the sky appeared and disappeared
between the branches and the thickets,
From the moment the oak and cedar doors open, and the pale ivory garden gates moan in the midnight wind, it is obvious that something has changed in the city of flowers. The city, even in the warm summer solstice night, does not hum with cicadas or flicker with fireflies. There is music in the streets, and leaking through the drafty stone walls of the castle, but it is not the same music that has sung Ipomoea through the streets of his court.
Tonight there is both a hush in the wind and a weight in the silver moonlight raining from down from the full moon. The music is too dark to be a hallelujah to the new queen, too slow, too full of embers instead of infernos. In the music there is the suggestion of howling wolves, trees creaking in a north wind, skeletons rising like flowers, and the magic of stags who hold in their tines both this world and a hundred others.
It is perhaps not the magic Delumine is used to. But nevertheless it is magic and the city, the forest, the meadows full of blood-red flowers, are all full to bloating with it.
The ball begins with nothing more than a single step through the castle doors. It lives in each hallway, each room, and each garden like an organ in the skeleton and flower castle.
The music does not shift from north to west but rather follows like a ghost nipping at the hooves of the horses wandering through the stone corpse. It gathers in crescendos in a hallway, loudly enough that it feels like the sea has devoured all the forests only to find this garden world. It turns to whispers and lulling sonnets in the echoing throats of the forgotten palace temples. No one has found out where the band is stationed, no one has seen their faces or their instruments and perhaps that is why the party-goers whisper of ghosts more than they whisper of politics as they wander from room to room.
Each room is alive with flowers, and lichen, and sapling trees blooming through the mortar. The flowers though, as the horses linger to press their noses to the pollen and petals, smell sweeter than a freshly furled flower should. The sweetness is sometimes as overpowering as it is provocative. It waivers in the same manner as the music, as here and gone as the shimmer of a shadow in the eaves of a window.
There is no clear divide between unicorn and horse, mortal and immortal, magic-cursed and magic-blessed. There is only the rejoice of both life and the sorrowful relief of death twisted together, over and over again, like the root city of the forest. It does not matter the core of the heart but only that it beats with something: love or spore, greed or giving, hunger or need.
And tonight is not for celebration for the passing of the crown but for the way the Novus is discovering, all at once, what comes after both life and death have started to turn to memory.
This event will take place until Jan. 31st. All threads can be claimed for the IC event experience. Please just tag your posts with (coronation). In addition the court account will be offering an 25 signos bonus for completed threads. Just toss them below this thread when completed and I’ll send the bonus over.
It’s a very open for creativity event and you can find the moodboard for it here if you would like some inspiration for the event. The celebration is not limited to the castle grounds if you have a character that would prefer to wander. I’m so excited to see what you all come up with as this aesthetic is one of my favorites.
<3 nestle.
