Located where the Viride Forest meets Illuster Meadow, the festival sprawls over a large area of land in both.
In the Forest lanterns are hung from every 10 or so trees, with a multitude of stations set up for singing and dancing and painting and booths laden with food, drink, and gifts. Mini games are being run simultaneously, from darts to bobbing for apples to cake walks and races!
In the Meadow, the fields have come alive. Rows upon rows of vibrant flowers in every possible shade and color have bloomed in a brilliant display, with pathways for equines to walk through and enjoy. Off to the side is an area for camping, where equines can pitch a tent or spread out a blanket to sleep beneath the stars. Several stellar meteor shadows have been predicted!
A large stage has been set up at the forest’s edge, with a sizable space for sitting around it. A set list made up of multiple bands from all across Novus has been posted nearby, with intermission periods allowing for a unique event to play in broken up segments: in honor of the arts, every equine who attends the event is encouraged to bring along something of value to them, traditionally something they themselves have created. It can be anything from any medium of the arts, from paintings to presentations of magic to sculptures to poetry to dances and songs. Even plays are encouraged, as well as monologues and stories no matter the fact or fiction they claim. Delumine simply wants to recognize each person’s creative and unique capabilities, so come present yourself and your art to the crowds!
Welcome to Dawn Court’s version of Coachella! Here you’ll have an opportunity to share your character’s artistic capabilities with the Court, listen to some rocking music, eat some killer food, and enjoy some beautiful flowers (and opium) c: Come one, come all, and enjoy this week-long summer festival! IC’ly it will take place over 7 days (feel free to have your character camp out!), but OOCly you’ll have until May 31st to post your threads!
It’s early morning when the owl arrives, the first few streaks of golden light warming the tawny feathers of her back. She moves like a streak through the sky on broad and silent wings, circling the Day Court’s dry courtyard once, twice, then a third time before alighting on a pile of rubble outside. She puffs up the feathers on her chest, as if her own avian version of clearing the throat, and then lets a series of whistles into the open air.
She falls silent, cocking his head to one side and listening to the last of the notes fade away, waiting.
No one answers.
Shaking her head at herself, she repeats the call—louder this time, so that it might carry better into the open windows of the castle. This time when she becomes quiet, she sees a sleepy figure hurrying from the building, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Excited, the owl hoots again and hops along the fence closer to the equine.
A strip of parchment is tied with a bow around one of her scaled legs. Untying it will reveal a handful of small flowers with bright petals and a paragraph of elegant handwriting:
Solterra is invited to attend the Woodstock Music and Arts festival in Delumine!
Attendees are encouraged to create a unique work of art, music, writing, magic, or other to be shown and presented at the celebration.
Come enjoy our beautiful flowers with us as we appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of every person.
-Regent Ipomoea
(The festival will take place over a week ICly, but will last OOCly until the end of May)
It’s early morning when the owl arrives, the first few streaks of golden light warming the tawny feathers of his back. He moves like a streak through the sky on broad and silent wings, circling the Dusk Court’s courtyard once, twice, then a third time before alighting on a low fence. He puffs up the feathers on his chest, as if his own avian version of clearing his throat, and then lets a series of whistles into the open air.
He falls silent, cocking his head to one side and listening to the last of the notes fade away, waiting.
No one answers.
Shaking his head at himself, he repeats the call—louder this time, so that it might carry better into the open windows of the castle. This time when he quiets himself, he sees a sleepy figure hurrying from the building, still rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Excited, the owl hoots again and hops along the fence closer to the equine.
A strip of parchment is tied with a bow around one of his scaled legs. Untying it will reveal a handful of small flowers with bright petals and a paragraph of elegant handwriting:
Terrastella is invited to attend the Woodstock Music and Arts festival in Delumine!
Attendees are encouraged to create a unique work of art, music, writing, magic, or other to be shown and presented at the celebration.
Come enjoy our beautiful flowers with us as we appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of every person.
-Regent Ipomoea
(The festival will take place over a week ICly, but will last OOCly until the end of May)
Long has it been the preoccupation of mortal men to leave marks upon the world that will persist beyond their inevitable deaths. Great monuments, vaunted towers, sprawling castles fashioned to ensure the safety of both their throne and their legacy.
Raymond respected such colorful history inasmuch as it illuminated the paths before him, but the feelings stirred in his belly by the sight of the Dusk Court on the horizon edged far more toward suspicion than reverence.
His tail lay in a relaxed arc behind him, blade turned upward in the standard rendari display of peaceful passage. Diplomacy is difficult when everyone is armed; even now, the red stallion tried his best to speak plainly in both words and actions. Much could be assumed of those that built this place. Could the same be said for those that called it home?
He felt the empty space at his withers more keenly than the sting of tiny claw marks could justify as he exchanged Sussuro Fields' comforting openness for the Dusk Court's storied walls, but he carried himself with kingly confidence all the same.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Dawn was still hours to come, the sky flowing in Caligo's colours of deep blues and purples, so dark it was easy to mistake them as black. Reichenbach lay awake next to his porcelain prince, restless despite the peace hovering over Isorath's sleeping frame. Sleep had erased all the lines of concern and worry from the kirin's elegant face.. it left him looking rather young and altogether angelic. A smile lingered in the corners of Reichenbach's roguish mouth as he appraised his lover, then he shook his dark curled head and slipped soundlessly from their bed.
He approached the window, argent eyes matching the stars watching him from above. Rhoswen would be arriving with his niece an hour after first light, and he would meet her at the pass. Sleep had escaped him for visions of a dainty limbed girl with stars and a certain wickedness in her eyes — she would be smart and fiercely loyal... and perhaps plagued by a sense of being torn between worlds. Reichenbach closed his eyes for a moment, frowning.
A sigh escaped him.
The idea that his choices effected a whole nation — more than one.. was still alien and uncomfortable. There was rarely a moment that he was not reminded of it. Still... again a smile graced him, his eyes opening to stare toward the distant mountains, today he would meet his niece.
— x —
Dawn's light touched the tips of the Mountains as he strode through them, coins jingling and curls bouncing, an electric smile upon his velveteen lips. He arrived at their meeting point early, his long lashed eyes searching the surrounding area keenly before he settled, humming a pleasant tune to himself. His telekinesis worked quietly as he hummed, producing a small string of silver coins from beneath his ebony hair, the face of each marked with the image of a blazing star. His first gift, to his first ever niece.
It is the story of warriors that brings Calliope to the desert in the heat of the day.
Only the stories stop her from chasing the sand beasts that clack their teeth and whisper promises of blood at her shadow. Had they crept a little closer, scraped their teeth on the tight skin of her hocks there would not have been a dune in the desert that could have kept her from them. Or perhaps if she had smelled the blood on their breath (of a horse, not a monster) she would have turned from her path just to tear the beast asunder.
I will come for you, yet. He horn promises as the sun lights upon the steel of it, as the point glares like a star in the blinding daylight. That lion tail taunts them too, casting a trail outside the line of her shadow, daring them to follow closer, closer, closer. I am a unicorn, and I do not forget. All of her is a silent promise, a gallows blade hanging poised and ready and too sharp to defend against.
Her blood is solar flare hot and it burns for a battle, for blood, for something more that the politics and lover's quarrels of this place. Calliope always hungers for more, that lion in her soul will never be tame, never be free of that need.
Perhaps that is the reason the sand monsters come no closer to her. Surely they can smell the death that follows her as well as the corpses of fools that lie in their wakes. There is no easy kill to be found in the fierce Calliope, no easy death.
Alone now (the beasts turned from her trail) she carries on towards the Day Court. Her hooves speed up across the sand until she running across the sands, smiling as her muscles burn more and more the deeper she goes into the desert. She's covered in sweat and froth far before her lungs scream for more air than they can hold. Calliope's been training far to long for the desert to defeat her.
Had she not known Florentine and Asterion were to be found in Dusk Calliope made have made a home here, in the hot sands with monsters that hunt and kill so unchecked. She would have loved the sting of the sun on her flesh that the night has always loved so well.
Finally she finds the castle and she instantly approves of the plainness of it, of the way it blends into the sands as if to say, there is nothing here but death, but sand that might go on and on and on until only madness is left..
Calliope waits on the steps of that castle, blacker than night but for that lighting bolt of white on her shoulder. Even her horn denies the sun and it glares bright under the windows, alerting them all that she is waiting.
A lioness has come to the castle, to the desert where in another life she could have belonged.
And despite that darkness of her skin that suggest only nightmares, only moonlight there is no denying that she is more brutal than the desert at her back. That nighttime skin tells only tales of battles and wars in the harsh words that only scars and blood know how to say.
Passing safely through the rift three times was not enough to grow complacent. It was a treacherous road - a steep cliff made of nothing but steeper cliffs folded in on themselves and woven into a web of unnatural misery - and if there'd been another way he would happily have considered it.
Creep around outside a bear cave long enough, eventually the bear will wake up.
But the world was moving on, taking Calliope and her fires with it. Raymond could either join her or die in the collapsing riftlands with Ruth. He had sharpened his blade for the occasion, seeking serenity in an old whetting tune. The calico peered wild-eyed at the rhythmic sway of blade against stone and pawed at the trailing hair on every third stroke. So passed the morning, much like any other, but mornings end.
- - -
Raymond stumbled into the open field under the night's watchful eye, the drone of Summer insects breaking across his consciousness like a rogue wave after the nightmare of silence that preceded it. He whirled where he stood, menacing darkness with a swing of his tail blade, sucking in air through the unbearable tightness in his chest. Beads of blood welled up along shallow claw marks tracing both shoulders.
Awful pragmatism (and a healthy dose of shock) stayed the urge to shout her name. The rift, ever a cruel mistress had with the wave of a proverbial hand torn out whole sections of the tapestry of reality as he knew it, letting the frayed threads flutter free like exposed nerves. The red stallion's battle-ready muscles twitched and jumped with no foe to cut down.
So he did nothing, made still by the weight of his own powerlessness, and wrestled together a sense of composure through shallow breaths and the ruthless utility of reconnaissance.
The field unfolded on all sides like a plush carpet, dotted with the bulbs of dormant summer flowers; the night sky seemed equally vast - but infinitely colder - overhead. Nocturnal sounds receded to white noise buzzing in his skull. He caught the scent of someone familiar on the warm air, but all that remained of Ruth clung to his flesh the way that Ruth herself could not.
Calliope was somewhere close. There was much to be done before he allowed himself the privilege of mourning, so he turned his back on the smoldering remnant of the riftgate and started walking through the unfamiliar territory, tail blade at the ready.
Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns
when the man comes around
Delumine was far from the summer heat that Pandora was accustomed to.
The land was all flowers, which was not unwelcome; gods knew that it had been too long since she’d seen lush greenery. It was the city that she couldn’t get used to. She’d grown accustomed to drifting unnoticed through crowded taverns and busy marketplaces, little more than a pretty smile on an even prettier face, or, when she felt so inclined, a storyteller and dancer who captured the attention and imagination of the crowd. All the while, she remained a ghost, the fire-red subject of some drunken fever dream. In the morning, she would be gone, and all of the pretty things that she crafted the night before would be gone with her.
So, she had learned, was her place.
She slides through crowded streets, midafternoon sun gleaming off her golden scales. Children, playing in the square, meet her eyes; she offers them a knowing smile, like an old friend sharing some salacious secret, and promptly disappears back into the flood of bodies. She is a crackle, a sudden and violent burst of heat, a metallic clink, all teeth – a pretty smile that hits like a bolt of lightning. What remains is scorch marks and the smell of smoke. She wants to dance, but this doesn’t feel like the right land for a woman like her to dance. Delumine is full of scholars, and full of stories, but not her stories. When she dances, like any talented actress, she sells something. (She has long forgotten what it is that she is selling, though. She wonders if they notice.) This land doesn’t feel like it’s buying what she has to offer – forgetting or forgiveness or ignorance, maybe. Her mother always told stories to make people forget. That was a very long time ago, now.
When she sings, her mouth still tastes like citrus. That is the power of a song – she wants to make them taste the plump, fiery oranges that grew in clumps outside of her bedroom as a young girl. (But that was so long ago – she is no longer young.)
She doesn’t know enough of this land to know that it needs oranges, though. What she does know is that what remains of her brother is somewhere in Novus, and, unless she wants to finally accept her own morality, she needs to find him. Settlement has become a necessity.
She approaches the library.
As she steps into the building, she is overwhelmed by the smell of old paper; mildew and bookworms. The ceiling is high, and the room is well-lit; large windows. Quickening her step, Pandora approaches the nearest set of shelves, eagerly eyeing the rows of colorful spines. She doesn’t know exactly what section she’s stepped into, yet, but she’s sure that she can find folklore somewhere - that is what she needs, if she truly desires to step into this people’s skin.
Pandora is a chameleon, after all, and she’s desperately in need of a new set of scales to wear.
He walks now beneath the summer boughs, bending low their arms to caress him with dark leaves veined in silver. The stream tumbles alongside him, laughing over the sound of birdsong, the sound of wind in the branches. His coat is sleek and copper-gold and if it were not for one of his antlers, snapped just after the first tine, or the thin scar just behind his ribs, he would look as at home as a god in the shadows of the trees.
Oh, but Lysander knows by now how far from immortal he is. It is not a lesson he will forget. It is not a lesson he will forgive.
But there is nothing in him now that suggests such mortal thoughts as vengeance. His eyes are bright and green as leaves just unfurled and the breeze combs its fingers through his unruly mane, tugging him forward, further into Amare.
It is not love he seeks at the creek, where the willows make small sanctuaries and the stream conceals small sounds. Love has not been kind to him here, where the courts and festivals are more savage than the wilds. He is not sure, in fact, that he seeks anything at all – but he listens nonetheless, his ears turning, his eyes watchful as a raven’s.
When the birds fall quiet, when there is the whisper of feet moving through underbrush thick with vines, when the small waterfall seems to warn him hush, Lysander lifts his head and waits. Something flickers in his eyes, too quick to read – but it isn’t love. It is nothing kind at all.
In the long, bright hours of the day he works at his letters. Diligently, alone, mind narrowed to grip the pen tight but not too tight. Reading has come surprisingly quickly to him, but writing is where the real struggle lies. He practices with the words he most likes- clementine, vocation, s e r e n d i p i t y; but not even the novelty of these words is enough to hold his attention. We lost count of the time's he's fallen asleep with pen to paper, waking to a large black streak across the page... It would be comical if it were not such a waste of time and resources.
But we digress. When the shadows begin to lap at the walls, he slips from the court and into the wilderness, into the desert as it comes to life with the slowly rising symphony of crickets chirping and the wind singing softly through sandstone hallways and desert oak. In the long-limbed twilight birds twitter and lizards scramble, noisy but unseen.
And as twilight caves to night the Desert unveils her true beauty. A hushed silence falls, unless the wind decides otherwise, broken only by the occasional call of hawk or coyote. The stars take the stage and his soul takes to the vast, unknowable (unknowing) sky. The desert, the ocean, the night sky- Only before grand space does he feel like he can really breathe.
(The secret is that all desert creatures love the night-- but only the godless ones are honest about it.)
The problem is that he cannot sleep. So on this night he winds his way through the dunes to the pillar that holds up the sky of this world. It is not the peak he's after (there's nothing the gods can do for him) but the foothills of the mountain. A borrowed satchel is slung unfamiliar and uncomfortable over his shoulder.
("You're draining my supplies" the herbalist's eyes were tired, so tired. He would think of them later, as he walked. "You want to sleep? Find it in the foothills, near the water. Look for little pink-white blooms, but it is the roots you want. You'll know the smell." a sharp smile. "Be careful with them. And by Solis, take care of that wound!" She threw the leather bag at him haphazardly, and turned back to her half-dead patients, the ones who would most likely die but gods, they put up a hell of a fight .)
It did not occur to him, until he was at the foot of the mountain, that he could not see colors very well in the dark. Very well, the day is not so far away- the sky is already blushing in anticipation. So he stands patiently, eyes half-closed as he listens to the wind and the occasional pilgrim passing on their way to Veneror Peak. As he waits he uses his telekinesis to prod absent-mindedly but persistently at the gash on his shoulder. And with another part of his mind he practices his letters, repeating, again and again,
Clementine,
Vocation,
Serendipity.
- - - There is no better way to know us
E I K than as two wolves, come separately to a wood
@Moirawhoosh, sudden muse! Surprise, I hope this is alright <3
