"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
For whatever reason, her child is late; Yael has her own fears, ones she hasn’t mentioned to her lover, or even given breath. That would make them legitimate. That would make her culpable.
She is, of course. Horse and dragon and mist all carried him in her womb, foolishly shifting with nary a thought to their precious cargo. She’s checked in, of course, in a way that very few of them can. Long before their son can hear or smell anything of the outside world, he hears her voice. His heart is fine, his body like the rest of their children - taking the midline between mother and father. His mind responds quickly to her nudges. He seems fine. And yet his tardiness is worrisome, and the little mother frets around the kingdom, wobbling here and there with a belly the size of one of Vanquish’s haunches.
Until he finally comes, and the adage better late than never is all too true.
Holed up in the red rocks at the edge of the kingdom, Yael nudges her black-and-silver son (a different sort of melding than Kitra, but he is equally half her, and half Van) up to his wobbly legs, whispering sweet words of encouragement. He acknowledges them and turns to suckle, but is strangely quiet. She frowns. Hiding behind pursed lips, she mentally reaches out to her dragon and confesses what she has feared all along, Darleeng, I t’ink… I t’ink xe cannot speak. She stifles a cry in both voices, while guilt and then anger and hatred wash over her in a torrent of emotions. They would pay for this.
Luckily, Qatar takes no notice.
And this… this could be remedied. She’d given friends to Munroe, she could give a companion to Qatar. Someone who would speak for him, a bird - no, that doesn’t seem right. A cat, or desert dog of some sort? The magician reaches out to the desert creatures of the rocks, of the land before the sands, and finds a caracal that has also recently given birth. Poor thing had four kittens - she would never miss one. Quietly and quickly, snatches the sleeping kitten from its mother’s den and tinkers a little bit with its head, opening it to a telepathic bond with her son and the ability to speak to horses. When Qatar has had his fill, he stumbles away and falls into the milk-coma, allowing Yael to place the kitten at his side, and let the bonding begin.
She would have no trouble talking to her son, but one day his world would stretch far beyond her. He would need someone to talk for him.
03-20-2016, 07:03 PM (This post was last modified: 04-09-2016, 08:25 AM by Kabechet.)
The red dun mare drifts through the desert sky, putting the warm air currents to good use. She is thinking on how long it had been since the last time she had been here. How long it had been since she'd last seen her mother, and the answer to both was far too long. Kabechet had drifted away as she neared adulthood, keen to explore the world. She doesn't know yet if she is back to stay for good or if this will just be a visit, but either way, she is here now. Her gaze is aimed downwards towards the golden sands, attempting to spy out Yael's location. This was the best way to do it; trudging through the arid desert on foot instead of by wing would take so much longer, especially if her mother was also on the move. At the edge of the kingdom, she spots her quarry at last, hidden in the sheltering red stones, and turns her headlong flight into a landing spiral.
A surprise awaits Kabechet when her hooves have touched the sand, and her gaze now settles upon a tiny sleeping foal. A newborn, a brand new sibling? Though, honestly, she still isn't sure how many of those there are. Yael loved children, both her own natural-born and the orphans (a certain red pegasus included) she couldn't help but collect, and their family was a large one. One larger, now, with the colt sleeping next to an even tinier ball of fur added in. There would be time to introduce herself to him later, once he had awoken, and she would not disturb him now. The young mare turns her eyes back to the golden mother she had missed with every day that she had been gone. Approaching her as she rested in the aftermath of birthing, Kabechet whickers joyfully and touches her nose to Yael's. "Hello, mother. I've missed you, I hope you can forgive me for being gone for so long? "
you can put a quote or lyric here or you can just delete this particular part
He’s always heard her voice, it seems, and so he assumes that she’s always heard his. It doesn’t occur to the boy that others wouldn’t be able to hear him, or that their thought-voices aren’t the real way of things. It is all Qatar knows. His little world of silence.
The beginning is a hungry blur, but the black and silver boy falls asleep for the first time, never knowing that his life will change the next time he wakes. Qatar dreams wild dreams, fraught with spice and sand and a red-tinged world. Then there is softness, and a thrumming sound that seems to overpower him, stretching from his belly to the tips of his ears and the bottom of his hooves. When his eyes flutter open again, he is surprised to feel something warm and soft curled up right against his chest. His dark eyes blink in confusion and turn to Ima, who is wrapping her wings around another mare. He is a tad jealous of that moment, but there is another situation at hand, and when Yael doesn’t give him immediate attention, he decides he must figure it out for himself. In the end, curiosity wins out over fear, and he noses the little fur ball with a tentative touch. What are you?
The tawny thing opens its eyes and glares up at Qatar. Its voice is child-like, and its response comes in half-formed, and with sibilant s’s. ”Ssssssssssh. Alek isss sssleeping,” it spits out, and closes its eyes until they are only slits, surrounded by black fur. Well. That still doesn’t answer the question. The boy snorts in frustration and hoists himself to his hooves, leaving the sleeping kitten curled up by itself on the cave floor. Ima? he says, heading over to her and the red mare. She laughs, and speaks aloud. “You be nice to xeem, Katar. Xe vill be your voice. So you can talk to more t’an me.” She gestures for the red mare to come forward and noses at her shoulder affectionately. “T’is ees Kabechet. She ees your older seester.”
Qatar, though unafraid of the woman with beautiful wings, is still very unsure of the whole voice thing and the older sister thing and moseys to his mother’s side, pressing himself into her wings. Ummm… Hi Kabechet. he thinks, and turns to nurse again. But Yael pokes his side and reminds him of what he cannot fully grasp yet. “Darleeng, she can’t xear you… you must use Alek to talk.”
Wait… what does she mean? They can’t hear him? He… They… Alek? Qatar’s eyes go wide and start to well up, as an infant’s does when they are frustrated. It is the end of the world. Over before it’s barely begun. And it isn’t fair!
there is no good nor evil, there is only power
and those too weak to seek it
The dark king still smells of blood and pine ash when he reaches his Deserts. The war was a dull throb in the back of his skull, a faraway muddle of magic and death and rage that was heavy in his temples as he strides through the dunes. He comes to her call as she ushers him home to the birth of their newest child and he pushes the aches and the boiling, vengeful thoughts to the back of his mind.
When he reaches her side, he barely glances at the winged mare at her side – Kabechet was a stranger to the Nightwalker and so he offered her nothing but a slight glance as he comes to his golden queen’s side, eyes greedily raking across his son’s frame. The silver and black colt was without flaw and so the king smiled, nudging Yael’s shoulder gently. But then her voice comes and it is a shaking, sorrowful sound that echoes through his veins, Darleeng, I t’ink… I t’ink xe cannot speak. Tufted black ears instantly folded back against his skull and the talons that adorned the tips of his draping wings dug into the rock beneath them, can’t you fix him? He storms back silently; his mind an open pool Yael was all too familiar traversing. Motherfuckers. His mind roars while he struggles to keep the ire from twisting his features as he peered down at his son, who had tears in his eyes.
Customarily, Vanquish would have admonished any son of his that stood before him with a trembling lip – but in this case he simply reaches out with a too-long wing to sweep the boy against he and Yael. “No tears,” the dragon says with the softness of a creaking oak, “you are a long-awaited prince,” he nudges the boy, “so there will be no tears today.” He says as he locks his gaze with Yael’s, blood tomorrow, maybe, but no tears today.
The feel of her mother's wings draping her in a hug feels simply wonderful, and so Kabechet reciprocates, folding her multi-hued feathers about Yael in turn. The red dun is glad to be home, even if it turns out to be for only a short while before her restless wings carry her off once again. It seems that the newborn, Qatar, is not asleep after all; or perhaps his slumber had been cut short, very short indeed. She watches as he investigates the kitten tucked up next to him, watches how it grumbles at being disturbed, chuckles over its spitfire antics. Little brother was going to have his hooves full with that feline.....had Mother given it to him as she had once given those foxes to Munroe? Yael was a generous soul indeed. The baby desert cat would help him through his life, even if it seemed to be rather feisty.
The young mare impishly wonders where her own little animal companion was, since Yael seemed to hand them out like candy, but keeps the jest purely to herself. The little colt begins to cry, and Kabe is about to try and help offer comfort to him, but by then a stallion has joined them. He is dark, dragonwinged, and fearsome of visage, and she knows who he is. Vanquish, the desert king and her mother's lover. There had been tales of him, how he slept beneath the desert sands until the previous desert queen had chosen to swap places with him. She had never known him growing up, never learned to regard him as a father figure. Thus, when he arrives and focuses his attention upon the golden mare and their son, she takes several steps backwards. Trying but failing to not feel at least a bit frightened in the dragon king's presence, she moves back against the wall of red rocks, as if attempting to blend in with them.
Kabe’s apology and request for forgiveness make her smile in the midst of their hug. “You never need to ahsk forgeevness for leeving your life. All my cheeldren seem to xaf a vanderlust een t’em. Vherever I ahm, you ahr alvays velcome.” Because one day, she may not be here. She may be somewhere else, living out the years of her life as best she can. Perhaps one day this place will hold too many memories for her old heart to bear. Perhaps one day she will go on her own grand adventure - with Vanquish, or maybe without him. One thing is certain, however, and that is that even if she is not here, she will always come when the Desert is in need.
It - and Fictional - gave her life. The best she can do is serve it in return.
Yael pulls away from her adopted daughter, when she hears Qatar’s mind-thought. As if she was listening in on Kabe’s thoughts, she offers as a quite explanation, “Xe ees mute. I can xear him, of course, but ze rest of ze world must xear from anozer mout.” But then Vanquish comes storming in, a rolling, boiling pit of emotions, and the sturdy wall that she’d hid behind at the time of her realization comes tumbling down. With him, she could cry. She did not have to be the iron-backed mother, and though she would not let tears freely flow right now, she would let herself press her head into his shoulder and sigh raggedly into his black coat.
Qatar’s tears rouse her from her moment of indulgence and she is lucky enough that Van seems to have a softer side now. He pulls the spindly-legged boy into the two of them and offers him comfort - the type she’s never seen him offer to a son before. She knows his mind as well as her own, but in this instant, she truly knows that death had changed him. She need say nothing else, except…
Her daughter has pressed herself against the hollow’s wall and that simply will not do. She is Yael’s, and thus, she is Van’s too; the same way that Kreios, Kratos, and even Tarnished are hers by default. “Kabe, t’ere ees somevone you should meet. Come xere, dear.” Through a mess of black fur and leather and gilded feathers, her eyes lovingly search for the mare’s. “Van, t’is ees my dauxter Kabechet. She kept me sane ahfter you died.” The red mare is as important to her as Mikhael, Munroe, Etro, or their newest son. She would not let that be forgotten.
YAEL
mother, queen, magician
<3 love all around! don't feel like you have to reply to this if you don't want to. Just wanted to get something else up
Death has a way of making you appreciate the sufferings of those you love most, those you should the most. There was a time when he would have thundered down anger and accusation on Yael upon such a realization – but years wallowing in empathy and guilt had smoothed the roughness of his ways. Now, he is only comforting - a stoic pillar upon which they both could lean even if his own emotions were running wild in his chest. And his pulse did not race beneath his black flesh as he held his queen and son.
He watches the kitten as it leaps around his son’s feet and a flicker of a smile lights his black lips. His attention turns from the forever pair as the winged red mare pulls back against the rocks and Yael gives him one of ‘the looks’. When she’s done speaking a grin makes its way across his face and he dips his head to the girl, “Hello Kabechet.” He noses his son forward softly,“say hello to your sister.”
