| Outcast |
| Colt :: Unicorn :: 15.1hh :: 1 Year |
|
Mali :: Rough Collie :: None
Brit |
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I don't know why I left, or where I think I'm going. All I know is that I want to get away, away from the mists and the people that stare at me, at my limping gait and silent lips. Weird, they whisper, that they look so different. I know I don't look like you Momma. I know Fae doesn't either. And I know the people talk, in hushed tones, like I can't hear. But I hear, Momma. I hear and I bow my head and limp away and the pain is no longer so tangible, because it hurts in my chest, and I don't have enough words to define what I'm feeling. I don't tell you Momma. Because I can see the panic in your eyes, the question of what am I going to do with them? And I know deep inside that goodbye is coming soon. That you don't intend to keep me, that Fae is leaving, that I might be too.
So I leave instead.
I don't know the land outside the Edge. And it hurts to walk. But I do it anyways, I keep moving, even as fire eats up my legs and the land is blurry with the tears that swell in my eyes. It's hours and hours of nothing but walking and hurting and wondering why God why don't I stop? But there is something solid and old inside of me and it tells me that stopping is not an option, because I can only move forward. That I cannot give up. That failure is not allowed. And all I can do is obey, obey, obey. I am a creature made for servitude, for meekness, and so I listen to this voice that will in time make me strong. Following it, I will be lifted from my meekness, and yet I am weak all the while for obeying helplessly all the same.
I lift my eyes and I stare. Everything is blue. Everything is sparkling and moving and beautiful. But when I try to reach it, Momma, I can't. My legs crumble and I fall. Even still I struggle, I crawl. I promised you Momma. I promised I would be beautiful for you. So why do I fail now, when I'm so close? My knees hurt as I scrape them on this pale substance which folds and eases out beneath me, making it harder and harder for me to crawl along. I just want to be beautiful, Momma. So why am I cursed to never make it?
My tears fall. I'm sobbing so hard I can hardly breathe, but it's so unfair! And before I can realize it, I'm screaming, my throat raw and aching and I'm thrashing about in the sand. Why? Why? Why? And then my screams start turning into that one word, over and over again, until it breaks and I cry and cry and cry. An ugly, broken, gangly body. A black stain on a sea of the palest creams. Vulnerable.
I just wanted to be beautiful for you Momma. I'm sorry I failed you.
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 |
Ed Ivanushkin @ flickr
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!
| World's Edge Mare atk: 4.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6 |
| Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 :: 5 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE |
|
Mara :: Common Rougarou :: Shadow
ali |
 ranjiri
calmness is the cradle of power
By this point I'd come to accept that I'll probably never have a real place to call home again. It had been my choice, after all, to not follow my own mother and remain safe in her shadow. I like to think sometimes that she is proud of my decision to go out and be on my own just like Hototo had, though I know in my heart that he is far more important than I will ever be. I'm not bitter because of it, though I would like for my mother to look at me the same way she had looked at Hototo. I mean, I know she loves us both, just in different ways. Just like daddy loves me and Cera and Hototo all differently. I can lie and say that I understand the way it works, but I won't. I don't have any children of my own but maybe one day I will and one day I'll understand completely. Until then I can only accept that they love me even if they have odd ways of showing it.
The constant sound of the ocean is what left me thinking for so long about my family. It has a soothing effect and if you don't pay attention you could stand for hours and stare out at the water until the sun is setting and blinds your eyes. Today, though, there was a noise along with the ocean that kept me from losing myself in the rhythm of the waves. It startled me and I found myself searching the beach for whatever it was that was making such a racket and I spotted him trying to crawl through the sand toward the water. My heart felt like it jumped into my throat because even from so far away he looked so helpless and I wondered where his mother was. My own mother, though she could be so cold and distant, never let me out of her sight even when she wasn't around. Bear was always with me, watching me and protecting me like Momma asked him to.
I did not hesitate as I trotted quickly toward the younger horse. With each step I took toward him I could feel my heart breaking at the sound of his sobs and it finally shattered when he screamed. "Shhh." I murmured as I drew closer and as I looked at him I realized that he could be my brother, though he smelled nothing like my own family. His gold markings matched mine and the red matched my eyes. "Shh, its okay. You're okay." Quickly, I lowered my body into the sand so I could lay beside him and try my best to soothe away whatever was ailing him. Whatever motherly instincts that come naturally to a girl seemed to come full force as I spread a wing to draw the colt to my side and cradle him until he was comforted. It was what his mother should be doing if she were around.
"Speak."
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Credits
aud pixel!
| Outcast |
| Colt :: Unicorn :: 15.1hh :: 1 Year |
|
Mali :: Rough Collie :: None
Brit |
|
Is it too much to want to be pretty? To want to have people look at me in awe and wonder, instead of lingering gazes that speak of pity and uncertainty? Momma, sometimes I stay up late at night and look up at the stars. They're so tiny, so insignificant. So much like me. But they shine, Momma. And even one, alone, in a sky full of blackness and shadow, can draw an eye from thousands of miles away. So much power and brilliance in something so small, so fragile. I want to be a star, Momma. I want to shine, and I want people to look at me and breathe out slow and reverent. I know I'm small, Momma, and I know I can't change that. But if I have to be small...I want to be small and brilliant.
But I can't even achieve this.
I've failed you, Momma. I've failed you and Fae and myself, and it hurts more than the sting of my hooves can ever hope to achieve. And maybe if I scream, if I rip and tear away at my vocals and feel the blood wash down the back of my throat, I can wash away the shame with the only constant in my life. Pain is all I have, Momma. It's the friend looming at my side, sinister and smirking as it clenches down a hand upon my maw and forces me to bear the weight of it with a wicked laugh. Even my tears are hot and I hope they burn me, burn these disgusting unnatural eyes from my head so I never have to see my reflection again, never have to watch the others turn away and wince at the sight of my gaze. I would rather be blind than a failure, Momma.
Is that why you don't love me? Because I'm so different from you and Fae?
And I hear you, hushing me, and my lashes are thick and my tears are hot and I blindly turn towards you. "Momma," I choke, and I taste iron, and I cry because maybe you love me after all. "You came, Momma." Recklessly I turn and I bury myself into your shoulder, and you smell like everything wild and pure, and it's not like you at all. I shudder into stillness, muscles sore and spasming, unable to clench like I order to them. I can't be strong, either, Momma. I can't be either of the things you want me to be, and a new flood of tears comes so fast I hiccup. I was wrong. You didn't come for me, Momma.
But her voice is soft and her scent is warm, and I cry into her shoulder because she doesn't know I'm supposed to be pretty. So for a few moments, I can be myself. Ugly and broken and used by a world I'd never wronged. And when I open my eyes...she's clear. And...and Momma, she's just like me. And I stare and stare and stare because maybe, just maybe, I can be pretty like her too. How can something so beautiful stand to be near me? To touch me? Much less comfort me. I should be groveling at her hooves, apologizing for taking her colors upon my skin and making them something horrid and disfigured. But there is a hole inside me, Momma, and I want to rip it out because all it does is grow bigger every day, and I fear it will consume me. And she is like an angel, like a golden moon in the night sky that brings me so much comfort, and I am helpless to her.
"N-Not okay," is all that trembles and breaks like glass as it falls from my lips, my tears among them, but I lean into her and try to calm the shuddering as I sob. "D-Don't touch...too pretty...please, I too ugly, I ruin," I whisper, my voice torn and ragged like a delicate fabric ripped from rough handling. It hurts so I go quiet and stare at the ocean, a word I've yet to really learn, and wonder how the Gods can stand for me to be there. I am a stain on this landscape, hiding beneath the wing of my mirror image, far more beautiful than I will ever be. And when I can speak again there is only one thing I can choke, as if the words are knives and I can't swallow them.
"Why? Momma don't love me...why I not beautiful? Why I a freak?" A word I'm too young to know and it breaks in the middle and I sob.
Momma, I want to be a star.
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|
Ed Ivanushkin @ flickr
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!
| World's Edge Mare atk: 4.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6 |
| Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 :: 5 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE |
|
Mara :: Common Rougarou :: Shadow
ali |
ranjiri
calmness is the cradle of power
My heart continued to break for him with each sob that broke from his throat. I did the only thing that I could think to do while he cried and that was to simply keep whispering to him that he would be okay. When he cried out and called me 'momma' I felt like my heart had finally broken completely. The poor colt wanted his momma so badly and all he got was a stranger, but at least I cared enough to try and comfort him. I cared enough to curl my wings around him and cradle him, hide him away from the world until his sobs stopped wracking his body and he could finally look at the world through dry eyes. For several minutes he cried into my shoulder, drenching my coat with hot tears, but I didn't care because I knew what it was to cry alone. I had done my fair share of crying in the past several days, and I knew how a kind gesture could make a world of difference be it just a few words or an embrace.
His sobs weaken and when they finally stop my wing grows slack so he can move if he wanted to, but instead he just stared and me and I looked on, studying his eyes and thinking how the red reminds me of my own momma and the gold reminds me of daddy. He really could be my brother, but instinct told me he was not and I found myself wishing for the first time that I had a baby brother to care for. "Hello. I'm Ranjiri." I smiled genuinely at the young colt and tilted my head slightly as he suddenly claimed that I could not touch him because I was too pretty and he was ugly. "Whoever told you that lied to you." Maybe not everyone was a fan of the color scheme he sported, but I found it pleasant, though I may be a little biased.
"Why? Momma don't love me...why I not beautiful? Why I a freak?"
"I'm sure your momma loves you." It was a knee-jerk reaction to say it, but how could I tell a colt that I didn't know why his mother didn't love him? "Everyone sees beauty differently. I think you are very beautiful..." My voice trailed so he could give me his name, should he want to. "Why do you think you're a freak? Is it because you have two different colored eyes? I think that's unique and very striking. My dad has gold eyes and my momma has red eyes." I smiled and dared to nudge the young colt's muzzle. "And look at mine! I don't even have pupils." Just endless pools of crimson that many thought were so very strange looking. "Its things like that that make us beautiful."
"Speak."
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Credits
aud pixel!
| Outcast |
| Colt :: Unicorn :: 15.1hh :: 1 Year |
|
Mali :: Rough Collie :: None
Brit |
|
I don't deserve an angel, Momma. Yet here she is, smiles and warmth, like the dark side of the sun. And I love her, Momma. I love her because she sees me, hiding behind the glimmering brilliance of my family, and she wants me instead. Me, a shadow, a silent skeleton with too big eyes and a burdened heart. And I don't know why she wants me or why she even cares but I starve for it. I soak up every word and smile and touch she so graciously bestows upon me and it's so much all at once and yet not enough just the same. But she's like a wave, working at me slowly with each tide that comes in, until I succumb to her. And I can't be more grateful because submerged in her presence I'm calm. I can breathe. And for just a while, I forget. I forget Fae and her beauty, and the strangers with the whispers and stares, and I even forget you Momma. And...I feel free.
When I can cry no more, in the silence that follows I hear her voice. And she tells me her name, breathes it into my ear like a secret, one I vow to keep forever. Ranjiri. And I stare at her because she's crazy, right? Why would she think...? And my mind rebels, but my heart aches, because I want to believe. But then she says Momma loves me...and Momma, I know that's not true. I know you look at me, at Fae, and you wish you'd never had us. That you never got to have fun, that you were too young, and that's why Fae has to go away. Am I going to be sent away too, Momma?
If I have to be sent away...then I want to live here, forever, under the midnight silk of Ranjiri's feathers, safe from the world and drowning in the peace she spreads over me like a blanket. Safe. Loved. I want to stay forever cradled in her grasp, until everything bleeds black and gold and I never have to cry again.
She calls me beautiful, Momma. And my breath comes sharp and my eyes water a little and I flick my eyes between two rubies and try to see if she's lying. But she's not. And my lips part and my words are broken and humble, so sincere they hurt as they come out; "Thank you." And I turn my head and stare at the sand where she lays, watching the abrupt turn from pale cream to midnight and whisper a confession I've never spoken to anyone but the mistress of the night in the hours when I should be sleeping. "It all I want...be pretty. Maybe...maybe Momma love me, like she love Fae, if I pretty." Oh, Fae. Beautiful Fae, with her dusk schema and her beautiful eyes, her lilting laugh and her perfect features. And Momma hates the father that sired Fae, and yet she sees in her beauty I can't compare to. Fae is strong, and beautiful, and those are the only two things I can hope to achieve. The only things I know, they consume me, a fire, for if I cannot reach them then I don't deserve Momma's love.
And I feel stupid because she pauses and I tuck my face into her shoulder and hide. I don't want to embarrass myself in front of the angel, Momma, but I fear I already have. "Ryuu," is the soft whisper that comes out when she hesitates, a gift, a hope that this extension of names means I can keep her. That this feeling of peace, of being loved, can stay with me forever. Momma, how can I explain that I'm a freak? I have so few words I can use, and I stumble as I try to put them together, feeling foolish in front of this eloquent angel swathed in the fabrics of perfection. "Momma...had Fae and I, but Fae has one daddy, I has another. At same time. Momma very young. Momma white, I...black. Eyes weird they say. Horns weird they say. Just one. Not three. Lots of reasons..." I know I'm weird to have three horns, Momma. I know there are so many things that make our family victims of whispers and rumors...and I am too small to fight them. There's nothing else I want, to banish them, to make them hurt like they hurt my family. But I am weak. And so I must be strong, just like I must be beautiful.
Momma, her eyes are like rubies. No black at all. And I stare and a small tremulous smile begins on my lips. "You my sister, Jiri? Look...like me. I be beautiful, like you? Later?" And if I were older Momma, I would hear the desperate hope in my own words and feel shame, because my heart is in the hands of this beautiful angel, and she has the power to either break me or make me stronger. I am too young to know the dangers of this act.
Momma, maybe...maybe other people can love me too. Maybe I've been looking for love in the wrong places.
|
|
Ed Ivanushkin @ flickr
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!
| World's Edge Mare atk: 4.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6 |
| Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 :: 5 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE |
|
Mara :: Common Rougarou :: Shadow
ali |
| Outcast |
| Colt :: Unicorn :: 15.1hh :: 1 Year |
|
Mali :: Rough Collie :: None
Brit |
|
It had been a tentative gift that I had given her, one that I felt held no real weight or meaning, it was just my name. But it had been a gift all the same, for I had nothing to truly give her. There was nothing to my name, no possession I could impart upon her form. And yet she took it from my hands and turned it into something beautiful. Whispered it into my ears, a name I owned and heard every day of my short life, and yet she reinvented it within the brief seconds in which she spoke it. On her tongue it sounded majestic, beautiful. With each moment I spent in her embrace, I could feel myself changing. Maybe, with her in my life, I could finally learn to be beautiful. But all I could manage was a pathetic nod, an affirmation that my name was correct. Even if it hadn't been, I would likely have changed my name to whatever she spoke just to please her.
And so when she beckons me to gaze upon her I do, even if I can't comprehend why in the world anyone would find wings and a horn paired together weird in any way. I'm new to this world, to the racism that exists far from my realm of quiet suffering and existential worrying. But I listen, and I soak in her words like I am a sponge and she the water that quenches me. And I whisper a promise in return, one that I will try my hardest to keep, if only because perhaps then she will be proud of me. "I-I try." Is she aware of how much I would sacrifice for her, in this moment? My soul reaches out to her, wanting only to tie with hers and be in harmony together. To be loved, to be cherished.
"Or...I could be 'Momma' if you want me to..."
I stare at her for longer than is likely polite, and my eyes burn with liquid that gathers on my long black lashes like dewdrops on sweetgrass. Could I truly have a Momma that loves me? One that looks like me, calls me beautiful? It seems like the Gods have finally decided to stop toying with me, to offer me a chance at redemption, at happiness. And it's so much, so intense, such an earth-shattering revelation that I cannot force my tongue to move into words I want to shout.
"You can stay with me as long as you want to."
No more running after disappearing slivers of white, or waiting up at night with Fae shivering against me for a warmth that won't be coming. I can finally...maybe...be free. I want it so badly it aches, but I fear that Jiri will grow weary of me too, that it will be her back I'm chasing as she walks out of my life like Momma did. But I need this so much more than my fear can enshroud, and as diamonds slip down my cheeks- this time from joy- I can only nod my head against her. Her breath is warm and comforting, sweet like apples and clover, as she whispers a secret into my harks. That I am beautiful. And I want to believe it, allow myself for just this moment to do just that, and I'm laughing and crying and hiccuping myself silly when I finally get the words out.
"Yes. Yes, yes. Momma. Momma." And I chant it softly, cheeks wet but laughing through my hiccups as I shuffle impossibly closer to the warmth of her body. Wash myself clean of the previous holder of the title I speak, for even if I cannot forget, I can move on. I can try. I can make you free, Momma, by leaving you. So I found another Momma, one who whispers secrets in my ears and calls me beautiful, one who makes my name sound like that of a king, and I love her. I love my angel Momma. "L-Love you, Momma. Momma." My heart has crawled free of the prison of my ribcage, this profession of love sincere despite the time I'd known her, awaiting her response.
My new Momma is an angel, and I don't deserve her, but I love her. I love her. I love her.
|
|
Ed Ivanushkin @ flickr
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!
| World's Edge Mare atk: 4.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6 |
| Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 :: 5 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE |
|
Mara :: Common Rougarou :: Shadow
ali |
ranjiri
calmness is the cradle of power
"I-I try."
That's all I wanted him to do was to try and ignore everyone who said something negative about him. I don't think I'll ever understand what could possess someone to tell a child he was ugly or worthless. I know that the world is cruel, but until that point I hadn't realized just how cruel it could be. I wanted to protect him from all of it even though I was still young, myself. Someone had to take care of him, though, and if his mother wouldn't do it then I would do my best to pick up where she'd left off.
He didn't answer right away when I offered to replace his mother and I began to think that I had overstepped my bounds. I noticed the tears that shone in his eyes and I frowned, thinking that I was wrong in assuming that he didn't want his mother. Maybe he wanted her but she hadn't wanted him. If that were the case would he leave and start searching for her? If he did I couldn't stop him, he wasn't mine, but I would help him instead of leaving him to his own devices.
"Yes. Yes, yes. Momma. Momma. L-Love you, Momma. Momma."
Was this how my own mother had felt when I called her 'Momma' for the first time and told her that I loved her? Did her heart feel like it shuddered? Did tears prick the corners of her eyes? Did the happiness she felt alone make her feel like she was flying when she was earthbound? He wasn't my flesh and blood but I would treat him like he was. I would protect him from everything I could, teach him what I knew, and succeed where his real mother had failed.
"And I love you." I whispered into his ear because how could I not say it back? I may have only met the child a few minutes before, but he was so starved for love I was scared that if I didn't say it he would break even more. I made it my mission, then and there, to build his confidence up and raise him with enough love and compassion that he would never hunger for it again. "Do you want to go home?" I asked, having already made up my mind that I would go to the Dragon's Throat and seek out my brother because I couldn't do this completely alone.
"."
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Credits
aud pixel!
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[P] i remember saying prayers for someone kind
