She is in the forest as she hears the thundering of hooves. She can hear the birds shriek and flap their wings frantically trying to escape. She can sense that someone is coming, even if she couldn’t hear him first. Magic is flowing into this jungle and she can feel every ounce of it. It calls to him, calling her forward.
Using her own magic, she blends into the trees, matching her color to the background that nature has made for her. If looking straight at her, she looks nothing like a horse and every bit like the tree and brush that she stands in front of. Eyes look out around her, looking for the source of the one who is running. Based on the speed at which the individual is running through this forest, it sounds as if he might be running for his life. Who else would run so blindly through the jungle? Only an idiot would risk running full force into a tree unless they were being chased. Not wanting to scare the incoming individual or acquire the attention of the one doing the chasing, Sloane has camouflaged herself perfectly against the tree. While her own magic is weak, unless you were truly looking for her, you would not see her.
The youngster flies past her and her eyes watch for what is doing the chasing. Nothing appears after the child has disappeared. Odd. Curious even. Slowly Sloane reveals herself and travels the path at a leisurely pace back towards the beach, following the same path as the youngster.
And as she breaks through, she squints her eyes as the sun begins to blind them. Ahead she can see that the youngers has acquired quite the gathering. She meanders her way towards them, just long enough to hear the discussion about the note tied to his neck. Curious. A relic…Tempus…words she has only read about in books nestled in the back of Delumine’s library. How very curious indeed.
STAFF EDIT***
@Sloane has rolled a 5! She has been awarded +200 signos.
Septimus had gathered approximately enough information about Novus to discern that Tempus was the god of time. What his relic was, or what it meant that he was apparently some sort of physical, real entity that could interact with people…well, Septimus didn’t really want to think through the implications of that. What made a god a god? Would a god be a god in someone else’s lands? Certainly, by the typical standards of all-powerful beings, he’d met a few creatures that could be called gods - but, if they had to represent something, or they had to be worshipped, he’d never stumbled upon one, and he wasn’t sure that he’d want to. Did a god count if it wasn’t a universal god? Septimus was reasonably sure that he’d never seen Novus’s gods worshipped elsewhere – did they maintain their power outside of the land, or were they restricted to Novus?
Those considerations roll around in the back of his mind as he contemplates the current buzz of news among the people on the island. Did he want to search for this relic? It was certainly magical – at some point, it had belonged to a witch, but, more importantly, it was a gift from the god of time…and it presumably had time magic, one of the magicks Septimus’s mother had made him wait several hundreds of years before even attempting to experiment with. Time magic was finicky, and dangerous, and it was terribly easy – all too easy – to unintentionally change things with it. The potential for misuse…
He lingers on the beach for a while, contemplating the rolling tides. This isn’t his land, and he doesn’t need to get involved with its magic or its gods; as far as Septimus is concerned, he’s just passing through, and, much as he’s come to like a few of the people here, it isn’t really any of his business if this land’s people decide to get themselves tangled up in dangerous magicks. He could turn back, take the next boat out, leave before this ended in some sort of disaster…
However, Septimus is a researcher, so it’s his duty to research, isn’t it? And he’s never run from danger before – it’s only the lack of his own powers and immortality that is making him consider running away now, but he reckons that, if he doesn’t have the strength of character to push forward regardless, he’s never been much of a scientist in the first place. Besides. If there really is some relic of immense time magic somewhere on the island, and a god, he can’t risk missing them; researching the creature (or the creation) that had created all of this would be invaluable.
He turns his head from the sun-washed tides and leaves the comfort of the bridge behind him – and steps, as he always has, into the dark and unnerving tangle of the forest.
STAFF EDIT***
@Septimus has rolled a 5! He has been awarded +200 signos.
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
And, shaken, he says "I will not have old bones." Someone has left a spear stuck in the sand.
Boudika would be a liar, if the only call were one of curiosity. Among those Denoctian whispers she had heard, more importantly, of a statue erected upon the island with an inscription upon it. That, more than anything, had compelled her across the land-bridge, vulnerable to the sea. Vulnerable to her deepest fears. And here, on the mystic sands of the other side, her gaze searched among the leaves, against the glaring sun. And she wondered—
What favour would you ask a god?
Boudika had never been among the imaginative, or the fantastical. Magic to her was real, pulsating, but it was the magic of blood and bone—it was the magic that existed in living things, touchable, reachable. The magic of the sea, of the sky, and the mysterious darkness that existed in each. It was the pagan, betraying magic of the earth; the rhythms of the lands, the chasms of mountains, the way crags jutted their jagged teeth against the sky. Her gods had always been the stars and earth and the ocean whispering to her, things obscene, things beautiful.
But this question would not let her be.
What favour would you ask a god?
The words came to her furiously, viciously, with teeth. Their sharpness made her flinch, and stay up at night. They turned her beautiful dance into something ugly, half-finished, like a heartbeat cut off. What favour would you ask a god? Her old gods had bestowed no favours, that she knew. They were the gods of the cliff-sides and the sea, brutal gods, dark gods. They had shielded her gender with old magic, but they had also wrought back a payment of sevenfold. They were Cain and Abel; the thundering titans of the deep; the eagle high above, apathetic and predatory.
What about time?
Creatures twisted in the shadows; and birds shrilled predatory screams. The sand, near the waves, was scuffed with the soft prints of some large cat. Boudika felt reborn in another time, another age, and still—the question, vindictive and demanding—
What favour would you ask a god?
Boudika didn’t know the answer to the question until she stood before the massive statue of Tempus, cast into its very shadow. The mare craned her neck so hard her horns nearly brushed her own flesh. Her mane tangled in the breeze and her heart beat wildly in her chest. There was something on the wind, something nearly frenzied. Magical, or merely tense? A bird screamed and Boudika did not flinch.
She stood before the statue and thought:
I would ask to save him.
Boudika stood for a long time, after that. Clouds journeyed and faded across the aching blue of the sky; the sea shushed at her from a distance; and the forest twisted in its primordial ecstasy, in its vivacious, pulsating life. These things changed, and the light altered from morning to midday to night, but still she stood and answered again and again,
I would save him, I would save him. If I could ask a favour of a god, I would save him.
AT NIGHT I PINE FOR SLEEP THE WAY HUNGER HOWLS A PLEA FROM ITS OWN PIT a prayer roiling somewhere dark & hollow
She knew, the moment she saw the ivy, that he was here.
When she hears whispers of the relic again, her reaction is mostly apathetic, with a dull hint of concern for misuse - Tempus seems to favor the clever, but cleverness tells her little about moral character. She is hunting blackbirds; she doesn’t have a nation to claim the relic for, anymore, and she doesn’t want to think of the moral consequences of having a relic that allowed her to alter time for herself. What would she be obligated to do with it? What would she have to fix? And what problems would fixing - saving - create?
Of course she would change the past, if she could. That is precisely why, she thinks, she should never be allowed to.
But Tempus is another matter entirely.
She doesn’t care for his relic, nor for his favor; she is not sure that she cares for the favor of anyone anymore, least of all the gods. She only wants answers - answers to the questions she so nearly asked Solis when she met him. Why did the gods return now, of all times? Why had they disappeared again? What did he mean when he said that things were changing? Surely he didn’t mean the disasters alone; she’d been told that the horrors in Dusk, at the very least, were a test, and Dawn’s fires seemed to have been something similar. (She was not so sure about Solis, and she knew nearly nothing about what had happened in Denocte. All that she could say was that the sun god’s aid did not seem to be so conditional.)
The timing is strange. She knows that there must be a reason for it – that there must be a reason for it -
She hopes that there is a reason for it.
She stands on the shore, her hooves digging holes into the sea-clumped sand, and she stares into the darkness of the pine forest stretching out towards the center of the island. Her hood has half-fallen, and her white hair is pulling out of its braids. Absentmindedly, her telekinesis begins to rake through the white mess, forcing loose strands back into place and tightening bits that were falling apart, sometimes a bit too tight, but she doesn’t much feel it.
She needs to wash her hair, she thinks. It’s white and gets dirty too easily, and it smells like salt and the strange concoction of things that mean sea - fish and water and murky sand. She needs to wash her hair, and she needs to sleep, and she needs to eat more and drink more, because, when she takes off her armor, her ribs protrude a bit too much and her face is getting sallow in a way that is more disturbing than anything, and her eyes always seem to have little veins of red running currents through them – they always seem to be carrying bags, little dark curves, but she always seems to be carrying something, so that’s nothing new. She hasn’t slept well in what she thinks has been years, but it’s gotten worse lately. She can’t find it in herself to eat more when people are starving, even though she knows that she could; same way with water. The constant clench of needing isn’t really anything new, anyways – she’s a desert thing, and they have shortages all the time. But she should wash off. Viceroy shaved her hair off when she was a girl because it was too long for fighting and too dirty, and he couldn’t stand dirty white. Maybe cold water will clear her head and wake her up a bit; she keeps dreaming about the gods, and the maze, and the monster, and Raum, Raum, Raum, sometimes accompanied by a black-winged figure with a knife.
But there’s no cold, clear water nearby, just the sea, and the last thing she needs is more grit on her coat. She blinks in the midday sunlight, grimacing at the crowds of people on the shore, and reminds herself that it’s good for her anonymity - if she wants to hunt them down, they can’t know she’s here. (But she can’t shake the feeling that it’s unsafe, especially with this many people around, especially with children around, and she wants to tell them to run, but she doesn’t have any authority anymore, and Tempus might take poorly to her driving off his prospects besides.)
She winds her scarf around her face again instead, and, keeping her head low, she slinks like a prowling cat through the edges of the crowd, towards the woods. Ereshkigal leaps off of her shoulders and up, climbing high enough to fly just above the treetops. A few of the strange island birds leap up in her wake and flank her, but she snarls at them, flashing her massive, jagged talons and slashing at the air – they let out sharp squawks of their own and return to the trees, and, even from a distance, Seraphina can see her puff up in pleasure. She rolls her eyes.
Seraphina brushes shoulders with strangers, a ghostly flank or shoulder against a flank or shoulder (that seems intent to remind her that she is no ghost); she is gone too quickly to garner much attention, and she is quick to disappear into the darkness of the woods, unhappy as she is with the prospect. Once she is in the cover of the shade, with the foliage to shield her from prying eyes and Ereshkigal keeping a careful eye on the forest from above, she pulls her scarf down and allows her hair – which is already beginning to disentangle again, thanks to her makeshift hood – to fall free in parts, clinging to the sweaty curve of her neck and forehead.
She has found god once before, in a place much like this: just as strange and just as deadly. Surely, surely she can find him again, and surely she can get the answers she needs from him this time.
She lets herself cling to surely, to her wavering notion of her own resolve and capability, and disappears into the brush.
@ || aaaand the kids are both in for this round "Speech!" || "Ereshkigal!"
STAFF EDIT***
@Seraphina has rolled a 3! She has been awarded +125 signos.
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
she was powerful not because she wasn't scared,
but because she went on strongly despite her fear.
Maerys was existing in a time that had already been experienced. The exhibition before her was recognizable. She had lingered here just mere days prior. Then in a fleeting moment of awareness, all that might have been lived before deemed itself distinguished.
Punctuation, prose, rhythm, diction, spelling, grammar, layout- none were cared about in the short note. Last time Maerys had seen the note it had been a mere word shorter, but this single word changed the entire meaning.
Tempus.
She knew little of the entity. She'd pieced together a rough idea of who Tempus was by listening to the words and whispers of others, but by no means considered herself knowledgeable on the subject. He was the founder of our world, the creator of all we know. Maerys wondered, however, if he is such, how come he cannot simply communicate through tried and true words rather than a short riddle-esque letter?
Last time Maerys had seen the statue, she recalls those around her questioning the gods. They'd mentioned that the gods were absent now, but clearly, they were not so. Was this the point of the letter?
He heard it before he had seen it. The distant roar, the insurmountable growling that grew and grew, festering snarl from the ground that ripped the skies with heat – with rage, with uncontested rage. No matter the noise that rose to meet it, it engulfed all. Perhaps it was his ears that collected the drone and not the every whisking breeze that swelled with it, he wasn't certain – but they tomed like the loudest bells and the loftiest horns. Were it a reckoning? He listened to it for long, the low hum grinding to a crescendo over days of his returning, the lapse of his pilgrimage into the heart of the Solterran tyrant's den. There was much that crawled over the span of his mind like the trickle of spiders over marble; much to think, much to feel, much less to mind the volcanic pandemonium that scraped the stars with conquest. Indeed he tried his best to drown it out with those creeping thoughts, his ever shifting philosophy that groaned almost louder than anything else. But it persisted.
He felt it before he had seen it. It was but a low tremor, hardly noticeable, as he traipsed the ledges of the canyon. Here and there small quakes would tremble the most unstable of pebbles and you could here the pitter-patter of cold stones ricochet in the night. Even the teryrs were silent, locked in the shelter of their wings and their bone-laden nests, death-eyes curdled by apprehension. He did not see them but he felt them – they and the rest, the shivering that followed, the quiet that stirred between tantrums of an aching world. It was the mountains that shook then; their peaks shuddered the heavy, glimmering snows from their jagged edges. They woke. They quivered, crags shimmying with a fear so like the rest. At times he was shrugged from his sleep as the tremors grew to quakes and the quakes to a wracking, so much so that his dreams were tossed into the deep of the sea – where the current is merciless and drags to-and-fro, hurriedly tearing at you like jealous siblings.
He had seen it long before he arrived. The smoke that lay heavy on the horizon, pillars of ash and cinder rising from the ocean like draconian exhaust, some heaving beast beneath the trench that sighed and gaped wearily. How the black smog twisted and flooded all light, how pleasant, how terrifying – had he grinned? He could not recall, to look upon the scurrying dots that lay far below, the racking waves that struck the rocks and receded from volcanic thrust.
Something woke there, something awful and drenched in horror. And he grinned.
Perhaps he should have returned to Denocte first. To witness the carnage, the ash and the loss. To comfort those affected, to find a strategy to replace what was lost, to uncover who had committed the crime. He would have known the answer. Not those involved but the manner of orchestration – the nature of the flames, the contempt, the war. He would have said nothing. He would have watched the flames from the dark, his intrigue narrowly crowed from his heart like blackened smoke as he admired the way fire ate and ate without prejudice. He would have wondered if Isra would turn the flames to precious turquoise, jaded sapphire, sparkling diamonds that rained to extinguish the pernicious heat. He would have wondered if she saw the shadows leak into his eyes the way it did as he watched the fear unfold over the southern horizon from atop the peaks of the Arma Mountains, watched as the insidious possession wrapped his expression in mirth. In awe. Would she still pity him?
Perhaps if Isra favored soldiers over dreamers, the fires would never exist.
But that was then, a would-be clause that closed over his anticipations as he had watched the fires burn in the distance like beacons in the night. He had been descending the spine of the Arma Mountains, clambering into the thrush of the wooded canopies below that grew ever darker beneath the mingling smoke. Each one had turned to embers before he broke through the deep of the forestry, each one blinking to smoke that rose and caressed the dark skies above.
Now he was here. But where was here he wasn't certain. He stood on the edge, that he knew, but of what unfolded was a necessary mystery moss-soaked and molten, the ground still hot beneath his hooves. Steam rose and curled against his dark skin, brushing lightly over the burnished copper and gold like a spring of spirits hungry for mortality. He stood there for a long moment, his cynical gaze held to the peninsula that had risen in the distance, supported by this peculiar bridge. It was dark in the night, deep and wooded and full of sounds he had never heard before. Each day seemed to unfold from the next here, things of wonder and treachery and awe, like the whole of Novus had been built on the foundation of dreams and harrowing nightmares. He wondered which of them this new thing was.
Come...
The waves crash against the rocks at his side, and he looks to their jeweled crests before they foam and steam over the molten trail of sulphuric stone, hissing something unfamiliar. –ome..., another quake, but it is low and humming and too deep to shake the path he stands on. It is something ancient and cold and buried far too deep for him to truly care. Come and s–... something distant cries out, and he isn't certain if it is a bird or a man or a wolf or something more, he can't tell if it is fearful or terrifying or simply wanting. He stands still, a stone amongst stones, rocked by the breeze that sifts from behind him and desperately persuades him to move, see, come and see... This wind is strange and fleeting, brisk but not cold – it tousles his mane like a lover twirls their finger through his hair. It presses to his flesh with soft kisses, and wisps longingly beneath his chin. All forward. All moving. All toward the heart of the island. Come see...
One step, two. Erasmus's horns raise high above his silhouette, two spiraling thorns sharp against the backdrop of the skies. Wary, weary, he has traveled long and not long enough to stop there, he resolves. Every footfall is muffled against the sea-moss that coats the cooled magma, his gait collected and roving machination of concentrated caution. Something stands far before the island he can see now, though too far to make out what it is. He doesn't pause – it doesn't move, not breathe or sigh or make a sound at all. Still as stone. The closer he arrives he sees the horn first – it is striking, tall, and sharp, as though it could split the sky with its caliber. The proprietor is frozen to the spot, anchored in a wild pose that reminds him vaguely of the statues that poised high on Veneror Peak. And a piece of parchment flickered in the starlight – he reached out to stop its movement and drew closer to read. ”Time is free. Time is here. TEMPUS.” It means nothing to him, some vandalism or joke he assumed (for he knows only us in his blood, the truth, not these Novus gods) or otherwise some tourist engagement for the perks.
He looked on from the statue to the forests that towered on the island, to the volcanic mountain that cast a black shadow sprawled from its belly. Come... He stopped short of the first limb that bowed from the mouth of the woods, a bough laden in more vibrant emerald than he could remember any tree in his life. For a moment he forgets Denocte. He forgets Solterra. He forgets Raum, forgets Isra.
And as a breeze of relaxation smooths over his body, he enters.
They are a frenzy of bees, they come trembling, buzzing, crawling across the island, searching out its mysteries like golden honey. And what, oh what, will they find - ?
Lysander does not think they will find god.
But he comes, too, drawn to the magic like the rest of them are, drawn to the promise of something strange and new. Within him yawns a new eternity, or perhaps it what he always has been, rediscovered, given back. He wears his recovered immortality (but different - what gifts are ever returned unchanged?) like a familiar cloak, gauzy across his shoulders; his antlers glint like gold, though they are still only bone.
It is night when he reaches the statue. In the darkness, with the moonlight a trail away across the water, the silhouette could almost be Calliope. The likeness is enough to make his heart stutter in his chest, and remind him he is no closer to a god than he was before the desert. It is enough to make him - almost - wish she were here still, that black lioness who cared not for mysterious but for truth, and would cut to the heart of any beast to get it. Lysander thinks he understands her, now. At least more than he once did.
But it is not Calliope. It is no one, smelling of everyone and nothing, and when he is near enough to see the way the pale light paints it he sees that its surface is uneven, corroded (he does not wonder if it is Isra’s doing). Somewhere in the trees a creature cries out, so strange he can think of no name for what it might be. For a moment, then, he remembers the beast out of the sea that had hunted him in Vespera’s temple, but his slight smile doesn’t fade and he does not turn from the statue until he has read the note.
When he does, at last, go to the forest with the sea at his back, it is no Relic he thinks to hunt. Such games were well enough, but he has no interest in such a tool, not when he has his immortality, and Florentine has her dagger, and every world and crawling second is open to them.
Instead, he (like so many others here, unknown to him) hunts a king, a killer, a ghost. And when better than in the dark?
He has done well, keeping to his promise of sticking close to either his mother or father’s sides as they traverse the bridge and explore its unrevealed secrets. His first few steps into the newly exposed world had been filled with trepidation, his lungs refusing to draw breath for what felt like a lifetime as he took it all in. What he saw was both awe-inspiring and utterly terrifying, spellbinding and beautiful yet savage and dangerous.
They had spent little time within it so far, and every moment they spent outside the gate riddled him with anxious desire to explore its depths further. Still, he knew better than to sneak off and attempt to go it alone, knowing full well the trouble he would be in and the possibilities of what could happen.
Crossing the beach on their way back to said gate, Regis was taken aback by the form of a colt that wasn’t much older than himself – a fact he knew because the individual was from Delumine. Concern wrought itself across his young features and he looked with concern to those around him, but in the end he ignored any cues to stay back and instead hurried forward. He was slow, however, as the colt was bombarded by a crowd of equines much larger than himself, effectively blocking his view. The Prince made a soft sound of distress in the back of his throat as he struggled to find a view from which he could see, but as he did so his eyes caught a familiar sight off to his left, stealing his attention away from the others.
Ipomoea…?
His breath was stolen away with excitement, for he hadn’t seen the speckled stallion for quite some time since he had departed temporarily, or so his father had told him, from Delumine. Not wanting to seem a foolish child, he quietly trotted toward the Regent and smiled brightly toward him, Milo doing the same as he paced along at his side. Reaching out he brushed his whiskered muzzle against Ipomoea’s shoulder, clearly elated to see his Uncle safe with his own eyes.
It wasn’t long before the crowd began to dissipate, but as they did so Regis couldn’t ignore their passing whispers. He heard mention of Tempus and a relic, some sounding excited while others sounded confused or even frightened. Tearing his eyes from the departing conglomeration of equine, he then turned his sights to the statue they had gathered around, the colt now noticeably gone. He focused on the note plastered to the statue, eyes narrowing as he inspected it.
“… Uncle Po?” He spoke up after a few moments, the colt’s brow furrowing as he tried to absorb and dissect everything that was happening around them. “I heard some of them talking about a relic as they left. What is that?”
and then you put your hand in mine
and pulled me back from things divine
For the majority of his time here, Ulric has ventured either alone or with a small group of trusted individuals. Where able, the Warden helped to situate his soldiers and see to it that there was some method and organization to this chaos, but this new world is just as foreign and strange to him as the rest of them. With the door now open for the whole of Novus to explore, Ulric wasn’t sure what to expect, but hoped that things might slow down in some degree – they had all been running themselves more ragged than usual, after all.
But, unsurprisingly, the world didn’t seem keen on slowing down for them any time soon.
The roan stood stupefied before the unicorn statue that had erupted from the sand some nights ago, golden eyes narrowed critically at the note it bore. He had only ever heard stories of Tempus’ prized Relic and the power is held, never knowing what was true and what was fiction as it had first appeared right before his arrival. Whatever the so-called Relic was, it was apparently here, hidden away somewhere on the massively unexplored island. Ulric himself did not care to seek it out for his own gain, but as he stood on that beach mulling over the possibilities, the more terrifying they became. If it really was as powerful as everyone whispered it to be, what would happen if they wrong individual found it before anyone else? What if it could be used to protect Delumine from all that was wrong and corrupt in the world?
Sucking in a deep breath, the Warden turned, molten gaze searching for the way back onto the island – and he went.
"Speaking"
STAFF EDIT***
@Ulric has rolled a 1! He has been awarded +1 EXP point.
HISTORY HAS ITS EYES ON YOU ➳ allcontact is permitted and encouraged
Dragged by the wind, taken by the stars
Carried with the madness and scars
It was amusing, the way they all flock to the statue and the colt panting at its feet like moths drawn to an open flame. They clamber and rush to see, insistent they must be the first to see and discover. Curiosity nips at the Champion’s heels like an ill-mannered mutt as he looks on, but he is nothing if not a patient man.
In time they all begin to separate and go their own separate ways, but Atreus notes how the majority of them take off toward the gate leading into the island, destined to bottleneck once they come upon its entrance. Only then does he care to approach the statue, catching the tail end of a conversation as he does so. ’Maybe I’ll be the one to find it this time,’ a young mare giddily states as she trots alongside her companion, who looks just as determined as she does to find the mystery object. ’Can you imagine getting your hands on Tempus’ relic of all things?’
Dragging his attention away from the pair as they dash away, Atreus’ eyes came to rest on the note and the words it held. Tempus, it was signed, further confirming his suspicions that the Gods had a greater role in what was happening than they apparently cared to let on. He remembered a time when they all had gathered at the top of the highest peak in the Arma Mountains, calling for an audience with each Court’s Council, of which had only ended in tragedy for each of them.
Turning his back on the statue, Atreus now pointed himself back toward the island, his stride slow and fluid as he covered ground. Let him be the one to locate it – or at the very least, figure out who would come to possess it.
