take that look from off your face you ain't gunna burn my heart out
Slowly, slowly, she draws the fire down the curve of her throat. Closer, closer, her hair slips toward the licking flame. Beyond the glow of the vibrant fire, the rest of the Scarab was black, save for the flicker of lights dotted hither and thither. Minya smiles to the black, as if she can see each member of her audience.
Oh she feels the heat of the flames as they brush at her cheek, hissing and laughing. The music is loud in her ears, it drowns out the voice of the Scarab – filled with revelry, laughter, the roll of dice and the chink of glasses.
Her show ends as her lips and teeth close over the fire and it is gone. Suddenly everything is black. Suddenly the darkness without fire is so utterly complete. Suddenly she is just a girl locked in a mercenary’s trailer being dragged out into the heart of the desert. The only air, the only light was what could filter in through the tiny bullet holes sporadically sprayed across the wooden walls.
The stage is firm beneath her feet as she turns suddenly. The air in the den is as stiflingly hot, as airless as the tiny cell. Her limbs are as unsteady as the rattling wagon wheels that rocked her cage this way and that, but she walks with the grace of a girl well used to hiding within her every piece that screams and cries with horror.
Minya glitters in gold. She smiles in beauty and every inch of her is as divinely beautiful as a picture. Every inch of her steel skin is polished like gems. Every inch of her is fake. Except, of course, for the gems, for the myriad of jewels that litter her torso. No, each one of them is real, each one sent to her with adoration and hope. She keeps each piece and she vows to wear every one.
There are more gifts, resting beneath the golden light of her dresser. They blink and sparkle and beg to be worn. In Minya’s mouth is only poison and her veins are full of ash. Oh the gypsy carts call her, the hiss of flames carried upon the sigh of the midnight winds. She will leave the Scarab this night, she will slip into a caravan of travelling artists and sleep beneath a blanket of stars.
But, for now, she slips through the backstage curtain and out into the main rooms of the Scarab. Her acid pink hair is a sheet of silk that cascades down her slender throat. Beneath the lights Minya glitters, with diamond dust upon her lashes, with glitter across her skin. Within her antlers trinkets hang and they glitter, catching the eyes of adoring fans. And oh, beneath the fan of her lashes she smiles demurely, beatifically at each of them, her gaze studiously avoiding the mirror and the pauper girl who smiles a grin of dirt back at her. Oh, was that truly her? A shudder slips along the slender curve of her spine and she steps up to the bar.
“White.” Is all she says to the bartender, but he knows and places before the broken girl a glass of semillon. It is nectar upon her tongue and oh she drowns in it, oh she drinks it and knows it is the most expensive bottle here. She knows that if she lingers just a moment longer upon its taste, it would not be wine at all, but water and poison or desert water slick with pollution.
Minya is safe and adored now. Yet still she does not look too closely to the wine glass and the broken girl who stares back
Anyone is so very welcome! <3 | "speaks" | notes: <3
The reason he goes to Veneror, of course, is because it is the closest he can get to the moon.
There is no god more powerful or more important, though many would beg to differ. More important than that, Elchanan is still so new to Novus that he cannot possibly know this is a place of worship for anything other than the stars and the rain and the place land meets sky: he cannot see or smell the blood that has salted the earth here for eons, or the tears, or the animal sacrifices. He only sees a spire that could almost, almost touch the moon.
The night is black and deep. It smells like sin. Elchanan’s skin shimmers in and out of visibility as he passes through the opalescent cloaks and braids of various types of shadow; in some places they are so thick he turns black; in others the pale cream of his skin seems to turn to gold. The pale blue of his wings turns dark as the sea, and the knotted buns laid tight against his neck become nothing more than little blobs of white and shadow. The winter cold doesn't bother him, or at least doesn't seem to. Soaring through the thin air above the clouds, the chill that rushes into his lungs is not a nuisance but a wake-up call that sends a thrill through each nerve and blood vessel.
A thin layer of snow lines the mountain. When Elchanan lands, as lazily and graceful as a fish navigating a bend in a river, his hooves leave little crescent-moon prints that crunch-crunch-crunch and eat away at the permafrost. He is light, and bird-boned, but not enough to be immune to the disgrace of having to pick his way with high knees and dainty steps in a vainglorious attempt to avoid sinking: it is with some measure of disgust that he trots further and further up the slope, never straying from the hard-packed path of snow made by so many before him.
But snow has begun to come down again, and like rushing water it erases Elchanan's trail. He pins his ears back as the first bite of a snowflake settles in across his back, but there is nothing to be done; he can only duck his finely-built head closer to the protective warmth of his chest and continue on, even as his feathers subconsciously shake against the bite of frost and ice starts to crawl up his nimble legs.
over the moaning bones
of those who quit and chose to remain
If there was one season Atreus loathed more than the rest, it was undoubtedly winter. The bitter chill and blustering winds could be relentless, and the snow that oftentimes accompanied it covered the ground for weeks on end. It made his job all the more difficult, especially when one considered that this was also the time everyone was more susceptible to illness. Much to his dismay, his sleek coat of lavish, silvery red grew longer, and there was a good chance that that was the potion master’s most hated reason for the season.
Still, he had a reputation to uphold as Champion despite it all, and so when one morning came that was a little calmer than the rest, he set out for the snow-blanketed fields due north of Terrastella’s capitol with basket in tow. No amateur, Atreus had gathered a plentiful supply to maintain the Court’s residents until spring came and the annuals returned in bloom. For now, the Ilati man was focused on gathering the more common perennials that dotted the land and weren’t quite as precious to him. Rosemary, thyme, mint, basil and more – they all persevered throughout the cold months, and each were highly revered in their medicinal properties, as they could be used in a variety of remedies if curated and prepared properly.
Uttering a soft curse as an unpleasant gust whipped his side, Atreus set to his search, beginning first at the base of a group of trees, carefully scraping the layer of snow away to reveal the earth and what remained beneath it.
“Speaking.”
@Theodosia and anybody else who wants to gather some herbs or whatevs!
The Prince of Delumine has heard much of the pink dolphins which supposedly call the Rapax River home – his own parents had told him of the times they’d seen them with their own eyes, yet his uncle Ulric would always scoff at such tales and reassure him that they were just spinning tales, because he had never laid eyes on them for himself. In all honesty, Regis didn’t know what to think, but pink dolphins weren’t outside the realm of his imagination. Not to mention, his parents had never lied to him before, he wasn’t sure they ever would, so why shouldn’t he believe them?
Sheepishly he had approached his mother and father with the request to go to the river by himself, and much to his surprise, they had allowed him to do just that. It wasn’t that he really wanted to, simply because he enjoyed the company of others over isolation, but he’d be lying if he said the chance to go alone wasn’t at least a little bit exhilarating.
So, with a promise to be back in an hour or two’s time depending on what he found, Regis set off with Milo at his side. There was a thin layer of snow blanketing the ground from the night prior and a gentle, but still bitter breeze that tousled his mane, but it didn’t affect him to the severe degree that it had during his first winter which had nearly staked a claim on his life. Today, it was Regis’ turn to stake his own claim in a manner of speaking and prove that he was no longer just a child, but somebody who was fully capable of taking care of himself and proving to his parents that he was just as responsible as he really was. “Let’s race, Milo!” He called out to his russet companion, who gave a yip before taking off without hesitation. Laughter bubbled forth from the Prince’s dark lips, and with a toss of his head he gave chase, hopping here and kicking there as the pair of them zipped across the snowy landscape.
It wasn’t long before they reached the riverbank, both panting as their hot breaths curled in a misty vapor. The river itself was slow flowing, not quite frozen like it had been the week before but Regis guessed it wouldn’t take much to change that. His features scrunched up as he frowned, his hope of seeing the dolphins diminishing significantly. Did they like the water this cold? If the water froze, did that mean they did, too? Inching closer, Regis tentatively dipped one foot into the water before jerking it out almost immediately. He grimaced and looked to Milo. “Dang it… I was hoping we’d get to see them. But it’s really cold.”
Milo made a soft sound akin to a whine in the back of his throat, then cast his gaze further down the winding river. ”Maybe if we go further?” He suggested, ”Closer to the ocean, behind the citadel.”
Regis considered it for a second, remembering his promise to his parents. He’d explained exactly where it was he wanted to go explore and reassured them he wouldn’t stray far from there, and going to the section that began to wind around the back of the citadel wasn’t far… Right? “Okay,” he relented after a moment, glancing back the way they had come before starting to follow the river further southwest, “But we can’t go too far.”
I clutched my life
And wished it kept
My dearest love
I'm not done yet.
How easy would it be, he wondered, to just slip beneath the ice and allow the breath to leave his lungs? How easy would it be to melt into the shadows one final time and never return, to cast everything he had ever worked for into the fire?
The answer was simple. So, so simple. It wouldn’t be hard at all. It would be easy. It would, more than likely, be the easiest thing Vikander had ever done.
Forlorn pools of ice blue gazed sidelong at the frozen lake, his posture hunched in on itself as the snow fell down in fat white flakes to collect and melt along his ebony body. The curls of his mane and tail were a tangled mess, hanging about his downcast face in a curtain. Once again he had forgotten his cloak, the bundle wrapped up nicely from a fresh washing in his chambers at the Scarab. For some reason the realization didn’t bother him as much as it usually would.
The cold seeped beneath his skin, but still he breathed. Silent, stoic, stationary, Vik stood at the lakeside like a statue. Were it not for the gradual melt of the collecting snow upon him, he was certain that he would truly look like a being made of stone. A statue. A sick, twisted version of some madman’s artistic expression, the ‘freedom of creativity’, tossed out and forgotten to endure the elements for seasons to come.
He had come out to the lake for a reason, but now that he was here, Vikander honestly couldn’t recall why he had bothered making this trip out into the snow. An ingredient, perhaps? A sprig of balsam fir? Maybe some strips of bark from the himalayan hemlock? He had no idea. Everything was empty, barren, and dark. No recollection would come to him. Why?
A voice, soft and lulling, beckoned him. It cut through the silence and steady song of the falling snow, guiding him like a siren. Icy blue eyes glanced downward to the pendant upon his neck, ears tipping back into frosted sheets of ebony curls.
”Come to bed, darling,” his dead wife whispered, the memory of her voice causing his heart to clench tightly in his chest, stealing the breath from his very lungs. Vikander believed that he would prefer the mercy of the bottom of the lake rather than this. It came from the necklace, the enchanted pendant wrapped around his neck upon a silver chain. Their voices were inside, trapped forevermore, just as their bodies were protected and hidden away where only he knew.
Their ghosts would forever haunt him. They sung to him endlessly, his beloved wife and daughter, driving him on a steady course to madness, yet he was not strong enough to toss away the pendant and be rid of his demons. He didn’t want to. Selfish, masochistic, greedy, desperate, foolish… Oh, but there were so many words one could use to describe him. Vikander was a man drowning, purposefully gulping in mouthfuls of water instead of air. He built his own pyre and stood upon it as it burned. He was the creature of his own destruction, the master of his own demise. Dark, wretched, terrible…
”Please, Vik, my love.” Her voice echoed in his ears once more, and Vikander’s eyes glanced once more towards the icy depths of the Vitreus Lake. Come to bed… A bed of ice and freezing water, wrenching the air from his lungs and the life from his veins. It sounded like heaven. He would be free. But…
”You’re dead,” he whispered, his freezing lips numb to the words that tumbled forth, “Both of you. You’re… You’re…” They were dead. Both of them. He swallowed, both parched and sodden, his breath heaving as he began to shiver and shake from standing out in the cold for, for… For how long? How long? Had anyone in the Scarab noticed his disappearance? Did they care?
Another voice. Repeated. His wife and her sweet, loving voice, beckoning him. Let her be the siren that drowned him. Let her be the one to end this misery, to seek justification for the sins he had committed.
”Come to bed.”
Vikander swallowed hard once more, defiant and stubborn to the very end. “No.” Not yet.
Open to anyone, but I can’t guarantee how amicable he will be!
Posted by: Mathias - 04-21-2019, 11:34 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
if you wanna start a fight, you better throw the first punch
He spends most of his days in the canyons, now that Raum has seized the crown, and even Teiran does not follow him into the winding paths as often as she used to, too occupied with the death of the Queen.
He is...indifferent. Time will depose Raum, he is sure, and the world will keep turning around the sun. He has seen many other dictators claim the throne, had once grasped the crown with blood-stained hands himself, and always the people would rise up against the leaders with the stolen crowns and blood in their mouths.
It was inevitable, and he had no plans to get himself tangled up in the whispers of war that rippled throughout the court, nor the rebellion that loomed above the sands like a teryr looking for its next meal. So he retreats to the maze of canyon walls and he follows the path that leads towards what he calls home -- a small, hidden cave, just large enough to store his battered armor and to cover his body when it rained, tucked far enough into the canyons that he is left in peace.
He knows he shouldn’t be here - not now, not tonight, not when he knows what was coming soon. Perhaps it was his insatiable curiosity, his need to be around like-minded gamblers such as these that brought him back to Denocte, and back to the White Scarab tonight. Perhaps it was the heat of Solterra, forcing him out of the deserts in search of cooler weather.
Or maybe he just enjoyed toeing the line a little.
The familiar whirr of the beetle’s wings was welcoming, and the palomino slipped through the doors like a golden ghost. It took his eyes only a moment to adjust to the darkness, but only one; he was used to the darkness. It was arguably the best thing to be greeted with, after all the brightness of Solterra.
The light of a hundred candles flickers against the vaulted ceiling, casting shadows that spun and danced down to the floor below. Easily the brightest lighting inside, they shine subtly yet brilliantly into the darkness of the Scarab. They remind him of golden stars, shimmering and twinkling; but he was also golden, and a wolf was no less a star in his own eyes.
Even after he’s adjusted to the darkness, Toulouse waits by the entrance. His eyes rove across the floor, with its scattered tables, dealers, and patrons. For half a second, he’s tempted - it’s been a long time since he’s tested his luck with gambling. He can hear the soft music the coins make when they exchange hands, can see the stacks piling up on the nearest table. There’s a lot of gold being thrown tonight, gold that would line his pockets well when he won.
You already have gold, though, his mind whispers to him, and he can’t deny it. There’s something else to be won here.
He weaves through the tables slowly, hardly looking at them as he passed. Tonight he’s set aside his green silk for red, and it’s turned as dark as blood beneath the soft lighting, dark against his pale body. The tassels bounce gently at his sides with every movement, the weight of his scarves pressing against his back. Toulouse walks as if he owns the place, his stride commanding. He goes out of his way to pass by as many tables and gamblers as he can, feeling well at home on the floor.
And all the while, his ears are turning this way and that way, flicking to catch the end of every sentence, every bet, every whisper.
But his walk takes him to the edges of the room, and a board hung on the wall catches his eye. Toulouse pauses, his green eyes narrowing slightly as he looks over the bits of parchment pinned there.
He’s seen the board before, and each time it’s different, yet the same: the messages pinned there change, but each time he finds them nigh unreadable.
He moves closer, as if expecting to find a hidden message written between the lines. Toulouse stamps one pale hoof into the carpet, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.
It isn’t until he’s all but ready to turn away and try his luck at the tables after all when he hear hoofbeats approaching him from behind.
And when he turns, it’s the green-eyed girl he sees standing behind him.
"Good evening."
His voice is low and charming, but his eyes are sharp. A smile, at odds with his eyes, stretches slowly across his lips. "I don’t suppose you can tell me what these are?" he asks, gesturing at the bulletin board.
He knows better than to expect her to tell him - but he’s been here enough times, he’s starting to feel like he deserves to know.
But perhaps he can make it worth her while to tell him?
the motherland don't love you,
the fatherland don’t love you.
so why love anything?
the faithless; they don't love you
the zealous hearts don’t love you.
and that's not gonna change.
ut deo.
@aghavni
ahh ignore the slightly crappy starter, i hope this is alright c'':
The image of that fallen cave will haunt him forever. Never had a single sight encapsulated all his shortcomings. (A smell, yes-- ash and burning flesh-- but never a sight-- his eyes had been closed, then) He stared at the rubble until his eyes burn and water, and still be does not blink. How long had she been there? In the belly of the mountain, in the dark, alone-- or worse than alone-- in the company of those crooked men. Where was he? Stumbling through rooms stuffed full of strangers? What was he doing when she was taken? Pretending to be someone he was not, as though a mask would hide his scars? Enjoying himself?
"Isra..." He says her name in the way he always does, the way that gives that one word a hundred meanings. Most, but not all, are variations of love. He wraps around her, placing gentle kisses all over her, cheek and neck and shoulder, elbow and belly and hips. Inhaling the scent of violence, dried blood (like a rusty blade) and fresh blood and something foul and herbal and sticky-- poison? And when he buries his muzzle in her hair he can smell her, pure Isra, sweet and certain and wrapped in broken glass.
They've made weapons of themselves, and he knows,
He knows this is the start of a war.
"I'm so sorry."
I should have been there-- What they did to you--
Of course, she did not need saving. It doesn't matter. His uselessness aches like an old and angry scar, rubbed the wrong way. He hates his magic, he wants the power to set something on fire or shake the earth or rip and tear and tremble the world in some way. He wants, for once, to destroy with something more effective than tooth and hoof.
He makes a soft sound of disgust and turns to the dragon. "Thank you--" the name comes to him without needing to be grasped for. Maybe he always knew, like the way he loved Isra, impossibly, before they had even met. Like the way he loves her now, so definitely, without even knowing any of the things the other lovers know about each other. (But oh-- he knows more!)
"Thank you Fable." He takes a step toward the Dragon as if to embrace him too, but stops inches away feeling uncertain (how exactly does one embrace a dragon) and instead closes his eyes and opens his magic and shares his gratitude the clear way, one without words to bungle its meaning. Surely his anger and fear and violence fill all the fractures in the emotion he projects, but that's the thing about opening his mind-- there is nothing to hide behind. He hopes the dragon takes it for what it is: a promise.
When Eik turns back to his queen, he pauses. There is something wild in her eyes, something that makes him wonder where this war will lead them, and if there will be any coming back from it.
The sun and its consistency was equal parts mocking and reassuring.
He began, finally, to think he understood why so many worshipped the sun god with such fanaticism. It was nothing as simple as what he had once assumed. It was not about asking for kindness, for deliverance from the worst of the scorching summer days or a kiss of warmth in winter. It was not about stupidity, not the natural conclusion of a downtrodden and illiterate people scrambling for something-- anything-- bigger than themselves.
He came to think the sun God was so compelling to the people because of consistency. Because the world could unwind itself into madness and filth and chaos and the same sun would continue to rise every day. Indifferent. Consistent. It was a taste of the infinite, a puzzle we hoped to solve with faith.
His thoughts on the matter changed very slowly, so slowly that he had not realized they were changing, had not realized they were there at all until he was changing, all of him passed over in great big brushstrokes of colors he had never before considered, for he quite liked the stark beauty of the world in greyscale. He had a lot of time to think these days, alone (so very, neatly, sharp-edged alone) and outcast from his country, whose king he meant to kill.
Hunger has driven Eik to the seaside cliffs, where scrawny grasses manage to... well,not fluorish but survive, at least, thanks in no small part to the fog that rises off the water each morning. The pickings are slim and hard won, but make a far easier meal than skinning and eating a cactus. At first he does not notice the eyes on him, until they stare and stare and he slowly drifts toward them as he forages and eventually there is nothing he can do except to notice those strange, intelligent eyes. He meets them with his own depthless black gaze, and finally snorts with a shake of his head. "Yes?"
*
OOC:@Nizizi I hope this is okay <3 unfortunately Eik is a grump these days. feel free to throw Only at him if you'd prefer! Set in Solterra at some seaside cliffs.
WERE I IF I COULD, I WOULD ERASE YOUR ARMOUR RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL BY SUN, A VERITABLE GOD. I WOULD TAKE THE SPEAR AND RETURN THE LYRE, but i can only stare at your golden back as you march off to the dance of war--
Boudika was angry, but it more; much more, than just anger. It was the kind of rage that closely resembled both desperation and grief and changed colour like a chameleon, blending one moment to one sentiment and then the next to the other. It was a rage that struck her to the core, wordless and strange. It was a rage that altered her very disposition, transforming her from sullen and brooding into a hurricane, a creature with flushed skin, disheveled hair, blood-shot and exhausted eyes. Oh, how she wished to be a force of nature; the very sort of think that wrecked indiscriminately, a force of fate and fight, unrestricted by the confines of mortal space or morality. Boudika wanted to be a storm and then, like a storm, she wanted to dissolve.
The injustice of this was the world did not reflect her tumultuous state. Instead, a placid serenity covered Denocte. Snow, an expansive blanket of white, encompassed the breadth of the territory. It was silent, aside the resolute crunching of her hooves as they broke through the crusted surface of the snow. It was at least a foot deep in most places, as a storm had covered the land the night before—a blizzard, even, that dusted the few trees in snow and ice. Last night, during her restless slumber and unfavored dreams, Denocte decided to refer her later mood of fury. Perhaps there was irony there; perhaps something she could discern, had she the mind to do it. Perhaps. But there was no reason to discover that irony, when she was awake and furious. Her run had been hindered to the point it had become a walk. Thus she trudged, resolutely and with simmering rage, toward the mountain range.
It had been weeks, or months, since she had arrived on Novus—beaten by the sea, bruised and chaffed by salt and iron bonds. She had awoken somewhere on the Solterra coast and wandered until she met the old stallion, telling her of courts. Solterra had been too similar to her homeland; too brazen; too harsh. Boudika shunned those ideals, now, despite her boiling blood. So she chose, instead, to become a dancer.
That thought came tinged with bitterness. A dancer, chimed her thoughts. As though you have any right to be a dancer. She knew what blood tasted like. How it looked at it congealed, sanguine and dark, on a battle-torn beach.
But those were not even her dreams, as of late. Her dreams were of Vercingetorix, with his dark head and alabaster body, dappled in glimmering, semi-translucent gold. She thought of him with his smile, with his soft whispers, with the way he had called her brother in a way more intimate than the word had any right becoming. You are my brother, he had said during the long days and nights when Bondike—not Boudika—had tended him.
Brother, brother, brother.
And then, when his feelings kindled for her--or him, as Boudika had been then, disguised always as Bondike--then, he was companion, and the word Vercingetorix used was full of love, a synonym, even, for a warrior who could not bring himself to say the sentiment.
Boudika fumed. Boudika hated. She was so much a companion he betrayed her when her love came to light and, with it, her identity. Vercingetorix had shunned her—sudden vinegar and salt, a cruelty Boudika had always believed belonged only to enemies.
Those were her thoughts as she climbed the mountains. Those were her thoughts as her muscles strained and her breath fogged the air and the frost froze to the winter-long fur on her chest and legs. Boudika was partaking on an odyssey. She thought, if only she could get far enough from the sea… if only she could surmount some obstacle, greater than she had ever known… then she would be free of him and his heavy ghost, all that it represented. He was in the back of her mind as an oppressive, vindictive shadow. He loomed like her island's devil, a cruel pagan thing, which whispered her transgressions. You were a woman among men. You pretended to be something you were not. You pretended to be good enough. And the cruelty, there, was that she had been. She had captured the Prince of a Thousand Tides. She had bound him for Oresziah--and they had banished her, sentenced her to death, sworn her away as an enemy against them.
All because of something she could not change. All because she was a general's daughter, rather than a son.
The hours passed and the sun grew warm on her back, but did not melt the snow, nor Vercingetorix's shadow. She climbed the treacherous mountains until she found a cliffside and could see the whole of Denocte and then, and only then, did she begin to scream her rage.
