"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
when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
High above the lofty woodlands, Wyrm dips without thinking into a lower shift of wind and levels out to soar over the many heads otherwise occupied out in the Meadow. His other engagements satisfied, the shifter had time to disappear - to lose himself and let the power of his gift wash over every fibre of his being. It was a pleasant sort of spring day, one that tempted even the more shadowy of creatures out to bask, and Wyrm gives them barely a glance as he pulls his wings close for a streamline effect. The result has him barreling through the air, a blur of inky feathers that soon eclipses the ability of most eyes to pry, before the land below him bleeds greenery and fades to sugar-like sand.
Once the first wall of briny air slams into him, he spreads both hollow arms and coasts easily enough. Below him the roiling sea churns, still unsettled by winter’s mixture of currents and preparing for spring’s unpredictable storms. He toys with the whitecaps, dipping on one wing and then the other to trail his primaries through the water before banking against a warm current of wind; it steadies him, gives lift, and like a ballerina he rises on unseen hands. The breeze, in her invisible strength, pushes against him to the point that he’s simply hovering over the edge of Beqanna, jerking softly from side-to-side while his eyes take in the great nothingness beyond them all.
The moment is short-lived.
Only a subtle movement sends him plummeting right beneath the surface of the ocean, a wave folding over top of him as he sinks. It makes no difference; from here Wyrm trades feathers for fins, lungs for gills, and the resistance of water over his denticled skin feels just like the air did. With slow, languid movements he glides through murky depths like a knife through silk. A tiger shark, striped and deadly, that follows the undulating seafloor back and forth until the sand meets water. Exhausted and supple, he rises once more from the shallows as himself: green, hetero-chromatic eyes, and rather uninterested in returning to his people.
It’s only when his gaze rises to see what’s standing before him that he betrays any semblance of surprise, struck silent by the uncanny timing of it all.
It’d been too long.
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
She hadn't expected coming back to hurt like it had.
Rumors escaped Beqanna as readily as those - like her - who were prone to wander. Inevitably, they made their way to her: major changes. The fall of Pangea, though she'd never seen it; the discovery of new lands.
The faeries releasing the magic they'd locked away from those at their mercy.
Zojja heard all about the changes secondhand - something she'd never told herself she'd do; she wouldn't be like Porrim, she wouldn't strike out beyond Beqanna's borders and leave her heritage behind. Hah. Foolish. Here she was, days away from even being able to see the land's craggy borders on the horizon. "I'll never leave." What a joke. The only thing that called her back at all was her family - and she thought of Lupei, and his talents, and of Wyrm, and how much he had taken after his father (and of Kudu, and whether or not he'd circled back to Beqanna after all) - and for the first time in years, Zojja turned back.
With snowmelt swelling the shorelines and spring buds beginning to dot the trees, Zojja ventured forth. The flight was longer than she remembered, and several times the falcon winging its way across the choppy water plummeted into the waves instead, emerging a moment later as a dolphin. Eventually, however, she clambered up onto the shoreline of the Meadow, sodden and tired - but her weariness did little to stop her. Even as she moved toward the boundaries of the Forest, drawn in its direction as though in a dream, her fleabitten grey coat gave way to shaggy dun fur, and the hoofprints she left in the springtime mud morphed into pawprints: the wolf Lupei had so loved. She hoped he would recognize her still.
She figured it out quickly enough.
The Forest was large, but not impossibly so, and - if she strained, she thought she could just barely catch the faintest hint of his scent. Lupei had spent too much time in the woods to simply... stop appearing, even if a new herd had called him away. So he hadn't been immortal.
She'd been too late.
Zojja threw back her head and called for him anyway.
When she grew sick of calling - when she'd circled the forest half a dozen times over, gotten into a snarling fight with what she thought might be another curious wolf shifter (her heart had leapt, for the briefest moment, before she understood she was looking at a stranger and bared her teeth) - Zojja finally slunk back into the Meadow, head low. Her mother would tell her to go to the Beach. She didn't even know if her mother was here. And the boys... how long had it been? Were they gone too?
Zojja looked back toward the horizon. The sun reflected off the water.
Easier, perhaps, to claim she'd never been here at all.
She lingered on her way across the Meadow, shifting back as she went. Dozens of mares crowded together under the springtime sun, swollen-sided and shifting uncomfortably - a few long-legged foals already bounced around the groups. Barely anyone here that she recognized, despite all the time she'd spent here, growing up at Porrim's side. The years passed... differently while she was wandering.
She paused at the water's edge, and wasn't quite sure why - craned over her shoulder for a moment, one final attempt to pick Porrim's bright yellow form out of the sea of Meadowgoers. When she turned back, a dark shape sliced through the dazzle of sunlight on the water - a bird? Hard to say - and plummeted into the waves. Cormorant, perhaps. The water lapped at her fetlocks, cloying: swim away, start again.
Zojja didn't move.
Something - someone - green rose from the water. Wyrm. For an instant, Zojja found herself back in the Forest, whuffling, nosing the burly green colt awake - my son. Our son. Lupei's-- Reality rose to slap her in the face. Zojja was quick to mask the miserable expression with a smile, albeit a tremulous one. Not a total loss, then.
"Wyrm." Zojja kept herself reined in as she walked toward him. Don't rush. Stay calm. "You're looking well." An understatement. The twins had been two - not even close to done growing. He looked perfect. Took after his father. It made her heart ache. Zojja offered him a cautious smile, stretched her muzzle toward him. "It's... been a long time. I can't even begin to articulate how badly I've missed you."
when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
Colt. He’d been a colt the last time they’d laid eyes on each other.
But that had been Lupei’s fault.
Or was it hers? True - his father had torn him apart from his mother and twin early, perhaps at first to promote safety (Wyrm was dangerous, there was no doubt of that) but eventually it became some sort of grooming experiment. He’d turned from son to minion to protege in a matter of months, and then Lupei had disappeared to raise a daughter. “He was a special kind of bastard, wasn’t he?” The shifter thinks as his eyes rake over Zojja’s unchanged shape. How his sire had ever managed to capture her respect and love, Wyrm would never know.
Though, to be fair, she’d never protested the idea of separation either. Or, if she did, Wyrm was unaware of it. “That articulation will do just fine, I think.” He replies sardonically, ever true to his own habits and nature. He’d been the flashy, confident counterpart of the twins and perhaps, deep down, that had never changed. However, it doesn’t stop him from reaching forward with own body, eagerness etched into every line and curve of his shape as he meets noses with one-half of his creators. A feeling of nothingness sweeps over him at the greeting.
She’d been too long gone and he was a father himself now, detached from all that motherly love and affection oedipal connections create and instead, had poured his affections into Heartfire and their brood. In his small, misshapen heart there’s room for no one else. “I saw Kudu some time ago.” He recounts, withdrawing to settle easily in the company of his dam. “Though I doubt that’s what you’re here for. In fact, I doubt you expected me at all. I can easily say that I’m mutually surprised by our fated encounter.” The green stallion tells her, thoughts darkening with knowledge she had yet to understand.
“But I am glad to see you, mother.” He murmurs. It’s been a long time since that word left his mouth. “You came looking for him, didn’t you?” He accuses, though not maliciously. He understands. “You know he’s no longer here, don’t you?” He asks, this time even lower still.
“He’s dead.” He wants to say, but he won’t. “He’s dead, and I killed him.”
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
