She awakes suddenly, with a violent start from her bed -- flashes of dream still play behind her eyelids, the howling winds and blowing snow of Dead Horse Ridge embedded there, the golden halls of her sire’s Olympus that hid the deprived god within. She has not dreamt of her birthplace in months, has barely had the time to dream at all -- it leaves a sour taste in her mouth, worse than Vespera’s potion, as she clambers from the bed with stiff limbs.

There is a tension in the air, and she can taste it the moment she steps from her room. The other cadets barely even glance her way, too busy whispering amongst themselves, and she catches snatches with every word -- A letter, they murmur, and her tail swishes low against the hallway of the barracks, Cleopatra’s handwriting and her ears prick forward, her attention gained fully.

“Where?” She demands, voice still harsh from sleep, and the cadet beside her (young, so young, with a forelock that flops over his eyes) gestures towards the heavy barrack doors, held open to the Spring dawn. She moves forward, through the crowd, and her eyes land on the yellowed parchment, reading over it quickly.

W. 460
So, so obvious. Bad weather tomorrow but that’s fine. Should be at (near) Lorcan’s gravestone in the fields. Vespir wants confrontation first. Always, always -

Vespir. She knows that name, had heard it when she had been learning the history of the Halcyon, when she had been fresh-faced and not nearly as burdened by duty -- and she is quick to note the age of the parchment, the handwriting that has her eyes narrowing in thought. Very few scraps of knowledge existed from that time period, so much of the research lost, but she thinks that she recognizes the scrawl as matching what few pages remained of Cleopatra’s journal.

Vespir. Cleopatra. 

The gears shift and begin to click into place.

Prudence.

The hunt for the armor has resumed.

Without a word, the Champion darts out of the barracks and takes flight towards the Fields, towards where King Lorcan’s grave rested, and she thinks she can feel her heart in her throat the entire time. To find Prudence would be to find a miracle, an ending to an era that has stretched on for far too long -- with Prudence found, she thinks, the Halcyon might be returned to their former glory, like the stories that had first drawn her to Terrastella in the first place.

She lands in the fields with a soft thump, folding her wings against her slender sides, and begins to approach the grave.

Terrastella sleeps through the days of turmoil without a complaint--not a raincloud or the faintest thrum of an earthquake to testify that its dark, holy places are being dug up. The earth is calm and silent. Even as Susurro becomes pockmarked and scarred with more and more caverns, not much has come to show for it: everything the cadets and the strangers have turned up so far seems to be a red herring.

Until just the right stone is turned.

Some hoof knocks over a small grave marker. On the bottom plane, the granite is filthy with eons of dirt and overgrown moss. Underneath the grime it is inscribed with words and a design carved by a strange, careful hand. The art is simple: an empty, stylistic wave, from the froth of which rises a single link of chains with a cuff at the end.


The inscription underneath is somewhat harder to understand.

Just like Juliet it’s morning again.
And lovers leap from the ward
Which keeps them from each other,
Just as it divides sea and city.

A pair of green eyes watch from the edge of the field.


Please PM me (RB) here or on Discord if you’ve got any questions! <3