The ground whispers as she passes through the meadow, grass and flowers alike reaching out to her with their blades and leaves and petals as she walks amongst them. The goddess’ very presence seems to bring life back to the drowned and sunken Susurro Fields, the plants brightening and straightening with renewed vigor. Vespera smiles to herself.

She’s a speck of color on the muddied fields, her coat without stain or blemish. In her wake fresh grass sprouts, its new green blades splitting the surface of the earth and straining for the skies like a million tiny green hands. But the rest of the fields are torn and barren, holes small and large littering the earth every few meters. The place looks like a war zone, but Vespera knows the true fight lies underground.

She wanders aimlessly through the heart of the Dusk Court, spreading energy and life - until a cry catches her attention. It is soft and high in pitch, and the goddess knows at once that it does not belong to an equine.

Turning a corner, she comes upon the gopher.

He’s smaller than the others that roam here, but still far larger than any normal gopher has a right to be. His fur is a dusty tan, with streaks of gold as brilliant as the sun running from nose to tail. Or he would have stripes, she knew, if it weren’t for the mound of dirt that has collapsed on top of him, trapping him in the sinkhole.

“Easy, my friend,” she soothes him with her voice, arriving at his side in an instant. Bit by bit, little by little, she eases him out of the dirt until finally the rodent collapses - free - at her feet.

Still whispering sweet reassurances, the goddess of twilight scoops him up in her telekinesis and heads south, patting his soft fur the whole way.

She leaves him just outside the Court’s gates, building a soft nest for him woven from grass. “They’ll come for you soon,” she promises the creature as he slips into a restless sleep. “And they’ll help you.”

A minute later she is gone - leaving a pillar of light next to the rodent, a beacon calling the residents forth.

Some guidelines:
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- Have fun! Even if your character isn't c;

Vespera has rescued a strange looking gopher from Susurro - but he doesn't seem to be in the best of conditions. The beacon she's left behind seems a call for help... will you answer?

RE: a strange gift - Batty - 09-14-2018

The first records of our young world
were those of tears and blood

***

The witch doctor was, as mortal things often are, drawn to the beacon of light.

She did not much resemble her usual self, most traces of her customary body paint having been washed away or smeared into dark red stains in her dense coat, leaving her spotted coat adorned with little more than streaks of mud, prickly briars, and a host of fresh wounds ranging from tiny cuts and bruises to gashes that winked like red eyes from the deep hairless furrows they had scoured in her hide. Many of the more pressing injuries had been tended, though the rugged mare would hesitate now to recall when. The needs of Terrastella were great, and the witch doctor was no stranger to private hardship.

Huddled at the base of the shining pillar lay a queer lump of flesh, perhaps rodent, perhaps something else. Its breaths came shallowly and with great effort even through the merciful haze of unconsciousness. No doubt the poor creature had, in its deathly delirium, dragged its broken body toward the light and collapsed there, succumbing to its injuries like a moth in flames.

Poor, poor beast.

The spotted mare tilted her head, squinting at the light's brightness as it pierced the darkness beneath her mask. Her eyes glinted like flecks of dried blood.

It was an unusual creature, but the witch doctor had seen many unusual things since she had donned the implements of her station, and it was in a very, very bad way. What hope had such a creature against the elements without the support of its kin? Had they already perished somewhere in the floods and the landslides?

Not for the first time in the past several hours the witch doctor was acutely aware of how limply the herb pouch hung at her side. Doubtless any extra she had stored herself had been washed away by the waters that had rushed through her hovel, and what vegetation there existed to be harvested had fallen just as much victim to the weather as the animals. With so many horses still in need of aid, the spotted mare could offer this poor soul no greater mercy than the dignity of a swift, clean death.

She hummed somberly, murmuring a singsong prayer under her breath as she rested one chipped forehoof lightly on the gopher's skull. Then, swiftly, she shifted all of her weight into it.

***

The Witch Doctor
Its last records will be those of tears and blood also

RE: a strange gift - Random Events - 09-15-2018

A Random Event has Occurred!

Just as the witch doctor leans her weight forward, the air around the gopher glows as bright as the pillar of light beside it. A barrier appears, translucent and slippery, between @batty's hoof and the creature's body. No matter how hard she may try, she will find herself unable to harm him.

It would seem someone - or perhaps something? - does not want the gopher dead.

The gopher's eyes flicker open, struggling to focus in the gloomy light. He looks in confusion upon the cracked hoof resting a mere inch above him, then follows the limb up to the witch's body, and from there to her face. He blinks once, twice, thrice.

He begins to cry, his keening rising steadily into the air.

RE: a strange gift - Toulouse - 09-15-2018

home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread

The beacon called to him in the way adventure always did, beckoning him out of the hole he had hidden himself in and back into the light of day.

Or rather, whatever little light there was. Clouds still darkened the sky, threatening to begin their downpour anew - but for the time being, they held their water in. And it was a good thing they did, because Toulouse hated the rain. He followed the ray of light to the capitol, the Dusk Court unfurling like a scroll through the fog. He sticks to what few trees there are along the way, sodden leaves and mud creating a wet squelching sound underhoof, but eventually he finds himself crossing the ruined fields surrounding the Dusk Court.

It appeared he wasn’t the only one who was curious, nor the first to arrive. The mare before him was strange, seeming more a creature of prehistoric times than anything civilized. Her hide was dull and spotted, smeared with paint and mud that had all but washed off in the recent storms. A bleached skull boasting predatory teeth and antlers adorned her head and hid the upper half of her face from view. With how big and bulky it was, he found it nothing short of amazing that she didn’t bow beneath its weight. A curious artifact. A curiouser person.

Toulouse is enraptured, unable to turn away, unable to make a decision.He finds himself holding his breath, watching as the mare steps forward. Her humming reaches his ears until that they twist and flatten against his poll in a failing attempt to block out the noise. Something cold grips at his heart.

In the following days, he won't be able to say why it was that he rushes forward, for his legs seem to move of their own accord. They carry him swiftly closer, but every second seems an eternity and a day to him. He isn’t fast enough.

When he finally does arrive, all the fun has already passed. The light that shines around the gopher is already beginning to fade, and the creature lies unharmed in his cradle of grass. Toulouse's breath comes hard and fast, and he hastens to muffle it, to force himself to breathe regularly.

As crying fills the air, he turns his attention to the witchy woman.

“Don’t you think,” he says slowly, his tone almost sounding bored - although the glint in his eye would attest otherwise. “That maybe it was left beneath a pillar of light for a reason? Just maybe?”

It was just a rodent, and he was just a spy.

So why did he care whether it lived or died?

walk. "talk."
@batty @everyone else
what a poopy post, i need to write more

rhiaan art

RE: a strange gift - Lysander - 09-15-2018

It was the crying, keening wail that drew Lysander.

The sound rose above the sigh of the wind and the calls of a flock of geese passing well overhead. He had the dubious luck of being nearby, once more crossing the treacherous space between the court proper and the hospital, and it did not take the stallion long to reach a most curious scene.

No part of it made sense, but these were strange times.

He looks between the eerie (and perhaps angry, though he cannot make out her expression beneath the mask) mare, the golden, curl-horned man, and the keening gopher, who bears a peculiar and almost opalescent sheen. The pillar of light bathes them all in faint gold.

When he speaks it is the man he addresses, though Lysander’s gaze does not move from the huddled brown creature until he is nearly finished speaking.

“Was it left, or drawn by the light? If the latter, it isn’t the only one.” Stranger is left off the wry words, but is implied all the same. Lysander has been around the Dusk Court long enough to recognize the majority of the faces – especially now that they are so few – and the golden man’s is not one he’s seen before.

A stranger’s arrival in the wake of destruction was an odd thing. But then again, so was an oversized rodent with a fading glow.

For the moment he keeps his distance, interested in the outcome but unwilling to interfere; but as he eyes the animal the corners of his dark mouth draw down. The memory of standing at the mouth of a narrow subterranean hallway is enough to make him shift where he stands, and cast his gaze back toward the collapsed fields. “I hope whatever made those tunnels doesn’t show up next.”

you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night

toot toot worst post award. also I'm away til the 23rd, so whoever responds after this feel free to imagine he's just observing and making wry remarks

RE: a strange gift - Theodosia - 09-15-2018

She is, perhaps, starting to lose some of her patience with Vespera.

She comes upon the scene with a short-tempered scowl and a hidden cough, deep bags beneath her eyes from the lack of sleep, and even so, she can sense something god-like about this strange gopher and the fading beam of light. “Clearly it’s not meant to be killed.” She mutters as she observes the Ilati’s attempts to put the creature out of its misery -- but her attention is on the golden stranger, her pale eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

She says nothing, however.

Instead, she steps forward and casts one bedraggled wing over the poor creature, giving it something of a blanket to help calm it and perhaps protect it from the chill hanging in the air. Her mind strains, trying to remember the melody her father had always sung to her, when she had been hurt or afraid, and it is with a rush of soft nostalgia that she remembers.

“When the night is cold, and you feel like no one knows, what it's like to be the only one buried in this hole, you can make it to the sunrise,” She croons softly, uncaring of who else might hear her -- this is a frightened creature, and her instinct is to soothe.

"Speaking."

credits

RE: a strange gift - Random Events - 09-23-2018

Vespera looks on in silence, her presence shrouded from the gathered equines. The goddess is disappointed by the attempt to end the gopher’s life - ’can’t they see? Do they not realize what he is, what he means?’ She would have to show them - but not now, not yet. They would have to help themselves first, and the gopher.

The gopher was the real key.

As @~~Theodosia~~ cradles the gopher and sings a lullaby to soothe it, his cries give way to hiccups and the last of the light enveloping him fades away, leaving the world a little bit dimmer. He stirs, snuggling between his god-made nest and the pegasus’ wing.

One of the gathered horses steps forward, peering down at the furry creature. “He was left here,” she tells @lysander. “I saw it. A woman came and set him down, and the light started when she left.” There was nothing extradordinary about the speaker; she was of average height with a sooty grey coat. Her eyes were a dark brown, wide and unassuming. But still she spoke, with a voice that was musical and soft and in stark contrast to her demeanor.

“He needs help, preferably herbs over hooves. Dusk Court is a place of healing, he must have been left here for us.”

Herbs over hooves. The gopher needs rest and recovery - a caretaker’s remedy.

Vespera's gopher is unable to be harmed - the light will return at every attempt to shield him. As the equines bicker, an unassuming mare joins the ranks and adds her voice to their's. The gopher needs healing; will anyone assist him, to nurse him back to health?

You must act quickly.

Replies due by midnight on October 3rd EST!

***STAFF EDIT: extended to midnight on October 6th!

@batty @toulouse @lysander @~~Theodosia~~

RE: a strange gift - Lysander - 09-29-2018

With silence he watches the pale pegasus approach, her compassion for the rodent at odds with the expression she wears. She is as worn down as the rest of them (they are all frames of bone with too-taut skin lately, bodies never dry, eyes never bright save with fever) but she does not hesitate before she acts.

Lysander does not avert his gaze, though there is the feeling of witnessing something meant to be private as she begins to sing, her voice soft enough he loses the words themselves. There is something strange and dark in the deep green of his eyes, and he is thinking of a time when he was a god, his power still full, and he set tasks for his followers.

He knows, now, what this is – even before the stranger speaks. And he does not appreciate being on the receiving end of it.

A gopher abandoned, a woman whose vanishing summoned light in her wake. Was it so different from a golden hind coursing through dark woods, the tang of magic clear in the air?

The grey mare’s gaze is still on him, and he meets it now with a nod, though his dark mouth bears no smile.

He wants no part of this goddess’s tests. But neither does he want to risk bringing further punishment – not with Florentine still so weak.

“Even the healers need healers, of late,” he says dryly. “Terrastella’s resources are the only things running dry.” But he sighs, resigned, as he turns his glance back to the gopher, pressing itself further into the safety of the pegasus’ wing.

“Bring him inside, when you can,” he says to no one in particular. “I’ll see what herbs I can find.” Before the rains – and Florentine’s injures – had kept him from straying, Lysander had kept himself busy gathering all manner of plants. He thought then of Isra, and how she had tended to him without care for who or what he was – it is the final prompt he needs, and with a toss of his antlered head he canters back toward the keep. Swift-heeled as he is, he curses himself all the while.

To be helping rodents on behalf of a god he only loathed – what next?

you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night

@Batty @Toulouse @~~Theodosia~~ he'll be back!

RE: a strange gift - Toulouse - 10-06-2018

home is behind the world ahead
there are many paths to tread

”Why do you care?”

The question rings in his mind, over and over and over again until his head begins to ache. It’s an annoying distraction, made even worse when he realizes he doesn’t know the answer - why was he here? The Dusk Court wasn’t his home, and it was unusually hard for him to pretend that it was.

He shakes his head at himself, rendered silent by his thoughts. He listens to Theodosia's singing in silence, letting her voice drown out the others' words. Her words mean nothing to him - Toulouse has never felt alone, at least not in the way others might - but he still flicks an ear in her direction, his head tilting in contemplation. It is only the antlered man's announcement that brings him back out of his thoughts.

”Well, you heard what he said,” he finally says after Lysander takes his leave, taking a step towards the gopher and the pegasus whose wing covered it. ”Best to bring it inside, out of the chill. Find it some decent help.” ’Because obviously it won’t find any out here,’ he doesn’t say, though he spares a sideways look for the would-be gopher-killer nonetheless. After gesturing to Theodosia, he begins to make his way through the gathered crowd in the direction of the city.

He only hopes someone else would follow along - and hopefully lead the way, otherwise Toulouse might easily find himself lost within the foreign Court.

And that certainly wouldn’t help his case any.

walk. "talk."
@~~Theodosia~~ @asterion

rhiaan art

RE: a strange gift - Random Events - 10-07-2018

Vespera watches the group through the eyes of the grey mare, listening with her ears and speaking with her voice, an ordinary bystander.

For now.

Disappointment clouds the goddess’ mind - she had promised the gopher safety and help, had expected the Court to provide him that. But the gopher still lay shivering in the nest she had created for him, frail and sick. @~~Theodosia~~ had soothed him and was protecting him with her wing, but he needed more.

She was about to step in when @Lysander takes charge. “Do you need help?” her voice is a whisper, spoken too late as he canters away. So instead she turns to the pegasus, her smile soft as she kneels beside her. “Can you carry him?"

Replies due by midnight on October 17th! The RE will give a final reply once more on Oct. 18th; this is a reminder that anyone who completes this thread with 4+ posts will be given a prize!

@batty @toulouse @lysander @~~Theodosia~~