She was there. Air blossomed thin like fine frost between the creams and blues. A feral wind blew firmly against a body once chiseled from the ice itself, then finding little alleviation in solitary stance on the mountain peak. The sun bothered not to send a cordial farewell as its diminishing frame fell from sight—dusk would climb and take influence of the mantel they had given themselves to. Then with the fading light she would dredge way to a place she had long abandoned; her path was ruin, and despair wrote itself in the mountain side. The supposed-great Winter Wolf, heir of a Court she turned away for a cause more worthy than a throne, reduced to rubble. A Painted Queen, a sovereign to a home she found solace in, a family she belonged to more rightfully than her own, all cast away at her inability to uphold their values. The shrine brushed with ageless beauty and a power she could feel long before she reached their dwelling scarcely invited her to its footing, but she was a fool before so who was she to be any different now.
A breath, and a pause. Four steps forward, and a pause. Two breaths, a pause. One step, a word. A name. "Vespera." Desperation hung heavier than her cloak of wolf fur, each syllable a fine line she dared to whisper across. There was no glory in her quiet call, no pride in the stars she wore; her cape drug, and a head once high with a crown did not rise above knees hesitant to keep hold of the weight they bore. She was not worthy of the place she stood. She did not deserve the chance to utter the name of a Goddess, once one she carried so proudly for a kingdom. It was thrown away, her crown. Her pride. Her loyalty. She was stripped of all honor, all she held close given to a girl not nearly ready for the constrains of being shackled to such burden. She did it without heart and in return she fled to the confines of a place of her past; a land so bitter with cold that she finally felt the bite of life crawl beneath her skin and shame her for her actions. Aerus, a brother long-forgotten upon the seat of a home she held little connection to, welcomed the previous Heir of their Hiemsterra Court as cordially as any guest. Then with the death of her parents she no longer felt the pull to her birthplace. She left it, too, sitting behind while hooves marked their way back across snowy-scapes; Máni stood with her unfalteringly, and between them a child was born.
Go away, the urge to turn and abandon the Gods—her God—caused motion to cease for good before she could even press her nose to the face of Vespera's perch. She didn't belong there, not just there where the trail thinned and the air stung from lack of oxygen mixed with the bite of almost-winter tips, but the place she let go of when she called for arms and the Kingdoms were moving together into a real semblance of a nation. There was nothing she could do then, and there was nothing she could do there where she barely stood before the might of the Gods. She worried that her time had passed, that all she could offer was laying behind her in a heap at the foot of the Dusk's stone tower.
Legs finally buckled beneath the weight of humiliation, guilt pulling her down toward gravity's lips. And she was left to beg, body collapsed with appendages beneath, beg for forgiveness from the deity she swore her life to. A forsaken tear—perhaps the only thing she had ever cried—dripped on the ground of the altar, a stain on the shrine that only she would know was carved into its surface.
Dusk had begun to settle upon Novus, the sun sinking in a lazy arc towards the distant sea. From atop the craggy peaks of Veneror the horizon appeared to bend, the land gradually curving away from the setting sun, tinged with darkness at its edges. As the world darkens, color bursts at the corners of the land, streaking across the sky in tones of brilliant oranges and pinks, of purples and blues.
Vespera’s shrine as, her color faded, her edges roughened, as still and quiet as ever.
Rannveig's tear caught on the corner of the shrine--and the statue shivered.
As the fading light crept closer, the shadows on the statue deepened. It was as if the shrine was thrown into sudden contrast: the more the darkness covered her, the more the colors responded with sudden vibrancy, as if in defiance of the night. Slowly, ever so slowly, the colors of dusk were absorbed from the sky into the goddess' pedestal, lighting her from the bottom up.
It didn’t take much time before Vespera was truly glowing, the colors of dusk now seeming to come from within. In the breeze, her mane began to wave: slowly at first, the whole thing moving together like flowing stone. Then strands began to separate, and her hair became a flowing, chaotic beauty. Light poured out onto Rannveig, the statue now a beacon of light illuminating the peaks.
Wiping the stolen tear her shrine had caught, Vespera stepped down from her pedestal, a living, breathing creature once more.
"Why do you cry, my child?" The goddess' voice was full of sympathy and kindness, her radiant face lowering near the bowed one at her feet. "Why have you cast yourself to the ground where it is cold and muddy? Stand with me, please." Rannveig would find her touch warm and solid, gently guiding her back to her feet so that mortal and goddess might stand side by side.
"There's a hole in your heart, dear one, I can see it clear as the setting sun." It took no small feat to bring a strong woman to the ground; the ex-Sovereign's tears may be few, but even one was too many for the goddess to witness.
@Rannveig has been greeted by the goddess Vespera, who has materialized from her statue into equine form! In addition to the IC encounter, you have been awarded 250 signos for having participated in a Random Event. This has already been applied to Rannveig's account!
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She belonged to the Gods. Her bones were strung together with the myths and legends of Glacia, muscles pulled tight with the promise of something greater. A heart began beating for those stories, for the vow of a larger figure who would guide them all to glory. She held on to these assurances, fought for herself and all the traditions she was not part of. She was not born a colt in a world where males took the throne; she was not a colt in a world where males sent themselves to battle camps and learned to fight; quite simply, she was not a colt in a world where males survived. But she challenged their beliefs. She trusted Glacia, put her faith in a figure that only existed in fables. She pushed her way through a system that said she could be nothing more than a pretty face who sat by idly and watched Hiemsterra move without her. She bested a beast of their Court; she became something—someone.
She survived.
But that was a time when she had a warrior's heart, her soul entwined with the spirit of a great wolf. She protected her pack; she led them toward all that Glacia drove her to, to something bigger than they were. The Winter Kingdom of Veteris held her in its arms and in turn she gave them all she had to offer under its crown. Battle Prowess kept those searching for threats at bay, Kind Hand keeping the people happy, Strategy building a better future. It wouldn't last, though—couldn't—for things were never linear when power became a question and hungry eyes locked onto ways to exploit the weak. Novus' tales of bloodshed and horror crossed the boarders of snow and ice, and in response she gave up a throne. She gave up the promise of Glacia. She didn't look back once. The glorious wolf trekked, skirmished tooth and nail to find the edge of Novus and stake a new claim in its lands. She heard of their Gods. She heard of the peoples' struggle and how they fought to stay alive, just as she had tried to make a name for herself. Their call to arms pulled her in, and their persistence made her stay; Erynvale took hold of the Night Court and so she moved to one of all heart and will. Dusk saw her standing at their side, and so her loyalty to Vespera was forged. The falling day of the final meeting she would hold under the Dusk crown would no longer see her as Rannveig, however. With her resignation she would be stripped of all honor, of a name she earned to prove herself. It was gone, just as the last whisper of a painted girl would only be held in memories of those who cared to remember.
On that mountain, there, where the day was dying and the colors of a changing sky would soon turn to those of her own blues, she wasn't Rannveig the Winter Wolf. She was Silanos, the first-born daughter of a land that prayed for a son. She was no warrior that slept in open snow and drug pseudo-enemies into the ground; no Valkyrie who deserved a title other than the birth name given in disenchantment. At the foot of a God's shrine she had withered into nothing, and perhaps that was all she would ever be.
The tear fell and all was still. The air that once twirled its fingers into her hair left her alone with her thoughts, eyes closed in shame. The darkness consumed her but soon it consumed everything around her, too. The slow transfer of light from sky to statue made eyes open, first in confusion and then disbelief. The world was black, but there in front of her upon the keep of the figure was a brilliance that drew her in. She didn't move, didn't dare allow a twitch to escape muscles else the vision disappeared. The illusion was lackadaisical almost, a calm transmission from solid to real. The stone peeled apart as though words from a page, melting into something even more palpable. And though it came to life before her, Rannveig's pulse did not quicken; there was no trepidation, no tremor, unease. Bright teal eyes reflected the colors of Dusk back onto the transforming bust as the draft of a wind picked up the spaces between them. The brilliance of the shine was a warmth that did not cause pain, and so, instead of turning away as she had done so many times before, she faced it straight on and held a chilled breath.
Everything emanated around the then fully-formed figure of Vespera. Rann had felt the shivers of the earth beneath the mountain, but knew nothing of its cause. The upheaval of the Gods in their dormant state was no news to her, for she was too late to experience any of the talk; upon her reentry into their lands, she left her partner and child behind to find the steps to the Peak. It was something she needed to do alone, a redemption she had to find for herself. It was an apology not only to her, but to the one she turned her back on. To the God that then stood before her.
The words were quite an ethereal thing to hear; for though there were tales of Gods once being alive alongside mortals, never had Rann encountered such. Still bowed, the touch of skin on skin sent a long awaited quiver sloping across her body. The veil had finally broken, and she once again became responsive—knees unbent, a head hung low slipped upward to meet that of Vespera's. Questions tucked themselves neatly into the folds of her bi-colored ears, from a voice that was bigger than everything she was. How could she explain that she was left without direction, that she had lost sense of herself and her purpose? That she had delegated the ground to be the only spot she deserved to rest? She could form no sounds of her own until the last of the Goddess's faded, silence between them filled with an energy that abashed even the heat of battle.
With a gust of air finally came the words she held away for so long, thick nordic accent lilting around them. "I failed your crown. Your kingdom... I left it." There were no other tears, but she was not whole; she rattled, and it was explicit enough that Vespera saw through her. A hole, yes, but the stitching had come undone some time ago. "I serve you no purpose." For though she spent a life grooming to rule, to lead, she fled and left the vacant space for a child. And though she was once a great warrior, she had nothing left to fight for.
"After all time that passed, after years of heartache of many, why show now? Why appear to me?"
How long had it been since the goddess last had breathed? Since she had last looked upon the land with eyes of her own, had felt the soil beneath her own four hooves as she walked the face of the earth? Too long, the wind whispered back to her. Vespera silently agreed.
She had been present, but not truly. She had glimpsed the world briefly through the eyes of forest rabbits and birds, interactions that lasted mere seconds and had done little, so little, to satisfy the goddess’ curiosity. She missed Novus; both the land and its people.
It did not matter to Vespera how many mistakes they made. Their failures, their transgressions, their wandering, none of it changed her opinion of them. Did not the gods make the same mistakes, did they not pick the same battles? Gods had the power to change the destiny of those around them; mortals were left to suffer through those destinies, and Vespera herself had vowed long ago to love them through it.
“No purpose?” the goddess echoed, her voice gentle. “Everyone has a purpose, dear one, even those who do not yet know it. Did you not think you were doing what was right, when you left?” She listened quietly to the ex-sovereign’s concerns, to her questions and worries. She inclined her head, closing her eyes for just a moment. It was nothing new; Vespera had heard the cries from the people for years and years now. She had been helpless then; she lacked substance, as did her siblings. They were forgotten, nearly ceasing to exist: their self-inflicted exile had not been easy to overturn.
Vespera opened her eyes, regarding Rannveig with quiet compassion. “Because now was the time to do so.”
She took a step, then another, and another, beckoning to the winter wolf to follow. The goddess of the dusk led Rannveig down a simple path, crossing the clearly and entering a small grove of trees. She stopped then, and let out a long sigh.
“Novus has known much pain in these centuries. But, it has also known joy, and love, and peace. Even now, there is life waiting to blossom.” With a single stomp of her hoof, a family of foxes appear from their den. The mother is accompanied by four young pups, who hide behind their mothers legs. Vespera lowers her head to the ground, making no move to come closer. Slowly, one pup emerges, bravely drawing closer in inspection. Once he touches nose to nose with the goddess, the other three follow suit, bounding amongst the horses legs with joy.
Vespera smiles, lifting her head to look upon Rannveig. “The seasons change, but spring follows winter time and time again.”
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