She says nothing tonight. For once, nothing leaves her lips, nothing but the air forced out of her lungs. She has gathered with the three others tonight, gathered with them and ready to instill a little anarchy into Denocte. She doesn’t know the court she’s been sent to destroy, but it matters nothing to her. She doesn’t care about the lives she will be ultimately ending, about the pain and agony that will follow such an act of devastation. She only cares that this is the first step towards something more, something much bigger than she could have ever imagined. All she cares about is that she was a part of the catalyst that was soon to start a series of events that would change the world of Novus once and for all.
She takes up the rear of the group, following behind Able, Tuolouse, and Rufio. Her steps are quiet, her neck arched, her ears alert, and her senses on fire. She wears a cloak, a black silk cloak that only appears to darken her hide. Despite the low-lit evening moon, the cloak helps to hide her more, to hide her where her face gives her away. But they do not know that she has a little trick up her sleeve.
They pause just outside the boarders, waiting patiently in the brush for the changing of the guard. She is silent, her eyes keen on the guards. And finally, when the time is right and their backs have been turned, the group slips passed the boards. As soon as they are past the guards, Targwyn finally lets her lips curl into a smile. This smile is malicious, dangerous, and speaks of her excitement for what she is about to do.
But now the time has come for them to each go in separate directions. Tuolouse and Abel go to the left, Rufio straight ahead, while she steers towards the right. When she is just out of sight, she pauses to change over her cloak. Slowly, she removes the silk cloak, turning it inside out and draping it over her whole body. The cloak swallows her, covering her in invisibility. The enchanted cloak renders her invisible. She is not upset that she only has one cloak. After all, she will not get caught. It was up to them to ensure their own success.
She slips onward, heading towards the food store that she was assigned to destroy. It does not take her long to find it and slip inside. Once there, she pulls out several matches, lighting them and placing them in several areas. As each bag of grain begins to light on fire, she stands there, watching her creature for a moment or two, before she finally slips away and heads straight for Solterra. It is only after she is miles from the boarders of Denocte that she finally removes her cloak of invisibility and reverses it back to the black silk that she had started the mission on. Not once does she wonder if the others are successful. Not once does she care if they are caught. Her part of the bargain was finished and it was now time to return to the canyon and to see who was smart enough to make it out unharmed and unnoticed.
OOC: Anyone is welcome to respond to the disaster, but Targwyn is LONG gone so she will not be responding to this thread.
04-28-2019, 09:42 AM - This post was last modified: 04-28-2019, 09:46 AM by Targwyn
" You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire."
A
t first everything passing quickly underneath them appears peaceful, quiet and calm as the day dies around the world. A herd of bison run across grasslands while they low mournfully at the dragon swooping too low over their young. The river runs through Fable's shadow like a glistening snake soaking up the last of the sunlight. Fields of flowers look like nothing more than a flock of jungle birds, grounded and lost in a strange land. Everything looks different from the golden cage, lovely but almost obscure.
Isra doesn't think she ever wants to forget this feeling of soaring over the world like a cloud. Fable thinks he could carry his unicorn and her family to the ends of the world if it meant nothing would ever harm them again. Both think that Michael's hair was not made for flying.
There is white hair everywhere. It's tangling in the golden bars, stinging against her face like a net of needles. Birds are flying around them, plucking strands that have blown loose from the air. Isra watches them and thinks that one strand would make a fine nest. She laughs but the sound of it is smothered by hair. It sticks to her teeth each time she tries to open her mouth. But finally she manages to press her face to the bars so that she might yell without drowning in a sea of hair. “This will not do.” What is left of her voice is carried away on the wind rushing around Fable's wing.
Fable turns towards the sea and this time they all seem small when the mountains reach up below them. There are still traces of the tidal wave below them, trees wearing thin blankets of moss, and ships dashed in places they should not be. It's to one of those ships that Fable starts to fly, where a sail waves tattered and bleached in the moonlight. Once he's close enough he tugs the sail free as it flies past. It whips against the golden bars. Isra smiles from where she's hiding from all that white hair. With nothing more than a thought she changes that sail to a scarf, as blue as Michael oft hidden eyes and she decks it with tassels that remind her of the tall grasses where they first met. “Here.” She laughs as she uses her telekinesis to pull the scarf to them and starts to twine up Michael's hair.
This time when she speaks she does not taste hair between her teeth and her eyes are not watering with the onslaught of it. Fable hums this approval. He turns towards the city.
His hum becomes a roar and the cage shakes with the sound of it.
Spirals of smoke are rising from Denocte, dark against the shine of the moon. Isra's heart breaks even as it reforms into something like sharp steel, jagged and vicious. She wants to howl her fury to the night like a wolf, like an entire pack of wolves have made themselves a home in her chest. They fly closer and smoke starts to burn her lungs each time she breathes. Fable lowers towards a taller building and he's careful not to crash his passengers into the stone when Isra rises and leaps out of the cage towards the building's roof. The cage slams shut with a clang louder than the sound of her hooves crashing against stone.
She lands, and Fable rises back to the sky. Isra of course is already turning, but she looks up just once at Michael and her dragon. “I need you to go the other fire.” Her voice is still more howl than sound, but what she's saying is obvious when Fable rises again and turns towards another spiral of smoke. “Stay safe.” And then Isra is gone beneath the shadow of wings.
Once he's close enough to the fire to land, Fable sets his last passenger down. The cage has barely brushed the ground when the door is opening. The dragon barely waits for Michael to emerge before he's gone.
Fable is off to the lake, where he can fill his body with water enough to drown the fires.
@Michael @NightFirefighters | "speaks" | notes: Here, have a dragon to help
“The dawn was breaking the bones of your heart like twigs.”
The irony is crushing. Heartbreaking. It turns him cold.
He has never felt as alive as he does right now, here above it all. He will never feel quite this alive again. On one side, thick sheets of snow roll out beneath them, bunching up against the mountains. On the other, the ocean stretches as far as the eye can see.
Michael is breathless to see it, that beast that calls his name day and night, and he thinks that if he has ever seen a singular God it is this deep and still sea that sings to him even when he is hundreds of miles out of its reach.
At some point, Isra ties his thick hair up in a scarf that she waves out of a daydream. At some point, she laughs and he feels like he might pop. Michael says nothing. He is watching the sea and thinking to himself that its horizon is flat and endless, even from way up here.
Before them: the smell of spices and burning wood.
Above them: the scream of a dragon.
Below them: Chaos.
Michael’s heart drops straight into his stomach. His first thought is Oh no, and his second thought is Isra– as he turns to search for her eyes and he knows he will find nothing that he wants in them because she has been baptised in blood and her teeth are sharp and hungry and Michael knows now more than he had even moments ago that she would burn all of Novus to the ground if she had to. He thinks, even as Fable swoops low and Isra surges forth like a dam breaking, that she may have to.
He thinks, on her behalf, that this isn’t fair. It makes him sad. Then it makes him angry. Then it starts a fire in Michael that burns like the city burns, first just a heat that licks at his heels but by the time he and Fable have clattered to the ground Michael is a roaring wildfire and the fury of him sucks the oxygen straight from his lungs.
Michael takes off at a run, glancing at the direction in which Fable leaves as he does. He is a golden locomotive bathed red by his world burning around him and when he does finally come to a stop it is in the midst of a growing and increasingly chaotic crowd. Some are in flight, away. He turns to the ones that remain.
“Fable is coming to help,” he tells them but doesn’t know if it’s loud enough, can’t hear anything because of the roaring in his ears and the smoke in his throat. Michael uses his telekinesis to also knot up his tail, bunching it against his hocks in messy loops, then lopes out to assess the damage that’s already been done.
It's about time that we set it off Red lights, I could never stop
She was there, watching, waiting; hung back and wrapped up tightly in the arms of the quiet shadows, she was but a blurred figure that stood unrecognizable in the blackness of the whispering secrets. Her meeting with Raum was not only a reunion, but the admission of requiring her help--help she was all to happy to give. He told her of their plans, let her in on their monstrous act of burning down Denocte, supply store by store. She merely batted her eyes at him and agreed to follow along, promising to do all he wished of her. Her task then was simple: given the names and locations of those committing the crimes, she was to seek them out and watch them act. Her one goal was to stay until the end of each, ensure their mission went smoothly, and then report back to the Blood King with her findings. Already one had done the deed and she was there much like she was with Targwyn now, unknowingly to the painted-faced mare, lurking, observing.
Not a soul was around--quite possibly all sleeping neatly in their beds for the night, since the dark hours were already well underway at that point--and the guards hadn't noticed the group slipping past through the streets. So it was only them and Manon as she was there to witness their transgressions while the moon bared all and the soft pale light shone down upon them, lighting their way to a path lined with thorns. She appeared quite manic, the one setting the matches aflame and throwing them upon the packed supplies, smiling wickedly with no moment's hesitation before destroying sustenance that would have provided support for many. Perhaps the red-splashed girl with the glinting twig crown was not so different, though, for she was just as likely to thieve against her own.
Targwyn tossed the last of her lit matches and faded away into the growing night as easily as she had come. Left behind her was a thrashing fire that licked up all it had come into contact with, hungry and everlasting in its desire to consume. Without expressing much emotion, Manon stayed long enough to catch sight of a massive dragon flying above, its body blocking out the moon for but a second, and when it came into focus there was no denying whose it was; there were two pinprick figures upon its back, and it didn't take but a moment for her to identify at least one rider: Isra was back in Denocte. With her was a pastel palomino boy with hair even lighter and voluminous than the assassin's (perhaps she was slightly jealous in the feminine beauty he carried in such a masculine body), but one she didn't recognize. It was of no real importance to her, since she was merely only there to take watch of the fire and the one who started it, so she slipped even further back into the shadows as her blurred-out figure disappeared entirely and the chaos before her had only just begun.
manon was tasked with 'checking in' on their progress. this is just a little side reply, no one should be able to see her or even know that she was there <3
Yesterday, he had awoken to silence. He had risen with the dawn (when most of the night court was falling at last into their beds). Without saying a word, he had gone to the ocean, letting the water lap at his hooves while he watched the sun rise and split the world in half, heaven above and seas below. For a moment he had thought about swimming out to meet the sun, of capturing the largest star in Novus and taming it with his touch.
He had wondered if that was actually how Oriens became a god; not by being born into it, but by wrangling the sun itself and carving out a path in the sky for it. Perhaps it had been a wild thing before him, that went where it pleased and wept at the loss of its freedom.
It wasn’t how the story was told; but he thought he liked his version more.
But today he wakes up to a world as black as pitch, where shouts fill the air and the cobblestone streets scream as galloping hooves strike them. Somewhere a dragon roars, shaking the ground with its anger, and a shiver courses down his spine.
He rises with the first shout of fire! stumbling from his bed. The ground is unforgiving when he falls to his knees, his wince swallowed up by the darkness. As he sits there, trembling in the darkness, a warm glow begins to permeate the room. It is small and shy, creeping in through the open window to cast a slanting ray of sunlight across the floor.
When he goes to the window he expects to see a new sun, rising where it shouldn’t.
There is no sun. There is something much, much more fearsome.
The night is dark and fearsome, a cold wind bringing salt and smoke to stain his skin. He chokes on it with his first breath, smoke burning his lungs; he wants to go back, to shut the window and pull the blinds tightly shut. He wants the sun to rise like it had yesterday morning, and the waves to be gentle as they baptize his ankles.
But Ipomoea already knows: there’s no time for wishes and wants, there’s no time to think.
He takes off into the night, and Odet barely has time to follow him.
His heart weeps inside of his chest as the fires loom above him, each flame a mouth that reaches hungrily into the storehouse. Grain, wheat, apples; nothing is safe, everything is aflame. Smoke clogs the air, dampening the air so that the roar of the disaster, the shouts of the helpers, everything sounds strangely muted and far away. Only the heat of the flames remain as proof that it was not a distant tragedy, singing his cheeks. He stares and he stares, unable to look away from the beautiful destruction tearing apart the night.
Until Odet pulls sharply at his mane, his clacking beak loud and angry. He leaps into motion, following a pale palomino into the fray.
Water fights fires, but there is no water here; only fire and kindling.
“There’s no time!” he shouts, but his voice feels strangely quiet, drowned out by the raging inferno. “We have to save what we can!”
Ipomoea does not stop, does not turn back to see who hears him or who cares. He continues on, straight to the source itself, where he begins to drag barrels and sacks, anything he can reach, away from the flames’ greedy reach. A bag he carries crumbles to ash, a dozen apples rolling and bouncing down the cobblestone streets.
He can hear his blood singing louder than the flames when he runs back to the conflagration.
having no one,
forced by my nature to
keep wandering
because wandering
was the only thing
that i believed in
She is high up in the mountains in quiet reflection, parolling the Denocte borders as she has done so many times before. She has not seen the four that have snuck their way into and then out of Denocte. She does not hear the screams of fire below. She hears the roar of Fable and for a moment, it brings her joy to know that Isra is home. However, with that joy is trepidation. She is not sure why his calling unsettles her. It is angered and raw, something she’s not heard before. But before she can truly investigate the source of his unrest, she hears the unrest of Finnick.
Her bonded has been out hunting, as he normally did on her little walkabouts. She can hear the distress in his calling, the way he calls out to her, demanding her attention. It is something that he does not normally do, so naturally it gets Katniss’ attention. At first she does not see the Harpy eagle in the sky, but she knows he is close. Already she is on alert. Something is wrong. Finnick and Fable would not be both so upset if all was right in the world.
Eyes scan down to the citadel and that’s when she sees the flicker of fire. It’s small at first but is slowly roaring to life. Smoke is already filling the sky. It is here that she begins to run. Every ounce of energy her draft body can muster up is thrown into her legs, propelling her downwards and towards her home…her people. Finnick finally catches up to her, but he knows that she is aware of the fires. Eyes look up at him, their eyes meet and there is a sort of understanding between them both. “Finnick, alert Metaphor and bring water!” The bird wastes no time as he pulls forwards and down the mountain.
She continues to flee, her hooves making thunderous noise against the mountain’s edge. And when she finally reaches the closest of the fires, she sees Michael and another she is unfamiliar with. The stranger is running into the fire, a stupid decision. However, she cannot watch another die. She can see the way he’s trying to rescue food, to salvage as much as he can. And so, she pulls into the food stores, the flames roaring to life. The smoke fills her lungs and causes her to cough. It stings her eyes and she blinks in discomfort but continues. Flames lick at her fur, singing the tips of her tail as it whips by.
She grips a bag of grain, pulling at it with her teeth as she drags it out towards safety. She can hear Finnick calling, he is close again. In the grasp of his talons is a bucket filled with water. As he flies into the storage building, he dumps a single bucket of water that put out only a single flame. And without further direction, he leaves once more to fill his bucket so he might return and help put out the fire.
She sees the smoke of the fire before she sees what it is, what it burns. It makes the horizon glow while its black breath darkens the sky above it. She is familiar with burning; she is burning, all of the things inside her are, and as all burning things she knows this can mean no good. Fires do not start themselves, but until she sees it with her own eyes she cannot know what this really means. She cannot know that the things that are burning are meant for their survival.
Antiope races toward the flames like they are calling her home, like they are singing to the lioness and the fire in her bones. The closer she gets, she can see other equines there—none she recognizes, of the few she’s met—shouting, running. The heat sears across her body as she draws closer, like scorching water does it lap and lap upon her skin, each wave barreling toward her like the ocean. Her eyes are as blue as water but they will do no good as they search the flames.
Two equines are running directly into the fray, grasping bags, and she watches as a bunch of apples falls to the ground, rolling and bouncing away from the flames. Oh, if all they can carry is one bag at a time the food will be doomed regardless of whether there is no time for water to be brought. She steps close to the flames, Feeling them threaten to singe all the hair clinging to her skin. Antiope takes the ribbons in her hair and ties them haphazardly into buns, to stop it from dragging across the floor and then,
And then, the lioness in her bones comes awake. She roars through Antiope’s blood, hungry, hungry. At first, there is nothing to indicate what she is doing, until her eyes begin to change. From sea blue to bright and burning gold do they begin to glow. She knows, oh she knows, that she will not have much time for this. Her magic in this world is not as endless as it once was, but she knows that for the few moments it will last before draining her that she can do the work of all three of them at once.
Eyes glowing like she is a god stepped down from the sky above, Antiope enters the fire. She has few precious minutes for this, so as quick as she can begins to heft bags of grain, of fruits, of anything she can get in her grasp, onto her back. She piles one, two, four and more bags onto her back, as many as she can manage to fit on her small frame.
She might look like she can’t hold it, but she does, her legs faithful like she knows they will be. They do not quiver, she does not bend beneath the unnatural weight, and she carries them out of the flames. She can feel the heat pressing hard against her body, can feel the fire reaching and reaching for the things she carries but she thinks that she will do whatever it takes to douse its greediness. She has felt the lashing of greed before, and this would not be the first time she bested it, as she steps out of the reach of the flames and dumps the bags upon the ground.
She can already feel her magic draining her, threatening to swallow up everything that she is, everything that she has in her veins. The thing of her magic is starving and hungry and it will bleed her dry, but she does not give up, as reckless as it is. So she enters again, and calls to one of the other equines, “I can carry more but I am running out of time, help me,” and she hopes they will, to save as much as they can now while they have the chance. The minutes of her magic are ticking down, quickly.
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
