She had made her way to the fields in her new home. The field was covered in a layer of white snow. something she rarely saw back in her homeland. She lowered her nose down to the snow and nosed at it for a moment. Her coat coloring stood out against the pristine white snow, since her coloring was so dark against it. Large wings were folded against her sides, and her hooves crunched in the snow as she walked through the field. The demigoddess was nervous, and her head was constantly on a swivel. Her flee from her homeland had made Aibreann nervous, always looking over her shoulder. Who knew when or if those who had attacked her homeland would track her down and find her?
Her mismatched eyes looked around, watching for other equines on the horizon. Aibreann pawed at the ground, and using the help of her wings and antlers cleared a spot on the ground of snow so that she could see the grass beneath the blanket of snow. The chimera mare cleared enough snow from the ground to create a spot that she could lay down on the ground. Laying down, she wrapped her wings around her to keep warm. Her antler chains glinted against the snow, casting a glimmer on the snow. Her leather satchel was still slightly hidden beneath her large wings, even if they were wrapped around her to keep her warm. The only part of her coloration that matched the snow was the large white blaze down her face. The demigoddess was a sight to see with her bicolored body and eyes, not to mention the gold and silver antlers and hooves. A sigh escaped her. "I miss you mom, dad and sis... I hope you are still okay..." Aibreann said with a soft sigh.
This was his third moon without Ama, but - of the three - it was his grandest yet. Asterion, a man he had come to know as kind and chimerical, had guided him into Terrastella on that bitter morn, with the frost glittering ornately on his ebon hide and the redolence of a new beginning in each lung. This world, vast and perpetual, had absorbed him - his yielding mind quite suddenly drunk on such an alien land that had swallowed him whole. Behind orange suns Ossian had consumed the gentle swell of the fields and hills, passing by the swamp (of which he decided was a place that might haunt him within his dreams) with breathless alarm, and finally, following in silent vigil behind Asterion, the ocean child made of freckles and constellations had laid eyes upon the Citadel. It was like everything and nothing he could ever have imagined.
To himself, he had kept. The swathes of people bustling about the Capitol startled Ossian, their nondescript hum setting his skin aflame with unease; what else could be expected from such a sheltered creature? Hours ticked into days and days washed into weeks as the watcher watched on, engrossed in the absorption of these strange customs and walls and bodies. Fascinated was an understatement. And though he was glad to be relieved of the deafening solitude which initially had driven him into water, there was a fermenting disquiet bubbling beneath his dark skin. The granite canvas sky over Dusk's keep seemed smaller than his by ocean, the gulls fly refused to fly in this far to meet him and oft the white-haired boy found himself aching for salt and brine and sand. For it was not only the water he missed, but the plethora of beautiful components that made up the oceanfront - the only world he had ever known.
Ossian could take it no longer. Breaching the wind, he rose one clear dawn from where he slept beneath the stars (the idea of sleeping deep within the keep frightened him, still) and took to the west with a boyish vigour he thought perhaps - with Ama - he had lost. Time seemed to melt into oblivion as he moved swiftly, blood singing in his ears, pushing the thought of all else from his mind; there could be nothing but the sea. Down, down, down the coastline he traversed, angular limbs twisting against the bleached chalk until at last! Sand. Ossi closed his eyes, a gust of wind enveloping him so that his endless stark hair billowed and cavorted as though taken up by the very happiness that was blooming within.
NOTES: @cyrene it ends quite abruptly but i ran out of time, sarry!
THE STORMS WE CHASE ARE LEADING US
AND LOVE IS ALL WE'LL EVER TRUST -
She comes when evening tolls — each strike of the clock ringing long and slow. The sky weeps in Vespera's watercolors; wisps murmur midsummer and noon, when the rest of the world still slumbers in winter. She cannot help but marvel at those skies, and the contradiction of the cold that holds her and the defiant sunset above. Where winter's kiss touches the earth, grey and white follows in a thick blanket of snow and frost. The ice that coats each surface glimmers and reflects the colors in the sky. Like a mirror of crystalline glass that steals her breath away.
On this night, the city's heart sings to her. The pyres that flicker under the setting sun reach towards the stars; the fray of dancers that celebrate the end of winter's hold, and with it, the coming of spring. A desire burns in her — a flame of brightest blue that kindles, a twin to the gems of her eyes. Confined in the capitol, she stands at the edge of the shadow's reach as the sun slips and slips and slips. Her gaze is captured by the dancing reflections and embers that float in the frigid air. The drums are fingers beating against her skin, in tune with the rhythm of her wild heart. For her gypsy soul yearns to be free; to let loose under the colorful sky and not cease until dawn breaks on a far away horizon.
But she does not dance.. not yet. Not without him.
The memories of him are her only saving grace; a beacon of warmth that brings with it a comfort that swells in her chest, and a sharp pang that strikes in her gut. She never forgot the fireflies that swirled around them in golden pixie dust, or the gauze of daydreams that flirted with the deep mahogany of his skin. And oh, she could never forget his eyes. The depths of them a sweet calm that stops her heart with want. The shining star tattooed behind her ear still tingles with the imprint of his kiss, and his voice forming her name is a memory that she follows. Through the streets, her hoofbeats build and build, forever searching the crowds for her twilight prince.
Yet, upon her return, the stormsinger did not find him first. Her mouth tastes of ash and dust, and suddenly, she stops. Hesitating. What will he think of her? She cannot soon forget that the last time they spoke.. she ran. Another festival, much like the one she revels in now, but with lower stakes than this. Aislinn had been a coward for her bleeding heart; a wicked, broken thing that had not yet properly healed. He was a testament of that; for he alone sewed the strings of her heart back together, whether he knew it to be so or not. Where she was a hurricane made woman, he was the calm to her untamed storm.
So why had she not found him? After so many moons apart?
She is Calligo's night sky beneath the setting sun. Where once, galaxies swam in the blue of her eyes, are now painted along the curves of her frame. In deep violet and dusty rose and ivory there are stars that swirl down the length of her spine and across the ink of her coat. But she does not feel like those stars, as beautiful and full of havoc and chaos and dreams. She desires to.. to wish, and to live in a faerie tale with him and her. But this is not a children's story, and she is a warrior who's knuckles have tasted blood and who's heart sings a different song. So she stands, and waits, with a heaviness like a world that sits upon the back of her wings. Her hooves are frosted still, and the breath that fills her lungs is filled with glass.
Her lips cannot help but form his name, over and over again, as she silently calls into the crowds that pulse around her.
Asterion. I'm home.
@asterion
time for all of the feelings omg ♡ "Aislinn speech."
the monarchs flew free;
yet they circled around her.
Sighing, Cyrene flipped the cover of her satchel closed with a toss of sable curls. Her herb supplies were running low, yet again. And it was obviously not because she’d depleted her entire reserve in the succession of failed potions she had attempted the night before. Sometimes, she wondered why she even bothered when the results were bound to be downright disastrous. At the very least, her efforts had yielded one small bottle of crimson liquid; a draught for easing aches and pains. Perhaps it would prove useful at a later time.
With a swift shake, snow shed off her wings in cold clumps as she rose on limber legs. If Cyrene’s talents did not lay in potion making, then it surely manifested in her knack of gathering even the most finicky and elusive of herbs. It was wintertime, the girl was well aware of that—but the few hardy species that mocked winter’s supposedly smothering presence were growing splendidly below a bed of icy white, and it was these very herbs that the sprightly nymph now set off to seek.
"Rosemary, sage, winter savory…” the names flowed from her tongue like a well-recited rhyme, and magnificent, wine-soaked feathers beat steadily against her sides as she moved like a panther through the evergreen forest. The girl had stumbled upon the emerald woods of the Viride only a few days before, as she galloped on swift hooves under a luminous moon. Its shadowy depths promised a fine adventure Cyrene would tuck away for a dull afternoon, and she had reluctantly turned away from its beckoning entrance as she etched its location into her memory.
Excitement flowed through the girl like a rushing river, as that adventure was now presenting itself on a silver platter to her. Accepting that tantalizing offer would kill two birds with one stone, for she was sure to encounter fields of hidden herbs along the way, patiently awaiting her inevitable discovery of them.
Yet unbeknownst to her, Cyrene would stumble upon something much more compelling than frost-defying greens.
@Nerissa & anyone else | notes: sorry this took me a while D:
The sun god had spent a good deal of the past few months dozing; much like a snake hibernating his way through the winter. But it came time to awake.
There was a stirring in the land, one that went beyond the seasons. His country was in turmoil, the death of their king the least now of their many worries. As Solis arose, banishing the chill from his bones, the sun grew brighter and warmer. It fed off of his strength, the heat of its rays becoming more and more intense. The time for summer was nigh, and Solis would be there to watch it all unfold. But first…
Solis fixed his gaze on a single mare, whose blackened hide was marred with claw marks and scars. She, of all his people, represented his court best: she was strong, she was powerful. She was violent. She was Solterran both by blood and by choice. He had heard of the whisperings of her plan, and he was pleased. The Davke were his children, and they had impressed him with their brutality and their longevity, withstanding the desert for generations. Their fall had been one of tragedy, his flock scattered like ants by the wind. She was one of few that remained.
And so the Day god called to her, in a language so ancient and so primal that it needed no words. It was the language of the desert, a call to lose herself in the rolling dunes and endless sands. It tugged at her very heart, so that in every pause she would find herself facing, subconsciously, the barren land in which she’d been born.
Should @Avdotya give in to the call, she’ll find herself wandering far from the capitol in a meandering path, but never will she feel lost. Not knowing where she is being called, she’ll only know that she is following an invisible string that seems to be pulling her along…
~~~
Solis’ sun blazed down on Solterra, bringing with it a heat uncharacteristically warm for the end of winter. The animals of the desert began crawling out from their dens, snakes and lizards sunbathing on rocks while dorcas gazelles bed down for the warm day. Across the court, Solterra was returning to its normal routine, relishing in the return of warmer weather. Truly, the Day god himself seemed to be looking out for his people, bringing them an early end to winter felt nowhere else in Novus.
Wind shifted the sands of the desert, the rolling hills and dunes that stretched on endlessly being constantly broken down and reformed. Remolded at the god’s whim, his plaything to control.
It was in the middle of the desert that he pulled Avdotya to, where he had called up a spring of water, nestled between dunes. The surface was reflective of the sky, a mirror turned blue and gold. The path leading down to it was made of hardened sandstone, dropping off sharply at the edge of the water. There was no gradual descent; Avdotya would have to throw herself in and hope not to drown. She would have to prove that she was worthy of Solis’ gift to her.
It was time for the Davke, the first children of Solis, to return. And they would be ressurected by their Queen.
When @Avdotya answers the unspoken call, she will be led out to the center of the Mors Desert. Here, the sand dunes give way into a sandstone path that dips down to a natural oasis. The surface is glassy and reflects the sky’s blue color, and the sandstone drops away sharply. Avdotya will not be able to tell how deep the pool is before she jumps in.
Upon entering the pool, the water will turn a deep golden color and warmth will seep into her bones. For a moment it may become hard to breathe, and then Avdotya will be released from the sun god’s magic. Something will feel… different, even if Avdotya is not able to place its source.
Avdotya may, or may not, be aware of her new immortality.
Thread requirements: 1 reply, 500 words. Please tag the RE account in your reply.
How to tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk!
Once you respond, Avdotya’s immortality will become effective.
If you want Avdotya to begin aging again: contact staff. If she becomes mortal again, you won't be able to re-instate her immortality without purchasing it again through the Agora.
Girls can be guns, Bexley thinks, as she wanders the desert. She would know - she is one. She has been. Smoking at the barrel from a bullet just shot off, a grip iridescent, made of white pearl. Deadly and beautiful. Makes the boys salivate. It’s entrancing to think about, herself as a weapon, as a knife-hilt, a force to be reckoned with.
In reality she is just a girl, fluorescent gold in the stormy-gray sadness of the winter desert. A watery shape that moves and twists in frighteningly nonlinear fashion. With Seraphina away and the court in a state of deep-freeze lethargy, Bexley has found herself increasingly more irritable, more shut-off, more suspicious; she glares at the bodies that pass her in Court, swathes the windows of her room in velvet to block out their eyes, lets flowers wilt and swiftly dry on her sill, her body buzzing constantly and consistently with the warm touch of liquor and fruit wine. As abrasive as ever.
Bex treks across the Mors alone, humming something tuneless under her breath, simultaneously grateful for and frustrated by her solitude. But her aloneness vanishes as abruptly as it found her. At the edge of the world - the place where so many grains of sand meet the bleached gray-blue of the sky - a figure appears, slender and dark on the horizon. Bexley’s ear flicks, but her step does not falter. A moment later, a stride closer, she raises her head in almost-happy surprise: Rhos!
He isn’t sure what brings him back to the keep, not when the lanterns are still drifting from the cliff and the bonfires are still lit and the music rises like embers, gifts for the stars. Maybe he just sought somewhere quiet; there is drink (still a new thing to him) burning in his belly, spreading pleasantly through his veins and softening his mind. Everywhere he looks there is touch and laughter and friends and lovers.
But he is alone.
The bay isn’t sure where Florentine is – presumably with Reichenbach. He hasn’t seen Israfel, or Eik, or any of the handful of others he’s met; he feels like a stranger in his home court, and the wine makes him feel like a stranger in his skin.
Maybe he’ll watch from the parapets, he thinks. Just for a moment. It would be something, to see all those lanterns drifting like summer fireflies or unmoored stars out across the sea.
At first his brow creases in confusion to see two horses wander away, painted in like designs of blue and gold. It makes them look other, makes them look magic, and he steps more quickly until his hooves are echoing on the stones of the courtyard and he’s passed beneath the pale stone arch.
The court is no quieter than the rest of Terrastella tonight. There are groups of horses laughing, flinging paint; there are others, as alone as him, fierce concentration on their faces as they cover themselves with intricate whorls and designs. A group brushes past him, soft talk and bright eyes, and Asterion catches one. “What is it?” he asks. “A pledge,” she says with a smile, “to your court, your god, your love, your friends. It’s a statement of promise.” With a last smile she goes on; he does not watch her catch up to her friends.
Asterion falters. He has nothing to pledge, nothing to promise. He has never held true to anyone or any place before; the idea of saying he might now makes his heart stutter and quicken even as his lungs seem to tighten with longing. He thinks again of Florentine, of Aislinn – how rooted they seemed to be.
When he backs up a few steps, a bump startles him back into the present. “Oh,” he says, turning, and finds yet another stranger there. She is lovely, the color of the rich dark wine, eyes bright as the distant lanterns. “Forgive me, I – ” he finds no excuse that seems adequate; the bay’s expression turns sheepish. “Must’ve had too much to drink. Are you painting yourself?”
This question, asked of a perfect stranger, seems suddenly of great importance.
The Regent knows he should stay away, he should run, as fast as his legs can carry him and as far as his wings care to keep him aloft in Calligo's eternal embrace. Yet, he cannot, something pulls at him, fickle fine threads with the strength of gods pull at him and he goes. There's a part of him screaming, but it's locked behind ivory bars, as thick as steel and twice as damning.
Below, beneath the steady beat of his painted wings there are still revelers in the middle of their celebrations. They danced on, unaware of the tumultuous heart which soared high above them, shrouded by the smoke of the bonfires. Some moved sinuously like the flames they twirl around, some as quick and sharp as the crackle of the wood to the fire. Others appeared content to merely sway, lost in their own thoughts and the sweet scents and sights which rolled out for miles around.
He should spin down and down, and join his people. Join the Pegasai in their sky dances, their ornate and dare devilish twists and turns to shape and guide the smoke and embers. Land and dance on delicate, porcelain hooves and laugh a musical, lilted thing that's lighter than he felt. He should. But he doesn't.
Something twists inside him, like a carefully aimed knife. It sliced between his ribs to the part of him which is star fire and a dragon's temper. Needled at the images of Reichenbach's face, the look he'd given him the moment they had met at the cliffs. The one he had flashed him as he'd left.
Indignation once more bloomed in his chest, a spark ignited into the very fury of the stars. Their fire and their capriciousness rolled into one.He cannot abide such hot and cold treatment, even if duty called for it, even if he hadn't looked back to see if just for a moment Reichenbach had searched him out. Isorath deserved kindness, some selfish part of him mourned, the part which had endured one painful heartbreak and wanted no more of it. Just as much as it wanted to love again, he desired the right to know if there was more than these idle games. The flirting, the gesture wrapped so tenderly around his antler.
His shattered heart roared against it's bindings and snapped free, his eyes glow with it in the night. Lilac stars threatening to burn and consume him like the pyre had seasons before, as that look of consternation flashed across his mind once more, like a whiplash upon his scaled back. He will know, he will throw himself upon a sword to know the answer to the agonizing question scalding his flesh and bones. Caught in a maelstrom of emotions, his wings carried him faster, more furiously toward his target. He had not spied Reichenbach in the fields, nor the Court. He must be at the Cliffs.
But if he is at the Cliffs..would he be alone?
It should of sent him sprawling to the earth, but he cannot back out now. He's burning from the inside out. He veered, sharply with all the elegance of a dragon, out into the ocean air with the waves beneath him now. Away from the safety of land to cushion him should he tumble.
It doesn't take him long at the cliffs to spot who he is looking for. There, in one of the coves, sheltered from eyes which peered from the sheer edge, he spots the King of Shadows and Thieves. Alone. White lined eyes flare, both in surprise and relief, to see the King without the Golden Queen. What happened when he left with Lysander? Where is the Monarch dressed in the trappings of spring with the youthful heart?
Now is his chance. Angling his lithe body, he drifted lower and lower, his heart thundering all the while and his fire raging.
How he longed to make it tangible, to feel the pulse of magic in his chest. He would feel more comforted if he could beckon in forward, he knows this to be true. Here he is wildly alone, out of his depth, naked beneath a splintered visage of mirrors, gold and stars. It makes him volatile, makes his blood boil and swirl wildly in his veins, like wailing stars falling across an ashen amarathine sky. How much more amiable and controlled would he be if he could just feel that power again, see the wafts of dreamy smoke plume from his nostrils, sense the starscape reaching forward protectively to give him their embers. Give him their form, their love, their power.
Painted wings soon fan, in long strokes to carry him within reaching distance of the sand. Porcelain hooves touched the white sand and sank deeply, followed by his front. Long hair falls around his face and his neck, down and down until it nearly caresses the floor with it's ethereal touch. The same goes for his tail, spanning across the white sand with it's moonstone rivers, iridescent in the light of Calligo's sky. He wanted to open his mouth and breathe fire, let Reichenbach know his wounded heart, his inflamed pride and his damnable emotions.
Yet, instead he settled for something else as he toed toward the shoreline. The halo behind his head glows onward, it's enchanted candles still burning, the godly visages etched into the wax staring onward.
Isorath should fly away again, like a star which had found it's wings back to the heavens. But he can't. He won't.
Porcelain hooves stop as they touch the tide, it's salty touch reaching toward the silver tresses to entwine them in it's briny grasp. He does not look at Reichenbach, but oh how he wants to. He wants the King of Thieves, the King Crow, Calligo's champion to look into his eyes and see the anger there. See the fires of dragons. The conflict of a Prince who cradles the remnants of his heart with every fiber of his being. Each one is precious, not to be given away freely, yet the man beside them is taking them all, piece by aching piece. Whether he knows or not, whether he cares about such a significant thing or could hardly care less. Most of all, he wants Reichenbach to look in his eyes and see everything that he'd never dare give the air to breathe.
"Shouldn't you be dancing?" He asked curtly, his lilted tone, one that he wore as well as his finery, withered in favor of an icy flatness. He should be filled with warmth, and yet the stars give him their aching void, the ice of planets lost.
Wings carried the mare to the plains, flapping wildly. She had left her homeland behind. Her sister. Her father. Even her mother. Aibreann felt like she had been flying for days without rest, which was almost the truth. She'd stopped in remote places to rest her weary wings. However, when a clear plain was in sight, her wings began to falter. She had very little strength left in her muscles. Bicolored eyes sought out the softest place to land, and she tried her best to aim for there. It did not take the chimeric mare long to land upon the ground, wings folding to protect her head as she tumbled head over tail on the ground. "Oof...." She said as her tumbling came to an end.
Rising shakily to her hooves, Aibreann carefully checked herself all over for broken bones and the like. Her satchel was still in-tact, as were her antlers and wings. She stretched out her wings, nosing them gently to check for any broken feather or bones. Luckily, her large wings seemed to be in-tact, even if the muscles that she used to hold them outstretched quivered with the effort of outstretching them again after being used for such a long period of time. A sigh escaped the young mare as she folded her bicolored eagle wings against her sides once again. Where was she? This wasn't her home. The mare had no idea where the heck she was...
![[Image: osiheader.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/nFaF1w/osiheader.jpg)
