At first no one notices, for it is small and perfectly lodged among all the other stones in the street; and it is red, a color so at home here between the sunsets and the fires and the blood. But he notices, the thin grey stallion who trudges with his nose to the ground. He stops and he stares, motionless, for a long moment. Eventually a yearling slinks forward, catlike, from the shadows of a nearby awning. The youth looks with wide eyes from stone to stallion back to stone, and then begins to paw at the ruby to unearth it from the street. The man does not seem to see, for there is a faraway look growing wild behind his eyes.
The ruby was a message.
He tries to keep himself from running through the streets-- attention was not a good thing, these days or ever-- as he tracks its creator, following scent and sign. He quickly realizes, based on the patterns of her movement, that she is looking for him too. It is almost predatory, how they circle each other across the mazelike streets of the desert city, each leaving hidden messages-- hers fantastical (a ruby in the cobblestones, glass flowers in the cracks on the corner) and his bare-boned. (breadcrumbs of thought, the scent of mania and desperation, snippets of prayer to a god known only to the two of them)
Her messages grow brighter, louder, more reckless. They draw closer, closer. With every turn he expects to find her, but she is not there. Soon he's grasping at the night queen with his magic, flooding her with love and anger, feeling her come nearer until--
there--
His heart shudders in a way that makes him realize how funny it is that we have these hammers in our chests and we don't even realize they're there, most of the time, until it is impossible not to notice. He tastes metal on his tongue. And when he closes his eyes, his heartbeat races across the back of his eyelids. It colors the dark with streaks of yellow-blue-white-red. When they open she's there before him, improbable in the too-bright sun. A cruel mirage to a dying man. "Isra"
He expected time to stop. It doesn't. It lurches forward and he is aware of many things at once-- the strangers that surround them, the lick of the sun on his back, the ocean between them and how its currents draw them toward each other.
"You shouldn't be here," Eik hisses. The distance between them melts like hot sugar. He pushes his shoulder into hers with a roughness that is new to him, to them, and he presses her down one side alley and then another until there are in a neighborhood with less eyes.
She shouldn't be here because it is dangerous, and because her people need their queen, and, most simply and pressingly, he did not want her to see his city like this. He did not want her to count the ribs on the children she passed, or hear the strangled silence in the streets, the hush of fear and uncertainty. Eik had become quite attached to the heat and the maze and the character of the Solterran capital, and above all the headstrong persistence of its people, who reminded him of the better parts of himself. These are the things he wanted to share with her. Instead it is smoke and hunger, pyres and bones.
It's wrong, all wrong. It was not supposed to be like this.
He is ashamed, and angry, and so stupidly painfully in love-- and maybe what hurts the most is that he never expected to feel like this, to feel this deeply and this broadly for anyone or anything. Her nearness brings it all to the surface, all the things buried and hidden and tucked away. The enormity of his loss, the impossibility of a return to the way things used to be, the ache he strove so hard not to feel is suddenly very real and very present, all the rough edges brought into profile by the piercing blue of Isra's ocean eyes.
"What are you doing?" He grits his teeth in attempt to hold on to anger and callousness. To have the strength to drive her away to someplace she would be safer. Still he pushes against her, as though to remind himself she's here, she's really here, I am too. He might be mad with thirst or hunger or nature, but there is truth in touch, there is clarity and heat and love. All he wants is to fall to his knees and pray at her altar but he keeps them walking forward, shoulder hungrily to shoulder, afraid of the eyes in the shadows and all the things that will catch up to him if they stop moving.
*
@Isra <3
set in one of the outer neighborhoods of Day Court
When she goes looking, she finds Marisol on the cliffs, and she can’t say that she is surprised. For a moment, she says nothing as they stand there beneath the fading streaks of light, and she considers the Commander with pale eyes as she turns over the events of the meeting in her mind.
“The ocean swallowed you, and you fought it.” It isn’t a question -- she had seen Marisol come exploding out of the waves like a cannonball, had seen the salt crusted along her wings -- and she knows that the ocean is a ravenous creature, that it would swallow down any foolish enough to test their own limits, and that it would come back for more if it could.
Sometimes she has thought about throwing herself to the crashing waves, when the weight of the world has crushed her down flat, when it feels as though her shoulders are too narrow for all the troubles that she has carried. She had thought there would be glory in the title of Champion -- but instead she finds only duty, only disappointment, only the constant pressing thought of failure and the fear that bites at her heels whenever she stops moving long enough to breathe.
“Why?” Perhaps she is asking why Marisol had fallen into the waves in the first place -- perhaps she is asking how the commander had found a reason to resist instead, how the weight of duty hadn’t dragged her down to become bones on the ocean floor.
Even she isn’t sure which, exactly, she is asking, and she turns her gaze away from the commander, towards the hungry sea.
“Are you okay?”
She doesn’t think that Marisol will answer her honestly, and the thought makes her stomach twist, a sour taste in the back of her mouth.
Posted by: August - 06-12-2019, 12:33 PM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
well any man with a microphone can tell you what he loves the most
It feels strange to wind through the hallways of the Scarab with his sword at his side.
August rarely had cause to use the weapon; it had been a gift from his father, passed down to him by his first mate shortly following his disappearance. The palomino saw it more as a decorative memento than anything, with its finely-curved handle well encrusted with barnacles and coral, its slim blade needle-sharp and gleaming. He cared for it the way he did all his possessions and even himself, keeping it polished and above reproach, but it seldom left its place hung on the wall of his room.
Now, though, he is glad for the slight weight of it as he glides down a corridor, candles casting his flickering shadow behind him. The hallway is still ornate, here, gilded wallpaper patterned in a way reminiscent of leaves - though the forest may be more like the new island’s than any woods he’s seen. But as August follows it back and back, each doorway opens to an area more utilitarian, and less for public eyes.
It has been too long since he’s come to visit Vikander, and he closes his eyes briefly as he inhales the scent of incense and gods-know-what that wafts from beneath the warlock’s door when he reaches it at last. He knows the man has been working with the flowers from the first return of magic; Angahvni had said he was close. August hopes the best for him - he deserves happiness perhaps more than any of them - but something inside him still tightens like a pillbug in the dirt at the thought of raising anything from the dead.
Still. Gods knew they could all use a miracle.
“Vik?” he calls out, soft but sure, and knocks once against the door.
Pravda had not first intended to stop in Denocte, but the last time he had visited the Night Court had been during times of peace, many months ago. Since then, he had come to understand that they were undergoing a significant amount of strife. Not nearly as much as Solterra, perhaps, he thought. It seemed as though all of Novus were subjected to some sort of discord, if only through their relations to other Courts. He was only a scholar, but it seemed foolish to him. He had heard rumours of terrorism and looming war—but Pravda struggled to know what to make of it. He had never known war, aside from the vast and many chronicles in Biblioteka Syyaschnennikoy, the Library of Priests, and to him those had only seemed like so many stories.
To see the palpable concern and anxiety on people’s faces, however, was another matter entirely. Pravda felt inept at quelling their concerns, and soon stopped commenting on anything regarding the current state of affairs in his new world. A snarky, bitter voice continued to remind him, what do you truly know of Novus? and a softer, even crueler voice continued to answer: Nothing.
However, he was determined to learn. And so he travelled to the Night Court by himself, rather than continuing to rely on secondhand accounts of what had occurred. His curiosity had certainly gotten the better of him. But, as far as Pravda was concerned, curiosity was no sin.
The spring air was pleasant, albeit cool, and his travel went more quickly than he expected. He first found temporary lodging—a night or so, was all a weary traveller needed—before leaving the establishment to visit the marketplace. Pravda knew from experience that, as far as gossip went, it would be the most reliable of sources. He always felt… almost as though he could not trust himself, at the Night Court, full of such passion and vibrancy.
The music that came from the market sounded like a festival, and he meandered into the bustling streets, delighted at the spark and shine of moonstones against his hooves. His nostrils filled with the scents of exotic spices and foods, and around a corner a vendor sought to sell exotic animals, as well—he noticed creatures in miniatures he thought mythical, newly hatched griffins and large serpents, a three-headed dog that bayed at him as he walked past—certainly Pravda was imagining it?
But he continued, regardless—weaving through silken cloth that fluttered in the wind, depicting intricately woven scenes of magic or history. He nearly paused to discuss the nature of the vendor’s ware—for example, what was depicted on the glimmering cloth—when he instead opted to continue to the docks, for whatever reason. Perhaps a breath of fresher air.
He crested the edge of them, where sailors were busy tying masts or docking ships. Being that it was around midday, many had paused to eat their meals and Pravda walked by without comment. He stopped on the furtherest edge of the dock, staring out toward the sea. He’d heard of the new island… and everything within him wished to explore it, but first he wanted to see how the Night Court was faring. He wanted to know—
And then his thought was cut abruptly off. What, exactly, did he want to know? And Pravda did not have any specifics, any concrete idea…
Debrodetel’Nyy had had no seasons. The knowledge of the place had always been second-nature to him. The markets were not surprising, or full of alluring, mysterious goods. And the thought of this put pits in his stomach, and restlessness in his limbs. He cast a glance over his shoulder, seeking… what? Pravda did not know, but he began to trail back toward the Markets, his curled ears cocked toward the gossip of the sailors as he returned to the bustle, music, and spice of the vendors.
@Pravda "speaks"
THEY STOOD UP STRAIGHT AND PURE ON THE STALK, GRIPPING THE DARK LIKE PROPHETS
AND HOWLING COLOSSAL INTIMACIES
FROM THE BACK OF THEIR FUSED THROATS
❀
Bexley is not quite sure what brings her to the island except that there is nothing left to do. She has watched the sky in Denocte turn from blue to pink to purple what feels like millions of times; still her dreams are these horrible, violent things that drain her more than they let her rest, and no manner of drugs or therapy has fixed her yet. The dreams would be incredible if they weren’t so terrifying — resplendent with pools of blue blood and incandescent fire, tattooed with the memory of death. Even when awake, they follow her as a hungry dog would: snarling, growling, slobbering as it trails a few steps behind, never tiring, never fading. There is never a moment where it does not haunt her.
His name has faded from her brain a little. Only because she forces it to - because she is tired of crying more than she is tired of not seeing him. There is some power in the strength of her will. Far and away the only power she has left.
She had seen the initial explosion from a high room in Denocte’s citadel. Over the ocean a blossom of black fire had risen high in the sky before flaring outwards, and she had watched it with huge, watery eyes, the acrid scent of the smoke clawing at her lungs even from miles away. Her heart had stopped completely in her chest, and she had gone flying down the steps like a bat out of hell. The citizens in the Denoctian market had been still as statues when she pushed through them, their heads turned to the sky, eyes like glass marbles reflecting the explosion. Totally catatonic. Not a single one had talked or moved. They were frozen perfectly still like the victims of Medusa — it was a ghost town, a Greek garden. But there had been no time. No time to stop, no time to ask. Just the terrible non-beat of her pulse dragging her toward the catastrophe like a dog on a leash.
She only vaguely remembers the journey there. By the time she reached the island the wall of ivy had already fallen apart, the bridge stretching openly over the ocean in a simple invitation, come. And she did. Come she did, and so had hundreds of others, swarming the leg of black lava like bugs on bad fruit. Murmurs passed through the crowd in ripples as they poured from every corner of Novus into the water and the white sand beaches. And though Bexley wasn’t sure what she’d expected, it wasn’t this — not Paradise — because the people of Novus didn’t deserve it.
Not when one of their own had killed Acton. Not when they stood silently and let Raum drain the life from Solterra. Not when each one of them, clawing their way toward the isles, was hiding the same horrible, self-centered sickness in their hearts, a sickness with teeth and claws and a lust for blood.
Anyway.
It could be summer, though she knows it isn’t. It’s hot. The sun casts its white shadow from overhead and bleaches the sand like a perfectly cleaned bone. Heat simmers over the bright-blue water and makes a mirage on the flat planes of the island; Bexley is boiling hot by the time she shoulders her way from the beach into the cool shelter of the jungle, the warmth coating her in a wild, incandescent glimmer. She is a shining bauble in the warm dark of the forest. Overhead, birds twitter and sing brightly. The howl of something feline that Bexley does not recognize caterwauls from various places deep in the trees. Fruits she has never has seen, never even heard of, hang ripe and dark from the bent boughs of trees. And though it is beautiful — the songs, the bright light, the lush green leaves — something deep in her chest still begs to be listened to when it says turn around, turn around.
For a long time, Mateo was not content with simple pleasures. He was always wanting his heart to be tugged, violently, in one direction or another, to feel the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. From the day he was born he was full of movement, sound, action.
Somewhere along the way, a change was set in motion. It started one lazy afternoon when he noticed the way the light shifted in the meadow, slow and subtle, as the sun inched across the sky. There was no word for this that he knew of, for the slow changing of the light, for the passage of time made visible. It seems an obvious thing now but that day he realized for the very first time that there are some things in this world that do not have names.
It was a disturbing realization.
Eventually, it turned into a game for him, noticing all the things there were no words for. In time he made up his own words-- or, more and more often, sounds. He would even write little songs, if a thing was nuanced enough. It was a private and tireless game, one he rarely shared with others. There was something very personal about it, something that made him feel it needed to be worked on alone... These feelings confused him, being as outgoing and extroverted as he was, and to avoid inner conflict he tried his best to not play the game. He had learned early on in life that conflicts often resolved themselves if you simply ignored them.
So, naturally, he is not thinking about the game at all as he walks through the outdoor gardens. The morning is bright and beautiful and heedless of whatever war may be mounting to the East and whatever mystery may be unraveling to the South. Mateo feels the sun soak into his feathers and wills himself to be as bright and beautiful and heedless as the morning.
"You're a cheeky one, aren't you," he murmurs to a particularly large white rose that has eagerly bloomed long before its peers. He is about to say something else to the flower (there was no one else around to listen to him) when a soft splashing sound catches his attention. He turns the neatly planted row of roses and laughs to himself as he sees its source.
The finches are bathing in a small puddle, the gift of spring's first rain.
There are too many of them to fit at the same time, so one by one the birds hop forward and splash around while the others chitter and fuss to themselves about who's next and whether there's another puddle to be found nearby and, by the gods, how long Charles has been in there, get out Charles, why don't you give someone else a go!
The massive, four-legged black bird watches them for a long moment with silver-green eyes that are full of laughter-- what's so funny anyway?-- and he begins to whistle softly, half mimicking the chatter of the finches and half... something else, something different. The little birds are entirely captivated. They stop and tilt their heads left and right, unsure what exactly is so alluring about the song. Strange colors begin to glow and swirl in the air around them, but they only last a few seconds before fading away. The man's song stops soon after, and the birds return to their bath.
For a moment the air has the charged tang of magic, but it fades quickly and succinctly. "What was that..." he wonders with a small frown, oblivious to any company other than his tiny, boisterous friends.
It seems that all of Solterra has felt the weight of sorrow on our tongues from the new regime. My heart aches that I have been kept apart from you because our newest king, His Majesty Raum, has instilled such harsh measures upon us all. The soldiers that patrol the streets after dark keep me from going to you as I wish, but the King has no knowledge of Solterra's resistance.
It is unbearable for me to be kept away from my Lady for so long, and I know you must feel the same. But I implore you to keep your spirits high. Raum can't harm you. He doesn't know you.
How I lament not being there to see your face as you read this. I hope you have not forgotten me.
The snapdragons reminded me much of you. They say: You are safe, and you are not alone.
I am always and forever thinking of you. These troubling times shall pass.
With all my love and loyalty,
VERONA
Caine placed his black feather quill into the ink pot and leaned back to survey his work. His lips lifted into a grimace when he considered what he was doing.
It wasn't the prospect of getting caught that agitated him. He knew that most, if not all, messenger doves were intercepted now by the King's spies, and their letters searched — if he thought about it that way, his reasoning for hiding his message inside a love letter made sound sense. No spy, including himself, would spend more than a minute skimming through such lovelorn ramblings. (He had taken much inspiration from a particularly besotted young man's letter, though he had diluted the passion of his own sentences to keep his dignity intact.)
It was the prospect of Fia reading it that left him slightly sick. If she ever found out who the mysterious Verona was... Caine shuddered as he rolled the parchment into a tight spiral. He had no intentions of her ever finding out.
A bundle of snapdragons lay wrapped besides his ink pot. If Fia knew of the language of flowers, she would know that snapdragons conveyed deception. And the four perfect stems of lavender buds... an oddly specific number. It barely made a bouquet. Caine wished he did not have to make his message so cryptic, but he knew Fia would note the oddity of the flowers. The strangeness of the number. Four.
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
Below Zero wasn't going to be chased off from her treasure. While she was certainly no pirate, out for gold and gems; she was searching for a different kind of treasure - knowledge. There was certainly a curiosity in her bones, her fins itching with desire; to know just what had the entirety of Novus acting like flying fish over this Island. Rumors were spreading, about the keeper of Time, or a relic hidden on the island that still made her pelt tingle and her nerves raw, and it left Bel wondering just what it might all mean. She was truly cursing her unfamiliarity with the deities of this Island. She just . . . . she didn't know. She didn't know them. She didn't know the stories. She didn't know what the big deal was. Not that she couldn't acknowledge that it was indeed a big deal.
A god leaving a relic tucked away on an odd island that had seemed to be rather out of this world, and didn't conform to the laws of nature - yes it was certainly a big deal. The aquatic-equine stood on the beach, close enough that the gentle swell of water could brush against her ankles, the water itself almost trying to reassure the mare of its' depths. Her gaze wasn't focused on the sea to her left however, but towards the island to her right, her gaze traveling over the trees and bushes, the sands and creatures that prowled them. There was a mystery about this island that seemed to be centered around the God and his Relic, but Bel wondered if that was all it was. Was the island just a piece of land designed to protect the relic - or did the island itself (like Bel wanted to believe) have its' own secrets?
Either way Bel was determined to figure out. She wouldn't rest until she knew what was going on . . . but first, she realized, she needed to do some research, do some learning about the pantheon of Gods, and just what was so special about this Relic. She couldn't begin to properly explore until she knew what it was she was exploring about.
This certainty is more than just a feeling, it is a foul sort of knowing deep in his bones, in all that empty space between atoms, swelling with warning, with despair.
"Toward the future," she sings (really she just says it, but the sun is in his eyes and ears and mouth and her voice sounds like a song) she burns (gently, gently, not even a simmer) "will you join me?"
It almost feels like someone else who answers "of course," as he nods tersely, skin prickling at the tickle of her downy wing across his shoulder.
Of course, he says, because of course there is no place to go but forward. Elsewhere there are bridges burning. Elsewhere a kingdom is being torn asunder, its citizens starved and desiccated, the carcass of progress cracked open at the ribcage and left to the sun and the dogs. He could not simply dream his way through winter, through spring, through war and ruin.
Even if he could, he wouldn't.
There are things a man needs to see with his eyes, hear with his ears. He could not survive without tragedy-- we know it now even as we keep our heart from knowing (-- two sides of a blade do not see the same blood) and maybe... maybe there are answers that lie ahead. Maybe there are even weapons.
(careful, now, best keep hope caged)
They walk side by side across the strange bridge and Eik does not say anything for a long time. His thoughts dance from one solemn subject to another-- the situation in Solterra, his last unfortunate encounter with Moira, the certain misfortune that awaits them at the edge of the bridge-- and nothing seems worth saying out loud except maybe "have you changed your mind?" but he can't figure out a less ass-ish way of communicating that.
"How are you?" He asks finally, because he wants to listen to something besides hooves on stone and waves crashing, and also because he genuinely wants to know. The question might have sounded awkward and mistimed if anyone else had asked it, after all that silence, but from Eik it comes as easily as one step forward, and then another, into a world unknown.
“I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.”
@Moira ahh I hope this is okay and I'm sorry for the wait! <3 (Takes place walking across the bridge between SWP Act II and Act III.)
A long journey from Solterra after what seems like another eternity spent apart is spent mostly in silence, and is rewarded at long last by the cool night air of Delumine, the warm, wet scent of spring now beginning to permeate their surroundings. Sam still has no explanation for Mattie, his madness unspoken between them, and he feels its presence like an itch he cannot scratch. While he is focused on retrieving his belongings, he is also dreading what must surely come afterward: his admission of murder. He cannot with a clean conscience go on existing as he has. He has feasted on the hearts of the innocent, has sullied his pure heart with the sins he has committed unto others, and he will pay the price. How, he does not know; can only hope it does not result in the one thing - the one person - he cares for the most being lost to him forever.
“Here,” he says, breaking away from his lover as he finds his cloak. His dagger and sheath are nestled inside and he quickly reaches out with his telekinesis, strapping the sharp iron tool to his leg while snuffling around the inside pockets of his outerwear. Some of the herbs he has stored have gone bad, withered, wilted or rotten in their jars, and he huffs. He has been gone a long while, it would seem. Longer than he had anticipated. Yet still, he finds some that have kept, and he thanks the gods for watching over him - if that is truly what they have done. In the back of his mind, he questions whether a god could find him worthy of protection. He levitates a small jar of berries and leaves, a concoction of his own making, and hands it over to Mathias. He tries to mask how utterly exhausted he still is, but it is hard. Still, he puts on a smile for the one he loves. “These are full of nutrients,” he explains. “They won’t fill you up, but it’s a good place to start, and they’re easy to digest.”
With a whisk of telekinetic energy, he picks up the cloak and slings it over himself, his jars rattling like little fairy bells within the confines of their designated pockets. He is not swift enough however, to keep the scrolls he has from tumbling out of the unbuttoned outer pockets. Sheets and sheets of bloodstained parchment fall to the forest floor, the science behind his healing potions, the anatomy of his reflection as The Wolf, his research laid bare for the world - at least, his world - to see. And there, beside the reflection of The Wolf, is a forgotten sketch of the memory Mathias, scowling in his all his agonized glory. All at once he is undone, his heart stuttering in his chest as he catches his breath. “Oh - uh - shit - s-sorry about that, I didn’t uh - realize the um - the pockets, they sometimes - they aren’t always done up right …”
This is the only excuse he can muster as he tries to pick his dignity up off the forest floor and re-roll his research, his moon trackers, his beautifully arched calligraphy that is laid out next to the terrified scribbling of a madman. He always knew he could not hide himself forever.
