Яikyn

Drip.
 
Drip, drop.
 
The light bleeds through my eyelids, a deep crimson blur.  The waters of sleep stir about me, a subtle ripple through my darkened conscious, a small part of my mind clinging to a meadow, the red light of dawn fringing the horizon.
 
Drip, drip.
 
I hear birds, they are singing so sweetly in the dawn.  They sing through the dull drone of pain that falls from the lips of the dying, of the wounded, of the damned.
 
The incessant dripping of blood into the coagulated pools collected beneath my hooves, it draws to my blurred thoughts the image of snow, snow melting in the touch of the sun.
 
Slowly, the dream melds into the burgundy reality, my mind awakening to the sound of thawing ice as my dream eyes look down at eyes that do not see me, will never see anyone again.  Both my bodies shudder, my shadow form scatters like powder against a stiff wind.
 
Drop, drip, drop.
 
The shudder lifts my lids, finding dazzling sunlight glinting through the water logged points of the icicles which dangle from the mouth of the small cavern I have dozed off in.  The frozen water and the water itself fragments the light, so that it sparkles on the stone and on the melting veneer of snow which coats the emerald grasses of the valley, so that it stabs into my eyes and makes me immediately clench them shut with a grumble of annoyance.
 
I’ve been in such a bad mood since I’ve come home.
 
Erebos was no where to be found, nor was Aithniel, or Adelric and his sister.  The friends of my youth had found new lives, it seemed, and while I would never admit as much if asked, I missed them, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they had forgotten me all together, if I had lost the importance in their lives that they still held in mine.  Either way, I had never been this alone in all my life, left knowing only where to find my antisocial sire; there had always been the four of us, or my parents and I, and even in the Nightwalk, far away from my roots, there had been Xynia, Furen, and Vaelenne.
 
I wonder why I ever came home at all if not for my father, or the drive my faith, letting my golden eyes open in narrow slits; my tail slices the air behind me as I stir my hooves into motion, my skin flinching where the cold water drips down on my back as I pass into the glaring light of spring. 
 
Greeted by the warmth of the Sun’s touch, the heavy cloak of sleep shedding from me with each step (and the knot of hostility wedged in my heart loosening, as well), I trot through the knee high, melting snow to the threshold of the Basin, anxious to know if the thaw had dropped the wall low enough for adventure beyond the frost bound realm of my birth – at least without the potential repercussion of not being able to get back in.
 
The birds, who I blame for rousing me over the drip of the melting ice, occasionally pass overhead, their throats alive with songs that tell of the coming warmth and rain.
 
I forget their slight against me when I arrive upon the sentinels to find them still partially buried in white – but that the threshold to the hidden vale of the Basin is thawed enough to allow easy passage.  The birds promise that no more snow waits on the passing winds with their cheerful chirrups and playful flight, and I revel in the sound as I cross though the border and into the wilderness beyond.
 
-------------------------------------------------
 
Something feels wrong as I walk the ethereal trail which passes the blue mouths of the ice caves, but I cannot place it. 
 
It’s like the feeling in my gut just before I realized mother was gone, but less obvious, more like the memory of the feeling, but with actively pulling hooks that refuse to let my mind think of anything other than their nagging tug. 
 
Its been tugging at me since I left the Basin, some hour or so down the winding, treacherous mountain trails that would lead me south, back into Helovia proper.  It tugs at me like the wind tugs at my tangled mess of a mane, like my heart pulls my blood through my veins.
 
I ignore it with some proficiency, as most young men are capable of, continuing on my quest as if nothing is amiss.  I have enough to think about without wondering if a dark cataclysm is to strike us again, such as the tale of the Steppe creature, or the horrific wraiths, and quickly push it aside each time the nagging feeling forces itself into my conscious thoughts.
 
It’s the blue of the ice that distracts me this time, the strange, bright blue of ice so old that it perhaps knew the name of the first mortal to see the Steppe.  I am tempted to cross into their depths, to chase the memories of my youth in which my friends and I had raced through their labyrinth, the sound of our laughter and tiny hooves echoing about us.
 
Instead, I keep my pace south, a faint smile coloring the usually somber lines of my face, feeling, for the first time today, the glimmer of hope that, someday, we’ll make new memories here.
 
I just have to find them first.


@Zunden @Roux @Glacia
[ OOC: Preferably no one else unless one of the tags is a no show. :3  It's already a pretty big crowd lol. ]

in every heart a hole

Яikyn

What sounds like a shouted profanity draws my ears back, though I do not look back at first, instead taking in his snow and pine scent, freshly layered over the smells of foreign lands as my own, figuring its probably some wanderer or another, perhaps even a patrol unit; perhaps they feel the weird feeling I feel and just don’t know how to handle it, have tripped on their own feet, or have some weird cursing syndrome – I don’t know, nor do I really find it any of my concern.

It’s followed there after by the muffled crunch of approaching hoof beats, however, and so I spare a glance behind me to find a narrow bodied, bay stag who is perhaps only a year or two older than I am. I feel like I should know him, because he seems familiar, and because there is something to the way he moves, the lines of his figure, and the opacity of his horn that reminds me of d’Artagnan, the grumpy old doctor who had constantly berated my mother’s leadership with remarks that, quite honestly, might have got me kicked across the Basin for laughing if I hadn’t prudently expressed restraint.

Perhaps one of his sons, I muse, finding him walking alongside me in short order, my eyes having roamed ahead once more so that he may or may not know that I knew he was coming up on me at all.

He seems amiable enough, earning a sidelong glance from me that is accompanied with the faintest of friendly smiles (a sorrowful light shining in my eyes regardless), which I use to cover up the ache in my heart that I don’t really want to give away to this guy. I’m not really sure how eager I am to be making new friends just yet, but I don’t really find bridge burning all that appealing of an aspect, either.

Besides, if he is the doctor’s son, we likely have more in common than I will with most.

"I guess," I answer, rolling a shoulder in nonchalance as we walk, lying by avoiding the truth; I have slowed my step to allow for better conversation, obliging the company of this red pelted stranger and his companion, whose shadow cast from overhead drifts like a charcoal ghost across the snow, "is that why you’re out here?"


[ OOC: Dense Rikyn totally has not noticed that Roux is blind yet. xD Pay his idiocy no mind.

Also Nessie feel free to jump in still. I just wanted to go ahead and respond. :3 ]

in every heart a hole