It does not feel too much like pride for Asterion to think that this is his favorite part of the Midsummer Event.
It is only that everything here fits him so perfectly. The lit-pearl pathway sets the stage for the dream, soft reflections of the stars that blaze above, and they cast strange light along the false-glass walls. Behind them the water shifts, blue deep as a secret and purples like jasmine blooming beneath a new moon. The tents glow warm as bonfires and Asterion thinks that he has never seen the lake so lovely.
Never mind the memories that surface then - another midsummer night, nothing but fireflies and still water and the fading perfume of wildflowers. And her. Oh, the king wonders if it is Aislinn he still misses, or the way he had felt his first night in Novus, when everything was still an adventure and a promise.
But tonight he is not alone. Though he walks, for the moment, by himself, there are faces all around him, some laughing and some still with wonder. The bay drifts along the tents, glancing at the wares, marveling at the artistry. He smiles at each face whose eyes catch his, he passes soft words with the vendors. And then he breaks away from the small crowd and walks back out onto that pathway of wood and dark gold, as full of quiet awe as he had been at the building of it.
There in the darkness, where the only light ripples over him in waves of green and blue like an aurora, he falls to stillness, only watching. For a moment he lets his mind drift with the water, thinking of nothing but color and the promise in a summer night’s breeze.
Your throat tastes of ash and smoke, but your mood is light and jovial. Your pace is a cheerful little jaunt full of innocent imaginings, picking your way through the underbrush of the Viride Forest, smelling all sorts of new scents and spotting so many new sights. There had been so many new experiences since your home had been swallowed by the flames. The wildfires had been frightening for quite a while, the smoke so very dense and cloying, scaring you away from your den and your kin in a dash of run, run, run! You had gone back to your den for a few lonely nights, waiting and hoping that your siblings or your parents would return… But no one had come.
It had been hard leaving behind what you knew. The den you shared with your siblings beneath the large trunk of an old oak tree, warm and comfortable and content. Your parents, wise and cunning. Your three sisters. Your favorite chewing stick… They were all gone, but you, oh you, despite your youth and innocence, knew that you could not remain. There was no future there.
So, you moved on. A petite, lithe body of sleek rust red, traveling with black paws coated with ash and grime through the burnt, skeletal remains of the Viride Forest. The sun would rise and then set, but steadily you made your way through the remnants of the fires, napping in hiding through the worst of the daylight before continuing on when evening arrived. Hunger pooled in your gut, clawing and terrible, and so you would hunt to scrounge up food, your efforts clumsy and uncoordinated. There hadn’t been much time to learn to hunt before the fires had come, but you did your best, rewarded once with a tasty field mouse just on the shore of the Rapax River. By then, the terrain had begun to change. You notice it, gradually at first. Where the world had been a constant state of browns and blacks, the large trees dead and charred, ash staining the ground and covering the dirt, the closer you grew to the Rapax River, the more green things had become.
Grasses, leaves, plant life in abundance. You drank from the river, the cold waters soothing the burn in your throat. Resting the day beneath a thick brush, you sleep, dreaming of playing with your sisters, your warm, loving parents, and the future you have yet to discover. Somewhere, somehow, something is falling. You dream of the colors of cream and spindly legs, of dual-colored eyes blinking at you with a curious sort of innocence that rivaled your own. You dream, and you learn.
As evening crested, you traveled once more. On and on, following that invisible little tug in your russet chest. Through the trees and bushes, through the hills and thick grasses, you crest the hillsides until a large shape looms in the distance. It is far larger than any shape you have ever seen in your weeks of life; made of stone, cresting up, up, up into the evening lit sky, taller than any tree you have ever seen before. It looks important. It looks scary… But that tugging has grown in your chest now, and you are powerless against it. Something unknown has begun to steal your breath, excitement bubbling through your limbs, creating your eager little jaunt once more.
Brazen, but with a note of caution, you approach the looming structure while remaining in the stretching shadows. Cresting the path you have chosen, maw half-open and tongue lolling from the corner of your mouth, you spot him; he seems to be searching for something, a stick brandished within his mouth, with his long, spindly legs and creamy colors. It digs into your memories, making you recall the dreams from before.
All of a sudden, you are thrilled. Some other force seems to grab hold of you, compelling you to act, and you look around almost frantically. Twisting about with an audible little cry, you find a small stick at your paws. It isn’t as nice as your chewy stick, the one lost at your den, but it’s appropriate all the same. Unthinking, you scoop it up, grasping it firmly within your jaws and tiny teeth. Next? Well, next you launch yourself forward and out of the shadows, towards this spindly-legged equine with his own chewing stick, and brandish your own with unfathomable pride.
’Play!’ You mentally cry, eager and ready and so desperate for him to hear you, to understand you, to feel you. ’Play!’
After taking refuge within the burnt remains of the Viride Forest, a young fox ventures across charred ashland, dense forests, thick grasslands, and even water to follow the pull of his heart towards his future Bonded. Upon arriving to the citadel of the Dawn Court, he spots Regis playing within the courtyard, scoops up a stick, and demands to join him in play. Regis, it is up to you how to receive this wayward fox kit.
Regis has met his Bonded.
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With every step he takes from Isra, love hardens to fear, to anger, to fury. By the time Eik reaches the mountain he is a different man than the one shaped by Novus. He is the last relic of a land the gods turned on, and his scars burn with memories of violence.
(a memory of a dream flutters in and out of focus: "whatever you do--)
The clearing is well-lit and merry, branching off into paths that suggest a world of possibilities. But beyond the glow of the lanterns and the fire, the forest is deep and too thick for even the moon to pierce. The dark trees watch him, and he stares back in search of a message.
(--your hands will always know the shape of violence.")
When he sees the sharp outline of Calliope he is too intent to believe in coincidence. Oh, how far they've come since the day they met with the sky falling down. This time, the storm rages in his eyes instead of the fields before them, and where there should be lightning there is only black, black, black. Still the silent wind howls her name like a call to arms, cal-li-ope!, and all the fallen leaves in his chest scatter at the sound.
"Calliope," he calls her name quietly but the sound cuts all the same. That first time they met, she had drawn a story from him that he didn't know needed to be told. It was the start of something-- an unfolding, or perhaps a crumbling. This time, though, he knows what it is he needs from the woman with a lion in her bones.
"How would you hunt a man who can change his face?"
*
@Calliope
(Although... I would not be opposed to anyone else wandering in, and I'm sure Nestle wouldn't either! Let's start a man hunt >:D)
Israfel didn’t know what the fuck happened between Atreus and the Sovereign of the Dawn Court. All she knew was that they had ‘history’, and she had a pretty good idea that it was a piss poor history judging by King Somnus’ expression upon spotting the roan poison master. The entire affair had been full of tension and she had wanted to excuse herself and duck out of there. Still, her job there was done. Asterion had told her to ensure that Atreus and the assorted supplies arrived in Delumine safely, and she had done just that. For now? Well…
She wasn’t a healer. Whether or not Atreus could help the King’s son wasn’t a burden that fell on her shoulders, but she did hope that the little tyke would make it. Children should be spared such travesty and pain, after all. There was nothing like facing your mortality at such a young, frail age. Regardless, she had other, more pressing things on her list to do during her visit to Delumine, and that involved a certain blue roan Warden.
“Hey, gorgeous. Remember me?” Cocksure, confident, sensual. Oh, Israfel knew what she wanted, and this man fit almost every category. Shame they hardly knew each other, but maybe that would change.
It hadn’t been hard to find him. With Solaris’ keen eyes searching from the skies above, Israfel had managed to find Ulric just outside of the citadel courtyard. It was early and the stallion appeared to be preparing for some kind of patrol, judging by the looks of it, when the Sun Daughter came sashaying up on his offside, her steps confident and assertive. It was with that greeting that she announced her presence if he hadn’t heard her approach, a wolfish grin spread wide upon rose-kissed lips. Vermilion eyes flashed with intrigue, roaming the stallion’s features before coming to stop. With one pale ear quirked forward in his direction, Israfel went on.
“I guess I’m here for a while. Mind if I join you this morning?”
She could not keep her promises no matter how flooded by emotion she was. No matter how determined she was. Noctii had been absent in the court, unable to face the masses after promising Isra that she would. The unicorn splashed with the golden hues of the sun and stars wandered listlessly through the swarms of bodies in the streets. Her appearance was haphazard, and there was an obvious lack of care for herself in her once pristine features. Noctii could not forgive herself for her failures, she had been meant to be a warrior, and now she hid and wallowed in her pity. Her blue gaze drifted over the sea of faces as their bodies passed her by. These were her first contacts with others since Isra's subsequent acceptance of the thone. She had torn her heart out and shown it to the new Empress, and her promises rang hollow as the husks of the strange cotton plants in fall. Her body felt weighted, and cold as she moved through the crowds. Vendors lined the streets, and she couldn't imagine why she wandered here.
The former daughter of Reth came to a halt out of the way of the stream of bodies and watched them wander by. Many seemed in jubilant spirits and chattered amongst themselves and the groups that had come to enjoy this place. She stood beside a very ancient looking wooden vendor's stall with a strangely exotic woman. Her voice was husky, and she appeared as though her heritage carried Arabian blood, but her hair was wild and curly. Her eyes a bright green, and were the first thing that Noctii noticed against the vendor's bay pelt. A strange churning of attraction floated up within her, one she had fought off for most her life. She couldn't possibly be attracted to fellow vixens, could she? What would Xamis think of her to give in to such temptation?
The vendor addressed Noctii, dispelling her thoughts on attraction, but their words were lost in the clamor of the crowd. A collection of strange veils seemed to hang from the ancient wooden stall. Noctii just shook her head and gave a shrug as she pushed herself against the current of equines bombarding her. It felt much like the weights she so frequently worried about. She only had time to sit in her worries, and disappointment in her inability to do anything. Would this ceaseless feeling always plague her? Noctii peered with her face contorted in anxiety, somewhat hoping for a familiar face in the crowd to ease her anxiousness. To give her purpose.
"Speech"Thoughts
"Speech"
Notes: First post in awhile, I'm sorry it's absolute garbage.
Tags: @Isra /Open
Words: xxx
It had been the drawing of Raum that caught his eye, and then the rest of him, as forcefully as a punch to the gut.
Most of the time Acton paid little attention to the wanted and warning posters (gods knew he - or things he’d stolen - had starred in them often enough over the years), but there was no denying the pale face that stared up at him from this one. It made him stop in his tracks, motionless save for the way his molten eyes scanned the words written there, the fear and frenzy evident in each sharp slash and thin loop.
The way his heart began to race, then, was familiar - but the fear that rose in him was wholly new, alien and awful. It seized him like a fist, and it did not leave him as he turned, shouldered his way through the gathering crowd, and made his way through the keep to Isra’s door.
He was out of breath by the time he got there (why would horses build a castle with so many stairs,) but at least it meant his ragged heartbeat was warranted. He had passed in and out of flickering torchlight, and his skin still felt striped with shadows and flame. For a moment he considered pushing his way through this final door —
but Acton is not so thoughtless, so careless, as he once was (for better or for worse). For a few heartbeats passed he only listened, his head bent near the door, listening for any sound but his breathing and the candle-flames that flickered in the background, always hungry, always being fed.
At last, when impatience and worry threatened to swallow him up, he spoke.
“Isra,” he said, and his voice was as soft as firelight, as dark as soot. “Will you let me in?”
It did not occur to him to wonder if she thought him another wolf at her door.
Her muscles were sore - her wings were nearly numb considering how much she had been flying; albeit, it had been a long time. Despite the want to rest, the girl continued with a specific determination. Find water and then she could rest; her tongue felt sandpaper and her teeth ground together in retaliation of the effect. Sand, sand, more sand - it didn't seem like it was to end anytime soon. In fact, she had believed it was all a trick of her own mind when she saw the coloration drift into a more monotone and desaturated differentiation. For a good moment or two, she simply hovered above the skies, the silence was excruciating - the only time anything was changed were each moment her wings slammed upon the clouds to keep her afloat.
Even then, it wasn't much of a distraction as she stared at the dead grass and snow and better yet water that was so tantalizingly close.
Her muscles screamed at her to rest and she nearly succumbed to the exhaustion and heat that coursed through her veins. Each lift of her wings felt like they were holding a ton of bricks, and, only when she looked around to scout from above, did she finally lower herself to the ground. She snorted as if pleasantly surprised by the fact that the snow had not been simply a figment of her imagination but instead as real as her prior memory of ever feeling it. How in the absolute fuck was there snow in the desert? Her left front hoof rose to push some of the snow away. There was grass beneath it. Huh. Instantly, her wings dropped to the sides, relief flooding through them at the ability to at last rest. It had been so long - too long, how long? It had been days since she had last felt the frosted blades of grass beneath her hooves, the subtle gentleness of each seemed to lure her to the presence of water. And it succeeded in its goal. Finally moving, the dawn-colored vagabond moved towards the slow moving river.
As she meandered closer, she noted that there were thin sheets of ice covering spots. It didn't make a lick of sense to her, in all honestly; it was summer - snow wouldn't come for months. But who was Eos to complain? Unadmirable and awfully nothing of an eye-catching task, her head lowered until she reached just the surface of the river; and thus, her story, in the most cliche way possible, began.
There was blood in the air and for once Acton did not welcome it.
Oh, how familiar was the spark beneath his skin, like a storm on the horizon. The buckskin felt electric, kinetic; for the first time in a long time even his magic couldn’t sit still, and his markings shifted like a magician’s trick. To look at him was to look at a black mask with molten eyes, a smile that could hardly be called a smile at all.
But there was no one looking as he made his way out of the city, the smoke of midnight bonfires still on his skin. He was a dampened flame as he walked, half-hidden beneath a clouded sky. The City of Stars had no such light tonight, and that was well enough, for Acton was back on Crow business.
He had not yet untangled his barbed-wire thoughts after hearing about Raum’s latest sin. Acton could not decide if he was surprised, could not decide if he was angry, could not decide if he was disappointed or sickly proud or most of all afraid. The territory of thoughts was never one he walked well; that was always a strength of the Ghost. But surely, surely, his brother had not truly meant to kill Isra. (And if he had? Oh, Acton can not yet consider it.)
As he walked in the silent darkness, his memory carried him away, another meeting with his brother-Crow on a mountain. That day on the peak had been the beginning of this long and twisting story, when Raum was a spy in the Sun God’s court and Acton was always starving for trouble. The buckskin never thought he would be the one to finally have his fill of blood.
Despite the tang of pine, the thick sweet summer-smell of the mountain as he climbed, the taste on his tongue was only bitter. His eyes sparked at every movement, his ears shifted for each sound, but even so some dark part of his heart was eager to see his quicksilver brother again. And when the hillside turned to brambles and stones, when a copse of birch trees pale as dead faces in the night signaled he was nearing the cave (always a cave, he and his brother’s business) there was no denying the wolf’s-joy that lived in him, too.
So it was he stepped into what had once been a stronghold, a hideaway, a home. He did not see Raum, but he did not need to, to know he wasn’t alone; he knew what it felt like, to be watched by the Ghost.
“Has your hatred finally outweighed your sense, brother?” he asked - and how strange it felt, for he sounded more like Raum in that moment than himself. “Or is there something you’re not telling me?”
Acton was not the praying sort, and oh, that was well - for he did not know what he would pray for, in that moment. Blameless hands, or bloody ones.
over the moaning bones
of those who quit and chose to remain
Upon hearing word that King Somnus’ son was critically ill, Atreus had wasted no time in gathering what supplies and tools were necessary, packing them away in a bag that would be carried by Israfel. He had only shared a few short, parting words with Fiona before joining back up with the Warden and heading north for Delumine.
His haste wasn’t because he cared for the fate of the child, however. No, he was fueled by the name which Asterion had spoken, the name of his dear brother whom he hadn’t laid eyes on since the day he was dragged from the throne room of the Vhallen Palace and down to the dank, musty prison cells below.
On warm winds they flew, and where Atreus would normally take the opportunity to pick the brains of his traveling companions, the poison master was oddly quiet as they left the musty, humid swamplands in exchange for impressive, verdant forests that outlined gently rolling meadows. The citadel itself was easy to locate, its pointed spires looming high above the rest of the land, serving as a beacon to those who called this place home. Atreus might have been impressed by the ivy-covered structure were it not for the possibility that it was his brother which lived within it, serving as 'King'.
Tipping his wings back to increase the drag against them, the roan began to descend as they encroached on the capitol, searching vigilantly for any sign of that nettlesome coat of gold he remembered far more clearly than he cared to admit. But as his hooves found purchase on solid ground once more, no longer could he allow his annoyance to be displayed so blatantly. Instead, the pinched look of his features softened and he bore a pleasant smile where a scowl had once called home.
Tucking his wings against his silvered sides, Atreus began to approach the citadel with Israfel and Theodosia in tow. “We hail from Terrastella,” he explained clearly to whomsoever he saw first, “We received news that the King’s son is ill and we’ve come to lend our aid however we may.”
Rock of ages, rock of ages
Still rolling, keep rolling
***
The sun had risen that morning into a blood-red sky, its burning and indifferent eye bathing the Arma Mountains in fire. Neither omens nor portents, nor the straining and sleepless eyes of war-weary watchers, gave it pause in its inexorable heavenward march. And under its pitiless gaze, the world carried on as always, with all the usual players - save one.
Raymond stood stiffly in the secluded heart of the mountain range, neck arched instinctively against an unseen threat. He had done what he could for himself in the aftermath of the battle. Shoddy poultices caked the worst of his wounds and the rest lay bare; dark, swollen scabs crisscrossed his flesh over bloody rivulets left to dry and flake on their own. He cast his eyes East toward the midmorning sun, but did not see it: his mind was elsewhere.
She stirs.
He breathed in sharply. The low steady rumble of Ruth's breathing, which had slipped beneath his conscious awareness during the unbroken monotony of his vigil, flooded back to the surface like a wall of white noise.
He turned his back on the sun to where her colossal form lay nestled almost gingerly in the elbow of two adjoining mountains, her carapace a forest of wicked knives to guard the treasure lying in the center of her coiled mass. She lifted her massive head only enough to blink one sleep-clouded golden eye at him.
Thank you, my dear.
Mouth dry and body aching, the red stallion moved with as much dignity as he could muster into the cocoon of the Tarrasque's body. He did not like to worry - it left bitter ashes in his stomach - and the fear running hot and cold through his veins as the swarthy mare came into view was as much against him as it was her.
Because he could not be both in love and in control.
Because he was powerless.
But she was alive. He steeled himself against the worry that had made his own wellbeing an afterthought and said, softly, "That was reckless." But what he felt - to lay eyes upon her again, to share her presence, was not the worry that had creased his face and darkened his eyes.
It was fierce awe.
*** Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
