Cute and tiny quote
try to make the text
match up at the ends
so it forms a nice box
There have been many faces he did not expect to see asgain… Vaella is one of them. His heart practically leapt in his chest when word passed through his ears and he became desperate to find his companion. Somewhere through the grapevine he heard of the winge d kirin residing in night court and he practically clambered to find his way to her doorstep. Jude has never stepped foot into Night Court.. More from teh sheer lack of desire more than anything else. Never in his life had he expected to become a wanderer like he has. In the past year he has trekked over more earth than ever before and it leaves a soft feeling of pride in his chest. He is brave. He is capable of great things and he is not holding himself back from living anymore.
HE had been so unsure of court, but Vaella had been an exception to the convoluted lifestyle attributed to Vectaeryn nobility. When he had chosen the burning it ascended more than his flesh but his social standing and it was a terrifying feeling. Jude had been the beginning of a new house, a curiosity at his rejection of a dragon.. Opting for the quiet companionship of his cats. Vaella lacked the menacing perfection and her ties to Isorath had only made Jude all the more at ease in her company. He cannot shake his desperation to seek out an individual who knows his home, who know him.
He walks the streets of Night Court, unnerved at the idea of what punishment may come to a foreigner. Jude keeps his head down until he spots a flash of white, for a moment his stomach plummets and his breath seizes until it shifts into an overwhelming sense of joy.
“Vaella…!?” He calls, his voice echoing over the noise around him. “Vaella is that you!?”
He had loved too greatly, too fiercely and it broke him. Rather then stew in the weakness of his broken heart, he picked up the scattered shards and chose himself. All of this had been fueled by reckless infatuation, foolish obsession that left a sour taste in his mouth when he looked back on it. Passion was fleeting. Passion was like a flame fed solely by parchment, hot and burning for a moment before all that remained was smoldering ash and a putrid stench. Still.. He harbored no bitterness. How could he project responsibility of his feelings onto another? No.. He is bigger than that. He loved himself too much to rest in bitterness.
Once before he had been reborn, letting the fire peel away his flesh to craft himself into something new. It had been a second burning, but this time there was no fire, merely the heat of his own determination and the roar of his heart. Too long he had been unkind to himself. Too long he had suffocated in a pit, so he willed himself to carve a new path.
Jude decides to return to Novus. Returning to Vectaeryn is too easy. He has decided to push himself beyond what cage he tried to wedge himself into back home. Life was far too mundane, sitting beside his pond and listening to the ripple of the mortal made waterfall. He isn’t as afraid as he once been. Of course anxiety doesn’t merely melt away, but it is spring and he feels born again.
With a deep breath he steps into familiar territory, Terrastella.. There is no sense of warmth of a return, no sense of homilness. Instead it brings back waves of memories, of hiding tucked in what chambers he had claimed. It had been a miserable time that only a selection of memories could rival. Has anyone even missed me? He thinks, more of a curiosity than a mournful thought. Jude doesn’t lament over the possibility of being forgotten by strangers. There is a small circle that reside in Novus that matter, but it is not the citizens of Dusk..
Do you think Isorath is here? Mittens murmurs through their bond, the small bundle of white tucked in her favorite spot between his shoulders. I don’t know… And it doesn’t particularly matter, Jude responds. Whatever had befallen the prince he has built a wall around his heart and he will not fantasies.. Infatuation is fleeting and his eyes have opened since that time. Princes with glistening smiles and pretty words are not what he needs, and he is content. Never in his life has he felt at peace within his own skin, within the body the gods created for him. Jude releases a breath and comes to a halt, merely waiting to see who or what might greet him upon his return. He is not the same. He is not the quiet boy sniveling in the corner, instead he keeps his head high though he cannot fathom why he's returned to T
Tendrils of smoke curl in her lungs, all cinnamon and nutmeg and the musk of newborn earth whispering against the paper walls. Nostalgia has become a stone dropping in her stomach, heavy and unforgiving. But it is also the stars that tug at her hair spun of moonbeams, glimmering in silver as the sky begins to fade. Uncommonly, her gaze is not on the luster of the sun as it falls ever dutiful to the horizon, dipping below the expanse of trees in the Arma’s shadows. She does not note the burst of violent reds and cruel orange as Calligo’s violet swallows the heavens like gravity. The stormsinger does not even notice the first stars that begin to wake in patches where her vision is not clouded by branches and a wall of mountain stone.
Her eyes are on the pillars of smoke that rise and wisp into the night that falls, never wavering from their fingers that reach towards the first breath of stars. The muscles of her chest constrict, tightening, entwining around her heart in rose vines. Memories and guilt prick at her with thorns, leaving her bleeding and bare under the shadows of the trees that hide her. The darkness that cradles her under the mountain is a phantom wall that separates her from what she desires most.
To be home again. And her tribe is no closer than over the crest of hills that tumble from the impenetrable wall that shields Denocte from the world.
Only Calligo knows what she would give to find the courage to close the distance from where she stands.
Doing so would mean that her new crown, her regency, would be real. Wonderfully, blessedly, brutally real. And she would no longer be their Maiden, their protector. She had known that she no longer could be the Face that they needed; she had known that one day, she would have to look her people in the eye as she stepped down. Aislinn was many things, but a coward she was not. Eventually, she would no longer yearn to join them, noting every burned out bonfire, missing them by moments. The tendrils of their revelry and wood fires still coax her, pleading, and oh how she wants to give in. Drums beat and thrum, building with each breath as the sun sinks lower and lower still.
But the murmurs of nightfall pull at her, and she cannot decipher their words. And for the first time, the tinkle of her gypsy coins is a spear that stabs her, and no longer a song that she would do anything to hear.
So still, she waits, and watches as silent as the stars above.
REGENT OF THE NIGHT COURT
@reichenbach <3
I CAN’T CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT
”Aislinn speech.”
I'M A MAN, I'M A TWISTED FOOL,
MY HANDS ARE TWISTED, TOO,
FIVE FINGERS TWO BLACK HOOVES
Forces all over Novus had been put into motion — some of them his own doing, others had happened without his knowledge. The world was brewing and seething, and Denocte had been placed (once again) in the center of it. This time, though, The Night King was not interested in amends or relations, for he was certain in the knowledge that diplomacy would not aid their fair city of stars. Others, namely the stars to his eyes, Isorath, disagreed. The King Crow knew people though, knew when to push and press and when to retreat — knew when it was best to strike, to slip his sticky fingers into a pocket and retrieve what he needed without the target even knowing.
Dusk was riled, or rather, it's monarchy was. He did not regret breaking Lysanders face beneath his bloody fist, did not regret the way his blood had boiled and fizzed with the rush of it — it had been so long since he'd allowed himself to be less than civil, to be the King Crow his people knew. Now he was perched, satisfied, above the chaos that had been released. The old God would get better, so he'd heard, though the path to recovery would be a slow and painful one — long enough for the ex-God to reconsider who he smirked at.
Now it was time to re-assemble the Court.
Camdis' illness had put him aside and out of action during all of the turmoil, and the weight of Regent would have to be removed from his shoulders. They also needed an Emissary — he had both positions mulling in his mind, names swirling comfortably, ready to settle into stone.
The evening was tepid, clouds rumbling threateningly above their citadel as a storm promised it's arrival. The winds were starting to pick up, plucking at the ebony banners of night as Reichenbach stepped upon the stone castle steps — waiting for others to arrive. His Crows had spread the whisper, the news that a new Court would be rising tonight... and that if any wished to be a part of it, they should attend.
The wind picked at his ebony curls as he waited, taking his coins and jangling them erratically. Shadows curled at his nape and around his rough jaw as his Court slowly arrived, all of them beautiful and exotic — all of them his to protect, his to care for.
His heart was big enough for them all.
It was true that Night bred volatile love, it was chaos and a wildness that could not be contained — and it was brutal at times. But it also bred the most beautiful, the most inescapable and unforgettable. It was proven simply by looking at the crowd before him. His argent gaze wandered and slid from face to face, pausing at a porcelain figure only arriving now — his pearl, Isorath. A roguish smile appeared upon his black lips, his voice booming outward like thunder;
"Denocte!"
His smile grew, charming and buoyed by his people, their loyalty and their love of home.
"The forces of this world are moving, changing... reacting."
Reichenbach's piercing gaze honed in on the golden chaos that was Acton, then slid to Raum — he'd yet to be filled in on all the details of Bexley Briar's maiming... but they were his Crows, his boys, his family. If he had to fight a war to keep their heads, so be it.
"It is time we renew our ranks — with our current Regent, Camdis Lohir, stepping down, and Lothaire leaving us for new lands, we have some positions open."
A pause, his gaze roaming the crowds, seeking familiar faces.
"Aislinn Stormsinger, our Champion of Battle — will you step into the place of Regent and serve our City of Stars to the best of your ability?"
His silver gaze strayed once again to the object of his heart, the tines that were twined with that fateful silver chain. He couldn't help it — a smile swelled upon his black lips.
"And Isorath Flamekeeper, as our most diplomatic citizen, will you step into the position of Emissary and serve your new Kingdom?"
Reichenbach was loathe to turn away from the Kirin, long lashed eyes straining for a moment before searching for the other Court members — Rostislav, his Warden, whom had visited Florentine only days after whisper of war had been upon the air, and whom had been missing for too long beforehand. He would need to make amends for that absence, or risk being replaced. Then Lyra, whom he knew had been searching for the perfect Council, Araxes... his little bird whom had been so injured both physically and mentally he did not know if she would even want to continue serving (yet another reason Reichenbach needed to pay Torstein a visit...) and Seree, whom had also been far too absent in such stringent times.
"If any should wish to serve in our Court, please step forth and state your intention now."
I'M A MAN, DON'T SPIN ME A LIE,
GOT TOES AND I CAN SMILE,
I'M CROOKED BUT UPRIGHT.
A little Court refresher!! If you'd like to keep your current position within the Court please respond — all positions are open to new blood also, so if you think your character would do well within the Court please reply! <3 <3
The Night was a still one, a rare gem for Denocte as silence reigned — the only sound, this deep in the night, was the sigh of Calligo's gentle breeze. It sent the silk curtains billowing quietly through the Kings chambers, the moons light stretching longingly to caress the rough hewn shape of him. Reichenbach's chambers were surprisingly rustic, for though he enjoyed the finer things in life (and robbing them, for the fun of it) he had no need for jewels or gold. The King Crow was known for his heart, and as such it was all he needed. He would have been just as happy, if not happier, laying out underneath the stars by Vitreus Lake. As long as the sleeping man beside him was there too.
The moonlight faltered and stretched to embrace the ivory shape curled up beside him, sliding milky fingers over each regal line of his pearl. Isorath looked elegant even in sleep, his long lashes brushing the fine curve of his cheekbones, his hair sprawled in ivory waves across the pillow. So beautiful. So handsome. An intimate smiled curled slowly over Reichenbach's black lips, his silver eyes swallowing every piece of the man beside him. He tucked Isorath closer to him, laying his head beside the Kirin despite being completely and utterly awake. Their hair tangled, ebony curls mixing keenly with ivory strands.
Isorath had gone to Day.
Willingly and with gifts.
Reich stared at the sleeping line of his lover, begrudging. He had always lacked diplomacy, despite Iscariot's teaching, and lately had felt a distinct lack of need for the political behaviour — had even considered returning Night to an isolated state. Perhaps... perhaps if Torstein had not savaged Aislinn, he would have played with the idea of attempted amends. Rhoswen adored the sun-soaked place, and he'd even been friends with Bexley — but now..
Now.. Day had earned his full hostility.
Aislinn was family. She might not have been Crow, but she had supported him from the very beginning — from the start of their ill-fated romance even to now... she supported Night and so supported him. The Champion of Battle was bonded to him, and he to her. Torstein had better watch his fucking back.
Reichenbach felt his lip curl and glanced at Isorath, letting the scowl drop away as his telekinesis brushed a piece of soft hair from that beautiful face. Had it been anyone else making the trip to Day, he would have made his fury known — but Isorath was... untouchable. He couldn't have roared at him if he tried. Not that the King of Thieves wanted anyone to know such a thing — it simply was what it was.
A slow breath brought with it the familiar scent of lavender oil and tea, calming his broad chest and racing mind. The Night was long and quiet, and for now, in this moment..
The fires are out, and the bodies burned with them; the Davke have run back to the sands or hunted down and left for dead. For a breath, the silver thinks, as she stands on the battlements, staring out at the rolling dunes of golden sand stretching out endlessly towards the horizon, the devastation has passed, but it has passed through like a hurricane. The storm is gone, but now she knows that the wake will never be over. The dead will remain dead, and what was destroyed – a hundred year’s history and every tool that enabled her people to survive in a merciless desert that was ravenous for their blood – can never be brought back. She is left like the smell of smoke that still clings to the capitol. She remains. She remains, even though she has never wished more desperately to run away in all her life.
Her troubled dreams taste like blood and death, and, no matter where she looks, she is reminded of her failure, of the people she could not save, the people that deserved far better than this, hunted down and slaughtered in their own homes. Unjust. Merciless. She has never thought herself righteous, and perhaps she is not, but she aches for them. She aches for the children, for the elderly, for the innocent – for those who could not defend themselves, for those who she could not protect. Perhaps it is her soldier’s training at work, the part of her that was beaten and broken into absolute loyalty to her court’s defense. Perhaps it is something more sentimental than that, too, but, if it is, she does not want to let it in. If this has finally been enough to stir the parts of her that she has so carefully buried, she will force them back down; she cannot afford to compromise her logic, least of all now.
She blinks sunlight out of her aching eyes and turns back down the ruined stairways, descending into the cooler depths of the palace. Everywhere she looks, she seems to find shards of glass and broken wood, or dark smudges of ash. She moves through the sun-dappled hallways like clockwork, exhausted limbs propelling her mechanically from one room to the next until she arrives in the mess that was the throne room, though it seems nothing like one now – the throne is blackened, with the symbol of Solis carved out of it, and the beautiful stained glass windows lie in piles against the walls. At least, she thinks, the blood has been cleaned off the floor.
Quick on her heels is a young courier. “The…envoy from Denocte has arrived, my lady. Shall I let him in?” She glances back at him, guising her reluctance with apathy.
She had not accepted Isorath’s request for an audience lightly; in truth, she did not wish to accept it at all. However, in the interest of knowledge, she had begrudgingly agreed. Know thy enemy, she told herself, though Denocte’s intentions seemed to her rather clear based on their treatment of Terrastella and their attack against her citizen. Nevertheless, in spite of her present arrangement with Florentine and her own injury, she prefers to avoid the appearance of outright hostility – she knows that her people cannot withstand another attack, not now. As far as she is concerned, she will be perfectly polite to Reichenbach’s newest paramour – another thing that she fails to understand about the Night King, and the entire situation with Denocte and Terrastella, but interpersonal tangles have never been her interest - and then send him on his way.
She does not wish to do this, but there is work to be done. “…yes.” She makes no attempts to guise the war that brews beneath her skin, barely tempered by restraint; she awaits the dragon statuesque, her white hair tousled free of its braids and her eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights.
She was settling.
It wasn’t easy, but she’d learned that such massive upheavals never were; at least, she thought, the trade-off had come with considerably less bloodshed than the one before. Of course, a change in power always brought snakes out of the sand, and the recovering nobility posed more of a threat to the Court’s relative stability than she wanted to admit, but Seraphina had grown up with one foot in the swirling, violent world of Solterran politics and the other in war-torn foreign lands. She was cautious, but she was not fearful – her eyes were trained on the horizon, on what small leaps of progress she might be able to make with this newfound power. Her entire life had been a matter of mindlessly following orders. She had never been able to wish for more, and now…now she had a chance to change things, to undo what horrors had been done to her and to so many others – or to move past them, perhaps, because what damage was done could never be undone. She had never taken herself for an idealist, and it was likely too kind to call it genuine idealism. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of problems that had permeated her court for so long, for too long, and she knew that they had to be fixed. Because it was right. Because it was necessary.
She’d heard whispers of something strange occurring far out in the Mors today, so she had sent scouts to investigate; the timing was far from ideal, considering that they were to welcome the Queen of Terrastella and her Emissary into Solterra in a matter of hours. The scouts hadn’t returned, and, with each passing moment, she felt her unease grow. They should have returned by now.
With nothing to do but wait and mull, she paced the throne room, white tail lashing behind her. This was her first real diplomatic venture since her ascension, and, with the threat of Denocte and the image of Bexley Briar engraved in the back of her mind like some dark cloud, she desperately needed it to go smoothly – rumor told her that Terrastella had been similarly burned by the kingdom of night, and, in that, she wondered if she could find the basis for a strong alliance. They needed resources, healers, anything; the desert buckled beneath the weight of an entire kingdom, and they could not support themselves on dry grasses and an already-strained oasis forever. Eik, she knew, was buried in work last she checked, and Avdotya had disappeared before she’d been given the chance to ask her to attend the meeting. (She’d been absent more often than usual, lately; when she thought of her right hand, she felt a prickle of suspicion. Something was wrong.) Of course, she doubted that much work would be done on the first day of their visit, so she was comfortable enough to approach the foreign sovereign and her emissary on her own, even if she did feel somewhat poorly equipped to handle Terrastella’s honey-kissed flower queen and her emissary, who was, by all accounts, as whimsical and sensitive as the queen herself.
The massive iron doors at the far side of the great hall creaked open, and a young courtier scrambled inside, clearly nervous. “My lady,” He greeted, with a swift bow. “Queen Florentine and Lady Cyrene have arrived.” She nodded her acknowledgement.
“Please, bring them in.”
The story of her daughter's birth is an unexpected one; a fable of light infused with dark, an amalgamation which - even to the trained eye -was difficult to distinguish; who could determine where one shift of colour began and the other ceased? Some might say, however, that it was expected, had they witnessed the burgeoning lives of the bloodshot hurricane and her moonlit lover; perhaps they would have seen the germination of a spark cast into existence by the touch of his hand against her own as teens and thought to themselves in surety that the unlikely pair would see the tenuous mystery of passion before their sixth year. Rhoswen, herself, had never dared to acknowledge these whispers, these prophecies, until - after minutes, weeks, an eternity - later she found herself within a predicament she had never foreseen - or perhaps, furtively, she had? It mattered not, I suppose, for the consequence was the same: a child was to be brought forth from their confession, and there was nothing to be now said or done to change such a fact.
The fear of motherhood had been a languid weed furrowed deep within the marrow of her bones, left to bloom in the airless dark, and like creeping poison ivy it had woven it's way skyward, climbing up from the circular tips of her ballet-born feet to the crown of that elegant face made of ruby-glass. Suddenly, then, her throat had been laid bare to its skulking, sinister vines that encircled her jugular tighter and tighter until it was all she could do but choke on the sand in her mouth and the horror in her lungs. She was not ready, she felt only a child still! How long had this girl of forest fires and cyclone longed for independence, for the proud stamp of adulthood? Only, once finally in her grasp, Rhoswen realised that it was not what she had dreamt of: it was long, haunted nights and longer tired days. It was the furrow in her brow, it was the ire on her tongue, it was everything she had seen in her father's eyes. Life, it seemed, had finally lifted its deceptively seductive veil.
---
Had Rhoswen known of the invasion that had plagued her Capitol just mere days before this arduous journey home, she would never have set foot outside the borders of Denocte. Foolishly, the auburn mare had slipped away in the depth of night - hoping to avoid the escort who had been assigned to accompany her home. Rhos had not wanted company, her head had been to full of thought to spare meaningless words with a nosy envoy. A mistake she had soon come to regret. Moving as she did, with a limp in her step from her aching blood-stained hips through the Canyon at the close of the longest day she had ever known, Rhos still remained blissfully unaware of the impending doom that lurked in every bend, every dark corner. A single thought rang thunderously among the synapses of her mind like a the horn of a freight train, endless and unyielding: water. Her body was wrung dry: parched lips bruised the air with their brittle flesh, her throat a tunnel of torridity. The thirst which tormented her seemed to erase all other pain, all other fatigue. Rhoswen wondered if they would even make it to the Capitol.
You see, she was not alone.
Trailing weightlessly in the wake of an auburn shadow, the babe quivered. A child, the child. Premature, and exhausted from the sun, the filly uttered a soundless plea to the Mother she instinctively followed. Rhoswen had not been expecting her so soon; perhaps it was the stress, perhaps it was nothing at all, but upon a series of unfortunate events, at dawn, the red-haired woman had found herself struck by a pain so strong she had crumbled to her knees, mid-journey. Beneath a nameless tree in a nameless land, she had heaved and roiled and sweated her daughter into this world alone. At such point there was no turning back, she was too close to Solterra to turn back to Denocte, and so her only hope had been to make it to the border before nightfall. Exhausted, Rhos had barely studied the frail roseate girl with a ghost's blue-so-blue eyes; the shock was too immense, the instinct to push for their safety too strong. They could not linger out in this realm without protection, unaware that perhaps Solterra was more dangerous in unto itself. The thought of Raum barely crossed her mind - again, blissfully uninformed of his crime against Bexley Briar and the recent revelation of his identity.
It was dusk by the time they reached Elatus Canyon's final bend. The city was an hour's walk still, and Rhoswen was not sure her own legs would carry her that far, let alone the splinter-like limbs of her newborn. The weary mother paused beneath an overhang, watching the shadows grow longer with each passing moment - this was a new fear, one that encompassed not just herself but the angular little figure at her breast. Softly, driven by a small innate warmth within, Rhos blew a wash of hot air over her child's head, in reassurance that everything would be alright, if only, perhaps, to console herself.
@Seraphina sooo have an exhausted postnatal rhos and tinytot sabi!
Eskander had always been a creature of the mountains. Even as a mad king's daughter, she had been the firstborn of a wild priestess, and that ran in her blood. To be subjected, now, to both the fire of the desert and the unfamiliarity of a foreign city--it put her on edge.
Yes, a desert. Land which sought only to devour, to consume--for the first time, Eksander was faced with a sense of timelessness. Beneath the constant heat of the sun, there was opportunity for change. A territory personified by dunes that shifted and rolled, as untamable as a sea, she expected to feel an essence of natural power and force--instead there was a sort of placidity, as though the whole land whispered, we are keeping a secret here; do not speak too loudly. If one disobeyed, the tranquility suggested violence; the haze of heat above the dunes became a glare, the dryness of the tongue unbearable, the wind a whisper to a howl. She woke each morning to watch the sunrise beyond the horizon, a bloody eye winking in a sky the color of lava, ebbing and flowing, equal parts scathing red and molten gold. The eye swam in a vast sea; she would watch as it crested the curve of the earth, as it became full-fledged, and the color drained to an all-consuming blue.
Eskander, herself, felt consumed. She blinked the brightness from her eyes as she walked through the busy streets of the merchant district of the city. There were many bright, vibrant, unfamiliar items. While others might have looked at the aged walls and faded banners of Solis and thought them bland, Eskander was still taken aback. She came from the wilds--where her people had lived ruggedly, without shelter of walls, for as long as she could remember. Savages, she thought, not without disdain, as a pair of foals loped easily through the crowd. She watched them disappear around a corner, and released a heavy sigh. She felt confined, claustrophobic--in fact, she couldn't even remember what she was looking to buy.
"'Ey, sir, can I help ya?" A buckskin shop-owner asked, gesturing at his wares.
"Excuse me," Eskander replied, continuing on her way. He was taken aback by her feminine voice, she knew, but she had no interest in his assortment of daggers and paintings. An odd combination.
She honestly could not fathom what they used such things for. She began to notice the way the crowd thinned before her--the way they gave her uncertain glances. Eskander was aware of the fact she was new and her appearance was drastically different than the slim, long-legged horses the desert bred. She raised her head high and continued to wander, continuously overwhelmed. Eventually Eskander found herself in narrow alleyways; a scent wafted from an open doorway, and she neared. An aged mare followed her approach through an open window. "How about your fortune?" she questioned, in an ancient and paper-thin voice. "I tell fortunes, you see--you are a troubled one, searching for--"
"It isn't much of a prophecy," Eskander said, unkindly, "If you are only telling me what I am."
She moved quickly on, back into a more open area of the market. By this time, the sun was beginning to set, and she was hopelessly lost. Again.
ooc: all welcome! but I would prefer only one reply. thank you!
and, when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
and she would mark the opening skies,
i saw no Heaven—but in her eyes
Delumine was serenity in the budding youth of spring, soft shoots of green and the pale colors of flowers barely beginning to peek from between their curled petals. There was a gentle, caressing breeze that just kissed her skin as it drifted along. Eulalie stood, poised carefully on the bank of the Rapax as she looked down into its clear depths. It had rained recently, and the extra volume had the river rushing along like an impatient soul, with places to go and such little time to get there. The ground was soft, and the ivory woman was aware of the fragility of the ledge she stood upon but loved nothing more than to listen to the roar, such at odds with the rest of the province as it was. In truth, she was not standing there precariously just to watch the water race.
She hoped to catch a glimpse of one of the pink river dolphins that called the Rapax home. They were large, graceful and inquisitive creatures, and sight to behold. Would she get lucky, she did not know, but maybe. Just maybe, Eulalie would cross paths with one today. The wind picked up, gusts that pulled at her golden curls and threatened to tug her braid from its wrap. She could hear it rustle the grass and the branches of trees, and watched as it stirred up the surface of the already churning river. It brushed all along her body, as if begging her to race along with it and allow it to carry her off to new places.
Eulalie raised her freckled face skyward, which was lit with the early morning sun and washed in a pale blue. The soft light was not exactly warming, but she relished it as it shone down on the world anyway. This was perhaps her favorite time of day, just after dawn when the sky is milky in color and every creature is just beginning to wake. There was a stillness as the earth shook itself of sleep, drifting from dreams and eyes opening to the light. Each new day she stood here with her independence was an accomplishment to Eulalie, who for so long had fought against the bonds that had tied her down. Never would she be forced back into that life where she was not her own.
Although her scars reminded her of that time, she did not hide them. She had escaped, had overcome, and they were only representations of her fire, strength and resilience. Perhaps some would think they marred her simple beauty, but their opinions would not sway her. As a warrior of the Dawn Court maybe now they would be seen as badges of honor. A smile curved her soft pink lips. A warrior, free to protect and to serve as she wished. Delumine had been her refuge, her sanctuary, and they had taken her in instead of turned her away and she was thankful for everything the Court had given her. In turn, she had given her loyalty, and now, a year or so later, she felt more at home here than she ever had in Solterra.
@Somnus I didn't know if we wanted this to be pre- or post-meeting so I left it pretty ambiguous as far as timeline goes!
![[Image: rhosheader.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/ikNXOm/rhosheader.jpg)
