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[AW] we were gods and heroes [festival] - Printable Version

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we were gods and heroes [festival] - Dalmatia - 11-16-2020




pain. it is ever present. It is all consuming. It is the ghost that does not let me sleep. I fight it ever night. I rage against it every hour. Still it holds me tightly. Still it thinks me lover. Pain… it is something that will never go away.
She unfurls from her wings like an orange blossom opening. All fire and freshness. Something new. Something beautiful. 


And if Dalmatia is beautiful then she is twice as tragic. Her heart is splayed on some cruel god’s table, pinned as a butterfly with a microscope atop. There is a probe that delves in over and over. That cold and cruel god, the one that never answered when she would pray and pray and pray until she screamed herself hoarse and felt blood leak from her bitten lips, would only press deeper an deeper, finding another hidden crevice to learn every day. 


She grits her teeth as she rises, feeling the way her bones creak from the cold. Once, she was young, supple, beautiful. Like a young willow tree eager to face the wind. Those days are gone. Her youth is faded like a withering plant and the winter of her life has taken all but the very last breath from her. 


And that breath is fire. 


And that breath is revenge. 


The once-Halcyon presses through the crowds as a bludgeon. People move or they are moved. She does not care for their glares. She hardly notices the way some step nearer, threatening. 


But she is the bogeyman they whisper of. 


She and Cicero both haunt the markets of Terrastella. 


They are the monsters kept hidden from this delicate little world. 


And she wears a sneer to wash away the innocence of sleep. Her brows draw down as she climbs ever higher. It is a small mercy, she thinks, that her wings were not clipped when she was put into the prison beneath the cliffs. Instead, they were left to rot and wither. She was left to rot and wither until Marisol saw fit to unleash her if only to unleash a bloodhound with fresh meat. 


The reason matters so little. 


In the months since her release, she has grown strong again. Ribs are not claws gripping for the stars. Her spine is no longer a xylophone for ghosts to dance their fingers upon. But her eyes. Oh her eyes are the same cold, dead green things as they stare from the beautiful tower over the fields of flowers. 


Bodies. Broken hearts. Criminals to be. They all swarm like maggots in her once-beloved city. They are all just corpses waiting to be. 


But they are not hers to make. 


Dalmatia drags down air at last and unfurls piebald wings. They are larger up close and far more picturesque when reaching for the heavens. Even chained, even betrayed, even hungering, she is  unbroken. 




@'open'




RE: we were gods and heroes [festival] - Mephisto - 12-04-2020

Away from the crowds of the festival, there are the others. Those who are curious, longing but far from social. Mephisto would usually count herself in the other-category, choosing to stay to places with more shadows and quiet, despite her uncharacteristic small talk with the scholar in the tower. But when she grows weary of social pleasantries, she finds herself again on the fringes of Elena’s party, making her way through the neat rows of flowers and dodging children who ran with streaming banners and baskets full of flowers, dropping a few haphazardly as they went.

Her eyes are always watching, a slight flutter of worry in her chest as she wonders if the warg in her would be quiet today. The magic which swirled in her blood was still an unpredictable thing, raring its head at inappropriate times (and today’s show of friendship with the other courts would certainly count as such a time). As time had passed, she grew used to the sudden shift in her, but she still wouldn’t call herself comfortable with the magical intrusion. Sure, it had its benefits. Hadn’t she tried to tell Marisol as much? But the sovereign had simply expressed concern about Mephisto’s well being.

She was tired of walking on egg shells, wanting to find more purpose here, wanting to return to the way things were. Things were simpler as she trained beside the Halcyon, locked away from most of the world and left to drills and structure. There was a certain comfort which came with routine, waking up each day with a predictable start and understanding of what would come next. Now, she found herself left mostly to her own whimsy, like a dandelion seed of the wind. And Mephisto wasn’t sure her newfound freedom suited her. She longed for more, sighing away the frustration and trying to put it out of her mind as she wandered.

How life would be easier if she were like the others who roamed the flowers, Mephisto mused. If she could simply be content with filling her basket and eating rich pastries. If the weight of magic and duty didn’t weigh so heavily on her. She tries to think of other things, to simply let go and enjoy the revelry, but finds herself restless. And so, the warg turns from the merriment and finds herself instead, staring at another who watched with restlessness.

Curiosity piqued, the Pegasus wanders toward Dalmatia, clearing her throat when she finds herself within a respectable distance, before greeting the mare. “Have I seen you before… with the Halcyon?”


MEPHISTO
DUSK COURT SPY
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@Dalmatia