[AW] wandering souls

[Freya]

The moon hung low and ominous in the palest night that she had yet to see within these lands. The Lady In Blue was moving this night, traversing the open plains with an intent that surprised her. Very rarely did she see herself past the borders of Denocte -- choosing to stay where her mischief could be kept to a minimum and if trouble did so happen to lay claim to her then she had the protection of the King Crow to fall upon. But she had become malcontent, and tired of watching the world continue to dance with life and color around her. It was time that she sought out a little adventure of her own.

Uncertainty lingered in her heart, as it had been a very long tim since she had stepped out of her comfort zone other than to attend a worship on the peak just behind her. She tossed a glance at the rise of the mountain's imposing figure -- her breath a shiver in the steadily dropping temperature. Her glass-colored gaze traced the outline of the peak, wondering for just the briefest of moments if her feet knew where they were headed. She couldn't recall the last time that she had felt such an urge to leave the only home that she had ever claimed for herself.

And she had not told anyone where she was going.

Her ears fell back at the thought, a flash of memory stealing across her vision. Her warm breath left an impression on the chilled air as she refused to linger in the memory for more than the time it took to think of it. Freya's life before now had been a dark and cruel thing, and she refused to go back to it. The sapphire headpiece glinted in the moonlight, as she turned her head forward again -- listening to the crisp rustle of the plain grasses as she passed through them. Every step was a symphony of crackling that threatened to send her back to different time. The bison were gathering together for the night, taking up their places to guard the not so young youngsters that had been born in the previous spring. Winter was coming and soon she would claim them all.

---

Open!

[Lothaire]

 

The slow rhythm of the world never ceased to beguile Lothaire - infinite, inexhaustible, roiling beneath and above. The skies haunted him, whispering their ancient promises through a veil of wind and cloud; a smile upon the eastern horizon. But neither could he ignore the resonating thrum of gravity beneath his hooves, currents racing beneath the earth's crust, listening with keens ears to his footsteps, his venerable solitude. Time danced around the serpent in wide circles, looping back - always. It seemed, the ticking of existence would never cease; his essence in this world was entirely inconsequential; emissary, stranger, ghost - none of this mattered. 

Under the weight of his Denoctian title, the suffocating hands of something nameless had clawed at Lothaire jugular until he had been left with no choice but to sink into aphotic shadow. For hours, weeks, years, he had laid dormant - moving only to court the stars at twilight. Summer had swung steadily into autumn, and he had watched through a blackened gaze as the world began to die a transitory death. There was no true fear to be found in winter, only the bite and labyrinthic chaos of the cold; this Lo could withstand. Slowly he had risen from the darkness in which he had entombed himself within, seeping like black ice out into the light. At last, he could breathe once more. 

The moon sang loudly tonight, suspended upon a canvas of swirling dove-grey cloud, Lothaire could not suppress a blink as he watched her - the instinctive pull and push of the lunar tide poured into his chest. Denocte lay many miles from here, and yet why was it that he could detect the familiar balm of mountain air and penumbra? Lightless eyes studied the open land, watching, waiting, until at last she came into sight. A woman he recognised as Freya - perhaps the title of crow was more accurate - moved silently in his direction, most likely unaware of his presence. The emissary's towering enormity did not seem to inhibit his unnatural gift of melting into the background, nothing more than a shade in the absoluteness of night. Only his thin grave voice broke the silence. 

"Salutations, Freya."

@freya super rusty, my first post with him in like a month+!! 

[Freya]

A thin, grave voice turned the blood in her veins into an icy slush -- her graceful head snapping in the direction of the shadow. Her gaze cut through the night like the sharpest of glass towards the sound, a shadow that knew her name. Her ears fell back against her cascading pool of dark hair, her steps pausing her momentarily as she took stock of the situation. When she found what she sought, she gave a soft snort of annoyance -- mostly at herself for allowing her fears to manifest so publicly. That annoyance did not seem to quell the frantic pace that her heart had found, an unconscious fear announcing it's presence. Since her escape from the mistress, Freya had been on her guard just in case anyone from that portion of her life came looking. She was...in every sense of the word a runaway, and her life still did not belong to her especially outside the safety of Reichenbach's Denocte. Perhaps that was why she never left the stone walls, the only thing keeping her from being dragged back to a life of servitude and pleasure for others.

She recognized Lothaire, if only for his distinct appearance, because she had never spoken a word to him otherwise. He was the emissary to the Night Court, and if she remembered correctly had not been heard from in several months. One dark ear flicked forward, the femme tossing her head to adjust her looks and to take on the haughty persona that she wore like a mask in the court. "Lothaire." She called his name, feeling the power in her own voice begin to return. Naming him also quelled her fears, and she took another step towards him. She cast her eyes to Caligo's moonlight for a brief moment, unwilling to lose sight of him again. He was quite a stark figure in the night air, and she wondered briefly how she could have missed seeing him before now. "Have you finally decided to return? Those emissary duties of yours have kept you away for quite some time." She presumed, but did not know for sure. The Crows had kept quiet about this one too, and Freya was not interested enough in him to press for details. She did that often enough, preferring to keep her knowledge about the rag-tag group as limited as possible. She hardly fit in with them in the first place, and as she aged it was becoming more and more apparent that she had some sort of odd dependency on them despite the fact that she kept them at an arm's length.

The mare of ocean-kissed skin paused in her motion as she glanced over the strange creature deemed to be the emissary. "It's not polite to lurk in shadows." She chided, lifting her chin proudly. She wouldn't admit that he had frightened her, but she wasn't about to let him get away with being such a creep.

---

@Lothaire it was great! freya is the one who is rusty! x-x

[Lothaire]

His skin breathes, blooms. He was the night and the gentle nebulosity of thought incarnate - evaporating into the cool air, seeping into every porous shadow. Someone nameless and faceless had once beckoned to him in the pitch of midnight: " angel of darkness " and the title had since stuck in the viscous grey matter within his mind. Lothaire had long ago decided he could be defined as what he was not; in his heart, his chest, he held no pride, no rage, no love; nothing but a writhing colourless void, tainted perhaps only by the tide of curiosity.   

And in that current, full moment it was Freya who held that tide. Through black-submarine eyes Lothaire stared, the hollow wind of his interest soaring and dipping - silently feeding on the startled look bleaching itself across the woman's decorated face. The moon splashed and plunged her features into white spectral light, illuminating each expression as they unfolded calculatedly. He simply watched; motionless and unobtrusive, a spectator upon a throne of stones.

His name sounded unwelcome on her tongue, as though Freya had hoped never to find it there, find him here, despite stepping closer. Her lips move again, this time a longer string of black pearl syllables falling into the shadows, perhaps intended to rouse a reaction from the serpentine monolith. There was no shame nor repent in his eyes as he blinked slowly - once, twice, thrice - "If you wish to know where I have been, you have only to ask." From the nonchalant light glittering in those glass eyes Lothaire took it upon himself to suspect she would not. He had only once previously studied her at a  candlelit court meeting, and even then he had sensed the apathy rolling off her skin like heat. What lay beneath? Did she too share a hollow chasm where emotion should have been? Something told him otherwise. 

"It's not polite to lurk in shadows."

Lothaire might have smiled. Instead he merely tilted his head mid-thought; it had never occurred to him to follow the trodden path of what may or may not be polite; and he found quickly he did not care to either.  The cool dispassion of his voice echoed long into the dark; "would it also be impolite to wonder what a Crow is doing so far from her nest?"

@freya weeee 

[Freya]

The Crow did not keep her glass-colored gaze on the brute for very long if she could help it. He was quite unsettling to look at, his gaze an endless void that she did not wish to be drawn into. Instead, she feigned interest in other things around them -- such as the grass plains or the distant bellow of the bison. Freya’s hip twitched in impatience, forcing the mare to shift her weight to something more comfortable since it appeared she was having a conversation much longer than anticipated. She stole glances at the verde patches intermingled with the ebony, thinking that perhaps she might have mistaken them for grey in the moonlight if she had not seen him before. She was also curious about his lack of ears, the only other equine she had ever known with such a look had had them ripped from his skull -- but she was not about to ask something so private to an utter stranger.

He spoke, his words like a serpent’s hiss -- long and smooth, drawn out in places. She had never been much of a snake charmer. She gave a slight shrug of her shoulders, letting her steps draw her closer still until she could have touched him if she wished it. He breath was a cloud of smoke as the night seemed to be taking a chillier turn, winter calling to the land in a whisper that would soon become a scream. Her gaze cut back to the depthless black eyes of the stallion as he uttered out something that sounded dangerously close to a threat, a feigned look of confusion settling in on her features.

Freya was no actress, but years of pretending to be attracted to men that she would have rather chewed their faces had perfected her techniques. Her ears tipped forward, the dark points caught in interest of what he had said. And what did this one know of the Crows? Freya had been part of the Crows for three years, and knew that he was not among their number. She raised an eyebrow in interest, the rag-tag group of orphans no secret among Denocte’s population but their identities were carefully guarded. Her eyes glittered with interest, as she brushed back a thick wisp of hair from her face. ”A crow you say?” She said smoothly, her voice like a fine silk.

Her laughter was quiet, if only not to draw the attention of anything else in proximity -- but it was colored with disbelief. ”Well that would certainly be interesting, wouldn’t it?” She bore him a smile. ”And why do you think I’m one of them? I’ve heard they’re all children and while a lady never tells her age, I’m far from the age of a youth...don’t you think?”

She took a calculated risk then, throwing her nose forward with the intention to catch his chin like someone pushing away a friend.

---

@Lothaire

[Lothaire]

A lifetime he had endured beneath the gaze of those who, wrongly, feared him. He could still feel the wariness rolling from their gossamer bodies in great waves, mistrust and unease permeating the air. Without complaint or discontent he had withstood it all; the way their eyes would traverse the vast, scaled lines of his monolithic frame until they reached his eyes and it was at that moment they looked away. For within those wells of black lay a cipher of nihility, and perhaps worst of all - a bleak reflection of themselves. Lothaire likened himself to a pebble in a stream, watching the waters of life passing over he and the laconic shade of detachment he had stepped into as an adolescent. As a child, he had been different - quiet and perceptive, still, but in him had lived something pure and whimsical in a heart that had long since shrivelled up and sealed itself away. Perhaps it had been hope; hope of a life far from such destitution and loneliness. Even back then, as a wide-eyed colt, they had beheld him with a long arms and narrow eyes; keeping such a peculiar child at a safe distance. 

As he watched Freya, now, with her wavering gaze that both encompassed and avoided him, Lothaire felt that familiar prickling of unease rotating out from her frame. Some things would never change. 

His words however seemed to alter her perception of him and the situation at hand. Like a viper stirred by his unintentional antagonism the blue woman remodelled herself, ears pricked and eyes glittering through the moonlight. Lothaire tilted his head, minutely, listening with languid intent to her lilting verse. True, the emissary had nothing but whisper, rumour, and supposed truth to construct the wide web of knowledge regarding the Crows. But he had heard things too, seen things that others did not; people did not expect serpents to linger behind shadows where no other might tread. 

Oblivion thundered silently in his gaze, but before he could respond Freya floated rapidly toward him, and he found himself - for the first time in years - caught off guard by her bold touch as it glanced off his chin, pushing his enormous head sideways. Lothaire blinked, leaning back away from the movement in a fleeting cloud of perplexity as he registered the dying memoir of her warm, perfumed skin against his own. Frozen, frozen. He could barely recall the last time someone had touched him - had it been his grandfathers farewell hand upon the eve of his departure? Surely. For no creature, living or dead, had done so since. Even that final steadfast pat had been an anomaly, a rare phenomenon. 

The moment passed. He exhaled silently, once more sinking into crepuscule and inertia. There he was intangible, there he was a colosseum.

"When one spends an age in the dark, you begin to unearth things which cannot be seen in the light."

@freya ooooo she got him a lil there 

[Freya]

She had caught him off guard, which pleased her in some small way. Too often, it seemed to her, men tried to be omnipotent -- ready for anything so to have caused the ever so mild look of perplexity on his face had been amusing. She wondered if she would have the opportunity to do it again. She let a satisfied smirk tug at the corner of her lips, while her gaze averted from him. No doubt he wouldn’t let her enjoy it if he thought she was mocking him -- which she wasn’t. She stood close enough for a strike, but it did not come -- not just yet. Instead, her ear twisted in his direction as she continued to gaze out towards the direction she had been going, his words a mere continuation of their conversation.

”Don’t pretend to see things in that darkness that aren’t there.” She murmured cooly, close enough to him that she did not need to raise her voice any more than that. Her eyes cut to him, all friendliness drained out of them as though someone had released the stopper on a bath. She met the soulless depths of his eyes, her own gaze a reflection of her stubborn tenacity that had seen her through this life. She shifted her weight for just a moment, long enough to propel herself forward. Her dancer’s legs seemed to make her float across the plain and away from the brute who had captivated her, if only for a brief moment.

”Goodbye, Lothaire.” She said airily, her voice a caress on the autumnal winds. It seemed a far wiser move to leave him without much more conversation, before she was drawn into a conversation that she didn’t want to have. But, she thought...as she disappeared into the forest’s embrace before her...she wouldn’t mind meeting him again.

---

@Lothaire
-Freya Exits-
Sorry for the wait! And I hope you don’t mind a curt ending ;) Maybe they can meet again soon?