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 Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 8:07 pm
He watched, and waited.
He sighed inwardly at her response to his greeting (this one was grumpy in the morning... then again, she had a lot to be rightfully upset about) and then felt himself perk up as her eyes swiveled partially towards him.
He watched her try again, and brightened at her... well, at least she had acknowledged that it was 'mor'n'. His smile faltered, and he stared incredulously as her cheeks flushed, wondering whether she was feeling embarrassed at her curt words.
Or... was it him?
He shifted self-consciously, then relaxed and simply sighed.
One day closer to figuring it all out, one day closer to her knowing and being just... her.
It would happen. He knew it.
And in the mean time... "How are you feeling?" His brows furrowed in concern; she was wounded, and- for all that she might intend to harm another upon regaining her strength- he would care for her in whatever way she would let him.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 8:37 pm
"Sore....irritated...." Meridah breathed out, casting her gaze away from the meddlesome stallion before her and up to the cliff sides. Her mind kept trailing to the knights in question; it was bothering her that she was in a sense slacking here while she had a mission to be elsewhere. What if her lord was watching...what would he have to say about such blatant disregard?
He'd have her head...
This in turn caused her to frown - deeply.
"Angry..."
She wasn't sure why she had to relay information like this...would it not be easier for her to take them out one by one? They were skilled, yes, but so was she! She'd end it, and her dreams would be realized, right?
No....that's not how the lord desired it....there was a plan in action. Kill any who compromise your agenda Was the rule. When she thought hard about it...Voda knew too much. Seen...too much of her. In essence she should off him as soon as poss-
ba-dum
She winced, her heart giving a painful skip as if to derail that train of thought as soon as possible. No...that wouldn't do. Her heart would not let her take his life; she knew this now, the realization sound.
Something was there and it pissed her off to no end the weakness it was causing in her soul.
"Frustrated..." She growled, this was all his fault. Him and his kindness and sweet gestures in the name of the filly. Meridah. Meridah. It was all about some dead little corpse!
"You love her..." She dawned, roaming her eyes back to meet his own, but frowned. "...stop it. Just...stop. What you had....will be nothing you can regain." She stared, it made sense. Even if the filly was alive....it wouldn't be the same, there was so much more to play than youthfulness and naivety.
Those days....were gone. Adulthood, along with that unique circumstance of her passing made it absolute.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 8:57 pm
Voda listened to each word, feeling them like heavy weights around his heart. She had every right to feel however she did, and yet he'd hoped that she'd feel... rested, joyful, whole.
He wilted inwardly and yet tensed at her growl, uncertain whether to posture back or... or just stand there and take it. And he would take it, all of it, any of it she chose to throw at him; because, though he might defend himself if pressed, exchanging meaningless threats with her was not in his character and also would do nothing to heal her.
If only he could take it all and make it just go away.... but every memory, every moment, made them who they were. And, even if he knew with everything he was that her this way was Wrong, when she returned she would be... changed. Would she remember, or would it all get locked away again? And who could possibly be Whole when partitioned like this? Maybe...
He had begun to frown hopefully as her dawning accusation struck him with the force of her gaze meeting his own.
Yes.
Confirmation from every fleck of his existence.
She frowned, bade him stop. Can't.
Neither denial nor refusal, simply.... how could he stop loving the only one to ever show him family, to give his life true meaning, to be his best friend and to accept and love him in her own way for who he was without ever asking him to do anything that would not make him... a better himself?
What she asked... it was impossible.
"I will never stop loving you, Meridah." To him, love was pure, whole, gentle, kind, all-consuming, and never-ending. Of course he loved her. He loved Phoenix too, but he knew that it was... different, somehow.
"What we had is still here, and if you just... remembered... if you just saw. We can be together again. We won't be foals, I know that, I can't make up for all the time we lost and we won't ever be able to be so... little... but we can be us, and that's enough. That's always enough."
He searched, seeing the mare before him and yet summoning his Meridah in her eyes.
No matter what we've been through... no matter what you've had to endure... we can make it, Meridah. I know we can. Like we made it to the sea, and past that Bear-walker, and raising Phoenix... and teaching her to fly. Let me help you. Come back to me. ...
I love you.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:27 pm
"Why!"
Meridah snapped, feeling emotions welling in her throat as she shakily stood from her laying position. She fortunately was feeling much better than the previous day, but her pain tolerance was formidable as well with the ability to push herself further than many could. Once steadily on her hooves she turned her full attention to him, unable to conceal the mixed emotions on her face at the subject in hand.
"Why do you live back in the past. What about now..."
She breathed in, clearly her emotions were bubbling up like some eruption she had no hopes in stalling or quelling.
He spoke or remembering, of what they had. Some secret joyous time that someone else began, and she was supposed to just step back and let it continue? Hell no! This was her life. She fought for it, she survived and now she was going to damn well get what she wanted.
Didn't she deserve that much?
It was as if he was offering such a delicious apple, but she wasn't allowed to take bite, it was meant for someone else. Why couldn't she belong? It was the single most important thing to her....maybe it didn't have to be with the lord.
But alas....such an invitation was to some past figment - after all.
"What about what is here before you - right here, right now! There is nothing to remember....but what about starting anew." She choked, in anger, before turning away from him in a huff and making her way to the cliffs in a hurried walk. She had to get out of here, before things really got out of hoof.
"It'll never be enough." It never was in her world. The mission needed to be completed, as soon as possible.
Meridah didn't know how much she could take of this, as it felt as if her very soul was ripping in two.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 9:57 pm
The past was all he had to cling on to. Memories of her, keeping him sane while grief and agonizing hope threatened to tear his mind apart. He hadn't found the body, not until it had grown and housed someone... else.
Not until it bore the scars of events he could never have been there for.
He hadn't been there for her then, but he could- he would- he had to be here for her now.
"You're here." he said, the words obvious and yet their meaning something more. It?
Had he so devalued her, too? Robbing this mare, this twisted little mare, before him of her... self? Not the Self he knew, but the identity she had grown into. Whoever was before him, so confused and lost and yet yelling of her certainty in her path.
She hadn't answered him, not out loud. She didn't know who she would live for, and yet she was willing to die for her Lord.
His lips pulled back in a voiceless snarl as she tried to escape. Not yet. His hind end coiled as he sprung forwards at a gallop, moving around her to enclose her and cut off escape. She was limping, he knew it was unfair perhaps to so abuse his comparatively good health but it was all he had right now... and he would use everything he had, and everything he was, to help her... somehow.
"I don't know you. I don't know what you've been through, last night... was just glimpses, and you try so hard to keep me out, but..." here he was again, speaking more than he'd ever done before, and yet he'd never had a reason for words before- and right now, his words were all he had to convince the love of his existence not to go. "Does it feel wrong? When you're here, on this beach, with me? Does it feel.... bad?"
He was ready, once more, to lunge- wherever she sought to move- pushing her, and yet entirely unapologetic for it. She could be bad at him, after. Just... answer him.
Don't blow him off.
"You got lost, and you came here." he hazarded, grasping at whatever evidence of the present he could to speak with who she had become.
"You didn't go back, didn't find this Lord of yours, you could have gone anywhere and you came here." Oh, she was probably just trying to make it back to the family she sought to destroy- he winced at that- but it was still true.
He loved his friend, his childhood companion, his youthful playmate. And yet, even then, he had seen something special in her- deep inside, a promise of something more and someone truly beautiful. Strong, smart, quick, loyal, true. She got scared, and she was pushed through- determination, stubborn relentless courage.
There were whispers of her, in this mare, and yet she lacked that... surety. It wasn't that she wished to do bad things, or that she was so sure that she 'had to', just... she wasn't wholly herself. That was the best way he could describe it.
Maybe it was that she seemed not to remember their time together, maybe it was something torn from her when the being looming above her... hurt her. As she'd begged them not to.
"Help me understand." He was begging.... he didn't care. He cared too much, to worry about what was appropriate or supposed-to-be-embarrassing for someone their age. "And if you don't understand, at least let me help you try."
'It'll never be enough.' What? Who? Him, or her?
"Whoever you think you are, whatever you've been through- i'm here."
She didn't like it when he called her Meridah. She didn't like it when he spoke the truth.
And yet she had no other name to offer.
He knew why, but she seemed to deny it with everything in her.
And yet there were leaks in her refusal to see, little whispers of who she was springing through even now.
And when the flood came, he'd be here.
And he knew how to swim.
"I'm here for you."
He paused, knowing that she'd dismiss it like all his other heartfelt promises.
"I'm here for who you are now, the mare before me, whatever you've been through and whatever you think you must do. But know that having no memories of your past is not right. You can't go on like this, clinging to some Lord's words that don't even give you reason to live and denying your true purpose behind all that you do."
He clenched his jaw, shook his head, decision made long ago.
"I won't help you do what I know to be wrong. But I will do whatever I can, when you're ready to reclaim yourself."
He took one step back, the distance between them merely to give her room to breathe.
"I'm waiting."
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2014 10:52 pm
It happened so fast she wasn't sure entirely how to react, so quickly in fact that luckily her body was paying attention and stopped her dead in her tracks before she would have ran right into the stallion as he cut off her path cold. Meridah's eyes went doe like, large and lost as her mind struggled to comprehend what had happened...what he was saying.
It was the first time...the first time he saw her as well...her. Not this Meridah...the true Meridah.
That lack in strength as her legs went weak with realization was enough to allow something deeper to surface in her psyche, something which had been clawing to get out for so long. The end result was a power struggle behind her brown eyes, mixing in a horrible conversion of overwhelming emotions.
"It hurts..." She croaked as her emotional walls began to crumble, tearing her gaze downwards. "It hurts to much to be here, but I come. I come to feel the pain because at least its a familiar feeling...having nothing hurts so much more..." Pain had always been in her life, for a long as she could remember. Without it....her mind wandered to dark spots in her past she could not recall - and it left her empty.
It reacted to make her want to belong so much more. To fill the voids with something...anything.
Voda spoke of many things, and she tried feverishly to truly listen to all he had to say, all his kind promises and reaching out to her soul.
He was here....he wanted to help. He wanted to understand, to help her understand.
Yet...there was no way either of them could. Dwelling inside her psyche was a scared little filly, one pushed so far back in the dark she guarded all of the horrors of her youth; willing it to never surface again. On the flip side there was a darkness living in the light, bracing all the demons she faced to keep the little filly safe in her darkness; trying to find somewhere to belong in their tragic duality.
You're waiting? Her tone changed, her voice took on a pain like no other.
"I waited so long....I waited for someone to come for me. I waited through days, weeks, months....no one came. No one was coming.....not one...single..." She faded, before speaking up in a more firm tone; tear brimmed eyes dropping to a frown. "There is no place for me in the light, not any more. These hooves are too stained to go back, besides - there is no where for me to go back. Everyone is waiting for someone else..."
Yet...she knew what had to be done.
"I...do have to thank you though. For opening my eyes." She began, an eerie distant look crossing her features. "I will not be able to go on...I imagine my desires will be for naught as the Lord probably has no intention to grant me what I wish." He had really gave her no true purpose, and thinking back, he'd never really gave her any indication she would become part of their clan; more or less he'd re-directed, and she'd been blind. The game was in motion though...and it wasn't what she wanted, but she would belong - even if for a brief moment in time.
She'd live, and probably die in war, what all her known life had been built up to be.
"Even so...I will see forth the only purpose I have ever known." She smiled, probably the first genuine smile she'd had in a long time. "Thank you Voda..."
Meridah breathed, a sense of peace on both sides of her soul. "I have a hunch she really loves you. I really do hope...she is able to come back to you someday." She tossed him a look, one which clearly read let her pass or she'd go through him. Besides, if he was this annoyingly stubborn...
She could only imagine the degree Meridah was.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 9:33 am
The words sliced through him, leaving a gaping wound from which tears trickled slowly and leaked through his eyes.
Nothing?
He couldn't do it. He couldn't come to her, he didn't know where. If he'd found a sign, a trace, anything at all, he would have known which direction to push and that if nothing else would have allowed him to carry through. Jumping forward in the storms, hiding in rivers or streams, allowing himself just enough liquid to push a little further over dry ground. He could have found a guide, to help him hop between bodies of water... until he'd found her, at last.
But he had found no trace.
He had found not even a stray mark... he wasn't that great a tracker, but that her family found nothing either validated his... failure.
And it was a failure. He'd failed to find her, failed to come to her, failed to do anything but head out in the radius of one-dip's-travel and always return to their cove.
That was his only surety- that one day, she'd return. She'd come back, here.
Had it been too late?
"I'm sorry. I couldn't... couldn't physically do it." he said, his throat rasping as tears trickled unacknowledged down his cheeks. The sadness he felt moved beyond simple tears; they were merely the physical expression of his the internal pain and sorrow. "I didn't know where you were... I couldn't find anything, when he took you, and I...."
He was talking to the filly again, though the mare stood before him.
"I'm sorry."
"You don't have to thank me. It was not my purpose to make you cling to the only thing you've even been allowed to take for your own; you can have anything you want, when you act from a place of self-knowledge and self-love." He let her look slide off him, knowing that he'd have to let her go soon and yet everything in him screaming back 'not yet.'
What could he call her?
"If you don't know who you will live for yet, Knight, then live for yourself." he stated, his voice strong now; he might be crying, but these words were too important to allow his voice to crack in expressing. "There isn't only one way to grant a wish, I think you're just..." he bit his lip "... too scared to fail to try it any other way."
Fighting was easy, wasn't it? It took skill, resolve, determination- but she had all those things, and yet taking the physical blows was somehow easier than taking the emotional beating that would come with opening yourself up only to be chased off, or rejected and hurt worse than... anything possible.
"If this was right, you'd be happy."
He stared, his gold eyes as open and wide as hers had been, daring her to deny it. The tears were tickling slower now, as he waited for her response.
You came back to me. You just don't know it yet.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:47 am
Its not your fault....
It had come as a devastating blow that the knight wasn't the hero, that they wouldn't come bursting through the foliage no matter what to save the captive. No she wasn't not princess in a tower, but she was still in need - her failing state definitely portraying the damsel well enough. In her mind there was nothing a Knight couldn't do, they were always the hero, and would always prevail against the evil.
That didn't happen.
It was a sobering, soul crushing lesson the young filly learned, as time slipped away and she realized no one was coming. No one could come.
Even as a knight in training herself...there was just nothing that could be done.
It was a realization that made her give in...give up. How could she aspire to be something when it meant...so little. What had been her everything - turned into nothing. With her mind, and body broken she stood no chance at all.
Although she was looking ahead, up the cliffs where she would make her escape; Meridah found herself turning her sights back to him once more. She hated to see the tears flowing; trickling down when they should have been absorbed by his body. Her heart ached for him, knowing in her confusion she must have brought back painful memories for him as well.
Knight
A stare, a glimpse of recognition, but it was gone. Pushed back by the mare in question. I will make things right... She had to. If not for her....for him. She closed that gap quickly, effortlessly up in his face as she stared at him hard despite the sadness in her eyes. "I am not scared to fail...not anymore." An effortless breath, a gentle smile later.
She would do it for him, and throw herself into the abyss.
"I'll find her." Meridah spoke softly, leaning up to brush her lips against his cheek - it was a moment she would not forget as her cheeks flushed. "This will be the last time you see me. Thank you, Vodadragan." With nothing more, nothing less she pushed past him before he could stop her, trotting her way to the path before looking back forlornly.
"This heart...has always beat for only you." With that, her body took off up the hill; despite the pain; and vanished over the hill top.
There was no self love, living for herself. She could see now that it was only bringing her pain, bringing him pain. There was no way around it now....if she wanted to free herself of these earthly chains, to belong to something greater than herself - she would have to let go of everything she held to. She would have to dig deep and find this Meridah and force her to the light no matter the cost.
For she couldn't exist so long as her grip was tight....she'd give it up though.
It was time for her to start this war.
...and the rest was up to him.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:58 am
The Kelpi stallion watched her go, feeling the glow of her touch linger on his skin as the fire that had never gone out blazed ever-brighter.
And yet... it was paired with an odd forlorn flush, a lamentation at what would be lost to give in to her true self. Yet, it wasn't loosing a part of herself, it was becoming whole again. Becoming herself again. And all of this... this mare, would still be there- just tempered and enlivened and flourishing in the light of Her.
His lips twitched upwards even as she moved away, letting her go secure in the knowledge that she would return. She'd always return.
They'd promised.
And yet, even if he had tried to stop her- when determined, there was nothing he could do. Nothing he would do, to hold her against her will... only against her stubborn pride.
He could barely hear her, now, but what he heard... what he saw in her far-away yet just-here eyes... his heart leaped and galloped after her as she fled from sight.
I'll be waiting.
-Fin-.
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