Solis’ light grows brighter as the sun continues to rise, the flames in his mane and eyes alike dancing hungrily. The hunger found within him only grows as the warriors and hunters arrive.
“The morning gives rise and brings the sun home to me,” he answers Mathias with a casual flick of his tail, as if nothing in the world was more obvious. After all, he was the God of Day - Solis loved the sun even more than he loved himself. It fed him, energized him, brought him to life. So long as the sun was up and he was free from his statue, Solis had all the solar energy in Novus to bend to his will.
He flicks his tail again, the anticipation growing - and with it, his impatience. “You’ve defeated a Tetyr before, I’m sure this will be like a stroll along the beach in comparison,” he tells the silver Queen - but oh, things are never so easy as that, surely. The God takes one step, then another, and another, nodding to the Court to follow. If they were going to talk, they might as well walk, too, he supposed.
“A herd of elk have made their home in the Mors, if you can really call them that. Their antlers are made of ice, their fur is blue, and half of their body looks like some mutated peacock, so call them what you will. They emanate ice and snow with every breath, causing this blizzard.”
He looks at Seraphina from the corner of one eye. “In fact, they almost remind me of you, my dear queen. Cold, but strong.” It’s a jibe to be sure, but his tone is no less playful because of it. “That doesn’t complicate things for you, does it?”
With every step closer to the desert, the temperature continues to drop, the wind picking up and sending flurries of snow swirling around them. Off in the distance a figure appears, tall and imposing - or is it just a trick of the light?
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Unnerving quiet washed over and over, buried him beneath the sands as the memory of him became a ghost within Solterra's whispering, dry winds. The void had swallowed him whole, burned bright and burned him out — hollowed him. A witch within the swamps had tempted him, lured him into the murky depths with a promise to open his eyes, with promised knowledge of his home, Stolthet.
And blindly, he had followed; like a lemming over a cliff, he was once more cast through worlds. The pain he felt the first time Virun had violently flung him into Novus — the agonizing shredding that pulled at the inside of his ribs, that flayed his flesh and stitched it back together... oh, it returned with vengeance, searing him alive. Until his worn, cracked hooves found purchase in his old home.
His eyes laid upon a smoldering wreck, burning and vile. There was nothing left... nothing left of Stolthet, nothing left of Roskildar. Empty homes burned to the ground, the very ash they were reduced to swept away by a violent wind. And for ages he searched, plucking through miles upon miles of destruction. He met no one but angry wraiths, their claws raking his skin and howls fueling the angry wind.
Nothing, nothing, nothing,NOTHING.
And so he left the Nothing and returned, bitterness overtaking his senses and blooming on his tongue. When he had first came to Novus, a seed of concern and consideration had somehow nestled in his rotten heart - then, it grew to a proud little sapling, budding obnoxiously through old and cracked bones. But now? It was smothered — dead under the weight of anger that suffocated his soul.
Hooves pressed familiarly into the loose sand as the cold bit unusually at his hide. Scars and scabbed wounds littered the expanse of him; a patchwork of violence. All of Solterra was blanketed in thick snow, and the Warden regarded it with a dull eye. There was no warmth within him or his gaze.. just venom.
- - - - - - - - -
It did not take long for him to find the gathering party, bustling around a vividly bright figure at their center. He languidly approached, hooves breaking the fresh crust of snow and he eyed the attendees warily. The Triennial Eye burned bright on his forehead, opened wide as its pupil darted frantically between all those in his midst. It eyed Solis and Seraphina the longest, its pupil dilating and contracting.
Solis was met with a skeptical, passing gaze from the Warden. There were so many unfamiliar faces that littered this hollow home... although Solis himself was the most shocking. Mathias, Saphrax (flaming wings? that's new), Veer, Elif, Apolonia (why does her attitude remind me of someone?), Teiran, Basileios, El Toro... he easily dwarfed every single one of them.
Seraphina. His gaze settles heavily on her with a pause in his step. There is no particular feeling in his stare, and he offers no words — no explanation — to the Sovereign. Just silence, his lungs filled with stale air, indifference, and blooming anger.
An ombre ear that could easily pass as frostbitten twitched at Solis' jabs and snide remarks... and especially at the mention of those creature out within the Mors. Elk? He means to insinuate that ELK have caused this blizzard? A sarcastic snort breaks the brief silence as he idly wonders if he forgot he imbibed in some hallucinogens or something equally as absurd.
This was going to be a shitshow. But nonetheless, he follows.
the divine beasts "It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be."
He is still a solitary thing in the sky for none of the others are brave enough to cast their shadows away from the sun-god and their status at his side. Veer alone cuts through icy sky and his lazy circles get both larger and higher as he follows along with the herd of soon-to-be hunters.
He is soon-to-be nothing.
He is. He is.
The faint echoes of words drift up to him. Sometimes he catches the glint of sunlight off a hurl-bat and other strange, brighter than skin spots on horses' faces. Most of him is glad he's high enough to be free of whatever strange, heading to battle, rituals the god or the queen might have. The other part of him, that deep part that is still a boy who was hated by his father, wonders what he might be missing out of him. But that is tiny, almost smaller than dust, and so he starts his own ritual.
Veer stretches his wings and hums with the sound the wind makes as it cuts like a blade between his feathers. He grinds his teeth together and licks the frost and dryness from his lips. Beneath his skin his spine coils like a wildcat and all his muscles almost purr for the stretch. Najjad is rubbing off on him, everyday he is more lion and more eagle than horse.
He feels like a coiled cobra—waiting, waiting, waiting.
A creature appears on a snow-covered dune just as the sky around him thickens with snow and each of his breaths rises up from him like smoke. Veer uncoils as quickly as a cobra then, and he folds his wings tight to his body so that he might become both an arrow and a sword. In the morning light he shines like polished obsidian.
Down, down, down.
He dives and wonders just how much strength he might need to snap those icy looking horns from the beast's head like petals from a rose. Veer is eager to find out for here, with violence singing in his blood and frost chilling the fire of his need, he is home.
All those gathered are people he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know a damn person in this court. Perhaps he had shown up on the wrong day. Perhaps he should have shown up after the court he was in and done to hell and finally came back. Oh well, he surmises, surely there was a reason he had found himself here…now. Perhaps there was a new young mare waiting for him to ravage. Surely. There had to be some good tail here.
He is not bothered by those that try to appear big and bad. He’s not scared of them and it doesn’t really make him look more at them. He’s aware of the circling vultures, of the God, and of those gathered. But he decides that he can spend an afternoon with this rowdy bunch of misfits. What else does he have on his calendar for today?
As the God begins walking, he follows. He makes sure to fluff his feathers a bit and show off. After all, if he was going to be getting any sort of tail here, he had to show off the goods. Why not, right?
However, he’s quacking realizing that this little adventure he has set himself on is proving to be a little rough. He’s freezing. Freezing temps make his junk shrink up into his body like a pre-pubescent boy. He lowers his tail feathers and tucks his wings, trying to conserve his body heat. It was moments like these that he wished he could control the heat in his flames. He used to be able to even heat the air around him. In time, he thought, in time. “I for one, hate the heat of the desert, but I’m not much a fan of blizzards either. How about something in between? Like springtime!” Spring was a lovely season. Flowers, mares in heat, new life. It was all exciting. Yes, he loved spring.
BLESSED BY A BITCH FROM A BASTARD SEED pleasure to meet you, prepare to bleed
Teiran still did not speak. She was as still as the statue that Solis left behind on the mountain, but as watchful as the hawks the court used to courier letters. When Solis moved, so did she, stalking along through the streets and toward the court walls and the snow covered desert beyond.
There was a flame covered stallion whose ego, she thought, rivaled only that of the sun god's own, but it was his words that finally caught her attention. Her gaze was as cold as the air and her voice as flat as the white of the snow when he spoke. "You're in the wrong place for that. Maybe you should move on to Delumine if you seek pretty flowers and an easy time."
But then they were there, on the precipice of the desert and the wind whipped the snow around them and Teiran could only hope for a fight otherwise they might all freeze out there after too long. Already, however, her blood was rushing with adrenaline along with her racing heart when she thought she saw the shape of an elk in the distance. If they were a thread she would not hesitate to eliminate them.
Then, she idly thought, how many bodies would be found uncovered when the snow finally melted?
Patience has never been a virtue of Elif’s and she does not possess it now, not with every line of her body taut and expectant, every ounce of bright blood hot despite the bite in the air, the snow blue in the shadows of the court. Still she holds her tongue, and she does not even have to fight to do it: there is much to see, after all. Gods and queens and giants with ragged teeth stitched across their chests. Mocking words and proud ones and the clanging-bell voice of Solis.
Oh, it is a morning to tell children about - and there is no thought of if they win. How could they not? Their god is on their side.
She is secure in her certainty, then, and fighting as though against a bit to begin - but even so her eyes keep drawing skyward, to where that dark figure circles and circles. For this she misses the strange illusions, mad little snatches of worlds, cast at Apolonia’s feet; for it she misses the glances between the others. Elif is not the type who could divine such things like innards or stars, anyway.
It drives at her like a biting fly, that shape, and so as soon as Solis steps forward and nods for them to follow she takes to the air. Elk, she hears, and causing this blizzard, and then she is rising fast enough and far enough that the wind cannot bring more to her ears, though it tries.
Below her is the shining expanse of desert, glistening under the newborn sun. Tears sting her eyes, and cold sets her teeth, but still she dogs that black pegasus, driven on by each beat of her stubborn heart. Oh, but he does not look back, that she might see his face - she is only taunted by each flare of his wings, the wind coursing off of his feathers.
She is almost upon him - until he dives.
Like a hunting hawk she follows, falling into a stoop, and the blinding white ground rushes up toward her. Before her is the pegasus, and before him is a stranger shape yet - blue, with arching antlers, with frost following in each footstep.
Only when she sees it does she pull back, flaring out her wings and stopping her dive; her wool collar is snug around her throat, a blood-bright reminder of who she is. Though her body cries out to attack, the bay only watches them both - the dark man and the blue monster - and waits poised to charge at either.
“Do not be afraid to bare your teeth -”
11-30-2018, 08:19 PM
Played by
Rae [PM] Posts: 301 — Threads: 41 Signos: 15
The night before, he did not dream of Isra. Instead, he chased a violet light through a kelp forest. The ocean was a huge, dark, angry thing, heavy around his shoulders, and for the first time it was not a thing he thought of with longing.
He ducked and twisted, escaping slimy hands that grabbed at his legs, until his nose finally met the orb of light. At his touch, it turned into a woman whose face was constantly changing. One moment laughing, the next crying. Without speaking she opened his mind and planted words that he would carry with him that morning, and the next, and likely many many days to come-- perhaps the rest of his life.
"No matter what you do, your hands will always remember the shape of violence."
He closed his eyes in the dream, and opened them in Solterra.
When he walks among his comrades, he knows that he alone is not ready for the coming day, for he drifts among the sea of their thoughts-- never diving deep, of course-- and he feels their intention tighten like a noose. On the other hand, his mind is unfurling in wider and wider circles
(Repetition, always. This time it's the shape of violence, violence, violence.)
as he thinks of Asterion, and Isra, and Moira Tonnerre and Indra and Po and Seree and all the others he's met along the way. He wonders if they, too, are hunting today, and if so-- will they, too, always remember the shape of violence? He prays they stay safe, not because he really believes praying will do a damn thing but because there is a god right there so how could he not try?
The time for thinking, dreaming, loving is coming to a close for now (granted they win). Eik shuts his eyes. He reaches out to Seraphina and Bexley to plant a seed in their minds, a memory of warmth that will endure even when they are surrounded by ice and snow. He would do the same for others if his magic were stronger. Instead he saves what power he has left for the fight ahead.
Beneath the shadow of a pegasus he does not know, Eik lopes toward the fight.
E I K the mournful beat of the battle drums
Time makes fools of us all
11-30-2018, 09:16 PM - This post was last modified: 11-30-2018, 10:29 PM by Eik - Edit Reason: sleep deprivation typos -
AS A GIRL, I WAITED PATIENTLY TO CATCH FIRE as if it were something worth wanting
The memory of the teryr is enough to make her ears twitch back, her eyes narrowing fractionally. The teryr had gone down, yes, but she had been concussed and shredded for weeks to follow. A stroll along the beach? Oh, but she knows the stories of what washes up on the shores of the Terminus, of shape-changing monsters with rolling black eyes that dripped water so dark that it could be mistaken for ink…she knows – she has to know – that nothing in Solterra is quite so beautiful or innocent as it might seem at first glance. She arches her dark brows at him skeptically, her lips still tugged into that ever-present frown.
She takes another count of the others that have gathered. Teiran is met with a swift dip of her head, as is Basileios; she glances over El Toro, but his eyes are trained on the god, and she makes no attempt to catch his gaze. With something like dull shock, she spots the brutish form of Torstein, and she meets his gaze coolly, wordlessly, before she turns away. She doesn’t really have anything to say to him, does she? (Or perhaps she does; regardless, now is not the time for it.) She feels Eik before she actually catches sight of him, the faint warmth of his magic as much of a comfort as it is disconcerting. (For she still remembers the last time she knew a man who could reach into minds – she still remembers his halo of flames and sadistic golden eyes.) Satisfied with her accounting, her gaze returns to Solis.
The sun god is impatient, – but when isn’t he? – and she quickens her strides to keep his pace, lingering just a few feet aside his hind legs. She wouldn’t, in contrast, consider what is currently surging through her veins anticipation, but neither is it fear or nerves. It is something as familiar as the act of breathing, but it is not anticipation. Adrenaline, maybe, raw energy. Her heart flutters in her chest like a caged-up bird, beating at the bars. She watches the sun god all the while as he speaks of their quarry, and she feels her brow furrow. Elk, or something like them. Blue, feathered elk that breathed out chill enough to form a blizzard. She might have laughed (though Seraphina is hardly the laughing type) at the somewhat ridiculous image they procured, were it not for the certainty of sharp, freezing antlers – sharp enough to tear flesh, certainly, to gore throats. And gods only knew how large the creatures were, if the simple act of breathing was enough to cause a blizzard. “In fact, they almost remind me of you, my dear queen. Cold, but strong.” His next words are an unmistakable jab, if a playful one, and she bites back the sudden urge to roll her eyes or glare as his scalding gaze rolls back to rest on her. “That doesn’t complicate things for you, does it?” The weather is colder, now, and any semblance of clarity is slowly beginning to fall victim to snow. Cold wind swirls around her frame, and she swallows a shiver and draws a step closer to Solis; she is a desert creature, and she has little tolerance for cold. “Of course not,” she says, dryly, meeting his gaze. “Surely the resemblance could not be striking enough to tug at my heartstrings-“ (As if she really had them.) “-How could it, if I am dear to a god? Unless, I suppose, you’re partial to feathered Cervidae.” Again her brows raise, and, in spite of her entirely apathetic tone, there is more than a hint of a similar jest in her response.
Her gaze rolls off the god and trains itself on the blizzard in front of them. She narrows her eyes as they come to a halt on what might have been a tall, imposing form…or, perhaps, a mere trick of the light.
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
Solis does not respond to their jibes and snorts of laughter - he is so indifferent it would appear that he might not have heard, or perhaps does not know that he is the source of Torstein’s amusement. Instead he tosses his head and smiles alongside them. But his smile holds an edge to it, a razor-sharp warning that gleams like gold in the late morning light.
His laughter is only a touch warmer than his smile, his exuberance making up for Seraphina’s reserved manner. “Well I suppose we won’t have to wait long to find out exactly how partial I am,” he says, gesturing to the desert opening up before them.
Like a scene from a fairytale, the clouds and fog seem to lift away at his command, the snow halting to reveal miles of snow-covered desert. At the heart is the shadow of a herd: twenty-or-more elk milling together in a place they clearly did not belong.
Solis looks back at his followers, pitting their odds against the wintery beasts. “Shall we get started?” he asks, already moving forward.
As always, the Sun God is impatient - and reckless.
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Their numbers increase, but they do not swell. This is no army - for Toro may not know war, but he knows military, and this? This is a handful. The hunger for battle sits in his chest like red ember. He wonders if it will be enough.
Solis jabs at Seraphina, their queen, and she jabs back. Others mutter; Solis has them parading off into the whipping white winds and the only thing El Toro can see is the shadow of something large.
Solis is talking, always talking, and then the fog and clouds dissipate and there is the herd: elk of ice and snow, blue antlers of winter glass like swords in stones and Toro wonders, wonders again, if any of them, if all of them, if he will be enough. In silence he has followed the god, but now…now he wonders how to approach these beasts, for once, they tower over him and his flesh and lung ache as the cold shrivels his skin and makes him shiver, muscles spasming and shaking in all the places that hurt the most. He winces, and for once he speaks of strategy, ”Do we actually know how to fight them?” He asks anyone that will answer; this is already looking like a defeat. El Toro does not seek to be bested twice in a row.
