Jude
Without losing a piece of me
How do I get to heaven?
Some might believe the greatest moment of his life had been when he had descended from the pyre reborn, ashes falling from his skin to reveal his new body. There was no greater moment though than the first time Isorath first smiled at him. Jude had sworn the sun shone brighter in the wake of the gesture and he had been blinded in the light of his beauty. Gods envied that prince and he knew they’d fight to even get a glimpse of him… But how long has it been since he’s seen that smile? Jude only had it for a moment before it dissipated, a blip, a mere wisp that faded. He reaches into the abyss and flounders like a blind man, trying to find that single light in the darkness but it isn’t there. Jude had waited. He had waited for Isorath until he couldn’t wait any longer. Whether it was love or infatuation that drove him he couldn’t quite place it but he couldn’t rest. There was malcontent even in the resplendence of his home, the lavish life that had been blessed after his Burning. Waiting would not restore the broken pieces of his heart, waiting would not ease the throbbing ache in his chest. Jude had gathered himself and his feline, descending from the city and to the docks. It was madness. It was foolhardy with a certainty to fail but he had to believe there was a chance for him. If it was meant to be he would find her… he would find Isorath and he would look upon that smile that can eclipse the sun and maddened it with envy.
In his quiet cabin he fell asleep to lullabies of drunken sailors and the crooning of the waves against the ship. Tucked in the darkness of underneath the deck he prayed to whatever fragment of the universe that would listen he’d find his prince and gaze upon her again. Mittens fed on nothing but the rats found in the ship and the journey became a maddening blur as fever set in and Jude fell ill. Sheer willpower kept him from death’s hand and reaching shore did little to help him regain the strength in his limbs.
The tireless road only seemed to rub his heart raw and it would bleed out. Fear settled in and it became a crippling vice as he stumbled aimlessly wondering when he finally would cave to the longing for home and the sequestered quiet of his home. Jude had missed his garden. He had missed the sound of the pond as he lazed by it in the morning light, spending his hours painting and dozing.
Now he is tired. He lays at the peak and stares down at the rocking ocean as it beats against the rocks. Mittens was gone. Their bond severed by a veil and viciously torn apart leaving him alone.
“I want to go home,” Jude whispers as the tears form in his eyes and begin to pour down his cheeks and he let his head fall, the strands of pink falling into his face to disguise the pools of tears that fall from his face. There is no stopping them as the flood gates open “I want to see him.. I want my cat.. I want to not lie in a pile of dirt as a bed.” He sniffs and then lays his head down into the grass and pools of pink rest down. “I want to see him..” He whispers again to himself before feeling a soft sob hit his body and again he sniffs. For once the silence and the loneliness is a welcome thing because his tears will be his own and no one can mock him for his yearning.
"a second option."
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
The fields were always beautiful, a sea of emeralds carefully tendered to by gentle wind, forever glistening with the dew as the sun began his glorious ascent. He visited the rolling veridian every morning, as per routined demanded, leathery wings outstretched to ride the morning winds. These moments allowed him clarity, one glorious moment of seeing the World through eyes that did not find grey and lies, free to experience it as he had before the World saw to rend it to nothing more than ash. Before he'd left Sunysia, before he'd won that wretched tournament and set himself upon a path that lead to ruin.
Ruin had made him beautiful, opened his eyes to the reality of mistakes and experience, but it had cursed him too.
Made him bitter, even if he smiled and laughed, there had been a terrible strain in his chest as each lilted breath of laughter left his lips. A painful rattle in his ribcage for each time he allowed himself to experience something good. A constant careful reminder that for every bit of light he let smooth over the wounds, something dark and terrible would come clawing out of the abyss, ready to tear the cut open once more.
So he found solace in nature, the one thing which had not betrayed him in one form or another. Let the wind tousel his silver strands and ripple across his wings and allowed his mind to be free. Here there was no one, not in the morning, save for a few who too, had their morning rituals. The Dusk Court had proven to be understanding, and those of the Night Court too. Everyone had their demons, and not everyone had learned to dance with them. He had climbed through the mountains, explored the vast halls of the Court and watched the storms with strangers who he might someday call friends. He had whispered promises to be better than their forebearers with them, the rain and thunder their witness.
Would they have let him whisper it too, if they had known his story? The King without a Crown, a stallion who had had everything and then nothing in the next breath. The Crownless whose legacy was ash, embers and the bitter taste of betrayal?
Novus was not like Vectaeryn though, neither had the other lands been, with the glorious pillars of Sunsyia reaching toward the sky, the howling blizzard gales of the wailing mountains whose visage was alight with blue flame, or the smoking coast with it's red sands and brightly coloured ships. He missed it dearly, and he knew if he had never left he might have had something good.
There were no dragons greet him as he took his morning flight, his mother's great leviathans swirling and dancing upon the smoking sea or his sibling's own mighty creatures lazily roosting on the cliffs. Instead, there was a ghost. A ghost of rose petals and green eyes, painted in the pastel hues of dawn. For one fleeting moment he believed he might have let his own grief swallow him this morning, lost to the abyss finally after so long fighting against it.
“I want to see him..”
It was his voice which felled him, brought to him on swift winds, snapped him from the wandering of his own mental state. His wing's lost their momentum and he nearly dropped from the sky to the ground in a crumpled heap, a star pierced by a goddess' arrow. An arrow made to save him, or to finish off what had been started all those years ago? He remembered that petite frame. A vision really, a fond if slightly faded memory. The last wisp of fire on a candle wick, or dragon flame upon a pyre.
Isorath had never clung to something so desperately in his life. A piece of himself, a piece of his past. A piece of home. Something good. A barely smouldering ember in the cage of his heart sparked, flooding his icy veins with warmth. The Prince landed with all the grace of a newborn deer, something he would chide himself for as the hour grew late, long legs suddenly shaky as he worked himself into a canter with his wings outstretched; the flowing train of his cloak more of a hindrance than a help.
"Jude?" His name is choked off his tongue, hardly coherent and legible to even the most sensitive ears. But he forced it to carry above the sound of the ocean and the bird song, desperately hopeful the petite Kirin would hear him. Hear him and respond, and not turn into a spectre, a maddening figment of his worn imagination. "Jude is that you?"
Jude
Without losing a piece of me
How do I get to heaven?
He had not seen the smoldering emptiness that Jude was, an aftermath of a cataclysm with nothing but ash stained eyes. He was a soul forced to inhabit a rotting corpse of a body that he could feel rotting in around him. Flame bathed him and tore sinew from his frame and that was all his prince had seen, the mended body that had been broken down by another. Obsession creeps into his bones and he can’t shake the need to see Isorath at least one last time to quiet the roar of his heart. Jude can feel his pessimism settle and tenderly kiss the bitter tears that fall from his eyes. What had he been thinking so recklessly leaving home? He wonders if his orchids have withered and turned brown in the sunlight. Somehow the idea of his flowers dying only feeds into his heartache and the tears only seem to fall more violently than before, striking the ground.
Jude doesn’t see him. He doesn’t see the north star that he has been chasing descend, too caught up in the fit of self pity and emotion. Tangles of hair hide his face from the light of the sun and it isn’t until there’s a voice breaks through the noise of his crying. His head lifts and the hair falls away. There’s a pain in his chest and his heart plummets as he catches the image of white. This must be some sickening game of this place, some conjuring of his desperate mind. Fear settles in and he forces himself to his feet, turning to face that white light he never thought he’d see again. Some part of him wants to charge into Isorath’s embrace, to throw himself down and weep into his chest but it’s still too good to be true. Anxiety grips him and he finds himself frozen in place as the tears still fall.
Words get caught in his throat and he suffocates. He opens his mouth only a choked noise comes out, a garbed nothing that can’t even begin to articulate. Jude shifts his tail and clamps his mouth shut as he tries to find a way to speak. All there is is the echo of the ocean and the roar of the tide in his ears.
“Isorath,” he whispers when the words at last fall from his lips. “.. I.. Yes.. It’s me Jude.” He watches the stallion he met in a time that feels eons ago. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
"a second option."
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
Any other Taeryn would not have pulled such a reaction from him, perhaps one moment of pure elation that at last, there is another out there that can relate. For just a moment, they could bemoan the differences of the lands beyond the smoking sea and the wailing mountains. How magic was rare and precious, where in their homeland it was alive, it saturated the air and danced around the hooves of all those who were blessed. But Jude, the petite Kirin is not just another Taeryn. He can remember the first time he had laid eyes upon him, the splendid pyre and the Dragon's which had loomed overhead, ready upon his mother's word to commit him to the fire. He had stolen his breath that day, and with careful, tender hooves planted a seed within his heart that would slumber until the time came for it to bloom. Sometimes he wondered, late at night as the flames grew low and sleep began to take hold, what the painter was doing. Did he still smell of orchids and the faint whisper of roses? Did he still have smudges of paint upon his cheeks. Did he still paint? Did he still tend to his Garden's like he used to?
No, no one else could of pulled such a viseral, real reaction from the damaged stallion. Neither would he have let them.
His own heartbeat thundered in his ears, nostrils flared and ears pressed forward. Part of him screamed to stop, the dignified part of himself that could excuse the sloppiness of his landing but not his presentation. He needed to slow down, compose himself, remember who he was. It was beneath him, to run like a moonstruck colt until he was out of breath, the fire in his veins igniting his bones into something more. All the finery he wrapped himself in was more than mere ornaments, but a symbol of his station. He had been a Prince, and an Emperor once. He was the blood of Vectaeryn, the very essence of Dragon's was weaved into every inch of life thread.
Isorath can ignore the screams of his pride and vanity, even if his bones ache from it. There is a sweeter ache in his chest which drowned it out. His hooves carry him swiftly until he's upon Jude's slender, fragile frame. His hair is a mess, untangled and unraveled from the braids he had pinned them not even an hour before, curled strands falling over his antlers and framing his sharp face while other pieces billowed in the breeze. Back legs buckled to slide him to an elegant stop, his wings rushed forward to try envelop Jude within their embrace and bring him close to his decorated form. "What are you doing here?" He managed between breaths, stolen by elation and exertion, his eyes scanning every inch of Jude's face not hidden beneath the soft waves of his pastel hair. He really was here, not just a figment of his imagination or a musing gone too far down the rabbit hole.
How does he apologize? The question hits him like a scaled tail from the sky, shattering his insides and crumbling him further apart, even though everything is suddenly bright. He had come and gone like a phantom, in and out of the smaller stallion's life when he knew it would only hurt him. "How did you get here?" Isorath asked instead, even though he had desperately wanted to choke out an apology, his pride forcing it back down his gullet and pulling a more suitable question out instead. He cannot see Jude making the trip through the sloping, jagged and dangerous passes of the mountain, but he cannot imagine him upon a ship in the smoke either. Only then does his draconian eyes spot the tear tracks on his scaled face and his expression changes to one of concern, head tilted to better check the Kirin wrapped within his wings. "Why have you been crying?"
Jude
Without losing a piece of me
How do I get to heaven?
After all this time.. All the long hours spent cramped in a ship, feverish and weak he has found the thing he sought after. It had been madness. But apparently fate has smiled upon him and he’s reunited with him. Jude sniffs as he stares up into that face and he wonders if he might see that smile again. For the moment though he rests in the embrace of his wings, beautifully draconic and ethereal. It isn’t until the questions start to pour from Isorath’s lips that he realize precisely how ludicrous this whole venture has been. How does he explain it was because a burning infatuation that he charged into the mists to find him?
“I.. Needed to see you,” Jude whispers and decides not to specify that it is specifically his smile he needs to see again. Nerves creep in and he ponders if he’ll be laughed at or even drive the stallion away with the reckless quest he had embarked on so many months ago. What might be an epic for the ballads is utterly horrifying for any sensible person to comprehend. Jude perhaps has taken infatuation to a new level and he prepares himself for the chance he is about to scare Isorath away for good.
“I took a boat..” Jude says softly, “Paid some merchants to let me stow on their ship.. I originally came with Mittens but I’m not sure where she’s gone.” He can only assume that Isorath will remember the pale feline that had he was rarely seen without, even in public the cat would rest on his back and lounge lazily beside him when he’d paint. She had been there beside him every step of this quest until they reached wherever this place is, whatever place that he miraculously stumbled upon Isorath. “I’m.. Tired.”“Losing Mittens has sort of been the tipping point for this journey I’ve taken.” He then lets his silence hang in the air again and he fights the urge to rest his head against Isorath and instead he looks up at him again. “Why did you not come home?” He whispers, “I would.. Paint in my gardens and hope maybe you’d come to see my roses and orchids.” He thinks of the bright, colorful garden that has withered by now. It’s probably known by his family now that he’s missing and he can only imagine his mother’s distress… A letter might have been wise. He shakes thoughts of home from his mind and looks at Isorath. “What is this place? Why do they live like livestock?”
"a second option."
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
There's a ripple of relief as Jude accepted his embrace, a flock of small birds taking flight from their ribcage perch within his chest. The whole notion is still registering that the other is really here, that he had voluntarily left their homeland, forsaken his gardens and his paintings. Left the comfort and safety of everything they had ever known. His wings wrapped further around the small form within them, seeking to press the kirin closer to him and shield him from the world at the same time. The world outside of Vectaeryn was cruel, unfair and at it's very root, primitive in comparison.
It didn't deserve their presence, and it certainly didn't deserve Jude's delicate, kind soul and the warmth it radiated.
Jude's words surprised him, replying them over and over in his head. There's not displeasure on his scaled features, just surprise. "Needed ...to see me?" Was he worth so much? Beneath all the expensive trappings and the vicious words, insecurity writhed like serpents beneath his skin. Lavender pools glancing into the depths of emerald framed by pink, silent as he regarded the flightless kirin for just a moment longer. Until a smile managed to curl it's way upon his lips, a ghost of it's former brilliance, but it was there. A small ember ready to be stoked into a flame once more. "I'm glad you came." He admitted, far quieter than his last words, as if admitting it was a weakness someone unseen would take advantage of.
If anyone else would of told him Jude had taken a boat, he would of laughed. It was reckless, foolish. The smoking sea was perilous, and the wailing mountains unforgiving. The danger far outweighed the promise of anything good. What if Jude hadn't found him? or the Merchants had been less than kind? He listened intently as Jude explained, his features morphing into new concern when the kirin admitted that his precious cat had been separated from him. "We'll find her, I promise. She cannot have gone far." He murmured, hoping at least his promise would soothe him.
Soon, the conversation shifted back to him, and the hurt reflected in Jude's eyes is enough to make his own features morph into one shy of sheepish; the silver strands of his hair falling forward to cover his own lilac ones. It was a sight for the ages, the winged prince cowed by the petite noble in front of him whom would never harm a fly.
"I have changed. More than just in my appearance." Isorath began, careful as he mulled over his words, making sure that each one sounded just as apologetic as the last. There was so much to explain. The land he'd found himself in first, after his departure, which had ruined him and then the one before Novus which had only ignited spite in his bones. Then there were all those he'd met, who had left their hoof shaped imprint in his soul, not necessarily for the better. Going back to Vectaeryn damaged would of ruined him further, would of smudged his black mark on his family, his friends and those who had managed to find a home between his ribs.
How could he tell one of the good things in his life, that there had been another who had made him stumble. A pale mare with sunshine in her bones and moon dust in her hair? "Going home...it never felt like an option." He admitted, a heavy sigh finding it's way from his nostrils. "I thought staying away was for the best."
Before his thoughts could take him someplace dark, Jude's last comment brought him back. A laugh rumbled from his chest, forcing the silver prince to push away the strands of hair that had fallen in front of his face, lowering his muzzle to gently and briefly press upon the pastel waves of Jude's forelock. "If I knew the answer to that, I would of solved the problem already. Here is not as bad as some of the other places, where all you have is a tree for a roof and leaves for a bed. Even the tribes of the plains had better living arrangements." A shudder of disgust worked it's way down his scaled spine at the thought. "Neither are the horses, they are not as primitive and stupid as some." That had been a boon, his mind momentarily drifting to those he had watched the storm with. "You said you were tired? I have rooms at the castle. I'm a Sage in the Sovereign's Court. You can rest there, no more dirt and leaves. Then we will look for Mittens."
Reluctantly, he pulled away from Jude though one of his wings remained outstretched over his frame as he began the walk toward the Keep. "This way."
Jude
Without losing a piece of me
How do I get to heaven?
Jude is unsure of what to expect from the other kirin, unsure if he’ll be greeted with rebuke or perhaps discomfort at his choice in extremes. Instead there is surprise and Jude stares up into his face before nodding his head slowly. “Yeah for you,” he says, deciding not to mention the overwhelming infatuation he’s felt since the first day they met. Isorath had seen him right as he crawled out from rock bottom, as he shed the skin of his past life and entered a new. When Isorath smiles it is like that first time however long ago and he swears the gods turn a vile shade of green in envy, for no mortal should be this beautiful. His stomach twists into knots and the butterflies awaken, caressing their freshly hatched wings across his ribcage and he lets them fly. The next sentence brings on a sense of relief, Isorath is glad he’s come.. Jude forces back an exaggerated sigh of relief as he quickly gets lost in the act of staring.
He wants to feel at ease and rest but there is still the conundrum of his missing feline. It has become too easy to just rest in the embrace of anxiety and he can feel the butterflies grow sour, their tender kisses turning to blades. What if his cat has been devoured? What if the primitive creatures that inhabited this land were barbaric enough to make a meal of her? Jude doesn’t wish to cry again, enough of his tears have fallen and salted the earth. Isorath’s reassurances do little but he at the very least tries to rewards the effort for comfort with a smile. “I bet she’s just scared,” he whispers, mostly to himself. Mittens is just as far from as he is.
When the conversation shifts back to Isorath, Jude watches as the prince withdraws and it is one to leave him confused. Stories have been untold, sagas unwritten and Jude is desperate to know the plight that kept his prince away. It is a mercy that the other went unmentioned, for his porcelain heart might have broken at the thought of another and he would’ve wilted like a flower in the frost. For now though, he decides not to press for more information. Jude gives an understanding look and doesn’t ask more questions. Everyone has demons and there are times when they are best left unsaid.
Laughter brings him back and Jude is content again until he feels that tender touch. If such a thing was possible, he would’ve been painted in shades of red at the contact from Isorath. “I’ve spent too many nights with a rock as a pillow,” he murmurs as the privilege begins to show through and then his eyes drift to Isorath once again. At the mention of an actual bed his eyes practically glow and he eagerly begins to follow Isorath.
This styling is also nice for some non-obtrusive OOC credits, wordcount or banter. Don't forget that divider up there.
