he thread of your skin against mine is forever imprinted into the fine spires of my spine and fibres of my life. The sweat trickles between those small valleys and it clings to my stomach as your kisses once did. 

I do not face the sea. 

It calls to me; it beckons. The waves are whispering a language I have only just learned; my body yearns for it and, in that yearning (somewhere in the pause, in the breath) my heart begins to break. 

My back is to the waves. My back is to the bright, clear spring day. 

I stand facing away from the sea. I stand facing the trees of the forest where the coastline ruts up against Terrastella’s shoreline. 

I do not face the sea, because the first life I have ever ended to live lays behind me in the wake. 

I can still taste the blood on my mouth. I brought it to shore because I could not stand the squelching beneath the surface; the way everything had been fluid, water and blood. I was breathing what I consumed. My gills fluttered with salt-sea and copper-blood and it had been too much. 

Too much. That is the only way to describe the complicated feelings that well within me. Everything is too much. The corpse is unrecognizable, now. Bits of bone and flesh and organ strewn out in the pinkish surf. 

My stomach is full, and I do not feel weak.

(Then why, I wonder, do I still feel so unlike myself?) 

I close my eyes and let the sun bathe me, cleanse me. There is blood on my mouth. 

(There is blood on my mouth, but I do not want to clean it). 

The scars on my throat, new and pink, must look like a necklace of pearls in this light. 

When I turn back toward the sea, Damascus is flying overhead. I wonder if I ought plunge back into the depths. Instinct says yes, yes, yes—there is an urge, insatiable, that says I must. And somehow I refrain.

Ironically, the water has already dragged the corpse away. 

Perhaps that is a small blessing. 

A small mercy. 

I don’t know, anymore. 

and at last i see the light, and it's like the fog has lifted

Solstice had been here almost a year now.  She could remember the day she came, as if it was yesterday – the way the sun had fallen on the flowers, warm and welcome.  The way Ipomoea had welcomed her, without questions or demands, with simple kindness.  She hadn’t known then that he was the king here, but had learned of it as she’d wandered, finding herself even more impressed with his humble demeanor.  For in her past, Solstice had known only ruthless leaders and kingdoms built on rigorous structure and authoritarianism.  She’d had no voice, no free will, no autonomy.  But in Delumine, she had it all.

In the time since she’d come to Novus, the shy girl had gained a quiet voice.  Her words held weight here, her desires obeyed, her confidence growing.  Now she had built herself a home, modest but warm and personalized.  What had started as a simple room now brimmed with books and paintings, with flowers perched on the windowsill and bright sunlight streaming through bits of colored glass to cast kaleidoscope patterns on the floor.  Warm straw filled a comfortable bed, scented herbs creating a soothing space for her to calm her spirit and reflect, finding her peace.  It was everything she’d ever wanted.  But now, Solstice found herself wanting more…

She wanted to belong to the community here, to give her talents toward a greater cause.  During the last year, she had been content to watch and to float along, like a feather in the wind.  But now, the mare had felt a twinge of calling, watching the way healers had selflessly treated the hurts of their people, and finding herself curious to know more.  Long into the winter nights, she’d read books about herbs and treatments in the library, finding her curiosity only growing with every new bit of knowledge.  Now, she knew it would be her calling here – to heal and to help.

So Solstice wanders toward the garden, remembering that during their meeting long ago, Ipomoea had suggested he spent considerable time there.  Spring in the court’s garden was beautiful, flowers brilliant with color and birdsong filling the air.  She followed along a bubbling brook, tawny eyes watching as golden fish slipped between the rocks, lazily swimming beneath the crystal blue surface.  Somewhere in the distance, a musician sang with a haunting voice, as much for herself as for the small audience which gathered to listen.

And when Solstice finds the sovereign, a smile breaks widely across her face, bright and warm as she murmured to him in greeting.  "I thought I might find you here…”

@Moira

once upon a time, there was a boy...

The night grew shorter now, spring fading into summer and stretching into longer stretches of daylight.  But in the darkness, Nightwish found the world came alive with vibrant song and merriment.  All around him, the energy of the festival thrummed, spreading like wildfire among the people of Novus with just as much vigor.  Bonfires leapt to life against the black sky, no clouds marring the beauty of the stars as they blinked and shone with silvered light upon the crowds.  Children laughed, women danced, men whispering in appreciative tones about the show.  And Nightwish scribbled furiously in his journal, taking everything in with the eye of a storyteller, trying to capture the spirit of the night in as many words as he could manage.

His mind worked faster than his pen, and though his concentration seems focused on the page, when his indigo eyes glance up, they meet those who stared with a twinkle of curiosity and pleasure.  For his was in his element here, lost and anonymous in a sea of others, with no agenda but to let his whismy wander.

Summer wine tasted sweet on his lips, and as he brushes away the last bits of pastry crumb from his cheek, the blue and white stallion stretched and carefully tucked his journal away.  For now, he needed more, to feel the press of warm bodies against his, lost in the shuffle of movement.  He blends easily into the crowd, letting the music take him where it would guide him, an easy smile crossing his face as he murmurs greetings to the strangers who pass.  This continues for some time, until the energy of the dancing leaves him breathless and tired, and as he turns from the business of the crowd, he stumbles into another.

“My apologies.”  He smiles with a boyish charm, playful and carefree, his gaze shamelessly sizing the stranger up.  “Didn’t see you there… what a night!”  He sighs contentedly, shifting over with a slight bow to allow the other space to pass, before questioning, “What do you think of all this?”



― @nestle

take my hand. feel my heart.
tell me what's wrong with it.

he had no idea if he had gotten her message or not.

Maret was not sure that she had even sent it to the right place (and she had decidedly less faith in the carrier dove she had managed to rent being able to find him, at any rate.) And even if the tightly rolled piece of paper had found him, small chance though it was, she was even less certain Leonidas would know what to do with it. It had been hard for her to not write a whole letter, knowing well enough that he would likely be unable to read it; even still, she was not sure her abruptly written “meet me by our cave lake, saturday at dusk” signed with her usual sunflowers and annotated with a sun setting over a mountaintop had sufficed. 

She had realized belatedly that her picture of a sun setting might look the exact same as a sun rising, or just a sun overtop a mountain during the day.

So she had come early. Just in case.

Her hooves click against the cavern floor, each tap of gold against stone sending echoes racing along ahead and behind her. It feels strange — it has been so long since Maret had felt anything besides sand beneath her hooves, the stone floor feels almost unstable in comparison.

The last time she had been here she had not had her horseshoes. She had not had her golden hair clasps, either — at least not these ones that she had gotten specifically for the last solterran party she had attended. The hairstyle she wore with them was also new; hair swept back from her face, glossed and braided in the tight plaits that were so common in the Day Court. And where once she would have let her hair grow long — now the ends of it were bluntly cut and short (she had learned quickly that long hair felt more stifling in the desert, and as much as she had agonized over the idea of cutting her hair, in the end she had grown rather fond of the new style. It made her feel more… sophisticated. And as if she better belonged in her new home.)

It all feels unfamiliar now, though, as she waits for him beside their lake. She had not realized before how much she had grown — although change was like that, she supposed. Creeping in more often with steps instead of leaps, so that the depth of it did not become apparent until finally she turned and looked over her shoulder to see how far the beginning of it truly was. Until she awoke one morning and no longer felt quite like herself, and there was no single event to explain why.

It was why she had come back. She had almost gone home, instead — only home no longer felt like home. So, feeling as though she did not recognize herself in the mirror, she had gone to a lake that had always seemed to her like a mirror of its own.

She can hear the echo of a stone falling somewhere across the lake, the ripple of it sending streaks across the glassy surface of the water. It makes the lights reflected there from the glowing leaves hanging from the cavern ceiling dance. For a long while she lies there alone by the lake, the water lapping at her front hooves, chin resting on her knees. Her journal — filled with scraps of unfinished poetry, and stories, and notes on her latest articles — lies forgotten by her side as she stares out in the shadows across the lake. 

The sound of another set of hooves echoing in the cavern pulls her from her daydreams. She stands quickly, dusting the sand from herself as she turns to face him. Even in the dark, features lit only by the bioluminescence of the plants growing along the lake — she would recognize him always. 

"Hi." She smiles at him, stepping forward almost uncertainly. "I wasn’t sure you would come."

{ @Leonidas "speaks" notes: text }