[O] Correspondence #5 - Printable Version +- HELOVIA || The Way to the Sun (http://helovia.com) +-- Forum: Out of Character (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Archives (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: [O] Correspondence #5 (/showthread.php?tid=20777) |
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Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 09-14-2015 Dear beautiful, It's been some time since I last wrote. But I have something like trust in you, something I don't always expect your siblings to have. Perhaps it is that I suspect you are a young woman of poise. Still, I hope you can forgive me. I assure you our next correspondence will not feel worlds away. Well, maybe not for me. I'm still uncertain as to what any of this feels like to you. You can tell me, someday, if we even have words then. I hope that we won't need them, though. By the time I returned home from the last conflagration that had been the battle with the Wolf God, it was pitch black. Surely your elder sibling has told you of that battle? I won't repeat it again in detail. I am very tired. Overhead, the aurora was just beginning to peer, breaking through the midnight ceiling in bright and distracting streaks. I don't think I could help but smile at the sight of them: they were unlike anything I'd ever before seen, in all my long and aching years. It was as if a child were playing with the heavens, and I thought of you and your brother and... the third. I pulled myself past the sentinels, wordlessly scoffing at the foolishness of their picture, and headed towards the northernmost part of the territory. There, I knew there were empty caverns, and I believe I had some vague hope that I'd make one of them my home. Though still I had remained uninjured, I was old even then and needed more rest than most, even if I wouldn't admit it. The unfrozen lake was a mirror in which I cast the shadow of my reflection, the permafrost was a vast ballroom over which I could dance. And still I only wandered, slow, deliberate, but doing what I always did. It was easier that way. "" Those Days Are Gone
image credits[[For Johnny! (But others are welcome, too)]] RE: Correspondence #5 - Johnny - 10-08-2015
Table by Sevin! @Ahvelyn FINALLY RE: Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 11-22-2015 I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Sure, he was a freak, but I had dealt with my fair share of those. I'd given birth to one so deformed he'd been killed by his own body, so a horse decorated in candy wasn't going to set off my footing. And he was young, too. But that wasn't really what I was giving this stranger the benefit of the doubt about. It was that he had called me darling. Perhaps it was my age but I was beginning to feel like wandering might not be best for me, that perhaps I wanted to stay here. But I wasn't going to stay here if I was going to deal with more of the same, going to be called darling. And that left me with two choices: 1. Leave, for surely this land was inhabited with whorish men. 2. Make sure they all knew my name, for once, and could call me by nothing else. It was a resignation but it was one I would make if it would spare me the obnoxious pain of constant objectification. "It is Ahvelyn," I snarled back with a sharp turn of my head and a clear expression of do not fuck with me, boy. "Call me by my name," I added harshly, letting my ears snap back against my skull, "or I will call you pussyfoot for the rest of your life. And I will tell everyone I meet that one night I came across a young stallion named pussyfoot, and that he looked absurd and deserved no other name. I will spread that falsehood until across all of this god-warring land you are known as pussyfoot." My eyes became cold stones and my heart beat with surprising excitement. Perhaps I should stop searching for a role, perhaps I had found one in this herd. I could be the curmudgeon of the Aurora Basin for the rest of my life. "Do you understand me, pussyfoot?" Softly, in my cold heart, I smiled. -- "" Those Days Are Gone
image credits@Johnny RE: Correspondence #5 - Johnny - 12-05-2015
Table by Sevin! @Ahvelyn RE: Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 12-13-2015 I watched his mouth, hanging open and practically swinging like some dumb pendulum. When at last he closed it and regained some composure, when eventually he spoke again, she wasn't surprised about his odd response. He was certainly filling in his strange figure--playing the part that his appearance cast him in. The boy's misunderstanding of the term pussyfoot was not quiet amusing, but it was perhaps endearing. I let loose a sigh, soft, low, and forgiving. The boy apologized, and he game me a proper name by which to call him. Johnny. It was simple and though not quite elegant, I considered at the time that it fit him well enough. And he apologized. He apologized. Of all the times I had been hurt, so few of them had been followed by regret. I had been beaten, bruised, injured in mind heart and body, but never had those males apologized. The fact that this one did gave him some virtue, and the faintest motherly twinge in my heart became a blooming creature that I could not ignore. ...you really think I'm a young stallion? I breathed and stepped closer to him. He was so small, I only just realized now. Age may have sloped me closer to the earth but I had plenty of height on him. And he really was young--compared to me, anyway. I exhaled, letting my warm breath perhaps brush over his fragrant locks. "Of course you are," I said kindly, all traces of the tigress lost. "Only a young stallion wouldn't understand the meaning of pussyfoot. But perhaps I'm showing my age," I remarked with a sidelong glance over the cold expanse and a faint nicker. "It is nice to meet you, Johnny. I appreciate your apology." The wind blew cold and the night sang lonely. I began to move away from Johnny, back in the northern directions of my wanderings, and flicked my cape of a tail behind me to bid him follow. He was curious, and apparently kind, and I hoped to learn more about such a strange looking young man. "So what exactly do you do hear, boy?" I queried with a look back in the dark, my eyes glittering with the aurora that spread across the sky. It was high time I find something to do with my time, perhaps this one could help me on that path... "" Those Days Are Gone
image credits@Johnny RE: Correspondence #5 - Johnny - 12-18-2015
Table by Sevin! @Ahvelyn RE: Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 12-24-2015 The walk that we took was easy enough. As always I moved slowly, not one to stress my aging form than I needed to and bogged down by the immeasurable weight of my hair. It was beginning to get tangled, but that was a problem for another day. Johnny, the boy, was a delight. He was strange to be sure but his enthusiasm, now that his verbiage was all sorted out and proper, was simply infectious. I watched him bounce along, remembering the youth I had once had and lost. Then again, even at his age I don't think I'd ever been so carefree. Now, I was too old to be envious. But I wanted him and wondered if I could be made to be like him, to live out a life of such boundless joy. He spoke with joy of his role as a weaver, and my ears perked up at the thought of it. A role... a role in the herd. I smiled at him kindly, lifting my knees high and looking down upon his smaller but stockier form. "I'm afraid I wasn't given much introduction to the ranks, here. My welcoming was a bit..." I reflected, searched for the words to describe the painfully obnoxious interaction at the herd's gate, and went on "...well, a bit rushed." A smile, a flick of the tail, another step forward. Nothing but a white lie, nothing but something to keep him happy. It was nice to entertain him, he was acting as if he didn't get much company. I was flattered by his excitement at mine, too. And he was childlike, I needed something to mother in my life. So when he mentioned his own rank, and I thought of the idea of working with him--sugary, no threat, and kinder than any other I'd encountered here--that was enough to make me want to learn more. Sure, there was the attraction of having something to occupy my mind, but I wondered if Johnny here didn't need that, too. "Your rank, though, you've intrigued me. Could you tell me more?" I asked gently, nudging my nose towards him without touching in something that was as close as I would get to kindness. "" Those Days Are Gone
image credits@Johnny RE: Correspondence #5 - Johnny - 01-06-2016
Table by Sevin! @Ahvelyn RE: Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 01-06-2016 It was rare that I found anyone who was willing to take this old woman for a walk without a catch to it, so I appreciated the cordial mannerisms of the odd little stallion. I wasn't sure if he thought I was aging or spry, but given his small stature I was sure to take daintier steps. Perhaps we weren't getting anywhere fast, but we were enjoying each other's company. It was difficult for me to find pleasure in most things around that time (or, really, any of those before) so I made a point of holding onto it. Johnny was willing to talk, too, and his chatter filled the noise with something like a child's laughter as I strode silently alongside him. He spoke with glowing praise of his rank and his duties, providing a few paltry (but clearly, to him, exciting) examples by way of convincing. The fact of the matter was that I was old and tired. I could have considered that having less time in my life meant I should spend it doing something I was really and truly passionate about, but my passion was limited primarily to my endless search for the child of my father. Whoever she was, though, I was beginning to think she was gone. I didn't know that she was right here in this herd, that perhaps I would meet her any day. So given my state of exhaustion and Johnny's persistent, sad sort of pleading way that I perceived him as speaking, I offered my services. Why not? Life was short, it was true and I felt that especially nowadays. Who was to say this wouldn't become a new passion of mine? Perhaps there could be something healing in the simple act of weaving and mending old garments, of creating for a herd I thus far cared little for. Maybe by engaging in some hobby, some sort of something, I would begin to form an attachment for this frozen valley. His question rang, echoing in my mind until I was forced to answer. I smiled at him, twirled my tail ever so slightly, and nodded my head. "Johnny, count me as interested. I'd love to help you with your work." "" Those Days Are Gone
image creditsRE: Correspondence #5 - Johnny - 01-14-2016
Table by Sevin! @Ahvelyn RE: Correspondence #5 - Ahvelyn - 01-24-2016 Johnny's ensuing enthusiasm was neither surprising or unfortunate. I found myself smiling (just barely) at the site of his joy overflowing, and when he exclaimed his delight and offered that I accompany him at the next moment of his crafting, I found myself nodding as if there were simply no other response. "Of course," I said in a voice still quiet and my own but somehow tinged with Johnny's sugar, "that would be wonderful." You see, there was simply nothing to do around Johnny other than smile. Once you'd taught him his lesson about how to address an old woman he was simply fine, and at that time "fine" in my life was rare and often quite a wonderful thing. So if Johnny thought I and my decision were wonderful, let him shout it from the mountaintops and I wouldn't complain. Worse things had been said about me in my life, and I doubted Johnny would contribute to them now after seeing him so sickly sweet. When he offered to accompany back, however, I found that I had to make my leave. I was not infirm and still quite capable of finding my way back. Or, at least I would have been if I had somewhere to go back to. It wasn't that I was embarrassed about not yet having found a home despite having lived there for some time, but, well, it wasn't really his business where I did or didn't live, was it? Partners in building and creating we might have just become, but I was a mare who demanded my privacy. I needed space as much as any other--well, aside from Johnny. "While I appreciate the offer," I answered through my teeth, the reply tense and strained, "I must decline. I'd rather travel that distance on my own. But it was good to meet you, Johnny, and I'm sure I'll see you again soon," I went on, my tone forced into relaxation as I went. Slowly I traveled from his side, nodding my head and letting my long tail drag in the frost behind me. Eventually the distance between us would part; eventually, I would look back and see nothing but fog in the distance. "" Those Days Are Gone
image credits@Johnny all done! :) Thanks. |