YOU ARE SUCH A SOFT AND MESSY THING, NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOU
There a swarms of colors, swathes of scarves and smells of incents. Laughter plays like violins along every little route and in each corridor the Emissary looks down. Among it all, she is a ghost of the girl she was but weeks ago.
Shrines burn brightly for those who are lost, those who are dead, and those who are simply missing. Heavy is the heart that sits, barely beating, within sparrow-boned breast. Heavier are the golden eyes that have long since stopped crying for the public's eye.
Moira Tonnerre is a lost-girl.
She wonders, a wraith among the crowd, a hollow smile and gentle nod from her here and there when those of her court come forth. Their souls sing with glee; hers is full of dread. Beside a neatly kept alter the phoenix stops, looking to the empty surface with but a name. 'Raum' it says simply. There she stares and stares and stares. At last, Moira asks Neerja to come and bring it with. Moments pass in thoughtful silence within the sea of noise, and at last the Malaysian tiger comes slinking through the masses.
To her bonded, Neerja presents a painting - one of the latest the Tonnerre girl has done - completely in blacks and whites and greys. Sharp silver eyes swirl with emotion, they stare at her and she stares at them. At last, Moira floats her small portrait of the once-tyrant, the once-man, the hanged-man, the dead-man onto his small temple of remembrance. She dips her head low, a final goodbye to the man she first knew in the open spaces of a lake, and she remembers that he told her all he saw were lies reflected in the surface.
Moira Tonnerre wonders if that is still true.
e-cho & tibet-lama | @ open | an elusive echo open appears
WERE I IF I COULD, I WOULD ERASE YOUR ARMOUR
RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL
BY THE SUN, A VERITABLE GOD
I WOULD TAKE YOUR SPEAR
AND RETURN THE LYRE
In her homeland, they did not speak often of death. It was inevitable, and simplistic. For them, there are only two ways to die—with honour, or without it.
For the honourable, great pyres were built upon the black cliffside of her old city. They would dance beneath the night sky and wish them on to the Old Gods, where they could rest as all great warriors did, among their ancestors. For the dishonoured, they were sent to sea, as they had banished her, to be feasted upon by fish and never reach the sky. As she walks among the grieving and the living, she thinks of her father’s funeral upon those stark, unloving cliffs. Boudika had not cried but stood, instead, in her full battle dress. Her eyes had taken in his shape one final time, how he was dark and forlorn in death but his battle regalia somehow heightened him to the man he had once been, the man he would always try to be. She had carried the torch to set the dry wood aflame, and send him to the afterlife. Boudika had loved her father but, feeling the heat the pyre, she did not know if she had loved him enough.
Her eyes feast upon the scenes around her, the momentos and small monuments. Very few grieved alone and this, in her mind, highlights her own loneliness from the past. Vercingtorix had not come. Other friends had, and her father’s comrades, but she had been the last one standing there to watch the embers. A Khashran slave collected the ashes and presented to her in a golden urn which, she imagines, must still be resting on the mantle of their old home—
Boudika decides that is enough remembrance. She is no longer there, nor will she ever return--those chapters of her life have, in their own way, been laid to rest. She thinks of how this is the Night Court's festival of mourning—but equally, it is a festival of celebration, and acknowledgement of life. She drinks hot cider and listens to the music throughout the marketplace, wandering disembodied and… lost. Boudika has no one here to grieve, and although she is now the champion of this community, she has yet to feel a part of it.
First, it is the tigress that catches Boudika’s attention. Then, it is the red-winged girl. Lastly, it is the name. The name she has heard whispered for months, the name that belongs to a man she has never met but knows has caused great and terrible pain. Boudika approaches quietly, allowing the woman a moment to erect the portrait and then: "Why do you grieve him?" It takes Boudika a moment to recognise the woman as the Court Emissary, but she then she does, and for a moment... Boudika almost regrets her question.
She dismisses this, however, because it is genuine and heartfelt query. She knows, in her heart of hearts, there is a place she has left bare for Vercingtorix, a place that will forever be bare for him and him alone. It does not matter what he has done. A part of Boudika continues to love him.
Grueling tensions // Want me in a spiral // I'm waiting to unravel // Twisted motives // Drive me in a circle // I'm dying to untangle
Mourning. Grief. These emotions are not ones Morrighan is very familiar with. She's certainly lost some important people in her life, but she was always the type to simply move on. Sitting and wallowing in sadness is a waste of time, in her mind, and there are more productive things to be doing.
There are great bonfires and dancing, bringing a different spin on what she knows as mourning. Everyone handles their emotions differently and for her, sometimes it's easier to set something on fire and then be done with it. Walk away and find something else to do. That is why this section of the festival seems so strange to her. There are altars placed on the sides of the markets with candles and other special items. There are many names she does not recognize, although she remembers Asterion and Acton being muttered at one point. Some are crying, some are laughing.
The sight of a tiger next to a winged mare is what really draws her attention. She knows that tiger, she remembers it from the lake, but most recently from the island. How could she forget that altercation? The one where she was trying to get information out of a stranger that seemed not-too-strange to Moira, who then reamed her out for no apparent reason.
Well, clearly her words had no repercussions because she now held the title of Warden. Isra had yet to question her loyalty.
Next to Moira is Boudika, who she hears ask "Why do you grieve him?" She is about to make some kind of snarky comment when she looks down and sees it. That name. The one that burned on her tongue and destroyed the lives of many. The one who took Isra and set fire to these very markets.
And Moira has set something down on his very altar.
There is bubbling rage inside Morrighan, perhaps the strongest she has felt in a long time. The ground beneath her hooves burn and she so badly wants to reach out and turn the entire altar into ash. To watch the name tag catch fire and burn burn burn.
But she waits, she tries to hold it in, because there are more pressing matters at hand.
"That is a good question. What side are you on exactly, Moira Tonnerre?" she asks, her voice almost like a growl. Her eyes say it all if her tone doesn't and she is not afraid of the backlash she may likely face. After all, it isn't her loyalty that is in question.
YOU ARE SUCH A SOFT AND MESSY THING, NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOU
Tiger tail flicks side to side, a protective stance taken up behind the Pegasus as blue eyes wonder of the people milling about. Some glance at their Emissary, wondering why a gift of hers is placed upon his alter that was to be forgotten. Others hurry by, unwilling to meet those glacier eyes that simply dare them to come closer.
But one does.
People part before Boudika, bodies stepping back as the warrior hones in on the mourning girl dressed in red and starlight. They should have passed like ships in the night, unknowing of the other until a fateful collision. Or perhaps this was the collision bound to happen. No matter the circumstances or reasoning, the Champion of Community comes forth and passes by the tiger who wears a snarl. Up to the Emissary she comes, head tilted, curiosity pouring from every inch, piled into a question that hits her like a bullet.
Silence breaks. It shatters like starlight around her. Gold rises in depthless black, traveling up, up, up the refined build of a woman much stronger in physique than she. Delicately arched neck, carefully curved crown, teardrop ears, all of it is a mastery of curvature and lack of straight lines that makes up the phoenix. Aureate eyes meet red, copper, orange, all of it bathed in the shadow that floating clouds provide. Not even the fires dare reach into this little space. Here, it is a deadzone.
Dark lips part, words on the tip of her tongue, but another, sharper voice hits her. Snared, a rabbit caught in a trap, a deer in the headlights, the phoenix' thunderous gaze now moves like water, like quicksand, fighting to find and hone in upon Morrighan. Unaware. The Emissary is so unaware of the title her sister in court has gained, but even if she knew, it is doubtful that it would matter.
IF she were to have said anything contemplative, reflective, or simply something other in confidence to Boudika, the words sizzle out; dying embers left as ash upon her tongue. "Morrighan," Moira says at last. An eternity passed in those seconds of silence. She would have let it go on forever where it not for their third companion. There is a coolness to her words, a wall between the women that is quickly growing with ivy and thorns. "I am on the side of our court, of course. If you take issue with who I pay respects to and who I do not, I invite you to pay yours elsewhere." Simple is her request, and there is no love lost when she says it.
Courts of vipers were friendlier than the Emissary and the Warden. It was a misunderstanding of massive proportions that led them down this rabbit hole. Starting off on the wrong foot, and never putting forth the effort to correct it. Now, the ice that builds its castle to separate Moira and Morrighan is impressive, if not slightly concerning.
Turning from the woman on fire, the phoenix looks again to Boudika. "I don't know that we've met, I am Moira Tonnerre, could I ask after your name?" It's softer, the way she talks, the way her head tilts to the side with curiosity and inquiries again. Something thaws in a matter of moments as she passes from a façade of frozen northern plains to that of budding springtime flowers and then into a thoughtful repose.
She ignores the footsteps burned into the ground as she withdraws. Lips purse and brows draw together. Golden eyes drift to the image - the only thing upon the alter - and she wonders again and again. "Perhaps it is not mourning so much as a remembrance. Before he was a tyrant, before he was a broken man with something twisting inside, a wound that festered too long and became to raw that it bled its poison into the world, I knew Raum as a man. When he was flesh and blood and silver and I was new to these lands, he reached out a hand." Stark honesty is there, intermingled with past reflection and novel insights. "It was not warm, but it was honest. I do not think I would be here now if not for Raum. I hope he flies with his ancestors, whoever they may be."
At last, golden eyes go first to Boudika and then Morrighan. At last they rest upon Neerja, warmly finding glacial blue that could freeze oceans. "Even the mad-kings are remembered before they were mad."
e-cho & tibet-lama | @'Boudika' @'Morrighan' @'Erasmus' | ooooh, here i was trying to keep it short pofaijsdf; <3
WERE I IF I COULD, I WOULD ERASE YOUR ARMOUR
RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL
BY THE SUN, A VERITABLE GOD
I WOULD TAKE YOUR SPEAR
AND RETURN THE LYRE
For one thinking so intimately about death, Boudika feels light. Her burdens have been left elsewhere, in another life, and in this one she does not carry with her the hardships of death. Not yet. No, for now, she only harbours memories of men who may as well be myth. She is a ship in uncharted waters; a wanderer upon a new vista. Yet, Boudika is sharply aware of the fact she is surrounded by death. Perhaps, like Charon at the River Styx, she is only meant to be a ferryman between. The thought strikes her more harshly than she intended, and for a moment she wonders at it—if, perhaps, that had always been her role.
But for now, there is a snarling tiger and a girl like a phoenix. The Emissary wears her grief as though it is not grief; she wears it as though it is a weight, leadening her eyes, pressing mournful kisses upon bowing shoulders. Boudika understands her question is too forward, but she does not try and take it back. She lets the silence stretch just as the Emissary does, feeling a hunger, voracious within her, to understand. The only grief she has ever known has belonged to her and this grief, staring at her in fire-eyes and a silver portrait, is as foreign as the land she now inhabits. There is a shift on the mare’s face, as though she is about to answer, and then—
“That is a good question.” The voice is abrasive. Boudika turns, her ears cocking forward, to assess Morrighan as she arrives. The other mare's rage is epitomised in the fire that burns at her hooves.
The silence stretches between the Warden and the Emissary, and for a moment the Champion is at a loss. The silence is too heavy for there not to be history shared between the two, and the awkward drawing of tension—taunter than the drawn string of a bow in war—is enough to affirm the fact. They share words and Boudika assesses them both, until Moira introduces herself.
Boudika clears her throat. “I am Boudika. I’m the new Champion of Community.” The title did not quite fit in her mouth the way it ought to, but Boudika discovers a warmth in Moira that was not there previously. The Emissary goes on to answer Boudika's initial question, and there is a tragedy within the story.
Remembrance. Before he was a tyrant…
Boudika nods her head, side-eyeing Morrighan as Moira shares. "I see.” The once-a-dancer thinks she understands, and contemplates sharing her own truths on the matter—before she refrains. At last, Boudika shrugs her supple, leonine shoulders. “Perhaps he should be remembered all the more because he went mad.” She looks at the portrait, then, for the first time—and she sees a man she only ever knew by name and reputation. A tyrant. Boudika knows little of tyrants; but she has known plenty fo mad men. She is intimately familiar with love, and death, and hate—and perhaps there is wisdom in mourning all of those things, and what they can become. Raum's silver eyes watch them, even in death, and Boudika wonders naively if she could have saved them their suffering, if only she had been a part of the story.
“Why do you hate him?” This matter-of-fact question is for Morrighan. Boudika knows the answer is most likely obvious, but there is a power to demanding the truth of it from someone, in demanding their reasonings. She wants to know why the painted woman burns.
Grueling tensions // Want me in a spiral // I'm waiting to unravel // Twisted motives // Drive me in a circle // I'm dying to untangle
Back on the island, the tension had been strong, but not anything close to the emotions Morrighan was feeling on this night. At one time she had not minded the Emissary, but all of that had been quickly shattered. The woman's heart had been elsewhere and it's clear now as she stands in front of Raum's memorial. It wouldn't be surprising at this point if she had been the one to create it.
A flame erupts from her hooves as she's no longer able to hold it in. It's not a large flame, but she has half a mind to will it forth and destroy every last shred of memory to Raum. Soon, she says to herself, like she's taming a wild beast inside her. It twists and turns as if begging to be let go. There is another feeling tugging at her, but this one is within her mind. She quickly looks over and sees Bram standing in the shadows a little ways away looking concerned. She does not acknowledge him and he stays where he is (for now).
Perhaps she should let the fire go after the woman who lies. Moira claims she's on the Court's side, but yet she mourns a murderer, a tyrant, a piece of shit who caused nothing but hell for nearly everyone. Quite frankly, Morrighan got tired of hearing his name after a while and just wanted to go over there and set them all on fire. Let them start over. At least Isra had been a part of taking the bastard down at last.
As Moira goes over her excuses to Boudika, Morrighan just simply rolls her eyes. She's only half listening since all the words coming out of the woman's mouth are just complete bullshit. Should this be surprising? Though it's the last line that truly has her reeling - "I would not be here if it weren't for Raum." Well, this just gave her another item to add to the list of reasons why Raum sucked.
Maybe there is always the one person who makes excuses for the evil in the world. Maybe it's because they're incapable of seeing evil. But at this point, both Moira and Boudika have Morrighan feeling completely dumbfounded. Her anger is still at its peak, but she is in shock with just how disconnected they both are.
"Why do you hate him?"
And then -
She just erupts into uncontrollable laughter. What a stupid fucking question to ask.
"Why do I hate him? Do I really need to explain myself?" she finally says, breaking from her laughter as the anger set back in. They were both incredibly dense. "Need I remind you both of all the shit Raum has put everyone through? Put us through?" She turns to the Emissary then as the fire appeared to get taller. "Moira- was it not you who gathered us all to go after Raum when he took Isra from us? She went missing, remember? She may as well have been dead." That very meeting was when something sparked in Morrighan to fight. She barely knew anyone then, but the fact that some random asshole came and took her leader didn't sit well with her.
"When she finally returned, the markets were set on fire. Do I need to remind you of that Boudika? Or did you already forget the minion we captured and brought to Isra for interrogation. Yeah, that was Raum, by the way. He was behind that order. Some people died from those fires and we lost a lot of valuable shit."
The woman steps closer to the memorial, the fire almost within reach of that wretched name tag.
"Someone like Raum is not worthy of remembrance, not in that way," she continues, spitting at the ground near the altar. "He deserves to rot in hell for what he put us through - and to Solterra, for that matter. I don't give a shit how good you think he was before, that doesn't absolve him of all that he did before he died."
Suddenly Bram is by her side, likely because he can feel the growing anger within his companion. For once, his presence feels slightly comforting. He faces the two women, his muscles tense, but he does not engage. Not unless one of them makes a first move.
"The fact that this thing is here is a betrayal to the Court." She almost spits out that Moira herself is betraying them all, but she waits. She doesn't care how much she burns the bridge between them, but she would care if she lost her new position or the trust Isra put in her.
YOU ARE SUCH A SOFT AND MESSY THING, NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO TAKE CARE OF YOU
Fires come from feet unbidden, they slash out at the night air, the crisp air, demanding their sacrifice - their pound of flesh. It is something the emissary will not give. Her lips turn down as a disdainful look passes over Morrighan, disgust a growing seed in her heart, a shadow upon her skin. It stains her, it marks her as a sinner as she passes judgement on another whom Isra so chose to protect and defend their court.
The phoenix does not dwell, not yet. Instead, she turns. Night and day, two different sides of the same woman, the Emissary dips her head to Boudika and smiles. It is soft and it is true, if not tense for the presence of the third in their company. "I look forward to seeing you more and getting to know you, Boudika," and the words are honest and they are kind, they are the girl who grew up in the dark, the girl who determined to take her fate into her own hands, the girl who fought tooth and nail to save that which she loves and holds most dear.
They are good and they are true.
And so is - was? - the Emissary who turns.
Rounding on Morrighan, dark ears tip back into even darker curls that are pinned so tightly they seem on the verge of busting free if not fear of reprimand from the girl who wears them. "You speak for the Court now, do you, Warden?" Crisp, sharper than the air kissing their cheeks, she is a viper readying to strike. "Bold for the executioner to also be the judge, isn't it? I thought we had a Queen to decide what can and cannot be. Lest you forget, it is wise to learn from history. I can see there is little wisdom in your heated blood, though, and so I will not fault you for your anger, not yet. But please, pray tell, have I harmed you, Morrighan? Have I spit upon your feet as you spit at me?" It is not a hiss, not a scream, but something quiet and something frightening. No leveled glares, no ugly sneers light her face any longer.
Beside her Neerja's tail twitches, muscles bunch beneath alternating colored fur, blue eyes promise death if ever she is unleashed. But Moira does not let her companion devour every sinner in their court. Instead, bright eyes look to Boudika, the markets, then they look back - frigid in their intensity, terrifying in the glow that surrounds them - and she speaks once more. "I don't think I have, but you've a nasty attitude. I would suggest, as a medical professional, a doctor check that before it burns you."
She does not care what Morrighan will think, only that the very essence of the woman seems to irritate her. Perhaps it is because she is unlike anything - and everything - the phoenix was raised with. Volatile, hot-headed, something sickly and always needing to prove her worth. Tonnerres knew who they were. They need not prove a thing (unless you were a girl born with wings), and they were always certain their glacial facades never slipped. Not once would a hair be found out of place, not once would a cutting remark be so forward and pressed upon their lips. They are proper and they are terrible. But they are not hot-headed and they were not the fiery soul that the Warden is.
At last she sighs, shaking her crown, the dark fringe upon her brow shivers with her movements. "We're not here to be horrid, although some can't seem to help it. I don't mourn him, and I do not think Raum was good. I do not think many a thing you seem to believe, Warden. You put words in my mouth that I do not say. Curious, isn't it - perhaps the once-king would have done that to his people, too?" The barb is slipped in only because she knows it will upset the other, only because she cannot help the way she wishes Morrighan would leave and never return to her site. But Moira has always been good at running, that was never an issue before. Here, here she has a court and so many faces that bring starlight back into her life, bring color on a rainy day, bring delight and surprises and sweetness like she could not ask for before.
So she stays, and she does not run, and she puts up with the Warden like a thorn in her side. A rather ugly one at that. "I remember all that he did, I remember it well. You should not speak of that which you do not know and throw your words around so carelessly." Her admonishment continues, uncaring of those who hear her. If she could but scream and throw a fit and let fire erupt as the Warden did, perhaps she would be in a different place. Perhaps she would be the face that now looks at Moira with murder and loathing. With a flick of golden eyes to the painting and back again, the Emissary shrugs. Head high, she says "Burn it, I'll merely paint another every day and leave it on your doorstep. I don't think it wise to see the way she'd light them on fire, Boudika, but she is so horrid without reason. Such creatures I was lucky enough to not be raised around. Perhaps that is why she dislikes me so? Because I cannot stand her like this - so enraged with nothing but fury. It will devour her."
Turning away from the woman of fire and rage, she looks instead to Boudika, finds her way back in a sea of storms to the only lighthouse she can find. "That fire, it will burn and burn out. When her flames go, do you think she would, too? It's so awful to see the light go out of someone. The light left my mother a marionette, but I think she was charming before she was so hollow." There is a hollowness, an emptiness in her words, too. Hollow eyes only meet her when she looks into her memories, when she thinks of the woman who was red and beautiful and bold once. Now there is only a slash for a line of lips and tearstains on cheeks behind closed doors.
Once, Gizelle was breathtaking.
Time wore her down. Time destroyed her. Sniffing as though she smells something rotten, she says at last, "You," and pauses to think; then, "no, you're not charming at all." And perhaps you cannot teach a monster how to be a part of the genteel society, but some things are still yet in her power. Impressions be damned, this is a war and the phoenix is ready to battle.
e-cho & tibet-lama | @'Boudika' @'Morrighan' | it only took literal years to try and find the words
12-15-2019, 05:41 PM - This post was last modified: 12-15-2019, 05:43 PM by Moira
Grueling tensions // Want me in a spiral // I'm waiting to unravel // Twisted motives // Drive me in a circle // I'm dying to untangle
She can tell she's struck a nerve in the Emissary and Morrighan could care less. At this point, there is no hope to ever mending this relationship, or even really a point. How Isra has any respect for this woman is beyond her, but maybe she's just good at putting on a fake smile. Maybe their Queen did not yet know what lay beneath that facade and the Warden is not afraid of exposing it.
While the woman goes on, the fury continues to bubble inside Morrighan. Next to her, Bram looks on with his hackles raised, matching the position of Moira's tiger. They lock eyes but do not attack, not without the order. It's tempting to say the word, but she also doesn't want to rely on her companion to fight her battles. She's more than capable with her many years of training for war.
Moira claims she hasn't harmed Morr, but in a way she has. "By pulling this shit, you are labeling yourself as a traitor. I don't know how anyone, Isra included, could trust you after this," she growls, her nostrils flaring and the fire beneath her continuing to burn. It reaches closer and closer towards the altar, wanting to consume every inch and maybe even take a bit of flesh off the Emissary.
At the jab that she needs to see a doctor, Morrighan just laughs. "The only one who needs something checked is you. A reality check should do you some good. I wouldn't have to be having this conversation if that disgraceful memorial was never created. From how defensive you're being with me, I would suspect that you were the one to resurrect it and that is a major concern."
The Emissary goes on to explain she does not mourn Raum and even tries to compare the man to Morrighan. It's a poor comparison though and she just shakes her head. It would do some good too for this woman to get the stick out of her ass.
Moira then turns to Boudika like a queen bee in a clique using her followers to turn on the lesser being. It's quite petty and Morr simply rolls her eyes. Before this, she hadn't felt anything particular towards the Champion. She had been helpful in capturing Abel, but other than that, they were acquaintances. If after this, the woman simply takes Moira's side, there would be nothing lost on Morrighan's end. After all, she didn't take on the position of Warden to make peace or new friends. She did it to do a job and make sure people weren't doing anything they shouldn't.
"You're a hypocrite. What powers do you have? You should be careful what bridges you burn because I will surely not be afraid to use my fire against you if the situation warrants it," she threatens, the fire growing higher and higher. Bram tenses beside her, but she gives him a look to stay put.
At this point, she's tired of dealing with the bullshit. Moira will not listen to her, maybe not even Boudika, and she was not accomplishing anything from this back and forth. She shakes her head and turns to leave, but not before her last words.
"Mark my words, Moira Tonnerre, watch your back. You're walking on eggshells and you can be sure that I will be reporting this to Isra."
She glares at Boudika but does not say anything directed to her for now. Time will tell if the woman takes any side, but she could care less if Moira wanted to create a group to go against her. Morrighan knows Isra will take her side and be just as furious as she is. What will happen next, she isn't sure, but she will be sure to keep a close eye on the Emissary. The woman doesn't scare her and she isn't afraid to take her down if needed.
For now she doesn't and the fire is snuffed out, but the smell of smoke is pungent. A reminder for Moira not to mess with her again or else she'll face her wrath. If anything, she will keep a watchful eye on the woman (or through Bram's eyes). As far as Morrighan is concerned, the Emissary cannot be trusted.
@Moira @Boudika dun dun dunnn
I know I'm posting out of order but I felt like putting a closer in here early just to wrap things up <3
