as though a loyal hound, she stepped through the corridor -- and there was peace, peace within the hallowed walls. 

the quiet blanketed her, dulled the mind and the ache of old wounds. there came no whispering, no ache. she simply existed within those walls as though she always had and it was nearly enough to elicit a smile to cross the threshold of her countenance. yet, it remained still: unmoved despite the moonlit ardor in her heart. perhaps she had found her sole joy; but then again, she'd always had a softness for solitude. denocte was quiet at this hour, and had she been beyond the walls of the court, she'd see the crimson wash of sunlight lifting across the horizon. it would bite into the indigo of their beloved night, devouring their sweetened obsidian cover. she disliked watching the stars be consumed by day, the moon being burned from view; she absolutely abhorred the heat of it's glow or the stains it bleached onto her pelt. 

dvalinn, as you should know, could be rather vain. 

and yet, she still paced the halls -- aimlessly, a restlessness she could not name. she could not imagine herself being lonesome, much as she would deny, it could have been true. perhaps the hag had been too much of a comfort, or the raven that once shadowed her steps had been a crutch. well, for that she'd never admit either, and all in all, the very reason she'd kept him and kept words with the gruesome thing. still, the sage hung onto her forlorn wanderings; her independence. there were duties to undertake, for that she understood. but that did not mean dillydallying with rabble, or carrying on with mindless chittering. 

always one to brood, she fell comfortably into that; ceasing her steps, and allowing boredom to guide her eyes along the court's walls, debating whether or not she should allow sleep to take her. 

the woods are lovely; dark and deep

The strike of metal upon metal held a dimming croon, a radiating shine taht rattled up bone, leaving flesh to shiver and eyes to narrow. Each fall of the hammer was a quake to the heart, long having grown steady by the tremble of an inexperienced desire. Each breath fell hot, bitter with the scent of ash and fire, pungent where even long after he abandoned the hearth, the smell would linger, heavy as the soot that dyed his chest charcoal. When he breathed, nostrils flaring, the ash would swirl about in archaic patterns, blackened frost, slowly etching away the fine silver of the world. The bright blade at the slender throat of each grass blade dulled, appearing for all the world cruel and harsh, blackened like iron worked too long. This was a world he had known, had found comfort in, pardon the harsh songs and touches that met his skin. He was used to the burn of fire to close to his body, used to the sounds that drowned out everything else. He was used to the scars and marks that littered each corner of gilded mahogany and alabaster that made up his hide, open wounds rubbed raw with carbon and ash. 

Ignoring the heat dancing against his sides, the reflective light of embers slowly smothered in their beds, Arion pulled away from the flames, his body shifting with the lethargic draw of a man who faced down the oblivion of his own limits, often meeting and drawing quarters on the line. He was tired... so very tired, the long hours of day leeching across the stone of the halls he had claimed his own, the shadow of the sun that burned even here, at the in-between. How long had it been since last he dared meet its grace, had felt the heat of the burning lantern high cast gold upon his hide? He could never answer that question, his memories seeming to fade into nothingness before he reached far enough back. Like the first ice of the changing seasons, they always vanished before the light, consumed by the earth and taken away, to reveal once against the dying world they lived. Always dying, always grieving, an endless cycle.

He had never feared death, never accepted it for anything other than a natural enemy. The enemy always won, always claimed its prey, and yet, they were to always fight its wrath, its hunger. To submit was to end the reign of life, and for that the stallion knew the words of old, the time when horses were far braver than they were now, each born a hero in the eyes of their mother. The complacency of the coming generations had always saddened the elders, so his sire had said, walking amidst the edge of the world where his ended and began all at once. That final battle field, that place of the dusk of one's end, the dawn of another's future. It was adequate he supposed, almost humorous, that he found himself here, in the eventide. A metaphoric end to his wandering for a time. He would like to think that the night of long steps had finally come to an end for him, and yet, Arion always grew hesitant, when he was given the chance to relax, to give in. What would it mean, should he let go of all that he had ever known, or would be? Walking, the movements of his body slow, the strike of heavy hooves upon stone was his own company the further he traveled from the hearth. The air was cool, the shadows long. The heavy lay of the pelt stretched upon his shoulders was the only thing it seemed to ward off the chill, the coldest hour of the day, when the sun had yet to break from its shackles and the moon grew complacent with her watch. There he stopped, watching as the sunlight slowly sighed across the stone, settling fine flecks of metal within the cobble aburn, and the air to dance with the mots of dusk. An ugly thing made beautiful for but a moment. Further it reached until, at last, it stopped, just before the tips of his hooves, his breath setting the mots awrithe, a tornado in the light. 

It was in Dawn’s new light, that the girl emerges from the forest. Before her the castle rises high, high into the sky, framed in the pinks and golds of a cresting sun.
 
The dusk girl had been to every kingdom thus far and met each at its most favoured time of day. There was no escaping that the dawn was finest here…
 
It is upon the precipice of the trees, that the dusk girl is tethered. Awe binds her limbs to the grassy banks of the river that curls sleepily around the foot of the castle.
 
Her limbs ache, satisfyingly so, for her trek had been a long one; through night and shadow with only starlight and moonlight to mark her path. It was only as she reached the edge of the woodland, as trees began to thin and the world began to creep back in, that she saw the first light, brightening the sky.
 
She wonders if the sage was here. Charlemagne, the boy of books and dust with whom she had, had her worst encounter since arriving in Novus… The fear of meeting him again would not sway the flower girl from her task to greet each Court and their sovereign. It helped that adventure eased the ache of her limbs and fuelled her eager heart.
 
High above the golden girl the trees begin to sigh, rousing from their slumber by the morning songs of birds. Clad in dirt and dust, strewn with petals and flowers, and bearing scraped knees and muddy feet, Florentine appears a natural part of this forest life.
 
The water calls and she does so long for a bath, if not to let the waters ease the dirt from her skin, then just to ease the ache of her muscles. Lavender petals fall forwards, loosened from her mane to drift upon the water’s surface. Is it warm? she asks as they float off towards the sea.
 
She does not hear their answer, nor even wait to see it one would ever come, for with a sigh and a flurry of wings, the dusk girl ascends the walls of the fort. She lands, light and nimble upon the other side, her amethyst eyes gleaming as she drinks in its towering parapets and lavish stonework.
 
It is so quiet in these early moments as the rest of the world still slumbers on. Yet if any land was to be awakening first, it would be the denizens of Delumine.
 
“Good Morning,” She says, her voice a melody to accompany the choir of birds, “I bring greetings from the Dusk Court and Queen Rannveig.”
 
@Kasil <3  @Charlemagne <3



this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart