, because why not? And nodded his chin in the direction he'd come. And fine, maybe there hadn't been a path there before today, but he'd certainly made one a while ago. It didn't go in very deeply but it did at least skirt around the edges of the forest. Since he didn't fly, and all. Maybe he could? But it's a little hard to have confidence in your abilities when solid objects can pass right through your supposed-to-be-solid wings. So.
No thanks.
Then he fell quiet and just looked at her. He hadn't seen her in the water, but he noticed belatedly that she's covered in it. He didn't ask though, only tilted his head to puzzle that out on his own. Hopelessly. He has no idea why the hell she'd be covered in water. Swimming? But he hadn't seen another path like his leading here. Plus it's a pretty weird hobby. But whatever.
She hears neither twig break nor the shifting sand, and so when the intruder speaks, he finds himself met with startling wide eyes and a tense, quivering animal. Though her grip over what power she has usually never slips, the sudden unexpected nature of the stallion’s approach causes the seas to rise and swirl in angry eddies up the shoreline, rushing to spiral like a protective set of arms around her planted hooves and fetlocks.
He nods in another direction, but Adria can’t tear her gaze away from him. She’s rooted in fear and suspicion, only now recognizing that he wasn’t quite as old as she’d placed him initially. The overlarge wings crowding his back gave her a false impression; his voice is yet high (churlish, bitter, and unbroken).
“How long have you been watching me?” The white-smattered filly probes, (she’s falsely brave) carefully attempting to steady the erratic rhythm of her pounding heart. He tilts his head. Her ears flicker to life, hoping that he’s come alone. “Don’t step any closer.”
The veiled threat just manages to push itself past trembling lips. Mother was right - danger ate up soft girls like Adria - she should have stayed home and in the sea. She should have …
“Act, pretend, just don’t cry!” Her conscious shouts from underneath a black cloud of dread. “For Gods sake please don’t let him see you cry!”
@[Absenthium] Adria uses “crocodile tears”! It’s super ineffective!
It hardly took anything at all and the little thing was wide-eyed and frightened. Or he assumed she was frightened. He hadn't meant to do that, but she certainly looked it to him.
Basically at the same time that her eyes had gotten bigger, a bunch of water rushed to swirl around her feet. Well, and then he was the one with wide eyes and jumped back a little, "Whoa! What the--" Oh, geez! What the hell even was that?? His wings flared defensively and his neck arched.
Then she questioned him, and it almost made him forget about the crazy water stuff, but kind of not really though. Hard to forget that. It was basically like a living thing at her ankles, writhing and curling around her like a protective pet. One that nobody but her could catch.
"I wasn't--" he stopped and shook his head, leaving it unfinished. He wasn't watching her, not really. He'd just sniffed her out or something and then there she was. He didn't do anything wrong, he thought with a familiar scowl. Wasn't quite brave enough to go closer though. Which seemed fine with her, since that's exactly what she told him not to do right after that.
"Okay! I won't!" He glanced down warily at her freaky water thing. "Just turn the hose off, you know? We're cool, I swear." Totally wasn't gonna jump her, it was fine. And he wasn't pleading, either. Seriously. His voice just cracks like that sometimes 'cause he's a teenager, okay?
Much like any female who tends to overreact to a situation, Adria’s accusation and ensuing flare of power is enough to forestall the colt’s advances. He claims to not have been following her (she’s not yet decided on the truth of that admission) but really, it’s the barking command of his that surprisingly calms her down.
Flittering, the rapid rise and fall of her narrow chest slows, and as he’d wished it the water swirling about her feet drains backwards to the sea once more. “We’re… cool.” The filly mouths, having never heard the expression before while mangling it somewhat with an islander’s accent. “You just scared me, is all.” She says to him, licking the salt clinging to her lips before audibly sighing.
“I only guessed a pegasus would make more noise.” Adria shrugs her golden shoulders, a once hard expression softening into youthful loveliness. For now the halo of innocent, childlike curiosity rims her eyes, both lilac-colored orbs fixing themselves to the strangers angry scowl. “Are you always so quiet?”
Forgetting herself, a moment of unabashed horror passes like a heavy cloud across her face. “I’m sorry… that was extremely rude.” She apologizes, ears falling softly in submission. The great redwoods alongside them groan, disturbed by a passing breeze, so the nereid steps tentatively closer in order to close the distance between them. “I’m Adria. I didn’t mean to threaten you I just, well you know. They say it’s better to play it safe than be dead.”
I've waited too long with my feet on the ground I'll get so high, no one can get my wings
"We're... cool," she repeated back to him, kinda like she was testing out the phrase. His brows pulled together. Hadn't she heard that before? Where the hell was this chick from, anyway.
"You just scared me, is all. I only guessed a pegasus would make more noise."
He blushed a little under his soft frown. Yeah, maybe a real pegasus would. That'd make sense. But he was a total fake. And the knowledge of that kinda made him clutch his poser-ass wings in closer to his body like she might reach right out and touch them and find him out. Stupid wings. All for looks. So useless and pointlessly huge.
She apologized and stepped closer, not horrifyingly close or anything, but it still made him stiffen in apprehension. He didn't want to her to accidentally touch his wings, or rather, NOT touch them. But he didn't want her to catch on either, that he didn't want her too close. So he forced himself to stay there, gray eyes tight at the edges as he watched her warily.
"I'm Absenthium," he answered back as casually as he could manage, though every time he said his own name it earned it's own little flash of a scowl. He'd never asked for sure, but he assumed it was Father that had named him, what with his habit of being invisible all the time. And anything Father did was obviously the worst thing to do, so he should probably hate his name. Unless Mom named him, of course. He never asked though.
"Are you..." He wasn't sure where he was even going with it. And tried again. "So..." Alright, so he sucked at conversation. He scowled in frustration with himself, gave a little huff. Whatever. It's just a dumb girl. "You have like, some kinda water magic or something?" Well, obviously. Dumbass. "Like.. I don't know. What else can you do with it?"
He, on the other hand, only had these worthless, useless wings.
The solitude and utter absence of interaction with the other Beqanna inhabitants has left Adria marveling at any and all emotion. Her own have been so restricted and defined that Absenthium, as he calls himself, and the many transitions from confusion to irritation that flash over his face hold all of the water filly’s engrossed attention. She’s forgotten about the wreckage of Taiga and its overgrown woods, her skin is nearly dry again. As her spattered-white legs shift in relaxation, Adria remembers the colts Santana and Drustan being covertly angry but not like this; this pegasus isn’t exactly hostile…
“We just travel.” She speaks, all the edge gone from her voice. Ironically he’d been on the nose about water being something of her pet, though such a thought voiced aloud might irritate the nereid. Her control over the element was dependant on several different factors, so his question required a much more lengthy answer than she was willing to give at the moment. “Nothing too fancy or intense.” The waif-creature explained, smiling gracefully. Simply journeying from Ischia to the inlet they stood by now had diminished her powers.
“If only he knew. Exploring inland would suck me nearly dry.” She thinks, warring over the infernal debate of being able to trust a stranger. For a moment more the young mare examines the ashy markings that blend into the gold of Absenthium’s forehead, and then at last she sighs as well before asking, “Is there a specific reason you came here? Because we could take the path together.” Adria pauses.
