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 Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:50 pm
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 Long had the night embraced the land in its chilled tendrils as the mare walked her path, a ritual through the dark on a nightly basis. Tucked away in her mother's homeland slept the weary mare as well as her own daughter - kindred spirits in their mental woes but thanks to the stallion and his partner who had saved her child and was able to reunite them at last. Not only did they save her life, but also gave her therapeutic education to help with her mental state and had made her a grandmother - a gift her daughter had insisted to help them with their family. They visited quite a bit, but she wasn't able to allow their great grandmother to visit, not yet.
Airlia had taken the post of being her mother's keeper in their family's absence, her own father no where to be found and even her mothers new mate; Ezriel had been gone for some time. Nimue hadn't seemed bothered at the beginning, as it had been an occurrence they would go together and also separately in their own time yet always found their way back. Her mother had been there when her own mate had never returned, when Sapphire had been stolen away...so she would not leave the mare as her mental state deteriorated in her mate's absence.
Even if said mate was technically her half brother.
She gave a shake of her long mane against the cool breeze, her tail leaving a soft splattering of blood as she was finishing her route for the first part of the night. In a few hours she would traverse the entire trail again, to ensure not a soul would disturb the peace she worked so hard to maintain in their refuge. She didn't let her mind oft wander to the past, there lied anger and resentment; a torrent of emotions she wasn't exactly ready to sort through. While she hadn't been able to see most of her family aside from her niece Minuet and her own children, Airlia was holding tightly to those she did have. The mare would use her tail to its full extent should anyone try and take away another.
Slowing her leisurely walk to a halt on the path worn down by time and her own hooves the somber mare glanced off to the distance. Keen eyes remained focused, alert...something was amiss. Unable to place it she turned her body towards this intrusive feeling which set her soul ablaze with tension; lips slowly curling into a snarl.
Something was coming. |
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2022 11:17 am
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Time had been absent, perhaps even fleeting, as obscure recollections hazed each thought that sifted through Ezriel's restless cogs of consciousness. The absence of optimism pooled within a face that knew the depths of darkness; fealty which found itself caught between strength and sorrow. A scowl of perturbed propensity unraveled across his lips. A guttural exhaust of breath snorted from out of flared nostrils. <******** emotions that had been muddled and entrenched within the unmistakable, haunting essence of a b*****d father and a bloodline that penned the interpretation of 'a monster' were rekindling anew. The stallion jerked his head to the side and lowered his head. A rouge veil of mane undulated against the passing draft and commandeered the air with the poise of a pennant. Frustrated, a cloven hoof raked against the timeworn pathway.
What awaited him?
If the present was to be akin to the bygone seasons, then perhaps it was more sensible to ask 'who'. Amidst the chaos that entwined both Ezriel and his mate, Nimue, it wasn't farfetched to assume that peace continued to evade the vicinity of family affairs. Pensively, Ezriel gave a flick of his serpent-like tail and scathed the topsoil with its adorning spikes. With Rue's coming of age, the patriarchal obligation to ensure that his flesh and blood could navigate the unknown had heavily weighed on Ezriel's mind. Unlike his siblings, Rue wasn't endowed with any minuscule ounce of tactical advantage. Empathetic and estranged from the fray, Rue's nature was stark in contrast to his kin. And knowing too damn well that the unyielding rancor that poisoned the intentions of others never would subside, Ezriel had wordlessly dispersed with his son and the hope that Rue could find the resilience to weather the worst of a familial curse. A heaviness amassed within Ezriel's chest. Palpable guilt concocted with the forefront of anxious worries.
What awaited him? The same inquiry petitioned him again, vying for his acknowledgment. Only the clamor of his writhing heart answered. His ears flattened. "Nimue," the sweetness of her name rasped from that brutish tongue of his.
Taking a step forward, Ezriel hemmed in his observational attunes. The wariness of his gait kept his visage within the shroud of present obscurity. But with a full moon riding high, its painterly light roved through the landscape with an insatiable pining to neutralize the most cunning of vagrants. Old hearsay often recounted that those whose pelage resembled the celestial body could never elude its splendor. It was just another goddamn tribulation that marred their existence. And ********, was it exhausting.
Wrinkling his nose, Ezriel grimaced.
What awaited him?
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2022 6:56 pm
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Silence lingered around the mare, suspicious in its own right as the creatures which shared the woodlands about their modest home had more than accustomed to their constant presence. Surely the deafening stillness was but a warning that there was indeed an unaccounted presence near. Ears pivoting on their axis at any infinitesimal creak or squeak till her steady inhales picked up a change in the passing breeze. It was faint, the ever growing cumulation of scents both of familial and foreign nature...slowly Airlia's eyes narrowed in a festering anger.
Ezriel.
Before rationale could rear its voice of reason she stepped out of her shadowed and recluse path into the forest fray; soft rays of moonlight splashing on her phantasmal pelt. He would see her, see her in all of her frustration and budding fury. As with all of their lineage upon the night she took on that ethereal glow as the white reflected with a spirit like effulgence. Abruptly halting in the center of an open forest grove her nostrils flared in a loud snort, the frenzy of her pounding heart pulling even at her lips till she was flashing those pearly fangs.
"Well, if it isn't our beloved patriarch." A jeer to the stallion she struggled with finding an appropriate label in their family's twisted lineage. For the pair to have found themselves of age when their family units had been torn asunder, he having lost his heart's flame to none other than his own father; She laying witness to her mother leaving her father to return to what had been her brother. Muddled was the soil that their family tree had taken root in, but neither could change what had happened - only press forward.
"Was it guilt which subsequently led you home, dragging your hooves the entire pilgrimage to these woods?" Despite the lack of true acknowledgement she had ever afforded the stallion her mother loved with every single fiber of her being, Airlia had never once gone out of her way to truly be uncouth to Ezriel. There were greetings, a tense but amiable smile or two...but her current tirade was the most she had ever spoken to him in conversation.
There was no holding back her snide remarks and general vilifying tone.
"Where were you...."
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:42 am
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Ezriel’s ears flicked, swiveling with a heightened sensation that pricked at his coherence. A totemic odor reined in a realization that abruptly manifested into tangible animosity. Around them, the encompassing realm of discord held its breath as the entity's phantasmic mien was summoned from hollowed seclusion by the feat of its own furor that no longer was fettered. A ruminating strum reverberated from his throat.
“Arirlia,” he impassively greeted. Her quip was acutely rife as unseen, scalding embers corroded the scarring of wounds that had yet to coagulate. Its incisiveness induced Ezriel’s heart to flinch within the cavity of his ribs. The ordeal that marred and ensnared the two of them within a mess of Horlicks was chaos that forced surreal adaptation. The evolution that dawned from the atrocities had convoked a vortex of fate. It grew with each and every one of the families’ choices, weaving their destinies into the same thread. It was an unmatched level of ********. The corner of Ezriel’s lip rescinded just enough for his own fangs to peer outward with a humorous flash. “That title belongs to our dearest father,” he corrected.
What insidiousness that trilled from the mare’s lashing tongue was parried with awkwardness. The rawness which transpired amidst the unpredicted encounter between him and Airlia was afresh and unprocessed. Momentarily befuddled, the stallion canted his head. “Seeing as I don’t have wings, hooves were the only option,” Ezriel bantered. But the glint of humor was usurped by pressing poignancy.
“Where were ******** groan rattled from the stallion's breast. "Preparing Rue to carry on killing monsters within this shithole of a world before the monsters kill me." Ezriel and Nimue's son was a divergent anomaly that evaded the accursed phenotype which definitively aligned Rue as their progeny. Be it destiny or deceit, Ezriel beheld tangible assurance that the gods themselves were connivers. "He needed guidance. A bit of a**-kicking. I should have never filed down his fangs or spikes," Ezriel razzed.
Wayward moonlight became immersed within the stallion's optics for a happenstance where it melded into Ezriel's vacuous spheres and suffocated. Just as the churlish jest dissipated, a steely essence emboldened him. Ezriel's own imperative question merited deliberation.
"Where's Nimue?"
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2022 3:44 pm
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A sharp breath had pressed through her near gritted teeth, a hiss of laughter escaping into the night. Incredulous beast, Airlia thought of this stallion currently occupying the same clearing in their claimed woodland home. Once was a time when Airlia remained indifferent about the affairs of her mother and her new mate. Drowning in emotional tides and their vicious ebb and flow about her circumstance, the circumstance of their line. The mare had been fortunate though that a singular life preserver had been cast into her turbulent seas; Cobalt. Learning to keep her head above the current and tide and truly for once begin to swim to that proverbial shore had been short lived, the kidnapping of her dear sweet filly that embodied her own wounded child had send her plunging back into the depths of that merciless sea.
"Don't humor me, Ezriel, he is no more my father than he is yours." The venom of her words left a pin p***k feeling spreading across her very own lips, the undulating movements of her tail began to erupt into an erratic twitch. Clearly influenced by her own spike of emotional control or lack thereof. Airlia had been presented a choice to linger in only one of the shadows her parents had cast, long being the choice to follow her mother into the dark.
"Ah, wouldn't that be convenient? The unsung hero of the lands from far and wide will echo the name of our b*****d lineage in the guise of Just and righteousness!" Airlia gave a harsh quip, amidst her own voided sclera were the spark of ruby near radiating with precision on his frame. "While galivanting in the name of justice from the devils in our midst did you neglect to remember the ones unseen which plague the scape of the mind? The very same mind tethered and teetering to your very existence!?" Harsh was the seethe of words between her taut jawline. "Where was this hero to vanquish the monster which kidnapped our own blood!"
Powerful in its own right her body recoiled under the stress and sheer weight of her emotional upheaval, wings snapping out to accentuate her frustration and anger. Airlia was no fool, none of what had transpired had been in any direct correlation to Ezriel's departure.
"If I had not been my mothers keeper I could have gone a little farther, overturned every stick and stone as far as my wings could carry my rage. Sapphire is cut of the same cloth as Rue, they do not harbor the brunt of life's twisted scorn to our blood nor the means to quell the demons sent their way! You are tempting to train a lamb to slaughter wolves, Ezriel!"
Beyond her lashing, there was a hefty dose of her own guilt for being unable to be more. Unable to find her child before she had suffered for months under the still unknown assailant till she was merely a sliver from death's cold embrace. Would she have been faster if she was able to drag her mother farther, longer and not chained to both in a taut line of solid obligation? Even she and Sapphire were too similar for her to ignore the plight of one for the other, they needed someone and in Ezriel's absence the accountability fell on her shoulders.
"Nimue is here...as she has always been waiting for your return while the monsters ravaged her mind, and our kin...be warned she is regressing during your prolonged absence..."
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