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Novus closed 10/31/2022, after The Gentle Exodus

Private  - the shape of the water

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Ossian
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#1

[Image: osiheader.jpg]


This was his third moon without Ama, but - of the three - it was his grandest yet. Asterion, a man he had come to know as kind and chimerical, had guided him into Terrastella on that bitter morn, with the frost glittering ornately on his ebon hide and the redolence of a new beginning in each lung. This world, vast and perpetual, had absorbed him - his yielding mind quite suddenly drunk on such an alien land that had swallowed him whole. Behind orange suns Ossian had consumed the gentle swell of the fields and hills, passing by the swamp (of which he decided was a place that might haunt him within his dreams) with breathless alarm, and finally, following in silent vigil behind Asterion, the ocean child made of freckles and constellations had laid eyes upon the Citadel. It was like everything and nothing he could ever have imagined. 

To himself, he had kept. The swathes of people bustling about the Capitol startled Ossian, their nondescript hum setting his skin aflame with unease; what else could be expected from such a sheltered creature? Hours ticked into days and days washed into weeks as the watcher watched on, engrossed in the absorption of these strange customs and walls and bodies. Fascinated was an understatement. And though he was glad to be relieved of the deafening solitude which initially had driven him into water, there was a fermenting disquiet bubbling beneath his dark skin. The granite canvas sky over Dusk's keep seemed smaller than his by ocean, the gulls fly refused to fly in this far to meet him and oft the white-haired boy found himself aching for salt and brine and sand. For it was not only the water he missed, but the plethora of beautiful components that made up the oceanfront - the only world he had ever known.  

Ossian could take it no longer. Breaching the wind, he rose one clear dawn from where he slept beneath the stars (the idea of sleeping deep within the keep frightened him, still) and took to the west with a boyish vigour he thought perhaps - with Ama - he had lost. Time seemed to melt into oblivion as he moved swiftly, blood singing in his ears, pushing the thought of all else from his mind; there could be nothing but the sea. Down, down, down the coastline he traversed, angular limbs twisting against the bleached chalk until at last! Sand. Ossi closed his eyes, a gust of wind enveloping him so that his endless stark hair billowed and cavorted as though taken up by the very happiness that was blooming within.



NOTES: @cyrene it ends quite abruptly but i ran out of time, sarry!










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Cyrene
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#2



C Y R E N E

TAKE THIS SINKING BOAT
and point it home


· · ·

It was not as if she was afraid of the ocean—no, Cyrene was quite a fearless creature. Yet, she could not deny that seeing it as it was, a massive, swirling mass of abyssal darkness, elicited an inexplicable rustling of nerves deep in the pits of her stomach. Perhaps it was simply an aversion that all things with feathers shared. Dragged fifty leagues under, the ravenous waves robbing sleek wings of all their empyrean grace, their prided motility—her own stark plumes quavered at the horrifying thought.

A derisive smile tugged mercilessly at the corners of the wood nymph’s lips. They have nothing to fear now, do they; my wings lose nothing in the water they are not already deprived of. As if in silent protest, crimson eagle feathers spread themselves mightily against the cerulean sky. A cascade of scintillating light shimmered upon the barren sand, as the sun's rays streamed through the golden scars in bleak imitation of a cathedral’s mosaic glass. A seabird—an osprey, from its mottled walnut wings—blew past her as it soared towards the beckoning sea, its earsplitting caw a jeering taunt. Slowly, shamefully, sangria feathers folded themselves back against her sides. Where they ought to stay.

The briny smell of rotting seaweed was what finally collected the girl’s scattered thoughts in order again, as Cyrene’s amber eyes sharpened to skim lightly across the patchwork beach. She had timed her arrival to be precisely at low tide, where the roaring waves reluctantly exposed the soft shores below to her searching gaze. Clumps of soggy vegetation littered the sand like slow growing moss, and with methodical focus, Cyrene selected the freshest of the lot to place gingerly inside a sealed glass jar. Supposedly, pickled seaweed was touted for its role in potions that soothed seasickness—a revelation the young healer had thought ironic when the crotchety Terrastellan sage had first spoken of it. A smack on the wrist and a startling rise in demand for such tonics later, and the autumn girl had set off rather sourly that morning for the Terminus.

She had thought herself alone in her early morning endeavor along the crumbling cliffside—yet as the girl ambled along the shore, a breath of surprise filled her lungs as the world sought to prove her wrong. For there—where white sand met undulating blue—stood another, a sea-drenched figure clad in satin starlight and lacquered onyx. Smooth amber eyes widened in disbelief as the stranger rushed like a tempest into the water’s frigid embrace. Is he not cold?

Featherlight steps quickened as they carried her swiftly across the glistening sands; she was a cat with nine lives more to chase the coattails of curiosity with. As she neared, hesitation clouded her limbs as nimble hooves lingered along the edge of the frothing waves. If it was only her legs… it would be alright. Slowly, steadily, Cyrene picked her way towards the boy with midnight draped like a celestial caress across his avian bones.

"Are you a child of the sea?” An utterly strange question—but it had pressed most feverishly at her tongue, and she could not keep it from tumbling out. "I… apologize for disturbing,” she added in quick succession, a sorry attempt at fixing her bungled introduction. "Yet for a moment, I thought you a siren washed ashore. It was too tantalizing an encounter to ignore.”




"speech" | @Ossian | notes: she says whatever pops into her mind omg

Neverr & space









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Ossian
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#3

[Image: osiheader.jpg]


He lilted beneath the primitive scream of the sea singing and cavorting behind and before every inch of his body, enveloping him in its protective embrace as though he were a shell's most beautiful pearl. Ossian dreamed in blue: the sky was his rooftop and the ocean his bedrock, everything in between was immaterial beyond his great cerulean fantasy. There could be no mistress, no other woman, no distraction from his devotion - only his adoration of Ama had come close to rivalling such an ancient love affair. But she was gone now, forever, and still the sea remained: perpetual, aborigine, beautiful. With long, well-practiced steps Ossian swung toward the water; there was no need for haste when greeting any old friend, she had waited this long and she would wait for him still. Within moments of lingering within the sea's clutch, however, the boy felt an arctic cool settling over his bones as he met the waves. Starless black fur licked down against virgin skin, chilling him to the core, but still he did not pause, moving deeper into the opaque shallows until the tide lapped at his abdomen. Sun orange eyes danced with a bitter joy, for he knew this reunion could last only a minute or two before hypothermia would force him back to the shore.

"Are you a child of the sea?”

The sea-boy shuddered, his body undulating from an amalgamation of bewilderment and curiosity as he turned most swiftly to face whomever had addressed him. From behind impossibly wide eyes - eyes which could not conceal his childlike naivety - Ossian studied the woman, mid-speech, upon the sand. 

"Yet for a moment, I thought you a siren washed ashore. It was too tantalizing an encounter to ignore.” 

Wasn't she wonderful? A vision of crimson and sylphlike beauty, adorned by the closely-kept wings set low upon her shoulders. Before arriving upon the wild front of Novus, Ossi had never encountered the species he'd come to know as Pegasi, and even now it remained something of a mystery to him how she had grown wings as though she were a summer-seeking bird. Perhaps it was this fascinated thought which jolted him from such a considered silence, or, perhaps, it was the chattering of bonewhite teeth belonging to a night-skinned boy freezing in a winter sea. Ossian jolted forward, the water gushing to part for his exodus - it was quite a sight to see oh-so bleached hair trailing many feet behind such a starkly black man. Finally, shivering still, he dipped his head in greeting (an act he had seen many a Terrastellan diplomat conduct), and allowed his lips to liberate the dulcet voice within: "Nothing to disturb - oh no, oh no." If Ossian had been any paler the ethereal girl might have seen a flush of embarrassed colour against his marbled cheek. "I missed her, that's all," he nodded toward the lapping waves, a tender smile lighting up the untouched corners of his face, "Ama told me sirens were dangerous creatures - I am no siren, ma'am."



@cyrene apologies for this disjointed ick ;c i'm so artless atm 










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