and none of it's familiar

The snow shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. All day and all night it rages, the flurries falling hard and fast. Visibility is severely limited, and going out into the desert where it is the roughest might seem a death wish. The snow drifts are now deep enough to swallow even Torstein alive. And they move much like the sands of the desert, their dunes constantly rolling and shifting and piling up against the walls of the capitol.

The temperatures, too, continue to plummet. Solterra, once the warmest part of Novus, is now known as the coldest. Finding warmth is difficult, and the already scarce desert food has now become even harder to find. This winter wonderland is quickly beginning to wear on the residents of the Day Court, finding themselves unprepared for such an extreme storm.

And you are one of the unlucky ones.

The snow falls all around you, thick and wet and cold. A temporary cloak or blanket may be wrapped around your shoulders, whether it’s stolen or found, but it seems to offer little protection. There’s no way of knowing how far you are from the capitol - or even if you’re going in the right direction. But you continue on anyway, because it’s better than standing still and freezing to death, right?

A figure appears through the haze, and you creep closer. Are they friend or foe? Horse or predator? Do you really want to know?

There is currently no time limit on this thread, but one may be imposed later on down the road! Anyone who posts in this thread 4+ times before the deadline will be able to claim this thread as completed, and will receive an additional 250 signos.

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The RE account may pop in from time to time with short prompts to keep things moving, but otherwise this thread is what you make of it!

RE: everything looks the same - Leviathan - 08-19-2018

LEVIATHAN

the warrior returns

Gods, what the hell had happened?

The last he knew, the Day Court was a desert, not full of a winter wonderland. Once upon a time, something like this would have shocked him, but Leviathan found himself trekking through, his hooves pushing through the snow before he came to a pausing halt, snorting to himself. It was cold, cold enough that his teeth wanted to chatter, and instead he tightened his jaw down, keeping them from doing so.

He'd already gotten himself lost. Idiot. Levi pinned his ears back tossing his horned head before blowing a breath through his nose, watching it waft up in front of him. He couldn't just stand still, he knew that much, and the titanic beast pushed forward, slogging through sand and snow alike, kicking at it, feeling it weigh him down a little.

"Eden!!" His voice burst out from his throat, and his white tipped ears pinned back in slight concern. He had seen her only when they'd come in to the lands of Solterra, but she had wandered off, as she tended to do. Now they were separate, and he couldn't help but worry for the paladin woman as he walked, frowning more to himself.

Hell, if this was the way Solterra was --snow, for fuck's sake-- then she wasn't the only one he should worry about. Most around here would freeze their ass off and he knew that.

@ any! || grump butt is back!

RE: everything looks the same - Mathias - 08-19-2018

bite the hand that beat you

His pace is consistent, never-changing -- a plodding walk through the mixture of snow and sand at his hooves, ears permanently pinned back against his neck as though to protect them from the howling cold. He had been shaken from his cactus-staring stupor by the touch of another, one that had sent his skin crawling and his body fleeing into the desert proper, away from someone so bold.

Away from contact, from the reminder that nothing was the same, nor would it ever be the same.

Except some things apparently never changed, like his ability to run into complete assholes in the middle of nowhere, screaming their goddamned fool heads off. His shoulder twitched, the starkly-white scars there a reminder of the last time he had faced down Leviathan, and his pale gaze was just as unamused this time.

“Goddamn, do you always yell like a yearling throwing a temper tantrum?” He sneers out at the familiar face, his ears still not moving from their firmly anchored position.

image from pinterest

@Leviathan

RE: everything looks the same - Random Events - 09-06-2018

A Random Event has Occurred!

At the sound of @~~Mathias~~' voice, the figure turns. The snow falls and the wind roars, until a wall of white seems to separate one horse from the other. For a moment the world is still and lonesome, the whistling of the storm Mattie’s only companion.

Until the figure reappears, as a mere silhouette through the snow. They approach slowly, ever so slowly, and the equine’s shape grows larger and more distinct -

- and turns out to not be a horse at all.

The elk draws to a stop, a scant few meters away. When he snorts, it sends a blast of icy air to wash over Matthias’ frame. The creature is so close that Mattie might be able to feel the frost emanating from his body, or see the icicles hanging small and sharp from his antlers. Snow and ice alike cover his body, draped about him like a wintery cloak.

For a long moment the elk studies the equine in silence, stoically still while the snow ever continues to fall around them.

Then the creature dips his antlered head to the ground, another exhale scattering snow and ice. What seems like mere seconds about the two first come face to face, the powerful creature turns away and begins to head back into the snowstorm. It does not take long for him to be reduced to a mere silhouette by the poor visibility the falling snow fosters.

There is no way of knowing where the beast is headed - it’s just as likely to be going farther into the Mors as it is to turn towards the Court - but at least it would give Matthias someone to follow?

If he chooses to chase after the elk, that is. He doesn’t have long to decide.

@~~Mathias~~ has been greeted by a strange looking elk in the snowstorm! You have been awarded 250 signos for encountering a Random Event - this has already been applied to your account.

Happy writing! -sid

RE: everything looks the same - Mathias - 09-12-2018

there is a bitter triumph in crashing when you should be soaring
Within the snowstorm, the black-clad figure stands with narrowed eye, his gaze cast towards what seemed to be a recurrence of his past cloaked in snow. Leviathan approaches beneath the swirling snow, a hulking figure in the storm, except -- except the body that melts from the snow isn’t the stallion he remembers, but rather an impressively-antlered elk.

A shiver rolls down his spine as he stares impassively at the creature coated in ice, the barest twitch of his lips the only hint to his displeasure. Leviathan had been there, he’s sure of it, and yet he finds himself sure of nothing as the two lost beasts lock eyes with one another. A shiver traces down his spine like iced-over hands, both of them ever so silent within the storm raging around them ---

And then the Elk turns, and something inside him shatters once more, that piece of him that has watched everyone in his life turn and leave.

He follows, heedless of the danger, uncaring of the risk presented.

He doesn't think he cares anymore, if only he can avoid being left behind.

"Speaking."

credits

RE: everything looks the same - Teiran - 11-12-2018

Teiran had been standing at the top of the wall surrounding the court, keeping a watch over the braziers meant to guide the lost to safety. Of course, the warmth of the flames didn't hurt, melting the drifting snow before it settled long on her back. She had been standing at the top of the wall, on watch, until she thought she saw movement among the sea of white below. It had been difficult to be sure between gusts of wind whipping up the damn stuff, but Teiran knew if there was anyone out there they would surely die if they didn't get inside soon.

If she were anyone else, she might have groaned at the thought of going out there, but Teiran had a duty and she would follow through with it. Her expression was aas stiff and cold as her muscles as she pushed through the blizzard. It was a world of white, and all she had was years of hard training and her own instinct to make it back to the court. She searched until there was a shivering of her skin, a chill of her spine, which was probably still too long. She probably didn't realize how cold her body truly was.

The warrior was prepared to turn back when there, emerging from the sterility was another, heading deeper into the storm.

"You," she called out, making her way closer, "Do you have a death wish?" Her voice was dry, whether from the cold or disuse was hard to say. She did not see the elk of ice and cold, already burying itself in the distant falling snow. "You are headed exactly the wrong direction from any sort of shelter or warmth, in case you were wondering." And Teiran is far from any sort of guardian angel but she is ready to drag him back to the court if need be. No citizen of Solterra was going to freeze on her watch, gloom and doom self-destructive urge or not.

@~~Mathias~~

RE: everything looks the same - Mathias - 11-18-2018

there is a bitter triumph in crashing when you should be soaring
He follows the elk until the shivers wracking his body nearly topple him off his feet, lacking the fat needed even to insulate his body -- he is entirely too thin for this kind of weather, hip-bones jutting out and ribs carving slats into his sides. He is empty of thought, of reasoning, only that broken shard of something from his childhood jabbing him every time he tries to stop -- don’t leave me, don’t leave me behind -- but even so, he loses the elk in the storm eventually.

He falls to his knees in the deepening snow and barely feels the impact they have with the sharp ice beneath, the crimson liquid staining the sterile white beneath him. His breath catches in his chest, like knives in his lungs that slash every time he drags in another gasp of oxygen, and in a way he’s not even surprised by this turn of events. Everything in his life has left him at one point or another, never to return once they realized they were handling only broken glass and gasoline. How quickly had Jetsam left him when he’d realized that he would never be able to say those three words the other had craved? How quick had Elysium been to believe the worst of him, to write him off and cast him off?

“So-fucking-what if I do,” He snarls in response to the words in the storm, shoving himself to his feet with herculean effort and swinging around to face the mare with pinned ears and bared teeth. There is blood streaming from his knees and freezing itself to his skin, a layer of snow stubbornly clinging to his neck and barrel, and he looks like the next stiff wind might blow him over -- but yet he readies himself for the fight, muscles tense and quivering.

“Why don’t you fuck off back to your precious fucking court and leave me the fuck alone.”

"Speaking."

credits

@Teiran