the Rift


[PRIVATE] Bury Me in these Waters

Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#1

Sinking

He sinks he is
dying, maybe or
bleeding through
water, sinking in
water, breathing out
air pockets, exhaling
pain, inhaling love

he coils, he protects
he drapes, and inside
he dies
he's sinking
he's died

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


The cold winter chill embraced the early evening and touched upon the figure of young Ashamin with an unforgiving kindness. What remained of the buck lay huddled in the shallow shore of the secret grove's waters. Red stained his shaking pelt, flecks of it flung into the water with each shudder and shiver of his form. He lied curled with his hindquarters submerged and his wretched wound--still painful and aching, still spitting blood at the faintest pressure--tainting the water red. The small cuts on his left side where he had been hit by his own fall filled with the heavy chill of the wet pool's floor. His face rested in the mud, his outstretched nose gently reaching for the new, soft, and round orb that the mythical owl had gifted him.

Pain was nearly all encompassing but he thought of the creature that might lay within. Was it truly the deer he had been shown in his mind? The black beauty with the spots of pure white, the creature with the firm stamp of an eye on its forehead? There had been power in that image the owl had sent him, more power than Ashamin thought he had himself--especially now, as he lay with his weak body sinking, his heart and soul seeming to die a slow and regretful death.

Ashamin knew he needed a way to protect and care for the egg, but had no clue how to. Especially now, when he lacked the strength himself to stand on his own four hooves. What was left of him but a battered shell? Torleik had beaten him, ripped through his flesh and left behind two red gashes punctuated by four angry holes that interrupted the once pure white of his hind. And it had all been Ashamin's own fault.

The king himself had said it: a spar was not a fight to the death. Ashamin had, as always, done wrong. And though he had fought back with a fury, now he was confined to the water's cold, forced into numbing himself and fearing he would be cursed with the effects of this injury for the rest of his life. Could he really be a warrior if he was so condemned to failure? He could have moved. Why hadn't he moved?

A slight rippling in the water, the sliver of a fish slowing as it dug into the earth and sought the warmth of a hibernation in mud, stirred against Ashamin's hock and he twitched reflexively, forgetfully lashing his injured tail as he did so and splashing it down on the surface of the water. Pain shot through his stifle, up to his hip and down to his gaskin, no, lower, through his whole suffering leg. He winced and threw his face into the water, exhaling, no, screaming, as he felt the wound rip and the pain flood his being once more.

Why hadn't he moved?

The egg started to roll slowly, settling just at the water's edge and bobbing there by Ashamin's shuddering shoulder. The one fish was joined by a school of others, and their rapid motion muddied the water, mixing red with black. The dirt clouded the image of his injury, but as the silt settled and a few fish swam into Ashamin's side, dirt filled the open cut. Ashamin's flung his features out of the water, letting his outcry ring through the small grove he had discovered in this haze of agony.

Just barely revealed and resting beneath the water's surface, something old and still undiscovered glittered. But Ashamin saw nothing but the red memory of blood and hurt: the endless ache of failure.

Faith, why, why hadn't he moved?


[[For Zahra--set a little ahead of time in Frostfall. This takes place after the egg drop and then after his spar with Torleik. The movement of the fish have stirred the mud and revealed a moon amulet for Ashamin to find when he can focus again. The amulet was gifted OOC.]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#2
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
Nestled beneath a lush quilt of resilient trees, well-guarded from the howling, frost-laden gales, Zahra huddled low in waiting, and Bird pressed snug against the stiff pillar of her near foreleg. Velvet lips straddled the soft, smooth, white fur between the kitsune’s large triangular ears – a comforting gesture for the sake of both sisters, because they had been waiting alone in anticipation of Camon’s return for a good length of time already. He’ll be back soon, she promised optimistically, silently, because the bronze-spotted stallion hadn’t let their tight-knit little family down thus far (she had so willingly adopted him as brother). Quietly golden eyes continued their endless roaming – the constant search for passing pastel or antlers still paler than the intertwined timber above.

It won’t be long now…

“We should weave a blanket!” the filly joked awkwardly, shivering violently; scrawny, underfed body enveloped cruelly by the freezing air. She and the youngest of their foursome, Ilham had created a rather stunning ribbon – its satin-grace far underappreciated by the queer crow-girl – and a collection of quite unsuccessful patches of delicate fabric that were either too loosely woven to hold or so tightly that their shape was skewed, ruined. Regardless, Zahra was a brazen mind whose determination seemed hard to move. She revelled in their unified art form and had saved already enough cloth to create something special - something more significant than her precious ribbon. Stashed securely between warm skin and cold silver, the small Pegasus had carried it right the way across Helovia.

There was a splash unexpectedly nearby, and though a dense hedge of scrub prevented view of its source, the water further beyond began to ripple faintly in sequence.

Twin black ears pricked with interest and she fixed her focus upon that location beyond the bank.

Camon!

The unlikely siblings waited at length with baited breath, but their brother never broke through the undergrowth to find them. “Do you think he’s fallen in?” Zahra whispered down cautiously, rogue fore-hoof rising tentatively into the chill air; Bird’s throat rumbled uncertainly, unconvinced that the familiar, pretty stallion would have skirted the plainly obvious path in favour of weeds and water to begin with – the pup’s perspective of the world around them was far less oblivious after all. Slit nostrils purged a conclusive snort, and as Ilham sank again into the safety of her mid-mane, burrow, the filly slithered forward in search of the water’s edge; whatever might lie therein.

There was a good distance between, a solid venture through limber, whipping wood and over swollen, round-knobs of surface root; neither were particular easy to navigate. While Bird skipped with remarkable expertise from one surface to another, padded toes grasping each tightly, Zahra slipped and stumbled quite horrifically, and paused to gather her nerve after a crude slip left her skinny foreleg wounded. We should have stayed on the path after all… she sighed softly as the rough tongue of her sister arrived to sweep away the golden, metallic blood. She cast a jaded glance back the way they had come, but it seemed now they were nearer to the pond. As the cold air caressed the open gash, it began to sting awfully, and the small filly wished desperately that Camon would arrive to whisk them to safety.

Instead her silent begging was met with an ungodly scream, blood-curdling and freakishly close. Bird leapt back with a wary snarl, and her foal sister wavered indecisively on the spot; injured and less swift upon her feet than she had been moments before (as fleet-footed as she had been since her father’s full-sized collar had been placed).

“Ha… hallo?” she called timidly towards the vegetation, sliding one back-hoof into the thick, sucking mud a step behind. Still the kitsune growled – her smaller stature saw movement that the taller did not, and the presence through the quivering foliage was not that of a horse standing.

“Camon?” Zahra tried again hopefully.
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Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


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Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#3

admis
sion

Please, I need
help I need
comfort or something
more, something
less, just a touch
or a sound,
confirmation you're with me
assurance that I'm not alone

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


In time, his scream faded to silence. Ashamin became aware of the stillness of the world around him. Was it the winter that dampened sound like this, and seemed to conquer life? He looked out over the surface of the lake, watching little frozen patches float and sink with the slightest ripples.

He would be four years old, soon. Though he knew not exactly when, he knew the anniversary of his birth was coming soon. He could taste it in the way the wind blew cold and unforgiving, and the way it pushed the water. He could taste it, too, in the pattern of his own blood mixed with the fresh pond around him. This was age: growing old enough to be hurt.

Ashamin had been hurt so many times, now. He felt the pain more immediate than before, but knew that this ache of the fight was no different than that of loss. Loss of the father and loss of the virginity of the unscarred flesh were interconnected. As he looked, now, at his torn hindquarter--as he observed the twisted flesh, bent up and away from the muscle--he contemplated a life lived with the injury. Would this become him, this marked hind, this struggle to walk?

Ashamin turned away. There was nothing to look at but pain, and it was a pain he could not bear. His left hoof shifted in the water and he felt the chain of something unfamiliar wrapped around it. Though he startled, when the mud cleared he knew it was no danger. It was a piece of jewelry, an amulet of sorts, he supposed. It had been too cold and stiff to be a snake, too thin and wiry, and now it was something he'd expected even less.

No, the snakes were gone. He looked back at the orb and nudged it carefully back to shore, wincing at the pain in his every movement but trying to keep the little thing safe as he had before with the Owl's visions. The water was too cold for the heartbeat within it.

And then a sound came out of the stillness of everything: a voice. A hello--a word, no, perhaps a name, he did not recognize. His head jolted up with an overeager quickness and his long tail stirred in the water. He longed to lift his body and bring it to the sound of another, the faint trace of hope for healing or even just comfort, but pain shackled him still. His words rang out uneven and unsteady, but clear even in their hesitation.

"Hello?" The call was returned simply. "Is... is someone out there?

Ashamin didn't often ask for many things. Perhaps it was the pain talking--perhaps it was the quickening redness of the water around him, the muddying of its clarity until he could see through it no longer--but he knew, now, that he must ask.

"Please, whoever is there... I need help."

And there it was: his first plea, his first open admission of need since he'd come to this wide, mysterious land. He needed help.


[[For Zahra]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#4
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
Golden liquid pulsed from the unfortunate wound upon the lowest half of her spindly limb, but it was nothing in comparison to the gored flesh collapsed beneath lapping, lake waters. A voice sailed through the dappled grove, and it wasn't at all like the suave confidence executed by their absent brother; it quivered upon the brisk breath of the wind, failed and broke silence again. Zahra listened intently despite the low warning growl still present by her sister. The foal's fine, tapering black nose was turned towards the direction she presumed the stranger to be - the previous splash too, a handy hint. Her thin, inexperienced nostrils pumped the cold air in rapid succession as she tried in vain to pick the stranger's musk upwind (perhaps) and stiff ears were set firmly, high upon her fluffy poll.

"I am..." she answered too softly, tenderly, caught between hesitation and nagging curiosity and the tiny hoof which had slid the first step in reverse quickly returned to stand beside it's golden twin.

She was still dithering when he called out again, swaying like the reeds flanking the water body nearby, dancing to the moan of winter's merciless song.

Conviction stirred her heart to race - concern, confusion - and Zahra stumbled forward again along the course she had originally intended. The swollen mangrove roots tripped her often, but she arrived upon the weak embankment soon enough, and without further injury. The kitsune trailed nervously behind, offering the concealed creature a generous berth (though she would have quickly risen to her brave, or foolish, sister's defence should the need have arisen). Together they discovered the grim scene, and Ilham too slipped from her web-cocoon to view, pulled by the sudden turmoil of the stunned filly's thoughts.

He's dying?

Quickly she found the scarlet staining the water all around him and it provoked a chain of candid memories, flashbacks that were as confronting as they were random. She was laying upon the snowy tundra far north, neck bent tightly upwards, hide behind slathered in old brown-blood; bone jutting and torn flesh - it caused Zahra's to swallow hard and blink away the sight. As light again flooded her glistening eyes, there was an entirely new landscape surrounding, thick forest and a bright roar that she could not place; and she was gesturing frantically, though no explanation fell from rolling lips at her nose's end. Movement flashed around her, white, black, brown, and suddenly the weight of night had set upon her - so deafening was the wail of war, and it seemed suspended in the atmosphere.

The warmth of her startled sister's arrival between flinching forelegs freed the foal from the vision prematurely and distracted entirely, she pressed her mouth heavily into the pup's downy coat. You saw that too? she breathed softly and silently, unaware that her sister's mind was so unluckily bound to her own - that and the cruel scars of recent events were yet to fade from Bird's memory.

Crisp white lashes fluttered with new indecision as her gaze fell again upon the fallen horse, the stranger who had triggered the barrage. She could not leave him though...

As Zahra let her eyes trace the length of his part submerged, mottled frame, she asked him gingerly, "what happened?" She was not trained to spot grievous injury, pain lathered expression or otherwise the hopelessness he embodied. The half-starved babe had spent merely two seasons crawling earth's crust, and many of the experiences she might have drawn from had been numbed from her reach. "Camon will be here soon..." she added nervously, as soothingly as she could manage, shuffling her hooves as she loitered awkwardly above- he would know what to do better than anyone.
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Permission given for all except death
Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


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Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#5

Blood in the water

In the water
stands a mender
in the water
rests towards sheol
in the water
bleeds the redder
in the water
bleeds the gold

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


The voice came like a call of hope--Ashamin could not have been happier, then, to hear the reply. Before it had only been a voice, some echo off the surface of the water, but now, now it was an answer. And whoever the young mare at the other end of it (for he could hear the feminine trill in her voice, the one marked by youth,) he was thankful for her presence. No one, he felt, could be a greater threat to him now than his own injury: the foolishness of his failure to move.

And then, the water stirred. Before him appeared a creature in monochrome, at first like himself. He lifted his head weakly, the gesture of movement assurance of his life that remained, the closest he could get to his typical greeting. How good it would have been to reach out and touch her, then, to prove he had the strength to feel another's presence. But he didn't.

Closer inspection revealed there was more color to the mare that met the eye. Her stomach was splashed in gold, her ankle seeming to bleed the metallic hue and filling the water with its shine. And the wings she bore were majestic even though they showed signs of needing more time to grow. It would be some time, Ashamin thought, before they could rival the majesty of Einarr's--if they ever even could.

And the arachnid on her head, and the kitsune at her feet--this was a strange little filly indeed. Ashamin wondered if she could help, or if perhaps his aid lay with this strange Camon she kept calling for, but he knew now that he couldn't hesitate to ask.

Her voice bore the same gentleness, her companion the same set of multiple tails as Lena. He remembered what the bay mare had called herself: a mender. Was it possible that the similarities continued?

The buck nudged the egg nervously and tenderly, as if to comfort the creature within it. "A spar... it was only meant to be a spar..." his voice trailed and he pressed his nose to the thin surface of the orb's shell. He murmured a kindness to it, and then lifted his faze to the younger filly who stood before him. "Are you a mender? Your kitsune, I have met another bonded to one who can heal," he said hesitantly. Or was it even healing? Was he wrong in thinking that?

Where was Lena now, and the rest of the herd? He was not alone, and still, with the unhatched orb at his side... he could not help but feel an isolation, even in company.

In the water, the red of his blood stretched out to mix with the unwashed purity of a mystical, liquid gold.


[[For @[Zahra]--Thank you Riven for getting through this with me, I know you're so busy <3.]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#6
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
His eyes wandered almost retiringly from their uninterrupted journey around her trembling figure and down towards a small orb nestled above the waterline. It was a curious thing, a delicate and beautiful contrast to the watery, windblown wonderland that shifted around it – and Zahra has seen one of its kind before. Her bright eyes trailed the stranger’s naturally and set upon the egg quickly.

A ‘panion!

The young filly remembered well the moment shell had flaked away from her own to reveal the soggy mass of fur within, Bird, and the one winged colt Zero had soon arrived to explain the mechanics of her sister’s appearance in the world.

Despite the stallion’s very visible stress and the strain behind each of the questions, Zahra launched off in an entirely different direction. “It’s a ‘panion,” she informed him bluntly, shedding the cloak of nervousness for one more knowing, matter of fact (more or less how she had perceived her wise young educator to be previously)… "...Tisn’t a bird, it’s a kits’ne. Zero told me. You can never be mean to it neither he says.” Glowing gaze slipped from the motionless egg, broadening with brazen expectation as she endeavoured to snag his disquietingly black eyes, and her lips travelled down to ghost above the puppy’s smooth forehead.

“…an’ we aren’t a manda, we’re sisters.”

The longer she stood poised above him, the further the aura of new found self-assurance seemed to expand around her. It was far cry from the timid youngling who had moments before, danced with temptation to flee into the wind. This one, seemed harmless enough though, she felt.

“…and why’s ya horn all soggy like a snake? They are sposed to stick up in the air you know. Even the ones like trees.”

Zahra was oblivious to the truth of his predicament. She was wasting valuable time.

“Ya ‘panion’s gunna freeze,” she mumbled softly, quickly, still allowing him no chance to respond to the chain of eager waffle. One tiny black hoof pulled from the mud, followed by the next, and the filly continued forward until she was hovering over the unfortunate egg with rattling nostrils skirting its curved surface – all irrespective of any concern shown by her company. Kindly she looked back for Bird, and the puppy skipped quickly to stand against one foreleg.

“Don’t eat it!” she shrieked suddenly as her sister inched keenly forward with tongue slapping hungrily at the whiskers dotting each cheek. “…sit on it, Bird. You’re nice an’ warm.” Zahra illustrated her meaning very carefully by moving above the fragile egg with steps set wide around. Zero’s advice echoed between her flicking black ears all the while.

She’s part’a you.You’re ‘sponsible for her…

The kitsune could hardly understand the taller’s verbal instruction, but she figured quickly enough that the purpose of this summoning was not to dine. Under close guard, she sniffed the shell and at last copied the foal’s motion. Thick, woollen hair wrapped around the egg and she curled to one side of it – wary eyes monitoring the stranger, sinew coiled and ready to spring at any moment.

“There ya go!” Zahra beamed triumphantly, turning back to the lounging stallion. Are you going to get up? Quietly she fixed her attention to him, more conscientiously than the last time. “Well…” she paused pensively (naturally appearing more silly than sagacious). “I don’t know what spar hurt ya but I reckon you should get out before it comes back… can’t look after ya ‘panion from there, ay.” Thoughtfully she glanced by the pooling red around him, and the gold stain melting into it. The discovery of her blood’s quality had come about quite by chance once, a long time ago during mindless play. It occurred to her suddenly as thought of that occasion consumed her, that she might even be able to stop this someone from bleeding too.

Fleetingly she turned to eye Bird, to make sure that the kitsune was right where she had been left, and then she shuffled a little closer to the horse. “Err… are ya broken bad?”
image credits
Permission given for all except death
Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


Wishlist | The Spider-Silk Shoppe | Absences

Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#7

Knowing

We all know things
We know differently

You tell me about
things I learn, tell me
I'm wrong in your own words

I tell you what I can
"There are only a few
things I know,
here they are:"

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


What followed was an unprecedented and seemingly endless stream of responses, each one making less sense than the last. Ashamin listened at first, trying to answer on occasion, but found quickly that it was no use. This child, for she was indeed a child, was determined to get her own words out, whether or not they had anything to do with the query or not.

It was good, Ashamin knew, to have another at his side. And if he were to falter now and slip into a deeper darkness, at least it would not be alone. But her chatter, her babble, brought him nowhere. He furrowed his brow hidden beneath his horn, watching her with his blank, black eyes and waiting for a moment when he could reply.

a 'panion. A bird, a kits'ne, sisters. It was clear to him, as clear as anything was, that this filly (how had he ever thought to call her a mare) was bonded. But her bond was either of a different kind than Lena and Imogen's, or just something she understood differently.

As for Ashamin, with the unhatched egg that he was struggling to keep warm, he understood nothing of his own to come. But he knew enough to protect, and when he saw the kitsune approach the egg, tongue wrapped around its lips, he darted his neck forth and pressed his face to the orb in an instant. If the kitsune was to approach the egg now, it would not be without touching him. And when, seemingly at the mare's command, the kitsune did draw nearer to the egg, Ashamin was hesitant to allow it near. Still, he had found no harm in Imogen.

He nuzzled the egg and pushed his nose forward, reaching out to the kitsune in the same motion. Above him, the filly spoke again. She told him to get up, get away, leave before the spar came to get him.

Through all the pain in his body, he couldn't help but smile. This, this filly who asked what was wrong with his horn and why he wasn't up and running, was innocence. He had not seen it in a long time, perhaps, ever.

"I am sorry," he said, apologizing as always and as usual, without a need to. "I still have a lot to learn about this land, but I can tell you know very much." It was strange for the paint stallion to interact with a child for the first time. Was this sort of naivete customary?

He felt at ease, even as his leg twitched and the chain of the mysterious object slid cold against his skin. He kicked it up, letting the shine of it flip out of the water before crashing his teeth together and stifling a moan of pain. Yes, he was broken, and bad. "My horn has always been a little broken," he said with a pained smile, turning to look up at the mare but keeping his cheek fastened to the side of the egg and one eye warily trained on the kitsune. "Now, it is my leg. I am..." he hesitated. How to explain this pain, this red of blood, to a child who knew nothing of a fight? He was practically in the same situation: a child, knowing nothing of the fight. His wounds confirmed that. "I am a little broken, but not the same way. My horn, it is a good broken. I have always been that way. This happened because," and here he paused again, nervous, not wanting to lie but knowing the truth could be too much or misunderstood, "because I made a mistake. And I need to fix it."

He looked, then at the egg with the black deer inside. The thing with the heartbeat that burst against his own. "I need to be fixed, so I can take care of him."

And that was when Ashamin knew, somewhere and somehow deep in his heart: the deer in the egg was a boy.


[[Zahra]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#8
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
Soon after Zahra fell into well-earned silence, the two-toned stallion began to answer, apologise, to which the foal nodded most forgivingly. She figured, based on his explanation that he was new to Helovia – Threshold Forest new – and her obnoxious stare softened to something a little more natural, tender and sweet. By her mother’s flank when still the sun had caused plant-life to wither, the learning foal had witnessed the arrival of many such horses; ’funnelled down through the labyrinth, this forest’ the loving mare had suggested on many of those occasions. It all made sense in the child’s small mind and quickly her looming stance, shrank back to that of the starved, sickly waif she actually was. “S’ok…” she hummed gently when first the opportunity arose, but mostly she just listened as he continued his turn.

Bird was not at all moved by the stallion’s paternal instinct and shifted to and fro around the egg whenever his nose dared too near. Despite the slow predictability of his gesturing, she was in no way ready to breach the walls of suspicion which had grown by then, like a fierce, fiery fortress between them (between any fixed on interaction with the filly). Still, the egg was not her concern, it was her sisters; more still, the laying strangers, and she cared little for its welfare. The instructed warmth she attempted to share was mild as the great sloping cheek held position beside the coolish orb.

He smiled distractedly and his discomfort with the equally unimpressed canine’s proximity did not pass unnoticed. Bird, she called softly, as only even a slight breath to rival the whining wind, but the kitsune’s ears were keen and she retreated hastily, sinking into the woody line of grove trees behind the foal. Still Zahra watched unaffectedly, eyes smiling down as he revealed his brokenness – not entirely the same as the unusual horn descending his forehead. She was trying desperately to understand. A good broken… she repeated in thought alone, like Zero. She might have compared his grim horn to the naked shoulder worn by her mother also, though memory of the mare's face was oddly blurred, a stranger in her past without name or features to retrieve.

The filly’s eyes had furrowed intensely.

...because?

The stallion carried on after a small pause.

“I can fix ya?” she proposed boldly and assuredly, like she had fixed a thousand other bleeding bodies before him. Again, unexpectedly, she seemed to slip from the present, and a mammoth black and white stallion leered awfully down upon her, granite cliffs rising about her like sheer prison walls; the empty stomach tucked beneath her pointed hips seemed to lurch nauseatingly, and Zarha shook the startling vision from her eyes. “I can…” she muttered disjointedly after, disorientated, eyes refocusing and searching for some part of her company that might perhaps not spur another episode to life.

They found the hindquarters of the stallion, scarlet smeared crudely over a fleshy white rump (that which wasn’t entirely beneath the water. “I…” Avoiding his eyes entirely now (convinced that those depthless black holes held each horror), and with Bird gazing after her concernedly, she ventured nearer to his thigh. The water was freezing as one black hoof slipped fetlock-deep before its bleeding twin followed, so cold in fact that every fine hair dressing her thin body stood up on end. “Argh!” she squealed, and leapt swiftly from the lake’s numbing bite.

“Too cold in there,” she mentioned, shivering uncontrollably with teeth chattering noisily. Her white mask turned to survey the area again; desperate to find their brother emerging through the grove ceremoniously – but alas there was no sign of Camon. Zahra wasn’t at all sure how she would bring the stallion out of the water if he couldn’t himself rise. “I dunno, but I think ya legs might be frozen solid in there,” she cooed gingerly. There was a candid grimness to her tone too as she looked back to study the forelegs to the front. “I ah…

Why’d ya even go in?

Is ya brain broken too? I can’t fix that I think.”

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Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


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Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#9

Abandon

Could you bear to be
alone, if I were the only one
in this world?

Could you live in light
forever, if I were not part
of this word?


ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


The intelligence of the youth before him did not go unnoticed. Though perhaps she did have a tendency to prattle on, and perhaps she was a bit oddly versed, she knew more than him about this land in many ways, and he deferred to her for that. And the respect she had for him, too, once he was finally able to speak himself, was not unappreciated. He was tired, his body a long, cold ache, but he was still able to smile at her kindness.

He did not have a moment to thank her before she edged into the water, and did not have moment to breathe before she leaped back out. Ashamin frowned--concerned, not disappointed--and listened as she spoke on.

He cast a quick look back at his leg, fearing less for the egg now that the kitsune had parted from it, and considered her question. Why had he gone in, and were they frozen? Perhaps that was why, now, he started to notice the slowing of blood in his body and from the wound. What red remained in the water was red from an earlier time. He shifted his leg experimentally, hesitantly expecting more pain than he received.

"I had hoped," he said in a quiet reply, "that it might hurt less than being out there." And it did, he think, hurt less. There was a numbing quality to it. So, if the little one would not come to him, he would do his best to come to her. "I... I will try, to move. Thank you."


There were many steps to moving. The first was to clear away the odd object about his hocks. This, he arranged about his tail, carefully lifting the chain out of the water by its shuddering strength. And then, the egg--he nudged it further up the shore as best he could, extending his reach and shutting his eyes tight with the ache of the effort. When it was settled, Ashamin knew what came next.

And so, with a steeling of his heart, he bit down on the air and pressed his weight onto his fore, pulling himself up and grunting weakly, painfully, as he did so. His hindquarters followed slowly, dragged behind until his stronger left could carry him into a three legged hunch. The water stirred about him, the fish scattering as he disturbed their muddy homes with his now-stained alabaster hooves, and the strange amulet that had appeared in the waters skimmed the surface of the water, hanging delicately and loosely just below the bite on his tail.

Ashamin made it almost completely out of the water, crying mournfully and softly as he went, before he could stand and drag himself no longer. He collapsed with only a fraction of his body still submerged--just the back legs below his knees--and his tail floating on the water's surface with all the habits of looking like a snake.

Though the buck should have been concerned, then, for his own health, he thought only of the egg. He was splayed and shivered, utterly weak and exposed, at the mercy of this filly who, even in her youth may have had the strength to hurt him now, but it was the creature in the orb for whom he worried. He tried to speak but could only produce a weak moan. Maybe, though he could not express it, his mind was really broken.

When he looked up to meet the filly's gaze, to find in it confirmation that she could maybe know what he was thinking and what he needed, he saw her concern and the way she avoided his eyes.

It had happened before, another turning from those deep pools of black, for fear of what they would or wouldn't see.

Ashamin didn't let it hurt him.

He let nothing hurt him, now. Nothing but the thought of dying here, exaggerated as that may have been, and leaving this unhatched beauty alone in this long, twisted life.


[[@[Zahra]]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#10
Zahra, Ilham and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
The feat of movement - which obviously the foal had always quite for granted - became quickly an engrossing source of entertainment. It all started with his tail and her glittery, golden eyes switched quickly to find its first measured motion through the silvery slick of water; a brilliantly long snake whose purpose was evidently more convenient than beauty (she admired its slow, deliberate grace intently). A rather silly smile had crossed Zahra’s features, though the babe was little interested in her own appearance, vanity - like that which compelled Camon to gaze longingly at his own reflection in the water for what seemed like hours on end.

To her amazement, a trinket almost like those carried beneath her over-sized collar (and others less attractive which she had given to her brother before the journey west), was lifted from it’s wet bed. The value of such items, amulets,was quite unknown to the gangly foal, though her father on one or two occasions had explained the curious powers resting within. She had never been short in her possession of stuff.

Even as Zahra balanced on the loamy embankment beneath the thick web of foliage, her growing shoulders bore the weight of the Gallant’s ill-fitted collar; her mane above it held two clinking gold feathers. Ilham had woven the broken-heart charm she had acquired to rest like it had its first owner, braided into the top of her short, bushy tail, and upon a long platted string of the same fine, strong silk, dangled any number of stunning feathers about the middle of her young neck - they danced wildly in the harrying gale.

The scales of scattering, schooling fish gleamed as sunlight struck them and the filly watched on, waiting while the egg was urged well clear of the lake’s lapping lip. There was no doubting the wounded stallion’s concern, his devotion to the ‘panion which was still more or less Zahra’s primary concern, but she was thoroughly enthralled as he moved at last to exit the bath. As his stained teeth clenched together and his breath groaned though heaving nostrils, she encourage him softly, “Yeah, like that…” On the shoreline she slithered out of his path with baited breath and molars grinding in sympathy - it became quickly apparent that his was terribly beaten. From somewhere deep down in the reservoir of her blocked experiences, the young pegasus was able to recognise the agony ripe throughout his features. Nervously she cast a glance back to find Bird cowering by a tree, and then around them to make certain the spar wasn’t nearby. What even does a spar look like though?

No sooner was her wounded company standing awkwardly upon three legs, than he collapsed again - like gravity’s shackle was tight around his waist. “Oh!” Zahra bleated helplessly as he crashed, and she danced across petite round hooves, hesitating, unsure just what to do with herself. The stallion with the soggy horn moaned pitifully, peeling his eyes from the sitting orb to find her worried, anxious expression, and eyes trained upon him - they diverted promptly, seeking their escape in the task now left to her care. Without time to deliberate, she dipped towards his leg passing her eyes first across his gaping wound and then by her own much more humble bleed. It had been the golden liquid oozing which had cured in the past, sealed a sore leaving nothing but hairless golden scarring, and cautiously and curiously she folded her knees up upon his hip.

Awkward… her mind muttered as she tried to angle her puny fetlock across his injury.

However would she have done this if the mangrove had not so wickedly snatched her!

The foal was determined nonetheless to help the sorry soul beneath her small clambering mass, but also too, to reaffirm the queer ability she had not called upon again, for many, many months.

Straddling his clumsily like a playing kitten might her mother, Zahra at last manipulate her own blood to blend with his. She was unsure how much was required and in a brazen effort sank her blunt pearly whites into the taught skin just above her own injury - the liquid spewed as the nerves surrounding sang their bitter protest (needless to say her resolve was far weaker than his, and she released her grip promptly. “Ow…” the grimaced wearily. It was at that point that she slid from his bulging body, sleek hair glaring easily across his dense, wet winter-pelt, and down into the mud beside him. Quickly she gathered herself to stand.

The filly sauntered back to see if anything had happened - to find out if he were broken still. She arrived as the last section of golden scab was dissolving (the healing process was much the same, though accelerated, incredibly), and left in its wake was a scar that shone like a soft kiss from the sun. “Hey, it worked!” she sang out delightedly, not for a second considering the fact that he had lived through the event still more intimately, “Tisn’t any more blood!”
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Permission given for all except death
Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


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Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#11

Carried

You lift me into
beauty, the kind
I haven't known,

yet in strength I am
losing myself to the cold

How did you carry me,
so far, so long?
How will I carry you,
back to the throng?

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


Ashamin would have had something to say had he known that this little filly was about to hurt herself to heal him. But the connection between the gold in the water and the cut on her leg had not yet been made, and so he merely laid himself upon the earth, prostrate and expectant. Let her heal him, if she could. Let her fix what was broken, and knit together the tears in his flesh and heart.

Her cooing assurance had been a comfort as the young buck had forced himself up, and he was a bit glum he couldn't offer the same through his soft fits of moans. The filly knelt upon him, her leg crossing over the wound and causing him to jerk his head up with the pain. He almost yelled, almost kicked her away, but remembered at the last second why she was there, pressing upon that wound.

She was going to fix him.

He shut his eyes to keep out the pain, opening them only to look with tenderness upon the egg. "For you, little one," he whispered through and against its shell with kindness, "I will be fixed, so I can care for you."

It was odd how strong he felt, as the gold washed over him. It was hot on his numbed skin, but the sensation felt more like a tickling warmth. He cast his gaze back only for a moment, catching the last second before the filly pulled her teeth from her fetlock.

When she parted from his side, he felt the strength renewed in his body but lost in his heart. Had this filly really hurt herself to heal him? He shifted away from her, dragging himself across the petey earth for only a moment before lifting himself on shaky legs.

It was a fearful stance, one of a buck unsure of how long he would stay upright, but Ashamin was standing. His hind leg shook and the hindquarter where his wound had been twitched as the rest of the gold blood (for what else could it have been?) trickled down his body.

"Thank you, little one," Ashamin said with a soft smile and at last, an extension of his own features. Though he shivered and his motions were more uneven and jerky than usual, his customary greeting could at last be proffered. "By faith, you are a miracle."

And he said those words with a sad look to her injured fetlock, a cinched brow beneath his forelock and twisted horn. Was it his fault, or her sacrifice? He knew only that he would be forever in her debt, young as she was, long as her life was surely to be.

Ashamin cast careful glances at the kitsune and spider who accompanied her, and, thinking more clearly now, all the adornments she wore. So many trinkets, for one so young. The sight of companions turned him to his own. Gently, he bent to nudge the little orb with his nose; his leg shivered and shook, threatening to not support him, even still. He had not yet looked at the scars--that would be for another day.

His long tail lifted and the amulet upon it was draped carefully across his back. Perhaps, the child would accept it as a gift. Ashamin, too, knew nothing of its power, but he knew, too, that he needed it naught.

But he needed a moment, first. A moment to think, to gather himself. He had been so long away from home, and the little egg had gone too long un-nestled and stuck in this meadow. He needed to go home, and he had to take the egg on that journey. But how?

"Little 'panion," he murmured, perhaps loud enough for the other to hear, "will you really not hatch?"

The egg did not stir, and his problem lay unsolved. He cast his deep eyes back up at the mare, extending his tail towards her in yearning. He would not ask now, when he had asked so much of her already. It was as if being healed had brought to him again his shyness--only pain had brought out the confidence.

But still, he thought. And if one were to look, perhaps the question would be there in his eyes. How will I carry him home?


[[@[Zahra]]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#12
Zahra, Ilham and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
Like an infant rising for the fist time he lifted, and though that three-legged hunch, the painful posture he had worn had all but vanished from her sight, there was a new weight across those dim, sodden shoulders - one that she had not quite anticipated. The bright delight canvasing her face dropped away suddenly as her gaze fought the tremble of his unwieldy frame - had it truly worked? Was she too fast to claim triumph? Her young impulsive mind had expected him to rise with fresh vigour, perfect balance and form. That was not what Zahra saw though as she held stiffly onto a breath, leaning involuntarily as did he, as though it had been her own leg wounded. He shifted though, as much as was needed to find her in his sights and revealed a smile still more delicate than the song of the quiet marsh frog - equally as frail perhaps, one move and it might shy from existence.

Despite his horn too, which still seemed to bother her terribly, the young filly thought him to be little older than herself - maybe with more years under his girth than Zero too, but barely older than her brother. He was tall from her small perspective, and like her, without much flesh to coat his bones. Zahra took a moment longer to further trace his outline; legs that seemed never to end, scrawny-looking, and the hooves beneath that looked like the ones the friendly deer in the snow had worn. The tail streaming behind was perhaps the longest like it she had seen. He’s like a big baby… kinda, she thought quietly, lips pulling into a pensive smile all the while. For the most part, it was Bird lone who indulged her frivolous heart with play time, but she couldn’t help but measure up his potential worth. Once a princess, born of both earth and fire, the filly was well practiced in the tradition of formal greeting and readily she met his gesture with a soft chorus of spilling breath.

"Not a mir… acle," she giggled innocently beneath a childish flutter of snow-white lashes (her sandy eyes rolled in unison). "Zahra," she corrected easily, but his gaze had again wandered from her face. Swiftly she followed to find the gash still bloodier on her fetlock. It hurt a little, typically worse for the sake of the attention set upon it.

Bird huddled reluctantly against the cold, gnarled roots of the grove, studying carefully the body language of the stallion, now standing.

The tiny spidering had been watching from her sister’s half-black brow - like a pasty star against the night. She was tethered to the foal by a long string of shining silk and gathered it’s slack between pointed hairy feet as she began a slow retreat through the jungle of juvenile mane. Near half-way down its length she had crafted a warm burrow made of silk and oily hair, and for the most part, this tiny haven kept her hidden. Ilham was neither brave nor adventurous; she was reserved though curious like any child, and particularly creative. Already she had sown a vast forest together with uncannily strong web and this fascinated her four-legged sister endlessly - together they had created a sleek ribbon, and it was perhaps the most prized of the foal’s countless possessions.

All eyes fell finally to the egg, and while the stallion’s nose sank to touch it’s shell, the snake curling behind him distracted Zahra from the quietly intimate moment. The amulet dangling from its length slumped to the soggy dark pelt across the dipped back below and she followed it to rest with wandering interest. "Maybe she doesn’t like the cold like Bird?" she chimed unhelpfully with an unintentionally insensitive drone to her tone. Her tiny tapering nose shifted and she looked again to his face. "Saw a gold horse once and he had a dead thing for a coat," she added more interestingly, but still it was pointless. "Shame ya don’t have wings to hold ‘er like I do." She ruffled the glossy thatch of almost-grown feathers, clutched to either side of her barrel.

Then another thought struck her, and the tiny spider squirmed as she slipped into the well concealed burrow.

Lips buried themselves beneath the too-big-collar against her breast (access was easy, she was petite and it sat well upon her warrior father). Two amulets fell free and splatted loudly against the wet embankment and Zahra huffed, quietly dismayed by her own clumsy nature. She did not retrieve them right away however and fought to draw free a length of ribbon that was perhaps no longer than half of her leg. Proudly she tossed her face too and fro, waving it like a banner before him. "We make stuff y’know!" she announced through fastened teeth. "D’ya like it?" There was no mistaking her own fondness at all…
image credits
Permission given for all except death
Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


Wishlist | The Spider-Silk Shoppe | Absences

Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#13

Better

Nick your skin
to bleed for me
and I will change
for you.

ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION


It was hard for Ashamin to understand anything this little filly did, but with a little bit of thought he could usually interpret well enough. He remembered so well what it was like to be a child that he often forgot he wasn't one, any longer, and he regretted the fact, too. Childhood had been safety for him.

And though he could only hope the same for this filly, adorned in grown up's things, the absence of parental company filled him with dread. Was she alone, too?

No, he supposed neither of them were alone, now. As if on cue the egg rolled slightly down the hill to bump into his fetlock. The shaking was less, now, and the confidence built. He was no longer the weak one, here. Perhaps he still knew less than this little 'panioned mare, with her kitsune and the small spider crawling out from her mane (how odd, he thought, that one would keep such a creature as its company.) Less, at least, about the bond he had yet for forge.

He only took a moment to understand her misunderstanding, and he smiled warmly. The same fear he held for so many others faded in the face of her youth. Zahra--so that was her name. He felt her breath tickle his features, and knew then the kindness of the innocent. This was no Zandora in the wood. If this child had known tragedy, she didn't know it yet. That, he thought, was the greatest blessing she could have. And if sorrow was to come to her, and she was to be alone, then, like this, he vowed then, to be at her side.

Even if he couldn't find her, in all of this vast and unexplored land, he needed her to know he was there, at her back, watching out.

"A miracle and a Zahra, then," Ashamin offered lightly, his tones striking the cold of the air like dulled chimes. "By Faith, let your name mean that you bring good tidings."

His long tail snaked forward through the air; Ashamin dangled its hairs before the kitsune first, and nosed forward to get a closer look at the spider. "I am Ashamin," the buck put forth politely. "It is truly a blessing to meet you and your 'panions."

After that, after the customary greetings and exchanges, there was not much for the paint to say for a little while. He listened with care, nodding politely and turning his wide dishes to her, but focusing more on adjusting his own balance and not finding the focus to give her any reply. He was healed, now, and there was no need to wobble so much, but the feeling of his leg took getting used to. He took a step or two while Zahra spoke, nudging the egg as he went as if to prove to himself that rolling it back to the Basin would be an effort made in vain. Ashamin did not stray far, for the leg ached with the stiffness of unuse, now, but it was good, he knew, to be able to walk once more. And good to be left with wounds closed.

He once again looked nervously at the cut on the filly's fetlock, the cut he'd caused. Her gold blood was a wonder, but her injury was Ashamin's focus.

When the mare pulled from the collar on her breast a multitude of trinkets, he was surprised to see one so like the chain and pendant he had found in the waters. Surely, now, he knew he had to offer her this. But once more, before he could, she caught his attention. The ribbon she produced was a magnificent white banner, a thin display of beauty in cloth. This, Ashamin thought to himself, was one talented little filly.

He wasted no time. "It is beautiful," he breathed. And so caught up was Ashamin in that strong little string of white, so enraptured was he, that he lost all qualms of asking. For the moment he saw that strength, he knew it could help him carry the little egg home. Hopefully, Zahra was wrong about more than the 'panion's gender--hopefully he wouldn't mind the cold.

"Please, sweet Zahra, I have already received so much from you, but could I ask you one more favor?"

Was it greed? The buck thought not. The words were difficult, coming out from his lips, but also smooth and silken, taking on the qualities of the ribbon he so admired. He turned his head to his back and gripped the amulet in his mouth, taking a step towards the mare when he did so.

This, he did not ask after. If he asked, she had a chance to say no, and Ashamin wanted her to have this, regardless. He stretched forth his nose to drop the amulet in the hollow between the girl's collar and chest. "For this trinket," he said, smiling, the words and his breath likely hitting her little body with warmth, "could you make me a cradle for him?"

And here he looked back to his 'panion, lying on the ground with its perfect greyed shell, and knew that more than anything, he needed to care for its being.

Ashamin knew, in some way, he needed to care for all.


[[@[Zahra]]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Zahra Posts: 64
Outcast
Filly :: Pegasus :: 15hh :: 2 Years
Hanna :: Common Kitsune :: Fire & Ilham :: Bark Spider :: None Riven
#14
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils

The stallion’s whole manner seemed to melt into something utterly inviting – like the dry, straw bed girt by gold that she had seen so often in her dreams. Not at all did Zahra, the oblivious, the naive and the playful, know the truth about her beloved fantasy; that it was the same gilt cave which harboured her forever embraced parents (another dream, that was not quite as wonderful); that in fact, her mother’s bones lay in the far north and not in that cosy den, bleaching beneath the wrathful tides of Frostfall.

Bird new the truth. The tiny tortured kitsune remembered well that fateful day beneath a cold, forsaking sun, and those horrors only fed her bitter distrust of the stallion they had found – and all others of their cruel, barbaric kind. She watched discontentedly, ducking clear of the meandering tail as it drew near with tumbling white hair blow-drying in the wind. The puppy’s insulated hocks fell tentatively across the soggy loam by her sister’s gilded hind hoof and she pressed closely against the pasty, bony pillar of leg growing above it, set to the spot even as her young, enthusiastic sister began to rummage clumsily beneath the awkward collar she carried.

He was impressed, unmistakably and went further than visual expression to comment favourably (even if it was barely a whispered breath). Zahra was thrilled of course, flattered by the praise and thought warmly of her spiderling sister whose effort she could not have done without. The ribbon streamed like a glorified web, broader and still more splendid – it was indeed a trophy in her immature opinion. The crow-mare in the forest back east had frowned upon it with a cynical eye, and in general she had rattled the fine filly’s vulnerable confidence; but Zero had sooth that fray with his gentile words. The colt was a marvel she still cherished, easily the closest friend she had found along the corridors of the maze called life.

“Thanks,” she giggled softly between each sway of her black and white, pointed skull, but soon paused as he summoned her attention with a statement most curious. Although decorated vastly in things Zahra was no materialistic child. It had not crossed her mind that spilling blood upon him was anything more than a neat trick – with the added bonus of fixing him up. Golden eyes glittered with interest as they fell with hidden reserve upon the black holes that were his, and she nodded briskly, as though to assure she was listening.

Ashamin went on to request a cradle - a bed - for his egg, and the foal was taken instantly back to the warm cradle of legs she had once folded across; so too the moment which she had given the same comfort to the kitsune below her.

“We can do that,” she hummed quickly with a smile, effectively lying through her teeth, because the ribbon was in truth the greatest fruit of their labour to date. White lashes fluttered as her quivering lips skimmed the trinket he had pulled from the water – it rested like an icy stone against her breast, thrilling, chilling as his hot, musky breath lingered on like an eerie fog. It was the first occasion she had been given something so graciously – all the other adornments had been retrieved from a hole in the earth, an old badger’s set, presumably placed by her father before… well before he and her mother went to sleep.

Real expectation, and the weight of accountability was not something she was well accustomed too, and it’s choking claws fastened swiftly about the quickening pulse of her heart. “Ah… Asha…” she blurted suddenly, unable to quickly recall the full length of his name as rapidly as the anxiousness consumed her thoughts. “But I… it will take us days! You are a very big horse…” she whispered nervously, sizing him up with broadening eyes and gulping hard the bubble of hot saliva in her throat. The ribbon had taken a full morning’s concentration.

Ashamin, though perhaps not as tall as her mother – or the giant black monster that haunted her sleep – was enormous as he waited before the starving filly. Crafting an item that could help hold the little unhatched ‘panion close (if only he had wings), would be a challenge of similar proportions.

image credits
Permission given for all except death
Please only tag Zahra in openers and spars


Wishlist | The Spider-Silk Shoppe | Absences

Ashamin the Clovenheart Posts: 426
Outcast atk: 8 | def: 11.5 | dam: 5.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 15.2 HH :: 5 [Frostfall] HP: 79 | Buff: NUMB
Lochan :: Plain Cerndyr :: Dark Mist & Rakt :: Common Cerndyr :: Starpast Jen
#15
How/
Still


Was I a child like you,
once was I someone
wholly,
holy.

Was I innocent?
Was I beautiful?
Am I,
can I be still?

Tell me if I can love you.
Tell me if that's alright.
Tell me if your heart beats
just as quick as mine.

And ask me
are you innocent?
Ask me
are you beautiful?

(How) Can you be so (,) still?


ASHAMIN
BEAUTY IS PERCEPTION



The little filly was a picture of eagerness and pleasantry. No, Ashamin thought, correcting himself, it couldn't be pleasantry. Pleasantry had a sort of formality that young Zahra lacked. What she had, that was pure liveliness--simple joy found in living in this world.

Ashamin wasn't sure if what he felt was jealousy or admiration. He watched her with a steady gaze, his long tail running along the length of his own body, tracing its lines. He felt weakness and he felt strength. He felt unfamiliar in its patchwork picture, in its frame. Was this something he was doing, this changing of his body and this transformation of his mind?

How was he becoming who he was? He retreated from the little fairy of a filly, smiling briefly at her thanks before looking out over the water and training his black eyes on the ripples in the pool, all the while keeping his ears turned towards Zahra. He had filled that water with his own blood, wrecked the serenity of its cool, and now he had emerged. He was still wet, he was soaked through and to the bone, and he shivered with every chilling breeze. How had he gotten here, so far from home and shivering in the cold?

Was it the little filly who made him this way, or his own self?

Ashamin tried to shake the contemplation from his mind but struggled to do so. The filly's words came to him faintly. As if absent, the buck wandered towards the water on shaking legs, lowering his nose and rummaging at the shore until he could find and grip between his teeth the thick, wet leaves he had felt before in the mud. He shook them clean in the water, listening to the filly with patience all the while, before wandering back to her side.

Through the bundle he murmured softly, over and in between her words, a "stay still." The wet leaves still dripped; he extended his neck further and lower, aiming to plaster a few to cover the cut on her fetlock. He could no longer watch that gold blood slide onto the earth--could no longer watch it spill, needlessly.

When the leaves were free from his mouth, he did not move except to lift his head to the level of the filly's. He thought about what she had said, how he was a very big horse, and how she had called him Asha, as only his father had before her. His late father, the reason he was here in Helovia at all.

The two-toned, now three-tone buck smiled. "I will help," Ashamin said with a dreamy tone, as if only half present. "Whatever you ask of me to help, I will do." His breath crossed over to Zahra as he spoke. He thought about how soft her feathers must be. He stared, for a moment, at the patch of her coat at the base of the nape of her neck. How long would that mane grow, how bold would that neck be?

She was small. She was a child. She was beautiful.

For a moment, Ashamin wanted to cry.


[[Zahra--we can jump time if you want and do a weird silk spinning montage or his help can speed things up, whatever you want/fits best with her magic?]]
Beauty is Perception by FoxyFireWings
Table by Jen, with help from Avis


See Ashamin's profile for more information about Lochan, Rakt, and his various items.
All magic and force allowed, barring death and permanent injury.
Do not tag me, please message on skype instead


Blu the Bootyful Posts: 443
Administrator atk: 99 | def: 99 | dam: 99
Mare :: Other :: 5'7" :: 25 HP: 99999 | Buff: TWERK
Blu
#16
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 HP: 1100

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