Posted by: Raglan - 01-27-2020, 10:08 AM - Forum: Archives
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Raglan
may the bridges i burn light the way
He had never felt quite right inside palaces.
Their grandeur and beauty could not be discounted, and of course the lad acknowledged the craftsmanship that went into the construction of the mammoth structures, but the pegasus couldn’t help but feel out of place. Even when he had lived in Denocte’s castle with Reichenbach and the rest of his Crows, the horned lad had frequently stolen out into the city surrounding the palace, so strong was the stifling sensation. It was as if he couldn’t breathe when ensconced in the luxury of a royal dwelling, as if the street orphan blood that slugged through his veins could not abide by riches being so close.
Yet, as his hooves clicked and clacked against the polished marble flooring of what he assumed was a throne room of sorts, Raglan was too busy being overcome with curiosity to be uncomfortable. For approximately one season he had been back in Novus, filling his time by actively avoiding others and flying over Denocte’s mountain range in fits of melancholy. Though, at last, the blood-colored stallion had decided he was ready to pursue a life within the lands of Terrastella, and had allowed himself to be earthbound for a time.
And so he found himself, coat freshly cleaned, mane detangled and shining, smelling faintly of lemongrass and lavender — courtesy of the bathhouse he had been frequenting — in the royal hall of a one Marisol of Dusk. Raglan had to admit, he didn’t know much about Dusk’s chosen sovereign, only that she had recently stepped away from the public eye to attend to “Matters of State Business”. The pegasus had hoped that what with the fervor in which her subjects adored her, maybe he could learn to care for her too; but it seemed that he had chosen to introduce himself at a poor time.
Through articles and postings, whispers from citizen and servant alike, Raglan had gathered that the Regent, a golden firebrand of a mare called Israfel, was to oversee the dappled Queen’s overflowing social roster. He knew next to nothing of her beyond that; but the Crow had never been one for judging a book by it’s cover, no matter how many details were left out. The stallion imagined that he could come to care for her, that she would grow on him and he would be able to offer her his loyalty and his battered heart without guilt. It would be a lie for the thrice-orphaned male to say that he didn’t want to belong somewhere, that he didn’t want some greater someone to serve. Maybe he could care for her enough to blot out the pain of losing Reichenbach.
Feathered sides shivered as the stallion took a shaking breath and held his head high, his vanished brother and king had been weighing heavily on his heart as of late. Crimes of abandonment had been performed by and done unto him and it was practically all that the youthful male could think about.
@Israfel ... so when i tried to type in isra’s name, my brain 100% had me type in “Regina” and i dont know why. Just over and over all it gave me was Regina. I am losing it. Anyway. Here you are!
“Elena.” Even now she can hear her choking on the darkness.
“Lilli.” she had breathed back, wanting to cry but not remembering how to.
And they had found each other once again.
Elena has first come Murmuring Rivers with her head held high, knowing what she was: an orphan. She didn't want anyone to see her cry. She wouldn’t give Frostbane the satisfaction of her tears. She she cried silently under the moonlight when no one but the stars could hear her. She would stand, bold and brazen in the sun, asking the fates to fight her again Elena had nothing else to lose. Until Lilli that was, the little sorrel girl who had seen Elena’s walls and barriers and merely waited outside them with the patience of a saint. And then there bond was born in fire, to melt the ice that had come to freeze them.
Maybe this is why she cannot settle, cannot find any warmth in this winter. Alone Elena is no flame, she thinks, but just a glowing ember that waits for something, something else to make it grow.
So Elena continues to do her due diligence, still collecting her herbs, doing what she can for her court and the goddess that she has pledged herself to, still working to help those she can. There is some silly, naive, stupid part of her that still believes there is good in the world.
Elena is not broken yet.
But she has gotten more fragile as time has gone on.
Today though, she finds herself in another setting entirely. She places feet steadily upon the rocks below her, reminded of the evening when a rock slide had nearly killed her. Aerwir had saved her, but in the end, his bravery came at too high of a price for Elena. Her heart thrums with the expected view at the top of the cliffs she has heard throughout the whispers of the capital. Elena left the city behind and traveled to the country side, beyond the fields and upwards.
Shoulder muscles work to pull her upwards, back legs pushing in unison, until she feels herself rise over the cliffside. It would seem the hearts of Dusk have not lied to her, and the sunflower girl is rewarded for her efforts. “Wow.” Her voice is a pin dropping, quiet and breathless. She decides in this moment as she stares out over the cliffs, the sea crashing at its doorstep, that maybe, maybe Dusk can truly be her home just as Hyaline was, Culloden, Woodlands, Paraiso, Murmuring Rivers, and Windskeep.
But, Elena has been wrong before.
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
’Marisol doesn’t even know we’re here, Ard. We’ll be fine, okay? Besides, what if we find Moira? Don’t you want to see her again? I know I do. I miss her so much.’
Ard frowned, feeling grumpy and pissed and in danger. Did Marisol know where they were? No. Did Theodosia, for that matter? Definitely not. Did they sneak away from their warm, safe, perfect home in Terrastella to come to the famous (or infamous, depending on who you asked) markets of Denocte? Yes. Were they going to get punished and probably suspended when they returned home? Definitely yes.
And yet… Here they were, perusing the vendor stalls of the Night Markets.
It had started when Ard had gone to open his palette of paints only to find that they were out. He had checked the storage drawers in their small home and came up empty. Out. He was all out of paints. How the hell was he out of paints? When did that happen? A quick peruse around Terrastella proper had left them empty handed; no one was selling paints.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true, but Ard wouldn’t spend a single coin on the ‘cheap stuff’, not when he had grown accustomed to using only the finest of paints and dyes upon his canvases.
And much to his chagrin and growing irritation, he had also been out of charcoal for his sketching. Who ran out of charcoal? How? Sensing his twin’s irritation, Erd had offered his uncouth suggestion;
’What about the markets in Denocte? They always have paints and charcoals. We can go now and pick some up!’ Denocte. Denocte. Ard hated it. The few times that he had actually stepped foot in the Night Court had been willing, somewhat, but he had hated it every single time. He did not like the gypsies and dancers that plagued the streets, the heady stench of incense that floated along woodsmoke and musk, the loud voices and booming songs that echoed down the streets. They were a motley bunch, those of Denocte, and he wouldn’t trust them any further than he could throw them… Which, given his stature compared to practically everyone else in Novus, that wasn’t very far.
Regardless, somehow, someway, Erd had convinced him to go to Denocte and check their stupid markets for some paint and charcoal, and there they were. Reluctantly he would admit, though not out loud, that there were a vast assortment of artistic goods and supplies that he could readily take advantage of. Already his pockets and the satchel around his shoulders were filled with purchased supplies, the leather held close to his narrow breast to keep safe from Denocte’s sticky fingers. Side by side with his twin brother, Ard and Erd strolled the streets of the market, letting the songs and instrumental pieces play around their ears as their eyes searched for supplies to take home.
In the winter, the markets are quite busy late morning. The sun has been up long enough to warm the air and the sand, but it has not gotten quite as hot as it will be, in the late afternoon. Teiran walks through pushing, wandering, talking bodies as stiffly as she can. Trying to look sharp, and hard, and not in the way of cracked glass or broken stone.
She’s busy trying to emulate something that that used to be normal, busy trying to remember what it was like to just be a soldier. Things had been easier, before Raum—there had been her duty, and that had been all, none of these things fighting for space inside her like desert winds, crushing her, threatening to erupt from her skin.
Teiran is too busy trying to remake her life into what it used to be, to notice the merchant leering at her with dark, shadowed eyes. He sidles up to her like a dog, dirty with years on the streets. He sidles up to her like a serpent, and slips the dagger out of the sheath on her left side before she has a chance to stop him. Her sapphire eyes narrow, hard as the gem in the mouth of the snake which makes up the pommel of her weapon.
“A mighty fine weapon you’ve got, darling,” he says, words grating against her skin like coarse grains of sand, burying themselves deep into her flesh. “You be willing to part with it? I’ll give you a good deal,” she might laugh, if it were in her to know how. Teiran steps closer to him, grasping the dagger, “I wouldn’t sell this to you, even if you weren’t a thieving rat. Drop it.”
Any humor the merchant might have had bleeds from him like beer from the kegs in taverns on cold, lonely nights. “Is that so?” he asks, stepping closing, bumping his chest up against hers. Her skin crawls. A crowd is beginning to draw. “How about this pretty little piece ‘round your neck, then?” the merchant drawls, almost wickedly. He is a good foot taller than her, if not more.
She can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows what he’s doing before he does it, but he still stupid for trying. “Will you sell this to me?” he clasps down around the silver collar, at the same time everything in her body goes cold, cold, cold. In a matter of seconds, there is a second dagger at his neck, wavy blade biting against the flesh there.
“If you do not let go of me and my dagger, I will kill you,” there is no warmth to her voice, no humanity, there is nothing in her but the weapon that had been created nearly seven years ago. There are many eyes watching them now, but she doesn’t see them, doesn’t hear the shock and concern in their voices. The merchant tries to laugh, but her dagger is pressed too tightly to his throat. She sees the moment his stupidity finally gives way to reason, or fear. Teiran doesn’t care which.
He releases her, and her other weapon, and takes a few steps away. “And if I ever see you treat anyone like this again, there won’t be a warning next time,” she sheaths the first dagger, then glances at the second, “Oh and this one? It won’t miss.” Then she walks away.
Sound and sensation return to her slowly. The burning cold and the strange, echoing emptiness fade. The crowd parts; she knows what they think of her, it is the same things they have always thought of her. Pity, fear. Some call her a monster. She has never cared, but now there are so many cracks in her that she isn’t sure what she feels. Their mutterings and whispers follow her down the street.
eiran has been standing outside the court for what feels like hours, leaned against a low wall, half in shadow, her face mostly concealed by the stark white of her hood. The guards at the door keep glancing at her, like they’re waiting for her to try and kill somebody. Like they’re waiting for her to make a break for the door. Like they’re waiting for her to break. She is already broken, they just cannot see it.
She doesn’t recognize them, and it makes her realize how much things have changed. She wants to know what happened to Sera’s guard, the men she had passed several times a day on duty. They never would have looked at her as if she were something to distrust. If she took down her hood, they would see her collar, and maybe then they would look at her differently.
Probably then they would look at her with pity.
She has been waiting, and at every approach of steps her sage eyes glance up, but it’s never who she is waiting for. She doesn’t know how else to find him other than to wait here for him, certain he should have to arrive at some point. And then he does, deep and red against all the pale sandstone. He makes for the steps, and she follows him, swift and sharp. “Jahin.”
Teiran isn’t sure what to make of the way her voice sounds; filled with things she can’t quite put a name too. Not as flat and mechanical as it once was. She had thought coming back would have returned to her some sense of duty, but her patrols have all been filled by other soldiers, and it’s almost like she doesn’t recognize the capitol anymore. There is no Sera, no Bexley, no Eik. Even Matthias has disappeared. Everyone she knows has gone.
Perhaps, however, it’s herself that she doesn’t recognize.
She’s not sure why she’s here. Teiran looks up at the unicorn, whose bright amethyst eyes are so unlike anything else in the desert. To tell him that she came back? That is obvious. To tell him that she knows why he left? She might not have been Davke, but when you are quiet and small, others tend to forget you are around, even if they don’t like or even really accept you. She’d heard about Jahin’s interaction with Avdotya.
Some days the cracks in her are bigger, and some days she stops a fight in the markets and the soldier feels more like herself. But most of the time, Teiran isn’t sure what to do with herself. There is a world of things behind her green eyes, halls of mirrors reflecting versions of herself that she can’t quite remember. “I’ve been waiting for you,” it is the best she can do. Somewhere inside her is a thing saying I need something, but I don’t know what that something is.
"Speaking."
@Jahin please excuse me while I get back into writing her <3
Warset had finally discovered the danger of the dark.
A week ago she had woken up in the grave of a fallen star. There had been miles of sand around and eons of stars above her head winking down a cool farewell. She had opened her wings to return to them, to say in the way of stardust and flight-feathers, I am not gone. But she had only claws that dung into the cooling sand and fur lifting in a ridge down her spine as the fear grew, and grew, and grew inside her bones. It grew until she consumed her, until she had run to the nest of a sand viper.
It stopped growing when her wildcat belly was full of blood and muscle.
Sleep had taken her then, the sleep of a predator comfortable in its violence. But it had been the sleep of a heartbroken star who no longer cared what became of the magic in her silver blood.
Now, walking beneath the sun that warms her skin, that has always known only the cold, moonlight spaces between stars and constellations, she cannot help but think there is a beauty in the dangers of the dark. That there is something to be said for the violence of her form when it's by way of tooth, claw, and pride that she can fill the gnawing hungry beast in her belly. Here she doesn't have the waters of the cosmos to slake her thirst.
Here, beneath the judgmental sun, she has only the quickness of her teeth and the cleverness of her feathers. Already an apple is sitting in her stomach, heavier with guilt instead of substance. She carries her wings close to her sides, trying to hide away the shine of her skin that suggests star-dust instead of sweat. There is the way she blinks long and slow, like she's deep in thought instead of fighting a war of fear in the space behind her eyes. Everything about her screams 'other', but Solterra is too full of life and sunlight to notice a star in their midst who looks at the sky too often and too long (as if she can see something behind the clouds that no one else can).
But when there is a step behind her at the same time a merchant yells too loudly, the feel of being overwhelmed sends her spinning around quick as a leopard. And there is in her gaze, silver and moonlit, a thing looking beyond the shadow of her wings that is not wholly horse, or cat, or sane.
Because a week ago the stars did not answer her back.
Posted by: Ipomoea - 01-24-2020, 04:01 PM - Forum: [C] Island Archives
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flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
Even here, even in the middle of winter on an island that takes, and takes, and takes without care for who it takes from, his flowers still grow.
Ice covers their petals like a veil, weighing down their crowns until they bend on their long stalks to kiss the ground. He wonders, as he watches them stiffen and grow still, as the ice spreads higher and higher so that they look more like crystal sculptures than living plants, if the snow is preserving them, or killing them. And for a moment, he can’t help but think that there is no difference between the two.
He almost hadn’t come here - it feels wrong, standing in the snow and the cold and looking out across a field that should have been sandy. The trees are pine trees now, but when he looks at them from a distance he thinks they could still be palms. If he closes his eyes he can still see the sunlight slanting in between the trees, limning the tropical flowers in a gold so bright it hurt his eyes to look at. And he can still imagine the vines trailing after him like snakes, and the way the ferns seemed to watch him in a way that was both adoring and scheming.
When he opens his eyes he sees it all, as clearly as if he were still standing in the sandy meadow.
But then it drains away, fading bit by bit until the snow bleeds back through. And then the flowers shiver against his ankles, and he doesn’t even think to look.
There are lights dancing shyly in the distance, golden flames like arms reaching out as if they’re waving, beckoning for him to follow. A part of him wants to - more than anything he wants to, to let himself follow them willingly into whatever unknown they have planned for him - but he doesn’t. He only watches them as they drift closer, and closer, and closer, flickering like a miniature sun in the middle of a clouded island.
“What are you?”
His voice sounds loud, even when he whispers. The light nearest to him pauses, trembling in the air as if it’s contemplating his question. But it doesn’t answer him, the same way he doesn’t follow it. The two only stare at each other, like neither one belongs here.
(What are you?) “Elena.”
(No. What are you?) “A girl.”
(No. What are you?) “Benjamin and Beylani’s daughter.”
(No. What are you?) “A child descended from Legado the Great.”
(No. What are you?)
Elena grits her teeth. She had had enough of these riddles that Hoshi offered to her. Why would she not just give her the answer? She huffs, as only a child can, tossing those tufts of cumulus atop her golden poll, pretending as if she were some angsty teen and not just a little girl annoyed with her cousin.
“What are you, Elena? Come on, just answer the question,” she says, baiting the girl, seeing the annoyance hammer at her mind.
…….
“Fire. Burning. Heat.”
And fire Elena has been.
Does fire know that it is fire? Does it know it exists to burn, to light, to destroy as well as heal? The answer is no, it is a mindless entity that is created, even destroyed at times, smothered, washed away. But give this fire the ability to think, a mind, a soul, a heart. Give it this and what will it do?
It will blaze.
Elena knows this. Of course she does. This was written across the faces of her parents as they looked upon their daughter with love in the creases of their smiles. Her parents whose love had created a fire, so much more than just the flickering flames passion. Elena could see it in the brief time she had known them.
(They had marched into the sea where they created fire from water. A romance that Elena has come to idolize.)
Elena walks the swamp, but there is a part of her that wants to return to her perch on the sea. What would her parents think now? Was it inevitable that Elena should end up beside the water when from the water the very love that gave Elena life was born?
Her heart patters in excitement. Just what she had been looking for. A particular herd that was quite gifted at settling pain of the limbs: Bunchberry. Lovelace had trained Elena well, but the golden girl was still learning. She wonders what secrets the desert may hold for healing. Her steps are slow, her head slumped over in a lazy fashion as glacier blue eyes remained trained on the ground in front of her, looking for any sort of the leaves, flowers, strange grasses she has been taught to look for. There is some quiet tranquility to this role of the medic, and Elena wears the job well. She is a medic, Elena thinks to herself, proud, but there are tremors underneath her skin, and worry that has sunk into the creases of her smile, and torment in the shadows of the corners of her eyes.
If Hoshi was still around, if she had been able to ask this question now—Elena knows just how she would answer.
(What are you?) “Scared.”
(Why are you scared, Elena?) “Because—after the fire—only ash is left behind.”
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
It would be lovely to indulge the lie, wouldn't it? That she is nothing, to purge herself and make herself into a shell of what she once once, with an echo of a heart that once lay inside her chest, breaking and assembling only to be broken again. If given the choice, Elena thinks she would forget the good and the bad, because she could forget all of them and the way their hot breath felt on her skin.
The good too, how her parents tucked her in every night and her grandmother awakened her every morning. Forget the thunder of the falls only to have it ripped from her hands like it was some sort of greedy child. Forget the man she should have fallen in love with, but left him with his heart in his hand all the same.
But, it is a fool’s errand.
Elena has never been nothing, she is too much. There is too much death (it soils her skin, sometimes she dreams she is rotting from the inside out), too much love, too much ache.
“Then end it,” the voice had said, it had been dark. Blind, blind. “But I am too afraid.” There is salt on her lips, but she cant feel the tears stinging her eyes.
The voice hasn't returned. But Elena has her sight once more, and she sees those shadows that follow her, however silent they may be.
Maybe that is why she travels to Dawn, under the guise of collecting medical supplies for Dusk. She wants to escape these shadows that keep finding her no matter how far or fast she runs. She travels through Dusk, through the humid swamp until she can get to the river. The water, she knows it will be cold, and she carefully moves downstream where there may be spots where it narrows enough for her to cross it.
How often had she gone to the river in Beqanna? It had been where she had found Cordis and Brinly. Where she had discovered a whale shape shifter and Brunhilde, along with her lion companion. The river had been a place of meetings and new faces for Elena, while the forest had been home to fear and shadows. Faces that got to close to hers, leading to heart tremors and shaking hands.
So Elena is grateful to Dawn and its meadows. As her feet crunch against the snow, and the sun is almost blinding. Dawn and the day, it was a curious decision why Elena chose Dusk as her chosen path, but perhaps it will become apparent soon enough. She reaches the capital, and moves towards its center. “Excuse me,” she says as faces pass by. “Could anyone direct me to where I may find some herbs. I am collecting medical supplies.” They rush past her, no doubt on the way to some seminars, their books in hand. Elena has learned the Dawn are known for their brains, just as they say the Dusk are known for their kindness. Her ears fall to the side slightly in defeat. “Please, can someone help me?”
* e l e n a
in the dark I’ll pray for the return of the light the sunflower daughter of benjamin and beylani
medic of dusk.
Asking questions was always a pain in the ass. Everything was a pain in the ass at some point. Reinhart took things in stride, with his good nature. There wasn't a single good bone in his body, as far as he was convinced. He had asked for the one he'd known as Manon. It had taken him months to track down a potential location for her, and then that led to more questions. The Scarabs. He didn't have a clue what that meant, what they were or any of that. Reinhart didn't care about The Scarabs yet, only that he found Manon. She had been likely the only one who would understand his plight. She had not been there when his father fired their guard. The first man he loved. He only remembered a fondness for the childhood memories they'd created at familial balls. The two misfit children running the halls of House Vogelstein. The memories faded away like the edges of a burnt photograph. That was a different time.
He wondered if Manon would remember him as fondly as he did her. He wondered if she would be surprised that he turned out to be a thief and an even better liar than his parents. Reinhart secretly hoped she still had a place for him in her life, though it had been a long time since they had known one another. Damned if he wasn't out here in the open searching for a maybe friendship to rekindle. The thief licked his chapped lips as he entered the domain deemed to belong to the Scarabs. It should have been more ominous, but it wasn't. When you roved the night streets full of vagabonds and misfits you lost your ability to feel much fear. That is unless he thought he'd been caught.
Reinhart smirked, and his tongue slipped back into the mercury it thrived in. "Yo can I get uhhhhh Manon around here?" He called out into the empty hollows of buildings. They only looked empty. They warned him not to be fooled. Reinhart wasn't fooled, but he was foolish. A petulant child with a penchant for crime.
Notes: A visit to an old childhood acquaintance <3 | Words: 357 | Tags: @Manon
... try to breathe words out, But I’ve got nothing to say
