There's birdsong in the air, so bright and cheerful and utterly sweet, that most would be hard pressed to not smile. To not take a second and merely listen to the colorful little creatures arc, dance, sing and flit back and forth against the picturesque backdrop of dawn's pastel hues. They sing to the ocean and the sky, and they sing back.
But there is one at the cliff's who does not sing. Who doesn't see them, not really. The wind touseled his braided hair, ran it's airy fingers through his beard and caressed along his face. The sea roared and crashed against the steep rocks, again and again in an age old fight. The cliff will stand victorious until it does not, losing itself slowly over time. The salt spray will make his already unruly hair curl this way and that until it's tangled within itself, not that he minded much.
Instead, unfocused eyes peered out at the horizon. He's rather like this cliff, he thought with an apathetic tilt of his head, as finally he animated. As if someone finally reached to pull his strings reluctantly. Or that he is very much still alive, when all things considered, he should be bones at the bottom of the sea. But it is not at the insistence of the sea, or the bird song, or the air's sweet and melodic caress. It is at the feel of someone wet and warm, trickling from nostril in a languid stream. It is the taste of it on his lips as it dipped and curved and finally let go. It coated the grass beneath him like rubies carelessly tossed, the occasional one stained the edge of the cliff from white to a muddied crimson.
A reminder that he is very much alive, and he should not spend the day waxing poetic about his own follied existence.
"Hn." The noise is exhaled as a grunt, his hooves carried him away from the point he had been perilously close to. This place is not like the rest of the places he has visited, and he has visited a lot, in this thing he is supposed to call life. There is a sense of serenity here, subtle as it tried to poke at the shroud he wore around himself. Inviting his tensed muscles to relax and enjoy a new beginning. Another new start.
Another drop of blood released it's grip on his chin, and he's reminded that he can't really enjoy himself, and can't bring himself to care either. It will stop eventually, the bleeding. So will the grim thoughts dragging their insidous thoughts across his mind. All he has to do it wander, and wait.
I paid the price and own the scars why did we climb to fall so far ?
An amalgamation of fire and light, a scorch upon the lands with tinkling laughter that turns heads, eyes that brighten the world, and a smile (when unburdened, unhidden, bare for all to view) to stop the earth on its axis, Moira pushes herself across the cliffs with the utmost care. A sleepy smile wavers on the edges of her teeth, even as brows draw down when amber eyes flit about to gain her bearing once more. Asterion. That's right. The word whispers through her like a welcome breeze as she remembers how they'd talked through the setting sun, watched as the stars came to life to dance overhead and bring out the brilliance of the man. Moira has been here all night, she remembers with only mild shock shuffling around within - it would be a scandal amongst her family, but they are not here to scold and scorn and judge.
Birdsong meets her on her trek downward, a return trip to Denocte and her beloved infirmary in progress, when a figure moves just below. Such stillness rests about him before until actions disrupt the natural flow of dark upon dark; gray and tan ground is nothing like the goliath that moves upon it in all of his shadowed glory. Flesh rolls as muscles undulate, dark and light clash in a beautiful display that her family would have loved. The Tonnerres are not a people built for exotic appearances such as her own - color does not permeate their home as fruits and fronds do in the summertime when all is warm and lavish parties are thrown. Every now and again, an odd child is welcomed into the fold from an outside marriage, but they are one of the few and oft do not make it high in the ranks after that. The purity, the cleanliness of the mundane and muted colorations must be kept. So Moira is an anomaly, but she adores the monochromatic colors that the world seems to overlook (that she would overlook could she not see properly as some did not.) If only shadows and light were what she knew, she thinks she would be happy with that, too.
But it is a treat to watch him move, only for her to notice red upon the ground - red the drips from an unknown source upon the man, red the stains the dirt, the grass, the morning in lush colors and concern. All thoughts of monochrome beauty dissolve as gears chug faster and faster, grinding within even as she hurries down. Where a girl stood before, admiring all that was lovely in the world, a woman now stands, a healer coming upon a stranger who bleeds as red as everyone else.
"You're bleeding," she says plainly, sternly, with all the neutrality upon her face as a mother would have when scolding their babe for dropping an open sandwich face down on the floor. Perhaps it wasn't his fault, but he should not leave himself to sully the grounds like that. "And frowning. Are you ill?" Perhaps elsewhere doctors were warm, brushing a reassuring hand over their patient's head, checking for fever, smiling like they weren't going to die even if they were too far gone to save. But she was raised in a house of frost and masks, stuck behind a glass to have her strings pulled like a marionette whenever the matron saw fit, paraded about like a prized peacock for the world to laugh and smile and dance about. She was not warmth and laughter like Estelle, Moira is cold efficiency and hidden gentility. The cool hand that brushes away fever but does not kiss you goodnight, the one that works hours just to help a single soul without ever asking for a shred of gratitude in return.
Now, as she studies him her lips purse and at last she lowers her head with an introduction. "I am Moira Tonnerre." His name is not necessary and should not be forced, but if he freely gives it to her, she's sure it is not one she'll likely forget.
in this house of broken hearts we made our love out of stacks of cards
@Thorvald hope it's alright we jump in here ! c:
04-24-2018, 11:12 AM - This post was last modified: 04-24-2018, 11:19 AM by Moira
The bird song and wind's breath is interrupted by the sentence uttered toward him. It is not particularly friendly, but neither is it hostile. For a second, the goliath stilled, a forelimb still raised and hoof clipping against the rich emerald grasses beneath. He's heard a tone like that before, stern but concerned and for a moment he wondered why she is invested in him. What made her descend from her place among the clouds to confront him about the blood that ran down and down, wet and warm and metallic. He is someone, but he is no one to her, a speck of monochromatic interest in a verdant scape of green. A passer by that she may never see again, what about him made her take the time to be invested.
"So I am." A frozen orb flicked, to the colorful mare of sunset orange and roaring flame. The charcoal of her locks striking against the vibrancy of the rest of her. She reminded him much of the far off lands he had heard of in his travels, where the sun was red instead of orange, where the blood of volcanos replaced the fathomless depths of the sea and crystal rivers. He acknowledged her statement with an apathetic nonchalance, regardless of his thoughts of her at first glance. How could you care about something so trivial as a nosebleed when it had long become the norm? He bled a little bit, and that was his price. The concern is touching, in some quaint way, though.
And frowning. Are you ill?
Only then did he turn to face her, turning with an effortless pirouette, the mass of hair upon him shifted and flared with the momentum, before feathers sank back into the blades beneath his hooves and thick braids slapped against his muscular neck. "Perhaps, but I would save your medicines, if you have any. It will stop in awhile." Thorvald elaborated with a shrug of an inky shoulder, punctuated as another glob of blood dripped from his haired chin.
The mare's head dipped in introduction and something in Thorvald's chest coiled. He hated introductions, the folly of being a stranger in a strange land. No one knew your face, no one knew your name, no one knew what you were. It's not as comforting as most may think, once the novelty wears off. The mystery becomes tedious, and so does the silence, even when he craved it. But, then it is a choice to be cryptic, to keep answers elusive from those that sought them out. This...Moira does not look like a threat, and she neither badgered him for answers to questions he didn't have, not had she barged into his personal space like she had a right. The wind brushed over his face again, through his beard and one of the thicker braids which lay fat and heavy against his neck.
"Thorvald Ragnwulf." The warrior finally answered, his own head dipped to mirror her initial greeting.
I paid the price and own the scars why did we climb to fall so far ?
Some part of her watches him as an artist does a painting, and although this one lives and breathes and moves as her art had never done, it is still just as captivating as colors on canvas so that her heart would speed up were she not in such a state as she is. Something akin to love and yearning would have been in those amber eyes were she not increasing her frown at his nonchalant tone, dismissive of something that was so obviously wrong with the bare minimum functioning of his very body.
your body is your temple, it was what she'd always been taught growing up. They were vessels to get you from one place to another, but so much more in that. Your body was a friend, a lover, the first thing to greet you in your creation and the last corporeal form you'd ever know. It was to be taken care of as you would your beloved if not more devotedly; like a song sung over and over, you should never have tired of your own care and well being.
Yet here the man stood without realizing what an affront it was for him to so carelessly let his lifeblood drip onto the ground, splashing abstract marks over green and tan and brown until it all seemed the same muddied mix of sludge. "A pleasure," Moira states purely out of politeness.
Something about Thorvald was not calming, but perhaps tempered any further emotions she would have if he were in a state of hysterics. Be that as it may, the mildness with which he addressed her and his condition was concerning. With her mouth drawing tight about the edges that only one who knew her could see for the displeasure it is, Moira shakes her head and clucks her tongue lightly. "Lucky then, Mister Thorvald, that my herbs are away today. Are these...bleeds common?" It is not her place to pry, but she is a healer or whatever it was they call them in these lands. The wellbeing of all is her concern, even if her family would have confounded her to their own estates to serve until she was gray and shaking.
She could have gotten lost in those blue eyes - just a few shades paler and her family would be staring back. They, too, were living portraits built of fire and ice and otherliness that she was discovering had not quite reached the general populace. A certain disdain hung around the majority of the Tonnerre estate, reminiscent of those who are a part of your world, but don't necessarily include themselves such. Entirely a monster of their own creation, made of mechanisms and ideals outlandish and strange, yet functioning in the same manner as a well oiled machine.
Few were decent among the Tonnerres. Perhaps Moira was an exception, but that was yet to be seen. She shews her lip as she waits for an answer, something to ease the gnawing curiosity and desire to save the world, if you will.
in this house of broken hearts we made our love out of stacks of cards
How does he tell her that this temple is desecrated? It's walls are ruined and cracked, chipped and crumbling. The floors are flooded with sea water and it's briny foam has long discolored the pristine tapestries and weathered the faces upon the statues, until they are no more than a ghost of their former majesty. Cold fire burns in place of the warmth braziers used to bring to stave off the northern chill.
Death owns this body, and it cares not for the state of it, as long as it serves it's purpose.
In another life he would of cared, but that is a life where he is still very much alive. Where a lover seeks him for a warm embrace, where friends seek him for laughter and mirth. To tell her would be to open his acursed book and let her gaze upon it's terrors, and for all the parts of him which enjoy suffering, he cannot do that to her. There are some things too monstrous for even monsters to bring to bear.
"How fortunate, for me, that they will see better use." The Warrior muses dryily, nostrils flaring as a fresh wave of crimson dribbled darkly from them. "They are, and they are not." Val answers to her seeking question, a salt and pepper brow raised in her direction. "They come and go as the wind does, sometimes they are a speck, and other times they are like this."
He pauses then, deliberate and thoughtful as he watches this woman of fiery sunsets from the stories of the eastern sea. "Do you always worry over strangers so?"
I paid the price and own the scars why did we climb to fall so far ?
"There is no better use for them than to help another," she says plainly, as though the mere thought of passing by is an offense to her very being. hands, meant to help and to heal, could twitch with the casualness he uses to disregard himself. it is a stinging cut, a laceration bathed in salt that burns and bleeds, something she cannot fathom. why should he feel so horribly toward himself that he would rather bleed than consider her help as just that - help. Moira knows better than to force herself and her opinions on others, but the demand in her to heal is too strong to deny.
pale brows fall heavily over amber eyes that spark as he continues, uninterrupted at last. in the seconds between his words, her chest heaves more with screams that will never see the light of day. You should be weary she longs to tell him, do not destroy yourself so wholly that all should be lost. No matter what she wishes - to use words as battering rams to be thrown and shoved and forced upon the walls of his castle, to thrust knowledge and advice as a storm left unchecked - she will not give in to these urges. Silence prevails, no sound uttered from sanguine lips.
He is walking poetry, a painting of black and white lit with chocolate and caramel. Crafted so beautifully that the artist in her could cry from the mere perfection of it all. His body sighs with every movement, the wind wails her laments when her touch does not affect him. Only the dripping of his blood brings her back to the questions at hand.
The question itself is rather interesting, for they are strangers. "Should one life matter less than another just because I do not know it?" she counters, both brows now raised. "A healer cares little for whom they treat, there is a song in our soul that need be answered. I cannot sing and dance and simply exist for myself. I am as much a slave to the demand to help as you are the blood in your veins. But," she pauses, chewing on her lip a moment. "Of the strangers I've met, those that have cuts or bleed, I think I worry over them… Yes. Is it a bother?"
Few were decent among the Tonnerres. Perhaps Moira was an exception, but that was yet to be seen. She shews her lip as she waits for an answer, something to ease the gnawing curiosity and desire to save the world, if you will.
in this house of broken hearts we made our love out of stacks of cards
