As the night fell, Corr knew she would need to start heading into the Court hall where the real festivities were underway. Reluctantly, Hāsta followed, but not without her usual grumbling.
When she opened the doors, the hall is decorated beautifully in dusk colors and illuminated by the fires in the grates. There is paper and pots of ink lined up in sets along the table and much mead and wine. Since she did not take part in the drinking much for the event at the cliffs, she would certainly indulge herself now.
It appeared the paper and ink was for drawing. There were some prompts setup, but Corr was never one to follow those. She preferred to freehand it and just draw whatever came to mind. Although, she was not actually that much of an artist, so this would be an interesting sight.
Settling down with a cup of mead, Corr took up one of the spots for drawing and looked down at the paper with excitement. What to draw, what to draw…
Hāsta flew down and took a spot on the table, looking at the mare very unamused-like.
"Must we be here? It's so loud… I think some are already drunk."
"Well, you don't have to be here, but I'm having fun. You can always head back home if you want!" she replied, nudging the crow playfully.
The bird made a grunting sound, but budge and instead looked down at her feet.
Corr's eyes went wide and she let out a laugh. "You're afraid to go back home alone aren't you?"
Immediately Hāsta fluffed up her feathers and jumped up and down (almost like a mini bird tantrum). "Am not!"
"That's it, you're scared!" It was hard not to continue laughing at her companion. "There's nothing wrong with being scared. Besides, I may not be here all night. We'll see how it goes. Just try to relax and have fun!"
But of course, Hāsta grumbled again and looked around, probably eyeing all the loud drunks. Corr didn't mind. After all, how could you go wrong with some good mead and art?
The castle feels like a cage around her. When she tilts her head up to look at the curving walls of brick and wood there are only bars wrapping themselves around her like snakes. Shivers run down her spine electric and furious. She quivers as finely as sand with the need to run, run, run (and then the monster in her belly wants to kill, kill, kill).
A drunk horse bumps into her and she cannot help the way her horn swings an arc towards him. The hollow curls of it sing even here, a low throbbing song that sits below the chorus singing in the corner. Although Thana thinks that if this is what they call music, her horn must only sing of battle songs and blood-lust. The stallion jumps back and her tail aches with the need to swing like a note of a harp towards the cup held clumsily in his magic.
Thana watches him retreat. She's feeling more and more like a wildcat and less and less like a unicorn who belongs in a castle.
The colorful rug at her hooves is growing paler and paler the longer she's standing there deciding if she wants to run or stay (or devour). Threads that once were red and brilliant blue are now nothing more than gray threads as brittle as dragonfly wings. If she looked down she might feel bad, but she's only looking up at the tables spread out around her like grave-markers.
A crow flying overhead is the first thing that truly catches her interest. Maybe it's the way the bird is as black as the slick rot she makes when she walks through wildflowers. Or maybe it's the way the bird flies as straight and true as death that makes Thana walk through the tables to see where it lands.
She follows the bird like a shadow and the horses drawing and drinking look at her as if she is the strangest thing in the room (she is, she is). Wen the crow lands she listens to the way the mare talks to bird as if they are friends. Thana closes the distance between them, curious despite that low ache to run, run, run beating in her bones.
“What are you doing?” Caught lightning makes her voice as dry as a dead leaf, heavy with all the things she has no choice but to be. Her eyes though are looking at the papers spread around the table as if each is a bone telling her some story she cannot quite understand.
After getting over her laughter, Corr began to draw. For now, they were just lines, but she was getting an image of a tree in her mind. Hmm…
"Uhh, Corr, I think Death has arrived."
"What?"
The mare turned her head just as a unicorn came up beside them and asked what she was doing. Something seemed off about her, but Corr couldn't quite put her hoof on it. Then she glanced over and noticed how the carpet beneath her curled and changed color. Well, that was certainly an interesting power.
"We're drawing! Well, I'm drawing. Hāsta here is just complaining as usual, so don't mind her," she said, playfully nudging the crow with her nose. Her companion made a quiet "squawk" of disapproval.
"Take a seat! Join us! There's mead over there too if you want some, it's pretty good," she added, taking another sip from her own cup. The drink warmed her throat and she was already starting to feel the effects a little bit.
Looking back to her drawing, she added some more strokes to show a texture of a tree trunk. Instead of keeping it as a full tree, she decided to have it snapping in half and really emphasized the snap with some zig zag strokes.
"Are you from the Dusk Court? I don't think I've seen you around yet. My name is Corrdelia- Corrdelia Maude!" It was in her nature to be overly friendly regardless of whether or not the other was the same. This new mare seemed down, so hopefully some mead and art would be enough to cheer her up a bit.
@Thana Corr's just trying her best to be Thana's new friend xD
There is a moment, in which Thana wants to forget all the death trapped and purring in her skin. She wants to step outside herself. Maybe then she could become a crow, perching inside walls instead of underneath dead, winter leaves. Or perhaps she could be nothing more than another horse, painting with ink.
But she's looking at the red ink someone's spilled across the table, and thinking that is she were to paint at all that's the only color her mind might understand. Deep down she knows she can be an artist too-- of war, of violence, of sinew and bone.
Tonight she wants to pretend that she's not scanning the walls for the something to cool all the black death in her stomach. The carpet is still turning gray under hooves, and the wooden table is turning black when she taps her blade against the leg of it. She's still killing everything she touches, and so when she brings some paper closer she chooses green, and yellow, and all the paints that are bright enough to sting when she looks at them too long.
“I'm Thana.” The paint splatters on her nose when she streaks it across the paper. A smile almost curls her lips, but that too dies the moment it touches her skin (as if all her nerve endings are black holes instead of electricity). Part of her wants to join the mare in talking until she can't hear anything in her own head, but each word dies too the moment it touches her tongue.
So she just dumps every bright color on her paper, until the edges of each color turns dark like dirt when it mixes. Her eyes sting to look at the paint and her heart aches a little in her hollow chest for the way she's created something so unlike everything inside her.
Thana doesn't take any of the mead, she's seen how horses change when they drink the stuff. And she knows, that if she looses herself, every horse in this room might become red paint across gray stone. “I call Terrastella home.” The words sound like storm of lies on her lips, black even though her lips are splattered yellow and green with paint.
The silence gathers in her eyes, like smoke, even though the hall is alive with sound, music and laughter. “What kind of tree are you painting?” She asks, like she hasn't already noticed the crack breaking the tree. The trunk of Corrdelia's tree looks like it's been cleaved in half by lighting.
Thana's tail blade brushes against her hocks like a reminder-- a reminder that's she lighting and not a tree full of bright leaves shining in the sunlight.
The longer the strange woman stood there, the more things turned gray and black around her. It was a peculiar ability, but it certainly made her seem like Death walking. Perhaps she was nothing but a spectre in the halls, but Corr didn't mind. She gave everyone a fair chance until they showed her otherwise. So far, the mare didn't pose any threats, although Hāsta felt the opposite. She could see the crow backing further away.
"Don't be rude!" Corr scolded her companion with her telepathy. "She's literally killing everything she touches!" "Maybe she can't help it. You don't know what she goes through."
The woman, who introduced herself as Thana, began to paint with several bright colors. It was a stark contrast to herself, but it just further proved Corr's point to Hāsta.
"Well, it's nice to meet you, Thana!" She replied with a large grin. "I haven't lived in Terrastella for very long - or Novus at all for that matter - but it's a fine place I'd say."
Thana turns to Corr's painting then and asks about it. There was something about her that seemed… sad, and it made Corr feel very sorry for her.
"Ah, this is a pine tree. Haven't quite gotten to the leaves yet, I kind of paint what my third eye tells me. It seems it wants me to paint the action first," she explained, taking a few moments to look over her work so far. Then, she took some yellow paint and began to work on the streaks of lightning colliding with the tree. Images of fire flashed in her mind and the loud CRACK of the tree when the lightning made contact. It reminded her of something.
"Are you familiar with Tarot at all?" Corr asked Thana, looking back over at the woman in between brush strokes.
When the crow starts to back further away Thana only watches with the same impassiveness that a lion takes when watching a sparrow back away from death. She understands, and the monstrous part of her sings a terrible sort of song in her heart to watch the bird dance away. Her eyes flick away then, back towards the broken tree and her own mess of once bright paints.
That tap, tap, tap of her tail against the wood never stops. And Thana almost imagines it to be her heartbeat slow and sharp below the whine of music coming from the corner of the room. When she lifts her nose and looks out at the crowd to stop herself from correcting the mare. She wants to tell her that it's a dead tree now, pine or not, it's only dead. Instead she swallow the words down until they burn into silence.
“What is a third eye?” She asks and tries not to feel a hope bloom in her heart that says she is not the only strange one here, not the only monster. Third eyes seem violent if they can create dead trees and lightning bolts. When she inhales she can still taste the sting of paint and the sweet taste left behind by the too close glass of mead. It all makes her itch for something more than paper and paint, idle talk and low humming music.
Thana wants to run until there is no lightning but the whisper of her markings through the dark night.
She starts to pull away, to listen to that hum and stab of her wildness and the song her blade cannot stop singing. Just as she's about to turn the mare talks again with another secret part of this world that Thana, the monster made of magic, does not know. Even her tail stops that heart-beat tap, tap, tap when she says, “I have never heard of Tarot.” All her bones ache with the hope that Tarot is just the name of another thing that she is searching for.
Because maybe then, this strange place, might feel like home instead of a hunting ground.
Thana didn't know of the terms Corr spoke of and it enlightened something within her. It was almost like a giddy, childlike excitement that bubbled up inside her and the biggest grin formed on her face.
"Great, here we go…" she heard Hāsta grumble through their telepathy.
"Ah, well, the third eye is invisible. It's located here-" she began to explain, using her paint brush to gesture to her forehead. "In the middle of your forehead. It's your connection to the spiritual realm and higher consciousness. It takes a lot of practice and deep meditation to open it, but when it is, messages from the spirit realm come through much more clearly. Such as this image here…"
Corr paused and took a moment to really examine her image. Then she took her paintbrush and added warm hues of red, orange and yellow to represent fire on the tree. It was a chaotic image and one most would find scary, but she tried to remain positive.
"Now Tarot I suppose is a way to exercise the third eye. It's a form of divination using cards that represent different symbols and meanings. Typically you pull a few cards at once, usually after asking a question. The order of the cards represents the answer to your question and will sometimes give you direction on how to handle a situation. It's the spirit realm's way of communicating with you and giving you guidance, but it's merely a tool. It's not something to take for granted or rely solely on," Corr explained while flicking her brush to represent the wild flames.
"This here… hmm yes… this image represents The Tower card," she continued, contemplating the meaning of this card coming up in her vision. "I've opened my third eye and the spirits have willed me to paint this card. I'm not entirely sure why yet, but this card holds a very strong meaning. It usually comes up when a lot of change is happening- a big change, really. One that is going to come suddenly and completely up-root our lives. Some see it as a dark card, I simply see it as a heads up to embrace change."
Corr cleared her throat and glanced over at Thana's canvas. "But, enough about that! Tell me more about what you're painting."
Although Corrdelia changed the subject, she couldn't help but feel a lump forming in her throat. She always tried her best to not let the presence of The Tower card trip her up, but it still made her feel uneasy. A big change was coming and she would need to help her Court be ready for it, whatever it was.
@Thana fun fact, I decided to have Corr paint The Tower from The Wild Unknown deck before the SWP hit so I'm kind of taking this as the reason for the card popping up and it's kind of cool o: I love weird coincidences
Thana wants to say she understands, but she can only look at Corrdelia pointing at her head and think of bears with gemstone eyes, and harpies with hollow bone bellies. All she can think of are a hundred different monsters with eyes that do not connect a soul but devour it. And when she leans away it's there in her gaze, that knowing look that suggests it's not an eye looking out from her head but a hungry, hollow spiral of bone.
She does not want to know what monster would crawl out from her if she opened it up.
The blade on her tail starts tapping again and her bones start their screaming to run, run, run. When she blinks it's to wash away the image of a burning tree and bright petals rotted into the loam. The echo of the image burns in the black, like lightning that is still coming down from the sky. She does not think the lighting will ever stop striking patterns of char across her mind. Thana doesn't even know what she would be without all those hunting, searching, wanting rivers of electricity.
“Change.” She offers and it sounds like an echo of goodbye, of all the things railing and slamming around inside this cage of flesh. Thana wants to say she hopes it's something more terrible than her coming, that the world might offer her something other than endless wanting. Instead all that comes out is, “I hope you weather it well.”, and it's not a lie even though she thought it might have come out as one.
Her hooves are already carrying her away from the tangle of colors taunting her on the table. She doesn't say what it is she was painting. Because she was painting death, and dirt, and bugs that eat the corpses. Thana was painting her self over a sea of sunshine petals and hope. So she runs away from it, from the walls and the mead and a civilization she will never understand.
Thana runs like a wild thing with a black smear of rot wiping clean each mark her hooves (and her blade) leave in the soft carpets.
As she looks at Thana after her spiel, she sees something in her expression. Is it sadness? Disappointment? Perhaps it's simply nothing and that's what throws Corr off entirely. She was giving this mare the benefit of the doubt as she always saw the good in others and she had done nothing wrong in her book. Even with things changing beneath her feet while she walked and the strange tapping motion that she had been doing this whole time.
But she feels that their conversation is cut short just when it was getting good. Thana wishes her well, but that's it. She leaves without another word and does not wish to tell Corrdelia what it was that she was painting. The paper lies there, a blur of colors that even she can't depict what it might be. It sits as a reminder of the strange mare she met here and how she reminds her of Death walking.
"Well that was odd. Too odd for me. Never talk to that one again!" Hāsta advises, but Corr dismisses it. Their paths crossed for a reason, although she wasn't quite sure why yet. Hopefully whatever Thana was dealing with, she'd weather it just as well.
Corr takes another sip of her mead and continues painting while humming to herself.
