09-03-2020, 09:11 PM
She's wary of everything in Pangea, she can't help it, and although he promises that he doesn't mean - and hasn't done - any harm, the star-marked mare is skeptical. She remembers a day long ago with hard-shelled hunters, with deer's blood and sweat and the sharp tang of fear, of inevitability.
To Beryl, everything in Pangea is Death. Everything is suspect.
But he is innocent, at least of this. Maybe. She can't forgive him the simple crime of existing here among the red-sand dunes and the angry salted earth raised up from the sea. Carnage's poison bleeds into Pangea (it bleeds into all of Beqanna, but it's harder to see the magic in the blood of the God-born than it is to remember the storied history of this land.) Red dust settles around them, staining their air, staining her golden coat to something darker, but, like the shadows, it seems to slide away from him. He comes closer to her and the rich bay brown of his coat brightens impossibly, and though she keeps her fears from staining the bright features of her face, she knows they are not far from the way her teeth turn sharp behind grey lips and cut her tongue. She sidesteps around the discarded limb.
"She doesn't have wings," The expression on her face turns wry, peering down at the rotten feathers, "Didn't. At least, I don't think she did." And then she grins, flat-toothed again, "Actually, I have no idea, I never met her. Nobody mentioned wings, though."
It doesn't seem like a detail that would be missed. Her hooves scrape in the sandy gravel at the river's edge. The shadows hadn't been wrong, she had found someone near water, but what use was he? There is something Other about him, the way the shadow skim over his skin and won't tell her his secrets, something concerning, but she's so tired of being afraid all the time. So tired of hiding within herself. Instead, she cocks her head and copies his actions, stepping closer, almost enough to touch.
"If you haven't seen her, I'm not sure how you can help me."
And then -
"Why won't the shadows tell me who you are?"
To Beryl, everything in Pangea is Death. Everything is suspect.
But he is innocent, at least of this. Maybe. She can't forgive him the simple crime of existing here among the red-sand dunes and the angry salted earth raised up from the sea. Carnage's poison bleeds into Pangea (it bleeds into all of Beqanna, but it's harder to see the magic in the blood of the God-born than it is to remember the storied history of this land.) Red dust settles around them, staining their air, staining her golden coat to something darker, but, like the shadows, it seems to slide away from him. He comes closer to her and the rich bay brown of his coat brightens impossibly, and though she keeps her fears from staining the bright features of her face, she knows they are not far from the way her teeth turn sharp behind grey lips and cut her tongue. She sidesteps around the discarded limb.
"She doesn't have wings," The expression on her face turns wry, peering down at the rotten feathers, "Didn't. At least, I don't think she did." And then she grins, flat-toothed again, "Actually, I have no idea, I never met her. Nobody mentioned wings, though."
It doesn't seem like a detail that would be missed. Her hooves scrape in the sandy gravel at the river's edge. The shadows hadn't been wrong, she had found someone near water, but what use was he? There is something Other about him, the way the shadow skim over his skin and won't tell her his secrets, something concerning, but she's so tired of being afraid all the time. So tired of hiding within herself. Instead, she cocks her head and copies his actions, stepping closer, almost enough to touch.
"If you haven't seen her, I'm not sure how you can help me."
And then -
"Why won't the shadows tell me who you are?"
@[Eight] Beryl actually already found Lilli since this post was a little older, so this can go off in pretty much any direction