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Site Wide Plot - brontide
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 It’s as if the world revolves around Isra, its spotlight on her. All eyes - equine, thunderbird, and demigod alike - are on her and her alone, their ears only for her story. Acton joins her, the hunger in his eyes mirroring the hunger of the birds, and Caligo feels herself being drawn to them. Inch by inch, step by step, the demigoddess joins their small party, aware of Katniss doing the same. Caligo spares only a glance for Calliope, and she can’t help but wonder if the unicorn of steel will learn how to bend, or if she’ll become brittle and shatter before the night is over. “We will all protect each other,” she answers Katniss, sinking to her knees beside the queen. “There is strength in numbers.” And although the thunderbirds outnumbered them, she knew they were not a force to be overlooked. And more and more thunderbirds land, cocking their heads in interest. They cluster around the group of equines, occasionally clacking their jaws, but otherwise silent. But for as many that land, there are others that continue to circle overhead, their war cries echoing over the silver lake. ’Perhaps they need time,’ the demigoddess thought, but at the same time, she couldn’t wonder if they were as angry as Calliope and Raymond, and perhaps words couldn’t heal everything. Same guidelines still apply! In addition: - You have 7 days, until the end of Sunday, December 9th to get your next replies in! Poke staff if you feel you need more time! Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response! “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” Each of the others bring with them an ache to her heart when they join her on the bed of grass and thunderbird feathers. Her words, when she continues, stumble through the chinks in her heart (cracks of fear and courage and love). “For years, the lion and the dragon battled. The world was covered in the corpses of all the other animals that tried to stop them. The rivers ran red when both of them discovered that they could fight and bleed over and over again and never die. Even the broken magic and time of their world could not survive all the violence and that too started to rot.” Isra lifts her eyes back to the gathering of birds and they flash as blue and green and golden as a tidal wave. Caligo joins them then and that too brings with it both an ache and a new blossom on fear in her chest. “And while they were warring neither the lion nor the dragon realized that both the home they had and the home they wanted were each ruined little by little. The mountain no longer shined with gold for it was dark with crusted blood. The darkness was broken up by wildfires and filled with smoke until it was gray instead of black.” Isra looks then to the beasts still circling around and around them. Storms gather between their wings until the air feels thick and charged. All the hair on her back quivers upwards with the electric breeze and for a moment she thinks she heart must sound as loud as thunder as it throbs inside her chest. “Denocte could become like that world. We could be like lions and dragons.” And oh! Oh how her gaze burns like dragon-fire and lion-hate when she cocks her head and watches the few birds who have not landed clack their beaks in a battle-cry. “Or we could all live like something other than lions and dragons.” Isra throws out the challenge with a shiver and drops her chin across Acton's back to hide the tremble in her gaze.  The cries of the thunderbirds rang like distant bells, like thunder over the mountains, like the memory of a war. But down on the ground in the growing circle of horses - in Isra’s audience - the world waited. Acton waited, too, though he could never be quite still. His mane blew against his neck in the thin breeze, his ears flickered constantly, his gaze was always moving, always taking stock. He wondered if he should create an illusion-bird of ice and storms, and if the others would follow it away; he wondered if he should attempt the illusion of walls around them, and if that would dissuade them from attacking. But for once the ex-Crow did not want to provoke. He knew as well as Isra their position was terribly tenuous; he felt no more confident when Caligo settled on the unicorn’s other side. Through it all their queen’s voice continued, rolling out the story, like a silver road that could lead them all home. Acton would try to let it. This time he did not feel like a coward for choosing peace. And so he did nothing, only let out something soft as a sigh as the unicorn finished her story and gave her warning-and-hope and rested her chin across his back. we have a flair for the shade and in-between  She comes late to the gathering, bold in her blood-red and white, silent as heat lightning. Her eyes are dark and keen and only for Calliope, her ears twisting back at the brazen crying of the thunderbirds. Her body remembers the battle with them - it remembers in scabs and scars, remembers in a strip of hair that rises along her back. Remembers in the roughness of her throat, the ghost of a scream caught there. Most of all it remembers with a vision of Calliope, stricken on the bloody field, dull-eyed and dying. Shrike is not interested in peace. But this is not her court (not her world), and she draws alongside Calliope in silence, pressing her muzzle to the black unicorn’s before falling still. There is something ursine in the way she stands, shoulders and neck hunched and ready, gaze so hungry on the sky. The night queen’s words are only wind in her ears; the only thing she cares to hear is the sound of the lionesses’ breathing from beside her. It is the only comfort she needs. There is nothing else for her but to wait, and feel the storm beneath her skin, and see if it will build and break or blow away. don't do much these days keep the wolves at bay "This time, I’ll fight. Tooth and nail, I’ll fight.” Each word and each beat of storm-carrying wings coils something deep inside Calliope. She coils tighter and tighter, over and over again until she feels ready to explode with violence and lighting. And part of her hates the thunderbirds more for their lies (surely, she thinks, this is another lie of peace). Another part of her hates the innocents between her and the monsters. Calliope has little use for stories, less use for gods that bend a knee before a tribe of beasts. So she makes no move to join them, only paces back and forth, back and forth waiting for the first strike to be blown. Perhaps though, if she listened to the story she would not have paced so like a lion with a dragon of violence flapping against her rib cage. It's only the touch of Shrike against her skin that cools her steps as much as it sparks her fury into an inferno. Unlike Acton she lets her eyes spark a challenge when she looks up at the beasts. Each flash of white and each crack of electricity over her skin seems to say, be dragons then. Be dragons and I will be a lion and I will feast on your insides. In the most kind thing Calliope has ever done, she swallows down her fury just enough to stop her from crying war and tearing out their eyes. The first move belongs again to the thunderbirds but oh how her blood roils like a hurricane at the idea of vengeance. And, until the end she knows Shrike and Raymond are with her (courts and titles can only hold them so long).
 He should have been at their side and not Isra's. All the same, he did not move to join them. "Isra," the red stallion murmured coolly, deferring in this moment to the horse that seemed most capable of averting another bloodbath, "we don't have a lot of time." Whether the birds before them or the lioness at their backs posed a greater threat to the uneasy truce, he did not know. He knew whose side he was on and had no patience for the reckless pageantry unfolding before him, but their magnanimous deity had prepared this perilous test for them all and committed them to it at the cost of their own mortal lives. And now those lives balanced on the knife-edge of a bard queen's tale-telling. If Calliope's restraint didn't fail first, his just might - but he wasn't sure he'd be aiming for the birds. Raymond. and at his feet they'll cast their golden crowns when the man comes around  aut viam inveniam aut faciam The sky grows lighter as the sun appears on the horizon, a faint glow turning the mountains pink. The stars begin to fade, and with them, so too do the thunderbirds begin to disperse. One by one, the beasts left in the air turn the wings and disappear to the west, the air growing strangely quiet and still with the absence of a hundred beating wings. The sky clears, leaving only the beasts on the ground behind. At the closing of Isra’s story, the remaining thunderbirds stir, as if awaking from a deep sleep. They look around, contemplating their surroundings, studying the equines with curiosity in their eyes. Not for the first time, Caligo sees the Court reflected in them - names spring to her mind and it seems they have two Isra’s on the shore rather than one. Two Isra’s, two Acton’s, two Katniss’, and so on. A thunderbird shakes its head, feathers ruffling. With a sweep of its wings and a clack of its jaws, it lifts into the air. Around it flies, and around, and around, circling overhead in a way that is far too vulture-like for the demigoddess’ liking. But then it, too, turns its wing and disappears into the lightening sky. One of the remaining thunderbirds creeps closer to the equines, studying them carefully. For a minute the demigoddess hardly dares to breathe, forgetting herself as she stares into the bird’s yellow eyes. Finally it drops its head into something that might almost appear a bow. It exhales deeply, the air warm as it washes over the group. Then one after the other, the remaining company follows suit, flying away from the rising sun. For a minute, no one speaks. “I think we’re safe now,” Caligo finally breaks the silence, her voice a mere whisper. Caligo rises to her feet slowly, feeling her limbs stretch and creak. After crouching for so long on the ground, tense and unmoving, her body protested the sudden movement. It reminded her a little of coming alive from her statue, so many months ago now. She sighs, looking around the lake. From where the Night Queen and her Court sat huddled, to where Calliope and Shrike stood defiantly. “Thank you for the story, Isra,” she tells the Sovereign, uncaring as to whether Calliope or Shrike or Raymond heard, nor what they thought if they did. “You have a true gift.” And it seemed then that the demigoddess was referring not only to the story telling, but perhaps something else entirely as well. Very last round! The RE will post one last time on December 20th; you have until midnight on the 19th to reply! You can exit the post in this round to complete the thread, or reply once more after the RE. Poke staff if you feel you would need more time to reply again; otherwise, thank you all for participating! Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
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