[WP-003] Beauty Past Compare

[Maxx]

[imgleft]https://matope.pixel-blueberry.com/imag ... uncert.png[/imgleft] Ever since that incident that could not be mentioned and the implosion that ensued, Beauty Past Compare had scarcely gotten up from this lush little compound to do much anything. Sometimes she would wail-sing into the distance, lounging like a melted tan puddle amongst the soft grass, sometimes she would self-absorbedly cry, sometimes she would do both and marvel, tearfully, at the steadiness of her tone. At least this was giving her lungs a workout, because she supposed that was the only thing she was good for: being an emotive singer, and a damn good one at that.

It had been a long day of soulful and self-pitying warbling before she exhaustedly fell asleep amongst the foliage of berries. Another talent - finding some of the best places to lay herself down to rest while she moped for innumerable days.

Then it came, those visions. Oh, the heat, a puddle she was in the heat of her ancestral home, the desert, sand, coarse and getting everywhere. Amongst it all, those stones and their flashing colours, flashing – Beauty Past Compare allowed herself a smirk at her achievement, having luxuriated across the stones towards the solution that she had so graciously given the rest an opportunity to solve. A flash, relived, a flash, and it was the Obelisk shining, light beaming into the heavens like a powerful signal. That’s right, she remembered: the sand was coarse and it got everywhere, and she had quite enough of her ancestral home. She had touched the comfortingly gleaming obelisk.

And so it was, that dark path, and that awful, awful need to run! To this day, Beauty still hated to run. She was far too dignified a kin to run so desperately, and she did not appreciate the detail that her dream pressed upon her, the encroaching darkness. She willed it quicker, her little dream self ran quicker. She knew there was something beautiful at its end, and she awaited its arrival.

Yes, there it was, wrapped around her. The classic Acha choral ode, a song of her race, of joy, of passion, of the desert. It was warm, mighty, it filled her bosom with spirit. Oh, she was so young then! So full of impulse, and desire, and joy. At that point, she was fulfilled, given purpose - she shared the song to the Swamp. Oh, how she sang, that young Beauty.

She awoke once more, feeling it in her full chest. But something was different.
She was different now. No longer so naive, she feared…no longer so beautiful – no, no longer so childish. The song spoke of the world’s joys, but she knew of the world’s sorrows. An unfathomable strength welled in her bosom. It was anger, spite, dismay, perhaps a tiny bit of self-loathing and doubt. Beauty Past Compare was no longer the sweet little delight she used to be, and now she was a force of nature, of rage.

Even though this wasn’t exactly the ideal outcome of this previously pleasant experience, the Swamp worked in mysterious ways. Certainly, the reminder got her on her hooves, a feat she hadn’t accomplished in days, and she stomped away while belting out this classic Acha ode that currently sounded more like a war chant.

Not long later, she heard of the new expedition. Well, she was going to stomp along, and show the Swampmother exactly what she thought of the whole Obelisk nonsense.