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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


    eyes like sinking ships; minah
    #1
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    Targaryen stays in Loess longer than he had anticipated. He spends the days thinking about Cheri and convincing himself that he should probably leave, and he spends the nights kissing Cheri and listening to his heart telling him that he should never leave. The tobiano knows he should return to Taiga soon, especially with the amount of work Yanhua was giving him before he visited Cheri. Targaryen still isn’t sure if the Guardian was overloading him so that he wouldn’t feel the effects of Cheri’s absence, or if he was trying to keep the tobanio away from Loess in the first place.

    Regardless, Targaryen had abandoned his responsibilities to see Cheri for one day, which had turned into several days, and now he is really neglecting Taiga.

    The sun has barely risen when Targaryen finally says goodbye to Cheri and heads further south. Perhaps he can remain in Yanhua’s good graces by bringing a stranger into Taiga and provide them with a home. It would also make for an easier story once he comes back to Taiga; whether he’s successful in his recruitment or not, Targaryen can explain that he was in the common lands.

    The tobiano takes a path that cuts between the Forest and Hyaline, enjoying the workout in his muscles as he moves up and down the rolling foothills of the mountains. A particularly chilly breeze moves through the air as Targaryen walks, and he pulls his wings closer to his body to protect himself from the cold. However, as he finally settles into warmth, Targaryen is surprised to find that he has no wings.

    In the next instant, the stallion has no idea who he is — nor is he a stallion. He’s a gray wolf, with a thick coat of fur patterned in shades of rock-gray and chocolate brown, and he doesn’t feel the cold any longer. And his mind is a wolf’s, no longer thinking about an electrifying girl or his trip to the Meadow. The wolf is thirsty, and he silently pads to the river cutting through Beqanna to drink. He laps the water quickly, hungrily, and raises his head to scan the surroundings with his brown eyes once he’s drank his fill.
    credit to fangs of bearbones.



    @[Minah]
    Reply
    #2
    she brought the sugar and the mint

    Minah has heard all the great love stories.

    Ichiro and Carwen.
    Mae and Pawn.
    Lilliana and Josef.
    Solomon and Lavender.
    Valerio and Aletta.
    —Malachi and Kalina.

    But none of these, would ever, could ever be her own. She is content with that, with this life she has chosen to live. Some may think it is lonely, the prospect of never having a partner in life, never having children, but Minah believes it to be anything but. Minah is Minah and she never changes. She has always put her family, especially her sister and eldest brother first. She honors her family, their lines, her ancestors. And when she was asked by great spirits if she would serve as her family’s guide, their scale, and bowed that dappling head lower, closed the brown eyes passed from mother to son to daughter, pledged herself.

    No children.
    No love.
    No life that truly belongs to herself.

    But to become a great guardian she hear so much about, to become a wing for her family to fly upon, Minah would take the role up with both honor and grace.

    She is looking for Tarian now. The brother everyone says she looks most like, but with the blue eyes of their grandfather and silver wings sprouting from his back. Orani had said he would be here, somewhere, but Minah is no magician, she is no star talker, and she is no seer. Aletta and her father had both warned Minah and her twin over the dangers of magic, but what Minah would do for a scryer if she could find one. She pushes through the trees and out into the meadow and she thinks, maybe she was braver than she thought, bolder than what everyone assumed.

    Her stomach clenches and feels as though it has risen into her throat when brown eyes watch as the wolf lowers his head to drink. Minah looks to the wolf and she is suddenly all to aware of the reminder that her sister is the brave twin, the bold twin, and Minah is Minah and she never changes.




    @[Targaryen]
    Reply
    #3
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    Perhaps if this weren’t a new trick, a new thing unlocked by the powers of love or sex or Beqanna, something he’s never encountered before — if Targaryen had been born a shifter, he would’ve been able to melt his wolf-body into something that looks more like himself, with his spring-green color and white patches and shimmering wings. As it turns out, this is the very first time he’s become anything other than himself.

    The part of him that could have controlled the beast if he were more practiced is sleeping deep within his mind, tucked into a corner it will not leave until his body grows weary or gives up in favor of his natural state. Targaryen doesn’t dream in this place of his mind, merely falling into an endless dark abyss of nothing — no thoughts, no emotions, no memories.

    The wolf is only thirsty, not hungry, but it watches the gray mare with a predator’s gaze nonetheless. It’s a look passed down from mothers and fathers for generations, from ancestors who have dedicated themselves to become the soil from which the woods grow. The wolf doesn’t have a very good memory of its childhood or pack, and this makes it nervous. Every wolf has a family unless they are reckless or useless or caught in-between. He doesn’t think he’s any of those things, only because there is a strange feeling of comfort, of being wanted, of newfound confidence.

    There are no memories, but he knows he must have a pack somewhere. Even if it is only one other wolf.

    Although he isn’t hungry, the wolf feels energetic. The panicked look in the horse’s eyes is enough to spark his desire for practice. Even if he doesn’t catch the mare, even if he isn’t even close to tasting her, she would make good practice for his hunting skills. So he carefully continues scanning the landscape, almost as if he hasn’t seen her, all while scouting out a way to cross the river.

    There. Smooth, raised rocks peek out of the river’s water, suggesting a shallow path. His gaze (soft, cinnamon-brown, just like the true owner’s) cuts sharply back to the gray mare. Light on his feet, the wolf leaps into motion to cross the river. His heart leaps in his chest at the thought of the horse spinning to run, whether she does it or not, and his muscles bunch to spring across the last segment of the riverbank. Just as he lands on the opposite shore, his body gives up.

    It’s his first shift, after all, and he can’t hold it for very long. The wolf crumples on the mud and patchy grass, limbs and tail and mouth limp. His body shudders, tightens, twists, melts, and in a matter of heartbeats, there’s a winged green tobiano lying with his hind legs in the snowmelt river.
    credit to fangs of bearbones.



    @Minah
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