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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


    [open]  take me to where the devil won't go
    #1

    It’s raining by the time Derelict arrives at the playground - a misty rain that turns the whole world into shades of grey. It causes the flames crowning her head from her horns to sizzle and she laughs the first time she realizes where the noise is coming from, shaking her head back and forth to hear it a little more.

    But then she worries that her flames might go out and she tries her best to shield herself with her bone wings until she can scramble under the boughs of a tree. Once there, the dark filly shakes herself, bones rattling against her armoured sides as she does - another sound that makes her smile. Sometimes she wishes she was soft like Ozzy but it doesn’t seem awful, the idea of being like their mother. Her armour has been hardening but it is still pliable, still a little soft so it can stretch and grow with her.

    She’s not thinking about that, though.

    She’s thinking about the rain and how it’s interfering with her plans - and she hisses at it from her shelter as if that will somehow cause it to dissipate and leave her alone.



    @[ratty] @[Vanilla Custard] and any!
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    #2

    Mondrian

    Mondrian was asleep near the base of a leafless tree when the rain came on and the glassy ice that has formed over his curled body holds him in place as firmly as if he is a statue. He can barely breathe, and that is what wakes him at first, when his lungs scream and his brain cries out for consciousness. His first instinct - with his every nerve firing at once - is to leap to his fet, but his legs barely respond and he cannot pull his head and neck from their place on the damp ground. Startlingly blue eyes open and try desperately to focus but the icy shell is like wavy glass and the world swims until he's dizzy.

    He stops trying to look, screws his eyes shut again with the smallest sigh.

    It isn't the first time that this has happened or he might panic more at the thought of being frozen in place until a thaw comes. It's just that the cure comes at a strange price and he hesitates. Even as the ice grows thicker and his breath more shallow, as the holes around his nostrils slowly close so the air struggles through with a small, hollow whistle, he hesitates. Until something bright lights up the backs of his eyelids, something that shines like fire and the boy re-opens his eyes, forgetting that he cannot see through the streaks of ice.

    It is fire, warm and bright and blazing. This cure is not much better, the flames make him nervous. The bearer of the flame will almost certainly see the small glowing statue of a sleeping colt where none should be. They will almost certainly investigate and the idea of fire brushing over his skin makes him shudder. It strengthens his resolve, though.

    He whispers softly to himself, a distraction from the creeping feeling of flesh turning to memory, and he does not know if it happens slowly because he is no good at the shift, or if it is because Death has no reason to hurry. It will not be denied or hastened. In Its own time, Death takes his body and at last, the apparition of a cracked black colt finally stands clumsily as if he has not moved in hours. The glass shell of his tomb still sleeps unbroken and his hooves extricate themselves carefully though there is no reason for him to move so gingerly. He is no longer capable of damaging the fragile structure.

    He turns then to the girl burning brightly beneath his tree with wary blue eyes the glow faintly in the dark. He cannot imagine how she stands the fire on her head.

    "Does... Does that hurt?"

    His voice is hollow, mournful, drifting through the haze of Death half a breath behind the flutter of his lips.
    Photo by Greysen Johnson on Unsplash


    @[Derelict] @[Vanilla Custard]
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    #3
    Nasrin sleeps in the pond, as she usually does.

    Rain tickles above her sleepy, scaled head, and the young serpent is unbothered by the sound. Beneath the water’s surface, most everything is serene, and the soft ticking of water hitting water does nothing to scare or disturb her. She hums softly in her sleep, rocked by the minimal currents and ripples the rain makes.

    The hisses above the water are strange, and she lifts an eyelid as she muses if she should at all investigate; it is the weird sound of... hollow, of death, of emptiness that draws her attention. Not to what was being said, because despite her better hearing in the serpent shape, she’d been too drowsy to bother making sense of the words. But what even is that, she wonders?

    Her dark serpent head glistens with wet scales as it rises from the pond. Vibrant, gleaming golden eyes study... what looks like a ghost and a monster. Her head tilts and she grins, her fangs showing, and then she slithers her way unto the grass far enough to shift back.

    The black girl glistens with vague dots of gold sparkled all over her main body, the dual color changing into galaxy-like legs when one looks down. Her black mane and tail are still wet while she approaches the duo, and her face looks purely inquisitive. ”What are you?” she questions the both of them; whoever answers first it doesn’t matter. Both shapes are new to the shifter girl.



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    @[Derelict] @[Mondrian]
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    #4

    Truthfully, Derelict hadn’t noticed the glowing statue. Perhaps the light might’ve drawn her attention if there wasn’t already fire flickering in the corner of her eyesight at all times. It’s the movement that draws her, a predatory snap of her head towards it as she watches something that is almost another foal beneath the tree she took shelter then. There’s something not quite right about them, as though they are not fully there and Derelict moves her head around a little to confirm that she can actually see through their body.

    It’s fascinating!

    And it is only then that she sees the frozen colt body - but as he isn’t moving, Derelict doesn’t give him much thought just yet. “No.” She answers simply, with a small smile as she takes him in. Her head moves forward slightly because she has suddenly wondered what this foal apparition tastes like (air? blood?) but it jerks back when someone else joins - someone looking like they had spent a little too much time in the rain.

    The armoured girl tilts her head slightly, forgetting the drizzle for a moment as her gaze flicks back and forth between these two odd foals and their questions. “I’m a girl!” She responds incredulously to the other foal that shows up, her prehensile tail twitching a little behind her in surprise over this question. Wasn’t that obvious? She was another foal just like them!

    “Were you swimming?” She asks the filly just because it feels like it’s her turn to ask something - and the idea of anyone willingly submerging themselves in water or being in the rain long enough to get so drenched is both novel and horrifying at the same time.



    @[Mondrian]
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    #5

    Mondrian

    Hi!

    A transparent ear twists back at the voice behind him before he can stop it, but Mondrian keeps his gaze resolutely forward, on the dark filly's blazing horns, on the damp that clings the second filly's skin. He does not look behind him.

    Hello?

    No, he desperately ignores the bit of shade that tries to get his attention, offers the foals standing in front of him a soft, perplexed, expression. No, the Flaming One says. What are you, the Wet One asks. Neither girl takes notice of the second child-sized wraith standing in their midst.

    I know you can hear me. I saw you hear me!

    Mondrian's heart might skip a beat if it weren't as still as the ice he left behind. A touch of panic blooms within his belly though, and he screws his eyes shut tight.

    "I didn't hear you!" He cries out suddenly, his own words contradicting him as he leaps away from the dead child and towards the little xenomorph girl blindly, "I can't hear you!"

    His body falls right through her, as she might walk through smoke or fog, and then he stumbles, trips over his own feet or the memory of someone long-dead, the memory of a rock or a stick - one washed away, rotted away, eons ago - that once tripped some other child. Memories can be perilous. He falls at the sea-serpent's feet, landing half-buried in the earth without disturbing a single grain of soil. The denied ghost child has faded but he can feel her sadness on the air like a sigh.

    Guilt burns in his chest, joining the fear, and then, a flood of embarrassment. He wonders why these emotions follow him into the Afterlife when nothing else does. What were they talking about?

    "I mean... Uh... I can hear you. And, um, I'm a boy?" He offers them what he hopes is a convincing grin.

    Nailed it.

    Photo by Greysen Johnson on Unsplash


    @[Nasrin]
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    #6
    The see-through boy is definitely odd. He seems to see things that aren't there? Nasrin isn't exactly interested though; she snickers when the fire-horned girl asks about the water with such disgust, that the serpent-shifter steps closer to her on purpose. "Yes. Are you afraaaid?" she giggles and shakes her crest, raining a few droplets on the alien one.

    She is utterly distracted by the boy's hollow, non-existent screams. I didn't hear you! I can't hear you! and then he falls through the fire-marked girl. Nasrin stares at him with wide eyes. ...um, I'm a boy? To this Nasrin snorts and rolls her eyes. "Duh. I'm a girl. AND a sea-serpent," she presents herself proudly, her scales shimmering - just before she remembers she probably shouldn't shift on dry land.

    Prancing in place excitedly over having found new playmates, she looks from one to the other. Forgotten that they hadn't told her exactly what they were, she then looks to the boy with a sudden realization. Wide-eyed, she says... "Oh no! You can't play tag!"

    @[Derelict]
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