07-16-2020, 02:08 PM
Atop a red mesa in full sun, shadows swarm suddenly, spinning and swirling angrily, hissing at the light that whips them and tears them to shreds like war torn pennants, though few would notice their snarled whispers. Beryl does not know if they hate the sun so - she is sure they do, of course - or if they only echo the discomfort that etches her sharp-featured face into a deep frown as she steps from the damp, cool, air of Nerine and into the thick swelter of Pangea. Her skin prickles with sweat and her tail is alive with agitation, snapping side to side against her golden flanks. Like the air, panic chokes her and her breath is short through flared nostrils, but she steps out from the boiling shadows and lets them go, watching jealously as they rush away to the cracks and crevices between the rocks.
Red mare. Blue eyes. Golden flame.
Beryl swallows hard and grits her teeth together. A red mare in a red land. The dust of the place settles on her coat like ash and snow, dulling the white of her mane and tail, and the young mare thinks bitterly that everyone who lives here must be red as the sandstone cliffs. But she had said that she would look - no one else in Nerine could easily bring Lilliana home if she were in trouble, if she were sick or injured or trapped, so it fell on her shoulders to find the crimson woman. Beryl is not a bloodhound, however, and if Lilliana's scent was ever here in this particular spot, it has long since been baked away by an unforgiving sun. Dark eyes scan across what can be seen from her perch and the barrenness flavors her fear with gloom. Where to even start?
water
The palomino's golden head nods to nobody visible. Yes, water, the shadows are right - find water, find someone. At the mesa's edge she finds a crude slope and descends on careful hooves into the maze of canyon where once sea but now wind has carved the impenetrable rock, her heart fluttering like butterflies caught in a jar. Not her first time among these impassive stone walls. Curled ears pin back, tracing the curve of her poll until they almost disappear among the white and gold and dusty red, giving her a snake-like profile. Can aliens be torn apart as easily as dragons in dreams? A glimmer of teeth shines between her lips, a grimace, but she knows that it will be easier, faster, wiser to simply disappear again into shadows.
A tired wind brings the scent of something green and she follows it, finds the wide secret river at the kingdom center. Red mare. Blue eyes. Golden flame.
At the bank, a white wing lies severed - no, not severed, torn. The scent of blood is faint and rot has found the limb, though there is not much flesh on it to be dissolved. Bone and sinew and feather, drying out in the sun, only the ragged fleshy base of it black and soft. The sodden earth is churned, but offers no answers and though she pauses to consider the horror of what is before her, there's no reason to assume it has anything to do with her search for Lillianna. Surely Eurwen would have mentioned if she'd had wings, and yet, the disembodied wing is the closest thing she has found to any living body within the wretched canyons, so she investigates it warily, distaste written plain as day across her face.
Red mare. Blue eyes. Golden flame.
Beryl swallows hard and grits her teeth together. A red mare in a red land. The dust of the place settles on her coat like ash and snow, dulling the white of her mane and tail, and the young mare thinks bitterly that everyone who lives here must be red as the sandstone cliffs. But she had said that she would look - no one else in Nerine could easily bring Lilliana home if she were in trouble, if she were sick or injured or trapped, so it fell on her shoulders to find the crimson woman. Beryl is not a bloodhound, however, and if Lilliana's scent was ever here in this particular spot, it has long since been baked away by an unforgiving sun. Dark eyes scan across what can be seen from her perch and the barrenness flavors her fear with gloom. Where to even start?
water
The palomino's golden head nods to nobody visible. Yes, water, the shadows are right - find water, find someone. At the mesa's edge she finds a crude slope and descends on careful hooves into the maze of canyon where once sea but now wind has carved the impenetrable rock, her heart fluttering like butterflies caught in a jar. Not her first time among these impassive stone walls. Curled ears pin back, tracing the curve of her poll until they almost disappear among the white and gold and dusty red, giving her a snake-like profile. Can aliens be torn apart as easily as dragons in dreams? A glimmer of teeth shines between her lips, a grimace, but she knows that it will be easier, faster, wiser to simply disappear again into shadows.
A tired wind brings the scent of something green and she follows it, finds the wide secret river at the kingdom center. Red mare. Blue eyes. Golden flame.
At the bank, a white wing lies severed - no, not severed, torn. The scent of blood is faint and rot has found the limb, though there is not much flesh on it to be dissolved. Bone and sinew and feather, drying out in the sun, only the ragged fleshy base of it black and soft. The sodden earth is churned, but offers no answers and though she pauses to consider the horror of what is before her, there's no reason to assume it has anything to do with her search for Lillianna. Surely Eurwen would have mentioned if she'd had wings, and yet, the disembodied wing is the closest thing she has found to any living body within the wretched canyons, so she investigates it warily, distaste written plain as day across her face.