home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
With all the searching, today was a successful treasure hunt and adventure. She found a beautiful half dark stone but on the other side it was a deep orange and gold color. She had to wrap it into a leaf to keep it in her mane with her other treasures. She would eventually find a nice place to hide them but with leadership still being decided and everything one giant land, well, Weir worried her little trinkets would be found if not hid perfectly so she will wait. Her legs are tense and tired from walking since morning and turning rocks over in the streams. She still did not find the relic from the time god. She wouldn’t know what to do with something like that. Would she want that responsibility? Would she be able to handle it? Would it corrupt her? Would she hurt someone like she was hurt? What kind of power can something that has been touched by a god have in it?
Her mind, with all its questions, became too much on her weary body and she walked out into the Susurro Fields to look out at the stars. The moon is full tonight and against her white and ivory back, she shone as bright as any of the stars in the sky. She is in no hurry to get anywhere but she is always vigilant, always watching, always keeping an eye out for danger, and for shiny things. Tonight, she walked slowly. She is just looking here and there into the bushes. She is just taking in the moment and enjoying her new homeland in the dusk court.
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
There is already so many things she is learning about her new ‘home’. She has met a handful so far and seen more as she traveled, she thinks she even saw one flying. There was something she would never forget, long dark wings blacked the sun out for a moment and then they were gone, so fast was their travel, she would never be able to keep up. Weir had taken some time to explore some of the more social lands in-between and within the counts. She wanted to be more familiar with her now 'home'. So for this part of her search, she returned home to the dusk court.
It was the closest thing that resembled anything Weir could recognize from her previous life as a rejected king’s albino human bastard daughter. This place looked like a place fit for her father, it was huge. The details are familiar to her old life but this craftsmanship was much more perfect, more exquisite, so precise, stunning, and breathtaking that it felt like only the gods could have created the dusk courts one building.
The large pole and stone carving and structural supports are extremely detailed. The doors tall and wide, much bigger than anything Weir would need on her own. It seemed like a giant could fit through them. The floors seemed to tell a story about a mare but not just any mare. Her beauty surpassed anything Weir could imagine and immediately she felt a desire tingle at her heart strings to know who the woman is and to know more about her.
Attentions to the details in life is important and to have a good eye for colors, patterns, and things that mesh well together. Like creating works of art in your head before you have any of the pieces in your possession. This whole world seems like that. Something she is beginning to piece together in her mind. The walls giving her clues as to her god and to what is important to her. Weir wonders if this all was made by her god. Continuing further into the palace like building she found several rooms with bowls that had powders in them and stones where roots, seeds, flowers, and dried up leaves seemed to have been left abandoned on the tables. It looked like the healers building near her village growing up. Some were tied up in bundles and hanging around the rooms, and others were organized in jars, bowls, and piles.
Weir nosed at some of the plants, taking in their features and smells and categorizing them into her memory. She would need to learn more about them. Some plants and flowers she recognized from exploring but many were still foreign to her. As she searched, she noticed that the jars had names on them that were covered up with the dust and spider webs. She used her lip to wipe the dust away from some of the jars and saw the words written: michaelmas daisy, culver’s root, and ocotillo.
She continued to read and inspect the jars as she moved around the dusk courts building. Learning, exploring, and searching.
home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread
Long white and pink tail tossed lazily back and forth behind Weir as she made her way towards the creek known as Amare Creek. The moist soil was forgiving under her pale and pinkish hooves, clinging to her almost translucent tips of her hooves. The color striking against the lush green foliage of ferns and low laying ground-cover flowers, clovers, and wild grasses. She trotted peacefully and calmly through the brush to where the slow-moving waters flowed. She could see the water through the birch and cedar trees. The water reflecting the sunrise on the water’s surface. The surface is smooth since the creek is flat and wide. This part of the creek is not very steep so there are no rapids. Small circles would appear occasionally and rippled out until they disappeared. She couldn’t see the bugs that made them but she could see the mouths of the fish as they would jump to try and catch the bugs.
Her hips effortlessly carried her whole body to the edge of the water, where she sauntered to a halt. Long, loose, and braided hair swayed forward and then returned to its usual resting place randomly around her face and down both sides of her neck. She is here because of the beautiful golden water in front of her and the possibility of finding the relic everyone is thinking about. This time she thought about searching the stream bed since it was calm, shallow, and easy to see through the water. She lowered her head and sipped the cool, crisp water until her lips felt chilled. Next she stepped into the water with her nose above the surface of the water and looked at the rocks below the surface. Occasionally she would turn over a rock here or there and see what is underneath. She hoped maybe the next one covered something lost, shiny, and of value to her.
Venari had waited until dusk had set in to search the formidable desert. He was not a stallion to cope with humidity well, his ebony base coat was hardly ideal due to it's demand to absorb the sunlight. It's why he preferred the cooler regions and colder courts within Novus. He felt more comfortable there and much less likely to melt away into nothingness. The ground beneath his hooves fell away at every step, making the footing much harder than he had anticipated. Off to a good start already.
There wasn't much to search in this vast, empty space. No hidden secrets and no varying foliage. It was only sand that could cover up the appearance of a relic. Therefore, he felt as though he could relax a little in his searching habits and just allow his eyes to wander effortlessly over the grains of amber. If there was something to be found, he would surely see it protruding from the sand. Venari wanted to do well in this quest, but he was not about to start digging holes every few meters just in case he found something. While the sea of sand felt intimidating, it was not impossible to search it all within an hour or so, especially given the nature of the habitat. Snorting the warm air from his lungs, Ven picked up a steady trot, flicking his tail at intervals to flick away the sand from his limbs.
The setting sun projected a golden light upon his figure, turning his teal stripes lighter and shinier. He intended to spend a few hours at most here before heading towards the day court to rest his tired limbs.
*
TAGGED: Open
NOTES: sorry it's crud, I often lose muse for starters xD
TIMELINE: Ninth relic location, third day, evening
She remembered the night that her mother had come to say goodbye. Little had she known, it would be the beginning of her life -- nearly five years after her first breath. Azaiel had been as resplendent as she had always heard, a golden coat as warm as the sun. Her hair had been pale and long, falling into a pair of sad green eyes that mirrored her own. It never occurred to Inara that her mother might have been as trapped as she was.
The red roan mare lingered near the cliff edges, a breeze from the crashing waves below bellowing up to ruffle the dark auburn strands of her hair. She could not see the waves below, save for the gleams of light catching the water further out to sea under the moonlight. She was rooted to a single place, her crown twisted upward to the skies like a flower searching for the sunlight. Her gaze traced the tiny specks of cosmos, searching for familiarity amongst the constellations. She had often stared up at the skies, counting the stars as her only friends in the prison that had been her home.
She was always kept close to the center, a pair of mares serving as guards and keeping the world away from her; and her away from the world. Soon enough, no one tried to see her -- and she had no one to see, including her mother. She had merely been a child then, learning quickly what her place had been in her father’s world. A bargaining chip, a transferable good. Her weight shifted upon the rocks of the cliffs, scattering pebbles down to the watery depths below; drawing her back to the warm spring night.
She was quite close to the edge, knowing that one wrong move would send her plummeting down without feathered wings to save her -- but choosing to face the danger. For some reason it made her feel...alive. Her head was clear, and her stammering, nervous nature forgotten. She toyed with the muscles along her hind, knowing that one solid movement of them would send her flying out into the open, dark space. She could see it clearly in her mind’s eye, before reality snapped into place and she watched as she fell into the unforgiving waves, her body crushed against the cliffside.
The image forced her to step back, her ears pinned flat against her head as shook it; snorting loudly. Why would she imagine a horrible fate like that, when her life was finally beginning? Her soft green gaze wandered back to the sky, to the stars.
This was where his journey began, standing at the edge of the plains with a sea of gold behind him and a river of green before. This forest marked the beginning of Delumine territory, the entrance to the Dawn Court.
Ipomoea hummed contently deep in his chest, imagining already what the first city of Oriens would be like: how tall would their citadel be? How many rooms could he get lost in, how many scrolls did they house? How many sages did they boast whose brains he could pick for knowledge? Would they accept him as their own, offer him their secrets willingly? Ipomoea could only imagine.
He had had some delays already, people and places and flowers that had distracted him and created turnarounds and holdups. This talk of the “relic” hadn’t helped, either—he was torn now between joining in the hunt, for such a thing could be as old as time itself, swathed in history and wisdom just waiting to be uncovered. But it had seemed he was behind in the search already, and besides, maybe he could come across it on his travels, anyway? No one knew where it had been, nor did they have any hints. Meanwhile, Po had something tangible to search for, a purpose that called him northwards. If he happened upon the relic along the way he wouldn’t complain; he had half a mind to consider the journey more important than the destination (even a destination as huge as the Dawn Court, the land of wisdom.) But he couldn’t take the time to stop and look for it. He treasured the names he had memorized, their stories and experiences and help nestled deep within his heart, but he had grown restless, eager to be on his way.
A breeze had kicked up from the west while he was standing there, tousling his hair about him. He lifted his muzzle to it, inhaling deeply, exhaling slowly, as though even just the wind currents coming from Delumine would hold some unspeakable knowledge, singing a story to enchant him, to guide him on his way. A tremor danced across his hide, down his legs, quivered inside of his lungs.
The canyon was much the same as her home in Pantheon had been, the first place she sought solace after leaving her birth village. It was a secluded area, encased in rock walls, and she felt safe there. Even without Vitor at her side there was a peace that emanated from her that she hadn't felt anywhere else in that strange land. Beneath the watch of the sun at midday, she kept herself close to the built up earth at the bottom of the canyon. She was alone, and it was then that she breathed easily.
What she didn't know was that tranquility wouldn't last for long; thoughts of Paris flooded her mind, dragging up memories of better times. His love was the only one she had felt, and to lose it was like losing herself. In a way, she had lost herself; after running from his side another time in Oblivion, she wasn't sure if she made it out whole. Parts of her were left behind with him, and the idea of never seeing him again torn her apart even though she didn't know if she ever could face him after that.
It wouldn't be long, then, until her thoughts and grief would be interrupted and she would have to live with the fact that she could never truly find solitude.
Patrols, she supposed, were as good an excuse as any to feel productive whilst continuing her search; valuable as getting her hooves on the relic would be for her country, she couldn’t help but feel that it was simply a distraction from her duties, pointless as they might be for the time being. It wasn’t as though she had any authority to question any stranger that might be wandering the Oasis for the time being, but, unsure of what else to do, she tried to keep an eye out for trouble nonetheless. She knew loyalty, but she didn’t understand ambition, motivation - she wasn’t entirely sure why she was doing any of this. Her hooves carried her along the rocky of the Oasis mechanically, odd eyes scanning the pristine blue surface for anything that might be of interest. For once, she didn’t feel like she was drowning in her own sweat while wandering Solterra, shaded comfortably by the ancient trees that leaned just above the water’s surface. Seraphina had always felt bizarre when she visited the Oasis – as much as she could feel anything, at least. There was something about the liveliness of the landscape, the way that it sprung so vibrant and clean in the midst of the desert, that should have felt revitalizing, but it made her feel exhausted. Maybe that was why she rarely visited it, unless in desperate need of food or water. She didn’t feel right when she wandered the beautiful shorelines or glanced at her distorted reflection in the miraculously blue lake.
As she approached the waterfall, cascading down the slick, brown rocks with a soft, slurred rumble, she caught sight of something glimmering in one of the shallow pools that had gathered in the slopes of the rocks. It was, unfortunately, at the top, so she supposed that she had some climbing to do. Seraphina was not unaccustomed to climbing dangerous slopes, but the slickness of the rocks that surrounded the waterfall made them especially precarious; she kept to the far sides of the cascade, clambering awkwardly up the uneven stairway of stones until she found herself standing by on top of the falls, albeit on the opposite side of the small stream that fed them from the gleaming pool. Squinting, she realized that whatever was glistening so bright and red in the sunlight was moving, twitching and twisting spastically.
She approached the water, keeping a careful eye on the slick ground beneath her hooves so that she didn’t find herself slipping; the water was shallow and slow enough for her to pass through it without getting caught up in the current, so she walked to the other side, brilliant turquoise water just brushing her stomach. Approaching the pool, she came to the unfortunate realization that she’d only caught a glimpse of one of the tiny, jewel-like lizards that frequented the Oasis, swimming quite pleasantly in the warm, shallow water. Seraphina didn’t feel disappointed, watching the delicate creature writhe, but she couldn’t help but feel that she was grasping at straws.
Satisfied that he had searched the dawn court to the best of his ability, Venari moved onto the last location in Delumine. The one that was left last for a reason. As it loomed ahead of him, he felt his heart sink and his mind whir through stress caused by flashbacks. It had been four years since he was hunted by the rogues, however it still pained him to think about and thick forests still increased his heart-rate. No matter how much better he was feeling in terms of mental state, spending a prolonged amount of time beneath such vast canopies always triggered a worsened mood. While he didn't like to admit it, Venari found it inexplicably hard to live through his past when bombarded with constant visual reminders. Perhaps with age he would get better at coping with it, but he rather suspected (with a heavy heart) that he would always have this reaction to some degree.
Despite the emotional difficulties, Venari managed to pick up a trot. While it was tempting to give this area a wide birth, the teal stallion was keen to do well in the quest put in front of him. Perhaps this experience would help desensitise him to the looming canopies and get him a step closer to feeling comfortable in forests again. On the contrary, this venture had scope to worsen his mind and give it even more reason to resent the landscape. It could swing either way.
To cope with the anxiety bubbling within his veins and causing a mild nausea, Venari intensified his search tactics. The more distracted he was, the less he could think of where he was. Pushing himself into a walk, Ven craned his neck down to scan the floor before lifting his muzzle up high to observe the canopies. He made note to look for any oddities in the leaves on the ground, to check any holes bore into the trees by the local wildlife. In essence, Venari made sure to lose himself in this particular search.
*
TAGGED: Open
NOTES: Another relic thread ~
TIMELINE: Fifth relic location, second day
Tentative steps they were as Weir began to make her way towards Solterra but she would not go all the way. She has seen some craggy outcropping and in her search for trinkets (or treasures depending on how you look at it) and started to head to Veneror Peak. What she was interested in are the caves that are up there (or so the thought). She hoped to find something that perhaps had been laying there for some time, perhaps forever. Weir in her previous life repaired clothing, capes, jackets, sashes, and whatever else that happened to walk into the door of her house which also served as the shop her adopted family worked out of. She also would create custom designs for the wealthy and the traveler alike. She loved to look for things to decorate some of these elaborate pieces. This search was not much different.
Without sings, Weir could only walk up the look rock trails to where she hoped she would find a cave or a nice hillside to search for fossils or relics of what this world was like before. Eventually she did come across a small cave which looked just big enough for one horse to live comfortably in. She nickered inside to the shadows and spoke softly but just loud enough to be heard
Hello….I am Weir, just a stranger passing by… is there anyone here?
The air is stale and damp like the wind has never touched this place. The walls are covered in grey and green mucus like substance where minuscule streams of water cascaded down the sides and dripped onto the floor in puttering and pattering sounds. She could not make out the back of the cave and so she stood for a moment before gingerly stepping past the line of daylight into the shadow so that her eyes could adjust to the darkness.
Perhaps no one was here. She thought about it a moment longer as she took another step into the cave, her eyes beginning to adjust. There were markings on the walls. They looked like rocks had been scratched into the surface and different earth tones of paint had filled in the lines. Faces began to appear but they looked like not horse she had ever seen. She felt like she was stepping back in time and that if she turned around a ghost might just happen to be there. Shivers ran down her withers and down her legs but she kept looking around the cave. Her eyes drifted to piles of dirt, rocks, moss, and rubble. Slowly she leaned down and tried to remove some the dirt around some rocks and used her hoof to try and move larger ones away from the walls all while feeling quite unsure if she might be doing something wrong, or maybe something right. The troublesome treasure hunter in her could not help but fight with the more noble piece of her heart.
"blah blah blah."
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Powerplaying, magic, force allowed but no
permanent damage or death please
<3
