[WP09] Bones of the Forgotten & Evenfall

[Chrystali]

FIRE

Flames whipped around, charred remains of ember-clad trees still reaching skyward even as they were consumed from the inside. Once fertile swampland was a wasteland of black and flickering coal. The sky was blanketed by heavy, acrid smoke and plumes of steel grey that refused to yield even a glimmer of blue. It was impossible to even tell what time of day it was, the barren stretch of death and decay stretching as far as the eye could see.

Grave stood in the midst of the wreckage of what was. The smoke and hot wind from the aftermath washed over him, but he was steady, unmoving, watching. Waiting.

When the land finished dying, he had a lot of work to do.  

[Aric Val]

She saw visions of falling fires around her in a deep black void, falling, and she was falling with it. It reminded her faintly of her naming dream, golden shards across the dark night sky and she was falling... and falling. She lowered her eyes towards herself, where she glowed was fire, a beautiful bright flame dancing on her grey pelt. She found it all amazing and she was humbled to be part of the falling stars.

And what felt like forever, her and everything else crashed onto the ashen ground, wreckage and fragments flying all over, the doe didn't feel hurt though, even as she tumbled on black soot, the flames within her gently dying down but still shining bright against the surroundings.  

[Chrystali]

He saw flames fall from the sky, but didn't pay them much mind - that is, until one ball of flame, more molten than the others, struck near by.

And then she crawled out, with markings as bright as the day they met. The day he had pretended to not remember.

Something else tugged at his memory, something truly forgotten.

"You." For a moment, he thought he remembered. Solidarity, an expanse, loneliness quelled by company...

But it was gone, and the sense of wonder that had lit his blue eyes quickly was extinguished behind a narrowed gaze. "YOU! Have you no shame? How dare you intrude even upon my dreams!" He was cranky, hopped up on the anticipation of what was to come, and yet -- and yet --!

"YOU!" he snapped.  

[Aric Val]

She stretched her long legs out, hooves trying to find the ground, pushing away remnants of the shell she had somehow ridden through the sky, golden markings glowing and eyes narrowing at the familiar voice.

"You!" Evenfall said back, darker eyes looking at the buck, relieved. Somehow she and the buck had something they had to do together. She knew it. How else would they be meeting this way in their dreams?

"Oh! I have no idea how we keep on meeting in dreams," she responded softly, standing up properly and dusting herself off a little with her tail. "Once again in a strange dark land..." eyes flickered around for a moment before she looked at the buck again, ears twitching.

"You're angered by me. I mean no harm and you know that." Somehow she found herself completely trusting him, though his name was a little hazy in her mind at the moment once again.  

[Chrystali]

"We keep meeting because you follow me like a shadow!" He barely refrained from spitting the words, but there was something to be said for his choice of them - he did not refer to her as a parasite or something unwanted. She was, to him, something that was there. Familiar. Some part of him that he understood.

Kicking his back hooves and swaying his thorned tail, he turned slightly so he was almost putting his back to her, agitated. "I have work to do. You always show up when I have work to do!"  

[Aric Val]

"Truly, I did not expect to see you again so soon!" she insisted with a small smile, but he seemed to not dislike her company completely -- and well, she liked to talk to him more. If dreams were the only way to do that, she'd take it.

She moved around him, "What work do you do?" she paused, looking around. "I can help you, it makes sense for two to finish a job."  

[Chrystali]

TIME

Grave tossed the doe an irate glance, the flickering blue of his eyes licking over the skull of his helmet. "There is a world of devastation here, the end of all things, and all you can think to do is help me?"

Memories flickered briefly as he stared at her: her body encapsulated in ice, falling into the hole they had spoken at briefly; and something else distant, a memory not quite there, something exploding and his movement to shelter her.

Her shook his head, feeling wary. Why was this happening?

He opened his jagged mouth to speak again, but he realized that something around them had changed. As he turned his head, he realized that nothing had changed, no, but it had stopped. Embers that had been flitting through the sky were frozen in time, unmoving; a branch was in the midst of falling, but did move so much as an inch; even the flicker of flames were static in their dance. Grave turned around in a slow circle, surveying the strange happenings. His job...could not commence of things stayed this way. Flitting his gaze to her, he wondered if it had something to do with her presence. She always seemed to be around when he had work to do.

"What is the MotherFather trying to tell me by saddling me with you all the time?" he mused out loud, frowning.  

[Aric Val]

Evenfall simply nodded her head at the response. "Yes. There will be death, of course, but to help the living is just as important."

The doe inched a bit closer, watching his reactions, blinking slowly at him. He seemed to be in deep thought somehow -- caught in a trance.

"That I am here means something. Please let me ----" And the doe turned, as things had stopped around them so sudden, the flames caught in air as if they were made of frozen ice, the wind was still as well, and this -- this disturbed her quite a bit. The stars and clouds stopped their gentle movement and everything-- just everything felt like nothing. Except for the buck in front of her.

"If I could, I would ask." she said gentle --- and suddenly she had to close her eyes abruptly, as if hit by a sudden force. Her recollection hit her much more painfully than he -- she could only see snippets of images she couldn't distinguish, but her chest hurt, her eyes stung, she felt herself fall hard -- somehow, it was connected to the other buck. Weak kneed she took a step back, her head bowed as she tried to shake it off, but she couldn't speak somehow.  

[Chrystali]

Grave looked at the doe as if she'd sprouted a second head. "Just as important? If you mean that those that die must first live in order to die, then I'd agree - but only then." His gaze remained incredulous, shaking his head briskly and turning away, lifting a hoof to bat at one of the immobile embers. It flickered and slowly moved in the direction it was hit, as though if under water. It did nothing to soothe his annoyance.

Turning around, he fully intended to snap at her, but suddenly she looked like she could barely stand, trembling and moving back. His posture went rigid. Was she afraid of him? It wouldn't be unusual, but...it wasn't right. He couldn't put his hoof on it, but he felt guilty deep within his chest, as if he had betrayed some role he was supposed to be to her.

It was madness! What was happening to him?!

"Are you..." The buck cleared his throat, his frown evolving into a scowl. Damnit all. "Are you okay?"  

[Aric Val]

She shook her head with a little smile, even despite her pain. "Living---death--- are equal." The doe said softly, cringing a little with the chest pain as if it was hard to breathe -- but slowly and surely the tightness in her chest started to ease, looking up at the buck with the question. A little bit in wonder and a soft expression almost as if the pain didn't come at all.

"...I am fine now."

But she was careful, trying to see if the sudden symptoms would come back if she stood up too quickly, stumbling for the first time but standing properly the second. "Felt like my chest was on fire." Evenfall told the buck. "Did... you feel anything unusual?"

Chrystali

 

[Chrystali]

Grave sighed deeply, shaking his head slowly as though he'd been disappointed. "Living and the dead - they are not equal, child." At least he knew she was okay if she could still spout her opinions like that. "The living make mistakes, they have the capacity to be great or useless -- a life is marred by the tragedy and joy of their years. In death -- ah, in death, we are all equal and at peace."

His long spiked tail sweeping back and forth in a steady rhythm, he simply looked at her, impassive. "It's my dream. I don't hurt here." By proxy, it meant he was trying to hurt her, though? Or maybe his thoughts - his memories were harming her in some way. It did not sit well with him, being a creature that did not like to interact with the living, let alone cause them undue pain.  

[Aric Val]

WATERFALL

"There is beauty in --- vulnerability and imperfection." She winced a little, nodding her head subtly at the last part, "Death is... beautiful in its peacefulness, stillness and rest. But life, life is ----"

Before she could finish her words, the flames around them started to move, but there was a coolness in the air, suddenly water coming from above appeared, a gentle stream of water washing through the dead ashen land, washing away the flames that died down and crackled at the clear water. The field of black and grey turning quickly into a green open field, the bare trees springing up back to life and leaves and flowers budding to this new morning around them.

"----The circle of life. It goes around, life and death depend on each other. I know death is important to you, and it is to me." The doe slowly walked closer to Grave with a little smile, tilting her head to the side. "You know more about it than I. Would you teach me?"  

[Chrystali]

Though it was nearly impossible to see beneath his mask, Grave's muzzle curled with distaste as life began to spring where death once was. "It's unnatural, what you're trying to prove. Everything dies, girl, not everything can live."

His beautiful expanse of work had turned into...nothing.

Fixing her with a hard stare, he scowled, his voice even despite his expression. "You stole from me my joy, what I was looking forward to. I've buried children and unborn. I've seen suffering that only ends in misery, solitude. That, child, is life. It's ugly, it's disappointing, it's droll and is just one routine of survival into the same, every day, until death releases us from those bonds. The circle of life is necessary, but you're wrong." He held his head up, eyes lidding. "Death does not depend on life: death is the answer to life. Just as shadow is what happens when light is cast and exhaling breath to that of breathing in -- there is no dependency of death into life. Life depends on death to continue, but death...is the answer. It's the ultimate. One may fight to live, but one cannot stave off death forever. It is the end to a means. Life can never come close to something so final."

Shaking his head, he turned his back, intending to leave the site of growth and life. He wasn't needed here. "I can't teach you. You're too ignorant about what death truly is. Your happy little 'circle of life' is the naive answer, and I have no time for it."  

[Aric Val]

"Of course everything dies." She agreed calmly, "We live and we die. That is everything, both of them. "

Evenfall was admittedly surprised with the response of the other, so passionate in his mindset and dedicated to his job. While she still couldn't understand why he wouldn't see life in a better light -- she did listen to his words and about death, wide eyed and eager to hear more as a student would. Even though, he just said he wouldn't teach her.

She was definitely persistent though, slowly blinking at him and briefly looking around at all the life. So much life that this buck didn't want at all.

"If you think that, wouldn't it have much more sense to teach me, then?" Evenfall wasn't fazed much, a lot because she had this fire in her chest now -- she wanted to know more of what this kimeti knew of death. It was a whole different thing to her.  

[Chrystali]

"You can't open a closed mind. Yours is closed - your argument with me is proof of that. This..." He looked around the blooming land, so devoid of death. "...this is proof of that."

Grave looked over his shoulder, unfettered. "Your belief in life shrouds your ability to be objective about it. I can't teach a kin like that."