"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
11-25-2020, 07:16 PM (This post was last modified: 11-25-2020, 07:16 PM by Stellaria.)
It has not yet been explained to her how she exists. She has a father but he insists there is no mother. He grows evasive whenever the subject comes up and although Stellaria is still young, she is already annoyed by this tactic.
So she leaves. Not for good, probably, but she craves the company of someone else for at least a night.
It does not occur to her that wandering on her own at night is probably not the best choice she could have made, but she feels comfortable beneath the stars - like nothing could touch her under them. Her bright blue eyes dance with excitement as she finds her way into the open meadow. She is quick to move out from the shelter of the trees until she is surrounded by nothing but grass and stars.
She hums softly to herself as she looks up at the sky, tracing paths in the dazzling lights. Although her father will not tell her about her close family, he’s told her of the star that fell to earth and started their family - how she’s related to the stars and that is why they both carry them on their coats. It feels like a fairytale.
Stellaria just has not decided whether she wants to be the princess or the dragon.
He should not have strayed so far from his home, Worship.
But the legs ache with their want to wander and he knows, even as young as he is, that he has no business denying them.
So, he goes. Not for any reason in particular except that sometimes he feels compelled to move.
There is nothing that he’s running from. There is no unhappiness in Tephra, but sometimes he thinks that he is perhaps more intense than the rest of them. Certainly more intense than his father would want him to be. If intense is the right word for it.
He feels things so profoundly. As if they have been carved out of his chest and cast out into the world. As if all of the things in the world belong to him exclusively.
And it is not magic that makes him feel this way but rather some sort of defect in his hardwiring. It is not a blessing but a curse, the way he feels things in the very marrow of his bones. The way he feels things in the beat of his strong, strong heart.
He moves into the meadow, which is where his father met his mother. But he doesn’t know this because he has not known to ask and his parents have never volunteered the information.
If he’d known, perhaps he would think it something poetic.
But he is oblivious as he moves across the great plain, thinking about everything and nothing all at once.
And then he sees her and he feels, quite plainly, as if he has never seen anything else in the world. He sees her and he feels as if she is the only thing that has ever really existed.
He has never seen anything so beautiful.
Nothing that even came close.
He ventures closer. He holds his breath.
He does not blink until he’s close enough to confirm that she is, in fact, real and will not dissolve should he close his eyes even briefly.
“I’ve never seen anything like you,” he whispers.
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
@[Stellaria] Grammarly says this post is 'admiring' lmao
She’s not left alone, staring at the stars, for very long. Stellaria is excited at the prospect of meeting someone new and she drops her eyes and they meet a colt who is so perfectly her opposite in colour it almost feels as though they are inverted forms of one another.
At first, her eyes snap to focus on his wings instead of his eyes - and there’s a stirring of an emotion she does not yet know the name for in the pit of her stomach. Jealousy. She’s watched birds and bats fly and dart across the sky, and against the stars all that can be seen is their silhouette that is as deep as the night itself. As though they were cut from the very sky.
It’s not enough to just look like the night for her. She wants more. Wants what he has, this beautiful colt that reminds her of the dawn of a cold day.
His whisper breaks her focus on those feathered appendages and she smiles, her day-blue eyes focusing properly on eyes she thinks are gold, though in this light it is difficult to tell. “There is no one like me.” She states this as though it’s an indisputable fact - even though she has not lived long enough to know whether it is true. It is something Stellaria feels, something she wishes to be true. She will be disappointed to discover that there are horses with rainbows and stars adorning their coats in the dozens or hundreds, and it will only drive her to further separate herself from their crowd. To become something new, something the world has not seen yet.
Although it would probably be polite to return the compliment, to speak any of the kind thoughts in her mind about his beautiful colouration, she does not. Surely he must know and there is a question she cannot help but whisper herself - her voice reverent. “Can you fly?”
How unfortunate it is that he should be such a serious thing, Worship.
Were he a child prone to softness, perhaps he might have smiled, let loose a breath of laughter. It is plainly evident that she had not spoken the words in jest, but the laughter would not have been born from any amount of humor. Instead, it would have sprung forth from the giddiness of feeling as if he had just been gifted a secret. Some unknown fact of life that he could not have known before she told it to him.
But he does not smile, this boy, and he does not laugh. He just goes on looking in that same breathless wonder, still afraid to blink, lest the reality of the world steals her away from him.
He edges closer, just barely, as if he will not be convinced of her realness until he can feel the heat radiating from her skin. He doesn’t touch her, though. Wouldn’t dare touch her.
She shifts his focus from brilliance to the wings sprouting from his sides. He turns his head to glance back at them, giving them a little shake before he turns his focus back to her face. He shakes his head and this is his first taste of what it means to disappoint. She had asked it with such reverence that he does not think he has the heart to tell her the truth.
But he is not a liar, Worship.
“Not yet,” he tells her and unfurls the baby wings so that the soft feathers rustle as the wind catches them. “Someday I will, my father promised to show me how.” He says this just as seriously as he had said everything else and he sets his mouth in a thin line when he goes quiet again.
And then he draws in a shaky breath and says, “I think I will like flying.”
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
Although Stellaria is mildly disappointed that he cannot show her his skills with flying right this moment, it is a fleeting emotion. There’s enough of a rational mind in her to understand that this is how it works - he is young, he will learn.
And it is hard to dwell on disappointment when he showcases them for him - greedy eyes rapt as he unfurls those wings, as the wind catches the feathers there, and her eyes dance to take in every movement, no matter how small. There’s a small, almost involuntary step forward and her muzzle itches with the desire to touch them. To see what is softer - the feathers or that thin line of his mouth. But she refrains from these innocent curiosities for now, losing herself instead to the daydreams of the sky.
“One day, I’ll have wings too.” She is not sure how that will happen, but there’s a weight to her words - a certainty. A dream she will ensure happens. And that weight is there still in the words that follow as those vibrant blue eyes shift back to his face - dancing along the myriad of colours there. “You’ll teach me when I do.”
A smile then, and she does not look away from his face again. “I’m Stellaria.”
He wonders if her desire to fly has anything to do with the stars splashed across her skin. It seems unfair that he should have been born with wings when he is made of the earth, colored like gems dredged up out of the dirt. The sky does not belong to him and he does not think that he belongs to it. If he could, he thinks, he would give her his wings. He would see to it that she could return the stars and he would be proud to have done it.
He watches her a beat before he tilts his head almost imperceptibly, acutely aware of the small step she takes toward him. He wonders, too, what it would be like to touch her. If he could taste the sky on her skin. If the stars would shimmer and move beneath the weight of his mouth. But he does not touch her either. They remain separate, independent, two things plainly removed from each other.
He does not have whatever courage it takes to close up all that space.
He nods, resolute. She smiles but he does not. “I will teach you,” he echoes and he believes it. He does not doubt it even for an instant. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, though he does not know why.
The name is as beautiful as the rest of her and his expression softens, though he still does not smile. “Stellaria,” he murmurs, breathless. “My name is Worship.” A peculiar name, he thinks. It does not suit him, not in the way that her name suits her.
“Why do you want to fly so badly?” he asks her, quiet, as if he is afraid to ask it.
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
She doesn’t have the words to describe how his name suits him, but she thinks it as her bright eyes take him in with his soft expression and lack of smile. All she manages is a nod when she hears it, as though saying ‘Yes, of course your name is Worship’. It makes complete sense to her.
At his question, Stellaria’s own smile does not fade but her expression grows dreamy - and in her mind she can see her future wings. See herself gliding through warm summer skies and beneath the real stars that seem so distant and pale compared to the colours that dapple her coat. “I feel like I’m meant for the sky. Not just because of the stars on my coat… but it has always felt like there’s something tugging me upwards, forever upwards.”
Always, as if she weren’t very young. As if she had no true concept of what always really meant. That does not matter to her - this dream has been as constant to her as the turn of night and day, as the ground beneath her hooves.
Her gaze refocuses on the present as she pulls herself out of these thoughts, and there’s no embarrassment to be felt in their wake. It is her truth.
Something that tugs her upwards.
Is there anything that tugs at him the same way?
Certainly there is nothing tugging him toward the sky, which makes him feel like a fraud. Like he does not deserve the wings he’d been gifted at birth. If he could give them to her he would, he thinks she would probably make better use of them than he ever could. It puts such a miserable pang in his chest, though he tries not to let the misery show on his face.
He can imagine it just as clearly as she can. The stars against a soft summer sky. The beauty of it makes him ache and he shifts his weight, uncertain what to do with the weight of it. (Why must he feel these things so profoundly? Is it something he inherited or something unique to him?
“If I could give you my wings, I would,” he tells her, solemn, though there is nothing about the thought that makes him sad. Except, perhaps, the fact that he cannot despite how desperately he wishes he could. He moves closer then, if only by inches. Stops himself short, as if he is afraid to get too close.
Stopped short, too, by her question.
His heart adopts a pulse that’s something like frantic as he studies her with those soft golden eyes. How does he explain that he dreams of serpents? Great, draconic things?
He does not know how, so he says instead, “my dreams are not as beautiful as yours.”
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
His solemn offer is met with another of her smiles, appreciation for this serious boy flooding through her and meeting no obstacles. Her blue eyes move to those marvellous appendages and her nose itches with a desire to touch them. Are they as soft as they look? “Thank you, but I could never.” Her voice is reverent again, and she thinks now that this feeling inside her is why his name suits him. It would be very easy to worship him, and she wonders if any other fillies have tried. “They are far too incredible on you, and I would not be able to properly admire them.”
There’s a small pause - the brightness of her blue eyes back to his gold gaze as she continues. “And if you gave me your wings, who would teach me how to fly?” She tilts her head slightly to the side, the grin that spreads full of warmth. She is already far too attached to that theoretical day to give it up, even for wishes and daydreams.
His lack of a real answer to her question only serves to make her more curious - more interested in what his dreams are about. Stellaria dreams of beautiful things, even those that are terrible and fierce.
He’s closer now and it’s easier to get lost in the kaleidoscope of colours on him - her eyes unashamedly tracing patterns of colours on his neck when she speaks. Better to talk, she thinks, than to focus on how her muzzle twitches again with the desire to place a gentle touch on him.
She thinks he is made to be worshipped and he thinks he is made to worship.
Is he a fool to think that he was made specifically to worship the stars splashed across her skin? The beauty of her dreams? The fierceness of her determination?
He has only just met her, this stellar dream girl, but he knows in the marrow of his bones that he will never find another thing like her. For as long as he lives, she is the only thing that will ever set his heart ablaze like this.
And she goes on smiling at him, though he cannot bring himself to do the same. (He does not even feel any inclination to smile, he was not built for it, much too serious for a boy his age.) He thinks he could drown in that smile, wonders if maybe he will dream of this instead. And for the first time his chest swells with hope.
“You could find a thousand lovesick fools who would flay themselves alive for the opportunity,” he tells her and he means it. How deeply he means it! It is too profound a thing for someone so young to say, but it comes out of his mouth in that boy’s voice anyway. Though he knows nothing of lovesickness, nothing of the willingness to flay oneself alive (he suspects he might be quick to understand, though).
“Besides, you would make better use of them than I ever could.”
But he does not argue further. He will not force her to reject him any more.
Instead, he thinks about his dreams. They are dark, though not dark enough to be considered nightmares. He shakes his head and casts his gaze to the swath of earth that separates them.
“Awful,” he admits, quiet, “I dream of ruin.”
you were the boat that breached in the tale of conrad
oh, i loved you with the good and the careless of me
but it all goes bad
