Each day the sun set, it rose again. The sun does not cast her glance back the way he had come from, it knows only to move forward. Aeranas dogs the sun, chases her to each horizon she sinks beneath. Sleep has not come easily in the recent months to the lithe man, not since his grandmother slipped beyond the veil. She had been the sun in his sky for the last three years of his life. His sun will not rise again. Aeranas knows this, and the thoughts gnaw at his well-being. He spent the last few months grieving her death, but now he is close to their last determined destination. His long limbs eat the ground beneath him effortlessly. Aeranas is but a ghost, an unknown soul in a grand new world. A world he is frightened will swallow him before he gets the chance to be come the sun in someone else's sky. Before he gets the chance to finish his life of adventures. Aerie spots something as he moves.
He has seen and crossed the steppe between his previous location, and where he was going. He has pressed himself forward through a creek that carved its way around once proud boulders. Aeranas has come to kiss the sea, and he sees something black slicing its way through her powerful waters. He wonders what has created such a path. One made of obsidian, and upon it is a line of quartz. It is a strange sight, and it sparks something to life in him. Though it also sparks a sadness that has yet to leave him, he is very aware of the empty space on around him. The light is fading, and a warm glow radiates from his scarf. As if it speaks to him to indulge his thirst for adventure, as if his grandmother is urging him to carry on. The warm glow soothes his sadness slightly as he begins to move towards the strange bridge. It smells like the ash that falls from burning torches. He steps onto the bridge, it has a firm texture. But it is rough around the edges, much like he is. Aeranas watches the moon rise in the sky for a few more moments before he races on spindly limbs across the black bridge into the unknown. It is his first adventure, near what he hopes is Novus.
There are no torches to light his way, only the light the moon pours over the world below. He is bathed in the warm glow of his scarf, and races like a ghost across the silent bridge. The sea does not protest his intrusion of her space, but her breeze kisses his skin. She sends he love to him from a distance, much like he believes his grandmother does. Each time he faces a fear, he can almost feel her beside him again. For a short time, Aeranas imagines that she is still with him. Laughing as they race into the great unknown that has no horizon. He only stops to catch his breath when his daggers sink into the sand of the beach on the island. The world around him is very still, as if someone has taken a snapshot in time. Aerie pauses his journey to catch his breath, and to study the surroundings he now finds himself in. The sea remains still, she dares not sing her song this night. Something seems wrong, though he cannot place his hoof on it. Aeranas smiles to himself, he is happy to be a ghost in a strange land. It is a comforting feeling, for his bones know no home. Aerie nestles into the scarf upon his neck that emits a gentle glow as he peers at the sea beside him. He is not ready to continue his adventure just yet. He has time.
"Speech"Thoughts
@Septimus @Sirius Open | First Aeranas post! I tagged you both in case we wanted an adventure group! | 642 Words
irius has heard of the island that rose like a great monster from the sea, of the volcano that had created a new land in a day. The sailors had called it magic, and cursed it for being so; many ships had been moored because of the sea creatures that prowled the sea, many captains too afraid to set their crew against their superstitions.
He had not told them that he, too, was made of magic, in case they chose feared him then, as well.
Instead he had taken to the skies, to see for himself what the seas held.
He soared now through the skies, his large wings spread to either side of him, carving a pathway through the open air. Below him stretched the ocean, as dark and blue as he had ever seen it, a jag of black rock splitting it in two. Above him was the sky, as endless and welcoming as always. For a while he had spun onto his back, letting himself drift on a draft, his eyes searching the heavens for the stars they hid. Earlier it had been day, and the brightness of the sun had drowned out their light; but now the moon reigned supreme, and she was crowned on every side by the small, luminous freckles of the heavens. Sirius knew their place by instinct, and he traced the outlines of their constellations with his imagination.
He is not sure how long he flies, alone in the light of the stars, before the island rises into view. He can see the volcano, now sleeping, rising like a heathen from the land, refusing to be constrained by it even in slumber. Sirius drifts lower, and lower, and lower still, until the salt spray from the waves below him kisses his face. He drifts so low that one hoof, when he stretches it down, splits through the waves and disappears, momentarily, beneath the water.
But soon he pulls it away, and draws back into the air. The beach is close now, so close he can see the waves lapping like hungry things at its shore.
And he sees something glowing, there where the strange black bridge meets the island, something blue and bright and different. For a second he circles overhead, puzzling it out to be a horse, with something like a strange snake wound about their neck. It waves in the wind around him, bobbing gently like the waves.
Sirius lands not far from him, holding his wings out to either side to steady himself.
”Hi you!” he calls to the stranger, and his voice feels strangely loud here on the island, as if the life and delight has been drained out and they are the only ones left to rejoice. ”My name Sirius!”
The still night that seeps into the sea is interrupted by the rustle of feathers in the sky. A shadow appears over the sea some distance away, it is a large figure that sweeps like a phantom through the sleek black sky. Aeranas listens intently to the splash of the water, something is being dragged through the water. He cannot see well enough to determine what it is. It is not until the phantom grows closer that he can tell it is another equine, a pegasus. The wind races between the feathers of their wings, a sound that contests the lapping of the waves on the shore. They whisper to the wind in the same way the sea whispers sweet nothings to the shoreline. Aeranas casts his gaze in their direction, they land only a few feet from him.
His long lashes kiss his cheeks as he pulls his muzzle out from the safety of his scarf. The gentle glow settles closer to his neck. Up close he can see that his companion looks as though they have been painted by the night sky. They are painted with rich earth tones, but the tip of his muzzle has been splashed with the colour of winter. Stars have scattered themselves across their hide, they look like a child born from the heavens. He speaks, and the friendly tones spark his auds to life. They twitch as the smile on his face takes shape. The enthusiasm of the phantom is not missed, and Aeranas finds himself eager to sink into its depths.
He introduces himself as Sirius. Aeranas lets his smile grow wider as he watches the other man, his expression is quiet. As though he does not wish to disturb the stillness of the night they now share. "Hello, Sirius. I am Aeranas." His pale frame is a stark contrast to his companion, as is his height. Aeranas is without wings, but how he wishes he could take flight. It must be a wonder to see the sky the way the birds do. "I thought you might have been a phantom. But it seems that the heavens have spilled you like ink from the sky. Tell me, what do the stars taste like from way up there?" He asks his new companion with interest, but it is a quiet interest. Aeranas tries to keep himself from withdrawing into himself, but he is unsure. He is a ghost, but he finds it funny that a ghost should fear a phantom.
"Sirius, where are we?" Aeranas finally asks. He reveals that he is a traveler with four simple words. Posed as a question to someone he has just met. Though the way he speaks, it as though they have been friends for many years. It is the way he speaks with everyone he meets until they rake their fangs across his flesh. Only then does he recoil, withdraw into the walls he builds around himself. Though his words spill like wine, Aeranas has no one. To be close to someone is painful, and he is not ready for that yet.
"Speech"Thoughts
@Septimus @Sirius Open | I'm so excited about this! | 517 Words
he cool-air-above-deep-water caressed the two horses standing on the beach, catching and filling Sirius’ wings as he held them to either side of himself. He shivered inadvertently, feeling the wind drawing the heat from his fevered limbs. After a moment he folded his wings neatly against his sides, cloaking himself in ink-black feathers.
Before him the pale-antlers-blue-scarf man smiles, and his violet eyes dance in the pale light emanating off of his scarf. The color reminds Sirius of the sky when the sun sinks below the horizon, how the colors fade from orange to purple to midnight blue.
He smiled back, and the stars laughed overhead. His eyes shined back silver and full of starlight.
The soft whisper of the sea filled the air all around them, a constant symphony that flowed in the spaces between their voices, giving body and depth to a song they unknowingly sang in tune with. Sirius cocked his head to one side, ears swiveling slowly to catch the soft strains. The wind danced along his back as he did, catching in the stranger’s pale scarf.
Aeranas, the stranger names himself, and the name rolls like a wave through Sirius’ mind. He counts the syllable, repeats it over and over silently to himself, compares it to his own name. Sir-i-us. Aer-an-as. There was a certain similarity between them, ringing like a bell in his mind. ”A phantom,” he says softly, and files the word away for later inspection.
He wonders then if the stranger knows about the stars, if they whisper to him, too. But then he decides that he wouldn’t, that he couldn’t; a child-of-the-stars would already know what they felt like, what they sounded like. They would already know that it tastes like freedom, and like joy, and like adventure. They sounded like chains breaking and wings carrying him away from danger.
”Like peace,” he whispers, and a smile, brighter this time, nearly as bright as the sun, stretches across his lips. He fans his wings again, lifting them momentarily back towards the sky. ”It tastes like peace, and wonder.”
He shakes his head then, and looks out towards the trees that wave at them across the beach. He thinks he can see a light flickering between the boughs, fleeting, always at the corner of his vision - but every time he looks it disappears, leaving him unsure if it was his imagination playing tricks on him.
”Novus land,” he answers, and gestures with a flick of his tail towards the bridge they had had to pass. ”Although… this place different than the rest.” And a part of him was not sure if it was a part of Novus at all, even if the bridge connected the two lands.
A part of him imagined that one day the bridge would snap, and the unmoored island would sail off into the horizon like a ship.
