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  • Beqanna

    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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    [open]  The secret of walking on water, any
    #1

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    Where does she end, where does Beqanna begin?

    It doesn’t really matter, does it?

    Delirious on the Mountain’s side, Eurwen stayed. Once she was a pretty girl, her mane sparkling gold and later (better matching her baby-pink spots) rose-gold. Cute spots still adorn her hide, but her mane and tail have lost their sparkle in the dirt she has collected on her body, and the spots are covered by leaves and twigs and clay. The young girl became a woman when she cured her brother of the Plague, and when others made a different choice. Some of it must have been enough. The Mountain had been split but is whole again now - somewhere deep down, she remembers, she knows. Her connection to the rocks below her had been lost, and was returned.

    Returned in such a matter that the feverish young woman couldn’t separate her self from her rocks.

    She lay there a time. She didn’t know how long exactly. She had not yet been a fully grown woman when she helped find the Cure, only a foal when she had first set foot on that path. She knew nothing else but to help others.

    But she can’t help herself. The Plague had been bad in the end; so bad, that she still hasn’t fully healed.

    Perhaps she should have taken it for herself.

    But that just wasn’t her.

    So here she was.

    Alone, and sick, and hardly alive. But not dying, no. She’d given up on that long ago.
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    #2

    Oriash

    they promised that dreams can come true

    He gave her freedom. Maybe he knows it, and maybe he hasn’t a clue, but in such a simple moment and simple gesture, Pteron showed her freedom. He taught her the taste of the sky, of the world, of all the things that are so easily open to her by the path above the ground. Ever since, she has begun to explore, a thing that so recently she had never thought to do. She had never thought to leave the confines of Loess, a place that was a prison only because of her own doing, and no other reason.

    Now though, now the world was at her fingertips and she couldn’t help but explore.

    As she grows more confident in her skills, she grows bolder, more adventurous. Today, she makes her way to the mountain, though she has no intention of seeking the fairies. No, Ori needs no more power, no more traits. She simply wants to see the mountain, to see how high she can climb, to see what the world looks like from its vantage.

    But even the best of plans go awry, and Ori’s plans had hardly been set in stone. Instead, she finds herself sidetracked by the figure of a mare on the side of the mountain. Something seems wrong, and so Ori lands nearby and picks her away across the mountain carefully until she is close enough to the mare to see the dirt that covers her skin, the leave and brambles that tangle in her mane.

    The sight is so reminiscent of Solace that it take Ori a moment to regroup. She shakes her head slightly and then nickers a friendly greeting. “Hi,” she says, voice soft as if to not disturb the other too much. “I’m Oriash, or just Ori. Are you okay?”

    but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.



    I know I said I'd write a starter, but then I saw this so I figured I would just crash here if that works. @[Eurwen]
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    #3

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    There is no ending in the endless loop; stuck on the Mountain, but most of all stuck in her own mind, trapped as it were - she doesn’t remember drinking or eating or walking or sleeping, but apparently that’s all she did. In her state of unconsciousness, her body must have done those things to keep her alive, if this was to be called a life at all. Sometimes she has the feeling of drifting, sometimes the feeling of being grounded - but so much that she is stuck where she is, glued to her spot.

    Rarely does she see anyone else, and those only from a distance. Most of the time, she feels them. The Mountain is made of the very rock she is mentally attuned to; her beacon, her ground, her home. Through it she can feel every horse that has passed her hiding spot on their way to the fairies, but she doesn’t know who they are or why they come. She doesn’t care either, for in her numb state she cares about nothing and no-one at all.

    But from where she stands… hangs more or less, as if she’s a floppy doll with sticks in her legs, put there carefully and she better not move or she would probably fall over. From where she stands as such, she sees only the rocks and low vegetation for a long time.

    A gust of wind approaches, and obsidian hooves approach, come into her sight and stay a while away, but they don’t leave. Obsidian. Instantly, the pink-spotted mare is taken back to the place of horror, the place she should never have visited if she had been sound of mind; but she had been too young to understand the danger.

    The bay overo mare had gathered most of the young children that had come, tried to protect them. Eurwen had watched the antlered mare be swallowed by a monster, and much like she experienced and out-of-body state right now, she had been beside herself when she’d slain the beasts instead of reasoning with them, to free her. Her and the children she had wanted to protect.

    She’d only been a child. She shouldn’t have seen such things.

    Following the obsidian hooves up, the resemblance is uncanny. Sure, her spots are of a different pattern. But it’s really the wings that differentiate the young mare before her from the mare who’d been with her in the Cove.

    ”You’re Kagerus’ child.”

    Judging by her age, Oriash wouldn’t have existed if Eurwen hadn’t sacrificed her innocence in that moment.

    She takes a little pride and courage in that: just enough to look the younger mare in the face. Eurwen’s dark eyes are searching, hesitant, and wondering if it had been the right thing to say at all. The slippery slope of dark dreams that Eurwen just awoke from, is still there, after all. One misstep and she’s falling again for sure.
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    #4

    Oriash

    they promised that dreams can come true

    She could understand, in some small way, how Eurwen was feeling. Not that she can read minds, and not that she knows now, but if the mare had put it into words she could empathize. Not with the why but the what, with that feeling of drifting and eating and living without really knowing how you did it. Her childhood had been days of such, of simply drifting, of losing all sense of life, of reality. She’d get lost in some other world and never quite know which world was real and which was the dream, never quite certain where one place ended and the places of her mind began.

    She had stayed, stuck, in Loess until Pteron had freed her. Ori has no idea that the same opportunity stands before her now, that perhaps she can pay back the kindness that had been shown to her.

    Perhaps. If only she is capable, and that’s a test she has never before faced.

    Ori cannot fathom what is like to see horrors as a child. Her life, though she was a forgotten pawn and little more, and had not been a bad one. She’d been sheltered enough in the Cove, though the memory of the parents that deserted her and their silent presence behind that bush always haunted her. Then, even stolen away, she was sheltered and protected and found that she just stayed. Castile spoke to her kindly enough, as much as the dragon king could muster, and she expected and needed no more kindness than that.

    It was a quite life, but it was not a bad life. It was not filled with monsters and death, but paints of worlds that her mind could create. Sometimes she changed Loess in small ways, and other times she simply changed the world around her, living out her own fairy-tales. Her only monsters were the illusions of her mothers, ghosts that did not leave her. Even now, when the illusions don’t come unbidden, still Kagerus haunts her. Ori made her peace with Solace, but Kagerus? Solace had been sick and needed rest, Solace had come to find her as soon as she was able, Solace had cared.

    Kagerus though? Ori didn’t think her mother cared.

    Her face darkens as the other begins by identifying her as Kagerus’s child. Shadows creep around from around her, as they often do with her darker moods, though she tries to call them back quickly. A few tendrils escape her, illusions, but illusions are real enough. “Yes,” she says flatly. She should be used to this, but still, being known only as the daughter of someone else was beginning to grate on her. Ori was herself and she wanted to be known only for that.

    The mare finally meets her eyes and Ori does her best to soften, just slightly, seeing something darker still in the mare. Could she blame her, really, for seeing anything but her mother in the daughter that looked so much like both of them? She was each of them, rolled into one. But unlike her mother she did not manipulate the land of sleep, but the land of the awake, and she had power here that her mother did not. "Who are you?"

    but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.



    @[Eurwen]

    Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission

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    #5

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    If Eurwen had still been little Wenny, but grown older, she would not have spoken so bluntly. In fact perhaps she would not have spoken at all; timid and withdrawn, she usually did not need her voice in the sheltered life she’s had as a child. Only her twin sister paid attention, and often enough Oisín had a mouth for two. Chryseis as well. So naturally, Eurwen felt no need to talk.

    No need to insult, either. This was not her intention today, not ever. Had she returned home after her Plague quest and not heeded the last call, she would have been damaged as well, but not like this. Not so wholly broken. She would have recognized the look on Oriash’ face, the shift in stance as she mentioned Kagerus, or perhaps she would not have mentioned her at all. Maybe just named her in passing, you look like your mother, accommodated with a lovely smile to show she means nothing by it.

    Today’s circumstances are very different. When Eurwen looks at the other mare she sees the motherly figure she met twice over, Curing the Plague at the time, and she’d blurted that out as soon as it came to her mind. She also sees the hurt by the mentioned name, the shadows that Eurwen recognizes as similar-looking to her gramamma’s twilight powers - dangerous things.

    Inside, little Wenny cringes. The pink-dotted mare looks at the winged girl before her, and doesn’t seem to understand. She frowns at the flat tone, the dark tendrils that escape, the way a small child with a fever dream might at something that looks to threaten them but that they aren’t sure are even there. Confused and upset. ”What?” Her tone is challenging, demanding an explanation for the odd reaction. Even in her semi-conscious state, she recognizes that this mare seems angry at her for mentioning Kagerus, and she demands to know why.

    ”I’m Eurwen. Your mother and I both helped cure the world of the Plague.” Almost swaying on her legs, the pink-spotted mare stands there, finding herself defending this mare’s mother for reasons she doesn’t understand. She says it in a tone indicating Oriash could be more thankful to have such a strong and caring mother, who rooted out the evil of the world. A mare who helped keep little 6-month-old Eurwen, her cousins, and all other foals of that season who’d thought to meet a fairy was the most exciting thing to ever happen in their life, sane and safe at the time.

    Perhaps Oriash didn’t know, only knew that she was away. Not-feverish Eurwen could have understood that. Sickly Eurwen didn’t.


    @[Oriash]
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    #6

    Oriash

    they promised that dreams can come true

    You’d think she wouldn’t care, that she would have grown used to being identified as her mother’s daughter and not as herself. Yet, she finds herself going the other way as she grows, raging against the label of being “Kagerus’s daughter”. Not even is she Solace and Kagerus’ daughter, but merely Kag’s. Always Kag.

    Everyone knew her very public mother, and yet, did they know her as Ori knew her? Did they know the mother that would leave a helpless child to instead following a lover into a coma? Did they know the mother that, apparently, came out of that coma long enough to cure the plague and yet didn’t find her daughter? The mother that, if Solace was back, must also be back and yet still has not come for her?

    No, they didn’t know that mare.

    Kagerus was not Solace. Solace had a reason to leave, and the moment she could Solace had found her. Bedraggled and half dead, Solace had found her. There had been no judgment in the choice of home Ori had made, no condemnation, just love and quiet and time spent together laying on the forest floor telling stories.

    So perhaps Eurwen doesn’t mean offense, but it hits Ori like a slap anyway. Not so much the What that comes out of the mare like a command, but the second piece. And it’s not because she is suddenly proud of her mother for helping to save Beqanna. She’s not. That was her mother. The public figure. The one everyone knew, but not the one Ori knew. “I’m glad she’s so impressive to you,” her tone is still flat, and it is clear she is not glad.

    Where is the tiny, quiet thing that Ori used to be? When did she disappear? Was it in the air, the world opened up before her and everything changed? Was it in the sound of her mother’s voice again and again and again, haunting her even when their ghosts finally did not? She doesn’t know, but she does know this is not the girl she was. Is it the girl she wants to be?

    And yet she cannot help herself, cannot find compassion for this mare who needs it. Not in the this very moment, anyway. Maybe if they just changed the subject, if the mare talked about something other than her mother with reverence. Maybe Ori could hear the part where this mare helped save them all too, maybe she would find the words to thank her. Instead, “Would you prefer her?”

    She changes, painting her mother over herself. The spots turn red, the wings disappear, all traces of Solace that are otherwise splashed across Ori vanish and she is only Kagerus now. Or at least, her best recollection of a mother she knew only briefly, but close enough it is unlikely anyone but Solace and a few close friends might know the difference. “Better?”

    but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.



    @[Eurwen] I don't know where my sweet Ori went....

    Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission

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    #7

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    In feverish dreams, the pink-dotted female blinks at her conversation - no, discussion - partner. First, she’d thought she’d dreamt the shadow that fell over the younger mare’s face, the flat tone that she outed. But the words themselves sting just as much, though not as much as they should - dampened by a distance, a distance made or rock wall.

    Eurwen scrutinizes the younger mare before her, but Ori changes. She becomes the image of the mare she looks like so much, yet as the spotted woman blinks, the image does not change. Is it better, she is asked, and that earns her a scornful, yet still feverish, look. ”You’re still you. The fact that you look the same as your mother doesn’t change one thing about that. I can feel your hate from here.” she spits out with almost a hateful tone. True to her core however, she only says that which she one hundred percent believes in. If that hurts little Ori’s petty self-proclaimed anger towards her mother, so be it. ”If you were really her, you would know how much this curing cost. That there is no easy way back to the way things were. You would understand that you wouldn’t exist without me killing the monster that ate her. You’d know the world was dying first, and now I am in its stead. But does anyone look for us? Does anyone look for those who helped cure by nearly dying? Of course they don’t. You guys thank the fairies, go back to your old lives and your stupid politics and wars, and don’t bother with the rest of us.”

    She nearly screams - or would be if she hadn’t been so tired. Instead, she sounds hoarse, exhausted, as if perhaps a coughing fit is near. But she hadn’t coughed in a while - something that finally got cured during her time here. Her voice may not be what it once was, forever marked this way, much like a fervent smoker’s voice will always stay damaged. Not that Eurwen cares in this moment; all she cares about is that nonchalance and hate that Oriash carries with her, is wrong and Eurwen won’t stand for it.

    ”Go sort that stuff out with your mother, if you can find her. She might be dead for all I know.” The dirt-clad mare’s ears fall flat on her poll, and then she makes a sharp turn to walk away. Tries to, anyway; it looks as sluggish as one can imagine an exhausted horse to be, half-tripping over her own legs and losing her balance. But she pulls on the mountain’s rock beneath her feet to steady herself subconsciously; only a might tremor might be felt as Eurwen moves to get away from this ‘toxic environment’, as she dubs it.


    @[Oriash] I guess she left with sweet-little-Wenny?
    Also I didn’t want to end this thread so Ori can feel free to still come after her or just talk; I imagine Eurwen only turns like maybe 90 degrees and took only one step at this point so she’s not out of earshot by far Smile:
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    #8

    Oriash

    they promised that dreams can come true

    Ori is silent as the other mare screams herself out. A slight smile, almost a smirk, curves her lips. It’s a tiny thing, easy to miss, but the tirade doesn’t upset her. The truth is, almost nothing upsets her, other than the shadow of her ever present mother. The mother that the world saw as so, so good. The mother that Ori doesn’t know, because her mother left her to die. It was that simple. There were no provisions made for three month old Ori when Kagerus and Solace had gone into a coma. She was simply left, and Kagerus could not be bothered to come find her daughter. Perhaps Kagerus was dead. Ori wouldn’t know either.

    She almost says as much to Eurwen, but she doesn’t. Instead she lets the illusion go as the mare turns away, and her voice is level and calm when she speaks to the back of the mare. “You’re right. I’m not my mother. And yet I am never given the chance to be myself. You asked what. That’s your answer. Besides, please don’t pretend you know my mother. You know a part of her, and it is a good part, but that is not all of her.”

    Ori doesn’t run around Beqanna telling the world of Kagerus abandonment. She will let them all believe what they want of her mother, but at the same time, she will not stand beneath her mother’s ghost anymore. Dead or not, the specter of Kagerus never went away. She was never Solace and Kagerus daughter, only Kagerus, as if the other half that she wore just as clearly did not matter. In the end, she would prefer that neither of them mattered.

    She pauses for a moment, waiting to see if the mare would turn around. Not that it mattered much. The mare seemed stuck here, waiting for something Ori couldn’t place. “I don’t think you are so angry over a lack of accolades, she says. No one knew who cured the plague. It’s not as if they had any way of knowing, except for those that told the story. “If all you wanted was a thanks, you’d be down among the others telling of what you did. Instead you are still here, forgetting that the girl you are currently screaming at is the only one who has stopped to ask if you are okay.”

    Again, she pauses, letting that sink in for a moment. The girl spewed venom at the only help she had, and while perhaps some of it was directed at Ori’s reaction to her mother, perhaps it was more than that. It was what she saw and endured that hurt far more than Ori’s flat tone against her own mother. At least, that’s what Ori assumed, anyway, because no one got so worked up about someone else’s mommy issues. “So how about we try again. I will ask, and maybe you will answer this time. Are you okay?”

    Obviously, she is not okay. But the restart is an olive branch, and the mare could take it or leave it. Ori would only extend it once, but it was there, and she would do what she could to help. Admittedly, there may be little she could do, but she was here and no one else was so that was something.

    but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.



    @[Eurwen]

    Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission

    Reply
    #9

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    Words come when she’s steadied herself; staring at the Mountain before her, half-turned away from the younger mare, Eurwen lets the words wash over her like a wave. Most of them slide off, harmless. Unheard. But some stand out.

    ”I think... neither do you. But I also think it doesn’t matter.” comes a hesitating answer. Still she doesn’t really look at the girl (for a three-year-old is not quite a woman either - heck, neither is five-year-old Eurwen); she says it toneless, as if they’re not really here, and her thoughts are occupied with something else.

    Oriash is right in every sense of the word. Eurwen is not okay. Not herself - she never would or should have acted like this. Yet strangely enough, it felt like a relief as well.

    ”You already know I’m not.” A pause follows. ”Are you?”

    It’s a glimpse, perhaps, of Wenny as she would have been, without the damage, without the sickness. A trace of the heir to a kingdom full of strong women, both inside and out.

    But it’s only a wisp of that gleam, of that kindness and strength that puts others before herself while still she might triumph. The rose-spotted woman turns to meet the eyes of the daughter of she-who-must-not-be-named only ever so briefly; then the feverish orbs turn away to their surroundings, trying to see if the fears and strangers are only her nightmares, or if they’re real.


    @[Oriash]
    Only took me forever! (: but here’s a reply
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    #10

    Oriash

    they promised that dreams can come true

    Ori knows that she doesn’t know her mother. That’s the part that stings the most, the fact that her mother couldn’t be bothered to stick around for her two month old, defenseless child. It is also this fact that is not well known in Beqanna, it is the damning piece of evidence that Ori keeps to herself. She leaves her mother’s legacy intact, a thing that was not shining but was not tarnished either.

    It’s not something she can expect anyone else to understand though, given that she has never explained it. Perhaps Dawn would, given that Dawn had been the one to find Ori on the beach waiting to die or to be swept into the ocean that day so long ago. Dawn had saved her then, but there are days Ori wonders what she had been saved for. What was she doing with this life? Nothing. And she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

    You already know I’m not, comes the reply, late but finally out in the air. It hangs there, the truth, heavy and weighted. “Yea, but you needed to say it aloud.” To say the truth was to face it. Maybe that is part of why Ori never talks of her mother’s. To speak of them is to face the truth of what they did to her. Solace was dying, and Solace had found her. But Kagerus? Kagerus had just left, had not cared. Had she cared for Ori’s siblings? Not that the girl would ever know, because she doesn’t even know her siblings except Aegan, who is rarely around.

    Then, are you?, and somehow that question hangs even heavier. “No,” she admits, voice quiet but firm. Truth. One small taste of it, anyway. A beginning and a peace offering, truth for truth. “But let’s get you off this mountain, huh? Where’s home?” Ori takes a step forward and then another, wing opening wide in a friendly gesture to encourage Eurwen to take a step down, hoping it’s enough. One step. Then another.

    but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.



    @[Eurwen] well I'm slow too...

    Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission

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