/:/ Cowgirl Dreamers /:/ (Tattle)

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Stare
Retired Staff

3,105 POSTS

Pronouns: she/her
last seen Feb 15, 2024 23:43:11 GMT -5

and i will hold you tight / like the moon in the arms of the sky

/:/ Cowgirl Dreamers /:/ (Tattle) Apr 16, 2012 23:57:23 GMT -5

Post by Stare on Apr 16, 2012 23:57:23 GMT -5

Vanessa Taylor Fanlas

No, I don't wanna hurt,
There's so much in this world
to make me bleed.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>

When I was a little girl, my mama used to tell me stories about horses and brilliant riders. She told me of the dust turned up by their hooves as they ran and raced, riding for incredible prizes and trophies that would shine hot and bright in the late afternoon sun. Horseback riders would come from all around chasing the dream that the name etched into the black square beneath the trophy could perhaps be theirs. They fought for fame and fortune, with dirt sticking to the sweat on their faces and knuckles white as they held on for dear life. Horses moved with a speed beyond belief, muscles rippling beneath shimmering onyx or chestnut or beautiful snowy white, their hooves pounding into the earth to form a roaring thunder louder than even that of the crowd, whose faces would be red from the heat and the effort of shouting. She would cradle me in her lap, atop the worn and wrinkled fabric of her dress, and smile down and whisper to me of a life better than the one I had.

I loved my mama. So much.

The spring wind whispers through my dark locks, whipping them back behind my head, and I press one hand atop my hat to keep it from being stolen by the wild gusts while using the other to brush Scarlet's silky mane. Papa's always been sure to keep the horses in the best condition, and Scarlet is no exception. I run a hand up and down the velvety surface of her nose when the wind dies down, smiling slightly, before leaning back on the heels of my boots to look around for any passing civilians. My gaze is brief and careless (no one ever comes back here, anyway, not during one of Papa's shows), and I quickly conclude that I am alone. With a quiet grunt of effort, I step up and swing my leg over the saddle, leaning forward to stroke Scarlet's neck. "C'mon, girl. I have a good feeling about that handstand today. Want to try it?"

She, of course, does not respond, but I smile and hope that maybe, on some small level, she gets it. After all, horses are the only ones that have ever really understood me. I lean forward slightly and she begins a slow walk. I rub her neck again in approval before cautiously bringing my feet up onto the saddle. Scarlet could take off or throw me off right now, and we both know it, but she continues at a steady, carefully pace. "Good girl," I whisper. It's a trust we have, a trust we've always had, ever since I first stood between her and the whip that Barbwire threatened with. Barbwire. Even just the thought of him causes my limbs to tremble, scars tingling at the memories, and I cringe for a moment. But no, those days are over. Barbwire can never hurt me ever again. Papa said so, and I trust Papa more than I trust anyone else in the world.

And so, taking a deep breath, I forget Barbwire. Forget mama's old stories, forget my old life, even forget Papa, if only for a little while. Right now, I have to focus completely. I take a deep breath, trying to recall old strategy from that other lifetime, when these kinds of tricks were second nature to me. I remember crowds cheering, Scarlet's hooves pounding, but not much more. My mind has blocked out those performances because of the fear that always accompanied them and the horrors that often followed. Carefully, and keeping my breathing steady, I push myself up onto my hands, hair draped beneath me like a black curtain. I hold it only a few seconds before dropping back down and sliding my legs back over Scarlet's sides, my heart pounding my my face relaxing into a smile of relief. I rub my hand up and down Scarlet's neck a few times. "We did it, girl. Good job."

Really, it's Scarlet that did all the work. She kept me balanced, she made her steps as smooth as possible, she remained patient with me. The horses deserve all the credit. I pull her to a stop and drop over her side, rubbing her all over her chestnut coat and thanking her a few times. Not many would believe me if I told them that Scarlet's my best friend, but it's true. I've always liked the horses' company better that humans'. Humans can be cruel and mean, but horses are always open minded and open hearted. I remember nights when I hid out in the stables, moving near them for warmth, while I whispered to them of all the things Barbwire would do to me if he would find me because he'd been drinking again and he was so mad. Barbwire was always mad after Mama died.

That was back when Barbwire forbid me to have any friends. The horses became my friends. They were always there when I needed them, and they were great listeners. And, while I never could prove it, I felt certain those horses loved me. They loved me when no one else would. Even now, the horses are my escape. My way out of life. They care about everything I say, and they are patient with me when I'm angry. They'll take me anywhere I want to go, help me do anything I want to do. And even when I'm surrounded my the staff and Papa, by peers from school or students at one of my sessions, I always feel so alone. I need my horses.

They're the only ones that keep me from falling apart on the inside.

Last Edit: Apr 16, 2012 23:57:55 GMT -5 by Stare

Tattletale
Retired Staff

[M:3040]

488 POSTS

last seen Dec 19, 2014 11:56:13 GMT -5

hi um\????

/:/ Cowgirl Dreamers /:/ (Tattle) Apr 22, 2012 11:04:09 GMT -5

Post by Tattletale on Apr 22, 2012 11:04:09 GMT -5

.// olesa eilowyn victore

© you are the moon @ caution

Happiness, hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

[/center]

The uneven rhythm of Luna's hooves on the rick-rackety road of stones and dust was a strange melody that her ears forever craved. Unbeknownst to Olesa, it was the simple things in life that her subconscious sought after: the sight of dew delicately perches on a grass blade, the sound of the birds' song in harmony with the silent symphony of the setting sun, the subtle gradual change from town to countryside, the cobbled pavement stones deteriorating over the time into clumps of dirt, the weather-beaten buildings with their cemented bases, slowly growing cracks that gave way to weeds, situated so devastatingly away to where the grass was greener and the trees were taller.

She was blinded,[/color] as Aedara would say. Blinded by the useless mourning over the death of sunshine caressing her skin and the possibility of parading in the outdoors. Blinded by the daydreams of the place where the sun and the land meets, how that blazing ball of brightness would burn and scorch the land and perhaps that would be better, perhaps that land had no boundaries unlike where I am now? Blinded by the relief that washed over her once Luna had guided her out of the crowded square. All that ever mattered in her eyes was Luna, and how it was one of those days once again where Luna was the one guiding her.[/color]

Perhaps she saw the big picture too far out, but maybe it was for the best that she never discovered her innermost desires. Perhaps it was best that she never discovered the little pieces of gems hidden underneath the floorboards of her heart.[/color] She went through life too fast, but it was never enough, and a simple fallback whenever sanity abandoned you[/color] was always good.

But Olesa has never came across the thought of sanity, let alone the thought of it leaving her,[/color] when she believed that she was perfectly sane and with a sound mind to begin with. Looking back wasn't something that she does, because tumbling down on the dirty ground is all that ever happens to riders who look back, and there were simply too much unknown to discover in the land ahead.

Other than the excitement of discovering a new land, everything was only ever black and white in her eyes. It was either something to be celebrated or something to be lamented. Raindrops didn't call out for a smile on her lips, it stained my boots and made puddles filled with nothing but icky mud and ― good Ripred, Luna's wet again. She was one biased child of the earth, a lover of light and effectively shunning out the disastrous winds that messed up her hair, yet praising it whenever it didn't slap her in the face during a ride. Anything else was too confusing for this lass who live to prove that she was better than what she seems to be, and live to scorn the hum-drum repetitive clockwork lives of the citizens.

Winter has passed and brought its icicles and frosted flakes with it, hopefully venturing out to find another place to brew distress on. Olesa couldn't be any happier, for it meant more days of slathering herself under the sun's rain of light, and more days of hooves trampling newfound ground. It also meant that the memories of that indicent under the pouring rain and all of that mess for simple soggy ferret meat was long gone, shoved into a corner that she vows to never touch.

But may it be globs of falling snow or rain sloshing through the mist, the dried leaves that fell and littered the streets ― only to be shoved into the side by impatient busy-bees ―[/color] turned to muck by the constant mood swings of the weather and the rainshowers that it constantly sputtered every now and then held footprints of the same people. The same old hunched bodies, straw-thin limbs long kissed by the sun and quaking with malnourishment (either from giving away their food to the younger ones or to the animals, it didn't matter. One was made to survive to be their key to survival, and one was made to survive for the sole idea of finally perishing and transferring the burden onto another's shoulders). The same drooped eyes that wake up only to see the same thing over and over again ― the butcher quarrelling with the man who housed twenty swines, his massive knife barely missing the scrawny neck of the thief-boy, narrowly avoiding either a public whipping or a lifetime spent without his tongue when he ducked away from the fruit vendor's view.

None of it made sense to her. What ever is the use of your life when all you do are the same repetitive things over and over again? Come rain, come sun, nevermind that ― do they never get tired? Do they never get bored? But with the mental soliloquy that she proclaimed as she passed through the sea of plebeians dressed in browned sacks, clutching may it be the frighteningly-thin wrist of their child, a frayed rope tied around the neck of an animal, or wrinkled fingers tightly grasping whatever remaining pennies they had, never did she stop to let a reasonable thought pass through that thick block of selfishness that successfully replaced her head and removed whatever ability she had to at least have a rational thought process.

Wake up, wake up, child.[/color] Whatever happened to their hopes and dreams? They weren't born to a family that had a barn thrust into their hands the minute they decided to deliver more children in this hellhole of a country.[/color] Surely they had some of those before they got stuck in bland, boring routine! They had to cower in fear at the thought of being reaped and the thought of going through another week without food in their grumbling bellies.[/color] That young woman sitting at the bench, why is she just sitting there? You fluster over that horse of yours, while they don't even have a horse to trade or sell for a couple of coins. She's got legs, why don't she just run and leave this awful place? There's no room for change in here, no time to spend daydreaming of better lands when there's not even a single piece of bread to be spared. There are a million things to uncover! Haven't you heard, little girl? Time is money, and ―[/color] They've got all the time in their hands! ― do we look like we have enough of those to go around?

A hard, cold splash of bitter truth. Or a good mighty slap in the face. Either way, yes, that was what Olesa needed.

Ripred knows when reality will finally catch up to her heels ― or rather, Luna's hooves, considering how that how she ever got too fast for her own good ― and send her stumbling down once again, but for now, she's as ignorant as those Capitolites in their fancy dresses and their exuberant wigs, too high off ~~her horse~~ like the voice pitches of the oddly-dresses ones. The silent struggle for survival and progression fighting and refusing to submit (and yet slowly weakening)[/color] into oppression was beyond her capacity to tolerate something so unnervingly mundane.

At last escaping the suburban maze littered with the good hopeless populace of the District, she rode into the open fields, readily anticipating the giddiness that was slowly building up deep inside of her. The sight of the stretch of healthy green that went on for miles and miles (a clever trick played by your own government, mind you)[/color], a vibrant pair together with the clear blue skies, dotted with a few beds of fluffed clouds. At last, the frustrated gypsy has finally arrived into the oasis that she has long fantasized the second she felt the warm grains of sand underneath her soles.

Welcome to heaven, I hope you enjoy your stay.

Of course, her line of vision ignored the corrals of metal wires that were tightly wound around each other, pressure so tight that sharpened thorns grew along the rusted surface (perhaps a clever reference by Mother Earth herself to the Capitol?)[/color]. But we'll stay put for now and not disrupt her slow descend back to the earth, still enclosed around her own bubble of happiness. It's quite funny, actually, how she went to great lengths in order to find her own version of happiness.[/color]

This near-desolate part of the District was peaceful and bare in comparison to the merchant's place that was perpetually flocked by a thousand. Here, there were no vendors littering the corners, voices bellowing out 'sir, sir! Madam, madam! Please do buy these meat I sell!' No dead ghouls so misplaced in a body that was supposed to be radiating life and joy, now instead perishing in an unbreakable cycle for sustenance. None of those here, only the few cows hoarding the grass for themselves ― and of course, the horses.

Horses. Of course. Might as well be rephrased as 'the only living object that Olesa truly cares about.' That was certainly more fitting.

She had long heard of wondrous stories about the magical land where everything was peachy-keen, where everything was fine and alright. And although she has found less-than-spectacular-yet-good-enough spots that could satisfy her insufferable growing need for freedom and looking out to distances that brought in the promising wind, whispering the secrets of forgotten shores and just anywhere where no walls nor barricades surrounded me, there was nothing comparable to this magnificent piece of land. Now, she was finally here, breathing in the air (although refusing to take a deep one, because traces of manure lingered in the air. Has your vision of freedom shattered yet, m'dear?)[/color] where both people and horses breathe the sweet smell of liberty ― or at least what could pass off as one.[/color]

Olesa was referring to no one else but the famed travelers that spent almost all of their waking hours side by side the four-legged animals of nature. Stories spread on how they were the greatest tamers, stern yet forgiving, firm yet gentle. No one ever spoke of terrible things about them, for what was there ever something horrible about the few who knows how to properly treat a horse? They didn't stoop to the degrading level of men who's hearts were as hard as they were on their horses. No, they understood the often awed, and sometimes feared animals. Battered and bruised, they coaxed them into sugar cubes and eventually into the path of better health and into stages of their full potential. Horse whisperers, they say.

As Luna trotted along the trail and Olesa got lost within her own euphoria, more and more horses appeared, some with human companions. Maybe it was the deceivingly placid atmosphere the area gave off, the lacking sounds of hooves crushing against the hard ground in a too-fast pace that was clearly driven by pure fear, sounds of the horse's strangled whimpers as a whip cracks in the air and lands on marred skin. She had been so used to the painful sounds that haunts her whenever she passes by the wrong block of the town that it was almost alarming how bare the place sounded.

That was the agitating effect that living in horrendous environments did to her. She was long exposed to the awful things that man did to animals, how it was either about the glory that one receives when they pushed the animal to it's limit. The exhausted pants were inaudible to them, not when they were too eager for the sound of victory and applause that they were sure to receive once they crossed the finish line, when they were too busy collecting pride from the angered cries of the players defeated and the gamblers once again swiped clean with another bet that went wrong. Either that, or it was all about slaving under the heat of the sun. Never mind the health of the horse, they're all about doing whatever they can in order to be able to put a plate of food for dinner tonight. Opposed to humans, the horses were hopeless, with no other choice. Man was bestowed with strength and intelligence, but the results are disastrous when there is no balance in power. ~~Am I right, President Snow?~~

Involuntarily shuddering, Olesa shook herself free of the horrible thoughts that has plagued her ever since she passed through the market. She softly tapped Luna, apologizing for thinking of those in the first place; after all, wasn't this supposed to be the haven of horses, where no wrong-doing person would ever think of hurting them? Throughout the years that she has spent with Luna, a bond was formed. The kind of bond that people talk about, as if a folklore, simply because it was something so unreal, especially between human and beast. Luna has always been with me. I understand her, she understands me. It's a connection that I can't explain.

A contented smile graced her lips as she sees the horses peacefully trotting around, or being trained by the men. Perhaps if I were to finally leave the District and finally go on adventures of my own, I would join them. Luna and I, we would be happy among them.[/color] And at this very moment, she was certain that she had her future set, at the tender age of sixteen. Yes, she would ―[/color]

And at this very moment, she witnesses a spectacular feat.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the dark-haired girl who gained speed, and then lifted herself only with her hand as her support. Olesa was left frozen in a state of admiration, mouth slightly agape at what she just saw. There was grace in every single movement, with how the horse kept its speed and the same rhythm of galloping hooves that she was sure every rider appreciated,[/color] how the girl kept herself steady despite the moving base.

But there was also something odd about the way her dark brown hair glinted under the light, the way that she held herself. Even her posture, it all seemed familiar. It was like a old, treasured memory was once again springing back up from the piles of recent memories that has accumulated over time.

And then it hits her.

She quickly tapped Luna, willing her to follow the brunette and catch to them. She didn't know how she would call out her attention when she was on the other side of the fence, but it didn't matter. Olesa could remember how she had left the show with adoration so clear in her eyes. And now it was the moment to finally meet her.

Luna caught up, and after making sure that she wasn't crossed-eyed with alternating between the path and keeping tabs on the girl, she stopped.

"Excuse me? Excuse me!" She wasn't even sure that she got her attention, but it would be worth the shot. "You're ―" Blank. Her mind was blank, and her eyebrows slightly furrowed as she tried to dig in her failing memory for her name.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ―

"Vanessa," she breathed out. "Vanessa Jones."

― the ever so talented, Vanessa Jones!

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
The horses are coming
So you better run

[/blockquote][/color][/justify]

OOC -- [ Edited for the lyrics xD ]

[/blockquote][/size]

Last Edit: May 3, 2012 23:58:33 GMT -5 by Tattletale

I. THE WILD YOUTH