you collect scars because you want proof you're paying for whatever sins you've committed
Mournfully the little townhouse rumbles, restless in its slumber just as its owner was. Castalla thrashed wildly in her sleep, tossing and turning, reaching and kicking. Beneath closed lids her eyes rolled madly, her face the picture of horror as she fought the nightmare.
Catapulted awake her body convulsed as she oculars snapped open, her eyes that of a predator as they searched the shadows for any sign of the threats that consumed her sleeping moments. The sheets were ripped, torn to shreds by the clawed paws that replaced her hooves, her body coated in a thin film of sweat as her chest rose and fell rapidly with ragged breaths. Images still swirled before her eyes, the ghosts of her nightmare still haunting her. The Tyrant King cackled, his dagger rising up, up, up. And then it was Adrian, a sneer on his face and the dagger already coated with Skender’s blood. Still sucking air thirstily into her lungs she blinked to clear the visions, hating the way her body shook as she forced her paws to phase back into hooves.
Moonlight streamed through the crack in her curtains, chasing away a small shaft of the darkness. Knees still quivering Castalla untangled her body from the damp sheets, focusing on the feel of the cool wood beneath her hooves and the cold night’s breath as she slipped between gossamer curtains to stand on the small balcony. Denocte stretched out beneath her, bathed in silver and dancing with the flames of the lanterns that constantly illuminated the picturesque streets. The moon was high, the deep of night nigh and the city slept soundly, unperturbed by the Wolf’s haunted gaze as she watched it.
Discontent with simply observing and desperate for the freedom the open streets promised, Castalla left her abode, a silent predator in the night as she paced the cobbled roads agitatedly. Drawing in a deep breath the air was freezing as it filled her lungs but she relished the discomfort of it, attaching to anything that swept away the scenes that lingered. She could still feel that dagger, the hot trickle of blood over her skin and the taste of bile in her throat. Sighing heavily the warrior took the wide street to the training pavilion, deciding the familiar ache of her muscles was a better reprieve than the toxic burn of alcohol. The latter would likely only make her feel worse.
Toro continued to elect to stay away from Solterra. It was almost certainly a bad thing - it had been a month or so, at least, and he hadn’t even been Champion for that long. But it seemed to him that an era of peace - however brief - had finally dawned on the Day Court, and Orestes had been hard at work on more courtly things than facing off challengers and the like. Toro had left with only a short note to Orestes’ assistant, and then he was off, traveling southward until he finally reached the edge of their world. The Terminus Sea.
It frightened him.
El Toro had never gotten this close to an ocean before. He’d crossed land bridges and portals, and once even ventured through an underground tunnel system. Arriving in Novus had been something of an accident; portals were easier to stumble upon in some worlds than others, and all it took was for him to trip and - poof - he was somewhere else. Luckily, his gold had come with him. A near-universal currency was a terrible thing to lose.
The sea looked to him like a great conglomeration of monsters, ever-shifting, crashing into stone and collapsing in on itself, always roaring. Midday sun, still spring-cool, did little to shield him from the sea breeze. Sometimes he thought he saw horse-shapes, sometimes other shadows that he did not wish to dwell on. He stood at a cliff’s edge (when did he not?), a shiver running down his spine as he peered over the edge. (The edge, it whispered to him, the edge the edge the edge.) He stepped back. A small path ran down the cliffside, steep and craggy and unwelcoming. The tide had pulled back from the shore just enough that he could venture downward if he wanted. Fear twisted his stomach into knots; concern ran through his bond with Hajduk, the lion chasing gulls along the cliffs, just out of sight. I’m fine, Toro assured him. Something drew him to stay there, and it was not the ledge.
In all her wanderings across Delumine, Mesnyi didn’t make it a point to visit the library. She had gone once or twice before, but it had taken her some time to get a decent grasp on the written language of Novus, so there wasn’t much purpose to such outings. The Benevolent had little use for books; theirs was mostly an oral tradition, and only a select few dove into the literature of the lands they passed through. In some ways, it was a shame, as literature opened a doorway to new songs and stories, but the Benevolent had got along just fine without it. Mesnyi didn’t know how long she would stay for, or if anyone would come to get her before she turned old and gray. It was a sobering thought. She decided to dive into the myths and legends of Novus, if she could find them, instead of contemplating a potentially sedentary fate.
With a little help from the positively delightful foxes, she was directed to the section she sought. The library was grander than any she’d seen before, all trunks and roots bound up together, leaves dusting the floor like a carpet, and its shelves seemingly built into the trees that formed its walls. Mesnyi was no stranger to monumental architecture, but there was a different beauty in that which came from the natural world. It was almost enough to simply wander the endless corridors, until she spied a glimmer out of the corner of her eye. The book’s spine was slim and dusty lavender, with silver filigree swirling down it. It looked just like her, in a funny sort of way. Perhaps a thinner book would be better to start with, she thought. Just in front of the shelf stood another equine. ”Excuse me, could you pass me that book there? The lavender one.”
'your name will be known,'
a promise, a dare.
my name will be known,
a promise, a prayer.
The sound of laughter drifts up from the street below, as Antiope rises from the bed and passes by the window that looks out over the city of Terrastella. Wan, early morning light washes through the room, dust catching in rays of faint sun like tiny embers.
The sky is bursting with clouds—like an overstuffed pillow, goosefeathers spilling from its seams—and the dusky blue sky tries its best to push through the cover. Behind the sound of laughter, the Denoctian Sovereign thinks she can hear the sound of the ocean crashing against the cliffs. It is a familiar sound to her, striking up memories of her creation.
Those memories lead to later ones, ones that she would rather not remember.
Not right now.
Something sharp and dark flashes in her sapphire eyes, like a storm, like lightning, and she turns away from the window. With deft movements she wraps her hair and ties it with blood bright ties, before pushing open the door to the grand room and stepping into the hall.
There are still smudges of red beneath her eyes, on her hooves, like blood, like bruises. It is difficult to say which they are meant to be, which they resemble more. The striped woman moves down the wide hall of pale stone, sweeping archways and collunades, with green growth in every corner it seems. How different, Antiope remarks, the courts are to each other. How similar still she finds them in so many ways.
“Pardon,” an inquiring voice comes from behind. She pauses, turns, and looks upon the gentle faced woman with eyes as quiet as her voice, “Queen Marisol is expecting you.” Antiope steps back to allow the woman move before her. “Of course, please lead the way,” her voice echoes back to her off the silent walls, strange and foreign.
The woman (a stewardess, perhaps), takes her on an unfamiliar path through. That is to say, one different than the one that brought her to her room when she had arrived the previous evening. They pass through a door and onto a short open bridge, and the sound of the ocean rises like the sun over her senses.
It roars just out of reach, though not out of sight. The sound of gulls is a keening in the obscure morning. The bridge no doubt leads from the guest quarters to the castle itself, but Antiope cannot help but wonder idly where exactly she is being led.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
—
The crocuses are blooming, bright spots of yellow against the dead pale grasses, and that more than the warm and wild wind coming in off the water tells Caspian that it is truly time.
There is an unmistakable eagerness in the way he lopes down the well-beaten deer track to the cliffside, though there’s no one to see it. The boy’s head is high, dark eyes brighter than the morning sun glancing on the waves. When a blackbird trills from a high stalk he seems to consider singing back. Instead he only snorts, and tosses his head, and plunges quicker down the path.
If Benvolio were awake he would tell him to be careful. But the bat must still be caught in winter sleep; each time Caspian reaches across their bond he is met with silence. Oh, but the sunlight is warm on his back and the sea-birds are returning from wherever it is they go when the frigid gales come rolling in across the bay; it must be today. And even if it isn’t, Caspian will make it so.
He pauses for moment at the top of the cliffs to catch his breath. There is the sweet-earth smell of spring, and the salty tang of the outgoing tide, each scent as familiar as a mother’s touch. And there is the crag that juts out from the rest, and in its shadow is a deeper shadow, and Caspian smiles to see the cave that has sheltered his friend all winter. It’s been lonely without him, though he'll never tell him just how lonely.
Like a hawk about to dive he stands poised at the top of the cliffs, and the wind tears at his pale hair but can do nothing to dislodge his crooked grin.
i feel divinity in my bones like aching; like fire
Spring is still a foal when Antiope sets forth for the mountains. Still new and wondering, still walking along on wobbly legs, being coaxed across the nation with wide and bright eyes. She pauses, for a moment, where the path cuts up into the trees and away into Arma. She pauses, for a moment, beneath the shadow of scaffolding and half formed plans. It is too early in the day for the builders.
She has not slept, as she pushes forward in the washed out grey morning light, on toward the pass. There is nothing to mark her leaving but the sound of her hooves scraping against stone. There is nothing to accompany but the shine of her axe and the echo of her own thoughts against the high ridges and deep ravines.
It is late afternoon by the time Antiope pushes through the gate of the Solterra proper, sand clinging to her skin, gold fading from her eyes like the ichor is draining from her bloodstream. The Denocte Sovereign stops, for only a moment, to take in the golden city and its sand covered streets.
It is like nothing she has ever seen before.
Everything is bright and burning in the sun and the tigress is a slash of shadows and marble on its walls, a spray of blood on its floors. Her sapphire eyes are sharp, sharp, sharp, as she pushes deeper into the crowd. She can’t tell if this place makes her feel more like a serpent or if it’s just the way some of the citizens are looking at her.
When she rises up the steps of the citadel, some stop and stare. Some whisper, and wonder.
The guards stop her at the top. “I am Queen Antiope of Denocte,” she says, but it feels wrong coming from her lips. She still remembers the day she had stood at the entrance to that pass in Denocte and thought that one day she would cross it—one day, she would see the rest of Novus—but then she hadn’t expected that moment to be as Sovereign.
“I sent a raven ahead of my visit, I should be expected,” but here, in the Sun City, Antiope can almost forget the eyes of Caligo watching her from on high every night. Here, in a warrior’s court, she can almost forget what it is like to not know whether or not you can trust yourself.
If she did not know any better, Antiope might think she were standing in a different world, poised in the middle of the study as though she had stepped out of some portal. As though she had just awoken from a statue-like slumber. The vaulted ceiling is a map of the night skies, blues and golds depicting stars and constellations and planets. The wall of wrought iron framed windows looks out over a garden and courtyard, letting in the late afternoon light.
Antiope feels out of place in this room—shoulders uncertainty like the axe she bears at all times. Like the red ribbon in her hair, like a stain of blood.
Isra is gone, her ship has long since passed the horizon line. The striped woman had seen to her people… Her people. They have been her people for many months, but they are hers in a different way now. It feels like a different way, now. She is more than just a guardian, more than just a protector. She must also be their foundation and their shelter in the hard times, their light in the darkness.
Antiope’s sapphire sharp eyes slip over the lines of asterism on the ceiling and she cannot help but wonder if she will be good enough this time around. A lamp shaped like the moon hangs in the corner of the room, not lit, but still the Sovereign can do nothing but imagine it the watching eye of Caligo.
What does the demi-goddess think of her? That question she had asked herself out in the courts on that moonstone carving lingers in her heart.
How can she trust the gods?
There comes a rasping at the door, before it is pushed open and a familiar, dark-skinned face appears through the opening. “M’lady, the Delumine Sovereign has arrived,” the steward says simply, voice low like a distant rumbling thunder. “Thank you, Sullivan. Please, show him in.” Antiope breathes, and turns away from the everlasting night sky above to greet her visitor.
It is early morning, not yet hot, the sky not yet blue; above the white curve of our villa’s roof the sunrise is still a foamy yellow-pink. But I am already awake. Fully awake. Too awake. I have not been able to sleep enough lately, if at all. I don’t know what it is. The knowledge that that shithead warden is in my country, maybe, with his cutting smile and the bolts of electricity that could set the city on fire—maybe the knowledge that Adonai has not been able to sleep much, either, and that makes me nervous.
Sometimes when I peek into his room, when we all should be asleep, he is instead staring blankly at the wall like someone scrying tea leaves. I don’t know what he could possibly be investigating; after the incident, we had to take down all his paintings. There is nothing to look at. When I sit in to listen to him practicing his instruments, he looks at me suspiciously, as if he is afraid of me, as if he does not recognize that I am his own brother. We sit across the room from each other and still manage to turn the air frosty.
Maybe he is right to be scared. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.
(Something I think but won’t say is I can’t sleep, in part, because I am too afraid of what he might do to me.)
The streets are rousing now, coming to life at last, and looking down at the movement from the balcony I feel relieved, and less alone. At least I would die in public; at least they would see me fall, and my blood might paint the streets like a martyr’s, a piece of artwork. Merchants are setting up their stalls. Pounds of spice are being poured into tall cones, jewelry laid out in piles. There is the music of movement, the clatter of coins, the sleepy stirring of a whole city shuffling to its feet as the sun also rises.
I don my cloak and pull the gold clasp closed tight against my chest. The servants are beginning to make breakfast, boiling water for tea, peeling mangoes, unwrapping steaming leaves of sticky rice. I pass through the kitchen, the courtyard, the clattering din of pots and pans and glass and into the slightly softer noise of the street, where I do not know I am walking toward a girl with a silver collar.
He wanders outside of his element - again. Foolish, foolish boy - man - when do you stop feeling like one and become the other? There is no one to ask. A good thing, really, because all he has with him is the silent prayer that he has been forgotten. A lost memory, a shadow that disappeared when Raum did.
He thinks it could be the truth. Maybe they have forgotten. He does not ask Juniper of it. That golden one knew him by name, certainly, but there is always hope. The what-if.
What if I can live a normal life, he asks.
What if I don’t deserve to?
There is so much rage and sorrow in the eyes of the many.
That’s alright, was the thinking then. That’s the way of things. They hate you for doing what must be done. They hate you for killing.
Sure, alright.
Lately, the beast has begun wondering if it was made for more than killing. Or if it was not made for killing at all. What if it was made for poetry, for soft words, and molded into something else? Remember nursemaid. Soft, soothing words. That was what it wanted. But the fighting, the killing - it was good. It was victorious. And no-one ever said it was wrong.
El Rey has found the most violent place in Delumine.
Perfect.
There was a roaring, behind all that silence. Beyond it. The bird song and the gentle breeze, try as they might, could not hide it. And here was nature’s executioner, swollen with spring melt, pure pressure, pure rain, pure hurricane.
It did not frighten him.
It felt right.
He stepped closer, carefully. It would not do to slip. Some things were only for watching. Things that felt like you were not always you. This is a lesson the beast has learned, and must learn, and learn again. A not-you is always more dangerous than a you.
@Thana | Pan-Asian Delight ”in blood the blade, to its golden hilt, I’ll drown,“ I pledge you now, to death they all are bound,
Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through;
The river, the wildest part of Delmuine with its slippery, jagged rocks and its banks that plunge into almost waterfalls, it not as wild as Thana. Perhaps it's obvious in the way little half-moon crescents of blood bloom like flowers where she steps among the current. Or perhaps it's only the way the coyotes and the deer lining the banks only pause to lift their heads at her, still as stone but for the quickening of their breathes.
Maybe it's only the way the river, chaotic and furious, only seems an extension of the darkness lingering in her gaze like a parasite instead of a look.
On either side of her the forest sits, heavy with blackness and a quietness bred from foreboding. Somewhere there are bones, and blood, and creatures hiding in their dens praying to be saved. And somewhere between all that darkness and bone are poachers whose breaths can be counted in hours instead of days. Her eyes drift to the shore, to Eligos who follows like a distant shadow caught in the current of her war-drum heart that races, and beats, and screams at a pace far too frantic for the steady stride of her legs through the river.
It's racing now, when a form peels back from the darkness lining the place where the forest and the shore meet. And it's bellowing the same low, low, low as a whippoorwill beating against a stone in a hurricane. Thana does not need to look at her reflection distorted in the current, to know that her horn glimmers like a polished sword when she turns it to the form coming towards her.
And she does not need to look down to feel the way the water around her starts to thicken with green algae, like the river has been still for an entire time, around her hooves. She can feel it, the grotesque magic of her making, leaking into the world like blood from a mortal wound. It feels like breathing, like singing, like humming a song only she can hear.
It feels. Oh it feels. Like being god.
Look, her form seems to say, from the tip of her glimmering horn to the stain of her hooves in the water, look. Thana does not try to hide it, that glimmer of holiness, of brutality, of everything that rots a world from the inside out, when she nickers to the horse coming closer.
And even if she wanted to tuck away the violence in her core, it would be as impossible as tearing the sun down from the sky. Only the moon can do it. Only time.
If she did not know any better, Antiope might think she were standing in a different world, poised in the middle of the study as though she had stepped out of some portal. As though she had just awoken from a statue-like slumber. The vaulted ceiling is a map of the night skies, blues and golds depicting stars and constellations and planets. The wall of wrought iron framed windows looks out over a garden and courtyard, letting in the late afternoon light.
