[Quest] the tears of gods

[Random Events]

her only weapon, her salvation

Smoke still fills the city, ash still falls from the sky. The damage in Denocte has been done but the effects of the food storage fires will carry on for weeks and months to come. There’s something eerie about this particular morning. The sun just barely trying to peek over the horizon while the rest of Denocte is still. The sky is filled with pinks, yellows, and oranges, trying so desperately to break through the smoke-covered city. The only sounds the once vibrant city can hear is the steady “clip clop” of Isra’s hooves as they move through the cobblestone streets while surveying the damage.
 
And out of the fog of ash and smoke comes something beautiful and unusual in this part of the city. A young female clouded leopard guides her cub through the city, her eyes searching for something with a very clear purpose. Her movements are soft, fluid, and absolutely quiet. Her coat blends in with the natural colors of the wood and stone that make up the citadel. It is when she rounds the corner and sees Isra that she pauses. Their eyes meet and just as soon as Isra makes eye contact, there is a pull that happens. Isra may not quite understand it yet, but that pull to follow the leopard will be strong. 
 
The leopard stands strong for a few moments longer, allowing that bond, that pull to intensify. And when she finally breaks that eye contact and turns, she is silently demanding that Isra follow her and her cub. It is with soft, purposeful steps that she then leads the queen to the source of the ash and smoke that fill the sky.
 
When she gets to the first fallen food storage, her cub enters the debris-stricken room. The cub goes to the center and slips beneath the cover of a fallen beam. Once he returns to his mother’s side, it is clear that he is carrying something within his teeth - stone that looks very similar to a ruby. It is a colorful gem, harboring colors that mimic the sunrise - red, pink, purple. The colors swirl together and upon closer inspection, it can be noted that this is not a ruby, but something far more precious and unique.
 
The cub places the gem onto his mother’s back and falls into step with her. One look behind Isra and it is clear that she is to continue to follow them along this journey. The mother leopard and her cub take Isra to the second of three fallen food storage rooms. Once again, the small cub travels into the debris and ash, this time returning with what seems like an ordinary piece of cloth. It is weaved and neutral in color, appearing most like burlap. The cloth is folded and placed below the gem. And once again, the pair begin to walk further away from the city towards the final burnt down storage.
 
When the pair arrive at the final storage room, the cub once again weaves through the fallen beams and burnt stone, this time pulling out a roll of red string, thick like yard but more durable than twine. As the cub returns to his mother’s side, he keeps the roll of thick string between his teeth. The pair then lead Isra towards the mountain pass. The bond between them grows strong and if Isra has not figured it out by now, there is no denying that the mother and son pair wait her to follow them.
 
They lead her to a small alter at the base of the mountain. It is approximately 5 ft high and 5 ft wide. The center is a basin filled with the tears of the gods. The leopards place the objects on the ground as the mother turns to Isra. Their eyes meet and she makes a request. “Your bow, Isra…” It is a command, but a gentle one. The leopards know of the lunar bow, the bow forged out of Isra’s own magic. The cub steps forward, intent on taking hold of the weapon and bringing it back to his mother. 
 
Only when the bow has been given to him does he return. The mother offers Isra a nod, a silent thanks as she sets to work at wrapping the bow in the seemingly ordinary burlap, tying the cloth closed with the thick twine. When the bow and its arrows have been wrapped tightly, it is placed in the basin of tears. “Pray.” Her command is soft, her intention clear. Isra is to pray over her weapon, asking the gods to bless this weapon and make its victories abundant. 
 
When Isra has begun her prayer, the gem seems to raise from the ground on its own accord. It levitates upward and towards the basin, hovering over it but never touching the tears. And when Isra’s prayer has finished, the gem falls into the basin. The basin is filled with lunar fire, bright blue and heatless reaching over 3 ft tall. It is so bright that if looked at directly, the light will burn the retinas of the onlooker. The fires last but a few short minutes and when they finally are put out, leopard turns back to Isra. “Gather your bow and use it for greatness.” And when Isra steps towards the alter, she will find that the burlap and twine that once hid her bow from view has been burned away. The gem is gone, and there is nothing in the basin but the bow and its arrows. No burlap, no twine, no gem, and no tears of the gods. And if Isra looks back to the mother and her cub, she will find that she is alone.

---

@isra, if she chooses to follow and wait for the leopard and her cub, will be lead by them to the base of the Arma Mountains, where it seems a basin waits for her alone. She will be prompted to give up her bow, to wash it in the tears of gods - and then to pray.

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This quest was written by the lovely @Zombie.

Enjoy!

[Isra]

Isra who decides not to kneel

Once it was only the moonlight that called to her the moment it started to rise. Each time the sky started to grow dark, with layers and layers of blue painted upon each other, she would feel her skin start to itch with the whisper to live, and dance, and sometimes run like a wild thing. Now the mornings are starting to call to her and they rarely feel alive with freedom like the night had.

The mornings feel to Isra like fate. Each is heavier than the last and she wonders how long it will take for sunlight to fall on her back like anvils.

So as the sun rises, she rises with it. The air is hazy with ash, and smoke, and a weight that tastes like sorrow each time she inhales. It makes her tongue feel thick behind her teeth. She tries not to think of how brine sometimes feels the same when she's standing by the sea saying, I'm not coming back.. The thought keeps climbing back up like a storm each time she shoves it down and begs her magic to devour it, or change it to something new.

Isra comes to the first building hollowed out by fire and each ember turns to a seed as she walks through it. Her heart tugs at her, and tugs, and tugs. She stumbles with weight of the pull, like a tide. At first she looks towards the sea. Then she looks towards the sky wondering if it's Fable or a fresh terror spit out by the gods to bring them suffering. And when she cocks her horn towards a shadow she waives when she sees the leopard moving through the black.

If it wasn't cloudy, and bright-eyed, she would have through it was another weed she needed to pull against in the black of all her dreams.

It moves and Isra follows. Beneath her skin he heart beats steady and she hopes it doesn't need to pick up a new war-drum song. The cub appears and still she follows. Together they pause at each ruin and she watches the cub dissolve into the darkness and return with a small treasure. She knows enough of stories to be patient and wait for the end.

So she follows them past the city, through the meadow, around, the lake. Fable does not wake from his dreaming slumber upon the castle roof. But his thoughts of fish, and waves, and sharks follow Isra as closely as her shadow when she walks towards the base of the mountains.

It's only then that she starts to remember the gods and their mountains. She starts to remember what a trap feels like, and how she couldn't deafen her ears (and her heart) to the sound of betrayal. The leopard speaks and she does not think to call it strange. Isra only listens closely and hands her bow over to the magic of the cub waiting.

When the mother tells her to pray Isra's first reaction is to toss her horn until it is sighing in the late dawn like a sword through a willow branch. She steps closer but she does not kneel and she does not bow her head in submission. Only her eyes close. She begins, and she thinks of death the entire time.

“I pray that this world will find the way to peace again.” Although she wants to pray for Raum's death, for vengeance she doesn't. When the pool turns bright with white flame  her eyes flicker open. She looks towards the edge of the fire, until white sparks are flashing in aching bolts across her visions. “I pray that we are all done suffering for the whims of unjust creatures.” The fire goes out. The leopard breaks the silence of her prayer.

She steps closer to gather her bow back, and when the etchings on it start to glow she smiles. It is more wild than kind, and the silver glow of her bow reflects strangely on the teething showing from between her black lips.

Fable wakes up and there are no more images of the sea rushing disjointedly through her mind. Isra does not notice that the leopards are gone. That part of a story has ended, she has only known when the ink has started to dry an a page has been turned.

She steps closer to the empty pool and brushes her nose against the stone. It turns to ore, and pearl, and amber with black specks caught in it. Isra speaks again, but it is no prayer that falls like a blade from her teeth. “And I promise that if any more suffering comes to anything I love that I will not stop until the cause of it is dead.” Each word cleaves the silence and the last of a holy weight in fading shadows.

Isra does not look backwards when she leaves to head home.


“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”   

@Random Events