[AW] a radiant, bird-like creature --

[Seraphina]

Her hooves sunk in the sand – wet and clumping and dull, unlike the brilliant, soft red-gold of Solterra. Seraphina stood at the edge of the ocean, just far enough for the surf to lap amicably at her hooves. When she had traveled Novus at Viceroy’s side as a young girl, she had wondered what laid beyond Novus’s shores; Viceroy came from across the sea, she knew, but he had arrived in Novus as a youth, “drenched and bedraggled, wings completely broken,” if stories were to be believed. He’d never been willing to talk about his homeland, and she’d never been willing to press. She had been a curious child, and fearless at first, though he’d quickly corrected those parts of her – Seraphina had wondered about her mentor, vicious and abrasive as he was, and how he’d come to be, but she had always been scared to ask.

Sometimes she wondered if it was the idea of an answer that scared her most of all.

Washed in the pale grey-green foam and chilled gently by the salt-soaked wind, she could practically imagine him hovering over her shoulder, fiery halo exuding a threatening warmth across the space of her back. “Is this the first time you’ve ever seen the sea?” He’d asked, that familiar, smug not-quite-smile plastered across his lips as though it were etched into marble. Viceroy was always smiling with his lips, but she’d soon learned that smile meant absolutely nothing and never carried to his eyes anyways – that no display was guaranteed to be genuine. The ocean had become the border of everything for Seraphina. Those great, tumultuous waves that thrashed and bobbed on the edge of the horizon were the end of the world, and she would never pass them. (And sometimes, just sometimes, she had wanted to.)

She shook her head, reminding herself that she hadn’t come here to reminisce on Viceroy. Seraphina could see a froth of grey on the horizon, the ominous, creeping expanses of stormclouds that hung like a mantle on the edge of the sky – a hint of a threat. It wouldn’t take long for the storm to reach where she stood on the beach, pastern-deep in foaming, milkgreen sea. It would be best to be on the cliffs before then, just in case the storm came with lightning, so, shaking off her reminiscing like a snake shedding its skin, she turned on heel and retreated in the direction she came; she hadn’t taken more than four steps, however, before she found her gaze distracted by something pale and pearly in the sand. Seraphina took a short detour to pull it from its half-buried state, jaws clamping loosely around a rather oddly-shaped shell that gleamed with hints of the rainbow when the – faint – light hit it correctly. She wasn’t sure of what to do with it, but she carried it between her teeth nonetheless as she scaled the cliffside from which she’d entered the beach in the first place, wandering precariously up the narrow, rocky passage that led to the top of the rocky cliffs, coated in a thin, fine layer of dry, tall grasses that smacked up against her legs as the wind began to whip.

(A flicker of memory, cutting through the fragments of her childhood unprompted -

“The wind is making your flames dance,” She’d said, eyeing them cheerfully. Viceroy had fixed her with a tired stare, bloodshot eyes narrowed with exasperation.

“Dance?” He’d questioned, tone flat as ever. It wasn’t really a question.

“Like butterflies,” She’d explained helpfully, tilting her head to stare at his flickering halo of flames. They were beautiful. “Like butterflies caught in a storm.”)

She deposited the shell at the ground near her hooves just as the rain began, wind and water freeing her mane of its tight braids and setting it loose to dribble down her neck – there was something refreshing about the rain, something freeing in its influence. Even her collar seemed to grow slicker with her coat, a little easier to breathe in. Wind and rain pelted her, but she did not move from her solitary, stone-like position, eyes cast on the very edge of the horizon, where great waves of dark blue rose and fell rhythmically with each weighty gust.


@whoever || this was initially going to be a reply/start to a relic thread, but...anyways I had it halfway done so I figured I should toss it up /shrugs dramatically/ have some pointless rambling and more little Viceroy snippets I guess

[Willoughby]

Willoughby has never seen the sea before.

He has heard stories, of course, growing up at the Roost—from soldiers or ambassadors who had served on distant shores, or elders who’d been born in far-off colonies before coming to settle in the valley. His own father had claimed to have spied the ocean once, out on a scouting mission, though his view had been only that of a faint silver gleam on the horizon. There had always been something mythological about it, to Willoughby’s mind. It was hard for him to imagine a thing so deep and wide and changeable, so practically alive.

Now he hears it before he sees it, winding his way along the jagged cliffs, his wings pinned cautiously to his sides. It is a sound unlike any other—a sound that no stories could have prepared him for, half crashing and half murmuring, both a roaring and a song. The breeze is wet, clinging in his mane and weighing down the feathers of his wings, and he can’t help but shake himself every dozen paces, unaccustomed to the feeling.

There is a taste of salt in the air, and Willoughby licks at it, surprise flickering in his heart. And then the view opens up before him: the skinny strip of sand; the green stretch of water, heaving and frothed with palest foam; the iron grey of the sky, rippling and black in the distance. Despite himself, Willoughby breathes a little oh! of astonishment, staring out over the seemingly endless sea.

He wants to touch it, that surging green water—but storms like this he has seen, boiling up over the mountains that flank the Roost, and he knows better than to throw himself to the mercy of one. So he simply watches, the gale whipping at his forelock as the storm races toward shore. A flash of movement on the beach draws his eye, and he realizes with a start that it is another equine, maneuvering toward him. He studies the young mare as she scales the cliffs, his brown eyes narrowing at the object clutched delicately in her mouth.

She hasn’t noticed him—the wind, blowing in off the sea, has brought him her scent, but swept away his own—and he doesn’t want to startle her at her climb, so Willoughby waits until she’s crested the cliffs before giving a nicker of greeting. “What’s that you have there?” he asks, tilting his pale face to the side as he eyes the object at her hooves. The rain is falling now, and he places his own steps carefully on the slick rock as he edges toward her, his wings half-flaring for balance. “I’m Willoughby,” he offers.

The mare is still gazing out at the ocean, her expression solemn. Willoughby follows the line of her focus. “Is there something that you’re looking for?”

stock from DA
@Seraphina

[Seraphina]

She cursed herself, inwardly, for not realizing that she was not alone; Seraphina could excuse her carelessness away by telling herself that she couldn’t hear him over the rain or catch his scent in the wind, but it left a sour taste in her mouth. (Viceroy wouldn’t excuse this kind of inadequacy, so she shouldn’t either.) When she heard his nicker, a soft greeting that was nonetheless audible above the whip of the storm, she jolted in the slightest, charcoal head whipping around and eyes narrowing as limber muscles tensed – as she took in the gangling, birdlike Pegasus making his way up the ridge, however, she quickly relaxed. If he’d had any intention of attacking her, he would not have warned her of his approach, and she was rather certain that she could win a fight against him anyways, what with his awkward lank and limber build. He had the genetic makeup of a warrior, she surmised, but he hadn’t a warrior’s spirit – he was awkward and lean, with little effort put into his build, and he seemed disheveled (which was little feat in this rain) and hazy, as though all of him wasn’t quite there. Seraphina eyed him silently as he approached her, his large brown eyes flickering to the shell at her hooves; he asked what it was, tilting his bald face doggishly. She glanced back down at the shell, content enough to take her eyes off of him for a moment. He didn’t seem to mean her any harm. “It’s some sort of seashell, I think...but I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Watch.” Seraphina bent, reaching down to clamp the shell in her jaws again and lifting it up towards what little light protruded from the thick bank of clouds above. The shell responded by flashing a rainbow of odd colors towards the stallion, glinting and glimmering in the light; its interior was worn and smooth, but it seemed to be made up of chips and layers, a bit like an beetle’s exoskeleton. After giving the stallion a moment to observe the strange shell, she deposited it back down on the rocky ground, returning her multicolored gaze to the sea.

The stallion introduced himself as Willoughby, and, rather reluctantly, she offered up her own name. “…Seraphina.” Her accent was thick, Solterran wrapping firmly around every word to escape her lips; even if she’d wanted to hide her allegiance from another native, Seraphina doubted that she could. She did not, however, know if this stallion was another native – his accent struck her as foreign, but she couldn’t identify his scent in the rain. Occasionally her eyes darted over to stare at this strange, though evidently friendly, little stallion; he was barely any taller than her, and his drenched feathers struck her as quite pitiful. His next question made her turn towards him, momentarily surprised, before she returned her eyes to the sea. Was she looking for something? Seraphina mulled over the question for what felt like a very, very long time, but it was likely only a moment. (She did not generally think of herself as the sort of girl that searched for meaning in much of anything – but, then again, she did not think of herself as the sort of girl who collected seashells. She examined the rough little thing at her hooves all over again. It was so worn on the outside.)

She finally settled on a quiet, “I don’t know.” She turned to look over at him, mane clinging to her wet coat; the storm showed no sign of letting up, but she could see sunbeams darting through occasional holes in the cloud cover, dancing and darting on the waves. “Are you?” Seraphina turned his question back on him, though she was unsure if she was actually curious about his own reasons for being caught out in the rain or if she was simply attempting to break the silence.



@Willoughby <3