Vendetta does not often leave Solterra. She has a lot of business to attend to in her desert home, and ears and eyes all across Novus to keep her up to date on the things she might miss when she doesn’t travel.
The one place she does not have eyes and ears, however, is on the island. That’s solved, somewhat, by the fact that everyone seems to talk about it. News of the island travels quicker than any news Vendetta has gotten her hands on before (and the unicorn is very familiar with the passing of information).
The island, mysterious and strange as it is, is the one place Vendetta has visited again and again. Why, she can’t be sure. It’s a fascination, an urge. Perhaps she’s searching for something, hoping to find something. Perhaps...
And when time begins again, suddenly, and the world trips over itself and the ground is not quite as secure as she remembers it being, Vendetta follows the calling. Sand has never been a secure thing. Like water, the sand that you step upon in the desert is rarely ever the same for long, but the way the sand here moves like waves.
It’s not right.
But she follows, because if Vendetta has learned anything it is that one does not simply happen upon things of great value. They must be sought, discovered, found. So she goes, brushing aside the forest with her great curving horns and peering between the foliage with bright ruby eyes.
When she steps into the clearing Vendetta is hardly the first to arrive, but no doubt also not the last. There in the middle stands the relic, ripe for the taking, and Vendetta doesn’t understand why nobody has made the first move yet. Someone will have to, of course.
The unicorn takes a moment to appraise the gathered equines and sees a few familiar faces. Young Apolonia—wielding that hurlbat of hers—third eye sharp and bright. Lucinda, who Vendetta is both surprised and not, to see standing gathered here among so many. Not when she considers the prize to be had. There are more. Eik, the woman she had run into in the markets of Denocte during their masquerade, and more with sun and sand on their skin.
More who she doesn’t know, but none of them matter to her. When she steps out from the shadows of the trees there is no finery, no shimmering gold pearls and fine draping silk. Just a unicorn with ruby-blood eyes that are sharp enough to cut and a world and wealth of experience at her hands. Whatever game it is these equines are playing, their challenger has arrived.
Below Zero
my frost philosophy will put no curse on me
The subtle hoof prints marred the sands, and with their arrival came Bel's almost immediate attention. She'd spent enough time on this island to draw an odd sort of kinship to it, a subtle understanding of its' secrets being meant to be kept a secret, and an unending curiosity to follow it's trails and paths that seem to come from nothing and everywhere at any given moment. Her head dips low, muzzle touching her chest, and for a brief moment her gills flare and the dorsal fin following her spine seems to adjust itself just a little bit taller. What ever these hoofprints were, the aqua-equine was gearing up to follow them.
This wasn't to be an easy task, however; as the hoofprints seemed to disappear into the depths of the forest. Bel was instantly moving forward, following easily for the first part . . . and then the steps changed, or rather their direction did. The forest grew deeper, thicker, darker. Vegetation grew close together, the forest darkening in a threat and making it hard to see. Silence seemed to surround Bel as she stood in a growing shade. And she took that next step forward into the darker, and darker forest. Between the closely grown trees with limbs wrapped together into an unyielding canopy blotting out the sunshine; through the bushes and vegetation that grew up like impending obstacles. And as that darkness created by forest's density - a new light came. The light started subtle, a slight shift in the hue of the mare's pelt. But as the sunlight around her grew dimmer, the more her own light came out, until she was providing a faint glow to her dark and dense surroundings. Subtle cyan glowing erupted from the striping of her pelt, the circular markings around her fins, and at the base of each of her hooves, and with this glowing, her traveling wasn't impaired by the darkness, and only the vegetation itself served any means of difficulty.
With her own biological light, she was able to see limbs and roots threatening to trip her, rocks meant to catch her unaware, thick bushes that tried to cut her off. And with the light her hooves gave off, she followed the hoof prints that were cast into relief by the cyan hue.
As the dense vegetation suddenly gave way to the clearing, Bel was forced to rapidly blink her eyes at the sudden influx of sunlight, her dual gaze glowing with the same cyan glow as her body. As the sunlight touched her skin, her own bio-engineered glow started to diminish, the cyan dying down, the glow growing subtle before gradually disappearing as she stepped further into the sunlight and towards the relic that sat in the very center of the clearing, as all the others shifted around her.
Bel was hardly listening to others, her eyes instead focusing on the relic in front of them, her gaze startled - surprised - guarded. Never had she thought she'd find the thing, never did she imagine if the rumors were true. This entire time she had just wanted to see what the island had to offer, discover its' secrets, explore it . . . the relic though . . . it was just an excuse to explore more. Now that it stood before her, however, Bel wasn't sure what to make it and silently stood still among the others, staying where she was; and waiting to see what would come from this island next.
Thoughts Speech
@Random Events Notes: Of course she stays
i feel no cold, i feel no fear inside my mind Now I'm full of energy
STAFF EDIT***
@Below Zero has rolled a 5! She has been awarded +300 signos.
09-03-2019, 03:36 PM - This post was last modified: 09-06-2019, 01:28 PM by Random Events
The island is alive. It is alive, alive, alive. It has been dead for days. The world has been dead for days, time stopped, unmoving. Time is not a river and it has not flowed, for days. Finally, Antiope has slept, because things were righted. But something inside her whispered in her dreams that still this was not right.
Not right, not right, not right.
There is something out there, and even in her sleep Antiope can feel it watching her. It leaves her searching, in those dreams, for something that she cannot reach. Something so very out of reach. But all of the things inside of her are saying that she wants it, that she must reach it. No matter what, she must.
Antiope does not sleep long, she never does. But the island is inside of her and it is impossible to stay still. She stands and reaches for Theofos, knowing that it rests where it should just behind her shoulder. The ex-warrior trusts nothing on this island, not what she sees nor what she hears, and all that she knows is that every minute she spends within its forests and upon its beaches it becomes more and more of her.
Soon, she will no longer be Antiope at all, but some morph of wild, rampant, strange magic.
The lioness that prowls inside her reminds her that she is some part of that, already.
The air still feels wrong, even when she’s awake, and her sea-blue eyes are alert as she pushes through the trees. The island is alive, somehow, despite the lack of movement. It is alive, deep within its core. Alive with illusion and bewitchment, and she can feel it, the energy. The lioness inside her wants to feast upon it.
The sands are moving when Antiope reaches the beach. They are breathing, swaying, dancing, and still nothing else in the world moves. When the prints first appear, Antiope thinks she is still dreaming. But they disappear into the distance and she brushes them away in the moving sands and nothing is as it appears.
She follows them.
She weaves closer and closer to the center of the island, like it is a maze and there at the heart lies a prize. What the tiger-striped woman had not been expecting was the mass of gathered equines, looking out over what she could only assume was the relic.
The relic, whispers of which spoke only of great power.
The relic, sat there out in the open and not a single one of them trying to take it.
Antiope presses through the crowd like a tiger passes between jungle ferns, the red splashed across her throat a sign. Or a warning. She grasps the handle of Theofos deftly, in preparation. And she knows that in a matter of seconds she could become faster than any of these equines, and in a few minutes could be out of reach of them with the relic in hand.
But the island is inside her, and it is wild and unpredictable. So she steps closer, and closer, and closer, and maybe, just maybe, if one were to look close enough they might see gold leaking into the bright clear blue of her eyes.
holy places are dark places.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
His sister comes and presses her cheek to his. His name in her mouth is experimental. He hears as well as feels the way her tongue and teeth struggle over his name. Ah the joys of youth. Leonidas is slow with names too, his own tongue and teeth working out sounds and syllables. His name is something fierce upon his sister’s tongue and the boy feels brave when she says it. As if the loss of his parents may not become the trial it threatens to be.
He follows her when she moves past him, trailing along behind her as she weaves through the brush. He skips and stumbles over roots and rests his chin upon her rump as she moves. Oh, anything to keep contact, anything to feel the warmth of her skin and remember what it was to be tangled with her in the warmth of their mother.
Their mother.
The boy thinks nothing more of it as meanders along the path like a river. He swallows down his grief and thinks nothing of all the things he passes that are still and unnatural. When you were born into stillness, then movement is the stranger thing.
Aster stops and he halts beside her. Still her words are with him, consoling. He may be the elder twin, but his sister is calmer and wiser and he presses himself close against her and surveys the horses and statue from beneath the black of his lashes.
Leo is staying.
@Aster | "speaks" | notes: thank you for threading with him! Please bear with me whilst i work out how to write him and who he is!
She followed the hoofprints. The steps that wove with a ghost’s body. Each print lands and laughs and slowly, behind them, Leto watches and waits for the magic to appear.
It is the only thing that moves here, despite the sea that judders and the waves that tip and then stop. The earth rattles and Leto feels her nerves jangle.
Her eyes tip up to the sky and the dark that looms like a shadow. All the sky is a bruise of black and purples. Beneath it the Ilati girl meanders and feels how the stars watch her. They glimmer in time with the beating of her heart as she slowly meanders her way toward the relic.
It glimmers, bright and violent. All around horses are gathered, but Leto stops upon the edge and does not take a step forward. She listens to the hum of breath and a world that does not even twitch. Ah, she wonders, when might the world begin to tip over into motion again?
Leto stays
| "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
i'm a pretty flower girl
check out my pretty flower curls
Her mind is filled with the delights of imagining her family as one. How long had she dreamt of taking Asterion to see their father? How long had she imagined their reunion – all the ways it might go.
All the boys she loved, in one place… But now she has another boy and a girl. Both are tucked away in her room, slumbering with Lysander. But Florentine cannot rest this night, not when the sands shift in strange ways. Not when the sea pretends to churn and yet its waves never crash.
Florentine meanders after the footsteps and wonders what she might whisper to the magic – or might it be a ghost? Laughter is upon her lips and she smiles, even as her path carries her up to where the relic rests.
She knows this relic. She has laid eyes on it once before and so she stands and gazes and smiles a small, knowing smile. The rune was not for her, not this time. Florentine is made to travel time, not control it.
So she turns and does not stay. She feels the watchful eyes of the rune and utters it goodbye and good luck. Florentine will return to Terrastella and rest, ready to meet the dawn and a new trip. She keeps her eyes wide, watching, waiting to see Asterion and tell him that it is tomorrow that they leave.
Florentine is leaving but would like to use her gold leaf for an extra roll please <3
florentine rocking your pretty flower world
STAFF EDIT***
@Florentine has rolled a 3 and 1! She has been awarded +200 signos and +1 EXP.
★ She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future ★
09-03-2019, 06:41 PM - This post was last modified: 09-06-2019, 01:30 PM by Random Events
take that look from off your face you ain't gunna burn my heart out
Minya placed her feet into each hoof print that trod slowly toward the relic. Would she ever have missed such an opportunity? It was the greatest treasure the black market sought. Everywhere was alive with the realization that it was found.
Minya did not aspire for magic – dirty as it was. She had no need for enchantments when her body was enchanting enough. Her lips curl into a divine smile as she slips and slides her way to the front of the gathered crowd.
Her silver eyes fall upon the glittering relic and her heart stutters its way into her breast. Oh, it is more beautiful than any ornament she has ever seen. She stays, lingers like satin at the edges of the people but does not move to claim the jewel, nor turn to leave. She will, eventually, but now it is enough to stand and study the Time piece and wonder what ageless secrets lie within it.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
The island is still, the waves arched high but never breaking.
Everything is silent here. But the Solterran king is ever more so.
He steps and feels the throb of time with every sinking of his feet into the beach's sand. The world watches him, silent as a predator. It leaves Raum to wonder who the real hunter is. A king with blood thirst or the frozen land that will stay static for an eternity. If not for a relic, they say. it has been found. Raum had heard rumours of it, of the seer who possessed it once.
it was believed lost, yet now it has surfaced and keens for an owner. Someone to wield its glorious magic. Though Raum finds his way into the clearing where many gather with greed in their eyes for what the Relic might make them, he does not feel such greed. What could a king want when already he had dominion over his lands? What could a king want when he was already destroying his court so well?
Death laughs a threatening whisper in his ear. It hisses of what might be and what has yet to come to pass.The world is changing and it reaches to claim Raum as one with it.
Slowly the king turns his back upon the glittering relic and all the hunters gathered in one place. He returns home, the true hunter and already he tastes blood upon his tongue.
Raum is leaving, please may he use his gold leaf for an additional role, ta! <3
STAFF EDIT***
@Raum has rolled a 2 and 3! He has been awarded +350 signos.
You're one microscopic cog
in his catastrophic plan
09-03-2019, 07:06 PM - This post was last modified: 09-06-2019, 01:31 PM by Random Events
OF ALL THE PECULIARITIES OF THE ISLAND, THIS ONE HAD COME TO HIM WITH A PERFECT CLARITY THAT WAS WITH ASTOUNDING REPRIEVE: THAT TWISTING, GNARLING BRANCH OF SAND WHICH, IN ITS OWN SERPENTINE MANNER, FOUND AT LENGTH OF HIS VISION A PATH THAT ROUNDED AND ROUNDED AND WOUND SO DEEPLY BETWIXT THE OVERGROWTH THAT ONE MAY BE TOO JADED AS TO BE CONCERNED. INDEED, AS ONE WAS, HE IS A LANGUID FELLOW WHO IN THE RECENT EVENTS TENDED TO QUESTION EVERY INFLECTION OF MADNESS THAT APPROACHED HIM IN WAVES – IN TORRENTS, SO THAT EVERY SIGHT UPON THE ISLAND WAS A CAUTIOUS MURMUR TO A DISTANT DREAM THAT HE COULD NOT RECALL MUSING. THAT THE SUN HAD CLAMBERED TO THE TOP OF ITS THRONE AND SAT COMPLACENT, GLUTTONOUS AND GRIM, WAS OF NO MORE CONSEQUENCE THAN THE MANNER IN WHICH THE ISLAND REVEALED ITSELF TO BE A SOURCE OF ASYLUM UNIQUITY. THE SILENCE WAS ALMOST AS UNBEARABLE AS THE PERSISTENT HUM, AND HE HAD LOST HIMSELF TO WONDERING WHICH WAS WORSE.
HE WAS JUST AT THE PEAK OF HIS CONSIDERATIONS THAT THE SUN WAS THE WORST PART OF ALL WHEN THE ODDITIES OF THE ISLAND WERE STIRRED ONCE MORE.
TO HIS DISMAY, IT WAS NOT THE SUN THAT LURCHED AND TWISTED IN A MANGLED CARICATURE OF WHAT MAY BE, TOO MUCH TO BE DASHED FROM ITS HEAVENLY ALTAR. BUT THE SAND DRIFTED BENEATH HIS FEET, AND THE ANIMALIAN WAY IN WHICH IT MOVED AND TWISTED AND – PERHAPS EVEN TAUNTED, IN ITS OWN SIGNIFICANT WAY – WOVE INTO THE CLUSTER OF GREENERY ON AND ON. IT DOVE AND WOUND, BOUNDING WITH A CURIOUS RESISTANCE TO THE MUNDANITY THAT BESET ITS ENVIRONMENT. FOR A WHILE HE MERELY STOOD AND CONTEMPLATED ITS NATURE FOR ALL THE WAYS IT SEEMED TO LEAP AND NESTLE BETWEEN ROOT AND SHADOW LIKE THE PATH OF A TIMID RABBIT. BUT O! BY WHAT GRACELESS FATES HAVE SMILED UPON HIM, HE OBSERVED THE WAY IT SHIFTED AND PULSED LIKE THE LIQUIDATION OF SERPENTS' COILS, AND AT ONCE PREYED HIS MIND OVER THAT HAPPENSTANCE WITH THE NOT-MOONLIGHT AND THE GILDED WIND-MAP.
WAS IT NOT AMIDST THE SAND ITSELF THAT A SERPENT HAD BORNE FROM ITS DEPTHS, WINDING BACK AGAINST ITSELF AND LUNGED – HAPHAZARDLY, FOR ITS EXISTENCE FELL RECKLESS AND LACKING LIKE A LIMP BREEZE – FOR THE FLESH OF HIS THROAT. THE SEA, THE WRETCH HAD CRIED, THE SEA WAS ALL. BUT GODS WERE LIARS, WERE THEY NOT?
HE FOLLOWED.
HE DID NOT KNOW HOW LONG, AND IN TIME, COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO CARE.
THE FOREST WAS LABYRINTHINE. BUT IT WAS VACANT, AND WITH IT THE WINDING OF PROMISE IN ITS DEPTHS THAT REBOUNDED FROM THE GREAT VOID OF SILENCE. IT TEETHED ALONG THE SHADOWS. IT CREPT BEHIND HIS FOOTSTEPS. WHAT IT PROMISED EXACTLY, FINALITY OR BLISS, HE COULD NOT DETERMINE. BUT IT CALLED TO HIM. IT WAS MEANT FOR HIM, WAS IT NOT? THAT MAP, THE NOT-MOONLIGHT, THE NATURE OF SERPENTS, THE WAY THE SEA – THE SEA! THE DAMNABLE, INCORRIGIBLE SEA! – CROWNED THE SHORE AND RAKED WITH A CONTEMPT THAT MEANT NO WELCOME.
AT ONCE HE COULD NOT READILY SAY WHETHER THE FEVER BROKE OR BEGAN, OR WHY EVEN IT ENCROACHED IF NOT FOR THE MANIA OF THAT UNHOLY RETCH OF VOLCANIC EARTH – BUT HE THOUGHT HE SAW IT THERE, THAT TROPHY, THAT RELIC OF SOME FACELESS GOD. HE THOUGHT THAT IT SAT ON A MOUND, SHINING AND STUNNING BENEATH THE WARMTH AND WEIGHT OF THE MERCILESS SUN. BUT BEFORE HE COULD BE SURE, HIS SIGHT WAS INTRUDED UPON BY THE MASS CONGREGATION THAT CAME TO RECEIVE – OR SEIZE – IT. HE WOULD, IF HE HAD KNOWN BETTER OF ITS ORIGINS OR ITS USES, PERHAPS HAVE JOINED THEM IN THEIR HOT PURSUIT. BUT INSTEAD HE MARVELLED AT THE EQUAL UNSUREDNESS THAT SURROUNDED HIM, FINDING AMONGST THEM AN OCCASIONAL FAMILIAR FACE BEFORE EACH BLURRED WITH THE NEXT. AND THEN HE WAS SURE. THERE, JUST BEYOND THEIR REACH, RESTED THE REGAL THING. BUT IT WAS TOO COINCIDENTAL, WAS IT NOT? TO SIT UNGUARDED, BEWILDERED BY THIS ENTANGLEMENT OF CREATURES WHO STOOD IN AWE OR PINING, EACH A SEEMING WISH GRANTED IN SHEER EXISTENCE.
AS THE GRAND MIRRORS OF HIS EYES BATHED THE RELIC IN WONDER AND HUNGER, HE REMEMBERED THE WAY THAT SHADOW-SNAKE HAD LUNGED FOR HIS THROAT.
Erasmus is staying.
STAFF EDIT***
@erasmus has rolled a 6! He has been awarded a brittle horseshoe.
09-03-2019, 10:42 PM - This post was last modified: 09-06-2019, 01:33 PM by Random Events
in which the Sun, having frozen, spurs a Hunt to its end
I
f Father asked, Aghavni would insist to him that she'd tried to stay away.
A half-truth; she was good at spinning those. She had insisted for herself to keep away from the island when the sun had lodged in the sky like a rusted key in a salted lock. To keep mercilessly busy with blowing the ink of her signatures dry as she worked through her horrendous stack of paperwork.
The half-lie to her half-truth was that she hadn't tried as hard as she could have. The emerald island had dug its shark-toothed barbs into her skin and she'd let it. Why should everyone else have all the fun? she'd asked herself. The answer she'd arrived at had left her wanting.
Her brow furrowed when she recalled how her voice had echoed—echoed—through the cobblestoned alleys of Denocte when she'd left for the markets that morning. An echo required emptiness. An empty cavern, an empty ballroom.
Denocte's streets, even dulled with sleep, had never before been empty enough to birth echoes. "Hello?" (hello?) (hello?)
Aghavni's frown soured as she tore off a vine from around her ankle and threw it into the shadowy underbrush. They kept doing that, lately. Plants—or parts of them, like flower petals and thin vines and leaves as sharp as needles—lodged into her fur, tangled in her hair, or snaked around her ankles like she were a magnet and they cast-off pieces of blacksmith's metal.
She could walk past a rose bush and a thorn would inevitably embed itself into her skin like a starving mosquito. It was infuriating, and eerie, and she wished dearly that they were all mere coincidences. She hadn't told anyone about it, thinking that doing so would lend her wish some merit.
Shaking her head (thinking about such oddities made her spine stiffen), Aghavni nudged her nose through a light-glazed break in the foliage. Held her breath as she listened for the whispering rumble of distant hooves.
The rumble of a crowd with a singular purpose.
They were following something. Mysterious hoof prints, a boy had told her, when she'd cornered him earlier on the beach. "Left by a—an unseen presence, or something. Magic, you know, like this entire bloody island." He hadn't sounded exactly convinced, but she'd stepped aside with a wry smile and allowed him his escape back to his ogling gaggle of friends.
Father had returned to Solterra even amidst the rumors of Tempus' long lost Relic materializing on the island. She had thought he would stay, search for the legendary Relic perhaps not himself but at least send Kite, his latest advisor, to do so—but then, he'd never been fond of doing what others expected of him, she supposed. She'd inherited it from someone.
Aghavni's eyes watered as she stepped into an onslaught of piercing sunlight and bumbling voices. She'd pushed her way out of the strangling underbrush, a trail of severed vines in her wake, straight into the heart of a waking frenzy.
Relic hunters, as far as her eyes could gape.
She hadn't expected the sheer size of the crowd. Eager bodies jostled against her from all sides, making towards the center of the clearing. She couldn't see a thing save for a bright glint reflecting outwards like a lighthouse beacon.
Gods. She ground her teeth when an elbow clipped her in the cheek. How she wished she could order them all to cease pushing her to and fro like a fisher boat on storm-tossed waters. Instead, Aghavni sucked in a heated breath as she dodged limbs and skirted tails. Her eyes gleamed when she spotted a space a few feet in front of her wide enough to breathe in; she only had to get there first—
A wince knocked free of her lips when she ran headfirst into a pair of dark, sturdy legs. "Pardon—" Her voice cut off midstream when she glanced up into a pair of familiar golden eyes.
"Erasmus?" she breathed, lips pulling into a crescent moon grin. She straightened herself up and pushed her forelock from her eyes, before appraising him with a lifted brow. "Fancy seeing you here." Though perhaps she shouldn't have been surprised.
A Relic hunt on a magic island seemed to lie right in his area of interests, as it did hers. A thought crossed Aghavni's mind. She jerked her nose towards the center of the commotion and asked him, voice expectant: "Can you see it? The Relic?"
Aghavni is staying
@Erasmus // hope eras doesn't mind aghavni quite literally bumping into him ;D
STAFF EDIT***
@aghavni has rolled a 5! She has been awarded +300 signos.
09-04-2019, 03:58 AM - This post was last modified: 09-06-2019, 01:34 PM by Random Events
Vendetta does not often leave Solterra. She has a lot of business to attend to in her desert home, and ears and eyes all across Novus to keep her up to date on the things she might miss when she doesn’t travel.
![[Image: i-jTNwWx8.png]](https://photos.smugmug.com/BelowZeroNovus/n-X9d9fZ/i-jTNwWx8/1/e09fb6c3/O/i-jTNwWx8.png)
![[Image: 13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png]](https://file.toyhou.se/images/13716916_Rc8f5hGvZkB3cYP.png)
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
