everything wrong and nowhere to go.
his hands over his eyes.
his hands over his eyes.
I
awoke, and my body was my body.
I have struggled over how best to describe this. About how a body could be attached to you, bend to your will, hurt at your will, bleed bright and unstoppered when you punished it again and again for sins it had not committed, and how, despite this, you would never allow it to call itself your body.
It was an imitation; worse. A defective, tarnished product stitched of broken boy dreams and the nightmares in between.
Yet when I awoke, and my limbs bent to my will, and my blood poured bright and unstoppered when I pressed a sharp rock experimentally to a thin butterfly vein, I let out a breath of pure white cloud and whooped my joy to the world. Immediately, I knew that this one was different. This one was mine.
I reached up for that bright, glorious sky, shot through with a million rejoicing stars, and my wings unfurled behind me like peacock plumage. I turned to stare at them, at every golden feather. How perfect they were. I longed for a mirror and suddenly one was in front of me, a shard of glass broken off the surface of a frozen hydrogen lake. I peered into it.
What peered back at me was not my face, but that of a god's.
"Do you like it, little prince?" I dropped the mirror.
The laughing god plucked the mirror out of the air and smiled at himself within it, before throwing it back into the clouds above us. I did not see his face again for already I was on my knees, my head pressed piously to the waves of summer-warmed sand.
"Solis."
I had awoken, yet of course, it was inside of a dream. I bit my tongue, quelling my desire to laugh like a madman disappointed.
"Rise," the sun god said, and swiftly did I perform as commanded, as even in dreams I could not disobey my god. "I asked you a question, yet you did not answer me." Frowning, I suppressed a shiver. Still I did not look at him, my eyes trained to the sands.
"I gave you your body back, as it is your deepest desire. And yet not a word of thanks you utter? Is it not to your liking, Adonai?" His voice was silvery, the type of voice I had always admired (like lyre song, like spring). When he spoke my name I shivered in full; it did not matter that this was a dream of my own creation. I felt his breath on my cheek as if he were really there before me, felt the cruelty of his grip when he jerked my chin up to meet his eyes. I could not bear to stare into them for more than a moment, as they were two miniature suns. I would be blinded, and he knew this.
Instead, I whispered coldly, "I have long since learned to distrust the gifts of our gods."
"Spoken like a true Ieshan," he laughed; it sounded like bells in deep summer. "Nor are you alone in that sentiment. I am quite unpopular with my people, as I am sure you know." I nodded, and took some pleasure in it. "And I am also sure — that you believe me a mere figment of your madness-riddled mind. A shame. I had thought you sharper than that." I said nothing in reply, as he was exactly correct. The House of Ieshan is a holy house, and because of this, we know better than anyone that the scriptures we learn in place of nursery rhymes ring up to an unsparing ear.
Is it surprising, that the most religious of men are often only superstitious, and the furthest thing from pious?
Yet Solis — my Solis-pretender — could hear my thoughts. "Madness and dreams. I ask you, prince: is that not what gods truly are? Figures dreamed up by miserable mortals. They do not wish to take responsibility for their own actions, and so they call upon us, beg us, offer their undying love for us. In return, we must grant them perfect happiness. A utopia without the impossibility." I did not care for the philosophical swell of his voice. "'Why have you betrayed us, Solis, when we love you so?'"
His grip on my chin tightened. I could hear the fury ruining his beautiful voice. "'Why do you not relieve us, Solis, from our wars, our famines, our deaths, our pain?'"
Sighing, I shook away from his searing grasp. Already I was exhausted. Already I wished to leave this dream, and to awake to my familiar mess of a not-body. I sank down to the sands.
"Do you know what I have always wondered?" I cared very little if the god was listening. I stared at the golden sand instead, with trancelike focus, tracing patterns into it like calligraphy. "I have always wondered: why, ever since I was a child, was I only ever told to be strong? That to be weak, is to be dead. That to be weak, is to be a burden to the strong. That it is un-Solterran —" and here is where I break off into a high, cruel laugh, "— to enter into a dalliance with your weakness. To wish to lean against another, to wish to disappear into your faith, for only a moment. For just a little reprieve. This is, somehow, moralistically wrong. Instead, we are dragged out of ourselves like a baptismal. Spears are thrust against our chests, prayers are sewn into our hearts, and we are sent off to war, generation, after generation, after generation." My voice was as soft as clouds. Speaking this was like a confessional; it poured out of me, and I could not stop.
"And you wonder why we call upon you to relieve our sufferings? Because we are weak, Solis, and because if it were not for our weakness, you would not exist!"
I could not tell if the god was listening or incensed. I lifted my head to look at him, until I remembered that his eyes were miniature suns. How inconvenient it was, both meeting and being a divinity.
"We worship you, because we made you strong. Because, as you said, Solterra is a kingdom of the strong. Because we are mortal, and stupid, and in our shortsightedness created a world we cannot live within."
I flinched when a warm presence settled at my back. For a moment there was silence, until: "And do you wish to change this world, little prince?"
I tilted my head back to whisper into his golden ear. "No. I only wish to survive, like the rest of them. Perhaps that, itself, can mean something. I do not know. Can you blame me, Solis, for not wanting to be a saint? I have heard it is a miserable existence."
The sun god frowned, and it was an expression as beautiful as his voice. "I would not know. I am merely a god." Solemn now, he placed a kiss upon my brow. "Sleep, Adonai. I cannot save you, and you cannot save me."
I pressed my head to the sand, one final repentance. "I know."
I greet the marble pedestal and its writhing sands with the reverence of a dead man walking. The elixir (what I have taken to calling it, half-jokingly) weighs down my pocket. For a moment, however, I forget its existence. I had slipped it there before I left, intending to find a quiet place to drink it, and instead found anything but.
Would anyone believe me if I told them that I had ended up here without meaning to? I doubt it; I wouldn't believe him, myself. Yet nothing had called out to me. I arrive exhausted, panting, my black cloak turned grey by filth. I arrive with the knowledge of the previous monarch's disappearance, yet what was it to me? Our throne had ceased being a Solterran one the day Maxence had sat upon it, and died by it. I had served in Seraphina's court, slept through Raum's famine, limped hurt and half-maddened through Orestes's golden hours.
I arrive like a stone rolling down a hill. Like repentance. Like life.
I have never met any of our sovereigns except Seraphina, and I met her as a ghost, as a shadow, as a girl broken — or had she broken it? — by the weight of a crown.
So perhaps I step onto that pedestal because of a stupid, desperate need to see if I am worthy. (Give me a reason, Vercingtorix.)
Or maybe I step onto that pedestal because I know how our crown longs to break its wearer, and if, with an arrogance bordering on the mad, the foolish, the hopeful — if it chose me, I think I could bear it.
I unstopper the elixir's silver bottle. Its liquid life burns down my throat.
There is nothing left to do, but to step inside.
About the RPer
rallidae
21
Strictly as a sovereign or any leading figure, that I never have! Though two of my characters have held the positions of emissary or champion.
Yes!
What can I say except — everything? I started RPing on Novus, and you can even say that I started writing creatively on Novus. In that way, Novus has, and I am not exaggerating in the least, truly been a pivotal part of my life. Because from the start I wrote with some of the most talented, passionate, and kind people (and never once felt like a 'newbie' or excluded because I didn't know anything c': ), I feel that I've grown in my writing and thinking in ways I point blank couldn't have done without this community. Since I have no experience on other forums I can only base this off of what others have said, but the fact that Novus has such a diverse group of writers, such a flexible system open to original lore and basically everything you can think of, as well as the best, hardworking staff team, this is what makes Novus work, and what makes it home.
Sovereign Questions
I think Adonai is a rather unconventional character to lead Solterra, mainly because his weakness of body is so fundamentally at odds with the warrior values of the court. He was born as head of a Solterran noble house (bless RB and her wonderful Ieshan lore), and then trained from birth to aspire for the crown as well as to carry out his religious duties. I don't think, though, that he's ever wanted to do either of those things at all, and only tried to excel at them out of a desperate need to be recognized. That's why as an untested youth, I doubt Adonai would have made for a good monarch at all. Yet because of his illness, and essentially the loss of his entire way of life, Adonai has been forced to reckon with what it means to be 'weak' instead of strong — and mainly, how he's never considered himself strong at all, and then coming to terms with that.
As part of writing Adonai I must say that I am in no way trying to glorify illness, or to use it as a plot device to push character development. (This balance can be really hard to maintain, though, at times...) Instead, I try my hardest to write his physical weakness as simply another part of him that he must figure out how to live with, and the reality is that in the process I do think Adonai attains a degree of wisdom that benefits him as a potential monarch. Or at the very least, brings a very interesting dynamic to what it means to be Solterran, and how to move forwards with a court that has been through the craziest IC drama. (I say that with all the love!!) He is intensely religious too, and I also think this a really fun angle to work into the court! Since Novus is a land of gods. So to conclude, one of Adonai's core tenets he would bring with him as Solterran monarch would be his own process of healing alongside his court, of his internal (very Solterran, I believe) struggle between weakness and strength, and frankly of his soul-driving desire to save something other than himself.
I think Solterra's collection of player-created lore is simply amazing, and one of my main goals if Adonai becomes sovereign would be to build upon that! As an example, I'm a very visual writer and really love specific lore/IC things to work off of, and because of this I've really wanted to create a collection of "settings" for character exploration within Solterra (like a specific booth selling shady wares in the markets, or a popular meeting place besides a town fountain, or a rumored-to-be-haunted tavern, etc etc). I've also loved previous events that worked like a choose-your-own-adventure, with characters making decisions down a branching decision tree, and would love to run some of those (maybe provide some "mini quests" too? that a character can go on whenever?) in my time.
I'm keen as well to create adopts that would be involved in the Solterran political & religious system, or at least be involved in the court and its daily drama. (: As for Adonai himself, he would naturally reach out to other courts as a sovereign should, (and he likes to think he's politically savvy...), but he'd concentrate the majority of his efforts on Solterra. Probably bringing quite a religious texture to it? Like a philosopher king, but perhaps minus that whole 'moral perfection' image, to keep things spicy. c;
Writing this audition post was the best experience, and everyone else's posts are all stunning. It's truly a pleasure to be able to write with everyone!! As a little sidenote, next semester I'm (finally) taking a reduced coarse load, and therefore I'll try my hardest to boost my activity and dedicate time and love to Adonai's position and the court!
BRIGHT SPLASH OF BLOOD ON THE FLOOR. ASTONISHING RED.
(All that brightness inside me?)
(All that brightness inside me?)
♦︎♔♦︎
