"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
He doesn't know where the others are, of their family, aside from him and his sister. He's nervous, isolated, and it makes him short tempered. He mocks more aggressively, is curt in his answers. The new land confuses him - he is not used to moving through loose leaves, he is used to ice and snow - and he stumbles, further angering himself. His sister appears to be doing well, better than him sometimes, and he envies that she gained a higher position than him. If he had to choose who he'd hate to submit to the most, it would be his own sister. He snorted, looking around, wondering if there was anybody who would talk to him right now. He spies his sister and ignores her.
Thorunn moves like a distant ghost through the edges of Tephra, playing along its volcanic debris. She did not trade ice for heat - she traded the Valley for this. Even now the memory of it fades along the edges, like water was set to the bits of it. It fades from one indistinct nebula to the other. The tree - she'll never forget the tree.
The trees here sway to a different tune.
She is mostly alone in her wanderings. The Volcano is less than hospitable for the average horse. Thorunn is not average, not with that scar that plagues her face. If anything she is extraordinarily marked, fouled. She thinks this as she sees the stallion, looking as irritated as she feels. He trips, he curses, he spits, he eyes a mare and promptly ignores her. Thorunn does the same.
"Home sweet home," she says, almost cruely, glad for her face to no longer throb when she speaks.
When a red form catches the edge of his vision, he turns and sees a scarred face. He'd seen her a few times on the trip to Tephra, and had not been bothered by the scars. But then, it reminded him, of his initiation. Of the rocks, scarring and wounding his flesh, then the rocks crashing over his spine, breaking and paralyzing the stallion.. Yet when he still stood back up, found his legs moveable again, Real Fire realized that it was all in his mind. Just a dream. But it was hard to forget - harder to remember - as it hurt and fascinated him, scared him yet sent an odd thrill through his form. He shivered lightly, pulling out of the flashback, and wandered aimlessly, finding himself at the filly soon after. "Home indeed. Not the Tundra, but it's home." He agrees with her words, smiles, stands next to her, ignoring the scars marring her face, and just tried to talk to the filly. "Where did you come from, before the change?" He asks the filly, looking at her with a curious expression. Annoyance at his sister still laid underneath, and it peeked through in his eyes, but kindness was directed to the filly - not his anger at his sister beating him to a promotion.
"The Tundra," she repeats, tasting the words slowly. Her father once ruled there, long ago. This stallion was a bachelor, then? No...she'd heard rumbles that the kingdom changed to allow anyone in. No longer a herd of bachelors and men, now a herd of any. Every. Thorunn considers this - did it give the fairies the idea to start over? To make a clean slate? Were they worried that no one would follow suit to the men in the north? She nods her slow, considering nod. "I'd always meant to visit, never did. I guess I never will." Her voice is whimsical almost, wondering more over what could have been than what was lost.
Thorunn snaps back, though, feeling a jolt through her face at the sudden movement. "The Valley, but by default really. I never left it to see elsewhere." Would she leave the Volcano now that she knows it too could be temporary? Or would she continue to rest amidst the base of it, thinking of things that would never be? Thorunn turns her gaze up to the volcano at that moment, blinking into the sun.
09-23-2016, 08:34 AM (This post was last modified: 09-23-2016, 08:34 AM by Real Fire.)
Nodding when she said she never visited it, he silently queried her whimsical voice. She seemed half lost into her own thoughts.. But Real didn't blame her, he was in his thoughts as well, about his missing family.. His worries for them grew as they didn't return day after day.. He hadn't seen them on the mountain..
"Ah. The Tundra was mostly ice and snow. That's all. It was like a regular Kingdom, letting mares into the ranks, shortly before the change." He says.. "..I'll miss the snow" he leaves out - no horse should enjoy the cold..! He's not traited, never has been.
Thorunn chances the ghost of a smile at his description of the Tundra - she'd heard plenty of the slopes and the ice. How strange it would be, that the once brotherhood of ice should team up with the mythical "evil" kingdom to claim this land. And how strange that it be a volcano, so unlike either of their previous territories. Thorunn was happy for the fracture, for the split. It gave her something new to do, put a purpose to her life. She felt hopelessly idle these days while her face mended. This new way of life brought so many questions that needed answering.
The most important, she felt, was where she fit in.
"Have you visited the other lands here?" she asks, genuinely curious. Once she might have feigned disinterest like her father so often did. Not these days, though. She's embracing her curious nature and allowing herself to speak, to be heard, to communicate. Things her father often failed to do.
Looking around, lost in thought, the stallion thought about what was happening. She came from one of the now-united kingdoms, he suspected, and was interested in expanding her network most likely. "Not any of the other ruled lands. I've mostly been staying with my family, here." He says, an ear flopping backward as he hears a rustling - horses' hooves moving the leaves? He turns and it's his sister.
"What, Lieutenant?" He barks at his sister, his ears back in anger now. Just when I'd started to calm down again.. Of course." He grumbles in his head, shaking it in an attempt to control his feelings. He lost control and pawed the ground, staring at his sister.
Thorunn nods, understanding. Beqanna has always been large and always spanned multiple miles in either direction. Her father told her all about that as she was growing up. He used to be king of a land that didn't quite exist anymore, and surely didn't exist now. The lands had shifted time after time due to the needs of the horses within. In the past, when Beqanna was smaller, the lands collided to create 5 great lands. This suited the needs of the horses until it grew once more and they fractured into the 8 that Thorunn always knew. Beqanna shifted again, but the landscape was completely changed. Foreign.
She makes a note, then, to explore the other lands.
"I must be off," she says, watching his ears fly back as the mare approaches. She makes no guesses on their relations, she's never been particular acute in her assessment of dynamics. They know each other, that's all she can glean. She nods her head, heading into the distance.
