Was it just him, or was the air cleaner outside of Denocte?

Smoke had remained long after the last of the dragon fire had burned away in the mountains. It clung to the peoples’ skin, clogging the streets of the city with their bonfires and festivities that never seemed to end. At first, Toulouse had eagerly awaited each night: when the sun went down, the Night Court came alive with music and dance. The drinks never seemed to stop flowing, and the food he’d offered to him had been both strange and addictive. It was easy to lose your mind and your inhibitions in such a place.

But eventually, the days and nights began to blur together in a seemingly never-ending cycle. Even Toulouse grew tired of it all, yearning for a reprieve, for the night to simply end. 

And so, when the Gates finally did open, he was quick to slip away. No goodbyes, no hesitations. He disappeared into the dusk, chasing the falling sun in an effort to leave the night far, far behind him. 

There was not enough secrets in the world to hold him back this time. 

He wasn’t sure why he returned to the sea; it was as if his hooves moved of their own accord. Before he knew it he was standing at the cliff’s edge, not unlike the way he had only months before. 

Has that much time passed already?

Musings drifted through his head like a lazy river as the palomino gelding stepped ever closer to the cliff’s edge. The waves roared and crashed beneath him, the water throwing itself against the rocks with a ferocity unparalleled in nature. Time moves so quickly here. Maybe it was just a Denoctian thing; Toulouse hadn’t spent enough time in the other corners of Novus to see if his hypothesis held true. 

For now, he was just happy to feel free once more. 

He closed his eyes, drinking in the cool, salty breeze brushing across his face. It was tangling his hair into all sorts of knots and snags, he knew. But for the time being, he couldn’t find it in him to care. 

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@anyone  <3

His musings were interrupted by the sound of hoofbeats gradually drawing nearer, a voice rising above the crashing of the ocean waves below:

"Are you trying to dive head first into the sea?”

His eyes flickered opened, wincing and blinking in the bright sunlight. The words seemed friendly enough—almost joking—but there was an undercurrent he knew all too well. An air of something akin to aggression, tightly contained but still roiling under the surface. It was a tone he had heard often within the locked Court of Denocte.

He slid his gaze to the side, taking in her gold-and-white splashed form with a sort of bored curiosity, as if the gelding was not in the least bit surprised to see her approach. “Dive? Oh no, I’m imagining what it might be like to fly.” He tracked a seagull with his gaze, watching it soar over the cliff face into open air. It seemed so unfazed by the ground dropping away into nothingness beneath its wings, no tremor of worry shaking its flight path. Bold, confident; the perfect prey.

“Perhaps. Or maybe it will be this unkempt pile of hair that kills me,” and with that he flashed her a wolfish grin, his lips splitting away from his teeth in a fashion that was both gruesome and humorous. “After all, when it gets like this, I’ve got half a mind to cut it off.”

It was an exaggeration, of course—there would be a cold day in hell before Toulouse took a blade to his hairline. But still, he twirled a lock of caramel colored strands around his telekinesis thoughtfully, as if contemplating what he might look like hairless. He had seen others without manes, of course; but somehow, he simply couldn’t imagine himself like one of them.

“I’m Toulouse. From the Night Court,” he spoke again, almost as an afterthought. “Is it just me, or is the air fresher up here?”

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@noctiilucent sooo sorry for the wait  <3
talking. acting.