s the skies blacken and the earth quakes, as all the world around him withers and cries out and struggles to breathe, he goes to the beach.
A trail of flowers follows him, grass sprouting in his hoofprints even as the dirt turns to sand. Crabs turn to follow him as he passes, beach mice and young turtles hiding in his shadow, a lonesome blue bird gliding at his side. With every step his following grows, sea and land creatures alike taking refuge in the appaloosa’s presence.
The ground is heavy with water, the waves lapping at his fetlocks when he finally stops. All the animals stop with him, they wait with him, they look to the horizon with him. Their eyes are greeted with billowing clouds of smoke, a sky that turns as black as night and reaches ever closer for the shoreline.
As he breathes in deeply, his lungs full with ash; the breeze coming in off the ocean is hot and humid and promises death.
He envies Isra her horn, and Asterion his powerful magic. All around him he sees soldiers, with weapons both natural and made, preparing themselves to fight the gods themselves. They crowd the beach and together stare out at the horizon, and if it weren’t for the crash of the waves he might have been able to hear their hearts racing and pounding like war drums. He wants to be like them; he is just a boy with flowers in his hair and laugh lines on his cheeks. He is just a boy that craves the warmth of summer and the peace of spring.
But overhead the seagulls are crying out, the sandpipers are flocking, and all the sharks in the sea are baring their teeth for him. We’re fighting for you, they promise, we stand by you.
And even though he’s young and green, Ipomoea’s blood sings as he stands upon the beach. And he watches and waits for the world to go to war.
take that look from off your face you ain't gunna burn my heart out
There was something unsettled in the air the night she stole away from the White Scarab. She should have known then. When morning came upon the shores of Novus and the sea began to grow restless, Minya knew that something was awakening.
The air was metal and ash, the sun a glowing red. It burned like the flames she drew along her skin. Only her flames do not burn like the sun does. The sun that blesses all with light and steals the warmth from her bones as it falls to slumber. Oh it turns her cold now as great black clouds roil in. They bloom and climb and blot out the light of the sky and the sun. All is dark beneath the billowing cloud.
Beneath its drowning shadow Minya wades. She follows deeper into the dark and she is not alone. All of Novus is spilling out upon the beach to look out over the Terminus sea. Upon the dancer’s lips is a grim, grim smile. Terminus it was all so final, was it not? She looks to the end of the world, where a volcano belches and spills itself out into the sea. Red, red blood boiling and searing lungs full of ash. Oh this is a monstrous time and that is a monstrous island.
Ash falls, settling like black snow upon the sleek pink of her hair. She wears this terrible ash like gems, it is not the first time she has been covered in ash and she does not move to brush it from her skin. Oh, there are worse things to be covered in – like blood and poison. Her lips pull tight, into a line as sharp as any blade.
Minya stands, cold as stone and just as bold before the raging volcano. She watches with eyes as silver as the stone that makes its crater. Within her is lava, within her is chaos and hatred and as she watches the volcano burn she thinks how wonderful it would be to split open like that, to spill herself out into the world. To rid her grief like billowing ash and drive all from her. But oh, she likes that they come to her. She likes that she draws eyes to admire her beauty, for Minya is beautiful. She is the volcano but she does not shudder when a warm shoulder presses against hers. She does not burn him with lava, not when she smells the incense of the Scarab upon his golden flesh.
Minya is stone and August the lavish gold that might be forged within her. He is expensive, but she is invaluable. He speaks and she smiles the dark of the inside of a locked room. “What makes you think this is the end of the world?” She asks as her trinkets gleam, as she settles glittering eyes upon him. Her world had ended already, in poison and water.
@Random Events @August | "speaks" | notes: skidding in here at the last moment!
and then you put your hand in mine
and pulled me back from things divine
The Delumine that Ulric woke up to was not the same as the one he had fallen asleep in. The birds were much too quiet, the air too still, the gravity too heavy along his back and shoulders. It was uncomfortable and wrong, and soon, he would bear witness to the reason behind it all.
He was standing where the Rapax emptied out into the ocean when it all began. Thick, black smoke billowed from somewhere further south, growing and growing and growing to the point where Ulric wondered if the end was nigh, if the smoke would consume everything in its pass and strangle anyone who breathed it in. But… there was more to it than that, he somehow knew; he could feel it deep in his bones. His heart was a jackhammer against his chest as he faced it head-on, and he cursed beneath his breath upon the realization just how close the eruption appeared to be to Terrastella. Israfel.
There was an urge to run there as fast as he could to ensure her safety, to face whatever threat loomed overhead alongside her, but his priority would always be where his greatest loyalties lie – Delumine. And so, with a deep breath and a reminder that the woman was entirely capable of fending for herself, Ulric turned to head back for the citadel to rally their soldiers.
"Speaking"
***STAFF EDIT
@Ulric has rolled a 2! He has been awarded +20 signos
HISTORY HAS ITS EYES ON YOU ➳ allcontact is permitted and encouraged
It didn’t take long for the ash and smoke to reach Denocte, burning his nose and filling his lungs with smoke. His eyes felt ablaze, tears marring his vision as they attempted to rid themselves of soot. His barrel rattled with a cough as he stepped around the keep, casting his gaze southward where he saw others already gathered and looking on with mouths agape and eyes wide as dinner plates. Some cursed, some whimpered with fear and huddled close to one another, and others stood with fierce expressions looking as though they were ready to take on the world.
A pristine ocean alight with early morning light was what should have greeted him, but instead, he was met by the roar of black waters crashing against the shoreline and an even darker sky. Already it had taken over the sky above, leavening minimal light in its wake. As another cough shook him, this one more violent than the last, Kratos squinted his eyes and strained to see beyond it all, but it was Pryna who would have greater success than he.
’Looks like a volcano,’ her voice chimed in from somewhere in the back of his mind, her presence alone soothing but he had been with her long enough to pick up that she, too, was deeply unsettled. ’We can’t outrun it. Maybe we should investigate.’
Honestly? It sounded like a death wish, but Kratos knew she wasn’t wrong – they couldn’t outrun it, and there certainly was nothing to be gained by standing around waiting for something to happen. Breathing deep was a mistake he’d come to regret as another fit of coughs gripped him, but as it passed, he picked up his feet to leave the keep behind.
Together, man and dragon began their search for a way across, should there be one to find.
Samaira is in the hospital wings when the commotion starts, first with the animals. They flee to the highest tree tops in the swamp, landing on window sills and the rooves, disappearing into every nook and cranny. More than one ends up lost in the halls of the hospital, running and flying in panic. They take cover beneath beds, beneath tables, anywhere they can hide.
The earthen woman tries to see, tries to ask what is happening, but nobody knows. None of the doctors, none of the nurses, the pages, the patients. Every equine is as confused as the one next to them, until the first one arrives with news on their tongue and panic in their eyes. ’The volcano,’ they say, ‘It has erupted.’ Samaira turns to the elder healers, to her mentor, and the question is plain in her eyes, even before she speaks it.
“What do we do?”
There is nothing they can do about the volcano, they say, but they need to prepare herbs in case of the smoke and the ash, which is sure to come. For sore, dry, scratchy throats. For irritated eyes, for aching lungs. That is their job, because they cannot stop the eruption but they can ease the physical effects it may cause on their citizens.
And the smoke does come, and the always-night sky rains ash, and Samaira is too busy preparing and aiding and comforting to feel worry. There is too much to do to be concerned about the lava and the lightning, as her seniors say the island is too far away for it to matter. They say all that matters is the people. So she buckles down, and she works, and she doesn’t go to sea to watch the volcano or fly in the darkened sky.
She breathes in the black-churning smoke, the snowflakes of ash, and wills the heart thumping traitorously in her chest to quiet. A tickle climbs through her lungs into her throat, until it escapes in a dry, heaving cough.
Aghavni licks at the soot coating her lips and inspects the black-streaked wetness she had coughed onto the ground.
“Smoke is perfume and ash my sustenance,” she whispers, because nonsense calmed her when she was afraid. There is no one around to hear. There is no one around to know her fear, and she is glad.
The sea drags back and forth, back and forth, over the beach. Like a slick black puppet on the strings of the hidden moon.
There is no seawater lapping at Aghavni’s hooves. There is no sand clinging to her skin, no seaspray blowing into her eyes. Tonight (it is not really night, but it is dark enough to be) she is far away from the siren spell of the ocean, safe and distant and forgotten.
She leans against the rough limestone wall of the alley, the secret one she had discovered months ago that spilled its trespassers onto the cliffs that bordered the Terminus. The shuffling bodies below, ink drops on the sand, remind her of ants turned languid by the heat of the sun. She is glad she is not among them.
Her back grinds into the stone, and reluctantly she drags her eyes from the sand (to stop them from searching for the pink of Minya, the gold of August — they had both left earlier, and Aghavni had been the shadow disengaged from its body when she'd split from the crowd to head up towards the alley, instead of down to the beckoning sea) to stare, half in wonder and half in fear — she tries to let the wonder win — at the horizon and the smoke-spitting island.
She studies the not-night sky dubiously, and wonders if the volcano’s fury will reach across the sea to drown them in island-fuls of ash. And if it does, what that would feel like.
“Like the first time,” she remarks aloud, emboldened by her solitude to voice her nonsense to the wind. Like the first time I had ever known of ash, and how it chokes. When Sol (her but not her) had died besides her mother, swallowed by the rebellion’s flames.
Aghavni’s eyes stare, too large and knowing and green, at the sand and the ants and the black sky and sea. She remembers how —
They had never buried her mother. Father had said there had been nothing left to bury.
— before pushing herself off the wall, kicking a pebble down the cliffside and hearing it plop into the water, and slipping back through the alley.
In her room, settled primly behind her desk, Aghavni draws out a white-feather quill and smooths down her parchment. The quill scrawls over the paper, and the glistening ink reads:
Denocte was wondrous, a place she couldn’t have even imagined in her wildest dreams. It was nothing like home, and while she still missed the place she had initially been raised, she was quickly learning to love this strange new land just as much.
The markets held treasures unlike any she’d seen before, from handmade toys crafted with love to garish outfits made for queens; she wanted to stop and see it all, and luckily her father seemed all but powerless to oblige every time she stopped to browse, and answered her avalanche of questions without complaint.
What captivated her most, however, were the various performers set up along the streets. There were sword swallowers who made her skin crawl, actors playing out a tender tale of love, fire eaters who took her breath away, but what captivated her most was the conglomeration of singers and dancers they happened across. They were a lively bunch, spinning and twirling with ribbons whipping this way and that, fine silks moving in rhythm to their upbeat tune. Lieve looked on from her father’s side with bright eyes of joy until it all started to fall apart.
Her thin legs threatened to give out beneath her, and as the trembling of the earth grew more violent, one knee bent and smacked into the street. It wasn’t the quaking of the ground that scared her the most, but rather the panic that quickly took over the previously joyous faces around them, their smiles stolen. Straightening back up and pressing close against her father for comfort and support, she made a fearful sound in the back of her throat but nodded, her chest clenching when she looked up to see the blackened sky.
”O-Okay,” she stammered in response, knowing that he knew best. If he wasn’t afraid of what was happening and the absurd terror that consumed almost everyone around them didn’t effect him, what reason did she have to be afraid? She swallowed past the lump that had formed in her throat, and at one point she squeezed her eyes shut as they made their way back to the Scarab, trying her best to be brave despite her own rising fear.
Israfel didn’t even try and stop the expletive from leaving her lips. She didn’t have that much self control. At this point? She really wasn’t even surprised when the volcano to the south decided to fucking erupt. When did a volcano even get there? Did a chunk of land just grow some legs and waltz its happy ass into the Terminus Sea, unnoticed by everyone?
The day had been pretty nice, as far as cold winter days went. Quiet, peaceful, pretty normal if you asked her… Until the ground began to shake and the little critters of the world began to flee in search of a place far safer than where they were currently at.
At first, the Sun Daughter had simply assumed it was a small earthquake. They happened from time to time, right? Especially in Terrastella, the earthquake capital of the world. But the trembling continued, growing in magnitude, seeming to shake the very foundation of the soil and rock beneath her hooves. It was then that she noticed the rising plume of smoke in the distance off of the cliffside, and initially alarmed, she took to the air, Solaris’ soaring overhead to follow That worry lingered only long enough for her to spot others that had gathered along the shore to watch the initial eruption, to watch the angry churning waves of the ocean, to witness the darkness that began to coat the sky with a spewing mass of ash and soot…
Whispers coursed through the gathered equines, but Israfel hardly gave them any thought. Murmurings of ‘the coming end’, of ‘curses from the gods’, and other such bullshit caused her to frown. It was a volcano. They erupted. It’s simply what they did. If they were this upset over a volcano, Israfel would have hated, or loved, to see their reaction to the Veins back in Helovia.
Through narrowed eyes of vermilion the Warden stared out across the churning waves and the rising clouds of black ash and debris, and wondered what this might mean for the rest of them. The sheer force of the eruption itself was powerful and somewhat unsettling, but it was normal, right? This was nature at its finest work. There was no reason to be concerned.
Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light.
Volcanos are the workshops of the Gods, or so Ianthe has been told. The underground thunder and the trembling land is caused by hammers, the billowing smoke is simply from the forges. A masterpiece will be unveiled sometime in the future, perhaps not to mortal eyes, but unveiled nonetheless. No herd she has ever flown with has remained long enough to see the result, to see if the gods are feeling generous. Such a thing would only be rude, presumptuous, and no Swift would dare.
But here she stands, looking out across the waters, feeling ash settle amongst her feathers and watching Zeus’s lightning bolts intermixing with thick black smoke and fierce red. Those around her shift and sigh with nervous energy, afraid, but Ianthe is enchanted. She has been granted a chance, the potential, to see a god’s masterpiece, and though the loss of her wing still aches fiercely in the very core of her being she won’t turn away.
Despite being sworn to her purpose (a lost Queen and a General and a war), she does not think she will be begrudged this opportunity. Perhaps the timing is a boon for her, a balm, some sign of favour, and so she watches, and waits, and hopes she is not overstepping, not misreading.
The heretics cry and crowd and curse around her. They do not understand, and do not care to. She has no eyes for them, not for those who flee, not for those who stay.
Ianthe tilts her head to the blackened sky and smiles.
***STAFF EDIT
@ianthe has rolled a 5! She has been awarded +100 signos
05-17-2019, 09:29 PM
Played by
bruiser [PM] Posts: 99 — Threads: 13 Signos: 1,000
She is not entirely surprised that there is yet another disaster on the horizon.
It is the worst possible timing, with Erd missing and Ard seemingly unable to be consoled, with every lead seemingly growing cold with every question she asks among the marketplace. So why wouldn’t the sky begin to fill with ash and soot as she circles back to the Halcyon messenger once more? Why wouldn’t the earth shake beneath her feet when she touches down next to him, touching her muzzle to his briefly and slinging her wing across his back in a desperate attempt to comfort him when she relays that there is still no information to be found?
Somewhere, she is sure, one of the gods is laughing.
“Come on,” She murmurs beneath the desperate prayers that fill the air, a stubborn tilt to her jaw, and she turns away from the sight of the volcano towards the merchants. “Someone has to have seen something.”
Samaira is in the hospital wings when the commotion starts, first with the animals. They flee to the highest tree tops in the swamp, landing on window sills and the rooves, disappearing into every nook and cranny. More than one ends up lost in the halls of the hospital, running and flying in panic. They take cover beneath beds, beneath tables, anywhere they can hide.![[Image: 13481303_KpOIcOG7drxHK9U.png?1556314753]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13481303_KpOIcOG7drxHK9U.png?1556314753)
