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+---- Thread: [P] in the morning grace (/showthread.php?tid=3762)
in the morning grace - Septimus - 06-23-2019
NOW YOU'VE GONE, NOW YOU'VE GONE TO A DIFFERENT LIFE--
He’s been in Denocte for a few weeks, now, struggling to find his bearings in this strange new land.
Today, as dawn breaks over the edge of the horizon – a spill of pastel pinks and oranges cut jagged by the lunging sharpness of the mountains that he has been informed are called the Arma -, Septimus greets the day by stepping outside of the city walls for the first time since he arrived. When he entered the Night Kingdom, he thought that his magic would return in a matter of days; realm-hopping spells were always straining, particularly when they went wrong. When it became obvious that his fae-blood had been suppressed by some force that was not mere exhaustion, he’d fallen into a great and terrible despair, and he’d comforted himself by wandering the city streets, sketching the jewel-like pygmy dragons, and struggling to piece together bit by bit of information about this Novus from any passerby who seemed to be even somewhat interesting.
(The Scarab, at least, had proven good for that.)
However, tempting as it was to linger and linger until he lost his mind from the lingering, Septimus soon grew tired of sulking, and even more tired of city walls and cobblestone streets. He left before the sun could rise, and, though he suspected that he’d be back to gather supplies enough for the journey across the continent (to Delumine, which supposedly has a wonderful library which might contain some information of how to regain his magic), Septimus set to mind to enjoy the land outside of the Night Court as much as possible, for he did not know how long it would take him to return.
He circles above rolling hills, looking down.
Snow covers the ground in a thin layer of crisp white, largely untouched but discolored here and there by muddy banks. From above, it seems exceptionally pristine and linear, and it sparkles in the newborn sun as though it is made of crushed diamonds instead of frozen water. It is early spring; the snow will not remain much longer, and he suspects that it is already melting in the morning heat, but, for now, the world is blanketed in soft white, occasionally interrupted by dark stubs of grass that have already broken the surface. Dark trees, still leafless and bony from winter, sprout sporadically across the fields, near-black from the distance. (And in the early dawn; the sun is only just beginning to rise on the horizon.)
Septimus does not swoop down, his dark wings curving to make for a comfortable, circling landing, until he reaches the massive lake nestled in the territory. From above, it is like a mirror, reflecting the sky; half is the bright rose of dawn, but half is still dark, so dark that he can still see the stars. He lands on the bank, hooves digging into the wet soil (half from the lake and half from the melting snow), and stares out across the water, at nothing.
It’s quiet – not even the birds are out yet, this early, and it isn’t late enough in spring for the bugs. Tucking his wings over his pack neatly, Septimus stares out across the water wistfully.
He longs, for a moment, for home.
@August || <3
"Speech!"
He’s been in Denocte for a few weeks, now, struggling to find his bearings in this strange new land.
Today, as dawn breaks over the edge of the horizon – a spill of pastel pinks and oranges cut jagged by the lunging sharpness of the mountains that he has been informed are called the Arma -, Septimus greets the day by stepping outside of the city walls for the first time since he arrived. When he entered the Night Kingdom, he thought that his magic would return in a matter of days; realm-hopping spells were always straining, particularly when they went wrong. When it became obvious that his fae-blood had been suppressed by some force that was not mere exhaustion, he’d fallen into a great and terrible despair, and he’d comforted himself by wandering the city streets, sketching the jewel-like pygmy dragons, and struggling to piece together bit by bit of information about this Novus from any passerby who seemed to be even somewhat interesting.
(The Scarab, at least, had proven good for that.)
However, tempting as it was to linger and linger until he lost his mind from the lingering, Septimus soon grew tired of sulking, and even more tired of city walls and cobblestone streets. He left before the sun could rise, and, though he suspected that he’d be back to gather supplies enough for the journey across the continent (to Delumine, which supposedly has a wonderful library which might contain some information of how to regain his magic), Septimus set to mind to enjoy the land outside of the Night Court as much as possible, for he did not know how long it would take him to return.
He circles above rolling hills, looking down.
Snow covers the ground in a thin layer of crisp white, largely untouched but discolored here and there by muddy banks. From above, it seems exceptionally pristine and linear, and it sparkles in the newborn sun as though it is made of crushed diamonds instead of frozen water. It is early spring; the snow will not remain much longer, and he suspects that it is already melting in the morning heat, but, for now, the world is blanketed in soft white, occasionally interrupted by dark stubs of grass that have already broken the surface. Dark trees, still leafless and bony from winter, sprout sporadically across the fields, near-black from the distance. (And in the early dawn; the sun is only just beginning to rise on the horizon.)
Septimus does not swoop down, his dark wings curving to make for a comfortable, circling landing, until he reaches the massive lake nestled in the territory. From above, it is like a mirror, reflecting the sky; half is the bright rose of dawn, but half is still dark, so dark that he can still see the stars. He lands on the bank, hooves digging into the wet soil (half from the lake and half from the melting snow), and stares out across the water, at nothing.
It’s quiet – not even the birds are out yet, this early, and it isn’t late enough in spring for the bugs. Tucking his wings over his pack neatly, Septimus stares out across the water wistfully.
He longs, for a moment, for home.
@August || <3
"Speech!"
RE: in the morning grace - August - 07-02-2019
august
It’s an endurance day, and he always hates those.
But he is nothing if not dutiful, and a part of him glories in pushing his body and mind until they begin to push back, in discomfort or boredom or pain or fear, and then forcing them onward anyway. It is well before dawn when he slips from a room in the Scarab that isn’t his, a scent he doesn’t wear clinging to his skin, more information for his trove of secrets.
Not that this one was worth much. He hadn’t needed to be told how Raum was starving the Solterrans, how the monster that seemed leashed to him could turn people to stone, how small acts of resistance had been cropping up across the desert. Still, the sun-bronzed trader had been pretty, and interesting, and didn’t cheat at cards, and it was always good to have rumors verified by a first-hand witness. And anyway, it had been days since he was touched more than the bump of a shoulder in passing, or the blow from a practice-sword in the small yard behind the Scarab. August has always slept better beside someone, even though he never stays until they wake. The only things that touch him in the dark of his own room are his thoughts, and they are always sharp, and rarely kind.
Now he thinks of nothing but each pull of his lungs in the cold blue air, the burn of his muscles as he gallops. It is a long incline, up to Vitreus Lake, but August knows the view is worth it. He is passing too quickly to take note, but in the long cool patches of white snowdrops are beginning to open, and in a few days the slopes will be bright with crocus and winter jasmine, myrtle and phlox. Already birds are singing, the mourning doves with their funeral hymns, the jays with their indignant shrieks. The dark shape of an owl glides over, returning to the forest after a night spent hunting.
By the time he arrives to the lake, there is steam curling off of him like he’s a cousin to one of the little dragons in the markets. The stars are still caught in the reflection of the water, though dawn is fast overtaking them, and the golden stallion picks his way down to the shore, pausing now and again to stretch, to pull in a lungful of air so clean and cold it burns. For a moment he closes his eyes, pictures his mind as the flat mirror of the lake.
A sound startles him out of it. His gaze finds the source at once, a stark-white heron taking off from the water’s edge - but the motion of it only serves to call his attention to another figure a little ways along the shore. Even from here, something about him seems familiar, an impression that only grows as August approaches him, each stride languid as a cat’s. There weren’t too many stallions around the Scarab (or Denocte) that boasted both wings and such an impressive spread of antlers.
He’s still in shadow, the bay, and it’s almost surprising, the difference in temperature as August slides from sunlight to darkness to join him. He knows he ought to give him his privacy - this isn’t the kind of place people came to socialize with strangers - but he’s curious, and feeling terribly alive with the cold air like a knife against his skin and his blood still hot from running.
“Hope I’m not interrupting a lover’s meeting,” he says, though his expression suggests no regret whatsoever. “Say the word and I’ll leave you to your pensive staring. I find it always works for me.” The way his quicksilver eyes touch on the green of the stranger’s then is almost as good as a wink.
we drink the poison our minds pour for us
and wonder why we feel so sick
and wonder why we feel so sick
@
RE: in the morning grace - Septimus - 08-11-2019
I WALKED THE WORLD'S FULL LENGTH IN OVER-SIZED CLOCKWORK, SHAVED SKIN OF A BRUTE --
He notices the heron just before it flies. There is a fish caught in the needle-like incline of its beak, fat and silver and still wriggling. Had the bird not noticed his presence, he might have sketched the scene; mundane as it was, this land is new to Septimus, so he aspires to find wonder in those parts of it that are mundane. (After all – most worlds are not wildly different in design or character. If he were so easily bored by repetition, he would have lost his mind from it years ago.) The bird takes off, and he watches it skim across the surface of the lake, then arc up into the sky – soon, it disappears entirely, swallowed up by the dusky blue-black that still coats the rolling Denoctian hills. Septimus looks back at the water.
It is then that there is the sound of hooves against the shoreline, the familiar squelch of something pressed into and then pulled from the mud; he sees movement out of his peripheral vision, and, slowly, his skull swings up, like the arc of a pendulum. His eyes flicker beneath his lashes. That “pensive stare” is turned, abruptly, on his visitor.
He recognizes him, doesn’t he? They’ve never spoken, but Septimus has a good memory for faces – surprisingly good, considering how many faces he has encountered, and how rarely they tend to linger in his presence, given both his long lifespan and propensity for adventure – and he’s seen this golden man’s quite often recently. He is a pretty creature, with a dappled coat which shines, even in the dull morning light, like beaten metal; delicate features, a slender build. Pale, pale eyes, and pale, pale hair, braided tightly to his scalp but left long about his hindquarters. The only dark bit of him comes in the form of those subtle stripes on his back legs, and the grey-brown curves of his hooves.
(And that golden nose ring, a slim and pale band that is nevertheless striking in the way it catches the light – it adds character, Septimus thinks.)
At his words, his ears snap forward and his lips quirk up in a grin, though they do not pull tight enough to reveal his teeth. The boy’s demeanor is careless; although he claims regret, his expression (and tone, ripe with humor) suggest that he was looking for company. “I suppose that depends on whether or not you are the lover I’m supposed to meet.” His tone is thick with mischief, particularly when he allows his eyes to run the length of the other boy’s frame with a playful deliberation. He inclines his skull; his dangling green gems clack a melody against his antlers. “Pensive staring, you say? You’ll have to teach me your methods; I feel no more enlightened than I was when I arrived.” He isn’t sure that he wants to be enlightened, either – his mind was drifting dangerously towards home, before this boy (man? no, still a boy in the eyes) appeared, and Septimus knows that, with his magic and immortality gone like ashes in the wind, he can’t afford to let his mind wander there. In that direction lies regret, or sorrow, or some mixture thereof, and both of those emotions were a hindrance to his productivity.
So, instead of thinking about how he is trapped and worlds upon worlds away from the familiar embrace of the Wilds (and his mother, and his siblings, and cousins, and aunts, and uncles, and-), Septimus focuses on the boy. “I’m Septimus. You work at the Scarab, don’t you?”
Might as well get acquainted, now that he’s here – Septimus isn’t sure how long he’ll be staying at the establishment, and he’s not sure that he should want to get acquainted with its various workers and patrons, but nevermind that. He’s in the mood for company, even if he chances company being unsavory-
But he thinks that this boy is far too golden for it.
@August || <3
"Speech!"
He notices the heron just before it flies. There is a fish caught in the needle-like incline of its beak, fat and silver and still wriggling. Had the bird not noticed his presence, he might have sketched the scene; mundane as it was, this land is new to Septimus, so he aspires to find wonder in those parts of it that are mundane. (After all – most worlds are not wildly different in design or character. If he were so easily bored by repetition, he would have lost his mind from it years ago.) The bird takes off, and he watches it skim across the surface of the lake, then arc up into the sky – soon, it disappears entirely, swallowed up by the dusky blue-black that still coats the rolling Denoctian hills. Septimus looks back at the water.
It is then that there is the sound of hooves against the shoreline, the familiar squelch of something pressed into and then pulled from the mud; he sees movement out of his peripheral vision, and, slowly, his skull swings up, like the arc of a pendulum. His eyes flicker beneath his lashes. That “pensive stare” is turned, abruptly, on his visitor.
He recognizes him, doesn’t he? They’ve never spoken, but Septimus has a good memory for faces – surprisingly good, considering how many faces he has encountered, and how rarely they tend to linger in his presence, given both his long lifespan and propensity for adventure – and he’s seen this golden man’s quite often recently. He is a pretty creature, with a dappled coat which shines, even in the dull morning light, like beaten metal; delicate features, a slender build. Pale, pale eyes, and pale, pale hair, braided tightly to his scalp but left long about his hindquarters. The only dark bit of him comes in the form of those subtle stripes on his back legs, and the grey-brown curves of his hooves.
(And that golden nose ring, a slim and pale band that is nevertheless striking in the way it catches the light – it adds character, Septimus thinks.)
At his words, his ears snap forward and his lips quirk up in a grin, though they do not pull tight enough to reveal his teeth. The boy’s demeanor is careless; although he claims regret, his expression (and tone, ripe with humor) suggest that he was looking for company. “I suppose that depends on whether or not you are the lover I’m supposed to meet.” His tone is thick with mischief, particularly when he allows his eyes to run the length of the other boy’s frame with a playful deliberation. He inclines his skull; his dangling green gems clack a melody against his antlers. “Pensive staring, you say? You’ll have to teach me your methods; I feel no more enlightened than I was when I arrived.” He isn’t sure that he wants to be enlightened, either – his mind was drifting dangerously towards home, before this boy (man? no, still a boy in the eyes) appeared, and Septimus knows that, with his magic and immortality gone like ashes in the wind, he can’t afford to let his mind wander there. In that direction lies regret, or sorrow, or some mixture thereof, and both of those emotions were a hindrance to his productivity.
So, instead of thinking about how he is trapped and worlds upon worlds away from the familiar embrace of the Wilds (and his mother, and his siblings, and cousins, and aunts, and uncles, and-), Septimus focuses on the boy. “I’m Septimus. You work at the Scarab, don’t you?”
Might as well get acquainted, now that he’s here – Septimus isn’t sure how long he’ll be staying at the establishment, and he’s not sure that he should want to get acquainted with its various workers and patrons, but nevermind that. He’s in the mood for company, even if he chances company being unsavory-
But he thinks that this boy is far too golden for it.
@August || <3
"Speech!"
RE: in the morning grace - August - 08-28-2019
august
He takes the other man’s study of him as open invitation to do the same, especially when the stranger replies with a grin present in both his tone and on his lips. “I’m afraid not,” August answers, and makes his shrug wistful as he turns away from those glinting green eyes and the jewels that match them, making music like wind-chimes against the bay’s antlers. “Mine isn’t due until tomorrow.” The golden boy can’t keep his gaze away for long, though; he’s already looking slant-ways through silver lashes, and he shakes his head with a soft laugh when the man continues.
So soon after running, August isn’t quite ready to be still; he shifts where he stands, turning back toward the pegasus, the lake spread silent and silver as a mirror beyond them. “Enlightened? There’s your first mistake. Such a look is never useful for your own insight - only to prompt in the watcher a burning desire to know what you’re thinking, with such a musing and faraway stare.” His eyes, not so far off from the current color of the water, glint as he raises a brow and turns his voice to something almost sly. “And on that point, I must say, you need no further guidance from me.”
Indeed, he thinks, he wouldn’t be surprised if this man were meeting a lover. His height is impressive enough, made moreso by the kingly arch of antlers that crown him, decorated with trinkets not unlike Minya’s. Then there is the spring-green of his eyes, striking as the first green leaves against the last of the season’s snow, and the rich russet of his coat.
August has seen him before, he is sure of it now, but he has not noticed him. Now he does, and he will not forget a thing about him.
But it’s the name that makes his chin turn sharply and his ears prick forward. “Ah,” he says, and his smile shifts bright and malleable as gold. “A colleague mentioned meeting you.” Minya, a short time ago - though stories beginning with I met a man were no rarity for her. He wonders now if he prickly mood that evening had been because Septimus had jewels and antlers as grand as her own, though the dancer’s vanity is such that she likely hadn’t even bothered to compare.
He is likewise surprised to be recognized, though his smile doesn’t falter and he is quick to dip his head in a nod. “I’m August, and you are correct. Though if you’ve placed me so easily, our offerings aren’t as distracting as they ought to be.”
we drink the poison our minds pour for us
and wonder why we feel so sick
and wonder why we feel so sick
@