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My deeds are senseless and rendered meaningless
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[PRIVATE] Bacon Pancakes
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01-16-2014, 04:42 AM
 still a credit to your ruse, what a beautiful excuse to never open up your eyes and see the things you lose
The crystalline clarity, the glacial cold, the calm—it all shattered, like fragile glass dropped on a cold marble floor. In the face of the frothing waves of darkness what little composure he'd had vanished. His shocked systems caught up with reality. Loudmouth was a warm body in a world that had sunk into the abyss, and for a moment, he touched her: broad chest against a moving flank, the faint sensation of her breath's movement causing it to strain against him. Touch; pressure. She was warm, he was warm, the fleeing moron was warm, but the rest of the world had gone out. The balance held for a moment longer, tethering them in sanity, grounding them in reality, then it shattered and fell down in a rain of sharp fragments. She ran. He ran. The abrupt change washed away the final dumb shock, explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that the reason his bloodline was still alive was because someone, back when, knew when to fight and when to run, and that this, this was an excellent example of when you should do the latter. So they did. Black and white and all muted-out in the lack of light they fled across the lackluster sands, into the dunes, into solid earth, and further, always further; he would not remember much of their flight, later. Only fragments of darkened scenery, of his hot pulse pounding through his veins, like a beating drum in his ears—the taste of terror and darkness in the back of his mouth. The first flash of starlight again, dancing across the odd black-blues and whites of Loudmouth's back and flanks. The eastern sky paling into the hints of a dawn. Loudmouth fell into a trot and Mauja nearly ran into her, but dodged around her ass the last moment to sweep up beside her again. Exhaustion burned along his limbs, a fire in his muscles—the light brought him back to life, made him uncomfortably aware of how much he just wanted to stop, and rest. Snapping into a surprisingly elegant trot he threw a glance over his shoulder. There'd been no sign of Moron having fled. And now, the darkness was lost, somewhere beyond starlight and moonlight and winds and time and space and—something white swept in from the sky. With wings folded Irma dropped, arrowed down from the vast blue, to grab Mauja by the withers just as the now-trio swept into the Grove. The willow branches slapped against his face, but Loudmouth was still going strong, so Mauja followed. Or urged. He didn't know which was his role now, when the adrenaline and the long, long run was finally over. He just knew that he was loathe to leave her. It almost looked like she tripped on something, and fell. One moment their ever-slowing trot had been taking them into the heart of the copse, the next she was falling heavily to her side in the shallows. Mauja dug all four feet into the grassy bank. She might want to flop into the waters like a fish, but he wasn't too keen on bathing. Besides, if you weren't careful, you could get stuck. He swung around, narrowed his eyes, as if expecting the darkness to come crawling in their tracks like some kind of beast—but the space between the trees was still clear. The air, smelled clear. Tasted clear. Gratefully, he drew it in. What the hell had just happened? Irma was exhausted, too; she'd promptly gone to sleep, talons buried in his flesh firmer than usual. Red pinpricks of blood made miniscule little rivers from her perch, just a dab of blood on snow—he was shaking, he realized abruptly. Shaking, and panting like a beast. Shaking with the effort of the run, the aftermath of adrenaline, shaking because he wasn't one to succumb to emotion. He wasn't one to give in to fear and flee; if he was afraid, he fought. Flailed, with ice. He didn't simply black out and run. He'd never felt anything like it before; anything like that fist of cold, absolute terror closing around heart and mind, around his throat, choking courage and sanity and life. His breathing was shaky, too. Snorting, as if he could somehow expel the lingering traces of that uncomfortable, utter fear, he turned again, to look at his newly acquired companion. Lying like that, on her side in the shallow water in the predawn light, she seemed younger than she had on the moonlit beach—with all the angles of adolescence not having filled out the full frame. "What the hell was that?" he asked of her in a rough voice; but still, from his tone it was clear he did not expect her to have the answer. He just needed to distract his spinning mind.
01-19-2014, 11:58 AM
still a credit to your ruse, what a beautiful excuse to never open up your eyes and see the things you lose
Fire burned in his limbs, in his throat, wound its shadows around his heart expertly: as breath after breath plunged in and out of his lungs the frenzied terror settled into something subtler, like a cloud's shadow cast over the ground. She jerked in the water at the sound of his voice, head spinning to pinpoint his location. For a moment, surprise blotted out the growing anxiety. She hadn't known he was on her tail? Hadn't realized that when she ran, he ran? That every step along the way, she had had a white shadow, just as terrified as she? He stared at her mutely for a moment, as she got it out of her mouth that she didn't know, and rolled onto her belly. The water glistened all over her where she lifted out of the gentle water. Its soothing rhythm was so at odds with his heartbeat, and the terror which sunk its teeth into their pitiful world. Huge. Black. Annoying as hell. He snorted, face settling into a grim smile. Don't forget fucking terrifying. What was it about the blackness, about the way it obliterated the stars, the waves, smothered the land itself..? What was it? Moving oblivion? Disease? How could it strike such fear into their hearts..? Again, his gaze turned to the way they had come, to the pastel orange of the dawn sky, and the trees, the horizon. No sign of that living cloud of blackness coming closer, but still.. he couldn't shake it from his mind, shake the fear from his veins. And as if to make matters worse, much worse, Loudmouth said it was on the move. "What," he hissed, head flicking around like a snake's. It was spreading? Just as he was about to open his mouth, spit venom at the world for its fucking nuisance ways and at Asni for not keeping things in order, he saw her face—saw her eyes. Something.. she was staring wide-eyed, frozen with horror, in his direction. And all his anger was consumed by itself, mounted into something stronger, something more directed; he looked behind him again, but there was nothing there and with grim determination smouldering in his eyes he turned back to her. On the beach, she'd seemed young, but so strong, despite, or maybe because of, their antics. Here, with each passing second, she seemed more and more a child. Too many times, over and over again, he'd let his own children, and their mothers, down. If there was anything he could do, to save this one—the child of someone else, no less precious.. no less loved by her parents, than his were, despite his own incredibly fucked-up tendency to just ditch them... He knew that the day someone saved his kid, he'd be grateful. But it wasn't because of that backwards appeal to karma; it was because he simply couldn't abandon a child to the darkness of this world. "Hush," he found himself whispering, taking a few steps closer on limbs that still shook faintly with the aftermath. Gently, he reached out, made to touch her wet cheek lightly with his soft muzzle. There was not much he could say—not much he could do. Promise it would be alright? He was too much of a realist. Promise to keep her safe? He always broke that one, no matter how much he tried. No matter how fierce his faith, or how determined his heart, he worked no miracles: for all his deeds and for all his reputation, he was but one man. In the face of that, the terror of the darkness didn't seem so strange. Strip everything from the bones and despair is the one thing you have left. "We'll figure something out," he said after a moment, staring out of the grove from the corner of his eye. "Somehow, we'll get through this, and come out on top." Sometimes you just need to have a little faith. Wasn't that what he had, in d'Artagnan? In Kahlua, and all her whimsical loyalty? In Hellena's serene justness? Now, he just needed to have some faith in himself, too.
01-25-2014, 11:48 PM
01-26-2014, 05:10 AM
still a credit to your ruse, what a beautiful excuse to never open up your eyes and see the things you lose
She was, perhaps, too old for such sentimentality—far from the first trembling steps of a narrow foal's body, filled out with muscle but still not. Fear was nothing you outgrew, anyway. His pounding heart was proof of that. But with age comes pride, doesn't it? All talk about strength and courage, it got to you after a while. And you didn't hide in the shadows of strangers, in their careful touches, because at some point it crossed a line. At some point, it could just get all wrong. And no matter his intentions, it was all up to her reaction. But all she did was pull away after a moment, rubbing her wet cheek against a knee. A small, sad smile curved his lips. Snö was the same way—never wanting to admit to weakness, or feeling. Had she striven to be like him, a true creature of ice? Or was it simply because they had never protected her enough to make her feel safe around them? He wasn't sure. Would he ever know? He let the thoughts go, unwillingly. Snö was his child, after all, but she wasn't here. Loudmouth was, trying to steady herself, find her strength and courage again. He didn't blame her, nor bother her. With that darkness just around the bend.. how could he? And how could he possibly think it justified to try and force her to admit the emotion she struggled so to hide? The answer was simple: he couldn't. The only right thing to do was to not acknowledge the shadows in her eyes. It was her choice what to show and not to show, and right now, she clearly wanted to be strong. He respected that. “I dunno, maybe you have some great idea up in your noodle or something, but I…” Up in his noodle? Whichever sorry parent had taught this feisty girl to talk? (Or rather, whichever sorry parent had not taught her..?) Still, despite its confusing qualities, it was kind of amusing: she was so raw and honest and blunt, all the things Mauja was not. In the face of it, it was hard to let the terror cling and seep through his veins; he lowered his head, shook it slowly. Here in the early, early sunlight, it was easy to.. forget? The enemies you forget are the ones which stab you in the back later. But just for a moment.. to breathe... It was all crushed, horribly, snatched away from him with the same speed-ignition of memory, and fear. She stopped belittling her intelligence mid-sentence, froze again in that fearful, devastated posture. Mauja's head whipped around again, but the darkness was still nowhere to be seen. He looked back to her quizzically, but she was somewhere else. Somewhere else entirely. Where are you? She wouldn't tell. Like a startled deer taking flight the youth spun on the spot and tore back towards the darkness. His heart leaped into thundering motion. "Wait!" he cried, pushing his trembling haunches into motion after her, Irma nearly falling off with the frenzy of his movement. "Don't go back!" It was obvious where she was heading, tracing their flight with a fervor maybe greater than when running for her life; she wasn't listening. She wasn't going to stop. He could probably outpace her, age lending him stamina and strength, but she was young and determined. Young, determined, and magical. "WAIT!" he cried again, but she wouldn't wait. She was gone. Mauja stopped where he was, threw his head back to the sky and screamed his wordless frustration at it. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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