Red painted the desert a bloody hue as the sun began its slow descent behind the Veneror peak filling the sky with the same colour of war. The evening steadily approached and with it came the promise of a respite from the heated gaze of Solis’ eye. Though Novus was gripped between the icy claws of winter, Soltera remained a land of fiery colours and suffocating heat. Even now, with the worst of the day over, the air still clung to any creature that wandered, still close and heavy and warm.
Sobec had chosen this time of day specifically to traverse the perilous deserts of Solterra, the dunes and canyons that had once been her home. Though the main city had changed whilst the Arete were held captive by time- the buildings developing, the faces changing- the desert remained the same. It was as though it too had been kept in the time cage, frozen in its state, never changing, never aging. Even before the catacombs, before Sobec had joined the Arete she’d never taken the time to wander the sands of her home, to reminisce. Her youth seemed like a life time ago, and in some sense it was, yet she walked the edges of the Elatus canyon without even looking, her hooves taking her of their own accord.
There was nothing left of the Sivalu, not a whisper on the wind or a fleck of fur in the sand. It was almost as though they’d never existed at all, the Hisada had wiped them out so thoroughly. Sobec was the last of them, as far as she knew, one of the few Solterans who had been raised in the relentless desert. Rarely did the survivor allow herself to be encumbered by such feelings, to allow her past to drag her back, stop her from moving forward. But that evening, as the sun went down on a dying day in a world that had changed whilst she’d stayed the same, Sobec allowed the threads of her soul to slowly unravel.
She will burn down your kingdoms; herself with it, if it meant your ruin
Leto is a blot of ink upon the red canvas of the canyons. The sun is low within the sky. In its dying it bleeds reds and bruised pinks and purples. Darkness yawns where the light no longer touches. The world changes and morphs as night steps closer.
Darkness is at Leto’s heels, the sea is a throb within her soul. She makes for the oasis, that pool of water sitting in the heart of the desert. The stars are beginning to pierce the sky, drawn out by the rising moon. Their song whispers into her veins and she begins to glow. The map of her vessels and the white blood that courses through them, brilliant and bright, makes her glow like a star in the midst of the desert.
The blood red of the lands do not know what to make of her. She glints like a blade in the midst of its war. Star-fire gleams along her teeth and her chin tips up, up, up. The warm evening breeze slides down the siren’s throat. It whispers in the star-girl’s ears that she does not belong here amidst sand and earth. Yet Leto smiles, her grin soft and savage. Upon her skin glow the sigils of the Ilati. They cover every inch of her torso fortelling the future, remembering the past. Magic is emblazoned in spells painted upon the canvas of Leto’s body.
There is no sea for her to sink within. No sea to calm the heat of her magic. She burns like a star, brilliant and white. Her eyes are aglow. The ebony of her body is as a dress, sleek and ragged. Scales have formed upon her slender throat. Death has changed this feral Ilati. Now she drowns herself in lore and celestial magic. She paints upon her skin a triad of earth, sea and star magic.
The awakening stars call out to their shed-star below. They demand her soul remembers, remembers, remembers just what it was born to be. The kelpie has followed their summons deep into Solterra. The sun scolds upon her spine, but oh, she burns brighter, hotter, wilder than this day-aged sun.
A woman treads ahead and Leto slinks in her wake. She died a girl, faithful and aspiring. She rose a monster and a priestess. Her every step is the slink of a lion, the prowl of a panther. Her teeth press into the soft of her lip. The air turns from hot sand to hot blood. Leto’s eyes close, relishing the taste that rolls over her keen tongue. A shiver rocks through her slim body and she draws level with the girl. Her gaze tips sideways, silver, star-fire peering out beneath coal black lashes.
All of Leto is primitive, savage, seductive. Her body is primed, it hungers for magic, for stars and bones between her teeth. The way she watches the mare, the way her eyes trail over throat and hip and shoulder and breast is like a trail of kisses, sharp as teeth, grating, tasting, wanting. Her hair is a wild tangle salt-sticky, the air is scolding around her. Ancient magics are static upon her tongue and lips.
“You roam at night alone. Is that wise?” Her voice is something old and something new. It is the blissful hiss of the surf, the keening of stars, the groan of shifting earth. It is deep and bright and wild. The bones and bells and silver painted leaves in her hair, sing such eerie songs as they chime together - the heavens shatter at their meeting. “Have you come for the stars?” The kelpie asks, aglow, aglow, aglow. Her body vows to swallow, to consume, to set the world aglow with holy, celestial fire. It just begins with a touch upon her too-hot skin.
“Come,” Leto breathes through painted lips, “let us make our bones sing.”
@Sobec - please excuse the novel! still trying to work out this newly changed girl!
Anyone! | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
There was some comfort in a desert that barely changed, as though the gold-painted woman could close her eyes and pretend she was back home, that her tribe yet lived and her life had not been torn to pieces. But alas, as the wind drew empty scents across her nares, bereft of the equine aroma, it was all too clear that things had changed.
Alone now, far from the eyes of the Solteran court, the eyes of horses who did not know her, Sobec could allow the pain her heart to beat freely. Terrible and heavy the weight of her burdens pressed down, suffocating. A cry, a mournful, lost howl, tried to crawl from her throat, to split the silence with agonised abandon. She wanted to scream to Solis, who’s every watchful gaze was now masked by the forthcoming shadows of night. How could he let this happen, how could he let his most faithful servants be chained by time, kept static in the shadows while the world moved on around them. Perhaps they had failed him- the bitter thought permeated the angered haze of her mind. Perhaps she had failed him. After all she had found out about Zachariah’s plan, she had tried to stop it so many times yet each attempt ended in death. Should she have tried more? Should she have continued on and on, relived the day again and again even if it meant taking her own life to restart? The guilt is sour on her tongue and Sobec found herself wishing once more that she had died with her family, that she had been cut down by the Hisada like the rest of her tribe. But alas death was not the same steal trap for her. There were no pearly gates, no road to Solis’ side for her.
Sobec felt tears, angry and burning, mournful and inevitable, fill her gaze. But she blinked them away irritably as a soft silver glow interrupted the red painting the sand. Amidst the dying sun and the world painted in red it was not difficult to spot the oncoming woman. Though ebony, like she was crafted from the very shadows themselves, she was emblazoned with silver light, glowing brighter even than the ruddy hued dusked. A small, quiet sigh escaped Sobec’s lips before the gleaming woman reached her- she had not come to the far reaches of the desert for company. When she screamed to the sky, her voice both a prayer and a curse to the god she’d pledged her life for, it would be ancient and feral and she would do it alone with no one to witness her weakness. Hoping she might deter the stranger from conversation, Sobec turned her back and continued on her way, her tears all but forgotten.
Her avoidance mattered not it seemed, for the ebon mare approached her, casting a side glance across Sobec’s painted formed. The foreteller watched that gaze, feral and predatory, with frustration. She knew that kind of look, predacious and dangerous and toxically alluring. That was the way she looked before she took a life, her smile too greedy, her eyes too wild. But it was enthralling, some small part of Sobec deigned to admit, as she cast her own two-toned glance across the shadowy woman. Some of that anger, that guilt wormed its way into her gaze as feral aggression, the desert cat prowling beneath her skin. Since emerging from the Catacombs, she’d felt only loss, confusion, fear and anger. It had been so long since she felt danger, dangerous. Sobec tasted the woman’s scent; she smelt of salt and stars and not of Soltera (besides the traces of sand upon her dark hooves). Or at least not of the Soltera that Sobec had known- things were so different now perhaps she was a daughter of Solis.
“I was born in these deserts, I know what lies within them.” Her voice is a soft hiss, empty yet full at the same time. She left the woman talk, leaving a silence hanging in the air following her words. For a moment the Arete assassin considered them, considered the temptation to be free of her pain for a night. But… “I came for the silence, and for the solitude,” she added at last, wanting to turn her gaze away to tear her eyes from the starlit woman and continue on her own. But she could not, not with tempting danger hanging in the air.
She will burn down your kingdoms; herself with it, if it meant your ruin
