"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
She had peered into the flickering flames of the burning tree but had been unable to make any sense of what lay beyond the fire. Pine needles crackled and smoke rose from the branches that refused to turn to cinders but nothing spoke to her from the haze of the smolder and she was left with only the scent of a bonfire that lingered on her skin for several days afterwards. Gale, however, had seemed to have seen something. Or claimed to at least. She couldn’t tell if he had just been teasing her when he spoke of a heavy full moon on a long summer night in the meadow, claimed to see them standing beneath a clear starry sky with the rhythmic symphony of cicadas and crickets playing around them. She had merely laughed and figured she would see him long before that.
Life had other ideas though. Things had changed since that day in Hyaline, she now had her own place to call home and a title to match. Thane of the North, it was more than she deserved but she was fiercely proud of the faith Leilan had seen in her and had tried her best to rise to the Northerners expectations. She watched Mourna grow, as wild and spirited as the tundra lands themselves, and found herself growing more protective of her and her mother. Padme had grown from a travel companion to a true friend and she spent much time in the others company when she wasn’t patrolling or doing tasks for the kingdom. Lior too had become a significant companion and without realizing it she was slowly building back her own semi-sense of family.
For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t so focused on the past. The painful memories of Amet and their son, of the Hyaline of old, were starting to fade. Not forgotten, never forgotten. Just put aside in a small keepsake box in a part of her heart so they no longer dominated the entire thing. Spring faded into summer and so consumed by this new direction in life she allowed herself to get swept away…. But Gale was never far from her mind.
She had not forgotten his vision in the fire. She had not forgotten her first friend back in this new Beqanna. Her thoughts often strayed to Lightning Boy and she hoped he was doing ok. Hopefully he had been able to work things out with Mazikeen, remembering his mention of a disagreement. Love, it seemed, was a hard and rare thing. Even if it escaped her for the rest of her life, she hoped better for her friends.
It was what brings her to the meadow on that star filled night, the strawberry moon a perfect glowing circle high in the sky, washing the lush grass at her hooves in a bright bath of warm moonlight. She missed Gale’s easy going nature and his matter of fact way he went about things. She missed her friend. It’s an easy grin that finds her lips when he finally comes, her stars a brilliant golden sheen around her. The dark scarred mare seems to wear her battered skin a little differently these days, a slight raise of her skull and a warmth to ease the coolness of her mercury eyes. “I was worried you might have forgotten.” She admits, remembering when she had first met him in this place and how she had thought him a storm made flesh. Now there seemed to be more lightning than thunderclouds that settled over his skin. There is something about him that suddenly makes her uneasy, a sudden tangle of nerves that she shrugs off as excitement from not seeing him in awhile. Still, she reaches for the stars above in her reflexive nervous reaction, just in case.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
@[Gale] Where's that devil emoji when you need it lol
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Things are still difficult with Mazikeen, though in a far different way than the black mare suspects. The Curse that inhabits Gale’s body near-constantly considers the cons of killing her for good. They do not yet outweigh the benefits, so the Alpha had been alive when he’d left from Hyaline earlier that evening.
Gale - who is no longer Gale, even in the light of day - winds his way across the meadow. Tonight he’s altered his coat, so the only cremello brindling is that along his neck and sides, the markings he’d been born with. The rest is as dark as the night sky overhead, a deep navy that shimmers with faint iridescence in the soft light of the stars.
When Ciri thinks of him as Lightning Boy, he sends a shimmer of lightning across his navy skin. She smells of the far north, which Gale recalls from his time at the Midsummer Festival. Had she settled there, in a place that was both flat and cold? Hyaline was frigid the better part of the year, but at least there was a view.
“You thought I’d forget my first time seeing the future?” It replies with mock affront. It begins to lean in, but there is a shift in the stars overhead.
What type of shift it is not sure, but it hadn’t felt entirely benign. There aren’t words for the way he has begun to feel things lately. It’s not unlike Seeing, but with every sense he has (and many he hadn’t known he had). Perturbed by the magic it has no name for, the faintly brindled stallion looks away, back over his shoulder where he’d emerged from the dark western woods. He continues to do so for some time.
A shadow drifts across the silvery grass, cast by a bird so dark it is nearly invisible against the dark sky. It is an osprey, but it is not Erne, yet it settles like a companion atop the white mane of his hindquarters and peers at Ciri with blue eyes that match Gale’s.
He looks more like a storm than ever, his coat matching the darkness of the sky above them and seeming to shine with the threat of rain beneath the light of both her stars and the ones in the sky. Vaguely she remembers that he had been covered in more brindling before, more marks had cut through the darkness of his flesh, but as he sends a shimmer of lightning to crawl along his body she merely shrugs it off with a delighted laugh. He was a magnificent shifter after all. “Lightning Boy through and through.” She compliments him with a smile and a soft touch of her muzzle to his unmarred neck. There’s many scents lingering on his skin and not all of them smell of Hyaline. She pulls back with a question on her mind, wondering where he had been traveling and what he had been up to since they had last spoken.
As he teasingly mocks her, she can’t help but laugh again with a slight roll of a scarred shoulder. “Point taken.” He seems to move towards her but then stops and looks back over his shoulder. Her swirling gaze follows his line of sight and when he continues to stare, distracted, her smile fades slightly. “Gale?” She asks tentatively, a worried look darkening her features and twisting the ugly scar slashed across her face. An osprey lands on his bristled mane and she assumes this is the same one that had circled in the sky above them that day in Hyaline. His friend. How peculiar that the blue of the birds eyes looked so similar to that of Gale’s. She hadn't noticed that before when it had been gliding high in the morning sky.
Something pinches within her, that same gut feeling she had gotten when she had landed in the Underneath. That same nagging bell that rings in the distance of her mind that something wasn’t quite right. Her hold on the stars seems to tighten, her grip firm as the ones around her seem to shine even brighter in response. She’s never tried to use her shield for anyone besides herself (doesn’t think she even can) but she will try if something broke from the shadowed trees. Then again Gale could shift into almost anything, she remembers, he could easily defend himself but she would not leave him to face it alone.
“Gale?” She asks quietly again but there’s a sharp edge in her tone as the skin at the base of her neck begins to prickle. “Are you alright?” Her mercury gaze seems strangely drawn to the bird that grips the stiff hairs of his mane and the boldness of its stare is enough to make her take a slow step backwards.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
The Curse feels the warmth of her touch on Gale’s striped neck, pleasant in the cool night. She does not recoil from him the way that Mazikeen does, or seem suspicious at all.
It licks its lips, and Gale’s weight shifts. This opportunity is too good to pass up - it could have her throat crushedbetween Gale’s sharp teeth before she had time to scream. Yet just before it moves, it feels that same electric charge in the air.
This time it is sure that she has reached for her stars, and it is equally sure that she is fearful. It rarely bothers to imitate Gale anymore, and the tone of its voice is sharper than the dreamy stallion’s had been. Is that what has alerted her? Or is it perhaps the way that the night has pulled away much of his good looks, leaving him hollow cheeked and frail?
“I feel marvelous,” it tells her, and the grin that reveals Gale’s sharp white teeth is genuine. It leans back, no longer preparing to leap at her. Gale does not look marvelous, but Ciri is watching the osprey rather than the brindle warrior.
The bird returns her stare for stare, until suddenly it is not there at all. The Curse has finished looking at her stars, having gotten no better idea of how useful they might be.
“Are those much use in a fight?” It asks, gesturing at the glowing galaxies that hover overhead. “Or more for decoration?”
06-11-2021, 01:20 PM (This post was last modified: 06-11-2021, 01:21 PM by Ciri.)
Ciri
Something is wrong with Gale.
She’s sure of it when he looks back to her and she glances from the bird to him, seeing the sharp tooth grin and realizing his words don’t seem to match his constitution. She hadn’t noticed it at first, just excited to see her friend after a long time apart. Now her enthusiasm has been replaced with a wariness that continues to poke and prod at her insides, that annoying gut feeling that she was missing something. Something important. She takes in the hollowness of his cheeks, once again noticing the missing bright marks that had littered his dark navy skin the last time she had seen him. “Is it Mazikeen?” She asks hesitantly as the bird suddenly disappears (could it always do that?) and looks directly back at him.
Gale seems unusually pointed today, not asking about her stars in his normal curious academic way that she has come to cherish. She had shown him her power once, that first night they had met when the light had returned and the heavens had rained down on her to adorn her with the stars of remembrance. Perhaps it is pure luck that the Curse does not recall or even luckier that it might not have searched Gale for that particular moment. She does not look up to follow his trail of sight, knowing that his gaze rests on the glowing orbs and she instead studies him for a moment.
Something is wrong with Gale.
She just doesn’t know what that wrong is.
“They just keep me company.” She says slowly, her grip on her power white knuckled as she carefully watches him, the swirls of silver moving slowly. Cautious. “You don’t remember? You were there that night, when they came to me.” All it would take is that tug to release the shield around her but surely…. surely she would not need to use it against her friend.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
@[Gale]
Full permission to do whatever so she can finally play with her shield ;p
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Is it Mazikeen, Ciri asks, and Gale scowls.
Even when the orange-eyed mare is miles away, she remains a thorn in his side. His scowl deepens when Ciri continues, telling him of a meeting he does not remember. This is not the first memory that has been missing from Gale’s recollection. But Gale - the Gale that Ciri knew - is no longer within him. The memory is gone, just like the one of Sabal, and far too many of Mazikeen.
It is too late to get them now; Gale is beyond even the farthest reaches of dark magic. He does not remember her telling him of the stars, and it shows in the stiffness of his expression
Ciri is someone else that Gale had found worth protecting, it seems. For that alone, the Curse is inclined to kill her.
Not that it had really needed much urging.
Curious to see what the stars she speaks of might do, Gale combines the ability he’s taken from Wishbone with the ability to modify Sight, and a skeleton that Looks like a living deer charges directly toward them from the woods where Gale had been staring until just recently. Having two of them would have been better, he thinks, but he is not sure he has enough skill to animate more than a single set of bones.
It races toward them, just in Gale’s blind spot, and will race past him and attempt to impale Ciri with its twelve tine antlers before the brindle can turn to stop it.
He scowls and she realizes that she’s never seen Gale annoyed, displeased, or upset before. It doesn’t fit, that ugly frown on his lips. It really clicks then, how terribly wrong he's acting, when no recognition flits across his face, the electric blue of his eyes looking at her blankly. “We met here Gale. This exact spot.” She had chosen to wait here specifically for that reason. He doesn’t seem to remember. That slow crawling dread begins to rise quicker within her but still she is looking for answers inside her own head, to justify why Gale was acting incredibly out of character. She had been a broken thing when her heart had been split between Amet and Castile, perhaps he was just angry with whatever had happened with Mazikeen? Perhaps it was something else entirely…
Before she can truly try to root out the source of his strangeness, something breaks from the tree-line behind him. Just where he had been staring moments before stands an incredibly large deer. There is only a breath, a quick sharp inhale and exhale, as the stag turns its angry gaze at them. Then it lowers its head and all twelve points on those majestic antlers as it charges straight at them.
Whatever is wrong with Gale will have to wait as she pushes past him to meet the challenge head on while barking a call of warning. It all happens so quickly that she doesn’t notice how Gale doesn’t seem bothered in the least, how he doesn’t react in the way she would expect from him. All her focus is on this stag (unusual behavior from such a creature when autumn was still a few weeks away) as she quickly tugs on her hold to the stars and pulls them down around her. She had been training with her shield for so long now that it comes as second nature, a natural reflex to bring the swirling nebulas and little bright gas balls of stars to come revolve protectively around her as she braces herself for impact. The silver swirls of her eyes churn angrily and perhaps her power feeds off her confusion regarding the entire situation as there seems to be more stars then nebula this time. Billions of little things that cover her from head to hoof in a brilliant sheen of light, mixing with the ones that she calls companions, as the antlers come to crash into her body.
They find no purchase, her shield as solid as any other. There’s an added bonus (millions of degrees of heat and energy) formed in each of those little stars and the pointed tines come away singed and melted, no longer a threat of impaling anyone. Perhaps looking so closely at so many stars could hurt a normal equines eyes but they don’t bother her at all as she seethes behind the light of her shield and readies herself for another attack.
all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
The stag crumbles away, the image of its body exploding into a thousand embers that fade to black and fall - intangible - to the ground at their feet.
The skeleton remains, the antlers black and charred where they had met Ciri’s stellar shield, the rest of them aged and yellow. Not a deer at all, but clearly a thing of magic.
Gale stares at it with fascination, and turns back to Ciri with a smile having returned to his handsome face. “More than just company after all.” He says, feeling the uncomfortable itch of his eyes as they stare into the thousands of bright stars and burn and heal and burn again. He’s smiling though, looking quite content, and nodding with satisfaction.
Useful, but not worth the hassle of killing her over.
“What’re you doing up on the Isle anyway?” He asks, navy head tilted curiously. “Is it true the Dragon King’s got magic now?” It’s best to know these things, after al, best to know what places to avoid.
The stag crumbles before her into nothing but bone and ash. The skeleton clatters against each other as it falls into disarray before them and she feels her stars start to leave her as her anger turns into confusion. She breathes heavily as she tries to make sense of what had just happened, as flickering embers still float in the air around them. Her swirling silver eyes can’t seem to move from where they have rested on the charred antlers. It makes her think of the Leshen with the antlered skull, it’s empty sockets and eternal grin looming down at her from the twisted roots of its body before it slashed at her.
A shiver works its way down her spine as Gale’s voice breaks the pregnant silence and the last of her star shield vanishes back to the heavens from which it came. Almost dazed, she turns to look at him. He seems.. satisfied. Pleased. And there’s a horrible question forming in her head but she still can’t bring herself to say it. She just stares at him, blankly, as he asks about the Isle and its Dragon King. “Leilan?” She says thickly, still unable to process what had just happened. Her adrenaline begins to fade leaving her trembling slightly despite the mugginess of the air. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen him since I first came to the Isle. Nashua rules now.”
None of this makes sense and none of this feels right. Her confusion begins to churn into something else, something more similar to what she had felt when throwing her stars up around her in the face of a charging beast. “Gale, we were just attacked by some…magical deer thing and your only thought is what I’m doing in the Isle?” She turns herself to fully face him, the bones behind her catching in the moonlight. Her mercury gaze something colder and harder as she stares directly into his electric gaze. “Tell me what’s going on with you. Right now.”
Gale this is going to break me clean in two -- this is going to bring me close to you
Nashua rules now?
That is a disappointment, and the frustration is bitter, and shows in his wrinkled frown.
That makes things more complicated.
He’s forgotten about the deer entirely, a spent bit of Wishbone’s magic and his own visual abilities burnt and crumbled on the golden autumn grass.
He is no longer sure how well Gale had known this black mare, no longer sure that he had not hidden more encounters than the Curse had expected. She certainly seems to be aware that something is amiss, but perhaps he has simply failed at playing Gale more spectacularly than usual.
At her question, he shrugs.
“I wanted to see if your stars were more than decoration,” he tells her, causally admitting that he had been the one responsible for the attack, and clearly unbothered over this.
If he’d wanted to hurt her more seriously, he would have. Surely she will understand that.
He’s certainly not going to admit to her what the changes she senses are, the wrongness that she sensed even without having the words for it. What good would telling her of the dark magic do? The Curse has always valued secrecy, and that is one thing that - no matter the host - has never changed.
![[Image: Ciri-Photo-Manip.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/HxJh8Xkt/Ciri-Photo-Manip.jpg)