"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 was roaring in the distance, and something was dripping near where she lay. The touch of something cool against her leg made her jump and scramble to her feet, her head tossing in disorientation. The dark of night began to recede and she quieted her frenzied thoughts as it fled, enough so that she could begin to make out the outline of a cavern opening, and the soft reflection of a stout moon over top the sea.
Memories..she had them. So why was it difficult to remember coming here?
As leisurely as the tide rolling in, those slippery memories became a bit more lucid and bit more perceptible. Hazy still, she shivered against the ocean winds blowing hollow through the cave. Low and mournful and somewhat alluring, the song of the wind made her wonder of the siren stories that Kerrigan used to tell her before she drifted off to sleep. On nights like these the warmth of her mother would have soothed her, would have kept the cold shadows away, would have helped the dreams carry her off to an impossible world.
But she knew she would end up drowning in a sea of ‘what if’s’ and ‘if only’s’ if she kept travelling down this path - a path that she had lost herself on more often than not lately and one that grew harder and harder to bring herself back from. Bones protesting with a dull creak, the painted mare ducked out of the cave before the rise of the water could trap her there for another sleepless night.
Another sleepless night.
The shadows were winning in a game she didn’t understand.
Maybe one day, she’d know enough to be a contender.
As lovely as any place she could ever dream up, Islandres seemed to be the closest thing to sanctuary she could find in Beqanna. The white beaches and swaying palms were a small balm to her tired eyes, but while it was beautiful in its physicalities, she recognized a deeper, underlying draw to the coastal land.
The trail she followed split abruptly, and without much thought behind the choice, she continued straight, choosing neither right nor left in favor of a path untravelled. Maybe it was fate or maybe it was nothing more than a rare stroke of luck that made her pause and look up. Golden and winged, someone was just up ahead, and Catcher’s turbulent grey eyes cast a flurry of questions faster than her lips could deliver.
Cautious and hopeful, she asked softly, “Am I dreaming?”
-So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me-
Since leaving Loess and Narcisus behind her, Eyas kept to her recluse ways on Islandres and only interacted with Gale when he needed her. Her twin spoke in a language without words, and they could communicate over long distances, so more often than not Eyas found herself alone. She preferred it that way, since she was too much of a terrified coward to go and find Santana after her childhood home had been burnt to the ground. All talking ever led to was pain, and typically it was Eyas doing the hurting. Best she stop while she was ahead, before getting in too deep with the dragon-shifter that’d changed her life.
And Catcher? She thought of the gray woman and the promise she’d made her very often - too often for her liking. After breaking off contact for some time, Eyas was almost positive she’d severed whatever tendril of connection they’d had, and she wouldn’t blame the sleepwalker if Catcher never wanted to see her smokey-eyed face again.
Plainly speaking, Eyas had more regrets than answers these days. Short version: she hated herself. Long version: she hated how she’d been the one to sabotage any chance of happiness for herself. In the end it hadn’t been Wolfbane or her mother that’d ruined her life; (not even Carnage if she was being truthful with herself.) Eyas had gone and fucked it all up just fine on her own. “And now you have a while to think about it,” the little witchy mare sighed to herself, having taken an uncharacteristic stroll across the moonlit dunes that night.
The sea rolled in and away from the shore, filling her wayward thoughts with white noise until she stopped, staring blankly out across the surface of the choppy water.
The moment passed. Her thin, black tail slapped around her thighs to dispel the night creatures gathering there, and Eyas turned her back on the wide sea. She left Beqanna resting on the other side of it as well, putting away any thoughts of returning there. She was tired; all she wanted was to head inland toward the mountain, where she could dwell undisturbed in a shallow cave she called ‘home’. Her steady hooves picked their way back up the dunes and nearly took her back into the forests, but she paused and spread her wings - easier to fly there than to walk - when the faint sound of another horse’s hooves caught her attention.
She blinked. Golden and winged, someone was just up ahead, and Catcher’s turbulent gray eyes cast a flurry of questions faster than her lips could deliver.
Eyas blinked again and stopped looking through Catcher’s eyes, staring at her with a disbelieving frown.
“I certainly hope not.” Eyas’ whispered, her voice trembling as if she might chuckle. She turned and took a hesitant step toward the spotted unicorn mare. “But if you are, don’t wake up.” She pleaded.
“Catcher…” Eyas tried to drum up something, anything to make up for the absence long-grown between them, but she came up short. “It’s good to see you again.”
Lame. Horrible. The words fell flat on her tongue.
10-13-2020, 04:00 PM (This post was last modified: 10-13-2020, 04:01 PM by Santana.)
He'd done his best to put the events of Loess behind him. The fires had thrown ash far and wide, clouded the skies for miles. It hadn't just been Loess that had. been torched, he discovered. Several lands had met the wrath of fire and violence, evidence that stretched beneath him when he'd left the tragic scene behind him.
Eyas' family was at the epicenter of the chaos. He'd known that. It was different seeing it up close though, with the high emotions strong in the air and grief touching everything. Even him. His was a removed sort of sorrow, though. The kind that occurred when you can only watch as others hurt. When you know there's nothing you can do in the moment, when you have to stand by and let events unfold.
It was a sensation he couldn't shake, even days after the fires had gone out. The skies cleared. The sun shone again. And still the glistening stallion could not rid himself of the anguish in Eyas' eyes when she'd tumbled from the sky, too late to save her parents from the tragedy of a story run its course.
He had an idea of where to find her. The same out of the way island that had housed her when their paths had crossed the last time. A beautiful, tranquil place that he'd only visited briefly before. There had been no need to linger, before. Even now he was struggling to decide if he would be welcome at all this time around. If he had anything to offer a woman who'd so recently lost both of her parents.
The pale man's breath gusted from his chest. From their first meeting, Santana had been plagued by a sense of responsibility for the mare who owned more courage than common sense. That feeling hadn't dwindled over time, and realizing that made up his mind for him. He had to at least check in on her. For his own peace of mind, he told himself.
His leathery wings cupped the air as he winged away from the mainland. For a few minutes, there was nothing but white capped waves and cloud streaked sky and him. Steady, strong wingbeats brought him ever nearer to the palm laden island, rushing wind drowning out the anxiety he'd been doing his best to ignore.
Of course, it all came flooding back as soon as his hooves thudded into the sand.
He halted on the beach, nose quivering uncertainly. There was a mountain of "what ifs" before him. What if Eyas didn't want him here? What if he'd flown all this way only to be turned away? What if she had wanted him there from the first, and now she thought he'd given up on her? What if, what if, what if.... He looked longingly back toward the mainland. There was a nice cozy cave there, there was a field of grass and a forest full of rabbits and there was no complicated feelings.
He dithered a moment longer, definitely overthinking the decision that had already been made. He was here, after all. He needed to know she was alright. Or as alright as a horse could be after what she'd come through.
At last he was able to make his feet move beneath him. After that it was only a matter of tracking the scent of the woman he was after, untangling it from the lush jungle and the heady sea. She was here. He knew she was. Yet it took him almost an entire circuit of the island before he laid eyes on the golden mare.
A golden mare, and a silvery grey one. Both faces he recognised, though together they were a surprise. Together, they twisted his guts in ways he'd not expected.
Tana approached the pair at a steady walk, a half-smile on his pink-pale lips. "Eyas, Catcher... You know each other?" He asked, suddenly self conscious. As familiar as he felt with each mare on their own, he had the nagging sensation that he had walked in on something... intimate, in finding them together. Something that he had unwittingly interrupted.
"I'm sorry, I can come back another time," he said, taking a step back. "I just. I had to make sure you made it home safely, Eyas. After what happened. I had to see that you were alright." He cleared his throat awkwardly, mismatched eyes on the golden pegasus, before turning to the greyscale unicorn. He smiled softly at her. She was his oldest friend, and there was definite call that they catch up soon.
I certainly hope not...But if you are, don’t wake up.
Catcher met her words with a pleasant smile and an equally pleasant voice, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Time was a funny thing, something she’d long ago given up trying to keep track of. It was too complicated, too painful to try to measure most days, and served to do nothing more than dampen an already usually dour mood the longer she considered its passing. It might’ve been days or years since they had seen each other last, in a world built from brightest galaxies and darkest of nights, and a memory so often visited she’d marvel that she hadn’t worn a hole in its intangible fabric. But to the dreamer, the time wasted on wondering whether or not Eyas was alive, or if she had perished amidst her family’s tumult, began to burn again, and the gleam of her dark eyes went dull in response.
Whatever blame there is though, she doesn’t place it amongst the burdens of Eyas, instead letting it settle across her own shoulders. Perhaps if she had been able to dream as she had so long ago, without the shadows and demons that awaited her behind the darkness of closed eyes, then maybe she might’ve been able to feel it. Maybe she might’ve been able to graze the world of the beyond and felt her presence there, or lack of, and maybe she might’ve been able to find hope and comfort in that.
But Catcher hadn’t been able to, and she’d suffered greatly at the hands of her own incapabilities.
“It’s more than good to see you, Eyas,” she murmured, taking a slow few steps closer, “but I’m struggling to find a single word that could even come close to conveying how happy and relieved I am to see you now. No word feels right enough.” She smiles again at the golden mare, something closer to winsome than before.
Eyas, Catcher... You know each other?
As unexpected as his voice was to her tilting ears, the painted mare is filled with such a feeling of gratifying nostalgia, and readily meets his pale, questioning gaze with a nod of affirmation and timid grin. “I think we’ve known each other for nearly as long as I’ve known you, Tana, or something like that.” Different questions rise to her conscious front, and she ponders how her two closest companions might’ve come to know each other, but she hasn’t the chance to ask it, as the stallion has already turned towards excusing himself from their company. “No no, don’t go, Tana. I mean..” she pauses to shoot a glance towards Eyas, uncertain of what her own attitude might be in regards towards him joining them, “I can only speak for myself, but I’d love nothing more than for you to stay.”
The dreamer’s gaze turns hopeful then and lets herself slip into an easy spell of present calm - the first time she’s been able to do so in years.
