Amidst all the destruction, all the pain of a world undergoing change (but are they growing-pains or dying-pains?) winter has come at last to Novus.
What strange storms have circled the summits of the Arma Mountains have finally wrung out their fury, and left softer cloudbanks in their wake, and a dusting of snow. It is not so easy, now, to tell the burned-places from the ones that are simply bare for the season, with all of them coated in white.
Lysander is a bright spot against a mute day, burnished copper against the white and brown and evergreen. He is hunting, but his prey, mistletoe, is proving an evasive thing. Still he is in no true hurry; his days are as idle as they’ve ever been, unconcerned as he is with court politics. There are no more rescues to be made, no more floods to flee from, no more bedsides to sit beside and spin out stories until he feels something like numbness.
He spots the fox first, small and tawny and far more out of place than he is, here at the foot of the mountains. It is a curious thing, and he pauses to watch it pass by – and is not wholly surprised to see the figure not far behind it, emerging from a copse of aspen, as striped as birch-bark.
As for himself, Lysander is impossible to miss where he stands amid the briar and leaf-litter and snow, and he inclines his angular head when the stallion’s gaze finds him.
“If you’re one of the Ilati, you’re some ways from home,” he says easily, but if it is true the stranger could hardly be blamed – Tinea was still barely habitable, and a flooded swamp in winter sounded like a terrible place to be.
And anyway, anyone familiar with him would know Lysander is far from home, too.
The snow had finally arrived—not with a vengeance nor in simple malice. It powdered the ground and to come from it was a soft, cold blanket. He roamed back outside the walls of the castle with curiosity as his reason. Now that Kauri had the chance and the energy, he ate away at the snow. The way how it melted away upon his tongue was a peculiar feeling. This silly action brought back memories of his days as a foal where all there was was pine trees and shying oaks dressed in white. The stallion sighed in content as these old recollections meant good this time. He grazed about the edge of the lake but once seeing Naiosé stray farther away, Kauri followed the fennec with the intent of retrieving him.
One hole after another. It was amusing to watch the small canine hop through the snow. Large ears twitched and swiveled, a clear enough sign that his companion was on the hunt. The masked equine decided to try and help as Naiosé only seemed to struggle. Together, one listened and the other dug. The duo would lose track of time while they slowly made their way to the mountains.
His skin has grown use to the presence of winter—or perhaps went numb because of it; whichever, his body would always miss the hot desert heat. And surely, Naiosé still had a hard time adjusting. His fluffy coat did little to protect him from this particular element. Before Kauri would decide to cut this hunt short, a moth fluttered along the breeze that blew by. With his companion now fired up and ready to chase, the stallion continued to follow along.
Rested on a tree was the moth and down below was a snappy fox. No matter how high he leaped, the fennec’s prey was too far above to reach on his own. Kauri watched for a moment before finally getting the bug for Naiosé. He reared up against the tree and snapped right onto the moth’s wing. As he brought down this catch, he chuckled when the canine took the insect with a kiss placed on the horse’s nose. Letting out a light sigh, his violet eyes then scanned the area only to see a stranger not a second after.
Kauri promptly tilted his head at what he has heard. He had no clues, no ideas on what this other equine was referencing. Before responding, he would grab his companion and place him onto his withers. "Mmm, yes, I am some ways from home. This Ilati you speak of, however, has nothing to do with me," he answered.
"Why would you assume that?"
There was no telling in whether the matter they spoke of was good or bad, honorable or deplorable. He’d study the other’s looks as he awaited for their reason.
Lysander watches the stranger lift the little fox with a peculiar kind of curiosity; it is not entirely detached, it is not quite jealousy, it is nothing he has a name for. Certainly he is new enough to the possibility of friendship that the kind of connection a horse shared with their bonded is well beyond his imaging, but the antlered stallion tries anyway.
Is it like sharing a piece of your soul, he wonders, and never being alone again? Is it a frightening thing, to have something so different from you tied to you so closely?
He does not think he would want such a bond – but then, loneliness is such a new feeling to him.
He flicks his ears forward at the stranger’s response, and there is nothing in the other’s tone that suggests a lie. Lysander shrugs a dark copper shoulder, and drifts a step nearer to the man and his fox.
“The mask you wear,” he answers, “and the feathers. I don’t know much of them, but I do know they have a fondness for adorning themselves similarly. They’ve only recently emerged from the deeper places of the swamp…” The once-god trails off, less interested in offering a lecture than in learning about the two before him.
When he tilts his head, it is with the frank, curious expression of a wolf, but in truth Lysander is grateful not to have been happened on by a kelpie or a gang with a knife, as on his previous solo forays. Neither did this stranger exude the kind of electric danger of Calliope –
But still he does not fully relax. Little, he has found, is safe here in Novus.
“If you are not of Terrastella, where is it you travel from, and how does it fare? My news of the other courts has been…limited, of late.”
An understatement: his days had been spent beside Florentine’s bedside, cradled in the heart of a great tree like owls in winter. Outside the rain went on and on, each day gray enough to not notice when morning slid into afternoon and then once more into night; everything was only dark and then less-dark.
But his understanding of Novus had always circled around her, held like a moon to her gravity as he is. He is not so much a fool as to pretend it isn’t a weakness.
He hums a little tune as his interest is piqued. A few beings that adorn themselves like he have surfaced a swamp. Kauri could only wonder of their intentions and what purpose they must have. It was nothing new for the witches and warlocks of his home to flaunt such adornments; often the remains of these forgotten creatures worn were a show of eld. Of course, they held a deeper meaning. And for the sacred soul, a certain power.
His eyes broke away from the stranger and seemingly did they search for something within the peaks far above them. How does it fare? Surely, the other meant not his homeworld, but he still lightly bit his lip. A mess, a disaster, a former shell of what life used to be. It was horrid, wretched. The masked fellow blinked away what thoughts clouded his vision and breathed out a small sigh.
Where he has recently traveled from... Kauri trails his gaze back to this other stallion. The feeling of disappointment remains strong within him, a reemerging pain surging through his chest. He was not sure how most people of the desert lands above took the blizzard, but the sudden shock of the freezing cold nearly had his heart—and he would assume the same for every critter caught in the brunt of the storm.
“Before I left, the desert lands were overwhelmed with snow while a blizzard whipped against any who tread through it. I cannot tell you of the people or court itself, whether they are well or suffering.”
Shaking his head, he’d sound a snort soon after. “I wonder for the future of this world. These gods, oh, how I fear for the people,” he admits with his faith dried onto his tongue. His trust for the divinities here was sparse though it seems to nearly disappear as these disasters struck the region. But he tried to keep a small piece of optimism, as he silently wished to connect to these beings as he has forever lost touch with his own deities. He needed assurance.
He slinks forward to the stranger and circles around in examining his features more closely. His legs stop him right before the antlered equine, and his eyes shortly bore into the green eyes of this male. Kauri then turned his head away as he looked off elsewhere. “Hm, what brings you to this court’s lands? Looking to know more of the damage, here to see a friend?” he asked. He returns his attention to this horse and nudges away Naiosé’s curious nose from intruding the space between them.
A dark-edged ear twists at the sound of that hum, the little sound of thinking he’d heard from few others. Florentine hummed like that, when she was pleased or preoccupied, and somehow this warms him to the stranger. Still, he says nothing to fill the brief silence, and only watches as the striped man’s gaze turns up and away.
Oh, but he recognizes something of the worry that twists his mouth, then, the distance in his gaze – but what of that? Such an expression was not uncommon in Novus, especially here at the apparent end of days.
Whatever place the stranger is thinking of, Lysander had never expected the answer to be anything good.
Even so he is still surprised at the report, and feels his heart darken further toward the gods of this place. Whatever cruel games they played, he wanted no place in them – but he’d long since lost his choice in such matters.
Grimly he nods, in agreement with the clear ill feelings of the other. “I wonder if they are causing it, or allowing it to happen, or incapable of ending it.” His words are low, dark as tangled undergrowth, and he knows regardless of which truth it is the gods would find little forgiveness for their vanishing. These disasters may well be the breaking of an already beaten people.
He is surprised again when the stranger draws nearer – more bold than he had initially supposed. Lysander examines the stallion in kind, passing an equally curios gaze once more over the fox until he is caught by the vivid purple of the man’s eyes. When the other looks away, the antlered stallion does not.
“A little of both,” he says – vaguely if not untruthfully – and smiles when the little fox extends its narrow nose. “And to see what useful things might be left in the mountains. Terrastella is low on herbs and remedies – the past months have taken their toll in every conceivable way.” Of course he says nothing of mistletoe, or any other poison he sought – such intentions were something he would hardly share with friends, much less a stranger whose face he could hardly make out beneath their mask.
Almost he asks of the stallion’s business – Lysander had not missed the way he said this court, and some ways from home, and how he did not seem to count himself a member of any place yet named. Instead, he tilts his head once more toward the fox. “How long have you two traveled together?”
@Kauri random side note, I love all your art of him! I keep seeing it around DA and it's all gorgeous!
The snow had finally arrived—not with a vengeance nor in simple malice. It powdered the ground and to come from it was a soft, cold blanket. He roamed back outside the walls of the castle with curiosity as his reason. Now that Kauri had the chance and the energy, he ate away at the snow. The way how it melted away upon his tongue was a peculiar feeling. This silly action brought back memories of his days as a foal where all there was was pine trees and shying oaks dressed in white. The stallion sighed in content as these old recollections meant good this time. He grazed about the edge of the lake but once seeing Naiosé stray farther away, Kauri followed the fennec with the intent of retrieving him.