She steps out of the way, abrupt and with purpose as a tree curls its moaning trunk to bone—and then sand to scales, earth to serpent. From its own foundations the island strips itself bare, using every last leaf until there is nothing but sand beneath their feet and a beast in their path. Avdotya hisses under her breath, foul and cantankerous. These lands and their overgrown damned pests.” She can recall the teryr from long ago, and though her spear has begun to tremble with anticipation, she herself can only feel her growing irritation.
She watches the others first, then peels away from the group that has gone to the creature head-on. Beyond them are those that have chosen its side, hoping to wound it while it is busy with the first bunch. Avdotya shoulders past one, a pretty little thing with antlers of red and excessive decor. She seems out of place in battle, but the viper lingers not on her opinions of those involved in the scrum.
Instead, rather than simply leaping blind into a fight with a being she knows nothing of, she chooses to wait. Her desire is to watch how it reacts, how it counters those that bombarded it with attack upon attack. Avdotya wants to see what it is capable of, and only then would she throw her spear into the ring.
Erasmus' words curl slyly around her ear like a cat's tail, and Aghavni's eyes shutter down to slits as she hastily fixates them upon the shiny, flower-strewn braid of a passing girl.
Shuttered slits, or overlarge moons. She would rather him think her devoutly unimpressionable than a silly, flustered girl.
"Even Father could not keep me away from such a treasure," she replies tartly, though her lips tip back to where they started (a crescent moon grin) when her eyes no longer threaten disobedience.
The tone of his voice when he answers her question, however, snags at her. Something... not right? she wonders, as she draws her neck like notching a bow, as far up as it would go. Which isn't nearly far enough. The most she can make of the Relic between the mass of frenzied bodies—madder than a swarm of hornets, she muses—is a taunting glimmer, placed like a crown jewel atop a mountain of...
Sand?
"Is it—" she begins, leaning towards the boy's shoulder as she strains to see, until a storm of hooves squeezes through between them and knocks her into the current of the advancing crowd, gasping.
The world is a mess of sand and hooves and screams. Erasmus is gone, swept away by tide or ambition—how similar they were—and in the middle of the clearing rises a snake made entirely of sand.
The hunt announces its commencement with an earthshaking, barkbreaking hiss.
The rough trunk of a palm tree kneels forwards, as if in deference to the Relic's guardian monster, and presses savagely into her spine. Aghavni turns back to glare at its shivering fronds, gaze sweeping out towards the ring of kneeling palms, and launches forwards into the madness.
She summons all of the battle tactics Father has ever given her: Your opponent. Who are they? (A gigantic, non-mortal snake made of sand and bits of island.) Which side do they flag in? (None... it is not attacking yet, though it keeps flickering its tongue. Tasting the air.) Where are their vulnerabilities? (I suppose... the spot right below its head? Charon once beheaded a viper by striking there. It snuck in with a crate of liquor.)
Her red tessen fan snaps at her side, open and shut, open and shut, like a vicious mouth. If she throws it, she'd have to fetch it from where it lands, so her aim must be economical.
Truthfully, she doesn't much care for obtaining the Relic. Whatever would she do with it? The Hunt itself had intrigued her, so she'd come knocking at its door. (And Minya and August had gone. Without her.) Once the monster manifested and the stakes raised to graze the pillow-white clouds, her fate had been neatly sealed with a kiss. A Solterran princess never ran from battle.
She runs into it. Straight into the snake's cavernous mouth. Will it strike her? There are others for it to choose from, and she is small. With six gold spikes in her hair.
She seals her mouth and grits her teeth, fanning the sprays of blinding sand away before they reach her eyes. She cannot attack if she cannot get close.
And if she cannot attack—then she needn't have bothered at all.
And in the space between heartbeats the battle is begun--
The snake lunges for the horses the moment they all lunge for it. With sand, and frond-scale, and wood-rib, the beast thrashes out against the idea that it must be a thing conquered. If anything is it determined to conquer each wild-heart that dared to step on the island like a thing hungry and rabid for power. It roars and it sounds nothing like a snake; it's all bear (and dragon, and thunderbird, and lion). Frills rise out from the slick sand sides in a crown of violence.
The wind picks up in a death-knell and somewhere out to sea bells are starting to toll. The sound of sword against soot rings out where the waves crash against the distant shore. Wasn't the shore further away that that? Suddenly the island seems like a small, shrinking thing being devoured by the sea.
Path One
The horses aiming for the snake eyes, and tongue, and leaf-throat, are the first to feel the wrath of the raging protector. Swords sink into its sand skin and just keep sinking down, down, down and never find bone or end. Rather it's only blackness that the horses will find themselves cutting out from the sand-snake-- a void of cold space air and nothing else. And when they step close enough, when they look into the belly of the beast--
The will find themselves devoured by the blackness. It will chew them all up and spit them out sweaty from the battle but unharmed. And if they look around them it will be the bridge to the island stretching out around them in either direction. That is unless they found a way to claw free of that black void by tooth and hoof.....
Path Two
The middle of the snake, while appealing without tail or tooth, does not seem anything like the belly of a snake the closer they get. Perhaps there are still scales that shine slick and sea-green to meet them. Perhaps there are even bones of tooth that will rise through the sand skin like a hundred swords rising to meet the horses rushing towards it. But when the horses step close enough to attack the snake opens up like a doorway.
Roots curl themselves into archways, and leaves twine about them. Red berries start to bloom at the center of leaf clusters and a pulse makes them grow, and swell, and bloat. Drops of red berry-juice start to fall like rain, sweet on the tongue but bitter on the teeth. But if the horses walk through the dark red rain, there the relic will wait, golden and dripping red. But around it there is a pool of black glass in a wide moat of darkness. At some angles the moat looks hard, smooth, and thick enough to hold the weight of a horse. At other angles it seems to ripple like another beast is lurking beneath the thin, brittle surface of black. Is it safe enough to cross?
Or is it better to turn back and find another way?
Path Three
Those horses trying to run around the snake will find no golden relic waiting for them to grab. Instead a second beast has risen from the sand like a small-god. It's a bear made of sand with chrysalis hanging from empty sockets in its head. The beast circles the relic like a vulture circling a meal to come. And when the horses pause before it (because surely they are not brave enough to face its gaping mouth dripping venom and brine), the beast lowers its strange, horrific head and becomes a tornado of sand and butterflies. A colony of insects spring forth like terrible children from the chrysalis hanging form the pits of the bear's face. They land on the horses, like a small blanket of nettles and briars (young enough to feel but not to cut).
Each horses who finds themselves coated in butterflies with stinging wings will blink, just once, and find themselves back on the bridge with the others. Perhaps they might wonder if they were judged and found wanting, or if they were saved.
Of course some of them might have been quick enough to run through that sand and butterfly tornado.....
Your character has a choice.
This post is the second in the battle for the relic. The snake no longer seems like just a snake. Those that attacked the beast head on and tried to run around it will find themselves, through some strange experience, back on the bridge leading to the mainland. Of course if they had a unused magical item, they might have found a way to avoid being sent away--
Those the attacked the center of the snake will find an archway when the snake splits open. Berries are blooming and growing, and they start to drip red juice like rain. At the end of the archway the relic is waiting, but it appears like a glass-black moat is circling it. Are they brave enough to cross?
Each round is decision-based. We will give you a set of options for your character to choose from ICly; at the end of the round, a dice roll will be made to determine which options proceed. Even numbers proceed; odd numbers do not. If your character proceeds you may continue to reply; if your character does not proceed, you may not reply to any of the next rounds.
If your character has an unused mollusk shell, golden leaf, horseshoe, or iridescent feather from a previous round, you may use that to automatically proceed once even if your character rolled otherwise. To use this reward, wait until the dice are rolled: if your character does not proceed but you would like to, reply to the next round and add at the bottom of the post which reward you are redeeming.
For this round:
Your character may choose from the following options, although you may each write them out differently the core choice must be one of the options below.
Option One: Cross the black moat and hope that it's strong enough to bear weight
Option Two: Turn away from the archway and circle around where the bear is waiting
Option Three: Do nothing and wait to see if the moat will bear the weight of other's before trying to cross.
Please clearly mark your character's decision at the bottom of your post.
Example: @isra has chosen option two.
Each reply to this thread gives you +1 post in an SWP.
All replies after September 22nd, 2019 will not be considered for a progression roll.
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream // I know you, that look in your eyes is so familiar a gleam // And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem // But if I know you, I know what you'll do // You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream
It's chaos around them as the snake rages on and roars like an otherworldly monster. It seems the island is responsive as the wind howls and the waves crash. There is the yelling of the horses around Lucinda as they attack- some go for the head, others follow her choice of going for its side. Many run and try to avoid the fight and she simply smirks at their fear.
It's soon apparent that she has made the right choice. When the snake strikes, many horses suddenly disappear and those who ran now face a second beast. For those that went for this side, a doorway appears in front of them as the tree roots transform from the beast's body into an archway. There are red berries similar to those that had been on the island before that pulse and swell until they burst. The juice from within them drips and turns to rain. It's a welcoming yet menacing entryway at the same time, but she was never one to be easily frightened.
The Friesian mare does not hesitate and walks through the doorway, eyeing the relic in front of her once again. This time, it's covered in the red rain and shimmering gold. It's not as accessible of course and there is a moat surrounding it. The water is a black abyss and tricky in appearance. She notices at one angle it seems smooth and solid like ice, but then another spot looks like rippling water. Another beast was likely lurking beneath and waiting to strike, if she's learned anything about the island thus far.
Lucinda hesitates this time, but more because her mind is calculating and weighing her options. The moat is a brilliant illusion and could easily be real water or ice. She wonders if she should risk it just for some rumored rock from a God, but there's only one way to find out what happens.
The woman decides to take the risk and takes a step out onto the moat. However, her eyes do not sit on the relic, but instead focus on what's beneath her feet. She wants to be prepared in case she falls or something reaches out to grab her.
holy places are dark places.
it is life and strength,
not knowledge and words,
that we get in them.
Leonidas is not ready for a world in motion.
Born in stillness, where animals are simply soft, warm statues and where the sun does not move from its place within the sky, he has never stopped to think that animals might come to move like him.
Leo is not ready for most things. Still young, still surprised by a world he barely knows, the boy is less surprised by the way sand rises to form a monster than he is by the simple fact that the monster moves. It lends him to wonder what else might move in such strange and mysterious ways – would all the trees fall upon their bellies to slither like snakes the way this one had done? Would all Novus’ beaches rise to move like bears? Would clouds turn into bees and descend to sting them all? Would the sea turn into wonders he has yet to even imagine?
So many thoughts of awe and wonder and terror pass through his mind as he scrambles to a stop, his head lifting up, up, up to peer into those chrysalis eyes of the bear. Leo is a dreamer boy. He dances with weapons in his grasp and claims the woodland as his own. His quilt is leaves, his bedframe twigs and brush. He carries branches like swords and plays as if it is sharp enough to cut a hole in the world big enough to find where his family went. He is a boy who dreams he is a warrior tried and yet risen above all – a champion.
But what does a dreamer-boy-warrior know of monsters and magic? His heart is wild in his chest, he has not known sensation like this before. He has not felt the white-hot heat of terror that lances through his nerves and ignites his limbs like an inferno.
Ah!
He steps before his sister, brave and bold and terrified. He lowers his skull and bears what few teeth have come through his gums. Those small milk teeth gleam, little and blunt and nothing compared to the monster’s whose jaws are pointed with teeth like knifes and strung together with poisonous spittle.
What is a boy to a beast?
Nothing at all.
And the monster explodes into a swirling vortex of sand and butterflies. Their wings are nettles that sting and sting and sting and how the boy cries out and wonders how such creatures can be so cruel. Did his mother not say she had a butterfly once? A familiar who guarded her as a child?
Horror becomes him. It swallows him like a whale a shoal of fish. And the boy thrashes in the chaos of pressing, fragile, vicious wings. They touch every inch of him and his voice is strangled in his throat. He gropes through the butterfly storm for Aster and when he finds her runs and runs and runs, reaching to pull her with him. Keep her beside him, forever, always.
His skin stings, still remembering wings, even as he steps out from the chaos. A moat reaches out before them – was that not how they came here? It looks as if it may be flimsy, as if it may break, but the twins are small and fast and he turns to his sister and cries, “Run!” His voice small and shrill as any terrified boy might be. Then he leads her across the terrible moat, skipping and leaping from place to place, hoping each will hold their weight.
OOC: Leo has chosen option 1 and has used his iridescent feather to advance to this round.
She stabs at the beast, but it disintegrates before her. It bleeds black, thick and thin and cold as ice. That black rises as smoke, it reaches to smother all the horses that attack it.
Ah that black tastes of eternity. It tastes of an endless void. But Leto is shed-star born. She knows what space tastes like upon her tongue. Her heart is wild in her chest as the darkness consumes her. It swallows her whole and yet she reaches with her magic and her blood warms in answer. The stars keen from their places within the sky – within space. They know such darkness too, they light it up like fireflies and they have no fear of that same darkness that billows about her below.
With her veins aglow the darkness is not so whole and Leto scrambles within the black as she pulls a single star from the sky. It descends like a divine arrow, it slices through the dark, keen and wicked, bringing justice upon the darkness that dares to peel itself from the sky and make its home upon the earth.
It sets the darkness alight. It cuts it up with fearless bravery. In the light it brings, Leto spies light as it shines with salvation. She lunges toward it and out, out, out into the daylight that feels now as bright as the sun itself. She quints for a moment and as her gaze clears she sees two foals run for a moat, but a bear – a creature like a tornado with butterflies bloomed across its skin is moving to consume the children.
Without a thought, with her skin still alight with star-fire, Leto turns from the archway and the moat and sets herself upon the beast, set to bring the universe’s justice upon it. The stars are trembling, and already one is loosening itself from its place in the sky. It waits, keen for Leto’s command. The sky fires are burning and they laugh wild across the girl’s skin.
OOC: Leto has chosen option 2 and has used her iridescent feather to advance to this point.
| "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
take that look from off your face you ain't gunna burn my heart out
Minya runs to the beast, her eyes avid upon the serpent’s head. She watches as it changes as darkness suddenly spills from it like ink and swallows the group of horses about it. They disappear without sound and out of sight. There is only a swallowing black, deep as a void that beckons any to look at it to come, come, come and fall in.
She turns from its siren call. She looks beyond where she runs, across to where others are skirting the tail of the snake, but more beasts are rising to meet them. Her teeth grit and she wonder how she ever got here. She thinks of the safety and luxury of her room within the Scarab and prays that she will return there again.
As if in answer, as if Caligo herself (Minya sneers at such an idea) has deigned to save her, the belly of the serpent pulls apart. Roots like veins rise up, bones bending as an archway appears and beyond it a moat gleaming black. It does not beckon like that cloud of black. No it lies, almost silent and breathes as if beasts swim in its midst, commanding it to breath in and out. The moat rises and swells and sleeps like beauty. One kiss of Minya’s foot might be enough to awaken this horror. One kiss of another might be enough to send her tumbling down into her own eternal sleep.
The girl stops and watches. She waits for the others who run towards the moat. She waits to see who might fall and where. She waits for them to tell her where to kiss this darkness and live.
Rhone is trying to use his magic, but the magic of the snake is stronger. As he charges towards the center of the snake, he is taken aback by the way the serpent’s torso begins to move and change. As some individuals are swallowed and transported elsewhere, Rhone’s focus is just on what lies in front of him. He watches as the archway takes shape, the berries beating like a beating heart. Slowly, he steps closer until he has passed through the archway.
In front of him lies the relic. He can almost taste it. It’s golden and beautiful and Rhone cannot help but wonder what will he have to encounter next. He sees the moat surrounding the relic and he spends several minutes studying it. It looks solid in some places, but weak in others. The logic in him says that he probably can cross, but there is a part of him that knows crossing the moat is too easy.
Eyes look to his right where a large bear is waiting. It looks angry and heavy and all the things he cannot be. He wonders briefly if the moat can hold the weight of the bear. If it cannot, then he knows he cannot cross. But should he wait and see? Or should he engage the bear? Perhaps the bear is his next task. But in the end, he knows to wait and see and to cross the moat are too easy. And so, he steps towards the bear to engage. He has to bring all of his courage. He has to try.
When the bear appears before them, as strange and mystical as the snake had, Vendetta watches keenly. It circles the relic, around, around, around, before turning toward them. At first she thinks it will attack. And it does, but not with tooth and claw. The bear becomes nothing more than a tornado of sand and butterflies, of dust and the beating of hundreds of tiny wings.
It engulfs them, and the butterflies land upon every inch of her skin like stinging nettles and the sound of the tornado fills her ears with a loud roaring. But Vendetta refuses to stop moving. She is desert-born, Solterran. This is nothing like the sandstorms she has had to endure before, and if she wants any chance at that relic the woman knows she must through.
So she does. Her ears press flat against her skull and she narrows her eyes against the sand and wind and she continues to run, until at last she is free of the tornado and the butterflies.
When Vendetta finally can see the relic again, she sees the strange black moat that has appeared, looking like it is covered in glass. It seems too easy, that the glass will hold and the equines will reach the relic. In her gut, she doesn’t trust it, so she doesn’t follow those who are already crossing it.
But beyond that, her only options are to return to the bear, who waits with salivating jaws and perhaps more sand and butterflies. Or to stop, and see what will happen before proceeding at all. Her skin still remembers the biting feeling of those insects, so she pauses. And waits. Sometimes it is important to observe your oponent before determining your next move.
And pluck till time and times are done, The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.
—
There is a shining feather wound in the soft pale waves of her new-grown mane, twin (of course!) to the one her brother wears. Aster doesn’t know what bird or beast might have shed such a thing, only that it came to her and there was never any question but to take it and keep it caught against her skin.
She gives no thought to it now. But it is still there, improbably long (like a sword) against the brief curve of her neck, shining like a bit of star as it twists in the wind of magic and motion.
As she and her brother run, there is a great and terrible noise. If there were time for such things (later, oh later, there will be - once she has her magic, once each moment is hers to linger in) she might wonder whether this is the true world, showing its face at last. That there is nothing that can be trusted, when sand might become a snake and roots and leaves might writhe and tear and the island, so still before, might become a throat in full cry, ringed with teeth.
Of course now there is only chaos. Her ears are pinned flat back, her eyes wide rings of milk-white and gold, and not even Aster knows if she is screaming or silent, there is so much noise and motion. She watches her brother, and watches for spaces of light between the darkness of moving limbs and roiling sand, and then they are in the inner ring.
There is no safety for them there. Waiting, prowling, is a hump-backed creature of sand golden and dark, and where its eyes ought to be - a cocoon. She falls still as though struck, and fascination seizes her before terror does; Aster wants to stare into those chrysalis-eyes and ask if anything is looking back. Are all animals like this, do they all slaver and gnash? Only when Leonidas steps forward and bares his teeth does fear take her and set her trembling, and the feather flutters against her skin as she touches her nose to her brothers hip, and then insects burst like juice from the not-bear and it is too much, too much, so that she can only squeeze her eyes shut and stand -
Together they run, a patch of shadow and of light. The world is shifting again, too strange to keep track of, and it feels like only a dream. Adrenaline feels like ichor in her veins and she wants to laugh and scream for how not-real everything is; she wants to freeze it all so she can study it, she wants the dream to collapse or to open wide and swallow them all. Maybe they went through a doorway after all, with their mother and father and uncle; maybe it was only the wrong one.
There is darkness and light and a red something that drips down and stains her snow-white skin. There is a throbbing, pulsing sound in the air, or maybe only in her head. There is her brother before her, and nothing to do but follow.
Aster chooses Option 1 and has an iridescent feather to advance from the last round
