Ache. Restlessness. Reinhart was tired of the frivolous activities spewed by his family. He had snuck away from one of their more prominent balls to seek out an old acquaintance. A man who had tried to recruit him many times over, and now he was the only one left active in Denocte. A crow. Raum was dead. He knew nothing of Acton. Raglan was all that was left. The flavors of ridicule and criticism were fresh on the tongue of the adept thief. The noble son cast a glance back toward the disappearing tower that his family called home. No matter where he was in Denocte, he could always see that damned tower. It was lit up, and to an outsider, it might look cozy. Lit from the inside with a dull roar of voices wafting out into the streets. Reinhart hated it. He hated this life he had, and yet he felt the weight of guilt about his hatred. More guilt than his father could ever make him feel for who he loved.
Reinhart walked. His feet carried him with vigor, away. Away. Away from his family. He was hunting something far more precious than all the jewels in all the kingdoms. Companionship. He stopped when he came upon a spot he knew Raglan usually frequented. He had spent enough time traveling back and forth between the wilds of Novus and Denocte to notice it. "Raglan? Are you out here tonight? You might as well put up a sign that says 'Raglan's Spot' on it with the way your scent is so thick in the air!" Reinhart called out, he hoped his humor would thaw some of the ice they'd built up over the years.
"Better yet, I'll do it for you!" He chattered away into the night. The empty air. Empty. He felt hollow. Reinhart tore his dagger through the earth with a childish grin plastered upon his face. It read a simple statement. Some might even say it was succinct. His writing was elegant and spoke of his rich heritage. His loops were graceful arcs, much too nice for such a boorish message scrawled into the dirty snow. Raglan was here was the message Reinhart wrote. He looked pleased with himself as he admired his handiwork.
Notes: I hope this is okay! | Words: 379 | Tags: @Raglan
... try to breathe words out, But I’ve got nothing to say
“Come here Elaina. Come here and tell me about your scars…or leave.” He had said to the girl with golden skin. It is a challenge, she knew it when he uttered those words to her. She shakes under his touch, but she stays never the less. “Are you all alone?” He asks, and she says yes. Elena will come to replay this moment in her mind a hundred times (a thousand even) because she wonders, in the way we all play our worst decisions like a bad movie, if things would have been different if she had lied, if she hadn't stayed. Was he like a vampire? Only need be in invited in.
“Are you all alone?” Marcelo had asked the same question years earlier, back when Elena had been small, newly orphaned, her eyes itchy from tears.
On this gray winter day in Winter, when Elena feels lonely wandering through the lands of Novus. It is then they come, as they always do, they onslaught her, assaulting her heart until she has no choice but to listen. The way she would spend hours just trying to make Alvaro offer her even the tiniest crinkle of a smile. It is Cherish gathering the foals of Windskeep for a story. Valerio, appearing before them like the guardian he was. Marcelo’s worried glances as Elena tries to balance across a log. Ori’s laughter, kicking up snow. Altair as he presses his forehead against her own, silent promises on his tongue if she just gave him her heart, and Elena so stubbornly refusing to do so. “I hope you aren't afraid of the dark,” he had said and her skin had shuttered. Aerwir pleading with her to just tell him what was wrong. And then it is Lilli, because, in the end it was always Lilli. The one face she had been able count on, a more constant than her own parents had been.
She aches.
Guilt hollows out her stomach and suddenly she feels thirsty. So thirsty. She banishes the memories and lets them sink into the snow, to melt with spring. Why was she doing this to herself? She had come to Novus for a new start, not only for herself, but for Lilli too. Elena, despite the years she has aged is still so foolish. She needs to leave this behind, if only for a little while.
So Elena, with no where else she can go, she goes there once more.
The shoreline roars and drags. And Elena fidgets in the sand. She isn't sure where to go from here. Elena has never been a lover of the ocean, has not sought out its salty waters like so many do, but she finds herself here all the same. She remembers being small, begging her father to take her to the ocean, and no she is here and Elena isn't quite sure what to do next. Her future looks, for the first time in her life, blank and devoid of anything. She wonders if this is what it is like to feel peace.
But then, Elena, why do we find you pacing the sand as if you wanted anything but a blank canvas set before you?
* 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.
The world shone and gleamed, spinning and dipping as voices and faces blurred by in a flurry of the indistinguishable. His leg ached. Gods his leg ached. The newly healing skin itched and stung where the cold metal cap rubbed, the wooden leg that made a temporary and unwieldy replacement for his missing leg was a dead weight, an alien feeling.
Sometimes the steed swore he could feel his missing limb, a ghostly sensation that made his heart pick up, only to disappear and reality come crashing back down. What good was a warrior who couldn’t walk properly? A warrior with a wooden leg? Sure he had Bloodbane (which rested up against the bar in lazy guard, a deterrent for anyone who might want to bother him). But he was more than just a hammer, he always had been. Just when the fallen god thought he couldn’t fall any further.
His voice was too loud in his ears as he heard himself call for another drink (what number was that again?), foreign and bodiless as his bones felt too big and his skin too tight. The tap of glass on wood pierced the chaotic buzz in his ears, sounding for all the world like the crash of a weapon against oak. Thaeron jumped, and yet he didn’t. As though his head suddenly, briefly, cleared and his heart stuttered. And then the sweet burn of whiskey numbed again, the sounds melting around him to a distant, dull, roar.
Thaeron was lost in his misery, slowly sinking into an alcohol-induced haze, oblivious to the activity in the tavern around him. He wasn’t drunk, not yet (pesky resistance!) but he was pleasantly buzzed, wavering warmly on the edge of oblivion and recognition.
The pub was crowded, victim of a dark, cold night. Voice rose in steady tandem, chatter and laughter filling the air. Someone, somewhere was strumming a lute, warbling some lazy tune about Bridget from Backwater, the words lost in the din that surrounded them. But Thaeron hunched at the bar, undisturbed- avoided in fact. Perhaps it was Bloodbane, the sharp side of the hammer stained from years of bloodshed. Or perhaps it was the foul look that graced his otherwise handsome face, the dark gleam in his ruby red eyes.
I knew a summer child when I saw one. It was not just the fact that he was golden, like the sun or sand or fields of wheat. It was something about the heft of his shoulders. It didn’t matter what his story was, how tragic or painful it could be; he was born in a time of bounty, and he glowed with it.
I, on the other hand, was a winter child. It didn’t matter what my story was, how I was offered the world and taught how to take it-- if it was what I wanted. (yet I was expected not to take but to give. Because I was the legacy of the selfless, the one (of two) thing(s) they did for themselves.) I was born in a time of thrift, and for the rest of my life I would echo that need.
We were not complete opposites, but we had our differences. I didn’t know this at first. I might not ever know this, if he did not let me.
I only watched him for a little bit before revealing myself. “Halt!” I jumped from the bushes and into the middle of the well-worn trail, horn poised in a way I hoped was fearsome. A second later, Furfur trotted out after me, yawning. Despite my silent urging he remained stoic. Not even the slightest bare of his teeth. We had been waiting in ambush on this road for hours now. I was young and bored and in desperate need of entertainment, so I decided to play Trolls. Naturally, I played the troll.
Now, before this gets too far I should note this was an unusual game for me. I was a quiet, introspective child, more interested in wandering the forest talking to rocks than pretending to assault men much bigger, a little older, and (I assumed) only marginally more mature than me. Blame it on boredom or growing pains or the inevitable changes that were about to take hold of me. I was growing up, and it was not a comfortable process for anyone.
I took up a fighting stance, horn lowered daringly, and though I tried my hardest to be serious, I really really tried, I could not keep the smile from leeching into my voice. “What’s the password?”
-
@Locke this takes place on the road to Night Court. I hope this works! <3
That night I met Reinhart was otherwise unremarkable. It was a little cold, a little frosty. Spring was close. I don’t know how exactly I knew but I did. It is just the sort of knowledge that lives in your bones, I guess. I was a winter child, well at ease in the cold and the snow, and I did not look forward to the change in seasons. I did not look forward to time’s passage at all, but time cared little for my will.
My family's eminent departure hung heavy on my shoulders. With each second that passed, I felt guiltier and guiltier. I knew I should be making the most of the time I had; after all I really might never see them again, once they set sail.
But all I could do was waste time. As though if I tried hard enough, I could burn right through it, straight to the day they returned to me, triumphant and safe and happy to be home. I know, I already said time cared little for my will. I know it now, and I knew it then.
But I was a damn stubborn little girl.
Anyway, I don’t remember the specifics of how we met. The way the light fell, the feeling of the familiar streets beneath my feet, the distant noise of people buying, selling, laughing, dancing. I just remember it was a new moon, and the night was young, and I found an earring in the trampled snow. I had been following a quiet alley to the marketplace when the flash of gold had caught my eye. It was a simple piece, but pretty. A green stone dangling on a golden loop, simple but elegant. It would perfectly fit my style, if I had any interest in cultivating such a thing. There was only one on the ground.
The tracks in the snow seemed fresh, so I hurried my pace. It would fetch a pretty penny at the markets, but I was more concerned with returning it to its owner. When I got closer to the dark shape in front of me, moving fast, I called out in a voice that sounded older than I was: “Hey, you!”
They paused. I think they did not want to turn and face me, but after a moment of deliberation they did.
It was not a they. It was a boy. He was older than me, but still a boy. I could tell by the hunch of his shoulders and the look in his eye, the look all boys have. I probably should have recognized him instantly as a noble son, but I had inherited a dislike of social events and a downlike disdain for the wealthy. I kept to myself, my family, and our small social circle.
I stared too long at him before asking “is this yours?” The earring hung in the still air between us. It dangled in the light of a distant fire, but I missed the way the light glinted off it like sparks of sunlight. I was solemn. All snow and slate. I did not for one second break my gaze with the stranger.
Heat. Sand. Solis. Reinhart has traveled farther than he anticipated in his latest bout of restlessness. His eyes sweep upwards, tracing the line of banners of the Solis that hang listlessly in the still air. Arid. He thinks to himself. It is a fitting word for Solterra. Reinhart does not remember the last time he stood at the grand entrance that led to the city in the desert. Months. He thinks again, confirming the timeline in his head. The ashen man with a crown of horns atop his head has not been here since the incident with his father. Since he lied through his teeth about being a good son. He has been a good son, but it will only last so long. Winter in Solterra was an interesting experience, there was a notable absence of snow here. There was only a lingering chill in the air. It was cooler than the summer in Solterra. Reinhart pulls his gaze from the proud banners of Solis, he pushes his way into the markets of the Day Court.
He ogles the wares splayed out by respective vendors. Some take greater care in arranging their wares than others. This tells Reinhart that those wares are more valuable. Whether that is true, or simply that the vendor takes great pride in their wares, is unknown to the thief. He stops when an item catches his eye. It is a simple item, a band of woven silver that one might wear upon their nape. Reinhart assumes the identity of Ezra, it is an effortless transition for the oblivious magician. His molten eyes swirl in a fascinating pattern, his tongue dips itself in silver for good measure. Quick words. He thinks. That will get me what I want. His thoughts dissolve as he dons his most charismatic smile to the woman behind the table.
The woman looks up, he sees how infectious his smile is when she returns one. The woman murmurs a greeting to him in dulcet tones. Ezra's smile widens. He dips his head to the shopkeep. "Well met." The words flow from his tongue as effortlessly as water trickling down a hill. His voice is thick like honey, it rumbles with fondness. "Might I ask to try on that delicate silver throat band you have there? I would greatly appreciate if you were the one to fasten it with your elegant touch." He continues on, his words flowing quicker this time. Reinhart does not feel the magic that radiates from his body in plumes and bursts. "You must have an elegant touch to sell such delicate wares, and each one so unique and beautiful. My sister or mother would love this silver band, we've got similar tastes and sizes you see." The words flow faster from his pink and soot smattered lips.
The woman responds agreeably with the thief, and obliges his request. Her oohing and awing make his ears twitch appreciatively. "Do you have a mirror? It feels so snug. Wonderful. It's perfect." He rambles on, the words gushing like water escaping the crack in a dam. She turns away to grab a mirror, and he is gone. Reinhart disappears into a large group walking by as if he is a leaf swept away by a coursing river.
Notes: AL;DJFL;EJ JASK, I thought it might be interesting if Jask caught him stealing something >__> | Words: 546 | Tags: @Jask
... try to breathe words out, But I’ve got nothing to say
Posted by: Reinhart - 01-22-2020, 11:04 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
To hold my tongue except when I try to pray...
Marble streets, and smoke-stained trellises that crept towards the heavens. The domain of Caligo. The stars twinkled on this clear, cold night of winter. The moon shone brightly across all of Novus. She spilled her moonbeams like precious gems upon the cold stone floors. Reinhart watched the moon with moderate fascination while the dull roar of his family's ball hummed in the background. The idle banter never held the interest of the noble son, and still, he played the part of the doting aristocrat most nights. Reinhart's desire to tarnish his father's reputation amongst his peers was aimed at bigger things, balls were small. The crowds they gathered were large, they were not large enough for the ostentatious son.
Reinhart withdrew himself from the crisp night air of the balcony and descended the nearby stairs that would spill him out into the streets of Denocte. It is where he would truly disappear into what was known as Caligo's domain. Reinhart never cared much for the gods, though to say anything of the sort would surely have him cast out of House Vogelstein. The thought of being disowned brought a smile to his face, what disgrace that would bring to his father. Reinhart would always be a thorn in that man's side. He was no father, he was a tyrant. He didn't have a clue as to how Rheingold put up with their father. She was the good daughter, the child he would never live up to.
The man crafted from ash and soot spilled out into the streets of Denocte. The crisp air was eager to rush and nip at his unprotected flesh. He would grow used to the temperature, and the emptiness of sound quickly. These streets were his true home. Out here he was known as Ezra, a common street urchin with a penchant for all things valuable.
Reinhart was unaware of the soothing waves rolling from his finely chiseled frame. Molten eyes contrasted the cool blue light of the moon. Tattered strips of snow decorated the stone beneath her moonbeams, even the snow looked blue. Reinhart, no Ezra drew a large breath and burst out into the alleys. He passed his fellow thieves and street urchins with a smile. A thief in the night has never sounded so accurate. Reinhart is quick on his feet as he races through the emptying market streets. He is unconcerned by his suspicious behavior, because there is no one watching, or so he thinks.
Notes: First post for Moira <3 | Words: 413 | Tags: @Moira
... try to breathe words out, But I’ve got nothing to say
“And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry void,
likeness, image of mystery,
felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose on the wind.”
Here is the boy, bent like a priest at the altar. Here are the knees tucked under the chest just so, a black that slopes toward the ground and the tip of a horn on the street like a pike. It feels like ceremony, like the bright white light of salvation, like the sun on his back is a hand and the hand holds him down.
Like the hand of god pushes, and pushes, until he has shins in the dirt and there is no taste around but the grit of sand and the cloud of dust that follows him down.
It is still holy. It still draws a prayer from his lungs. Most everything is holy, he knows. Most everything is like living and dying and living and dying in the same breath. Most every empty space is full of the voice of God. When he stands it is with the languor of a reptile. He does not know how to be anything but the creaking of old houses and the swing of a chandelier. He does not know how to do anything but stand, and watch, as Solterra turns on a pin around him.
Spinning,
and spinning,
and spinning,
though none of them pray as they should. None of them are full of the same joy and fear that he is. He feels it. He feels it deep down in the core of him, where there is only empty space and the cavernous echo of a heart that cannot see itself.
He inhales again. Exhales.
Some deity sighs through the wind, hot in his face, like any wind from the desert should be. All around him the Court is alive with heat and sun and the groan of a nation in motion. The fountain is cool and white against the blocky, yellowed brick of the rest of the city. Its splashing sounds like laughter, like some beast from the deep.
It would move anyone. It does not move him. It cannot.
Though Jask stares, though he stares and he stares and he stares, there is nothing that stirs in him, saying maker help me, this is beautiful.
There is just... silence. Cold, black silence like the void.
He used to wonder what it is like, to be the void.
Now he knows.
With every wobbling step, it felt like her charmed life was crashing down. Born and raised as a princess among princesses, Anandi had never actually been on the receiving end of a wound, with the exception of what she wrote off as love bites.
Sisters would be sisters.
This was different. This was real. Three jagged claw marks sank deep into her shoulder.
If it were not her own blood, she would be able to smell it from a mile away. As it is, the blood is all she can smell. And it should terrify her, and in some ways it does but--
crisp, slick copper. hot, salty red.
The scent makes her feel so… so alive.
And the pain, like nothing she’s felt before, sharp and electric and wanting to be unzipped.
It also felt like a new life was rising to take that charmed life’s place, and she did not feel an ounce of regret for her actions.
When the emissary staggers the hospital, she is preceded by the scent of salt and blood. The wound is fresh and not yet clotted. The dragon cut into her shoulder cleanly, but only the gods know where those filthy claws had been before sinking into her flesh. Dirty little creature.
“H-help!” She calls up into the canopy through gritted teeth. Her nostrils are flared and her breathing is heavy. “I need a fucking medic.” Rage and pain twist her face into a snarl that is not very becoming at all.
My pain will be red like a ripe cherry mashed on a white tile–
Delicate features cringe on her golden face as she watches the weather float on from outside her cover of trees. She really hated winter, it has been said before and it will said again. Elena is a child of summer through and through. She is a child of the sunshine, of flowers standing tall and beautiful, and she is a child of the warmth that she remembers surrounding her back when she had been with her family. This is not Elena’s first winter, she had experienced her first when she had lived in Windskeep, her birth land. She remembered having fallen asleep between the dark form of her father and the creamy form of her mother, feeling safe and snug as they kept close to her. Not too far off lay her buckskin grandmother, always staying close to the small family inside an even larger extended one. Then, those eyes had open beneath the fluttering of long, dark lashes and they opened wider still when the sights outside greeted her. It was a land cast into an alabaster shade, sparkling and shining in the morning light. Quickly, she had wriggled out from between her parents and raced to the outside, her feet sinking immediately beneath the flakes stacked on top of each other. That ash dusted muzzle lowered towards, touch reaching out hesitantly to taste the little creations only to find they tasted like water, and were cold to the touch. How strange! She stomped around in the strange landscape, kicking up her heels as her parents watched, leaning against one another like perfect puzzle pieces of contrasting colors. It was only when a cold breeze brushed by over the icy landscape and Elena felt a deep chill down to her bones that she moved back to the warmth and safety of her parents. “Okay,” she said in her young, little voice. “I think I am done with this, you can take it back to where it came from now.”
And has been her feelings on the matter of winter since.
She is counting the days until the tulips bloom.
Lilli? She wonders, asks, pleads, as she closes robin egg blue eyes, are you doing the same?
These past few years had been a whirlwind of emotions, but she has settled now until she was a numb tranquility. Maybe you can only feel too much before you have to stop. But being numb was worse than anything else, this she knows.
(He touches her, she can feel his warm breath. Everything is telling her to run, he knows she should go, tells her to do as much, and yet she stays. “Why don't you let anybody in?” Why don’t you let me in?)
Stupid, she had been stupid. Elena knows this now, but then why does she feel this heat under her skin despite the chill of winter. ‘Tunnel,’ she thinks, ‘get out of my head.’
She finds herself at the base of the tower in Terrastella. It looms over her like a shadow. She gets the eerie feeling someone is watching her and quickly those glacial blues turn to look behind her. No one. Tunnel. She still cannot get the feeling of him off her skin and it would seem her mind cannot leave him alone either, she was getting paranoid. Once more eyes turn to look at the tower, ignoring the way her skin creeps upon her spine. “No one is there,” she breathes. Her attempts at convincing herself are weak, but maybe she is not alone as she thinks.
* 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.
