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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


    All that matters is the time we had [yanhua]
    #1

    despite the overwhelming odds, tomorrow came

    The days long, thankfully, but the nights still felt endless. Time had passed since the sun had returned to Beqanna, and many things had changed. Somehow, even though Yanhua and I had not completed our quest, the giant mushrooms had begun to grow within the borders of Taiga–along with the silvergreens and the crystal flowers, two things that we hadn’t even been granted a quest for. It had been a bittersweet discovery to find that we had returned home to them, despite our unsuccessful quest.

    Despite Yanhua’s obvious distaste for the whole journey, I had grown to appreciate it for the lessons it had brought our little (growing) family.

    These are the direction my thoughts have traveled today, on a particularly warm winter day (the days seemed a little warmer than normal since the sun had returned). I wonder where @[Yanhua] had gotten off to, and I find myself occupied with the need to check in with him. Though I see him almost daily, it’s hard to remember to check in. To really check in. It had been a good while since we had talked about his mother or his new duties in her absence or any of the other things that could be bothering him, and I think it’s past time that I do just that.

    I move casually through the giant redwoods, gazing peacefully at the delicate crystal flowers that bloom along the path I am on. They are the most unique flower I’d ever seen or even worked with (which, of course, I had as soon as they’d started to grow). Though their petals are made of the same material as any other flower petal, and are soft and velvety to the touch, they have a very crystalline appearance to them. I am in no rush at the moment, so I simply take time to enjoy the way the sunlight filters down through the trees above and glints softly off the flower petals, shattering the light so it hits the ground in speckles of rainbow light beneath them. It is such a subtle transition that it’s hard to see, but when one really looks, you could see the rainbow colors.

    Wit was old enough that he was starting to explore the forest on his own or with his half-sister, Saturnelle, so I had allowed him to wander while I set about to looking for his father. It is almost a relief to have some time to myself these days, to appreciate the solitude and quiet, but I still miss him, nonetheless. I miss Memorie as well, but she still pops in from time to time, so I can’t complain. I am just happy to see her at all.

    I pass by a giant mushroom, and I stop for just a moment to admire it. This one is tall and very slender, except at the top, which balloons out. And the crown is an intensely bright yellow. I bet this one would glow at night. It just reminds me of the sun rising, as it is just starting to peek itself up over the distant horizon. I glance around, taking note of my surroundings, so I could find this place again. Night is still one of those anxiety-inducing affairs, and somehow, I feel this place would be comforting.

    When I look up, there he is. Yanhua. I don’t know if he has found his way to me, or if this is just where our paths had met on his perimeter scans, but it brings a very soft and affectionate smile to my lips. “M’love,” I say, my voice mimicking the expression on my face. I move toward him in a graceful walk. When I draw up close to him, I pull my neck softly up to his, resting my chin on his back in a gentle embrace that expresses my pleasure of seeing him as well as the love that I feel for him. After a moment, I take a small step back and gently brush his cheek with my lips, nibbling at a lock of his glowing mane as I draw away. “I was just looking for you.”

    I am just about to ask him how he is when something weird happens. The peaceful, affectionate look on my face turns to a mixture of shock, pain, and panic. Everything hurt. In ways that I could never have imagined. It felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside out, and right before my mate, I sink to my knees, collapsing into the red dirt along the path. Those beautiful, crystal flowers I had admired earlier are now crushed by the weight of my body rolling over onto them. And then I lay still. Deathly still.

    Borderline

    Image by Calcifer

     
    OOC - Lol. Surprise! I’m back!
    Reply
    #2



    Time moved in the steady way, and Yanhua thought about little besides what was necessary. He missed his eldest children as a sire was apt to do, wondering about them constantly. Was Cheri happy in Loess? Was Memorie safe out there, wherever life took her? And as he watched Reynard patrol and then disappear again, he wondered if the young stallion was content to stay here forever or if he, too, would want to leave this place someday. When he wasn’t busy chronicling the new sights and animals in Taiga, Yanhua was catching up with Amarine and Staurnelle or looking for Borderline and Wit. The latter of his two wives had been recluse of late: since the two of them had gone to Tephra she’d not been well, but she had recovered miraculously and for that, Yan was grateful.

    During the spells of her more extended absences he pondered the possibility of her leaving Taiga again, like she’d done before Mem had been born. He had tried, in his own unique way, to carve out a section of himself that was wholly hers - but such a task was never easy for a horse who gave openly and equally as Yan. When the days ended and night settled in, Yanhua thought listlessly about her disappearing without so much as a goodbye and he contemplated what his reaction would be if he had to summon the courage to let her go for a second time.

    In all honesty, the prospect didn’t sit well with him.

    So it was a relief to hear her voice calling out to him from up the trail, beckoning him in for a quick kiss and a long nuzzle at the old familiar phrase of “m’love”. He smiled, glad to put his concerns to rest for at least another few weeks until the worry came around again, and drew her closer to his side by nudging her with the flat side of his coppery cheek and the blunt side of his horns. He had opened his mouth to respond much the same way she’d started the conversation, a thought at the back of his mind urging him to ask her where Wit had gotten off to this time, when her expression darkened and like the plants she so loved, Borderline wilted.

    That night in Tephra came rushing back. Yan bent his knees but she was splayed across the crystal flowerbed and motionless before he could catch her, his response a tight and frightened, “Borderline? Borderline!” Instead of the murmuring affection he would’ve had.

    When his call failed to rouse her, Yan pressed his nose to the soft bulge of a vein running down the length of her pale neck and he grew quiet, hoping to feel the pulse he’d felt that night in Tephra when she’d first collapsed. This time, it seemed non-existent. This time, he wasn’t miles away from home. His head shot up, a strange sort of determination setting into the curves of his blue eyes as he drew in a source of power and then expelled a particularly strong wave of echoes drenched in the color red, the sign of alarm and the emotion of intense worry buried into their center. Whomever might be nearby would feel it, would see the image of Borderline collapsed underneath him in hues of crimson and certainly they would come - certainly they would come.

    But he wouldn’t leave that much up to fate. He closed his eyes and prayed quietly, murmuring @[Leilan]’s name over and over again in hopes that the energy and familiarity between them would send the teleporting shape-shifter to their location.

    YANHUA
    Image by Ani2ad


    @[Borderline]
    Reply
    #3
    Leilan
    It's new, this mental ability to... link. He hadn't quite done it on purpose, that's for sure, but perhaps Yanhua is closer to Leilan mentally than he thought; or perhaps it's the responsibility he has given him. Whatever the case, somehow it works. And it's quite annoying actually.

    He would have said something of the like if the situation wasn't so serious; Leilan has also caught the image that Yan had sent out, of Borderline's sudden collapse. There's another memory attached to it, one located in Tephra with a similar idea to it, but that one is overruled by the urgency and the slightly annoying mantra that the chestnut goat kept sending after that.

    So, he teleports to see what's going on. He lands a little away from them, careful that he doesn't end up in a tree or in/on anyone, and brushes wordlessly by Yanhua's side to give the unmoving Borderline a nudge. Cold, he thinks; but there's something stirring inside of her as well, a magic that seems to desperately try to heal.

    Unfortunately, Borderline is better at healing plants than horses. It's interesting though. Perhaps she's immortal? He wonders as silver eyes study the silver-blue mare, then lifts his head to regard the nervous chestnut. "I was never a healer, you know." He tilts his head to look at the horned male, calmly under the circumstances only because he knows something is already going on that will probably fix her. With some of his ice magic, that he draws in from the fog and winter air, he feeds whatever it is that is healing her so she will not run out of magical energy. "But I can definitely try. She can heal plants, right?" he adds for good measure. It's a great back-up plan to turn her into a tree - if she isn't doing that by herself, already. Either way, it's going to be fine.

    But does he have to tell Yanhua yet?
    old, but I'm not that old
    young, but I'm not that bold


    @[Borderline] @[Yanhua]
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #4

    despite the overwhelming odds, tomorrow came

    I have no awareness of the events that follow my death, and the only way I would ever know what happened is through Yanhua’s words and memories. As he lay there beside my body as the warmth slowly left it, something within began to change. A magic leaches into the earth where I lay, and a new growth begins.

    Time is slow to move, it would seem, crawling by like inches a day. I could not feel anything, not the growth that was happening, nor the particularly powerful echo that @[Yanhua] sends into the surrounding forest, nor the energy he exudes in his hope to contact Leilan. I do not know that @[Leilan] arrives, nor do I feel the stream of magic that flows from him to my now cold body, but whatever it is that comes from within me latches onto the magic, absorbing it, utilizing it, and things begin to change.

    My body begins to wilt, as though it is decomposing at an astounding rate, though no rot happens, no stench, no maggots or any of that. Instead, it seems to sink into the ground where something blue begins to grow around it, something unique and unlike anything found within Beqanna–or possibly anywhere else in the world. It is not something small, not something insignificant, but the strange thing grows as large as my body had been, absorbing the nutrients that had once been myself until I am no more, but in my place stands an odd looking plant, or at least the beginnings of a plant–well, it can be assumed it is some sort of plant. What I have become does not look like a plant, though. Instead, it looks like a giant, blue bulb that is spongy to the touch.

    For a time, nothing else happens. I am unaware of what Leilan or Yanhua are doing during this time, nor how much time has even passed, but it wasn’t as long as one would imagine, but probably a lifetime to at least one of the stallions present.

    And then something does happen. The bulb begins to split into obvious petals that expend and grow and bloom into a flower similar to a rafflasia, though larger, and it contains seven long petals that stretch out and elongate into an oval shape. The flower opens to reveal a surprise. Curled tightly within is a body–my body, but not the same as the body that had collapsed earlier. This body is new. Where my old body was beginning to lighten, and my dapples had begun to fade, this one looks the same as the day that Yanhua and I had met, young and vibrant, untarnished by scars that had been there once before.

    It is then that my awareness returns. My blue eyes flutter open, and an ear lifts itself and twitches, and the sounds and sights begin to flood my senses. My nostrils flare, taking in the divine fragrances of the flower from which I’d just been birthed. My legs tremble, and I can feel the soft bed beneath me. I open my mouth, and a breath fills my lungs while my tongue takes in the delicious taste of the pollen that surrounds me. My senses overwhelm me for a moment, and it is all I can do to just lay there.

    It takes time before I realize where I am. The last thing I remember is watching Yanhua’s face turn from adoration to horror before my eyes, and I jolt upward, eyes wide and searching for him. He is still there, along with Leilan. I blink, confused. “Yanhua!” I manage to breathe out as I stumble to my feet and pull myself from the depths of the flower. “Wha–what happened?” I am scared. Unsure of myself. Confused. I look to Leilan, unsure why he is even here, but my attention is mostly for the chestnut stallion as I flounder towards him. I feel like a newborn filly once more, as I stumble forward and nearly fall into the stallion. I use his shoulder to brace myself, and throw my neck over his to steady my shaky legs. And then the tears begin to flow, hot and heavy down my cheeks.

    Borderline

    Image by Calcifer
    Reply
    #5



    If Yan had been privy to Leilan’s thoughts, he might’ve remarked later on about how refreshing it felt to finally be the one who could annoy a stallion thought invincible to such things. As it was in the moment, he happened to be a bit more preoccupied with the state of his dead wife.

    The bulkier of the two stallions is a welcome sight, and Yan looked away from Borderline’s cold body to plead wordlessly with the elder for help. He watched, breathless, as the scaled horse lowered his own nose to nudge here and there at the fallen dappled gray mare, and then blinked back the wave of desperation that came when Leilan announced he wasn’t a healer. It took everything not to bargain for some transference with the mythical King of the North: Yan would’ve offered his own life, his own breath. He would’ve argued that anything was possible if he was willing to pay the price, and for Borderline … he would pay in full.

    But Leilan was working and it gave Yan no time to plot. He watched, silently, with inquisitive blue eyes as the fog and icy mist curled around Leilan and transformed itself into some material that he spread along Borderline’s skin. He said nothing, did nothing even though Leilan asked him a question. The point became moot as Borderline reacted to the Freyr’s touch. Her body, which had only collapsed moments before, began to decay. It withered and melted like snow into the earth, giving life to a blossom that caused Yan to take a few steps backward from the corpse. Blue petals like long tongues unfurled themselves beneath the pile of dead flesh, curling up and over Borderline’s body until she became completely encapsulated, and there they held her tight.

    “What the fuck.” Yan blurted out, turning to glare at Leilan. “Did you just turn my dead wife into a flower?” He asked, at a total loss for what to think.

    This was the exact opposite of what he expected to happen, and he’d been ready to say as much when the bulbous flower burst open with a puff of cloyingly sweet pollen. Yan looked back to the massive thing taking root in the soil of Taiga, and there he saw Borderline - youthful again, unmarked and untouched by the time that’d passed since they first met one another - laying curled and asleep in the center like a bud.

    “Borderline?” He thought to himself in shock. He watched her move, come to life again, and couldn’t disguise the abject horror of it all despite the beautiful scenery of her rebirth. At least … he thought it was her rebirth. Yan had never seen anything like this before and had no reference for such a magical occurrence. He only stood, mouth agape, as Borderline stumbled to her hooves and called out for him, tumbling forward to wrap her neck over his.

    And then he yanked himself away.

    Yan wrenched himself out from underneath her grasp, her tears still fresh on his pelt. He shook his head in disbelief, confusion and near disgust twisting his expression as he distanced himself from the pair of horses in the forest. Honestly the entire ordeal was a bit too much for him to process in the moment, and it had happened so quickly. One moment Borderline was dead and the next… she was this? “Is that even the same Borderline?” He thought disjointedly, looking over the mare he’d known before. The laugh lines in her face were gone, the slight dip in her belly where she’d carried Memorie and Wit disappeared. Her skin was no longer a pale lily white but mostly dappled gray again, all the history and years just gone. Like that.

    “You’re dead.” Yan spat at her. “You died. I watched it happen.” He shook his head. He looked up and away from the mare, back to Leilan. “You’re not a healer you said. She was dead, right?” Yan gasped.

    YANHUA
    Image by Ani2ad


    @[Borderline] @[Leilan]
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    #6
    Leilan
    Something happened, alright. The magic he had been feeding Borderline started to quite literally take on a life on its own, though he only knows how to speed up the process, and dared not to change it. Something indeed to do with her immortality, and her plant healing skill. To him it seemed like sowing the seed or a dying redwood tree to create a new one, but for Yanhua, looking only on the outside, it must seem quite weird. This is confirmed when the golden chestnut blurts out his question - did Leilan turn his wife into a plant? Well, no -not really. He starts to shake his head, but refrains from any true answer when the bulbous flower grows larger and larger, taking up his entire attention span - and magical energy.

    Molten silver eyes watch the process with understanding, ignoring most of Yanhua’s emotions because he cannot process them all at once and aid the flower into regrowing the dapple and blue mare. From the outside, perhaps he looks stone-cold compared to Yanhua, but he doesn’t care about looks right there and then. It’s fascinating to see how magic is warped and combined to work as something new, yet not entirely new. It is still Borderline in there, and it is Borderline who comes out - albeit a little less greyed-out than this morning.

    When the process is completed, a new, unscarred young version of the mare asks what happened, and the ice scaled stallion blinks away the silver color in his eyes as he lets go of the magic and Taiga’s cold mist. His attention however is drawn to Yanhua’s jerk-back behaviour, and it’s only because he had recently still been a shifter that now out of nowhere a dragon-wing appears to steady the stumbling mare when the chestnut retreats. ”@[Yanhua],” he says in a warning tone. ”It’s called immortality,” you moron, he silently adds - though his tone probably already implies it.

    Good grief, does he now have to explain the weird works of Beqanna’s magic to Yanhuaof all people?
    old, but I'm not that old
    young, but I'm not that bold


    @[Borderline] all yours ^^
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #7

    despite the overwhelming odds, tomorrow came

    Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. I hadn’t noticed his face as I stumbled into him, but the second I touched him, I could feel the revulsion pulsing through his body like an electrical shock. What came next, however, was worse than any kind of electrical shock. What came next ripped and tore into the depths of my heart like an unfathomable beast whose only intention was to rip every shred of me to tinier and tinier shreds.

    As @[Yanhua] rips himself away from me, I feel myself falling. In that gut-wrenching half of a second, my brain registers nothing but pain and anguish that my body simply cannot cope. And I find my entire ego crashing with it, my entire will to live, extinguished in that instant. The tears fall stop falling. My body goes limp. @[Leilan] catches me with a wing, but I don’t even notice, and it doesn’t help for long. You cannot hold up a limp figure with just a wing.

    As if in slow motion, my back legs buckle beneath me, and my front legs crumple. Leilan says something to Yanhua, but I don’t register it. If I had, maybe it would have worked to calm me, might have helped me to understand exactly what was happening, that I’d died and been rebirthed in some sort of trippy scene. Or maybe it wouldn’t have, because my heart was simply crushed, and all I could think about was that. Then time seems to speed up, and I crash, hard, into the ground.

    Excruciating pain shoots through my shoulder, and an agonizing scream wrenches itself from my throat. The scream reverberates through the trees. The pine needles rustle against it, and the leaves on the nearby ferns shiver in complaint. And then I lay still, breathing, but unable–or perhaps unwilling–to move.

    For a few moments, I lay there, unaware of anything going on around me, consumed by the agony continues to shred me from within. And then I want to cry. I want to scream his name. Yanhua, I thought, and then I wanted to cry again. My eyes are still open, and as if from a distance, I register the world around me. I can see Yanhua, and I can see Leilan, but my eyes are only for the chestnut goat-stallion, pleading, begging, confused, and now searching for answers.

    Borderline

    Image by Calcifer
    Reply
    #8



    Yanhua felt dizzy with unspoken thoughts. Borderline’s scream in the background was a painfully sharp reminder of what he’d just witnessed, as inconsistent and alien to him as if the three horses had been suddenly transported to another world. He shut his eyes against it and cringed, trying to make sense of something that wasn’t sitting right with him.

    Immortality, Leilan had said. Lilliana had been immortal too, and where was she? Why hadn’t she come back with the dragon magician? Yan clenched his teeth together, his head throbbing. Why couldn’t he have done exactly what he did just now, with Borderline? Why couldn’t he pluck his mother from this “place” she’d disappeared to and bring her back? Yanhua had watched Borderline fade away right before his eyes. He alone had seen her wither over the months, nearly succumbing to her sickness in Tephra.

    And all it had taken was one touch from Leilan to make her right.

    Yan was supposed to believe that? After witnessing everything he’d  seen through the minds of others over the past year and half? That Borderline just … what? Immortalized herself by blooming from a flower?

    “Or maybe that’s what he wants you to think.” Yan’s eyes snapped open, zeroing in on the scaled stallion. The Freyr’s wing was still outstretched to support a mare who was crumpled and helpless on the ground. A mare who was his mate. And what was she now?

    A cloud of uncertainty shadowed Yan’s mind at the thought. “Would you stop looking at me like that?” He frowned at Borderline, feeling a shiver curl down his spine. “You’re better now, right? Immortal like Leilan said. So why the hysterics? You shocked me. That’s all.” He grumbled, taking a hesitant step toward her. His stomach flipped unpleasantly, but he swallowed the discomfort and did his best to hide the warning sirens blaring in his head.

    YANHUA
    Image by Ani2ad


    @[Borderline] @[Leilan]
    Reply
    #9

    despite the overwhelming odds, tomorrow came

    I hadn’t even realized how much I had wanted Yanhua to react when I fell to the ground until I was laying on the ground, unsupported by the chestnut stallion. My heart ached. My whole body ached. My shoulder ached, but that was a dull pain in the background to the emotional pain that gripped me to the ground.

    I could see the wheels turning in his head, the cogs playing their rolls, when I looked upon him, but I still do not know exactly what it is that goes through his thoughts. I don’t know how he is feeling or what his intentions are, now. I do know that in the next few moments, my heart would not be eased of this burden, as he hesitantly moves toward me. He asks that I stop looking at him like that, so I do. I stop looking at him at all, choosing to turn my eyes to the ground beneath me instead. Still, from the corners of my eyes, I could see his movements, stiff and uncertain, shrouded in doubt. This is what leaves his words feeling empty and hollow.

    I may not know exactly what is happening inside of the stallion’s thoughts, but I do know that his words and actions did not match up. These things leave me feeling more confused and alone, but most of all, it breeds a kind of hysteria, despite the intentions behind the words being to calm me down.

    “I don’t know,” I choke out in response to his question. Am I better? I certainly don’t feel better. I mean, physically, I am alive, which I hadn’t been before, so I guess you could say in that sense I am, but emotionally speaking, I am more hurt than I have ever felt in my life. I feel abandoned. At least when I learned about Amarine, I still knew that there was love in Yanhua’s heart for me, but now? Now I think he hates me, resents me, fears me. Those things cut deeper than the hurt of having to share my love for him.

    Confused and still in hysterics, I drive myself to my feet, ignoring the throbbing complaints from my shoulder. Adrenaline fuels my movements, now. “I…” I stammer, looking back to @[Leilan], then giving a half glance to @[Yanhua] (even that, I can barely manage without a fresh wave of anguish peeling my heart to shreds), I mutter, “I have to go.” Without waiting for any kind of response, I push myself away from the two stallions, into the underbrush. I stumble and almost fall from the pain in my shoulder, but I continue forward, half running, half tripping through the ferns.

    Borderline

    Image by Calcifer


    Sorry for posting out of turn. Just kind of wanted to get a move on with things. Lol.
    Reply
    #10
    Leilan
    His wing nearly snaps when there is a lack of support elsewhere, and he jerks it back with a small moment’s hurtful look on his face. Obviously it is minor in comparison to what Borderline is feeling - Leilan honestly can’t get a good grasp on Yanhua right now, and though that is worrisome in its own, it is the mare on the ground who is taking the blows that Yanhua should have directed at the roan; years ago, in fact. He never had, and in retrospect the ice mage thinks that it is in fact that cropping up of feelings that is taking the chestnut down an ugly path.

    It’s like looking into a mirror of the past. How he’d once lashed out at the spotted mare for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    A dissatisfied grunt escapes the magician when Yanhua tells Borderline she’s “fine now”. Obviously she is not, the stupidity of this goat today has no boundaries. Watching the display in front of him is painful, and when the mare runs away for lack of a better option, Leilan’s glare at Yanhua could not be mistaken for anything else. ”Borderline is a unique mare. I just gave her the magical energy she needed. But you... you sapped it.” Dark grey stormclouds have gathered in the magician’s eyes, but with those last blaming words, he disappears from the scene in the exact same way he entered it.
    old, but I'm not that old
    young, but I'm not that bold


    @Yanhua
    @Borderline
    A quick wrap!
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
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