He had never been to Terrastella. Come to think of it, Somnus had hardly left the familiar lands of Delumine, preferring to remain local and assist Kasil, Po, and their Court members in any way he could. There was always something that needed done or overseen, and he was always eager and ready to offer his services when the need arose. Be it engaging his King in debates or simple conversation, reading vast novels in the Citadel library, or spending his evenings with Ulric or Caelum, the dunalino gentleman always had something to do.
With the arrival of winter, however, the golden tactician had found himself growing listless, his keen mind desperate for stimulation and interaction. The season was cold, and with the chill of winter and the heavy snowfall, the world simply seemed to slow down. Everything moved at a far different pace in winter, the world falling into a frozen slumber only to be awakened by the intimate prodding of spring.
There was one soul he could think of, however, to challenge the frozen atmosphere. Filled with passionate spirit and charm, the embodiment of warmth and affection to melt the cold, the urge to seek out and speak with Florentine was a great one. While he considered the Dusk Court Sovereign a close friend and ally, their times spent together had been a dismal few. With the world on pause, it seemed to be the perfect opportunity for Somnus to slip away from his sheltered life in Delumine, and so he did just that. The journey was a cold one, the frigid air biting cold during his flight, but the weather proved fair for traveling, and just after the noon hour, the tactician arrived to Terrastella.
He could spot the spire even from his flight, and wings outstretched in flight, the tawny feathers billowed, catching air and slowing his descent. He landed with considerable grace and poise a ways away from the raised citadel, wings tucking back and folded against his sides. Ears flicked forward, perked at attention, as keen verdant eyes scanned his surroundings. There appeared to be no one in sight, but then again, it was terribly chilly, even with the shining sun above them. Perhaps they were all inside the Terrastellan citadel, or otherwise occupied.
Still.
Somnus was not one to be presumptuous or rude, and so he had no qualms in waiting to happen upon a member of the Dusk Court and request and audience with Florentine. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too terribly busy… But then again, he had arrived without notice. Catching his breath, mist furling upwards into the afternoon sky, the dunalino began his approach, hooves guiding the stallion’s approach at a leisurely pace.
The sun is surprisingly warm at her back, momentarily breaking through a suffocating layer of cloud to brighten winter-dulled sands and flicker restlessly across the white capped waves of the shore. Not so beautifully as the star-lit sky did hours before, she thinks, but still with admirable pizzazz, light shattering and winking from silver to gold across the waters roiling surface. Not that either of them could compare to the glamour of her late night encounter, that is. A sigh escapes black velvet lips. Like Pegasus himself, she thinks whimsically, come down from the heavens still swathed in galaxies and star dust, only better, as a woman.
A grin spreads across the mares preoccupied features as she continues to backtrack her way along the sands, retracing her steps from the evening before, dancing now, bouncing on her toes through the surf as she laughs beneath her breath, chanting. ”Twinkle, twinkle, little star, Oh, I’d fuck you where you are! Up above the sky so high -” She hesitates, struggling to compose an adequate second line, but before any of the crude substitutions in her mind can be tested a high pitched keening stops her short. Ears cupped forward, she scans the beach for the source of the sound, eventually calling, ”Hello?”
The keening responds, taking on a more frenzied pitch. A few hundred meters away something writhes in the shallows. ”A whale?” The mare wonders aloud, approaching cautiously. ”No, a… dolphin?” It’s not any type of dolphin she’s ever seen before, but much too small to be a whale, even a juvenile one. The creature is mostly black with a large white patch on its belly that extends up either side of its rear half and a little dash of white across the dorsal fin. Its head seems shrunken, too small for its bulging body, but its mouth is certainly big enough, screeching even louder now that some strange land-creature has come near.
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Fatigue was settling deep into her bones. Every beat to keep her relatively aloft felt like she was drawing her body through a mire. Her muscles ached, her shoulders burned, and her consciousness wavered. The last island she had rested on had been filled with wolves, but her stomach had begged for the sparse blades of grass poking through the dunes. She had seen them creep upon one of the sandy dunes, their tales flicking eagerly, moist pink tongues licking their fangs and lips. They bolted after her, only several mouthfuls in, and she defended themselves. They were thin, obviously starving since prey had avoided their small area of sand dunes, but had the numbers. While she could beat or scare off two with her hooves, one always managed to get behind her. Several times the striker managed to slink in from behind, take a satisfying nip - sometimes bite - at her hind legs, before she could kick them away. They were superficial, nothing to be too worried about, but they'd need washing. One particular kick had landed her hoof in the under jaw of the strike, the wolf yelping in pain and running off. Another one, a distractor, managed to lurch forward and sink it's teeth into her right foreleg. Aloy had bellowed from her own pain, but used her other hoof to beat at the wolf's back.
They backed off, and the pegasus took flight. Now here she was, watching the distant land grow in size. "Thank the Sacred it's not another island..." Her mind sputtered. Adjusting her grip on the winds, she arched to slowly descend.
Snow laden, the air was as frigid as some of the more temperate days back in No'orvik. She was not entirely unaccustomed to such a thing, but this would make finding herbs for her throbbing fore difficult. Aloy had used her last spars days ago, and hadn't been on islands with nearly enough vegetation to support the kind of medicinal herbs she needed. "What was the saying?" She through, but it eluded her exhausted mind. All that truly mattered now was reaching those snowy fields. Another rotation of her massive wings seemed to rip the muscles in her shoulders and back asunder, grimacing through the pain. She was almost there now... getting closer... and closer.
Her legs extended to catch herself, hooves ready to pound into the frozen grounds and catch her descent with trained grace. But her injured leg bowed beneath her, tumbling her into the thicket of snow. She pulled her wings into her form as best she could for protection, but her legs flailed as she tumbled over herself. One final spin brought her to a jagged halt, her body losing all of it's gained momentum. Steam poured from her nostrils in gulping breaths as she lay in the show, a jagged scar etched into the field behind her. For a moment she just let herself lay there, lay there breath. The air was crisp with the grip of winter, and it stung her overworked lungs. Mustering it, she pulled herself upright, extending her injured leg with a hiss escaping her clenched teeth. The beaded throng that had her dreaded mane collected had fallen into the grace, and once her cerulean eyes saw it, she snatched at it, throwing it around her shoulders. Eye twitching, calling for her soft telekinesis, she tied it there to keep from losing it again, then extended the arcana to her mane where - ah, yes, it hadn't fallen. Her brush. Aloy let out a heaving sigh, her body uncoiling from the tension - so much so, it hurt to relax.
Those big blues flicked this way and that, wondering just how long she had to rest here...
wc: 623 tag: @Name ooc: Open for IC convincing to stay with the Dawn Court!
A rumble of content slipped from the titan's lips, a soft shudder that ran from his chest to up through his mouth. Honestly, Caelum was as comfortable as he would ever be in his life, white hair falling over his features as he leaned his head and gently bumped dark lips against a halo of bright hair on Somnus' head. "It's morning..." It fell from his lips as he lifted his head, long ears perking forward as stardust clustered around his eyes, and he blinked it away. The same formation of glittering circles over his head seemed to shimmer and move as well whenever his head moved, disturbing the clusters of stars.
They had spent the night together, and as of the moment, Caelum was resting with the other, a large wing draped over the other pegasus as he gazed out the window to the dawn light, the rising sun. The stars were chased away and he was left to mourn them silently, though he knew as always, they would come back once the sun fell back beyond the horizon.
All the same, Caelum's ears flicked and he turned to look back at his companion, a small smile twitching over his lips as he did, his wing shifting just to spill large feathers over the sunkissed man's body. Sun and Moon had met, and really, Caelum was not one to complain, finding a deep seated contentment in having companionship once more. Whether it went further than what they had remained to be seen, but he was enjoying what they had now.
— and I sank beneath the amorous sadness of night.
Once more it's another night in the library, surrounded by soft candle light and the rich smell of ink and ancient tomes. The flames flicker off the stone walls and paint everything in a soft and comforting glow, soothing troubled minds and worried hearts with the promise of escape in the books that find a home within.
Tonight, the smell of ink and parchment, like most nights since the Terrastellan had come to call Denocte home, is accompanied by the smell of lavender and vanilla. Tea smoke fluttered out of the open window by the desk he often lay near, the ornate pot roosting on it's burner like a dragon upon it's jewels. Uncharacteristically, the Sage is absent from the plush pillows and richly embroidered blankets, creating an angry wound in an otherwise ethereal canvas.
Instead, the sage moved through the dark wood and stone, past his favorite books and those that he had not ran his lilac gaze over. Wrapped in one of the blankets painted in constellations and fantastical beasts of myth and legend, his starlight hair barely pinned into a singular braid, he is relaxed and somber at this hour. Near silent on porcelain hooves until he settled to lean against the archway to Araxes usual haunt within.
"Araxes," He began and then paused, as if he was unsure about his next words. Isorath is not the type to openly care, his more tender emotions are locked behind a cage of thorns and ice. His care reserved for those who have managed to scale the frosty walls and brambled edges. Yet the champion has been a quiet but constant presence night after night, as they sit in opposite ends of the libraries absorbed in their work, and she is a part of the Court which has welcomed him openly and without suspicion. If anything, he owes her this, as he regarded her injured frame with veiled concern. "Would you like some tea?"
TAG: @Araxes
NOTES:
"this here is your speech colour!
These boundaries between one major territory and another seem to defy conventional logic, the roads leading not from point A to point B as read on a map, but from one time and place to another altogether, the way alive with a palpable flow and direction, as if the benign looking forest were really a vessel being drawn along some flooded waterway, effortless to follow, but impossible to turn against, conscious, insistent. She wonders at this as she walks, quietly complacent to the not-so-forest’s wishes.
“I’m looking for somewhere new.” She admits. “Somewhere I haven’t been, but close enough to where I have, if that makes sense.” If a forest would care to listen to the endeavors of an eccentric soul, she thinks to herself. “I’m – Oh!” All at once the trees come to a stop, their sheltering canopies opening onto a plain of alabaster white. “How pretty!” She exclaims, stepping lightly into the powdery snow. Ears pricked, she lifts her hooves to examine the impressions beneath, exhales clouds of staccato breath just to watch the condensation swirl and vanish. “The trees were so thick, I hardly knew it was winter.”
With a sweep of her lion-esque tail the rose dappled mare sends a spray of glistening crystals into the air, smiling at the soft shhh they make in rustling together and the way that they glimmer as they fall. It’s a childish movement, but she’s never understood why childish things are so shamed. What’s wrong with being happy, she’d question, but the disapproving only shake their heads as if there were a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ way to enjoy life. With a smirk she confides aloud, “But I’ve found that the wrong way tends to be more enjoyable anyway.”
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He carries with him the smell of copper and salt and red rich iron - the smell of blood.
Lysander is not a creature made for winter, and it is as if the new antlers he wears itch and bleed in lament. His love is for places where sun and salt conspire to curl his dark hair, and the vineyards grow long and languid on sleepy golden slopes. It is for the tang of summer fish and the darkly sweet smell of growing things, unfolding, loosening, opening up to heat and light.
This place has wind that bites and moans and leans, and he shivers against his will. In the Rift he might fashion himself a bower of firs - or he might simply keep walking, because nothing lingered in the rift lands for long, least of all seasons. Here there is little he can do but keep moving, seeking scant shelter among a copse of trees.
He pauses in a stand of aspen, bold bone-white and grave-black, and relieves himself with rubbing each arch of antler against a trunk. The ensuing scraping sounds and momentary relief keep him from noticing that the birds have fallen to quiet. Only when he pauses does he note their absence; he steps back, black-lined ears turning, green eyes canny.
And then, above him, a glimpse of gold among bare black limbs. The stallion tilts his head back, arching those ragged, bleeding antlers, and his dark mouth shapes a grin. It takes a second - two - of watching, but he is already sure. The last time he saw those wings, they hadn’t quite been strong enough to carry her.
Moving swiftly, now, he picks his way out from the thin scrub at the edge of the trees, loping by the time he hits the winter-brown grasses that thrust up through snow. She circles like an eagle; when the sun catches her right he can almost see the blossoms in her hair.
Lysander draws to a halt with a toss of his head, dark hooves flinging snow. Then he whistles, a high, clear note, and waits to see if this grown Florentine is as curious a creature as the girl he’d seen just a few weeks ago.
fragile is the soul spun of beautiful glass Tamran
He had to keep moving, she might be right behind him. He had to keep moving, he couldn't go back. He had to keep moving, even when he stumbled and fell onto his knees on burning hot sand. He had to keep moving... because to go back was not an option. He kept moving, despite the harsh rasp of his breath in his throat, despite the fact he could barely walk his legs felt so weak, despite the searing sun beating down on his back. He hadn't eaten, hadn't drank, couldn't remember when cool soft grass had turned to harsh grains between his toes.
He looked up, and in the distance he saw salvation, a spot of green in the barren orange landscape that wavered and rippled as if dancing in mockery of his wretched state. Far, it was so far... He placed his feet one after the other, nose nearly brushing the hot sand. He had to keep moving, because to stop was to die and leave his bones to bleach in the sun. He didn't want to die. Tamran raised his head once more, bleary eyes focusing on that oasis, that salvation... and found another, a dark shape approaching, crossing the dunes. Tamran took one step, two, before his knees buckled and sent him crashing to the sands, skidding down the sand dune, the grains rubbing his coat raw. He tried to get back to his weakened legs, to surge towards that salvation, but his legs buckled again.
He could see that shape moving closer, staring down at him, and he clawed at the sands to try and reach it, his head raised up in plea. Tam tried to croak for help, to beg and plead, that yes he'd go back if only they would give him water, just a little bit, just enough that he'd regain some strength in his legs. He tried to beg, but no sound came out before his head dropped onto the sand, sides heaving with exertion.
— you will ache as I ache—
tenderly, tragically, beautifully.
The last tendrils of Solis' reign painted the earth in brilliant hues of pastel warmth, illuminating both stone and equine alike in an aura of light. In the confines of the throne room, the same warmth bled through the windows and fed the low light provided by the ornate torches. It's beautiful, a scene for an artists careful touch upon a canvas, a moment to capture as the light spans across the throne like posessive tendrils to uplift it's silent power.
In the center, is the Dusk Sage, regal and serene in his contemplation as lilac eyes regarded the throne with a veiled gaze, beneath the lush canopy of snow lashes which framed them. Porcelain and marble elegantly sculpted, with flakes of gold scales glowing as the firelight caressed them. As still as he is, it would be easy to mistake him as another effigy, a figure lost to history, until the subtle tilt of his head betrays him.
To those that have grown used to the Sages presence, it'd be also easy to say that he is mulling over the secrets locked within such a timeless chamber, after all it's one of the reasons he'd come to Denocte, to unravel her history and mysteries to write reverently into his tomes. This is a chamber of history, etched in the lines of the throne and it's cushions. It would make perfect sense to see him here, in such deep thought.
But that would be far from the truth.
A myriad of emotions slither beneath his skin, a mixture of his past and his current predicament bubble underneath the smoothness of his face and the sharpness of his cheekbones. Internal conflict had never been his strong point, it is too much of a finely sharpened knife between the ribs, an assassins deft dance which weaved effortless around his own sword dance to fell him and watch him stumble onto his own blade.
History is beautiful, but terrible. It's almost too much.
Absent mindedly, his teke reached out to touch at the trinket weaved upon his crown, the moon providing a small measure of comfort, it's appearance striking against the gold which adorned him so perfectly, before the knife twists just so to break the serenity on his face. It's a small, but it's a fracture on the statuesque appearance he strives to create.
TAG: @Camdis
NOTES:
"this here is your speech colour!
In the beginning there was naught but She, the ocean. And in the end She prevailed; cold, wet, dark. Ossian slowly woke from the everlong black with a head that spun like a bottletop and a body immersed in throbbing pain, blinking thrice to chase away a faint fog clouding his vision. Memories of a recent past formed lazily, as though reluctant to reveal themselves to their disorientated architect and as he struggled to piece together both past and present, his vision finally began to return. A breath; weak lungs gratefully hoarding salt-drenched oxygen until at last, finally, the boy opened his wide eyes.
Jagged pale earth and rock soared skyward - looming over him with hulking shoulders, casting spectral shadows over the sand upon which he found himself sprawled. The cliffs eyed him and he eyed them right back, ebony lips parting to offer a greeting only to find his throat constricted and cracked with sandy brine. Where was he? What had happened here?
Ossian closed his vast eyes, fighting away the opaque confusion with a trembling hand, lunging through the recesses of his head until at last the memories began to assemble. Images of himself wandering hopelessly upon his childhood shores played on and on, watching the tears staining his soft sable skin until with one final stumble across the bay he unearthed an alien discovery: a small old boat, buried beneath the grey sand. The boy recalled wondering just who this little vessel had belonged to, and why they had abandoned it so? He had felt a dull pang of sadness; what a melancholy tale this ship might have endured following the loss of its creator and master. And then that star-haired child had made a choice, one that would change everything, or perhaps nothing at all.
With only a (now lost) threadbare bag filled with a precious assortment of shells he and Ama had collected over the years to accompany him, Ossian had set sail. Where all else had failed he knew that it was to the ocean he could turn to for deliverance, be it in death or life. And my, he had come close to losing both. The sea had raged; tossing and shattering his brittle raft until he was tossed into her blue murky depths. The final memory came in the form of pressure, salt, and a gentle ebbing darkness fading to black. Yet, still she had spared him - for here he lay, on this foreign shore with tangled limbs and a quivering ribcage. His charcoal coat was wet through, and it began to dawn on the young man just how cold he truly was. On thin uncertain legs Osi rose; as a child Ama had once called him bambi on ice and as it was, the saying had never been more true.
At last, Ossian stood. A brilliant chromatic sunset had begun to douse the horizon as he gazed out over the ocean back to a life that no longer existed and in that moment he felt quite tremendously lost. The metres of his endless bleach-white hair shook as he turned away from the sea, blinking away the terrible sting of emotion. This strange wild land leered at the boy, and Ossian thought he had never felt so alone as he did right here and now.
NOTES: ok this is so subpar but he's a totally new boyo for me and i struggle with first threads ;-; open to any Duskians that will initiate and recruit this little lost bean c:
