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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


    something wild calls you home
    #1

    It takes them some time to travel from the Field to Nerine. They use it to her advantage as Scorch tells her of the things that have transpired in Beqanna since she was last here. Ten years, at least, though Aletta knows its been much longer. She hasn’t yet reached her second decade and it seems that more than one has passed since she last walked with bone-shaker and spoke with the water horse. 

    Beqanna was stripped of her powers and then they were given back. (Pah - would they do without them? How would they ever survive on instinct and intellect alone?)

    There were wars though Aletta spends little time considering them. She has known one in her lifetime and the thought that there has been several here... there is no point in tempting fates and reflecting on devastations that aren't her own. One war was enough for her - none would have been better. So many fates might have been spared - so many stories might have gone differently - if the one war she knew never happened. 

    Scorch mentions a plague and that does make the silver mare look at her curiously, wanting to know what kind of disease afflicted the land. (She thinks of Brynn - of the disease that ate away her soul and turned her eyes red, made her hunger for blood and death.) They talk about many things and as the pair leaves the mountains of Hyaline behind them, they venture north with the River towards Taiga (not that Aletta knows this - a forest is just a forest in her mind). 

    There is something to admire about the trees in this one. Aletta has been made to feel small many times in her life - the impossible views from mountain summits, the wide sweep of the ocean and starlight from shorelines. She has felt that way standing below a waterfall as she watched her heart take on promises that she had never thought he could keep, that the world would prove to be far too much for him to promise. 

    (It was a shame he hadn’t traveled, she thought. He had been a prince and an heir and so sure of his place in his world that there was no one to teach him how small he really was. How big (and heavy) the world could be outside Paraiso.)

    It takes them longer to travel through Taiga because she finds herself wanting to admire the trees. The pair separates so the pale mare can satisfy her wanderlust. Scorch keeps traveling to Nerine and Aletta falls in the embrace of her first love -  exploring. Distracted, she doesn’t see the pair of yearling twins who have stopped to stare at her. It had been a brief interlude - the striped one with wings had flared them, asking what she was doing while the other … the other had blue eyes that caught her off-guard. 

    The wrong shade of blue, she told herself. The pair - twins, she assumed - put her in mind of her own grandsons because they were about the same age that Tarian and Liam had been the last time she saw them. She blamed the copper wings of the pegasus, for making her think of her pegasi grandsons. 

    Aletta had been short with them - terse and tense - and it seemed to suit the green-eyed colt that she left so she had. She leaves them behind with the unexpected ache they had brought on. That feeling can stay there - aimless and drifting with the fog.

    When she arrives (and crosses) through the craggy borders of Nerine, she thinks that perhaps it would have been best if she had stayed with Scorch. She doesn’t know where kingdom lines are. Aletta could be trespassing from where she stands and for all she knows, the reception she receives may not be a kind one.

    @[Scorch] @[Neverwhere] let me know if you want anything changed

    #2
    Though she told Aletta that she would head straight for Nerine as they parted in Taiga, she found herself meandering. It seemed, in one, confusing and simultaneous moment, that she'd been in that self-same kingdom both yesterday and decades ago. Stranger yet that that emotional sensation would attach itself to the Amazon Jungle, too, since that land became obsolete actual decades ago (or close) by now.

    Alas, she made a commitment to Aletta. One that she felt loathe to follow through one but one which her honour (in shambles though it may be) demanded she attend to. So, later, she found herself at Nerine's borders.

    She entered not.

    What entitlement could she even pretend to claim to this place any more? Once, she'd warmed Nerine's thrown during a leadership interlude, that much remained true... and though she told herself that her loyalty extended unyielding into the future, her extramarital affairs forced her to consider otherwise.

    She felt thankful when her new gray companion arrived at last. With the sun setting on their backs, Scorch kicked up into a canter and headed straight for the other mare, chuckling low in her sternum at Aletta's blatant (and innocent) disregard for the kingdom's borders. Her re-familiarization with the political batshittery inherent in this land would come soon enough and without Scorch's intervention, if she could help it.

    "So, you made it," the scarred mare churrs with a good-humoured chuckle. "Welcome to Nerine." The mare's dragon eyes (currently a deep, pupilless blue) turned to the cliff-strewn horizon. "I am sure that some wide-eyed and eager diplomats will be by to sniff us out in no time. That or else a war-hardened woman or two."
    [Image: scorch2.png]
    #3
    It’s hard to miss Scorch. There is a wide, open blue sky that invites Aletta towards the Nerinian border. It had been hard to find in Taiga, even if there were other … distractions in the Northern forest. The trees themselves had been impressive, arboreal feats towering to the testament of time. What had Beqanna been like when they had been saplings, she had wondered.

    Would that have been before or after the land had shifted?

    Her time in Beqanna - after the Reckoning but before the Plague - had been such a brief stint. The pale woman hadn’t bothered to learn the names of the lands that had risen in its wake. The Amazons and the Jungle, that idolized Sisterhood she had dreamt of all through her youth, had been long gone by the time Aletta reached Beqanna’s shores. What a disappointment that had been. One she couldn’t swallow and so she left the land of the Sunrise behind her.

    (Onward and forward, always towards with Aletta. She has never been one to go chasing the past; what good does it do when it stays there?)

    The late summer sun paints the lovely moorlands in shades of hazy gold and dark stone. The granite eerily resembles dust and the sky above becomes bright and wild. The sinking star turns almost crimson and the gray mare smiles. A red sky at night means the coming day will be a pleasant one. (A red sky at night, delight! One at dawn? Be warned!)

    "Did you doubt I would?” the traveler dryly asks. There is an arch to her silver brow though her dark brown eyes spark with mirth as she turns her head towards the approaching Scorch. Even with that burning sun in the background, it is hard to miss the bald mare from the Field. "I know I’ve seen some years,” Aletta says. (And she wants to smile, a wry one is almost there, existing beneath the neutral mask), "but I think I can manage a few miles on my own.”

    She isn’t so senile that she’d get lost - North is North, after all. There are only so many places to go once the trees of Taiga become the iron granite of Nerine.

    Something like humor comes to play when Aletta glances back to the moorlands, "do you have a preference?” Looking at @[Scorch], it’s easy to imagine that she had knew how to word her way through politics. Her gaze lingers on that floral tattoo again and it makes Aletta presumptive, she knows. But it makes her think that she’d be more than capable of leading the best of them into battle, too.
    #4
    She does not know when Wolfbane will try to come north again, but she suspects that he will, that he will try to test the boundaries she has put in place, if only to prove that she cannot control him. But it is not him she is trying to control, rather it is her home that needs the protection, it is Lilliana and her children. Neverwhere's own child naps in the late summer sun without a care, flat out to soak in every ounce of sun offered by their shortened season. If, when he comes, he will come for Wherewolf, the silvered mare is uncertain. The name had made him furious and the memory makes the corners of her lips quirk upwards ever so slightly. Not quite enough to be noticeable against the downward pull of those sun-poisoned scars, but there is a subtle lightening to her usual scowl.

    With Wherewolf asleep, she wanders, and her mind wanders along with her. Djinni healed the last of her wounds, the pierced shoulder with hardly a pucker and the delicate pink scar tissue criss-crossing her barrel thickening, darkening, so it does not tear as she navigates the rocky terrain, or when she rolls or rubs against the cliff walls. Her winter coat is coming in, thick and plush, and there are more than a few white hairs growing among the dark ones where the follicles are not simply too damaged to support any growth at all.

    Although not given to vanity, Neverwhere hopes the hair does not all come in white and leave her striped like a baby tapir.

    Scarred and striped, at first glance she looks more like the battle hardened warrior Scorch insists will come, but look beyond those things and they will see she does not have the muscling of a fighter. Travel, and enduring, built and shaped her features. Her pale eyes flicker over both mares when she happens on them unexpectedly, finds the haunting familiarity in their faces - this shape of ear, that curve of jaw - and she pauses to study them unabashedly before addressing the hairless, burnt, mare.

    "Well, who the hell did you piss off? You look like a boar after Ghaul's been at it."

    Not the promised diplomat, either.

    Neverwhere
    This is the table equivalent of pajamas


    @[Scorch]
    #5
    "Not really, no," Scorch replied. "If I know one thing about you it's that you're either stubborn or loyal at any given time. Today proved that." At the other's comment about being experienced enough to travel on her own, Scorch but shrugged. She'd had other more promising mares turn fickle on her after making greater promises than those made by Aletta, after all.

    "Hah!" Scorch laughed at her companion's last question. "Both, I guess, since after all I was. For all my ugliness and toughness, I happen have a bit of a silver tongue when I want to, too." A roll of her shoulders. "Best of both worlds, like."

    At this, the approach of another sounded nearby. The feminine scent indicated that Nerine might yet be a woman's land, a fact which roused something of a flame in Scorch's chest (the one she'd always carried there for the Amazons of old). As though to punctuate this surge of long-held and slowly-dying emotion, her chest erupts in flames, flames which lend a quiet crackle to the background noise of the conversation which ensued.

    Well, who the hell did you piss off? You look like a boar after Ghaul's been at it.

    The words came from a bald-faced mare's lips. Also notable: the mare's wing-shaped dark patches atop her shoulders and the brilliant ice blue of her gaze. Scorch took an immediate liking to her. Anyone who spoke the way Scorch wanted to at all times could be her friend, damnit.

    As such, she lapsed into a more familiar tone.

    "A dragon, if you have to know," she snorted, leaning her weight into her left hip with a flick of her nubby tail. "And I won that fight." After showing a brief grin, Scorch sighed and tossed her head towards the one she'd brought here. "This is Aletta, and I am Scorch. I ruled here a few years back and I also ruled the land for which this one was created to imitate, that being the Amazon Jungle. I used to know many who lived here but now I'd wager that the only familiar face I'd know is Brennen's, and he's not likely to want to see me. So. Aletta, Nerine, Nerine, Aletta."

    And with that, she dipped her head as though to leave.

    @[aletta]
    OOC: she secretly wants to stay so any attempt to stop her will work lol
    [Image: scorch2.png]
    #6
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    Another scent comes drifting down the Nerinian wind and Aletta turns her head, peering over the rolling moorlands to see where it comes from. An ear flicks towards Scorch while the gray mare is studying the landscape, listening to what she has to say about her own stubbornness and loyalty. About how the tattooed mare had once been both diplomat and warrior, a balance of both worlds.

    Aletta can’t study the horizon for long. Scorch’s claim to flame literally ignites from her proud, Baroque chest.

    The crackling of it distracted her momentarily (as did the abruptness of it), long enough for the bald-faced mare to approach while Aletta still eyed the fire. Magic. Outside of family and friends, it was something to be regarded with distrust and suspicion. She doesn’t feel either of those emotions when she looks at Scorch. That unsettles her.

    Over the flames comes the voice of another mare. Aletta lifts her head and returns her gaze with a blatant one of her own. She studies the stark white of her face and the red windswept cracks that line it. A sweeping glance studies her wounds and while she doesn’t visibly react to them, it is clear that the dappled mare has experienced an ordeal or two. The dark outline of wings marks her shoulders - in a similar way to Scorch wears her flower - and Aletta silently wonders if the women can claim some affinity.

    She doesn’t know what a Ghaul is and decides it’s best if she doesn’t ask. Aletta turns her attention back to Scorch when the burning mare shifts her weight to the left. Learning that not only could her companion fight dragons, she beat them. She learns that not only was she a former ruler of this land but that it preceded another: the Jungle and Scorch ruled there as well.

    The tattoo, she realizes. It was a mark of the Jungle.

    It’s not often that the former Regent is surprised but the former Amazonian manages it. "Wait," Aletta starts, speaking as soon as she realizes that Scorch means to leave. That all those familiar faces she knew were gone so why should she stay? "You know me by now, don't you Silver Tongue?" The gray mare asks her traveling companion, tilting her head towards Scorch before looking back at the bald-faced mare. "And Nerine here must have a name."





    aletta
    we turned our back on ordinary from the start


    photo credit to charlie---x

    @[Neverwhere]
    #7

    Eurwen
    the secret of walking on water
    is knowing where the rocks lie
    Since Aodhán’s last visit, she has been more wary than ever - but she’d taken a small break from guarding the border to eat (it never works to be alert if you’re too weak to react to it), and besides, the silver dappled queen was nearby.

    She smiles towards her lunch as she feels Nev’s hoofs thunder upon the rocky underground of Nerine, and perks her ears only after swallowing her bite. She walks over calmly in comparison to the bald-faced mare, but breaks into a short canter when she spies a familiar figure to catch up with them. She chuckles at the fragmented conversation she hears - Nev would never let an opportunity like this go to waste to insult someone. It hadn’t been just the likeness with her sister that had her compare the Khaleesi to her family; and when both bristled against one another, it was plain clear for anyone watching, why this was the case.

    ”You never told me about a dragon, Grammama.” she interjects just after the only mare unknown to her -Aletta?- tells her to wait; her deep brown orbs scan the burnt mare’s figure, a slightly disapproving edge creased into her face about the rudeness with which she’s leaving - that doesn’t befit the advisor she knows, though honestly, she knew by now that her father got that from his mother’s side of the family - just like Heartfire and Brazen. The latter would be thoroughly disappointed at missing her visit, too, no doubt.

    As her rose-golden mane and tail whipped up by the wind, the dark-eyed mare’s gaze softens by large when she turns to Neverwhere and Aletta. ”I’m Eurwen, one of those diplomats you were seeking,” she tells the latter, ”and that is Neverwhere, the Khaleesi.” she nods to Nerine’s leader with a gleam of humour in her eye, encouraging her with a hardly visible smile - one that practically doesn’t touch her lips, but only her eyes, before she casts an inquisitive look at her hairless grandmother. When had she become scared of a confrontation?

    @[Neverwhere] 8ball said go do it so here is a Wenny (everyone be thankful the bot didn’t spit out leilan)
    #8

    Fire bursts from Scorch's chest and it draws Neverwhere's eye downward until the burnt mare snorts her reply, and as her gaze rests there fitfully, it finds Aletta's, grasping onto the brief flash of dismay and distrust in her eyes. It wins rare points for the grey mare as Neverwhere turns her attention again to the hard ridges of the former Amazon's face. A dragon.

    "Yes, as I said." She dismisses it almost casually, a dragon is a dragon and they all leave the same taste of singe and sulfur on your tongue. It doesn't matter to her whether it was Ghaul, or Castile, or some unnamed beast she hasn't met. She's had quite enough of the lot of them, yet Beqanna's blood seems to crawl with dragons, to pulse with the rhythm of their reptilian hearts, and it's a strange thing to her, yet perhaps it is simply the nature of them. They hoard and they flame, and their blood does the same.

    That isn't quite right, though, she reminds herself. Leilan is a dragon now as well, though one of ice rather than fire. And yet, the cold can burn, too, something she knows intimately to be true. Her ears drift back for the space of a breath and in that moment she feels a phantom pain in ear-tips long since lost. They throb, but the memory is a dusty and distant one, and Eurwen's bright greeting awakens her, the familiar introduction. The Nerinian queen blinks away the ghosts of her ears, and lightened of the weight, the rounded halves that remain turn forward again, cloudy eyes alight with a new consideration. Grandmother. One mystery is solved.

    "Aletta," another remains, "Yes, Scorch, tell us if you recognize her, because I certainly don't."



    @[Scorch] I am sorry this took so long, and I'm sorry if it sucks. My internet had a stroke and deleted everything halfway through so I had to rewrite it  Dodgy
    #9

    WATCH THE FLAMES CLIMB HIGH INTO THE NIGHT

    You know me by now, don't you Silver Tongue? The usage of such a title gave pause to what might have been Scorch's hasty exit. And Nerine here must have a name.

    "Hrmph," she grumbled and straightened, ears pressed back (though not to a stern degree). Upon closer inspection of Nerine herself (she who yet chose to remain nameless), Scorch noted with a snort and an unintentional flick forward of her charred ears that the other wore similar burn scars in the same place. Curious, to say the least... Perhaps she would inquire later.

    A semi-familiar voice worms its way into the granite-like silence which falls upon the three hardened women, claiming to have never heard of such a dragon as Scorch spoke. "Eurwen!" Laughs the rat, lips parting all at once into a grin that somehow doesn't manage to make her any uglier. After a brief press of those self same lips to the beautiful girl's -- err, woman's poll (for Scorch never claimed to be anything but touchy and intimate with her kin), Scorch speaks again, this time with a chastising tone. "The way I remember it, granddaughter, is that someone was too busy having adventures to listen to her grandmother's tall tales." The half truth sat easy on Scorch's tongue, made plausible by the undeniable warmth of her smile.

    Then, the unnamed Nerinian to whom Eurwen's body language deferred speaks up, asking of Scorch a question.

    "Who, Aletta?" She asked, bemused and not quite grasping the woman's query. She leaned away from the gray with a skeptical squint of her eyes before grinning and leaning towards her, bumping her nose to the other's shoulder. Though she begrudged herself these familiarities, the fact of being within "home's" borders forced her hand. Err, hoof.

    "She and I go way back, to all of yesterday, in fact." She looks to the bald-faced mare, sobering up some. "I told her I knew of a place she might like to call home and brought her here. Perhaps, for my troubles, you or whoever the hell runs this swamp these days could promote me from pipsqueak to small fry diplomat."

    Scorch

    Once Khaleesi of the Amazon Jungle




    "@[Lilliana]"
    [Image: scorch2.png]
    #10

    They are speaking about dragons and the displeasure shows up on her silver face as clear as the sunshine. If there were any doubt what Aletta thinks about those beasts, her ears fleetingly pin back when the lines of her face pull back into a scowl. What do dragons want here?

    Do they seek to spill more blood? Do they desire to burn and destroy as Cazador had?

    "What do you know of dragons?” she asks immediately to the spotted one, the question almost accosting. Aletta almost calls her youngling but the youngest mare in their group could hardly be called a foal. Scorch, though, could apparently be called grandmother to this one. The scowl lessens and becomes something less accusing as her dark eyes watch the pale mare. Eurwen. She tells herself, storing the name away.

    The other one - the Khaleesi (that is what they call their leader?) - is called Neverwhere. Nerine does have a name and the wanderer gives the monarch a brief nod, a sign of respect. Not long after, she looks to her hairless companion again. Teasing, the smaller mare rolls her shoulder. "We’d go back farther but time didn’t agree with us,” says Aletta with a flick of her white tail. Scorch would have done wonders for Beyond, she thinks. Beqanna would have done nothing for her (though it has, thanks to the Watcher, thanks to Warden).

    "Though I might be going gray with old age,” she teases with a wry smile, something that is easy to do with the former Amazonian. "I don’t see anything of a swamp here.” Her brown eyes glance towards the cliffs and ledges, "It looks like a pile of rubble to me.” The gray mare looks back to the group - turning most of her focus on Neverwhere and @[Eurwen] - and asks: "Isn't this place your home?” Her brow furrows slightly, "What kind of blindness do you suffer that you don’t recognize your own kingdom?”

    If they had been expecting something more diplomatic, that certainly isn't Aletta.
    She'd rather cut straight to the point - as sharp as that might be.





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