Her knife cuts their way into the Creek and through its small window Florentine steps. A warm breeze, so heavily laden with the scent of fresh berries and the chirp of summertime birds, sighs after her through the open window. It pushes her on, coaxing her like a warm hand upon her spine, but the girl is rock and she simply stands, immovable.
Anywhere. Florentine had sighed to her dagger. And yes, she truly meant, anywhere. But it seems, both an irony and an obvious truth that this should be where she most desired to go.
Here is the place where love lingers beneath every leaf and between the petals of every flower. Even the waters of the creek chattered of love with its bubbly laugher. So much love, in all its forms, they touch the parts of her so awfully disconnected.
This girl is losing herself, she feels it, she knows it. A part of her is falling down a rabbit hole she never saw and now, oh now she stands, craving love to fill that terrible hole. Any love will do a child’s voice whispers in her mind as it looks to this land of plenty.
There is a hurt, that slithers like unwelcome serpents through her veins, which has undone her. It has made a forever-grounded girl so terribly unstable. But what is she to do?
Florentine looks and looks and looks. She sees everything with those gold rimmed eyes and yet, she sees nothing at all. Dusk’s curse, to be neither here nor there, has condemned its Queen and she is stuck in a liminal space with no end and no beginning. Her soul trembles, for it should always be free, and yet here it is trapped in this never-ending place: neither here, neither there.
How long does she stand here? It is until the moon descends and the sun rises - until she is so far from Dusk and Night and so terribly unhappy. Then she opens her eyes (that long ago closed) and watches this land of love; feeling nothing at all.
~ Anyone is welcome to post. Flora and I are in need of a cathartic thread, please help <3
A brisk spring air blows my forelock away from my horns and out of my eyes. My nostrils open a little wider as I breathe in the cool air. It's perfect, the breeze and the sun. I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Damaris trailing behind, but she's nowhere to be found. My unspoken question is quickly answered. I am hunting. You go ahead, I will join you later. I stare off at a copse of trees, thinking that perhaps I spy movement. I snort idly, then turn back and continue walking.
My feet take me by the creek bed, walking along the shallow edge. I hum an unidentifiable tune as my mind wanders. Weir has left me. That much is certain. I suppose that whatever I thought we had, whatever I thought we would become... it just wasn't meant to be. It wasn't like she had become my lover or mate, but that didn't stop the feeling that we were headed that way. When I realized she had left... well that's why I ended up on my little sabbatical. That booze vacation was not just for funsies.
The pain is still there, but it's not as fresh as it was. It's less brutal, less shred-your-face. My old heart has begun to heal. Now I just feel the pangs of loneliness. I have Damaris in my life and that helps some, but she is not the partner I want in.. that way. My tune keeps me floating along, though, preventing me from getting too depressed.
The flames licked high into the sky, serpent tongues of fire licking and frothing, sparking; embers floated in the star-littered night like fireflies. She wandered among the throng of Night, intoxicated and entranced by the shadows cast by the light, and hypnotized by the light burning amid the shadow. What was this place? Who were these people who dwelled and danced beneath the stars? Star-people, she thought in wonder and awe. Sweet aromas she had never smelled before overwhelmed her in a dizzying haze; she wandered among the bonfires and merchant stalls as if in a dream. Would she wake up? Would she be disappointed when the dawn came, and it was time for her to return to her court of sunrises, instead of starlight?
She pushed the abstract thought from her mind. Part of her belonged here, Pavetta thought, here in a crowd of beautiful moonlit strangers, and she would enjoy the Night.
She stopped before a stall decorated in blue flowers and silks of every color; how her eyes glittered at the sight of such luxurious items. The vendor smiled at the gleam in her eyes and lightly settled a silken scarf the color of burgundy wine around her silver shoulders. “How lovely,” Pavetta murmured.
“It suits your eyes, Noble Lady,” he purred.
She laughed.
“Noble Lady, I think not. Thank you for letting me try it on.” Using her weak powers of telekinesis, she removed the sash and laid it gently in a delicate twist amid his other various crafts.
She wandered aimlessly, taking in every colorful sight and every interesting face. She blended with the crowd; a joyous, humming throng of mystery and moonlight. The bonfire flames danced in her eyes; rose quartz jewels alive with flame. She had never felt so intoxicated by life, had never felt so free and whimsical as she did now. Never again would she return to being a servant to a priestess or a husband. She would be Pavetta, and she would be free.
Next, she stopped before a vendor with small, sparkling vials of liquids every color of the rainbow. Violet, magenta, emerald greens. The scents were sweet and delicious; musky and scandalous. The merchant glanced her over, in a practiced, precise movement. She could see his mind working, thinking. “Well, what do you think, sir? What marvelous scent would compliment me best?” She tilted her head, eyeing the quaint vials closer.
“Just a hint of lavender on your throat, and you would make even the most modest of kings or queens swoon.” For effect, a small vial with a sparkling violet liquid with flecks of shimmering light inside floated before her and misted her cheeks and throat, leaving sparkling, diamond-like residue glittering on her silver skin.
“Every maiden’s dream, I am sure.” She fluttered her eyelashes sarcastically and tossed her silver-rose locks, enjoying the sweet aroma that now flowed around her like an invisible ribbon. “But you have me convinced. What do I owe you, sir?"
isn't it a little late, shouldn't you fly away?
little dove with cigarettes ---
He was a bore, mostly; a posh, self-righteous fellow with an inflated sense of worth. The sort Pavetta was all-too familiar with. She had been courted by similar dolts and knew how it all went; the wooing, the garden strolls, the forced laughter. He annoyed her, thoroughly. She had hoped to ditch him early on, but now, you see, he wore a particularly striking jewel on his brow, held in place with little delicate chains. She felt badly about the ordeal, but not badly enough to deter her less than innocent motives elsewhere. And so she smiled blandly in all the right places, she oohed and ahhed at his cringeworthy tales of his journey of knighthood and honorable deeds he had carried out (for the good of the realm), and sighed romantically and leaned into him; ever the lovestruck maiden for all appearances.
She had felt so restless and useless the past few weeks. Her injured leg had taken longer than expected to heal, and while she was grateful for Somnus’s offer to heal in the protection and sanctuary of the Dawn Court, she had felt the need to leave, the urge to explore this strange land she had literally fallen into through the flashing green portal of her home world, the Rift. And so she had set out on her own, despite the wisdom and safety provided in staying put and allowing herself to fully heal. She had not ventured off in a particular direction or with a plan; she went where the wind smelled nice on the breeze, and followed the path that she thought would lead her to the most adventure. The sun seemed to shine brighter here, harsher, and the air seemed parched, it was a land hostile and volatile, and at the same time unchanging. The land had a different beauty than the land of the Dawn Court and she found it captivating.
Her company, however, less so.
She had met him on the border of Solterra (or so he had said, she was not familiar with the borders of Novus yet) and he had offered his knightly services to escort her on a tour through the Day Court safely and she had not thought to ask where the hell he had popped from and why. She had only seen the violet jewel on his brow, gleaming with a hypnotizing glitter in the mid afternoon sunshine. He did not seem particularly bright and so she had agreed readily to his company, assuming he was a Day border guard of some kind. Surely it would not be too difficult to steal the jewel and escape unscathed. It seemed an exciting way to pass the time on this droll, hotter-than-usual afternoon. She kept few mint leaves that caused deep drowsiness in her satchel, she only had to find a romantic spot to laze about in the shade and offer him a refreshing afternoon snack and she would have him snoring like the pig he was.
“I am so very tired. Perhaps we should rest a bit, sir,” she pleaded and fluttered her eyelashes. It was not entirely untruthful; her scarred leg did ache ever so slightly.
He seemed to think about it for a moment, and for the first time, she noticed a gleam of something she had not seen before: cunning. Her trust in her observation that he was a mere muscled dolt of a border guard lessened considerably. “Please,” she urged, reaching out and tugging a strand of his hair playfully. Inwardly, she remained suspicious. Was he not a just Day guard after all? Perhaps a bandit? The canyon did seem like an opportunistic location to ransack and sabotage travelers “Just for a moment.”
“Alright, but just for a moment,” he agreed in an overly assertive voice. “We need to keep moving.” Was it just her imagination, or did she sense a note of panic in his voice? They settled in the shade of an overhanging ledge that created a spacious, shady cavern.
“That’s better,” she said, glancing about and deciding this was the place to do it. This is where she would steal that glittering amethyst from his head. “Are you hungry? You must be, I know I am famished after such a journey.” She used her pathetically weak telekinetic abilities to lift the satchel cover and a few leaves floated out and gently fell to the ground before him. She ate one (a non-drowsy one, of course), and smiled sweetly. He shrugged nonchalantly and ate the rest. Her sweet smile turned smug as his eyelids fluttered drowsily and he staggered uncertainly and then finally dropped to his knees and rolled awkwardly on his side.
“Easier than expected,” she said aloud to herself, feeling quite accomplished. She plucked the jewel and the delicate chains from his brow and tucked them neatly in her satchel, then stepped over him disdainfully. “Better luck next time,” she told him blandly, and then left the shady cavern behind. She did not, however, make it very far, before she realized how deeply she was mistaken about the entire situation.
Five other roguish looking brutes, scarred and ugly, awaited her around the next canyon corner, looking mightily displeased that she had drugged and escaped their fellow “bandit”; for bandits they certainly were. What had they planned to do with her? She did not have much for wealth, nor information on the court she had been residing at for the past two weeks. “I don’t suppose we can work this out amiably, gentlemen?”
One of them spat at her hooves and smiled nastily.
"I suppose not." She narrowed her eyes, pawed some dirt, and grit her teeth for a fight.
isn't it a little late, shouldn't you fly away?
little dove with cigarettes ---
Fixed atop the crest of a great, rolling dune was Avdotya's poised figure, every angle of her body seemingly as sharp as the blade of her mighty spear. This was the moment she had been so patiently waiting for: days- months- no, years had passed since the Davke's evisceration, since their existence had been diminished into mere written word on parchment. Now, however, it was time to bring life to those old historical tomes. From the pages would they rise, like phoenixes set ablaze with the fires of their rage they would seek their revenge upon the capitol and its fickle society. Zolin may have been ash on the wind now (his brutish dogma along with him), but there still remained a score that needed to be settled. An eye for an eye, their decree stated. Avdotya was simply executing the very law that the Day Court itself had implemented.
She smiled a wicked smile at the irony of a law meant to protect their Court, then breathed in a heavy swath of hot desert air. In that moment the viper had shed her crinkled skin as Solterra's fierce Regent and was reborn as the Davke Queen, no longer a servant to a system that so often failed its people. Seraphina, in spite of her refined political ideation, did not sway that way of thinking. Solis' desert was not meant to be ruled by a single being- it was a wild and untamable thing, much like the tribes that once flecked its sands. The tribes that - like the Davke - were now only stories to be told of.
Another breath and Avdotya was ready. She was prepared for death if their god willed it, for it would be in the name of her people who were now finding their resurrection. Her head turned just slightly to look at the horde behind her, the heat of her burning gaze focusing briefly at her side where she presumed Velorca would be. It was a fleeting second in time, but enough to affirm the cusp that they found themselves upon. Vengeance was within reach, they just had to reach for it.
"DAVKE," Came the boom her voice, sharp and demanding of their attention, "IT IS TIME TO TAKE THE BLOOD WE ARE OWED!" She fanned the flames of their tempers, pushing them to let their animosity overtake them in their pursuit of retribution. Even in her own body, the thought of what was to come cranked her adrenaline to an immense high and left her with a glistening sweat upon the black of her hide. The viciousness that swelled within her belly begged to be loosed, to tear at the throats of those who bore relations to Zolin and once served beneath his pitiful rule; she yearned to gouge her spear into their flesh and paint the pretty floors red with their blood. No, she did not care for the innocence many of them were sure to hold. They would pay for their dead boy-king's mistakes and the Davke sought only lives as atonement.
And so, with Solis' searing heat at their backs, the Davke screamed their revival. Avdotya led the ominous charge with Feliks at her side, appearing from behind them with a second to spare. Over the glowing horizon that faced Solterra's capitol, only a billowing cloud of dust bore evidence of their oncoming assault... but it soon burgeoned into a full-on blitz, their violent cries carrying on the wind until they finally tore through the palace doors.
No longer were the Davke a nightmare of the past and it was time Novus was stirred from its idle slumber.
You’re playing my game now-- @NOVUS!
AYOOO, HERE WE GO! Those who are part of the Davke, commence the destruction! Steal, kill (NPC only, please! Unless you have been given express consent by a player), maim (same rule applies to the previous point), burn- do as you will. Those within the Day Court are welcome to be part of the attack if they so choose. c: Participants are encouraged to write NPC Day Courters or Davke, so make it fun and interesting!
It had been so very long - too long - since Aion had last set hoof upon the battlefield.
The last time had been borne of desperation, a need to feel a physical pain that could distract him from an emotional sort of trauma. It had worked well enough: he'd walked away bruised and limping, but his mind was effectively doused in an adrenaline so strong it had carried him on a high for days, forgetting about his troubles and his heartache. That had been all it took, a brief distraction, a tap of the restart button, a break from the emotions. When his pain returned - the sadness and grief, the feeling of being lost - he had been more prepared to deal with it.
He'd handled shattered bones and bloodied knees after all, what more was a broken heart?
Of course, he knew now how much more excruciating a broken heart could be in comparison to a broken humerus. He knew better than to assume all pain was the same.
But still, he volunteered for it all; this was his own fault, wasn’t it? He’d sought Torstein out for a fight; and here he was looking for one again, only this time he didn't care who stepped up to the plate. He put himself in these positions. He went looking for pain.
He’d even let himself fall in love. 'And we all can see how well that's been working out lately...'
The sound of approaching hoofbeats brought him back to the present, brushing the thoughts away with a flick of his telekinesis. He sized the mare up with an icy gaze: from her dark, silken skin to her ocean-tousled hair. Her looks were impressive, yes, but he didn’t linger long. Aion was more impressed with the way she moved - almost like a dancer. Agile, lithe, yes; but a brawler? Surely someone so delicate wasn’t here for a fight?
There was only one way to find out.
"I hope you aren't expecting me to take it easy on you,” he called out to her, "just because you're a girl.”
The wind tousled his feathers in a playful manner; Aion turned into it, lifting his head as if in greeting. He closed his eyes briefly, drawing in a slow, deliberate breath. His lungs expanded, and he held it for a minute; then relaxed, opening his eyes again as he exhaled deeply. Unwinding the stress from his muscles, remaining as he was in the middle of the hole-pocked field.
my blood will fill the ditch // my blood will bury the mountain // but for now it sits still in my mouth // just waiting on the tip of my tongue
The sun hangs low in the sky, staining it red. A faint, clean twang in the air – in the far distance, Seraphina thinks she can see the smoky tendrils of rainclouds. A storm is brewing on the horizon.
Her slender limbs carry her through the maze of canyon walls, thoughtlessly, carelessly, rhythmically. She has walked these canyon walls a thousand times under a thousand circumstances. They are home to her, more comfortable than the recesses of her own mind, so she knows when they have changed – when she finds herself facing the cavernous darkness of a cave that sounds wrong as the wind howls through it, she knows that it was not so when last she passed it. She would have been content to leave it uninvestigated (the desert shifts by the hour), but dusty wind blows out the unmistakable, bitter scent of blood.
As Seraphina descends into the blackness, she grows vaguely aware of the sound of breathing; it is quiet, but unmistakable in the stillness. She draws in further, seeks the noise, seeks the smell…until a passage brings her to face a sea of crumbled rocks, speckled with sunlight from the gaping opening from which they seem to have spilled. The light illuminates them, draws her eyes down, down, down.
She finds the source of the smell.
There is Bexley Briar, her body crushed beneath the canyons that should have protected her – there is Bexley Briar, left bloody and broken in the lands of a god that should have been watching over her. Seraphina stands frozen, statuesque, her eyes flying the length of the girl’s frame (or what she can see of it) as she struggles to grasp the scene in front of her. Realization comes with a dull, subdued horror. She stares her in the bloodied face, her mouth dry and tongue cold even in the suffocating heat of the day. “Bexley.” The golden girl’s name rips its way free of her lips in what is practically a strangled scream that feels wrong, tastes wrong – a voice that doesn’t feel like it is her own. Silly girl. Silly girl, you shouldn’t feel a thing. But she does.
She’s running towards her fallen, crumpled form before she realizes that she is in motion, white-hot adrenaline pumping panic Seraphina has forgotten how to feel in her veins to the frantic flutter of her heart. Solis, no, no, no.“Bexley?” Her voice is steadier, then; she reigns herself in, searching for the cold that seems to have escaped her. “Bexley, can you hear me?” Only the faint heave of the girl’s sides tells the silver queen that she still lives. She breathes in deeply and forces herself to focus – surveying the rocks that cover her as she searches for a way to pull the golden girl free, she reminds herself that she has seen far worse than this.
One thought crystallizes; a million answers are quick to follow. Who did this to you?
The Courtyard is blessedly quiet when the Crow stepped out into it for the evening. Behind him in the faint murmur of equines in various states of celebration and revelry, muffled laughter and the sound of hooves slammed against oak tables. The Spring had chased much of the chill away, but in the evenings the cold lingered. Frigid tendrils of Winter's breath, wary of the braziers which illuminated the old stone, but not enough to leave completely. Dovev floated like a ghost, a smokey wraith weaving across the stones with no true destination in mind.
There's no sense of urgency in these familiar halls, not like the way he slinked in the gilded halls of Zolin's dominion. A momentary thought is spared toward such wanderings and then quickly dismissed. He is far too much an amiable mood to sour it with a fleeting, unintentional trot down memory lane. Crystalline eyes instead pass over the small flashes of color that have began to line the Courtyard gardens, occupying him and provided him with a momentary burst of relief. Bright splotches of blue, white and purple revealing themselves after a long slumber, in Summer it would be magnificent. Midnight roses glittering at night with their speckled visages, moon lilies and their luminescent dust.
Of course, Denoctian citizens would wreath themselves in them, twine them around their locks and incorporate them into their outfits. Dashing stallions and beguiling maids. Ah, Dovev can see it now.
Somewhere in the distance, a dragon uttered it's song, ethereal and ever so cutting on the wind. It sank into the marrow of his bones and reverberated in his soul. His gaze moved to scan the skies, and when they found nothing, returned their attention back into the courtyard he occupied — specifically to the obsidian and diamond flecked sculpture of Calligo at it's center. His attention does not stay there for long, an ear flicked back with practiced grace as his head tilted minutely to the left.
He had left at once, still blinking sleep out of his eyes, still hoping this was some nightmare, some mistake.
The sound of the bells had woken him from uneasy slumber, limbs tangled on pale cushions he would never grow accustomed to. At first what had swum to his hazy pre-dawn mind was Reichenbach and his ever-ringing coins, but it was not Reichenbach.
After reading the letter (and oh gods, what if he had never learned to read? If he had not so recently asked Isorath to teach him?) everything bled out of his mind but fear and worry and the need to go. Never before had he wished for wings; with each step against the driving, freezing rain he urged his heart, his legs, his lungs on.
And at last he had made it.
He is drenched and shivering and weary to the marrow of his bones; dawn is silver behind him, a cold opening eye. Asterion has never been to the night court capital; as he staggers into the courtyard he thinks, briefly as a beat of butterfly wings, of what Reichenbach and his people had done. Of the betrayal that had happened the night of the festival.
What if it’s a trap? It’s a hateful thought, born surely of his exhaustion and the fear that gnaws at him, that has its teeth and claws sunk into every inch of him. He pushes it away as he takes the last ringing steps through the keep’s yawning door.
“Where is she?” he cries to the first person he sees, a guard who’d snapped to attention from slumber when he clattered in. For a moment the guard only stares at the bedraggled bay stallion, wild-eyed and soaked as though he had crawled out of a hurricane. Asterion clicks his teeth, impatient with worry, and repeats himself. “Where is Aislinn?”
Finally the guard responds, accompanying him down first one twisting hallway and then another until they reached the infirmary; the guard caught his eye, swallowed, and gestured him inside.
Never has Asterion looked so wild or felt so helpless as when he steps into that room. At once he detects the metallic scent of blood, bitter-sharp even over the smell of lime and vinegar used to clean the room.
His heart is a leaping, running thing in his chest, more fleet-footed than it had been even on his panicked flight here. He stops only long enough for his gaze to fall upon her, half-hidden by a curtain on the far side of the room. Something looks terribly wrong with the shadow of her wing that plays on the fabric in the firelight; his mind pushes this away.
The last few steps seem longer than the whole of the rest of his journey; he is hungry to see her face, starving to hear her voice.
And then he does. He is not even conscious of whether they are alone or not in the room; he is aware only of how large her eyes are, how her light places are darkened with red.
“Aislinn,” he breathes, half-relieved to see that she is still standing, and then his gaze slips to her ruined wing and his breath hitches. Water puddles beneath him, a steady drip; his thoughts are in a freefall. What happened? he wants to cry; wants to demand Who did this? But he closes his teeth on them both. Instead he reaches for her cheek, tender, even as a tempest rages within him. “Tell me how you are.”
