Night falls, and with its arrival comes a visitor of Dawn.
An owl glides through the evening air, beady black eyes scanning the creatures of Denocte. She had never been to this province of Novus, not really and all of it was equal parts new and exciting. This visit, however, was not a social call. It was a delivery.
Clearly the owl had been traveling for some time. A few feathers sat ruffled or out of place, dust coating her cream and tan frame. There hadn’t been time for a preening during her flight, but hopefully the denizens of Denocte would show her a bit of hospitality after her delivery was made. A small leather pouch slung about the owl’s body, wrapped tight so that it would not come undone and fall. Within the pouch was a single scroll, inked with masterful penmanship.
’Take this, dearest Alba. You know what to do with it.’ Indeed she did. This was a task. A mission.
Through the evening skies she flew, until spotting her intended target among the market stalls. With the loud, piercing shriek of her kind did the barn owl drop, descending towards her target; Isra, the ascended Queen of Denocte. How fast word spread in such a large world.
With a billowing of wings did the barn owl land, taking roost upon the countertop of a warped market stall with a furious clacking of her beak. At this height she was a little below eye-level to the Night Court Sovereign, but the barn owl stared, knowingly meeting Isra’s gaze with brazen wisdom far too intelligent for a wild animal.
’Pop! Pop, pop!’ Over and over did Alba ‘pop’ her beak, before grabbing the small satchel about her to begin undoing the ties.
The message, once revealed and unrolled, was written in an elegant, studious script.
”Sovereign Isra of Night Court proper, well met;
Oriens’ wisdom and Caligo’s eternal embrace upon you. I pray that this letter finds you and your Court in good health. I have instructed Alba to deliver this letter in my stead, and implore that you treat her with kindness and tend to any needs she may have after such an arduous journey. Apologies that I cannot be there myself, but duty to hearth and home binds me here.
This letter is an invitation; with the mutual disasters spreading across Novus, on behalf of Delumine and the Dawn Court, I would like to discuss the possibilities of forming deeper relations between our two Courts. Far too long have Delumine and Denocte been estranged, and I would like to work together in order to rectify this, be it a trade of goods or a trade of personnel. Terms and conditions can be worked out should you agree to meet. We can exchange letters until a definitive time and place can be recognized.
Please allow Alba a warm place to rest, and return with her your answer.
Warmest regards,
Somnus, Dawn King of Delumine.”
Alba clacked her beak once more as she waited, watching Isra almost eerily as she read over the letter. Head tilting curiously, waiting and watching for some kind of answer, the owl stood silently.
Denocte couldn't have been the only one hit, and she refused to sit back and sequester away and not reach out aid to others. So, the Champion had packed her small satchel with herbs and scrolls and rations, and had started on her journey. A journey to take her to other courts, to explore ties with them and hopefully mend what had once been so frayed to the point of near destruction. It might not have been her exact job, but she was a Champion of Wisdom, and took it upon herself to at least offer some sort of help where she could.
Whether they took it or not was up to them.
The Dusk Court was... soggy. She had seen many a sinkhole on her way, and avoided as much as she could, ears back, feathers flared. Terrastella was known for its healing, but that didn't mean they didn't need help, and she had been trekking herself near and far from her home to offer every bit of help she could. The disaster of Novus seemed to be over, for now. It was at least something they could find a temporary solace in, that they were safe. At least.. for a while.
She halted as she came upon the capital, ears flicking, and she blinked, glancing around. "..is the regime here? The council? Can I help anyone? I come from Denocte, bearing help to the best of my ability. I am Araxes, Champion of Wisdom." She only hoped she could do.. something. Even if it was just a friendly gesture to offer help to them.
@ any || this is post-SWP, she's coming to check in on everyone!
Denocte couldn't have been the only one hit, and she refused to sit back and sequester away and not reach out aid to others. So, the Champion had packed her small satchel with herbs and scrolls and rations, and had started on her journey. A journey to take her to other courts, to explore ties with them and hopefully mend what had once been so frayed to the point of near destruction. It might not have been her exact job, but she was a Champion of Wisdom, and took it upon herself to at least offer some sort of help where she could.
Whether they took it or not was up to them.
Dawn Court smelled of smoke, and had charred remains of forest here and there, something that alarmed the speckled woman as she had trekked through the paths, reminding her of the burning of Arma. She doubted it was dragon caused, however, and she had picked up her pace, her hooves leading her rapidly through until she had reached the citadel. There, she had discovered, were a people coughing and sooty, a people that were recovering from fires, and her ears went back, wings flickering.
Quickly, she scanned about, frowning. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked, her voice hushed. "I come from Denocte, the Champion of Wisdom. It seems we were not the only ones with a disaster. I have come to offer my help as best I can." And to extend a proverbial olive branch, in some way.
Denocte had done much in its past, though they had changed now, with their new regime.
@any || this is post-SWP, she's coming to check in on everyone!
Denocte couldn't have been the only one hit, and she refused to sit back and sequester away and not reach out aid to others. So, the Champion had packed her small satchel with herbs and scrolls and rations, and had started on her journey. A journey to take her to other courts, to explore ties with them and hopefully mend what had once been so frayed to the point of near destruction. It might not have been her exact job, but she was a Champion of Wisdom, and took it upon herself to at least offer some sort of help where she could.
Whether they took it or not was up to them.
The Day Court was.. chillier, than she remembered, and she wondered what had happened. There was no snow, not remaining, leaving behind slightly wet sand as she had trudged her way through all the way to the capital, finally coming to the structure and shaking herself off, letting out a sigh and looking up. She'd been here plenty of times before, thankfully welcomed, even when things had been more uneasy.
Shifting on her hooves, she flicked her tail, and glanced about, furrowing her brows just a little. "Is everyone okay? Is the regime here?" she called out. "Seraphina? Bexley? Eik? Anyone?" She wondered what toll had been taken on the Solterrans. What had happened here, while Denocte had been pounded by tsunamis and storms and thunder birds? While they had been shredded by nature itself.
Novus certainly had changed, she knew that much.
@any || this is post-SWP, she's coming to check in on everyone!
Winter, lovely. Leviathan had seen enough of it over his life, what was another season of it to a grizzled warrior like him? He sighed, scuffing a hoof through the dead grass and kicking up a chunk of the white fluff, watching the snow fall back and wrinkling his nose a little. He preferred the heat of Solterra to this, but who was he to complain when it was his own damn fault for wandering off in to the lands of Ruris?
The titan shook his head, sending locks of black and white tumbling before moving forward, groaning as joints gently clicked and bones ached. He was due for a fight, wasn't he? It'd been far too long, and his bones were weary from lack of use in combat. He was getting stagnant and he hated it. It was rare for him to go too long without even so much as a spare, and the itch was under his skin, the need for brutality, the hit of bodies, of hooves, of teeth. The clash of warriors.
He missed the singing in his veins from it.
A sigh exhaled from his lips, and he flicked black tipped ears lazily, lifting his head with a grunt and shaking off snow that had accumulated on his nape once more, sending it scattering off down to the ground where it belonged. Winter was a dead time of the year in more ways than one. No one was around, it seemed, either. Probably holed up somewhere, huddling around fires for warmth. Pathetic.
What a strange place this was, he thought as he walked, his tiny body easily making its way between shelves.
Books, wasn't that what they were? Books upon books, some dusty and old, others clean, and his eyes were huge as they took in the gold lettering on some spines and the silver on others. Writing that he could read just so. Ancient books, by the looks of it, but perhaps there was something for him to read?
Pyxis carefully picked his way around, ears straining to hear anything other than his own tiny hooves on the floor, the click clack, and he blinked, grateful for the light that was in the building. Had it not been for that, he would have been bumping in to everything nose first and stumbling, literally blind. Here and there, he could hear the scampering of paws, and could see the movements here and there.
A smile formed, and he reached, leaning up on hind legs and placing his front hooves on a shelf before he grabbed a book, pulling it. Failing, he was glad when a helper appeared, grabbing it for him and leading the way with a bushy tail to a brightly lit spot. It set it down, and he wandered over, flopping on to the warm bedding before nosing it open, beginning to read, curious.
What in the hell had happened while he was gone? He took one measly little vacation and the whole of Solterra went to shit. Gods, it was ridiculous. He thought they'd be able to at least keep themselves together, not piss off the gods and get things stirred up.
All the same, the titan shook himself off, grunting as he stepped inside the structure of the capital, blinking one ruby eye, turning his head so he could see. The scarred eye was still the same, covered and milky, useless now. Once upon a time -- before his vacation -- he'd been able to at least see blobs of color. Now? Now it was just.. nothing. Weird, really, but he'd come to accept it over time.
Leviathan drew in a breath and stomped a hoof, listening to it echo about in the area, before he snorted slightly. God, he'd have to ask for his old job back, wouldn't he? Warrior and blacksmith. "Don't tell me you're all holed up somewhere in here," he called out. His voice was the same boom, his scent was the same. The only difference was the damned look given to him.
You take one dip in an Oasis and the gods play a prank on you and you come out looking like some weird ass zebra.
It was strange, to be away from the walls of the capital, but Pyxis found he enjoyed it, his short body meandering among snow dusted meadow. Against the drop of white, he stood out like a sore thumb, bright pinks with dark splotches and glittering scales. He supposed he seemed an oddity, a hybrid of his parents, but that didn't bother him. What did bother him was.. the lack of his parents. He was a year old now, capable of being on his own, but that didn't mean he should be.
He missed them both.
Even so, he moseyed himself along, kicking up tufts of snow as he did, sending it up behind him and hearing it fall back, his lips twitching in to a small smile. It was nice, at least, to see the snow. He felt energy humming through him, the sort only foals felt when they were excited, and he was soon bounding forward, kicking up snow and letting out laughter, letting himself enjoy the day as he frolicked in the white powder.
The old gods were singing again, and it was not a pleasant song.
It broke hearts and molted feathers. It was smog in the lungs, an icy ringing in the ears. It lilted through Terrastella’s streets as omnipresently as the blackguard hum of a swarm of bees, or the sound of flutes so often swirling from the citadel: no matter where Marisol looked she found their ire in the sharp corners of the citadel, the cracked cobblestones under her feet, the way rain still silvered the sidewalks days after their storm had passed. And they were not the only ones. Smoke poured from Delumine, snow from Solterra - that song of blood and bone and death carried through all of Novus as easily as it ever would.
It blares in Mari’s ears days later as she stalks the court in endless circles, prowling with all the angry grace of a predator. Lights are still snuffed out. Windows are still shattered and doors still boarded up. The streets are empty but for the regime and a few dead-eyed, dedicated warriors, and even those don’t for very long, muted and depressed by the state of their city. The world is deadly-dark and quiet. Shoulders hunched and hair newly shorn in what might even be a measure of grievance (or, perhaps, just a renewed dedication to her duties), Marisol is little but a shadow with teeth in the gloom of the capitol, stony-eyed as ever and unwavering in her watchful patrol. Bruises silver her skin. Still-healing scabs line her shoulders. And no matter how many citizens she might have saved - well, it isn’t enough.
Still her people have died. Still they suffer by the hands of the gods. Still they lay sick and weary at the mercy of the world around them, and all the blood in Marisol’s body would not be enough a sacrifice to save them.
It is in this brooding state that she stumbles into the twins. Quiet as the city is it’s easy to follow the footsteps on the cobblestone, and although Marisol is pleasantly surprised to find that it’s Ard and Erd waiting around the corner, her face would never show it: dark lips downturned and gray eyes steely in the dim light, she acknowledges them with only a quick flick of the ears upon their meeting in the street.
Hail Vespera, comes the greeting, dull and simple, and Marisol squares her legs perfectly underneath her.
She watches the boys with something like sorrow. There is a strange hint of mortality in those endless gray eyes.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the flood waters recede, the tide creeping its way back into the ocean. Water is left trapped within the streets of Denocte, but it is dramatically lower now.
But the water doesn’t return to its usual position.
The waves pull farther and farther back out to sea, revealing the shore line inch by precious inch. Shells, seaweed, crabs, even stranded fish line the seashore. Off in the distance, the waves continue to recede.
Out in the Area Mountains, the thunderstorms have started. There is no rain, only wind and lightning and thunder ravaging the skies and earth. Trees bend beneath the tempest’s rage, leaves and debris scattering wildly.
And all at once, the sky is suddenly alive. Flying bodies fill the air, their wings stretched wide and menacingly. Each beast boasts two sets of wings, four tails, transparent skin along their sides… and huge talons. The beat of their wings send powerful winds rippling across the face of the lake, buffeting the horses and nearly knocking down trees.
And anytime someone gets too close… they dive, their claws scraping along skin and hair, threatening to pull you up into the air. ’I don’t even want to know where they’re taking us,’ you think to yourself.
A group has gathered, the red-haired @Raymond seeming to lead them on. It’s looking like it’s going to be a fight, horses versus thunderbirds… but is it really one you want to be a part of?
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