of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars
A winter goddess holds their sky in twilight hands, but it is the stormsinger's mistress that takes hold and showers their skies in darkness. Snow glitters in the shadows, stark and swirling in frost that seeps into her skin and down into the marrow of her bones. Night descends upon Veteris — the City of Starlight, and the kingdom of dreams. But unlike the reverie of their court that kindles at nightfall, she is uncommonly bound within the castle's walls. Her wild, nomadic heart is constricted within the cold stones that tower around her and keep her from the stars. But still she stays.. for she has been gone for far too long.
She is duty-bound by her loyalty and passion for her Court, but it is her heart that bleeds at her return. Her time away was needed, very much so.. but now, she is conflicted. The starry expanse of her soul is a battlefield — where her goddess clothes her in shadows and smoke, the demon of her guilt claws in answer. Each hoofbeat upon the stone floor is heavier than the last as she walks. For although she is alone, with only the echoes of her thundering heart drumming with the click of her hooves, Aislinn is a storm bursting under the seams of her skin. The darkness holds her close, intimately, but in the shadows looming in the halls, lightning crackles under the surface of her silence.
She is a lethal quiet — a hurricane of power and emotions that war in her soul.
In the deep heart of the castle, she shivers against the cold. Except the chill in her is chased away, not by the burning of her skin and the roil of uncertainty in her gut.. but from the stardust that finds her. The wishes made on falling stars cling to the ebony of her skin in a blanket of silver, and suddenly — as if Calligo had known all along — a comfort washes over her in flames made of meteors and galaxies and shadows. The relief is akin to the magic that had found her in her absence, and that fact alone was why she had found herself home once more. For although she had fled then, more a coward than she could ever swallow, her goddess never left her. And now, she would never abandon Her again. So she wanders and wanders still.. with only a trail of glittering stars in her wake and her emotions a wavering sea.
And pray tell the darkness that burns like a newborn sun; unbeknownst to the woman of stardust and thunder and storm.
@rhoswen this isn't a great starter, I'm so sorry lovely ;_; her emotions are all over the place. "Aislinn speech."
Sleep had been playing games with her. It was an infuriatingly elusive thread that slipped all too quickly from her grasp, tracing gossamer circles over and over again until the sunlit woman could lay in her bedchamber no longer. Air billowed from her lungs, balmy against the bite of a winter eve, and she watched absently as the clouds of her breath bloomed into the aphotic radiance of night. From behind grey, moonlike eyes Rhoswen glanced about her room, feeling small beside such an enormous silence. Memories of a childhood bathed in eye-wrinkling smiles and booming laughter came hurtling through the floodgates of her mind; oh, nostalgia was a deceptive star - glittering brighter in death than it ever had in life - for it was all too easy to forget the bleaker segments of ones past when looking back upon it. Still, there had been fragments of a stainless happiness here that, to the red-haired girl, seemed to have outrun her ever since. How could Denocte have been both a haven and a prison? She shuddered, burying her intrinsic disorientation six feet under, again. What hands did it posses to claw back up to the surface with?
With a shake of her long auburn curls, and a lifting of cheekbones carved from ruby glass, Solis' daughter slipped out into the halls of Caligo's castle. It was not often she elected to traverse the night, preferring instead to avoid it with a burning resentment and Rhos could not help but curse Raum for besetting her with a reason to keep her from the sweet embrace of dream. Scoffing, she pictured his satisfaction glimmering behind a smooth grin - he could have wanted for nothing more.
Up stairs and along corridors she meandered, pausing every so often to peer out of the windows which soared great heights up to higher ceilings. The moon smiled at Rhoswen, but Rhoswen did not smile back. They were not friends, not now. The woman wondered what her brother was up to; after their meeting the day prior he had disappeared off into the shadows, and had not been seen since. Reich had changed, startlingly so. Rhos recalled a boy with a mischievous chuckle and swift hands, all the better for poking her in the ribs with. Her brothers hadn't been soft on her, and she had loved them for it - a girl with a heart so blisteringly lupine could never have been treated any less. Now, however, that impish gypsy boy seemed quite suddenly timeworn as though the crown had aged him a thousand years. Different, different.
Rhos continued on, with a head that swam with fatigue and a shade of blue she could not seem to shake. It was as the Solterran paused at the top of a grandiose flight of stairs leading down to Denocte's great hall that she spied her: a woman with milk-tipped edges and skin the colour of a starlit bruise. Stormborne eyes narrowed as she tried to recall just who this winged Denoctian should be; the name evading her, holding hands with the sleep which danced, also, out of her reach. Rhoswen frowned, frustrated and tired, as every pregnant woman just happens to be. Down, down, down she called with a voice that echoed deftly into the darkness - "I'd say good evening, but so far it has been anything but." Slowly, Rhos descended the stone steps until she levelled beside the blue-eyed beauty, glancing her over once more.
@Aislinn ~loves~ (P.S: I don't think Rhos knew of Ash when she was in the court, I believe she might have left before Ash joined)
of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars
Calligo's shadows dance and curl around the woman glad in snow dust and the whispering of stars as she tries to find a home in the castle's empty halls. Her steps are soft clicks on the stones that bear the weight of her heartache, and the lone moon above hangs behind a curtain of clouds and wonder. On this night, her solace lies not with the darkness that grows, but in the silver gauze that clings to her skin in shivers. Dreamlands have failed her, but yet the woman is not bleary eyed as she walks. Aimless, constantly wandering. She is restless.. more a gypsy woman with her nomadic heart, than a warrior born of the storms that forever churn in the heart of her.
Silence quakes around her in vibrating fingers, touching her in a caress that befits the snow flurries that swirl across the ground. A hurricane churns in her gut as she walks, threatening just beneath the surface of her skin. She is a star begging for collapse; either into rage or quiet or slumber, she doesn't care. Her soul is a battlefield of emotions that war; the storm, the dreams, and the conflicted comfort of coming home that feels too much like a dagger wrought of steel and icy glass. So she meanders, with the murmurs of stardust clinging too her, like Calligo's blessing of welcome home.
I'd say good evening, but so far it has been anything but.
Aislinn nearly jumps out of her skin as the voice pierces the quiet. The lightning beneath her skin crackles with the flare of being startled, but is quickly quieted in a hush of calm winds after a storm. Aislinn had been alone, and suddenly and all at once, she was not. In the darkness, the woman whirls, the dusting of stars following in whips of silver that hug her close, as her orbs find the figure that flickers in the night. The woman is a rose flame in the shadows, and in a soft inhale, Aislinn can taste the sun drops hidden in the copper of the woman's hair. She does not find the scent of parched earth — the unmistakable reek of Solterra — but instead, she can only sense the mixture of night jasmine and sun-kissed sand.
A sword of recognition cleaves her like lightning, but Aislinn cannot recall from where.
Her orbs are warm, welcoming blue fires that pierce the darkness and find the woman's gaze. She can feel her lips curl, as she dips her crown in greeting. "I could say the same thing, actually," she chuckles, both incredibly light and heavy with meanings hidden in words strung together. The gypsy woman coils her right wing tighter, before loosening the great appendage in a meager gesture. "Would you like to walk with me? Maybe this long night can turn around for the both of us," she offers, as her head tilts to take in the woman of roses and gold.
And maybe, just maybe, there was a reason Calligo and Solis had brought the girls of night and day together.
@rhoswen I am so so sorry for the delay darling! ;_;
this post is also a hot mess because I haven't written in a few weeks I'm so sorry xD "Aislinn speech."
From behind great moonlike eyes Rhoswen watched the stranger jolt from depths of thought, spinning upon ribbons of dark lavender to face her own ethereal frame. Rhos was the flicker of a naked unsheltered flame before this woman's silent tumult: delicate, raw, enduring. She knew the pegasus would detect her Solterran allegiance with an involuntary ease (for the scent of baked sand clings long and heavy into night) but - of course - she was not afraid; what does the King's sister have to fear within his castle? An expression of faint recognition, be it cordial or callous, sweeps across the woman's face, and although Rhoswen did not react, waiting in the darkness for a response to her words, she wondered just how well known it was that Reichenbach had not been an only child. Certainly, they were not siblings by blood - and certainly, Rhoswen had appreciated her brother's grievous childhood before reaching Denocte, but it seemed, to her, that the bond her family shared eclipsed all of that. A soundless sigh befell those tender roseate lips at the thought of her parents and siblings; who knew where Rühm and Rhaegar were now.
"Would you like to walk with me? Maybe this long night can turn around for the both of us,"
A chuckle blooms into the cold darkness as the winged mare replied; it seemed Rhos was not the only troubled soul tonight. If the mare harboured any resentment for Rhoswen's unmistakeable connection to Solis she did not show it, and the gold-hearted girl could not deny a gentle ripple of relief cresting her head and rolling down her shoulders; for once, she did not have the energy for barbs. Stepping forward, the clacking sound of her hooves upon ancient stone ringing dutifully, Rhos offered a short smile. "Certainly, if Calligo will have me." Her voice strains, an ounce of cynicism creeping from her tongue: when had Calligo ever given her grace? Regardless, she walked on - defiant even in fatigue. "I am Rhoswen, by the way."
@Aislinn suuuuch a meh post but i wanted to get somethingg up <3
of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars
The sun and moon are equal on this night; on the cusp of a day where light and darkness lay in perfect balance. Ironic then, that the god's children now wander together in the halls. The snow whispers outside the confines of their shared castle, and spring yawns with the far away horizon. Aislinn cannot help but smile softly at the humor of it all. When before, she would have balked at the near hint of Solterran scent — a balmy kind of perfume that stung the inside of her nose like sand — but here she was. Maybe it was the peculiar undertones of the Night's jasmine blossoms and moon dust. Or maybe it was none of it at all, and she was amazed to see storms in the woman's grey orbs.
Either way, the stormsinger was perplexed. Curious... and she simply desired the company of another soul who could not fall into the sweet bliss of dreams.
Certainly, if Calligo will have me.
The rose woman’s voice is full of thorns, but Aislinn does not comment on such a thing. There could be any number of reasons for it, and she was not one to judge on this night. Simply, her hooves carry her with the grace of the snowflakes that fall outside their castle’s walls. The wind whispers in her hair, tangling the strands of spun starlight and night. Her own voice is calm, but strong. "I doubt She would not give you Her favor tonight," she tells the stranger with a curl on her lips, "but if not, you are welcome all the same." Aislinn’s eyes catch sidelong, watching her. The words on her lips ringing true.
If only she could put a finger on the memory of when she had seen her before. Surely she would remember the scents of Night and Day woven together.. somehow.
I'm Rhoswen by the way.
"Aislinn," she answers in return. Aimlessly they have walked, and now a window opens to her side. The view is spectacular, as the sight of the Capital always is, with the world washed in white and the City of Starlight bathed in the firelight of their revelries. As if bound, the stormsinger pauses, as her gaze falls to admire her home. Without thinking, she says: "I do not know you. But yet, I am not alarmed by your presence here. In this castle. In our kingdom."
Her crown turns to meet those stormstruck eyes with the hurricanes of her own. Soft and beautiful and swirling with the magic in her blood. "Who are you?"
@rhoswen ♡ this post is also meh, but I wanted to get something up for you! c:
P.S. I also forgot that she sorta saw Rhos during Misguided Ghosts! But I do not believe they interacted. "Aislinn speech."
They move like umbral ghosts through the high hallowed halls of Calligo's acropolis, rivers of moonlight pouring down their hides: one pale ruby, the other deep lavender. Rhoswen's highway limbs elevated her just a whisper above her new companion, but in that high exquisite elegance it was clear to see the sunchild lacked a certain air of militance which the other woman possessed in the swell and rise of impermeable musculature undulating across her frame as they wandered onward. One did not discredit the other, instead their differences of gold and violent seemed to compliment each other under the same wash of white starlight. A dual blend of radiance and vigour.
As they drift, words of Calligo, favour and welcome came falling from the lips of the frosted mare, and Rhoswen cannot curb the stealing of a glance in her direction. Upon the few occasions she had indeed returned to creep beneath the canopy of night, she had not often encountered the civility of the Denoction community; those that had known her remained insulted still, and those of newer blood saw in her nothing but a Solterran serpent come to leech their mysteries and secrets. To experience a deviation from such habits tonight caught the silver-sanguine mare off guard, and she offered a small albeit curious smile in return. For once, Rhos had no heart for confrontation; her anger had been spent already upon her own brother and she bore the scars from her sharp, sharp words upon the compass of her tongue.
Aislinn.
The name sounds cosmological upon the walls of her mind, like the swoosh of a shooting star across the perpetual black, and Rhoswen is intrigued as she watched Aislinn veer gently off to stand guard beside a magnificent wide window. Mildly, the auburn girl joins her companion - appearing above the Capital like a flame-licked spectre. A hundred candles dance below, illuminating the figures of endless characters: fortune tellers, merchants, winged fairies, hoop-eared children; Denocte did not fail to enchant those in search of magic's kiss. Rhoswen, however, watched on in cool dispassion; she knew the fables, she knew the fortunes - she was not beguiled.
Aislinn speaks again, and Rhos turned a scarlet cheek to meet the gaze of this effervescent stormsinger. A jaded breath jumped from her lips, ashen eyes breaking away to look out over the citadel. "No matter the sand on my skin or the sunlight in my hair, it seems I can never escape the shadows in my blood." A sigh, heavy and long. "I was born here, beside Vitreus lake upon a star-scattered dawn." Her truth, laid plain beneath Calligo's omniscient eye; Rhos knew she was watching, somewhere, smiling bitterly down at the carbonated girl she never could keep. "I left shortly before my brother became King."
of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars
Brother. King.
The words are stars collapsing into nebulas upon her midnight skin — bursting into a spectacular truth that is equally memorizing and wondrous. She cannot stop her eyes from widening, watching the words explode into streamers of stardust. They cause her to turn away from the thousands of candles that glow beneath her, landing on Rhoswen instead. A shuddering but honest smile spreads across her copper lips. Aislinn had no idea, he had never — not once — mentioned that he had a sibling. Another who’s blood could possibly be as wild and untame as he. And yet, here the woman stands, and suddenly, she remembers the perfume of night jasmine and sun drops, ever present in the rose of her hair.
Why then, did Reichenbach’s sister not dwell within Calligo’s kingdom? His court?
Why was she here then, since she did not?
"I did not realize Reich had a sister," she says, regarding her. She’d be lying if a part of her was not on guard, suddenly and all at once incredibly cautious of the woman at her side. Like she, the stormsinger could only guess the secrets that hide within the red wine of her skin, the moon-silver of her eyes. Those eyes that were akin to the goddess’ stars. And for good reason.. because a part of her was Denoctian. But a part of her was not. The part that was not loyal to Calligo’s darkness is what shivers across her skin in gooseflesh.
Aislinn’s gaze is torn from Rhoswen, the woman of both the sun and moon. She focuses on the flickering bonfires and music thrumming outside the castle’s walls, whilst her muscles coil tightly beneath her skin. The Champion is wary, but still she forces the air of calm on her lips. In her lungs, despite clipped breaths. She doesn’t look at her in fear of giving herself away, her warring questions, as she says, "May I ask why you’ve returned home then? I can only guess you are a wanderer." Knowing all too well that she is not. Not when the sun has dripped it’s unholy stupor into her skin, her hair, mingling with the wood smoke of Calligo.
She inhales, long and slow. Her skin kissed by the snow that falls from the windows, steaming at the heat of her.
For she is a broiling hurricane who does not yet know what to feel.
@rhoswen here, have a confused aislinn D: ♡ "Aislinn speech."
The change in the long, elegant lines of Aislinn's face was instant and lucid. The darkness seemed to shroud in closer, then, and Rhos twitched an ear in iron curiosity. But, in truth, the sun-soaked woman knew she should not have been surprised; to declare such a hidden truth so soon would always garner a reaction from the devout folk of Denocte. Their questions were pointed, bewildered: how could she have renounced her loyalty to their beloved goddess? Perhaps also this winged warrior had history with her brother; it would certainly not come as a revelation to the girl who had watched Reichenbach's frivolous folly from adolescence to ascension. No matter the underlying reason, Rhoswen was not naive enough to miss the alteration in the air, for the atmosphere had morphed quite suddenly into something a little more taut.
"I did not realize Reich had a sister,"
Such a confession did not instantly rouse irritation in the desert girl, for she did not care for her own notoriety, instead her frustration was drawn upon Reich's decision to distance himself from the family who had saved him. Yes, he had suffered alone and yes, his blood-mother had abandoned him at birth - but Iscariot and Severina had adopted him at only a few months of age, and had changed his life forever. Everything he had, he owed to them. Now King, he acted as though that ragtag band of Crows had raised him - a lie which brought a scoff to rush coarsely from her lips. "Adopted brother, I should add. Perhaps it does not suit Reich's title of King Crow to boast a family that loved and raised him as though he were our own blood." Though not a sentimental creature, it saddened Rhoswen to learn of the extent to which her family had disappeared from memory and knowledge, and she could not help but feel the familiar strain of guilt coursing through her arteries. The Levoire's had been wealthy - her father the commander of an offshore merchant empire that had contributed greatly to the war between Denocte and Solterra, but even that collapsed following Rhaeger's decision to leave; as heir, and possibly her mother's favourite child, it had crushed the family. Everything disintegrated after that; only she and Reich remained.
Bitterness and disappointment soured the inside of her sharp, barbed tongue, and it was only the distraction of Aislinn's question that pulled her from such musings.
Rhoswen smiled tiredly as she read the wariness in those glacierblue eyes, of course she had been waiting for that. How could she blame her? "To deliver my brother the news that I shall be bringing a child into the world," her admission was stark, but Rhos was weary of secrets, and wearier still of the loneliness they brought, "you know I am Solterran, do not worry to offend me if that is what you feared." Perhaps she was being presumptuous. Rhoswen's inky eyelashed fluttered against her angular, marbled cheekbone as she studied Aislinn quietly. "It's okay, Aislinn, I shan't be unleashing any sun-spears any time soon," she offered humour in the hope it would diffuse the tension that had been building in the passing moments. Aislinn had nothing to fear from a daylight-ridden girl lured time and time again back into the dark.
of course i feel too much
i'm a universe of exploding stars
EXP Earning: Learning about a character’s homeland/history.
Aislinn sucks in a bated breath, all crystals and ice piercing her lungs like shards of glass. Her confusion and wariness is quickly dispersed in a cloud of steaming breath; her racing heart pausing, only but for a moment. She burns from the inside out with the roil of her own emotions — a perfect contradiction to the blizzard that drowns the candlelit city and the sun-kissed woman at her side. How could it be that in the middle of night, when the sandman has yet again alluded her, a woman of Solis has found her? In her own home? In the Castle Night? Who is also Reichenbach’s sister?
A child. And then there is the child.
Flaming orbs fall upon the swell of the woman’s — Rhoswen’s — pregnant belly. Every thundering thought leaves her in one, collective sigh. A long inhale, and a slower exhale, that releases the tension of hurricanes swirling beneath her skin. She still is a shadowed fire, but is it not as it was before. Because now, whether she liked it or not, this woman was an extension of her king. Even if not bound by blood; and oh, she knew the feeling of familial loyalty all too well. Her gypsies, her Rahilah, were one and the same. Adopted and bound by a bond stronger than blood itself. It is such a bond that is tied in ribbons of silver and gold around her heart and the bones of her ribs, and even dangling in coins around her throat.
The reminder of who is was is a brick wall that crumbles and reveals the truth. For if there is anything more than a bond of strangers and families, the Rahilah and Calligo have taught her one thing above all else. She had always been taught that a child is a gift of stars and blessings. That each new Face, every breathe of life, was to be celebrated and revered, for they were surely gifts bestowed upon them from the gods themselves. And because of this.. the stormsinger smiles. For Motherhood is just but another sign of the shifting one’s Face, one’s journey. And this woman before her was on the very cusp of an amazing change.
”Congratulations,” she murmurs, speaking truths where accusations once dribbled like thick poisons. Her cautiousness sits on the sidelines when her gaze meets storm-born grey. ”May Calligo’s stars bless you,” she says, swallowing hard before breathing, ”and may Solis guide you both.”
The side of her lips curl, ever softly, ever genuine. Her curiosity even so, despite how much she tried to control such a fickle thing since her youth. Aislinn can’t help but marvel at rose-kissed woman, pushing down the uncertainty of sun-soaked sand from where it clings to her skin. This woman was her king’s sister, and for that, she would attempt to reach out an olive branch. However tentative, but there all the same.
Her crown tilts sideways, a curtain of ivory falling across her face and away from her eyes. ”You said you were born here, yes? If you don’t mind me asking.. why did you leave?”
For surely.. did Calligo truly abandon the girl of both the sun and stars? The stormsinger could only wish to know.
@rhoswen ♡ thread changed to exp earning woo! c:
PFFT this is all over the place please forgive me ;_;
The world around them slowed to a hum -- a cool, simmering hush that eased in and out of earshot like the bubbling of an southern tide. Rhoswen's slender lobes twitched at the crackle and hiss of fires far below, her dark eyes distracted momentarily by the sight of a long-haired child streaking through the black market stalls; would her own child wish to run here so, wild and rugged? Or would they lust for the scorching swelter of the Mors just as she had as a girl? Only time would tell.
”Congratulations,”
Rhoswen's storm-scattered gaze flickered back to Aislinn, watching the woman's eyes run over her curved flanks before speaking of Gods and Goddesses. She offered a thankful smile, though her own enthusiasm for motherhood was nothing if not misplaced. Her life was a quagmire of confusion, deception and sudden blinding self-doubt, how could she possibly wish to bring another soul into that fen? "Thank you, I need all the blessings and guidance I can get." Danger seemed to lurk around every corner, waiting with slavering jaws for one mistake -- one opportunity to sink rabid teeth into her skin -- and her child would only feel that threat tenfold; if she remained in Solterra, that was. Both Raum and Reich had scrawled imperatives into the earth, declaring their opinion to be cardinal to her future; "your family is here, Rhos", "will you deprive our daughter of her father then?" and though her pride had swollen wide enough to rival the sun, she could not deny the fragments of truth in their words. Her child would be of both Caligo and Solis; a miracle, if anything.
Aislinn spoke again, and Rhoswen's lips twitched once more into a bitter smile. It was the question she knew so well, one she'd heard so many times, a tattoo upon her heart. "I used to be so sure of the answer to that, but now it seems the lines blur more and more every day," her tone was wistful, frustrated,but on she continued, "I left because here I see only shadows to suffocate me in the night; there is no beauty in the stars - only a cold white light that mocks me from on high. The moon is a cruel mistress when she does not love you." Rhoswen sighed, a memory of old. "But from the darkness Solis came; my dreams were gold and gilded and painted in sand." Thatwas but a snippet of her story, but her heart was hardened from weathering the same thoughts over and over again.
![[Image: rhosheader.jpg]](https://image.ibb.co/ikNXOm/rhosheader.jpg)
