[AW] doin' time.

[Sayyida]

I ask you girl are you ready to fight?

She had waited there in the prairie, waited for whatever cruel higher power controls the void to take her back, or for the inevitable demise of the land she was placed in. Sayyida had waited patiently, like a lover waiting for their partner to return from a harrowing war, pacing and fretting the arrival of darkness and dread. Destruction had been on her heels in Nordlys, blood had stained her skin as she ran towards her people despite their rejection, towards Pyrrha despite the bad blood that had been bred into them. She should have hated Pyrrha, having been raised to hate the Abbas and their love for Cosmos, but her curiosity had been her betrayer; she had danced around those bonfires alongside the Abba without hesitation, had learned prayers to the Father. Perhaps that is what caused the deaths of her people and the extinction of the Matraan.

When several days had passed and nothing had come of her arrival, she abandoned her post among the rolling hills of the foreign prairie, and set out to explore, for her curiosity had been too overwhelming to bear. Sayyida headed north, against the gut instinct to go south, to find deserts and mountain ranges and ritual bonfires lit upon their towering peaks. And amber eyes could search for the curious little figures dancing around tall flames that spewed smoke into the night sky. But she knew they would not be there, not here, not when their god is dead and so are they. A dead religion, with no one to carry on the legacy, no one to recount the history; it was not her place to do so, didn't feel right to preach of gods she had watched die.

Sayyida doesn't know when to stop, doesn't know what she's looking for, if she's looking for anything at all — she just walks, and keeps walking. She could have gone forever, traveling across the country like a wayward soul, a nomad with no ties or possessions. She may die that way too.

Sometimes she runs, just to feel her heart rattle against her ribs, to be reminded that she is still alive as she pants and heaves, that so many others had to suffer unfortunate ends so that she may continue on. She didn't feel worthy enough, as though her people had died in vain, that their sacrifice wasn't worth it.

The scenery changes, from mountains to flat lands, sprawling golden plains rolling out before her. Slate hooves strike against soft earth, purposeful despite her wayward wandering, head held high as the crisp autumn wind pulls at her ponytail. Amber eyes are searching, seeking a sign of darkness, of black fog tumbling towards her with ill intent, for the fury of a scorned god to scorch the earth beneath her hooves. But nothing comes of it, and she visibly relaxes as the wind settles and the sun dips below the horizon. For the briefest moment, she almost feels at peace.

— i am bad at openings c':

[Willfur]

Willfur


Willfur watches distant figures circling the Plains like debris around an eddy in a stream, detoured and sometimes briefly sheltered from the current by tall grass and level ground. He can't say why, exactly, he finds himself returning to Eluetheria periodically, why his restless spirit finds such comfort in the open space, in the long, unbroken line of the horizon stretching from one pole to the other, though he has theories, of course.

Standing idly, he wonders about the origin of each figure, where they might be going, and whether they even know. He'd thought he knew, when he'd first stepped foot here, but he's long since given up trying to make heads or tails of how where he'd been had led to were he is, when where he'd been had never connected to here before, or why it seems to have only been possible that once. Perhaps he's just meant to be here, for some unknown reason, and maybe there's a kind of camaraderie in the joint experience of displacement, of confusion and disorientation and searching for something familiar, between him and the aimless figures.

As the sun begins to set, a silver toned animal drifts inward from the peripheral, moving straight across his line of vision, sometimes hurried, sometimes slower, but always as if hunched against some trailing enemy. Curious, the mule turns his head to look back along her trail, but if there's a pursuit it's too well disguised for him to notice.

Hm.

Questions begin to pile up behind his eyes in their usual manner; quickly and without tact or courtesy, but he's well practiced at reining them in by now. "Hellooo!" He calls, trying to modulate his voice so it doesn't crack and bray, as it does sometimes when he shouts, mostly successfully. "Do you need any help?"



@Sayyida Psst. No you're not. ;)