There are moments when time ceases to have any real meaning. What, in reality, only lasts minutes seems to last for hours, instead. In the moments leading up to the birth of a child, not matter if it's your first, second, or third. When you've found your companion and your hearts and souls entertwine and you become one being. But most notably is when death is on your doorstep, knocking relentlessly, and beckoning you forward, welcoming you into its icy embrace.
We stood frozen in place, watching the horror as it unfolded before us. It took no time at all. Bodies disentergrated into nothing, families were destroyed, and it all took place in a matter of minutes. But it felt like so much longer. Maybe it's the terror and the sense of absolute hopelessness that makes everything seem like it lasts so much longer than it really does.
There were many things that I didn't understand. Why would our gods take lands that didn't belong to them? Why would they not make sure that the gods that came with the lands were completely destroyed? How could they be fooled so completely by a thing that claimed to be a god that none of them knew? Why would Kaos give us a way to escape? I questioned that the most in the short time that we stood watching him destroy our friends and families. A part of me suspected that it was a trap, the moment we stepped through the portal we'd all be dead ... but hope was what drove me to push my children through it. Hope that they would live. Hope that they would have a future. Hope that they would grow and love and have their own families to nurture.
...
Hope that I would see them again.
Darkness enveloped me as I stepped through the portal and then I was falling. I tumbled through the darkness, head over heels, wings flailing, eyes squeezed shut, mouth open as I tried to scream. My lungs were burning and my throat was raw, but no matter how much I screamed there was no sound. I was trapped in a void, falling, and the terrifying thought that I would be stuck there forever cemented itself in my brain.
Then, suddenly, I could feel wind in my hair. I could hear a blood curdling, terrified scream. And I realized that I was still falling, but I was no longer surrounded by darkness. That it was my scream that I was hearing.
And then I hit the water.
I was below the surface before I could even take a breath. Water filled my open mouth, blurred my vision, pulled me deeper and deeper beneath the surface. My wings flailed and I kicked my legs as I fought my way back to the surface. I needed a breath and the minute I broke through the surface of the water I greedily sucked in as much oxygen as I could. I coughed and spluttered as I made my way to the shore, desperate for the feel of something solid beneath my hooves.
When I finally did make it to the shore I stood there, my legs trembling and my sides heaving as I tried to catch my breath. I looked up at the sky and watched the swirling portal, waiting for the rest of my family to come tumbling through into the water. They didn't. The portal began to close and dread settled in my stomach like a lead weight. Where were they? Letha, Requiem, Gabriel, Geronimo, Dragomir, Mara ....
Where were they?
"No..." I whispered as the portal closed and none of them came through. "No, no, no..." My knees buckled and I sank to the ground, wondering what I was going to do.
"."
stood at the coal face, stood with our backs to the sun
i can remember being nothing but fearless and young
Dusted with star matter and borne upon tides of nature, hers is the beauty of wild places.
The mare was quickly starting to believe that she had inherited the role of the welcoming committee.
Yet, a woman falling from a portal in the sky and into the oasis pool while Eden munched contentedly on night lilies and sweet grasses was not the sort of welcome that she wanted to get used to giving. Head snapping upward and muscles tensing with the shock of what she was seeing, the golden lass' amber eyes scoured the rippling surface of the oasis pool for a heartbeat, waiting for the mare to resurface. When two heartbeats passed and nothing burst forth from the sandy depths, Eden rushed forward, golden hooves pressing semi circles into the spongy earth as she neared the lip of the pool. On the third heartbeat, the stranger's head broke the water, lips parted as she gasped for air, a horrible desperation in those ruby eyes.
"Yes, come this way, you can do it. Come," Encouraged the warrioress as the stranger fought toward the shore, not believing for one moment that the unnamed mare wouldn't lash out if Eden were to stray too close; the stranger was all things primal now, she was struggling and fighting for life, grabbing hold of the thin string that tied each creature to their existence and refusing to let go.
It was not the kind of panic that you could approach.
Brow creasing, Eden let her eyes wander over the woman, checking quickly for any life threatening injuries and finding none, the paladin let her gaze follow that of the strangers - to the shrinking portal. A plethora of questions exploded into the maiden's mind, burning at her tongue and prancing over her lips, but she knew better than to give voice to them. She would do nothing but pour salt in the wounds of a heartsick woman, and that was not what she had been placed in this world to do. Taking a few careful steps toward the gold decorated woman as she sunk to her knees, noting the agony etched into every line of her body, Eden stopped a few feet from the stranger before lowering herself to the earth as well.
The shield maiden sat there in silence with the unknown woman for some time, mourning with her and sharing in her grief - though Eden knew nothing of the soul shattering pain that brushed itself over the mare, she did her best to help shoulder some of the weight.
Eons passed, it seemed, before the golden girl found the will to speak, "Where there is life, there is hope."
The lion watched the flock with a heavy gaze and baited breath, waiting each second for what could become another attack from a Teryr or some other threat. There were threats to the south, threats from the wildlife, and threats that daily living in a hostile, merciless place conjured.
What the soveriegn did not expect to see was a portal open in the heavens as is Tempus himself had parted the skies, leaving traces of quivering clouds and scarred wind for all to see. Maxence stood speachless and in horror as he watched as one of their kind plumetted from the heavens,not for the first but the second time.
In a vibrant, sweeping motion the King burst his wings off of his sides and ducked into flight, leaping from the top of the walls of the fort and sailing down upon the current with ease. His sails guided him in the direction of the Oasis where he had seen the fragment fall upon the horizon, or at least that's what it had looked like over the dunes, and when he arrived he was greeted with a sight that he was more of less happy to see.
Eden.
Giving a stomp of his hoof in greeting and salute for his warrior, Maxence panted as he gazed through his frown at the dark female wading from the pool. "Calligo's tits, what the fuck's going on here?" was all he managed to grumble, though truly he was surveying the damage upon the gilded mares slender bodice. "You need a healer" he spoke matter-of-factly, though moments later he came to anticipate a 'no shit sherlock' comment.
10-23-2017, 12:18 PM
Played by
Rae [PM] Posts: 301 — Threads: 41 Signos: 15
From half-sleep somewhere in the maze of the canyon walls, he awakens. Perhaps it was a sound or color or electricity that woke him. Perhaps it was a scream- but in his memory, the scream would come second to waking. He does not move until the sound stops. Even then, he is motionless for a moment. He does not know what madness he is about to get himself into, he does not know if he wants to get himself into it. But then he is moving, navigating around the walls of the canyon to where he heard the scream abruptly stop. From that direction he hears the sound of water dancing. It encourages him that he goes in the right direction.
A gentle voice rises above the sound of splashing, but it is quickly gone again. The canyon walls twist the way sounds travel-- you could almost believe the voice was the water itself. The lull of the goddess. But he shrugs aside the thought for another day-- he's moving and tells himself we have no time for fantastical things.
(Little do we know we move toward the fantastical, and a hundred ideas we thought beyond us, beyond nature. How grandiose we think ourselves, how big our minds are! Yet how much is beyond us!
But we digress- all the world's a stage, is it not? We unwittingly seek our entrance.)
Maxence flies overhead, reaffirms Eik's direction is true, and it is just another few turns before he is among them.
His attention is immediately and raptly drawn to the bedraggled woman in gold. Her expression almost stops him in his tracks. A world of his own pain instantly and cruelly descends-- he knows the look on her face, and his heart breaks for her the way it could never break for himself. If it were just the two of them he would react differently, but Maxence has a good grip on the situation and the striped woman, well, seems a thousand times more comforting than the scarred, grizzled warrior would be to a stranger.
So he steps forward, head low in greeting to all three but eyes on the fallen one. He has shaken off the pain once again, and while the sharpness is gone the ache is still there. Particularly when looking at her. He nickers softly- in encouragement, in agreement, and in welcome. A sorry welcome.
Only trust the story.
- E I K
smh he's USELESS I'm so sorry @Ranjiri @Eden @Maxence
Was this some kind of joke? One last spiteful, hateful, evil joke that Kaos had decided to play on all of us? Did he just force us through a portal under the threat of death just to separate us from what was left of our families just to hurt us more?
With each passing question that rolled through my mind my grief was replaced by rage. My ears were pinned back against my head as I surged unsteadily to my feet. "You son of a bitch!" I screamed at the sky, where the portal had been. We were all supposed to stay together. We were supposed to be in The Rift together and ... I was alone. I had made sure to push my family through before me, so they should have been here. "We were supposed to stay together!" I screamed again. "You son of a bitch! I hate you!"
Just as quickly as my rage had bubbled up it was gone, leaving me visibly deflated. My head dropped and I stared at my hooves and the ground. It took ... far longer than it should have for me to actually see the sand that coated my wet legs and hooves. It took a few seconds longer for me to realize that there were others around me, speaking to me, though their voices sounded muffled over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. For a moment I had hope that I had been mistaken in my thinking that my family had not come through the portal - that they were the ones who stood around me.
One look at the mare closest to me was enough to dash that hope into pieces smaller than the grains of sand we stood upon. My gaze shifted from her to the winged stallion who exuded an air of authority. Then, finally, I looked at the grey stallion who appeared to be the last to arrive. They looked ... normal. Nothing like what I expected creatures from the Rift to look like.
But, wait...
My head rose a little higher, my ears tilted forward, and I finally looked around at the place I'd fallen. It ... it almost looked like the Dragon's Throat. The sand, the oasis, the heat. It felt so close to home that my chest hurt and I grimaced. This ... this had to be some kind of a joke. Maybe I had died the minute I stepped through that portal. Maybe this was what heaven looked like.
"Where ... where am I?" I finally choked out, my voice raspy from the screaming I had done. "Who are you?"
"."
stood at the coal face, stood with our backs to the sun
i can remember being nothing but fearless and young
In the stark desert Eik is just another odd creature. Among the cholla and agave and yucca, he stands giant but decidedly dull. No knives or spines on this one-- although one doesn't collect as many scars as he without knowing how to leave them in return... But we're starting to dance on the edge of the blade, and he stands before her to offer the hilt. So here you have him- simple, gentle, tripping over his many thoughts. The desert is not natural to him but it has grown on him, or he on it. He smells now of Solterra, all hot sand and sweat and dates and sage. He is simple, unimposing. Nothing like her golden decadence, her wings a thing of grace even when waterlogged and hanging like discarded gloves.
(Oh, how he'd love to fly. To float above the world. Maybe he thinks if he could fly high enough his troubles could not follow.)
"You are in Solterra." His voice is smooth, but hints at something tumultuous deep beneath the surface. "Why are you here? Where are you from?" He asks quickly, but with curiosity and not aggression. It is not in his nature to be afraid, especially not of women spun of gold.
He pities her, although he tries not to. Pity never did anyone good. But he's never had much control over his thoughts, let alone his feelings. They run rampant, all he can do is let them be or shove them aside for another day. But he is careful to not let his feelings bleed into his face, where she can see them. Some people are open books, it just takes a glance to know what they're feeling and how severely. He is not some people.
"I'm Eik. Who are you." The tilt of his head, it means he is thinking something about her. Her screaming comes to mind and he plays her words over again. The questions bubble up, faster than they can be popped. "Who do you hate? Who is we?"
