*-- reconcile the violence in your heart [tzigany]

[Ayla]

I AM HUNGRY FOR SOME UNREST
i wanna push this beyond a peaceful protest

Too damn hot. In any other land, it was probably nice and cool, but here on the beach with sand that stayed hot even at night and the heat reflecting off the mountains, Leviathan was sweating under hit coat. It was a heat unsuited for the season and latitude, but at least it was better than being surrounded by rotting corpses.

The water was still too cold to swim in this time of year, but he settled to stand in the icy water, the sun beating down on his dark back, waves pulling away the remains of his winter coat. If late spring was this bad, Leviathan dreaded the summer. Invasion plans were bumped up to "high priority." A nice cozy valley, a source of fresh water, and lots of grass seemed to be typical of the light lands, and yet he, as a dark, was condemned to a life of watching his step for pools of blood and torn-off limbs.

A particularly violent wave soaked Leviathan up to his stifle, causing a full-body shiver. At least there wasn't any wind. The stallion extracted himself from the ocean and shook himself off. The sand stuck to his legs, causing his normally black stockings to become coated with light-colored grains. Although the heat was pleasant - for now - Leviathan was now itchy.

Great. Just freaking great.

A thousand things, from claiming mares to the Plan, could be worrying him, but no. Of course not. Nature was against him, and the little grains of sand working their way against his skin only made that more apparent.

[Tzigany]

((To be continued ASAP. However, if ASAP isn't done before noonish tomorrow, count this as complete.))

DAMN.

That little slice of blue she'd been following through the mesas for the past four hours wasn't a lake. IT WAS THE GODDAMN FRICKIN' OCEAN.

The little mare swore unintelligibly. The 'unintelligibly' bit was more of an effect of dehydration than self-restraint. It wasn't that she wasn't trying. She was holding her tongue with all the violence she wanted to be cursing with. It was just that her tongue was swollen up and she'd trip on it whether she wanted to act restrained or not.

Her head drooped between her forelegs. Truth be told, it swung back and forth with a little more ...oomph... than her gait could have moved it. Literally, she was swearing up, down and sideways.

Even bone dead tired, Road had fire.

Her yellow-horn hooves lurched forward on a sleepless mind of their own. Every fifth or so step one would catch on a rock, and before she could stumble she wrenched herself to razored awareness. She'd watch her feet, ensure they got back into the swing of things. A miserable, bruised pulse beat through her eyelids and the soft skin beneath. By degrees, they'd swell shut. Her swearing faded to a murmur that trailed behind her in an irritated black scribble.

And then she'd catch her hoof on a stone again, and the decibels would spike.

The red dust from the desert covered her. It ghosted over the brownish speckles in her coat. It muted the firey crimson of her hair, turned her ivory fur a faint rust. For the moment, and from a distance, the legerdemain turned her into just another sorrel horse.

Highly peculiar, if she could have seen. Of all people.

As the path boomeranged around the last mountain between it and a clear view, the bay opened beneath her. In full blue, blue, blue splendor - ultramarine blue, like lapiz lazuli and the Madonna's robes - it sparked and glimmered, its surface a mirror crackling with light. Straight below the bluff the path lay on, a little sickle of a lagoon cut deeper into the land. The great crescent of the bay arced away on either side, and a little necklace of rock spikes connected one point of the curve to the other.

It was magnificent. Beautiful, in all its unpotable, hostile-to-life splendor.

Road cussed it out. She needed a drink, dammit.