"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
06-27-2021, 08:08 PM (This post was last modified: 06-30-2021, 03:39 PM by Popinjay.)
Her loyalties have always been fickle. When the sun drove the darkness away with it's mystery and its monsters, Popinjay went with them, abandoning Nerine without a second thought, her wild bonfire still blazing. It's surely burned itself to death by now unless someone else has stepped in, but the little bay mare doesn't spare a moment to worry about it. She's moved on to other things, the North forgotten almost before her nimble feet carry her across its border.
Hyaline has a familiar flavor. It's not like Taiga or Nerine, and it's nearly as far removed the Pampas as she can get without turning around and heading back to the frozen Isle. No, it's more like the Mountain that she climbed years ago, searching for Fairies but finding the bird that was inside her instead. That bird, so like the eagles and the bone-eating bearded vultures that live here, thrills at the feel of cold air currents running against her skin like a thousand frozen fingers scraping and scratching. The chill sets her to running faster than she ought in a scatter of sparks and gravel along narrow, dangerous pathways that open suddenly onto the hidden lake that gives the kingdom its name.
She has never had a great deal of caution. Her hooves hit the water with an ecstatic splash carrying her chest-deep at first, then with a kick, beyond the reach of the bottom entirely. Enormous black wings bloom at her back, spreading across the glassy surface to keep her afloat as she drifts towards the lake's center like a dark swan.
