leonidas
holy places are dark places.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
They went their different ways moving as mirrors of each other. Twins, that are more one entity than two. Feet stretch between their bodies as the children move in a mirroring arc, escaping serpent and bear and wild magic. They rush, tripping over stone and sand and scales - so many scales. Leonidas feels the pull of their distance, he feels how his body aches without hers. How long has it known the heat of his sister’s skin against his?
The gravity pulls and pulls between them. It stretches thin, thin, thinner. Then it snaps and Leonidas does not even notice (though his heart does, though his heart bleeds). The boy pushes through the dust and clouds and grasps, grasps for the relic. But it goes. It slips from his fingers and suddenly he is no longer in the core of the island when the clouds recede but at the edge where the island’s edges meet the sea.
If he thought the fight for the relic was a melee of horror, it is nothing compared to this. The island is buckling and rearing. The sea rising up to reclaim it from its edges. But at its core it sinks, great black holes forming. The boy is running fleet footed as the sky begins to shudder and the sun moves and everything begins to roar with a noise the boy cannot begin to comprehend. It is a cacophony of sound, an assault upon his ears. He turns for Aster, for she is always there and it is only then he feels the broken thread between them. It is only then he feels her absence. When all the world has begun to spin wild and free and full of motion that is when the boy stands still amidst the chaos and realises how alone he is.
His sister is gone and all the world is screaming out its agony like it is his. Horses are falling into pits. The island swallows them whole and the sea rises up to sweep them out into its deep. The boy is silent and full of wonder and horror. He is statue still, until a body crashes into his. Until he is pushed toward a gaping crack that beckons him down. The boy leaps and lands clear and screams out for his sister. He has lost her too. They had waited for their parents together upon this island. Yet now it was falling and breaking and sinking. The tide of horses push the boy toward the edge of the island, to where the bridge of obsidian writhes and thrashes in agony. He turns against the tide, enough to see how the trees fall and the sea’s jaws crash together over sand and stone.
How is he to survive without his twin? How is he to live when all he has ever known is gone - the land of his birth swallowed by the sea, his parents and uncle gone, his sister lost too. The boy screams and fights and pushes but feet are trampling, herds of horses stampeding and they push and carry the child onto the bridge. He gasps through his screams and through his tears. He gasps as bodies crush him, his lungs fighting, straining to keep him alive.
Obsidian crumbles beneath his feet as he runs. He reaches the edge of the island and leaps down, down onto the unwavering sand of Novus. Horses scatter in different directions at last and suddenly he can breathe, suddenly he can look back and see.. that the island is gone. The sea churns in its place with all the violence of mastication. Horses slip beneath the waves, sucked down by the sinking island. The boy sees white horses sinking, white horses swimming and all of them and none of them look like Aster. There is no island on which to wait for his parents return and his sister, who waited, curled beside him, is gone too.
The boy collapses onto the sand and watches until the sea begins to settle and all the horses are gone.
OOC: Using Leo's horseshoe in this round please :)
@Aster | "speaks" <3
STAFF EDIT***
@Leonidashas rolled a 5! They have been awarded +350 signos.
