The world around me is going to sleep; is dying; is forgetting. For weeks the trees were vibrant shades of red, yellow, orange. They burned and trembled in the cool autumn wind, as if alive, as if living. But now the leaves are beginning to fall, and they shift underfoot like so much rot. I know the trees are not dead. I know they will come back. But for now the branches claw at an overcast sky—not distinguishable clouds, but a blanket of bright grey—as if desperately praying for another fate. Everything is full of a poignant beauty; poignant because it is transitioning into something else, something forlorn. It says, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye and the air bites with a chillness that promises of snow and ice. Even now, in the early daybreak, the yellowing grass cracks underfoot with the night’s kiss of frost.
I was born in autumn; I look up at a trembling leaf and although real, it is nearly clinquant, as if garnished for some dazzling holiday. Then—abruptly, violently, I imagine—I shake the branch and watch as the leaf falls, falls, falls. I step on it. Born in autumn, I think again, and wonder if I have ever lost the scent of rot. My mother had not practiced the Old Religion; but my grandmother had, and when I was born—I’ve been told—she whispered he will die young because there were no leaves left on the trees outside, leaving the naked branches to claw against the sky.
What does it matter?
It doesn’t.
Besides, I am moving out of the forest now, into the open plain before Denocte. I am a ghost there, burnished gold like a performer but as utilitarian as any one of their dark soldiers. I do not belong. Some have scoffed at me; the crudest speak foreign curses and tell me to return to the desert of Solterra and a god named Solis.
I think,
My gods would eat these gods, would crack them open like eggs on cliffsides. I used to watch birds of seagulls flock to the nests of cliffside birds and throttle their hatchlings; I used to watch foxes sneak along the cliffs as if the precipice were only a suggestion of decent rather than a promise. Those are these gods. Eggs and nestlings. Eggs and nestlings.
I do not move toward the city but stay in the line of trees just outside it. There is a rumour I do not trust from a city I do not know, despite Denocte being where my pirate hostess docked so many months ago. Boudika, they whisper. I ask. Boudika? They say. Brighter than Copper. A dancer once. A Champion now.
I say, impossible.
I loaded the iron onto the ship she sank on myself. I heaved it sweating beneath deck, feeling the weight of it creak in my bones. I know she is at the bottom of the sea. I close my eyes and breathe and try not to smell the decay all around me, as if I myself am on borrowed time.
I leave the trees and ascend a hill that overlooks the southern coast. I have heard that on a perfect day the sea glistens like polished agate, and the sky above it is the cerulean of heaven. Open, vast, promising. Today it is not perfect. Today the blank slate of autumn clouds drizzle soft and chilling rain that seeps into everything; perforating the earth and the flesh with an inescapable cold. And the sea. Yes, the sea, churning so far away with evils unimaginable, is the colour of chrysocolla. It is dark blue shot through with raging, churning greens the colour of oxidised copper. There are blues so dark they are black and I cannot help but wonder what exists beneath.
I turn away. It is beginning to rain much more heavily; far away, I can smell Denocte’s bonfires and I can see their smoke rising against the cold, as if to shelter them. As if to protect them.
I think of going back to the city.
But something keeps me standing there, my hair turning slick against my face and neck, the torrent stinging like so many shards of ice.
Brighter than copper, a dancer told me, in a rundown theatre where she used to perform. Moth-eaten, dusty. Everything soft and glowing and warm in the firelight. Nothing like our home; and that is what angers me the most. The softness of it, as if her nature is what has died instead of her body.
Of everywhere I could have gone, how is it I am here? How am I here.
It is raining harder.
I can no longer see the smoke, or the city, or the sea.
I can only hear my heart. Steady. Always steady.
"speech"
occ: i am experiment with styles <3 forgive me if I switch back into third person xD
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
The rain had started early that day, peppering Bel's pelt with it's cool touch and encouraging her to walk into the storm. It seemed far more welcoming than the bonfires of the markets anyways. There was just too much going on among the market place, too much for the mare who'd come from the sea - who'd been born with a hoof in both worlds. Too much activity, too many voices. And far too much fire. That was another welcoming reason for the clouds that overcast the heavens and showered water from their collective masses. She still wasn't sure why the sky was leaking (or how it was able to hold a body of water to begin with: was that why the sky was blue?) but she didn't ponder on the thought long enough to start questioning it. It was a welcome reprieve from the bonfires that wanted to overheat her lean frame, and a chance to feel the coolness of water all across her pelt even while on land.
Her steps carried her to the prairie, where the sea of long grasses met her hooves and forced her to pause and make sure she was capable of maneuvering through them with out stumbling. It was rare instances that she had to pause at a new type of terrain, but longer grasses always caused her the most difficulty - she could maneuver around kelp beds with the best of them, but walking through a field of tall grass - fogget about it. Still, she wasn't about to let that cause her difficulties and instead choose to carry on, her steps more cautious and testing to be sure she wouldn't be tangled by the grasses whenever she lifted a limb. It hadn't happened often, but the few times it did, it had made her far more cautious.
The rain continued to grow heavier, and her gaze traveled to the ocean that seemed to anger at the opposing water source, the waves crashing together, causing spray to fly into the air. Her eyes were drawn to the way the water moved, like a serenade encouraging the lady to return to the depths. It'd been a few days since she'd taken a dive into the marine world, swam with the dolphins and hunted for oysters. She forced her gaze away - now was not the time, but she silently promised herself she'd go for a swim soon. The hills continued to stretch in front of her, and she carries forward, further from the water that sung to her. She let the rainfall soothe those concerns and desires away. The water, no matter the form, as soon as it touched her seemed to calm her mind.
The vapors that wafted off of her skin, surrounding her dorsal took a subtle shift in pitch in temperature, warming faintly as if to keep her grounded to the world above the waves. Even as it did so, the water itself was falling with greater force, chilling the world beneath it's torrent. Where it met the heated ground, mist and fog was beginning to waft up, but hanging low in the grass, hardly noticeable. Her dorsal fin flattened slightly, less noticeable as she raised her horned head to the heavens, dual sets of eyes closing as she breathed in the water-rich air. Her gills flared for a moment, before her lungs retook control as she let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding.
Did the heavens fill with water on her home planet, she wondered. The place her people had escaped from when her grandmother was but a pup in the original pod? Or was that a phenomenon of this world? She supposed she'd never know. Her planet was gone now, the land her people came from, forced to escape when the virus escaped and took over the planet so quickly. Her tail brushed through the grass, the fluke of it gently pressuring the grass flatter beneath it's mass, a slight trail the aquatic equine had taken to get where she was. The rain grew heavier, soon obscuring the signs of the party she'd left behind, even the sea that sung to her like a temptress.
A shape was emerging in the distance, dark against the soft grays of the sky - another equine out in the weather like this? She couldn't help but wonder why. She moves forward, a figure of blues, navies and white against the green of the grass and the gray of the sky, she approached cautiously, keeping a casual distance - after all, who would be out in weather like this, and why . . . . "It's a little chilly to just be enjoying the scenery, isn't it?" She calls out in a cautious greeting, even as her distance was kept. Her voice carried on the water-riched air, carrying the natural song of her people a bit better than normal, but still not the same as it did beneath the waves (nothing was ever as rich and beautiful as it was beneath the waves); but at least this time she hadn't rambled for five minutes straight to a stranger . . . No, something about the setting, the growing darkness brought on from the increased rainfall that was already starting to bring the faintest of cyan glows to her markings; it sung to her of caution, of waiting and watching. It sung a tale of care needing to be taken. And she always listened to water when it sung.
Of all the things the fates could have thrown at me, it is this:
A water horse.
She cannot hide it, even in her cautious approach. She reeks of saltwater; briny; fish. No matter what, they always smell like fish.
She looks like one. Finned. Tailed. I almost ask,
Don’t you know, the land isn’t for you?
It does not matter she is not of my homeland. They are all the same. Does she have teeth, I wonder? Does she hunt? Perhaps she sings. I have heard stories of water horses that sing, and lure, and whisk men away to their death with their beauty. I almost laugh aloud then. I almost smile. There is nothing beautiful here, in a creature not meant for the world she inhabits.
I watch her.
I watch her.
I know what I must look like. I have practiced this face for years. Contemplative; expressionless but not hard. As she nears me, I face her approach and there is a softening to my mouth, to my eyes, a suggestion of a smile that is there and gone as if I were pleasantly surprised.
I am.
Not for the reasons she might think. Her presence is just an affirmation to the sights I have already seen; there are water horses in this land and with that I feel relief. Archaic. Heavy. It is the relief a predator must feel when the rains come, bringing back great herds of prey. She is my purpose. That is her only beauty. And the rains have brought her.
“It is cold.” I agree. We are opposites; we clash. My golds are not her blues; and her blues belong beyond the crest of the hills, back toward the sea. “But it seems as if you are a way from home, especially if you don’t like the weather.” And I gesture with one hoof at her fins, her gills, her two sets of eyes. What do I not gesture at? It is so clear she does not belong here, and I think of how each one of those attributes that make her so adept in the water would slow her here. Her tail would not aide her if she ran here, far from her beloved water. But I feel powerful. I feel swift. And I think I could catch her so easily—even as she stands at a careful distance, weary of me.
There is a part of me, however, that disagrees. I feel the cold sinking into my injured leg. I feel the way that it aches, and aches, with the weariness of misuse. I could still lunge at her. Even without a spear, I have the weapons of a soldier. It would not be so difficult to push past the pain of an old injury, one that the mere thought of fills me with a bubbling rage. It was her type of people that had done it to me.
Instead of acting on the sentiment, I toss my own head back, toward the increasing rain, and feel it slick my face and hair back from my eyes. I expose my throat and watch her carefully from slitted eyes, beneath the pretence they are slitted only to keep the rain from them. “I am going into the city, if you would like to accompany me. It is not far, and it is not cold.” I drop my head again and gesture with my chin at the shadow of Denocte. Despite the rain, I can tell the wind has shifted; because the scent of Denocte's bonfires reaches even here.
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
He couldn't know how far from the reality of what her people were in his thoughts, and of course with the facade he wore, how would she know too tell him, of the story of the aquatic horses of the see - the ones that live peacefully and just struggle to survive, the aliens that can't seem to find peace even on a new planet. She didn't know yet that dangers can live in equine form as well yet. Perhaps she would learn soon. Instead she watches him turn towards her, her cyan gaze watching with caution, a reserved state not typically seen from the bubbly treader. The rain chilled her, but she couldn't help but wonder if in a bright and sunny day, if she'd still feel the chill in this greeting.
And then his mouth softens, a smile that's not there but could have been. For some reason she feels like she's caught in the stare of a shark, fine tuned warning symbols are clanging together in her head, derived from generations of treaders forced to tell friend from foe fast, both on this planet and on her original. But he's just another horse, he's certainly not a shark. She represses the urge to ask him to prove he doesn't have rows and rows of sharp, triangular teeth. She wrongly decides to take things at face value, however, and as he speaks, she smiled gently, a soft shake of her head, "Oh, don't be mistaken, please. I adore this kind of cool weather. It's not as cold as I'd like, but it's the promise of colder weather being brought on the next wave." She states conversationally - and it's true. Winter was just around the corner, it would arrive before she was aware.
Still, her gaze awkwardly dropped, both sets, as he pointed out her fins and gills, her eyes; as if trying to state something more than just being a long way from home with them. There was a sea just over the next few hills, couldn't she have come from that reef. It was the first time since arriving at Novus that she could feel a distinct sense of discomfort at her dual nature. She hadn't thought to worry about that before - not beyond the need to quickly assure those alarmed that she was not of a kelpie origin. "Vapor Treaders are born of a dual nature, however. I have gills, but also lungs. Fins, but also legs." She doesn't defend her eyes. They aren't a mark of this world, they're an aspect from where her people came from - of her alien heritage she was just learning to accept.
She was a creature built in duality. Of sea, and on land. But standing with him, she couldn't help but feel like the difference spanned larger than a thousand leagues. Still she tried to be friendly, her smile gentle, her expression sincere. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and now it was no different. His head tossed back, towards the rain, and she followed his gaze up at it - not an ounce of predatory instinct to draw her eyes to his throat, instead her gaze watched that rain he'd indicated to as he spoke of going to the city - even offering her to accompany him. She smiled faintly, "I know where Denocte's center is, I just left the festivities for a bit myself. The bonfires are a bit over bearing, and the crowds a touch suffocating." Her smiled softened with melancholy, "The chance to walk through the rain seemed far more welcoming . . ." Her expression suddenly shifted, a wince as she recognized that could be taken in rudeness, and she was quickly attempting to back track, "Not that I'm saying I won't accompany you if you really wish it! I'm so sorry, if that sounded dismissive, it really wasn't intended to be!" She said with wide eyed earnestness, her expression dismayed at the thought of an unintentional dismissal of what could be fair company.
She should have listened to caution, instead she has accepted his smile, even if she's keeping her distance.
Rain. The smell of smoke somewhere dank and forgotten beneath it. An angry sea; a gunmetal sky. And, and,
and
I think,
the taste of copper like blood. I run my tongue over my teeth. I lick the water from my lips, relieved it does not taste of salt, and think of how even though it is pure and fresh and from the sky it is already ruined by the fact I am thankful it does not taste like salt. By thinking it does not, I think of if it did—I think of seawater and blood instead of rain and the metallic flavour of my own mouth.
Am I biting my cheek?
I don’t know.
The sting is there and gone. If I could only know her thoughts, if I could only tell her my teeth are blunt but my mind and heart are not, and they roar within me like a lion starved. I offer a smile in earnest—in earnest, yes, in earnest, because a hunting lion may very well grin at a gazelle. “You’d like it even colder?” I ask, lightly. I even laugh, and my deception has myself fooled. “That is insane.”
If I cared more, I might have noticed that she does not seem inherently vicious; her presence has not quelled the singing from the distant trees, or resulted in an austere stillness. If I cared more, I might find it strange the world continues to pulse and move as if she is unthreatening, as if she is simply another grazing animal. If I cared, I might notice those things. But I do not care, so they merely seem bizarre. Perhaps it is because I have seen too many “unthreatening” creatures grow fangs and transform into something monstrous. Perhaps it is because the scent of the sea she carries with her, both sterile and strong at once, betrays her as something other.
“Vapor Treaders?” I am genuinely curious. “Is that what you are?” There are many words for water horses, but this is not one I am familiar with. I contemplate what she says: duel nature. She speaks of something I do not believe in. Perhaps she has legs and fins. Perhaps she has both lungs and gills. But a creature of the sea will always be a creature of the sea. The ocean is only “duel” in that some days it does not decide to sink vessels or drown swimmers; other days it does.
For me, a creature of extreme measures, I do not understand the duality. I do not believe in it. There is only one, or the other. I do not say this, however. I let the softness sit on my face; I let my mouth work as if to ask a question, only to decide otherwise, and then gain the confidence to at last ask it. “Do you not prefer one more than the other?” Her eyes were not drawn to my throat as I had hoped; but perhaps she is cleverer than her cousins. Or more foolish.
I laugh as she stumbles; jovially. I roll my shoulders and begin to walk toward the distant city, never truly looking away from her. “It is a touch suffocating,” I agree. “Regardless, would you like to accompany me, at least on the walk back. I could use the conversation.”
I assume she will follow. “Tell me more of these Vapor Treaders?” I ask, intrigued. “Are there many of you? I am Torix, by the way. It is rude of me not to introduce myself sooner.”
Is this not the first and only commandment?
Know thy enemy.
There are many kinds of camouflage; there is something within me that feels like spring coming, something growing, hopeful, bright.
Perhaps they aren't all gone after all. Perhaps there are still many, many monsters to hunt.
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
Bel was at a standstill, at least in terms of her thoughts. Generations of fine tuning the mental awareness of when danger was near seemed to be chiming off the charts, but visually (both taking in the strange male and the surroundings) nothing seemed out of place. The air wasn't stilted with silent dread. The natural world hadn't gone silent. Nothing was out of order, and yet those bells continued to clang, telling her to escape before the shark swam around the reef with jaws agape. How was she to know danger took the form of equine, and prejudice was the catalyst to the situation.
It was another first for the beached treader. She tilted her head when he smiled at her, repeating her comment of liking it colder, laughing and calling it insane. She managed an almost shy smile back, gaze dropping in a natural demure, "I wouldn't call it . . . insane, exactly. We all have a preference to weather based on the pools we swim in. Seaweed seems greener in another's pond, but we are still a product of our homes and the regions we are raised in. I swam in from the Polar Arctic. I got tired of having to swim for my life, sharks, orcas, seals and polar bears hunt there freely." She explained after a moment. It was the best answer she could give, even as a shot of pain etched across a healing heart, the same pain briefly reflected in her eyes. It was the effect of the shark attack that led her to leave, so it was mostly true . . . but it was the Pod's decision to leave Polar behind that ultimately led to her own decision to leave the pod behind.
She shook the lingering pain away, trying hard to center herself. Grass was beneath her feet, not frozen water. The rain fell in sheets, not snow falling in a blizzard. Novus. Not the arctic. Novus. Pol was . . . already gone. She glanced back up at him after she'd recentered herself, offering another shy smile, "So, I guess I prefer colder weather in effect. Better than heat, at the least." He then repeats the name of her species, even asking if that is what she was. She nods slowly, another warm smile, "Yes, named after the water vapors we produce to regulate our temperatures in colder climates. Trying to take shelter on an ice shelf in the middle of a blizzard does little help - but through our vapors we can keep the temperature around our bodies higher to help protect it." That or dive below the water's surface if it was safer.
He then asks a question she'd not expected before, Do you not prefer one more than the other? She visibly pauses at the question, her gaze turning towards the sky as she ponders over it, "Once upon a time I'd have been able to answer that in a heart beat - now I'm not so certain. I love to explore and see new things, and much of the ocean repeats. It might be a new reef but once you acknowledge the different layout of the coral and anemones, it's the same fish, the same species. On land, it's so much different!" Her eyes seemed to come alive, her smile radiant in that moment as she speaks, "There's a never ending amount of types of terrain. Rocky Mountains. Grasslands, Forests and Swamps, so diverse and different. I could walk Novus for the rest of my life and still find new things!" And it was true, it was that love for discovery and adventure that had been cultivated the first time she swam through the ruins of a lost city swallowed by the sea.
He starts to walk towards the city then, even as his gaze remains on her, agreeing that it suffocates, but once more offering to accompany at least on the walk back. It was the ask for conversation that had her agreeing, turning back towards the direction she'd come. His next question has her pausing. Tell me more of these Vapor Treaders? Asking about their numbers before introducing himself as Torix. She is quiet for a moment, thoughtful in her response, "We are of the stars." She finally responds, and for the first time since hearing the stories as a pup, they ring true for her. She wasn't a creature of this world, her people came from another, traveling through space to reach this planet. "We aren't large in number, we're not a predatory species after all, and live in a place of high number of predator species. The pairs usually have enough pups to replace the number of pod members we lose to sharks and orcas each year. We're hard to find though - keeping to ourselves. I think I'm the first to leave the Pod . . in, well; ever." She falls quiet, even as her gaze travels to the sky, as if imagining the stars that could pinpoint the different galaxies, and one might be the world her people came from, "We're really not that interesting . . . Just a weird looking horse." She mused.
She turns her cyan gaze back on him, both sets focusing, and a smile reflecting in the eye, softening the harshness of the slit pupil, "My name is Bel, and it's a pleasure to meet you Torix." The mare responded, even as she kept a distance between them, still cautious, still careful; those warning bells still ringing. And she didn't survive this long by being foolish. Caution to make sure she'd survive longer still.
![[Image: i-jTNwWx8.png]](https://photos.smugmug.com/BelowZeroNovus/n-X9d9fZ/i-jTNwWx8/1/e09fb6c3/O/i-jTNwWx8.png)
