show me, who i am and who i could be; cai, any

[australis]

show me who i am and who i could be

She had been watching the storm approach most of the morning, a wall of steel-bellied clouds that now sank in slow motion down the slope of the mountain. She had learned at a young age which of the clouds would break apart and fade away the further they travelled, which clouds promised only to take away the sun and give nothing back. But these clouds, these clouds were full of snow, full of cold and winter and even the wind woke up to greet them, to pull them greedily close. Australis loved these clouds. She loved standing out in the storm until she was so cold and so snow-blind that she was forced to disappear into the vast tunnel system of the caves beneath the mountain. She loved coming back out again to find a new world waiting to greet her.
 
For a while, until the sun managed to peel apart the clouds and find its footing again, the Tundra would look like an entirely different place. It was still home, still safe, but when the wind pushed around the drifts and snow filled out the hollow places, the kingdom was brand new again. It was only when the sun began to melt the snow, when powder turned to glaze and the newness was sweated away, that things returned to looking tired and brown and she wondered how this frozen place could ever sustain so many horses. But it did and it always would, because there was something magical about this frozen fortress. Something about the cold and stony solitude was like a beacon to the broken, to the lost. They could come here and find newness again, just like the kingdom. Sometimes, it was good to be new.
 
She lifts her dark brown face to the sky just as the first flurries of snow begin to fall, and for a moment her eyes disappear beneath the rush of the wind as it tangles her mane around the angles of her head. For a long while she says nothing, does nothing, just keeps those bright eyes closed and her chin lifted to the sky. At first the snow melts against her skin, darkening the bay dapples across her hips and shoulders, but then the winter seeps deeper and white powder pools in the hollow of her back. She isn’t sure how long she stays that way, but when she opens her eyes with a shiver that traces down her spine, the world has already changed just a little. There is less brown, less of that ugly gray-green, and the branches in the pine trees creak and groan and grumble with the new weight.
 
With a smile that is soft against her dark mouth, she shifts, shaking the snow from her skin and shrugging off towards the mountains to see if there is a cave nearby. She will wait out the storm there, find shelter through the ever-approaching night because even she doesn’t love the storm enough to be buried by it.

initiate the heart within me until it opens properly

[Romek]

ROMEK

Once upon a time, he too had delighted in standing under the broad sky, and taking whatever was hurled at him. And, of course, his land back then had been just as extreme in climate as the Tundra, although in an entirely different way. Their backs were used to heavy sun, not angry, slashing sleet, and he was used to sand destroying his vision, not snow. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum, but still beautiful.

And on occasion, such as today, it could be blindingly beautiful.

Romek simply could not see due to the snow. In his ‘wisdom’ he had reckoned that the storm would die off, and he would be okay. He realises now that he left it too late to find shelter, and he is not familiar enough with the land to find the elaborate cave system with no eyes. So he uses his nose, and, mostly by pure blind luck, manages to stumble into one of the many entrances.

Coughing and shivering, he blinks cold snow out of his eyes and shivers it off his back. He was glad that no-one was around to see his folly. And then he turns around, realises that he isn’t actually alone after all. Typical, wasn’t it? He shrugs a little sheepishly, moving further into the cave, away from the mouth.

”A little chilly, isn’t it?” he comments, still shivering.

fuck all your dreams, they’re not all they seem

[Cai]

Cai

Cal X Carys

Your kingdom has turned to a bone yard,
The look on your face as you leave.
You cut me so deep that it left scars,
You had the world right at your feet.

Cai's journey took him further into the north, his footing faltered every now and then, still trying to get used to the ice laden surface that he hoped to call his home. His meeting with Mari had been brief, but one that clung to the back of his mind like a warm memory. He was making his way north, to a place he was told he'd find Offspring or anyone else of the Tundra, and northwards he headed from then on.
It didn't take him long to grow accustomed to the iced winds and the blinding snow drifts, he quickly caught on when to avoid going through snow, and when it was safe. And every now and then he'd catch himself playing in the snow, tossing his head around, rearing and bucking, as if he were a young colt. The games he played, were only for his eyes, deprived of him at a young age, for some reason Cai felt at ease here in the north, despite it being so open, so clear, and bright, he felt totally alone. The forest where he grew up was a tragedy compared to the openness of thw blinding white north.

Brown eyes watched the horizon as it seemed to grow angrier and angrier, he was unsure what it meant but he did not like the way the sky darkened, the clouds drifting together in a daunting manner causing Cai to search the landscape for anything that could provide him shelter until the clouds settled.
His pace quickened to a canter as he began to feel a panic rise within him, but eventually he found something, an outcropping in the land, he didn't know what it was, or what lay there but he knew he had to get there before the clouds got to him and brought whatever hell down upon him that they wished to punish him with.

As he stumbles into the mouth of a cave, covered in white that was brought upon him by the blizzard Cai's first instinct tells him to turn and run, to reach back out into the storm, to potentially freeze and become lost forever. But he doesn't, no matter how much the bones in his body scream at him to do so. His brown eyes flickered through the cave, adjusting to the light -or rather, lack of the brightness from outside. He is met with two faces, neither he recognizes. He hesitates, flattening his ears and begins to take a few steps back, but then something inside him clicks and he holds his ground, ears pointing forth he shies away from the cold storm outside, making his way further into the cave, closer to the two strangers. He eyes the stallion wearily, uneasy about him, unsure what he may so, or worse, do. The mare seems well enough, but still that does not mean he trusted her. The cave was a means to escape the storm, and he happened to have picked one with two others within its depths.
"I did not mean to intrude" He apologizes, his lungs still burnt from his journey towards the mountains, to find shelter from the storm. His need for shelter and warmth though, was overriding his fear of others at this point, and right now he didn't not care if they judged or if they knew. Right now, he needed shelter.