a fallen star will be thy fate;

[Septimus]

TO TRAVEL ON AND TRAVEL LIGHT
to travel deep into the night

Thin crystals of frost crunched beneath Septimus’s hooves as he landed – gracefully, but only considering the hour of the morning and how little he’d slept the night before – on a snowy hilltop, his teeth chattering in the only-just-dawn chill. He’d come running to the island again the moment that he heard it had reappeared, gathering his notebooks and quills in a hurry and leaving his makeshift home in Delumine looking much like a tornado had passed through in his wake. If he were more organized by nature, or more practical, he might have waited until morning or been more meticulous about it, but Septimus could not wait. He’d left at some ungodly hour of the night.

Now – after ambling, again, over that thin strip of bridge, mumbling complaints all the while about not being able to use his wings to cross the considerable stretch, a limitation that did not seem to have changed with the seasons – he was back on the island, and it was reborn. Ghostly pale, and, in the morning light, covered in a thin, pastel, and ghostly sheen of fog. It was though the world was crafted of winter itself; the sparse trees were dark and skeletal, poking out of the fog like specters, and, though Septimus was well-enough accustomed to cold, the cold of the island was something different. He could feel it somewhere deep inside, in his bones. It was a cold with teeth.

But what was stranger than that was the feeling of something else.

It was familiar. It was so, so very familiar – it was so familiar that it ached in the way that it ached when you bit down on something too sweet, an ache you could feel like a throbbing in your jaw or a burning on the tip of your tongue. Was it the magic? Something about it had shifted. He did not expect it to feel like it had before – he was not even sure if it was the same island -, but this felt like home, too much like home. It had been similar, last time, wonderfully and uncontrollably wild and apathetic, as nature so often is, but that was where the similarities ended.

He glanced about himself, his eyes narrowed to emerald slits. He had the sudden sense of being watched, and not by the shifting shadows of birds huddled together for warmth in the creeping boughs of the slumbering trees. His stare caught in a glimmer of light peeking out almost shyly from around the trunk of a tree, hazy and orb-like in the fog; he took a tentative step forward, then another, his lips slowly falling open as he took measure of the shifting, nebulous creature that seemed oh-so hesitant to meet his eyes. He dragged in a deep breath of cold air.

He didn’t want to be foolish enough to hope that it could be like him, but he could not stop his treacherous heart from hoping regardless. He felt so strange in this world of mortals, so wrong, and he had lingered far too long already; the broken-off half of him that was magic woke him up at night, sobbing like a child for attention. He was not whole. (He had never been whole.) Septimus draws closer to the light, and closer, enraptured by how it trembles, enraptured at how it changes-

And a greeting fell from his open lips, an unnatural combination of sound that Septimus had almost forgotten until he spoke it. The light watched him for another long moment, then, like a falling star, dashed deeper into the sleeping forest that stretched out into the valley. He did not know if it was running or begging him to follow, but the disappointment is crushing.

A moment later, he spotted what he hoped was another spark of light, just a bit further away, a glimmer of brilliance among dark branches; and though Septimus was no fool, raised on tales of tricky spirits and will-o-wisps, he followed.  

---

@Andras || <3

"Speech!" 

@

[Andras]

Andras Demyan

"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."

The sun has yet to fully crest the horizon, filtered through the fog of winter in thin streams of cold blue light. There is a heavy silence over the area, and Andras is at the bridge, glowering down its length toward the island in the distance.

He hadn't cared, when he heard the first time. Thought it stupid, even. Hadn't wanted to stand shoulder to shoulder with complete strangers and pledge his heart and soul to the spirit of adventure. Andras doesn't need adventure. For all his bile in him, for this beast that begs for the sting of impact - a beast that wakes only under threat of injury - he really does not savor the idea of dying senselessly on a god-forsaken island in the middle of the sea. And when he does come, it is with an air of teeth-clenched defiance.

Andras decided, last night, that he is not afraid of the island.
Andras decided that if it was going to swim back up from the sea he was going to stomp it back down.
Andras left that second.

So, the warden stands, glaring down the black glass of the bridge, and when he surges forward it is is with the savage determination of a wild animal, an engine churning endlessly toward the island that glitters like diamonds in the light of the rising sun. Each stride winds him tighter, each clattering footstep rings in him louder than his blood ever has.

(And it's still there, singing in his heart: a hymn to rage, a song of white-hot stars and teeth closed so tight around his tongue it bleeds. But his foosteps are louder than even that - until he steps off the bridge and the soft crunch of snow meets him as if he were a rock falling. He falls like an angel cast down. His landing bruises the world.)

Around him, everything is white, and both around and inside him, everything is a cold he can't quite feel, one that sinks into the marrow of his bones and turns his blood to ice. Andras thinks again that this is stupid, thinks that this is possibly the stupidest thing he's ever done, but here he is, in the cold and the snow. 

To his left, there is a strange sound in the trees - something that doesn't sound quite real, or equine, but that is so tangible and so close that he cannot help but follow it, diving through the trees that shed snow on his back faster, and faster, in pursuit until--

A horse.
Specifically one that smells like the tall, old trees of Viride. Old trees, ink, and parchment.
Did it... come... from him?
Andras sighs. This figures.

He shakes the snow off his back and unfolds one wing to brush off the flakes that remain, fixing Septimus with a firm glare. "What are you doing?" he asks, as if he has any right to know - as if he has any right at all. His glasses are half-fogged over in the cold air.

@Septimus

[Septimus]

TO TRAVEL ON AND TRAVEL LIGHT
to travel deep into the night

It has been a long time since Septimus has felt so desperate.

His breath comes out in heaving white clouds; he is not running long before trails of sweat begin to drip down his neck and flanks, drying and freezing over almost immediately in the bitter chill. Still, Septimus does not stop. He kicks up clouds of glittering snow, catching in the hazy peach light, and he runs, his gaze trained on the glittering orb with such intensity that it could be predatory. (His tongue swipes over the canine points of his teeth.) He has almost caught it, he is sure. Just a few steps now. He is so very close-

And then the light blinks out entirely.

Septimus stumbles to an abrupt halt, his wings flaring out to slow him as his hooves slide forward in the thick, white snow. He swallows a curse, his wings snapping in at his side, and he stares at the spot where the little faerie creature was only a moment before, as though the sheer force of his gaze and his desperate will can force it to rematerialize. It doesn’t, of course. For an excruciatingly long moment, he stands alone amidst a grove of dead trees, little flurries dribbling down from the branches above his head to pool on his antlers.

And then he hears the crunching of snow behind him, as though someone is in pursuit – and he wonders how he didn’t notice the sound before. Septimus turns, his green eyes darting to land on another horse. He is small and dark, with a pair of bird-like wings and a rather vicious glare. He doesn’t know what he’s done to warrant it, but he meets it evenly, even expectantly. What are you doing? the man asks, and it occurs to Septimus, in a bit of a daze – still startled by the creature so like himself and the sudden appearance of this stranger – that he does smell of Delumine, doesn’t he? Perhaps he is another citizen of Dawn. Either way, it cannot have been too terribly long since he left the Daybreak Court, and perhaps that is why he relaxes just a hair, tossing a glance over his shoulder in the direction that the creature fizzled out of existence. He can still pick out the spot.

“I’m-“ Septimus tries to think of a way to explain himself that doesn’t make him sound completely insane. He doesn’t look quite like he should, without his magic, and he has no way of proving what he was before he lost it. He can’t quite say that oh, I believe that those floating orbs of shifting light that you might have seen happen to be cousins of mine, so he grasps for another, more plausible answer instead. “I’m trying to communicate with one of the creatures on this island. I believe it’s intelligent, and I’m a naturalist – I study all kinds of living things.” It’s a reasonable enough explanation, he supposes, and he can probably chalk up the feverish glint in his eye to scientific fervor, rather than desperation.

He hopes that he can chalk it up to that.

---

@Andras || <3

"Speech!" 

@

[Andras]

Andras Demyan

"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."

Septimus turns, and greets Andras with a long, level stare. He has eyes like old leaves, eyes like the shells of beetles or blocks of raw jade. For a long moment this is all that passes between them, silence and tension like Andras is not the only coiled spring, not the only dam just barely holding back his gushing heart. He does not look away, but Septimus does--a motion that scatters light off the gems hanging from his antlers and snow off the red curve of his back.

The breath Andras lets out is audible: not quite a sigh, not quite a huff, just a loud expulsion of air, like breathing is a conscious effort and to stay alive and sane is a strain on the body. Sometimes it does feel that way.

I'm-- Septimus stammers, and the light shifts in Andras' glasses as he follows the other's gaze toward a spot in the middle distance where there are tiny, almost imperceptible ripples in the blanket of snow and Andras doesn't see these (he does not wear the glasses as a fashion statement) but he does see the path of naked branches as if something had brushed through and displaced the snow that had covered the few dead leaves that remained. His first thought is, this must be the way Septimus came. His second thought is, there are none of the telltale crescent prints that might suggest his passing.

When their eyes meet again, Andras does not look amused. Curious, maybe. Concerned, even. But not amused.

I'm trying to communicate with one of the creatures on this island.
Andras exhales audibly again and this time it is a sigh.
"Interesting." he says, and it is unclear whether or not he does find it interesting, of if he's saying "interesting" in the way a jilted lover might, full of suspicion and bile.

And he is inclined to believe Septimus - it would be ridiculous not to, as if Andras himself has not been holed up in the library for months, paging his way through book after book on magic and its relation to the body, magic and its relation to the soul, magic and its relation to--well, him. He has his suspicions about the bubbling thing in him, the hungry, angry thing that sang to Isra's. He hopes, he hopes, he hopes.

Andras sighs again, takes his glasses off to rub the feathers of one inky wing against the lenses, and leers back up at Septimus before replacing them. He says, "Let's go find it then." And stretches out one night-dark wing that looks so much darker still against the snow, ushering Septimus to take the lead.

@Septimus

[Septimus]

TO TRAVEL ON AND TRAVEL LIGHT
to travel deep into the night

There is something like concern in his stare, when their eyes meet again – or perhaps curiosity. (More likely that particular in-between that comes from being curious about something that may well be dangerous, and far more dangerous than you.) Interesting, the man says, and Septimus is not sure if he means it or not. He has no idea how to read his tone. He barely knows how to read his expression, or his posture, beyond that it strikes him as distinctly irritated.

Let’s go find it, then, he says, then, and Septimus’s head swivels around to stare at him intently, his surprise evident. After a moment, a smile pulls at his dark lips; they tick upwards just far enough to reveal the canine points of his teeth.

“What-“

There is a gleam in his green eyes that borders on childlike glee. “Really?” he asks, as though he cannot quite believe what he’s hearing; Septimus is so very unaccustomed to anyone else expressing any kind of enthusiasm in his work. (They are always trying to tell him that the habits of beetles are boring, or that there is no point to studying moss or sharks. He supposes that a possibly-intelligent thing would be more interesting to a passing stranger than a the habits of a ladybug or the growth of an oak tree, but it doesn’t quell his surprise entirely.) Even if his enthusiasm comes across as more begrudging than anything, he won’t turn down the offer of help.

(Least of all now – least of all when he is so terribly, terribly desperate to find those creatures that are so like-him.)

He doesn’t actually give him much time to answer; his Really? is more rhetorical than genuine question. “Thank you,” he says, sincerely, and immediately strides forward into the woods, barely sparing a glance over his shoulder to see if the other man follows. He doesn’t know where the faerie-creature has gone, now that it disappeared, but it seems most logical to assume that it went in the direction it was going before it flickered out of existence. It was the only idea he had to go off of, for the moment.

And for a moment, he is, like a proper field researcher, silent. A clever naturalist knew better than to make too much noise, and Septimus had never been anything short of clever. It is certainly not his fae curiosity that inspires him to speak, and it is certainly not anything scientific.

But he has always been a social creature. He will take it as a sign of that - and not his growing mortality, his growing need for intimacy – that the silence between them quickly grows frustrating. He debates. He is sure that he has seen this stranger before, and, surely, it must be rude to go adventuring without introducing himself properly. If he has seen him before, and he is from Delumine, as he thinks that he is, all the better.

“I think I’ve seen you,” he decides, finally, “in Delumine. I’m Septimus – and you are?”

---

@Andras || <3

"Speech!" 

@

[Andras]

and i was a hand grenade
that never stopped exploding

Septimus is lost in some great tide of emotion, drowned in the undertow of his desperate want, maybe need, and all Andras does it wait.

He knows what it's like, to be drowning. Knows, too, what it is to be called by something entirely other, a force that rumbles out of cracks in the earth and says come here, come home, come play. All his life the earth has been begging him to become something, to be something new, or dangerous, or maybe both. Of course--Andras does not agree out of a sense of camaraderie, or brotherly love. He just... does, and that's enough.

"Well, yeah." Andras says, in the way Andras has of saying kind things in a decidedly unkind way, "You're--" welcome, he starts to say also, but Septimus is already gone, sweeping past in a flurry of red and green and jingling trinkets. Andras tries not to scoff as he rocks back to follow, but he does not try very hard.

For a longer moment than most, everything is quiet, except for the crunch of snow beneath Septimus' feet and the much quieter sound of Andras carefully tracking through his footsteps with his wings folded over his back. The landscape is quiet too, as if out of a dream, with barely even the breath of winter through the trees to let them know it is--and they are--real at all. Outside the stand of trees, fat flakes have started to fall. Ahead, their long white trunks grow closer together, casting blue winter shadows over the ground and each other.

He almost jumps when Septimus speaks again, turning almost too fast.
It would have been fine, not to talk. Andras is quiet. Andras is soltudinous. It would have been fine.

I think I've seen you, Septimus says, and Andras stares thoughtfully at him. "Probably. Call me Andras." he says, and in a rare moment of levity, adds: "Did the glasses give it away?." He does not say warden and he does not say that the word warden makes his skin crawl, just ducks under the low-hanging branches of an oncoming tree as they pass, spilling snow over his neck and lapsing into tense silence.

When it comes, the sound is too loud, almost deafening: like a ringing glass bell from behind a tree, first far ahead, then to the left, then from somewhere behind them. Always the same bone-shattering ding, in the same tone, for the same length of time. The sound of a thing that does not want to be passed by. He does not remember stopping but when he turns to Septimus again he already has.

He cannot quite decide if it's music, or the rattling of a snake, an invitation or a warning.

"I think that's it," he says with his face pulled into some vague, grim expression, "Whatever you're looking for."

Andras Demyan, warden of Delumine

@Septimus