The massive ebony stallion snorted as he gazed at the card that had been slipped to him as he had wandered the markets. He hadnt even gotten a good look at the messenger, a flash of emerald eyes and murmured words that were lost in the crowd. Shaking his head, he looked at the wings before him and flicked an ear. Pressing the card to the wings, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Gazing around with his molten gold gaze, he took in the floor where the gambling was happening in a ruckus and the lounge where others were drinking and conversing. Frowning, he headed toward the latter. He was never one for gambling, nor alcohol. Shaking his head, he found a place to rest his hooves and watch the beings that were around him.
"Can I get you something?" A soft voice echoed, startling him from his musing. Turning his head, he took in the mare that asked and nodded. "Mint tea, please." He murmured, answering the mare's inquiry. She gave one sharp nod and left. In her absence, Sol spent time watching the crowd around him while he shuffled his wings and got comfortable. The mare was back with a steaming cup that smelled heavenly. Smiling and paying the mare, he took time to sip his tea and just relax.
@
"Speaking." Notes: Open to anyone <3 Just wanted to throw someone at the Scarab and see what happens lol
Weak mortals they were, chasing fables spilled from the mouth of a child. And Vince was just as gullible. He had no idea what power the relic might possess, though he surmised that even the slightest possibility of granting him immortality was well worth shuffling around the island for. What better gift from the God of Time? If there was anything Vince so desired to possess, it was just that. Another trump card to play at his leisure, tucked tightly away with all his other secret ploys to escape a death he most certainly knew he deserved. Dying was a rather unpleasant experience, as he recalled, and he wasn’t very fond of doing it again. His aging, disabled body was only a reminder of that inevitability. He became more aware of it now. The taste of blood on his tongue that never ceased, yet never drained him. Mutilated ears that couldn’t twist or turn to hear his surroundings no matter how hard he willed them to. This was the perpetual state of his existence, a cumbersome body his own overgrown pride could barely mask the loathing for. He did not walk, no the beast shuffled through the forest, overgrown and mangled with vines where eager hooves had not yet touched it. His own blood red ones snapped branches and smothered leaves, dragging up the dirt where his disfigured foreleg merely tagged along as dead weight. Stealth was certainly not his asset any longer, but he could admit that he had plenty of charms to make up for it. Of course…none came to mind that very moment, but they were there—he could assure you. Ooc // Vince is much more amusing when he has company.
the drunkenness of youth has passed like a fever, like foam upon the sand
S
hivers ache with the breathing of the island, the silence of the birds send skeletal hands stroking shaking ears that strain and strain and strain to hear every creaking branch and sighing leaf fall. Lazy, half moon, half sun, half demon eyes are falsely relaxed, tuning in to every moving shadow, every shifting thing. Swaying hips have made great men fall to their knees and foolish boys follow prettily behind in a train of nothing more than idiots and dreamers.
She is seduction in red skin.
Wings ruffle as green lined with silver run along shoulders and feathers, cheeks and hips. Fruits dangle, teasingly, temptingly, sweetly down from branches high and bushes low. In the caress of night, some glow, some sing, some bring her nearer and nearer. Only the hiss of cat-tail in the periphery pulls her away. Stops a mistake before it happens. Reminds her of her reason for being here.
It matters little what prying eyes watch, they’ll find a sight. They’ll find soft lips curled in a languid smile, curving cheeks grinning below half-moon eyes. There is no resignation, no damnation, only determination.
Not even Caligo can stop her now.
Night holds her breath when Moira takes another step, when her shadow that is not a shadow echoes it so closely, when trees crawl out of the way to bring her near a small, gurgling pool that shines with black pearls and strange fish. Blinking, they stare and she stares and eternity passes between them all.
Perhaps, the phoenix considers, this island is the most alive thing she’s ever known.
the caged bird longs for the fluttering of high leaves. the fish in the garden pool languishes for meeting waters of whirled streams.
F
eet brush along a changing surface, crunching below grates like broken glass, and the sand shifts evermore with pearls and shells falling to the wayside. Once-long hair, now cut, and cropped and tied back into a fierce and battle-ready form, seems to shiver with the sighing of the seas. Waters reach forth, beg to touch dark feet, press against naked ankles save for golden bracelets and children’s dreams.
They are denied by the woman and tiger.
Orange stripes streak over the land next to the winged creature. Together, they are sleek. Together, they are strong.
Rumors spread like wildfire, lifting into the air on dandelion seeds, running through the people as wind through stalks of grass. Murmurs of the colt who fell. The colt the healer had rushed to, checked his pulse and head, checked for bruises and bandaged as best she could. Stories that came of it were of little consequence. Yet here she walks, along the edge of the world, looking for that song in her blood that calls for something...something more than her, more than the tigress, more than everything.
Something new that is not quite him and not quite her and not quite of this earth.
So they seek Time hand in hand.
@ | "speaks" | notes: open to any who wish to delve into the island with a pensive girl
The mountains part like wings - tawny and solemn - that beat above the castles of Denocte. Her memories of this earth seem suddenly bloodless in lieu of the glittering country that stretches like a waking cat, arching the dark Night hills that slumber beneath a turbid sky. Her mind dared not rival the magnificence of reality.
Each step taken feels leaden, feels debilitating, and it does not take the barb of an eagle's eye to catch the way her sylphlike shoulders wilt and cave. Perhaps, if one should stumble upon the young girl, you might notice the crude tousles in her curls that have bound themselves so tightly against her crest - and you would feel that such disarray looks amiss upon a girl with eyes like blue orchids.
Sabine had not thought she would again walk the path that lead back toward her birthland, not after all that had since passed. The last time she had touched this earth, she had been plagued by the sight, scent and sound of a man who should have been long dead; Sabine had since prayed to Gods she did not believe in to first crush the madness that held her head in a high-church fever and, when that had failed, to then take him from the soft nook of her arm, for she could not deliver to him the paradise he should need.
But the madness did not wane and his voice never left her heart -- even now, she could feel the gasoline chill pressing against the nape of her neck like an eye she could not avert.
And Acton was only the first.
But she cannot not think of that now; not when the alpine scree drops into thin air only inches from her feet, when the thinness of that air seems to beckon her closer with each passing moment.
It would be so easy, wouldn't it?
To close her eyes and lean, momentarily, a little too hard to the left. Sabi imagines the way she might initially stumble (lungs billowing, muscles yielding) before the chasm would reach up to claim its long-awaited prize. She doesn't think it would hurt -- better than burning, better than bleeding, better than the death that was alive within her ribs.
The thought clings on long enough to bring her weary pilgrimage to a stop, and as she casts a wistful gaze down-down-down into the black, Sabine cannot not help but realise, if she takes that final step, there is not a single soul alive to miss her when she was gone.
There was a spot on the island where the forming flow sunk beneath the waves and was pummeled in places by the force of the water. When the tide rolled out, it revealed a coastline of craggy pools, separated off by craggy ridges, like miniature mountain ranges, a tiny, topographical map of a completely different world. Sea creatures of all sorts hemmed and hawwed in the small pools, starfish and urchins and even tiny fish, who seemed to flit around with anxious energy, probably counting every single, dreadful second until the seawater would return and free them from their tiny prison where the oxygen was steadily diminishing with each minute slither of gills.
Kassandra was avoiding the great, green, living mass of the jungle which pulsed at the center of the island like some terrible, wonderful tumor; the wind brushed a raspy breath along the sparse grass and broad-leafed shrubs at its outer rim, and the tops of ring-trunked trees swayed and bent under their very height. Small flashes of color, beautiful climbing flowers, chirping tropical birds, and probably a monkey or two bent the inner boughs and gave the jungle some movement to the outside eye; to Kass it seemed a poison fruit, beautiful and tempting but terrible and taboo all at the same time. She had great reservations about exploring its depths, but she was no stranger to the push and pull of fate; something had drawn her here, though what it was, she did not know. It could be horrible or it could be wonderful; she would end up pushing into the jungle. Despite her lingering fears, she knew it was unavoidable— but it was not urgent, necessarily, not yet.
Nearby, Oculos was perched on a slight ridge, staring into a tidal pool with his amazing vision, stock still save for the gentle twitch, raise, or lowering of one or both of his ears. Kassandra, distracted by some tiny crabs marching in and out of a forest of flotsam, turned away and walked over to where her Bonded sat to see what was arresting his attention so much. She came to his side and snorted.
A dead fish, silver belly up, yellowed eyes staring aimlessly off at the far horizon, floated gently this way and that on the ripples of the tide pool. It was small, not five inches long, with black fins and a black line across the width of its tail. Kassandra did not want to ask the Borzoi why he was so fascinated with the piscine corpse; she had a terrible feeling she already knew. She tossed her head into the distance and considered entering the jungle just to distract herself from what was coming next.
Her suspicions were confirmed when Oculos licked his lips and asked, (‘Should I eat it?’)
“No!” Kassandra said, disgusted and disappointed but not at all surprised. When she and Oculos had been drying and dying in the desert they ate whatever came to them, and so the sighthound had consumed the remnants of many dehydrated corpses; it may make her hifalutin, but Kassandra had hoped those days were behind them. Maybe a bit of those silverite and ivory cage bars had worn off on her, cage though it was. “Go into the jungle to hunt,” she suggested, “maybe you can catch a monkey.”
(‘Hrmph,’) Oculos grunted, laying down int he sand with a grumble in his throat. The tips of his curved nails and white-capped paws dipped into the dead fish’s resting place. (‘This is here and ready, though I’ve not eaten monkey before…’)
Kassandra sighed, unable to keep a bit of the haughty disgust from her tone, and moved further on down the coastline, hoping to find something to keep her mind off the looming expanse of the jungle behind her.
kassandraoculos | 634 | @Huehuecoyotl | I really gotta go to work so this is a bit short & I'm not super happy with the coding but BIG SHRUGS ; also this is going to be the first chronological thread of her on the island, for my own notes
He knows, he knows, he is not the only thing in Novus’ waters with sharp teeth and sharper hunger. After he had Made the pegasus (a used pair of wings, she had said, a vessel for duty; he wonders if she knows differently now, if she marvels at her wolf’s teeth and lion’s instincts, she who had seemed so numb, half-dead) the kelpie had left the waters of the mainland. There he had waited out the winter and mourned the passing of the zenith of his powers, and there he had wondered whether he might be pursued.
But it is not the horses of Novus he is wary of now. From that first roiling of sea and earth, from that eruption of smoke and birds thick and fleeing and chaotic, the unicorn sensed the change. Something was different. Something was loose. Behemoth shapes slid long as structures in the dark far beneath the surface, and things with too many tentacles, and monsters that would dare to chase a kelpie back to the frothing shores of Denocte.
Yet the pull of the magic is stronger still.
It draws them all, a hum at the back of their throats, a buzzing in their blood, a new kind of need. It draws Amaroq, too - but not until night, and not until late, when the ivy is withered and all the pearls have been swept into the sea. Only then does he come, dark beneath the starless night, the seafoam color of his mane and tail like the path of the moon on the water as it sweeps over glistening black rock. When he arrives he keeps to himself; when he chances to meet another he listens only, long teeth hidden behind dark lips, nothing but another stranger in a crowd of them. There are many rumors, and none are of a kelpie who attacked a girl. They are far more interesting than that.
He is not sure he believes in gods, of Novus or no. But he believes in magic, and that is a thick thing here, almost electric. And he believes in power, and that is what the Relic must be. And Amaroq believes in monsters, and oh, those are here too, he can smell their hot breath, hear their panting in the dark.
The island is all strange - trees and plants that fruit and flower out of season, birthing things of metal and stone. Birds who sing too many notes in terrible patterns, too many eyes that shine out of the dark. But it is Amaroq who feels out of place here, with ice in his veins against the wet heat of the place, wandering inland from a sea that churns with creatures who have woken from a slumber of dread dreams.
The unicorn picks his way through the forest in the dark, and ice melts in his footprints like the ring beneath a glass. No stars can cut through the canopy; the only light is the flicker of insects, the glow of mushrooms, the blue gleam that curls up the stalks of vines. He follows the sound of a stream (but nothing so commonplace as the laugh and chuckle of a brook - this water wails like a violin, it crescendos and fades like a symphony) until he finds the source of it. It cuts black, black, black across his path, and he can’t make out the bottom.
The water laughs, and sings, and he wonders if it is singing in him, too, if it is a black thread to the heart of the island -
Before he can drink, a figure separates from the tangle of foliage across the water. The way Amaroq lowers his horn then is both question and answer.
There is a crowd on the beach.
Apparently, most of Novus’s population feels more comfortable on the shore than in the woods – he can’t blame them, though his reaction is mostly the opposite. Septimus does not feel uncomfortable anywhere on this island, which is too much like home to provoke him to anything more than well-deserved caution, but the wide-open expanse of the beach makes him uncomfortable. He feels far too exposed, out there; he is sure that there are dangers on the island, and they are perhaps more numerous in the forests, but, in the forest, there are places to hide. Out here, if something came barreling from the woods or creeping from the ocean, it would likely catch you – and there would be nowhere to go to escape it, save to run blindly into the danger of the woods.
But, he thinks, rather morbidly, as he examines the shoreline, there would be plenty of bodies for the beasts to go after, not necessarily his – and he did have wings, though he doesn’t trust whatever magic occupies this place to not ground him again, as it had on the bridge.
The shore doesn’t matter. He is searching for the relic, which means that he has to go inland – which means that the froth of mortals washed up like seafoam on the sand are not his concern.
With a toss of his antlered head (which makes the stones on his antlers gleam rather nicely in the mid-afternoon light), Septimus wades into the crowd, brushing shoulder and flank with tangled passerby. Somewhere, in the midst of it, he becomes vaguely aware of - someone - at his side, fiddling with the jewels. He tosses his head again, rather sharply, and extends his wings a hair, pushing the crowd back at his sides.
He slips out of them and into the woods, his strides extending gracefully the moment that he moves from sand to grass and dirt and fallen leaf; although he was in the forest only yesterday evening, it seems to have changed entirely. The trees are different. Their leaves – different. Deciduous, not coniferous. The trees are more evenly spaced, but the foliage on the ground is more dense – full of saplings, bushes, and weeds. This is of no consequence to Septimus. He strides forward with all the even certainty of a deer, marveling at the way the trees split the light into shafts – stripes of dark and light.
But he still feels eyes on his back – and, if he listens carefully, he thinks that he hears the soft crunch of hooves against leaves, somewhere behind him. Septimus stifles a snort; perhaps the thief (or so he assumes) from the beach had followed him out. If that were the case, well, then it was certainly his duty to catch them. Couldn’t just let one run around the island, stealing jewelry from unsuspecting passerby without any sort of consequence.
(Stealing from him, anyways.)
Septimus slows to a halt near the roots of an ancient, gnarled Ash tree, with branches wide enough to block out the sky in an extensive radius around the trunk. He might have sketched it, under different circumstances; he might still, once he’s dealt with his follower. For now, he steps across the roots and then, abruptly, lies down atop them. Once there, he closes his eyes, as though attempting to take a moment’s rest…
(A ridiculous notion, under the circumstances – Septimus could be rash, but he was no fool, and he knew well that there were forces at play that were far beyond his current capabilities.)
When he hears the sound of approaching hooves, drawing closer and closer still, he looks up, green eyes blinking open – at a figure. She is a little blonde slip, cream-coated and pale-haired with brilliant green eyes. The girl – for she is a girl, barely on the cusp of adulthood; he suspects that she will grow into something lovely, but, for now, a gangly hint of youthfulness still clings to her features, like a rob – is so small and lithe in frame that it almost makes Septimus smile; she is a bold creature, going after him, with his antlers and significantly larger frame. (Or perhaps she simply underestimates him because of his spectacles.) She must be about the age of some of his younger sisters, if they were mortal, and she certainly doesn’t look poor enough to need to steal. Her frame is not gaunt from hunger, and, in fact, she is rather adorned, with those spires in her hair. Septimus is tempted to gift her one of the green gemstones dangling from his antlers anyways, to reward her for her boldness.
He flashes her a sharp-toothed, cheerful smile – and he makes sure that she can see his canines. “I’d have thought that anyone brave enough to steal with a god about would be a better thief,” he observes blandly, meeting eyes that are as jewel-green as his own.
NOW YOU'VE GONE, NOW YOU'VE GONE TO A DIFFERENT LIFE--
He’s been in Denocte for a few weeks, now, struggling to find his bearings in this strange new land.
Today, as dawn breaks over the edge of the horizon – a spill of pastel pinks and oranges cut jagged by the lunging sharpness of the mountains that he has been informed are called the Arma -, Septimus greets the day by stepping outside of the city walls for the first time since he arrived. When he entered the Night Kingdom, he thought that his magic would return in a matter of days; realm-hopping spells were always straining, particularly when they went wrong. When it became obvious that his fae-blood had been suppressed by some force that was not mere exhaustion, he’d fallen into a great and terrible despair, and he’d comforted himself by wandering the city streets, sketching the jewel-like pygmy dragons, and struggling to piece together bit by bit of information about this Novus from any passerby who seemed to be even somewhat interesting.
(The Scarab, at least, had proven good for that.)
However, tempting as it was to linger and linger until he lost his mind from the lingering, Septimus soon grew tired of sulking, and even more tired of city walls and cobblestone streets. He left before the sun could rise, and, though he suspected that he’d be back to gather supplies enough for the journey across the continent (to Delumine, which supposedly has a wonderful library which might contain some information of how to regain his magic), Septimus set to mind to enjoy the land outside of the Night Court as much as possible, for he did not know how long it would take him to return.
He circles above rolling hills, looking down.
Snow covers the ground in a thin layer of crisp white, largely untouched but discolored here and there by muddy banks. From above, it seems exceptionally pristine and linear, and it sparkles in the newborn sun as though it is made of crushed diamonds instead of frozen water. It is early spring; the snow will not remain much longer, and he suspects that it is already melting in the morning heat, but, for now, the world is blanketed in soft white, occasionally interrupted by dark stubs of grass that have already broken the surface. Dark trees, still leafless and bony from winter, sprout sporadically across the fields, near-black from the distance. (And in the early dawn; the sun is only just beginning to rise on the horizon.)
Septimus does not swoop down, his dark wings curving to make for a comfortable, circling landing, until he reaches the massive lake nestled in the territory. From above, it is like a mirror, reflecting the sky; half is the bright rose of dawn, but half is still dark, so dark that he can still see the stars. He lands on the bank, hooves digging into the wet soil (half from the lake and half from the melting snow), and stares out across the water, at nothing.
It’s quiet – not even the birds are out yet, this early, and it isn’t late enough in spring for the bugs. Tucking his wings over his pack neatly, Septimus stares out across the water wistfully.
He longs, for a moment, for home.
Antiope grasps the handle of her axe a little harder, turning eyes as blue as the churning sea toward the girl who has come up behind her. There are no monsters swarming beneath the surface of her gaze, but it looks like there could be, looks like perhaps the lioness in her bones isn’t so far under her skin as she seems.
“No,” she replies, turning toward where her axe had struck the vines. Her blade, gifted by gods with a heat so bright and burning it could cut through most things, had made not a single mark on the wall of ivy. “My weapon has never failed me before. Whatever this is, it is magic—a strange, powerful magic.”
In a moment the glowing of her axe’s double-headed blades has dimmed down to nothing, making it appear once again as just a normal labrys, before she places it back in the sling about her chest and sides. She turns fully toward the other equine, and her eyes are like a wave as they rise up and over her newfound companion, scouring her form. She sported a pearlescent horn and golden spikes in her mane, as sharp as any weapon. As sharp as any tongue, too, Antiope thought.
“I don’t believe there is a way through, unless you have got any ideas,” Antiope takes a step away from the wall, putting less distance between her and this stranger, and she thinks that there are so many reasons she wants to go beyond the ivy. As many reasons, she assumes, as it has for keeping her out. But she’s not sure her reasons are strong enough to keep her standing here. To see if it eventually reveals its secrets.
There is something else about her, though, as she stands there backed by the bridge and the water and the sky. Something wild and untamed and otherworldly. Perhaps it is the depth of her eyes or the shadows of her stripes, or the blood red she wears so casually splashed across her throat, in her hair, around her eyes. “You’re the first I’ve seen since coming out here.” Where were the rest?
