[EXP] little suns, little moons.

[Aislinn]

of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars

EXP Earning: Learning about a character’s homeland/history.
... there is no beauty in the stars — only a cold white light that mocks me from on high. The moon is a cruel mistress when she does not love you.

Her story constricts the stormsinger’s heart, binding her chest with invisible twine until her lungs ache with held breath. She reminds herself then that not everyone feels the same presence of Calligo’s stars and smoke that she revels in and holds so, so dear. This woman — Rhoswen — is a testament to that fact. And how she yearns to understand her story, and the lure of Solis’ relentless sun and sand.

But from the darkness Solis came; my dreams were gold and gilded and painted in sand.

They were alike in ways then. Aislinn sucks in a breath, inhaling, swallowing night air and stars and snowflakes. In winter’s kiss, she tries and fails to imagine the sun’s drops burnish the dark of her skin in liquid fire. She tries and fails to feel at home with fever and heat and endless light that blinds. But still she breathes, albeit uncomfortable, but still her curiosity grows. There will always be that part of her that desires to understand, to know, to discover, even if what she learns is so far removed from her that she cannot comprehend it’s truth.

And this woman, her King’s sister, his kin, is with child — and that child may soon, too, be of both Calligo’s moon and Solis’ sun. Time will only tell.

So still, she stands with a warm gaze to her companion.

Were you born here too?

The silence of the twinkling snowflakes falls in the hush of Rhoswen’s question, lingering like drops of truth on her lips. She remembers the still of twilight, on a night where the light and darkness were in perfect balance. She remembers her mother Luna’s moondust face; her eyes of deepest obsidian, and Freya’s once-warm orbs of flaming blue. Much, all too much alike her own orbs — those pyres of sapphire fires that only burn and burn and burn. Those same eyes that flicker in the winter dark, catching with the lantern light and fires of the City below. And Aislinn looks to the sun-touched woman now with those eyes, with that gaze of mocking ice and fire.

She speaks only truth, and it is the sound of her gypsy coins that are so preciously wrapped around her throat. Musical and knowing and both soft and cruel. ”I was,” she admits, inhaling deeply. ”I was born a Rahilah gypsy — a nomadic, warrior-hearted soul to the Maiden and Mother of our tribe.” Her orbs sweep Veteris below them, but she does not see the starlit stones. Instead, she stares upon the mountains and creeks and hollows of Denocte’s furthest reaches, hidden and beautiful and alive with their song. She recalls the telltale curl of cinnamon and nutmeg smoke, the drums that beat feverishly in the night, and her heart constricts with the memories of emerald flame.

The stars had never looked more alive than when she was away from the confines of the city’s walls. They had never been more close, more tangible, more real, than when Calligo had allowed her to be who she really was — unchained, unbound, and unbroken.

Her mind a wanderer like she, Aislinn’s orbs break away and stare into the nothingness through the window. ”I was — am — their Maiden now. One of the Three who hold our tribe together,” she murmurs, more to herself. And I’m failing.

She swims in memories; eyelids heavy with their weight and grief and slumber. A scoff escapes her, half-amused. ”Calligo bless me, I — I’m sorry, I..” she laughs, turning away, blinking madly. Her chest caves with long-kept sorrow, as if the careful dam of moonstone and adamant she had built crumbles within seconds of words. Suddenly, she craves her pillow, her tower room, to be close to the stars. To be away.

She did not need the rose woman to see her this way.

Fingers of shadow reach out to her as she moves away, all awkward and sharp movements. Her eyes barely meet those twins of iron grey, storming orbs that match the hurricanes of her own. ”May we meet again, Rhoswen.” The stormsinger’s crown bows, a shaky smile tugging her lips.

And then she rushes from the halls in a flurry of shadows and ivory feathers, and she does not stop until she has collapsed upon her sheets. She was anything but unchained (weighed down by her sadness), unbound (tied to her titles), and unbroken (as she succumbs to her memories).

She couldn’t help it, as sleep finally — finally — stole her.

---

@rhoswen ♡ holy moly this is EVERYWHERE but here, have an Ash who can’t deal with childhood memories ;_; I can’t wait for them to meet again! THANK YOU for this thread darling! <3

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[Rhoswen]

EXP EARNING: Learning about a character’s homeland/history.

Rhoswen ►

If you had asked Rhoswen what she was feeling, as she stood there watching Aislinn from beneath heavy hooded lids, tracing the nefarious moondust as it drifted like specks of dropped poison upon the winged Champion's skin, she would have shrugged: empty handed, bitter mouthed. For what did she know of redemption, of forgiveness, of the hope of a kept promise? Her life had been several acts of a single, Grecian play; was she the protagonist, or the villain? If the universe wished to play tricks right before her very eyes, it better have practised well; enough with the ache in her heart, enough with the confusion that crawled across her mind like an existential fog to blur her clarity.

Enough.

Her voice was gone, and she wished to say no more on the matter of her past; it laid behind her like a coffin in the dark, ominous and ghastly - she saw no reason to glance at it over her shoulder more than once. So it was with numb, clandestine relief that Rhoswen listened mutedly to her companion as she began to tell her own tale of truth and history. The moments that followed seemed to sweep by before she could grasp them tight between steadfast fingers, but she knew in earnest that they would linger on in her thoughts for an eternity to come. Rahilah. Of course, of course, how could she have been so blind to the eerie chime of Aislinn's coins and the aura of something otherworldly that clung to her frame like a broken potion. Rhoswen's brothers had often spoken of the gypsy tribe that were seldom seen upon the rolling hills of Denocte, and she could not help the forward twitching of her ears at the realisation that she was standing before their very Maiden. 

Her lips moved as though to say something, but even if she had intended to - it was too late. The Denoctian champion seemed to swell and shrink beneath her gaze, tormented by her own ghosts; Rhoswen closed her mouth, wishing that she did not so acutely understand the look in Ash's pearlescent blue eyes. Aislinn bowed, leaving the red woman with a parting salutation before disappearing into the night - Rhoswen stared on into the darkness where her acquaintance had stood only moments before, wondering - drowning - suffocating - until a final whisper melted into the black: "farewell, dear Maiden."

@Aislinn very lacklustre ending but i am, historically, tragic at endings so /sadface/