Slowly, ever so slowly, the flood waters recede, the tide creeping its way back into the ocean. Water is left trapped within the streets of Denocte, but it is dramatically lower now.
But the water doesn’t return to its usual position.
The waves pull farther and farther back out to sea, revealing the shore line inch by precious inch. Shells, seaweed, crabs, even stranded fish line the seashore. Off in the distance, the waves continue to recede.
Out in the Area Mountains, the thunderstorms have started. There is no rain, only wind and lightning and thunder ravaging the skies and earth. Trees bend beneath the tempest’s rage, leaves and debris scattering wildly.
Lightning flashes overhead, arcing across the sky. Thunder rumbles the ground.
Occasionally you might see a glimpse of wings, a huge creature looming in the clouds - brief enough that you wonder if the dragons of the lost Regime have returned. Hope might fill you for just a second - before the lightning strikes again, this time touching down.
The ground shakes.
It may not be wise to be caught up here in the storm, but where else is there to go? The sight is dangerously beautiful, and the lightning makes contact with the earth rarely. And where it does, it leaves glittering glass melted into intricate patterns in its wake.
Will you stay, and stand in defiance to the storm, trying to figure out what lurks overhead? Or will you seek cover, or come face to face with the lightning itself?
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08-19-2018, 04:46 PM - This post was last modified: 08-20-2018, 12:25 AM by inkbone
Kauri the treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel
His body couldn’t take it anymore. This fierce snowstorm has continued its wrath for what has felt like days on end. He takes a rasping breath once he decides to endure the storm to hopefully find calmness south of this realm. Kauri remembered the directions a spotted mare gave him, so he would navigate himself to the mountains in which guarded the Night Court's lands. Ensuring his companion held tightly onto his mane, he left this desert with the intention to begin somewhere anew.
The still cold that filled the air after he steps over the borders; it feels strangely wonderful. He could hear a sigh of relief from Naiosé, which prompted Kauri’s own contented breath. Although they finally escaped the raging snow, as the stallion looks to the somber clouds above the mountains, it was apparent their venture was not over. The sky growled and often followed a roar come the flashes of lightning. Despite how much his bones began to ache, there was something soothing about the storm in which eased his mind. Once done admiring the thunderstorm, he pushes through the faint pain in his body and starts to work his way up the trail.
Light, cautious steps steer over each weak point present on this path. He could sense his bonded’s nervousness, Kauri shushing away the unease. The mountain horse he had deeply buried away shone bright throughout this climb. It was a small part of him he would always cherish, no matter how long ago it’s been since his once tiny form grew upon those mountains—he’d still call it his true home.
Nearly finished traversing this trail, his exit from the inside of the mountains came to a complete stop as lightning struck the earth. The bang emitted afterwards deafened him, and the shaking ground leaves him stumbling a bit. Naiosé yelps, hiding himself more with the stallion’s hair. Kauri flicks his ears until his hearing returns and recovers his balance once the ground becomes still again. Violet eyes peeked from the opening that marked the start of his descent. With which way the wind blew, he stood skeptical in trying to travel down at this time.
Before taking a step outside, he catches a glimpse of beating wings. He stares at the clouds above him, infrequently spotting them. What beast lurks these skies? Fascination suffocated his vigilance, Kauri snaking out from the opening to watch the storm that swarmed, but he makes sure to remain next to the hole. His nostrils flared to take in any scents, a smell of burnt dirt apparent in the air. Does this monster speak of impending doom or something far from that? He allows his trembling companion to take cover inside the crevice while he continues to look to the sky above and land below in wonder, bracing his body against the mountainside as howling gales pushed him.
Isra of the snow lightning
' I'll taste the devil's tears and drink from his soul '
Isra comes to the mountains fresh from the sea and the snow that gathers with fury around her looks like salvation. The snow floats in patterns about her as she climbs higher, higher, higher and her lungs feels colder, colder, colder. Above the lightning flashes and the trees tremble as much as her heart does when the night roars not like a sky at all but like a lion.
Still she climbs onward, ever higher, and she blinks the snow from her eyes. It melts like tears and runs in rivulets down her face when she lingers beneath trees to give her body brief moments to feel like the world isn't falling down around it. And when she rests she looks out to the white, flashing snow and thinks for a moment that the shadows cast on the white look nothing like the shadows of trees and rock should.
But the shadows fade. She shakes her head to bury the white-hot stab of fear and the tingle of the scar across her hip.
Ahead there's a flash of dark and a soft whimper reaches her strangely through the torrent of wind and snow. It's towards that sound that she moves, slowly now as the rocks beneath her feet grow slick with frost and the snow drags at her like oil and quick-sand. Have I ever felt so cold? She thinks the words, one with each step through the snow. Isra imagines it's not a horn upon her brow but a shaft of ice, as dagger sharp as it is brittle and fearful of the spring.
Another bolt strikes and looks like a star against the snowfall and the heavens roar and rage and she cannot help but look up, up, up. Again there is that flash of a shadow where one should not be and this time when she blinks her shiver is as furious and wild as the storm.
It looks like it might be the shadow of a dragon.
And now her feet are a flurry of movement against the rock and she sees only grave-yards and dirt when she blinks away the snow from her eyes. She moves not like a queen now, but like a wild thing, a thing that remembers how to burn even when it feels like there's ice in her bones.
Isra only remembers that her hooves have any direction at all when she stumbles across the striped stallion, and that crevice in the rock beside him that looks like nothing more than another sphere of darkness in the dark of the storms. She wants to yell at him, shove him back into the cavern and hope that the stone is strong enough to hold when the entire world feels like it's dying. She wants to say so many things, but in the end the only thing she can think of as the shadow of those wings looms overheard again is,“What is it?” And she prays in the silence that he will say any other beast than 'dragon'.
But perhaps in the same flash that bares the wings to them her horn looks not like ice but steel, wicked enough to cut.
She stands tall and proud, her red eyes looking at the sky above. She picked one hell of a time to come to Novus. The thunder crashes in the sky, causing her bones to vibrate against the sound waves. The sky lights up with lightning, the wind howls around her. What sort of demonic storm is this? She has to lean into the wind to keep upright but she does not falter in her pursuing of her new home. She had heard that this place was in need of help – help that the mare might be able to provide. She hadn’t expected to come amongst a storm, but it did not scare her – hardly anything did these days.
As she wanders, her eyes look up to the sky only briefly, telling her that there was something there. Had she truly seen the beating of wings? Surely no one would be out flying in this storm. Or perhaps this was the cause of the storm. Magic and mystery were no strangers to Katniss. She had seen things like this before. And yet, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what she was up against. First, she wanted to find someone else. If this storm was causing her difficulties, no doubt it was causing hardships for others. She would help others first, then worry about everything else.
It is not uncommon for Katniss to put others before herself. After all, she was bred for this very reason. It didn’t help that her mother’s heart was strong and sweet, offering help and love to all those who needed it. Katniss had watched the courage her mother had possessed and embraced it. Yes. Katniss offered help to all those who needed it. It something that was engrained down into her deepest DNA. She could not help that part of her, the part of her that simply cared.
Despite how much the water called to her kelpie roots, Katniss ignores the calls. Something tells her that there is someone in the mountains. And so, she walks on, her body fighting against the wind to put one foot in front of the other.
It’s cold here, the cold seeming to settle in her bones. She’s been this cold before and truthfully, it doesn’t bother her. She is large, muscled, and has a thick winter coat about her. For once, she is thankful she did not start to shed early for this coat is proving quite useful.
The snow stings her eyes and yet, she stumbles forward, trying to keep pace. There’s a sound, a roaring in the distance. It doesn’t sound like thunder and so she pees upward. Once again she thinks she sees something amongst the flashes of lighting. Eyes peer upward but she is blinded by the flash of lightning that strikes the path in front of her. Thunder starts off as a crackle and then builds into a deafening roar. Eyes look back to where the lightning once was and she sees that she is not alone.
And just before she can open her mouth to speak, the stranger seems to ask a crevice a question…as if the crevice will answer back. She does not see the stallion there, she only sees the other female. “Perhaps it is easier to rule out what it is not…” She doesn’t know much about these lands or what calls it home. She’s seen many things in her ten years, but she was always learning new things.
She comes closer towards the female, passing over the area that had been struck by lightning. She pauses a moment to admire the glass-like structure left in the dirt. It is beautiful. She ponders taking it for a keepsake, but decides that there are other more pressing matters. “My name is Katniss, I have come to help.” Her voice is loud and confident, her words said with a smile as soon as she is close enough to the other. She pauses, the wind and snow still howling around her. The silver of her mane and tail blend into the snow and her body into the bark of the trees. She does not intend to camouflage herself so well, but she supposed there are worse things.
He had only recently parted company with the striped stallion and his fox companion; perhaps it was not surprising that they met again, both drawn to the rockface when the wind lashed and lightning made stark the world as it flashed.
Lysander does not mind the gale; as the dark clouds churn and snow makes a veil, his heartbeat stays a steady thing even as the ground rumbles beneath him. It is only the glimpses of things overhead, like a half-remembered dream, that make him uneasy.
Each dark shadow of a beast brings a mixture of memories – one more recent (the kelpie ancient, her eyes too hollow, too hungry, dripping with sharp brine of the sea) and another from a life ago (dancing with a girl on ground like glass, as shapes that could only be called other moved between the stars above them). There is a wild, feral edge to his eyes then, the sick green of a coming storm.
Lysander knows now what it is to be hunted. He does not care for it.
That is why, as he picks his way toward a gathering of bodies (only dark forms in the snow, until he draws near) his first reaction on recognizing the storyteller is not joy.
“Isra,” he greets her, and to disguise the crackling edge to his voice presses his muzzle against hers. The unicorn is not his to care for; she is capable (moreso than himself, perhaps – certainly wiser). Even so a new fear twists in his belly – fear for others is a bitter feeling he’s not used to tasting.
Only then does he look to the others, offering a nod to Kauri and a level gaze to Katniss, her coat near silver as the storm. His voice when he speaks is raised enough to be audible above the howling wind. “The best help for any of us is to stay alive. Less easy here than you’d think.” Almost he grins; he knows this as well as any. Another brilliant flash; the distinct sound of shattering glass. Another glimpse of wings too huge to be anything good.
Lysander’s attention moves to the other stallion then, and the crevice in the rock; it seems a clear choice to him. As the ground shudders again beneath another huge roll of thunder he steps into the dim passageway, ignoring the relief he feels as the wind at last falls still.
They are a long way from safety yet.
you fester in the daytime hours
boy, you never sleep at night
Isra of the dreaming bones
' oh Lazarus we're so afraid '
A flash breaks up the darkness and it burns white-hot, brighter than any star in the sky. For a moment, as she presses her eyes shut avoid the burn, Isra wonders if it's not lightning striking the ground but bits of enraged stars, hateful of the mortals who have strayed so very, very far from the old ways. The night trembles and the snow (for a moment shorter than a beat of her heart) when she opens her eyes looks like it might be falling up instead of down.
When she looks back to the sky both the brightness and that looming shadow of wings is gone. Isra laments the loss as much as she laments the way this storm seems to leech sanity from her as the winter leeches all the warmth from her body. Perhaps she thinks in thoughts that ebb like sobs we all died in the rushing sea and this is nothing more than the dreaming place of bones. But then the others come, eyes wide with fear and perhaps the fire of life, and she thinks that if she is dead she is certainly not alone in this madness.
Katniss brings with her the first deep breath of winter into Isra's lungs. Her eyes are bright enough to burn and Isra knows as she steps closer to the mare that she's not dead, not at all. Never could her bones dream of a red deep and dark enough to be dried blood.
It's relief that makes her sound breathless. “Oh,” Isra wonders what part of her it is that cannot just speak right away. Why she cannot ignore the way the world pauses in the expansion and contraction of Katniss's flank as she breathes. Why her thoughts run like stories on her tongue and behind her eyes. Why the thousands of words boil up like a tide and all she can say is, oh
“I'm not sure I really want to know what it is at all.” Another flash of lightning brightens them two of them to almost white and the wings slice again between the clouds overhead. Isra is happy to look away from the potential death looming ahead to the mare. “Thank you, Katniss.” The words do nothing to make her sound like a queen, nothing to make her sound like anything other than a unicorn trapped on the snowy mountain with a monster overhead.
Unicorns have always hated being trapped and slaves have always hated it more than that. Queens, she could not think of knowing what they like and what they hate.
“Lysander” His name in a breath against his nose as they touch and Isra thinks no more of traps and death and winter. She thinks only of survival now, only of the darkness looming at their backs that beckons and smells wet and almost warm compared to the snow. It feels almost like a dream to her when she steps deeper into the darkness and shakes all the snow and ice from her skin like a wolf.
“Only birds of prey circle like that.” And men, she thinks but she doesn't say the words as she turns to met their gazes. The blue of her eyes is the only bright spot of her left to see in that dark crevice. “Come. Let us all find shelter until the sun rises. This night feels colder than death.”
A flash of lightning lights up the sky again. And as the thunder trembles the snow at their hooves the last bit of white-light flashes upon her horn like the fire of the stars.
Katniss does not expect a giant gathering, so when another makes his approach, she watches him. She does not know any of these individuals. She does not know if they are here to cause harm or if they are here to help. In fact, despite her intentions to help, she does not even know if her help is welcoming. Perhaps her presence here is unwanted. Perhaps they wish to gang up on her and attack. Who knows? Anything goes in this new world, she supposed.
She listens as he address the other: Isra. She wonders briefly what his own name might be, but she does not ask for it. A name seems to be the least of her concerns when the storm rages onward and a mysterious being hunts them from the sky. She looks down at the other two, knowing that she is quite a bit taller than her companions. Perhaps she should be their first line of defense. She cannot help the way she wants to protect them, despite not knowing them. It’s who she was…and who she was born to be.
She watches as he joins the other stallion within the crevice of the mountain. Briefly she wonders if all of them can fit in such a place, but she knows that he is right – the best chance for any of them is to stay alive. The small crevice offers a shield against the wind and whatever seems to be looming above them.
But she cannot help but think about what Isra has said – that she does not want to know what looms above them. Katniss cannot help the way her eyes search for the creature again. “I do…if I know what it is…I can defeat it.” Katniss does not doubt her abilities to defeat whatever is hidden by the raging storm. She is confident in her abilities and despite her lack of magic, she is not scared of the David vs. Goliath fight that would go down between her and the beast. She does not cower.
But instead of running into battle, she follows the others…Lysander and Isra. She takes up the rear, the last to enter the small crevice and she too shakes the snow from her black hide. Her eyes take in her surroundings, the two other individuals that she finds herself trapped with. She is too busy studying her surroundings when Isra speaks. She is the first to address the beast looming in the skies. A bird of prey. It looks far larger than an eagle or albatross. Perhaps it is something magical or mythical…a dragon or perhaps a God. She doesn’t know enough about this land to make any assumptions, so she remains quiet.
When she suggests they find shelter until morning, Katniss cannot agree more. The cold runs deep into her bones and she is just now warming up now that the wind shear is not beating against her chest. It is times like these that she wishes she could produce a fire, something to warm their bodies. She steps past the others, her goal to look towards the back of the crevice, in search of something that might be of use to them. She finds a more open area, an area where water has gathered into a small pool. Steam rises from the wander and she smiles. “There is a heated spring back here. Come quench your thirst and you’re your bodies.” It is a beautiful find and Katniss hangs back, letting her companions relish this find before her.
As another flash splinters the gloom (unnatural, that light, and the impression of movement and shadow and terror behind it) Lysander considers how much of a fool he was, to think that this world would be tame compared to the riftlands.
From the first moment he’d stumbled out of the portal, new-winter air curling around his golden coat, his strange and bloodied antlers, the once-god had thought this place was easy. All the monsters were only men, and he knew men.
But he has almost died twice, now, where before he’d always kept a comfortable distance from the worst of the danger. Is this what it was to be mortal – to care? Is this where such foolish emotions as love and wrath led?
Even for all he has learned Lysander does not have it in him to be afraid. He grins, black lips over a crescent-moon of white teeth. “I know a few other things that circle so,” he says, as the emerald of his eyes turns toward the sapphire of Isra’s, gemstones winking darkly in a cave.
After her bold words (foolish, he thinks, though perhaps she is new enough to Novus that she has not learned wisdom yet) he is almost surprised when the big mare steps into the cave behind them. Maybe her courage is tempered by something saner, after all – though he is hardly one to judge, these days.
He presses against the wall as she maneuvers passed them, his gaze watchful even in the dark. The last bit of light from the entrance limns them all until Katniss vanishes into another part of the cavern; there is no way to see the private amusement that curls his lip as the stranger among them takes charge.
It is no bother to him; he has always been content to observe. Lysander possesses none of the earnest nobility to lead, and his brand of arrogance is not the kind to put him at the front of any expedition.
So he only follows the unicorn when Katniss announces her find, and though the smell of clean water and the curl of mist around their bodies in the dark is unmistakable, he hesitates before approaching the smooth surface of the water.
If this were the rift, whatever pooled in the rock would be poison. It would make them dream, or die, or any madness in between.
He brushes his muzzle against Isra’s hip, and it is almost a warning (he ignores the way she smells of sea and spice underneath the clean, cold scent of snow). The sound of the wind still moans past the opening of their temporary shelter, but otherwise there is little sound but their breathing and the distant drip of water. It is close and dark and fast-warming, and Lysander’s gaze goes to Katniss.
“After you,” he says, and almost it sounds demure.
we wake with bright eyes now
ours is a white lies town
Isra of the spindle horn
“ I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren swims . . . ”
The darkness devours her as they go deeper in the cave and soon she forgets to think of brine and storms and death. Here in the blackness with steam rising up she thinks only of how much she misses starlight and the way it might have glinted off all their skin and made them seem almost holy. The air this deep feels heavy with metals and minerals and Isra feels a little like sand made heavy with all the weight water leaves behind when it evaporates.
Overhead stalagmites drips and it sounds like rain surrounds them. There is no light but what brief flashes of lightning can break through the maze of stone they traveled. And when Lysander touches his lips to her hip she trembles and feels thankful for the darkness and the sound of rain when she closes her eyes and sighs.
Perhaps it is a blessing that Isra has only known dark mortal realms where magic slumbered half dead in the ground and all the gods cared nothing for their children. She doesn't know to fear the water, to think it might burn her flesh like acid or steal from her bits of her soul that long for her old skin and bones and grace. But part of her is a unicorn, cautious in a light less place that smells a little like blood and she dips her horn into the water first and watches it drip from her like tears as her eyesight adjusts.
“Seems safe enough.” She whispers to them both, hating the way that her voice chimes not like a bell but like hummingbird wings (feathers on air and air on dreams). The hot water takes her breath away as she slowly walks into the pool and trembles when it burns all the chill from her in a fury that feels born from wildfire instead of spring-water. Her tail drifts like leaves in the ripples from her body and when she ducks her head underwater it feels like she's a phoenix when she rises back up and drinks of the steamy air.
How sweet it feels to linger underwater and want only air instead of darkness and brine and ocean-floor.
Almost joyfully does she turn, wondering at how light and graceful she moves when her chain is silent underwater. Her eyes in the dark hold a secret, a darkness of the blue that shifts behind the wall of steam cutting her off from Katniss and Lysander. “It feels like we've stumbled upon Utopia.” Isra whispers like a whippoorwill and the hot air moves in shapes that seem to start in the expressive curl of her lips and fade away in the slender dark hollow where her horn reflects on the water when a blink of the storm reaches them.
“Come and I will tell you both a story, one that begins in the place where another has just ended.” Lysander perhaps will hear the laughter in her voice as she moves deeper and deeper into the pool. Her hair settles over the water like seaweeds hiding pearls and treasure and it sways in the ripples they make like nets thrown to catch all the secrets of the sea.
Here she's not a queen but a siren, one who sings with words and wonders and dreams instead of drowns.
Katniss is only being kind, trying to show her companions comfort in this trying time. However, she can see that her kindness is met with trepidation. The stallion is weary of her and while she wishes he would trust a little easier, she cannot blame him. He does not know her. He does not understand that she has only ever hurt someone in the wake of battle. Never has she tricked another into doing something potentially harmful.
She looks down to the water, hearing the warning tone as he offers her to be the first to test the waters. She knows to be cautious for she has seen what pools in The Rift are capable of. But this isn’t the Rift. This place is different and albeit safer. She can sense that these pools are nothing more than heated water from the earth’s core.
Eyes watch as Isra steps forward, dipping her horn into the waters and watching as if she might be afraid that acid would dissolve it away. What did this place harbor that forced those living here to feel as though they must question everyone and everything? What had happened here?
At her words, Katniss blinks her eyes, her focus back on the small pool of warm water. She stares at it for a moment before she looks to Lysander, her gaze almost threatening. She lowers her head to sip from the warm water, her gaze never leaving his. She is daring him, daring him to finally trust her. The water is warm and it warms her body from the inside out. Nothing burns her throat, her body does not cease, her lungs continue to breathe. She is still very much alive, despite how much he might think this pool will harm her.
Her eyes only leave his as Isra enters the pool. Perhaps he trusted Isra. Perhaps now he might see that this pool is not harmful and perhaps even, he might be one step closer to building trust with the black mare. “Surely now you can see that it is quite safe.” She looks back to the pool her body slowly following suit and following Isra into the spring. She settles there until the water is just over the top of her back. Her head is still high above the water and the warm is soothing. The warmth eases her cold and sore muscles while the heated air around them fills her lungs with warm moisture. It is a heavenly feeling. “I do not mean any of you harm. Perhaps in time you can see that.” She speaks truth. She will never harm another if it is unwarranted. She takes her fights to the battlefield, not a secluded spring.
It is only Isra’s voice that draws away her eyes. She has heard many stories of places that she speaks of. She thinks of each of her homes, each of the places she had worked so hard to rebuild and yet…all failed anyway. Perhaps Katniss is mistrusting of lands because none of them have ever shown her a kindness. Each one has harbored ill memories and yet buried deep, each one has a few good memories. “…and what is your story?” Thunder rumbles through the cave, the sound echoing and near deafening. Lightning still strikes above and Katniss raises her eyes to look towards the flashes. She does not feel safe here. This is not Utopia. This place is deceiving…
