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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]  like a prayer for which no words exist
    #1
    Herrin rolls onto his back and stretches slowly, his clawed feet batting at the midmorning light. His movements disturb the black colt sleeping beside him, who rolls to his feet to shake leaf-litter from his dragon wings and matte black scaled hide.

    “You were supposed to wake me up!” shouts Quell from between his seal-sharp teeth. “Now we’re gonna be late!”

    The younger boy bares his flat teeth at his elder brother and rises and does quick roll of his shoulders and shakes out then refolds the bat-like wings. Quell looks down in time to see the wings fade entirely into Herrin’s sides, and gets only a moment of the queasy sensation of watching some else’s shift. Now Herrin is nothing but a brightly colored buckskin, with shiny bits of gold decorating the edges of his tobiano white. Quell is unable to hide as much of his magics, but he does run his tongue along teeth that now grow dull and horselike. In sleep, he takes the shape most natural, but the world in which they live is more at ease with things that look harmless.

    They make their way from their home in Sylva’s northernmost woods, toward the common lands. More specifically toward the place in the Meadow meets the Forest and the biggest strawberries ever grow. The boys have been watching them all spring, sneaking away from the watchful eyes of their elders. It has been a great adventure (save for the few days where fires burned in Loess and restricted their ability to check on the fruits.

    When the pair reach the southeastern edge of the Sylvan territory, it becomes apparent what they were late for.  Pacing back and forth in a worn furrow is a neon green colt with a lilac halo. He is scowling, and his not-blue eyes are irritated.

    “You missed it! I had the timing perfect with the sunrise and the explosion and ughhhh.” Neon green becomes bright orange, and Quell swoops in to assuage their friend with apologies about missing the performance. Herrin rolls his eyes (out of sight of the dramatic Larrikin), and looks around. It doesn’t look like anyone else had shown up for Larry’s performance either, so the cheetah resigns himself to staying, and does his best to prod Larrikin into a good mood until the older boy has to leave for some sort of family assembly in the later afternoon.

    ’What’y’wanna do now?’ is the last thing Larrikin hears from Herrin, the question as quiet in his mind as it is loud in Quell’s ears.
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    #2
    AUBERGINE
    As Aubergine grew older, she found herself becoming more and more curious about the rest of Beqanna. When she had been very little, her mother’s stories had been enough to satisfy her wonder, lying curled in the soft meadow-grass as Anonya murmured about old valleys and dales, chambers and tundras. And now there were volcanoes and white-sand beaches, dark forests and snow-capped mountains.

    Eventually, as she reached nearly a year old, the stories were not enough.

    Today, she seeks out Sylva, the place where the trees appear to be permanently suspended in autumn. She has developed a certain kind of fondness for the season, an appreciation for the beauty when the leaves die and fall.

    No one seemed to find her blight nearly as lovely.
    Maybe because when the plants around her die, they do not turn pretty colors; they only darken and rot.

    She is a walking contradiction, with her ethereal glow and lovely face, but grass that sometimes turns black and dies underfoot. She remembers the first time she had touched one of the flowers that were woven into her mother’s mane and had watched as it withered away—shriveled and died, just because she had unknowingly willed it to. It was a curse from her grandfather, her mother had said; her mother did not speak of Dhumin with any kind of affection, and Aubergine learned not to press.

    She walks the forest, her sage-green eyes—just like her father’s—scanning upwards to the orange and red leaves and the sky that peaks from behind them. It is then that she hears voices—are they in her head or being spoken out loud?—and her small ears flick forward, her heartbeat quickening with hope. She rounds the corner to find two colts, maybe a little older than her, or perhaps just taller, and she feels a sudden wave of shyness.

    “Um...hi,” she says to them, stepping further into the open, her green eyes glittering and uncertain. “I...I forgot someone might actually live here.” She can feel her cheeks flushing warm, remembering now that her mother had warned her that not everyone was fond of strangers waltzing across their borders, not even innocent young girls. “My name is Aubergine,” she offers, hoping that an introduction might make up for her rude intrusion.

    @[Herrin]
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