B e l o w Z e r o
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
The heavens were angry, the rain striking hard and frozen that could welt an innocent caught in it's tyrant reign. The skies cackled with the sounds of the rolling thunder, and lightning flashed like spells hurled through darkness. Bel hated every moment. What was wrong with a good blizzard where the hardest thing was the wind pelting snowflakes at you? A white out where the world was as white as the icebergs that floated on the frozen sea. What was wrong with frigid temperatures that didn't freeze the rain as it fell. She never missed the arctic more than when the rain fell in angry waves, while the sky waged war upon itself. Fall and it's abundance of this weather was not her favorite period of the year.
It was luck to come across another, even if she hadn't been able to pick him out from the trees at the time. Not that she could blame him for his appearance, her herself had a tendency to blend into the waves beneath the sea - no matter how you looked at her, her markings meant to mimic the blues of the water, down to the way light filtered through it. So she'd be startled when she'd first seen him, even as she sheltered against the storm beneath the pine cones and branches. The storm wages a war, and she and the stallion of the trees were but innocents caught in it's anger. More violent than the sea when the waves battle with the air, and the oceans turn dark with the storm capturing the sun.
She glances at the odd male who looks like part of the forest, a king that looks at home with in his palace of trees. She sees in him what others see when she's part of the waves, a creature dictated and part of the biome that created them. He is the stallion of the trees, just as she's the maiden of the sea. His horns draw her attention as they seem to rattle and click, like branches in the wind, like a ship on the waves. She tilts her head at his phrasing - stick in the mud? And ponders if it's similar a phrase as 'trash in the current' or perhaps 'beached whale?' But he does state it is safe beneath the tree. Her gaze draws up, meeting his halloween orange eyes with her own clear water cyan before her gaze draws up to the trees that shelter them.
Lightning strikes across the sky, threading electricity through the many dark storm clouds, before it suddenly veers off path and is at a dead tree. She shies away from the sudden abundance of light, and seems to move closer to the unfamiliar stallion - a pillar of strength similar to the trees that have stood the test of time around them. "Not to be a beached whale, but the sky eels, er . . . lightning seems to feed off of the trees we're sheltering under." She retorts, though her voice betrays her fears, seeming to waver with the flow of a current. Nervous and influenced by the elements around her.
The male speaks then, his speech broken briefly before the storm, but his name is still given. Cernunnos. She's quiet as he asks where she comes from, and the corners of her muzzle stretch slightly, emphasizing the slightly longer than normal lines of her muzzle, hinting at the width it can be opened to when hunting for small fish. She glances up at him, her cyan eyes curious, "Cernunnos." She repeats his name briefly, tilting her head curiously at him, "You have a . . . powerful name." She briefly wonders if it has a deeper meaning, as her own people tended to name their own - names that derive from where they come from, names that would offer them the strength of the harsh elements they made home, "I come from the sea, but my people come from the stars." It's a casual comment, her gaze briefly trailing from the direction of the ocean (a place she can seem to know how to find no matter how far inland she was) before meeting the heavens as if peering through the clouds themselves, to the planet of oceans where her people once swam freely - defending themselves from a vastly different sort of predators.
Her vapors slowly turn cooler, gentler, no longer required to melt the threatening hail, and hang lower around her (and in return Cernunnos). The shift of temperature is welcome, the aquatic mare appreciating the more familiar touch of cold to her pelt. It settles the last of her nerves and allows her to draw comfort from the stallion beside her. It also allows her attention to be directed back towards him, and his tree-kinship. Even his pelt, where it is pressed against her cooler one seems dry, tree-like. She glances at him, and her words take a more honest approach, less like her riddles she usually answers inquiries of her origins, "The arctic waters, I lived in the arctic waters of the north. Snow, ice, freezing temperatures, that sort of thing." Anyone listening would focus on the waters aspect, her aquatic appearance, even as it was a vast difference to those siren-horses, the kelpies and the like who preyed on those of the land.
What about you? I'm no blind guppy, so pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but . . . you seem more tree than horse." It's phrased like an observation, but there is a question buried in the statement. "When do you think the storm will let up? It's angrier than the Kraken when you make a jest about it's size." She added, partially speaking from experience. Her attention has returned to the sky, flinching as another roll of thunder echoes around them, limbs treading the air as if to keep herself afloat in the fear wishing to drag her down. She did not appreciate the storm, but at least the company was interesting enough, a polar opposite to who she was. The King of the Forest and the Maiden of the Sea. Perhaps the storm was merely the catalyst to their meeting, the meeting of land and sea.
"Speech"
Thoughts
@Cernunnos
Notes:: Oh gracious -- how I love this <3
It was luck to come across another, even if she hadn't been able to pick him out from the trees at the time. Not that she could blame him for his appearance, her herself had a tendency to blend into the waves beneath the sea - no matter how you looked at her, her markings meant to mimic the blues of the water, down to the way light filtered through it. So she'd be startled when she'd first seen him, even as she sheltered against the storm beneath the pine cones and branches. The storm wages a war, and she and the stallion of the trees were but innocents caught in it's anger. More violent than the sea when the waves battle with the air, and the oceans turn dark with the storm capturing the sun.
She glances at the odd male who looks like part of the forest, a king that looks at home with in his palace of trees. She sees in him what others see when she's part of the waves, a creature dictated and part of the biome that created them. He is the stallion of the trees, just as she's the maiden of the sea. His horns draw her attention as they seem to rattle and click, like branches in the wind, like a ship on the waves. She tilts her head at his phrasing - stick in the mud? And ponders if it's similar a phrase as 'trash in the current' or perhaps 'beached whale?' But he does state it is safe beneath the tree. Her gaze draws up, meeting his halloween orange eyes with her own clear water cyan before her gaze draws up to the trees that shelter them.
Lightning strikes across the sky, threading electricity through the many dark storm clouds, before it suddenly veers off path and is at a dead tree. She shies away from the sudden abundance of light, and seems to move closer to the unfamiliar stallion - a pillar of strength similar to the trees that have stood the test of time around them. "Not to be a beached whale, but the sky eels, er . . . lightning seems to feed off of the trees we're sheltering under." She retorts, though her voice betrays her fears, seeming to waver with the flow of a current. Nervous and influenced by the elements around her.
The male speaks then, his speech broken briefly before the storm, but his name is still given. Cernunnos. She's quiet as he asks where she comes from, and the corners of her muzzle stretch slightly, emphasizing the slightly longer than normal lines of her muzzle, hinting at the width it can be opened to when hunting for small fish. She glances up at him, her cyan eyes curious, "Cernunnos." She repeats his name briefly, tilting her head curiously at him, "You have a . . . powerful name." She briefly wonders if it has a deeper meaning, as her own people tended to name their own - names that derive from where they come from, names that would offer them the strength of the harsh elements they made home, "I come from the sea, but my people come from the stars." It's a casual comment, her gaze briefly trailing from the direction of the ocean (a place she can seem to know how to find no matter how far inland she was) before meeting the heavens as if peering through the clouds themselves, to the planet of oceans where her people once swam freely - defending themselves from a vastly different sort of predators.
Her vapors slowly turn cooler, gentler, no longer required to melt the threatening hail, and hang lower around her (and in return Cernunnos). The shift of temperature is welcome, the aquatic mare appreciating the more familiar touch of cold to her pelt. It settles the last of her nerves and allows her to draw comfort from the stallion beside her. It also allows her attention to be directed back towards him, and his tree-kinship. Even his pelt, where it is pressed against her cooler one seems dry, tree-like. She glances at him, and her words take a more honest approach, less like her riddles she usually answers inquiries of her origins, "The arctic waters, I lived in the arctic waters of the north. Snow, ice, freezing temperatures, that sort of thing." Anyone listening would focus on the waters aspect, her aquatic appearance, even as it was a vast difference to those siren-horses, the kelpies and the like who preyed on those of the land.
What about you? I'm no blind guppy, so pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but . . . you seem more tree than horse." It's phrased like an observation, but there is a question buried in the statement. "When do you think the storm will let up? It's angrier than the Kraken when you make a jest about it's size." She added, partially speaking from experience. Her attention has returned to the sky, flinching as another roll of thunder echoes around them, limbs treading the air as if to keep herself afloat in the fear wishing to drag her down. She did not appreciate the storm, but at least the company was interesting enough, a polar opposite to who she was. The King of the Forest and the Maiden of the Sea. Perhaps the storm was merely the catalyst to their meeting, the meeting of land and sea.
"Speech"
Thoughts
@Cernunnos
Notes:: Oh gracious -- how I love this <3
![[Image: i-jTNwWx8.png]](https://photos.smugmug.com/BelowZeroNovus/n-X9d9fZ/i-jTNwWx8/1/e09fb6c3/O/i-jTNwWx8.png)
