A wall of stone rose to the heavens before her as the young woman lifted her silver eyes at its immensity. A sly smile spread across her velvet lips as she tilted her head in observation. What do you think? Nora cast the thought into the abyss that was her mind and from the depths, a low, foreign grumble responded. Strong, but I’ve seen armies that could step on this wall as if it were not there.
A chuckle escaped Nora as the creature inside her head prowled back and forth, like a big angry cat. Are you anxious? Nora asked again, her thought laced with humor. Yes, I am anxious child, we’re in a godforsaken desert, how could I not be? The creature responded angrily. Get used to it, we’ll be here awhile. Nora responded again as she lifted her hooves and began to move down the wall in search of a doorway. And when she came upon it, she felt a hiss shudder through her mind as the Naga responded to what was before them. A courtyard, impressive in size extended before them as Vanora waltzed through the gates, her glowing eyes swivelled about. Vanora could actually see the heat, it sweltered gently before her and she wondered if this was as hot as it grew or if this was a nice day for these people. Her steps were deliberate, her tail flicked behind her, back and forth. She took it all in, her heart swelled as she realized this could be her new life. Don’t be so damn happy Vanora, I will find a way to get us back to the ocean. The Naga rumbled inside her skull, a wicked grin appeared in the darkness. Don’t count on it, Vanora said, it wasn’t a statement, it was a promise.
Vanora pulled herself from her thoughts and set up her mental wall to keep the Naga silent for a while before she stopped in the center of the courtyard. Her own thoughts bounced around as her curiosity grew with each glance at her surroundings. “Hello?” Nora’s words were honest and laced with question as they echoed around her, the silence seemingly endless.
The ocean tide had rolled into the desert and Solterra had no idea what they’d let into their borders. God, Nora hoped they’d never have to find out.
"Vanora speaks out loud" The Naga speaks to Vanora Vanora speaks to The Naga
H
e did not leave Vectaeryn to find himself in the middle of a war. Unfortunately, he does.
Though in the grand scheme of things, it’s a rather advantageous situation for him, he admits. An extra body or two in a sea of bloody corpses is about as noticeable as a needle in a stack of needles; and it’s not as if he’s affected in any way by any of it.
Caine does not have enough loyalty left in him — if he ever had any to start with — to feel anything but mild annoyance towards the Solterran plight. Mild annoyance, because if the Sun Court burned to the ground, if it was ravaged to pieces by the primitive tribe they called the Davke, it would be a nuisance to relocate to another, this time more peaceful, Court.
From the shadows, the pale-eyed boy had watched the carnage unfold from start to end with grim detachment. Despite his occupation, he had thought the whole affair mad; a meaningless loss of life. Slaughtering each other like animals, to what avail? Revenge against a king whose corpse had rotted to dust? It had been his first time witnessing death on such a massive scale, and to say that it was more enlightening than anything he’d ever read on warfare would be a dire understatement.
Caine rubs the sleep from his eyes as he stretches his weary limbs under the sweltering Solterran sun. It is noon, the golden desert a shimmering mirage as waves of heat shiver like rippling water from the sands. Again, he rises late. Sleep is a luxury more precious than water to him now — for the Harbinger’s nights have been spent carrying out assassination after silent assassination, the orders piling up higher than the bodies stacked like minnows at the edges of the reddened streets.
Ironic, Caine thinks, how bloodlust begets more bloodlust. Like a cloud of black flies, descending upon the hearts of the living and leaving only bones in its wake. An eye for an eye. Ten lives for the loss of one. He wonders if his clients will ever realize the extent of their hypocrisy.
The marble fountain, one of the few left standing, is a stone’s throw away from where he stands — precisely the reason why he’d chosen the otherwise rundown, dilapidated cottage to stay in after Seraphina had set the royal library aflame. The boy still grimaces whenever he is reminded of the atrocity. The scrolls had been his only solace in this godforsaken pit of sand and smoke.
The water is blessedly cool against his parched lips as Caine lowers his onyx muzzle to the crystal-blue waters.
“Hello?” He freezes, mid-drink. “Of all the times,” he murmurs, lamenting the loss of an afternoon spent in solitude resting upon the smooth marble. A sigh pushes past parted lips as he raises his silver eyes leisurely upwards, crystalline droplets running down the sharp angles of his face.
“May I help you?” His sonorous voice carries easily across the shaded courtyard to reach the slender, earthen-pelted girl standing warily at its edge. A foreigner, new to the lands no doubt. He sees it in the curious tilt of her delicate head, the inquisitive glint of her odd, misty eyes. Pupil-less, he notes, with a touch of passing interest. She is of no threat to him, that much is for certain. Though, whether she will prove to be a welcome distraction remains to be seen.
“You’ve chosen quite a time to visit. Solterra is not in a state fit to be seen, I imagine.” A hint of a smile touches upon the boy’s lips as he sweeps his sleek, raven locks back against his crown. She smells of the sea; it rolls off of her in waves, so vividly he can almost feel the salt-laced breeze skimming across his ink-black pelt. It reminds him of Vectaeryn, of the Coast, of Agenor.
He decides, with a dark, fleeting smirk, that perhaps her company will be more intriguing than solitude after all.
Silver eyes surveyed her surroundings more as she lounged in the midday sun. She felt The Naga brush up against her mental wall several times, impatience leaked from the creature and Nora couldn’t help but sigh. What a needy old beast.
The heat caressed her dark skin and brought forth a sheen of sweat that dampened her neck. She shook her head, unaccustomed to the warmth. Vanora had grown up near the ocean, where the air was always wet and chilly. The citizens there had never experienced this sort of exposure to the ravaging swelter of the elements and neither had she.
Her head whirled as she suddenly became aware of the carnage she’d missed before. There was significant damage to the courtyard and in that moment, she lowered her shields. The Naga perked up immediately and she felt it look at what she had seen. Turmoil, was all it said, it’s voice distant, distracted within her mind.
Vanora nodded her head and moved towards one of the pools within the walled court. She glanced at the cerulean water before her and a stranger stared back. Her brown skin was covered in dirt and grime, dusty and dull. Her eyes, though bright, seemed burdened and restless. Her pearly orbs moved over the scarred face that mirrored her own and felt The Naga chuckle deep within her mind. What are you looking for child? It sneered at her, it’s voice filled with malice.
Vanora did not answer and continued to observe the pool beneath her. The chocolate coated woman wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed but a foreign voice broke the silence. It was a masculine voice, smooth and controlled. A mask instantly rolled over Vanora’s features and she felt The Naga bristle within the darkness. She lifted her poll, her severe face suddenly devoid of emotion as she took in the man before her. He wore a cloak of onyx, it seemed to pool around him and cascade to the sand. And his wings, her eyes widened slightly at the sight of them. Two pairs of massive inky appendages draped across his shoulders, they were quite impressive.
“I had guessed the carnage was not a permanent fixture,” Vanora spoke, her voice laced with slight sarcasm. She felt The Naga snicker quietly. “I am new to Solterra, I hope to find asylum here,” the woman spoke with little emotion but she was truly sincere about this particular subject. “Tell me, could you offer me that?” she asked with an inquisitive tilt of her head.
"Vanora speaks out loud" The Naga speaks to Vanora Vanora speaks to The Naga
The son is on the move. He had traversed the desert swiftly, carried on his own burning curiosity. Since his arrival, he only knows that he belongs to Solterra, that their lands are his temporary home. He has spent several days away, has journeyed outside of Solterra's borders, curious more about the country he has stumbled upon rather than the desert home to which he belonged.
The sun had burned against his exposed back; blazing black journeying through red sands. He did not tire through the journey, taking his time, pacing himself for the distance. As he approaches the worn stone wall, stacked high with brick and history, it hits him. It's the smell of death, of blood and war; it's carried to him on the wind, a stench that makes him crinkle his nose, disgusted at the presentation of his future home. How dismaying. Slowly, cautiously, he approaches the crumbling walls, making out the details of scorch marks, of blood ingrained into the sand at the door. The air of tragedy and fury stings his skin, of great loss and recovery. The details are quick to be picked up, the sight of war was not unfamiliar to him. His father had lent aid to a war nearby, and it had been he who led those troops forward into the battle.
Passing the gates, everything is stronger. The smell of burnt flesh lingers in the air, hanging above his crown as if to haunt him. Ears flick back, violet focusing on what lies ahead. The further into the keep he gets, the more damage can be seen. From chipping in the stone walls to stains deep in the strewn sand beneath his hooves, signs of struggle. He can smell the lingering ash, settled in a fine layer along the surface of the courtyard he approaches. In the eerie silence, there are two voices cutting through, piquing interest in the hold. Stepping confidently, princely elegance and pride, he comes upon two figures. A dark, towering stallion stands near a smaller bay woman; silver eyed and her presence doting. The man was shrouded by his own wings, midnight and massive, he seemed to settle into the feathering well, holding an air of neutrality. And there was the áldott herceg.
It had been a long time since he spoke the common tongue, since he had let anything but his Father's tongue roll from his lips. The foreign words were pulled together, jumbled and unfamiliar to him, mashed haphazardly into a sentence he doubted. Crown head raised, feigning confidence in his sentence, a subtle accent slides from his tongue. "What a curious place to take - asylum, hm?" The word struggles to leave his mouth, menedék is what he wants to say; filling in the space of an unknown word with words he knows. He casts a curious look to the woman, intrigued by her choice to seek refuge in a place war torn and desolate, with it's foul heat burning against their dark skin. The sweat beads beneath his mane, along his back and drips down to his belly; he feels like egy disznó. This will not do for him.
-- @Vanora @Caine dont mind me jumpin in with my poor writing
e studies her as she approaches warily, his pale gaze as smooth and coolly contemplative as the bubbling sapphirine waters she stares so intently into. He wonders what she wishes to see reflected upon its rippling surface.
He also wonders, with slight amusement, what she wishes to hear when she asks him for asylum.
“Carnage as a permanent fixture, possibly not,” Caine replies, a thin smile spreading wryly across a raven sleek jaw. “But I’ve found that Solterrans harbor a peculiar… taste for blood, so if you are looking for a place that is peaceful, you will surely not find it here.”
With a light shrug of vast obsidian wings, the boy’s shifting silver eyes drift to settle mutely upon the fountain’s sparkling marble statue, as Caine appears to consider the girl’s question for a sincere moment.
A compelling act, entirely fabricated. The Illusionist's specialty, turning imitation into persuasion. Each gesture is as artfully spun as a spider’s gossamer web, as meticulously alluring as the flourish of a calligrapher’s pen. It is almost an obsession to him, how perfectly he can pull off each lilting smile and lyrical sigh. How convincing he can make it, until not even Caine himself knows for certain if any of it was ever genuine at the end of the night.
It is a game to him. Everything is a game to him, because it is so much easier when there are only two ways for things to end.
“Asylum?” he begins, rolling the word languidly, gracefully, across his tongue. “Pardon me, but I think you are mistaken, miss. This city is as foreign to you as it is to me. I arrived just a week before, myself, and —” he pauses, a rueful smirk lifting a charming chuckle from his dark lips. “Perhaps we’ve both chosen the wrong time to visit.”
Perhaps they’d all chosen the wrong time to visit.
With the flick of a velvet ear, Caine shifts his keen gaze towards the figure who’d appeared as silently as a shadow across the courtyard. He focuses just in time to catch the stranger’s heavily accented words before they fade to echos along the wall.
"What a curious place to take - asylum, hm?"
There it is again. Asylum. Such a sobering word to be tossed around before the sun has set, Caine thinks with a snort.
He’d sensed the skeletal-masked man’s lingering presence at the edges of his mind — there is little, if anything, Caine misses — yet he hadn’t expected for him to stop, much less stay. It is odd for him, to be in the company of those who don’t have death nestled like a sleeping dragon along their slender necks. Yet rare occurences carry that much more interest, and the boy's curiosity is quickly kindled by the both of them. The living have so much more to say than the dead, after all.
“Another wanderer hoping to settle?” he muses, all traces of macabre thoughts vanishing from his eyes like fog in the wind.
“In that case, it seems that introductions are in order — if I may, I’ll begin.” A smile as beautiful as black silk flickers fleetingly across his angular cheeks. “My name is Caine, and I welcome you both to Solterra.”
@Vanora @Káin | "speech" | notes: pshh all y'all writing is spectacular <3
Vanora’s eyes never left the dark winged man before her. His appearance still baffled her but she shouldn’t be surprised at such things. Her own father had climbed out of the sea, she had little to be surprised at. Her chocolate skin shimmered in the sun’s harsh light as she continued to analyze the situation.
Suddenly another’s voice echoed across the courtyard and Vanora stiffened for a moment. The Naga practically hissed inside her mind as another individual seemed to materialize from the shadows. Silver eyes swept over him quickly as she took in his skeletal appearance. Be careful girl, The Naga warned, its voice a whisper within the darkness.
The newcomer was peculiar and the girl tilted her head, the expression on her face calm but curious. Her usual mask lowered a bit as she listened to the two men. She narrowed her eyes as they seemed to pick apart her words. Was it inappropriate to ask for asylum? To her, this was safety, even if the court was war ravaged. Their wars did not frighten her compared to the battle fought within her own mind. “Asylum may not be the right word for many, but for me, it is perfectly fitting,” Vanora spoke simply, her words revealed nothing, her voice slightly agitated.
The woman listened as the winged beast introduced himself. Her face once more became emotionless, cold even, as her attention remained upon him.
Caine. Hmm. The name rolled about within her mind and she felt The Naga shrink away from it, disgust upon its grotesque face. “It is interesting to meet you Caine,” Vanora replied with a polite dip of her head, her voice inquisitive. “I am Vanora, I come from another continent but I am grateful to be in Solterra,” Vanora spoke clearly, her words seemingly devoid of emotion.
“And you?” she turned towards the man painted in midnight and tattooed with white. Her voice was bitter and untrusting, her defenses were up. She felt The Naga begin to pace once more. “Why do you feel it necessary to sneak about in the shadows?” the bay woman seethed, anxious. She stepped back, her ears flicked forward but her chin high. She would not cower but she would be cautious. Ivory eyes flickered to Caine, her gaze contemplative if not a bit angry at the situation. Would she be safe here? Could she keep the monster caged if she remained so wary? No, the creature responded as it laughed brutally.
A wanderer? Is that what the Son had become? In all the time he has spent outside of Miskolc, has he shed his title of áldott herceg? He concludes that no, he was still the beloved and the blessed, he was still the Son, holy and gifted by gods themselves. He did not choose asylum, this was not his asylum. He did not need to be protected, he did not need to be taken in because he was running away; this was simply a temporary home, a place to rest his head while he planned out his next steps. He would not bury his roots in the burning red sand beneath his hooves, he was not a man to settle so easily.
He watches closely the way the strangers react to him, stepping forth into their conversation without so much as a greeting, weaving his own words seamlessly into theirs. The woman seems curious, head tilted as though she were a dog, trying to understand better what he desired from this interaction. "No need to get so upset." He hums, innocent but conniving, speaking so casually that he's almost convinced himself it's no matter getting worked up over. "It's simply a matter of words - I am not as familiar with your common tongue and the way you use your words, but bolondok háza, your asylum, means house of fools to me. Menedék would be more fitting - shelter, for this does not look much like a house of fools. But then again, menedék could also mean asylum. It all depends on how you look at it." He shrugs it off, the Son careless about the explanation. Perhaps they would understand him, perhaps they wouldn't. His tongue was far more difficult to translate into the common language, many of his words could be twisted with a simple mispronunciation, accenting one wrong letter could bring a whole new meaning to the word. He could understand if the two were confused and simply ignored his explanation, he would too if a stranger started babbling nonsense to him. Unfortunately for them, he was in a rather playful mood today.
And now the woman was defensive, scared because she had missed the Son's presence, had not picked up the smells that clung to him or heard the quiet steps he took. He smiles, grinning at Vanora as her unease becomes obvious to him. He could almost taste the anxiety oozing from her pores, her chin high as if prideful and courageous, but her step backward tells him otherwise. He has seen this same dance acted out by hundreds of men, cowering in the face of the unknown. His father frequently questioned prisoners of war with his dragons at his sides, both creatures as threatening as the king himself. Even Káin himself had taken the spotlight, had questioned men with morally grey tactics, with fear and manipulation and silver threads hanging from his lips. And every time, he would see faux pride in the trembling men, eyes wide but heads held high as if they were still trying to cling to their dignity. He shrugs carelessly at her question, smirk only growing more mischievous. "I simply do what I want. Sometimes I find that walking among the shadows provides me with more answers than carelessly frolicking in the sunshine." Satisfied, egér?
Now he coos, pleased (although not truly) to hear that he is not the only one within these lands by the name of Cain. And of course, his name was not quite pronounced the same, but nonetheless he was entertained. "What a coincidence - call me Káin." He looks to Vanora, expression unwavering, playful words almost taunting as he speaks. "Afraid of me still, Kisegér?"
-- @Vanora @Caine sorry this took so long!!!!!!! also káin is calling vanora "little mouse" despite them being the same height :')
V anora. He tucks her name away in the folds of his memory like a coin in a magician’s cloak. As he does with every name — he thinks that they are owed at least that much, to be remembered.
“A pleasure, Vanora,” he says with a tilt of his crown, onyx strands tumbling forwards across his eyes. “Despite the current state of things, I am sure Solterra will welcome you with open arms.” The population has dwindled enough to warrant it, he thinks, not a touch of humor softening the callous gleam of his eyes. Do these affairs warrant more sympathy than he has given? Perhaps, but Caine is not certain what else he should say — his charms and smiles are only ever used as a means to an end.
He does not see an end this time, and it has thrown him for a loop.
With a sweep of raven wings, black feathers pool across the ground like slow-dripping ink as Caine watches Vanora aim biting words at the skeleton-masked man — words that, surprisingly, have not been aimed at him. Ah, if only she knew the irony.
Still, he does not blame her for her caution. The girl is not a fool, and that in itself is an admirable trait.
"It's simply a matter of words - I am not as familiar with your common tongue and the way you use your words, but bolondok háza, your asylum, means house of fools to me.”
The man’s accent intrigues Caine, and his ears flick forwards to catch every rise and fall of his foreign words and lilting tongue. Agenor had taught him many languages, most notably the tongue that the inhabitants of Novus spoke. It was not much different from Vectaeryn’s own, and Caine had picked it up swiftly within a year or two of study. But this man’s words are unlike any of the languages Caine knows — the words slip from his grasp like water, and the boy is at once fascinated by the novelty and vexed by the unfamiliarity.
And yet another novelty. The man’s name, when he gives it at last, is an echo of Caine’s own, the syllables just exotic enough for comfort. Káin, he murmurs, marveling at how different the name glides across his tongue.
“A coincidence indeed,” he grins, though his eyes remain as glinting as polished steel. Vanora, he had been pleasant to (though if she had known it, Caine cannot tell) because she had posed no threat. But this man — this Káin — is as sharp as a knife’s edge, his arrogance oozing from blackened lips with each smirk that dances wraithlike across his muzzle.
“I will show you both to the markets. That, at least, is still bustling with merchants and goods,” he says softly, interrupting before Vanora has a chance to answer Káin’s laughing taunts. He directs a withering smile towards the man, before turning back towards the silver-eyed girl. An onyx wing stretches towards her in a show of sleek manners. “Shall we?”
Perhaps today, he will play at being her black knight. It surely will not hurt, being noble for a change.
@Vanora @Káin | "speech" | notes: a thousand apologies for how late this is ;__; but this trio though <3
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