when the fires are consuming you and your sacred stars won't be guiding you
Unbeknownst (or, perhaps, entirely known) to the sun god, the silver was in fact at her books again – though she was damn near tearing the pages out with frustration. Always something, isn’t it?
That was her problem, she thought, always expecting to find some sort of mathematical solution even when hell had frozen over. If there was anything that she should have learned from all of this – from gods returning to life and the entire land uprooting itself – it was that there was not always a solution, or, at the very least, not one that could be found tucked between the yellowed, ash-scented pages of history. She had hoped, against her better judgement, that she would stumble upon some poorly-cited historical incident where the Day Court had been covered in ice and snow for some inconceivable reason, and that might lead her to some sort of answer, some way to fix things -
But there were no answers to be found, and, as she stared down at a page that she was sure she’d scanned half a dozen times already, a sense of futility settled in her stomach like a stone.
They were fine, but…
The three patrols she’d sent out to the Mors hadn’t come back.
She wouldn’t send any more of them to their deaths. Had they simply become lost in the snow? But the warriors of Solterra were accustomed to finding their way in the endless monotony of desert sands – surely, in a group, she hoped that her warriors were competent enough to navigate their way back home. The other, more sickening possibility was that something waited for them in the snow. (For a moment, the paradoxical lash of flame burnt at her withers, then nothing. She could taste blood in her mouth.) One thing was perfectly clear to her: they couldn’t remain holed up behind the walls of the court forever.
She flipped the cover of the leather-bound tome in front of her closed, looking away dismissively. New problems required new solutions. It was her job to find them.
(But, gods, if it wouldn’t help to have some sort of fire magic – or magic at all – at the moment. It wasn’t as though they could simply shovel out the blizzard on their doorstep.)
Ears twitching back to lie flat against her skull, she breezed out of the library and into the frigid cold that had consumed the battlements. Freezing wind twined through the snow-white of her hair, catching in the pale, lurid sunlight; she let a shiver run her spine. The landscape was unrecognizable, each familiar ridge and contour and distant silhouette swallowed up in a sea of snow – as much as the smooth sandstone, slick with ice, beneath her hooves told her that she was home, it felt as though she were in some other world.
Her eyes, instinctively, sought the glow of the sun without quite staring into it. She still wasn’t sure if he could hear their prayers, much less if they were thought rather than spoken aloud, but...he was around. She knew that much, had felt his warmth at her side and remembered the gold sheen of his sides as well if it were yesterday. It couldn’t hurt. Solis. Do you have some idea of how to fix this? I’ve…found nothing, and I’m running short on ideas. Short of setting the entire court (or realm) ablaze, anyhow.
-------------------- notes | a post? seems unrealistic. anyways, seraphina is alive, and, shockingly...has her nose buried in a book. tags | open <3
It was night when he walked through the desert. This was just like any other night, impossibly still and deliciously fragrant. The only difference was the snow underfoot and the lingering chill in the air.
The wild magic had been pounding all day inside of him, it was constantly demanding to be let loose. It wanted to skim through everyone's thoughts like scanning through the radio, until it found a channel it liked and diving deep into it. It could be a petulant thing and Eik had to pay near-constant attention to keeping it contained. The worst part of it all is that the magic was not really something separate from himself- its desires were merely a facet of his own curiosity. Still, it was an overwhelming thing for the stallion to release in the court, especially when he already knew--or thought he knew-- many of the creatures around him. In the wilds it was an easier thing to control, so as he wove through the canyons, he slowly lifted the veil and let his magic have its way.
At that hour most things were either sleeping or hunting. Their thoughts came to him like jellyfish riding a current. Each rode a different wave and they didn't always synchronize, but when they did it filled him with a sense of divine comfort. It was like feeling the flow of the universe that we all drift along in. To this effect the dreams would align for slivers of a moment and it would seem all the desert was dreaming the same hazy dream.
Strangely, the desert often reminded him of the sea.
He gently withdrew his magic at the edge of the canyon, letting it regenerate for the voyage ahead. Before them loomed the Arma Mountains, half-moon proudly slung over her shoulder. Eik stood there a moment, feeling his heartbeat quicken, and only when he felt the gentle tug of the universe did he continue to walk.
-
It had seemed like such a rush to get to Denocte, like he had no time at all to lose, yet once he stood behind the walls of the court all sense of urgency was gone. Eik let himself get lost in the twisting hallways, and in many ways it was like getting to know a stranger. He peeked behind doors that perhaps should have stayed closed, wandered down alleys he had no business wandering down, and kept trouble at bay with nothing more than a peaceful and purposeful countenance.
The day grew long and he did not simply stumble across those he had come here to see. The court was too large, and his companions no doubt busy with other things. So he began to ask around for the twilight king, and if the title brought an odd smile to his lips, nobody commented on it.
Eventually Eik finds the other stallion on a terrace with a view of the sea. He is occupied in conversation, which gives the grey a chance to look him over. Asterion looks well, but weary. Eik can only guess at the rest of what the man is feeling... they both have come so far since that first day. They are now the sovereign of one court and the emissary of another.
(he holds tightly to the hope that some things never change.)
"Asterion," he calls to the sovereign when his company departs, stepping forward with a smile to bump noses with the bay.
It feels like years have passed, but not in a bad way. Eik had not realized how the distance wore on him- it seems suddenly silly that all the people he cares for should live so far apart. He glances around, so full of things to say that he doesn't know what to spit out first. "I always wanted to come here with you." It was the last unknown land to Eik, although each has its own secrets yet for him-- even Solterra. "I'm sorry it's under these circumstances." The sea looks so tranquil now in the twilight, if he had not seen its mark along the alleys of the court (driftwood and shells and sea pebbles in places they shouldn't naturally be) he would have a hard time believing its fury had been so great. He can only imagine the damage done to Terrastella.
A sad moment sits between them, and then Eik reaches with his telepathy to his mane where he unties the one thing he carried with him from Solterra. "I brought you something. I found it in the canyons." He gives the fossil to Asterion with an invisible hand. It is a sand dollar fossilized in stone, found miles and miles from the ocean. It is the closest thing to an adventure that he could give, and the only mystery he's ever held.
The ash hung in the air like an omniscient smog, overwhelming and suffocating. The trees burned and simmered, the dying flames licking at the soot like a hungry wolf nipping at the heels of wounded livestock.
Far above the suffocating air he sat, perched atop a stoney outlook in the low-lying section of the Veneror Peak and Arma Mountain outcroppings. Piercing eyes were trained - nay, fixated - on the Viride forest as it smouldered in the distance. Something gnawed at the back of the gryphon's mind, the crest of feathers along his neck and spine raising minutely as he sat within pensive silence. He was searching - waiting - looking for something...
Like a flash of flame catching on new kindling, he found it. Found her. Eulalie!he called, his voice strong and firm yet caring and soothing. Wings outstretched, and within seconds, he was airborn.
He knew where she was - knew it in his gut, in his bones. And while there was no familiar pang of danger that accompanied his discovery of her, he.. he had to be sure. Had to see it with his own eyes - see her golden coat unmarred of ashes, her skin untouched by the singe of burning wood and falling branches. He had to know she - and her family - were alright.
He crested above the Illuster meadow, towards the Court. His heart had initially pulled him to search the Forest, but he knew deep down that she was not there. She would not dare venture too close to such a dangerous place... not with her little ones, he was sure of it. And if she had? Well, lets just say that Tabbris was not above gentle chastizing and stern looks.
Eventually, he did not just feel her. He smelled her - fine tuned ears and sharp eyes turning in the direction he knew she was. Dark eyes searched... until he found her, and down he went, wings flaring as he approached the ground. Eulalie... are you okay? he reached out to her, the touch of her mind heavy on his own.
As he weaved inbetween the crowdgoers, searching for her, he saw the grouped individuals within the Court. Saw the wounded. Saw the parched. Saw the fleeing animals that had taken refuge into the safe haven... and while his concern lay with His, his heart warmed. His soul had not chosen wrong.
Tabbris searches for @Eulalie while perched atop the Arma Mountains, needing to not only meet her... but ensure her safety. He is able to pinpoint her within the Court, and quickly flies over the ash-riddled air to unite with his Bonded.
Thread requirements: 1 reply, 500 words
How to tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk!
Once you respond, you may begin including Tabbris in your posts.
The night and the market devour her. They swallow up her unicorn bones and her scales and her brittle fragile flesh. The night eats away at her with shadow, peeling away the fresh-grass smell of the spring and the pollen coating her like gold dust. Each step through the market cuts apart her silence and her dreaming gaze that's often neither here or there but between.
This place devours her and it spits out something else after the feast of her.
Here Isra is almost lovely, almost golden with a halo of firelight brushing at all her gaunt and dark edges. That wicked spiral of bone upon her brow seems a crown. A single lily (one of the first of spring) tucked behind the delicate tower of her ear seems brighter than any diamond or precious stone.
There is nothing particularly queenly about her, nothing grand beside that firelight, horn and flower. She's dark against the rainbow of silk draped above her head like a sky hung on ribbons of comet tails. Around her others are dressed in gold and glitter and their bodies seem like holes chewed out of the darkness and filled with moonlight and starlight and light.
And, she is the smallest burst of skylight out of them all, dark as night with only those three holes chewed out and filled with light.
So even the merchants devour her, eating up her space with their bodies until she's bathed in the scent on them. Her hip smells like clove where a spice seller dropped his bucket and it the granules of his wares rose up like paint to cover her darkness with something else but black. Sage smoke clings to her neck from when she passed to closely to a fortune teller. Isra ducked her head and quickened her step there when the shed-star looked her right in the eyes and said, He's coming. He's here. The fire-glow laid bare her uncertainty until that too was chewed up in the endless press of the market.
It takes walking around a corner for her to slow her steps, to settle her feral, wild heart from beating so furiously it took flight over the sea of her skin. Here when she lifts her eyes up towards a ray of moonlight and silver she imagines her skin smells like dust and ice instead of smoke and spice.
A cloud shifts and there, there, there....
He is.
Isra cannot help but sigh and close her eyes, afraid that she slumbered in a bed of sage as the shed-star chanted prophecy and carried her away into a dreaming sort of death. Bits of white spark in the darkness when she presses her eyelids together like snowflakes bursting over the darkness in a blizzard.
In that darkness and snow-white she quivers, afraid to open her eyes. Isra has never been afraid of dreaming, of walking in that half-there world between stars and glass and slumbering bison.
But oh! Oh! She is afraid now.
ISRA OF THE SAGE SKIN ;
There were grief and the ruins, and you were the miracle.
Elif had never seen snow before these last few months.
In her brief and sun-drenched three years of life, she had never left Solterra. Not even with the use of her wings had she ever touched a feather to the air of another court; her heart had never strayed from the golden city and neither did she.
So when it first began to fall, it was easy to think it was the end of the world. Ash would have been more likely in these wind-swept winters, but ash did not melt on your tongue, or pack and shift beneath your feet. She hadn’t been sure what to make of it, at first, but Altan, around for one of his fleeting visits, had drug her into a snowball fight in front of the palace.
It had been years since she’d had that much fun.
Most of it is gone, now, but there are still blue-shadowed drifts of it in the places where the canyon walls prevent the slanted spring sunlight. Out of the corner of her eye, it doesn’t look too different from sand - a little too cool-toned, but the shadows lay the same on its surface.
It’s next to a snowbank that she lands, radiating enough of a chill to raise a shiver as she flicks dry her wings and tucks them to her sides. From the air, this box canyon had looked indistinguishable from the many others that spread like a maze through Elatus, but Elif sees now that it is not the same at all.
The sand and dirt here has been packed tight by countless hooves, and there are grooves worn in the stone. As she walks further in, each hoof step echoing, the stench of sweat and musk becomes unmistakable, as do the stains far darker than any seam of ore. There are dusty barrels stacked beneath a shallow cavern in the canyon wall and ahead of her there is a narrow passageway, the only proof that it led anywhere a small bleed of light. Beyond, there is the faint sound of voices.
She is certain that this is the place her brother was killed.
Elif sucks in a breath that burns from the cold, and steps into that brief darkness.
Gods don’t have fathers. This does not matter. Apolonia’s own father is a ghost, a half-formed thought in the back of her head. He is a slice of night that does not belong in her desert and does not cross her mind, except past midnight when O sometimes leaves her tower to watch the white stars, stupid and curious, drowning in the dark sand.
Anyway.
Gods do not have fathers, but sometimes when O wanders the court she hears Solterrans whisper about Acton, saying his name like it is a curse. (Bexley says it in the same way, most of the time.) When she catches her reflection in windows or puddles she sees only her mother, long-legged, evil, aureate and shining blue. Except that Bexley, gods blessed forever, does not have that strange, searing third eye marbled in the middle of her forehead, and that makes her wonder, as much as she tries not to, whether Acton has one too.
Anyway.
The desert is bitingly cold this late at night. Overhead, stars sing against the dim sky. A breeze shifts individual grains of sand to tumble over and over each other. In the blue darkness Apolonia’s skin is more gold than yellow, a dull, sooty kind of metal, and the blackness of her hair makes her mostly invisible, so that the only thing that stands out against the velvet sand are the high white socks on her legs and the searing brightness of her eyes. In the soft silver light she stands perfectly still, head tilted the moon, and almost she could be a wolf, but for the sleekness of her body.
He has only been at the outskirts of Denocte, a hunter and a victim both in his time beneath the boughs of the Arma forests. Lysander had thought, once, about slipping into the city itself with poison on his tines, and hunting for a more dangerous prey than leaves and roots.
It was for Florentine that he had not. And it is for Florentine that he is here now, iodine and cedarsmoke sweet and thick in his nostrils.
They had slipped away from the city, the former god and his girl with the bandaged wing. What dim lanterns and bright bonfires the citadel possessed could never hope to reach as far as the lake, and darkness came early this time of year. But for now it is light enough, though muted with snow clouds thick over the mountains, a sweep of pewter and gray. It seems the first time in days that they are alone, and Lysander matches his pace to the girl of flowers and gold, and feels the loss of every petal that falls at her feet.
The regime is gone, he knows, and most of the flock of Crows with it - but Raymond still remains. He has yet to see the red man; this is almost certainly for the best. He has grown weary of weakness; the next time he wears blood it will be because he chose to, and it will not be his own.
There are no fireflies, this time of year; the only thing that rests over the surface of the lake is silence. There are thin crusts of ice like slivers of frosted glass around the edges of the water, and the pebbles of the shoreline are smooth and dark and gleaming in the dim afternoon. Idly he wonders if it, too, had flooded when the gods turned their wills to deadlier things.
“I wonder,” he says softly, and rests his chin atop the slope of her shoulders, “what would have happened if one of us arrived here instead.”
Surely she knows as well as he that each of them could have lived beneath a court of starlight - perhaps better than one of dusk.
Even so he already knows the answer, at least for himself; there is no where she could go he would not follow.
I'll be a stone, I'll be the hunter,
The tower that casts a shade
***
Raymond stood in the ancient gate's shadow with a look completely devoid of historical reverence in his stone-grey eye. Here before him towered the Confederate monument, the ode to tyrants and cowards upon whose back had been built dynasties of cringing curs. By these great doors a great distrust had infected the lands of Novus like a cancer, silent and insidious and hot in the hands of narcissistic tyrants.
He did not like walls, and it could not be blamed solely upon the wilder ways of Rendari clanspeople. Foreignness does not itself breed contempt.
Misery, however, does.
Ruth's massive clawed hand curled idly up as the red stallion studied the great edifice, her eyes following his like little jewels flashing with dim interest. Its construction was impressive even to her consideration, wrought with intricate designs and flanked by ravens carved with such care that their petrified feathers seemed poised to rustle with the slightest wind. The unseeing sentinels stared down at the space between the gate's open doors, welcoming and judging as befitted the heaviness of the heart passing between.
The gates themselves were more practical, reinforced against conventional siegecraft and wicked in their utilitarian oppressiveness. Where the ravens seemed content to judge with Anubis' impartiality, these held no such illusions of mercy. Raymond eyed them impassively, decisively, then flicked a glance toward the apocalypse engine above him.
Bring down the gates.
Ruth rasped her assent and swung one meaty paw at the nearest door. The earth trembled beneath his hooves and dust shuddered from the ravens' backs as the gate splintered; a second swipe separated the door from its ancient hinges and it buckled, crumbling beneath its own weight. The remaining door fell with similar ease, leaving only the pair of stone ravens perched atop the open passageway, silent witnesses to the end of an era.
No longer would Denocte hide behind walls, plotting and scheming and hissing like a nest of vipers. They would meet Novus with conviction and pride, and Novus would find them strong.
***
Raymond
And at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
When the man comes around.
They haven't seen each other in a while, except in passing. They are always in passing; Eik going one place, or Bexley going another, or both at the same time, exchanging weary glances across the quiet space between them. In this way they shared a certain something-- a moment of camaraderie, or some other silent communication that has no words. It was just a meeting of the eyes, and sometimes more than that.
He never really understood Bexley, and he doesn't think she ever really understood him-- but to be fair, most people didn't. Anyway they had a certain arms-length agreement. They were on the same team, in the same extended family. At the end of the day he'd kill for her, probably. Probably.
(Really it all depends on who, and why. But probably, regardless.)
So when they stumble across each other, each by themselves with seemingly nowhere else to be, it seems like an odd sort of miracle. In the momenta that follow he looks at her, really looks at her for the first time in a while. His first thought is that it is an odd thing to see Bexley so... so fat.
"Bexley," he says with a wide grin. It is unlike him to smile so broadly.
Part of his mind is racing. Remembering. His heart sings, but it also aches. He has not seen a child since--
Since his own.
It is impossible to not think of his loss, but he manages to do so distantly. He can still find joy in the few places there is joy to be found. His grin still holds steady. "Congratulations." It is the single happiest, most sincere thing that anyone in Novus has heard him say. He half-reaches to her swollen belly, stopping himself just inches away. She must feel his breath on her side. He hopes it will not make her recoil. "May I?" He tilts his head, poised to reach across that last bit of space and feel the child separated from the world by not much more than skin and a thin layer of muscle.
It would be so easy now for him to reach out with his mind and make acquaintances with the infant. He could learn her name, tell her stories of her mother, show her what the air feels like in your lungs and what the earth feels like under your hooves.
Bexley would never even know.
But he refrains, sensing an undefined boundary that he is not yet ready to pass. Not yet.
He's not sure if he knows it yet. He probably does. Here it is, without further suspense:
there is a craving in his heart for something that is not violent.
(italicized, for good measure. Oh, how good it feels to have it writ!)
Against all logic, he has been fostering this weakness. The way it makes him feel reminds him of a lot of things, but mostly it reminds him of how hope tasted before it was replaced with ashes.
(that and salt water-- we'll never understand why feelings feel the way they do)
The truth (the secret truth?) is that it feels good to have a secret. Nothing can be taken if no one knows about it. The rest of the world can have their trinkets, and their loves, and normalcy... he'll take his secret, and grow it like a seed buried deep in his chest. It is different from his magic, which is more like something wild that has chosen him as its vessel-- that was more like a gift. This is... this is the first thing he's created from nothing in as long as he can remember. He aches for it, he scorns it, he cherishes it.
It brings him to the Night Court.
He stands outside the gates feeling a heavy weight on his shoulders, feeling, somehow, as though he straddles some great invisible line- as though everything may come to be defined as before and after this day.
He realizes how dramatic he's being, and it makes him laugh silently. To anyone else he simply looks amused, the corners of his eyes crinkling at some private joke. To hell with the pressure he puts on himself, with the anxiety of not knowing what the future holds. There's a new world to explore before him.
He stands there for a very long time in thought before catching the attention of a brilliant copper stallion with a tilt of his head. The man wields a weapon as his tail and Eik's immediate thought is that this is not someone he would ever voluntarily face in battle-- the odds would be hideously against him.
"Hello," he calls quietly, unassumingly. The man could just as well turn away and go off on his business and it would not matter much. Eik would find his way around on his own, but it never hurts to ask; "Which way is the library? And the markets?"
There are so many things and people he'd like to see, but he reminds himself that there is always time and limits himself to two for now. His heart lurches in a way that makes him feel giddy. He hates this sensation, and yet-- he does not want it to stop.
![[Image: apolonia_by_erasvita_dcmlqry_by_beccazw-dcnhnsj.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/4a1e/f/2018/265/e/7/apolonia_by_erasvita_dcmlqry_by_beccazw-dcnhnsj.png)
