A soft breeze ruffles the gilded leaves of the trees. The breeze caresses the thin fur of the dainty mare, she instantly shivers against the cool breeze. She closes her silver eyes, she already missed the summer, the burning heat and the flourishing plants. She breathes in deeply her thin nostrils flare in distaste. Damn these pine needles, this fresh mountain air. She craves the heat she wants to feel its burn on her shoulders. She lifts her delicate head higher on her arched nape. She could not see behind the clouds but she felt the sun's rays on her face regardless.
She ventures farther down the beaten path left by many of her court, her hooves the only sound that reaches her ears. An occasional snap of a branch halts her in her tracks. Her head instantly thrown upwards ears flick to and fro. With a huff, content she wasn't being followed she continued on her trek to the lake.
She cautiously steps towards the water as she can smell it in the air, she carefully places each foot insuring not to draw too much attention to herself. As she steps from the forest the sunlight filters through the tops of the trees. It reflects off of her midnight blue hued body. Tilting her head up, she grew deep in thought..thinking about stories she had heard. Of the three magical sisters and how they granted wishes if you completed a quest for them. She sometimes wondered if there was some truth to the bed time stories she had grown up with. Lyra shook her head a little and peered into the water, captivated by the clear depths and the fish that lived there.
If Seraphina were to imagine what divinity felt like, it would be warm and fluid, like bathing in the Oasis in the heat of the afternoon; or perhaps it was more like silk, quicksilver sleek and smooth, or a pile of roughly-hewn coins. (Or maybe that was more of the sound of divinity – sharp chinks, metal on metal, a clamor of motion.) It would smell like sandalwood and myrrh; it would gleam so brilliantly that she couldn’t allow her gaze to linger on it, for fear that her eyes couldn’t handle what they would see. That was divinity for Seraphina, for those who toiled in the heat and warmth of Solis’s light – something burning.
She faces down her god, a gift of teryr feathers and burning incense – a flicker of white light under a cloudy night sky - laid as sacrifices at his altar. She thinks of hundreds of questions to ask, important questions, deliberate questions, but all that manages to pry its way free of her lips is a single word, almost cracked, tongue fumbling: “Why?”
She has always gone to Veneror when she needs to find herself, and this is no exception – she’s always told herself that it is to find her god, but, somewhere deep inside of her, she knows the truth. (She’s never lost Solis; she chases his steps every day.) Her eyes creep up the statue that rears in front of her, finding the golden stones of his own eyes; there is no fire in them. All her prayers are whispered to a pale imitation. She knows this, and yet…
“Why?” The question finds its way free of her lips again, a bit fiercer this time. It seems simple enough, at first – childlike. Why do bad things happen? Why does anyone have to die? Why do you sometimes wake up to find the ground tugged out from underneath you? Why? And why does it hurt? It does hurt, even though she keeps telling herself it doesn’t – a subdued, throbbing pain that she tries to keep choked by the silver noose around her throat.
(And a very small, quiet part of her is terrified. She has forgotten what it felt like. She had thought that she would surely never feel it again, but here it is, nipping at her heels like a pack of hungry wolves.)
It’s only now, now that she’s out of the throne room, now that she’s out of the fortress, out of the desert, out of the heat that she feels the sudden weight that has been laid across her shoulders like a thick mantle. Seraphina has always been rational and collected – there’s never been much room for anything else inside of her, and, even if there was, Viceroy made sure that it never slipped through the cracks. She doesn’t know what she’s feeling, now; she fluctuates between white-hot panic and the familiar, icy embrace of apathetic confidence.
(In the midst of this all, she remembers how young she is, barely out of her youth; she has no experience making choices, even for herself. This is stumbling, stumbling, stumbling-)
Abruptly, her eyes find the shrine to Tempus. It’s overgrown with a wild collection of vines, somehow present despite the high altitude. (She thinks again of the maze, the ink-colored monster, the strange man who might not have been a man at all.) When Solis gives her no answer, she moves gingerly to the shrine of the greatest and eldest of all the gods, cold wind breezing through her unkempt locks. Seraphina stares up at his shrine in an absolute silence, save for the wail of the gales through the jagged crevasses stretched out below. She feels like she should ask him something, but no words come out.
She always liked to believe things happened for some divine reason, but, greeted by nothing but silence from all the gods of the world (insofar as she knew, anyways), Seraphina wonders if that wasn’t just another convenient lie that was told to help children – and tragedies – sleep at night. It is much more terrifying to think that there is never a reason for anything, that all of life is only a collection of celestial mishaps. Worst of all, she’s not sure if it matters; she doubts she’ll be sleeping tonight, regardless of the answer. (Maybe that’s the important thing, though.)
She presses her muzzle up against the ivy-covered walls for a quiet moment, eyes fluttering to a close. For a moment, she’s quiet inside.
She draws back, her eyes finding Solis again. “I can’t promise…” She says, quietly, “…not to fail you, but I certainly promise to try.” There is no answer. She does not expect one.
With that, she is gone, a wisp of silver smoke dissipating into the cold wails of the wind.
He had seen her here, mingling amongst the others. She was unlike them. Perhaps this was what Dare had become – a new mare. He had heard that sometimes, if you asked the gods in the right way…they would let you come back. Sometimes, you had your old memories, and sometimes not. It was a desperate, fool’s notion that he clung to. He knew that Dare was dead. Gone. And he would never see her silver flesh again; would never be able to touch her, to spar with her, or to be comforted by her. He would never again be used by her as a tool to her own gain. There was a tiny part of him that suggested he should hate her for what she had done – used him… but the rest of him had decided that he had actually loved her, and that she had simply nurtured that and had guided him. Besides…who could hate something so perfect? And so, now, his dark eyes searched through the crowd for the red mare. He was tall enough to see over most of the other horses here, and so finding her wouldn’t be hard. Or so he thought. He had only seen her once, but he knew it had to be Dare. She had come back to him through it all, and now it was his job to find her and remind her of who she was. Once his black eyes fell upon her, he felt his cold heart skip a beat before he moved closer, stepping around the festive-goers and those who had over-indulged on treats and cider. Despicable creatures, really. Defenseless and vile. Oh, how he could rape and pillage this entire world right now – creating an army of baby Plagues to raise as he sees fit. But instead, his mind is set on one thing – finding this mare. Once he wove through the crowd and saw her, he arched his neck and couldn’t help but prance however slightly. It was half a show of his masculinity, and half a show of his gorgeous physique (I apologize, but Plague is slightly vain). He stopped before her, muscles rippling. Truth be told, he was handsome – a true display of masculine virility and strength. His black eyes caressed every inch of her without reserve – he was not shy. This was, after all, his mare. He had found her after what felt like a hundred years of searching (and who knows…it very well may have been). ”Dare…” His deep voice was almost a whisper, a breathy sound that you may question if you actually heard. ”You came back…?” He hadn’t seen her die, but surely, she must have. What else would keep her from him? He wanted to touch her to be sure; to feel her fur beneath his muzzle, but he refrained. Oblivion didn’t recognize him…what if he was wrong, again? What if this wasn’t Dare? What if this wasn’t the only mare who had ever tamed him enough to use him as a weapon? Stop! It was Dare. It had to be. And so, he stood there waiting to hear what she had to say. Certainly, this was his beloved. ”Speech”
Posted by: Nimue - 11-09-2017, 06:24 AM - Forum: Archives
- No Replies
N I M U E
YOUR MINE AND I'M YOURS,
AND IF WE DIE, WE DIE. BUT FIRST, WE LIVE -
As the sun slowly slipped below the horizon, falling deeper into stupor as the inky black of night spilled across the sky above her, the rose witch only knew one thing. One thing, that reverberated through her skull, and all of the way down the lengths of every vein and nerve, to the very core of her bones.
Winter was coming; blessed, cold, and endless winter. Once-immortal, now cursed into a body made of flesh and meat and scarlet blood, she hailed from a kingdom of ice and snow. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away.. in a world that was old, maybe as old as she was young. Young and naive in this timeline, compared to the multiple millennia where she lived amongst the stars. A being of everything and nothing, all at once, existing in every inkling, every timeline and possibility that could be born and burned to ash. She lived in the past, present, and future; co-existing in the In-Between, as a watcher. A guardian. A goddess; her gifts and powers that be ruling over the continuum of space and time. Relativity was her godsend; her breath turning worlds into pyres, her heartbeat coaxing newborn universes into life. With every blink, she saw All. Everything the was, that is, that would be. Could be. Her existence was absolute, as one half to the whole that they were. She and him; twins to the master of Time itself. Not Tempus, not this world's father of the gods. But someone far older; a crone god that witnessed the beginning; had birthed two children by weaving stardust and space into beings.
He blessed them with knowledge, with patience, and understanding. Their father had given them the best gift of all: the Sight; power wielded with great care, with pride, and bound by one rule that must not be broken above all.
Do not fall in love.
The moment that she had first laid eyes on him; her curse-in-the-flesh, her lover, her damnation, she was mortal-bound. A shred of her soul had shriveled up and died, replaced by a terminal heartbeat that counted every breath she took until her last. For the first time in her existence, she had felt the fingers of Death stroke her star-kissed skin, laying it's ugly hands over her chest, squeezing her heart with a mighty fist. But she did not falter, instead, she was curious. Curious and full of child's wonder; for having watched every timeline, the birth and death of kingdoms come and gone, she noticed him with newfound detail.
Maybe she knew then, maybe she did not. Either way, no matter how many different ways the timelines could have played out; her fate was crafted into destiny and design all the same. No matter what she could have done, the seeress was cursed. For the second she fell in love, felt that first brush of morality and earthling emotion grace her heart and soul, Nimue was doomed. No matter if she had never seen him, not once, or tried everything she could not to look away after that first wonderful and awful glimpse..
She was gone.
Her mind replayed every emotion, every memory, every tragic scream of protest from those initial moments. The Sight was both a gift and a curse, a blessing and perdition. As a seeress, she saw everything, whether she wanted to or not. She remembered every fine detail as if she could see it with a hyper focus, sharp and unforgiving. That was her disaster. A world-ending, fiery pit of hell woven from the moments where she watched that night-blessed man for the first time. Remembering the way his skin was a star-map she wished to touch and find and discover each constellation, marking it with brushes of her lips and blinks of wide blue-violet eyes. She recalled how he had stood steadfast against an army of the dead; a necromancer, whom he faced headlong with a band of soldiers as just and proud as he.
She did not forget how she smiled, for the first time since she was born into nothingness and something. How the curve of starry lips blossomed in the In-Between. How laughter tasted of sugar and butter and salt on her tongue as she slowly materialized into a young woman touched by rose dapples and cosmos and galaxies far and wide. But then, her fate long since sealed by no one other than her father, Phobos, himself.. Nimue knew anger. Hatred. Rage.. the color of crimson and flashing white light that blinded her. Burned through her until she could have glowed like a supernova; a dying star shining through the ages of deep space as the afterlife sucked the life out of the star and into a black hole.
Her first mortal memories were of cold. Bone-crushing cold that encased her heart in blocks of hailstone. Snow crusted on her youngling body as if she had been molded from the of ice that covered her lips, sealing them shut, her eyelashes dusted with white. The chill of dead winter seeping into her skin like fingers of white death, and all at once, she could feel her own body. One moment, she had felt joy and happiness as everything was right in the world. The next, Nimue was in a land blanketed in bright light; colorless and brutal. For the first time, she felt her own body as if it were a cage made of bone and muscles and tangled hair. A crumbling castle who's walls fell with every breath that touched her lips and filled her lungs with glass shards.
Nimue held Death by the hand, and she was afraid.
Was. Not now. Now, five winters have passed, a sixth a threat on the horizon where the sun fell into a slumber. Stars yawned and glimmered against the backdrop of ebony and darkness and glowing indigo as the light faded away into nothing. Only shadows and smoke that slithered and grew with each passing moment; clinging to every pebble and rock and stone pillar, softening its edges and curves. The patron goddess of her earthling home — Glacies, a queen born of untamed winter winds and frozen northern poles — seemingly whispered the promise of winter with each breath that sent shivers down her spine. The breeze of autumn tangling the wild of her mane as she climbed and climbed and climbed. High above her, a night sky that drank in every last kernel of warmth the sun breathed onto the world, light quickly fading with each passing moment. Darkness fell onto her, clinging to her skin and the bone-white of her horn. But she was not alone in the shadows of night, in the heart of another goddess of this realm.
She was a witch, after all. A mortal, all-Seeing, witch.
The thick, raw cluster of amethyst dangling around her throat by leather cords pulsed; a beacon of indigo light that cast it's lovely glow against the smooth curves and planes of her face and neck. That crystal was the shining light that danced and flirted with the darkness and the cold, bouncing off of the mountain's stones as she finally crested the final steps. Pillars swirled and rose, vaulting and holding up the ceiling as the cave opened up before her like a yawning mouth. Faintly, she could make out the blurred statues within; the five statues that depicted the sons and daughters that ruled the skies above. With several blinks, her haunting gaze adjusted; the blind left orb snapping with a clear focus as the timelines opened up before her, allowing the witch to see how others have come to this sacred place. How they would congregate and bring tokens of hair or gold or silver, herbs and vials of salt and sand. Gifts to their patrons, to their powers that be. She wondered, for only a moment, what it would feel like to have unwavering faith. A religion and shred of hope so pure that only the thought of the divine could bring waves of surety, of understanding, of warmth, and love. A love not bound by blood or circumstance or social status. Love that did not judge, or prejudice.
With a blink and tug on her power, Nimue's Sight snapped back, curling in her like a sleeping dragon waiting to be unleashed once more. Her visions cleared, and before her, a silent, empty sanctuary. She was alone in this place, this holy temple of the gods. The stars that glittered through the pillars spiraling up towards the ceiling above were like hands holding the sky itself. A cradle for the sun, the moon, and all of the stars that shimmered in quiet prayers down to those who spoke to them, and listened.
Maybe the stars would listen to her; maybe the gods would turn their mighty heads and hear the words she had to say. For Nimue had many words; had practiced what she wanted to say to them. Before, she was ruthless; a child throwing a tantrum as she nearly laid on her knees to beg them for her magic back. Cursing allowed to Tempus, to Oriens, to any one of them that would listen; maybe even loud enough for Phobos to hear through the rips in time itself. Her frustration still broiled in her now — a constant burning deep in her gut that bubbled in her blood — but she reigned it in. Uncommonly, she pushed down her annoyance, her impatience, her crimson anger; so far down, in fact, that slowly, Nimue found herself enclosing it in a cage of obsidian stone streaked with gold. The shimmer of brightness against the dark like the ichor running through the veins of gods, much like the lifeblood in her own.
A golden cage is still a cage.
She hissed, the thought intruding and unwanted. But relevant, as she saw herself in her minds eye. A rose-touched witch, beautiful and cruel and violent. Her own body a cage that held the monster within; a soul that craved the taste of immortality, a heart that burned for a lover that caused her own demise. Lips that tasted of brutal words and insults like a poison.
Her steps were near silent along the stone floor, as her gaze flickered from statue to statue. The amethyst glow casting long shadows all around her in a choreographed dance; gorgeous and defining the features of the offerings laid at the feet of each pillar. To her right, silver trinkets of moon and stars that glittered like smooth pearls in her crystal's glow. The next, as she moved forward with tender steps, a pile of potent, lovely smelling herbs and vials of pink sand. In the center, she stopped and stared, her movements hesitating. The tallest of them all, a pillar of whirls and smooth planes, could not be any other than Tempus, the God of Time.
Nimue narrowed her eyes, her mind reeling as she remembered every horrid and wonderful memory of her mortal years. Of before, when she had once been timeless. Before she had first glimpsed Astarael, the man she loved; before she took her first mortal breath; before, when the worlds had not known war, or famine, or tragedy. Before Tempus possibly crafted this kingdom; when Novus was nothing more than a thought, a wish, a dream woven from ash and dust. She remembered how her rage had washed her in a crimson haze, but then her mind showed her the maze. That god-be-damned maze, with a Shaman who slithered in darkness and shadows and illusions. A tremble shuddered down her legs, her bones, as she recalled the lake that had nearly drowned her in cold and beasties with sharp little teeth. Her triumph had been successful, however, and she walked away with her prize. The very thing that gave her back one third of what she cherished most; her Sight. She had carefully tucked away the incandescent gem; a relic, and a blessing from no one other than the Time God himself.
So instead of falling into the storm of her anger and vengeance, Nimue simply bowed her crown in silent thanks. For without this prize, this beautiful thing, she might not have regained one of the special pieces of her that had been taken away the moment she had her immortality stripped away. In her heart, the shadows of her hatred and revenge gripped her like a makeshift personal hell. Demons of who she once was, was now, and a woman who stood before her now, next to that statue in the center of the room. She had her eyes; those haunting, mismatching orbs that caught nothing. Except, instead of piercing judgement, Nimue saw only understanding. Warmth, so much so that she swore she could feel it radiating off of the ghost of the woman she wanted to be in waves.
She was a wish, a dream manifesting before her very eyes; a rose-colored beast who's beauty finally blossomed inside, as well as out.
Chilly fingers brushed through her mane, her forelock, kissing her neck in cold prickles that trembled along her spine. With soft steps, she moved forward, curving along the circular chamber as her eyes landed on the next statue; a god who's followers built a small pyramid of glittering gold coins and arrows. However, it was not this pillar she faltered at, but the next.. the witch hesitated. Her gaze transfixed on the first statue, and the hidden meaning behind the runes etched into the stone. Ancient and honest, she felt the invisible eyes of that god peering into her heart, her soul. Seeing everything that held her, broke her, and built her. A shadow of the demons that made her who she was. A hateful woman, hellbent with spite and longing.. but most of all, she was lonely. Desperate.
Her heart fluttered in her chest like a trapped bird as she noticed the small amount of gifts left at the foot of Orien's pillar. A god not entirely unlike her other goddess, Glacies. He, who commanded the Dawn and rising sun. A king who prided honesty and wisdom, clarity and justice as crystal clear as water. There were little scraps of parchment rolled up at his stone hooves, but not much more. She blinked, longingly, until a silver thread bound in her chest pulled her gaze away. Kasil was her god's chosen, her sovereign, an embodiment of Oriens himself. Nimue, her king's chosen Champion. A branch of the intelligence that she, and most that called her Court home, treasured. Somehow, someway, maybe her God had chosen her.. through their crowned dark king.
Oxygen hitched in her lungs as emotions roiled and thundered in her blood and bones. Silver lined her eyes, for the first time since she was young.. so very young. Confused, but mostly.. humble. Something she had not felt since she was cursed to morality. When she had fallen in love from afar, worlds apart, with a man she had never met.
Maybe he was not her damnation, but her salvation. For maybe love was the greatest gift of all, and she was only just beginning to realize such a delicate, beautiful thing. She stared on with a glaze glossing over her eyes, either from the kiss of winter on the breeze or something else, she didn't know. Her heart swelled several times over, a heavy burden like a chunk of gold in the cage of her ribs. The fragile curve of her lips trembled as she lowered her dished face, the charms in the thick of her hair tinkling softly in the quiet. A shudder of metal that was almost painfully loud amongst the dead silence cocooning the temple.
She looked over at the pile of offerings, her nose brushing a worn roll of parchment. The thin, frail paper glowed faintly as the violet of her crystal pulsed like a small star at her throat, thrumming to the beat of her heart. A tear fell down her cheek, followed by another, as the rose witch was overwhelmed; drowning in a fathomless sea of her demons, her anger, and every single negative emotion that she had felt in the five years since she had been cursed to this world. To live and breathe mortal air, to taste Death and feel it's fingers dancing with her with each day.
Not once had she been afraid of Death, she realized, but of what she would lose. She reached out, hands grasping air, as she Saw every possibility flash before her eyes. Her Sight a dragon snapping open his wings and opening its maw, purifying her with fire and truth. Truth. Like Oriens, the God of Dawn, her God, showing everything that she needed to See. The woman she could learn and grow to be.. a better woman; a witch bathed in white light and goodness; a man swathed in stars and the ebony depths of night; and a child. A child.. her child.. kissed with the rose tint of newly blossomed flowers and the brush of burning stars. Her son, her daughter; a witchling blessed by the colors of dawn streaking across the sky, chasing the moon into a deep sleep, allowing the sun to rise.
Rise.. like a phoenix, reborn from the ashes. Not caged in a mortal body, but taking each moment to change. To heal, like the tears that now fall from her eyes.
Blinking upwards, she rose. Her heart a madly beating thing in the center of her chest; but no longer heavy. Instead, a newfound lightness lifted off of her shoulders, as if an unseen weight had been slowly dragging her on a downwards spiral for years. The breath that touched her lips and filled her lungs no longer tasting of ash, but of freshness. Crisp and lovely and sweet as sugar. Pine and snow coating the inside of her lungs as if she was smelling the beauty of the mountain for the first time.
She had never felt more alive.
As her small frame trembled and shuddered beneath the stars, the rose witch wept. Tears streamed from her eyes freely, without abandon, as each brick in the walls she had built around her heart, her soul began to crumble into dust. She stepped towards the mouth of the cave, the silver thread in her chest and woven around her center pulling her, until she felt one last tug behind her. Turning, slowly, she could See; the future laid out at her feet, her magic unfurling and bursting for one final moment before the dregs of her energy were drained. A timeline played before her very eyes; where she was happy, truly happy. Every hope and dream and wish answered, but not without work, not without change, and not without facing each one of her secrets and demons headlong.
Like her lover, like Astarael, she would stand like a pillar of strength against an army of her demons. Like he, when he once braved a necromancer so very long ago, in another place, another time.
Determined, more than ever, she whispered her prayers into the inky black, a knowing smile tugging her lips upwards. A promise, an oath, a vow. Her gods, old and new, her only witness, as she tore a lock of her hair with the tendrils of her mind, placing it at the feet of Orien's statue. Like a wraith, she turned, her tears welled and dried on dappled cheeks as she drank in the night air in large gulps. Strength and certainty lacing her blood until she could almost feel her heart boiling with anticipation. A rose-touched shadow in the night, the witch vanished, the only sign of her the tears soaked into the stone floor and the small lock of her hair she had left.. her only gift; a minuscule fraction of the promise she had silently sent up into the stars.
She knew only this: Nimue refused to fail, and she had work to do.
This thread was inspired by this amazing song by Audiomachine.
--- This post is private; Nim enters & exits in this post.
I had a lot of Nimue muse today omg. Bless you if you read all of this c:
This post is a massive turning point for Nim, and I have never been more excited. Hugs to anyone who took the time to read this behemoth post! ^u^
--- tl;dr Nimue contemplates her past, present, and future: from the moment of her old existence, to being cursed, to remembering the first moments of falling in love and mortality. She visits the gods once more, her Sight and mind showing her all of the good possibilities, and her own demons. Her heart humbled, Nimue thanks the gods in a silent prayer, before she leaves more determined than ever to become a better version of herself.
Character development is a thing. 3,340 words ♡ "Nimue speech."
The plains were a riot mixture of scents; all the courts held trace smells here. Neutral ground. The very thought of it curdled within Quinn's blood, annoyed that this was not the point in which he had entered the world of Novus. The freedom of not having come from any of the court lands was held away from him, and he did not much like it. Nothing more than a trace scent lingering on his coat, though, the night court's hold on him. It was where he had arrived, where he paused for rest -- he wouldn't call it home, because that was too meaningful of a term to him; Vhetiveer was home anyway -- and that was all. The night court does not have his loyalty. No place does, not here or now.
If there was a battle between courts, Quinn honestly did not know where he would fight. He knew only that he would be compelled to fight regardless, because that was something he enjoyed above so many other things in life. His mercenary mindset told him that he would fight for whomever had the best price, but Quinn had to always keep in mind what Vhetiveer would want or expect from him. This was an area that Quinn had no interest in failing at. Everything else didn't much matter to him anymore, because he'd lived through so many things, and he had a better grasp of what actually meant anything to him in the long run. He had been so many things, the checklist was near full by now.
And what did that leave him? Matters of the heart, perhaps, and finding more reasons to live and thrive. The battles to come. Quinn was holding himself back, but that could only work for so long; he knew how this story went. He had tried to keep calm and settled before, and that all crashed and burned. Several times over. Quinn was set in his ways, and if he hadn't been able to change in the worlds before this one, then what hope did he have now? So instead, Quinn prepares for it. He keeps himself in shape, practicing in the dim morning light until he's sweat-slick and feeling that low burn in his muscles. This was a constant -- nearly the only one -- through all the years. What he could fall back on, no matter what.
The day had grown brighter as Quinn ambled on through the plains, irritation still curled about his features. So unlucky to not have arrived in Novus here, though he could always stick to these lands in that I'm-not-a-part-of-anything sort of way; but this was Quinn, and he'd go where he pleased, regardless of where he was considered to belong to. For now he was just looking, itching for a reason to do something, anything. Quinn paused to stare out across the dancing grasses, attention flicking to the spot near his hooves, where some rodent was skittering about. A blink and he'd struck, crushing tiny bones between sharp teeth, blood dripping from his chin. He gulped the entire thing down and proceeded to move along again.
A scarlet wraith was she - drifting aimlessly, without purpose nor design, and to the mouth of the ocean she had sailed upon a high northern wind. She was absent of heart; it lay dormant, a sleeping dragon hidden within the cavernous hallowed hall of her ribcage. Who was she - the volcanic daughter of a merchant, embroidered with pretty scars, owned by the past and by a spectral man shrouded in her own ash and ruin - to wake it? Once more, Rhoswen had departed Solterra and only now had she begun to feel the waves reverberating from the desert - whispers and echoes of Maxence's death kissed her heels. She could not say she was surprised - he had been ambitious, but arrogant; a dangerous concoction in a world such as this. An absentee of the court, Rhos had chosen the open road over the weight of obligation, finding solace in the silence, in the freedom. But one cannot wander forever lest they wish to lose themselves to oblivion, and the girl was not ready for such finality yet. There was something, someone, tearing her back; ripping at her wanderlust until it lay only between her hands, broken and bloodstained - obsolete. So to Novus she had returned - sweeping by the sea as she journeyed north toward the arid kingdom of her house. The salt licked at her auburn curls, whipping them into a sanguine cyclone that danced above her forehead - she was a memory of her mother, a figment of the past if you did not look close enough. Rhoswen sighed, gazing out over the endless blue until the great nothingness of the ocean was all she could feel.
OPEN: rhos returns. she's all in her feels and shiz, open to anyone<3
If you love me let me go
These words are knives
that often leave scars
For once he ventures out from the confines of his room and out into the crisp, autumnal air. He goes on a mission for herbs, a quest to keep the store of Dusk Court in tact despite his lack of loyalty. Truly, he needs to break away from the dangerous cycle of his own thoughts, so rather than lounge in the comfort of sheets and pillows he ventures outside. He can’t help but pine for the ever green of his garden, the quiet ripple of his koi pond as the artificial waterfalls formed through careful rockscaping. He had spent countless hours basking in the warmth of the daylight and painting the colorful fish that circled in the water. Today he keeps an eye out for any substance that might be of use to craft into paints. Truly he misses the endless hours wasted with a brush stroke to the page. Art was how he filled the idle hours confined to his own home, now there is nothing but sleep and the silence of his own room.
Carefully he plucks leaves from a bush and then hands them over to Mittens, letting the cat clutch them between her sharp teeth. He should invest in bags or something he muses to himself, it might be a bit practical with his new role in Dusk. For a moment he wonders if his mother would be proud at his pursuits in healing. Much of her knowledge didn’t pass on deaf ears even if he never sought to be a medic. It is difficult for him to mend others when he himself is not whole. There are too many broken pieces scattered, portions of him are merely poorly stitched back together, but alas time might heal his wounds.
He is pulling more leaves from the branches when he feels a nudge from his companion. Someone is here Mittens whispers. Jude’s head raises and he looks around nervously.
She had descended Veneror Peak whilst the moon still hung high in the sky, casting all the world below in a luminous haze of milky silver; now, as she strode into the ancient fortress that served as the capitol of the Day Court, the first blush of Oriens’ dawn hung gentle and pink on the distant, golden horizon, heralding the slow passage of Solis’s light across the sky. The scent of incense and honey-like primrose still hung thick to her coat as she drifted through the weathered sandstone archways, eyes cast out to linger on the shape of a great pyre built up in the center of the courtyard, crowned by bones that she could only imagine belonged to her fallen sovereign – retrieved by the hot-headed ambition and warlike loyalty of her people from the teryr’s dead offspring, then meticulously cleaned in preparation for the funeral rites. (Viceroy would have carved them with words, even prayers, but she imagined that the Solterrans unfamiliar with his customs would have found that insulting, to further tamper with the remains.) Seraphina stood, gazing up at the great monolith of wood and bone with a sense that something was pricking in her chest. Dead and gone, she’d told herself, on her way back – like tracks in the dunes will disappear overnight.
She reached for the right words in preparation for what was to come, but she didn’t think that there were any. She was no master of sentimental storytelling, no great wordsmith that could spin poetry out of thin air; no, she was simpler than that, and guided by something else entirely. Nor did she really know what she felt, staring up at the jagged tips of branches and the sharp spurs of bone. She wished that Maxence was still alive. That would have to be enough.
Her mind, normally so composed and structured by rigid discipline, found itself tangled into knots, trapped like some wild beast in a hunter’s net. She grasped for words – grasped for something, anything that felt right, but nothing did, and nothing would. (And perhaps there was a prick of guilt, for she knew what would come soon after the funeral. It was only natural, and yet…it felt wrong, like a vulture feasting on raw carrion. There were no words for that, either.) She ran circles around herself, questioning, questioning, questioning; she found the stark white of her sovereign’s – quietly, reluctantly, her friend’s - bones and stared into them, as though she would find the answer that she sought somewhere in their marrow.
None came. Gods could be cruel, she supposed – crueler than most anything else.
Those bones were all of them, the last of him, and they gleamed like the milky fog she remembered on dead eyes (turned up to stare at a sky they couldn’t see) in her childhood. For a moment, when she’d watched the teryr drag Maxence away, Seraphina had clung to the foolish, frantic hope that he would somehow wrestle free of its grasp and return to them, whip crackling like the flames that were soon to consume all that remained of him. For a moment, she had forgotten the taste of death, bitter in her mouth. For a moment, she had thought that they were more, that they existed somewhere outside of its reach, that a moment of progress would mean a necessary continuation. Now, those foolish delusions shattered, she could only recount regrets – and those were just as useless.
She wished that he was still alive.
She remembered, as her eyes finally turned from the pyre to creep along the hazy, rose-tinted outline of dawn, her sharp words on his arrival; she remembered the way he screamed her name when the teryr, the first damned teryr threw her to the ground, a concern that she’d never experienced before in her life; she remembered the way her stomach had lurched into knots when he’d announced her his Emissary; she remembered their last conversation alone, the ghost of a smile on his lips, the sense that they were accomplishing something, that there was finally a meaning to her; she remembered his call from within the library, the way her hooves had felt against the sand, the flurry of motion, the blinding light, the blinding light, the way a scream caught up in her throat-
It had all happened so fast.
It had all happened so fast, and Seraphina was left unsure of how she felt, because she expected to feel empty.
Her gaze, finally, fell back to the pyre. (He’d died a glorious death, a warrior’s death, or so she’d been told; but it was all just death to her, empty and grey as the ocean in a storm.) At her side laid all the tools that she would need to set it ablaze, to burn it white-hot and bright as Solis himself. She only needed a moment, only needed those damned words – but they’d fallen out of her grasp again. She was starting to wonder if they always would.
Seraphina stood in front of the pyre much like someone might stand between worlds, awaiting anyone who might have come to pay their respects – past and present twined, waiting for a spark.
open to anyone, regardless of court <3
mildly confusing and extremely rambly because sera is sorta having a weird crisis, so summary : After spending some time at Veneror thinking about things (thread forthcoming), Seraphina arrives at Maxence's funeral pyre, made primarily of wood and crowned by the bones, presumed to belong to Maxence, that will be discovered in this thread. She's basically just waiting around for the others to show up so that she can burn it.
The ocean carried him to Novus, and he is ready for it to carry him away. Jude wonders why he even bothers with lingering when it has become so apparent how meaningless he is. Obsession pulled him here and it is apparent this has been a fool’s errand. Sorrow is souring into simmering rage, his heartache is hardening into something far hotter. Jax had treated him as an accessory, an item to be toyed with and discarded when his use had run dry. His teeth grind together as he stares out at the ocean and listens to the lull of the tide.
I was driven by infatuation and look at where it’s gotten me, he says to his feline who is swatting idly at a crab that has it’s pinchers raised. He kicks up a damp wave of sand before he traipses along the shore and stares out at the roaring waters. Those merchants are long gone by now, he’ll have to find other ways home even if it means more traveling on his own. It is not his first quest and he imagines if he can survive it once a second surely could be doable.
”I’m done shedding tears for people that won’t weep for me,” he whispers to himself, ”I’ve wasted far too much emotion on men that can’t reciprocate.. I’m not going to be second best anymore.” He can hear the pitter patter of paws as Mittens trots up next to him, tail twitching. For once he holds his head high and doesn’t bow to the nagging sorrow and fear that tries to yank him downwards. This life is his own and it’s time he seeks something of his own.
He doesn’t think he will ever get used to the echo of his hooves on the marble floors, the way the walls close up around him and box him in. It reminds him of his dreams of the maze, the strange and glittering walls, the feelings of being hemmed and caught.
Asterion appreciates the structure for its artistry, for its protection from the elements, but he can’t quite picture it as home.
But he is trying. That is what brings him walking slowly through the halls as the morning fades to noon outside, late autumn sunlight making patters on the floor. His life has held no shortage of mysteries, but court life might be the strangest of them yet – and so Florentine had suggested he speak to someone far more experienced with them.
The gold-and-ivory stallion had caught his eye from the moment he swept into the meeting, striking and lovely. It wasn’t the thought of speaking with him that had nerves prickling beneath his skin like ripples on a lake; it was the setting itself. He is out of his depth here, and he knows it, and he swallows as he turns into a corner room rich with wood and leather.
“Isorath,” he says, managing to keep it from sounding like a question. He also manages not to stare, although his gaze can’t quite pull away from the stallion; he is beautiful in a way that Asterion is unaccustomed to. The man puts him in mind of nothing so much as the gods of Ravos, but even they were modest and plain in comparison.
Isorath belongs here in a way that the bay never will, and he’s never felt it more clearly.
Even so, his dark-eyed gaze meets the ethereal lilac eyes of the kirin, and he tips his chin toward the desk, where books are scattered and something delicate and silver hisses with steam. “Florentine said I might ask you…how is it you learned to read?”
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