I paid the price and own the scars why did we climb to fall so far ? Lost. She should not have been lost here, not yet, as most of her time during the Spring months had been spent haunting the halls of the keep during daylight hours when so few of the court were strolling about - they preferred to come alive when night settled, and Moira was fine to read in those lively moments in a secluded corner or the topmost floors of the library. Today, she had been on the hunt for a rather notorious book on herbs, something her family had had for years and years before. It was a bit of a classic, she'd hoped on her trip here in the witching hour, but instead only dead ends met her once more. Life was a coalescing culmination of those lately, slowly the built up one by one until she was in over her head with so many routes that hadn't worked out it made her want to scream. But screaming was not fit for a Tonnerre woman - especially now that she was an adult, and a rather lovely one at that.
Still, the hours crept by as she'd devoured novel after novel, shelf after shelf, scroll after scroll, until a rather angry sigh is pushed into the world. Her eyes droop with fatigue, for she'd been out during the day to gather more herbs along the lakeside. Really it was an excuse to see the sky reflected on the calming surface. Often she wonders how something can be so still and yet stay so long? Stagnation causes a slow and terrible death, it's something she could not accept and would not allow for herself. A busy mind is key in keeping her life orderly and running smoothly. There'd always been a schedule, and now that she is in a new home she is struggling to find just that.
Did it help that Moira has yet to actually find a friend? The odds are never in her favor in that regard, for she is rather bookish and keeps her heart hidden when it could so easily be shown. She knows her mother would be brimming with sorrow at Moira's lack of expression. Gizelle was such a lively figure, and such a hard act for the girl to follow. So she'd chosen a different path, one that now leads to the pitter pattering of her feet across the stone floors, through archways and among wooden shelves and groan with every tome she lifts and swiftly replaces after having found it unsatisfactory.
What good is a library if you cannot find what you seek?
Another stifled sound erupts, ears flattening among braids and puns alike. Perhaps it's time for a break, she thinks glumly, looking toward the end of the floor where silence and solitude would surely meet her. Although, she doesn't really have to worry about too many others waltzing right through right now. No, the Court is most active at night, and her candlelight would draw them near, but they are alive having fun together elsewhere. So she picks up her candle once more and moves down to the end of the row, turning to a wooden table nestled near the shadows that could mask any sort of mischief (but sound would be another issue). There she sits, shoulders drooping ever so slightly as her head falls to the wooden surface and arms splay before her. "I'll just close my eyes for a moment," she whispers to no one in particular, rather surprised to hear her voice after such a long bout of silence.
@Caine silly girl is falling asleep already and hasn't even met him! Sorry this is super ambiguous and open, I'm still getting a grip on her c: let the snuggles begin
in this house of broken hearts we made our love out of stacks of cards
It was maybe not the most conventional place to hold a meeting, but Florentine does not seem to care. She stands, as regal as any queen might be knee-deep in a swamp’s still waters. Her tail fans out behind her, stirring algae and leaves that settle upon the surface of the pool. Her petals scatter to join them, and idly they all find a steady flow that weaves them down towards an adjacent pool, connected only by a small overflow of trickling water.
It is warm here, where Florentine waits for her court to gather. It is so warm, her skin begins to gleam with beading sweat and she glitters gold in the green and brown of this land.
The fae-girl and the water she stands in are the most still things here. All around them the swamp lives and thrives in the song of birds and insects. Flowers and lilies always rustle as animals crawl and insects fly in search of pollen. There are secrets hidden within the Swamp, brilliant flowers painted in mysterious colours and eyes, they say, that have begun to watch you from the black.
But, curiously, the queen ignores them all. She ignores the slither of something passing by her ankles, deep in the darkness of the water. She ignores also the creak and groan of vines and tree limbs that sway in an imaginary wind. Instead, Florentine watches the crown of the trees, where their leaves bend over one another and make an umbrella, thick and warm that covers the whole of the swamp. It bathes them in dank dark. A smile begins upon her lips, its meaning known only to her, though the clue is when her eyes descend to the vivid paintings drawn upon the trunks of the trees surrounding her (and her gathering court).
They were Ilati paintings, or so the fable went, and this was once their home, amidst the swamp water. So that is why she has called her court here: to embrace their history and address their future.
It is not long until they come, to the song of lapping, splashing water and rustling leaves. Gilded Florentine turns to address them, as they gather between and within the many pools of Tinea Swamp.
“You are all probably wondering why I brought you here.” The fae-queen begins, smiling, unflustered, and for the first time in a while, happy. “If you believe the fables of our land, then you might also believe that this has always been the source of our healing; a beating heart that allowed the blood of Terrastella to thrive.” Her amethyst eyes dark in the light, but brightened by their amber that catches like flames, glowing and flickering in the dark.
“This is to be a council of the past and the future. Whispers are awakening here, telling tales of things of old. Do any of you know of the Ilati?” And with that her gaze shifts to regard the trees and their fresh paintings. “Do many of you believe that they might return?” Florentine has no answer to this. She seeks no argument here, she merely asks, curious to know who might have also heard the whispers heralding the return of the Ilati…
“But, the Ilati are not the only reason I have gathered us all here. There are many.” And her eyes glitter at that, “I wish to formally inform everyone of the new ranks and also to address the unrest across Novus and discord between certain Courts. I am sure many of you have by now heard of what has transpired between the Night King, Isorath and I.” Her eyes flit to Israfel and her brother, Asterion. They were the only two she had discussed her situation with prior to now. Remorse, sorrow, fury and so many things had stayed her tongue, weighing her feelings heavy, heavy, heavy.
Florentine takes a breath, slow and soft. “I apologise for it taking me so long to hold this council, but I am here now and I will answer any questions you may have pertaining to Dusk and our position with Night and all the other courts. When that is over I wish to discuss the building of a new hospital. One of our own nearly died in an attack by the Night Court’s Crows. It was not a random attack but rather composed by Reichenbach because of what happened between him and I. The fact that Lysander came so close to death made me realize how much stronger and more informed our healing needs to be. I propose a hospital to be built here, amidst the boughs of the trees. If the fables are to be believed true, then this is the source of healing for the whole of Terrastella and I plan to harness that.”
The words trail off to the sounds of the swamp. Flora’s eyes drift over her people, one by one. “So, if any of you have any questions, on the hospital, on the Ilati, on our relationship with Night and any of the other courts, let me hear them now.”
And she waits, at last open, at last fiercely keen for what the future might hold for Terrastella.
((OOC: Okay my loves, so, feel free to have you char ask any questions in relation to the whole Reich/Flora/Isorath saga, Flora feels now is the time to get everything out in the open. Also, this is an opportunity to lay foundations more for the Ilati when they begin to come in (have a read of Dusk’s history and the Ilati lore on the Lore board if you are not sure who the Ilati are). Finally, we will be getting a sub-board which will be the hospital. I have imagined it up in the tops of the trees, like Lothlórien in LOTR. Feel free to pm me with questions or just have your char ask away.
Flora will also introduce the new ranks in this thread too! <3 ))
I paid the price and own the scars why did we climb to fall so far ?
Sunlight scrapes precariously over precariously hewn wings reaching for the sun that is so far away. Glinting beneath heavenly light small chains laugh gaily as the girl's feathers rustle and head tilts upward, rich amber eyes closed as she takes in one breath, and then another, and another, only to be terminated by the faintest of sighs and more sorrow spilling upon her shoulders.
What would help Estelle?
Sick, cold, alone. Abandoned. Clanking through her head like tanks rolling over battlegrounds, she cringes at the thought of her poor cousin whom she left to find herbs to help heal her. Was she even still alive? Worry ate at the laugh lines that were tucked into the very edge of her eyes, around the corners of her once-beaming mouth. It was detestable to have left her there, so alone in a world they did not know. But Estelle is strong, she reminds herself, thoroughly scolded (although to say calmness had returned would be a falsity even she could not commit to) and once more focused, Moira's dark lashes flutter open at last.
Striking beauty of a woman pieced together from sunlight and stars themselves, she is a living masterpiece. Orange skin clings tightly to an arched neck and swaying hips, wraps like a lover over sparrow-boned breast and aching heart, curls like smoke about a face that darkens just enough to draw the eyes away from curious ivory marks that mar her proud chest and soaring wings, pulling ever further away from the starlight that sprouts from her sides. The phoenix woman holds herself tall despite such average stature. She does not seek to be flashy or garner unwanted attention, simply existing within the biome and living within her means.
This new land was strange, the people she had yet to get to know personally. Caretaker. That's the title she'd been given when entering the den of artists and claiming them as her kin just as the esteemed Tonnerre's had taken Moira as one of their own when but a young girl. They'd found her alongside the lake, searching then much as she was now for Lizard Tail and Floatingheart to help create poultices and potions alike that would heal from within and without a body. It was the art she'd been taught - the life she'd chosen.
A life of servitude was all she could offer.
To the water she now looks, determination creeping in along the edges, wiping away the worry and unease that haunts her day and night, replacing self doubt with stone cold certainty. Moira was born for this. From a young age she'd been instructed on how to help, how to heal. It was her one gift to the world, if nothing else ever came of her.
Many plants are in full bloom, proud to display their color (or lack of) upon the surface, even moreso to survive to be tall enough that Moira would notice them. Careful are the steps she takes forward into the pool once more, avoiding the saddened eyes she knows so well that would stare back at her should she choose to watch the girl that enters the pool just like herself. What would she find there? Every time it's the same. Bracelets from her beloved Estelle would disappear, forgotten as the woman was when Moira was working - a shame she should never get over; black and white locks held tight into braids and buns, looking much more than her four years should allow; and the face of a girl who'd left her family and all she'd ever loved.
Regret.
At the end of it all, she knew she'd find that within the heart of the woman who would stare back at her. Where did she fit in the grand scheme of things? Perhaps she'd found Denocte and the Night Court and their denizens because her heart called to the artists, the lovers, those too passionate for their skins. But she was not alive like they were - she did not truly live as they did, did she? Fire courses in their hearts, they are unafraid to proclaim love and show their creations. Moira, esteemed daughter of the Tonnerre clan, Phoenix Woman cut from the sky itself, disgraced and reborn, hated and loved. Moira... Now she was just... Moira. Caretaker for Denocte, in charge of patching up wounds, keeping the shelves stocked, and minding her own business until she was right and ready to let herself find another home that would help heal Estelle as it should her.
She sighs again, at last meeting those accusing eyes. Traitor they say, glaring at her even though she wears no such expression upon her much more neutral visage. Brows draw tight once more, and in an unusual show of discomfort she splashes away her own reflection, refusing to look any longer at herself for fear of what more she would find. Forcefully she pushes further into the pools, feet sinking into mud, moving over rocks with algae so heavy upon their surface they seem almost covered in biofilms of slime. It is a cesspool for parasites, but these waters hold herbs she needs as well.
code: e-cho; image: unsplash
in this house of broken hearts we made our love out of stacks of cards
Golden hooves made soft clip, clop sounds as soft earth gave way to stone, and she approached the caverns with a skeptical eye. Her skin quivered in the cool air, her breath leaving her nose in puffs of white air. The small opening looked dark and uninviting, but it wasn't that the mare was worried about what might lie inside - she was hardly afraid of the dark - but she wasn't sure it looked any warmer than being outside. In the end she shrugged her elegant shoulders and slipped into the darkness. Even if it wasn't warmer, at least it would serve as some protection from the wind and rain - the clouds above looked like they were beginning to darken, and they crowded around the moon to block out its light every now and then.
The sound of her slow gait echoed in the darkness, and she was surprised to find that the caverns kept going and going. Her tail flicked back and forth, her sleek head swaying from one side to the other as she eyed up the sleek sides of the ancient walls. She knew she should stop. It would be easy to become lost in the dark, but she was intrigued. Who knew what she might find here. Or who she might find for that matter.
"speaking colour"
@Seraphina this is utter poop and I apologize xD But hey it's a starter!
It is a tranquil night when Florentine lands, light and nimble upon the edge of Denocte’s cliffs.
But such peace will not last.
She takes a breath, a whisper of air that rushes in and rushes out. Here, upon this cliff, the nymph queen of smiles and flowers is small and slight, soft and gold…
…Until the shadows begin to creep.
Up and up her golden skin they crawl. This darkness is a shawl she once gladly wore. But now they feel like ants upon her skin, creeping and scuttling.
It is her trembling that starts everything. It is the silken touch of the moon upon her back, pouring mercury, that has her fury rising like dragon fire. It is a fury that has slept, that has been pushed away. But Florentine is a volcano now. Her fury is lava that will no longer be bound and it builds and builds and builds. Yet, Dusk’s queen is no mere volcano able to rend the skies alone. No, this volcanic girl is set to rend worlds.
Her fury snaps with the energy of stars colliding. Her subtle knife rends the air, but it does not stop there. It presses and pushes and stops only when it reaches another world. Any world the fury cries from her thrumming veins. The knife rips in a jagged slash and a wound yawns open between worlds. Red light and fierce solar winds pour in through the open window. This world she has opened a window too is as wild as her anger, it is as crimson as her hurt. With her teeth she pulls the seam of the worlds open, open, open. More, more, more.
The earth begins to shake, she can feel its trembling in her limbs. It is a song that made the earth move and it is thundering its way up the girl’s caramel limbs. The quaking makes Florentine’s nerves sing, and her teeth chatter. Her whole body is alight beneath its fierce roar. Was this what it was to open herself up and let the hurt of her betrayal roar?
Stone and rock and open air resonated with this sound, this terrible music. A solar storm: a wind of fire and rage, of stars and metal sweeps into Denocte. It has no place here, like her fury, but Reichenbach invited both.
The sea is a fierce and wild chant behind her. It cries as it breaks upon the jagged cliffs and hisses its fury as the frothing waters pull back from the wetted stone. High up the cliffside the Dusk queen stands, within the ruins of a fallen watchtower. Was it once built to watch Dusk? If so, she thinks, it should not have been so easily forgotten. The lines of her delicate face darken like an artist’s shadow. She is art, here beneath this savage scene, but it not art of this world. It is the shadow of anger, the same energy that drives the raging winds. She laughs, for a moment, free and terrible. The winds arch back, like a cat and swirl about her frame, it knows that laugh means nothing good. That laugh so wild, so full of fury.
The girl was made in fire and ice. Her skin is scolded by frost, her soul lit with flames. After a fire there is always life, always flowers. It was why she is the flower girl, fed by heat and light and water. There is nothing peaceful in her life, nothing that would ever remain soft and gentle. This storm, welcomed from another world, reminds her now like the Night King reminded her then.
At last she steps away from the rampart’s edge. She is gold and beautiful and terrible beneath this keening sky of unnatural winds. An ear twists amidst its nest of gold and lavender. It listens to the crooning of Denocte’s stars and moon. Darkness dares to seep over her again and in silence her dagger rises in opposition. It cuts deep, deep into air and nothingness. But it’s pointed tip pierces everything. Florentine holds and drags that cutting blade, spilling another world’s light across the night ground in a short, sharp slash. She does not stop there, she cuts and cuts and cuts, again and again, on and on until the night is full of rippling, white light. Until it is like a thousand worlds throw their sunlight here. It falls across her skin, banishing the shadows from her body and the darkness flees like beetles beneath the nuclear force of her ire.
Her paper heart thunders in her chest but Florentine is numb, numb, numb. Reichenbach wanted her to tell him the truth. Well, this was it: Florentine is not of this world, or any single one. Not even she knows when, or where, she began to exist. This girl has been born so many times, in so many places. She has died twice already: once old and ready, once young and so unprepared. She will die again, an infinite number of times until time is ready to die itself.
Reichenbach thinks he knew her. He doesn’t. She doesn’t even know herself. Old and ancient is her soul. It has travelled time and space so well that there is no world or time, that does not know her. She is fated, for she has twisted herself up in time so much she cannot be anything but.
Time waits for Florentine like she now waits for the Night King. Upon the ruins of the old watchtower she stands, with her eyes out upon the sea. Flora had sent a crow ahead of her. It was black as pitch and dirty with sin, and it bore her message for him. Their council was now, as though beneath the light of a thousand worlds.
@Reichenbach oh wow have a novel about an angry Flora! xDD
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
All things considered, Toulouse was rather bored so far with this new world.
Apart from his initial deposit onto the bleach and the treacherous climb to safety, he had yet to be truly challenged. He’d always considered himself to be a diamond: lovely and sparkling, yes, but even more importantly he could handle the pressure and the intense heat required to form such gemstones. Both were merely tools to him, a means to becoming more beautiful. He could, he would endure it all willingly. Beauty was pain, was it not?
The thought brought a twisted smile to his pale lips, twirling a tendril of hair around his telekinetic grasp. Perhaps he should have been a god, what with his dashing looks and powers of persuasion. He had successfully tricked men and women alike into admiring him—and that was the purpose of any deities, was it not? To give the mortals a false sense of comfort while reaping the benefits of worship for their own selfish gain? It all sounded like a pretty good gig to Toulouse.
“But a god of what?” he mused aloud to himself, sinking to his knees within a small cluster of aspen trees. The grass was a cool and soft bed, the trees casting a refreshing shade over his golden back. It was a picture perfect haven of relaxation—the only thing missing was an altar boy to feed him grapes. “Beauty, perhaps? I’m sure I could rival Persephone, and all those other fabled goddesses… don’t you agree?”
The golden man had slipped into the habit of talking to himself recently, to make up for the loss of his proverbial shadow’s responses. Had he known better, he just might have admitted it was the loneliness finally getting to his head. As it was he simply ignored the practice altogether, choosing to pretend instead that it was normal. Or, better yet, to imagine that familiar figure beside him once more, every response in his head an actual conversation between the two of them. Even now he cast back and ear, allowing his eyes to drift sideways so that he might scrutinize his literal shadow, as if expected it to stand up and materialize into a breathing horse.
“I agree, the younger generation really does need a role-model… a god as beautiful as us.” A small crystal vial appeared from one of the folds of his scarves, its cap unscrewing in the air to spill a rosy-hued liquid down the line of his crest. The scent of roses filled the air as he began working the oil through his unruly tresses.
For a few moments he was quiet, focused on his beauty care. He hated to think what the sun and heat might be doing to his hair. The oil helped prevent harm, it was true, but he was running out quickly. And Novus was still a foreign land to Toulouse who had yet to see a market stand set up, let alone one selling perfumes and hair care. He wondered, did they even know what such things were here? Admittedly, the few other souls he’d encountered had flaunted less than stellar personal hygiene…
He tossed his mane back over his shoulders, so that it hung long and curled over his withers, the vial of oil disappearing back from whence it had come. “I’ll be honest, it would seem that they could use someone like me here.”
He cocked his head thoughtfully then, suddenly intrigued by the way the light danced through the leaves overhead.
“…Only to help them, of course.”
the motherland don't love you,
the fatherland don’t love you.
so why love anything?
the faithless; they don't love you
the zealous hearts don’t love you.
and that's not gonna change.
Taking that first step into the Dusk Court had felt like coming home, like the trees themselves were welcoming him back with the gentle waving of their branches in the wind, showering him with a flurry of fallen leaves and flower petals. Every sight, every scent, every sound was familiar to him, a hundred different comforts that seemed to ease his mind in nearly an instant. He had come at dusk, having watched the sun carefully during the day so that he could be sure he arrived at the perfect time to experience Vespera’s pride and joy.
For a moment, he was still: listening to the wind whisper sweet nothings to him, carrying with it the music of the Dusk Court. He brushed his muzzle delicately, sweetly, every so gently across the trunk of a tree he stood beside, hovering a fraction of an inch away before taking the plunge to press himself firmly into the bark.
A myriad of colors and emotions flashed inside of his mind like lightning. An interlocking web of energy from not only this tree: but from several of the trees surrounding it, and the grass, and the woodpecker hiding far above in it’s branches, and the line of ants trudging up one of its exposed roots. With a startled snort, Ipomoea pulled back sharply, the tip of his nose tingling like he had been zapped by electricity.
He sat back into a mini rear, his sudden movement startling Odet into flight, the stellar’s jay abandoning the safety of his withers for the open air.
Dirt was kicked up behind him as he took off, shooting like an arrow through the swamp, hoof beats echoing loudly on the wooden walkways. He spun and cavorted, kicking his heels up like a young colt on his way, thundering through the swamp without a care in the world. Odet swooped along behind him, chattering angrily at the unexpected change in his companion’s behavior. Ipomoea simply laughed in response, the sounds of his joy loud in the otherwise still swamp.
Trees flashed by in a whirl as he passed them, hardly aware of where he was going, simply following the strip of wood beneath his hooves.
Until suddenly he burst through the trees and into a clearing, where the swampy ground was replaced by tall grasses and wildflowers, the wooden walkway disappearing suddenly under hoof. Ipomoea skid sharply to a stop, his breath catching high in his throat as a kaleidoscope of colors greeted him from above, the skies turned into a canvas for the Terrastellan goddess.
The deepest of purples and blues brightened the closer they got to the horizon, where reds and pinks and golds flamed brightly. It was breathtaking and beautiful, arguably the most mesmerizing sunset he had seen to date. Ipomoea was so caught up in wonder and awe that he failed to notice anything else about the meadow, so enraptured was he by the skies.
@Florentine i am so excited for them! <3
”here am i!“
The shade of the forest was a welcome reprieve from the hear of summer, cool and dark and quiet within the foliage. It was as if Ipomoea had entered a whole new world, vastly different from the one he’d been in only moments before. This world was one filled with a hundred shades of green, and a thousand more vibrant colors shining in the petals and blossoms of the flowers crowded at the base of every tree, their heady aroma rising up to envelope him in a feeling he could only describe as safety.
For a moment, all he could do was stop and take it in with bright and eager pink eyes. The delicate skin lining edges of his nares quivered in anticipation, the speckled wings nestled upon his ankles fanning his legs with cool air in unrestrained excitement.
There were so many new things to see—so many distractions that tempted him, called to him, begged him to come forth and examine the spider web hanging between those two trees, or to inspect the strange, toothed plant that appeared to be eating flies and other insects whole. To find patterns which the leaves overhead cast with their shadows on the ground below, or to trace the petals on those impossibly large flowers with his muzzle to determine in they really were as soft as they looked.
But he resisted—with no small amount of effort. He had business today: he was looking for someone he’d only met once before, who had cried to him over the loss of a partner, who he had helped pick flowers with. He wondered vaguely how the slender man was doing, and whether or not he’d found whom he was looking for: Ipomoea had continued to look, in the time since they’d parted, but with no luck.
But he didn’t want to think on such things today, just in case the news turned out to be bad. He wanted to be happy today! That was what summer was about, was it not? The joys of freedom, of free-spiritedness.
The trail he was on weaved and dipped and climbed, seeming more like a random course through the trees than a deliberate pathway, stomped with the scarce hoof prints of the horses who had come before him. Ipomoea did not mind; it felt like an adventure, each new curve something new to explore. It kept his mind busy, but in an exciting way. Lately his life had been sorely lacking in creative outlets, prompting him to take full advantage of the quiet of the forest today.
A flash of white caught his attention up ahead, a body moving slowly through the trees. His ears pricked forward sharply at the observation, legs snapping up in a high-spirited trot to bring him closer, to close the distance.
“Eros!” he called out when he was reasonably sure of the figure who continued to walk away from him, the long yellow tail and the hairless crest sticking out to him now. “Is that you up there?”
Hopefully it was. Though if it wasn’t, perhaps he’d simply make a new friend. It was a win-win, really.
At least, that's how Ipomoea would choose to look at it.
The sun was as hot as he’d ever felt it, blazing down in such a way that it seemed to cook him alive, through his brown and white speckled coat, straight to the bone. It brought him back in his mind, to the distant and hazy memories of his foalhood that took place here. To a time when all he’d known was the proximity of the sun and the sand of the desert, and the deep, rough yet kind voice of the blacksmith who had provided him shelter. He could still smell the leather, could see the sparks from the forge, the might swing of his hammer brought down onto a white-hot strip of metal. The weight of the weapons across his scrawny back, far too heavy for his delicate frame to bear.
A year ago, Ipomoea would never have believed he was destined to return here willingly.
A shadow shaded his eyes momentarily as Odet passed by overhead in a wide, lazy arc. His presence was a comfort, Ipomoea’s constant companion here among the empty sands that stretched out behind him. He wasn’t alone. Not this time. Not like when he’d been abandoned to die amidst those unforgiving sands.
Of course, Somnus was with him as well, his brother by choice. He, too, was a comfort, a side to press into in case he was in need of a stronger shoulder, a steady hand to guide him. His presence and companionship made the walk through the desert far more enjoyable.
The Davke attack was evident in the remains of the Day Court capitol, piles of rubble and ruin lurking around every corner. the fires may have long been extinguished, but the rose-colored boy suspected it would take far longer for the residents to clean up the ashes and scorch marks upon the remaining walls.
But a group of children continued to play here in the courtyard square anyway, a riotous game of tag prompting fits of laughter and high-pitched squeals. It brought a smile to his lips, a flicker of hope fluttering to life within his chest.
Naturally, the squire who met him was far less enthusiastic. His eyes caught site of Ipomoea's own, steely and cold despite the heat of the desert. “State your name and purpose, boy.”
The derision in his voice took Ipomoea by surprise. He knew he was young—and he was no good at hiding it—but no one in Delumine had sneered at him because of it. What was youth if not an opportunity to learn, to experience? Was the Day Court really so different from their western neighbors? Mentally he added it to the list of reasons he did not belong here, perhaps would never belong here.
He drew himself up, lifting his head considerably higher before answering the runner. “Regent Ipomoea and Sovereign Somnus of the Dawn Court. Here to speak with Sovereign Seraphina, and to bring gifts to the Day Court.” The look he received was nothing short of doubtful, but he supposed he deserved it here. From his delicate ankle wings to the crown of flowers on his brow, he did not fit in. He did not look like someone worthy of their respect, far was he from warrior-esque. But the squire turned anyway, gesturing for them to follow nonetheless into the cool interior of the palace. Ipomoea cast a glance back at Somnus before taking the first step forward.
Their hoofbeats echoed on the sandstone floor as they walked, Ipomoea doing his best to land ultra-gently, suddenly self-conscious as he was of how much noise they were making. His wings folded themselves abruptly against his lower legs, as if they, too, were trying to disappear from sight.
After what felt like an eternity they came to a stop, and Ipomoea found himself waiting before a grand set of double doors, blocking his sight from what lay behind them.
And there he waited alongside his King, for the desert Queen herself to let him in. His heartbeat fluttered in his chest, the feathers of his small, fragile wings ruffling.
OOC | @Seraphina, and @Somnus if you still wanna join! I tried to leave it open, I can edit it more if you;d like ;u;
I thought I was flying but maybe I'm dying tonight
Virun finds herself caught somewhere ugly and in-between.
She struggles to line up her meandering thoughts.Here is what she knows: she is in the lands of the Dusk Court, Terrastella. She is just outside of the entrance to their capitol city. (She hears the wind whistling through what she imagines are high stone walls, although “high” and “stone” and “walls” register as little more than a concoction of sounds in her mind; they aren’t words with much of a meaning to Virun.) This Dusk Court will likely be willing to take her in. (A significant part of her doubts that. Why would they want to take her in? You’ll only cause problems. No. Celes will come for her, eventually. They all will, and when They come, she’ll be useful again. But, she tells herself, she’ll be useful at home - she can’t stay here. Not when her people might need. Need you, Virun? Don’t be ridiculous. They needed you to deal with the heir, and you couldn’t even do that properly.) She can recover in “Terrastella” and begin her search for Them. She doesn’t know exactly what that will entail yet, but she assumes that she can start by searching for a library, if this…Novus has them. She’ll have to find someone to read for her, though, and the thought of being forced to ask for help in this new, strange land makes her stomach twist into knots. That is, assuming that they read at all, and assuming that they have any literature on Them anyways. She can’t even be entirely sure of who – or what – inhabits this land. When Ein helped her up the beach, Virun thought that he was another equine, but she wonders if equines are the only sentient creatures that inhabit this place. When They used to whisper stories to her at night to help her sleep, They would tell her of strange lands that were nothing like her own and ruled by the most curious creatures she could imagine. (Not that she could imagine much.) They told her that Novus was really no different than the land from which she came, but she knows that, although They are her friends (Friends wouldn’t abandon you, Virun.), They don’t think about the world in the same way that she – or any mortal, really – does. They served as her eyes for years, but she knows better than anyone that it’s not safe to trust their judgement.
When she stretches out her left wing to grasp at the air in front of her, she feels their feathers stroke up against stone walls; whatever this city looks like, she has the feeling that she’s right outside of its walls. With her wing injured, she’s innately aware that she’s at the mercy of whoever happens to find her, and it makes her stomach turn knots. Ein seemed nice enough, and he seemed to think that she would be safe here, but Virun knows the danger that comes with seeming. In this strange, dark new world, she’s alone.
(You’re alone. Hadn’t she always wanted to be alone, to take care of herself, to be treated like she wasn’t made of glass? But now she’s here, and she wants to cry for her parents or her siblings or Celes or anyone who might be willing to hear her – she thought that she was stronger than this, but now she feels like she’s in over her head. Virun tried to swim, once, and she nearly drowned because she couldn’t find her way to the surface after she sunk beneath the waves, weighed down by her wild tangles of hair and awkward wings. It feels a lot like that.)
With no concept of time and even less of an idea of where to go, she’s left to wait, struggling to ignore the throbbing pain of her wing and the copper smell of blood.
tags | @asterion @cyrene notes | takes place just after ein tor dumps her outside of Dusk, or something. she's malnourished, her right wing is injured, and she probably looks pretty mangled.
