Novus
an equine & cervidae rpg
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Novus closed 10/31/2022, after The Gentle Exodus

Private  - devil underneath your grin

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Eulalie
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#1

Eulalie had taken her time preparing in the court before setting back out to the Solterra sands. Mors was not a friendly face if you didn’t know where you were going or what you needed to bring with you, to prepare yourself for. She was sure more than one soul had been lost out here, buried beneath the desert never to be found until one day the wind unearthed whatever was left of them. It was a cruel truth, but a truth nonetheless. The desert was an unforgiving place, indeed.

The ivory and gilded woman remember well, the first time she had ever passed through it. It had taken her days longer than it should have to get out. She had been weak with heat exhaustion, hungry, thirsty. It was a wonder she had survived at all, and Eulalie had been so lucky that Ulric had been camping in Viride, that she had happened to stumble into his camp where he could have helped her get healthy again.

Her body may have recovered within a few months, but her heart, her psyche, it had taken it so much longer. She may have eventually put the events of her past behind her but she had never forgotten them. Perhaps, she thought, she hadn’t ever truly gotten over them, had never truly gotten closure, as she recalled that night at the festival not so many weeks ago. She had seen his face and it had set her into a panic like she had never felt before.

It was something she never wished to repeat.

The sands seemed neverending as Eulalie pushed forward. Every step left her hoofprints in the sand, only to disappear as it shifted and danced beneath the touch of the autumn breeze. Despite the fall season, the desert was still hot, the sun blinding. The warrior hoped if she kept moving she could be closing to Delumine by nightfall than not. It would do her no good to be subjected to the elements for longer than necessary in her pregnancy. She was already constantly warm, like a little personal heater, and the sun beating down on her back did not help.

She could not wait to return to Dawn Court, to see Somnus, who had swept in on gilded wings and stolen her heart, and her friends. Given time to grow, Eulalie had created a well and proper home for herself, and that thought caused her smile as she walked along, thoughts occupied and attention drifting.


ooc: @Albrecht time to ruin this girl's day lol










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Albrecht
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#2

ooc:  Due to the sensitive subject of slavery, I just like to put mature/trigger warnings up due to the nature in which these two are meeting.



...



Demons are like obedient dogs; they come when they are called.  


Albrecht spends his days leisurely soaring around like a hawk on hot hair.  Today is no different, he floats in large sweeping, dizzying circles.  He worms his way into clouds and out of them with no particular interest of coming down unless something dramatic and personal were to happen.  His associates know to never bother him, especially on flights.  The House of Vintari operates like a well-oiled machine with or without his presence at the compound.


His leisure is for his pleasure but what he really likes is control over everything he has his hand in.  He could be working but work is for his all of his slave labor.  And sure, they are unwilling just as much as they are unpaid (which is very) -- but they are still afraid.  Naked without personalities, neutralized without much hopes or desires - yet still so terribly afraid of the black-winged ophidian beast.  Of what he will do to them --- of what he has done to them in the past.


He haunts their nights.
Terrorizes their days.
And reminds them all,
Time and time-again,


You will never be free.


For the captives bound to him, by him,  this was (and still is) mostly true.  Seldom few ever get out - and of those few, even less live to tell their stories.  All the threatening and the killing isn't because he revels in the brutality of it - it is because he is terribly-terribly selfish.  There is never a need to be identified by an old slave who defects to their old habits and truths only to devastate his black empire.  He desires invisibility for invincibility. As far as Albrecht is concerned, his family name is as much golden as his eyes are.


The House of Vintari is known for its distribution of fine art, rare antiquities, and a fourth generation of jewelers and metal smiths.  It is not known for its slave-trade, money laundering, and various other illicit mayhem that pollutes society the same way fire smoke does:  Subtly, and without much thought to those surrounding upwind of the rat king.  He has been poisoning them all for years now, the ruinous underbelly of Novus has been alive and well and Albrecht has always kept very high stakes in it. 


As of recently, however, the holy roller's reputation has been obliquely threatened by unseen forces.  A year and a half ago, a slave went missing.  Not just any slave, his own personal favorite.  Albrecht had spent a fair amount of time (and money) on her -- one he had mistakenly grew to trust.  Now Eulalie, the slave, was out there somewhere and his tension (although he hid it well) cut into him deeper than any knife.  She knew things about him that could put him away for life, or cost him his own life if she told the right person(s) of all that Albrecht had done.  Not just to her, but several others.


High up here in the clouds he thinks about things like that.


But, 


--he also thinks about his next dinner party,
--about whether or not he should bring the fine crystal out.
He thinks about Ezra too, 


--and wonders if the man is smooth talking his way into Friday night's gathering by visiting with Albrecht's chosen guests.  Albrecht didn't forget to invite the golden boy, he did it with intention just to see how skilled his younger associate is at being a part of Who's Who.


From this high up, this menace casts only a pinprick of a shadow against the world of sand beneath him, and horses look like sand fleas.  There is a chance he looks down and sees Eulalie but from this distance it is undecided what it is he sees.  Besides, she cannot possibly be that foolish if she was smart enough to evade him before.  It is inconceivable to him to think that she would show her face anywhere knowing that he is still out there -- and searching.  It had been a fluke that she saw him at the festival and he missed her entirely.  Even now, gazing down, he does not detect her presence.


So instead he humors himself with how small the speck of a horse several miles down looks.  he envisions himself as an eagle with talons that raze and tear.  How easy and how fun would it be to be a true raptor and not just a metaphorical one with his midnight pilferage of late night lone travelers? How easy his job as a collector would be if he could just pick up his quarry with two mighty arms and fly off with them rather than hunt them on the ground like the jackal that he truly is.


His concentration breaks unexpectedly, the latch on his throat piece gives up its ghost.  It must be the chill from flying in such thin, cold air for so long -- or a fingers of Fate slipping the catch because she can.  The emerald laden necklace slips from his possession without any warning.  It falls fast and true and it couldn't be more perfect timing.   The heirloom, is the first thing he thinks, a beloved piece of art given to him at a young age and kept more preciously than anybody or anything he has ever known in all of his villainy. He worries more about it being carried away than he does for the creature it will narrowly miss way down below.


 Immediately, the ophidian flier tips, wings acutely angling down so he is forefeet first into a nose dive.  The choker lands hot and heavy just a few feet from the traveler in the sand with a deep thud.  Three feet over and it might have put a hole the size of a goose egg through their head at the height from which it escaped Albrecht. 

It is Eulalie's doom, not far behind it, something big, dark, and completely terrible-looking follows at break-neck speed and blacks out her view of the sun the closer he gets.


ALBRECHT

this is what you came for. this is what you get


@Eulalie  O' yeah Mr. Krabbs, O' yeah O' yeah Mr. Krabbs.









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Eulalie
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#3

It plummeted to the ground with ferocity, thudding against the sand as though it were concrete rather than a shifting, unstable surface. When her heart stopped racing Eulalie stepped closer, full of curiosity, and got a better look at the object. It was half buried beneath the sand, hard edges and metallic shine glinting in the bright sun. She leaned down, blowing away the sand with a deep breath.

The emerald encrusted necklace staring back at her made her stomach drop.

In her mind’s eye she saw it hanging around the neck of a large, obsidian cloaked man with eyes as golden as her hair. How it caught the light every time he turned his head, every move he made that she carefully watched, never wanting to anger him. When he was angry his eyes were more red than gold. That was what she remembered.

It was too late for her to run, too late for her to do more than spin out of the way when the shadow fell over her, all feathered wings and blocking the sun. Eulalie tried to still the racing of her heart as her earth brown eyes swung up to the watch the man racing toward the earth at an incredible speed. It was too late for her to run, too late for her to do anything else but swallow the fear rising up her throat and stand her ground.

Wasn’t this why she had come all the way to Solterra in the first place? To alleviate the weight on her shoulders, to break the hold over her that this past life of her still had. She feared stress would not be good for the small life growing inside her, but perhaps more than anything she feared what would happen when he noticed the roundness to her belly, the glow of her skin and the added weight of pregnancy to her curves. Above all things, Eulalie had no idea how he would react to her having started a family.

He would land, and she would find nowhere to hide in or outside herself and she would be forced to look in the eyes of the man she had escaped and had kept running from until this very moment. She would look into the eyes of the man who had held her prisoner, broke her, and she would say his name, “Albrecht,” and it would not come out as sure and strong as she wanted it to.


ooc: @Albrecht










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