I treasured my friends. Not just them but acquaintances too... Actually even complete strangers I cherished, supported. I only wanted the best for everyone, but only from afar.
I always felt myself apart. And I know, I know I’m not, or if I am I have only myself to blame. When I was a child, I chose to stay behind when my entire family set sail. Why did I let them leave? I know I had reasons, but they all seem so far away, distant as stars…
Fire always made me particularly introspective, and the night of the fire festival, for all its boisterous energy, was no different. Nobody could explain to me the patterns it made as it burned, at least not in a way that satisfied me. I had heard many times, but did not believe, there was prophecy or promise to be found in the flames. I also did not believe the fire was a spirit, and thus of shape and form beyond true understanding. There was some secret there, some pattern of the otherwise-hidden universe laid bare in that flickering dance. I decided I would learn it someday, I would understand what could not be described.
When I turned from the light of the fire, it was with calm resolution. I liked dreaming, the bigger the better. I liked feeling like there was some direction to my life, some path guided by more than chance or chaos. With grace I made my way to the start of the race. I found my place and let my gaze rest, level and calm, on the meadow before me. It was shrouded in night and smoke, the fires spattered across it like strange constellations.
The mental distance between myself and others seemed a gift at times like these. It would give me an edge-- I did not waste my time with socialization, did not even glance to the horses immediately to my right and left. I did not do things in half measures; I was there to win.
here is expectation hanging heavy in the air, as you take your place among the other horses lined up at the start of the race. Your heart hammers inside of your chest, nearly in time with the drums that begin to beat out the time remaining to the start of the race. On either side the bonfires dance along to its rhythm, waves of colored light flickering along the backs of the people who have gathered close by.
And through it all the song keeps weaving, in lilting tones that rise and fall with the flames. It’s captivating — and as you stare into the flames a thousand colors begin to leap within them. Reds and golds, violets and greens, blues and silvers, all of them twist together like plaits of a many-stranded braid. The air is thick with the smoke and incense curling around you, drawing you in deeper and deeper. As the tempo speeds up, you see a figure parting the smoke like waves.
The horse that stands in front of those who have lined up to start the race is the color of soot, with eyes that burn as brightly as the fires. Strange runes are painted (or are they scarred?) down their sides, shimmering as the light falls upon them. The stranger does not smile, nor speak — they only stare at you with their fiery eyes. There is nothing gentle about the look they give you, or about the way they seem to look through you instead of at you.
With a curt nod of his head, the music abruptly stops. The bonfires shiver in golden tones on either side, and the line of horses readies themselves.
A single cry marks the start of the race.
Every horse leaps forward as one through the smoke, and you with them.
The beginning of the race is a flat stretch, with each struggling to gain the lead. A row of fires lights the way, but perhaps the way they close in around you and block your path is cause for alarm. Or maybe you are one of those vying for first position, and do not notice the way the smoke grows thicker, and darker, and heavier, like something more than wood is burning, going into the first turn.
And yet directly ahead of you a new fire waits, like a hedge of flames waiting to be jumped. The fires reach hungrily for the air, for you, and something — perhaps it is instinct, or fear — tells you it will not be so simple. On either side of the fire is a path leading around, a slender space big enough for one to pass through at a time. Against the brightness of the fires, the darkness of the path on the right makes it impossible to see what lies in wait.
But to the left, there is a spark glowing red and hot.
To continue the race, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! The first obstacle features a fiery hedge that your character must decide to jump through or run around. The race splits here, and their decision here will influence the rest of the event for them.
Choices: run through the fire, take the right path, or take the left path.
@Aspara
As I stood there waiting for the race to begin, my body did not feel entirely mine. See, I felt calm as death but my heart was beating faster, faster, faster, already off on a race of its own against the drumming of the fire dances. My eyes disobeyed me too, straying to the fires where unnatural colors twisted and curled and beckoned for me. I felt one of my hooves paw at the ground impatiently, and my head tossed as though in challenge to the smoke that thickened all around.
When the music stopped my heart did, too, skipping a beat, and thus I began the race having just faltered, and with the smoke just beginning to burn my eyes. It did not matter. We all sprang forward at once, the fever pitch bursting forward a wave of flesh and sweat and nerves. I ran like never before. I had grown up running up and down the mountain, and my hooves ate up the flat, straight course greedily. I was not first, but I was steadily gaining with each stride.
As the path turned and the first obstacle became very, very, undeniably clear, I noticed the bottleneck as horses crammed to the paths left and right of the fiery barrier. My hesitation lasted only a moment- if I strayed the path, I would surely lose.
I was not there to lose.
I kept straight and leapt over the flames, into the curtain of smoke.
aybe you already know this race is a test of your bravery (or is it faith spurring you on now like all you know is worship?). Maybe you only have something to prove to yourself, and that is why you find yourself gathering your strength and aiming for the flames when others swerve away.
Whatever it is, you find yourself staring down the flames as they rise bright and tall before you.
But oh! The flames are staring back.
The smoke is thicker here, but not unpleasant. The smell of frankincense and lotus blossoms fill the air around you as you leap through the flames, and while the fire singes the ends of your hair you pass through it quickly enough to avoid true harm. But as soon as your hooves touch the ground again, the smoke descends on you like a blanket.
It swirls around you, obscuring the path from view. Shadowy figures dance in the smoke around you, and strange voices echo in place of the music from before. They start as a whisper, but with every step they are growing louder, and fiercer, and clearer. The smoke takes shape around you, as visions swim across your vision. Perhaps they are visions from your past or future, like the smoke is only a diviner showing you the way. Perhaps they are of fearsome beasts that you can feel clawing along your hips or stumbling beneath your hooves. Maybe the visions you see make sense only to you, or you struggle to sort through them at all.
But as the smoke twirls in ribbons around you, embers start to drip from the sky like smoke. They fall upon you like stars, catching in your hair, your teeth, the crease of your spine, lighting the smoke around you. In them you can hear the voices from before, whether they are laughing or singing or crying for you to run faster, faster, faster.
As the smoke begins to lift, you see another horse still running ahead of you, and the race demands you catch up and fight them for the lead —
But the embers are leading to the side, like miniature stars that can leap and dance without the burden of wishes to weigh them down. And perhaps it looks to you like they are leading to another shortcut, or are beckoning to you and you alone to follow.
To continue the race, you must reply to this thread with your character's choice. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! You pass through the fire, as shadowy figures dance all around you. Perhaps they are speaking to you, or urging you on — or maybe they are only a warning. As you come out of the flames you see the other racers surrounding you, the path stretching ahead of you. But to the side, the embers seem to be taking the shape of a creature...
Choices: let the embers lead you on, or follow the horse ahead of you.
@Aspara
I was used to being looked at, although I did not at all like it. It was why I had taken so often to the mountains; the court was full of eyes. They looked and looked, but for the most part people only saw what they wanted to see.
I don’t think anyone looked at me the way the flames did that night.
Surely no one saw me the way they did.
And, of course, no one had ever touched me like that. The scent of burning hair filled my nostrils, but it was covered quickly by the overwhelming scent of smoke, thick as water in my lungs. I tried to hold my breath but it was impossible while running, I breathed in and coughed, stumbling, and then the visions began. My family took shape in the smoke- a wall of Eiks and Isras and Avestas as far as I could see, some of them standing and watching with disappointment, others laughing at me and how pathetic I was. Visions of my sister raced ahead of me, always faster, disappearing into the sea of smoke before I could catch up.
“I’m sorry,” I thought. The smoke burned my eyes; sooty tears trailed down my cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I closed my eyes, lowered my nose to the ground where the air was marginally less smokey, and I carried onward in a straight line. I do not know if the falling embers were real or not, I did not open my eyes to see as pinpricks of fire fell across my skin.
Only when the smoke thinned did I open my eyes. My attention was immediately captured by the trail of embers. If it were not for the occasion with the fireflies, I might have followed the embers off into the night. As it was, I had taken a gamble once before on dancing lights, and it had not paid off.
I turned my head forward, ignored the aching in my lungs, and I continued straight ahead, hot on the heels of the horse before me.
aybe it’s instinct that has you inching closer to the other horse, closing the distance between you and them; maybe it’s the spirit of the race demanding you to be better, faster, stronger than them. Maybe it’s the dizzying scent of cinnamon and apple spice that washes over you with each new wave of smoke.
The ground is a blur beneath your hooves, the smoke a veil that wraps around your body and coos stories of triumph and victory in your ears.
The world feels like an insubstantial thing now, shifting and dancing with the flames. You can hear voices around you, but you can’t make out the words; each time you try to focus your attention slips away, much like the feeling in your limbs, until it feels as though you are a thing detached from your own body, floating along through the air. Perhaps you look down then and see yourself as others see you, a wild thing streaking like madness towards the finish line.
Or maybe you are only noticing how the horses around you seem to be turning to fiery shades of red and gold, their bodies cracking apart like a log crumbling to ash in a fire.
The fire was supposed to protect you. That is what everyone had said — that the smoke of the bonfires was a blessing, that it would ward off evil. So why does it feel, then, as if you are descending into madness?
The world glows brightly around you, as the smoke fills your nose and more visions flash like embers across your vision. Ahead you can see the finish line drawing near, twin bonfires dancing with all the brilliant colors of an aurora.
But it seems so very far away, your legs feeling more and more like dead weight. And as you slip in and out of waking-dreams, it becomes a matter of whether you’ll even make it.
To conclude the race, you must post a closer. There is no word limit, and you can be as creative with the prompt as you'd like! The smoke from the fires wash over you, and perhaps you find them more disorienting than inspiring. Perhaps you see visions of them -- be they visions of bravery or cowardice, hope or fear, or something else is up to you. But ahead the finish line still waits, now within sight, if only you can make it that far --
You are free to write your character crossing the finish line in this post, or you can simply write them reacting to the effects of the smoke. Once all the race threads are completed, a dice will be rolled to determine the winner and the results will be posted in each race thread.
Thank you for your participation, and good luck! We hope you enjoyed the event!
There is something about running that makes me feel connected to the past. It’s almost like touching a very old object- the moment you reach out and feel, inexplicably, how someone else stood as you did, touching it as you did. It is the realization that there’s nothing between you and anyone else except time, and time is not as substantial as it often seems. Surely part of this gravity, for me, stems from my magic-- it has taught me that every touch leaves a story behind, unknown and unseen but there, lying in wait for the right person (me) to unveil it.
There is an unwritten history of everything, remembered by walls and roads and objects, carved invisibly into the whirls of time by which we mark the passing of age.
But there is a different history too, one that lives in the flesh.
When I run I think of my ancestors, of all the mares and stallions who came before me. There must be hundreds of thousands of things, physical and mental, to distinguish us. But we have all run like this, at one point or another; in sport or play or either side of the hunt, we are runners. It is in our blood and bones and spirit, this motion. This heaving of the chest and swinging of legs. This knowing we can run until it kills us.
This knowing we happily will, given a reason.
That night as I leapt over the flames and raced through the smoke, I felt my forebears with me. Every panting breath, every deep inhale of smoke, every aching stride forward. The pain in my limbs was theirs, the accomplishment theirs.
At the end, it did not matter if I won or lost. I had travelled very far since the start of the race; victory was not relative to anyone but myself. And I did it, I did it; I crossed the finish line with my lungs burning and my legs about to turn to jelly.
And it was for them, it was all for them. I think they would be proud; but when I turned to the smoke at my heels, which had prior been so full of voices and laughter and life, there was no one there.
They had said there was a message waiting in the flames, for those who looked closely enough. Perhaps you are finding that message now, as the flames pressing against your sides reach out to kiss your skin instead of nip at it.
The horses around you are still crackling apart, like logs splitting in the fires. And perhaps only now do you realize that it was not the other race participants running beside you — it was the fire. The smoke washes over you in waves of cinnamon and frankincense, wrapped around you like a shield. Perhaps, just perhaps, you begin to understand the whispers of protection that had swam through the crowds all night.
These visions will stay with you for some time to come. You might dream of the things you saw in the flames, or maybe it will come to you during times of quiet reflection. An aura will seem to settle over you like a halo, like there was magic after all in the flames that is slow to wear off. All around you can see the way the flames flash on their own like they’re trying to tell you something, reaching out like they cannot bear to be apart.
And you —
you are the first to cross the finish line, crowned by dancing flames of every color.
Congratulations @Aspara, you have won the fire race! @sid will be contacting you shortly on discord for further details. She will be awarded the Fire Necklace as a reward! The exact appearance and effects will be up to you; as long as it is a necklace that incorporates a fire aspect in some manner, that will suffice!
You are free to post a final response, but this is optional and will not affect your prize!
Thank you for your participation, and congrats again! We hope you enjoyed the event!
