Crash, crash, Burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground
when she turns toward the face of dawn, to let her hungry eyes linger along the blue coastal line, her gaze drinks the ruby sunrise that drowns the sky in violent, visceral prayer. when she turns to face the sun. her lips curves upwards into a devilish smirk; feeling the brush of satin light, hotly, caress her skin like the wings of a hundred, storming fireflies rushed too quickly, too suddenly over flesh. today, she dances in the beach-side of terminus sea. drinking in the raw, morning light. she dances and slides past the mangroves, in a laconic purr of white and scarlet. breathing soft, feral breaths, as she wove through the deep shadows of its still-beating wilderness. in the background, emblazoned by fiery hues, the oceans were nothing more than a steady thrum of languidly, lapping waves; waves, that smothered the shores. drummed, and sang in tune with the rhythm of her heart.
today, winter's grasp does not relent; cold and fervent with icy wrath. red hits the boulders in a burst of smoldering fire as sunlight weaves fervor, through the boorish cliffs. its caressive torridity, sweltering raw gold through the sinews of its granular-sculpted halls, and rocky crevasse. and she watches the sunfire, as it drips like yellow bones from slit fissures upon the cliffs and mountainside. upon the feral savagery of her curves, the rays of sunlight, spills, in smooth curves of blinding, acid-white. tracing the lightening edges of her spine. sleek with hot-white warmth and steel and blood. she is the violent, crimson song that dances wickedly through the hallowed halls of this empty wilderness. how her heart pounds in her chest. how her mind, her thoughts, stray beyond reality - plagued, by the screams of war. even amidst the golden breath of dawn, the bitter songs of revelation, torments her every waking hour.
suddenly, she is far away from here. she is far from the violent beauty of the oceans. she is far from the purifying melody of the seas. the low whisper of its intimately rushing tide; the deep waves of azure, that thrashed gently asunder, dream after dream after opiate dream. suddenly, instead of beauty, she sees blood. instead of roses, she smells gunpowder. she remembers the war. she remembers every visceral detail. every flow of dark, crimson blood, dampening her skin and the scent of ruination and deep, red terror. the memories of battle-forged armies. broken civilians. torn civilizations. her sisters, her mother; succumbing, to its irresistible destruction and inevitable fate.
she remembers the streets had lain, empty. barren. molten carnage, pouring forth, from the obsidian shroud. the blackness. the salivating jaws of horror, that consumed the dying and tortured the despaired. she remembers the beasts of war, that drenched the heavens in its venomous emulations. culling souls, with each whisper of grisly end. she remembers the smell of death. hot, and heavy, and mingled with rank debris and eternal rot. twisting the inside of her stomach in tight, knotting fists. destruction, lay everlasting. ruin breathes eternal. ash, falls down like deathly-pale snow. loitering and dusting ruminated buildings and shattered hallways full of broken glass, and blood-stained carcasses. such a desolate stretch of apocalyptic vacuity. a silent hill of consternation. the gorey nothingness, that which mirrors the emptiness in her heart. in her body. in her soul. she remembers it all and her heart both screams and aches with a wild, uncontrollable vengeance. she is hungry for release. wild, for retribution.
o, when she turns away from the ocean, she can still hear their screams. an echoed fabrication, violently tearing into her reality. whisper after whisper after shrill whisper. broken, with the prayers of the forgotten. of the damned. the shadows leave her mind; yet she cannot leave its darkness - she knows she can't be saved. these walls were nothing more than a cage; a cage, to savagely entice the hunger that is our wicked euryale. whisper after whisper, she wants to pull away from the violent reverie. to pull away from the siren cries of violence and hunger that consumes her mind. and thus, with tempered grace, her body brushes thru the oceanic gardens with a feral sigh. sensuous and earthly; she bows her crown, and moves in a sashay of devilish abandon. she breathes in the fiery morning light. inhale. exhale. she breathes softly, as air expands the lithe definitions of her so-girlish skeleton.
her hand is silk. her nails are knives - stained, in blood. the wolf's grasp comes in the form of iron. her body is euphoric; laced in scars - traced, in vicious malady. she unfurls like a python of wild lilac, before the rush of scarlet. with dark curves, twisting in the language of vipers - how she writhes along the raw pathways; her body of vermilion, descending, and tattooed snakes made manifest. ribbons of jade, snake beside her thighs; brushing her flanks in a smooth caress of violent satin - how they flow behind her like a ravishing gown. all silken curves, and red angles of her, swathed in their unabashed, semi-transparency. the memory of euryale's fragrance, lingers like the aftertaste of candied sanguine. though far more tainted, fore iron lay beneath its soft petals.
she smells of blood, caramel and deep, jasmine flowers. smoldering, and permeating delicately; the sweet, saccharine lingering of ethereal femininity - bathed, in hot iron. across the earth, she pads with a growl. hooves like talons, scratch the hard soil. her songs of carmine venom, unfurling in the silent kiss of her wake. she does not sleep in the castle with the others, but hunts and prowls in the wildwoods, by the light of the moon. by the savage cries of the ocean. the she-wolf has spent her evenings hunting the animals of the forests with her lilith. skinning them, then bringing their skins to lay lavish upon the floor of her bedroom. even the mangroves pulsates with the perfume of her arrival. even their stark foliage, grown wild amid the wintry foray, twists within their feral gardens. quivering at the intimacy of her touch. euryale moves restlessly, running her body against the smooth rocks, against the cliffside walls. the siren lets a purr leave her lips. savoring the cool of shadows, that may soothe her weary mind.
her lips, curves around a silent prayer and her voice, softer than a song, drifts into the morning light. into the brewing waves of relentless oceans, that howled with the hunger of her heart.
There is a fire inside of this heart
and a riot about to explode into flames
Don't you feel lonely living in your own little world?
Dusk had tightened its grip on me. The soft hues of daylight as it faded to night consuming my waking moments. Thus far my time in Novus had been completely directionless. Before me, I had countless choices - each one influenced only by my mind and desires. Easily I could have left behind Terrastella. I had no ties there, no emotions to cloud my judgment with its bias. There were many new corners of this land waiting to be discovered. Kept on a tight leash throughout my life, such freedom should have seemed appealing. Instead, I felt my soul balking- pulled towards the easternmost reach of Dusk.
I'd heard many stories of the sea - seen the waves rolling into the bay where the kingdom's docks resided. Never, however, had I laid eyes upon the full vastness of it. Luvena had done her best to educate me on the many different landscapes found within Novus. At the mention of the sea, my interest had been piqued.
Leaving the malnourished mare behind had been more difficult than I'd imagined. Since the moment she had rescued me from my lonely wanderings, I sensed that she understood my pain. Careful, as always, I did not find it easy to discuss the intricate happenings of my past. Complicated and confusing, I knew that I'd been privileged. I'd never gone without a meal, or suffered pain at the hands of my father. Treated like a ceramic doll, mine had been a shell cushioned with silk sheets. Hardly waiting for a single thing. Spoiled. The jewels I was forced to wear upon me were all the evidence anyone would need to this fact.
The muck and the mud of the swamp were behind me, and I followed the salty scent of the coast. The heaviness of it filled my lungs - almost making it hard to breathe as I climbed the slightly inclining path. For a moment, I imagined the raucous sounds of the shipyard that would waft through the open windows of the Palace Sanctuary. There were many days that I would sit and watch, my mind dreaming up the many different lands the sailors could visit. They had been limited only by the loads they were charged to transport. Below, they were a reminder of a life I would never possess. Then, I knew I would never be free enough to spread my wings and fly as they could. Unbridled and unchained, the tables had now turned. Drastically my life had been altered - even despite the golden collar that remained tight around my neck.
Slipping past towering rocky outcrops, wind-whipped all around me. The long flowing locks of my mane danced wildly in the air about my face. Clove and nutmeg was an assault to my nostrils - a faint reminder of the Emperor's chosen perfume. Never again would I bathe in the expensive soaps provided to the Emperor's many wives. The scent of it was now nauseating. Absently, I began to contemplate what my next perfume might be. Rose, perhaps - or jasmine. My options were now limitless, the concept that I was free to make my own choices still shocking.
Beneath opal encrusted hooves I marveled at how the terrain had shifted. From the slippery sogginess of the swamp to the now dangerously rocky footing I faced, it was almost impossible to imagine such diversity within one kingdom. With every step taken, loosened pebbles rolled free and downward. All around me, gorges were cut from the green - creating dangerous cliffsides that would happily swallow me whole. Unsteady, my leonine tail whipped wildly about in an attempt to maintain my balance. I should have stopped, spun around, and returned to the comfortingly flat grounding I'd grown accustomed to. The sound of waves crashing against stone, however, echoed in my ears and kept me moving forward.
For a moment, it sounded as if I had reached the end of the world. Even the air around me felt as if it wished for my demise as it battered violently against me. Almost without realizing it, the ground disappeared in front of me - sufficiently halting me. I should have been afraid as rocks crumbled at the sudden influence of my weight. There was no way of knowing whether or not the ledge where I stood was capable of holding me, but I also didn't seem to care. Stone still, my muscles remained taught as I stared out at the endless blue that stretched out below. I was small in comparison to the vastness I now beheld. Tears pricked at my eyes - pure emeralds dripping diamonds. I was nothing but a speck, a moment in time. Insignificant and unimportant.
intoxicated by madness,
I am in love with my sadness
At first glance the weather front was a bleak gray smudge wrapped about the mountain tops. It did not immediately look as if a terrible storm was bearing down upon the Arma mountain range. Yet as the afternoon wore on, Tenebrae noticed how the air grew cooler, the grey stone of the mountain grew dark, as if wet. The sky above became ever more stark as the weather pulled herself ever nearer.
By the time she reached the mountain Tenebrae was descending, flurries of snow had blown ahead of her, an innocent herald of what was to come. Swiftly a few flurries were replaced by a shower and then, in a startling matter of moments, a blizzard. Lightning crackled across the sky, the thunder booming as it set the mountain trembling with the reverberation of noise.
The Disciple persisted, for longer than was advisable. Yet the snow began to pile up, deeper than his heels at first, then when it reached his fetlocks, when root and stony dip was concealed by such a thick blanket of snow, Tenebrae knew he needed shelter from the storm. There were log cabins dotted about the mountain range. He knew their locations well, he had traversed the mountains as a young postulant and every day since. As such it was easy for him to know when the weather was simply too adverse to battle through.
The cabin stands a dark rectangular shadow upon the windswept corner of the mountain. Its door opens with am aged creak. It is cold in within the log cabin, but dry at least. Tenebrae moves first to light the fire and once it is roaring within the hearth, the fine plume of smoke drifting across the mountain, Tenebrae sets himself before it. His skin is damp, the melted snow sinking deep, even through his thicker winter coat. His shadows crawl the walls and dance in the firelight, telling stories across the dark walls. Stories of violence and love and loss.
Tenebrae ignores the hollow in his breast. He ignores how his ragged soul with its stolen pieces seem to chafe against his ribs. It would be a long, lonely night, he knows. The storm is large and the mountain too welcoming. He sighs, it was to be a long night alone with only his thoughts and regrets.
Red painted the desert a bloody hue as the sun began its slow descent behind the Veneror peak filling the sky with the same colour of war. The evening steadily approached and with it came the promise of a respite from the heated gaze of Solis’ eye. Though Novus was gripped between the icy claws of winter, Soltera remained a land of fiery colours and suffocating heat. Even now, with the worst of the day over, the air still clung to any creature that wandered, still close and heavy and warm.
Sobec had chosen this time of day specifically to traverse the perilous deserts of Solterra, the dunes and canyons that had once been her home. Though the main city had changed whilst the Arete were held captive by time- the buildings developing, the faces changing- the desert remained the same. It was as though it too had been kept in the time cage, frozen in its state, never changing, never aging. Even before the catacombs, before Sobec had joined the Arete she’d never taken the time to wander the sands of her home, to reminisce. Her youth seemed like a life time ago, and in some sense it was, yet she walked the edges of the Elatus canyon without even looking, her hooves taking her of their own accord.
There was nothing left of the Sivalu, not a whisper on the wind or a fleck of fur in the sand. It was almost as though they’d never existed at all, the Hisada had wiped them out so thoroughly. Sobec was the last of them, as far as she knew, one of the few Solterans who had been raised in the relentless desert. Rarely did the survivor allow herself to be encumbered by such feelings, to allow her past to drag her back, stop her from moving forward. But that evening, as the sun went down on a dying day in a world that had changed whilst she’d stayed the same, Sobec allowed the threads of her soul to slowly unravel.
She will burn down your kingdoms; herself with it, if it meant your ruin
Posted by: Seraphina - 08-19-2020, 12:37 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
I AM DEAD & DESPISE ANYONE WHO ISN'T --
She walks the winding trail up to the peak without fear. It is slick with ice and frigid, but she is not afraid. She is not sure if it is because she is not afraid of dying – or if it is because of her magic, which keeps her suspended above the frozen paths regardless. She is grey, like the sky is grey, like the mountainside is grey. The world is monochrome, and winter makes it worse.
Lately, the entire world is grey. Time slips past without her noticing; she has lost track of the days entirely. She is not sure if it is her immortality or her mental state. She knows – innately – that something is wrong, but she tries to ignore it. The idea of doing anything to change it is too overwhelming to consider.
The cathedral looms in front of her. It seems to come up quickly; she barely notices it until she is upon it. She draws up the steps.
Ereshkigal perches outside of the cathedral, but she does not come inside. She has seen her do it before, but she has never seemed to want to; she wonders if demons are averse to holy places. She doesn’t ask her why, though. If she does, and if Ereshkigal gathers that she would rather her stay away, she is sure that there would be nothing she could do to keep her from accompanying her inside.
Seraphina is no good at praying, anymore. She does not want Ereshkigal to make her fragmented faith and half-hearted efforts worse. (Is she even there to pray at all?)
Dull, hazy sunlight leaks into the cathedral. It is hardly bright outside, and the dusty stained glass only serves to further dilute the effect. It is hard to stand inside without thinking of Rhoswen, dead. (Rhoswen, burning. Rhoswen – another casualty.) It is hard to think of Rhoswen without thinking of other things that she doesn’t want to remember. Her near-death. Statues. Corpses. A sinking ship. Starving orphans. A friend, tortured. Him.
She steps forward, hesitantly. The clack of her hooves on stone is too loud in the utter silence of the cathedral; its thick walls block out the wail of winter wind. She regards each statue in turn, but she only approaches Solis, who looms gleaming and gold against the wall which is pointed towards Solterra. She stands in front of the statue, and she stares up into his metal eyes. Having seen him alive, it is almost difficult to look at him like this. He looks like he could come to life at any time. He looks like nothing in him is alive at all.
She sweeps the altar of dust and grime with the bright yellow of her own scarf, giving little care to the way it smears grey against the fabric. She lights sticks of sweet-scented incense and pale yellow candles and arranges them about the altar. She dips her head to pray, but she can’t come up with anything to pray for, so she paces back and front of the altar until the small fires on the incense sticks and candlewicks stop burning, and then she dips her head again, but she finds that she can never get past the word please.
closed. || idk, man. trying to get a feel for some things? "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
The gentle touch of dawn’s early light hadn’t even crested along the horizon before Ba’al pulled himself from his bed, anxious and trembling. Breaching the threshold onto the empty balustrade, skin prickling in affront due to the biting cold morning air, the young soldier stared across the landscape that was Solterra.
It was early and the streets were still barren, lacking the normal bustle across sandstone roads. Darkness still covered the land but he knew it would only be hours, perhaps minutes, until the inky darkness of night gave way to the might of the sun. It was quiet, cold, and peaceful…
Two-toned eyes of soft blue and gentle gold slid closed, a misty breath escaping pale lips only to disappear amidst the chill. Monotony had gotten the best of him again, it seemed. Anxieties and self-doubts had kept him homebound, had forced him to keep his head down, mouth shut, and focused entirely on maintaining patrols. Of course, since the attack, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing…
But monotony was just as toxic, just as dangerous, for a mind as fragile as his. It gave him no time to think, to let his thoughts wander into dangerous territory, yet it’s tight grasp also refused to let his mind surface to better things. Focus could easily turn into neglect, and for what seemed like months Ba’al had lived in a dark, aloof fog. Finally the veil had lifted in the form of a fever dream, tossing and turning as he struggled to make sense of everything. Kit had woken him, Solis bless her keen insight, and he had pulled himself from his cot with sweat-soaked skin to stand here, upon the empty, quiet balustrade in winter’s early morning hours, swallowing great breaths as though he had been drowning for months and had only just surfaced…
The soldier’s eyes opened. His stare remained forward, watching, listening, waiting… An ear flicked forward, bleached pale from the summer sun.
Even through the fog, through the distance he had imposed upon himself, there had been a single constant. Helios. Perhaps he hadn’t treated the fellow as well as he should have, given their extensive history and close, familial relationship… But the man had always checked in on him, assigning them dual patrols at times, always keeping an eye on him like older brothers were wont to do. Ba’al had barely offered him a single word these last few troubling months, but he knew Helios would understand. He always did, even though Ba’al believed he deserved far better treatment.
Tilting his head to the side, Ba’al tore his two-toned gaze away from the sleepy city of Solterra to focus on his golden companion. Kit watched him with bright, inquisitive eyes and when he spoke, his lips barely moved.
“... Can you go find him? Bring him here.” The inevitable apology wouldn’t be enough, it never was, but Helios would forgive him regardless. He always did.
Ba’al honestly wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse.
Without a sound, Kit turned on her haunches and left her companion on the sandstone balcony to go and search for the other soldier. The sooty palomino watched her go, and only when she had rounded the corner of the walkway and disappeared did he look back to the dark city in front of him. The cold breeze blew, blistering and unpleasant, but Ba’al stood stationary and dejected in his sentry, back in his head for the first time in seasons.
Do we know, or do we not, friend?
Both sides are framed by the reluctant hour
and chiseled on the faces of men.
✧
I
used to be a God.
The thought doesn’t come to me arrogantly; it doesn’t come to me with any emotion at all. I just remember, with a placid kind of dissonance, all that I had once been. I had never though the best years of my life would be my distant youth; I never thought all I would ever amount to had already transpired, and now—
Now what?
My stare across the city square of Delumine. It is brimming with pegasi and unicorns; merchants; scholars. The cool winter air does not seem to bother them, veiled as they are in wool scarves and blankets. It had been snowing. Now it is not. The sky is a solid grey, like one long sheet of metal—but that is the only thing that reminds me of home.
Maybe, I think, things would play out differently—if only I had joined a Court. But I had not. I was a roamer, a wanderer—and I continue on my way, through Delumine (where I had been investigating their black markets) and beyond, into the fields, into the forest.
I am through Illuster, and into the edge of the Viride. I can hear the Rapax but do not want to venture too near and so I decide to turn back the direction I had come, to the edge where the meadow meets the trees. Behind me, the forest stretches old and forlorn. I recognise it as something ancient, as something cursed, and that too reminds me of my homeland—
Those are the only similarities, however. Delumine seems soft where Oresziah was hard. The pegasi are an anomaly, as are the unicorns—on my island, no one had wings with which to fly, or a single spiraled horn. Everyone had been dual-horned, like bulls or oxen or antelope or stags, and everyone had used them as—
Even remembering makes my horns ache.
I had been a God, once—
Young, vivacious, and death could not touch me. I had been the harbinger of it, with a future gem-bright and certain. Don’t we all think our desires are fate?
Damascus meets me; he does not accompany me into cities for obvious reasons. But I feel his approach, low over the trees, and know he has been hunting to fill that insatiable appetite. When he lands in front of me, in the clearing, his jaws are blood-streaked and strung with flesh. When he lands, he breathes out harmless cyan vapour that dances into nearly incomprehensible shapes; a leopard that rises and twists into a butterfly, before dissipating.
He rumbles, “God’s die, too.”
And does not know his all-too-obvious passage through the sky had attracted attention...
It happens every night. I don’t know why it still surprises me. In my parade of memories, the dream walks sunken in and grayscale; it is there behind my father when he called me son in a way that melted my heart, or in the background of the first Halcyon spar I watched. It nestles alongside the evening I went to my mother at midnight with a nest full of terrors in my mind, keeping me from sleeping. It’s there in between the highs and lows of each day, of each definitive task, as if waiting—
It is the dream of the white stallion on the black beach. I can’t remember what he says, the next morning—only that he visited me again, and in that visit told me something important. There are days I can remember pieces; sometimes he even asks me about my life, as if he is a voyager, and I tell him snippets of my day, the mundanities of it. He says, every time, “I cannot imagine living without war. It heartens me to know that my--”
This morning, though, there is nothing when I wake. Only the knowledge I had dreamt again, that damning dream. My mouth is dry as a salt flat where my father took me to see mirages. The memory (that memory) is happy, and pleasant; but the association of salt and bitterness and the dream stains it crimson, too.
I wake up with the raging, red energy that seems electrical. I do not mean to burn through my tutor’s book on geography later that morning, but I do: a sudden flare of energy incinerates it, and Mrs. Murdock leapt. I apologised to her. And to my mother. And then the priest told me to go to the garden and meditate, I was not fit for studies today—
So I am in the garden beyond Terrastella’s citadel, where in summer (I have been told, at least, not being yet old enough to have witnessed it myself) the Court enjoys festivities and orchard picking not far beyond.
But today, it is cold and grey. I sit nestled in a trio of evergreen trees, beneath a statue of Vespera.
I am breathing, and that is all.
In, and out, focusing on the flow of energy around me; how I can feel myself, not a conduct but a blockage, in the world. You have powerful magic, the Priests say to me. And it is very sensitive to all that you feel, and all that you feel around you—
There is the cold.
I am that, too. And the sun behind soft winter clouds. I hear the ravens cawing in the trees above, and the distant shuffling of citizens as they walk to and fro their jobs.
But my energy stays dark, and clogged, and chaotic.
In, and out.
I wonder if this is how my goddess feels, sometimes; mama and the priests say it might be so, when I ask, when I say:
The world is trying to tear me in half.
§
Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.
Fight Type: Battle Prize: Just exp! Contact Made: I'll be doing that as soon as it's posted. But yes we have spoken.
Character #1: @Seraphina Bonded: Yes - Ereshkigal, a demon in the form of a bearded vulture. Magic: Yes - greater telekinesis. Armor: Yes - seen here, primarily a mixture of thick leather and heavy, but breathable, cloth. Weapons: Yes; Alshamtueur, an enchanted sword that can burst into flame when its name is spoken, & a double-edged steel bold kept in her armor. Current Health: 17 Current Attack: 23 Current Experience: 72
Character #2: @Florentine Bonded: n/a Magic: Yes - time travel Armor: n/a Weapons: Yes - an ornate dagger, kept on a chain around her neck. Current Health: 20 Current Attack: 20 Current Experience: 74
SOME THINGS ARE MORE PURPOSEFUL THAN A KNIFE, BUT NOT MANY-
She still resents it here.
She has been back, a time or two. She recalls the muddy, unkempt landscape populated by jewel-flowers, and, most memorably, she fought Bexley here, once. Those few memories do very little to block out the thoughts of her loss at Raum’s claws and the near-death that accompanied his victory. It isn’t hot – in fact, it is near-frigid cold, at least to a desert creature like Seraphina -, but every time the sunlight touches the scar on her cheek, she feels like it is burning.
She isn’t here with Raum, and it is mid-afternoon. The flowers have all died. Still, if she looks towards the farthest reaches of the Steppe, where it meets the treeline, she can pick out the place where Isra found her bleeding out. She saved her; she didn’t die. It still feels like a death.
Seraphina looks over her shoulder at Florentine.
She has dismissed Ereshkigal, though she can see her nearby; she is perched in the skeletal branches of some mostly-dead tree, a spot of black against the murk-grey and white-bleached bark. She would have abandoned her armor, as Florentine is not wearing any herself, but Seraphina has never been fond of the cold, and she doesn’t want to suffer through it without the warmth that the thick cloth and leather provide. Alshamtueur clinks against her hip as she moves towards the center of the well-trodden “arena,” exuding a warmth that is more comforting than scalding. She finds the sword to be more of a comfort than her magic, lately. It listens when she calls to it.
She gives Florentine a long, careful look. She hardly needs to; she knows, by now, exactly what she looks like, with her feather-light build and great, golden wings. (Her hair is long. That could easily be trouble for her.) Her eyes flit down her frame, lingering a moment longer on the curve of the dagger at her neck, then rise to meet to meet her soft, amethyst eyes. Seraphina dips her head, once and slowly. “Are you ready?”
She does not give her much time to respond. A warning, evidently, is enough.
Her muscles tense, and then she is in motion; she feels the tension run her veins in that horrible, horrible second heart, and, before she can consider it, her hooves are hovering a few inches above the rough ground. (She struggles to control the floating, but, at the very least, she keeps her errant magic from pulling her hair from its tight braids.) By the time that she has bridged the distance between herself and Florentine, or attempted to, she has pulled Alshamtueur from the strap that keeps it attached to her body; the sword by her torso as she charges, still sheathed. She could have attacked from a distance, but she attempts to move into close quarters, lunging to Florentine’s left just as she wraps her telekinetic grasp around the sword and tries to hit her across the chest from her right; if she is lucky, the combination of her presence on the left and the sword on the right will make her attack difficult to dodge.
@Florentine|| boy am I Rusty at spars but tbh I have ALWAYS sucked at them anyways, so! "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
Summary: Sera thinks about emo thoughts about winter and how she nearly died here a while ago. She notes that Ereshkigal is sitting this out, but she has her armor + weapons. She sizes Flora up, and then she sort-of-kind-of gives her a head's up, before charging at her. She attempts to give Flora a - gentle - hit across the chest with Alshamtueur, which is sheathed, because this is a spar, not a crime scene.
Attack Used: 1 Attack(s) Left: 1 Block Used: 0 Block(s) Left: 1 Item(s) Used: weapon #1, greater telekinesis do I need to mention the magic/weapon uses here?
"Oriens..." The name is quiet when he says it aloud, the mule finally lifting his nose from the thick sheet of vellum he's been studying, whiskers springing outward after long hours spent pressed against seams and cramped between pages. "Research and exploration, a little side of mediation. Knowledge, wisdom. Well, he certainly seems like the right patron, and this the right place for someone like me, hm?" He addresses a pair of small, foxlike creatures, the two of them curled together like a single entity and leaning against the stallion's broad side, sound asleep. He's run the poor things ragged with his insatiable appetite for books and scrolls, tomes and pamphlets, requesting where to find this and that, and they so eager to assist.
"You've been very helpful, little ones. Thank you." He only murmurs it, knowing they won't hear, but hoping the sentiment, at least, permeates their dreams as he gently extricates himself and steps away from the nook they've all been tucked into. A smile softens the curve of his mouth and puckers his upper lip as he glances back at them, crouching into a deep stretch and flapping his ears. "You've certainly earned a break, but I'm afraid I'm a restless sort, never to stay in one place for too long." He bends to gently ruffle the canids fur, exhaling warmth and gratitude as he pulls away. "Onward and inward."
Thus far he's spent all his time inside the library here, in the main foyer, roaming the countless stacks and shelves and aisles, but there are doors leading off of each exterior wall and he's seen the foxy helpers ducking in and out of them from time to time, so he's curious to see where those might lead, too. As far as he can tell, all the doors are exact replicas of each other - which are themselves just smaller, less intricate versions of the magnificent front entry - with no signage or markers of any kind to differentiate between them. They probably all serve a similar purpose then, meaning the choice of which door to open is of little consequence.
Based on that, he simply heads for the nearest door, ears held stiffly forward, listening for any warning of activity on the other side. He'd hate to bumble into someone carrying important documents or interrupt the helpers on their altruistic errands, but all he can hear are the soft, internal sounds of his own heart and lungs, big and exuberant as they are. Pressing one shoulder lightly against the timber, he swings the door open and peers inside.
