When the field became soft and damp under hoof, the girl was, at first, terribly afraid that she had somehow been returned to the terrible swampland in which this whole nightmare had begun. Pausing to stare out at it with her nostrils quivering with deep, shaky breaths, and her heart hammering in her chest, the girl breathes a heady sigh of relief when she looks behind her to find the rolling, emerald fields still intact.
She even manages to make her way into the mire, itself, though slowly, and with great reservation. Her pale green eyes are always pinned on the horizon for a black pillar, at least when they aren’t fluttering down to her hooves, watchful for the dead.
A song formulates in the hind of her thoughts, as it almost always does, but she does not cast her words to the wind, still silenced by her memories of the last marsh she had walked. This one is certainly not it, but the terrible feelings she associates with these wet, earthy smells and the squelch of the mud beneath her dainty, toed hooves is one she associates with the end of the world.
The serenity of this realm, however, is enchanting; even as she moves forward, hocks muddied and the ends of her cream tail sodden and dragging behind her, the youth is slowly moved from fear, to wonder as to what will arrive to view next. Trees, living ones, not just skeletal remnants with blackened bark and hollow hearts, begin to rise from the murk, and mist swirls about their weathered, unique trunks. Moss tickles her back from where it dangles from overhead branches, and the only sound about her seems to be her hooves.
Wondering who she’ll meet out here, if anyone at all, she pauses to stare out across the swamp she has not yet crossed, and wonders, too, just what sort of land lays beyond it.
[ OOC: Open to anyone <3 ]
so give me hope in the Darkness
that I will see the Light
This land was just as vast and intriguing as Finnian had hoped, that first time he saw it all spread out before him from a balcony at the Citadel. He had felt removed from it then, cut off by the great stone walls like a bird grounded by a broken wing, unable to fully enjoy the warm summer winds while unable to soar freely. Now, as he found himself immersed in the landscape to the point where mud caked his legs all the way up to the belly and grass, twigs and the odd leaf had nestled into mane and tail alike, he wondered if he was doing something wrong. By rights, this very physical closeness to the land ought to have let him feel that connection he so had hoped for, some spiritual closeness that would enable him to pledge himself to the place, the court, the people with heart and soul.
But something was missing. For reasons unknown to him, his heart was not in it even as he waded through waters green with algae to the chorus of buzzing flies and startled frogs, stirring up mosquitoes as he went. Though he wanted to be present in the moment, wished to savor everything he saw with all senses available, his thoughts kept wandering; in space, in time, back to everything he had forsaken and could never go back to.
Frankly, it was a bit annoying. Here he was, trying his best to start over and all he did was think of the past? You're doing it wrong, Finnian, you've lost is again, both purpose and intent and, if he wasn't entirely mistaken, also the trail.
Lost in thought, lost in a godforsaken marsh.
What a relief it was then, to find that he wasn't the only person out and about, wandering with the wind and without purpose. Appearing no more than a dead tree at first, whitened by sun and seasons and twisted into a horse-like shape, a closer look revealed the tree to be an actual horse standing up on dryer land. It was a heartening enough sight that Finnian changed course towards it with eager strides, not giving any consideration to how he must appear where he came wading through the swamp, looking like something that had been drowned in it once, or created by it in general.
"Little one" he croaked, with his hoarse, half-healed voice, raspy as death and so broken and thick with accent that it was hard to make out his attempt at an amiable tone. "Have ye lost yer way as well? Shall we find it together?"
Like Finnian, Maude is swept away in thoughts, despite her desire to focus most primarily on the new world around her; memories of home press on her in this land, and with them, comes a heavy heartedness that quickly enfolds her despite her attempts to stay abreast of the sorrow for at least one afternoon. Her antlered crown is soon low, her eyes blurred with the unshed, fine veneer of tears that one struggles to keep at bay, and she just wants the lonely, terrible feeling to go away. It doesn’t ease no matter how she bids it, though, and neither do the memories of people she had known and cared for being swept away in clouds of ash and fire, or the sight and sound of hundreds of Helovians seeking escape from a total destruction.
She was almost glad, then, to have company – at least after she got done being startled by the appearance of what, as far as Maude was concerned, anyway, was a swamp monster.
“Ah!” she shouts, her tears immediately dried up in a swift rush of adrenaline and fear. The cry itself is a girlish sound accompanied with the splatter of her hooves crashing down into and splashing the mud up onto her belly from below; no sooner does she scurry back two paces, her antlers instinctually lowered for defense (not that she has a clue how to use them), however, then she notices that the monster is actually just a man, covered in mud.
How he got so is something Maude is unsure of; he is quite measurably taller than she is, even at a glance. Perhaps not everyone is as careful in the murk as she is, she thinks, feeling her heart hammer against her ribs as she pieces together what had been said by the muddy man.
“Well, to be perfectly honest, mister mud-man sir, I’ll be lost no matter where I am here,” she answers, because, well, she technically is. It’s not like there was a great big map hanging on the wall at the tower in the Court, after all, and no one else had drawn her one, either. The girl figured it was going to be like discovering Helovia, after her father went away on sabbatical; she would just have to walk it, and find out for herself. “But you are welcome to walk with me. I was just wondering which way I should go.”
She looks back out across the swamp, her half-lie lingering in the air awkwardly between them. Wondering if this fellow has the same lie detection skills that her daddy seemed to (any father did, really, when it came to their children), she quickly continues on, so he can’t condemn her of misleading him, in order to avoid her pitiful mood. Smiling and returning her spring green eyes towards the unicorn, she adds, politely:
“I’m Maude,” cheerfully (as she might today, at least) quips the maiden, the wind tousling her clean mane playfully, “what’s your name?”
so give me hope in the Darkness
that I will see the Light
He startled her, and her abrupt reaction alarmed Finnian in return. As she lowered her antlers amidst the scramble to regain her footing, he spun around on the spot to see who it was she was guarding herself again, but on seeing no one else behind him or indeed nearby at all, he rather sheepishly realized it was him she feared.
"Easy, girl, I will not eat ye" he tried to soothe, and perhaps it worked or perhaps his face looked harmless enough beneath the mud that she changed her mind, because soon enough she stopped squawking and began to speak. As she did so, Finnian took the opportunity to appreciate both the budding beauty and the resilience of the little fawn. Wrought from ivory and gold, she carried the promise of growing into quite the vision once the rest of her body caught up with that legginess and filled her out, and he suspected that more than one stallion would trip over his feet before that green gaze. But though she was pretty enough already, it was not so much her looks as the film of unshed tears in her eyes, and the very serious mannerisms with which she spoke that touched his heart. She seemed so awfully young (even though, if they counted the years, it might prove that he wasn't all that much older than her) and very lonely, and it made her all the braver in his eyes.
"Thank ye, Maude, I appreciate that" he replied and smiled, the blue of his eyes deepening with renewed warmth. More careful not to startle her further now, the tall youngster continued towards her, and heaved himself up out of the swampy waters to firmer ground. Mud and bracken sloshed off him as he did, but he seemed none too concerned about the water that gushed down his legs and dropped from the underside of his belly, or that his tail had acquired a train of green duckweed that trailed behind him as he emerged. He did try to shake out the mane though, careful not to splash Maude as he expelled leaves and twigs; it was difficult given the many tangled locks of matted hair that had formed in his hair, but in the end he looked bit less disheveled than before.
"I'm sorry if I scared ye" he continued, once he felt more presentable. "My name is Finnian. I suppose I live around here now..."
But by the way he looked dubiously around at the swamp, with its gnarled trees, water-logged ground and muggy air full of buzzing gnats, it was apparent that he too felt a bit... lost. The expression faded quickly enough however, and he turned his full attention to the young filly.
"What brings ye out here all alone, if I may ask? It's an odd sort of place for a pretty lady such as yeself..."
Strangely, the mud has an accent, which Maude listens to with some interest, having noted that this was the second fellow she’d met here who was from some fancy place or another. Wondering if she, too, had an accent (most certainly, she did, as did anyone, really, but we’re digressing), the maiden also wonders as to where the stranger is from, that he talks so.
He accepts her offer to walk with her and she bobs her head as he rises up from the mud to stand on the higher ground which the ginger and cream youth has carefully picked out of the rest. It made terrible timing, of course, to find a more solid path in a wetland like this, but what was time to someone like Maude? She had no jobs or tasks to be at; in fact, there was no where for her to be in this new land of Novus but for where she wished to be at. That was perhaps the only thing about bouncing from one magical realm to another that the girl found at all appealing.
She watches the muddy water drizzle back into the main body from the stallion’s undersides, and watches, also, the shaking of the filth from his figure. Though he is careful to not splash her, some still reaches her way, regardless, but, thankfully, Maude isn’t the primmest of the proper’s. Already coated in mud from the toes to the gut, a few more flecks do little more than to slightly diminish her grin – it returns, however, when the stranger looks up, and continues to talk to her.
She had hoped, until now, at least, that Finnian would have been from Novus. That he wasn’t was somewhat disheartening, but the youth let it wear her down little; it couldn’t hurt to know one more person in a place you didn’t know many, right?
That he calls her pretty, well, Maude doesn’t notice. Let’s just say she’s a bit of a hopeless romantic, and quite a lot more on the hopeless side.
“Well, I just got to Novus a little while ago, so I thought I should go exploring, and see more of where I am,” she answers of his inquiry with a smile; though hope had fled from her in the Rift, small slivers of it were returning to her in this land. With a silver lined tone she chatters on about her great adventure through this unknown world. “I found my teacher, miss Evangeline, in a great big field, to the south. Maybe I can find some more people I know, too. It’s possible, right? Especially if she and I are already here...”
Realizing she was gabbing, the girl awkwardly smiles, her nose tucking closer to her body in sudden shyness as she quiets herself. Looking out over the murky mire and picking out what looks to be a more solid path, she starts off on it, and looks over at Finnian, as she does so.
“Have you seen the big tower in the southeast, yet?” she asks with a cheerful smile, “it was amazing. I’ve never seen a building so tall! Do they have towers and those sort of things where you are from, Finnian?”
so give me hope in the Darkness
that I will see the Light
