’Tempus’, they whisper, ’Tempus and his relic are back, and we must find it.’
The Son of Felume knows not of this Tempus nor his relic, but as he watches the masses flee for the island with hope of discovering it, he knows it must be powerful. At first, Kratos is conflicted as he considers what to do; he has never been destined for power, because if he were, Felume would have given it to him to begin with. His role in the fiber of the universe is to help those whose time has run out to cross over and little more. To specifically seek out power with such thirst as some seem to possess is a fool’s errand, the sign of a hunger that can never fully be satiated after the first taste. Power is something earned, not simply found.
Tilting back his head, Kratos looked to the sky with a frown. For years he had been searching for something without knowing what it was, something to fill a void in his heart that shouldn’t be there to begin with. He had felt closest to finding it when he had found Denocte, yet still he felt like he was slowly bleeding out, aching for something that didn’t even exist on this mortal plane… but what was it? In searching for this lost relic, would he find it? Would he find just a morsel of a clue? Should he stay away from it, as he knew he should?
As he looked back deeper into the island, one foot took a single step closer, followed by another – then another, and another, taking him further into the island as he dared to search not for a God’s relic, but for answers.
This time, she knows better than to go anywhere without some sort of guidance, considering her last expedition had nearly marked her as a victim to the sea or severe trampling. The same fate might have awaited her this time around as countless bodies flocked to the unicorn statue she had gawked at just days before, marveling at its sheer beauty and the otherworldly power it seemed to possess despite being inanimate. Concern flashes across the girl’s sun-bright eyes as she notices the colt collapse at the base of the statue, but a quick touch to her shoulder reminds her to stay put regardless of her feelings.
Be it her father, Aghavni, or even Senna, she made sure to listen to whatever they had to say, moving only when said to. Nothing could stop her from asking an array of questions, however, as she shifted beside them. “Is he okay?” She asked with a frown, long, white lashes sliding over eyes full of concern. “Should we go help him?” Others were murmuring around them, most speaking a name she had never heard, which brought her to her next question. “Is that boy’s name Tempus?”
Goodness... this realm was strange. Horses with magic and dragons... Horses obsessed with Gods and Goddesses... Randomly appearing islands and bridges. Yep... He had stepped into some strange reality and was not sure how to feel. The ebony, ivory, and acid stallion paced down the beach, mulling over those that he had met and those that he had just seen from afar. Huehuecoyotl was feeling like an outsider in Novus... But then he had also decided to go the route of a vagabond rather than bothering with the court politics. Perhaps he was just meant to be the outsider that he had always avoided being. Wouldnt his parents be so proud of him, no where that he belonged and no one that he belonged to in any way... The thought made him roll his eyes and sigh.
He didnt like not belonging... Had always had issues with it. But it seemed to be the role that he was always stuck in. Shaking his head and shrugging, he lifted his eyes to the bridge and eyed the statue that was there. Horses seemed to be milling about, so something must be going on again. Stepping forward, he approached the statue and the note, cyan eyes taking in the words. It was all a bunch of gibberish to him, nothing making sense. There was a name, one that he had never heard of before.
"Tempus... Is that supposed to mean anything?" He muttered, moving away and staring at the island. This realm was so weird! Stepping forward in a strong walk, he began to head toward the island. Might as well try his hoof at finding what ever relic the masses were speaking of.
@ "Coy Sass" Notes:
The BEST revenge... is to stay fabulous.
Coding Credit: Dyzzie - Image Credit: Chaosy
STAFF EDIT***
@Huehuecoyotl has rolled a 6! An RE thread will be started for him shortly, please message @sid with any questions.
The massive ebony and gold stallion snorted as he stretched his wings and let them propel himself through the sky. He enjoyed the weightless feeling of flying, the only time that he didnt feel like a massive creature that was almost too large for the world. His dual pairs of wings moved in strong, steady beats that showed his practice with the excess wings. Seeing the massive gathering around the statue, he dove down to earth in a move that was equal parts controlled and reckless.
Flicking his wings out, he slowed his rapid descent. The wind pulled at his ebony and gold feathers, making it nearly painful as he began to back wing. Angling his body as he moved, he landed on his stocky hind legs. His forelegs followed and, within a few moments, he was settled back to earth. The first few moments was always a bit disconcerting as he got used to the gravity that made him feel heavy and solid. Shaking his muscular form, he tucked in his wings and moved toward the statue to read the note.
"Tempus..." His deep, velvety soft voice wrapped around the word as he tried to place if he had heard it before. Shaking his head, he turned his golden gaze toward the island and the horses that were heading to look for something. Flicking his head, he moved toward the surf to try to get a different view. As he moved, steam billowed up around his legs like smoke and the water sizzled beneath his heated hooves.
The one who did not need proof that there was life after death most of all was Vincent, and yet, he could not resist crossing over to the island to see for himself what had emerged from the ashes of an all too soon forgotten monument within Novus. Sure enough, the sands were as white as they were rumored to be and the forests just as lush. He was quite passive in his opinion of them, as neither things beautiful or thriving intrigued him if they were not conscious of him in turn.
But he did feel that the word Utopia had been thrown around all too willingly, when in fact, the peaceful nature of the place was simply unnerving. Nothing was ever truly peaceful. Peace was just another word without meaning. Like ‘love’ and ‘destiny’, it was just an idol to be praised and cried out for but ever intangible to the pleading masses. The only proof of its existence were the ancient tales of its past and quite temporary state, which was repeated by mortals with the leisure to lie. Novus’ history was just a fable mistaken for gospel. Did any of these mindless fools ever know peace in their chaotic lives? Forgetting wartime, the never-ending string of natural disaster and erroneous equine behavior bled together to span every moment in time that the people ever knew. They even say fight for peace. Chant it. Scream it. Bundle it up in prayer. Do they even hear what they are saying? Even Vincent, who had to die to live, found the irony of the phrase laughable. Then again, he found most matters of the equine mind a laughable thing. He willed peace to remain a lie. Chaos kept the world strong, kept it lively, kept it…interesting.
He knew chaos would eventually take this place under its seething shadow like it did everywhere else that the citizens of Novus traveled because they were the ones to guide it there. Just as they did now. What a frenzy it was. He only grasped bits and pieces. Something about a lost relic or another related to Tempus. Most of the bystanders cut themselves off as he appeared, openly leery of him for obvious reasons. He didn’t skulk in the shadows with the sinners and he certainly made no effort to hide his hideous figure from the world. Oh, not when the Gods made him this way. They were proud of him, surely, so why shouldn’t he be as well? The exposed flesh and bone, gnarled appendages, and gleaming rows of pointed ivories made him a work of Gods’ art in his mind. So under the light of day, without a drop of shame, he immersed himself in to an awkwardly parting crowd of whisperers and limped past them without a word. He glanced at the inscription as he passed the statue and in that moment he was glad his face no longer betrayed emotion.
He always did enjoy a game of hide and seek.
STAFF EDIT***
@vincent has rolled a 1! He has been awarded +1 EXP point.
Isra and iron wake “I must down to the seas again,”
No
, is the first thing she thinks when the ivy dies and the island starts to whisper around her like a ghost. She can feel it in her blood, the weight of it, the promise of tooth and claw and more tricks. But her magic can feel it too, it can feel the way the trees do not feel like normal palm and pine should. It can feel the way the sand shifts and trembles as if it remembers too well how to be rock, and magma, and the core of the earth.
Her magic smiles in her bones and in her blood. It smiles and it's a toothy grin, a spectral lion of rage and hate and memory. Everything in Isra cries out to the island. All the soft parts of her beg the gods to stop, to give them no more tests thick with the lie of power. Her heart is sobbing beneath the war-drum beat of it, and beneath that her steps are moving over the shore like shovels through piles of dirt and bone.
But all the hard parts of her, the parts forged into blades are screaming a challenge. Isra is promising, with every step, every catch of sunlight on the crown of scars around her dark throat, that she has forgotten how to be anything but rage. The way her horn flashes and sighs in the wind like a sword promise, I will end you if you bring us disaster again. She thinks of Seraphina, laying bloody and almost-dead but still full of hope for the salvation of gods. Part of her wonders if that god is here, with his father. She wonders if she can turn his blood to gold if she were to cut a map of warning across his skin.
So when she walks deeper into the forest, with her dragon laying trees low beside her, it's with fury in her heart and a warning flashing teeth and claw to the magic she knows is out their searching, and hunting.
Because Isra and Fable are hunting too and she knows they will not fail.
There is too much activity, too much noise and bustle; Elif feels like a child on market day, crushed in by bodies at all sides. She wishes O were beside her, with her savage smile and her hurlbat; she wishes Caine were before her, clearing a path with his two pairs of of wings. She wishes she were brave enough - or had reason enough - to seize the whip from her side and crack the air like thunder with it, parting the sea, giving her room to breathe.
But none of these things are doable, and so she only sucks in a breath and calls up a breeze, one that finds her and caresses her cheek with a kiss of salt, yanks its fingers through her savagely short hair.
And then she shoulders on, and finds herself at last facing the statue.
Elif eyes it narrowly, her wings tight against her sides, her alaja snug around her throat. She is not near enough to make out the words (or the note itself, for that matter) but no need - the crowd has already passed back what it says, and she has already heard a thousand versions of what it might mean. A hunt - a god - a Relic. Her green eyes narrow; she shakes her angular head, wishing she could quiet the cacophony of the crowd. Here in the innermost ring of the circle, not even the breeze can reach her, and the mare does not linger long.
When she at last manages to emerge from the worst of the press, she breathes deeply, waiting for her heartbeat to slow, watching the waves roll up onto the beach. She does not yet turn toward that dark forest, the trees waving their arms, beckoning. She is not sure how to begin.
elif
STAFF EDIT***
@elif has rolled a 1! She has been awarded +1 EXP point.
The mystery continues to unfold between them, or maybe it is only deepening - each door not an answer but only another room, larger, stranger than the last.
August is not sure he’ll tell Minya how glad he is that she is beside him, something familiar when all else of home is left behind on the shore. He isn’t sure she’d believe him, anyway; it’s always seemed against her nature to accept a compliment that doesn’t have to do with her beauty, or the way her body moves upon the stage, through smoke-filled rooms.
So he only watches her stroll forward, like the black stone bridge turning to white sand is nothing but a scarlet carpet rolled out for her feet. In the darkness the sounds of her trinkets are softer, more in welcome than in warning, and even before she turns back to him he is following. But when her gaze does catch him, sharp as cold steel held to his throat, he only smiles and presses on. At her question he flicks an ear, rolls a shrug - but he stops below those reaching branches, considering. With a hoof he tests the bark, striking at its trunk until the outermost bark chips away and the sharp smell of sap adds a new note to the perfume of the dark night.
“No,” he says, and grins at her, but even in the moonlight she knows him well enough to know that it is false. As false as the island, maybe. “But I don’t know if it is alive. Is anything here? Maybe it’s all animated by magic.” It is too warm for the shiver that touches him then.
August looks past his companion, where the slope rises up in jagged leaps, and falls still when he sees the silhouette of a unicorn. He waits to be seen in turn, to be greeted or warned, but the figure is as still as the tree. Only when he notes the way the moonlight shines so strangely on its not-skin does he wonder if it is real at all, and with a brow-raised look back at Minya he approaches. He must squint to make out the words; he reads them aloud, half to himself, half for the benefit of his fellow orphan.
“Time is free. Time is here. Tempus.” His voice fades quickly against the sound of the surf, and when he shifts his weight back on his haunches August is frowning - as rare for him as an honest grin for Minya.
The meeting had concluded and all that was left was the strange statue in the middle of the beach. There were whispers of Tempus being present and stories of the gods and what they were capable of. However, it was the rumor of a relic that caught Morrighan's attention.
She didn't care much for the gods or their agenda, especially since she had never witnessed the gods of Novus. This relic sounded important, although there was no clear information as to what it did. Still, it intrigued the woman and she felt drawn to the hunt.
Morrighan stared at the statue now with the note dangling from its neck. At first, the world of Novus made her frustrated and with the appearance of the island, she didn't understand the hype. Now, there was more motive for her to explore with the promise of a prize and the thrill of the hunt.
It was her who said to all those who had gathered not to do anything stupid. They had been warned not to explore the island alone and, perhaps, that's what someone wanted. Maybe it was all a trap, but the mare felt confident in her abilities. She could feel the fire within her growing stronger by the day and (hopefully) soon, her true powers would be regained. Whatever true purpose this island had, she was not afraid of it.
(Oof here's a crappy post to throw in here last minute lmao)
STAFF EDIT***
@morrighan has rolled a 1! She has been awarded +1 EXP point.
He does not know much, if anything, about Novus’ gods.
He knows of the gods of his homeland, at least -- of Shishira and the fury of the deep winter, under which he had been born, of Greeshma and the warmth of the summer sun, where Winnifred and her family had resided. The gods here are a stranger beast altogether, tied neither to seasons nor to the elements, each as capable of the other as giving certain magics -- no, they seemed tied to time itself, at least in the books he has found speculating about their origins.
(Perhaps he has only been looking in the wrong books.)
The name ‘Tempus’ has little meaning for him, as he stares up at the statue with the hastily scrawled note, and his tail sweeps across the ground from side to side. It is a riddle, a puzzle, and each piece begins to fall into place as horses whisper and jostle around him.
This is a test, of some sort.
The boy turns and disappears into the nearby forest.
