AND HOW I SING YOU LIKE A SONG I HEARD WHEN I WAS YOUNG and buried for a night like this
At the foothills of Veneror Peak, the air is warm and sweet, heavy with the scent of newborn flowers and morning dew.
She begins her pilgrimage when dawn has just broken over the fuzzy edges of the horizon, a spill of pale pink washed over murky white fog. Her scar hurts more than usual today: a dull, throbbing phantom pain, a memory of skin. It’s an ugly thing, really, even though it tries to dress itself up as something gleaming, beauty bled forth from horror like some consolation prize. It doesn’t move properly. The metal is too stiff, and it distorts every expression that crosses her features; the skin bunches around it, and, if it can be moved at all, it moves in small, unnatural ways. In the bright sunlight, it sometimes grows hot enough to burn. In the chill of winter, it is sometimes cold enough to freeze her to the bone. Worst of all, it is stark enough to be unforgettable. Worst of all, it is a reminder. If it were just skin, she wonders if she could have looked away from it. Instead, the gold just draws her eyes – and she knows that it doesn’t just draw her eyes. She has seen scars before and forgotten them, but never a scar laced up in gold. Her disgrace is memorialized across her cheekbone, etched into the muscles of her face. Wherever she goes, she will have to carry his legacy with her. Wherever she goes, that scar will speak for her, and she is not sure what it says – if she is victim or survivor.
Seraphina pulls the thick fabric of her hood a bit further over her face and hides herself beneath it. It is still early spring; she tells herself that it is because the trek to the peak will be cold, and she is not well-accustomed to the cold.
She has not ascended the peak since [Raum]. And that was fumbling – dark as starless night and disoriented, muddled with blood loss and an agonizing revelation that hadn’t sunk in yet. And cold. So cold. Not like the faint chill that nips her uncovered skin as she climbs higher up the mountainside. Cold like a grave. Cold like a corpse. Lifeless cold, like marble left out in winter. A cold that made her want to lick at her lips, just to prove to herself that she could still feel them, even though her mouth just tasted like blood – copper-tang and sticky. Comparatively, this is soft and pale. Everything in the world looks different in the daylight. Everything.
In the past, the worn stone pathways would feel like a comfort, balm to an itch she’d never quite been able to scratch, patch to a persistently open wound. (Hunger. She might call it that, now. A softer hunger than the one carving a hole into her stomach now – for love, or at least for recognition, but now for blood.) The world would melt away and quiet. No voices. When she became a queen, no stares. Now, too, deformed by the scar across her cheek – no stares. When Bexley was scarred, she couldn’t understand her devastation. In Solterra, a scar was honorable. A sign of survival, and of war. But Seraphina is tired of war, and she is tired of miraculous survival. She is tired, too, of what she used to think was honor. Now, she just wonders if she will ever be able to look at the ascent to the peak and think of anything but Raum. She wonders if she will ever be able to walk the towering dunes of the Mors and think of anything but Raum. She wonders if she will ever be able to step into the sandstone walls of the court and think of anything but Raum.
She wonders if she will ever be able to look at her own reflection and think of anything but Raum.
The sun is still low in the sky when she reaches the peak, stands before the shrines – the small cathedrals. Spills of ivy. Altars. Shed statues, sad as discarded cicada shells. (The image of a living thing, but lifeless.) She stands amidst them all, white coils of hair snaking out from the cover of her hood. The wind is strong so high on the mountain, and stronger still today.
For a moment, she looks back towards the path, towards the mountainside, and she can see someone she used to know, illuminated by the rosy kiss of dawn’s light. But the image is translucent – and even the trail of flames that dance the subtle curve of her spine are stationary, trapped in the still permanence of memory. If she had known, she would have stopped her. If she had known, could she have saved her?
She knows by now that such thoughts are useless. The world was as it was – nothing more, nothing less. She could not rewrite history. But that does not stop a coiling sense of regret – and grief, always grief - from taking up residence in her chest. They had all been younger, hadn’t they? She can remember when things were – easier. Quieter. That little ebb, after Zolin died, when the world seemed to open wide. She remembers when she learned to believe in something, and that was then, too.
Nowadays, she doesn’t know what she believes in, if she believes in anything at all. It’s all too much a flicker to feel like something solid, unshakable. She used to think that she was. Now, she’s shaken. All tremors. Like something diseased, on its deathbed, quivering through a fever dream. Surely, she’s seen enough by now. Surely, it will be better from here-
But she knows that she has to carve out better and mold it herself, and she wonders more and more as that poisonous, ravenous beast that resides inside of her grows larger and larger, and crueler and crueler, and angrier and angrier, and even more envious – she wonders if she will ever be able to create any lovely thing again, or if everything she creates is destined to end in blood and flame. She wonders what her life will become, at the end of all of this. She wonders if she will still have a purpose.
She has a purpose now. Seraphina climbs up to Solis’s altar, her hooves a resounding clatter against the marble – louder even than the wind. She pulls out a stick of incense, and a candle, and she lights both; sweet-scented fog and flickering light dance in the wind, and she lays them to rest at the hooves of the cracked golden statue. She does not look up to his eyes. She does not think that she can stand how cold and empty they look, now that she has seen him alive. She knows that she won’t find god in those eyes.
Instead, she closes her own eyes, and she clears her throat. Fidgets. She tastes the wind on her lips. Licks them. Reminds herself of the sound of what it means to be Solterran, the way that her people’s tongue will dip and fall, but always rise again – of the way that the words should sound in her mouth, the way that, when she speaks, she should feel her past in her blood, some intangible connection to an ancestry that she has never gotten to know. Tells herself that they – that he - cannot choke the voice from her, that he can take everything, but he cannot take the weight of her heritage from her, that he can take Solterra but he will never be Solterran. Tries to still the frantic beat of her heart, which does not want to let her speak -
But she does not want to speak, anyways. She wants to sing.
She breathes deep of the wind and opens her mouth.
fin. || aaaaand, we're at 300. wanted to do something a little different for it. this post did not at all go as expected. "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
It was early in the morning, and much of Delumine laid in the long shadow of Veneror Mountain.
A boy (too old to rightfully be called a boy, but a boy nonetheless) with coal black wings soars high above his kingdom. Fog enshrouded the banks of the river, a thick fog that was beautiful seen from above, or from its thinning edges, but so very eerie to be caught in the middle of. It had the tendency of trapping and stretching sound, so that the river at its heart echoed throughout the valley.
Near the border of the fog walks a mare. At first glance, he can tell she's a soldier on patrol by the way she walks, comfortable but focused, like she knows exactly where she's going, exactly which steps to take-- like she's done this before, many times. She probably has, but not often in the morning-- surely he would have noticed her before.
Mateo drops in elevation to get a closer look at the mare. There was no rhyme or reason to his curiosity, other than the vague, unwarranted feeling that early mornings in Delumine were his, his alone, and anyone else awake was his business, whether they liked it or not. "Good morning!" he calls out before he swoops low and lands gracefully just a few lengths in front and to the side of her. "Mind if I join you?" He shuffles his feet in place, waiting for her to catch up. From the ground, even with the fog muffling some of her features, he quickly recognizes her. "Maerys, right?" Mateo had taken to watching the soldiers in training-- their movements were not unlike a dance, once you had the eye for it. There was repetition, of course, the same repetition at the heart of every dance, but there was also improvisation. And where there was a dance, there was music-- even if the dancers did not know it was there.
Of course, familiarizing himself with the population, especially the soldiers, was a matter of self preservation. If one could not fight, it was good to have friends that did. "I'm Mateo. I've seen you training." He remembers inquiring about the tall newcomer who did not much look like a soldier. Someone had told him that she talked funny, but moved nicely, and they gave him a name with similar letters to his own, but a completely different sound. His name ended in an O, introspective and closed, but hers... Maerys reminded him of a bird rising in flight, catching the ocean wind in its feathers.
"So how is Dawn Court treating you? Is it to your liking?" Mateo was ever the helpful boy, even to the most complete of strangers.
She has been hunting so long that she is no longer sure of what she hopes to find.
Raum? He is closer to her at home, in the sands. Surely, it could not be so hard to sneak into those sandstone halls – she is sure that she knows him better than he does – and slit his throat unceremoniously. He doesn’t deserve ceremony. She wants him to die in the most horrible, inconsequential, unloved way possible. (She wants him to die like she did, to hurt like she has; and she knows that he never will.)
Tempus? She has met him twice, and twice she has been rejected by him. She is no longer sure what she wants from god. When she was younger, the answer was easy. Now, without a crown, without any ambition beyond a dead body, she does not know. (If he can turn back time, perhaps he can take her back – back to the Steppe, back to her dead body, and maybe he can leave her dead, with her honor intact, while she still has something to live for. Now she has nothing.)
The relic? She is not sure if it would do her any good. She has magic of her own, now, even if her magic is cruel, and she doubts that the relic can do anything to make her more magical. Better to break the thing, so it couldn’t fall into the grasp of someone who would misuse it. Hiding wasn’t permanent enough. Was it cruel or foolish to reject the gift of a god?
(What was the worst thing they could do to her – kill her?)
Now she stands with her hooves carving sharp half-moons into the pale sand, salt-thick sea air dragging tangles of her white hair (unkempt and spilled from its braids) out across the shore, towards the sea. The sun settles, languid, on her spine. The sea is near her, but the foam does not bubble up high enough to reach her just yet; in a moment or two, or if an especially powerful wave rolls into shore, it will. But, for now, she is untouched and solitary, a ghost standing stock-still along the shore.
Ereshkigal is gone somewhere – likely to hunt. Seraphina knows that she prefers corpses, but she has claws enough to use when the opportunity does not present itself. She does not feel the vulture’s presence, even at the furthest edges of her mind, and, for the moment, she takes some comfort in the solitude.
Salt tongues lap her hooves. She draws back, turning her multicolored gaze along the shore, and lets it settle at the point where sand meets rocky crag. In the afternoon sun, the stone, simple and rugged as it is, glitters as though tiny diamonds are incased in the violet-brown, pocked surface. The ocean is deep and blue, even a few feet out from shore, as though the bottom drops off abruptly; it is nevertheless exceptionally calm and quiet, a lull to disguise a metaphorical tempest. This place makes her skin crawl.
She draws forward, across the sand. It is wet and clumpy, unlike the slick dunes of the Mors, and, though she had spent many an hour along the shore of the Terminus when she was still a soldier, Seraphina still can’t decide if she likes the texture. It does not take so many strides for her to step up onto slick, uneven rock, but, if she cares about falling, it does not show on her face, nor the unhindered draw of her steps; she stands on the edge of the rock face, staring out to sea, and she wonders if she will find god.
(She wonders if they will ignore her now that she is no longer a sovereign – no longer someone’s chosen, if she ever was at all. She supposes that it does not matter now; she is no longer queen. What does it matter if Solis wanted her?)
She wonders if there is any point to searching for the relic. Tempus had found the searchers, the first time she’d met him; less of prey than the hunter itself. Would he find them again? (If she looks over her shoulder, she can almost imagine him appearing from amongst the trees, too-old eyes in a too-young face, the trunks bending to accommodate his presence; she can almost imagine him coming to stand alongside her, with a stare that sees through her and pities her or finds her wanting, and she can never tell which.) If he did, would he come with another riddle, another question – and leave her without an answer, left to wonder?
She probably couldn’t understand, even if he told her.
Nevertheless – she has a list of questions. Why did you return and why are you doing this and, more selfishly, will this ever be over? (And, most selfishly of all, will I ever be happy? But she thinks that she already knows the answer, because she isn’t a child anymore, and she knows better than to believe in happy endings – at best, she can hope for a few happy moments, enough to make the pain worthwhile.) Even if she can’t find Raum, or the relic, she is somehow desperate to find him, and she doesn’t know why.
(She has always gone crying to god when she is lonely.)
Seraphina breathes deep of the sea. Stares out across the glittering expanse of the horizon.
Perhaps the relic is lost to the tides, buried deep on the ocean floor. Perhaps it would be better if it were – she is tired of troubles, and discontent with gods. Perhaps it doesn’t matter one way or another; she couldn’t take it last time, and she doubts that she will be able to succeed, even if she finds it, this time. Perhaps she should stop longing for some form of approval that she knows she will never receive; perhaps she should stop longing for some sense of importance. (She ruled a nation, once. She knows that she should not feel so insignificant, but her “death” feels like it was swept aside like sand – but perhaps it is cruel to long for recognition in such difficult times.)
But she has little time for longing, or for speculation. She stares down at the rippling surface, and perhaps she sighs.
open || one more island thread? "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
these lands were new to her. everything, every smell, and every noise was cause for some alarm. her eyes, however, calmly assessed their surroundings. she waited for a while on the edge of the plains, hesitation in her steps before breaking out into the spring evening. the air was crisp and the crickets chirped idly to announce the coming night's time. but her steps did not falter as she walked despite her inner misgivings. this was just another realm to explore. she could hope for many things, and many experiences, but in the end, it was up to fate. Philomena did not enjoy that idea - she chose her own fortune and her own goals. the thought of anything interfering - some divine intervention or ideals - beyond her control was unnerving. but she still did not give this place the pleasure of seeing her upsets. she would rather die than show weakness of any sort.
the tall grasses tickled her legs and the lack of voices - of anyone - was a blissful moment she was loathed to give up. her time on this earth was brief compared to most but she knew what she liked so far. one of them was a bit of silence to think, especially considering she had just arrived and did not want to be overwhelmed. as much as she was physically kept together, the young woman's insides burned with regret. though what sort of regret was unknown, for she could easily slip into a more sociopathic viewpoint. perhaps the regret was for her new start? the thought of adjusting once more to the dance of life when she should have settled by now... mayhap she should not speak of such things, let alone think them. if she did, she would begin to think her decisions were not done for the good of her being. she would feel utterly hopeless.
coming to the middle of the plains, her head swirled around in half hopes to run into someone. though she enjoyed her thoughts the most, Philomena was quite eager to learn more of the realm she found herself in. a plan would have been to research but she was one for action. even if it was impulsive to run from each land to the next without a goal. steps were heard, though, and the young woman remained still. waiting to see if they would pass by or pause, her eyes kept on the horizon. she did not look behind her and did not see who approached.
Posted by: Abel - 07-20-2019, 09:56 AM - Forum: Archives
- Replies (7)
A b e l
I WILL OFFER UP A BRICK
TO THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD, BOY
Abel had braced himself for the cold and the dark. For the rooms far below the castle, the ones he’d heard low whispers of when he’d been running with the band of orphans among the shadowed streets after the tidal wave battered his life like an old ship. It had been a reminder to themselves not to get caught, that talk of rats, of hunger, of damp cellars far from the sunlight.
But the unicorn-queen’s prison is a paradise.
Oh, it is still a cage - but Abel feels trapped less like a dog and more like a bird. The smell of burning still clings to his skin, and his eyes are still red-rimmed with smoke, but as the day dawns the air is filled with the scent of flowers unfurling, opening to the sun. Light streams through glass high above him, and though they are bars they are more trellis than cell, wound with ivy, blooming with trumpeter-vines. How strange to be caught and yet to feel safe. There is no one he can hurt here.
The boy does not slink like a tiger beneath the shadows of the bars. Instead he waits beneath the wide leaves of a flowering palm, and even his relief feels like an anchor. Abel wonders if smoke still hangs over the city from the previous night’s trespasses; he wonders if the golden stallion has already informed Raum of his capture. Though his body aches and his bones are bruised, though his throat is raw, though his fate is a question he can’t answer -
She had needed a small break. Her mind had been spinning, chest so tight. There were so many new creatures that wandered these lands she just wasn’t quite sure how one was to go about living near them all! It wasn’t that she had been a hermit growing up; at least not necessarily. No. This was more so about the fact that Kindred had only ever been around such a small number of other creatures at one time that she could not bring herself to comprehend the nature in which others could ever desire to mingle within such large groups.
Alas, this intrigue that it sparked would most certainly be enough to draw her weary hide back into the confines of the dawn kingdom shortly. Just… not right this second. She had too much a desire for the peace and quiet which usually came with ascertaining the local fauna. Not much within in believed that she would recognize much of what grew here – after all, it seemed to be far different from where they had once laid rest. Different poisons, different cures, possibly even different ailments than she had ever seen were likely to bubble forth here. So, for now, she would just count the different plants she saw. One number for each distinct type. If anything seemed to take her fancy, perhaps she would pluck it and tuck it away in her little herb pouch – but she wasn’t quite sure she would actually find one that could.
Kindred wasn’t particularly sure how long she had been walking before she finally picked up on the sound of a babbling creek. And then, in the distance, the faint sound of water crashing off rocks. She blinked, took note of how grimy she felt (albeit she wasn’t really that grimy at all – her coat just lacked a pristine shine of the state she preferred to keep it in), and started to move toward the waterfall. A little dip in the water couldn’t be all that bad, now could it? After all, she could use a small treat to herself every once in a while, and now didn’t seem to be too bad of a time to allow it.
-----
OOC: @Leto
Hope this works; sorry about the lateness - I couldn't decide where to post .-.
Like most creatures of prey, Anandi was most active at dawn and dusk. It was not really a matter of practicality so much as preference; she found sunlight garish and hard on the eyes. Beneath the sun, everything had sharp edges. There was no delicacy, no subtlety, no beauty. Anyway, she did not care for the heat. So she kept to the darker hours, of which there were many, and it did not take long to pick up on what time of day the poor inferior creatures of this world preferred.
In her short time on the surface, Anandi quickly learned there was nothing more sensual than a kill. The young woman was perhaps getting a little carried away with the freedom she had here... there was no one to scorn the frequency of her hunts or the growing size of her kills. No one to witness that pleased look in her eye as she eagerly tore into hot flesh, to comment how primitive and unbecoming it was to show such enjoyment for an act that should be a painful necessity.
She knew she was supposed to feel guilty for killing a creature that was not already dead or dying, but my... she couldn't help herself, sometimes, especially when they ran. (They always ran) And to feel a beating heart on her tongue and broken bones between her teeth... it was paradise.
She's in paradise, muzzle buried deep in warm flesh, when in the forest behind her there is a loud
crack
as a branch breaks underfoot.
Anandi whirls around, ears pinned back, coral-colored frond folded to her skull. Blood (sticky, sweet) drips from her bared teeth. It is obvious she acts on pure instinct, for logic dictates there is nothing on this island for her to fear: she is the alpha predator here. A low growl rises from somewhere deep inside her chest, not like anything she's ever heard before.
She takes a step forward, hunched low like a wolf, placing herself between the intruder and her dinner. (some sort of small cat- later she would admire the diamond pattern and glossy sheen of its coat, and she would recollect its grace and speed with admiration. She might even mourn its loss. Later.) In the burgeoning darkness of the twilight, her coal-rimmed eyes are a stunning, piercing green.
Anandi waits for the stranger to step forward, or to make the fatal mistake of running.
A N A N D I "Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like.
I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
@Erasmus I forgot this was a relic hunt thread until I went to post it... oops... I'll diverge into relic stuff next post <3
A vast land with many different ecosystems, from lush plains to majestic mountains and magic everywhere you look, not to mention powerful gods that look over their courts and peace and harmony everywhere.... blah, blah, blah.
Just a bunch of deserts is you ask me
The portal had spit him out a few days ago and what did he find? To be put in another desert! The dappled stallion stood out like a sore thumb as he traversed the sandy dunes. Thirst clawed at his throat and the heat of the sun burned down on the darker points of his body. His hooves ached, and every step he sunk in the blasted sand, making it that much harder to walk, and having to use up his precious energy.
He stomped his foot in irritation. He had heard from travelers of a land far better than the one he was born to. He was use to everyday being a struggle just to survive, but Zarvex had hoped he would find what the travelers where talking about, a realm called Novus. After he had found a portal he had hoped to emerge in a nice cool field full of flowers and a maybe a stream as blue as the sky, not the murky water he was use to. Instead, here he was standing in another waste land as the vultures circled ahead, ready to pick his bones clean.
The stallion huffed and wondered if his death could be quick somehow. The only reason he was still alive was he found a few cacti, but his maw was sore and scabbed from the sharp spines. His shoulders sagged as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, despartly needing to rest. The birds instantly came to land but didn't come near after he loudly snorted at one. He laid his head against the hot grainy sand.
A small breeze picked up and blew gently against his overheated body. He was greatful it wasn't yet summer and humid as he new most deserts to be, so he lifted his large head slightly enjoying what little he could as he took in a long breath. He could almost hear the tinkling of water in a stream....
Zarvex lifted his head higher flicking his ears back and forth, wandering if he was hallucinating. He grunted as he heaved his body up, he could hear water nearby. Looking in the direction it was coming from he limped up a large dune that was in his way. Slowly he reached the top and he felt like someone had blessed the sight in front of him.
An oasis sat in front of him. It was beautiful but he didn't take in the sights for long as his vision zeroed in on the water. He hurried as fast as could to the stream where a waterfall fell into a pool. He dunked his aching maw into the cool water and drank long and deep. After awhile he felt waterlogged and noticed a rather large rock nearby the could provide shade if he was laying down.
Limping over he lowered himself into the cooler sand where small sprouts of grass growing. He would eat later he just needed rest now, even though he knew he should have checked the area first for danger he was just too tired. He slowly was lulled into a shallow sleep.
Character #1: @Morrighan Bonded: N/A Magic: Fire Manipulation Armor: N/A Weapons: N/A Current Health: 10 Current Attack: 10 Current Experience: 16
Character #2: @Isra Bonded: Fable, sea dragon Magic: Transformation Armor: N/A Weapons: The Lunar Bow Current Health: 40 Current Attack: 40 Current Experience: 77
float away, open wide
unafraid with open eyes
Morrighan felt entirely out of her element out here. She was used to her Court and nothing else as she rarely left the comfort of Denocte. Other than briefly venturing to the island, she preferred staying at home and not dealing with the trouble of other lands. However, she was told this was the place for training.
And so, here she was, almost through with her trek all the way up here to Bellum Steppe. She was to meet Isra here after exchanging letters (which in itself was a new concept; they didn't have birds or pens or letters back in Ourania). It felt odd asking another to train as it had been ages since she had to. Her soul was nearly a century old, but here she was mortal and her magic was weaker. Now was the time to change that and bring it back to its former glory.
Isra seemed like a worthwhile teacher and had made the offer not too long ago back in the markets. The queen had made buildings turn to marble, stone to glass, the ground to wood. She could still remember the world around them changing in the blink of an eye. The fire within her was hungry and begged to be set free to consume the wooden floor, but she could not let it. Not in the way she wanted to or the way she used to. She could make the largest blazes erupt from beneath her, hell, her whole body could be engulfed in flames and she felt unstoppable.
Again, Morrighan was only mortal here and she was starting from scratch. Even as she walked, she could feel her magic having a mind of its own and wanting to come out, but only a spark of embers came through. She snorted.
At last, a familiar figure stood up ahead and Morr changed her pace to a trot. Her hooves made prints in the ground from the burning heat within them.
"Isra," she said in greeting as she came up to the mare. "I'd like to take you up on your offer." Her expression showed determination and a hint of a smirk on her lips. While her magic might not be ready, Morrighan certainly was. They had been preparing for war with Raum, but nothing had happened yet and she was itching to battle, even if it was just for practice.
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
The desert, like all other things eventually do, had grown boring.
Since his escapade into the night court, the capitol to the north had grown suspiciously quiet. There were rumors, of course - the silver king was said to be plotting another great feat to bring one of the courts to heel. Sometimes the shadows whispered that his rage for denocte knew no bounds; other times, they claimed a new target somewhere in the west. That was only one of the rumors, albeit one that often took different faces.
Toulouse had also heard that the crow had left solterra, that he had slipped out unseen and vanished in the night. A girl in the markets had told him the king was sick, that a server boy she knew had served the king medicine in his bed. The next day he’d heard from a soldier that the king had ready sent out half of his army, hunting for the relic on the island. The day after that, a blind cripple had prophesied that the king’s very own pet monster would consume him in his sleep, three days hence.
That was a fortnight ago.
No matter how many tales the pale man heard, none of them proved true. King Raum of Solterra was, as ever, an enigma: distant and cold, shrouded in secrecy.
But his secrets were no secrets at all, only pretenses at mystery. Solterra was quiet, save for her peoples’ sobbing. Even now, as Toulouse flicked an ear back behind him, he swore he could hear them gnashing their teeth.
Eventually, more exciting talk had reached him. He had hesitated, if only for a second; he had a job to do in Solterra, a duty to serve. But then he had laughed, and the next morning had found him deep in the Mors, trudging towards a new horizon. Toulouse had only ever shown loyalty towards one man, and his desires always lined up with his own.
And thus does he find himself in Terrastella.
He isn’t sure what he’s hunting - only that there’s something to be found here, something more tempting than even the Relic of Tempus, in part because of the history, the notes, the secrecy. He couldn’t have stayed away even if he’d wanted to.
The tall grasses of the Susurro are pale, as pale as his own skin, dancing along his legs as he wades through a sea of gold. Today he has left his scarves at home, the better to feel the sun and wind upon his own skin - only his diamond horseshoes remain, and the green pendant wound about his neck.
