She drifts above the clouds like any bird of prey, the Solterran sun warm on her back and her wings despite the bite in the air at this altitude. The desert she loves is a foreign landscape, endlessly remade according to the clouds, shifting faster than the golden dunes ever could. There are canyons of cumulonimbus and wide sweeps of stratus and she explores them all, the spaces between her feathers drinking in the wind like the Day Court’s bitter coffee.
Only when she is numb down to her hooves, only when her throat feels tight with frost, does she dip below the cloud-cover, graceful as a dancer with the slightest tilt of her wings.
And then - oh! she plummets to earth like a falling star, sunlight flashing on her wings like a comet come to ground.
There are few things that Elif knows how to do slowly; landing is not among them. With her forehooves extended before her and her wings folded like a falcon at her back she lets the wind whip her until tears sting her eyes, until it seems certain that she will crash into the sand with a cry and a great splintering of bone.
She waits for the pounding of her heart to reach its highest crescendo before she brakes, flaring out those red-shouldered wings, willing the air to bear her up. Elif hits the ground at a gallop and her laughter strikes like sparks across the desert, rough with the cold and the adrenaline of her descent.
If she’d had a mane to speak of, it would be well disheveled; as it is her feathers are askew, ruffled by the wind, and her sparse dark tail a wild tangle. She is no smooth-skinned sun-daughter now; she is a desert bramble, a thing small and half-feral, and there is no one left to tell her to be otherwise.
It’s a thought Elif holds in her heart, sweet with happiness and heavy with sorrow, as she bends her head to drink at the muddy shore of the oasis.
It's the cries that dragged her harshly from her slumber. Desert sands and gray skies were replaced with frozen darkness and sobs of sorrow that poured from her lungs every time she tried to breathe and rise to the surface. The dream explodes around her as the cries pour into the window like snow-- heavy, wet and hungry.
So Isra shakes free from her blankets and runs from the castle as quickly as she can. The stones are slick under her hooves but she's heedless of the danger, oblivious to anything other than those screams and the way her bones tremble with heart-breaking sound. On and on she runs, following only the song of suffering and ignoring all those that call out to her that the night isn't safe (that no where is safe anymore).
When the buildings become both further apart and fewer in number the screams are louder. Here she's the only one among the ghosts of fortunes and families and dreams. She's another shadow, another speck of darkness that seems black enough to swallow up any trace of light and make it dark.
Here are the ghosts of the tidal wave and when Isra turns her head she sobs when it's only a bone glinting in the moonlight that caught her eye. Some part of her screams to turn back, to flee back to her silken, cob-web bed and forget how the night wails and wails and wails.
But ahead she can see the moon rays lingering over a pile of wooden planks and thatch and when she draws closer the wails seem younger and weaker as if whatever is trapped has already devoured all the energy left in the world. Isra moves closer, cautious and light on her unicorn hooves, and touches her horn to the wood like a knock.
Help me. The thing beneath the rubble says and Isra sobs wildly as she puts the name of 'horse' to the trapped creature.
Her knees tremble as she pushes out whatever weak magic lives in her towards the pile of wood. “Just a little longer,” She pleads as she prays to her goddess, to any gods, to anything beyond space and time that might hear her. The horn upon her head feels weak as she pries at the wood with it, trying to pick apart any loose pieces of this death trap.
And when she hears the sound of hooves at her back on the end of another prayer, another plea, she turns with wild, wet eyes and begs (more than she has ever begged in her life) “Help me.” For the wailing night is almost silent enough to be a grave when all the cries turn to the bleating gasps of the dying.
Whoever is trapped beneath the rubble doesn't have very long and Isra can feel only urgency and panic in her heart.
ISRA OF THE PRAYER ;
"But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,"
The river. It’s a place the mare has never seen before and yet, she can sense that she should be afraid of it. The way the water moves swiftly is an invitation for jumpers, for those that want to end their lives before they can even begin. But Sloane is somewhat soothed by this feeling. It’s an invitation she has so often received and never really entertained.
But here, as she stands at the very edge of a rocky cliff, her eyes peer down at the rushing water. It’s so easy to think just one small step forward and she could be out of this hell for good. One small step can end the suffering she doesn’t like to admit that she has.
Her whole life she has always tried to be the strong, brave one. The one who fears nothing and no one all the same. But it’s in this moment that she allows mortality to settle upon her thoughts. She allows herself to feel just how lonely she is. This life has not been easy for Sloane. Fighting from the start to be accepted and taken seriously has taken its toll on the female. She’s tired of fighting. For once, she dares to hope that one think might be given to her.
And yet, she does not take that step forward. She cannot appear as a coward, though she might hate the world she lives in. Sloane thinks too much of her pride and her appearance to simply give up that easily. She refuses to be labeled a coward. She has fought too hard in this life for such labels. She deserves a better label like fearless or desirable.
It’s while her brain is sifting through these thoughts and emotions that she hears the click of a rock behind her. Someone has kicked a pebble and she hears it race along the rocky ledge. She does not address the stranger. The only indication that she has heard the individual is the way her ears flick back towards the sound. Eyes still peer down at the river. What does this stranger want? Do they not know it is rude to interrupt private reflection?
always one decision away from a totally different life
-- ♕ --
Her memories had come like light breaking through the dark of a shell. Unknowing had shattered like glass and oh what a time for it to do so.
She stands, gold and bright, upon the sweep of hill, ascending up to its crowning citadel. Florentine drinks in the court and remembers everything, but wishes to remember nothing at all once more.
There is no tip of her lips, no smile that laughs and hides upon her lips. There is no gleam of her eyes that glitters with mirth and mischief. It is because Florentine is none of those things. Her memories have stolen them all, and her brother lead her down the path to remember each one more clearly.
Her petals stumble and trip, snagging and clinging to rocks and leaves as the pacifist wind pushes them toward the stone of the Night Court. There was a queen now, but Florentine cannot make her nerves rest easy, she cannot summon a smile when her good humour is buried so terribly deep.
Her ache is deep and horrid, it echoes in the throb of her wing (still so slightly twisted and not whole). Ah to fly again, she thinks but tugs her wings tighter still to her slim sides. Her beauty was an easy thing to lose, her memories a worse thing to gain, when her brother has brought her here.
And yet… and yet. There is the smallest warmth, a miniature candle to ward off the looming black. It melts the cold upon her heart and makes her warmer, warmer. For not all returning memories are bad there are those of love and joy that refuse to be snuffed out, that burn indefinitely, sometimes a solitary tea light, sometimes a wild fire that laughs and sends the darkness fleeing.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
The earth is a hum beneath his hooves, the night an endless black, set alight by the gold of lit torches. The market thrums in song with the vibrating ground.
In black he slides along within their midst. His skin is darker than the very sky, even midnight is a bright sun compared to him now. Raum is a phantom, a ghost of a Crow, a terror of an assassin. Malevolence gleams from his eye like the spark of a flame. His heart, they say, is a wretched thing. There were no ties to bind them together, no balm to ease the wounds nor medicine to heal the virus of anger that festered and spread like disease.
A dagger glints at his side, the only part of him that the light is allowed to touch. It is a small concession, the only chance he ever offers his foe – his victim. To see him, is to know the fate he has drawn out for them in blood and sinister retribution.
Though his skin is not quicksilver now, his limbs still move like liquid. In motion the Crow something other, no longer slashing claws and a snapping beak, but the silent, fluid grace of a feather with edges of cut glass.
Black eyes tip up to the sky, their electric blue remaining only in speckles of electricity that seem to spark ruthlessly, keenly, hungrily. He blinks and offers the sky no more of him and turns into the shadows, blacker than black.
((oh gosh, be gentle on me. An Obsi has forgotten how to write
The night is not gold but silver in the reflected bits of moonlight and starlight between the sand and the water. Everything is dark and silver and Veer cannot help hate the way he is nothing more than another shadow in the blackness. He could be a cloud made of feathers and ink as he rides the currents and his perception of the world shifts rapidly from stark clarity to fog.
Somewhere Najjad flies above him, flying lazy circles above the cloud cover as the gryphon waits for something he's almost forgotten to remember. Veer can feel the way Najjid's impatience rises as the moon sinks and his blackened skin shivers with predatory violence.
But the sands and the line of vegetation are as silent as their wings tonight. Both of them swallow the recklessness crawling like disease in the places of them deeper than muscle and deeper than bone.
Tonight is not the night.
So they drift down like loose feathers on the spring breeze, circling downward in patterns that make sense only to the two of them. The sand swallows up any sounds made by hoof and claw or feather and fur. They are careful to land between the rays of silver-light along the shore of the oasis and stick only to the dark places between where they are silken shadows that whisper soft enough to be made of dreaming.
When the stallion and the beast wade into the water the coo of liquid ripples is the first thing that might be classified as real sound to break up the desert night-song. Together they duck under the surface and drag their wings across the sand and grit at the bottom of the warm water. The night swallows up the strange blackness of the water that spreads out from their bodies when they surface.
And suddenly the night is not silver but gold. The rays of moonlight reflect off the brightness of their feathers and off of the wickedly sharp beak of Najjad. Everything looks brighter when they smile at each other-- pegasus to gryphon, monster to beast.
Tomorrow They promise each other as they brush wing to wing when they collapse upon the sand, look up to the stars and wait for the dawn.
Acton paced his room with all the tension of a prisoner before an execution. He felt the way he did before a big performance: muscles taut, pulse in his throat, alert to every movement caught from the corner of his eye. What he really wanted was a drink, but things the last few weeks had been pretty dry.
Luckily Raum was out – where, the buckskin didn’t know. Denocte’s Ghost had been even more of a haunt of late, and not even Acton could keep track of his comings and goings, much less what was on his mind. So the former Crow was alone when finally he left the keep below the warm sun of a spring afternoon and sauntered into the Night Markets to help.
It was a combination of guilt and bribes from a few of his favorite merchants that brought him to the back of a crowd gathering to listen to instructions. It wasn’t that Acton was embarrassed to be helping his home rebuild (though, fine, he was), it was that he was so unused to getting his hands dirty doing anything that could be considered straight work. It felt strange – like he was as scattered as the pieces of Caligo’s mosaic.
To help distract himself, he cast an amber-eyed gaze over the small gathered crowd, easily picking out their guests from Terrastella. He hadn’t spoken to any of them, but had kept an eye out for the former golden queen – and the antlered stallion he’d helped beat bloody on Reichenbach’s behalf.
There was a man it might be interesting to run into in a dark alley, but not so much a daylight work crew.
Neither of them was present, and that was just as well. Acton was relieved when those gathered began to break up, some into groups and some splitting off singly. Many would rehang banners and replace posts, but the buckskin preferred not to break a sweat; for now he only made his languid way up and down the marketplace, looking for a smooth glint in the long grass and along the alleyways.
It was strange, too, to see the markets in the daylight; the sun did not love Denocte the way the stars did. What was magical with lanterns lit and incense burning was almost garish during the day, and with the damage from the storm it had the air of a hastily-abandoned carnival.
So distracted was he that Acton didn’t realize he was upon another figure until he shouldered them hard enough to stumble back a step. With a grunt he shook himself, then looked up. “Sorry, I was distracted looking for some rocks. Say, you haven’t seen any that are shiny and pale and round-ish, have you?”
It felt wrong, leaving a home that they had only just begun to settle into. Ard didn’t like it. Of course, it wasn’t as if he liked most things, but his point stood pretty damn clear in his opinion.
They had narrowly escaped the clutches of a maniacal madman, cruel and abusive and unforgiving as Vreis had been, into a world of mystery and wonder. Despite hardly conversing with the denizens or making much effort to get to know anyone other than Marisol and Theodosia, Terrastella had begrudgingly become their new home, and now they had left it behind. He hated it. How many more homes would they have to leave behind? How long until he and his brother just found a single, safe place to live their days in peace?
Denocte had welcomed the refugees of Terrastella with open arms and warm fires, housing them with food aplenty and a dry place to rest their heads. It was nice of them, he supposed. Considerate, and all that jovial bullshit that came with politics and natural disasters. It wasn’t like the Night Court had to, and yet… They did, asking little to nothing in return. Ard didn’t trust that bit of information any further than he could throw a full grown horse, which wasn’t very far at all, given his petite stature.
Still, it was nice to not be a sodden mess like they were in Terrastella. With their cloaks and hoods in place, it would be impossible to tell the two twins apart, which helped soothe Ard’s nerves as they explored the Night Court and all it had to offer. The hour was late as they milled through Denocte’s capitol, and the young warlock was content to just watch the few citizens pass them by from the shadows.
“… I fucking hate this,” Ard grumbled softly, the worn, constant scratch of his whisper surely heard by none other than his twin, “We should just leave.”
It would be all too easy to do. No one would miss them. They could easily slip away into the night like silver shadows and find somewhere for just the two of them. Maybe they could go back up into the mountains? No one would find them there. To Ard, it sounded fucking perfect, but he knew that his twin brother wouldn’t agree. Erd was too good for that. Too loyal. Novus did not deserve him.
“No one would miss us, Erd.”
The self-depreciating comment came without thinking, but the words were still spoken upon that rasping whisper. In Ard’s mind, they held a great deal of truth; no one would miss them. Why would they?
Despite this place being so new and so foreign, something about this place seems right. It’s something she cannot explain. She cannot tell you why she feels the need to help the Night Court rebuild. She cannot tell you why the screams of strangers pull on her heart strings. She just knows that this place needs her help and she will not stop until she feels the task is finished. Only then will she decide her next move.
She meanders towards the mountain pass, four burlap sacks hung over her back. They are filled with seeds and saplings, all the things needed to make this place beautiful again. While the sacks weigh a good bit, she makes no complaint. She is large and build for hauling large things such as this. While she could spend her time other places, she feels as though she is best suited here. Her weight and build will make moving the large boulders easy, well, at least easier than someone of a more light build.
By the time she arrives, she can see the destruction. She doesn’t know what has caused such destruction, but she feels that perhaps this had been her calling. Perhaps she had been called to Novus in order to help in this process of rebuilding. She asks no questions, she simply puts her name in the mix to help the others.
Lowering the bags of seeds and saplings, she looks to her left and sees some slings that have been tied to a sturdy log. It almost looks like it had been prepared to lift boulders and carry them out of the pass. This is where she can help, she’s confident of this.
She lowers her head, pushing all of her weight into the boulders until it begins to move. Slowly she is able to move the boulder towards the sling. But she needs some help to fit it into the sling. She looks to the first passing individual. “Can you please hold this sling so I can get the boulder into it?” While she waits for an answer, she’s already working on a second rock to go in the opposite sling. Only then can she lift the two and carry them out of the pass.
