[Quest] come out of this dull world

[Random Events]

dance upon the mountains like a flame

For the last two days, the lands of Denocte had fallen under a warm spell—atypical, for the winter season, and somewhat concerning as the snow had begun to melt only to refreeze at night. On the third day of the abnormal heat, however, the residents of the Night Court were treated with a formidable sight on the horizon. The clouds were like mountains: thick, ominous, and gunmetal grey, they blocked the morning sun and promised a snow storm to erase the memory of heat. Those clouds rolled over Denocte for two days, with little to no event, aside from innocent, light snowfall—which seemed nearly mystic, more crystalline than real. 

But the tranquility, the placidness, was ingenue. A restlessness existed beneath the surface; a thinly veiled threat, that nearly pulsated within the clouds. It was the sort of tension that existed in nature when a predator appeared but remained unseen, marked only by a shift in the wind, an inherent wrongness. The clouds, however, only lurked—but it had become too much, for one of Denoctian’s inhabitants. 

With the strange weather, dreams came to Antiope. Each night, they arrived, vivid and horrible, as though the gods she had condemned had been resurrected. There was a wrongness to the dreams, however, an inaccuracy of truths, a dishonesty to her memories. It manifested as a subtle suggestion that the dreams were not as terrible as they may have seemed, in a reflection of the weather that was at once placid and menacing.

But the dreams, the dreams. They were characterised best by their restless urgency, by the sense that there was something forgotten within them—

There was snow in the jungle.

The marble temple of her gods was longer marble, but crude stone.

The statues, beheaded and destroyed, lay on the earth as though sprouted from it.

Something dead lurked in the shadows.

Something dead lurked in the shadows.

It smelled of bonfire smoke and the sea.

Of darkness—darkness—darkness—

What took the shape of darkness? 

Go to the mountains, the dream whispered. 

Go to the mountains, it whispered.

Go now.

The winter was dark only in a way that winter can be. The world was asleep, hibernating, and perhaps that was a metaphor for other things. The only colours were deep brown, slate, and the pristine snow—the clouds bled what little remained of the world’s colour, creating a greyscale scape. The journey to the mountains seemed desolate and the mountains themselves, also desolate and jagged against the furious sky. 

They could not be here, those gods of old, not in a land belonging to other gods—not in Caligo’s shadow, certainly. They could not be here, those dead and arrogant deities. 

But did the dream not suggest something dead, in the shadows? 

Climb, the dream had said.

And the sky broke. 

Quickly, abruptly, the mountains were engulfed by cloud and ice. And from them came the snow that had been promised for days in a vicious whiteout. The ax would feel heavy. Too heavy, almost. But there was no option except to climb, and to continue climbing. Why, why was the ax so heavy? There was something ominous about the cliff up ahead—but the ground flattened, temporarily, and would give respite from the ascent. There was a darkness to it, even through the snow… and nearer, nearer, it becomes obvious why.

A bear emerged from a small, secluded alcove with fury and jewelled eyes. It bellowed, and the ax… the ax, well, it began to burn. 

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After a particularly violent snowstorm envelops the Night Court, @Antiope will find herself called to the mountains. She cannot explain the calling - nor can she resist it. It will beat at her soul, tugging her like an invisible string, breaking her heart in half with the promise of putting it back together if only she'll come along. But when she does, she'll find herself engulfed in another storm - and she'll find she is not alone in the mountains.

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This quest was written by the lovely Syndicate. <3

Enjoy!

[Antiope]

I swear on Heaven and Hell this is my revenge

Antiope does not often sleep. She does not sleep because of the magic thrumming in her veins and the lioness hunting in her bones. When she sleeps, her sleep is as empty as the marble she had been carved from, once upon a time. It is empty because for so long none had taught her how to dream.

Once they had, her dreams had been taken away from her.

She sleeps now because of the fires, because she has not come to this world for war but war has seemingly come for this world on its own. Antiope sleeps because her magic in this world is not what it used to be and she had used too much of it to save the food that would get these equines of this world through the winter.

She sleeps, because her magic is hungry and starving and had taken everything out of her that she'd had to give. She sleeps through the days of heat, through the coming of the darkened clouds that fill the sky and leave no blue, no night, no stars to see.

And she dreams.

If you can call them dreams.

Antiope sleeps and she sees—there is darkness, everywhere, all consuming. And inside the darkness there are snippets of memories, drawn from her thoughts but they are wrong, wrong, wrong. In each of them something lurks, something strange but familiar.

Something dead, like all the dead things she has ever made. And there is a calling. It calls and it calls her until she is awake, suddenly, like a death. It calls her until she is standing in the night with the clouds above her and silence around her with nothing but the beast in her bones and the axe made of god light. It is quiet, but somehow the air is restless.

She follows the calling, though the lioness inside her sniffs warily at the strangeness of the stillness of the world. Antiope moves north and her steps do no falter, her courage does not waver, and the calling does not stop, even when she reaches the mountains. Even as she begins to climb.

Even when the sky cracks open and begins to scream its fury down upon her, smothering her. Engulfing her like the darkness had in the dreams. It is relentless; but so is Antiope, the girl made from marble, the girl who killed the gods. But something was not right, even in the storm, even in the darkness. Her axe feels like a strange, foreign weight against her side, though she has carried it since her creation.

It is heavy, and heavier, and she wonders if it is the thing doing the calling.

She wonders why she is here, climbing this mountain, standing on this flattened peak, until it appears. The bear is huge, and dark and its anger fills the air more than even the storm’s, and its eyes are like gems in the night. Its anger is familiar, its anger is inside her and around her. Its anger is her, and so are its jewelled eyes.

Antiope draws the axe from behind her shoulder and holds it by the twisted handle and her blue eyes flash in the night as she speaks, “Theófos.”

God Light.

And the axe begins to glow, and glow, and glow. So hot that the snow and ice melts before it touches the blades, so bright that the ocean of her eyes turn to the sun in its light. Antiope smiles, not like a girl but like a weapon, and everything that happens after is lost to the wind, and the storm, and the darkness. And the light of gods.

"Speaking"

credits

@Random Events <3