evangelina yseult leaves her solterran adobe, to sate her child-like curiosity, her neverending wanderlust. a hunger combs throughout her body, drawing a famished sigh across the icy velvet of her smooth, black-stained lips. she has run far, far from home, and even now, beneath the intimate breath of twilight -- so dark and sweet a song -- it seems running is all she'd ever do. she moves silently beneath the CALIGINOUS hush of starlight; with autumn's chilled touch, drawing its soft, languid hand across the barren eluetheria plains.
her body slides from moonbeam to shadow, shadow to moonbeam. her lithe physique moves with a tiger's coiling grace. running with icy caresses beneath the obsidian shroud of a black velvet sky. her muscles ripple softly beneath a satin-lilac coat; with moonlight combing silver tears, throughout the tangled length of her dishevelled fur and mane. she dances like a feline. with silver lights dripping upon her arctic curves. though her body is soft and lean, there is a child-like slenderness to her figure; both dainty, fragile and swift.
her gaze, a radiant steel-blue, flashes in the dark; chilling and piercing against the hot flush of deep, maroon mascara. there, covered by the thickly-swaying grasses, a vibrant white pool radiates in the midst of the darkness. curious, Evangelina draws closer, a dark smile playing upon her lips. what could this be, she wonders as she circles the pool, touching the edge of the pool with the tip of her hoof. her venomous blue eyes, flashes upon the stark ivory of her face; glowing with curiosity, with mischief. dare she take a drink?
he shines like silver midnight moon—
cool marble statue—
of ice he's hewn; of ice he's hewn.
Grey has seen many unfamiliar lands, has walked and walked and walked, through ones both unforgiving and kind. He has never stopped in them long enough to to get to know them, to learn the maps of their edges, to uncover their secrets; until the mountain. The first place he had ever settled since leaving his home. The first place that he ever may have considered home again, the unicorn thinks.
But it had not been so. That mountaintop, and the man, the god, that would have made it the closest thing to a home he can picture having, wwlere not his to keep. Had anything ever been his to keep? Would anything be, again?
Grey lifts his head, staring out over the plains he has found himself within. The long grasses sway in the night breeze, but the chill of autumn does not touch him. No shiver makes its way along his skin. Just the whispering fingers of the wind, tracing across the curves and hollows of his figure.
It is then that he sees the light, glowing in the distance. It drowns out the sky above it and casts the grass around it in silhouette. The unicorn draws forward, curiousity getting the better of him, and when he crests the hill and sees the pool below, he stops. Grey is no stranger to magic, for it was magic that had saved him from death and claimed his skin, painting it. But this, his knowledge of magic can not explain this.
It glows with an otherworldlyness so bright it makes his vision dance, and even from atop the hill Grey can feel the heat radiating outwards as if he stands at the mouth of a volcano. And as he approaches ever closer, he realizes how fitting that description is as the banks are not grass nor sand but igneous rock, dark and hard and cool, but cracked. The unicorn has to refrain from looking too long at the pool directly as he begins to feel light-headed, but still he skirts around its edges, too drawn by some mysterious force to turn away.
The water sings to him, beckons, making promises of satiation and comfort. Grey knows that if he steps within it, if he drinks from it, he might feel a warmth or fullness he has not known for several years. He knows this, and that is when he manages to turn away, to peel himself from the magic speaking to his very core. Each step away gets easier.
He does not deserve whatever warmth or contentedness the pool will give him.
***STAFF EDIT
@grey has rolled a 3 and has been cursed! Being around the brightness of the water has caused temporary vision issues. This may be fuzziness around the edges, the ability to see auras instead of the details of their surroundings. For half of an IC season (one RL month), he will have difficulty seeing.
It was the animals that led him here. From the ground, the path of their movement would be difficult to trace. From a grander scale, (the sky) to a keen eye, (Mateo's) the pattern becomes clear. A single point is calling to them, tucked between two knolls fat and green and happy with the recent rains. Hovering in the air with strong, steady flaps of his wings, he turns to look back at his home, a small but imposing sight at the foot of the plains. How beautiful and comfortable and safe it is! After a long, apologetic look, he faces the mysterious place to which all living things were drawn. And he begins to fly towards it.
He would say that was the animals that led him... but he is not sure if that is the truth. It feels, strangely, like he's following his heart.
Night has fallen by the time he lands before the water. For a moment he looks directly at the liquid, and a ringing-- no, a singing-- fills his head. His skin is made a drum which the water beats its song into, and the rhythm sinks into muscle to bone to marrow. He almost cries out at the violence of the song and the brightness of the light and the heat. The heat! It greedily pulls the sweat from his body.
mine, it chants. It pulls. mine.
He takes a step closer.
"No one has seen the gods cry." He realizes there is a woman there. Was she always there or did she just arrive? She lowers her head to drink, as graceful and wild as a doe but nowhere near as sweet. "But today we taste their tears." He does not know if he is talking to himself or her, if he is singing or speaking. He lowers his lips. The water is warm as flesh. He drinks, and his mouth is full of song.
The plain has always held a fascinating, otherworldly beauty for Jahin, much like the desert of Solterra. To an average onlooker, there is not much to see. Sky and grass. But to Jahin, the plain is always shifting, always changing, just as the dunes of the Mors grow and shrink with the onslaught of weather and erosion.
The sea of grasses rolls in the breeze, feeling soft and soothing on his wind-burnt skin. It is peaceful here. Empty. Whispers rise and fall around him as he moves through the grass maze, encouraging his movement forward.
But to where?
He wonders if any of his kin may have fled to the plains after the downfall of the Davke. He knows this is where he would have gone, if he thought he was all alone with no friends in the desert or the capitol. He wanders in the hope that he will come upon a small band of them. It is a foolish hope, but he continues nonetheless.
He has grown thirsty. The day is not hot, but his throat feels scratched, as if he has swallowed grains of sand. He comes upon the pool in surprise—it seemed a strange place for a spring to be. The banks are like dried magma—even stranger—but Jahin isn’t overly complicated and doesn’t dwell on the strangeness of it all. He is thirsty and so he drinks.
these scars long have yearned for your tender caress
to bind our fortunes, damn what the stars own ---
***STAFF EDIT
@jahin has rolled a 6! He has been awarded +150 signos for interacting with the pool.
For half a second, Toulouse had assumed Novus would return to the way it was when he arrived without the gods. But it would seem he had been very, very wrong.
Novus was no longer the bland, uneventful place it had once been. No longer did he need to sit under a tree and wait for something interesting to pass him by, oh no. Now there was plenty for him to go out and find, he had only to look.
Like this pool.
It called to him in the night, a beacon hiding away in the plains. Like a moth drawn to an open flame, he couldn’t resist its attraction. He was helpless in all the right ways, and he came shamelessly forward.
The ground turned from sand to volcanic rock, and it only heightened his eagerness. He had been through here more times than he could count, but this was by far his favorite trip. The water rippled in light and fire, drenching him in rays that seemed to turn him from a mere palomino to a gloriously golden color. It was as if the pool was made for him, as if it was showing him his true form - and it made the wolf inside of him howl in hunger.
Perhaps there should have been a flicker of doubt in his mind, a call of caution to his actions. But there was nothing stopping him; he had only to look at his shadow, and a flicker of understanding passed between them.
Together, they stepped boldly forward and lowered their horned heads as one to drink.
***STAFF EDIT
@toulouse has rolled a 3 and has been cursed! Being around the brightness of the water has caused temporary vision issues. This may be fuzziness around the edges, the ability to see auras instead of the details of their surroundings. For half of an IC season (one RL month), he will have difficulty seeing.
03-01-2019, 09:27 PM - This post was last modified: 03-05-2019, 04:22 PM by aimless
He isn’t sure if he’s following his shadow, or if he’s following the lure of the pool.
Both are a siren to him, drawing him out of the shadows and into the light the strange water casts. There’s a peculiarly hungry glint in his eyes; they seem to have been turned from green to gold tonight, and everything he sees is brilliantly gilded.
And he is no exception; he casts off his ring, and his body shimmers suddenly into being beside his twin. Finally visible, he steps forward alongside Toulouse, and together they inspect the rocky ground and smoky waters. It calls to him; he years to drink from it, to see for himself what powers it might hold.
He doesn’t say a word; he only waits. He never had been the decision maker of the two.
But when Toulouse looks at him, he sees his own hunger mirrored in his twins eyes. He dips his head in a nod, a silent agreement.
The water is cool and hot on his tongue, and it tastes like gold.
Perhaps the Dawn Court Regent shouldn’t be breaking his own Court’s rules - but was it really a law prohibiting them from leaving the country, or a suggestion?
At any rate he knew he belonged back in the capitol; but the rose-colored boy couldn’t deny the adventure singing in his heart.
They’d been wandering Viride, half-patrolling, half-sharing secrets, when they saw the light in the distance. And like many others before them, with a whisper and a giggle they, too, had found themselves drawn to it.
“What do you think it is?” he asked, his voice soft and wondering. "Is it safe to drink?"
He knew he probably shouldn't - but the temptation was too strong, and he was feeling reckless tonight.
So the spotted boy dipped one hoof into the water - his wings were fluttering, feathers ruffling as if in anticipation, stretching at to touch the pool of light - and was surprised by the softness of it, the warmth that seemed to fill his veins at the contact.
The light seemed to stretch hungrily up his leg, until the limb appeared made out of gold rather than flesh. With a gasp of surprise and delight, he pulled back - and the effect vanished, his skin damp.
"How strange," he wondered aloud.
@messalina for the mention! <3
super short and fast post!
***STAFF EDIT
@ipomoea has rolled a 3 and been blessed! He will feel heightened levels of energy when fighting and has been sent an energy shot for interacting with the pool.
03-01-2019, 10:25 PM - This post was last modified: 03-05-2019, 04:24 PM by aimless
Ever since the night she had flown into his room, eyes half-wild and reeking of blood and death, something had… changed between them.
Messalina couldn’t say what it was, exactly — didn’t even know if he felt it too, or if it was only her imagining the sidelong glances, the tension that never really went away no matter how much they laughed it off.
She frowned, kicking a little at the dew soaked grass. The regent was walking a little ahead of her, and he had left Odet back at the court. The beast had yet to be caught — it was still too dangerous. This late into the night, there was not a soul left lingering the Eleutheria. They were alone on their patrol, truly and utterly.
She wondered, with a hint of dry amusement, if the intensity of her stare would bore a hole through the back of his head.
Perhaps it was only her thinking this way after all — as cautious as she ever was, Messalina had never once given Ipomoea an inkling of the… unease (she tried, but she did not know how else to explain the tingling she felt whenever he looked at her, and the aching she felt whenever he wasn’t) plaguing her heart.
Or, so she hoped.
“What do you think it is?” Po’s soft voice shook Messa from her troubled reverie — with a start, she realized that they had finally arrived. A pool of light, she thought, with a pang of childlike wonder.
Up close, it was a sight more beautiful than she ever could’ve dreamed. The water — was it water? — swirled and danced like liquid moonbeams, pulsing with a soft, glorious luminescence. It cast them both in waves of silvery light, and bleached Messalina’s already pale pelt a ghostly, spectral white.
“Is it safe to drink?”
"I… I don’t know,” she murmured, enraptured. She hadn’t noticed how close she’d drawn to the pool; she stared at the rippling outline of herself reflected within its depths, and then at the one besides her: Ipomoea. She snuck a sidelong glance at the real Ipomoea, and saw him just as enraptured by the mysterious water as she.
Saw him dip a hesitant hoof into the pool, and pull back with a delighted snort. “How strange.”
The sight caused a wave of uncharacteristic boldness to rush through the girl. Perhaps standing besides the pool’s unearthly waters was affecting her head. Perhaps their night of jokes and secrets had left her hopelessly brave.
"Why don’t you find out?” she said, a dare to her silvery voice, before she leaned gracefully into him and pushed.
