She awakes suddenly, with a violent start from her bed -- flashes of dream still play behind her eyelids, the howling winds and blowing snow of Dead Horse Ridge embedded there, the golden halls of her sire’s Olympus that hid the deprived god within. She has not dreamt of her birthplace in months, has barely had the time to dream at all -- it leaves a sour taste in her mouth, worse than Vespera’s potion, as she clambers from the bed with stiff limbs.
There is a tension in the air, and she can taste it the moment she steps from her room. The other cadets barely even glance her way, too busy whispering amongst themselves, and she catches snatches with every word -- A letter, they murmur, and her tail swishes low against the hallway of the barracks, Cleopatra’s handwriting and her ears prick forward, her attention gained fully.
“Where?” She demands, voice still harsh from sleep, and the cadet beside her (young, so young, with a forelock that flops over his eyes) gestures towards the heavy barrack doors, held open to the Spring dawn. She moves forward, through the crowd, and her eyes land on the yellowed parchment, reading over it quickly.
W. 460 So, so obvious. Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine. Should be at (near) Lorcan’s gravestone in the fields. Vespir wants confrontation first. Always, always -
Vespir. She knows that name, had heard it when she had been learning the history of the Halcyon, when she had been fresh-faced and not nearly as burdened by duty -- and she is quick to note the age of the parchment, the handwriting that has her eyes narrowing in thought. Very few scraps of knowledge existed from that time period, so much of the research lost, but she thinks that she recognizes the scrawl as matching what few pages remained of Cleopatra’s journal.
Vespir. Cleopatra.
The gears shift and begin to click into place.
Prudence.
The hunt for the armor has resumed.
Without a word, the Champion darts out of the barracks and takes flight towards the Fields, towards where King Lorcan’s grave rested, and she thinks she can feel her heart in her throat the entire time. To find Prudence would be to find a miracle, an ending to an era that has stretched on for far too long -- with Prudence found, she thinks, the Halcyon might be returned to their former glory, like the stories that had first drawn her to Terrastella in the first place.
She lands in the fields with a soft thump, folding her wings against her slender sides, and begins to approach the grave.
It's trees have never given birth to fat red apples or pears shaped like gentle hills out of a wide valleys. There have never been snakes black as pitch swimming through shadows and rolling over frothy waves of green grass. Nothing has ever walked in the garden on four legs-- nothing but the hind with golden hooves and two great saplings of gold rising from behind her sweetly curved ears.
She has forever been alone in the vineyard and her belly is round and bloated with fermented grapes and desiccated leaves. Years have passed since her legs have given themselves over to the ambrosia of flight and her golden saplings have long since forgotten how to be bloody and molten when the days grow shorter. Even her red hide has turned dull and fawn-like with the passing of time.
But her eyes are still alive with secrets. There is a jungle in her eyes, a humid sea where the air is hazy and thick. In that salted smoke things twine around her strange pupils. A moon dances there, black and sickle thin. A pair of wings flutters in the gray mist in patterns ancient and profane. But she does not know, oh she does not know that another universe lives in the heady smoke-gray of her gaze.
And it's that smoky gaze that she turns when the stag comes to her vineyard. She looks upon him and her belly feels pregnant with all that too sweet fodder, and her bones feel like vines grown older than their lost religion. Because she knows, when she steps from the boughs of fruit, that they are the last of a splendor that does not belong in this too tame world.
It's the last blade to the throat of it that falls to the grown when her antlers start to shed, and drip, and liquefy. Religion is running down her face in crooked rivers of icy gold. Every profane thing she has ever seen is pooling in the hollows the secrets in her gaze. She steps closer to him and her legs tremble like a fawn under the weight of the dead vineyard between her ribs.
She bows, and where her nose touches the grass there are great broken streaks of gold, and more gold, and even more gold. The hind has forgotten if she was growing grapes, or religion or maybe it's always been gold blooming in bloody spheres from her branches.
All she knows when she lifts her head (one last time) is that the vineyard no longer belongs to her. Each secret in her eyes blinks out on the image of Lysander standing dirty and dappled so near the golden pools of her death.
The hind bleats and it sounds a little like-- drink.
And then she dissolves in a chalice of golden liquor.
Deep in the swamp forest there is a garden waiting. It's full of grape vines and leaves forever turned up into the humid air. This secret place is always drinking, always growing. Everything in it is changing and becoming bloated with all the magic of a dead religion. Everything but the hind that seems like she is waiting for @Lysander to stumble upon her hidden world. And oh (finally!) when it seems like it has taken him forever to learn the song the trees have always been singing to him, he finds the golden hind with a universe in her gaze.
But when he finds her she crumbles..
Was there ever a golden hind?
Or is this all just a memory of a time lost brought on by the sulfur in the air? One of a time trapped only in the fermented blooding running, and running, and screaming inside Lysander's veins.
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The sun’s rays scorched the earth as the day reached the hottest point, the sky cloudless and azure. The grasses were soft and green, flourishing in the bright spring that was melting the snow away and bringing the promise of new life.
It was this day that saw a herd of elk traveling, the massive bull pausing as his cows continued. His chocolate eyes surveyed the land, catching horses in conflict. Conflict was something he knew well… he had recently battled for this herd of cows and nearly lost the battle against a younger bull.
A pair of mares caught his gaze and he flicked his ear and let a bugle color the air. He could smell the fury emanating from the darker of the two as she stared into the sky at something that was soaring above the battle. Something had caused the ebony mare to be in a rage… Shaking his heavy head, the bull turned and followed his harem into the trees and out of the range of danger.
A mare charged across the battlefield, ears flicked back and teeth bared. She was ebony, the color of night and sin. Blue eyes sparked with fury as she took in her opponent, desiring nothing more than the destruction of the heavy silver dapple Champion. The Harpy Eagle that was the Champion’s bonded let loose a call and the soot hued mare snarled and narrowed her eyes.
“Are you using your overgrown songbird to spy, Champion?” She seethed, striking out with her forelegs in an attempt to land a blow. The mare was furious, feeling like she had been targeted by the silver dapple mare (and like she failed that she was caught at all). As she traveled through grass past her opponent, she leapt into the air to try to hit the eagle as well.
Taking a few loping strides, the small mare (who was quickly starting to feel like an animal trapped in a cage) turned to face Katniss and the coming attack. Each of her heartbeats came more wild and feral than the last, and her legs were trembling at the rage she could see in the Champion of Battle. But she still managed to sneer once more, knowing that sorrow makes them all weak, and lunged forward again with a battle-cry on her tongue.
--because a battle-cry fell so much easier from her lips than a secret.
@Katniss is trying to serve her court. The mare before her had been caught fleeing from Denocte not long after the fires, and it has taken Katniss almost too long to find the possible spy. But when she finds her the mare is full of righteous fury and each of her steps drips with a guilt that only the body can betray. Katniss knows that she must defeat her to find the truth of why the mare was fleeing her home like the devil was nipping at her heels.
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Through a haze of fever, the imperial hound dreams of running.
Its wide paws twitch, scrabbling against the deep roots of an ancient red cedar. In its mind it’s coursing with its pack through the primordial forest, skirting fallen logs and clear babbling streams, ever on the hunt. But it lies in a shallow scrape of pine needles and dirt, and its left hind leg is useless, hinged at a terrible angle, infected where the skin is broken and the bone shines through.
It’s white as a ghost against the roots, though the pale hair is patchy in places, caught between winter and summer. The hound has no concept of days or time; all it knows is that its pack has passed on, that it has lain in this hollow for long enough to go hungry, to go thirsty, to find that it can’t manage to stand. When its golden eyes flick open they are far away, and gleaming like marbles. The dog cannot hunt, cannot flee, cannot fight. It can only wait for death, or for a savior.
Why Aion is passing through this section of Viride Forest is of no concern to the hound. Little is to the creature who pain and fever has carried so far, to the land of dreaming, the country next to death. But as the stallion makes his way beneath the ancient boughs the dog wakes, whimpering. The flies have found it again, and to them it is no proud canine, swift-running, limber-limbed, but only a moveable feast. Such is the law of the wild.
Perhaps Aion hears the hound’s whining, perhaps he sees it white against the dark of the forest floor. When the canine sees the stallion, a growl ripples in its throat, but it is a half-hearted thing and dies away in a whimper. Whole and well, it would be a fearsome predator, five feet long and well over a hundred pounds. It might have hunted horses, once. Now it is reduced to the mercy of whatever happens by - a killer, a healer, an impassive man. The infection at its broken leg is clear, as is the fever that gives it such a glassy-eyed look.
And maybe, somehow, it knows its fate lies with Aion. Maybe it can feel the magic in him, deep and cold as a glacier, a breath of stoic winter against the racing of its heart and the coursing of its hot blood. It doesn’t lift its head, but though its dark lips draw back in a smile or a grimace its thin tail beats against the ground, stirring last autumn’s leaf-litter, scenting the air with rich earth and rot.
There is always life in the forest, feeding off of the death that is just as constant, though hidden, slow-growing in the dark and deep. Seldom does any participant in the ancient cycle have a say.
But Aion does.
@Aion might feel a certain darkness in the forest when he's walking. The air feels heavy with a howl that has no sound. Even the leaves are quiet, deathly so. Any footsteps that have walked with him, even for a small distance, have long since dissolved in the shadows of the canopy. But maybe it's fate that carries him through the weighted forest towards the hound that growls at him the moment he finds it. But aren't all things full of sorrow always growling?
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Even in the wake of Solterra’s tumult, the Oasis remains perfectly calm. The water ripples in a mirror reflection of the clear blue sky up above, promising a refreshing reprieve from the hot, dry wind that circles the dunes. Palm trees bend deep over the shore. And the only sign of life to be seen for miles—besides the sparse green of bushes lining the pool—is a snake so black it seems opalescent, pulling itself out of the water.
It is a water snake, not common in Solterra for obvious reasons, but not altogether impossible. Except for all the little details that pop out upon second glance: the horrible darkness of its scales, the way its milky silver eyes seem to drip. As it slithers through the dusty water, the silver sloughs away from its eyes and into the oasis, leaving trails of bright mercury lying against the bottom of the pool. By the time it makes it onto the shore it’s eyes are completely gone, just black slits in a black head.
Its movement is leisurely but quick. A few minutes later it has completely disappeated, leaving only a faintly wet trough in the sand. But the water is still reeling from whatever magic it left. The trails of twining quicksilver are beginning to move on their own, twisting almost like their predecessor: they burn black tracks at the bottom of the pool that turn and interlock to form a sigil, something dark and sharp. A cage of iron bars, a bear trap. No, a set of teeth, gnashing together, on top of a burnt patch that looks almost like a heart—
Hours pass, and eventually the silver is absorbed by the water, and the tracks washed away. But the Oasis is still in charge of the magic that the snake has left it—has to find some way to pass it on, as all magic is supposed to be, eventually—and Solterra’s ex-warden is the lucky (or unlucky) first to stumble upon it.
The oasis is strange these days. It's full of animals that don't belong and strange things seem to be taking shape just below the water. No one seems to no if it's new animals let loose by those days past when the gods walked, or if it's just the shadows of clouds passing over head. The water still looks tempting as each day is starting to seem hotter and hotter than the last. But as of yet not a single soul has been brave enough to wade into the deep, is @Torstein?
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Senna glanced up from his desk, quill hovering to a stop over the letter he'd been penning. A white falcon haloed by sunset gold perched on his windowsill, her wings outstretched as she preened her feathers with rapt precision. The motion looked oddly like a woman smoothing wrinkles from the skirt of her evening gown.
Something of significance.
A bead of ink oozed out from the nobleman's suspended quill and dripped onto the parchment, ruining the tail of a swirling capital W. He glanced at it with distaste before folding the unfinished letter in half and brushing it into a basket overflowing with similarly-fated paper. He would have one of his advisors write it over for him tomorrow. The task was of little importance anyhow — he'd simply needed something to do, unable to cope with staying idle. But now...
“Something of significance,” he murmured, “stirs in Terrastella.” It was intriguing news, and — not in the least unwelcome. Raum's tyrannical reign was driving all of the court to madness, himself included, because bloodborne tyrant kings cared exceedingly little for noble opinion. Bureaucracy wasted away to bone, and order had long fled for the hills.
He'd always believed, mistakenly, that it fled in the direction of Dusk.
Was Vespera's noble court of healers finally joining the fray of discord ignited by dear Solterra?
"Well, don't keep me in suspense." Nestor's black eyes narrowed in wry satisfaction. Silently, she glided to his desk and settled upon a stack of books ridged with identical golden spines.
The Halcyons. The name struck a spark of recognition in Senna's eyes. But it was only that. A spark. Nestor lowered her beak and tapped at one of the spines she stood upon. A Fabled History of Terrastella. You do not involve yourself much in Terrastellan affairs. Perhaps now is the time to reacquaint.
But not only did Nestor point; she had brought something for him as well. From a satchel slung over her wings, she drew out a slim book wrapped in faded brown leather. There was no title save for an insignia of golden wings stamped on its cover. The falcon opened the book to a marked page in the middle, raised it to Senna, and tapped at one of the sketches with a yellow talon. A suit of armor was illustrated on the page in stunning detail.
A hunt has begun, Seneca, for the Pegasi unit's armor of legend. They call it Prudence.
❦
Dusk was a quiet kingdom; the antithesis to her hotblooded brother of Sun. In all his years at court, Senna had never found a reason to visit their ivy-draped citadel, nor keep more than a handful of spies reporting back to him from Terrastella. Between Delumine's great library, Denocte's longstanding distrust, and Solterra's penchant for switching out sovereigns like ladies switched out their bonnets, Terrastella had sat for years like a mist-shrouded isle across the sea from a warring continent. Warships did not visit isles of peace, unless the isle had something it wanted.
And what Senna wanted, was Prudence.
His ship and most of the crew he'd chartered lay moored on a rocky strip of sand west of the Praistigia Cliffs. He'd taken only a young, palomino errand boy with him named Kite (the irony had not escaped him — with Nestor, they made a triad of raptors). Kite was Dusk-born but Solterran-raised; and if the boy was as useful as he claimed to be, he'd be well on his way to becoming House Hajakha's newest Terrastellan ambassador.
The sun hung low over the bruising sky when they at last set eyes on Vespera's court of dreams.
And what a sight it was. Senna let his eyes widen just a fraction as he stepped into a scene stolen right from the pages of Sol's fairy books. Clouds dipped in lavender and lapis, slender buildings draped with flowering ivy, bakeries and apothecaries nestled in street corners as cozy as nesting doves. It was, as Kite had regaled to him, a chiaroscuro of moonlight and poetry.
It was, as he'd assumed, entirely too much. "We will be late if we dawdle," he said. But they were not late, even when they did dawdle at a lamplit tavern for a pint of much-needed refreshment. It was when the clocktower tolled exactly eight bells, that Senna and Kite found themselves approached in the darkening streets by two winged cadets in bronze helmets.
Between them stood a woman, oil-slick black in the night. Her slate grey eyes were long lashed and cutting. Senna recognized her immediately.
Tonight had been bittersweet. She had bonded with Metaphor in a way that she had never truly bonded with anyone before. She had given herself completely to him and he had done the same in return. She had grown so much in this one encounter. She had promised to love and cherish him until the end of their days, unaware that the ending would come far quicker than any one of them would ever no. And when she had laid next to him in that blissful moment after their union, she had never felt happier.
But that happiness was taken from her the moment someone planted that explosion along the path home. Her happiness had been ripped from her the moment Metaphor laid dying in her embrace. Her happiness had ceased the moment Metaphor took his last breath. She had never felt so alone, not at any point in her life. But in the stillness of the night, she felt as if there was no one else in this world.
It had taken all her strength and will power drag Metaphor’s body from Amare Creek back to Denocte. Her muscles ached but she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything. Her body was numb, her heart broken. The entire journey, she had been unable to look back at the body she carried. The body of her lover had been placed on a mat weaved out of love so she might be able to take him back home for proper burial. Her eagle flew overhead, knowing that she needed space and time, but unwilling to let her out of his sight.
By the time she arrived at the citadel, the citizens of Denocte were beginning to move about the city. Some watched her drag the lifeless body into the city. Some who knew Metaphor cried, others tried to comfort her. But she did not hear their words or see them standing along the road. She still felt so very much alone.
And when she arrived, she stood there as the strap fell to the ground. Head hung low in absolute defeat as she stepped away from her lover’s deceased body. It was in this moment that she began to look for piles of logs so she might be able to build him a proper alter. He deserved a better ending than what he was given. She would make sure his exit from this world was met with honor.
ooc: Anyone is welcome! Katniss is hurting. Metaphor was killed by an explosion set by someone. Feel free to read the thread here if you wish, just note is starts off as a FTB thread: click here
Her heart is beating wildly in her chest, her blood pumping through her veins that has been laced with adrenaline and something else, something she cannot place. She feels alive and she feels so very free. It had been weeks since her discussion with Metaphor in the stillness of winter. Weeks that she had mauled over what to say to Isra, how to ask her for permission to bless a union that she was raised to believe was forbidden. Warriors were meant to fight, not to love or raise families. It had been a thought that was so hard not to live by when her heart was tugging her into a whole other direction. Perhaps she was not the warrior she thought she was going to be.
She arrives at the creek and sets about making the moment perfect. She had not told Metaphor that she was going. She had Finnick wait until she was out of Denocte to tell him to join her. It would give her these last few moments of peace to ensure that everything was so perfect. To open herself up in this way for Metaphor was something that had taken her a considerable amount of thought, but in the end she knew that her heart was right this one time. Metaphor deserved all of her love. So many things had happened between the two of them, so many lost moments. This would not be one of those time, this would be one of those moments that she would cherish for a lifetime.
A fire crackled lightly in a dusk sky, the fire flickering towards the heavens as it burned through logs placed expertly. Eyes looked over the beauty of the creek and the way the moving water trickled swiftly over stones covered in moss. She had picked this spot, a spot decorated in flowers and lightning bugs. As spring had blossomed, bringing new hope to Denocte, with it had finally come the desire to have a family with Metaphor. The timing was not perfect, but it was perfect for them.
Finnick had been instructed to stay home, the bird not needing to be privy to such an intimate moment between two lovers. He had seen the way the two loved each other so fiercely, but the moment their loved turned into something much more was for their eyes only. And so, she waited almost impatiently as she stood next to the fire, her eyes waiting to rest on the sorrel as he came to her. Her heart was still racing, despite her body being so very still. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach, a feeling that made her nauseous. But she wouldn’t have it any other way.
And when she saw him appear through the early dusk fog, her lips curled into a smile. She waited for him to come to her. Feet danced in place, a mixture of nerves and excitement that she could not contain. And when he joined her, she stepped towards him and brushed her nose against his nape. “I have missed you.” Her breath was hot against his skin as she breathed in his natural cologne that made her crazy for him. She had been preoccupied lately planning revenge with Isra. But this moment was for them. All thoughts of war and revenge were pushed aside. This moment was for something far greater.
It feels strange to be back in the Dusk Court after so long away.
Asterion isn’t sure how long he spent on the island - days? weeks? more? Time had a funny way of slipping, there, or freezing, he isn’t sure which - but he returns to a Terrastella transformed. The neutral whites, grays and browns of winter have given way to a green so rich it seems almost unlikely, a kind of alchemy only nature could produce. There is everywhere the heady, sweet scent of clover, and the soft drone of bees and hum of grasshoppers, and all of it melts into a chorus that only means home, home, home.
And he is glad to be back.
After the strangeness of the island, it is a comfort to walk along the cobblestone streets he knows more intimately than a lover, aware of each alley they fold into and each stream that meanders across their path. It is spring and nature has continued its boundless addition; baby rabbits play in the long grass, and a soft smile touches the king’s mouth at all the new foals he sees with their mothers in the city, baby-soft on legs as thin as reeds.
He hopes that they will never know a Novus touched by fear and dread, by plagues of rain and fire. He thinks of his conversations with Eik, and Seraphina, and Isra, and the world that they might build together. He hopes the man he searches for might be a part of making it.
Intuition and a few soft questions lead him away from the city, a little copse of forest beyond the sightline of the gates, where long grass gives way to cedar and oak. It is cool beneath the trees, a balm on a warm late-spring afternoon, and he does not mind the time he spends searching here below boughs that hang with moss like lace, and moths and butterflies drift between the trunks.
But it doesn’t take too long to find the man he seeks, quiet beneath the canopy whose leaves sigh with the wind. Asterion approaches the bay quietly, and ducks his head in greeting.
“Rhone,” he says, and his smile is as soft as the light that filters through the trees. He realizes then that he never properly thanked the man for his support at the meeting; it already feels so long ago. Something in him has changed, since that day. “I hope that you are well?”
