briar

In the depths of her heart, Briar knows that she is meant to wander. That is why her eyes sparkle with life with every turned rock and every new species of flower. There are crystals where she has found herself, near-clear and white whenever she turns the brown and studded sides over. The wine-stained mare smiles to herself when she catches the emerald of her eyes reflected in pale surface below her. Her hoof cracks against the stone when she gently pushes it to the side, sidestepping so that she may continue her journey to nowhere.

Briar does not know how she found Novus—she just knows that she is here, existing amongst its wondrous structures, and now is the most alive she has ever felt.

It feels like no time has passed since she found herself amongst the company of the Dusk Court. She finds its people fascinating and delightful, though she cannot claim to know much of its history. It has been hard to immerse herself in the culture and the religion, but she is trying, and this alone time is imperative to her adjustment.

She just hopes that she can make sense of it all at some point—she thinks she will not be able to survive feeling so lost all the time.

Briar steps to a cliff’s edge, the white frothing of the crashing ocean reflecting in her clear eyes. She peers down at the water so far below, feeling a mixture of fear and exhilaration. For a moment, she wonders what it would feel like to fling herself into the air, to allow the water to crush her bones and envelop her warm skin. She thinks she would be cold on the bottom of the ocean floor, but maybe the sea would not have to be her end.

Wind whips her golden mane around her face and into her eyes. She does not fight it, though, allowing the locks to tangle in her antlers and catch on her mouth. The sensation leaves a smile on her face, one so quiet and secretive that any onlooker may think she has discovered the truest gossip to pass between listening ears. It is just the land that speaks to her, though, and with each passing second she finds herself melding into its strange existence.

briar

To things old and new.

Briar thinks this as she hovers over the cliff’s eyes, emerald glittering with that curious indecisiveness of a secretly reckless creature. Her quiet smile hovers on her lips; her sharp cheeks smooth and ready for some unexplainable tear to fall; but one does not, and the only water on her face is the ocean that reflects in her eyes.

To things old and new: that is what she told herself when the initial shock of leaving her mother set in. Regret burns like the incessant drainage of a cold in her throat, but it is easily swallowed—

I owe peace only to myself.

Truth is hard to swallow, especially when the truth is meant to free one from abuse. Even as the wine-stained mare recognizes her freedom, she feels that pain sit uncomfortably in the back of her mind. Her mother, a victim, does not require Briar’s protection—but she is still just that: a victim. She is someone the two year old cannot save, but the savior complex builds and builds in her chest until it makes her head spin. This her mother taught her: Briar must save all who remain in distress.

Marisol’s approach goes nearly unnoticed beneath the din of the wind and the waves. The maroon woman turns slowly to find her Sovereign’s gaze, one that is cool enough to act as a balm to the burn of her shame. A new smile, one that does not mask her feelings, curls the corners of her lips.

“Hail Vespera,” she murmurs, eradicating the uncertainty she felt just days before. Their religion is new to Briar—it is not quite her's yet—but assimilation has come easily (or so it may appear to those that observe her).

“The wind and the sea—don’t you wish you could be them?” her question is followed by a turn of her head toward the ocean. The wine-stained mare wishes that every time she encounters cliff tops like these. To feel as whole as one with only a single purpose—to feel as whole as one that knows their purpose. “My name is Briar.” This she says louder, eyes stinging from the cold and the whipping of her mane.

When the antlered woman turns to Marisol, an innocent expectancy softens the hard lines of her face. Though Briar is aware the Dusk Court has a queen, she has yet to put a face to a name—or even a name to the Queen. Perhaps she should recognize the royal slope of weighted shoulders, but her kingdomless life leaves her ever so naive.