Worship zanarkand. [tw] - Printable Version

T H A L E I A

SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

The sea was calling to her; the line where the sky and the ocean touched singing to her like a lullaby. She craved to answer the call of the sea — burned for it — but alas, she was a mermaid that was cursed ashore, for she was never given the gift of learning how to swim. Her only escape a sunken ship that lay at the bottom of a sea she did not know, the bones of her crew surely trapped in its burned and broken hull. She, the lady captain to her lord, who had been damned to breathe instead of dying beneath the waves with them.

She cursed every breath of oxygen that touched her lips, her lungs. The Blue princess nearly cursed her patron goddess, Calypso — but it was not the sea's burden to bear. Instead, Thaleia found herself traversing the stone stairway to the stars, having heard the whisperings of a temple at this new land's highest, reachable peak. This continent unknown to her, not found on an maps, had her realizing that somehow, someway, she had voyaged to far across the ocean blue. Her own Court now lost to her, as she discovered herself in a kingdom ruled by a lupine-esque queen.

Her hooves clicked softly against the rocky earth, the air deliciously thin and cool in her lungs as she traveled higher still. Stars glimmered against the expanse of inky sky and violet, shining pearls that welcomed the ocean daughter to their temple. Silver eyes took in every dancing shadow, every smooth-faced stone pillar that held the high ceiling of this sacred ground. She noted the offerings that glittered in the moonlight filtering in from the cave mouth; the coins of silver and gold, the locks of bound hair, and various other trinkets left as a gift to the gods that rule this foreign land.

With a tender heart, she stepped forward, looking closely at each pale statue, her mind whirling at the stories of each of the four gods that called this world their kingdom. One pile was topped full of coins and even a worn page from a book; the next piled high with golden coins and a vial of red sand; and another with silver trinkets and charms that depicted the moon and stars. But it was not these that had her faltering, but the third.. where pink salt and herbs were laid at the foot of the pillar. She quirked her crown to the side, curiosity and wonder overwhelming ever nerve, every vein, as her blood ran thick with so many emotions that suddenly, her heart began to race.

As she stared down at the offerings below her, the night breeze flirted with the salt-white of her mane. The stars above her shimmering in silent answers to the ocean-daughter atop the mountain peak. "Who are you? What is this place?" she wondered, her voice a whispered wind across a sea. Calypso save her, for she was lost; her grief drowning her in the cold autumn air. Her body a blue-grey shadow in the center of the citadel, the night her only witness to her pleas.

for anyone <3
this thread was inspired by this song!
"Thaleia speech."

RE: zanarkand. - Eik - 11-08-2017

The gods have been on his mind. He thinks of them indirectly, the way you would toy with the edge of a ripped seam. He knows why but he is too wary to say it out loud, to wary to think it even, lest the thought flies away, up out of his control. Thoughts left unchecked tend to do that.

(Come close and I will whisper your why: He is afraid.)

But he's found you can think things without thinking them, and feel things without feeling them, and this not feeling haunts him. It darkens his dreams and slowly steals the life from him. So it is not thinking that leads him across the sands of the Mors and to the base of Veneror peak.

As always it feels good to move, to be reminded of his strength, and so he vaults up the mountain at a mighty pace, bounding like a mountain goat up the worn path. As he rises, the air thins and quiet thickens. No sounds but the whistle of the chill air and the clatter of his steps and the thrum of his heartbeat in his ears. He has the sensation that he is staying in the same place and it is the world that is descending, but he shakes the thought away. Pesky thing.

Instead he thinks of his gods and the way he once worshiped them. He never spoke to them, never prayed or lit candles. His people, they worshiped with their bodies and their blood. Fighting, loving, childbirth. Continuing the cycle was how they showed their gratitude for life. Their gods did not have names, but it did not mean that they were not there. Until the day it did.

Where did you go? Is his mantra as he nears the summit. Where did you go...

When he finally stops, his sides heave and his breaths steam into the chilly evening. Before him is the cathedral of gods that are not his, but they are not so unfamiliar. He does not think they are so fond of him, these strange gods, and he cannot say he is particularly swayed by them. For aren't they all just pieces in a circle that spins round and round, and wouldn't life keep spinning without them?

His thoughts drift toward the dangerously sacrilegious and he draws them back in. Again this up and down, this back and forth. On the surface he does not know why he is here, but deep down, in the place where you know without knowing, feel without feeling, there is a deep-seated sense of rightness- there is no place else he could be.

Where did you go

He looks for his old gods in the names and shapes of the new. A deep sadness comes and goes.

Where did you go

Anger rises in its place, hot rage that he hasn't felt in years. That too comes and goes.

The circle keeps spinning. Oriens, Solis, Vespera, Calligo, they all lie silent and still as the stones of their altars. And before them lies an odd creature, like nothing he's seen before. Long eared and lion tailed. She whispers something and without thinking he steps closer, hoping to catch her words, but the wind carries them away. Perhaps it is for the best.

"Do you speak to the gods?" He asks softly, not wanting to break the sacredness of this place. It is not clear if he is aware of the ambiguity in his question. The only expression on his face is uncertainty. Loathe as he is to bother a stranger in a sacred place, the chatter in his mind is overwhelming and he wonders if in her he mind find reprieve. "Forgive me."

@Thaleia lordy sorry this is so long -_- I wrote a solo worship thread and then used most of what I wrote to reply to you instead <3

RE: zanarkand. - Thaleia - 11-11-2017

T H A L E I A

SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

Her words cling to the statues like silver ornaments; glowing and unanswered, but beautiful all the same. Curious, Leia wonders at the piles of trinkets and coins and herbs at the feet of each swirl and pillar. Wonders if the nameless gods can hear her silent pleas, her wishes, and maybe even her dreams. Wonders if her own goddess can hear her; despite the distance, despite what she had done. Even as if every breath that graces her lips tastes of ash and dust and Death itself. No matter if she curses the lifeblood in her veins and the beat of her heart.. for she desires nothing more than to have perished alongside those who mean the world and more to her.

Do you speak to the gods?

The voice that breaks through the quiet of the mountain is not her own, and she suddenly wonders if one of this realm's gods or goddesses have deigned to speak to her. Maybe not Calypso, but one of her brothers. Poseidon and Triton, perhaps.. maybe one of the twin sea kings have found their ocean daughter, their Blue princess, their Takarian queen. She, so very far away from the endless cerulean seas. She, for the first time in her life, amongst the stars. Atop the highest peak, in a circular alcove, a holy temple of the divine.

She had never been more confused, more lost, more sorrowful than she had in that one moment. One moment of uncertainty. So Leia turns, unsure of herself, as her loneliness overwhelms her in waves of deepest blue and grey. Drowning in her emotions. Silver orbs catch in the darkness that gathers, an ivory man stepping into the autumn gloom that slithers in the corners where the shadows of night grow. Her gaze widens to behold him, noting the slivers of moonlight dancing along his skin, but instead, she hones in the stranger's gaze. How in the dead of night, the pools of darkness pierce her so. She suddenly is overcome by how laid bare she is; how her emotions are plain on her face, like an open book that anyone could read. Everything that burns through her is on her sleeve, a bleeding heart.

Forgive me.

"There is nothing to forgive," she says, her words true and miserable as they hang in the air between them like cold stars. The pupiless silver of her eyes softens as she tilts her crown, her lips chapped as tears brim her eyes. But they do not spill, instead only threatening to line her cheeks in droplets of sadness. "Do you believe they can hear us? Do you believe they listen to our prayers?" Our deepest wishes, our dreams, our hopes? No matter how ugly they are? she asks silently. Broken, her words catching in her throat, her tongue suddenly dry.

Oh, how she nearly crumbles at the feet of these statues, the weight of her pain too great. "I do not know the gods that rule this world, but I hope they can hear me now."

@~~Eik~~ eeeep yay!! <3 thanks for joining in c:
"Thaleia speech."

RE: zanarkand. - Eik - 11-15-2017

She turns to face him, twilight illuminating the raw emotion on her face better than the sun ever could. It is surprising how heavy his heart feels at the sight of her. It takes a moment for it to sink in, this heaviness. It feels a bit like watching a stone drop to the bottom of a deep pool. He is taken aback, unsure of what to say or do next.

(You are useless, full of nothing but questions, you have nothing for her, you are nothing but webs spun from words, a thousand ands, an endless run on sentence because how do you
stop yourself from
thinking
)

She asks him if he thinks the gods After a moment too long, "I do not know." He thinks he does know, but does not say so. How easy it would be to console her with a lie-- but the best he can do is to not speak the truth. He doesn't know why he cares so for the woman's feelings. It is likely that reflected in her otherworldly eyes he sees something like his own soul.

She seems to be folding in on herself, or is that another trick of his mind? The whisper inside himself says There is nothing here but magic unchecked, wild but quiet. There are no answers but what the wind whispers. There is no path to walk. No one is listening. And if they are, that's all they're doing. He wants to tell her a pretty lie, something to sew her back together, but the words are lodged in his throat.

All of it- the ethereal mare before him, the sharp pain that lies between them, the reverence of this space- he wonders if he's slipped again, in his mind, to the other side of the coin. He wonders if she is a part of his imagination that's run away and come back to him with a mind of its own. A chill runs across his spine, and he is not so sure the biting cold is the cause of it. "What are you?" He breathes, before he can think of the question. And then, before she can reply, "I am no god," A small twitch of his lips, as though he's chewing his words. "And I don't think I will have any answers for you. But I can listen." He looks up, meeting her tearful eyes with his own, mournful ones. "For what its worth."

@Thaleia

RE: zanarkand. - Thaleia - 11-24-2017

T H A L E I A

SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

TRIGGER WARNING: survivor's guilt.

She swore, that even at the top of the lonely mountain, deep in the heart of the temple, that the sounds of crashing waves reached her ears. The lull of the sea a sun-sweet song, but instead of open water, only the stars glimmer to her. Silent and beautiful and leaving all of her hopes and dreams unanswered. After all, she was not a daughter of the Night.. but of the great blue Sea.

What are you?

The stranger's question shifts her reality, her focus, as she blinks away the sorrow lining her eyes in silver. Her eyes only look downcast, heavy lids falling over her gaze. I am — I am... Oxygen choked her. The mountain air robbed her of breath. She was ocean fae. A hailed Blue princess in a kingdom in another world. A Takarian pirate queen. But who was she without her crew? Her ship? Her empire? Her mate? Their fates decaying on the ocean floor of the Unknown Sea surrounding this new continent. Every breath that touched her lips tasting of rot and ash and dust.

She was nothing. Not anymore.

I am no god.

"Perhaps not," she replies, soft and wilting underneath the weight of the ache on her shoulders. The night breeze tickling her mane, her forelock, brushing it to the side of her face in a lover's caress. She failed to keep her sorrow at bay, a single drop of silver falling from her eyes. Her eyelids fluttering close, blinking the tears away. Perhaps this man was not a god, and she was not so many things anymore, but together they stood at the highest peak in this land. Separately they had climbed the stone stairway to the heavens, the stars around them their only company. But now they stood in the shadows; two strangers with each their own agony and triumphs and questions and answers. If the gods would not listen to them, then who? Who will answer to their prayers?

I can listen. For what it's worth.

A ghost of a smile brushes her lips, just enough, as she raises her eyes to his. Pupil-less pools of silver boring into his own of richest obsidian. How the shadows of the night dare not pierce his eyes, despite the starlight that glows along the edges of his frame. She is curious, and grateful, despite how the world suddenly feels to rest on her delicate shoulders. How every part of her burns for death, for release, for answers that might never come. "Have you ever wished for Death?" she asks, not entirely expecting a reply in return. Her eyes glaze over, flickering to take in the piles of trinkets at each pillar's base. Wondering their names, the gods and goddesses of this realm.. and who might be able to grant her a shred of her greatest wish.

"I mourn for those I believe to have passed to the Heavenly Seas," she explains, the memory of that night flashing before her eyes. The heavy smoke of emerald fire still scorching the thin paper of her lungs, licking the dapples of her skin, drowning her until there is nothing left. With a sharp inhale, it fades, but lingers at the edge of her reality, threatening to overwhelm her into oblivion. "I wish to know if finding them is a fool's dream. How do I know if they are still alive?"

Her heart cracks, her entire body shifting to take in the stars glimmering through the open mouth of the temple. Leia simply shakes her crown, her horn falling to brush a vial of pink sand at the foot of one of the swirling pillars. "I'm nothing. Not anymore, not without them."

@~~Eik~~ pooey post, she's experiencing survivor's guilt
"Thaleia speech."

RE: zanarkand. [tw] - Eik - 11-27-2017

Have you ever wished for Death?

The words send a silent shiver down his spine, and he is suddenly keenly aware of the scars littered across his body. They burn as if trying to speak to the strange woman.

(or perhaps they are laughing, as we are, laughing hysterically at the question. Oh woman, if only you knew. Death hates us.)

"Every day for many years." He says finally, very softly. He is not proud of it, and does not like to talk about it. But he's never liked lying. She has a faraway look, and his attention is returned to the shrines before them. To him they all seem so stupid and pointless now. Prayers falling on deaf ears. "I don't recommend it." He murmurs quietly.

She speaks of the uncertainty of hope, and he breathes in sharply. Her question is the same he's asked himself so many times- how do I know if they're alive? And he almost says they aren't, but he remembers her people are not his own, and as much as he feels as though her feelings are the same as his, they aren't. "I think there is no way to know for sure." He says, faraway, attempting that thing where you think about something without reacting to it, without feeling. It is something he's practiced for so long, yet it doesn't always work. It does now and thankfully his walls stay up, his face straight, even through memories flood him with the scent of smoke and the screams of the burning. He searches for the words to show her how he knows his family is dead, even though there is no real way of knowing for sure. "If you can keep your hope at bay, and your fear," If you can walk that thin line, shedding your emotion like a snake does its skin, "You might find the truth is inside of you, deep down." It takes trust, he almost says, but it sounds too condescending.

His words, all words, all of them, are all wrong-- how do you describe a feeling when you doubt anyone feels the exact same as another? How do you describe color to the blind? His mouth twitches in displeasure, and that hopeless feeling follows, dull and flat and vast. Her pain opens old wounds in him and he wants to tell her that everything is okay, that life goes marching on even when the rug's pulled out of you, and when you feel like shattered glass sometimes there are good days or at least good moments, and it takes time but you fuse yourself together, piece by piece-- but how can he say any of this, when he himself is barely held together by a few kind interactions and that fuzzy sense of hope and fear blurred together, like a photo you can't tell is sunrise or sunset.

(and what does it all matter, why do we pour our time and words and selves into anything at all?)

his inadequacies are laid plainly before him

and all he can say is "I'm sorry."

He reaches his lips near her cheek, breathes in (salt; sea and tears) and then out (warmth; sand and cactus fruit and misery) but does not touch her except for with the heat of his breath, shocked at the sudden realization that he has not touched another in years. He is suddenly afraid that if he reaches just a little farther she'll vanish like a dream.

Eik suddenly laughs at his irrationality, reaching that last inch forward to pluck a reassuring kiss where her cheek meets her neck. She tastes of the sea, a world of tastes in itself, and the sensation is almost overwhelming. He draws away and his laughter fades, the air hanging heavily around them. "I've talked to nothing before. You certainly aren't it." He blinks sweetly, so accustomed to brushing off his own insanities that it doesn't occur to him that he might sound crazy. Then again, if it did he wouldn't care anyway.

(And after all, this is the truth you feel in the marrow of your bones: life is a dance with absurdity. You try not to step on its toes too much, but the music playing is just so damn weird)

"Do you live in Novus?" The late autumn nights have a bite, especially at this elevation, and he hopes to talk her off this mountain before the cold kicks in.

@Thaleia :3