Three days had passed since the ember was swept into a quiet new continent, and while he remained rattled to his core he also felt as though a vibrant tide of peace had washed over his salty skin. A purpose, no, an actual life was now his to call his own, reclaimed from the greedy teeth of his captors - what was he to do with it? Here the lad stood blooming into manhood in a land to begin anew. Where in heaven or earth was he to begin?
The wise one who sat in a nest of feathers upon his withers had been urging the boy to explore, to seek, to experience. There was a wealth of life and truth within the forests, and hearts and souls were plenty throughout the land. To begin, though, was a task proving nearly impossible. Which way was safe? Which way would he find these wonders his bonded spoke of? How was a boy to know. "Jus-" Dohv had had enough of the indecision, so gave a booming hoot through their bond. Scampering up the equines neck and taking his place upon the stallions poll, a paw clutching the boy's ear like a staff, he spoke again into Damascus's mind. "Jus' FLY! Yer wings'll take yew somewhere!"
Damascus - who was quite alarmed at his friend's scolds - spooked into a lofty pace, soon to unfold his sail-like wings and take to the wind with a beat or two of those black and gold pennons. "Okay!" Damascus would reply eagerly, his starry eyes searching the ground as their altitude gained. What he was looking for he didn't know; perhaps just anything that caught his eye.
The warrior's flight took them above the cloud cover and daringly close to the sun, following it's searing gaze for what could have been a number of hours (it was not uncommon at all for Damascus to loose track of time while flying). He found it immensely therapeutic, the sun warming his face as his wings held the advantage of the wind currents, never allowing him to fall below the floor the clouds provided.
It was when he noticed the sun was waning that he became aware of just how much time had passed, and with a slight gasp he aimed his course downwards. Perhaps he expected to see oceans or mountains... not desert as far as the eye could see.
Except for one magnificent oasis that stood out like a jewel in mud. "Oh 'mascus!" Dohv came to chirp "Look at THAT!".
With a smile now fixed upon the blackened brute's face, Damascus keenly allowed his wings to sail him down to the sand until his hooves struck the dry surface of the oasis's perimeter, starry eyes gazing hungrily at the plant life and crystalline water. "Fish!" Damascus would soon exclaim upon noticing a figure in the water, charging forward with bounding strides (It was just a rock, though). "Fish see I, Dohv" Damascus spoke out loud to his bonded, allowing his left wing down to let the jerboa hop onto the sand beside him. "You look, Dohv, fish see swim"
@Avdotya
With the night ushering daylight to its slumber once more, Avdotya, too, began to tie the loose ends of her activity until morning's next glow. Behind her lay a bloodied scene of a job well-accomplished, the body having already been swarmed by the vultures to be picked clean and dry. The only trace of her success lay in the dried red residue left upon the blade of her spear, an imperfection with which the mare simply could not tolerate. In a way, she viewed her spear as a partner, and so, Avdotya had grown almost obsessive in the cleaning of its glinting edges. On a nightly basis, she ensured at least a brief stop at the water's edge of Vitae Oasis, a stop that she was en route to at this very moment.
Her cracked hooves dragged effortlessly over the crest of a dune overlooking the oasis, allowing her to survey the current occupants... though, much to her surprise, there were none - not yet, at least - and so she ambled down the slope of sand towards the quiet shore. Except quiet never lasted, and amidst the shuffling of the desert underfoot, quite a clatter violated her ears. Avdotya paused abruptly, curling her head and neck back with distaste while her amber eyes pinpointed the source. Her gaze narrowed at the sight of a man who now stood upon the beach of Vitae, exclaiming something or other about the fish gliding by beneath the surface.
As the stranger continued in his awe, the woman slunk closer from the foliage of the oasis like a cat after prey, but he was not her target. Instead, Avdotya (still under the cover of overgrown palm fronds and shrubbery) unsheathed her blood spear and skewered one of the very fish he was admiring. It struggled while stuck between the sand and the point of her blade, but it was only when the small creature succumbed to its fate that the mare slipped out from the leaves and revealed herself to him. "If all it takes is a fish to delight you, perhaps you should get out more." She scolded, her tongue sharp with the choppiness of her accent. In spite of the biting words, Avdotya did not present as overtly threatening. In fact, she even cocked a heel after she had prowled closer to the shaft of her spear that still stood stuck in the sand and water.
She was not underestimating this man, but she certainly found it difficult to notice even an ounce of ill-will in a being so fascinated by a simple fish.
Wonderment; it was a great understatement for the awe that flickered within the warrior's starry eyes, and while it was the kind of enchantment common among children and fools, it was one harmlessly borne not of stupidity but of innocence. Damascus who had longingly gazed from behind iron bars at a single palm frond for most of his life was fascinated easily - and that, as you can imagine, was also an understatement.
As an actual fish (as in not a rock like the first 'fish' he had seen) slithered into view 'neath the water's diaphanous mirror, the stallions jaw slowly eased open as his lungs were wrenched to a halt. Just one sudden movement, he thought, and the fish will be gone.
It was not a sudden inhale nor an involuntary flick of his ears that triggered the animal's disappearance, but a spear.
Primarily Damascus had no idea what kind of ammunition had been launched his way, so had simply heaved his over-grown bodice backwards with a spooked grunt. The stag's gaze was torn from the dream-like depths of the oasis with brute force, a heavy hoof sounding a brilliant WHOOSH among the sand as is sprayed and splashed upon the near-by plant life. Dohv had bounded to the cover of that very foliage, holding a starchy green leaf over his head with his paws.
"its a trap!" the jerboa would soon squeak through their bond, causing the black brute to open his wings ever-so-slightly. Indecision was taking hold once more - was he safer on the ground or in the air? Was there even that much of a threat? With a bewildered grimace, unsure if he even wanted to look, Damascus cast his sights upon the bloody cloud erupting from the submerged spear's tip.
It seemed niether he nor his jerboa was the intended quarry.
A ruffle of foliage later and she had emerged. At a glance the woman reminded him not of a fellow equine but a beast, especially given those damn-near devilish eyes which soon would remind him of fiery venus; A truly fierce woman if ever he saw one, and a brilliant shot too. Damascus was certainly impressed, and would likely be just as fascinated in her as he had been the fish were he not terrified she was plotting to turn her spear on him.
Accented, purring words were spoken, and while it had taken him a short while to process them he soon returned them with a smile. She spoke truth.
"Shot you very good" he spoke simply, taking a few moments to find the fight words in his own tongue before he could speak them in common. "You be the warrior?" Damascus would come to ask her, wondering if her skills were warrior-based or for survival. "I Damascus"
a round of applause to avdotya for that striking entrance
@Avdotya
While the hulking man and his pet settled back into their skin, Avdotya gently pulled her spear from the shallow water and fastened it back against her foreleg. Small scales of old blood still clung to the edge of her blade even with the rinsing it had received, something she would attend to as the evening grew older. For now, the mare's attention was entirely on the pegasus; he was enormous to say the least and certainly no abomination to the eyes. His appearance was otherworldly, as if he had fallen from the stars and skies above- it would have made sense, given his lack of grace when it came to constructing sentences. She could almost see his brain attempting to turn each cog in order to produce his words.
"In a way, yes." She replied simply, her amber gaze straying to the side with a glint of tribulation. Avdotya's loyalty to anyone or anything but herself was always frail, but her allegiance to the Day Court was particularly fragile given her history. She was, indeed, a warrior of the sun, but the day she fought by the command of a pompous ruler sitting pretty upon a throne would be the day she took the edge of her spear to her own throat. Selfish as that may be in the eyes of another, this was simply how Avdotya's mind worked. She lived for her own prosperity, not for those too weak to build their own. Of course, feigning fealty came all too easy to her and with a recently emptied seat in the capitol, things were operating smoothly in her world.
To this fellow - Damascus, he said - she was a warrior of the Day.
"Avdotya." The woman finally offered her name in return for his, though she was still too busy examining him. She was so intrigued, in fact, that she found herself sauntering out from the cool oasis waters and onto the beach to close the gap that stood between them. He could surely feel her hot breath upon his skin with the change in proximity, lest he chose to shy away from her. Avdotya knew no boundaries, and whether he did or not mattered little to her, but she finally paused when she reached his tail. Her brows furrowed. "Where is it you are from?" Her question was blunt, but so was she. Solis be damned if he was a native of these lands.
counter round of applause for u for that gr8 pun, 10/10 (was it even intentional bc dang)
Keenly the stag watched as the huntress reclaimed her spear from it's purchase within the oasis, his subconscious lingering over what on earth she'd want with a dead fish. It was a question he stored away as she replaced the spear upon her person, his star-like irises politely remaining upon her face. He was not old enough nor versed in the way of the world to be awakened by the sight of a woman, thus his eyes did not wander or sheepishly poke in places they ought not to like many a stag might (particularly one in adolescence, such as himself).
The spear-fisher's response was confusing in a way, though he was soon to reach an understanding after a moment of thought. A shieldmaiden, a warrioress - he'd never met one of those before.
Then again, he'd never really met anyone.
This one was truly like no one he'd seen before. She gazed with a ferocity he had not ever beheld, and while her presence was quite frightening it was also alarmingly enchanting. Damascus felt as though he wanted to be her friend, and a desire to impress her by some means was beginning to curl within him. Avdotya; that was her name. Tricky over his tongue as he whispered it to himself, blinking each time he messed up (usually on the second syllable).
She approached, and not a moment later he could feel that same fierceness radiating from within, escaping with her breath upon his sweat-sheened hide. It was a radiance he admired, and was now coming to envy. Her question, though, had caught him slightly off guard because truly, he didn't actually know the answer. "There" he said simply, gesturing with his left wing to the sky above. "Days three passed fall I from high stars. Journey far I make"
Without another word on that, Damascus sent his hooves forward toward the oasis once again. His monolithic tail - all twenty feet of it - was dragged along behind as he slipped his front two feet into the shallows. There was no way he was getting it wet - it would take a week to dry, and e wouldn't be able to fly until it did from the weight, so gently he lifted his bony appendage around the woman, hoping to place his rivers of hair in a safe spot. Damascus was now seeking to reach the fish from where it tossed among the oasis sand, dipping his muzzle in and out of pure instinct closing his eyes. "Fish you what want do with?" He would confirm before making any further attempts, craning his lofty head toward Avdotya as drips of crystalline water dripped form his maw.
that was 100% unintentional and flew right over my head until you mentioned it HAHA
@Avdotya
The motion of the stallion's massive wing drew Avdotya's gaze to the bright blue sky above them, which in turn led her to narrow those golden eyes of hers with skepticism. 'The stars' was a very broad claim, although she was not about to engage him any further on the topic, lest she wish to exasperate her mind in making sense of his jumbled words. Perhaps it was best not to stray from anything further than simple conversation, a task which was apparently made easy by the distraction of the deceased fish.
The effort he placed in the mere task of reaching out to the scaly creature left her with nothing more than a simple and yet wholly judgmental blink of the eyes. She wondered to herself if he even knew what to do with the fish when - and if - he got a hold of it. Nevertheless, the woman merely observed until he whirled his dribbling nose her way. She tipped her head briefly to stare at the small spatters of water that marked her chest and clenched her jaws tight. It took a moment to collect herself, but Avdotya eventually looked back to him with an expression void of detail- why not play with the boy. "Why, eat it, of course." The tone in her voice seemed to suggest that he should already know this.
Rather than watch him strain his neck any further, the mare stepped into the oasis waters without the hesitation he had exhibited; unlike Damascus, Avdotya had very little tail to concern herself with. She plucked the silvery fish from the gentle waves and then tossed it to his feet, half-heartedly nodding her head in a way that could only imply that she wanted him try it. There was no way the woman would ever sink her teeth into a fish with the intention of consuming it, but once again, the poor fellow did not need to know that.
