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+---- Thread: [P] [QUEST] this heart I know (/showthread.php?tid=5088)
[QUEST] this heart I know - Elena - 06-07-2020
and bury it before it buries me
He had spoken of a girl and emotion had bloomed inside her. Her heart still thumps painfully against her ribs. She can imagine him, with another, and her heart trips over the image. Jealousy blossoms like the flowers facing the sun and she had to reel back violent storms into the tranquil lake of her breast. She didn't care, she lies to herself as her eyes open to a tilt of a smile. His words had made tears, small and numerous, they had multiplied until she had felt as if her very heart had been flayed open for the world to see. Elena isn’t crying. She is durable and steadfast and would not let him make her cry.
Elena was beginning to realize, perhaps, her new abilities were not so much a gift. She feels like she sees so much, and yet little is revealed to her. She can feel them, all of them, and cannot block them out. She is so sensitive to the slightest of changes in another. It is overwhelming, and at times, for a girl who so enjoys the company of others, she finds herself having to escape into moments of solitude. Ever since her goddess blessed her with this ability, Elena has had to discern her own emotions from those of others, a task not so easy to perform. Then still, there are other times when she goes to Dusk Court and bathes herself in the feelings and emotions of others, closing her eyes and letting it wash over her. Her own emotions grow lost in the shuffle.
It was all she could manage just to pass someone by without being sick with the onslaught of unfamiliar emotions as she moves around Dawn and their festival. Too many highs and lows and Elena still too new to her ability. This is why she is in the forest, nature offers itself to be the stage on which Elena’s own emotions can dance freely. They sing their joy to the golden girl. Those china blue eyes close for one blissful moment.
But the singing dies and voice replaces it. “Hello?” She responds to the voice she doesn't quite believe she heard above nature’s choir. And that is when the stranger appears to her. Elena watches with careful eyes, her empathy pricks forward, but strangely—she feels nothing. “I’m not lost,” she combats, but the bruises in her eyes say otherwise. “Path?” She just as quickly questions before those pale eyes look behind him to see what she had not noticed before. A path between the trees as if magically put there before her. It is only his laughter that calls her back to the stranger.
She suddenly feels chills where there once was none. Ears fold gently against her head with his words. At the same time, she thinks she has walked down far more frightening paths before. She thinks of Marcelo in this moment first. “Elena, are you sure you should be going in there?” He says with worry in his voice, but, Elena simply gives a roll of her shoulder that tells this imaginary Marcelo that they are done with their conversation. And the sunshine girl is already moving towards the light that calls her (the fire in her recognizes the fire within it) when he speaks once more. She smiles with the promise of flowers and sends a note of laughter in his direction. “If I find any, I will be sure to bring you one. Purple just might be your color,” she adds with a final obliging grin before continuing forward.
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
It is as she keeps walking down the path that she only begins to wonder… how she will know if it is the lost voices that are speaking to her, or if it is only her own voice that echoes back.
Elena was beginning to realize, perhaps, her new abilities were not so much a gift. She feels like she sees so much, and yet little is revealed to her. She can feel them, all of them, and cannot block them out. She is so sensitive to the slightest of changes in another. It is overwhelming, and at times, for a girl who so enjoys the company of others, she finds herself having to escape into moments of solitude. Ever since her goddess blessed her with this ability, Elena has had to discern her own emotions from those of others, a task not so easy to perform. Then still, there are other times when she goes to Dusk Court and bathes herself in the feelings and emotions of others, closing her eyes and letting it wash over her. Her own emotions grow lost in the shuffle.
It was all she could manage just to pass someone by without being sick with the onslaught of unfamiliar emotions as she moves around Dawn and their festival. Too many highs and lows and Elena still too new to her ability. This is why she is in the forest, nature offers itself to be the stage on which Elena’s own emotions can dance freely. They sing their joy to the golden girl. Those china blue eyes close for one blissful moment.
But the singing dies and voice replaces it. “Hello?” She responds to the voice she doesn't quite believe she heard above nature’s choir. And that is when the stranger appears to her. Elena watches with careful eyes, her empathy pricks forward, but strangely—she feels nothing. “I’m not lost,” she combats, but the bruises in her eyes say otherwise. “Path?” She just as quickly questions before those pale eyes look behind him to see what she had not noticed before. A path between the trees as if magically put there before her. It is only his laughter that calls her back to the stranger.
She suddenly feels chills where there once was none. Ears fold gently against her head with his words. At the same time, she thinks she has walked down far more frightening paths before. She thinks of Marcelo in this moment first. “Elena, are you sure you should be going in there?” He says with worry in his voice, but, Elena simply gives a roll of her shoulder that tells this imaginary Marcelo that they are done with their conversation. And the sunshine girl is already moving towards the light that calls her (the fire in her recognizes the fire within it) when he speaks once more. She smiles with the promise of flowers and sends a note of laughter in his direction. “If I find any, I will be sure to bring you one. Purple just might be your color,” she adds with a final obliging grin before continuing forward.
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
It is as she keeps walking down the path that she only begins to wonder… how she will know if it is the lost voices that are speaking to her, or if it is only her own voice that echoes back.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Official Dawn Account
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Official Dawn Account - 06-07-2020
the first choice
As you begin the pathway, the forest around you seems to come alive. There are birds of every size and shape flitting from branch to branch overhead, vibrant blue butterflies dancing around your hooves, rustlings in the nearby bushes. Perhaps you are familiar with the woods, and they seem peaceful to you; or perhaps every creak of the branches makes your senses jump, and every shadow dancing just out of sight has your skin crawling.
Or perhaps it feels as though the forest is watching you. Maybe the woodland animals are not the only things alive here.
Regardless, as you venture further into the forest, the festival noises are replaced entirely with the sounds of flora and fauna, and the glow of the lanterns placed along the pathway is greater than what little sunlight manages to break through the canopy. It feels intimate here, and whether you came with company or alone, you begin to feel acutely aware of how alone you are walking in the woods.
It is not long before the rustling in the leaves grows louder, and another set of footsteps begin to echo your’s. But when you turn to look, only the empty forest path greets your eyes. The trees shiver, the light in the nearest lantern begins to waver; and from the shadows, a new light begins to shine as a thousand fireflies wander down the trail.
For a moment, they seem to form the outline of another horse. But when you blink the image slips away, and the fireflies swarm together. They drift near to you, almost shyly, cautiously; the wind seems to be holding its breath, waiting, waiting. The fireflies reach out to you like an old friend, their light falling across your face. And then as one they turn, gathering once more into the likeness of a horse. And without turning, without caring for the old man’s warning, they step off the forest path and into the forest. Without the warm glow of the lanterns, they make their own light weaving between the trees, casting strange rays of light that seem to linger too long in the darkness, reaching back to you.
As if beckoning to you to follow.
To continue the quest, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! In this round, it seems as though a horde of fireflies are trying to show your character something...
Choices: stay on the path, or follow the fireflies
@
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Elena - 06-08-2020
and bury it before it buries me
She loves it here, she decides quickly. She has always had such a soft affection for Dawn, and the residents that call this place home. (She thinks of Andras and his anger, but her heart so quickly softens against him as well.) Blue eyes dance to the trees as bird fly over head, and they fall down below to see the butterflies that frolic among the autumn flowers. She is so enthralled with the beauty of the creatures, and the towering trees, that she does not notice how shadows creep and crawl. Their fingers ache to reach out to her golden sunshine skin, to smoother her darkness, but it would seem just as they are about to…she dances just beyond it, like a ballerina.
The joyous laughter grows quiet as others continue to join in the festival, but Elena is not thinking about what remains behind, instead those blue eyes look onwards, eager to find what seems to be reaching out to her as much as she does towards it. The light of the lanterns that lead the pathway comfort her, and makes Elena think that she could not be the only one who has walked this pathway before. There is a moment, a heartbeat, where she wishes Ori was here with her, chattering about how the lanterns look like fireflies and the forest breathes adventure.
Footsteps.
For a breath, Elena thinks her wish may have come true.
But she exhales and remembers that Ori is far, far away. It is enough to draw her attention to a change in the air. The way the trees shimmy, the lights flicker as if they grow restless. “Fireflies,” Elena whispers to the woods and its creatures in awe. They form into something more: “Ori?” She questions hopefully, but then she is gone in a single blink of blue eyes. They brush against her, affectionate and bright. Elena laughs with something like sunshine. And then they leave her (everything does.) Elena watches with china blue eyes as they dance like illuminated raindrops before forming once more. And oh how it looks like Ori. Elena begins to move away towards them, away from the path, away from where she has been told to go, because she feels warmth seeing her family once more, a warmth she hasn't felt since she emerged from the forests of Taiga. It is not Ori, she knows this, she knows she is with Marcelo and Ruth, happy and loving as Elena always pictures her. And yet…
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
Elena’s own curiosity burns, but she resists the lure the fireflies offer her. She needed to follow the lost voices, just as the stranger had said. If they were truly lost—Elena would not forsake them. Because…because Elena knows what it is like to be lost, to cry out, just as she had that day in the Natural Bridge.
And she knows too, what it is like to be found.
Choice: Elena is staying on the path.
The joyous laughter grows quiet as others continue to join in the festival, but Elena is not thinking about what remains behind, instead those blue eyes look onwards, eager to find what seems to be reaching out to her as much as she does towards it. The light of the lanterns that lead the pathway comfort her, and makes Elena think that she could not be the only one who has walked this pathway before. There is a moment, a heartbeat, where she wishes Ori was here with her, chattering about how the lanterns look like fireflies and the forest breathes adventure.
Footsteps.
For a breath, Elena thinks her wish may have come true.
But she exhales and remembers that Ori is far, far away. It is enough to draw her attention to a change in the air. The way the trees shimmy, the lights flicker as if they grow restless. “Fireflies,” Elena whispers to the woods and its creatures in awe. They form into something more: “Ori?” She questions hopefully, but then she is gone in a single blink of blue eyes. They brush against her, affectionate and bright. Elena laughs with something like sunshine. And then they leave her (everything does.) Elena watches with china blue eyes as they dance like illuminated raindrops before forming once more. And oh how it looks like Ori. Elena begins to move away towards them, away from the path, away from where she has been told to go, because she feels warmth seeing her family once more, a warmth she hasn't felt since she emerged from the forests of Taiga. It is not Ori, she knows this, she knows she is with Marcelo and Ruth, happy and loving as Elena always pictures her. And yet…
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
Elena’s own curiosity burns, but she resists the lure the fireflies offer her. She needed to follow the lost voices, just as the stranger had said. If they were truly lost—Elena would not forsake them. Because…because Elena knows what it is like to be lost, to cry out, just as she had that day in the Natural Bridge.
And she knows too, what it is like to be found.
Choice: Elena is staying on the path.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Official Dawn Account
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Official Dawn Account - 06-09-2020
whispers in the fog
Perhaps there is still some doubt in your mind, or perhaps you are too cautious to venture far off the beaten trail. Whatever your reasoning, you end up turning away from the fireflies and their dancing lights, and face the pathway laid before you with determination. You continue down the path as it weaves in and out of the trees, ever deeper into the woods.
The forest explodes with color all around you, the birch trees and the maples standing proudly in their robes of red and gold, bright green moss creeping up their trunks. Below them crabapples and cranberries tempt you sweetly, while mushrooms and wildflowers grow along every collapsed trunk. It is all too tempting to pause and enjoy the scenery, or to reflect on the strange noises rustling in the fallen leaves. Perhaps you don’t notice the mist that snakes in between the trees, cloaking the ground from view, rising higher, and higher, and higher; or perhaps you notice it right away, and watch it creep forward with distrust.
It curls thickly along the ground, rising up like a wave swelling to meet you. In the blink of an eye it has consumed you, swallowed you and the forest whole, obscuring even your hooves from sight. The air grows heavy beneath the weight of all that fog.
If you kept walking despite the fog, you soon realize the ground under your hooves has changed, becoming more wild and unkept as you strayed unknowingly from the path. From within that fog, from all around you, just out of sight - come muffled voices.
Voices you recognize.
Perhaps they are the voices of your friends back home, or your loved ones long passed from the earth. Perhaps they belong to your brother, your sister, your father, your mother; or a childhood friend you’ve long grown apart from. Whoever they are, their voice carries an eerie tone, like an echo follows their words through the fog, calling your name softly, sweetly, longingly. Off to the side the mists begin to thicken, a spectral form standing to greet you. Ghosts you think you recognize pull themselves from the ground and converge around you, shivering, whispering.
But up ahead, you can see a section of the fog parting, a light streaming between the trees. Perhaps it reminds you of the stranger’s words from before; perhaps it is enough to give you the strength to push through the ghosts rising all around you.
Or perhaps you find yourself trapped, and begin to think to yourself - what’s the worst that can happen? These ghosts you once knew, what harm could they bring?
To continue the quest, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! Elena has chosen to stay on the path, but the forest seems committed to distracting her. Can she even see the trail under her hooves still? What are the voices whispering to her? Are any of them familiar?
Choices: continue through the fog onto the light, or linger with the voices
@
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Elena - 06-09-2020
and bury it before it buries me
It is hard, much harder than she expected to leave those fireflies behind. To leave that warmth of what felt like Ori behind. Elena blinks blue eyes. It wasn't Ori, she has to remind herself. She sure what it was, but it was not her cousin. No matter how much she wishes it were. Elena learned a long time ago that wishing and hoping does not make something so. She thinks she just wants to get out of here, but there is something that sits at the back of her mind that tells her going back may be more dangerous now than going forwards.
Elena dips further into the forest and it reminds her of the monarchs that had flowed around Murmuring Rivers, as if the gentle valley had been their ocean. “They are beautiful to tell the bird that they are poison,” says Aletta to the yearling children as they watch the fluttering creatures with awe. And that is all Elena can think as color is drenched around her (wildflowers, autumn hues). Poison. She thinks. This place is hiding something, and Elena’s heart races with danger, she breathes in and the air tastes like peril.
It comes towards her like the ghost of an ocean wave. Elena gasps as it finally reaches her, expecting to feel pain or discomfort, but she feels—nothing. And like the tide it sweeps her silently underneath.
“Hello?” She calls out as her vision is obscured. She has no choice but to keep moving, the fog has to end somewhere, but there is a thud in her heart that tells her somewhere is no where close to here. She feels stray roots reaching up towards her, longer grass tangling around her legs. She has a sudden realization, she was no longer on the path the stranger had told her to follow. “You got what you wanted,” she shouts at the fog, head turning around and ears turning as a voice catches her attention. “You are going to have to be faster than that if you want to beat me!” The voice calls out playfully. “Ori?” Elena questions not for the first time on her journey. Elena whips around, trying to find the source of the voice. “Elena, you left when your family needed you,” another, deeper voice says. “Valerio, I know, I’m sorr—” she begins to say but then she swears she sees the shadow of another in the corner of her eye. “I still think you’d make a promising, politician,” comes Kensa and Elena tries to find her, wants to apologize, to tell her it was never meant to be.
A shape appears then and for a flash of a moment it holds a crimson shade. “Stay, Elena, Nash and Yan are getting so big, you have to see them.” Lilli, it’s Lilli, even if she had not said her sons’ names Elena would know it is her. “I can’t,” she says, she cant stay, not here. Black shows up on the side of her vision. “That’s enough flowers in my mane, Elena, everyone with think me a garden instead of a stallion.” Oh god, oh god, Alvaro, the brother she found in a cousin. Guilt wracks her, it had been so long since she had thought of him. A pale shape stands beside him. “Elena, if you are good and stay here with us, I’ll let you come on patrol with me in the morning.” No, Marcelo, she cant, she cant stay. But Elena isn't thinking that anymore, not with so many of her friends and family around her, faces she hasn't seen in so long, voices she has not heard in ages, and touches she has not felt in years. They are here, all of them, with her.
It is then she appears.
Call it mother’s intuition, even from the grave she knows when her daughter is in trouble.
The shape of her mother forms, so clear and perfect beside her, humming that old familiar lullaby. Elena thinks, if she reached out to touch her, she would find that old warmth that only a mother can offer her child. But it is in the same breath of realization that Elena drops down from the dream she been lifted to, back to the solid ground of reality. ”No," she says to the form beside her. "I know what you are trying to do." These we not real. No one can bring back the dead. Elena would know as much. She had gone to the ends of the earth and turned up empty handed and blue-eyed. "Get away from me!” She shouts. ”Elena..." her mother's voice comes one last time, but the golden girl is already blindly rushing forwards through the fog, towards the light. “Elena,” the other voices called, desperate to keep her with them.
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
The familiar instructions come to her again, the stranger’s instructions. She races forwards, the light the only thing she can see, the only thing that feels real in this graveyard of masked ghosts and haunted memories.
Choice: continue through the fog onto the light
Elena dips further into the forest and it reminds her of the monarchs that had flowed around Murmuring Rivers, as if the gentle valley had been their ocean. “They are beautiful to tell the bird that they are poison,” says Aletta to the yearling children as they watch the fluttering creatures with awe. And that is all Elena can think as color is drenched around her (wildflowers, autumn hues). Poison. She thinks. This place is hiding something, and Elena’s heart races with danger, she breathes in and the air tastes like peril.
It comes towards her like the ghost of an ocean wave. Elena gasps as it finally reaches her, expecting to feel pain or discomfort, but she feels—nothing. And like the tide it sweeps her silently underneath.
“Hello?” She calls out as her vision is obscured. She has no choice but to keep moving, the fog has to end somewhere, but there is a thud in her heart that tells her somewhere is no where close to here. She feels stray roots reaching up towards her, longer grass tangling around her legs. She has a sudden realization, she was no longer on the path the stranger had told her to follow. “You got what you wanted,” she shouts at the fog, head turning around and ears turning as a voice catches her attention. “You are going to have to be faster than that if you want to beat me!” The voice calls out playfully. “Ori?” Elena questions not for the first time on her journey. Elena whips around, trying to find the source of the voice. “Elena, you left when your family needed you,” another, deeper voice says. “Valerio, I know, I’m sorr—” she begins to say but then she swears she sees the shadow of another in the corner of her eye. “I still think you’d make a promising, politician,” comes Kensa and Elena tries to find her, wants to apologize, to tell her it was never meant to be.
A shape appears then and for a flash of a moment it holds a crimson shade. “Stay, Elena, Nash and Yan are getting so big, you have to see them.” Lilli, it’s Lilli, even if she had not said her sons’ names Elena would know it is her. “I can’t,” she says, she cant stay, not here. Black shows up on the side of her vision. “That’s enough flowers in my mane, Elena, everyone with think me a garden instead of a stallion.” Oh god, oh god, Alvaro, the brother she found in a cousin. Guilt wracks her, it had been so long since she had thought of him. A pale shape stands beside him. “Elena, if you are good and stay here with us, I’ll let you come on patrol with me in the morning.” No, Marcelo, she cant, she cant stay. But Elena isn't thinking that anymore, not with so many of her friends and family around her, faces she hasn't seen in so long, voices she has not heard in ages, and touches she has not felt in years. They are here, all of them, with her.
It is then she appears.
Call it mother’s intuition, even from the grave she knows when her daughter is in trouble.
The shape of her mother forms, so clear and perfect beside her, humming that old familiar lullaby. Elena thinks, if she reached out to touch her, she would find that old warmth that only a mother can offer her child. But it is in the same breath of realization that Elena drops down from the dream she been lifted to, back to the solid ground of reality. ”No," she says to the form beside her. "I know what you are trying to do." These we not real. No one can bring back the dead. Elena would know as much. She had gone to the ends of the earth and turned up empty handed and blue-eyed. "Get away from me!” She shouts. ”Elena..." her mother's voice comes one last time, but the golden girl is already blindly rushing forwards through the fog, towards the light. “Elena,” the other voices called, desperate to keep her with them.
“All you have to do is follow the lost voices…”
The familiar instructions come to her again, the stranger’s instructions. She races forwards, the light the only thing she can see, the only thing that feels real in this graveyard of masked ghosts and haunted memories.
Choice: continue through the fog onto the light
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Official Dawn Account
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Official Dawn Account - 06-10-2020
the shadow-birds
Once again you choose to continue on despite the forest’s tricks, be it out of caution, mistrust, or something else. The voices fade into the background behind you, dampened by the fog, and once again you are alone in the woods. For a while, it feels as though the air is thick and heavy, hard to push on through; the fog drapes you in a coat of dew, weighing you down. No matter how hard you strain, the light remains stubbornly fixed ahead of you, never closer, never further. The forest grows deathly quiet beneath all that fog.
Perhaps you don’t notice it beginning to lessen at first, the chains of mist shackling your legs loosening their grip. But slowly, slowly, the fog begins to fall away bit by bit, ribbons of white rising into the sky. And in their place, you can see the eyes staring at you.
A dozen shadow-birds block your path, their feathers darker than a moonless light, glossy with stardust. They stare at you in silence, heads tilted to one side, eyes burning white-hot and bright.
When the first one parts its beak and rasps out a challenge to you, your heart nearly stops.
When the second one joins the call, a shiver raises the hair on your spine.
And then the remaining shadow-birds can hold back no longer, and all of them lift their voices together in a screech that echoes throughout the forest. But still they do not budge - they only stand tall as loud, unnatural sentinels, as if perhaps they are waiting for you to make the first move.
To continue the quest, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! The mist eventually parts, revealing the trail once more - but Elena is no longer alone. A dozen shadow-birds stand in her path, gazing eerily quietly at her.
Choices: quietly ignore the birds, or scare them away
@
A note: this will be Elena's final choice to make! Choose wisely...
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Elena - 06-10-2020
and bury it before it buries me
Her running, her breathing, her heart, it only slows once she can no longer hear the voices whispering to her. She can still feel herself trembling. Underworld had told her once that her family, her compassion was her weakness, and she is reminded again with a harsh blow to the chest how true that statement was. “They weren't real,” she reminds herself, closing silver blue eyes for a moment.
The air presses around her and Elena thinks for a moment if it should grow any heavier her ribs may just splinter and break, crushing her heart and her lungs. (No breath, no heartbeat.) She remains pointed forwards, Elena was nothing without her irritatingly stubborn determination. It rests upon her like a shawl, but the golden sunshine girl is anything but comforted by its presence. She has never found much good from wandering through the forests. Tunnel had been her first monster within the trees, and Elena remains ready to face the next one, silver blue eyes search for it within the fog.
There is a moment where fear burns in her chest and she almost turns back (back to where?) because of it.
It is a slow drain, like the rising and lowering of tides, but Elena suddenly notices the mists moving, up, up, away from her, to the sky. Maybe this is the end of it, she thinks, she wants to believe. And the eyes upon her prove her otherwise.
The Terrastellan halts in her path as they press in around her. A mumbled word of fear falls from her lips. It is only when the mist evaporates that she realizes it is feathered creatures before her draped in shadows. They remind her of him, (that summer’s night, that cliff side afternoon) and she feels something whirling in her chest. He screeches at her and Elena’s ears fold back while the rest of her body freezes despite the warmth in the early autumn air. Shivers. Tremors.
She steadies herself.
And then they are all screaming, they block her path and Elena’s heart shakes inside her ribcage with fear and indecision. “Elena, you always run head first into things without thinking.” Elena smiles at the words of cousin, Alvaro. “You're right.” She says to the voice in her head. Elena has faced monsters, healed demons, the tricks and creatures of the forest do not scare her. And she launches herself forwards, with a battle cry determined to push the birds off her path. Elena would not let her fear end her path, she would not let it stop her from pushing onwards.
Choice: Errr Elena is scaring the birds by running towards them and screaming. :D Sensible.
The air presses around her and Elena thinks for a moment if it should grow any heavier her ribs may just splinter and break, crushing her heart and her lungs. (No breath, no heartbeat.) She remains pointed forwards, Elena was nothing without her irritatingly stubborn determination. It rests upon her like a shawl, but the golden sunshine girl is anything but comforted by its presence. She has never found much good from wandering through the forests. Tunnel had been her first monster within the trees, and Elena remains ready to face the next one, silver blue eyes search for it within the fog.
There is a moment where fear burns in her chest and she almost turns back (back to where?) because of it.
It is a slow drain, like the rising and lowering of tides, but Elena suddenly notices the mists moving, up, up, away from her, to the sky. Maybe this is the end of it, she thinks, she wants to believe. And the eyes upon her prove her otherwise.
The Terrastellan halts in her path as they press in around her. A mumbled word of fear falls from her lips. It is only when the mist evaporates that she realizes it is feathered creatures before her draped in shadows. They remind her of him, (that summer’s night, that cliff side afternoon) and she feels something whirling in her chest. He screeches at her and Elena’s ears fold back while the rest of her body freezes despite the warmth in the early autumn air. Shivers. Tremors.
She steadies herself.
And then they are all screaming, they block her path and Elena’s heart shakes inside her ribcage with fear and indecision. “Elena, you always run head first into things without thinking.” Elena smiles at the words of cousin, Alvaro. “You're right.” She says to the voice in her head. Elena has faced monsters, healed demons, the tricks and creatures of the forest do not scare her. And she launches herself forwards, with a battle cry determined to push the birds off her path. Elena would not let her fear end her path, she would not let it stop her from pushing onwards.
Choice: Errr Elena is scaring the birds by running towards them and screaming. :D Sensible.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Official Dawn Account
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Official Dawn Account - 06-10-2020
the ellery tree
Perhaps you have had enough of the forest’s tricks. You can see the end of the trail just ahead of you, can see the festival lights and hear the music and laughter drifting through the trees. It is close, so close. Only the birds separate you from your destination, with their glowing eyes and shadow feathers.
And so, you do not hesitate to do what you must.
The birds fly away on silent wings, the challenge dying in their throats. Ink-black feathers rain down all around you, smoke limning their edges, incense tainting the air, padding the earth. When it is all said and done the shadow-birds are only an unpleasant memory.
The trail lies open before you. But now -- oh, but now, you can see the end of it.
The trees end abruptly, but it is no clearing that you find yourself in. The branches woven together overhead never break, never reveal the night sky above you; they only grow thicker, and heavier, and the red-and-gold leaves shivering along their branches rub dryly together and begin to whisper. You made it, you imagine them saying. Now come, and see…
In the center of the not-clearing is the Ellery tree, if such a thing can still be called a tree. For this tree is a shagbark sentinel larger than any tree you have seen before, its trunk stretching seemingly endlessly, wider than your body, wider than two of your bodies standing nose-to-tail. Fairy lights are woven among its leaves and wrapped around its trunk, drawing you forward like a beacon for the lost. Gnarled roots rise from the ground all around it, a labyrinth snaking through the grass. In between those roots, glowing more brightly than the lanterns, grow dozens and dozens of moon-flowers. They shine silver and bright, as they dance in constant motion to a song only they can hear.
But if you listen closely, perhaps you can hear the same song. And perhaps, as you move through the waist-high flowers and press your cheek against the tree’s roots, you realize the song is coming from the tree itself, running through its core.
And perhaps the tree feels holy; perhaps when you press skin to root you can begin to feel as if the tree is singing directly to you.
There is one flower that is different from the others, standing within the hollow of the Ellery tree. Its petals are folded tightly shut, as if afraid to see the world around it. And it seems to call to you, in a language that speaks not in words, but whispers to your very soul.
You draw closer to it - what’s one last mystery to solve?
It is not until you lower your head to the bud that it begins to stir, unfurling its petals slowly and shaking the sleep from them. There is a light glowing in its center, a single, shuddering flame-that-does-not-burn rising from the heart of it. And it seems to you a gift, begging for you to take it with you when you leave.
@
Growing within the tree's hollow is a single moonflower. It unfurls as you approach, a single flame rising from its center. The color of the flower and the flame is your choice! To claim this thread as completed, you'll need one last "exit" post. OPTIONAL: if you'd like, you can ask the tree a question or make a wish, and she may just answer you...
You can read more about the shagbark sentinels here, under the Trees of Viride Forest. The legend of the Ellery tree is coming soon...
RE: [QUEST] this heart I know - Elena - 06-24-2020
and bury it before it buries me
Elena has dreamed about what it must be like, to be a God. To paint the hills, vibrant colors of spring and autumn, to erect mountains and trees that sway in a summer breeze, to send the world into silence in the winter months. What it would feel like to create a world.
Blue eyes spot the break up ahead of her. The lights, the laughter, it is a promise that this is not forever. A torchbearer Lilli had considered her once. But she can only light so far, before the darkness swallows it. Maybe she can be a fire now, and blaze a path through all that she has endured this evening in the forest. The birds part for her with her wild cry and she moves through them like they were nothing more than an obsidian sea, parting.
Elena slows only when the birds are behind her, nearly forgotten and she thinks she is pulling ahead, to finally get a break from this place, but instead she arrives to more trees, more and more trees. Elena thinks, perhaps, she would never leave this place. And then there it is, and Elena knows, this is why she was brought here, to this place.
There are still places out there for lost things, lost voices most of all.
And this is one of them.
She looks around with her glacial gaze at the lights, the steadiness this place brings her. “is this what you wanted me to see?” She asks the forest, because she knows it is listening, can sense the way it stands perched towards her, hanging onto her words.
And then they sing, as Elena quietly walks through towards the tree. Despite herself, despite everything that has happened this evening, Elena smiles. It is only when she is close enough, that she notices the flower that presents itself to her, an offering. It is not the ones that are vibrant around her, but the one that lays closed on a low branch. She goes to it, and blue eyes widen with it’s beauty. A blue flower reveals itself as blue as her eyes, as her mothers, an amber flame rises from it, and Elena thinks of her father. This flower is her parents. Her mother, as delicate, as graceful as a blossoming flower, and her father as sharp as intense as a flame. “Thank you,” she says. “Does this mean…does it mean…are they proud of me? Am I living, am I doing, right by them?” She asks, pleads the tree for an answer.
This may be a place for lost voices, but Elena knows this one does not belong to her. They have left her a gift, and she tucks it inside her hair, but it is nothing more than a thank you. Because Elena remembers there is a place beside the sea, and new friends that stand all around her, in Terrastella, in Denocte, in Delumine. And those are the voices that ring clear now in her head as she leaps forwards, dancing already in her feet as she makes her way back to the festival.
Blue eyes spot the break up ahead of her. The lights, the laughter, it is a promise that this is not forever. A torchbearer Lilli had considered her once. But she can only light so far, before the darkness swallows it. Maybe she can be a fire now, and blaze a path through all that she has endured this evening in the forest. The birds part for her with her wild cry and she moves through them like they were nothing more than an obsidian sea, parting.
Elena slows only when the birds are behind her, nearly forgotten and she thinks she is pulling ahead, to finally get a break from this place, but instead she arrives to more trees, more and more trees. Elena thinks, perhaps, she would never leave this place. And then there it is, and Elena knows, this is why she was brought here, to this place.
There are still places out there for lost things, lost voices most of all.
And this is one of them.
She looks around with her glacial gaze at the lights, the steadiness this place brings her. “is this what you wanted me to see?” She asks the forest, because she knows it is listening, can sense the way it stands perched towards her, hanging onto her words.
And then they sing, as Elena quietly walks through towards the tree. Despite herself, despite everything that has happened this evening, Elena smiles. It is only when she is close enough, that she notices the flower that presents itself to her, an offering. It is not the ones that are vibrant around her, but the one that lays closed on a low branch. She goes to it, and blue eyes widen with it’s beauty. A blue flower reveals itself as blue as her eyes, as her mothers, an amber flame rises from it, and Elena thinks of her father. This flower is her parents. Her mother, as delicate, as graceful as a blossoming flower, and her father as sharp as intense as a flame. “Thank you,” she says. “Does this mean…does it mean…are they proud of me? Am I living, am I doing, right by them?” She asks, pleads the tree for an answer.
This may be a place for lost voices, but Elena knows this one does not belong to her. They have left her a gift, and she tucks it inside her hair, but it is nothing more than a thank you. Because Elena remembers there is a place beside the sea, and new friends that stand all around her, in Terrastella, in Denocte, in Delumine. And those are the voices that ring clear now in her head as she leaps forwards, dancing already in her feet as she makes her way back to the festival.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Official Dawn Account