Character #1: @Raymond Bonded: Yes but she cannot be used in battle Magic: No Armor: No Weapons: No Current Health: 16 Current Attack: 24 Current Experience: 43
Character #2: @El Toro Bonded: No Magic: No Armor: No Weapons: No Current Health: 7 Current Attack: 13 Current Experience: 10
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
The journey from the Eluetheria Plains was...awkward wouldn't be a good description, since it's doubtful Raymond has ever felt awkward about anything, but if one chose to call the silences between them less than friendly then they'd be forgiven for such an assessment. Raymond didn't mind: he was as comfortable in a boiler room as he was in a gentlemen's club, and any displeasure from Toro's corner would likely only have amused him.
It was a couple of days' walk from the plains to the steps, skirting the strange business in the mountains along the borders of Delumine and Terrastella. By the time they reached the battlefield the morning sun had risen high enough to cast only short shadows at their feet, and a respectable smattering of clouds served to dampen even that. Autumn was well and truly upon them; the wind, when it stirred, carried an unmistakeable chill heralding the oncoming winter.
The ground Raymond had chosen for their particular arena was hard and dusty from lack of good rainfall all summer, but was as flat and clean as any that could be found in the steppes. Toro had asked for a demonstration of his plan B, not an example of why you don't fight near gopher colonies.
Raymond had had plenty of time over the course of the trip to get the measure of his pale opponent. Toro had the better of him as far as physicality was concerned: Raymond gave him 10 inches at the shoulder, and was built more for light-footed maneuverability than he was for strength. While Toro was no juggernaut, height alone gave him a fair bit of weight to his advantage. That was fine; the red stallion was rarely interested in grappling with his enemies. Reach was his greatest asset.
That being said, he did not separate from Toro. The only thing worse than being at close quarters with a horse like Toro was being far enough to give him room to build momentum, and Raymond wasn't interested in being roadkill just yet.
He nodded in Toro's direction, side by side with the other stallion about a horse's length away to his left. This should be an interesting game, if nothing else.
Summary: Raymond is standing alongside Toro about a horse's length away to Toro's left. It is late morning, partly cloud, and cool, with very little wind. Their arena of choice is relatively clear of obstacles, dry, and hard.
- HELL OR GLORY - I don't want anything in between
The sun splits over the horizon when Seraphina crosses the Eluetheria.
The landscape before her is washed in volatile rays of red-gold that catch on the flickering waves of grass – like flames, or flecks of frothing foam on a storm-struck sea. Red at dawn, travelers beware. Well, she is no longer wary, and she is no longer afraid; as wisps of her white hair trail like strands of moonlight down her brow, she runs forward as a silver stream, her eyes ablaze in the morning light. It casts long shadows in front of her, blurred, distorted reflections of her impaled upon dancing blades of weeds – and all around her, the grass stirs like the sea, whipping to life like a brewing sandstorm. The wind is strong, this morning, and she thinks that she can smell rain in the far distance; tendrils of darkness threaten at her back, clawing like jealous fingers at the burning sunrise above her head.
The thunder rolls. She does not look back to see the lightning. You have seen the face of god, and what? God is just another obstacle, another stumbling block, another chess piece on a vast, celestial board - god is always watching, but god cannot control you. If she has learned to live with sandstorms and teryrs, she will learn to live with the divine; they are another force of nature, after all, and she has always seen them in the world around her. The only thing that has changed is their form. (And now they are mortal, physical, living - and she wonders if that restrains them in any way, now that their entire essence is trapped in a pitiful, pitiful body.) For now, she has a kingdom to protect, revenge to take, a reputation to rebuild from the ashes…and she has no time to hesitate, and even less time for weakness.
Now, she is outrunning the rain (and the crash) – the storm hisses at her heels, but she does not falter, even as she sprints across unknown, unseen ground.
Passive, desperate urges – so animal and so pitiful, so unsightly – were left on that peak, to rot among the shadows of the stars and the empty circle of pillars. No longer is she simply the silver, no longer a false, fleeting creature, no longer so reserved and hesitant-
She is the sun queen. She is the sun queen.
The first splash of rain catches her heels, but the clouds have not even begun to overtake the sun; the droplets, suspended in the blinding rays, run like liquid fire down her sides, blending with the salt of her sweat until it trails her, leaving metallic streaks in her coat. She blinks water off her lashes, and, pulling in her chin, forces herself to move faster -
She has not longed so desperately for her desert, for her home, since the attack.
Her pace only slows as she crests the ridge of a great, wavering hillside and comes to a steady halt at its highest point. Below her, a great herd of bison, undisturbed by the coming storm, graze; at the sound of her approach, only a few even bother to raise their heads. Behind her, thunder roars, and, as she turns to stare over her shoulder, her gaze is illuminated by the violent crash of white lightning. (It reminds her of another time, not so long ago. She was younger then, and crushed – beneath the weight of a broken people, barely a child with a massacre to swallow. There was still blood on her hands, and there would be more to come. There is still a weight on her, a leaden mantle cast across her shoulders, but it is as much of a burden as a badge of pride.) Her eyes narrow to burning slits, and her hair, untangled from its braids and curling around her in wild, banshee masses, whips wild as the lightning flashes in the distance.
Just a moment to relish the cool, autumn breeze and the cool tinge of rain before she returned to endless dunes and dry, coarse-hot air – homecoming awaits.
How long had it been since she'd stepped hoof in Solterra? Years, from what it felt like. Since before she was pregnant with the twins.
Yes. Years.
It felt odd to press her hooves through the sand, her wings lifted from her head, covering the top as she shaded her eyes and her face, finally coming in to contact with green once more. The oasis. A miracle in the middle of a desert, with swaying branches of trees that bore sweet fruits, the aloe plants that grew along the waters, and the many grasses that sprouted up to provide a lovely tropical paradise.
The season of autumn meant the sun wasn't so harsh, and her pale body made its way toward the edge of the oasis, wings pulling and gently folding at the sides of her neck as she took in slow sips. She felt the cool trickle down her throat, and she lifted her head as she licked her lips, closing her eyes and taking a moment of respite among the turmoil that had gripped the entirety of Novus.
Walking deities, destruction, tensions. It was all so heavy on her shoulders but she wanted to push on, to rise up, to help and heal. She wasn't so innocent as she had been before, but she was not calloused to the world. Nothing would be able to do that to her, she knew that much. There were people that had hard edges but soft interiors, softer thoughts. Or there were some that were hard through and through and cared only for themselves. There were even soft edges and soft thoughts, open to the world, as she was.
She had seen all of them. Met all of them.
Sighing, the speckled mare moved herself, stepping forward to dip her legs in to the oasis and stand in the water instead, her heavy mane and tail dipping in before wafting about her, floating lazily. It was nice to visit another court, to finally stretch her legs and relax, to feel more comforted than she had in ages.
It was autumn in Novus, which meant it was as good as winter in the thin-air places of the Arma Mountains, and Acton was in a foul mood.
The magician was a simple man. He liked a drink (or two), a game of cards (only rarely with an illicit ace up his metaphorical sleeve) and being onstage with a held-breath crowd before him. He liked back-alley brawls and poorly thought out bets and chance encounters with pretty women that lasted only as long as they needed to.
He did not like the nervousness that hung uneasy in his stomach now like too much sour wine. He did not like the memories that dogged him, of conversations he wished had never happened. And he did not like waiting, not even for Raum, not even to go home.
What was home, without the other Crows? Without Reichenbach the Night Court was just another city, no matter how prettily shone the strangers or the stars.
The mountain pass still bore the scars of the dragon’s strange fire. Smaller plants were struggling to make a comeback, but there was still so much char – black soil, black tree-trunks, black-smeared bones of unfortunate beasts. The wind was cold as it sighed down from the mountain, and Acton paced and muttered and left half-moon prints in the ashy earth.
Mostly what he wanted was someone to scream at, someone to punch, someone to use to sort out his messy rats-nest of feelings that he never knew what to do with. That, or to make something go boom, an explosion loud enough to shock his nerves into adrenaline and drown out his needle-teethed thoughts.
But Acton’s powders were far away, back in his quarters in Denocte (if they were still there at all), and not even the wildlife had returned to this part of the scorched mountains.
So he tried to make do. Laying his dark ears back, teeth meeting with a click, Acton focused his shaky grip on his magic and willed it into being. His head began to throb, but he could feel a presence behind him – and when he turned a moment later, match-bright eyes flashing, his gaze fell upon Reichebach.
Well. Not quite. It was only a weak approximation of the Night Court king – small and pale and flickering in and out of being like sparks or smoke. But it wore that devil-take-you grin, and gypsy coins glinted for a moment in the clear autumn sunlight –
“Fuck you,” Acton said, his heart pounding ragged in his ribs as if it were truly the King Crow and not some third-rate illusion, but already the bay figure was fading. Sunlight cut through his dark sides, then the whole image stuttered like a heartbeat. “Come back,” the buckskin urged, but the figure was gone.
He was alone, had been alone, would be alone.
“Fucking pathetic,” he snarled, and kicked up a cloud of ash and dirt at the place where the illusion had been – but he didn’t feel any better.
He felt as pathetic as the figure he’d conjured.
NOT YET CORPSES
STILL, WE ROT
@Thranduil if he wants and any! plz disregard the tantrum
Jezanna slipped past the court walls, their shadow cast by the gentle light draped her in darkness. It was so early the sun had not yet shown itself over the eastern horizon, just barely painting the sky in the colors of a new day. Above her, the sky was deep and blue, stars still visible, not a cloud in the sky. Below, the midnight woman reflected the sky with her inky coat and splashes of flecked pale markings.
There was a distinct fall chill to the air, and she was searching for something. It wasn't something she would find in the world, at least Jezanna didn't think so. She thought that the thing she was searching for could only be found inside herself. She had spent so much time within the Court recently, had met so many faces, had learned so much about these people who also called Denocte home.
It was time to learn a little more about herself.
Jezanna walked until she reached the prarie, the rolling hills spreading out around her, the sky above. The grasses were dry in the fall, not as inclined to bend beneath the touch of the breeze as in the spring and summer. Soon there would be snow, and the world would become a sea of sparkling, pure white. Soon, she hoped, the dark stains on her home would fade and in their place a hope for a better future. She'd heard the words that Tempus had promised, that change would come. Jezanna was prepared, and she could only hope that the change would be good.
She paused on a knoll, turning her head up toward the sky where the night was fleeting, fleeing, as the sun steadily rose higher to welcome the morning. And she wondered. What religion did she have? What belief did she have that the gods and goddesses of this world wanted the best for the ones in their care. How was she supposed to know?
The young moon had studied everything she could find on the Courts, on their patron deities, and yet, somehow, she doubted. Doubted their love, their concern. Jezanna had watched the suffering of the people of Denocte, had watched them place their alleigance in Caligo and yet she found no proof of the demi-goddess here in this kingdom of stars and shadows. She had heard tales of other Courts and wondered, were their own gods and goddess silent, absent?
Jezanna had always spent an abundance of time among the population of her own world, every moment that she could she had gone and sat with them, spoke with them, gotten to know them. She had loved them and they had been hers, but when she thought about it she realized she had rarely seen her parents ever set foot on the world, had rarely ever seen them interact with those who worshipped them so. Only when... when Eidolon had shown himself.
"Who do you think you are, shadow soul?"
"I am Eidolon. I have lived only in darkness until now and I am unfamiliar with this land."
"Your presence unsettles those who call this world home. You are unwelcome here. You must leave."
Had it really looked so different then, when she had been standing behind her parents, watching this man strange, shadowy form? He had been unlike anything she had ever seen before, and suddenly she realized now, that her parents had judged him for it and she had never said a word against it. He had been hers, too, to care for, just as all the others had been, and she had allowed her parents to force him out and not thought any differently, not considered there was a better way.
What she knew now was there was often always a better way. Jezanna had unknowingly let Eidolon down, and he had perhaps been hurt, or afraid, and had acted out. How mortal seemed those actions, she thought, after having lived among them for the time she had now. It was then she realized that perhaps it was not her actions that mimicked mortals, but mortals who mimicked the actions of their gods, for who better to show them what was right and wrong but the ones who had created them?
Indeed something needed to change, because Jezanna could see no other way out of these neverending circles than to step outside of them themselves. Perhaps there was something she could do for her Court after all, for as few short months she may have lived here, called Denocte home, that's exactly what it was and she could no sooner abandon them as her naive self may once have done. There had to be a new path to show them, a new way to move forward. A new direction that would lead them out of the dark.
It is just before dawn and the world is all silver.
There is dew on the grass and fog rising up from all the hollows in the fields, and the first thin rays of sunlight shine down on the fog and turn it to glass or to starlight. Far away, carried clear on the crisp autumn air, Asterion can hear the sighing, singing call of the sea. He laughs into the silent, silver morning, and stretches on the grass that wets his hocks and knees with cool kisses, and makes to answer its summons.
Surely, comes the voice, textured as the outside of a shell in his mind, you aren’t thinking of simply walking? Before the last words fade the flap of wings follows, and Cirrus swoops like a phantom from the fog, another pale ghost in a morning of them. The bay stallion lifts his star-marked brow to her, and then he grins. “Alright, then. A race.”
The gull replies with a satisfied caw and a flap of wings that stirs the stallion’s dark hair from his face, and then she is gone, and the regent follows her across the misty morning and down to the sea.
In the end they agree to call it a tie. It was hard to say, in the fog, which of them reached the shoreline first, but they are each happily and thoroughly exhausted when they do. Cirrus stands on rock dark and wet with fog, and Asterion stands beside her, catching his breath with air that tastes of mist and brine.
The sea is only now becoming clear before them, like a mirror unfogging. At first the only thing visible is the little waves that run up to the beach, washing the rocks and shells with their foam; then come the breakers as the sun begins to burn off the mist. It is cool, but the bay does not shiver; his muscles are all warm and wanting from the heedless run to the shore. Blessedly, his mind is empty of gods and courts and problems – it is full of the day, of the shine of sunlight on the water, of the other sea-birds that Cirrus watches so indignantly.
Until he spots a dark shadow out beyond the place where the shelf of sand drops off. “Cirrus, he says, and she looks around with dark eyes gleaming. “Do you see – is that a dolphin, you think?” The big gull peers, and they are both still until a dark head breaks the surface and is gone again in the space of a heartbeat.
Maybe, says the gull, but she sounds doubtful, almost wary. Asterion tilts his head, feeling a shiver start to wend its way through him as he thinks of recent whispers – of horses that live in the sea, and eat flesh, and come up on the sands to dance beneath the full moon, wanton and wild.
Suddenly the day, the shroud of fog, is as eerie as it is lovely.
“Have you seen them?” he asks his companion, voice gone soft and wondering. For a moment Cirrus says nothing, then she clacks her beak at him, and the eye she turns on him is bright and keen.
Yes, she says, and her tone is like a warning. And you should hope not to – especially this time of year.
Asterion nods, chastised by her knowing look, but oh! In his heart he wonders and he wants.
Posted by: Maximus - 07-10-2018, 10:50 AM - Forum: Archives
- Replies (7)
DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING
He wakes up sweaty and heaving in distress, as he has so many mornings after the…
Ahhh. But, why think about that now? He supposes it does no good to dwell on the past—(save for the past that dangles, thumping his chest as he goes, around his neck. That he keeps like a second heartbeat, unwilling or unable to disentangle from it.)
—it’s also bloody hard to forget when it replays itself, night after night, as if his memory has skipped and become suspended in one moment—a flash of light, the nasally screech of an old windbag, with no sense of humor or fun whatsoever.
It takes a moment for the adrenaline to wear thin in his blood, his breath steadying, his heartbeat falling into its normal—if somewhat over-quick—rhythm. This time, his nightmare has not left him stranded in late-eve, condemned to wander the dark where he finds it almost impossible not to fall into the suck of his quagmire-mind. Dawn comes, mauve and salmon-pink, and at least he can stand—shaking the sand and thin droplets of dew from his bushy tail—and face the day. And the desert.
The endless, hellish desert he had wandered into sometime yesterday, for time seems to melt into one long, hot meander here...
And then, failed miserably to wander out of.
“Yes, well... Still here,” he mutters to himself, squinting across the sea of shifting, strangely-formed dunes, glittering in the rising sun. He’d like to say it has its charms, but somehow, he has never been able to shake off the need for hidey-holes and good cover. Mors offers none of that—on all sides, he is beset upon by nothing but air baking away, cooler now in the reprieve of early day. Above, vultures circle and swoop, eyes open for whatever may have come to an untimely end during the night.
The once-rabbit-prince, now soon-to-be-meal, sighs. By way of habit, he dips his grey chin to his chest to feel for the skull-keepsake, and begins his wander in the Black Rabbit’s arms all over again.
there is still the sun that shines,
and whispering rain in the evenings,
and blossoms and birds at the window
that greet one in the gentle mornings
Fiona had wandered past Tinea Swamp without realizing it. The ground had eventually grown more solid, drier, beneath her steps, the air less damp and quieter, less of a buzz filling her ears. When was the last time she had left Terrastella? Though, Amare Creek was hardly that far outside the borders of her home. This forest was brighter, more light filtering through the autumn trees. A shy covering of fallen leaves was on the ground, although most still clung to their branches, displaying their fiery radiance in the late afternoon light.
In the distance, the lavender girl could hear the babbling of the creek as it fed through the trees and she made her way toward it, steps light and quiet on the grass. Her bright eyes took in the sunlight through the leaves, dappling the forest floor and she was suddenly struck by the urge to draw. Unfortunately, Fiona had anticipated walking this far when she had simply gotten lost in her thoughts while searching the swamp for late blooming orchids. She did not have her drawing pages with her, but she thought she could make due with her notepad in a pinch.
Once she arrived at the creek Fiona dropped carefully to the ground and allowed herself to get comfortable in a patch of light. The gentle sound of the rushing water was tender, serene, and she pulled out her notepad and pencil, flipping past used pages toward the end where she kept sketches and pressed flowers. Then, she began to draw. The pencil slipped over the paper, creating flowing strokes and sharper, contrasting angles—the lilac painted girl became lost in the littlest movements and details as they came to life on the page—and the tranquility cradled her imagination.
The birds are singing in your eyes today
Sweet flowers blossom in your smile
Fiona’s healing heart was connected to this place, constantly calling her back again and again. The lavender girl may wear the title Champion of Community, but she would always carry herself with a Caretaker’s gentleness, always keep an eye out for herbs and plants with medicinal properties on her walks through Terrastella. She would always reach out to anyone in need, and that was a part of her that she felt could only be enhanced by her new position. Now, she had the opportunity to reach farther, to reach more citizens, than ever before. If it gave her the chance to help even one more person than she would have otherwise, she would be okay with it.
She had made her way through the swamp, following the lilies Vespera had left to help those who were lost and in need to find their way. Fiona used the lifts, waited for herself to be cleared and pushed deeper into the interior of the hospital toward some of the rooms that lacked a clear purpose. After her first visit here, she had returned more than once just to acquaint herself, to converse with the healers, to meet with the occasional patient, even to make friends with the lemurs of Vespera’s creation. This time, however, Fiona had a purpose.
She was here to meet Atreus, the man of silver and red who was still a mystery to her. His name had only been revealed to her at the meeting where they had both been given Champion positions, and even since then she had not seen much of him but in passing. Still, the healer occupied many of her thoughts and when he’d asked for her assistance today, Fiona could not have turned him down. It was why she had come prepared, her notebook tucked safely into a satchel with a few pens, all her knowledge at the forefront of her brain. She wasn’t sure exactly what he needed from her, but she would help in whatever way she could.
Writing.
@Atreus just a short little opening <3 Hope it's okay!
there's something soft in me - we killed it and it's rotting
She feels like she has an arrow caught in her skin. Think about it this way. It’s a wriggling, painful sensation. When you move, you feel it sink in deeper. When you breathe, you feel it sink in deeper. Perhaps just thinking about it sinking in deeper is enough to give it a little bit more hold, like barbs stuck into your skin. And maybe it has always been there, a little lingering prickle at the edge of your thoughts, but it isn’t too hard to ignore it, or to grow accustomed to it, or to push it aside entirely and tell yourself that it isn’t important, that pulling the arrow out will only make it worse because then you’ll start bleeding and you don’t want all of that ugly red blood to come spilling out, so it digs in deeper and deeper and deeper until the arrow is practically a part of you, a permanent gouge.
You tell yourself that you’ll pull it out someday. Someday never comes. Arrows, and other lies that you tell yourself: when you’re younger, you like to tell yourself that you’re special, or that you will be special eventually. Well, it’s been several years of trying, – and failing and failing and trying and trying over and over again – and you still don’t feel like anything especially special. Stick a crown on a girl’s head, and she likes to think that the world will bend to her will, that finally - finally - become something a bit more significant, and a bit more powerful, and a bit more special. You tell yourself that you can change things. You tell yourself that you will make them better and then – then what? (Sometimes you ask yourself why you want it, really. Is it some misguided sense of duty? Is it out of the goodness of your heart? Some selfish desire to play the hero?) But it’s never so simple, and a crown doesn’t grant you much of anything. But you still have your dignity. You always have your dignity, so you never – never - let yourself crack. You don’t slip. You bear the brunt of all the ugly things that get slung your way with a tight-lipped stare and cold, dead eyes, and you bear the brunt of a slap to the face and bitter accusation after bitter accusation with a cordiality and a cold front of politeness, and it’s oh-so perfectly respectable, and when you let something slip through the cracks the shame and the sense of failure might as well eat you alive from the inside out, and you tell yourself that it doesn’t matter, none of it matters, love or hate or neutrality or anything in between. You want to be vindictive – you want to bite back, to sink your teeth in so deep that you taste blood in your mouth. It feels like your entire life is lying back and taking it, and you don’t want to just take it anymore; you want to be authoritative and decisive and powerful and beloved (or loathed) like so many of the other leaders you have encountered, but you know that runs the risk of hurting the people beneath you-
(but indecision is a decision too.)
You tell yourself to be patient.
You have been devoted to the gods for your entire life. When you were a desperate, frightened little girl, they were the only thing that you had – at the most terrifying, lonely moments, the very concept of them was your only comfort. (The concept. The concept. You know that they’ve been somewhere, now, but you don’t think that it’s ever been with you.) And you don’t know what you’ve wanted from them, or what you’ve been chasing after, or what you even want now. Answers? Justification? Ah yes here is the greater meaning here is why everything had to hurt and everyone had to hurt and you had to hurt- Does it even really matter, now? Explaining fixes nothing – nothing that has happened can be undone. And here you are, still begging for some rationalization or some reasoning, as though it will ever change a thing. What’s done is done. (And the arrow slides in a little bit deeper when you think about it, because, really, you thought that they might have cared about you, in their impassive, distant way – but, for all of your years of worship, the closest thing that you’ve received to acknowledgement or reciprocation was the blink of a pair of white-washed eyes. You aren’t blessed. There are no dragons at your side, and the earth does not shift according to your will, and you are not free from the constraints put upon you by time. You are mortal. You have only ever been mortal. You are mortal, and maybe once that was fine, even preferable, but now you stand on the same ground as gods and those who resemble them, those who are blessed by them, and all you can find it in yourself to do is ask yourself what all of that devotion was for. Faith is its own reward, or something like that, or faith is useless unless it’s tested, but it doesn’t feel very rewarding right now. Instead, it just feels like another little pinprick, or more than a pinprick, another layer of skin peeling right off; you are surrounded by foreign faces that have gained the favor of the gods, regardless of their own belief in the divine, and all you can ask yourself is what have I done wrong? You feel like you ask yourself that a lot, lately.)
You wonder if you feel insulted, or scorned. That doesn’t feel quite right. You were angry, when you were trapped, – nearly crushed - so angry that you were in tears, but they were lost to the ashes. You were angry for your people, and for yourself, and you felt betrayed. As with most things that you feel, it’s faded away to a dull, throbbing pain, now. You can’t keep anything alive for very long, and, the moment that it starts to fade, you feel a little bit less righteous and a little bit more childish. You should have held your tongue. It’s always better for you when you swallow things down; it’s harder to regret the things that are left unsaid. You never really feel like you learned to talk to others – there’s always this little space in front of you, like a wall, or a gorge that’s nauseatingly dark and deep. Sometimes you stare down into it, but you can’t see the bottom. You wish that you were angry, filled with some righteous fury – or you wish that you were devoted, and it didn’t matter to you at all.
Instead, you’re just tired, and suddenly very, very lonely.
(She paces the edge of the outcropping, hooves a sharp clack against smooth stone. Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack. A sharp, frustrated breath hisses out of her pursed lips, and the tight braids that loop down her neck begin to untwine, tearing apart at the force of her telekinesis – some strands are jerked from her scalp, and they flow away in the night wind, little wisps of ghost-white. She’s silver in the moonlight, like the blade of a knife or the sharp crescent of the moon, and isn’t it sometimes just a bit funny that she’s supposed to be the “chosen” of the god of sun and flame and day when she’s as grey as smoke and silver as the world suspended in moonlight? She casts a long glance towards a tiny, glinting golden thing that still rests on Solis’s alter. That damned sun pendant. Her own damned choices. Was it the right thing, stepping aside? Did she need to do it? Trying to think for herself, she thought, was hard – and trying to decide what to do for a nation was a thousand times worse. Perhaps she blamed the gods – perhaps she blamed him - for something that was out of his control. (But she never really blamed him, did she? She just knew that she was not blessed, like her opponent, like the woman who slaughtered her people and burnt her city to ruins (but that was not so different than what had been done to her before), but now Bexley and Eik were – and it was just her that seemed to be standing on her own.) Perhaps it was never really about blame, either. Perhaps it was just another desperate attempt to feel like she was in control of a situation that spiraled right out of her grasp. Perhaps it was just another desperate attempt to feel autonomous, no longer obligated to dead kings or generals or gods that never said a thing. And she was a girl - she is barely more than a girl even now, in spite of the (metaphorical) crown that she wears on her head. She doesn’t really know, and it doesn’t matter anyways – there that little sun is, right where she left it, and it’s beyond taking back now. Click-clack-click-clack. She turns her face away from that glint of gold, and she rests her eyes on the jagged edge of the horizon.)
Here is where you stand: to some of your people, you are a stain on Solterra’s history, and to some of your people, you are just an extension of an ugly, oppressive system, and, to some of your people, you’re a little piece on a chessboard all set up to be used, and, to some of your people, you’re a weak, false silver queen, and, to some of your people, you’re a symbol of hope and change, and to a very few, you’re a friend, but you’ve come to the slow, slow realization – like a frog being boiled alive – that you don’t know anyone that you call a friend very well, and you’ve never really let your friends know you, either. You’ve thought that you were a little bit in love a time or two, but it was a quick sting of something like a splash of scalding oil from a frying pan, a burn that flickers away in a minute or three – but you still see the mark it leaves on your skin. It isn’t really love, you think, if it runs away when you start to think about it and you think and you think and you think and it’s gone when you think about it and you realize that it isn’t worth the risk. It’s never bothered you much, being alone. You like the quiet, and you like to think, and, when people ask you to talk, the words always seem to dangle just a little too far out of reach. But you’re a little bit older and a little bit less detached then you think you were not all too long ago, and the things that didn’t matter at all once upon a time are starting to feel like they matter now.
And there’s still the matter of that hole that feels like it swallows you up from time to time; that comfortable emptiness that is no longer quite so comfortable that you still find yourself falling into whenever something is too difficult for you to process.
Maybe it isn’t your fault that hole is there – maybe you weren’t the one who dug it. But you’re the one that keeps opening it up and digging it deeper, wider, shoveling down and down and down. You’re the one that leaves it gaping. Be patient, you tell yourself, things take time, you tell yourself, give it time, you tell yourself, wait for it, you tell yourself. You’re just waiting for the right moment. (But the right moment will never come unless you’re willing to take a leap, and, so far, you’ve been too terrified of the consequences to act.) You’re waiting for the right moment to fight back against the Davke, or to deal with Denocte’s actions against your people, or to bite back at bitter insult, or to let any part of you slip through the cracks for long enough to open up – but the right moment doesn’t exist, and you feel like you’ve spent your entire life waiting on something that will never come.
You’re trying to find your way – you’re trying to find some way. It’s not as easy as you remember, and you don’t know whose footsteps you’re walking in, anymore, if anyone’s at all. And you think, deep down, that you’re just trying to do the right thing, but you aren’t sure if you know what that is anymore.
You’ll have yourself pulled together when the sun rises and morning comes, because you have to – because you have a people to guide and work to do. Veneror has a way of unwinding you, though. It always has. You just need a moment to catch your breath and pull everything in, pack it up and stuff it somewhere in the back of your mind where it belongs. You just need to wait for the morning. You’ll be a bit closer to yourself in the daylight, won’t you? (But this is you too – just you scratched apart and scraped open.) You just need to wait for the cold to come creeping back in like the first tendrils of winter. When the cold comes back, you’re sure that you’ll return to who you need to be – who they need you to be.
So here you stand, pincushioned with little pinpricks of arrows on the precipice of a mountain that you’ve known your entire life, staring out at a landscape you’ve known your entire life, surrounded by pillars that you’ve known your entire life, but you might as well be a thousand miles away from the gods or anyone else at all, in spite of all of the figures that have been exploring the peak in the past few days. There isn’t anyone here to see you now, not even the gods – or so you assume, now that they’re off walking the ground. At least you can feel just a bit sorry for yourself in peace – at least, for now, it’s quiet. You didn’t realize how much you missed the quiet until you no longer spent your days wandering the empty desert; you didn’t realize how much you missed the quiet until the world felt so loud, too loud.
(In the stories that your mother used to tell you, when the protagonist hurt for long enough, all of that hurt would pay off – in fiction, everything eventually fit together for some greater meaning. In reality… she was reasonably sure that there weren’t knights in shining armor to pull cursed princesses from towers or valiant warriors that fought dragons to save villages, or at least not in Solterra. Hurt didn’t have to have meaning, and it didn’t have to be beautiful, or poetic, and no one would simply show up to pull you out of it, no matter how much time you spent wasting away waiting for someone to come along and help you. But you weren’t really expecting that anyways, were you?)
Well. This isn’t fiction, insofar as Seraphina can tell, and there won’t be any white knights coming to save her from – what? She doesn’t even know anymore, and she isn’t sure that it matters. She doesn’t need saving, and, even if she did, she is certain that she wouldn’t want it – not by god, not by some sterling knight out of a fairy tale, not by anyone but herself. It wouldn’t mean anything any other way.
In the morning, she’ll return to her kingdom, and she’ll keep fumbling forward in her ugly, mortal way; she’ll fail and she’ll fall and it will hurt over and over again, but she’ll keep trying, because there’s nothing else to do but try.
So she stands, encircled by empty shrines and empty pillars, the autumn moon high above her head. Despite the absence of the gods that now walked Novus, the days passed all the same.
tags | @ notes | does this really count as a worship thread? maybe. anyways, have like...2600 words of sera being sad. uhh, this is... technically not private, but I don't feel like she feels like talking.
