The sun, and the twittering of birds, drew her citrine eyes to look upon the world she now found herself in.
At first, and even after she rolls to her belly, her forelegs crooked upwards before her and ginger muzzle sweeping this way, and that, the girl believes she is dreaming. The horrible, eternal rain that falls at the fringes of her fuzzy memory is no more, and there are no cryptically bent and slimy trees alive with glowing eyes, either. All around her is an endless sea of emerald grass, and it is dappled all about by the silhouettes of strangers that are neither glowing or malevolent. No fog rolls over the earth, only the golden sunlight, and the wind that gently tousles through the heady air is clean and whimsical.
Surely, she was still asleep. Yet, who was she to deny a pleasant dream, when her world had become a nightmare? She tells herself, and rises to her hooves, shaking her body to rid it of the clinging grass and wandering insects who had inched across her dozing form. Instinctually, she reaches over her shoulder to put her cloak back in place – but it is not there.
Even if this was a dream, her heart drops to her belly regardless, and tears well in her eyes at the loss of her cloak. Trying her best to console herself that, when she awoke, all would be well, the maiden sniffles before rubbing her tears away on a knee, and heading out across the rolling expanse of grass, her antlered head held high, and pale green eyes looking all about her at the prettiness of this world.
It’s not until a hole snags her unwitting hoof and her ankle is roughly wrenched in the process that the girl realizes she’s not dreaming at all. Suddenly horrified in all the ways she had been aloof but moments before, her happy smile falls away for the crestfallen, open mouthed expression of one who hasn’t a clue what is going on, but for the truth she hasn’t a clue where she is.
“Not again,” tearfully warbles the ginger and cream darling, looking down at her hooves in utter dismay.
[ OOC: anyone is welcome :D ]
If you’re tossing & you’re turning,
& you just can’t fall asleep, I’ll sing a song beside you. and if you ever forget
how much you really mean to me, every day,
I will remind you.
You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you'll understand why
It had been many years since Evangeline had felt the burning sting if loneliness. As far back as she could remember Tallis had been with her, anchored in her mind and her heart, but their bond had been severed the minute they'd abandoned Helovia and entered Novus. His departure had been sudden and unexpected and the copper mare had chased after him, calling for him in vain. In the weeks that followed she had searched for him with no luck before finally accepting that he was gone and she was alone.
The more time Eva spent alone the more she realized just how much she had cherished the bonds she'd forged within Helovia's borders, regardless of the anger and disappointment she'd often felt toward them. What she wouldn't give just to see one familiar face again, or hear a familiar voice...
"Not again."
Evangeline's head jerked upward, her emerald eyes widening as they searched the sea of green grass that surrounded her because she knew that voice. It was more mature, but she knew it and she had to find the girl it belonged to. "Maude!" She called the girl's name when she spotted her standing alone and staring at the ground. Her posture and the waver in her voice were not promising, but the copper mare couldn't help but feel a surge of hope. If Maude was here then Tilney had to be here, too. She coldn't ever remember the stallion letting his daughter out of his sight for long.
"Maude!" She called again as she moved swiftly toward the girl. My, she had grown. "Are you okay? How did you get here? When? Where's your father? Is he here, too?" She realized she was speaking too quickly, asking too many questions and so she forced herself to stop and when she did she finally allowed herself to take in just how upset she appeared. "You'll be okay." She spoke again, her voice as reassuring as she could possibly make it.
She was simply going to let her tears discolor the earth for some time, before a voice caught her attention, much like a net catches a fish, if such a thing was positive, like this experience surely is. Suddenly, the trajectory her life had seemed to be taking (one which careened wildly through magical worlds rife with portals, and which subsequently left her alone and quite lost) veered again.
The familiarity is enough to invoke the most trace of smiles on her lips even before she recognizes them, or fully looks up from the ground. When she does behold the copper mare, once a staple image in the midst of the Edge’s herbal groves, her heart almost bursts with delight and excitement to not truly be alone, after all.
“Miss Eva!” emotionally bursts the filly, her hooves carrying her forward with swift pace, as well. Though the world of the Rift had left her somewhat wary that this pretty woman was, in fact, a magical illusion, the youth’s hope that Evangeline was real was almost palpable, and the thought of how badly it would hurt if she wasn’t… well, Maude would much rather believe she was truly there. So, no sooner than she is close enough, the cremello (who has never understood personal boundaries very well) gives in to her urge to throw her nose around the older mare’s comfortable shoulders, unless Evangeline pulls away.
Her joy is short lived, as Maude has found it to be, ever since she turned one, anyway. While holding her old teacher, feeling all the emotions of having lost her in Helovia to find her here, wherever it was, as well as the additional ones of oh thank Gods, someone who knows who I am, where my roots are… flood through her, and are met with the sudden dam that is the mention of her sire.
Tears trek easily down the paths that had momentarily begun to dry; her lower lip warbles as she steps back, her nose again tucking down towards the earth as a wealth of sorrow nearly devours her.
“I-I…. I don’t know!” blurts the maiden, though Evangeline’s assurances do comfort her, some, and she manages to look up at her with tear blurred, pale green eyes, “everyone was d-d-dying, so I went through the stupid portal, even though daddy hadn’t come home from his sab…sabba… sabbata ... blugh, work quest. And the Rift was awful, so I’m not totally sad I’m gone, but… everyone is there, Eva. Probably daddy too, and all my stuff. And, and - and now I’m here, wherever that is, and I don’t k-k-knooowwwww.”
Her words, though clear enough up until the very last, dissolve into shuddering tears, her whole shoulders quaking with her sobs.
If you’re tossing & you’re turning,
& you just can’t fall asleep, I’ll sing a song beside you. and if you ever forget
how much you really mean to me, every day,
I will remind you.
The ove-rsized colt was flowing in from the sea when he caught a call on the wind. Now passing with ease of the the wind, his monolithic tail streaking the clouds behind him, Damascus cast his nose down to view the great expanse of meadowland under his feet. Spotting the two creatures was easy, though still the creature was learning to land - landing close by without injuring one with his great heap of hair would be a challenge, so instead he just maintained his flight and passed them by.
Though, as he drew nearer, sobs were heard upon the breeze. Was one of them hurt? were they being attacked!?
Swooping downard, angling his wings for landing, the strange bird had soon set himself with a great boom upon the land near the females. Niether he recognised, and even their scents were obscure and unfamiliar. Both were miniature compared to the growing adolescent, now eighteen hands and counting.
with a threatening snort the child approached, marching to the chestnut mare with urgency and intention.
"Little one hurting be you!?" He demanded to know, quickly tossing his giant nose between both girls. "Hurting her not do you! Court of Dusks unnacepts childrens harm" he soon bellowed with a voice deeper than most fully grown men. Soon his silver eyes turned to Maude, his chest puffed with both adrenaline and a little pride. "Protection do I to you, girl small"
@Maude @Evangeline
You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you'll understand why
The relief that Maude felt at finding someone that she knew, someone that had been part of the Edge family was shared by Evangeline. So when the filly made to embrace her, the copper woman did not pull away. No, instead she embraced the girl, held onto her tightly, sighing her relief into the girl's lengthy mane. Maude's presence made Evangeline dare to hope that there would be others in this new land that she would know -- more friends and family that she could embrace.
But then came the questions, flooding into Eva's mind and past her lips. The shift in Maude was immediate and made Evangeline wish that she had waited just a bit longer before asking and probing for answers. She carefully withdrew from Maude, her emerald eyes studying the girl's face and watching the tears run down her face. "Maude..." She said, her voice falling to silence when her old student finally admitted that she didn't know where her father was.
What followed next had Evangeline staring, dumbfounded, because she truly didn't know what the girl was talking about. "What? Dying? Who?" Her brow furrowed in confusion and concern. Everyone was dying? Portals? The Rift? "I don't ... What are you talking about? I don't understand." Whatever it was it had Maude distraught and Eva hated to see her like she was. "It'll be okay." She tried to console the girl. "Your father will look for you, I promise." Though, perhaps she shouldn't have promised something that she couldn't guarantee. "Every parent searches for their children and you know how much your father loves you. He'll look for you."
No sooner had she finished speaking a pegasus swooped past and her gaze lifted to watch him as he landed. Her ears were tilted forward in interest ... until he snorted and marched up to her, barking out words and sticking his massive nose where it didn't belong. Her ears fell back then, and her gaze darkened as she realized that he was accusing her of hurting Maude. The nerve! Evangeline snorted, her head raising as she glared. "You're making an ass out of yourself by assuming you know what's going on." She replied, her tone flat. "Why don't you march back to where you came from and leave us to mourn in peace?"
She leans into the warmth of her teacher with every ounce of emotional strength she has, desperate to cling to this small piece of the world she knows. In her turmoil, she forgets that Evangeline had been missing for nearly two seasons when Helovia had come to its abrupt and violent end. Simply overwhelmed with her need to be near to her friend and mentor, rather than wandering aimlessly alone (as the past few months of her life had seemed an endless trail of time to herself), Maude feels her fractured heart tremble and expand inside her chest.
The feeling of a great gap widening there as Eva pulls away is distinct, and draws a small, almost silent exhalation of worry. Don’t go, not yet, she almost blurts, except for the mention of her name holding her words as fretful sniffles and mournful tears. Instead, she waits, eyes wet and leaking, ears splayed to either side of her antlered head, occasionally loudly sucking in the snot that threatens to leak out of her damp nose.
Suddenly remembering that miss Evangeline probably hasn’t a clue what she’s talking about (she’s been missing, remember? Maude’s more rational self chides of her simpering, childish one). The thought isn’t exactly comforting, however, and the tears begin to leak out of her eyes all the faster, despite the chestnut mare’s hurried attempts to assure the maiden that her father would be looking for her. How? Maude might have blurted, if she wasn’t so trapped in the painful idea of telling this wonderful woman that their home had been destroyed.
“Oh… you don’t know, do you?” she slowly says, very quietly, to her hooves.
Blessedly, a distraction sweeps overhead, the shadow drawing the wary youth’s eyes abruptly. Unlike Evangeline, she had just come from a realm of magical miscreants, where the trees were as likely to get you as the civilians and beasties. Immediately distrustful (especially considering her very early encounter with a band of hungry griffons, also flying), the girl turns away from Eva to face the tall stranger as he approaches. It’s not until he speaks, however, that she realizes he is only a boy.
What a giant kid! And he was talking to her!
With eyes wide and flitting from he to Evangeline as he roughly gestures to her, Maude wonders if he is accusing her of hurting the elder mare, or vice versa. Either way, the fact of the matter was that it was not true, so much so that she’s immediately offended, just like Eva is. Her head lifts abruptly, her tear-lined face raised into the summer winds so that her pale forelock dances gently across her chiseled ginger features, and though his proclamation to defend her softens her expression (and draws the faintest of smiles over her former scowl), Maude hasn’t time to speak her opinion on any of it, before her brazen teacher speaks up for them both.
“Miss Eva!” gasps Maude as the copper mare curses, sorrowfully (because she is) and apologetically (because it is what ladies are in cases like this), she hurriedly adds, “She’s my friend, young sir knight. I am quite lost, you see, as I was one place, then suddenly another, and now I'm here, though how and where and why I am quite afraid I do not know. But! Thankfully, by the grace of the Gods, Miss Evangeline is here! She was my teacher back home, in He-e-e-loooviiiaaaa…”
Emotionally blubbers the youth, to distraught at the mention of a land that was no more to continue on, even in defense of her beloved tutor.
If you’re tossing & you’re turning,
& you just can’t fall asleep, I’ll sing a song beside you. and if you ever forget
how much you really mean to me, every day,
I will remind you.
The reaction he got was not one he had expected, but still he had of course been prepared for confrontation. He had not, howeve,r been prepared to be wrong. Craning his nose back agains the underside of his neck as the chestnut mare hooted back at him with a few snapping words about making assumptions and how he should go back to where he came from, words that for a moment made him ponder where he had even come from, but then he blinked away the confusion and responded with a simple and bedazzled "oh".
The Jerboa who rode upon his whithers had woken from his slumber, hopping from his burrow deep within the child's down feathers and skipping up the black one's maneless neck to stand atop his poll and peer down at the smaller females. Waving to them kindly, Dohv would apologise for the boy's boyish behaviour if he could. The truth was, Dohv was at least ten times Damascus's age and therefore ten times as wise.
When the girl spoke, Damascus turned his dazzling eyes to face her and hear her explanation of the events. It was only when she started to bluber that his eyes sunk an his brows began to raise with even more confusion, his lips drooping. had he done that? "Sorry!" He bellowed "Sorry I be, not mean I hurt you to make!" His wings fluttered with humiliation as he spoke, sinking at their lowest joints and curling forth to offer her a feathery hand of comfort. "Levolia" He tested the word upon his own tongue (though still got it drastically wrong), eyes cast skyward as he wondered about the land she spoke of.
You see her when you close your eyes
Maybe one day you'll understand why
Eva shook her head as Maude finally began to realize that the copper mare didn't know what she was talking about. She'd abandoned Helovia and set out on her own not long after the Gods begun stealing land from the Rift. She had sensed an impending doom, much like she had when the sickness had overtaken their home and had begun swallowing up lands and corrupted the inhabitants.There was little comfort in knowing that she hadn't just been paranoid, not when her friends had been dying. She waited patiently for Maude to explain what had happeed, to possibly tell her who had died, but the haughty entrance of the colt distracted the both of them.
The boy's response to her snapped comment made Eva suspect that he might not have understood what she'd said. Maude, however, did and her shocked reaction drew little more than a snort and a flick of her tail from Evangeline. The girl quickly delved into an apology and an explanation, which Eva didn't exactly think was owed to someone who assumed the worst (even if Evangeline did it, herself.) At least she didn't go around openly accusing everyone of wrong-doing. He, however, seemed to understand then and offered a rather loud apology.
"Helovia." Evangeline said quietly in response to the incorrect pronunciation of her and Maude's former home. There was a tinge of sadness to her voice, because she knew that she wouldn't ever be able to go back -- not if everyone had abandoned it for a safer place. It was like Isilme all over again....
The copper mare cleared her throat and turned her emerald eyes back to the winged boy. "Where exactly are we?" she asked. "And who are you?"
The large boy seemed quite taken aback by Miss Eva’s blunt attitude. His short, “oh,” and the way he quieted thereafter might have made Maude laugh, on a better day, but presently, she was far too distracted with her own feelings, and the reality of her and her tutor’s newfound situation, to find humor in a boy being thrown off by a sassy, copper colored healer.
A small rodent then appears from the boy’s shoulders, though how Maude had missed him before now was somewhat baffling to her. Had it hidden between the youth’s wings? Or did this place have magical animals that appeared and disappeared at will? She certainly hoped not. Maude had a hard enough time wildlife watching with the creatures being firmly fastened into reality, let alone if they could chose when to exist in it or not.
He makes her think of her friends, and their companions, and his wave of hello doesn’t inspire the sort of mirth it might have, weeks prior. Instead, she feels somewhat sad, and wonders (quite a dark ponder for one like Maude) if she’ll ever see them again, or if it is even worth getting to know this tall stranger and his small friend. They might just be taken away from her again, after all, thinks the young lady quite glumly to herself.
Blubbering and sobbing, the cream haired maiden isn’t that surprised that the conversation diverts to deal with her emotional outburst; feeling pretty awful that the strange boy was so sure he’d done it, however, when he very well hadn’t, the girl tries to dry it up. Things seem to be going okay as she sucks and blinks, at least until Eva says, “Helovia.”
Then it all starts again.
Piteously warbling with tears and emotion as Evangeline asks useful questions in the face of Maude’s utter uselessness, all the filly manages to blubber out is a meager, simple statement.
“Y-y-you didn’t do-o-oooo it,” weeps the youth, stepping nearer to Eva for support, and stomping a hoof as she says the most horrible God in any universe ever’s name, “Kaos did!”
If you’re tossing & you’re turning,
& you just can’t fall asleep, I’ll sing a song beside you. and if you ever forget
how much you really mean to me, every day,
I will remind you.
The humiliation that came with upsetting the girl began to wane, though came back in hearth throbbing waves as he continued to stare at the pair of does before him. Promptly the larger of the two asked of the place they stood and his name, so without hesitation he obliged.
"Surossoruo..so fieldses" As he spoke this he looked up blankly as if attempting to physically look into his mind and find the correct pronunciation for the name of the vast sea of grass they stood upon, though perhaps she wished to know in less strict terms. "Novus is land we be in, Court of Dusks if you wish exactness." It was then that he shifted upon his giant hooves, looking from the younger girl to the older woman
Forgetting her other question when the younger began to weep once again, Damascus reached out with a wing and tentatively outstretched a humungous fore-feather to prod her back - an attempt at comforting her, before Evangeline's querie was recalled. "Oh! name of mine Damascus be" he spoke with a nod, retracting his wing and relaxing it against his flank.
"Court of Dusks give home to yous?" he would then ask them, silver eyes blinking between them "home be for healerses and lady Rannveig" Perhaps they sought refuge just as he had in the Court of Dusk, and they would be welcomed with open arms if they knew anything about healing. Turning his nose in the direction of the court the then began to stride forth before lowly uttering; "me you follow"
@Maude @Evangeline
