It's Calliope from the Riftlands that returns to the dusk court, cased in fresh blood, scars and the faint whispers of lightning that make the story of war looks stark upon her black skin. All her steps are as wild as they are slow and she drives herself on and on through the muck and mud even though her muscles and her magic scream for sleep.
She walks though the ruined court and the mad-horses that scream of the end of times. And where they see Calliope their yells turn to whispers and their fevered eyes dim when she looks to them as her horn sighs out a warning. She silences them like the rain in a divulge of promise, blood, and death.
The end seems so less terrifying than the lingering violence that hangs on her every movement. The dusk court knows it well, knows what sort of unicorn their old warrior is.
On she goes and the survivors point her onward with looks and none are brave enough to break the battlefield silence around her. She's alone when she opens the door to the hall. The birds flutter away from the metallic tang around her and the otters pause with the fish almost to their mouths. For a moment she just stands there, covered in blood as she listens to laughter and watches them drink.
And for a moment her weary lightning sparks a bit brighter and something dark and reckless claws at the sides of her rib-cage.
Perhaps it's still in her eyes, that whisper of fury and rage, when she turns to Asterion first. “You're alive.” In another land, another world, another time the words might have sounded like a prayer but now they only sound as tired and battle-worn as Calliope.
To everyone she says, “what happened here.” and it's not a question at all.
BUT THE BEAUTY OF HER FORM BRINGS VIOLENCE
A LONG AND LOVELY FALL NO WILL OR FIRE CAN OPPOSE
She walks though the ruined court and the mad-horses that scream of the end of times. And where they see Calliope their yells turn to whispers and their fevered eyes dim when she looks to them as her horn sighs out a warning. She silences them like the rain in a divulge of promise, blood, and death.
The end seems so less terrifying than the lingering violence that hangs on her every movement. The dusk court knows it well, knows what sort of unicorn their old warrior is.
On she goes and the survivors point her onward with looks and none are brave enough to break the battlefield silence around her. She's alone when she opens the door to the hall. The birds flutter away from the metallic tang around her and the otters pause with the fish almost to their mouths. For a moment she just stands there, covered in blood as she listens to laughter and watches them drink.
And for a moment her weary lightning sparks a bit brighter and something dark and reckless claws at the sides of her rib-cage.
Perhaps it's still in her eyes, that whisper of fury and rage, when she turns to Asterion first. “You're alive.” In another land, another world, another time the words might have sounded like a prayer but now they only sound as tired and battle-worn as Calliope.
To everyone she says, “what happened here.” and it's not a question at all.
BUT THE BEAUTY OF HER FORM BRINGS VIOLENCE
A LONG AND LOVELY FALL NO WILL OR FIRE CAN OPPOSE
@Relic @Raum @Asterion
