Summer arrived with scolding heat and sweat slicked skin. On its heels, dawn prowled, leonine through the lands, turning all to gold with sunrise eyes.
 
Behind the lion comes the twilight girl, carried in upon the fringes of the night. There is no dusk light here to blow the cobwebs from her heart. But a new day dawns, appeasing her with pink-blue skies.
 
The sun rises and it is finest here in all the lands. Flora welcomes it, just as she had welcomed the revelry of night in Denocte, the ravages of day in Solterra and the twilight bruises of Terrastella.
 
The dusk girl dances in gold: through swirling motes in pouring light.
 
She dances through bluebells and is surely hears their jingling laughter.
 
She dances past leaves of emerald green, then in a clearing falls to stillness.
 
Upon a branch, its slim body so tall and proud, an eagle sits. Its eyes gleam hard as it watches her and she it. From her lungs its beauty steals her breath and her smile grows so keen and wild. “I have found your sleeping place.” She whispers to this regal bird, for ‘til now it had only let her see it floating high upon sea breezes.
 
It looks away, then back to her before its wings unfurl to fly through trees and shrubs then up to dawn’s new sky above.
 
Over the morning song of birds and bees, a twig snaps with a startling crack. Florentine spins, with swirling, honeyed hair and a rushing heart within her chest. Lavender petals, startled and free, tumble loose from her tangled mane.
 
She is held still in rapture, in wonder.
 
Her amethyst eyes skip from floret to floret held tight within their flowery crown. Flora blinks but lets her eyes lower to find the gold rings that glimmer from his nostril. But then, oh then, they fall further still to the wings that rest upon each ankle. She blinks again, her gaze a twinkling star of dusky amethyst that, with great effort, rises from his delicate wings.
 
Their eyes, their bodies, their flowers, are the pinks and purples of dusk and dawn. Florentine and Ipomoea are two skies, two bodies, so similar, so separate… She looks to her mirror boy of flowers, wings and brilliant eyes and is struck dumb, much to her surprise.
 
Her mouth opens, to speak… to greet him… to be polite… yet all that sounds is a huff of surprise. At once her mouth snaps shut and her amethyst eyes simply blink once more; so bright, so… dumbfounded.

@Ipomoea - meep!

this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I'm not looking for anything in particular
But I'm far more desperate than you think
I wonder what it's like to be the universe
Experiencing itself ironically



Ipomoea chases the great eagle, eyes tracking it as it rises into the sky. He wasn’t there to watch it take off, but he’s determined to see it fly for as long as he can, mottled legs rushing him across the forest floor ever closer to his target. A time or two he almost runs headlong into a tree, his only guidance around them coming in the form of the blue bird tugging him out of the way by his hair at the very last minute. He himself is too busy to watch where he’s going; sleep still fills his body and he fears looking away from the proud eagle will cause him to lose it from his sight forever.

But lose it he does, when he almost runs into not another tree, but a girl. Alorus nips at him just in time, bringing him to a screeching halt as soil and flower petals rain down around him. For a moment he is framed by them, dark and bright much like he is, a mottling of colors splashed across the canvas that is his body in a masterful pattern. His eyes blink once, twice, three times in quick succession, finding himself as completely entranced by her as she is by him. Her wings hold the majority of his attention—although he takes notice of her flowers and jewelry, they aren’t quite as important to him in this moment—a mixture of reverence and blatant jealousy mingling across his face. His own bespeckled wings flutter helplessly at his ankles, as though striving to act even half as powerful as an eagle’s.

“Your wings,” he whispers, his voice low and husky as he takes a ginger step closer, nostrils quivering as he extends the painted muzzle closer, as if to touch.

His mouth is opened to comment, to compare them to the great bird he had just witnessed, before it occurs to him that she may very well have no idea what he references. It promptly shuts, a shake of his head causing even more peach and rose colored petals to fall gently to the earth. Alorus, still making worried circles around his equine companion, catches one such delicate piece before it crashes to the earth, holding it firmly in his mouth as he continues his swooping pattern.

“They look like an eagle’s,” he finishes simply, drawing himself back in a half hearted attempt to appear respectful--but he does little to pull his attention away from those downy, striped feathers.



@Florentine
i didn't proofread this yet ahhh but i wanted to get something up for you! <3




I need some space to run around
I'll always have the underground
I'll build my road despite the cost
I'm not looking to be found
No, not at all

It seems Florentine was not the only creature enchanted by this day’s dawn eagle.
 
Through the cathedral of living pillars, crowned in green and gold light, the eagle drifts like magic might.
 
It is as her heart begins to beat, in time with those great wings, up, down, thump, thump that she hears the forest come alive…
 
It had been slowly rousing, stirring with soft rustlings and humming with soft birdsong, but so suddenly it was speaking and moving – no, running!
 
The Dusk girl turns from her fleeing bird and for a moment, a too slow moment, she wonders if the bird knew of some danger that the forest was about to unleash upon this little clearing she had found.
 
And yet, it is just a boy who charges towards her with eyes up cast and limbs so keen. He, like her, is scattering petals and fluttering wings. Blushing rose and wild flowers dumbfound her as she stands quite still, for here this creature is, with a bird tugging at his wild mane, with eyes so bright as he still searches for their fleeting eagle.
 
They are both too busy staring, one down and the other up, that neither but his own small bird, gives any thought to their impending crash of petals and feathers.
 
It is Ipomoea who at last listens to the frantic call of his wise friend and with tangling limbs and flying dirt, he finally stops, barely a foot, from the wide-eyed girl. Forest matter clings earnestly to her skin; her throat, her chest, her face all splattered with the dirst kicked up by the Dawn boy’s impressive skid.
 
Their shared appearance, tousled and now dirt ridden, does little to take away from the grandeur of this moment. The forest seems pleased with this union – a thing of warm summer sun and flowers – as it breaks into a song of rustling leaves, buzzing bees and wild, bird song. 
 
The boy steps closer and her eyes glow brighter, amethyst blazing through gold dawn mists. A wing, honey gold and tipped with sunset orange, extends out for his perusal and his touch, should he choose, for Florentine was never shy of contact. Her lips curve into a smile, not for her own wings, but for his. Upon his slender ankles they rise, hummingbird small but so dove soft. They open and close for her eyes like butterfly wings, starting an ache in her heart for her own lost companion: Flutterby Butterfly.
 
Those lips of hers, dusk soft, curl ever more as he compares her to an eagle and it is with longing that she thinks of the creature they both just saw. “Oh no,” the twilight girl sighs, “I could never be so fierce, nor so elegant, but I thank you all the same.” With a laugh, both gracious and shy, the girl dips into a curtsey, wings flared.
 
“But yours!” An orange wing tip points down towards his ankles. “Now those, I have never seen before.”
 
It is with effort that she lifts her amethyst eyes from his wings to join with his rose red gaze. “I am Florentine, Emissary of the Dusk Court. Won’t you tell me your name?”


@Ipomoea His is just so adorable!

this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I'm not looking for anything in particular
But I'm far more desperate than you think
I wonder what it's like to be the universe
Experiencing itself ironically



Her wing is extended towards him, an open invitation he is all too willing to take. It is as if gold has been dusted across every feather, so soft as the feathers brush across one cheek. Ipomoea hardly breathes, ruby-ringed nostrils quivering as delight and wonder stretched across his face. No matter how many pegasi he met, he doubted this feeling—a curious mixture of admiration and envy—would ever fade with time. He couldn’t help it, could hardly even contain it, so great was the joy he took in studying them, avian and equine alike.

The feathers pull away and his eyes follow for a brief second, watching their movement as they crest up as if to take flight, to follow the morning eagle—only for the yellow girl to dip into a curtest. And it is only now that Ipomoea looks at her—really looks at her, his gaze traveling now beyond her wings. He finds himself even more delighted by the way the cream and gold continue over her entire body, fading to pink and her muzzle and dirt at her points, by the feathers twisted and tangled into her wild-looking hair. And lastly by the curious strapping wrapped around her neck and containing what appears to be a dagger, and he wonders briefly if it is meant more for show or for defense, or maybe for something else entirely.

But he doesn’t dwell long on his thoughts before she speaks, her voice light and airy and reminding him that she is more than a creature to be studied. Po smiles in return, dipping his head low in his own sort of gentlemanly bow, matching himself to her. “You’re welcome,” he breathes, her modesty and sincerity catching him by surprise, but he takes it in stride.

His ankles seem to tremble, the wings beating at the ground as though determined to take flight, to take themselves higher for her to inspect—but of course, they remain grounded. “Little more than aesthetic,” he jokes, swallowing away the envy that rises into his throat. He doubted he would ever understand the attraction, the compliments his anklet feathers garnered—to him, they were nothing of particular importance, they simply were. But he had never stopped to consider that Florentine, and others like her, held the same views over their own, albeit much larger, wings.

“Ipomoea, Sage of the morning Court,” he replies, for a heartbeat-pause feeling entirely too formal compared to the rest of their meeting. “I welcome you to Delumine. What brings you north to Dawn? Is this your first time here? I do hope it pleases you,” questions bubble up from inside him, rushing unchecked into the air separating the mirrored equines. His excitement is palpable, thrumming inside of him and setting his spine a-tingling, body quivering as though he himself is made up of raw energy. "Do you care to see more of it?" he finishes simply, wild eyes bright and kind as he looks back to her, to this Florentine of Dusk.





@Florentine
thank you for being so patient!




I need some space to run around
I'll always have the underground
I'll build my road despite the cost
I'm not looking to be found
No, not at all

I'm not looking for anything in particular
But I'm far more desperate than you think
I wonder what it's like to be the universe
Experiencing itself ironically



Florentine’s smile warms his heart, appreciating her attempt to comfort him (even if he did not quite believe her—Po would gladly take all of the hardships she had just listed if to experience flight but for a day). “You’re very kind,” he remarks, laughing easily at the exaggerated displeasure crossing her features. “That is a lot of preening to do—these take only a minute!”

He is reminded, briefly, of Araxes—the spotted girl with wings beside her ears—and he lifts his head in a pleased manner. “They do a bit, yes—but they’re so small, if I put them against my legs they’re safe as can be.” He demonstrated it for her, but it didn’t matter to him whether she watched or not. The miniature wings were only against his fetlocks for a fraction of a second before they were back to fluttering, as if they had little desire to be so constrained.

He watches them himself, fascinated by their tiny movements, before her words sink in and catch his attention. “Emissary?” he questions, pieces slowly falling into place. “Oh, I see! I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you!” His voice is bubbly, innocent and genuine as he nuzzles the Dusk girl’s shoulder.

“I enjoyed it, too,” he speaks earnestly. There is a bit of sadness, to see her go, but it is easily overshadowed. Ipomoea trusts her, this girl he had quite literally run into by mistake, and there’s little doubt in his mind that this will be the only time he sees her. Childlike faith has him already counting her as a friend, and certainly he will be reminded of her the next time he sees an eagle starting the day. “I hope you do get to see it properly, and soon; it really is quite the sight. Goodbye, Florentine!”

He watches her go, an easy smile on his face as the southern Emissary disappears into the green and golden foliage. “Come on, Al,” he speaks aloud to his companion, the songbird fluttering not far from his side. “Let’s see what else this day has for us.”

And with that, Po spins around to face the direction he had originally intended, lifting back into a frenzied canter as though the interruption with the girl of golden wings and dirt and flowers had never occurred, save for the memory he took with him.




!!!
@Florentine
and that’s a wrap!




I need some space to run around
I'll always have the underground
I'll build my road despite the cost
I'm not looking to be found
No, not at all