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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


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    cotton-candy clouds; pteron
    #1
    Wander was a good girl.
    She followed mother who followed father, without fuss. No cries for milk or rest. Not until they came at last, to the pampas full of grass and sunshine. Only them, did she do what she was born to do best: wander.

    High and low.
    Near and far.
    Or so it seemed, because it could feel like a hundred miles lay between one grassy knoll to the next.

    That next knoll was exactly where she collapsed in a happy sleepy heap. Her head bent towards a nearby flower that she lipped at but was extremely careful not to pull a single petal from. The wisps of mane that promised to be a long wild forelock stuck up everywhere over her brow, between the two little screwy nubbins that promised to one day be big beautiful twisty horns.

    Wander looked a sight in her dress of baby-fuzz fur that was apricot in color beneath the midnight-black of her hair. Yes, apricot - as in the fruit, beautiful and pale in her little hilly bed. She yawned as the flower leaned dangerously close to her open air-sucking mouth before she smacked her lips together and the flower snapped back to its original position, unharmed.

    Napping sounded good and she was tired, but something in the marrow of her little bones told her she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon. That meant no dreams of following the stream from start to finish, which she figured could take a good long while. So she rolled over onto her side and looked up at the sky with one eye sorta squinty and tried to guess at the shapes the clouds made as they moved lazily above her.

    @[Pteron] word-vomit ❤️
    #2
    Pteron had disappeared around breakfast time.

    His mama hadn't seemed too concerned, though she'd tutted as he remained invisible during lunch and stretched a wing over him during his noon nap to ensure he didn't slip away unseen. She knows he can't control it yet, his gift, but she had also seemed quite relieved when he appeared beside her the moment his eye blinked back to wakefulness.

    She'd sent him off to find Papa, like she does most afternoons, and Pteron had intended to follow her directions. He really had.

    But then the wind buffeted his mane and he caught the scent of a stranger, and the little pegasus is suddenly filled with the images of Mama and Papa being so proud of him for finding a friend (and of course, the stranger must be a friend because everyone is a friend), and he leaves the path.

    The idea of surprising his new friend is a fun one, so the dun colt is as quiet as he can be (this is probably not quiet at all) as he approaches the tussock he can smell she is behind.

    "Boo!" He shouts, leaping forward with his pale wings spread wide to land splayed-legged directly in front of the apricot filly. Unfortunately, the moment he lands, he disappears once more leaving only the small indents of hooves and the fading echo of his shout.

    Change tactics.

    "Oooooh. I am a scary ghost." He says, because he likes ghost stories and so this girl must too. His soft voice is not at all terrifying, but given that it is utterly disembodied, perhaps it will have the effect he hopes for. "Ooooooh."

    @[Wander]
    #3
    Somehow, they always knew where she was even if she thought her evasion tactics clever and successful. Mother and father just always knew. Guess that’s what it means to be loved… but love and parents are far from her mind as the clouds lull her into further laziness and almost into sleep. 

    Each cloud was so magical as they morphed from fire-breathing dragons to cotton-tailed bunnies. She made up names and stories about each one in her head. There goes Saul the salamander and Becca the floofy bat. Then she half-raised her head, distracted by rustling sounds in the grass around her little hill. Wander didn’t dwell on the noises for too long, laying her head back down to resume her cloud-watching.

    Boo!
    The girl shrieked and bolted upright. She blinked her eyes in a mix of terror and surprise because of the disembodied voice that to taunt her from the very ether itself. But fear began to morph into curiosity the more the ghost tried to frighten her because it had such a soft babyish tone that she recognized. Wander figured it might be a poor infant ghost because ghosts could be babies too!

    She spun in a small circle as she said, “Where are you?” Because she didn’t quite know yet that she couldn’t touch as a ghost just like she couldn’t touch the clouds. Of course she couldn’t see a thing, not even a telltale shimmer of ghostly air that could give the ghostie away. “You - you don’t sound all that scary!” she sputtered in bold disbelief, puffing out her little chest before the breath came whooshing out of her in a great big sigh.

    Wander scuffed a good in the dirt and angled her head towards the ground, eyes downcast; “You still there lil ghostie?”

    @[Pteron] 
    #4
    Pteron giggles, finding her initial terror appropriately satisfying, while being equally happy that she does not rush away screaming. It wouldn't be good to find a friend just to have her bolt for the hills! Plus he'd really just wanted to scare her, not like scare her scare her.

    "I'm here!" He tells her after a moment of wishing still hasn't made him visible again. He had not thought it would, but Mother has said there is no harm in trying. Stretching forward, he bumps his nose against hers. He is still quite solid, even if he cannot be seen by the naked eye, and he paws his own hoof in the dirt as though to show her where he stands.

    "I can be scary if I want to!" Adds the dun colt. "But I'm not really a ghost. I just got indivisible. . No, devisible. No. Invisible. " He tilts his invisible head, invisible eyes bright with curiousity.

    "Can you go indivisible too? My momma can't but Dad can!" Pteron reaches forward again, as though tapping her shoulder might encourage the filly to become as clear as he is. It does not seem to work, but perhaps she is not trying hard enough.

    @[Wander]
    #5
    The little apricot-bay is about to huff and go back to her nest of fluffy soft grass just as something bumps her nose. Her eyes widen in surprise; it felt like another nose - solid and real enough. Ghosts don’t feel like that, do they? To further her surprise; the ghost-colt makes a furrow in the dirt just like she had with her hoof.

    “Oo spooky!” she exclaims; more excited now than scared. There’s still a fearful bone in her body, probably near her funny bone as she imagines the f-names bones must stand together though not many would meet their fear with fun like jokes and silly bravado. Wander does; she puffs out her little chest and tries to poke her muzzle at the ghost in explorative little pokes that further confirm his solidness. 

    “You sure scared me!” Wander adds with an indignant huff as she glares at him or where she thinks his face ought to be. He goes on to blather something about being indivisible and then invisible and really, she’s just thinking how anything with ‘ible’ on the end seems like it’d be fun to say until it dawns in her about what he’s just said. Oh! He’s invisible. Not a ghost. That explains it!

    Sort of. She tilts her head back at him, “Can’t you turn back? Be visible again?” Yep, fun to say a word ending in ‘ible’ as she giggles just a little bit. Oh, he might think she’s laughing at him! Her face falls, especially more so as he asks if she can do it. “I’ll try…” but her efforts are futile. She squeezes her eyes shut and mutters under her breath, “make me invisible!” as if that’s the trick to it - a quick rushed incantation of some sort. 

    “I don’t think it’s working.” she says with another pouty huff. It was fun but disappointing to try. She just couldn’t make herself disappear like that. 

    @[Pteron]
    #6
    Feeling rather pleased at having scared her, Pteron does his best to wink. He's seen Dad doing it to Momma a few times and it always made her smile, so the pale coat attempts to do the same for Wander.

    He looks like there might be some dust in his left eye, instead. Perhaps charm will come with age. Pteron is unknowingly fortunate that his companion is a girl who is probably as inexperienced with adult communication as he is. She asks why he can't turn back and he shakes his head. His mane is flipped down into both eyes; he can feel it. It doesn't obscure the dun colt's vision like visible hair does, so he leaves it where it lay.

    "I can't control it yet, but I will someday. My dad says it just takes a lotta practice. So maybe if you practice real hard too you'll be invisible when you want to, too!"

    About halfway through this explanation, Pteron becomes visible again. He can't see himself, of course, so he has no idea. He does realize, however, the the world has become suddenly dark. This does startle him and his head jostles ever so slightly (even with an instinctive 'freeze' response to danger), just enough to shake away a bit of his mane.

    Hair still covers some of both eyes and once he realize what has happened, the winged colt quickly shakes his head back so that his vision is unobscured. He catches sight of his rather unkempt wings as he does, with soft blue, pale cream, and cloud white feathers sticking at odd angles. He shrugs - what young boy cares especially much about hygiene? - and turns back to Wander.

    "I'm Pteron," he tells her, knowing that he is identifiable as something more than a disembodied voice. Momma had said that he doesn't have to introduce himself to anyone unless he is visible. He's visible now. "What's your name? Do you live here too? I've never met anyone else who lives here." This is almost true. He knows everyone who lives here, but has never met them. He follows Momma and Dad when they aren't watching, ventures to the best areas for chatting and eavesdrops on intimate conversations. All while invisible, of course, getting to know the rest of the residents of the pampas without them ever having laid eyes on him.

    @[Wander]
    #7
    The wink sets her off in the best way possible; she giggles and giggles and flicks her little bit-of-fluff tail. Even at this age, so tender and new, she found it utterly charming to be winked at. It seemed a little absurd given their infantile state, but it made him cuter as much as it could - colts had cooties. Or so her older said as he clacked his beak together in what she considered to be a kind of sinister fashion, almost like a warning…

    That she thought no more of, because she was too busy giggling and smiling back at him like a birdbrain. Her father didn’t wink much but she recognized this as some kind of meaningful communication that occurs between adults. This for her, is the first time she’s been the recipient of it and even though he might feel ridiculous, she’s a girl and easily charmed even by a bumbling wink that could be nothing more than a speck of dust in his eye. Her face sobers up as he mentions control and practice; she listens real hard and likes the part about continuing to try then maybe she’ll become invisible too.

    Wander’s face brightens, even though she harbors doubts about being able to turn invisible like he can. Seems like something like that ought to have already manifested itself if she was capable of such a thing… like how she has tiny addax horns (more than little nubs) sprouting all spirally from her head. She blinks in surprise as he pops into view just then, and gets a real good look at him - -

    He’s like pale cream, sort of like her clouds above; blue hair and points the color of an icicles and iced-over streams. She decides that he’s actually quite pretty to look at, in the same vein as the sky and clouds for all that she is landlocked - no wings, no levitating tricks, or an ounce of flight or floating. Just tiny horns and good legs to run with. Which she decides is okay enough but wow, he sure was a looker with the straggly bits of mane in his eyes.

    The unkemptness of him is hardly perturbing; her family exists that way most of the time. Sometimes they’ll take a communal bath in whatever river they happen across then spend some time grooming one another. But give a day or two later and they’re right back to looking like wild ponies that just wandered up and out of some dark spooky forest. Which is almost the truth, but not quite as dastardly as it sounds in her head.

    Or romantic. Well, it was kind of if she took her parents’ love story into consideration and being that Wander is so obviously a girl, she does. Romance plays it’s part in her apricot head, spinning out notions both wild and silly like threads unraveling all over from a once-tight ball of string. She catches the shrug with her eyes and his name with her ears; smiling as she finally has something more than ‘ghostie’ to think of him as. Though it still has a nice ring to it as a nickname.

    “Oh I’m Wander,” she answers smoothly, as if she’s practiced that very sentence over and over, just awaiting the moment someone besides a long-lost sibling would ask her who she is. “I think we do now. Momma says her sister lives here so we should too, and father never disappoints mother.” She thinks about that for a moment, evidenced by the sudden head-tilt and confusion expressed on her face before it fades and she’s back to grinning at him. “I haven’t either! You’re the first,” Wander admits, a little more shyly than she’s ever been with him.

    “Does this mean we’re friends now?” and how her little heart hopes so! Because it means all her fervent prayers to the clouds and the stars have come true. And because she’s never learned the art of disguise, her face reads like a little heart wrenching book of naked disgusting hope that shines just as bright in her eyes as it does in the smile on her lips.

    @[Pteron] ummm i got carried away lol <333




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