He had promised to stay close, to not stray or wander out of sight – and yet the Prince of Delumine had managed to do just that, wandering past the point of knowing which way he had even come from.
His lessons had taught him how to know which direction was where, and yet standing in the middle of a forest with a cacophony of strange, foreign sounds that seemed to surround him and not a familiar face in sight, Regis’ mind was left reeling and struggled to recall those lessons. Panic threatened to settle deep in his bones and cause his muscles to tense and freeze, even as he tried to rationalize that he couldn’t be that far away from the others, that he couldn’t possibly have gone as far as it appeared he had. Swallowing thickly past the lump that had formed in his throat, the yearling drew a deep breath as he willed himself to stay calm and clear his mind. He was fine, he was safe, he could do this, and – …
Off to his left he heard something move, his body flinching as he turned to face whoever, or whatever it was, a single gasp filling his lungs with air in preparation to flee. With a sliver of optimism he hoped to lay eyes on the russet form of his companion emerging from the bushes, having realized with a start that Milo was absent from his side. Refusing to take a step back just yet though his body demanded it, Regis swallowed again and steeled himself as he spoke up. “W-… Who’s there?” His voice betrayed him as it wavered, sounding far too much like the boy he was rather than the fearless man he desired to be.
For days or even weeks, Theodosia may feel nothing at all out of the ordinary. The swirling, pink-purple potion is a strange, awful mixture of sweet and savory on the way down, like honey laced with salt; but past the initial unpleasant backwash, there are no symptoms to follow. Everything is perfectly normal.
Until the storm shows up.
Spring in Terrastella is often wet, but not like this. The sky is clear, a perfect blue, and sun shines down from a place too far to fathom. The breeze is calm and warm; it almost feels like summer. But there is one cloud out of the ordinary. One cloud that threatens the whole atmosphere. Huge and slick and black, bloated almost to bursting with the threat of rain, the lonesome cloud hovers over Tinea, its edges cut in sun a way that they seem to exactly match the edges of the swamp.
It beckons Theodosia, if a little bit threateningly. Come here, come here, Stormsinger - the humming of the lightning as it thrashes inside is almost like a drumbeat. It is a creature of its own will entirely, and if the Champion should try to touch it with her own magic, try to alter it in any way, it will simply refuse to budge. It hangs stubbornly in the hot air and glares down at her with warm, dark eyes, roiling with just contained lightning and thunder, resplendent with both beauty and danger, almost like Theodosia herself.
Whenever the Champion decides to step close, the pull of the cloud will grow stronger, as will its morbid, humming song. It might ring between her ears like a bell. As the space between the girl and the storm closes, they become one: the cloud drops fast as a rock to flood Theodosia in a coat of black vapor, and for a few long moments it swirls around her, tumultuous, gnashing its rain-teeth, the pitch of its song growing higher and higher until it’s almost unbearably loud and shrill—
Then it stops, and the whole cloud disappears abruptly. When the dark haze sloughs away, Theodosia may feel a new weight on her antlers as the first of many new crystals starts to grow in.
@Theodosia once she has finally stopped tasting the potion might find herself wandering in the swamp, wondering if her god was full of only empty promises. But then, over the swamp everything starts looking 'darker' as if a great bird has decided to blot out the sun. If she looks up she'll find the cloud, whispering in a way that clouds should not whisper. Is it words, or is it only the sound of weighted raindrops waiting to fall that she's hearing?
The cloud falls, and falls, and falls. And then--
Theodosia is not the same anymore.
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Enjoy! This lovely quest was written by @redandblack
Dawn, a time of rebirth and renewal. It was that dawn that sparked with electricity and smelled faintly of ozone and moisture. The storm was threatening to break, keeping the normally technicolored sky from showcasing its brilliance. Dark clouds circled the bowl of indigo and sporadic flashes lit them from within.
The stallion frowned, looking at the sky and then turning his head to the cart full of his… merchandise. The creatures within were rustling and moving, unease spiking through the beings that he was carting. The dapple gray stallion snorted and moved on. He had been moving through the realm for the last few days, offering the unusual creatures to any that wanted to pause and debate spending their funds.
As he entered the Viride Forest, a sharp crack echoed through the world and caused him to start. In the movement, his cart found itself buried between the raised roots of a large tree. With a curse, he released his tether and started to try to figure out what he could do to release the full cart. This had been a rough trip, very few wanting to purchase his wares. Under the cover, one dragon let loose a cry and he snapped at it.
Inside of the cage, a small dragon hissed at the infuriating stallion. She was smaller and colored like the sunrise that was supposed to have broken in the world. Wisdom coursed through her mind, knowing what had gone on and what the stupid stallion was wanting. A few horses had been enamored with her, but none had offered a price that the mottled mutt had liked.
Smacking the side of the cage with her tail resulted in another curse from the stallion. It amused her that he was so indignant at her every movement. Tapping it progressively louder, she waited to see if he would play right into her plans.
“You stupid dragon…” He hissed, bumping the cart with his hip. It was the movement that he had been waiting for and she rocked her body against the bars in time with his hit. The cage fell to the ground, erupting in a shower of splintered wood and hissing dragon.
The small dragon hissed at him one last time before releasing a call that echoed through the forest with savage pride. She didn’t know if any other horses were nearby, nor did she particularly care at that point. She was free again, free to launch into the sky and soar on her beautiful wings.
A storm might not be the best place to explore during a fresh breaking storm, but @Maerys might feel a pull towards the woods. Maybe it presses on her like the heavy hand of fate, maybe it's just an itch under her skin that makes her feel like the forest is begging her to wander in deeper, and deeper, and deeper. She might stumble upon the merchant who cares little for his wares. Or maybe she will only hear the freedom song that a small dragon is singing?
And maybe, maybe she will feel her heart singing that same song.
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Despite her attempts at avoiding to jump on the bandwagon, Morrighan found herself sucked right into the hype of the island events as much as everyone else. Though in her case, it wasn't so much the island itself, but what it was hiding. There were rumors of an ancient relic blessed by a god named Tempus. This was the same god there were mutterings about by the unicorn statue with the riddle scrawled on paper. She still didn't know much about Novus' gods, nor did she care to find much out, but being in possession of a special item was intriguing. After all, he was the god of time, so perhaps this item possessed some of his magic?
The grullo mare trudged through the sand, each hoof sinking slowly down further with each step. This was the part she hated, especially since she had never really experienced sand before. She didn't know how anyone lived on this type of land; it was nearly impossible to travel through. If this relic didn't sound so special, she would've made her way back to Denocte a long time ago.
Morrighan's eyes focused on the forest ahead with the brightly colored fruit hanging from the trees. Another odd sight, but perhaps it'd give her a nice snack for the trip. When she finally did make it to the first stretch of woods, she stretched her neck up to sniff one of the pieces of fruit. She decided what the hell and took a bite, her lips puckering at the strongly citrus-sweet taste that hit her tongue. It wasn't necessarily bad just a lot sweeter than she expected. As she was finishing up her snack, a bird that looked to have crystals for eyes perched itself nearby. It stared at the mare, almost as if it was trying to stare into her soul. Good luck, it's pretty black in there, she mused to herself.
After the last few bites, Morrighan continued on, her eyes scanning the woods ahead. If she were a relic, where would she hide? Perhaps this was going to be a lot more challenging than she thought.
@Runaveig and anyone else who wants to accompany The Grump! (since Sprow is on absence, feel free to post before her and join any time you are able to Sprow <3)
IN THE PARAMETERS OF CANVAS, THE COFFIN OF THE FRAME - the art of wreckage, how to figure ourselves in the ruins of what we can't traverse.
SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE she arrived in Denocte, Locust stood just outside of a bloody tidepool, hooves grinding into the wet, grey sand, surrounded by a crescent-moon of variably nauseated pirates. “Uhh, capt’n,” stammers out one of the younger ones (Four or five, she thinks, but she hadn’t even bothered to memorize his name, because she knew he didn’t have the guts to make it as a pirate. Damned kid was just in it expecting to get rich, or find adventures, or to sleep around at every port – she’d suspected he’d be gone at the next one, and she was right), “Are yah…are yah sure he’s dead?”
When she sighed, the sound almost seemed bored.“I don’t know what you’ve heard about water horses, kid,” she says, grimly, still staring down at the bloodied corpse, “but I’ll teach you a valuable lesson about piracy, right here and now. See, most things tend to die when you gut ‘em like you’d gut a fish, but, if you really ain’t so sure…” The obsidian knife lashes out, and, with surgical precision and enough quickness to be a blur, slashes open the dead kelpie’s throat. Blood begins to drip out of the newly-opened wound, staining the kelpie’s dark coat violent red. “…this’ll usually do the trick. Any questions?” The boy gulps audibly and shakes his head. She smiles too-warmly, a wisp of her white hair, buffeted by the salty breeze, drifting across her sweat-stained brow; it itches something awful, and she makes a mental note to retie her hair when she finished with this bloody business. “Good boy.” The words slide off her tongue, low and silky and distantly threatening. “Now, as payment for this demonstration, you’ll be cleaning the pelt, once I’m done carving it up.” The boy looks horrified, but she just continues to smile. “That won’t be a problem, will it?” “N-no, capt’n,” he manages, his voice catching pathetically, and looks away. One of the others, another youngster (albeit one in possession of a slightly stronger stomach), nudges him gently. Locust barely notices. Her eyes are on the dead kelpie. Its toothy jaw hangs open, unhinged in preparation to bite; its tongue, already swollen, flapped uselessly with each rolling wave. She’d carved a neat line from the beast’s sternum to about halfway down its belly, when it was fool enough to rear up. (Entrails hang halfway out, bobbing in the shallow water.) Dark blood, already half-crusted from heat and wind, covers her forelegs and her chest, drips down her jaw; and her dagger hangs boredly in the air at her side, dribbling a thin line of red. Her stare is impassive, glazed and dark – in the light, the teal of her eyes gleams like sunshine through the shallows, but here, it is the color of a storm. The sort that drags ships under. “Good, good,” she says, her voice dipping to a murmur, and adds, expectantly, “now. Where is my carving knife?”
SEA BIRDS cry out, but their voices are nearly lost to the wind, even as they circle in the shallows bordering the shoreline. It’s high tide, and the water has rolled all the way up to the rocky cliffs that rise up from the beach, coating them in a dangerous layer of slick saltwater and foam. The water is choppy and grey, but, if you dip close enough to it, the color might seem closer to a milk-green, crested with the occasional ridge of off-white. Either way, you can’t see much in it, partially because it is so murky and partially because the sky is heavy with a thick layer of dark clouds. On the distant horizon, far out in the open sea, it is raining. You can smell it on the wind – a sweet cleanliness against the sharp tang of salt water and sand.
Denocte’s pier hangs out in the open water, extending several hundreds of feet out into the water. It is a dark strip against the choppy sea, which froths up against the sturdy old wood like it poses any sort of threat; but the pier has long stood the test of time, and the ocean’s efforts to overtake it have led to nothing more than a thin sheen of water on the wood and thick growths of barnacles on the wooden legs that dig deep into the (presently submerged) sand bar below. Few ships are out in this weather, docked at the port; fewer ships still than usual, with the news of trouble in Denocte. The Dark Strider docks at the pier, imposing itself on the small fishing boats and merchants’ ships that already bob in the water. It isn’t the largest ship there, by any means – that honor belongs to a huge passenger ship, which seems rather low on passengers, followed by an assortment of cargo ships -, but there is something uniquely intimidating about the smaller vessel. The dark wood (from no tree on Novus) creaks and heaves as it bobs in the water, weighted down with sailors darting about the deck. Black waves, ornate and curling, are painted onto the sides of the ship, and, for all the time that it clearly spends at sea, the paint job is neat – from enchantment or meticulous repainting, though which one is unclear. An ink-black flag flies from the mast, billowing in the salty wind; a white horse’s skull, surrounded by a circle of knives, has been stitched onto the fabric. The ship’s figurehead is equally skeletal. The carved figure, some kind of hippocampus (or kelpie) is half-alive, but the skin around its chest splits, revealing the ribs. It thrashes back against the boat, carved hair a sea of wild tangles, eyes rolled back to the whites. The figurehead is unpainted, and the texture of the wood suggests that it has never been painted.
Dockhands stare at it uneasily as they pass, but they don’t dare say what it is, or repeat the name. There is a silent truce in place - if you don’t mention it, you don’t have to deal with it.
The boarding ramp collides with the pier with a sharp clatter, and the first figure off the boat is a woman.
She is small and silver-sleek, her coat streaked with sweat and stray saltwater, and her white hair has been pulled back, to keep it out of her eyes. She moves with such a cheerful sway that you could almost say that she is prancing – each measured stride long and graceful, in spite of the bobbing of the ship in the water and the quivering unsteadiness of the ramp. She surveys the pier with a rudimentary glance in either direction, locking eyes with a couple of dockhands in the process.
Locust smiles, all pretty and nonthreatening. They turn away as quickly as possible, swallowing their tongues.
Her hooves clatter down onto the pier, and she grimaces as a thin wash of salt water dips around their dark curves; strange, for a pirate captain. She seems to shake it, though, turning her blue-eyed stare towards the kingdom that sprawls out on the other end of the pier, and takes a step forward, when- “W-what do we do now, Capt’n?”
She throws a look over her shoulder and lets it fall on a boy with a scarred-up face. Scarface. They’d sure been creative when figuring out what to call him. (Not that her father had ever been much better, but she liked to pride herself on being superior to him in almost every regard.) “I don’t care,” she says, succinctly, smirking, “as long as you fuck off and leave me alone. I’ve got business to attend to, and y’ain’t invited, Scarface.” There’s a spring in her step that suggests that she’s being playful, but the snarl in her voice also suggests that it might be better not to question her. And, truth is, she really doesn’t give a damn what they do – she doesn’t care for a single soul on that ship, and, well, if they decide to go disappearing into Denocte’s winding back alleys or tantalizing bars, it’s no concern of hers. She’s sure that she can find some intrepid young soul willing to take their place.
The boy stares at her, slack-jawed. “B-but Capt’n, you don’t have any of the cargo?” It’s not a question, but his tone implies one. She smiles at him icily, pausing, and turns to stare over her shoulder at him. “It isn’t that kind of business,” she says, her voice dipping low – a threat lingers on the tip of her tongue, begging to come rolling off. “You know, kid, I don’t keep you around to ask questions. I’d hate for us to have to repeat what happened to Jameson, wouldn’t you?” The boy goes stock-still, his eyes bulging, and he might have choked, but she couldn’t hear it over the wind. (She wouldn’t do to him what she did to Jameson, not really. A curious youth and some old man who thought he could pull off a mutiny on her ship were two entirely different threats – but she had a reputation to uphold, and if the thought of getting thrown to a circling mass of ravenous sharks was enough to convince the boy to hold his tongue, all the better.) He nods limply, and she allows her smile to warm a fraction, her gaze to soften. “Good. Do try and enjoy yourself…Denocte is full of interesting sights, and I’d say we’ll be at sea for a few months after we leave.”
She turns on her heel and departs for the shore before she can let anymore kindness slip.
If the boy happens to be around the age her daughter would have been, if she were alive, then so be it.
By the time she reaches the markets, night has fallen.
It’s a dark one – particularly murky. The storm hasn’t broken over land yet, but, if the clouds that block out the moon and the stars above are any kind of indication, it will start raining sometime tomorrow morning. At the moment, that’s no concern of Locust’s.
The streets are so luminous that they might as well have been engulfed in daylight, if daylight were a kaleidoscope of otherworldly hues. Ornate, cast-iron lanterns hang from balconies and awnings, from lampposts; a magician juggles little orbs of light between his antlers; light pours from the interiors of small shops, casting their patrons as odd shadows; occasionally something glowing darts down the streets, moving too quickly to be discernable. She smells candied apples and roasted nuts, sticky-sweet pastries and fine wine…and something with berries. Red ones.
They feel different from when she last visited, more otherworldly. She’s not sure that she likes the change, but Locust has always been superstitious.
Something lights between her shoulders, and she whirls, turning to stare into deep blue, reptilian eyes. “Well, you’re…new.” Locust blinks at the jewel-tone dragon, which gives a soft whirr in response. It crosses her mind that dragonskin would probably fetch a pretty penny, in that nice of a shade of pearlescent white, but the thought is gone as quickly as it came – the creature is too small to be worth the trouble, and, besides, it doesn’t seem to be doing any harm. “Where did you come from?” She’s heard stories of Denocte’s new queen, and her dragon. Perhaps they have something to do with that.
The dragon, of course, does not answer, but it does give a knowing chirp before it flies off again, landing somewhere in the exposed rafters of a nearby building; she thinks that she sees a few others with it, flashes of bloodred and emerald green scales shifting in the spotty darkness, but she doesn’t linger to pick them out.
The Scarab is just a few streets down, she thinks, so she could easily go and conduct some actual business, for productivity’s sake, but, for tonight, she just wants to walk. Go find the person who’s selling those candied apples and grab one, perhaps – gods know that they can’t keep sugared treats on the ship. They never last and attract flies in droves.
She doesn’t, though. She just leans back against one of the stone walls of one building or another, pulls her knife from its holster, and flips it in the air in front of her, all the while watching passerby on the street.
It’s been too long, she thinks, since she’s seen some faces she doesn’t recognize.
@open || well, this is....long. anyways. the girl is here. chronologically, this is pre-island, since I intend to throw her in that direction. || "sea of ice," callie siskel "Speech!" ||
she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
Maerys passed unobtrusively within the jungle, Vradara trudging alongside her. Every step is delicate against the moistened loam and leaflets that litter the area. There is viscous moisture that plagues the air, attended by the drone of beetles and the gentle trickle of rainwater. Though in times prior this novel realm appeared to be experiencing a wholly distinct season than the rest of Novus, now it welcomed warmness and bloom very much as springtime does. This rainfall, notably removed from dismal, deepens the hues of the jungle around her, adding a lush richness to the scene. The girl finds particular joy in the rain that soothes her heart and steadies her soul.
The path she explores goes on for miles before it winds into a different direction or before there is a fork in it which calls for a choice, as if the path was made for something that could move longer distances in a shorter time. For this reason, when a thick river comes into view, Maerys eyes it with curious felicity. The water is green, darker in the shadows and more pale in the light, but still undeniably green. For all its serenity, there is more danger in its swirling depths than the trees behind (especially on this island). Stepping forward carefully, her lips drop to the cool water and she indulges in the refreshing liquid, her front hooves on the edge of submersion.
Maerys and Vradara are considerably far from camouflaged now as the precipitation strikes their hindquarters and flanks. Maerys sandy coloring has deepened to a rich cedar and Vradara's rose scales glint softly at the light from above. The mare's silvery-white hair is unruly now, drenched in some segments and hardly moist in others, curling and knotting in unusual ways. As she lifts her cranium and steps deeper into the river, the trees shield her on neither side and she is wholly exposed - something exhilarating and unnerving in one breath.
On this unusual, foreign land, it was most likely wise not to be so blatantly apparent as creatures lurk that are sometimes far removed from friendly - something Maerys had truly yet to learn.
The canyon walls glow a hungry shade of red-orange in the light of the setting sun. Veins of quartz scissor across the sandstone in a fashion that almost seems to mirror the grey man and his scars. As he walks he touches the walls and imagines how they were formed (slowly and under immense pressure) and then gradually shaped. Would a man be shaped in the same way, if he were to live for centuries? Against his cheek the air is dry and cool, almost like that of a crypt as it rises from the shadowed canyon floor.
It seems fitting, for someone on his way to see a ghost.
Even if she never really died, he believed her dead, and what are other people if not a flesh-colored vessel to hold all we think of them? He mourned her, and long after the time for mourning had passed he kept his grief close to heart. The only chance he had of escaping that grief was to leave Solterra, but that was the also only thing he could not do. There was too much work to be done, and far less willing to do it. Anyway, he had done enough running from the past for one lifetime.
The strange thing was, to learn his queen was alive provided only the most marginal relief. He had to see her for himself, he had to know it was truth and not an elaborate illusion, a trick of the light buoyed by hope or magic. Would she be the same? (of course she wouldn’t, he thinks– what they don’t say about phoenixes is that they never rise from the ashes the same bird that kneeled to the flame) Would she be disappointed in him? Well that too was a foolish question. Of course she would.
He ran off to love (which is easy to mistake for happiness. It is not– it’s much better) and in his absence everything crumbled. It all fell apart so quickly, everything he worked for– everything she worked for. Everything the two of them, and Bexley Briar, strove to accomplish together, all those carefully laid plans and unspoken dreams.
In the end, the fruits of their labor tasted of iron and ash.
Of course, it was foolish of him to expect anything else. Anything more. Life was a struggle, a fight to the very last breath. He knew that. But he was a drowning man who did not know how to die, and so he grasped at hope-- stubborn, persistent hope. He wanted their kingdom to be beautiful. We don’t need to explain where hope got him.
His thoughts narrow as the canyon widens to a sandy clearing. The last of the day’s light streams down, carving the still air into chunks of light and shadow. He steps into the sunlight. Before him, in a place he cannot see, something stirs. “Is it true that the burning one has returned?” As he calls to the darkness, his heart quickens against his will. He never learned how not to hope.
E I K
grief can be a kind of music
that knows how to rise like the sea
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
It was a siren call that had started earlier that morning, as the dawn air had touched her body. It was a call that had grown in intensity as the heat of the day settled in, causing the vapors of her skin to work double time in keeping her hydrated (a requirement for a creature who was of the water more than she was of the land). She had tried right desperately to ignore it, but as the day wore on, the song wove longer, louder, more eager for her obedience. It was carried on the cries of gulls, on the sounds of waves echoing through the wind. It was amplified by the sun's reflection against the water's surface. It was shouted in her fibers, the very make up of her being - and sung louder by the knowledge of how long it had been since she'd dived deep beneath the waves, and just let herself be. The aqua-equine finally gave into the call, it wasn't a hard task to do, as her hooves carried her through the sands and rocks that made up the beach of Terminus Sea. She didn't hesitate as her limbs carried her into the water. She didn't pause to test the temperature of the waves, she didn't shiver as the water touched her knees, then her belly, then her shoulders, finally her neck. She didn't hold her breath as her head disappeared below the waves as well. The last touch of her to the surface, the last sign she had been there was the crest of her dorsal fin, where the tallest point between her ears and horns sat slowly disappeared beneath the waves. And she felt like she was home.
She stood beneath the waves, water filtering out of her gills as she breathed in the ocean. Her eyes seemed to have taken on a slight gleam of joy and excitement. This is what she had waited for, what she'd missed in the passing weeks, and months. Her eyes took in the world, her hooves at the very edge of the shallows. She waited for just a short moment before she finally pushed off with her hooves. It was a motion of pure grace and acceptance with her place as a creature of the waters, tailored by years of being part of the ocean experience, and tempered with the proper development and mechanics to survive in a watery environment. Her hooves coiled in close to her body as she dived off the edge of the sea bed that separated the shallows from the true depths and wonders of the deep sea, her powerful tail flipping through the air and guiding her body before she re-aligned her spine and stilled her movement to stream-line her descent into the colorful world below.
She slowed herself as she neared the corals and anemone of the deep, her eyes dancing from one colorful fish to the next, as starfish danced from area to area, carried on small currents beneath the wave. A few of the braver fish schooled close together as they swam around her, obscure the new addition to their ecosystem - even if her presence was just temporary for the time being. Her body moved into action as she practically danced around the fish and brightly colored corals and fans, playing a game of tag with the larger fish as her laugh bubbled from her, high pitch and carrying like that of a dolphin. She always sounded different underwater, her preferred communication being the sounds her people had learned to mimic and take from the dolphins they had often swam and played with during their travels. When speaking a more understood language, it still carried like song on the currents, soft and light and full of life in a way that typically only visible beneath the waves of the ocean, where she felt more at peace, more at home.
She swam with an ease, a willingness that reminded her like a pang to her heart that this was the life she was meant to live, where she was surrounded by the beauty and mystery of the depths of the seas . . . and she'd forsaken it for a life of land. As she chased small fish, her form cutting smoothly through water, she made a small mental note to not wait so long before she dived beneath the seas again.
Thoughts Speech
@'Jaylin'
i feel no cold, i feel no fear inside my mind Now I'm full of energy
She floats in the water, serpentine. From shore she might be mistaken as a large, crooked piece of driftwood. She is not.
Where are you moon? Moon, Moon, Mooon.
Moon was a new word to her and she repeats it over and over, imagining the way the letters roll around each other. How they would taste on her tongue, mixed with the air (Air, what a word! What a thing! Sometimes salty, sometimes... earthy, she thinks is the word for it) how they would rise from her throat like something sweet and syrupy.
It was important to know words, especially in a place where her name carried no weight. Princess Anandi would have to earn respect here, and one could hardly be respected without an education. But it was also of note that she liked the word moon for what it was. It was good to know the names of things that flattered you best, and oh how the moon flattered her.
She waits for the moon to come out (it felt like her only friend in this big, new world) and then she rises from the water step by shaky step. She always thought it would hurt to grow legs, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel good, either. It doesn't feel like anything at all except different, and different always fascinated her. What does feel good is the way the water clings to her, catches the moonlight, makes her shine like blue-violet marble-- if marble had teeth. Her eyes seem all the darker for the way the moon catches on her cheekbones and her mane, plastered to her neck, drips silver. She feels holy, sacred, beautiful.
If she had not come into this world three thousand feet below the sea, one might think she was born to the moon.
She walks inland so very slowly, a strange pearl spit from a strange sea. Moonlight drips from her, dangerously. If one looked carefully, they would see her hoofprints began at the edge of the ocean, and they might wonder what strange magic was at work tonight.
Birds are singing overhead, and nothing is as it should be —
Iscariot opens her eyes and the sky has turned from the bluest, darkest night to a clear outpouring of white sunlight, not a shred of cloud to be seen; it sends a spear of pain through her eyes and into the back of her skull. The dirt under her cheek — well, it’s not even dirt anymore, it’s bright white sand burning a heat signature into her skin. Wind roars past and ruffles her thick hair. The ocean is howling a few yards away, showering her in a foam of salt. (At least she thinks it’s the ocean, can only assume it’s the ocean, considering she’s never seen it before.)
All of this could be ignored — explained, even — if not for the birds.
There have never been anything but crows at home. And so, of course, this cannot be home.
Fear spikes through her like lightning and Iscariot surges to her feet, hooves slipping in the sand, her balance compromised for the second that she goes scrabbling for a grasp — she feels her heart pounding in her mouth with the ferocity of something scared and sick, and oh she does not want to think about her marking but even the word sick makes it unavoidable, and she can’t she can’t she can’t not look—
She turns her head over her shoulder, and the marking is stagnant, just as it was yesterday. The feeling of relief that hits her is so strong it nearly knocks her off her feet.
Her whole head buzzes like a swarm of something, a song black and deep and dark in the back of her mind. The island (it is an island, isn’t it?) is thrumming much in the same way, like a heartbeat, a current parallel to the one that pulses through her brain. The air is horribly humid, presses in on her throat tight as a hand. The threat of rain is still prominent; Iscariot feels it deep in her bones and in the way there is a storm collecting on the very edges of the horizon.
The beach is empty, but footprints still reign dark in the sand. Iscariot shakes her head, loosing a shower of grains, dry leaves and partially crushed shells; the skull wrapped into her braids is too stubborn to budge, and so are the tiny turquoise beads in leather. The smell of home (something heavy, smoke and tobacco, something sort of green too) breaks into the air around them, loosened by her movement, and Iscariot’s shaky breath is somewhat soothed by it.
Birds are singing in the trees, and nothing is right —
