My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.
He sees simmering embers… Jude stares at them and he can only place the blame on one figure. A long sigh passes from his lips and he presses onwards up the familiar mountain path.. It feels as though it were only a day ago that he had met with Isorath.. And then his anger had gotten the better of him. He had said things he never thought possible of him. Cruelty has never been in his nature, but frustration seized him and he lashed back. He refuses to be ignored. He refuses to risk his own life.. But he knows his own words had likely been a tad unnecessary when he had made his departure, yet still.. He cannot forget the callous dismissal of his concern. Jude clenches his jaw and remembers how they all stood against him, dismissing him for blind trust.
The ash and fire remnants of Aether’s inferno is only a sure sign of why he spoke out. Terrastella had something beautiful, but its beauty was poisoned by the head that wore the crown. Jude stumbles over rocks and the tears swell to his eyes of embarrassment and exhaustion. He’s kept sleep to a minimum and his coat has become layered with soot, dirt, and mud. His normally immaculate hair entangled with branches and leaves from rustling through underbrush. He gives out a weak whimper right before he stumbles. The weight crashes down on his knees and he gives out a weak yelp. For a moment he contemplates merely laying in the soot and drown himself in self pity as tears fall down his cheeks.
“I was an idiot,” Jude whines and doesn’t fight back the drops that wipe away the dirt from his face. He lifts himself to his feet and stumbles along, fighting the ache in his right leg. “I was an idiot for ever thinking that place was worth it.." There is no sound but his weak cries and the gentle noises of his and Mitten’s footsteps. The gates are sealed and with that his
connection to home and family. For once the tears fall harder and he can’t contain his tired sobs and much like he had been when he first arrived in Novus, he merely let himself hit the ground and cried, ignoring the voices of guards as they look on at the small, crying form.
Lying on my back
Watching stars collide
@Isorath ?
anyone else is welcome, but complete strangers please ask first
The fires had raged through all the night, guarded and tended to by the imposing Dragon which circled the Gate's like a deathly spectre. It had stayed like that until the morning finally broke upon the horizon and the fires disappated until they were nothing but a sigh on the breeze. Ash blanketed the area instead, grey snow which tangled in the air of the guards who shuffled and marched across the gates.
Aether had remained, roosting upon one of the jagged ledges that tapered toward the infamous gates, white eyes half-lidded. Alert, even at rest, for any who might try and escape or enter the Night Kingdom unbidden.
He hadn't expected to see the little pink Kirin, who dotted Isorath's memories like blush-colored rose in a sea of white and gold. He fell, and the Dragon instinctively rose, bidden by the protectiveness within him to see all who Isorath held dear safe. Searchingly, Aether tested the tendrils of their bond, like gentle pin pricks of talons against the skin.
No doubt Isorath would be resting, if the serenity eminating through the bond was anything to go by. The stretch of silence that followed the mental pull, usually there would be a groused response. Caught somewhere between annoyance and amusement, as the Dragon uttered his own cutting retort. Isorath would want the Kirin safe, he reasoned internally, and so the Dragon landed with a reverberating thud against the ashen ground. He wasn't about to wait here either and listen to the kirin sob.
A scaled head all but shoved at the Kirin's flank, as gently as a dragon his size could manage. An attempt to urge the Kirin to his feet, or send him sprawling, the Guards could only guess. A wing extended forward in the next breath, a fleshy ladder for the Kirin to climb. The nest of jagged spines dissipated at the center of where his wings met his spine, space enough for a kirin to be coccooned between them and hold on with their teke.
Get on. His eyes seemed to say, waiting until the boy did so and with one calculated sweep of his wings, mindful of the cargo he carried, he headed toward the Night Court with their latest addition tucked within his spines.
