Private the difference between ichor and iron

YOUR HEART AND MY HEART ARE VERY OLD FRIENDS

Orestes’ companions currently consist of the yearling courtier who runs his errands, and a half-starved cur that lives on the street outside his quarters. Orestes had thrown the dog a scrap one time and the canine had taken it as an invitation to move into the palace.

In other words, Orestes has no friends. The castle is empty to the point of eeriness, and he thinks far too much, far too often. Orestes has always been a creature of action, and the threat of inaction is in itself a prison. He feels the madness gnaw at his edges like a dog at a bone, his doubt and fear compiling into a thing of self-deprecation. The sea does not sing and in her silence he can only hear his failure, again and again and again, and that silence follows him in his dreams and in his waking and all he can do to quell it is glance out at the streets and hope it is all for a greater purpose.

How does it feel,

She had once asked.

How does it feel, to be the last?

He had pushed his head against the bars between them,

close enough she could feel the heat of his skin, but not touch it,

and his lips almost brushed her shoulder, but couldn’t,

he said, “Like this.”

Orestes stares out the window, where the city spreads symmetric and grand. He stares out the window toward a foreign peoples that make his heart grow, and grow, and grow, and he thinks

it feels like being a small fire in a great storm.

He could have stood for eons. But there is a frantic clatter of hooves against the sandstone floor downstairs, and he listens to the echo clip-clop its way to his chambers and study. There is the courtier, dark bay and out of breath, saying, “The Night Court Emissary has arrived.”

Orestes turns to follow him, looking back, still, over a shoulder—beyond the city, to the outer wall and the cresting sun, thinking

It feels like holding your breath for something to change,

and hoping it is for the better.

He does not say this. He says, “Thank you, Charles.” And shakes his head into the present. Into the now, spectacular and aching. His courtier leads him out of the palace into the streets, then beyond, at that half-run half-trot, until they are beyond the gates. The half-starved hound follows up until he can see out toward the desert, and stops, staring forlornly after the pair. The streets of Solterra's capitol are still too quiet, too starved, and the gaunt hound reflects it.

“Charles, I thought you said they were here.” Orestes tone, at first, sounds stern. But when the yearling glances at him apprehensively, there is a butterfly-soft smile on his lips that dances like a shift of light.

“I didn’t want us to be late, sir.” And Charles’s bonded, a Harris’ hawk, launches from the yearling's shoulder to guide them in through the dunes. They stand waiting at the outer gate of the city; long moments pass before Orestes’ sees three dark shapes cresting a dune. A Solterran sentry leads them closer, closer, closer, and the hawk circles overhead as though to mark their passing.

The desert does a funny thing to time. It makes each second seem infinite, in the way the ocean never did. The ocean is too much movement, too much ferocity—but the desert is still and patient and always waiting, with half a breath held. At last they are near enough to speak, and Orestes dips his head in a respectful bow. “It is a pleasure, Moira.” It is the name Charles has given him, for the winged mare. He does not know her companion and offers a sheepish, apologetic smile. “I was not aware there would be two of you, I apologise. The pleasure is mine. I am Orestes, and you are…” He trails off, waiting for an introduction. Even as he speaks, his words sound strange, too incomplete; there is no song to them, no undertone of... of more. His heart aches for a moment, fierce and poignant, but there is no language to convey what he has lost, that speaking was only ever half his poetry. Stop, he demands of himself. And so, Orestes does, and asks:

“Would you prefer to rest before escorting me? I hope the desert was not too hard on you.” He thinks it was, because it is hard on everyone, and it is something he loves fiercely about it.

Orestes

@~~Moira~~ @~~Minya~~ | speaks | notes: lemme know if you want anything changed!

RE: the difference between ichor and iron - Minya - 10-25-2019

MINYA

take that look from off your face
you ain't gunna burn my heart out

Their hooves are a choir of song as they step together through the empty castle walls. She moves through these barren halls like spring upon the vestiges of winter. Minya is a spark of colour. She is the grace and beauty of night that fills Solterra’s halls with wild fires and wilder dance.

Always has she felt wrong in her beauty, even as she bathes in it as though it were a bath of gold. Yet never has she felt this wrong. The winter-barren halls of this palace echo with turmoil and emptiness. The sound of the Night Court’s feet are all the music she thinks this place has heard. Her gold jewellery feels cheap as it chimes from her antlers. Minya is a swan within a drying lake.

Though her skin is steel-sleek - though she gleams as polished silver - her body the hue of a gathering storm, sand and dust cling to the hot of her torso. Night’s splendour pours down the slender arch of her throat, pooling in fuschia pink at her feet. Her tail is a silken train behind her, long and elegant and tinged with dirt.

Ah, all of Minya is the truest she has ever been. The sand and dirt upon her skin are as bold as the memories of the servant girl she was as a child. So familiar is she with the dust and the dirt that she does not realise the way she wears it as if it is a sheer garment.

The Scarab girl moves beside Moira; a dancer beside a politician. Oh what mockery of a greeting team is this? They step into the throne room, into the presence of a king. If Minya is the grey of a gathering storm, the silver of ethereal moonlight, then the king is the brightest glow of Day. The sun crawls up his limbs, it claims him with tattoos that weave a story of sunlight across his flesh. His hair curls as solar winds and Minya wonders how it might burn her skin to touch him, for just a moment.

The king welcomes Moira first and Minya does not move from where she tips up her chin and stands like revelry. Then his gaze is upon her and it is as though the sun burns in through the steel of her skin, as if it melts the metal of her. She might flinch, she might turnher gaze away as if pliant. Yet Minya has not been a servant for many, many years. Beneath the glitter of her thick lashes she sets her silver eyes to meet the gold of him. Moira’s feathers brush along her slim sides as they stand close, united. “Minya.” She finishes for the king. “My name is Minya,” the Scarab girl affirms as she lowers into a graceful curtsey.

“We have come to congratulate you on your ascension, your Majesty, and invite you to spend time with us in Denocte.” Her voice, warm as whiskey, trails off as her gaze turns to Moira, waiting upon the emissary to finish.

@~~Moira~~ @Orestes

| "speaks" | notes: spoopy! <3

rallidae

RE: the difference between ichor and iron - Moira - 10-29-2019

mighty is the hand that knows when to pick the pen and when to pick the sword

Despite their bickering and endless journey, the one that wound through great valleys and over dead mountains, that brought them so close to ripping throats apart, from going their separate ways and just letting the world devour her, they made it into the sand. It tore her throat to shreds, it swallowed her wings that only just kept out the small grains. Not that the phoenix knew how to fly (and that was no longer for lack of trying), rather, she would not leave one of her own court no matter how backwards and frustrated they became.

Moira Tonnerre is loyal even when that loyalty is untested.

Now, like water they rise over the sand, a great tidal wave from the distant shores of Denocte cresting a dune behind a boy. He looks back, nervous, eyeing the women with suspicion and curiosity. She wonders what he sees when he looks to her charming and lovely companion; a girl, a woman, dressed in chocolate and rubies with eyes like the moon. Minya is so lovely, and part of Moira, the part that is still a girl locked in those dark rooms within the Estate, is jealous of her the plainness of her. Oh, her skin is not plain, and her horns are not plain, but she does not wear wings upon her side as the phoenix does. She was not marked as a sinner before she ever knew how to sin.

They follow as though they are the ones to lead the boy to water, to the riches his kingdom has to offer now that the reign of terror has ended. And lead they do, into the throne room where the bangles always upon the phoenix' wings dance in a phantom breeze; where the anklets about her leg sing alongside the bangles upon the Scarab girl. They come in a sweep of jasmine scent and sweat, with heads held high and the beauty of Caligo spread at the foot of the throne as though a feast made only for him.

When they stop, when the hollowness of the hall they stand within echoes the hollowness inside the Emissary that still rings and rings and rings, Moira bows in unison with Minya. If her head is not so low to this king as it had been to another, then who is there to whisper into Orestes ear and let him know? If her eyes do not sparkle merrily as they had before with another ruler, who is to tattle?

There are none to say that she is not showing the proper respects, and as she rises, so does her voice. A seductive thing, a midnight song to lull a child to sleep or ease the pain of passing on fields of battle, oh she sings to him then as she was chosen to do. "Congratulations, King Orestes," she says softly, but not weakly.

The phoenix golden eyes trace Orestes and his young companion who led him toward his traveling party, the black swallows the gold as pupils dilate in the shadow. She drinks him down like a cat lapping at fresh cream. "The rise of a new ruler is always something eyebrows are raised at; the great lion of the sand chose you, and it is an honor indeed to come and greet the newly anointed King." Once, she'd met the sun god and wondered if his skin would burn. Then, a man dressed in black pulled her away, scared she might be set on fire. She wonders if he knew how the phoenix would burn time and again, how Time itself would cease to invade her body and pull the life from her, how she would never die - not even at the hands of the Sun.
She doubts he had any clue.

He looks to Minya then, and the Tonnerre girl is quiet as her companion speaks. A voice clad in secrets rises, a voice of deception rises, a voice of an angel comes to grace their ears and the Emissary smiles as though she is proud, as though this girl of her court is everything she'd ever want her people to be, as though they have known each other a lifetime. They have not, and it is a smile she does not feel. This is the face of the Tonnerres, their legacy, their facades they learned to perfect; children at court learn when to lay down their cards and when to bluff. Moira was raised in a nest of vipers with every other Tonnerre vying for the same positions.

Silence descends, ands he does not let it reach its pinnacle. A wing ruffles, extending over Minya in solidarity. Flesh against flesh, rib against rib, shoulder against shoulder, they look to the king as the woman in red says at last, "The world should not be traveled lest you have another at your side, no? Minya has kept me from becoming hopelessly lost in your vast kingdom and all its hidden riches." The Emissary only hints at what they may or may not have seen. The poverty is clear, starvation and corpses riddled their trek, and still they came.

The sands burned. Great beasts howled in the distance.
And still they came.

Nights threatened to freeze them. An island shaking threatened to tear the world apart.
And still they came.

Perhaps the women of Denocte were unstoppable. Or perhaps their determination was something to be feared and admired; respected by all as Caligo respected and chose them. "A reprieve would be most appreciated, if you so wish it. I must admit, I've only ever seen the edges of Solterra, and I am most eager to see her flourish under your care." Dark lashes hide golden eyes now, peeking from below them demurely with a softer smile, one that is not fierce but eager, yearning. This heat reminds her of Eik. The scents here make her think of her first days among Novus.

How little she knew then, how little she thinks she still knows. "As my companion said, we are pleased and thrilled to invite you to Denocte. Their are festivities afoot that every court is welcome to attend, for much has changed. We should all draw together for a moment in time, no?" With that, her wings come carefully to her sides, tucked tightly as they always were. It is more habit and comfort to have them pinned as though they were not there, but she cannot unfeel the way they are, not now when they've become something she's learned to move, learned to accept bit by bit. If there is still shame, she does not tell, she does not show it.

"Speaking."

credits
@~~Minya~~ @Orestes <3 take all my love in this smol novel

RE: the difference between ichor and iron - Jahin - 10-29-2019

He sees her between wake and sleep.

He wakes in a cold sweat as she shatters all of his dreams. Night after night. How does she know, even in death as she did in waking, how to hit him where it hurts, how to make him bleed?

He sighs, his forelock beaded in sweat and salt. He rolls to his hooves, shedding the silken embroidered blankets to the cold marble tile. He has never been surrounded by such comfort, such easy, unearned luxury.

I don't belong here.

He says it to himself every day, over and over again. He longs for the hardness of the earth and the openness of the endless desert sky overhead. He yearns for the possibility of a scorpion sharing his bed and for the freezing temperature of the desert night to burn his skin. Every day he spends behind these magnificent, shining walls is another he doubts himself.

And yet.

He persists because it is what he has promised to do. He remembers his promise with every rising sun, with every ray that streaks across the grey dawn. I promise. He promises himself, he promises Avdotya, he promises Makeda. He promises Solterra. He hopes it is enough.

He walks restlessly this night, eager to work off the cold sweat lingering upon his skin like winter frost. Aimless. Lost. Both. He walks the palace halls. He's vaguely aware of the guard that tails him valiantly and determinedly. He ignores the young man. He's just doing his job, he thinks idly to himself, as you did all those years ago, without question.

And where has that gotten you now?

He recalls the contradictory feeling that swelled within his breast as Orestes spoke his name that day. Jahin, son of Davke. Pride. Shame.

How can it be both?

He has stopped asking that question, but thinks about it every now and again. He is no one, and yet he is the second son of Solterra after Orestes.

Orestes.

He paces the palace halls. He does not know these winding pathways yet, just as he does not know Solterra's new king. Jahin's shadow stretches down the marble floors, illuminated by flickering, glowing torchlight. He exits the castle walls and finds himself in the belly of the desert.

Home.

Dawn has come and gone. He finds himself waiting...waiting...waiting for Avodtya. But of course, she does not crest the dunes. Will she ever speak to him again? He finds it more bearable to ignore the hope he feels lingering like persistent, glowing embers in the wake of a cold spell. Crush it, smother it. If she wishes to speak with him she will find a way. For now, he is alone.

Or is he?

His brows furrow--he squints against the morning sun. Orestes? The golden flame of the Solterra king's skin and shimmering tattoos amidst the sand and glittering light of the morning sun is unmistakable. Despite the figurative canyon yawning between them, Jahin immediately pursues Orestes. The new king is flanked by a guard; leggy at that. Young, obviously. His frown deepens, but he refrains from ruminating on the matter. Another time, perhaps, when king and regent have gotten to know each other better.

Jahin is not shy in his appearance and makes his presence known, striding to the king's side. Two women. They are both beautiful, in a way that not even a poet can begin to describe easily. One has the hair and winged feather of a glittering bonfire and dying star; the other the hair the color of spilled wine and a voice like honey. He recognizes neither but catching the last remnants of the conversation is enough.

Night Court.

"He will not be alone," he replies evenly as he approaches, his voice resolute; his resolve absolute. Jahin does not offer his name, he does not offer salutation. There is only a promise to Solterra that lingers in the air, for better or worse.

@~~Minya~~ @~~Moira~~ @Orestes oops where did this come from EEK