A Final Choice
Of course the maze is a wicked, tangled thing. Each pathway is already curling back up on itself. Some are turned to ash and dust, others smoke, others flowers and wheat-grass that has shed all its magic. Soon there is nothing left but a flowered, circle of hedge.
The mushrooms dissolve under-hoof and turn back to grass. The stars fall like snow and melt down to water. Neither path was the right one, but neither where they the wrong one either. A maze is tricky like that. And it's easy to see now that the maze was nothing but a grand-trick, a flare of beauty that is already aging and dying as the Benevolent start gathering back their magic and their wonder.
Isra waits inside that circle of hedge, swaying gently to a song that's playing from no visible source. Her eyes are heavy with salt and sweat and exhaustion. At her hooves the last of the magic remains, coral bright stones with strange pits full of emeralds. The two colors clash horribly and it seems almost as if her magic is too dead to create anything lovely.
But then eyes might catch on the maypole at her back and think there is some beauty left in the maze after all.
The pole spirals out from the coral base, as twisted and sharp as a unicorn's horn. The sharp point of it towers over the hedges. From that point four ribbons of the same gray color flow in the breeze and whisper another language when the fabric meets horseflesh.
“I heard a story once,” Isra whispers in between the language of the ribbons. Her eyes flutter wildly behind her eye lids. In that darkness she can see another world and each tree and stone and sky is made of layers and layers of ink.
“That the world wasn't made out of rocks and loam, but flesh and bone. Each blade of grass under our hooves was once a single hair. Each mountain was a rib-bone and each ocean a drop of blood.” She pauses and opens her eyes. Sorrow briefly takes her to see none of her own standing before her in the center of the dying maze. She blinks quickly and the sorrow is gone, replaced by wonder and something stranger than that.
“I heard once that our world was made from a creature not unlike us and it had upon its brow a horn not unlike mine.” Her lips arc in a smile like a church-tower, bright like marble and ivory. “They told me that each of our Courts came from that single horn upon his brown and he broke it up like a clay cup so that we might grow and thrive. And I couldn't help but wonder how four pieces that could easily be put back together with mortar and water could be so divided.” A breeze lurches through the hedges and the ribbons each touch against her flesh, one at a time.
The first ribbon to hit her turns black, blacker than black and it's dark enough that it seems to hum with shadows and absence.
The second turns the color of twilight and each layer of color is darker than the last. The layers pile upon each other until the very end of the ribbon turns black and fades into the shadows cast by that towering, spiraling horn.
The third ribbon tuns the color of sand shot through with bits of mica. It glitters like gold and silver and the two previous ribbons pale in comparison to the brightness of the third.
The final ribbon to touch her turns green. It flutters like a leaves on a spring breeze and small flowers bloom in the places where the threads of the fabric are not tightly woven together.
“But then someone told me the end of that story and I understood. My heart broke but I understood.” Isra looks to be full of woe and heartbreak when she looks at the two horses before her, both made of harsher stuff than she. Already she's walking back towards the shadows pooling in the corners. Each step she takes covers the ground in more coral and emeralds. Each step brings a little of the magic of the maze back. It's less grand than the Benevolent's magic, but at its core it's still magic.
“The last test of the maze is simply to pick a ribbon.” And if she didn't chose that moment to close her eyes and turn away they might have seen the answer in her eyes.
@Shrike @Toulouse
RULES
This is the end of the maze and both paths led to this point. Before them is a maypole that looks like a massive unicorn horn. Their task is to simply pick one of the ribbons (black, purple, orange-brown, green). There are four options and only one correct one, they may not pick the same one. Please reply by February 2nd if possible.
For this path I've sent each one of you 100 signos for reaching the end. <3
(sorry I was so slow on this one, life sucked the past two weeks).
The mushrooms dissolve under-hoof and turn back to grass. The stars fall like snow and melt down to water. Neither path was the right one, but neither where they the wrong one either. A maze is tricky like that. And it's easy to see now that the maze was nothing but a grand-trick, a flare of beauty that is already aging and dying as the Benevolent start gathering back their magic and their wonder.
Isra waits inside that circle of hedge, swaying gently to a song that's playing from no visible source. Her eyes are heavy with salt and sweat and exhaustion. At her hooves the last of the magic remains, coral bright stones with strange pits full of emeralds. The two colors clash horribly and it seems almost as if her magic is too dead to create anything lovely.
But then eyes might catch on the maypole at her back and think there is some beauty left in the maze after all.
The pole spirals out from the coral base, as twisted and sharp as a unicorn's horn. The sharp point of it towers over the hedges. From that point four ribbons of the same gray color flow in the breeze and whisper another language when the fabric meets horseflesh.
“I heard a story once,” Isra whispers in between the language of the ribbons. Her eyes flutter wildly behind her eye lids. In that darkness she can see another world and each tree and stone and sky is made of layers and layers of ink.
“That the world wasn't made out of rocks and loam, but flesh and bone. Each blade of grass under our hooves was once a single hair. Each mountain was a rib-bone and each ocean a drop of blood.” She pauses and opens her eyes. Sorrow briefly takes her to see none of her own standing before her in the center of the dying maze. She blinks quickly and the sorrow is gone, replaced by wonder and something stranger than that.
“I heard once that our world was made from a creature not unlike us and it had upon its brow a horn not unlike mine.” Her lips arc in a smile like a church-tower, bright like marble and ivory. “They told me that each of our Courts came from that single horn upon his brown and he broke it up like a clay cup so that we might grow and thrive. And I couldn't help but wonder how four pieces that could easily be put back together with mortar and water could be so divided.” A breeze lurches through the hedges and the ribbons each touch against her flesh, one at a time.
The first ribbon to hit her turns black, blacker than black and it's dark enough that it seems to hum with shadows and absence.
The second turns the color of twilight and each layer of color is darker than the last. The layers pile upon each other until the very end of the ribbon turns black and fades into the shadows cast by that towering, spiraling horn.
The third ribbon tuns the color of sand shot through with bits of mica. It glitters like gold and silver and the two previous ribbons pale in comparison to the brightness of the third.
The final ribbon to touch her turns green. It flutters like a leaves on a spring breeze and small flowers bloom in the places where the threads of the fabric are not tightly woven together.
“But then someone told me the end of that story and I understood. My heart broke but I understood.” Isra looks to be full of woe and heartbreak when she looks at the two horses before her, both made of harsher stuff than she. Already she's walking back towards the shadows pooling in the corners. Each step she takes covers the ground in more coral and emeralds. Each step brings a little of the magic of the maze back. It's less grand than the Benevolent's magic, but at its core it's still magic.
“The last test of the maze is simply to pick a ribbon.” And if she didn't chose that moment to close her eyes and turn away they might have seen the answer in her eyes.
@Shrike @Toulouse
This is the end of the maze and both paths led to this point. Before them is a maypole that looks like a massive unicorn horn. Their task is to simply pick one of the ribbons (black, purple, orange-brown, green). There are four options and only one correct one, they may not pick the same one. Please reply by February 2nd if possible.
For this path I've sent each one of you 100 signos for reaching the end. <3
(sorry I was so slow on this one, life sucked the past two weeks).
