Her fifth year had passed in a quietness that only Terrastella could hold in her arms, her court a silent thing that set with the sinking sun. It was also a year mostly spent in solitude with the flux of members dispersing throughout the realm's lands. She spent her time training then treating her own injuries, Jarl's wisdom coursing roughly through swollen veins. If she was to make a difference--if she really were to take up the throne as she failed to do in the Winter Court--there was no time for dawdle and free play. It was time to rattle the earth and recreate the Dusk Court as it once was; those who inspired her, those whose passion turned her body to flame, were no more. The creatures she passed were shells of the ones she loved and she craved the sight of burning hearts once again.
She was restless as the year turned new, determination and anger at the complacency of the world pushing her out; out to the edges of the tower's entrance to stand where any could see. With the stone standing tall behind her, the sun reflected off her cream tones and fell into her starry-sky ones, the deep blue patches nearly a black hole that captured all. There was only the hushed murmur of grass blades rubbing against each other with the song of the ocean calling out the opposite way. Her hair tangled up in itself and became impossible colors as she merely stood at the lip of the heart of the Court. A single, long-held neigh rang through the confines of Terrastella's borders; it wasn't one of urgency, but carried a softness that questioned if anyone would listen--if anyone would even respond.
"Any near enough to hear: come! Help me rebuild a system once of stability and purity." It was a broken thing now, but she was bent on turning it back around even if she was the only one willing to do it.
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
The tall grass clutched at the witch's stout legs as she pursued the source of the call. Her belly was still damp with swamp water and her hooves left a light trail of mud in her wake, but her curiosity left little room for self-consciousness to squeeze in. The starry mare had been exploring the swamp when she heard the distant echo of a voice. Another stranger? How many are there? She left her swamp under the protection of the towering black obelisk she had found several weeks ago. Truth be told, the immobile figure was a much better guardian than the flighty black hag.
Drops of putrid water dripped from her black skin as she stopped before who had summoned her. Stormy blue eyes had to squint against the harsh light bouncing from the vixen's bi-colored coat, and even then that was all the witch could make of the stranger: the sun was playing tricks on her eyes, and she could not make out the other's well-maintained musculature, nor the similarity in their markings that mirrored the night sky. For now she would have to ignore studying the stranger for weaknesses. And you'd do best to try hiding your own.
As if on cue, a cough erupted from the ebony hag's maw to muffle her introduction, "Y-Yana... Resident witch of the swamp." She flicked her ivory tail -- which she had recently bound in one thick braid -- in the direction of Tinea Swamp. She wondered if admitting to her status was a mistake: her dam had told her stories of customers seeking the aid of witches, but she had also warned Yana about those wanting to burn them. Her aunt had laughed harshly at that, for she had devoted her life to practising magic of the same element.
The dagger at the girl’s throat trembles and sways with each step she takes. It knows, it knows.
It is bereft of its subtle magic, bereft of its sharp cut. It beats against her breast, a rhythmical dance: cold to hot, thud to thud. The beat is heartfelt– a heart on the outside to echo the thrum of the red within. It sings, this dagger with its chain. It sings songs of chiming metal and clinking gems. It glitters and scatters light and throws it down to dance upon the earth. It is an instrument, creating songs that cry out for the world and times it can no longer reach, and songs for the girl to dance to. Florentine smiles, even as her dagger trembles knowing what she does not.
They are stuck, this girl and her magic dagger, for its magic is inexplicably gone.
Florentine listens for the rustle of grasses and the touch of their tickling bodies, blade-thin and silk-soft, against her wings. Each feathered tip drifts like fingers through this windswept sea of grass, held high and tight above the churning, crashing behemoth waters below. But even above the tumultuous waves that hiss and spit, she hears a voice call out. There is need, passion, challenge in the crying voice and it delights the flower girl. In but a blink of an eye, Florentine is swiftly seeking the source of this disembodied voice.
Grasses bow, backs bent and bodies cowed, beneath the arc and pulse of her wings and the force of the winds hurtling in off the sea. They stir and tangle in confusion as her body ascends, wings setting to the air and in moments Florentine is gone.
It is mere moments until night and day clash within Flora’s amethyst eyes. Dusk paints its colours upon Rannveig below, her skin living and breathing beneath the black silence of night and the bright shout of day. She is sleepy whispers and wakeful cries and Florentine’s petals, shed from windswept flowers, tumble down, down to greet her in silence.
But it is not only the Dusk kingdom’s queen that the petals meet. A putrid stench hangs wet and heavily about them as the swamp continues to drip, drip from a stranger’s skin. Flora’s eyes skip from dusk to midnight skin and then out across long, long ivory hair, stretched out like moonlit clouds in the pitch of night.
Florentine lands beside the mares, her eyes skipping from one to the other and back again. “Well, I met another witch once,” She begins, voice as light and earnest as though they were all old friends, never parted. “And she was just as beautiful as you.” Florentine pauses for thought, her head tilting with bird-like curiosity, “Witches are never as ugly as they like to make out. But I suppose there is a terror in fierce beauty.” The flower girl’s eyes linger a moment longer, ruminating over the swamp witch before her, her nose crinkling at the pungent smell.
“Oh, I am Florentine by the way.” Her eyes flit back, at last, from the midnight witch to the Dusk Queen, “Now, you were saying something about a system of stability and purity? It sounded quite rousing and I am quite partial to an honourable challenge now and again.”
this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
06-28-2017, 10:27 AM - This post was last modified: 06-28-2017, 10:29 AM by Florentine
She approached with a sickly sweetness that came along with the swallow of cough medicine, perhaps the idea a begrudging task to perform but one does it anyway to reap the benefits it promises. She supposed she was much the same way: a solitary figure who rose of her own accord to take a name they might look down upon her for. But with that title came sugar coated temptations, offerings of things they might have desired to obtain. And so it was with that relationship of give and take that any were interested at all--and, in the end, she could only hope it would stir others to do the same.
For now, though, the girl who tore herself away from the midnight sky came at her call, white pinprick stars giving the body a light to match the fire inside of it. Rannveig watched in silence with her words still staggering in the air around them, a soft feature with tilted lips given as a welcome. The other was wet, certainly recently pulling her way from the arms of the swamp, but Rann did not balk at the idea that she called the marshlands home; she grew up in a warrior camp, after all, and had but a tent to sleep in with the world around them a constant blizzard. She was not one to judge. So as the first to arrive came near, she merely gazed on with her teal eyes until introductions were made.
Then there were two.
She was the youngest Rann had seen so far, slim and beautiful. She carried with her the air of a princess given freedom for the first time; the war-ravaged mare wondered if she might have ended the same way had she not gone to Jarl. The youth betrayed by her movements and words sent a silent laugh through Rann's lips for the first time, a comfort found with having others near one she had missed for years. "It is a fear of the power which they hold that cannot be controlled." Her rough voice spread out in the spaces around them, a comment to reflect upon that which the winged girl made. She made no remark on the beauty of the two before her, but she knew very well they both possessed the ability to have many falling at their hooves. Though the dagger at the girl's neck, she presumed, could do just as well.
"'Rousing' I am not so certain of, but honorable it is. Do you know of the Dusk Court?" She rumbled a small laugh and posed the question before giving her own name. "Rannveig, the name I go by. I hope to have aid in building this Court back to what it was known for." Her eyes turned again to the self-proclaimed witch, a slight twitch of her ear the only indication that she knew what such a title entailed.
Oh dear, oh dear, he was late. Short legs carried the zorse quickly through the lands of the Dusk Court, his mohawk flopping and his forelock pushing back as he tried to get himself to the meeting. He had heard it, but had stumbled and fumbled the entire way to get to the one that was the Sovereign. Embarrassment ran red hot through him as he staggered, necklace flying and tail pushing out behind him, and he made several more small leaps that finally got him to where he wanted to be.
Big green eyes went wide as he panted, and he looked up to apologize and ---- there were.. three? Had only two shown up for the meeting? A pang went through him, and he danced on his hooves a moment, jingling with the bangles on his front hoof, before he stopped and cleared his throat. "S-sorry, am I... am I late? Or.. or early?" His ears twitched, and Rexha felt them fall against his head a moment, the mop of a forelock once more covering his eyes as he blinked, feeling foolish. He could have sworn he was late, but...
"Is this.. is this everyone?" A soft pang of hurt was in his words, a mourning for how tiny their court seemed to be. Not many of the Dusk seemed to be around, and that was a rather sad sight. His ears fell back a little more, and he scuffed a front hoof, well aware how he stood out like a sore thumb. A brightly colored and decorated sore thumb. "I am Rexha, a uh.. well, commoner of the last year or so here. It is good to finally have a Sovereign." His lips twitched upward and his eyes brightened under a curtain of cream locks, his ears beginning to gently lift up. So what if there were only a few of them, it wasn't the amount that mattered.. right?
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
Black hips rock from side to side while the witch waits for others to follow her muddy trail. She purses her lips to attempt to smother another cough, but it explodes past her yellowing teeth with ease. The hag's ears flicker back towards her crown in annoyance.Just as troublesome as the witch who cursed me with it. Although the starry girl is well-versed in medicine she has never been able to rid herself of the cough. First you maim me, sweet aunt, and now you make it impossible to demonstrate my skills in our trade. Surely the stranger will question her capability as a witch if she cannot even tend to herself. Soothing wounds is one thing, however, and lifting curses another. You'll have to prove yourself in that regard later.
The arrival of the winged youth interrupts that thought. Yana gratefully removes her gaze from a warrior surrounded by the sun's radiant light to a slender flower girl and her ornate weapon. The witch makes note of the odd combination with another flick of her tail. Does the cherub have a wicked side, I wonder? Stormy eyes roam across the delicate tangle of flowers strewn about her hair, but they are quick to return the girl's gaze when the hag notices her staring. An ear twitches at the tinkling sound of her voice: she cannot decide whether to feel abashed by the golden girl's comment on her kind, or venerated by it. Beauty means little in my trade, sweetling. "You met the best of us long ago, then." A smile perches on the witch's maw for a moment, but a series of harsh coughs steals it away. You remind me of what I could have been, little dove. I must have met the wrong witch.
The first stranger -- the wingless one, and the one she has not had a chance to develop an opinion of yet -- voices her agreement with the bird before continuing on. Another who knows our reputation. Black lips tighten whilst considering this new information, but before there is a chance to act on it a truly bizarre creature makes his own introduction.
A combination of the bi-colored stag's anxiety and declaration of Rannveig's position makes the hag feel uneasy. Her mind immediately goes towards the swamp that she has had the audacity to consider as her home: what will she do now that she knows it is not hers? A nervous snort expels itself from her nares. She has already admitted to residing there, and taking the words back now will only make her look foolish. But did she not ask for aid?
"I admit I do not know of the Dusk Court... lady." It takes the witch a moment to think of the term one must refer to a ruler as. "Perhaps it is in both of our interests to shed some light on the matter? I am not one for reconstructing a fallen empire but, as I'm sure you've heard, I have my uses." A faint smile returns to midnight lips at the prospect of serving her purpose again.
