"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
The most vivid memory is of fighting for his life.
Teeth and bone. Had it been dark then?
Or has it only been dark since?
He has not been back to the Cove since he and his sister met the Father. He wonders now if they truly meant to protect the Mother or if they were merely cutting their teeth on their first taste of defiance. He wonders, too, if the Father had truly meant to kill them. Wonders if he would be disappointed to find that the Children had survived.
Perhaps this makes him a coward, his unwillingness to stay in that place where the Father found them. The place where the Mother had threatened to tear them from her womb with her own teeth and then cast them out into the world without direction. Or perhaps it makes him wise. The only thing that matters, he thinks, is that his sister knows where to find him.
He is the son of monsters, there is little to fear in the darkness. He has fought for his life and he will do so again. Galaxies glint on his skin as he moves through the forest now, peering into the shadows. He has seen the things that lurk. They look so much like the things made of bone that the Father had sent after the twins some years ago but they cannot be the same, can they? Though this particular creature, Gravitas, he would not be surprised to learn that the Father was responsible for this.
He had gone to the Mountain once in an effort to find a way to protect himself and his sister from the Father. He had been so young then. Weak. He has since abandoned the quest, aware now that it is not up to him whether he lives or dies and there is some tremendous comfort in this as he ventures further into the belly of the beast.
@[The Monsters] please mess with his snake shifting AND his uncontrollable shooting star manipulation
03-05-2021, 02:27 PM (This post was last modified: 03-05-2021, 02:47 PM by Laia.)
She lingered in the common lands. Exposing herself to danger, yes, but also to experiences that life has so far been lacking. Tephra had been home all her life, and she'd so rarely wanted anything the jungle kingdom could not provide. Not until the sun had gone out and with it her tranquillity.
A childhood of play and exploration had refined her into a happy young mare, with a predilection for perfection. A place for everything and everything in its place, that was how she liked it. Maybe that was why the sun going out had so completely disturbed her. It was the greatest, most basic violation of expectation. It felt like a personal insult, when everything else was falling apart.
So she lingered, sometimes alone, sometimes with her twin beside her. Today, she was solitary, and grateful for it. There was a perverse beauty in the darkness. A sort of permission for the ugly and the hurtful to exist where no one could see it or condemn it. The monsters were, of course, the greatest example of this. But so were the others who walked the light deprived lands. When predictability was denied, what was left but survival?
She was lean and wirey now, scraped down from the inside out of all that was unnecessary for existence. The lush grasses of her childhood memories were long gone, withered and dry underhoof. She made do with prickly, stubborn brush and tough treebark. Sour tasting water and questionable (but plentiful) fungi. Her family would give help if she asked for it. She wouldn't though. Not when there was so much to be learned out in the shadows.
When a noise came out from not far off enough, her head rose to look. An old instinct, one she couldn't shake. There was far more to be gleaned with ears and nose than the eyes could hope to offer anymore. Wings held half-unfolded, her ears swirled, searching for the sound to make itself known again. Monster, equine, some mundane but still hungry woodland creature; any of these were possible. Until the cautious rhythm of hooves on loam came again, and she relaxed minutely.
Hunger came in many forms, and none were safe for a mare all alone. "Who's there," her voice carried sharply across the space between them, for all the world sounding as confident as she wished she felt.
@[gravitas]
@[The Monsters] please mess with Laia's fall color changing!
There is no way of knowing how far the voice has carried, whether its owner is standing two yards away or several hundred. He is on the verge of answering, pulled suddenly from whatever thought he had been lost to, when he feels the serpent fall abruptly. There one moment and then gone the next. And then a cold blast of air chases a rush of diamonds across his skin as he exhales. It is this that startles him the most and, for the space of a breath, he is at a loss.
He arches his neck, peering through the dark at his own shoulder, which glints in what precious little light exists here.
What strikes him most, he thinks, is how tired he is. There is absolutely no explanation for this. He cannot call upon the serpent’s vision to pull himself into sharper focus, cannot gaze into the shadows and pull her into focus either. The serpent is gone, replaced instead with the diamonds. And in no time, these fall away, too. But he can feel them still, lurking just beneath the surface of his skin.
He turns his face in the direction he’d caught her voice swimming from the darkness. “Does it matter?” he asks the shadows, weary. He is nothing, no one. He remembers the dragon who’d tried to teach him manners once, as if the master of Death himself had not tried to teach him once. As if an army of bone had not tried to teach him. Teeth and ivory. Blood splashed across galaxies.
“Does any of this matter?” he asks this quieter, not expecting an answer. Doesn’t even want one, not really. If she wants to make herself known, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t and he’ll be on his way and he’ll take these diamonds with him and things will be different but not really.
@[Laia]
@[The Monsters] i love it but big baby dumb dumb doesn't deserve to fly let's see what happens to his flight without wings
Her head tilted at the odd question, skin prickling uncomfortably. With less caution than was due, she stepped nearer the hollow voice. There was a depth of despair there that nudged her on, the vague feeling that maybe she could help overriding any common sense. She had precious little of that to begin with.
Mulling over the question, she shrugged unseen. "It's been quite awhile since I last had a philosophy lesson, but- no, I don't think so?" She mused aloud, smiling softly into the dark. "But even though it probably won't make any difference in to grand scheme of things, I'd still like to know. For my own sake." Her dappled wings rustled as she moved, intentionally allowing him to know where she was. An offering of trust in the dark.
"Again, probably doesn't matter. I'm likely just to be a blip on your day, never to be thought of again. But my name is Laia; Do with that knowledge what you will." Another offering, one entrenched in days of sunlight and warmth, before fear ruled the world. Days that seemed eons ago.
Some stray hint of light, perhaps shed by the diseased sun, caught on the back of the one who she was speaking with. A glint of color that she thrilled in for the brief moment it existed. Barely more than a heartbeat long. It was blue, though, she'd been sure of it.
Her softness does not soften him. He is not a soft thing, Gravitas. But the weariness has seeped into the marrow of his bones and he feels no overwhelming urge to punish her for the kindness she offers him.
He does not know what it means to be known. Tirza knows him, certainly. His sister knows him better than anyone, better even than the viper that calls herself Mother. He wonders if he should consider this bond sacred, if he should shirk this stranger’s attempts to learn his identity, if he should turn to leave and let her wonder. This is what he was made for, this specific kind of casual cruelty.
There is no reason for him to stay and yet. And yet his feet stay rooted there and he turns his gaze in the direction of the soft rustle of her wings, staring darkly into the shadows. “My name is Gravitas,” he tells her and, for now, that is all he says, such a stark contrast to all of the things she has said in such a short span of time.
Will he remember her name? He cannot see her so there is no chance that he will remember her face. Will his memory of her take the shape of a phantom? He shifts his weight, uncomfortable with the idea of having any memory of her at all.
“How do you find the darkness?” he asks, keen to shift his thoughts to anything else at all.
@[Laia]
@[The Monsters] please mess with his self shrinking!
