You gotta have the patience and believe you're gonna make it
Gotta hold on
A strange sound from above made the little mare look up just as a glowing blue glob of something descended upon her. Shrieking in terror the little mare bolted and dashed a ways into the dense jungle, bucking and thrashing to get it off. What was it, why did it cling to her, would her skin burn and sizzle and be eaten away by some acid or would she fall down dead from whatever poison it might inject her with? But for all that she flapped the wings and kicked and rolled on the ground, the glowing mucus remained where it was, and to make matters worse it was beginning to harden.
Grimacing in disgust as the solid, blue mass began to solidify all along her back, she tried to flex the wings and found them hopelessly glued to her sides as tiny, painful downs were caught in the sticky mess. With every passing second it grew harder and harder, and Erthë was horrified to realize that it made walking or moving or even lowering her head towards the ground nearly impossible. Anger quickly replaced the initial panic, and with a snarl she tore her head around and gnashed her teeth at the luminous crust, ignoring everything Badger had once taught her about ingesting unknown substances...
It was useless. She was stuck, or rather it was stuck to her and it didn't even matter because it was awful and bothersome... and to make matters even worse she felt how the damp, soaked skin beneath the substance begin to itch.
"Why?" she moaned, turning her eyes to the sky as if to beseech some god for answers. "Why me? What have I ever done to deserve this!?"
Erthë waited, but to no surprise, all that responded to her was a deep, empty silence, before the hidden creatures of the rainforest resumed their squawking and buzzing.
I know you're tired of surviving but you gotta keep on trying
Hold on!
@Valdis
• Magic and violence may always be used against Erthë!
I had crawled beneath a mangled bush, giving up on the search for anything other than this damn rainforest. I was too tired, exhausted and emotionally drained, and in that wake, annoyed. Each little chirp from an animal, hum from some hidden force, each scream that ripped from the throat of something,someone, had me gritting my teeth because I just wanted silence. Now more than ever, I wanted the consuming loneliness to eat me whole, to chew me up and spit me out, let me rot the way the animals did with my magic stretching out in my vicinity. It a short sputter, it's a weak croak of rot unlike the fleeting moments in Helovia, when I could feel the flesh of animals burst and blister in my wake as I ran, as I wept and thrashed out and I fell to ruin. The Rift had weakened me, had weakened all of us, and now we were vulnerable.
So tucked away I remain, beneath the wet, thorny embrace of a bush, listening to the patter of rain against leaves and fat drops of condensation slipping down to the ground. I could hear the chirp of mutated birds and the prowling steps of beasts I cannot see, always too rigid, always on the edge, ready to bolt in a moment's notice. So when I have to listen to someone very close to me scream and holler, not quite into the forest, but perhaps overhead? I can hear her fury, her spite against the world for what I can only assume is a burning rage against whatever curse she has been given, perhaps I too would be screaming into the sky, but I would look like a mad fool with the way I look - I'd be crushed beneath the same labels my mother had been forced to live under. To be mocked, to be avoided, pushed aside and forgotten, deemed too crazy for the world to handle. How sick.
I rise from beneath the bush, skin snagging against a mess of thorns and tangled branches, giving a quick shake before snorting at the besmirched woman who howls at the empty sky. "Maybe if you yell a little louder they'll hear you?" It's sarcastic, biting back blunt outrage because the annoyance is unfathomably present, eating away at my sorrows as I speak in the general direction of the shouts, unsure of whether I successfully spoke to another horse or if I was attempting to spark conversation with a tree.
You gotta have the patience and believe you're gonna make it
Gotta hold on
She looked up to see who had spoken, and flattened the ears back against the poll as she made out a dark figure in the gloom of the forest, barely more than a shadow - had it not been for the flaming red that crowned the arch of the neck. It was just a kid, and a foul-mouthed one at that; once Erthë might have been tempted into a witty retort by the biting sarcasm, but happiness had wilted and died within her and all laughter stuck to the throat like a cherry pit, swollen and ready to choke her.
"If you are not going to help, go away" she said, eyes full of irritation rather than the usual mischief. The little mare knew she was being unfriendly, but at the moment she could not bring herself to care if the kid was offended. It was just a brat after all, and thick skinned if the language was anything to go by, and there was a glowing blue blob on her back that made it impossible to extend the wings more than partway from the sides.
It made her feel suffocated, trapped, smothered and vulnerable. Helpless. None were conditions the little mare enjoyed, not ever and most certainly not in this dark, chaotic realm where most things probably wanted to eat her.
"Well?" she snapped, as she tried to shuffle a few paces towards the brat. "Help or leave? I have better things to do than to listen to snarky brats with less wit than years."
Things. Like getting rid of this glowing snot, for example.
So undignified.
I know you're tired of surviving but you gotta keep on trying
Hold on!
My ears are drawn back at the fire she produces, the spit and hiss of her words as she rages, annoyance and tension filtering the air around us as I stand to my full potential, dauntless and looming. I will not listen to a girl barely older than I about what I should be doing, whether I should remain or leave at her discretion. "I don't take orders from a baszatlan kurva," words snaked with venom gather at my lips, dropping harshly, cutting through the momentary silence between the girl and I as I lay my ears flat and feel my body tense defensively ("ein narr,""una bambina stessa,") - my stomach is coiling, the magic that radiates from my skin reaching out, hungering for living tissue, for organic matter as my own irritation swells. What right does she have to order me to leave? I was here first! If anyone should be going away, it should be her for being so unbelievably rude.
I raise my lip, scoffing at her empty threats and way her body lingers closer then, upon in as she paces into my space, demanding I help her. I let loose mocking laughter, harsh and unpleasant as it tears from my throat, gagging on the foreignness of my own laugh as I let out a final bleat before silencing myself. I straighten out, letting my face remain slack as it had been through my fit, let my ears remain pressed against the back of my head and focus linger on the darkness before me, letting my lips twitch in disgust ever so subtly. "And you call me the brat? Perhaps you should take a moment to realize that you're the one demanding help from someone you didn't hesitate to insult," I sneer, feeling the magic creep out towards the woman, hesitating before withdrawing because as much as I would love to crush her here, to let the magic blister upon her skin, bubble and burst with infection and rot - she was useful, she was the key to my success and I wish so badly I didn't have to help someone so ungrateful. "But I'll help, only because I get something out of it - you should be on your fucking knees kissing my hooves for even considering this, sertés." I spit at her, angled towards the ground but hoping that it splatters at her hooves despite only going on a whim, a fair guess as to where she stands.
You gotta have the patience and believe you're gonna make it
Gotta hold on
There was so much she could say to that. The retorts piled up like domino bricks on her tongue, teetering and trembling, ready to collapse in a perfect tumble of well-phrased insults, but being called a brat by a brat stung a bit too much for Erthë to risk any more abuse. Not that she couldn't squash the kid into the ground if she so wished, and it wasn't that she was afraid of the throwback. It was just... too shitty a situation already to make it any worse.
Sucking in a deep breath in a visible attempt at curbing the flaring temperament, the little mare slowly counted down until she felt more in control over herself. Then she actually smiled, a tense and painful smile to be sure but one free from sarcasm or even mockery - something of a feat here, considering her predicament - and was just about to tell the kid to help pry the blue booger off her back, when a realization dawned upon her.
No... prying was not the right thing to do here. Or rather, it was, but it was a different kind of prying that was required. Of information and secrets, of hidden information to which she was not privy already.
Not very hard, that, as the ginger filly was a complete stranger to her. Even her name was a secret at this point.
"Tell me three things I do not already know about you" she replied. Then, as an afterthought, realizing this would be much less painful if they could avoid all the swearing, she added an almost heartfelt "Please?"
I know you're tired of surviving but you gotta keep on trying
Hold on!
Her sudden change of heart, gentle, suddenly understanding while I still fumed, while the rage at her disrespect still clung to my skin, bubbled to the surface and I was still spitting, still steaming because I clung to the emotions that consumed me, refused to let them go until I was too tired of feeling one way, until they let me go and I was left to feel empty. But this fury, it clung, it wouldn't let go and even though the woman before me had easily shaken her attitude, mine remained.
It only worsened at her question, asking for three things she does not know - my name was a simple enough response, One - "My name is Valdís." And the second came along with it, passing through my lips without hesitation. It was long, it was a winding path of my lineage that I thought could be spilled without worry because one half was dead, and the other may has well have been for he had been silent since our arrival. Perhaps it was grief that got the best of him, that buried him in the twisted trails within the foreign world, kept him hidden and quiet while he went through the stages of loss and mourning. "I am a child of Volterra, a man with too much spare time and too strong of a need for sex, leaving me with a handful of half siblings that do not care of me - and Amara, a woman who had been plagued by demons she could not run or hide from, the driving force that caused her death." These words are not bittersweet but foul as they leave my tongue, a hiss as I spit them out at her hooves, choking but unwavering as I recite the sentences like I'm reading from a book I've read a hundred times. I'm not going to get theatrical about it, I'm not going to pretend it doesn't hurt either, but I certainly won't let her see the pain as my heart clenches as I speak of Momma.
I would never see this woman again, never hear about her and what more she can say, I drown out the sound of the world, of any word that leaves her lips as the final secret comes forward, one no one but I and Momma knew, but she was dead, and I was the only one left to bear it's weight. "My mother was the one who took my eyes, she was the one who grounded me, who blinded me -" And suddenly the world is nothing but a deafening roar, churning blood in my ears as I lower my head, turning to go but hesitating, waiting to be snagged back by the woman, too caught up in the conversation to go - I wait there, pausing between steps as I strain to hear a response from her.
Rainforest Cliffs
