Jezanna slipped past the court walls, their shadow cast by the gentle light draped her in darkness. It was so early the sun had not yet shown itself over the eastern horizon, just barely painting the sky in the colors of a new day. Above her, the sky was deep and blue, stars still visible, not a cloud in the sky. Below, the midnight woman reflected the sky with her inky coat and splashes of flecked pale markings.
There was a distinct fall chill to the air, and she was searching for something. It wasn't something she would find in the world, at least Jezanna didn't think so. She thought that the thing she was searching for could only be found inside herself. She had spent so much time within the Court recently, had met so many faces, had learned so much about these people who also called Denocte home.
It was time to learn a little more about herself.
Jezanna walked until she reached the prarie, the rolling hills spreading out around her, the sky above. The grasses were dry in the fall, not as inclined to bend beneath the touch of the breeze as in the spring and summer. Soon there would be snow, and the world would become a sea of sparkling, pure white. Soon, she hoped, the dark stains on her home would fade and in their place a hope for a better future. She'd heard the words that Tempus had promised, that change would come. Jezanna was prepared, and she could only hope that the change would be good.
She paused on a knoll, turning her head up toward the sky where the night was fleeting, fleeing, as the sun steadily rose higher to welcome the morning. And she wondered. What religion did she have? What belief did she have that the gods and goddesses of this world wanted the best for the ones in their care. How was she supposed to know?
The young moon had studied everything she could find on the Courts, on their patron deities, and yet, somehow, she doubted. Doubted their love, their concern. Jezanna had watched the suffering of the people of Denocte, had watched them place their alleigance in Caligo and yet she found no proof of the demi-goddess here in this kingdom of stars and shadows. She had heard tales of other Courts and wondered, were their own gods and goddess silent, absent?
Jezanna had always spent an abundance of time among the population of her own world, every moment that she could she had gone and sat with them, spoke with them, gotten to know them. She had loved them and they had been hers, but when she thought about it she realized she had rarely seen her parents ever set foot on the world, had rarely ever seen them interact with those who worshipped them so. Only when... when Eidolon had shown himself.
"Who do you think you are, shadow soul?"
"I am Eidolon. I have lived only in darkness until now and I am unfamiliar with this land."
"Your presence unsettles those who call this world home. You are unwelcome here. You must leave."
Had it really looked so different then, when she had been standing behind her parents, watching this man strange, shadowy form? He had been unlike anything she had ever seen before, and suddenly she realized now, that her parents had judged him for it and she had never said a word against it. He had been hers, too, to care for, just as all the others had been, and she had allowed her parents to force him out and not thought any differently, not considered there was a better way.
What she knew now was there was often always a better way. Jezanna had unknowingly let Eidolon down, and he had perhaps been hurt, or afraid, and had acted out. How mortal seemed those actions, she thought, after having lived among them for the time she had now. It was then she realized that perhaps it was not her actions that mimicked mortals, but mortals who mimicked the actions of their gods, for who better to show them what was right and wrong but the ones who had created them?
Indeed something needed to change, because Jezanna could see no other way out of these neverending circles than to step outside of them themselves. Perhaps there was something she could do for her Court after all, for as few short months she may have lived here, called Denocte home, that's exactly what it was and she could no sooner abandon them as her naive self may once have done. There had to be a new path to show them, a new way to move forward. A new direction that would lead them out of the dark.
Calliope could be a lion, a spark of darkness in the grayness that flashes like lightning when the sun just starts to brighten the blues and blacks of the night. The grass could be Velius for all that it grows untamed over the hills, touched only by the chill of the autumn and the drought seasons. There are no gods this day (not yet) only mortals that have risen far before the day. There is only a unicorn that flicks her tail like a hunter as she watches creatures both rise and return from and to slumber.
Then the other mare crests a hill and there is not longer just a unicorn.
They are alone, two horned mares with the last of the night-lights dancing in their eyes like fireflies. Calliope watches her come and her tail whispers like a whip over the brittle stalks of wheat. There's something in the way the other mare moves that suggests introspection, for her eyes have not yet spotted Calliope and the way her horn glitters like a black star in the gray light. Something about her suggests that she is lost to wander the fields so alone with no eyes to the horizon to spot coming dangers.
Calliope only watches the mare wander and keeps her own gaze roaming and ready across the fields. Part of her hopes to see a dragon crest the horizon, to hear a monster scream out at the coming of the day. It's been too long and her idle blood runs like white-water through her veins towards the ocean of her warrior soul.
But it's only the wandering mare that casts another shadow as the sun turns the gray to pastel hues. Just as there are no gods here there are no monsters to be found, only mortals brave enough to leave the protective walls.
Still Calliope says nothing as the mare passes close enough to touch and perhaps to tap her horn against the mare's antlers in greeting. Only the soft swish of their tails and their breaths breaks the quiet of a new day.
And still Calliope waits, allowing the other mare her introspection until she noticed that's she's strayed far too close to a unicorn that smiles like a lion might.
ezanna did not come out of her reverie, did not look up until, like a silent alarm, her brain said "watch out." She drew to a stop, taking notice of the body just to the side of her. She turned, heart beating a little quicker as her silver eyes landed on the other unicorn. A stranger, not so bizarre an occurrence, but that she had not noticed them earlier was foolish of her. She was too comfortable here, not wary enough.
The midnight woman took a silent moment to appraise her company. The unicorn was dark like a shadow with lightning stripes of white on her shoulder and eyes that were too keen, too feral. Jezanna stood her ground but could not help the uncertain twitch of her ear.
"You make it a habit to stand around and lurk in the early hours of the morning, then?" Defensiveness was her crutch. She'd clung to it with Eidolon when they'd first arrived and now again in this tumultuous time. Whoever this stranger was, she did not carry the permeating smell of psice and smoke that lingered in the streets of the night court.
If the other was a lion, hungry and hunting, then Jezanna was an owl—waiting and watching. She couldn't say she felt like prey, but she did not feel the same as the woman across from her. The gates may have been open, but the absence of their regime had thus far been the only indication. Until now. "You've come through the mountains. Why?" She wondered what the world thought of the court of stars and smoke. Did they all even know what had happened?
@Calliope | "speaks" | Aahh I wish this was better
The other mare breaks the silence first and Calliope cannot help the smile that brushes across her lips in an almost kind, almost feral sort of way. Perhaps it's the meadow and the moonlight that chill the fury in her bones and keeps her horn tipped towards the stars instead of flesh and bone. It's a lovely night, free of dragons and blood and war. Calliope breathes deep and savors the taste of wildflower and sliver-light on her tongue.
“Perhaps,” Something like amusement taints her sword and bell-chime voice. At her back that lion tail flicks and all of her looks poised and waiting for something. “lurking might not be the word for it.” And when a cloud passes overhead in the pastel mix of moonlight and the first light of day and it catches the point of her horn it seems almost hungry, almost empty, almost parched.
No lurking is not the word for Calliope who tilts her head like a lion and watches the mare flick her ear back uncertainly. Hunting would be a better word for the quiver ever in her skin even when she appears to be as still stone, for the spark of rage always dancing in her corner of her eyes where joy and sadness should be.
Calliope lets the amusement fade as she leans forward just enough to taste the smoke and spice and moonlight on the mare's silver skin. Part of her hopes it would have been tainted by the musk of dragon fire, part of her is glad it smells only like night and bonfire wood. “I came because there was a wall.” Because unicorn and lions full of fury hate walls and the monsters they thing lurk behind them.
She came for justice and vengeance for an antlered stallion and a flower mare who refused to take what was owed to them.
"You walk the meadows when others want only slumber and dreams. Why?" Calliope smiles like a lion and her teeth flash strangely in the between light. But for a moment she lets her fury remain buried for those deserving of it.
