[open] shadows fall over my heart;

[Cineres]

How did we do it?

How did we make it out of such an awful place alive?

I found myself wondering that more and more as time went on, we were so little when everything was happening. I would follow the tangles of memory whenever it got too quiet and I gave myself too much time to think, much like tonight. I thought about how Mama named me after the ashes of our home, she told me once, because maybe one day I would be able to rise above them. My name would be a constant reminder of the ruins we came from and I would always want to be better than that. Better than the savages that ripped our country apart. She died not long after that and I was alone for a while.

At least, until the enemy soldiers found me and took me to some canyon where the other orphans were kept. Colts were killed, no questions asked. Fillies were considered spoils of war and we would be given to someone, one day, when we were old enough so that our lines could be bred out and our mothers and fathers would be forgotten.

I was frightened and alone, and to make matters worse, my clan wasn't exactly well-liked even before the war, so the other girls took to avoiding me at first. All except Evarae.

She was a peculiarly happy face in a crowd of otherwise bleak children, her butterfly wings made her stand out even more so from the others; I couldn't understand her joy when being different made her valuable, when being so pretty made her a target. As young as I was, I understood that the leering of the soldiers who guarded us wasn't a good thing, but she did her best to stave off my fears and to cheer me up.

Despite my often morose demeanor, she would find me everyday and we would play and have fun despite our circumstances. Others joined in and soon we all became fast friends. Sometimes, even the young soldiers would join in on our antics but that was quickly put to an end one day when a higher-ranking member caught them and they were taken away to be punished. We never saw those young stallions ever again.

After that, things seemed to get worse.

I'm not sure if that caused it or the fact our enemies were winning the war, but soon, they started taking the older girls away. One by one. Until it was really just the group we often played with.

I remember Evarae waking us all up one morning, I remember the panic in her voice. I remember her leading us up to the top of the canyon and I remember running until it felt like my heart was going to explode in my chest. There were loud booms behind us, explosions—fire. Someone was trying desperately to burn us all alive, to stop us from reaching the edge of the cliffs and the ocean that lay beyond.

My wings weren't strong enough to carry me yet, but I don't think she realized that. Some of us were too young, too little, but taking that leap of faith into the ocean was better than whatever fate lay behind us and we all knew that. So when we got to the edge, we jumped. Some of us flew away, but others—like me—we plummeted into the water below.

I stared up for what felt like forever, watching the sunlight filter down through the waves and smiling because up above me I could see my friends silhouettes and I watched them fly away. They looked like angels. I accepted that I was going to die, I was okay with it, despite being so little. Because in my mind, I had made the best of friends and my last days, despite being a prisoner of war, had been some of my best.

Never in a million years, when I started blacking out, did I ever think I would end up washing up on some other beach. I didn't look like the locals so they kept me at a distance, scared, nervous of what I might do. I spent the next couple of years neglected and isolated and, well, learning how to fly. I got pretty good at it, actually. But honestly, no matter how good you are, you can only fly so far until your wings get tired and I had pushed myself well behind my limits a few hundred miles ago.

I zigged and zagged on currents of air, my hazel eyes narrowing in on some white slip of beach below. I began my descent, much less gracefully than I normally would have managed, my legs already moving as I prepared to hit the sand at a full run. Grains of it sprayed out all around me and I just kept right on going, tucking my wings in close to me. I darted past the trees so fast they blurred together, my blood hammering in my ears, my nostrils flaring.

I kept running until I found myself traveling alongside a river, I kept running until my legs wanted to give out. I didn't stop until I was made to. I skidded, sliding to a halt at a base of a tree so large that I couldn't believe it. My mouth fell open and I peered up into its moonlit branches in wonder.

[ooc: Evarae mentioned with Taz's permission.]

[cringe]

how to be a monster:
1. learn the taste of dirt and pain.
2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed.
3. see if that makes it easier to breathe.

He is bred of a monster, but he does not look it.
No, he looks more like his father (or – the one who bore him; the unorthodox nature of his conception makes titles mixed and strange). Pale gold, like winter sunlight, a diluted version of Rapt’s richer tones. He’s handsome enough, though he’s not preoccupied with such things.
He is bred of a monster, and this becomes evident when layers are stripped away, when his other abilities are laid out – the dark smoke of the fear aura, the clutching hands of possession. He has not been kind with these gifts, is quick to use them, to possess and to frighten.

Sins of the father, they say, but to him, they are gifts.

He has tasted the sweetness of fear, of control, and it melts across his tongue. He’s come to crave it, now. He’d been in distant lands, isolated. It hadn’t bothered him – he did well enough, in such isolation – but what use were his talents in a vacuum?
No, he is destined for more.

He is looking for no one in particular when he walks along the churning rush of the river. The noise of it envelops most else, but Cringe peers out, looking. He feels like something in near, like a word dancing on the tip of his tongue, but he does not know what. And so, he moves faster, searching.
And there she is.
She is younger than he, membranous wings at her sides. He can hear the heavy lurch of her breathing and this excites him in a way he can’t quite articulate. She’s staring up into a tree as if it holds some secret, but Cringe sees nothing of worth in it.
No, the worth is before him, in this impossibly black girl with heaving sides.
“You look lost,” he says, and he touches at her mind, just lightly, to see if he might be let in.

cringe

@[Cineres]

[Nilam]

Nilam

Her early life had been one of jealousy and superiority, and she’s never wanted anything else. Of course, she heard about her father’s exposure - he’d done something stupid, taking some leader’s children. Perhaps he had become overconfident, but such a thing wouldn’t happen to the blue Nilam. Oh, no. She was becoming a mother herself, after all.

And in her pregnancy, more hungry than she ever felt before.

First, she’d taken the child’s father. After all, it was his fault that she was pregnant, so he could feed her and the baby for a while. The child had better be kelpie, she figured, and maybe letting it taste the blood of it’s maker would help force such a trait into existence. By now, however, she had long since digested him, and the other sea creatures just weren’t as tasty.

The river was her best chance of finding something more hearty than white fish-meat quickly, but it took her a while to get adjusted to the cleaner water. When she finally picked up the scent of someone broken, she was no longer the only hunter. Another had approached; the vanta black filly was talking to a gold-hinted, cream looking stallion.

If he didn’t have that predatory look about him, he would have been her preferred victim. For now, she just decided to play along.

”I could take you home, if you want.” Her tail moves lazily in the river water, her smile is easy and though it shows her sharper teeth, it is also charming and dazzling, a magic that true kelpies so often have. Her gleaming sapphire and gold figure must look attractive - so much so that any other horse might easily forget that her teeth are indeed pointy, her jaw slightly longer than a normal horse’s, and that she is every bit the predator they should fear. What they see is a pretty young woman, just like her child’s father. And should they see through it after all... well, there’s more than one trick up her sleeve.

there is no new wave
only the sea

@[Cineres], @[cringe]

[Cineres]

“You seem lost.”


I jolted, scrambling backwards—clearly startled, because they had found me. They had found me, they found me and they were going to take me back to that awful place; they found me, at long last, and were going to do terrible things to me. And once they were done, they were going to burn me alive. They found me, they found me—I took a deep breath, my eyes finding his as best they could in the dark. A tingling numbness had swept over my body from the shock. I couldn’t run now, even if I wanted to, so I took my time studying his face in the moonlight and felt myself slowly relax. My ears slid forwards to listen more easily, all of my muscles went slack.


I almost laughed, the breath escaping through my nose in the form of a soft snort. Those soldiers and their horrors were an ocean away now. What did I have to be afraid of? The corners of my mouth slid upwards to form a small, apologetic smile. “You scared me,” I said, a shiver snaking its way down my spine. I felt… something odd, but the feeling was quick. Fleeting. I didn’t know what he was capable of and I let him right in.


“I am Cineres, who are—”


“I can take you home.”


I stiffened, turning my head to peer curiously at the pointy-toothed woman.


She was something else, something wild, something beautiful, something otherworldly. I didn’t really feel worthy of being in her presence. “I don’t want to go home,” I told her, frowning. I’m not sure what compelled me to do it, really, but I found myself inching closer to the handsome stallion, slightly unnerved by the gorgeous female’s presence. My wings fidgeted nervously at my sides.

Was I really so insecure?

@[cringe] @[Nilam]

[cringe]

how to be a monster:
1. learn the taste of dirt and pain.
2. teach it to others till your knuckles bleed.
3. see if that makes it easier to breathe.

Her fright at his words is palpable, and a part of him jumps at it. She is a skittish thing, and he wonders how fast she is. He could be crude, could set upon her with nothing more than the bludgeoning weapons of hooves and teeth, yet –
Yet he is not so polished in those. He is no fighter, he prefers his battles to be made with his advantages – with them disarmed by fear and welcoming his hungry mind.
She gives her name, and then -
Before he can sup too fully on her fear another thing emerges – from the river, now – and it’s more monster than mare, and he is curious but also bothered, because she had been his prey first, couldn’t she see that?
But then, what respect do monsters have for boundaries?

His breath exhales in a sharp huff, meant for the kelpie’s ears, and then he is smoothed again, looking back at the girl.
“Cineres,” he says, and he does his best to make his voice soothing, make it something sweet she might want to follow, “you don’t have to go home. Not if you don’t want to.”
“This place,” he says, nodding to the expanse of the river, but meaning more, meaning all around them, “is quite full of monsters.”
She is close enough to touch. He considers it, but does not do so – not yet. There will be time enough for that, he thinks, or hopes, although there’s still the kelpie to consider.
“Where did you come from, Cineres?”
Her name, again. As if they are friends.

cringe

@[Nilam] @[Cineres]

[Nilam]

Nilam

The stallion on the riverbank... he is something else. Something alike. A predator in perhaps a less literal sense of the word than goes for her; but honestly she doesn’t care. It’s the victim, the girl, that she is more interested in; girls, especially pretty ones, seem to be ones she usually... likes instead of just... discards. That stallion, were he not a predator in every sense of the word that she recognized, might have been in more trouble where it concerned Nilam-the-monster. ”There are, indeed,” she admits casually when he mentions that there are monsters. ”They only look different from the ones you already know?” she ends her sentence in a bit of a question, guessing at the girl’s jumpiness and not wanting to go home. ”I could take you to my home’s waters, if that’s better with you.” she offers the girl - then regards the stallion, her eyes saying you too, I suppose, in one shrugging motion of her half-submerged body.

The stallion asks the question that Nilam doesn’t think Cineres - if that’s her name then - wants to answer, wants to think about. For now, she lets it happen, but should he scare her away she will have to intervene the next time. There is always a next time for Nilam... perhaps, she wonders, she should ‘save’ the girl from a monster. As long as he doesn’t know about her little sideways gift, she can try and endless amount of times anyway.

there is no new wave
only the sea

@[Cineres]