Novus
an equine & cervidae rpg
Hello, Guest!
or Register




Thank you, everyone, for a wonderful 5 years!
Novus closed 10/31/2022, after The Gentle Exodus

All Welcome  - ONLY MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN

Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)



Played by Offline Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16
Signos: 0
Day Court Champion of Battle
Male [He/Him/His]  |  14 [Year 496 Summer]  |  17.2 hh  |  Hth: 15 — Atk: 25 — Exp: 40  |    Active Magic: N/A  |    Bonded: Hajduk (Mythical Lion)
#1

    His blood ran hot. He was livid. Steam rushed from his nostrils with every exhale, smoke off the wavering desert sand sucked through every inhale. His hooves would have stamped had they not sunk into the ground with every step, threating to pull him into some ancient crypt. He would have liked that. There would be no one but the skeletons to piss him off. His tails slapped against his flanks, as if swatting away flies. Flies that could have been scapegoats for his irritation, but he was too far into the dunes to encounter even that. A crunch startled the stallion; looking down, he found a small scorpion had been crushed beneath his mighty hoof. He found no pleasure in it, only disgust.

    El Toro's source of anger was miles away now, and yet, it had accompanied him every step from it. He'd found some overgrown winged colt to knock down a peg - to prideful, those boys were - and he had, only, the kid had used some inane magic to singe Toro's rump following his defeat. Many of the fillies were too young to interest him, but there was one - the colt's older sister, he thought - and she was pretty enough to send the stallion reeling at the colt's indiscretion. His mercurial sense of honor was too great to turn on the colt - he was a child, anyway, and had already suffered defeat - but Toro let out a scream and charged the arrogant spaw, making a fool of himself for even humoring a child, a boy! His friends had laughed, the fillies tittered and that young mare smirked and walked off with them. He heard an "Old man!" called over their shoulders. He could gore them if he wanted!

He didn't want to.

But he could.

He didn't, anyway, and instead had gone stomping off into the desert - a bad idea, if he paused to think he might realize he'd lost his way (again) - and if out of both rage and idiocy, he had done so under the midday sun. Its rays scorched his skin - he was not made for this star's light - but he attributed the searing sensation to hatred incarnate on his flesh. He'd regret this, if he ever got back home.





please always tag here and preferably discord for replies





Played by Offline Jeanne [PM] Posts: 399 — Threads: 81
Signos: 100
Inactive Character
#2

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

when the fires are consuming you
and your sacred stars won't be guiding you

Seraphina was used to the heat.

She still felt it, of course, but it didn’t bother her; the scald of the sun and the bite of the red-gold sand was a comfort, a reminder that she was home. To many, the Mors were unpleasant and deadly, but she had walked among them in her childhood; she knew them as well as she knew herself, if not better. Drawn out to get water from the Oasis, she’d departed from the cool walls of the Capitol and out into the desert in the early morning to escape the heat of midday, although she knew that she’d be walking back in it. A bit of heat one way, however, was far better than waiting for nightfall – near-suffocating as the temperature was, she was almost invigorated by it.

As her long, structured strides drew her further out across the skittering sands, her gaze caught on an unfamiliar figure in the distance. Pale and tall, but graceful in build, with a pair of horns and flecks of glittering stones on his cheeks, and two-tailed – in the bright light, he was practically luminous, a nearly stellar figure on the sands. He burnt like a second sun. As she neared him, she slowed to a halt several feet away, head tilted to look him over; his expression burned like the pale fire of his coat. Whoever this strange stallion was, he was troubled by something.

His scent told her that he was another member of the Day Court, but she didn’t recognize him – it wasn’t as though she knew all of her citizens, but they’d had an influx of new members all across Novus since the various nations had begun to allow foreigners in again, and she’d run into more than one unwitting traveler dehydrated and near death among the sands; she supposed that she was duty-bound to find out whether or not she’d have to shovel his corpse out of the sands any time soon. To those unfamiliar with the seemingly-endless, almost indistinguishable dunes of the Mors, it was all too easy to get lost without realizing it. She raised her dark brows at him, the sleek silver of her skin catching in the bright sunlight, and took note of his erratic, infuriated movements and outraged expression. “Wandering the desert angry rarely ends well,” She observed, amicably enough, but Seraphina was not an especially personal creature; her tone was difficult, perhaps impossible, to read.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


tags | @El Toro
notes | <3




@







I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORS
and there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.


please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence








Played by Offline Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16
Signos: 0
Day Court Champion of Battle
Male [He/Him/His]  |  14 [Year 496 Summer]  |  17.2 hh  |  Hth: 15 — Atk: 25 — Exp: 40  |    Active Magic: N/A  |    Bonded: Hajduk (Mythical Lion)
#3

Footsteps whispered on the sand. El Toro threw his head back, gaze off the hot ground to the dark figure approaching. He watched her come close, his breath was nothing to the desert air but it burned hot in his lungs and each time he huffed. Toro did nothing to offset his rage in the face of company. She stopped nearby. Silver, slick, muscular. She had presence. Powerful. Respect trickled between the insults rattling around his mind. "Wandering the desert angry rarely ends well." A bitter snort shoved through pale nostrils. Toro glanced around, eyes gleaming fire, the cool tones of his irises seeming to disappear. His tails continue to slap against his flank. He sighed, twice, before returning his gaze to the mare and speaking. "I doubt any kind of wandering ends well here." The metals of his jewelry had begun to heat up a long time ago, but it was only know that he noticed the searing sensation in the face of this distraction. He would regret wearing these. He'd gotten burned before.

His interaction with the young colt still stung sour his mouth and his chest. He had come here to get away from it - the wings in entirety, if that was possible, but being taunted and beaten down for something he could not control - he hoped it would stop in this new place. It hadn't, the pegasi were nearly as abundant and about as arrogant. Everyone was arrogant. They delighted in tormenting him, every single one, just for the sake of seeing him squirm and rage and stomp around. It was funny that way. His lip curled up, sweat trickling down from his mane and into his eye. Toro winced, suddenly realizing he'd been staring at the mare for some time now, having never broken his gaze from when he spoke. The stallion looked away, just barely embarrassed, but feeling otherwise justified in his overwhelming anger. He shifted on pale hooves, trying to make his jewels shift around and find some other place on his skin to burn. It seemed to hurt more when the metal touched where it hadn't before. He looked up at the stranger, feeling another bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. "Some heat for an autumn day, huh?" He was beginning to feel stupid for this.

@Seraphina




please always tag here and preferably discord for replies





Played by Offline Jeanne [PM] Posts: 399 — Threads: 81
Signos: 100
Inactive Character
#4

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

when the fires are consuming you
and your sacred stars won't be guiding you

He did little to quell his temper, even as she stepped into his field of vision. Seraphina had learned to expect that – her own words to a Denoctian traveler still rang in her mind. (“The desert breeds quick tempers.” That felt like it was so very long ago, before she ever wore this crown. It had only been a few months; she didn’t know that could feel like a lifetime.) She watched his lips curl in silence, the lashing of his tails, his dual sighs. Whatever he was angry over was of no real relevance to Seraphina; her only priority was keeping him from dying among the sands. After a moment, he offered a reply, his tone a bit more measured than she had initially anticipated. “Only if you wander without direction,” She replied, somewhat enigmatically, after considering his words for just a moment; how did one wander with direction? What she meant, of course, was that one should never wander the Mors blind. If the shifting sands were as familiar to you as the contours of your own face, then you could wander wherever your hooves might guide you without ever growing lost. However, this was clearly not the case for him.

He watched her for what felt like a long time in a silence that she made no effort to break, and, as his eyes continued to linger on her – though whatever they were seeing felt very far away – she did not break her gaze. After several long moments, he seemed to remember what he was doing, and he quickly averted his burning, opalescent gaze, a look of something akin to embarrassment scurrying across his pale features. He remarked on the heat, and she raised her brows at him, distinctly unimpressed. “It’s always hot here.” It was a desert, after all, and not a cold one – Solis’s violent rays scalded every inch of the rolling landscape to a blaze. Best to warn him ahead of time, she supposed, that, even in the autumn and the winter, the Mors were still suffocating. (And, in the summers, unless you were very skilled and very accustomed to the burning pain of murderous heat, it was best to leave your work and travelling for the night.) “If you don’t know that, you must be new…” She trailed off, considering him with her mismatched stare. “I am Seraphina. Who are you, stranger?” Perhaps he would recognize her name, and perhaps he would not. It was of little concern to the silver. Either way, there was a clear hint of authority in her tone, though not suspicion. Whoever this furious creature was, he was clearly Solterran.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


tags | @El Toro
notes | <3




@







I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORS
and there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.


please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence








Played by Offline Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16
Signos: 0
Day Court Champion of Battle
Male [He/Him/His]  |  14 [Year 496 Summer]  |  17.2 hh  |  Hth: 15 — Atk: 25 — Exp: 40  |    Active Magic: N/A  |    Bonded: Hajduk (Mythical Lion)
#5

WE ALL, WE ALL GET STUPID IN THE HEAT

"Only if you wander without direction." Yeah, that was helpful. The inkling of respect he had for her was watered down with that statement, but it was enough to keep his mouth closed in the wake of a misunderstood comment. He didn't think that much on the regular, he wasn't about to now.

"It's always hot here." His face burned from the inside out. "If you don't know that, you must be new." His lip twitched. I don't need this shit right now. Toro's opal gaze narrowed as she opened her mouth again, he anticipated telling her to shut it in a very unpleasant way.

He didn't have to.

"I am Seraphina. Who are you, stranger?" Her name seemed familiar, but vaguely, and he didn't dwell on it. He resented the authority in her voice; he didn't know why it ought to be there, so it irritated him. He didn't want to be treated like an outsider, or a child, or an idiot. So far, she'd checked off all three. Toro paused a moment to tame his tongue, at least somewhat, checking his tone just enough. "El Toro. Toro is fine." He sighed and looked off at the dunes briefly - he was doing that a lot lately. Something about the shifting sands on the wind brought him a little peace. Maybe it was the unfamiliarity - nothing here to remind him of there. The pale stallion looked back to her, gaze cooling slightly. "You're from here? Uhm...Sol-terra, yeah?" The name came off his tongue awkwardly, but, to be honest, a striking majority of his social interactions were negative and, despite his nature, he spent a lot of time avoiding anyone he thought was likely to make fun of him (which was almost everyone). Toro didn't know much of anything about this place. He supposed that marching into the desert was one of the worst things to do when you didn't know the sand from the soil.

@Seraphina  
beats

"What I say,"

What I think,
CREDITS





please always tag here and preferably discord for replies





Played by Offline Jeanne [PM] Posts: 399 — Threads: 81
Signos: 100
Inactive Character
#6

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

when the fires are consuming you
and your sacred stars won't be guiding you

She noted the curling of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes, but she offered him no reaction in response – her gaze was as cold and apathetic as it was upon her arrival. Seraphina’s demeanor was hardly intentional, and she often wished that she could appear softer, or kinder, or, at the very least, easier to tolerate…but she was harsh and wary and often unforgiving, and those traits were often required to simply survive in Solterra, much less to thrive within its sand-swept domain. Besides, the Day Court was full of quick tempers; she would have to be far more naïve for the signs of one to get under her skin. Before he could actually say anything, she spoke, and he replied easily enough, his tone admirably calm.

To be fair, she hadn’t intended to offend him – but it seemed to happen naturally for her.

“A pleasure to meet you, Toro,” she replied, with the dull intonation of formality. Though brusque, she was rarely anything if not polite. El Toro. It was a foreign name, and her tongue slid over the syllables thoughtfully. “Where are you from?” She questions further, a look of faint interest drifting across her otherwise monotonous features. Seraphina always enjoyed – as much as she could enjoy anything – hearing about foreign lands; she had never left Novus, and she had spent very little time outside of her court. She was, at heart, something of a scholar, even if her warrior’s build would indicate otherwise.

At his question, the dark tips of her ears pricked towards him, and she offers a hint of a confirming nod. “Yes, Solterra…I have been here for my entire life. Would you like me to guide you back to the court?” He was certainly lost, she thought, and apt to die of a heat stroke if he kept wandering; she was more than versed in the art of guiding lost strangers back to the walls of the court besides. The sands, though monotonous and treacherous to those who were unfamiliar with them, were familiar as a second skin to those who knew them well.

Just beyond him, she noted a strange shift of motion in the sand – the particles drifted, and, at first she might have thought it the wind, were it not for the snaking quality of their movement. Her stomach dropped, and her muscles, abruptly, tensed. Of course. That would be their luck, wouldn’t it? Her eyes narrow, and she stills-

“Don’t move,” she hisses, under her breath. “Whatever you do - don’t move.

Behind him, a massive, snakelike head emerges from the dunes, dripping trails of sand like water; it lets out a low, threatening hiss, blinking in the sudden brightness. It looks around confusedly, but it doesn’t seem to see them - yet. Seraphina notes, with a hint of relief, that it is not so massive as it could be…twelve or thirteen feet long at the largest, she imagines. However, it’s still a gamble to provoke, and she has no desire to earn its ire – though she’s not sure that she will have a choice in the matter.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


tags | @El Toro
notes | snek intensifies




@







I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORS
and there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.


please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence








Played by Offline Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16
Signos: 0
Day Court Champion of Battle
Male [He/Him/His]  |  14 [Year 496 Summer]  |  17.2 hh  |  Hth: 15 — Atk: 25 — Exp: 40  |    Active Magic: N/A  |    Bonded: Hajduk (Mythical Lion)
#7

(HORIZON’S SWARMING WITH DEATH - RUN!)

A pleasure to meet you my ass, his mind spat. She was arrogant and there was no doubt that she looked down on him. ”Where are you from?” Toro shrugged. ”Far from here. I believe I crossed a continent to get here,” maybe two. Her offer to guide him back stings, but really, what doesn’t? He’s lost. ”Sure,” is all he replies, and thinks it must be nice to want to stay somewhere for so long.

She looks past him and his stomach burns; her attention is diverted and - ”Don’t move.” 
He freezes.
”Whatever you do - don’t move.”
 Sweat beads on his neck from the sun, he’d like to think, but his hindquarters shiver as grains of sand sprinkle against his flesh. A low hiss passes through his ears. He inhales sharply, breath caught in his throat. ”Seraphina,” he whispers through his teeth, What is it?” For a moment he is doused in shadow, whatever thing it is has risen above him. Sand pours between Toro’s horns and he reflexively shakes his head, grains invading his eyesight.

Oh, shit.

For a moment he thinks it hasn’t seen them - its eyes couldn’t be on the bottom of its head, no, but with just the right angling of the skull - 

hissssssssss.

Wandering the desert angry rarely ends well.

It dives for him. He stumbles out of the way, heaving, half blind, the cool scales of the wyrm scraping against his flank as it slams into the sand. There are no thoughts in his beating skull, no words from his dry lips, but his head pitches sideways to Seraphina, eyes part white as the rest of him, half searching for direction and half to see if she still lives.

This is no feral beast.

@Seraphina Sahara

"What I say,"

What I think,
credit





please always tag here and preferably discord for replies





Played by Offline Jeanne [PM] Posts: 399 — Threads: 81
Signos: 100
Inactive Character
#8

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

when the fires are consuming you
and your sacred stars won't be guiding you

His somewhat dismissive behavior is hardly lost on her, but Seraphina cannot bring herself to care about it. “Far from here. I believe I crossed a continent to get here.” She always has a hard time wrapping her mind around the concept of travelers from other lands. Perhaps it is simply her own attachment to Solterra that makes leaving one’s homeland sound so unreasonable to her, for she genuinely enjoys travelling; it is the idea of traveling so far that you never return to where you came from, or the idea of never wanting to return to your homeland, that strikes her as so terribly foreign. In the absence of any real response to his nonanswer, she offers a stiff nod.

He agrees to let her guide him back, and, for a moment, she thinks that, in spite of their rather tense discussion, this has gone smoothly enough.

Of course, nothing in her life ever seems to go smoothly – that is when the sandwyrm appears.

And, of course, he doesn’t listen to her advice; of course, he moves. Of course, the damnable creature senses his motion, and then…

“Goddamnit,” she mutters, under her breath, and lurches into motion.

There is no outrunning a sandwyrm, not really - the best they can hope for is to get it out of the sand, where it is somewhat less dangerous. Now that it’s on their tail, they’ll have to kill it somehow; at least her impromptu travelling companion has a pair of horns. (She just hopes that he knows how to use them.) The sandwyrm has slipped beneath the sand again, in hot pursuit, but, with a rudimentary, panicked glance over her shoulder, she can see where it darts after them, a slithering ridge on the crest of the dunes.

The serpent can’t attack both of them at once, she knows, and she’s somewhat more accustomed to dealing with them than her companion. She stifles a frustrated groan, and, abruptly, veers off to the left with a sharp kick to the sand, with a shout of, “It’s a juvenile sandwyrm – no point in trying to outrun it!”

The sandwyrm follows her movement, attracted by the spray of sand she pointedly kicked up in her wake. Abruptly, she lurches to a halt, and it lunges out of the sand after her; she narrowly manages to leap out of the way of a facefull of fangs, rearing back in an attempt to keep the snake back with the threat of her hooves. It lets out an outraged hiss.

It bobs and sways in front of her, hissing; waiting for the right moment to strike. Tension curls up in her spine.

She hopes that this El Toro isn’t afraid of a fight; the last thing she needs is to wind up dead in the middle of the Mors, particularly when she went to the trouble of distracting the snake. With any luck, he’ll take advantage of the fact that it has its back turned to him…




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


tags | @El Toro
notes | many a moon later, have some more s n e k (ft. an exasperated Seraphina)




@







I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORS
and there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.


please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence








Played by Offline Muirgen [PM] Posts: 114 — Threads: 16
Signos: 0
Day Court Champion of Battle
Male [He/Him/His]  |  14 [Year 496 Summer]  |  17.2 hh  |  Hth: 15 — Atk: 25 — Exp: 40  |    Active Magic: N/A  |    Bonded: Hajduk (Mythical Lion)
#9

YOU FOOL, YOU WANDERER / YOU CHALLENGED THE GODS AND LOST

Seraphina starts moving and Toro follows, panicked but not unfamiliar with a hunt, oh no, he is familiar with the rushing blood and a bit of the fear and for all he doesn’t know, he knows he should follow her lead. He glances over his shoulder as she does, but the wyrm has gone beneath the sands now, following closely behind them. Toro isn’t comfortable enough on dunes to keep proper pace with Seraphina for long, so when she tells him not to bother fleeing it, he’s both horrified and grateful. In a way. Toro’s stomach lurches as she veers off but the wyrm is off his tail. 

The white stallion starts running again when the beast lunges for Seraphina, chest heaving with more terror than exertion; he’s as good as dead without her. The sandwyrm rears up and stills - sways - for just long enough that Toro charges its back, head low and horns sharp. The bone connects with smooths scales, narrowly missing the creature’s hardened spine, but as his horn goes deeper he thinks that perhaps he has only angered it. The wyrm writhes. El Toro rips his horn from its body and lurches backwards, slipping in the bloodied sands as the beast casts its sights on him. Scarlet splatters his alabaster face as he draws the wyrm away from Seraphina, praying dearly to no god that it really is moving slower than before. 


@Seraphina Planet Hell
"What I say,"

What I think,
credit





please always tag here and preferably discord for replies





Played by Offline Jeanne [PM] Posts: 399 — Threads: 81
Signos: 100
Inactive Character
#10

☼ s e r a p h i n a ☼

when the fires are consuming you
and your sacred stars won't be guiding you

He takes the hint and rushes the sandwyrm from behind while she attempts to distract it, but, when his horn connects with the massive serpent, the wound that he manages to give the beast is not as fatal as she had hoped. Blood spurts across the sand, and the sandwyrm lets out a furious hiss, its great skull lurching to stare at her pale companion; the flaps on the sandwyrm’s neck flare out aggressively as it lunges after him, Seraphina momentarily forgotten. El Toro slips, but he catches himself in time to dash away from the serpent’s aggressive pursuit, taking her place as its distraction. She grimaces, eyeing the bloody wound, and starts after them.

It is still young, and neither as heavy nor as strong as an elder sandwyrm. If she can manage to get a hold on it, she might be able to hold it in place for just long enough for Toro to impale it, assuming that he aims well enough…and assuming that he avoids its jaws, which will likely still be trained on him. It will require getting close, though, and managing to catch the snake in exactly the place where its scales have been ruptured. She has to be careful.

She picks up speed, kicking up clouds of sand in her wake, and approaches the wyrm from behind; when she has all but closed the distance between them, she lunges, her jaws snapping at the bloody wound on the sandwyrm’s upper back. Her teeth clamp into flesh, spilling pungent copper onto her tongue, and, though her bite is not especially strong, she tries to hold its writhing body in place, her hooves digging into the sand.

(The damn thing is all muscle; she strains against it, sure that her mouth is going to be sore for a week.)



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


tags | @El Toro
notes | sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss(ssssssssssss)




@







I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORS
and there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.


please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence








« Next Oldest | Next Newest »

Forum Jump: