wanted to be the first to introduce Maeve to snow. I guess because it seemed like something special that I wanted to take the credit for. She had been asking about it as we got closer to winter, so I knew I needed to keep an eye out for those first flakes to fall.
Today turned out to be that day. Fortunately, we were already out walking together so there hadn't been any rushing around necessary.
When she saw that first snowflake, I think that's when my heart became warmer than it had ever been before. The look on her face had to be the cutest thing I had ever seen. Then watching her as she jumped around was priceless. She made me join in too and soon we were laughing together. I think the last time I genuinely laughed this much was when Antiope and I first became friends (back before it was just all business all the time).
She is sticking out her tongue now trying to catch the snowflakes like I had suggested. I remember being young and doing the same, although I was disappointed that they didn't have any real taste. Maeve doesn't seem to mind, of course. It's just as fun to her as jumping around had been.
The snow is falling softly around us and it's not exactly the kind I was hoping for. It's more wet and isn't accumulating very fast. It'll likely be a while until it covers the entire ground and becomes the right consistency for building. Something else I was hoping to do was build snow animals because I remember it being fun as a kid. Of course I always created the "scary" animals compared to everyone else, but I took pride in my creations.
I know Maeve will probably model one after her hawk or Bram. The wolf is laying down nearby watching us. He's become a good guard animal lately and I've noticed he's become very protective of Maeve (sometimes more so than me). As for Rory, Maeve's bonded… well, it seemed like their bond needed some work. He was far more elusive than Bram had ever been.
Still, I'm glad she's found our games fun and that I ended up being the first to show her snow after all. It's moments like these that make me grateful to be a mom. It feels weird to admit that, but it's true. Al'Zahra and all that shit aside, I still wouldn't trade my daughter for the world.
Of course, I noticed a couple horses approach us and I'm a bit annoyed that our mother-daughter bonding is being interrupted. That is, until I recognize who the taller one is. There's a little one by her side, likely not too much younger than Maeve. The sight is definitely surprising.
"Elena? Long time no see," I say as they approach, my face not exactly hiding my shock. I don't remember Elena being pregnant the last time I saw her, but I guess a lot could change in several months. Maybe this won't entirely ruin my plans with Maeve after all. While I don't know Elena well, our axe throwing session was pretty fun. Plus, my daughter could use more playmates her age.
"Who is this with you?" The girl is a striking contrast to Elena's bright palomino coat and she has a unique crescent moon shaped marking on her shoulder. It actually reminds me of Tenebrae but that just seems too far fetched. The monks are always going on about their spirituality being more important or whatever. This makes me a little suspicious, but I figure I'll wait to see what the woman says before jumping to too many conclusions.
✦
i've lost a part of me ; tell your friends to sharpen their teeth
I don't really like sober me. The world feels like too much and my thoughts are too much otherwise. I'm forced to face all the demons I'm trying so hard to stuff away somewhere. It seems to have become more than just wanting to forget Al'Zahra.
Of course, the last time I wanted to let go, it didn't end so well. Antiope caught me at the tavern and I guess I was yelling at a couple. I don't remember that part much, but I imagine they were doing something stupid anyway. But because of all that, I'm not exactly welcome there anymore.
So I decide to go anyway. I know there are many eyes on me and whisperings about what happened last, but I don't give a shit. The doors swing shut behind me and I make my way to the bar. When the bartender looks up at me, his expression nearly makes me burst out laughing. He seems to be trembling and is no longer sure what to do. Instead of asking what I want, I watch him run out back. He's gone for several minutes before he comes back with another, more burly man who doesn't look amused at all. Well, the feeling is mutual.
"You know you shouldn't be here, Morrighan," the man says, acting as if he regrets turning my business away.
"Yeah, and?" I ask, trying my best to keep my fire at bay. "Just give me one drink and I'll be on my way." It's very hard not to threaten him with a fireball, but I keep it to myself. I really don't feel like having another Antiope lecture.
The man takes a while to respond and is just staring at me, like he's having an argument in his head. Finally, he sighs and pours me a drink in the smallest glass imaginable. I'm sure it barely has any alcohol in it. He doesn't say anything when he passes it to me, just a look. I know he knows I'm the Regent and he shouldn't be telling me what to do. I'm glad he made the right choice.
"Idiot," I mutter as he walks away. I take a sip of the drink and it tastes absolutely awful. Still, I'll try to make it last because I just don't feel like going out into the real world right now. Maybe they all don't like it, but this place became my safe haven for a while and I'd rather that not be taken away from me.
now the dark begins to rise
save your breath, it's far from over
W
hen Bram told me I needed to get ready for a date, I nearly strangled him. It wasn't a good thing to joke about, especially considering everything went to shit with Al'Zahra (and no one's seen her in months). But apparently I did need to get ready for a date because he put my name into some bullshit thing for blind dates.
For one thing, I didn't even know he could write, but also- the nerve of him? The last thing I wanted to do was waste my time with someone that'll likely turn into an idiot or an asshole. The idea of being randomly paired makes me cringe too because it could be anyone. I had many questions too, but the main one is who else entered. If someone like Moira did, I'd leave immediately and track down whoever organized the whole thing. Absolutely not, I'd say.
There's a small part of me that does kind of want to find another partner (I should emphasize that this is VERY VERY small and this is more for Maeve's sake than mine). Al'Zahra may be Maeve's other birth mother, but she's about as close to a Mom as a rock is. Hell, Bram (a wolf), can take better care of Maeve than Al'Zahra ever will. I want to say that I can do it all myself, but raising a child is about exactly how I expected, if not worse sometimes. I love her with all my heart, but it's frustrating to have someone who wants to follow you around daily. At least Bram understands my cues when I just want to be left alone or deal with Court duties myself. Maeve is too curious for her own good.
But, sigh, I still love her for it. I will always love her for it.
I left her with Aspara tonight since Antiope is off somewhere doing something. The two seemed to get along pretty well lately, so I'm glad to see she's made a friend. I'm also thankful that this stupid date is scheduled here in Denocte so if this goes to shit (or something else), I'll still be here. I'm not keeping my hopes up for anything spectacular though. Watch me get paired with some arrogant ass who thinks he can win me over with a drink.
Fuck - that's basically forbidden. At least after the last time I drank too much. Antiope didn't say I was banned from the bar, but that's basically what happened. It's a good thing I had a liquor stash at my house.
For the sake of all this, I'm going to try avoiding the bar. I'm not in the mood to get chewed out again by someone who just doesn't get it, no matter how much I try to explain. I already apologized and that alone was hard for me.
Our meeting place is here at the lake. All I have really is a note that says "Vitreus Lake, ask for Estelle" so I have no idea what I'm getting myself into. Although, when I do arrive and see horses ice skating, I have to do a double take. My expression will say it all- I'm completely dumbfounded. What the hell is this? They are just gliding along the ice with some kind of magic at their hooves. They're all laughing like this is normal. Um, okay, sure. Apparently there's this magical dust someone made for this occasion that temporarily gives you the ability to skate. I take one look at the bucket it's in, roll my eyes and walk over to the booth that's nearby.
I guess in Antiope's favor, there's no alcohol being served here, only hot cocoa. I pay for a cup and as the merchant hands it over to me, I force a smile. "Thank you. Do you happen to know anyone here named Estelle?" The name is foreign to me so I'm assuming they're not Night Court.
The man points to a small gray woman standing off to the side over by the lake. I nod to him and make my way over to start this entirely awkward evening. The sun hasn't completely set yet, but I'm not feeling this sunset as a "mood".
"Estelle?" I ask, trying to keep the awkwardness out of my tone. "It's Morrighan." If this isn't actually who I'm supposed to be on a "date" with, I'm going to just throw myself into the frozen lake without the magic dust.
I wonder how I can always feel like this -- like I am one mouthful away from starving, one breath away from drowning, one step away from tumbling from the end of the earth. I wonder if it ever stops, this aching, this anger that makes me want to tear the world open root by root, tendon by tendon.
But then again, I don't know what I would be without it. And I don't think I want to know.
Sometimes, she likes to come to the edge of the forest and pretend she is standing on the edge of another world. From the shelter of the trees she watches the snow sparkle in the sunlight, broken up only by the snowshoe hares and winter foxes flashing quick as teeth in the open.
She watches now, as one rabbit leaps a second too late for the safety of its den.
And as the fox trots triumphantly through the snow, prize firmly caught in its jaws, the wind sings a warning down the spiral of her horn. You would be next, it promises with each step the fox takes that she is not following in pursuit. And when she grows bored of watching it live without fear, Isolt turns and drags her horn down the nearest tree until the bark cries and bleeds sap. The fox breaks out into a long-strided lope that carries it swiftly out of range, and another part of her heart feels like it is falling like a rotten leaf from a vine to watch as it does.
Maybe that is why she steps out from between the trees for the first time. Why her hooves cut through the unmarred snow like a knife, and all she thinks is how lovely it sounds to hear the ice crust shatter. The cold presses in against her skin and she welcomes it like the grim reaper welcomes the dying home.
She might have lain down and pretended to be dead then, entombed in an icy grave, if she hadn’t seen the other unicorn first.
Isolt points at it with her horn, lets that hollow bit of blood bone lead the way as she cuts across the prairie. Her war-drum heart races along faster than life inside of her chest, screams at a pitch that does not match the steady way she marches through the snow. A part of her hopes she looks like death coming to greet the other unicorn, hopes the girl will shiver and turn to run like the fox at the sight of her (so that she could chase her and make up for all the other things she should have followed to the grave.)
But instead they meet like shy wolves studying each other across the snow, circling like two things that have only ever known how to take and consume, to be the predator and never the prey. And Isolt aches to reach out and carve lines into her pale skin.
She feels more like a god than a unicorn when she lifts her head and studies her. Because she smells like the sea, like rotten, saltwater-sodden wood floating in the ocean, like flotsam caught in the tides. And even without having seen the sea before, Isolt knows it smells something like death.
“I think you should be dead.” Her voice waivers in the sunlight, like she wants nothing more than to turn back to the darkness of her forest (and to drag Avesta back there with her.)
She wants to ask her when she died, how she died, why she died, but more than that —
Isolt wants to ask her why she didn’t stay dead.
But instead she is silent, and only her eyes speak all the accusations her heart is singing like a whetstone to a blade.
Her nights have never been silent. Whoever said the stars glisten without a sound in their obsidian sky has never lived in Elliana’s skin, has never experienced what she has experienced. Because they do not only whisper, they cry and shout and they laugh and shriek. She doesn't know what silent woods are when someone says they are alone, she knows only the way the trees call as the spirits come from them.
There is a wildness in her that drives her from her small cottage and her mother’s golden side.
It is trapped in her throat, wings that flutter and thrash in her veins, her breath caught and released from her lungs as she raises her young face forward. She is young, too young, to be leaving the safe confines of her home, where mother’s fierce eye keeps watch and her steady presence can be seen from all angles. But she does not care, cannot stay another day without stretching those legs that so itch to wander, and a hand that cries to paint .
She leaves early, early enough that she is not caught, although she knows that she will have to apologize later. Her mother will know instant that she is gone, she has taken her paint and her brushes. The air grows less salty and more fragrant as she moves away and away from the ocean. She breathes it in, her heart pounding with love of the familiar sight, but it is not enough to keep her; in truth, it would never be enough to hold her. She was made for more things that sea and sand.
She does not stop until she passes through the trees, the trees jutting upward and outward, the pine of it fascinating. Grinning, she presses her face into its branches, ignoring the thin scratches it imparted on her face. Breathing deep, she felt her pulse race in her veins. Today, she would have adventure.
She just knew it.
It feels like adventure when those spidery legs step out into the long grass of the field. Elliana doesn't look out of place here. She has the lovely lines in her face from her mother, those same eyes as her, large and expressive. She looks like her mother’s daughter.
But the moment that paint brush reaches out and touches against a large stone, she looks so entirely like her father that is could break his heart if he knew she even existed. If she knew he was her real father and not the man she calls papa underneath evening stars.
But, like many things, there is very little Elliana knows.
And so she paints.
dear friend it will be alright, please just stay by my side
Aeneas watches the Halcyon practice. He is far away, at the lower edge of the cliffs, staring up at the soldiers as they perform acrobatics and other aerial maneuvers. They brandish wooden swords and spears and, when the wind blows right, Aeneas can hear the harsh clack of the training equipment as it strikes wood, or the dull and heavy smack of it against flesh or bone as they spar.
One Pegasus is struck at the wing joint and Aeneas watches from afar as the soldier begins to spiral down, down, down. The sight is at once unbearable and impossible to break his gaze from—Aeneas’s heart is in his throat and he wonders what he should do but remains frozen in fear. The descent is abruptly ended, however, when the Pegasus tilts his wings and regains altitude after the pain of the blow subsides. Even from here, Aeneas can her the disjointed call of the soldier’s voice to his sparring companion, but he cannot register the words.
He had been told he could play along the cliffs, so long as he kept his distance and remained careful. But after observing such a feat of fearlessness, Aeneas feels emboldened. He steps closer to the edge, just a bit, to peep over the side—
The cliffside gives way beneath his weight. If Aeneas were older, and had more experience, he might have recognised the shale where he stood, the fragile and separated stone not meant to bare a load. But Aeneas is not wiser and the ground drops out from beneath him with a stomach-churning abruptness. He has no opportunity to stumble back, or regain his footing, before the entire world cartwheels before his eyes. It becomes sky-land-sea-sky and then a sudden, jarring halt as he slams onto a ledge beneath where he stood. It takes him several long moments to regain his breath; it’s been pushed forcefully from his lungs by the impact.
When he does, he feels terribly alone. The winter sea is stark beneath him, punctuated by the jagged rocks protruding from its turbulent surface. Everything is grey, from the overcast clouds to the sea to the rock beside him. Aeneas swallows and stretches his wings, taking inventory of whether or not he hurt himself beyond repair. There is a tight catching at his wing joint, but it feels more sore than anything else. The problem, however, is that he has not learned yet how to fly.
Why else would he be on a cliffside, jealously watching his mother’s Halycon? He rests there for a long moment before gathering the courage to call out. “H-hello?” Aeneas’s voice cracks through with fear. “H-hello? I-Is anyone there to help m-me?”
The sea answers, and the gulls answer, but Aeneas does not yet hear a voice. He gazes up from where he had fallen, only to find a sheer cliffside with little footholds or crannies upon which to climb.
It seems a foolish thing to think. He knows this. How can one not mean to leave?
If he were confronted—and he is certain he will be confronted—Aeneas already knows what he will say.
I was missing father—I… I needed to see father.
And someone might think, you are far too clever a boy to end up in Delumine when you ought to be in the dunes of Solterra—. They might even go a step beyond thinking it. Perhaps they tell his mother.
But those whispers will come too late to make much sense of. Those whispers will come after the relief of finding him, after the relief of knowing he is all right, the relief of recognising he did not mean to run away.
Not really—at least not to the point of never being found.
But isn’t that exactly why you chose Delumine? he asks himself. It’s the forest he loves so. It is the forest that, in his study, he gestured at with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. It had taken his tutor aback. Why yes, on the map that large green region is the Viride. It is the forest that fills him with whimsy and boyish dreams—he hopes, he thinks, to find a monster. He hopes, he thinks, to find something to make him feel brave.
Even the name Viride evokes a primitive chill, a primordial fear. That sounds like a place where boys go to get lost.
Not found.
By the time Aeneas begins to doubt the romanticism (because it must be romanticism, and not some kind of desperate plea for his father’s attention or, or, well any number of childish things) he is already deep within the trees. The sun is already setting. His goddess—or his mother’s goddess, whichever it may be—is already leaving the sky. The haze between the trees becomes dusky purple; opaque and faded. The trees themselves become disorienting, dancing in the clear winter’s air. The branches are leafless and bare, clawing at the sky and at his face as he presses through, deeper, into brambles and roots. In the true fashion of the naive, Aeneas does not follow a set pathway, or even a deer-trail. Instead, he finds himself deeper and deeper into a forest nothing like the storybooks he reads.
It is all enough to remind him that, at base, he is nothing but a boy. Not a prince. Not a hero of fables. A boy.
Aeneas feels afraid, when the last blinking light shuts out on the distant, obscured horizon. The trees embrace him into their darkness and soon, very soon, they begin to howl with the creatures of the night. The colt cannot keep still; he begins, first, to trot in hope of breaking some imagined barrier—he thinks if only he quickens his pace he might find an end, somewhere, to the endless trees—
But that brisk trot becomes, then, a canter. From the canter, he gallops with all the ungainly grace of a child; crashing through brambles and knee-high, yellowed grass. There are snowbanks deeper in the shaded regions between roots and beneath the larges trees, crusted overtop with ice and debris. Aeneas crunches through them as if he is walking over broken crystal; and further, further, surrounded by the hoots and bellows of owls and other beasts, he swears, yes he swears there must be a wolf on his heel—
In the darkness he sees the descent too late. He runs off a small ledge and into a dry stream-bed. The descent is not easy. The descent scratches his cheek and bruises his knees and, when he lands at last at the bottom, all he can think of is how badly he wants his mother back in the warm comfort of Terrastella. He feels the hot betrayal of tears building in his eyes but even here, even in the dark, he will not cry.
Or so he tells himself. But as the hours pass and he finds it impossible to stand, the night around him grows darker, deeper, even more impressive. He hears what sounds like a great and terrible beast snuffling through the undergrowth beside the stream-bed, and Aeneas does all that he can to make himself small, and quiet, his wings curled around his shoulders like a delicate veil.
kissed my penny and threw it in
prayed to keep my soul
U
pon waking, she tried to stretch her fingers around the globe. They didn’t even come close to touching.
She is in Night, they came to visit her papa, her starry, starry papa. The only papa she knows about, because she has never looked so far into the shadows to find her real father. She likes Night, she thinks, not ask much as Dusk, not as much as Dawn. She has never been to Day, she thinks it sounds like the beach, no matter how many times her mom tells her it is not. But sand is sand, and Elliana believes it means and oceans, even if that ocean in Day is just made of rolling dunes instead of crashing waves.
The cobblestone streets are busy already in the morning hours. At first, Elliana had not been able to wander so freely. Elena had been fretful, worrying over her tiny, beautiful daughter, keeping her close. Too much had happened to Elena as a child, too much had scarred her heart and she was anxious that the same would happen to Elli. That little girl was too beautiful to ever be marred. Too spirited to ever be broken. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.
But Elena too knows how she cannot keep a butterfly trapped within her palms forever.
She’s grown calmer, more stable, giving Elliana the chance to wander their home and Denocte when they are there, like today. She allows her to explore the books and crannies of Terrastella, trusting some of the residents to keep an eye out for the court children, trusting in the court’s security. She feels similar to Denocte. So today she lets Elli free, those hands falling open. She presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Be safe, Elli B. Come back with a story to tell me.”
Elliana never failed to find her one.
Today she tramps through the the court’s streets, knowing to stay away from the side alleyways. She has a few coins in case she wishes to buy a treat or two. Her tiny lungs expanding with the joy of it, her blue eyes look brighter in the winter landscape.
GET OUT! Someone screams down the street and Elliana turns those eyes just in time to see a little creature with a long ring tail scampering down the street and right towards the castle. He dashes inside as two guards take off chasing him. Just kill the thing, they say, in which Elliana’s entire heart crumbles in her chest, she may not be an empath, but her mother’s compassion ran like fire in her veins.
Quick to move her feet, the little filly rushes to the gates. Where do you think you are going? Another asks her. Elliana fidgets beneath his gaze, but blue eyes are scanning out ahead to where the little creature had ran off to, to where he could be hurt. This is when she spots another little girl. “Visiting my friend,” she says confidently before heading inside. Elliana reaches Maeve’s shoulder and blue eyes are wide with concern. “Can you pretend to be my friend?” She asks her quietly, Elliana blinks once, twice. “There is someone in here that I have to save.” And she cant explain why it is so important that she does. To spare a life—but it feels like something more.
Posted by: Boudika - 08-15-2020, 01:06 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
B
oudika is not wearing her own face tonight.
No, tonight she is someone else. A dancer, she says, when asked. A part of a gypsy caravan that wanders the space between Solterra and Delumine; a vagabond; a wanderer. She has stars in her eyes and a mane plaited so delicately, so elegantly, it seems in and of itself a work of art. She is bright white and silver with dappling on her haunches; her eyes, too, pool like the ichor of dead gods. Mercury and platinum sterling. Nothing about her is as she is beneath the glamour of her magic; but that, she supposes, is a large part of her own entertainment.
Entertainment.
Is that what this is, becoming anyone save herself? Her mouth is dry with unasked questions. There is a pit opened up inside her ravenous and hungry where, before, there had only been contentment. Understanding.
Boudika had never been love-crazed. She had never cared, truly, for romance; it had always been different with Vercingtorix. Unexpected Natural. Like destiny calling. They had been best friends, companions, soldiers in arms, and then—
Never lovers.
But Tenebrae? Amaroq? They are both fresh in her mind and it is maddening to the point that she has left everything she knows. Boudika flees Denocte and seeks familiarity in the one place she should not find it: Solterra. She is there for the Sovereign and only the Sovereign; simply to glimpse him in the crowd is enough—she hears… well, Boudika hears that he has courted the Sovereign of Terrastella, and they are expecting children—
Children.
One of the many things denied to Boudika, in her life. Her teeth feel uncomfortable and mundane in her mouth; a normal equine’s teeth, not a kelpies. She walks through a courtyard full of painted skin and beyond, into a hall of marble statues; there are drinks and music, and someone plays the lyre. Boudika feels insanely disoriented; as if she cannot breathe. Everything is bright with tinsel and glare; firelight; glamour.
Boudika turns back the way she came; through a garden smelling of fig trees, past the sculptures, a laughing fountain. She is in a long corridor of arches and palm trees; and then beyond, beyond, and back into the Ieshan dining room. There are extravagant meals and drinks; but Boudika drifts towards the open bar.
The bartender persuades her to try a specialty drink; i’s amber in colour, and smells like mint. Boudika rests at the bar, watching the chaos of the party around her—
Wondering, she supposes, when the alcohol will take effect.
§
this is who we were, before bones, before dirt, even before light
this untameable expanse, this blue mirror of god. this heaving,
churning proof that we have always been deep, restless souls.
Crash, crash, Burn, let it all burn
This hurricane's chasing us all underground
the winter chill kisses the huntress' heavenly, blood-red flesh. she feels winter's icy breath, waft against her jasmine-scented skin; a frigid kiss. a harsher brush of dragon's teeth. up above her, ermine-snowflakes drift from the black-grey skies; how they float eeriely upon the cold, ebon night. a december ambiance, studded by a billion, shimmering stars. a december ambiance, caught in the dreamy throes of their northern lights, whilst smoke billowed from warm houses in the distance. it is waning starlight, waning moonlight, whilst miles away delumine stood, regal against all the icy terrain. delumine is an elegant fortress, doused in snows - their towers, raging, against the glowering, taiga woods. tonight, however, is no ordinary evening, as euryale remembers stepping out of her gothic bedroom chambers donned in her luxurious enchantress' silks. the cerulean skirts ride her waistline like sheer, silky film. cerulean gauze dripping down her hair, too, making her appear born for a queen's crown.
set-up on a blind date, euryale calantha is minimally dressed, as usual, although no excitement shows on her face - for now. her classic enchantress' attire, and glittering mythril jewels, glistens upon her lilac hair and soft-pampered skin. this evening the feral priestess is not covered in blood. she is not remembering sin and wrath. this evening she is refined, graceful; beautifully accentuated by silvers and blues, and she smells like wealth and glamour. against her deliciously dark skin, euryale's shimmery, azuline dress glows like winter. against her porcelain face, the mythril tiara, glows, too. she remembers throwing her sword at the foot of her bed, lined in wolven fur, and remembers, too, the heavy stares upon her svelte figure just as she had left her bedroom and entered the main hall. and if they all stare at euryale, it is for good reason; look at her, over there, the lady in red, they would all but sigh. they would all whisper.
several days before this evening, a winter's blizzard took hold of the delumine citadel. it left meters of snow, and out just beyond the borders of the city, where a small lake had frozen over. there were a few couples outside already, skating upon the frozen lake. euryale calantha waits for her blind date, beneath the dreamy glow of a single streetlamp. from the distance, she sees an elegant figure approaching, a figure bathed in lavender and hair made of palest silver. "good evening," her feminine voice, soft and husky, uncoils in desirous fashion, reaching the pale-skinned stranger amidst the subtle drizzle of snowfall.
Aeneas watches the Halcyon practice. He is far away, at the lower edge of the cliffs, staring up at the soldiers as they perform acrobatics and other aerial maneuvers. They brandish wooden swords and spears and, when the wind blows right, Aeneas can hear the harsh clack of the training equipment as it strikes wood, or the dull and heavy smack of it against flesh or bone as they spar. 
