[TW] [M] Something Terrible is Happening, I'm Beginning to Like This [ISRA]

[Albrecht]

...

'She needs to be red Mr.[XXXXXX], and a little brown.  My wife wants a sort of -- playful, colour.  Something that inspires a little creativity for her - the appaloosa skin was just .. well eh, dull.'  The client just sighed helplessly and handed the artifact over to Albrecht who was awaiting payment.  On that note, Albrecht had nothing to say about the delivery of his past item, just that he wanted what was projected to him when the final numbers were agreed upon.  


 A plain black sack was exchanged between the two, from the looks of it something heavy must have been on board Albrecht's back between two prepped and ready wings.  His client's eyes wandered for too long on Albrecht to be anything else but fro personal interest. The tall dark horse didn't bother to notice, he found the shorter creature to be completely revolting. His wife too, she was a beast when he learned that all she wanted the girls for was their skins.  What a waste.  Such shame.  But neither his client or the wife felt the same way. 

'What is your wife's favorite colour, Luther?' Albrecht asked casually while checking all his belts and buckles to make sure everything was secure for flight.  The shorter, fat morgan's ears perked up, Albrecht could see in the other's eyes he was so happy to be called by name he nearly wet himself. 


 'B-b-blue, she likes blue. W-why?'  Luther stammered out pathetically, by now the Sand Horse was already turning his back to him, wings out for flight. Something, something-else about how he liked the way Albrecht's tail looked, that the braid was nice or whatever .. he stopped listening when Luther mentioned blue.

'I'll bring her back a sapphire, then.  For double.'  One gold-clad ear tipped back towards his client before his handsome face glanced back at him over the fur-feathered ruff of his massive shoulder.  The dumpy little brown horse shook his head eagerly at him.  'Double it is,'  he said, agreeing to the terms.

'Blue it is', then Albrecht launched himself into the night quickly, quietly, and without much effort.  The massive span of his wings filled a entire horizon.  They slashed clouds in half and nearly cut the moon right out of the sky.  What gold that glittered upon his figure was then gone.


***


Arma was coldest at the edges of night before dawn warned at the dark.  The matting of feathers over his shoulders were spiked with frost from maintaining such high altitude for so long.  Ice gathered in drips and hangs off of him, plastered his wild black curls against his steaming black snake's skin.  Hours and hours of travel had left him chilled to the core and he thought only to drop down into the Pass to catch the first moments of sunrise to absorb heat and to shake the early winter from his body.   


 Certainly no one was awake at this hour - not in the pass.  Denoctians were usually going to sleep at this hour, not waking up (or so he thought).  The goliath touched down with practiced ease, the hoof with the only golden stripe was the last to come down before he looked up and saw someone not too far ahead of him.  His client's order was in the back of his mind, he was not thinking of it when he saw her there.  All he was thinking was how strange it might be for her to see someone drop in unannounced like this.  


Then again, he had made previous arrangments to meet up with his Vendor in Denocte at this time.
Was this them?  


The frosted stranger lifted his head up and focused two brilliant golden eyes on her, he wasn't sure if this was the connection he was supposed to be meeting with at this time.  She seemed to be preoccupied with a task of her own, bone-picking and ash-eating, not exactly waiting for some holy roller to show up with a bag of expensive statuary.   The man's lip twitched, what if it was?  Not exactly who he would have chose if it was, she seemed a little soggy to him.  Albrecht only waited a few seconds to ask what he wanted, no introductions made and no inclination to do so either.


"I suppose you haven't seen anyone else waiting around here, have you?"


ALBRECHT

this is what you came for. this is what you get

@Isra

[Isra]

The devil and the moonlight are gone when she finishes her morbid task. All her tears are gone, turned to sand and a freedom that bursts inside her belly like a cloud. The stars in the sky are as faded as she feels, nothing more than pin-pricks of shimmer fighting against the pale pinks and purples of the sunrise. Isra is content, more content that she has ever felt, to just stand still, beneath the ghost husks of pines and watch the red of the sun crest over the horizon. It's a baptism of day and she feels as gold, gold, gold as she once did her her old slave skin. In the dawn-glow even her chain looks lovely, like amber, as it reflects the light onto the blackened rock face (where the vegetation has burned and blown away and left only stone to see). Even her faint ocean-smell is swallowed up by the crisp chill air and the particles of ash and bone that coat her like a gritty, worn silk. The day promises to be full of stories and legends. Isra feels them reincarnated on her lips with the day. For the first time she wonders if she might be part of them, that she might play any role that lives when the tale comes to a close. Isra is not as startled as she should be when he lands on that last golden hoof and glitters like the night sky if all the stars were edged in gold-leaf. And oh how he looks like a hawk-- black enough to swallow up that speck of red, golden sun that is only just starting to devour the night. His feathers whisper in the air and she thinks, they sing like freedom, like a wind, like a dream. She thinks in words and letters, like the pages between the few leather bound books she's been lucky enough to see. The soft look of those feathers and how they glow like something holy in the low, golden light makes her think this is no dragon come down from the sky to eat up the world around her. “No.” Her voice is reed thin, as fragile and swaying as that stalk before the wind forced away, away, away when he landed. The mountain air seems to bow before him and only her horn remains steady and black as obsidian.  Even her chain jingles when he moves closer and betrays the tender, quivering of her dark, sea-touched skin. “There is only me.” Isra whispers even as she leans back away from the heady dark glow of him. There are not enough words in her head to describe him, to bring his form to life with syllables when even her eyes cannot fathom the way he seems to be made from the darkest of night and edged in sunrises. And it's not until she says the words that she thinks, with a flicker of fear behind the awe, alone is sometimes a very dangerous thing to be. * * * * * run through the heat of the sun @Albrecht

[Albrecht]

...

"Ah," his wings snap out and fold back, shuffle into place, snap out then back again before the massive extensions of both his pride and ego are comfortably tucked away -- then he continues " -- only you." It is said with some disappointment but relief as well. Someone as paper-thin like Isra has no business handling, holding, protecting, then furthermore selling his wares in the Denocte market. If she were to be robbed of his things, he would hold her accountable, 200%. She would have to pay him back for all of it with her life -- and she did not seem to be the type of personality that was willing to gamble with the stakes that high.


An ever-expanding gap of silence grows between them, Albrecht doesn't have much to say to someone he has no business with so he lets the sound of the morning breeze fill all the empty spaces. For awhile, he turns to remark the sunrise as it gilds everything that it can reach with its corpuscular rays of light. Whatever it touches it turns to gold, and Albrecht finds this to be beautiful. "Beautiful morning, I must say, Denocte has quite exquisite sunrises for all its worship of Night." Not that he gives much of a shit for Calligo, except for the part where she opens her marketplace to anyone - everyone - so long as they have something to sell. He is dedicated to appearances, and those who know him know he worships Solis simply because they've seen him on his knees at Veneror, quiet and contemplative -- crunching numbers when he should be begging to be forgiven for all the things he has done.


But he doesn't, while those who beg to find the answers to Life, Death, and everything that is tangled up in between - Albrecht is asking Solis for an easier way configure taxes on his goods in Denocte. He's asking him whether he should serve his champagne in goblets or flutes. He's asking him why (why oh why) can't he separate his beautiful self from the others and simply bring his Temple home. As Sacred as Veneror Peak is, Albrecht thinks it would be much more meaningful to worship the sun in the desert of all places.


We digress,


Isra shrinks back from him, inch by inch, she can't get small enough in the presence of Albrecht who is towering over her without trying. His eyes chose to wander her rather than the country side which lays open and sprawling to the West of them. He notices the blue and imagines Luther pointing her out in a crowd saying 'that one - that one - She is perfect!' and is quickly met with disgust. It is no interest of Albrecht's to sell horses to be slaughtered. To him, they are much better off alive regardless of how much of a turnip they end up being -- he can find ways to get blood out of them one way or another.


No one shows up, Albrecht grows impatient behind a calm, quiet mask he wears for Isra. His smile is enough to be considered genuine when he gleams at her to try and put the stranger at ease, but all it seems to do is make it worse. He looks around again, golden eyes looking for something to say to divert her attention, that is when he notices how black it all is. He frowns then, as the sunrise touches everything where they stand he can see that it is deader than dead, its gone. "What happened here?" He knew there was a rift between Night and Day, but seeing as how Denocte was like a second home to him (his bank account) he had always remained neutral and aloof of the political tension which brought the courts head-to-head. He waits for only a moment before continuing, astounded by the devastation. "Who is responsible for this?"


ALBRECHT

this is what you came for. this is what you get

@Isra

[Isra]

The sunrise seems like less as it's filtered through his feathers like noontime between the thick blue, sea. All the colors of the sky seems darker when she looks at them though his feathers when he snaps them out and folds them back. His wings could be  a dread kaleidoscope and it seems that they might coo out words like mockingbirds sing out a mockery of birdsong. Come and see. The black tips of his wings seem to say as they rub together in the eve of  winter breeze. See the bright glory of death. They summon her just as much as they push her back, back, back. Her chain rattles out a tolling chime her muscles quiver to run, run, run. But he is no dragon as dark as the night-sky and there are no flames licking like sacrifice against the black lips edging his smile. Isra reminds herself he is just a man, a stallion, an interloper in her starlit church of buried bones. She remembers the coldness of Raymond, the blood-lust of kings and the rage of jailers who could not kill the stories of her heart and knows that he is perhaps nothing to fear enough to flee. It's those stories that linger in her voice, precious and glittering and cold like gemstones. “The day is always more lovey when is arrives on the edges of blackness and star-shine. There must be dark to know that light even exists.” When she thinks of blackness she thinks of his wings, of his skin that looks darker for the way it's edged in golden glow. The silence is almost unwelcome as it descends on them. She imagines this stallion's silence is as terrible as that thick weight that overtook the forest when the dragon first took to the skies, when the first flame sucked all the sound from the air and began to consume and consume and consume. She wonders what it is that his silence consumes, what it hides, what it promises. Perhaps it's because she wonders that his voice feels like a lash against her skin when he breaks that heavy, heady silence between them again. He smile looks like nothing to her, nothing more than more darkness that she clears from her vision when she blinks and follows his gaze out to the devastation. “A dragon burned it.” There's more to be said. More lingers in the way she drags out the syllables of dra-gon. But she still remembers the rage of Raymond when she shared her story, remembers the way she watched a devil rise from the banked fires of his gaze.   This is a story Isra has learned not to tell. The night needs no more rage. She imagines that rage and hate might be even more hideous is the light of the sunrise. * * * * * so high that we forget and fall, fall, fall @Albrecht

[Albrecht]

...

He is like that of the Great, Big, and Terrible Things that will soon be upon her sky.  Pin-cushioning all of the Night Worshippers in with their Great, Big, and Terrible wings, their teeth, their horns and wilderness, their talons which will sweep these small, simple people up-up!


And Away. 


Albrecht is just another part of the darkness which spreads like disease throughout the pass.  There is a type of anger that fills him that is dangerous because it is cold, quiet, and under diamond-hard pressure - it will produce results if results must be produced.  This rage will find a way, come Hell or High Water.  Blood will be for blood.  


Especially if it upsets anything that he has lined up for himself.


Dragons, Albrecht muses to himself, dragons cannot possibly be that bad - only as bad as their owners make them.  He has never lived a life where a dragon was free and allowed to be capable of such devastation.  Horses were never allowed to be free enough to own dragons either. He has no type of response for her other than the air he sucks through his teeth.  For such a small, short motion it makes a larger noise than he expects it to.  Some kind of metaphorical steam must escape him and it does so in a loud, '--TSCH', but he rolls into it  and away as smoothly as a peaceful wave over a dawn-glow shore.  


"Denocte is notorious for its wide distribution of ... hooligans.  You cannot trust a Denoctian's loyalty even if you were to weigh it at face value in gold."  There it is, that is his fire which burns with the only kind of promise he can keep -- getting what's his.  Albrecht wants to spit, but he isn't that kind of guy and - instead - licks his dry lips and swallows the opinions he has - that he feels he needs to express as a form of distaste for what has happened here.


"You witnessed this?"  He fixes her with a serious stare, his jackal eyes couldn't look more interested now than if he were spying opportunity that would strike him rich.  "How is it you survived and so many others did not?  Assuming these are all graves that you have dug."  Mounds and mounds, dips, blips, and seams scar, score, and scratch up the black earth.  If it could bleed, it would.


Because it doesn't, that makes Albrecht feel like magic isn't even a thing anymore.


Maybe everything does need to burn?


What time is lunch?  -- and, where is his connection?


He drops the sack of jewels into the ashes of what might be something's haphazard grave, he doesn't care to look.  Isra the unicorn flinches when the weight of it makes a deep, dull thud onto the ground -- and the step forward that he takes makes her lighter on her feet.  Something about that makes him smile an almost too-knowing smile at her, the kind that violates strangers in the ways that keep them awake at night.  Even though everything about him reflects a man keeping his space and making no effort to harm her, he - like Tempus (or so he believes Tempus to be-like) - radiates both black and obscene with clear and present danger.


"Matter of fact - I don't think I have seen someone quite like you around here before.  What are you?  Are you some kind of a thing that comes from the sea?"   He steps forward to try his limits, to know his strength, to find his Right where it is so very wrong.  Can he scare her?  Is she that small and simple that she will let him force her to her knees in this ash, render her submissive, feed her to wolves if wolves will even eat her.  


It is not the mystical nature of her blue, her horn, or the way she spins words like the women in his dreams do that drives him to ask her.  His voice isn't soft or inquiring.  It isn't harsh, cold, or without heart.  General interest is what makes him command her to answer him in the most polite way he can afford.   "How do I know you did not start this fire?"


Maybe she is from Hell, he thinks, --like most women are.


ALBRECHT

this is what you came for. this is what you get

@Isra
i hate my character.  a lot.

[Isra]

There are unspoken words inside her that flare up as his words rise like soot and ash and things that both drift away on a breeze and run back out to sea when the rains come. Just because she does not speak the story does not mean that a dragon does not live inside her, wings sweeping along the concave arch of her ribs with tendons and bones knitted together with ink black words. There is an entire frozen wildfire inside her bones, licking at her marrow. Her blood runs like an ichor made only of ink and blood that has long been salted by the ocean deep. Now the fire is hers alone, living only with the magic of her words and tethered to the blooded soul that lingers in these unicorn bones. Poor broken Isra has tamed a dragon, chained it to the pages and pages of legend that are caged between mortal bones. And oh, oh, oh.... Oh, it's a dragon that rises behind that slow, once fearful blinking of her eyes as she watches the bag drop and scatter grave-dirt. It furls its wings when he licks his lips and walks over the buried bones as if he walks across a meadow full of flowers that seem pale to his gold. Fire curls from those scaled lips when he insults the sorrow and loss that drowns her. The scar across her hips burns, burns, burns and she feels like she could bellow and swallow up the sun with the icy flames that lick at her lips. Isra feels like a story and it's a page that dips her horn towards his dread stare and if she might pluck from his lying lips any smile that might dare to bloom on such blackness. “I know you.” She says and she imagines that her words falls from her lips like words made of smoke and ash that spiral up, up, up to from a revelation of letters above his head. “I know a million of you, black as night and full of a darkness of soul darker than that.” It feels as if her words are both colder and hotter than the night and she doesn't know if she speaks in fog or smoke or fire. “There are a hundred things I could tell you about how things like you die. How you drown in the sea, how to fly so high that your sun swallows you whole and smiles as you fall screaming coated only in silks of fire and suffering.” It is only truth that blazes in her eyes and sorrow that furls those wings of rage over and over again against all her insides. Her soul burns and there is a promise that it's not liars that fill the cities at her back but storytellers who know fear and how to shot arrows feathered in foretelling through the throats of monsters. In the end war only lives in stories. Long after all the soldiers and the dictators have dies it's only the stories that live on. Legends are forever and this stallion has made her all her veins runs black, black, black with words, words, words. “I am not a thing,” Isra steps closer, horn tipped and it spirals in a way that promises to shred instead of cut. Her pause sounds like the turning of a page and the world feels thick with anticipation over the great ending that the flashing, sharp tip of her horn promises. She gathers herself with a mighty breath and those inked dragon wings flap inside her lungs and she wishes that she knew how to sneer and snap at his face. And when she finally continues it's quiet enough to be the great gasp of a forest that knows its only fate is to die. “that starts fires.” Her horn flickers and turns its course and her eye blaze like blue, winter flames as she looks at him with a queer mix of a sorrow and rage that both know how to consume. “But I can tell you exactly how it burns.” * * * * * look at all these bones beneath @Albrecht