I AM MORE THAN ONE THING, AND NOT ALL OF THOSE THINGS ARE GOOD --
After walking for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been hours, judging by the position of the sun in the sky, Septimus stepped out of the woods and into a clearing.
He supposed that it could have been hours – apparently, this island was host to a god of time, or at least his relic, and, judging by the reactions of the locals, the gods of this land were very much real, physical entities, rather than the stuff of legends and myths. Septimus hardly knew how he should feel about that. What defined a god? If it were simply more powerful than a mortal, most of his family (the portion that were not mortals themselves) constituted divinity. If they were omnipresent, omnipotent – well, he supposed that the forest, which was a living, unknowable entity in and of itself was a god, but not one that anyone would worship. (It would not know what worship was.) Did that define a god – something that was worshipped? But mortals could be worshipped, and he wasn’t sure that made them a god. Did a god have to have some aspect, some representation, some duty? That seemed no different than any mortal thing off to work in the morning. Was it the immortality? He had been immortal, once. That didn’t make him a god. Perhaps it was creation, making something from nothing at all – but these gods must have bounds. He had been to lands, in the past, where the people had claimed their gods were living things, but he had never encountered one, and they were not the same as the gods of Novus. If their powers were limited by geography, were they still gods? He didn’t know.
What he did know was this: he did not trust the blue, blue pool in the midst of the clearing. Plants, with shimmering flowers that felt like they had the color and texture of oil spills, hung heavy over the banks, but their petals did not fall to disturb the surface. In fact, the surface was so perfectly still and untouched that Septimus found it suspicious. It was almost impossibly clear. He could make out every detail of the bottom – the little ridges of stone – from where he stood, several feet from the bank. However, there was no living thing in the water. The color was brilliant, a shade he had only seen in precious stones, and the clearness made it seem impeccably clean, but it was lifeless. He did not see the silver glint of sun-touched fish dashing below the surface; he didn’t even see a plant growing amongst the rocks.
Behind him were trees, hung heavy with fruit that must have been out-of-season. He could hear birdsong, and rustles in the distance, but there were no birds in the clearing. If he intended to stay here for a few days, travelling all the while, Septimus knew that he would have to eat or drink eventually, but this - this felt dangerous. There were places like these, back in the forest, and those unwary, unlucky travelers who fell for their traps would be condemned to terrible fates – to dance to death, or disappear for a hundred years to return to their families as nothing more than bleached bones, to be dragged beneath the surface by some unknown, unseen entity and devoured.
However, Septimus possessed a certain, scientific curiosity that insisted he draw closer to the shore. He didn’t want to approach, exactly, but he had to – he needed to know what secrets the water held. (Perhaps he could take a sample and analyze it later, though he didn’t know how to do so without his magic.)
Tentatively, hesitantly – his hooves all but dragging in the sand and mud – he stepped forward, towards the pool.
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
Kassandra felt trapped in this gods-forsaken jungle for time immemorial, and yet she knew it was only part of a day. So many contradictions in one statement; indeed, the island, and its plentiful flora, seemed to produce such conflicting questions as its diverse collection of blooms and boughs produced oxygen for their four legged earth-sharing companions— pallid in comparison to the striking greens, reds, yellows, oranges and other such hues-- to breathe. Exploration revealed the jungle went in rings, sparse on the very outer edge like a foal’s whiskers, then very thick just past the precipice; it thinned out again into a collection of clearings and groves a ways in, some dominated entirely by one species of plant, others home to bare earth and gaps in the foliage where sun streamed down to the loamy, volcanic loam and sand-scattered ground. Deeper still it became so thick as to be impenetrable, and yet Kass had a terrible feeling she had to go there.
A mixture of one-part curiosity, one-part fear, and one-part nothing-better-to-do kept the mare moving forward, though her decent-sized bulk was counterproductive to moving carefully through such a dense, plant-rich environment. The going was slow. She placed every pinion down gently so as not to crush or destroy any low-lying flowers, and she constantly had to dodge, lift, or untangle herself from looping vines or dangling clusters of sticky moss. There were green stains scattered all over her midnight-blue pelt, the star-like markings scattered over her rump and midsection glistening with sweat, and her hair was accidentally adorned with leaves and stray petals, sticks and segments of vines, some oozing powerful-smelling, thick and sticky sap. She kept her mane cropped short for reasons of ease of grooming, but even her abrupt curls were stuck and crusting in certain spots.
It was a peculiar sensation to be walking on land touched— no, further still, created by— a god and yet to feel so distant from their heavenly bodies. Kassandra was a newcomer to Novus, relatively, and so she was not entirely versed on all the deities native to the land (the thought produced a subconscious tugging deep in her stomach. She attributed it to thirst). Her homeland, Furae, had no gods save what two coins could be rubbed together; certainly now it had no gods, as Kassandra was sure it was still a sulfuric, seeping mess, like a wound gone septic and burst. The thought of rotting bodies falling into crevasses in the earth made her shudder and cringe.
A rancid smell met her nostrils and the images of her dead homeland were pushed from her mind, replaced with the sudden and overwhelming urge to vomit. “Oculos,” Kassandra said flatly, letting her head hang low to the earth. From the shade of the trees beside her the lithe form of her sighthound companion skipped like a jaunty shadow, tongue lolling from his mouth, stained a multitude of colors from the ripe, sugar-sweet fruit he had been imbibing on along the way. Though his eyes were a mite better than his snout, his sense was still good enough to detect a poorly core, or something toxic to the body, and therefore had been snacking only on the tender sweetness of a good, tropical bounty. His fur— black with white forepaws, and dotted with star-spots, as well— was also sticky with sap, fruit juice, clinging clematis-like tendrils, and dusted with the rancid, rotten-flesh smelling pollen of a grove of disgusting flowers he’d had a roll in earlier.
(‘Not having any fun?’) the Borzoi jeered, speaking the way an adult would to a young child disillusioned by something they had been warned against. (‘Well, I’m having a grand time.’)
“You don’t keep getting stuck on everything,” Kassandra pointed out, a pouting tone coming into her voice. To demonstrate, she lifted her head slightly, and had to snort a low-hanging, gossamer spiderweb from her nostrils.
(‘Well, I am not stupid big, like you,’) Oculos said, laughingly. He pawed his bonded companion gently in good-natured apology. (‘It is gods-damned hot though. I thought I smelled water a bit back but couldn’t be sure. I could use a drink that isn’t full of sugar.’)
“And a bath,” Kassandra added. Oculos showed his teeth and lashed his tongue. He wove himself under her and through her front legs— she yelped and winced as she was sure some of the disgusting pollen rubbed off on her— and strode further into the jungle.
(‘Follow me, then.’)
Kass sighed heavily. “Did you forget the part where it’s hard for me to fit?” she called, but begrudgingly followed, again doing her best to disturb the environment as little as she could.
Oculos came to the pool first, pushing through some large, dagger-leaved shrubs a ways away from the water’s lip. He discovered it, and Septimus, and sat his long, slightly curved body down delicately, long, fluffy tail wrapping around his feet like a perched feline. Though his and Kassandra’s relationship may not have been as fuzzy and overflowing with gooey love as some other Bonded and their equine, he was still very protective of her— which meant being naturally suspicious of strangers, because Kassandra, bless her heart, had a hole filled with loneliness where her common sense should go.
To Oculos, everyone was a stranger.
(‘There’s someone here,’) he called back over his shoulder, the noise escaping like a long, low whine. His pant shortened considerably, and he peered at Septimus with his large, high-set, dark eyes.
“Oh?” Kassandra nickered back, finally pressing through into the clearing with a new collection of leaves, vines, decapitated flowers, and fuzzy, floating seeds, pressed to her face, mane, and neck. “There are more horses here than I’ve met on the mainland— ah! Antlers!” She blinked wide with wonder, pushing past Oculos— who nipped gently at her hide to get her to wait back behind him, a useless gesture— and coming slightly round the pool, which she ignored completely, to stare up at the stranger’s (rather impressive) rack. “And I thought I had trouble walking through here! How do you not have whole trees dangling from you by now?”
I AM MORE THAN ONE THING, AND NOT ALL OF THOSE THINGS ARE GOOD --
Even if Septimus hadn’t spent most of his (many, many) years in a forest far stranger and trickier than this one, he probably still would have heard the woman and her Borzoi approaching long before he actually saw them. (The woman, at least. He was not entirely expecting the dog, though he thought he heard the patter of something nearby, accompanying her through the woods – or hunting the both of them, and either option seemed equally likely.)
The dog (a lovely specimen, to the naturalist’s eye, though a bit small for an adult) appears first, and Septimus eyes him suspiciously, though any discomfort he felt at the appearance of the animal, which was certainly not native to a place like this, like the birds in the trees and the cats in the brush, was alleviated in its entirety when the mare emerged from the woods behind him.
She was heavier in build, but tall and leggy enough to be deceptively graceful in spite of it (much as the branches and leaves and recently-deceased flowers tangled in her mane and coat suggested otherwise). Unlike the rich, deceptively normal bay of Septimus’s own coat, hers is a mesh of dark blue and silver, with a steel-gray around her face and the feathers that collected around her hooves; most striking, though, were the flecks of silver scattered across her rump, which, from across the water, seemed almost nebulous. Her eyes, too, were unusual – bright, pure, and pale. When she opens her mouth, presumably in response to something she has heard from her Borzoi scout, there is something about her that charms him, reminding him of the very certain fondness he had for some of his younger, less worldly sisters. “Oh?” Comes her voice, just as she presses through the treeline. “There are more horses here than I’ve met on the mainland— ah! Antlers!” She blinks at him (or, more specifically, at his extensive rack of antlers), and he blinks back, somewhat taken aback by the remark. Though the Borzoi nips at her ankles, perhaps to stop her from approaching, she curves around the too-clear, too-blue pool and comes to stand right in front of him, staring up at his antlers. “And I thought I had trouble walking through here! How do you not have whole trees dangling from you by now?” Septimus finds a warm smile pulling at the corners of his lips, and he contemplates how to explain himself. Moving through a forest is, to him, so like breathing that he sometimes forgets that it is not so simple for others. “I grew up in a forest that was far denser than this one,” he admits, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof. “I did get my antlers tangled in brush all the time when I was younger, but…” He trails off, considering. It is hard to explain his childhood to others, least of all those who had no experience with the strangeness (and the beauty) of the Woods, which were a living thing. They would change whenever he glanced away, and nothing would remain as it was for more than a few moments at a time; this place is almost like it, but less strange. There, he had to learn how to treat the forest as an extension of himself, like a phantom limb – another organ, but one he could not control. He had to feel to understand. “I learned how to move with the woods, not against it, as I grew older,” Septimus decides, finally, though he is not sure that his words will mean anything to this girl. (He does not know how old she is, but most creatures are young to him – and, even if she is not, her demeanor is girlish.)
His reply is unusual, and he knows it, so he decides to distract for a moment (or attempt to) with introductions. Gods know he has a tendency to forget them, in his excitement. “I’m Septimus, of the Dawn Court. And you are, Miss…?” He trails off, then shoots a glance at her Borzoi companion, and adds, “And you, of course? – though I am not sure that your companion can understand me.” From what little Septimus knew of the bonded creatures that accompanied the equines of Novus, some seemed to be able to, and some could not.
Either way – he looks into her pearlescent eyes, and he thinks that there is something otherworldly to them, a bit of mystery. He wonders what she is, to be so like the night sky.
@Kassandra || kassandra is literally the cutest thing ever sorry for the wait! "Speech!"
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
Living in a shimmering, jewel encrusted cage for the majority of her young life meant many of Kassandra’s applicable survival skills were dull— or, more plainly, they just did not exist. She had that innate equine preservation-driven sense for danger, but it was frequently buried deep under her curious and busy mind, something which was also cultivated by years of entrapment. Any prognosticative sense of danger would have to sink like a heavy, heavy stone through layers of questions, notions, and a barrier of intense desire to experience, which covered her mind like the blubber on a fat seal. So many smells, sights, sounds, and feelings were foreign to her that she had seemingly no sense of self protection in the face of threats which were potentially real and true and it was highly likely, one day, she would suffer for it.
But today was, so far, not that day! Here she had stumbled upon a beautiful stranger, who was the color of warm, living earth, and sunlight. He was tall and splendid, and his antlers, which she was quickly becoming obsessed with, were dizzyingly tall, and she was all at once jealous and insanely grateful she did not have to lug around such a heavy set of adornments. He had wings too! She’d never seen a creature with horns and wings. How incredible! And they were large, too, and she could tell they were powerful even when they rested static against his sides, like a weapon sheathed.
I grew up in a forest that was far denser than this one, Kassandra learned, and her eyes went wide. When he finished speaking, she almost shouted, “How!” It was an ecstatic, slightly frightened, outburst, though she managed to control her excitement and form it into a question: “How could such a thing exist? This forest is everywhere!” She looked around as if searching for something to prove her point and realized, seemingly for the first time, they stood in a clearing around the possibly preternatural pool. “Except here, I suppose,” she added, confused in a way which came with slowly realizing something was true.
Furae had been a kingdom of cobblestone and magic, of intellectual, scientific, and supernatural discovery. The only woodlands Kass could see from her Tower of Folly were far off in the distance, no more than vaguely pine-shaped smudges on the horizon, and over roughly six years, they grew smaller at a slow, but steady place. Around the Tower the palace occupied most of the space, great walls of marble and rock, and then the palatial city, long narrow rows of tall, listing wooden structures, came next. Beyond were indiscriminate farmhouses and golden fields of sustenance crops, and long, winding, travel-muddled roads churned to constant muck by hooves, filth, and rainfall.
She had found Furae beautiful in its own, forbidden way, as she watched from her Tower with the sapphires embedded in the walls; and still, she had let it go up in flames and fumes without barely a backwards glance. Her childhood had not at all prepared her for the wildness of woods and wilderpeople, like this stallion.
“Like not fighting a dream,” Kassandra said, her voice a bit misty, as she thought deeply on this concept of not fighting the woods. She cast a backwards glance at the jungle she had come from, where Oculos sat, his mouth a taut, pink-tongued pant, and squinted to see the pathways and gestured curves provided by the foliage so she could try to not fight it.
As Septimus suggested, it was not something which could be learned in thirty seconds.
“My name is Kassandra,” she says after his introduction is finished, turning back to face him, “of the Night Court, however distant. And this is Oculos— see, Ocky, you worry too much— my good friend, though I will not advise moving closer because he smells quite bad at the moment.”
Oculos made a huffing noise and lashed his tongue. (‘Tell him I can understand him, I’m just not interested in what he has to say.’)
“I will not tell him that, as it’s very rude,” Kassandra said back. To Septimus, she said, “He knows what you are saying, but he has decided to be stinky and obstinate today, apparently.” Her volume increased towards the end of the sentence to ensure Oculos heard her pedantic remark.
Oculos rolled his own eyes. (‘I can’t believe she's been swept off her feet by a nice rack,’) he grumbled, vocalizing in a warbling grumble-whine, as he turned his attention to the water. His impressive eyes focused in on it, and his ears perked slightly. (‘Just stay away from the water, Kass,’) he said, (‘I don’t think it’s right.’)
“Well, what’s wrong with it?” Kassandra seemed to forget Septimus could not hear Oculos. She immediately turned towards the pool and stepped closer to investigate, doing exactly the opposite of what her Bonded companion was asking her not to do.
Oculos was there in a flash, his long body built for sprinting. He placed himself directly in front of her, so quickly she bonked her nose against his side. She stepped back and snorted.
(‘And I’m being obstinate,’) Oculos said facetiously. He pointed his narrow head towards Septimus. (‘Ask your new best buddy if he knows anything about this water.’)
“Oh! Good idea, Ocky!” Kass turned to Septimus. “He says the water is strange. Do you happen to know why?”
kassandraoculos 905 | @Septimus | gee sept how come your mom let you have two wieners cool physical features
07-08-2019, 01:52 PM
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I AM MORE THAN ONE THING, AND NOT ALL OF THOSE THINGS ARE GOOD --
The girl, wide-eyed and enthusiastic, asks him how he could possibly be from a forest denser than the one they currently stand in – a forest that is everywhere, she proclaims, before she seems to realize that they are standing in a clearing. He lets out a soft chuckle; it is more of an exhalation than anything, with barely any noise to accompany to push of breath from his dark lips. Septimus wonders if she has spent most of her life in cities; he can’t immediately conjure any other explanation for her confusion – and wonder – at the natural world. That said, he appreciates it. It is rare to encounter someone who sees the world like a new thing, who can look at the simple (though this island is far from it) and find something wonderful in it. In spite of the glaring dog at her side, there is something utterly charming about the girl, and he is still smiling in that gentle, warm way when he speaks. “It was…something of a magical forest. Like this one, but wilder.” Septimus never knows how to explain the wilds to people who are not from them. Most of what he could say, he suspects, would seem insane to someone who had never experienced the pure wild magic of his homeland. He could understand why. Compared to most places he’d visited since, the wilds were incomprehensible. “The natives say that this island is the creation of a time god. My homeland had no gods – just immense, unnatural force, with no rhyme or reason. Whenever you looked away for so much as a second, the landscape would change.” Change wildly, even. Paths would open, or close, and trees would cease to exist the moment you looked away, if they weren’t replaced by something far more dangerous, hoping to catch you unaware. “Of course, there was no sentience in the design of my homeland, no purpose. It was not made, it simply was. This place…” He trails off thoughtfully, wondering how to put his thoughts into words. “It has a purpose. It’s more…deliberate. Like a labyrinth.” Apparently, that purpose was to hide a relic, or to create some sort of test to find a worthy possessor.
Religion isn’t of much concern to him – though he would like to study the thing…
He isn’t sure if she will understand his explanation of woods-walking when he says it, but, to his relief, she seems to. “A dream?” He inquires, tilting his head almost doggishly; there was something distant in her voice, and, for a moment, she did not seem to her childish or naïve, but rather like someone else entirely. The concept seemed foreign to him. How could one fight a dream? From what he knew of them, they were uncontrollable, and it was rare to recognize a dream to fight it while one was in the throes of it. Perhaps she is speaking of another kind of dream. (A metaphorical one? He has no way to be sure.)
The dog is still eyeing him suspiciously, despite his best efforts, but the girl doesn’t seem particularly suspicious at all. (Then again, given what he has ascertained of her personality, she doesn’t seem particularly suspicious of anyone or anything.) He is informed that they are called Kassandra and Oculus, shortened to Ocky, and, though the borzoi can apparently understand him, Kassandra’s reaction to his words suggested that it was for the best that Septimus could not hear what he was saying, much as he would usually have jumped at the opportunity to hear the words of a bonded familiar.
(Ah, well. With a mistress who seemed so unaccustomed to the outside world, he could hardly blame him for being suspicious.) “Kassandra, Oculus,” he repeats their names, rolling them around on his tongue. “It’s a pleasure to meet the both of you.” Even if the Borzoi disliked him, which was something of a hit to the naturalist’s pride – he’d always been good with animals. (He reminded himself that a familiar was no mere animal; most often, as he had come to know them in his travels, they were entirely sentient in a way that most other creatures were not, and soul-bonded to their companions.) The mare then approaches the pool, and Septimus moves to stop her on instinct; the borzoi gets in her way first, apparently as unsure of the strange water as he is. Kassandra, apparently prompted (perhaps sarcastically) by Oculus, proceeds to ask him about the water. “I don’t know, exactly,” Septimus admits, turning to stare at the pristine, bizarrely still surface of the pool again with narrowed eyes; there is a faint breeze that wafts and winds through the trees, but it sends no ripples scattering across the stark blue, no light refracting in waves. “I’ve encountered some sulfuric hot springs with bright blue water in the past, but the water here doesn’t give off any heat…and, if it merely had a high concentration of certain dissolved substances, like lime, there would be living creatures in it. Plants, at least.” But likely tadpoles, too, and little water bugs…perhaps some minnows, as the water did seem deep and permanent enough for fish, though it had a relatively small radius…but there was nothing in it. “I wouldn’t get too close to it – it might be highly acidic, or poisonous.” He isn’t even sure if it’s water, when he really thinks about it, though he’d be shocked to find such a high concentration of some other liquid substance pooling on the forest floor. (But nothing here should be shocking, should it? And he’d seen far stranger things at home.)
At any rate – in danger, the deadliest things were often the most beautiful. Cool and tantalizing as the pool appeared, and the fruit around it, it felt to him like a warning sign.
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
Kassandra was beginning to understand the ways of the world, however slowly; or, rather, she was beginning to see the world through a filter of newborn amazement and think she was understanding it. Like a young child with an under-devloped sense of object permanence, all Kassandra’s experiences thus far seemed both outlandish and completely sensible, as she possessed very little to compare them to and no reason to challenge their concreteness, no previous data to contradict the answers what were being given. She had no real adults, no living guidelines in her life to set her on the right course, to gently correct her; indeed, the only outside influence with any sort of bankable experiences to adjust her way of thinking was Oculos, who was an unreliable narrator most of the time. His intentions were split partway between keeping them alive, and the other half was always looking to make a joke, for which keeping Kassandra as the loving butt-end of it was required.
One of the things Kassandra was quickly coming to accept as true was all forests were magic, in one way or another. Even the ones in Furae, perhaps, had the magic of disappearing, as was the trend they so followed year in and year out. Here was Septimus claiming he came from an enchanted forest whilst standing in another— and, after all, did two plus two not always equal four?
Wilder. Despite every evidence to the contrary, Kassandra understood Septimus’ sentiment, at least to a point. The ravenous jungle around them did not seem, to her, a wild thing— living, yes, but almost… too staged, too perfect, like a brightly colored fruit tempts one to eat it. There was no chaos here, too much rhyme and too much reason. A beautifully baited maze. A shiver ran down her spine. “This whole place… does feel a bit like a trap, don’t you think?” in her voice was a nervous quiver. “Like a perfect final place for the doomed.”
Oculos jabbed her sharply in the chest with his long nose. (‘Hey, none of that now. No visions, no tantrums, no harbingers of death.’)
“Yes,” Kassandra said, a breath on the wind, and she struggled to stop her gentle shaking but her eyes were still wide with fear.
To distract herself, she tried to think more on what Septimus was saying of his homeland, but the idea of a completely wild place, with no guiding hand… a place of unrestrained growth and, almost an overabundance of life? That was the image Kassandra was getting. “Like a place where life and death fought, and life won; like a cancer, it can only grow, and nothing can leave.”
(‘Enough! Enough!’) Oculos was barking loudly now, sharp and agitated. (‘Come back to us, Kass! Back to me and your stupid, handsome new friend.’)
Kassandra blinked the stars from her eyes and shook her head, violently. “Oh. Oh, sorry, Oculos. I’m trying, I really am. I—,” she grit her teeth, willing herself to stay present. “Dreams. Yes. The dreams. I get— I’ve always had them, you see. Terrible dreams, sometimes waking ones, of things; some come to pass, some already in the past, though I never know.” It was a touchy subject for her, and if Septimus hadn’t just soliloquized on about his magical wooded homeland, Kassandra would not have been quite so keen on spilling the beans about her curse; but, at least, with each word she sounded more concrete, coming more and more back to the present and out of the grasp of whichever prophetic tragedy was trying to worm its way into her brain. “When I was younger, I used to try and… and fight them, like they were real; they certainly felt so. Eventually I learned I just have to watch them until they pass.”
Her eyes flashed to Septimus to await the typical, kind of freaked out response most strangers gave whenever Kass even bordered on the subject of her dreams. She was dreading the worst and imagined he would just up and leave them standing on the edge of this worrying water feature. “It is... a pleasure to meet you as well,” she offered, a weak apology for just how strange things were going.
“Is there a way to test it, perhaps?” Kassandra ventured after listening to his sage advice. Septimus had a way of talking about the natural world which made it both seem significantly less mysterious, and also a bit boring; but in an environment where most things were new and terrifying, Kassandra would take boring any day. “Shall we drop a branch or leaf in? If it’s highly acidic it should have some effect, maybe?”
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
