no turning back

Florentine wears many wounds. A scar wove its lazy, disjointed way up a slender limb. It was as stark as lightning and as ugly as misfortune could make.  For all her limb glowed, hot and pink, flushed with healing, the Dusk queen stands upon it as if it bore her no pain at all.
 
In silence she stands before them, atop Praistigia cliffs, with the sea that roared behind them, and the citadel stood sentinel at her left side. It watches the proceedings with bleak grey skin and window-eyes dark with knowing. Though her people were likely gathering (as she had so called them) she does not open her eyes to look at them. Rather, her eyes are shut tight, lashes pressed close where her golden hair snags within them. Florentine is wild up here, with a mane thick and free, untamed by wind, untamed by time. In the darkness of her mind she searches, but all she finds are empty boxes, the spaces where memories might once have been.
 
Her eyes open, to look upon the gathering faces, there are some she knows, names given to her since her time in the hospital, but the rest are a mere warmth in her chest. They are memories she cannot reach, friendship she thinks she should know but cannot recall.
 
With a breath, the Dusk Queen (for that is what they say she is) sighs. Her eyes drink in the chaos that the appearance of the gods has brought upon this land. “I thank you all for coming. I understand that, by now, many of you may have known of my accident.” It had been an incident of magic and misfortune – of prehistoric monsters and warriors with skill enough to save her life.
 
“It has left me wounded physically.” And Florentine might then feel eyes upon her limb, upon her left wing that twists and rises upward like a finger reaching for the stars. It was a graceful thing, but it was not natural.
 
“Yet it is the wounds we cannot see that have affected me most.” Then she turns for Asterion and the look she gives him is not that of a sister looking upon a beloved brother. It was of a girl at odds with herself, incapable of remembering even those of her blood, her family, her friends. Her gaze is soft, affectionate, but absent.
 
She takes a breath and says, quite softly, quite simply. “How can I rule when I cannot even remember my family?” A sadness, deep as a lake, opens within her. But it is but a drop compared to the ocean of grief she should have felt – had she not forgotten.
 
“So, I am stepping down as your queen. You need someone who can lead you, who knows what it is to be themselves and therefore what it means to be a Terrastellan. I am appointing Asterion as your sovereign. Forgive my resignation.”
 
With that the Dusk girl retreats, her spot vacant as she looks to Asterion once more. “Long live the King.”

@Asterion
 
((With immediate effect, Asterion is appointed Sovereign of Dusk. I thank you all so much for being so wonderful, time for me is incredibly short right now and I do not wish for Dusk to suffer as a result. It is not fair to any of you. Griff and Asterion have been active and consistent in Dusk and I wish them both the absolute best <3. Love to you all, please keep Dusk as the lovely, wonderful place it is and support Griff and Asterion. Flora and I will still be around here and there when i can manage. Obsi <3))

It was a strange and lonely evening he spent, walking the hallways of a castle he knew so well.
 
How many times, in how many states of sobriety, had he covered this ground? There was something soothing about the sound of his feet echoed back at him, muffled by the familiar tapestries along the wall. Around each turn he expected to meet Mila, her grin curved like one of her knives, or Raglan on some errand, or Reichenbach himself, asking if he wanted a drink.
 
But there was no one to drink with him tonight, and Acton had been sober since Solterra. That did not stop him from feeling like this was a dream-maybe-nightmare, some game of déjà vu, an evening plucked from his memories and made strange.
 
It was too quiet for this castle, and his shadow stretched along the walls behind him, the only part of Acton that lingered anywhere. He moved like a ghost through now-empty rooms, pausing only in what had been his own. Everything was as he’d left it months ago (strange, how that could be), but the buckskin couldn’t bring himself to do so much as shuffle a deck of cards. The noise in his head wouldn’t let him rest yet, and so with a last glance he was gone again, stalking the halls.
 
When he found Isra it was nowhere near the quarters that had been the king’s, and for that he was grateful. She was about as alone as she could expect to be, anymore, and the buckskin drifted toward her with a languidness he didn’t feel. His eyes still caught like sparks, but lately he felt like little more than damp coals.
 
Still he smiled at her, even as he dipped his muzzle in as much  a gesture of respect as he’d ever shown anyone.
 
“Long way from stealing apples now,” he said, and though his voice was uncharacteristically soft it still echoed strange and full against the smooth stone walls. “And you’re about to have a whole lot of new friends, too.” He’d seen the way they looked at her, there on the castle steps with blood and saltwater still drenching them all. It had made something tighten in him, dark and unsettled, because it was not so different than the way they had looked at Reichenbach, too. The way he had looked at the fled once-king, not so long ago.
 
People were always looking for a savior. How often did that work out for either side? But the unicorn was wary and world-wise, and he did not worry for her as much as he might have once.
 
“I’m glad it was you, Isra.” The words were quieter yet, small hushed things in the semidark space, and he meant them all despite the way his heart beat its fists against his ribcage and called him a betrayer. “Congratulations,” he added like an afterthought, but what he really meant to say was I’m sorry.
 
Seraphina was right – he had abandoned his home twice over now, once on purpose and once on accident. And maybe the shape of it was all different, after fire and flood and the abandonment of an entire regime, but Denocte was still his mother all the same. He would not make himself an orphan again.

oh, good lord, they've all gone belly-up

@Isra

Isra of the bonfires

'and we danced like pagans while the world around us crumbled and died'



The night is as lovely as it has ever been, glittering and dark enough to take from the world every scar and stain and thing that dares to be brightly hideous. The sky is dusted with a rainbow of colors, the aurora borealis weavs like a snake back and forth across the darkness. Green and yellow and golds shine bright enough to make her think (make her wish and wish and wish) that the entire world could be as lovely as that sky above her heard. 

But while the night is perfect the markets are nothing more than a pale star, flicking out the last of its life behind  brighter stars than it. The stones glitter in wrong patterns beneath her hooves-- a brick where a ruby should be, an emerald where once a diamond reflected the moon-glow. Once the paths about the market looked like the stars. Once if she closed her eyes hard enough that they stung the world could look upside down when she opened them again. 

Once this was a place of dreams, of wishes, of wild things that pretended to be civilized if only for one single night in century of full moons. 

Now only the bonfire's blaze where laughter once did, crackling in the silence and popping where sighs once broke the silent parts of the dark. Even the whisper of tiny dragon wings seem quiet and hushed as if they too know just how heavy and still the night feels now. 

Isra, as she walks between the bonfires and gives what little hope and promises she can to the merchants, feels as if she walks through a swamp of sadness with snakes of sorrow swirling about her legs. Here and there she nudges stones back into place in the pathways and holds straight a silken canopy for a merchant. 

Tonight she is nothing more than another face in the crowd, easy to miss with all the darkness and strewn about stones at her hooves. She's another broken soul that looks up the beauty of the sky that hopes and hopes for something more than destruction and sadness and dreams dashed on violent waves. 

The merchants add another batch of driftwood to the fires. They cheer and start to dance as it burns and smoke rises from the pyres of the past. And when they start to dance in dizzying circles of wishes, jasmine and silk she joins them. 

It feels like freedom to be just another dark body in the thin masses. Tonight she's just a unicorn that dances on doe hooves and smiles at the not-quite stranger that comes close enough to the fire to look as bright as the glowing lights above her head (above them all). 


@Kauri

Bitterness. It was a familiar taste.
 
There was a lot that she could be bitter about lately. Angry. Hurt. Lesser women and men would surely be consumed by it, letting it fill their hearts with contempt and disgust, cloying their senses and warping them into unrecognizable shadows of their former selves. Israfel, however, used that bitterness and rage to ignite and fuel that fire within her breast; the desperate need for justice, the demanding desire to protect, the fierce passion of loyalty.
 
These were all important to her. A delicate formula that made Israfel what she was. Shame she had done such a shoddy job of it all lately, but there was no reason to give much of a fuck about that. Not when half of their Court was practically submerged in water, and the rains showed no signs of letting up anytime soon.
 
It was a mood killer, really, and more than a little concerning. Flash floods and landslides happened without notice. Unsuspecting souls could be swept under beneath the dangerous water and lost to the merciless currents. A daughter of Sun and Fire, Israfel loathed water in most forms and detested being unnecessarily wet. Solaris was the same way… Yet the two rarely sought shelter indoors since the rains had started, throwing themselves at the mercy of the tempest to search for any who may be in danger.
 
The storms had hit suddenly and powerfully, and not everyone had been able to find shelter. Israfel couldn’t, in good conscience, not act. She was Terrastella’s Warden, after all, and needed to buck up, grow a pair, and start acting like it. Personal baggage be damned.
 
A patrol in the downpour had turned treacherous, the rain practically falling in sheets of water and ice. The tempest raged about her, making flight virtually impossible, yet she could not turn around and seek out shelter even if she wanted to. A sudden landslide had swept trees and debris from the swamp along the bloated waterways, trapping a family of otters on a precariously collected bunch of debris. A male, female, and their three little pups had been caught in the storms, the raging waters and unnaturally strong currents threatening to sweep them away if something was not done. Solaris had spotted them, and Israfel would not abandon them to drown.
 
“Get help!” Israfel bellowed over the storm, drenched hair whipping about her in the fury. She stood on one embankment, golden hooves sinking in to the bloated soil as she watched the family of otters struggle to stay above water on the other side of the overflowing river. She pressed on, undaunted. One step into the churning waters, vermilion eyes locked on the otter family as they clung to gnarled limbs and soiled tree trunks. The water reached her knees, then her chest. Her wings remained spread out and held above the water, ready to sweep her upwards should the need arise.
 
In a flurry of feathers and flames, Solaris wheeled about in the air with a mighty screech!, leaving her charge behind in favor of completing the task that had been given. Find help. Any help. That was what the phoenix did, flames burning bright as a beacon despite the freezing downpour pelting her feathered body. Violet eyes sought out any who might be insane enough to be out in the storm, desperate to find some kind of assistance.
 

Isra of the infirmary

'let the light pour through all the cracks of us like stars through the black and silken night'


Once again the day is rising and the halls of the castle are littered with horses sleeping away their injuries on piles of pillows and beds of torn down tapestries when all the pillows in the castle were used up. The dawn is muted and heavy and the echoes of labored breathes sound like brittle and weak prayers to Isra as she walks between the beds and presses kisses to sweaty brows and whispers over and over again, ”Sleep. Tomorrow will come and I will tell you the end of the story.”

But the end never comes and she begs them all for another day, another night, just one more breath of their labored lungs. She begs and offers only a story to drag them through the pain and she feels weak and weary that she has nothing else to offer, nothing else to tear from her soul and give to them. 

The meeting feels so very far away now and the hope that burned like a comet in her heart feels further away than that. 

The dawn turns to morning as she walks between the rows of the sick. Soft light filters through and for a moment she watches the dust motes make shapes in the morning, winter chill. For a moment she blinks her gritty eyelids and wishes for slumber and fields of flowers that shed not pollen but star-light. She wishes on beams of sunlight that flit through the low, morning clouds. She wishes hard enough that it feels like her soul cracks open and bleeds and bleeds and bleeds like the bodies around her.

It's only the chime of another set a hooves that pulls her from the sunlight and back into the world of bloody silks and fever madness. Moira. Isra remembers the name. And when she pulls it up from the languid weariness of her thoughts it feels like more than a name, more than some horse made of flesh and feathers and bone. 

“Moira.”She whispers as if she's whispering the wishes off of dandelions with spores of stardust and gold. “Have you slept at all?” Isra presses her lips to the mare's brow, testing for fever from Moira's own wounds, left unchecked as she gave and gave to all the others weaker than her.  Admiration almost brings a smile to her lips but she's to weary to do anything more than watch the way the other mare's wing doesn't hang quite right. 

It feels as if she's forgotten how to smile, how to dream her own dreams and let the story take her away, away, away. All she is now is worry and prayers that they will all give her another day, another night, another beat of their broken hearts. 



@Moira

Night Court Laws & Culture


the Law of Denocte

I. The court considers everyone equal and worth the same amount of consideration.

II. All personal freedoms are upheld and backed by the law, as such the court will punish all transgressions that directly put this right in danger.

III. While worship of Caligo is encouraged, the court also believes in religious freedom. All worship is to be respected. 

IV. Members of any court are welcome to partake in the night markets. This includes selling wares that do not go against court values, providing entertainment or just touring what the markets have to offer. 

V. Children of any court are welcome into Denocte. Orphans only have to approach the regime and they will be given a place to stay. 

VI. Foreign visitors are expected to abide by Denocte laws while in the territory and are encouraged to seek out the regime or counsel to introduce themselves.

VII. Pygmy dragons are considered sacred and the injuring, trapping or killing of one is considered a crime. 

Customs and Culture of the Night

-- Most activity in the night court happens long after the sun has set and most days start well into the afternoon when most vendors reopen their stores.

-- The winter solstice is considered a holy holiday by most of Denocte and the celebrations can last for weeks depending on the current political climate of the court.

-- Community is one of he greatest values that the court lives by and doors are almost always open for anyone in need.

--The court always encourages any and all forms of creativity and strives to support them in all ways.

--While Denocte was once considered an isolation court the climate since the Winter of 502 has changed to one of welcome. The regime now encourages visits from the courts. Currently the pass is always open and manned with a solider or two ready to guide visitors through the dangers of the Arma Mountains.

Isra of the rising

'broken off from a piece of clay, cast beside things greater than me'



Faint echoes of the sea still lick at hungrily at her hooves as she walks through the silent, destroyed streets of the court. Everywhere she looks there are stains left by the ocean. Silks leeched of their colors flutter like butterflies in the corners of her vision. Ahead pieces of  wood drift through the low waters like toy ships set to sail by innocent children. Horses move like lost ghosts around her, eyes as glossy as the morning fog and steps as slow and aimless as seaweed caught in the rip currents. 

Everywhere she turns there is a mockery of survival to meet her, sorrow to thicken her weary tongue and turn it to stone. All she can see is gray and blue and death that drown out the purples and pinks of dusk. 

But when she turns a corner there is a flash of red, devil-red, blood-red. It's a red that makes her think of hope and the way blood shines on charred armor when the war is fought and the freedom starts to burn like low, weak embers. Once the red made her quiver but now it feels like comfort when she looks upon it and lets her hooves turn their path towards that spot of brightness in all the darkness around her. 

Isra tries not to think that her dark bay coat is as dull and dark as her surroundings, she tries not to think that she surely doesn't shine at all. She's all dark and blood-crusted and each blink of her eyes feels gritty and raw. 

“Raymond.” Her own voice is startling and it feels as if she's forgotten what it sounds like when it's not glittering and incandescent with a story. Isra's legs feel like iron when she gets closer to him, rusty and weary and brittle at the joints. She feels as if she's a rusty sword before the glory of his steel, barely sharp enough to land the killing blow when all the better warriors have fought most of the battle. 

They are both covered in blood, weary from the war against the sea. Yet they are so very different and she's half afraid to reach out in greeting to him when he's so fresh from the disaster. 

“Thank you.” The words don't feel like enough. They feel too weak to cross the waters between them, salted and drifting back out to the lower places of Denocte. So, she steps closer and finally offers her nose to him and even that gesture doesn't feel grand enough. “For everything.”

Isra wonders in the quiet between their words what she might be able to give the devil who bled so much for the night. And when her eyes linger on his skin she wonders then, what scars he might have as payment for all that he's given. 

There is no story in her soul that feels like enough, not before Raymond the Red.




@Raymond

Isra of the night court

'hope is the thing with feathers that perches inside the soul and sings a tune without words'




The night is just rising above the day when she moves towards the castle steps.  The moon looks ice cold where it shines on the blood that still covers her skin in lingering memories of the violent sea waters and the collapse of all her fresh-faced dreams. Isra's hooves are heavy as she walks and the chain about her leg sounds not like bells of freedom but the heavy sighs of sorrow, cased in rust and ringing with dread sharp echoes. 

Each step brings a memory; stories dripped in blood and tears, laments of loss and fragile spider webs of hope (silken and dusted with dewdrops of sadness).  Isra walks on, slow through the sludge of her fear and suffering, hoping that her chain-song might, like a pied piper, draw those left through the wreckage of the tsunami to her side. 

And when she alights the topmost steps of the castle she turns to them all, crusted in blood and tears and stars to speak with all the white-hot sorrow of a falling star-- glittering and fleeting and waiting for a wish. “I have no grand words to offer you. There is nothing to soothe away the corpses of those we lost, nothing for the destruction we are left to live in. I have nothing to offer you but a story.” Oh, she feels as if she should smile as a queen might or like a princess who braved the darkness to look up at the constellations and draw legends between the flickering stars.  

Isra only has tight, chapped lips and a voice made raspy from days of healing and story-telling to offer them. So she offers what she can, headless of the dry fire that burns and burns in her throat. “This is not my skin although perhaps it now belongs more to me than it might belong to the gods or the sea.” It's feels like a cruelty to herself to offer those words, to tear open the black stain of her soul for all the night to drink of. “I was born a slave, a vessel for the joy and violence of others. I was raised in suffering and sorrow and ate only of darkness and loathing when I ate what life had to offer me at all. I ate and ate and ate of the darkest darkness and I learned to hate. I hated myself and life and everything that was bright and lovely and so far from my reach. I hated so much that I tried to drown...” She licks her lips and tastes only salt and the sweet, lingering iron of blood. There's wondering too in the way she pauses, wondering if they see the stain of her, laid bare like violence between a torn open rib-cage. 

“But the sea wouldn't let me drown, although it felt like hours that my lungs quivered, full of salt and brine and flotsam. Because I did not drown I rose again, cast upon some distant shore in a body I did not know. The sea or whatever was hidden in the deep, dark places of the ocean floor took from me my body but not my memories” There's a tear lingering in in the shadow cast upon her face by her horn and in the moonlight it looks like a crystal (valuable and fragile all at once). It runs slowly down her face as she continues, making tracks in the dust and blood and memories covering her skin. 

“When I came to Novus I stole so that I might live. I was afraid to drown again, to feel that dark of nothingness. I wanted to feel the moonlight, to sing to the stars, to walk and feels the gazes of horses who had no idea who I was, what I was. I didn't want to burn but I burned with you. I felt walls and fear and hopelessness with all of you.” Isra's skin still shivers when she talks of fire. 

Her steps when she walks back down the steps are heavy with that endless chain-song, and it peels like a broken freedom chant now, slow and sad with a lonely sort of hopefulness. “And now I stand before you as a once-slave, made a leader by a moment that felt more like a dream than something real. I see destruction and suffering and crumbled wishes that were washed away in the dread sea.” Isra spots that flash of devil-red in the crowd and smiles, a soft hopeful thing. She hopes he knows what to do, what to ask. 

And--

When she carries on that gentle smile remains, making it so easy to forget her voice feels like briars crawling up her soul, up her throat until they embed themselves into words upon her salted lips. “I also see something bright in the darkness, something brighter than the north-star. I see stories I hope you will all share with me. I see dreams I hope to dream of beside all of you.”

 Isra pauses until she's at the bottom of the castle stairs, in the midst of them all and the last lingering puddles of the sea that rise up to her fetlocks. “All I have to offer you is a promise that I will always give you freedom--- freedom to dream, to love, to explore, to learn, to change. I give you freedom and the truth of me. I am nothing more than a dreamer who has lived a hundred different lives in words and thoughts and wondering.” 

In the brightness that grows upon that wistful smile on her face that crystal of a tear turns to star-dust, faint enough to not be seen unless one looks close enough. “Please tell me how to lead you. Tell me who you are or who you want to become. Tell me your dreams...” How heavy her hooves feel now, like molten glass beneath her body. They feel as if they are barely strong enough to hold the fury of hope blooming and growing like a jungle where that black stain of her soul lives. 

Silently she prays that they are strong enough to hold up more than just her. Isra prays that they are as strong as the moon, that they might be able to hold up the cloak of night against the fire of the day.