he prairie is expansive, stretching over rolling hills and grasses whipping in the wind and disappearing just past her line of sight. Antiope thinks, perhaps, that she can see the sun glinting off Vitreus Lake in the distance, but it could be a trick of the light. The girl of shadows and stripes stands with her back to the court, her draping mass of hair tied into heavy buns. A few stray strands dance with the air as it brushes along her sides.
The prairie is expansive, and spring is the first that Antiope has seen it unoccupied by equines and events and excitement. Now, she intends to cross it. Which doesn’t sound like such a feat, but she isn’t planning for it to take more than a few minutes. That is the real trick here.
Ever since arriving to this place, her magic has been strangled. Weak.
Antiope intends to challenge it.
She takes in a deep breath, filling her lungs as if it were the first time, when she was released from the marble she had been carved of. The blue of her eyes become slits in the mask of darkness across her face. She waits. One heartbeat, two heartbeats. Three. And then she begins to run. Even unaided, her speed is impressive. She is lithe and agile and predatory, and her muscles ripple beneath the white and earth of her skin. Her hooves kick up dirt and grass and soil. But this, this is nothing.
The lioness in her bones roars to life, prowling through her veins, claiming all the space for herself. Antiope’s eyes begin to glow, soon no longer blue as the sky and the sea but as gold and as bright as the sun. Soon, she begins to look more and more like a goddess in mortal skin.
And now with each stretch of her legs she is devouring the earth beneath her, gliding, practically flying, across the ground. Every knoll she crests is a milestone. Every second, every foot she takes is a feat. The lake rises up in the distance, a shining crescent cutting through the swath of green. Already Antiope can feel her magic draining her, and oh how hungry it is. How it feeds off of everything inside her, endlessly.
Mere minutes have gone by, but Antiope is no more than a short sprint to the lake. She has long forgotten the court that she left behind on the other side of the prairie, in favor of greater distances, of better control. But her glorious race slows, until she is trotting and then walking. There is a sheen to her coat that there wasn’t before, and her legs quiver with every step she takes. Her lips curl into a snarl, even as the lioness inside her seems to purr with content.
Damn this place and its way of taking from her what she has had her whole life.
Antiope does not make it to the edge of the lake, shining and sparkling under the sun, but instead she stops beneath the shade of a tree. She presses her shoulder into the rough bark in an effort to keep herself on her feet, closing her blue-again eyes. Oh, if she could find a way to make this world give her magic back to her in its entirety, she would do it in a moment.
The stench of ash is still heavy when she returns to Denocte. The fires are absent, but the memory of them has yet to fade. Noctii watches the slowly filling streets of Denocte. The stench of smoke reminds her of the way Reichenbach smelled when she met him. Like wood and smoke. This smell carries sorrow. The woman made of gold and ivory moves through the familiar streets of her home. The moon loves her, just as Isra promised. It has not purged her yet, and she is beginning to doubt that the moon ever will. It is not the moon she fears, it is what may happen to Isra. She fears what may happen to the rest of the citizens of Denocte because of her presence here. Noctii does not know if that will come on the heels of the gods of Reth, or beneath the daggers of her sister. The thoughts drift away like the fading smoke from the fires Isra told her were here. The streets are still charred in some places that she wanders, they have been forgotten. Noctiilucent hopes that the small home Isra gave her was still standing, but she has her doubts. The pendant upon her neck shines beneath the growing moonlight as she moves. It reminds her that she has a gift for her dear friend, another item she stole from the temples for the gods of Reth. A clamor of bodies and voices catches her attention. In the slow rebirth of Denocte, there is excitement. The area she is in is familiar to her. There have been many nights that she has watched entertainers from the shadows. Noctii assumes tonight will be no different.
There is a movement beyond the circle of gathering bodies and awestruck children. An entertainer dances in the moonlight, and for a few moments Noctiilucent finds herself captivated by the movements of the entertainer. The way the stripes of the woman move with the flickering firelight is mesmerizing. Beside her swirls a small dragon, much smaller than Fable. Her ears come forward with interest. Her body presses against the masses and the wall of bodies pull her in. They spit her out on the other side. She is only two feet from the woman who has yet to utter a word. Noctiilucent cannot help but stare at her and admire the way her body fades from day to dusk. The way the black stripes and ivory streaks slip across her body like ripples in the water. The scholar finds that her skin has erupted into gooseflesh as she jaw hangs slightly agape. There is music in the square, it slowly begins to fade. The flickering firelight begins to fade, as though it can detect that the show is drawing to a close. The group waits to move until the whole square turns dark. Until only the light of the moon spills upon the entertainer and her dragon. Noctiilucent forgets how close she is standing to the other woman until the crowd begins to dissipate. It is only Noctii and the entertainer left in the square. The smell of the fires still burns her nostrils, but she is still captivated by the mesmerizing woman. She is not only beautiful but talented. Noctiilucent cannot believe she has never seen her before. "Why have I never seen you before?"
Noctii speaks softly, but her voice still carries the awe that is painted across her canvas. As though it is scattered like the stars of gold flesh across the seas of ivory on her bodice.
Anandi had been out hunting on land and was on her way back to the water for a nap. It was the middle of the night, and her beloved moon was but a sickle perched on the edge of the ocean. Its twin reflection shimmered and rippled across the water's surface-- dancing to an ancient beat.
(It always seemed like if she was not at hunt she was just about to, or just returning from. She knew she ought to focus on the greater task at hand, but there were just so many... urges she needed to relieve first. She tried not to think about it too much. Not yet, she told herself, whenever guilt and responsibility dared to sneak into her conscious. Not. Yet.)
Life in Novus was full of a freedom that was hard to wrap her mind around. There was simply so much of... everything. Sight, scent, food. People, my god there were so many people (although it became hard to think of them as such when her stomach was empty) of all shapes, sizes, colors. And culture. Deep below the sea, she had thought they were the epitome of cultured-- it was so naive, at the time, but it was all she knew. It seems now that perhaps her people were the epitome of self-denial instead, although she kept such treasonous thoughts dearly close to heart.
As lost in thought as she is, Anandi does not fail to notice the mare who stands at the edge of the water. How could she, when her heart begins to beat just a little faster at the sight, scent, food.
But oh, the water horse needs her water. Without a word, Andi walks past the stranger until she is knee-deep in the calm sea. The starlight reflects off the water and sinks into her silky skin-- skin that aches to shift from fur to scale, legs to tail. "Anandi. Come on, Anandi. Into the water," Anouk murmurs. The sound echoes like a brook in the girl's mind. "Not yet," the girl says aloud to the dark stain on her neck. In rebellion it quickly forms into a small sphere, about the size of a closed fist, and drops into the sea with an angry splash. "Don't be angry with me. I'll be there soon," Anandi promises her bonded, although she is not sure if Anouk can even hear her, once it is part of the ocean. If it does, it does not answer.
The girl turns to the stranger, moving remarkably quietly in the water. Something about that simple movement suggests predatory grace, although to all appearances she is the picture of innocence-- to the point it is almost eerie, given the hour and location. (she doesn't even flinch at the water's cold touch)
"You come here often." It is not a question. Anandi knows. From beneath the waves she has seen many times the woman with symbols on her skin. It was only a matter of time before they met. It should have happened sooner, but the water horse chose to watch, time and again, feeling a strange anticipation that grew and grew but was never fulfilled. From this close, she realizes the other woman is covered in a festival of scent. Feather and bone, swamp mud and moonlit paint. And, of course, the flesh beneath it all, taut and supple, singing, singing with every heartbeat for Anandi's ears alone. Her private concert, wrapped in earthly offerings. She smiles without showing her teeth-- a skill she had quickly picked up on the surface. One of many.
"Why?" The question is exhaled so quietly it might be mistaken for a soft sigh. One might even want to step closer, to hear better.
If there is mischief in her eyes it seems to be that of a girl's, not a monster's.
Very quick. Very intense,
like a wolf at a live heart.
yesterday i was clever i wanted to change the world
H
is hoofbeats sound hollow as he walks down the corridor of the citadel, sunlight streaming through the open windows and a breeze lifting his mane playfully.
His mane was loose now, free from the tight braids he had often worn in the past. It tumbles free in dark waves past his shoulders, strung with beads and seashells and flower petals. A small, tawny feather stands out brightly, like the first star in a night sky. It flutters there, just at the end of a braid, soft and downy and ribbed with dark bars.
It was quiet here, but not in an unwelcome way. Ipomoea had grown accustomed to the noise and crowds of Denocte, with their bonfires and incense and moonlit dances. Even in war, the Night Court’s spirit was unbreakable, their love for life apparent in all they did. It had been easy to lose himself there, for a while becoming one of them.
He wasn’t sure now as he walked amongst an empty hallway if the quiet of Delumine made him feel at peace. It used to, he knew. The Dawn Court had always been his safe place, a kingdom separated by the rest of the world not by borders, but by their mindset. They were a studious people, as was he; as he walked those familiar paths into the capitol it seemed to him like the land was putting him back together. Denocte had taken him apart and stretched him bare, made him vulnerable. vulnerable. It had broken him, rendered him to pieces - he had had to harden each one, anchoring them lest they scatter and he lost himself completely.
Now he found his healing in Delumine, in his home. But there was still a piece of him that ached for the clamor and babble of a lively world, that mourned at the way his city seemed to slumber despite the fires raging just outside its forests. It was why he came home now, before the war had ended.
“Somnus?”
Once he might have trembled, and buried his thoughts and fears somewhere deep inside where the light could not reach. Not long ago there may have been a quiver in his voice, a flutter in his heart that made it hard to breathe.
But today Ipomoea is steady, and despite the heaviness that hands like a cloud over his head he lifts his head higher, higher, hoping to see the light breaking through, the silver lining on its edge. He does not forget the fires that burned through the night, or the ribs he saw sticking out from a young child’s torso. He had counted each one, burning it into his memory. And now, he takes that memory home with him. He had looked into the eyes of a murderer, and he would not forget.
“I’ve come home, brother,” his voice is a breath of life coursing ahead of him, as warm as sunlight and as sweet as honey. A flower blooms on the windowsill that he stops besides, and through that window a red streak comes flying. The cardinal lands, as light as a feather, and one wing caresses the flower’s petals as he tucks them in neatly to his sides.
A smile blossoms across his face much like the flower, as he regards the creature warmly - and yet a twinge pulls painfully at his heart. He shifts from one hoof to the other, conscious of the weight of the stone statue he carries with him. Odet.
He turns his gaze in time to see the golden dunalino, with his dark horn and impressive wings, enter view. And despite the cloud hanging still over his thoughts, dark and heavy with rain, still he smiles and steps forward, longing to embrace his friend.
It was the grass, waving at him gently in the wind from afar, that told him it was time to go.
It wasn’t until he was crossing the bridge one day that it struck him, as suddenly as entering the eye of a summer storm. Perhaps it was the broken magic of the island changing him, maturing him; or perhaps it was his intuition finally kicking in. But as soon as he stepped amongst the grass of the mainland, he simply knew.
He did not stop to think, nor to say his goodbyes (for he knew he would be back, and all his friends were still somewhere on the island besides). Ipomoea simply went, and he followed the wind as it led him to the north.
And all along the way, at every berry plant and fruit tree he passed, Ipomoea stopped and let the magic flow from him like water. Fruit flowered and ripened in minutes, and the young appaloosa picked as much of it as he could. He braided grass into rope, and wrapped that rope around bunches of wheatgrass and rye. His back was laden with fruit and other goods by the time his hooves first touched the desert sand. And from there, it was a straight shot to the capitol, and he grew more resolute with every step.
The wall loomed above him now like a desert teryr, its crest blocking the sky. The sun waited just on the other side of it, framing the Solterran city in gold and casting darkness over the desert that waited just outside of it. And yet as he stepped beneath its silhouette, as he reached out to touch the wall with his breath, he found its shadow to be neither refreshing nor peaceful.
Only then does he remember how little he’s been to Solterra since his birth, how his Court has ignored their eastern neighbor for so much of his life. The thought twists like a knife through his gut, sharp and accusing.
But there would be no room for guilt here, not today. Ipomoea is not here to right the past or to relieve his own worries. He turns away from the wall, and lets his offerings tumble to the ground around him, invitingly, temptingly.
“It’s not enough,” he told the first man who thanked him as he handed out apples and strawberries and melons. “It’s more than we have,” the man answers in a soft voice that sounds like sand dunes shifting in the Mors.
He supposed, in hindsight, that it should have been harder to enter the Day Court. But here he stood, just beyond the city walls passing out fruit to all who came near. There would be guards nearby, or spies that smiled at him and took an apple with them on their way to report to the king. Let him come, he thinks to himself as a handful of blackberries spill like water, dark against the pale desert sand. Let this end.
And as he saw their ribs, and their dull coats, and their glazed over eyes, as he listened to their ragged breathing and their sand-chalked voices, Ipomoea cursed himself for not coming sooner, and vowed to return soon with more.
“How are things here?” he asked the next to step forward, his voice hushed. And as he spoke he passed a small watermelon in their direction, hoping desperately that it would be enough.
AVDOTYA
they have achieved nothing
altered nothing
and will die for n o t h i n g
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
She has struggled to find reasons to leave Elatus Canyon. Her mind is busy, far too busy to concern itself with the meaningless tasks that await her in the Capitol. Indeed, Avdotya is busy. She is alone and she is angry, brimming with a venom so hungry that it damn near drips from her chapped lips - but hers is a poison that is labeled with the name of a man she marks at the top of her list. She holds that name close to her savage heart, ready to rip into it and swallow it whole as she has done with everything else that’s ever stood in her way. In this case, something - someone - has been so wrongfully stolen from her... now it is only right that she collect the debt Raum owes her.
Her sister is dead under his rule. The last of her family is gone. What is it that he holds dear, who can she take from him as repayment? A life for a life.
This is the question that keeps Avdotya awake; however, she keeps herself busy with other things. She’s been looking, hunting. Not for what a king's empty soul cherishes, but for a once dead queen she hears rumours of. Whispers, many of them if one can find the right mouth. She lives, they say, the queen lives! And the viper laughs. She laughs a terrible laugh that is not at all graced by the glowing fingers of joy. It is rasped with jagged nails, made hoarse and dry and utterly unpleasant. Seraphina lives. Of course she does, how could Avdotya ever be so foolish as to believe that a crow could kill a queen.
But she wants to see it for herself, so she seeks her out. She tracks her like prey, following tracks and watching from far off places, but is it really her? Is she actually alive? The woman curses the nerve-gratingly large amount of gray horses in the world. The white stripes, though, they are distinct and particular in the way they crawl up up and around her body even in spite of the clothing she dawns. She stands out to one who once served as her regent. They hold Avdotya’s blazing eye and she decides that this mare is worth risking a moment of potential stupidity - she could always slit her throat if she was proven incorrect.
So she slips out of the shadows, she unveils herself to the brutal heat of the sun and steps into Seraphina’s path. She looks at her, thoroughly, up and down and all over. Her collar is gone. Avdotya’s eyes narrow. ”Mmh,” she grumbles, ”yes. You certainly look like death.” She knows no humour, thus there is no joke in the way she speaks. This is not the Seraphina she remembers and she will not spare her the pity. "It does not suit you."
ALL OF MY WRONGS, NO MORE WICKED WAYS
will come back to haunt me, come with me
Should be at (near) Lorcan’s gravestone in the fields.
The fields. Written in the casual diction of a native. Meaning that out of the countless fields in Novus, to the author of the decades-old note there was only one of significance: the Fields, capitalized.
After a brief glance at a Terrastellan map Kite fished out of his satchel (their maps were near unchanging through the centuries — he’d dug through the archives before setting sail for Vespera’s court), Senna concluded that the writer of the note must have meant the Susurro Fields.
The difficult part had been in pinpointing where. Needle in a stack of needles. The Susurro Fields stretched over a third of the kingdom, a sea of buffalo grass capped with a foam of lavender sky. He’d sent Nestor out on an early morning scouting mission, plying her with a slab of still-bleeding meat he’d procured from the markets. The waiting had been infuriating. He'd busied himself with paperwork he'd brought from Solterra, then switched to poring over Terrastellan history books when his ink ran out.
Until, late in the afternoon, a white speck reappeared in the sky. The falcon's yellow beak was stained a gruesome crimson. He didn't ask why, because she'd draped herself in the answer. Entrails of rabbit hung like hair ribbons from her chest feathers, her breast stained a red to rival his own. A hunting excursion she'd taken the liberty of embarking on before returning.
Found it, Nestor remarked crisply, clicking her beak at the question boiling over in Senna’s eyes. He prided himself on being a man so hard to read, and had fooled most anyone into believing it. But a gyrfalcon saw all, and he — her master, dear Seneca — had eyes as hollow as a dead tree stump. Full of space for thoughts to roost.
A weakness he’d passed on to his daughter, she clucked. Hollow-eyed father and daughter. Darling mother had been the only exception.
A grave, marked Santiago. Hard to find — it was veiled in dark. Ominous. Senna nodded for her to continue, tail lashing impatiently at his side. He cared little for irrelevant description, and she knew it. Sometimes, he wondered if she was sent by Solis to grieve him.
Disturbed, too, dirt tilled up all over. But no dead man to be found. So either this Santiago dug himself out of the grave sixty years too late — yellow eyes narrowed as a thatch of brown rabbit’s fur was plucked out of her feathers and dropped unceremoniously to the ground — or someone else did him the favor.
“Santiago.” The name lingered at the edges of memory, an elusive little ghost. He pushed it aside for later.
By the time Senna alighted near the grave (less than a day’s trip, Nestor had promised) night fell thick and heavy. A dreamer’s drooping eyelids. Unnatural darkness had wrapped itself around the land like a shroud, squeezing like a constrictor, and the closer he moved to the grave the tighter the constrictor squeezed.
Squeezed out every pinprick of light, until the brightest thing in the night was Nestor. Even his lantern sputtered to an early death. His skin crawled, maggots in a carcass, but fear dared not encroach in the nobleman's heart. He'd banished it to the wastes as a boy.
Something brushed against his leg. Hard and unyielding, like... a wooden stake.
“Santiago,” he whispered, bending down to touch the top of the grave marker. Exhilaration, hot and long-ago forgotten, pulsed like a heart through his oxygen-starved veins. The search for Prudence had been strategic. The alliance he sought, a necessity.
As the days dragged on, the island began to change.
It was small things, at first - a ray of purple light here, a patch of air that felt oddly thick there. Abnormalities reared their ugly heads all around the island, random and unpredictable. Sometimes a flower would sprout, bloom, wither, and die all in a single minute, or the waves on the beach would harden like ice for the briefest of moments. Such things were fleeting and hard to catch; they often appeared in the corner of one’s eye, teasingly just out of sight, so that by the time the observer turned their head it had already disappeared.
Sometimes it seemed as if time had forgotten how to turn, as if the four solar gods were fighting over the sun. An old stallion swore he had seen the sun track backwards in the sky, not once, not twice, but three times, as if it were a pendulum swinging on a string. Other times it was as if time would stop all together at random moments, and after an hours’ long trek through the forest one could emerge in astonishment to find the day at the same morning hour as when they had first stepped beneath the treeline.
For the most part these oddities were harmless, even amusing. But slowly, subtly, they became more pronounced. And also more dangerous.
It was said that one day, a young couple were walking through the forest when suddenly the ground opened up beneath them like a gaping, hungry mouth, swallowing the filly hole. Down she fell, down into the depths of the island and out of sight. And just as quickly as the gap had opened, it closed once more- sparing the colt to tell the tale.
Another told a tale of a cave, hidden between two boulders on the beach, that seemed to travel beneath the island. She told anyone who would listen of the way the air had grown hotter and more humid the deeper he ventured, and how occasionally a warm, putrid breath of air would come from somewhere within. She claimed to have traveled for hours, keeping on only to see the end, when she had entered a cavern whose floor was covered in a thick, clear goo - and the skeletal remains of a dozen horses. “It’s a good thing I stopped, and never touched that liquid,” she told her story with an undeserved sense of pride, “for certainly that is what killed all those poor souls.” As if she somehow knew what had happened in those caverns.
And of course, there were the disappearances. Some had yet to turn up - others would appear in the middle of the forest in a daze, and when questioned would shake their heads and stretch as if being roused from a deep slumber. And none would have any recollection of the past several days, nor any clue that they had been missing. The only hint was the occasional bruise or sore limb, or a scratch dug into their skin mysteriously in the shape of a strange, forgotten symbol.
Perhaps the most frightening thing was how unpredictable the island was becoming- and yet it did not stop the truly adventurous, or the truly careless, from exploring.
A lone figure walked down the beach. His coat was pale, but in a dusty, greyed out way. He was a plain man, without jewels or cloth or markings to adorn himself with, mane roached and tail bluntly cut. He walked with an odd sort of shuffle, like a gait he had invented all on his own between a lunge and a sidepass.
He walks all around the island and the sun follows him, hovering above him at all times. It weaves about in the sky like a snake, tracking his movements like some kind of predator - he does not seem to notice.
And when he stops, there at the heart of the island, the sun stops with him.
Like a mirage he fades away, his limbs turning to mist and his body crumbling into sand. With a single breath of wind he vanishes.
But the sun stays above that spot he stood as his sole witness, and it does not move.
Time has been stopped stopped. The island is destined to hold itself still within the same moment endlessly, trapping all life with it. The wind has lost her breath, the waves are frozen in place. All the world is still, all the strange creatures have disappeared.
The horses alone remain.
Strange things have been happening on the island. Perhaps some of you have encountered them directly, but perhaps others have only tales like these to go off of. Whatever you've heard, still you find yourself coming again and again to the island, to search for relics, magic, adventure, or something else.
Some of you may even notice the way the sun zigzags across the sky, as if the gods are playing tug of war with themselves. Perhaps some of you will only notice it when the day grows long, and longer, and longer, and longer, with no sign of continuing. The waves are frozen in place, the animals have gone into hiding (or perhaps disappeared), it's as if you're walking through a snapshot in time, as if you and the other horses are the only creatures left living, the only things not frozen.
Through it all is a sense of dread, for surely this means something else is soon to follow.
Each character may reply to this post only one time. Rolls will be done and a staff edit will be posted at the end of each reply with Random Event results. You are more than welcome, and encouraged, to branch off into individual threads to interact with other characters. You may respond to the characters before you or your reply could be set at a different moment in time (this is totally up to you). This event will last for several days IC time, but the sun on the island will not move.
If you reply to this thread, it gives you +1 post in an SWP.
All replies after August 11th, 2019 will not be considered for a RE roll.
Possible rolls and their rewards are as follows.
1: +1EXP point
2: 125 signos
3: 150 signos
4: 200 signos
5: 300 signos
6: A strange, iridescent feather that seems to be every color in the world at once. Allows for an extra RE roll (but only for RE threads during the SWP, you will have to post a memo at the bottom of your thread when it's being used) Please message @sid or @nestle with any questions. If this remains unredeemed, you may use it in Act VI.
The day the news spread, he had left the Court... and since then, it felt like he never stopped walking. Many moons ago, he stopped counting the days - or was it now weeks?... months?
After all this time and underneath the armor that rubbed against his skin, he felt his hips and sore ribs, was sure he could see the sharpness of his cheeks out of the corner of his vision. Even in this state he was hardly just skin and bones - no, he was still a formidable foe and towering figure. But it was certainly shocking, to see him sleepless with shadowed features and visibly worn.
Even so, there was anger — and resentment — beating a wardrum tune behind the ivory bars that guarded a furious and feeble heart. Really, he'd be a fool to say he knew what he felt - he did not know if it was frustration or pride or disgrace. Whether he was sick or strong, competent or foolhardy. All he knew was the surge that bit his heels and sunk its claws in deep drove him harder, madder. It wound the spring inside his ribcage and coiled it tight, nimble twitches of a phantom finger threatening to release it without preparation or warning.
Even after all this time walking, all this time in relative silence... he didn't know what he felt, but he knew he hated it. He despised the urge that kept him moving forward, resented the voice that told him everyone was wrong and her pool of blood did not ever end at the Steppe. He was an unwise man clinging to a fever dream of hope, and in this moment he hated this impulsiveness that drove him.
The day he left the Court, he had silently shed the title that had been burdening him for so long. He would never be the rule enactor for a madman, and suddenly the term "warden" sounded so much more sour when it slid across his tongue. It did not taste like sand; it tasted like screams and bitter, putrid ash. Why did the idea that Raum reminded the ex-warden of himself... oh, why did it make him so nauseous?
He knew she wouldn't be able to answer his questions, even if she wasn't just a corpse. So many times he swore he saw her disappearing just out of his sight, he was starting to question if he has gone mad..
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
At Tor's request, Circe once more took to the skies in hopes that her vantage point would prove beneficial to their search. So up she went, a letter clutched within her claws as she disappeared into the cool clouds and headed off far ahead of where her bonded was. And after what felt like hours.... finally! Finally she swore she caught the cool gray of @Seraphina's skin, her wild white hair and jagged stripes. The Bearded Vulture Wyvern's heart skipped a beat, wild eyes snapping open as she felt the wind whip along the feathers of her nape and the surge of adrenaline hit her veins.
With a careening cry she swooped sharply down, refusing to lose sight of the vision she saw. Her! came the telepathic trill that jolted Tor awake. Seraphina? Are you sure? was met with silence, Circe's focus shifted entirely onto her target.
She waited until she saw the figure head towards an area not fully shrouded by trees, and then Circe dove. The large wyvern's wings almost clipped the trees as she came in, and the landing was not at all silent.. Heavy talons and body thudding to the ground, turning the snow that always seemed to blanket the peak into a flurry. Circe towered over even Tor, which made her all that more imposing to the rest of Novus' residents.
She! But no collar! she telepathically quipped to her bonded, who was irritably trying to decipher where exactly Circe had landed. As the snow around her settled, crystal blue eyes amidst a bloody-colored sclera locked onto the figure who she was certain was Seraphina, the feathers of her crest ruffling as she met them with loud, trill chirps. Unaware of Tor's annoyance (or simply ignoring it), the large wyvern swiftly reached down to the talons that grasped the letter, plucked it gently and tossed it over towards the gray and white striped equine for them to read.
