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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


    [private]  there must be something in the tide
    #1

    DAWN

    it must be about as hard as forgetting your best friend

    When she stumbles across a cavern strewn with blood, she finds herself fleeing the Cove.

    Blood doesn’t bother her; she’s dealt with so much blood so many times with all of the children she has birthed and raised, and all of the prey she has snuffed the life from over the years. No, it was not the blood - but the victim had been unmistakeable, despite the missing head and part of her upper neck. Her mother’s corpse, shredded by a monster she can’t even think to imagine, the dragon tattoo upon her breast coated in slick crimson and her draconic wings broken and torn.

    So she flees. Not for the first time she wishes for wings like her mother’s, so she could take to the skies, where no one would be able to distinguish her screams and sobs. Her long legs carry her over the Cove’s border and along the foothills of Hyaline’s mountains swiftly, never slowing or stumbling throughout the shifting terrain. She has run this path so many times and maybe it is foolish to do so while so distraught, but she trusts her hooves to not let her trip. And even if she were to fall, what would it matter?

    Cress is gone.

    Even the Pangea border doesn’t slow her, and she finds herself bursting into the Meadow at full speed, but she doesn’t stop there. She doesn’t even slow as she travels through the gathering horses, certain she looks crazy to them but finding herself unable to slow. If she slows down or stops, everything will shatter. So she cannot stop.

    She finds herself at the banks of the river, and turns west along with it. She continues until her hooves cannot carry her any farther, and she stumbles to a stop at the mouth of the river, where it joins with a bay that makes the East’s bay seem miniscule. She coughs and chokes to catch her breath and tears stain her golden cheeks as she stares out into the water, contemplating throwing herself into it.

    Instead, she screams into the endless void, not caring if anyone is around to hear her.



    @[Rhaegor] ok i'm crying
    clean.
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    #2

    It seemed fateful that they would always meet at the river. Not always, perhaps, but too often to discredit the meetings as but coincidences.

    Coincidences were hard to come by with Rhae; his visions often precluded any notions thereof.

    Earlier that week, as summer increased its grasp upon the very essence of Beqanna itself, he'd had two visions. One of a death so severe and brutal that he'd been sick the moment he'd snapped out of it; and one of his childhood best friend throwing herself into a bay into which a river flowed; a wide river. He knew the one. The sickness he felt thereafter grew inward instead of expelling itself outward.

    He found himself almost living at that bend in the river since that day. He had no idea when she would come, or even if she would, or if Cress had died at all. He hoped not. He hoped with all his might that the day his visions predicted would cease to be predictable, that his precognition had come in errant and foolish. Cress and Dawn will be okay, he told himself, over and over again. Cress and Dawn will be okay.

    The thunder of her approach on this day proves his hope wayward.

    Without knowing how to act and knowing only that he must act, Rhaegor raced to meet his once best friend at the mouth of the bay, too slow in having heard her to beat her there. He feared for the worst as he broke through the sparse trees lining this side of the bay but felt a guilty relief at seeing her but standing, mouth agape in a scream that turned his relief to a different but all too renewed dread.

    Cress was dead.

    After a brief pause at the water's edge, Rhaegor leapt into the blue of the waters and arced through its depths until he came to her, wound his neck beneath her head to lift it way from the water he'd watched kill her in his vision, and began to cry with her, soft and steady.

    I've got you, Dawny, he managed to broadcast into her mind, finding no thoughts there for surely the mare felt more than thought at a time like this. Mourning was often wordless. I've got you, and we're going to get through this together. Here. Here. Lean on me. He beckoned her weight with a toss of his head, a step closer into her familiar form. That's it... Breathe with my Dawny. Breathe now. In.... and Out...

    And, drawing silent, Rhaegor began to breathe a slow, steady pace, loud enough so that she could hear it; but beyond that, he pressured her not to calm herself. For now, his silent and composed presence would be fortress enough for her to lean on. Or so he hoped.






    .



    @[Dawn]
    [Image: rhae]
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    #3

    DAWN

    it must be about as hard as forgetting your best friend

    She should have realized that the river was their place, and she should have expected him to meet her here, as he would often do. It seems there is something that always pulls them back together, despite how many times fate has tried to pull them apart. Perhaps, though, there is nothing crossing her mind aside from grief, and she is struggling not to give in to the more animalistic side of her. It would be so easy to just let go, to let the bear rip and tear and mangle until there is nothing left to feel.

    As caught up in her grief and anger and denial and rage, she doesn’t hear the crashing of his hooves as he falls into step some ways behind her, fear pushing her Sunny to the limit as he tries to keep up with her thunderous stride. She doesn’t see him as the tears stream down her face and the cry echoes from her lips, and when there is a splash of water and the sudden touch of a face against hers, she very nearly loses control.

    Then his scent washes over her and his steadying voice echoes in her mind, and everything goes blank.

    She presses herself into him, desperately clinging to every part of him that she can touch. Tears stain her cheeks and she lets out a wracking sob that is nine parts grief and one part relief. Cress had loved the boy as if he were her own son, and had watched the two of them grow over the years. Rhae may still have his mothers, but he has lost a parent as well. As his voice brings an uneasy peace over Dawn, she tries to relax, but her muscles are too wound tight from the hours of running.

    Instead, she focuses on timing her breathing with his.

    In….
    Out.
    In….
    Out.
    In….
    Out.


    It is not much, but it is a start.



    @[Rhaegor]
    clean.
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    #4

    At first, the mare who'd stood by his side since childhood could but sob. Wracked chest, mouth locked open in agony. Though his position inhibited his vision of her in this state, Rhaegor knew. Knew the pain she felt, at least in a vicarious way; it matched the pain he felt the day he had the visions, first of her mother's brutal death and then of her own suicide.

    I wanted to find you both but I--

    His thoughts remain private, too painful to emit into the fabric of someone else's reality (especially hers). But that single thought unleashed a torrent of panic, one which he thought he could fend off when the time came; but his mind snags and the spiral commences.

    I wanted to save her, Dawn, but I wanted to save you, more. I knew where you would come to, Dawn, I didn't know when, I just knew where and I didn't know where she would die, I wanted to save her, Dawn, I wanted to save your mother, too, Cress -- Cress, I wanted to save you! I--

    His breathing came ragged the longer he allowed himself to catapult down this line of thought and he knew that for Dawn's sake, he needed to stay calm. It mattered not what he wished for. All that remained him was an aching, chasmous gratitude for the fact that he'd been able to avert at least one fate this day.

    The rhythm of Dawn's breathing as it steadied reinforced the stallion's own attempt to regain some semblance of calm.

    In...
    Out...
    In...
    Out...
    In...
    Out...


    Everything felt quiet, then.

    Empty.

    "Hhhh..." The annunciation of his open-mouthed inhale exhausted him/left him. "Let's get out of the water, Dawny," He whispered. There seemed to be no other sound in the world except their breathing. "Let's go lie down in the shade. I'll hold you close."

    He nudged his head, hoping that his desolate best friend would comply with his request despite its apparent impossibility as they stood there, exhausted beyond comprehension.






    .



    @[Dawn]
    [Image: rhae]
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    #5

    DAWN

    it must be about as hard as forgetting your best friend

    As she finds herself starting to steady herself, she feels him begin to unravel against her. His breathing grows harsh and though he’s not projecting his thoughts to her, she knows. She knows what he’s thinking, how he wished he could have saved them both, and her crying begins anew, but it is a quieter grief, less likely to draw attention to the pair as they try to calm themselves in each others’ arms. The silence grows around them as they work to slow their breathing, and when Rhae speaks it startles her.

    He suggests they get out of the water and Dawn stares blindly towards her hooves, realizing for the first time that she is at least knee-deep in water, though everything is blurry and it is hard to tell exactly how deep they have gotten. Where once she would have jumped at the thought of him holding her, she only nods jerkily before spinning around in the water, dragging her hooves as she makes her way towards the shore. She trips when the water gives way to the bank and goes down to her knees, a dry sob ripping its way through her.

    But he is right there to nudge her back to her hooves and together they find the shade of a tree and collapse under it, Dawn trembling from a sudden chill. “Please don’t leave me,” she whispers as she finds his gaze and holds it, her eyes desperate and pleading. “I can’t lose you too, Sunny.”

    Just as suddenly as she has grabbed his attention she looks away again, eyes scanning the horizon desperately; begging the gods to see her mother walking towards them, a gentle smile lighting up her face. But there is no one, especially not Cress, and she’s never going to see her mother again, no matter how hard she pleads to the gods. Some of the gods are cruel, her mother had told her once, spinning the story of how she got her fire and her tattoo.

    She tries to hold in the high-pitched keening, but a whine escapes anyways, along with fresh tears. “Tell me how to make it stop,” she whispers, fatigue taking over as she lowers her head to the ground. “Make it stop hurting.”



    @[Rhaegor]
    clean.
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    #6

    Their journey back to land seemed to take long -- so long. Though Rhae caught Dawn when she fell, the act of it made him believe the world around them to be thicker than blood, a kind of viscous fluid that prevented him from accessing either his body or his mind out of willfulness alone. Reflexes he had; intentionality he lacked.

    Nonetheless, they made it to the place he'd envisioned for them, back there before the panic took over. When they collapsed in to one another beneath an elder oak, Dawn started in to shivering; anxious to sooth her, Rhaegor flared his free wing and encircled the other with it, cradling her to his chest. Invisible rays of light beamed, then, from him to her. Particles of harmless warmth. Anything to help her.

    Her keening broke his heart more than he imagined it capable of breaking.

    "I'm right here, Dawny, shh, it's okay," he whispered into her ear, feeling a tear slip from his cheek to hers. They'd always been so close. It made sense that they would be together here, now. "You will always have me. I promise."

    But his words fell on grief-deafened ears for just as he spoke Dawn wrenched her head from his embrace to look out at the coastline, blindness and strife writ clear in the milky stare of her once-bright eyes. But no matter. Rhaegor's love for Dawn extended past the amount of attention she had to offer him, especially now. Instead of trying to call her back or to force her to ignore her aching grief, he simply pressed his muzzle to her poll, concentrating on the lifeforce he knew to be nestled there.

    Not long passed before her pain bubbled to the surface of her being once more. The quiet they'd known for those few minutes pierced itself over and over again with her crying, her begging, her willing to make it all stop.

    Unbid, the memory of his grieving Chryseis came. Tears spilled from his own eyes, too.

    "I don't think it ever stops," he managed to choke. "I just think we learn to live with it."

    And with that, he grabbed her to him and gave both himself and her the permission to become totally lost in their grief, absorbed by the sobs that wracked them from their core to the fringed edges of their being.

    Alone, together.






    .



    @[Dawn]
    [Image: rhae]
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