A stifling summer wind whipped its way along the day court streets, kicking up sand as it went, twisting and twirling around corners and down alleyways. Teiran moved along the sand covered roads like a shadow, silent and smoothly, unbothered by the grit that was flung against her body by the breeze. It was quiet, silence stretching along every wall and through every hall. There was little movement, little activity, and the hovering solitude suited her just fine.
Most of the nobles had probably hidden themselves away in their homes, lavishing themselves in their fineries away from the mid-afternoon sun lest their skin be damaged or they themselves perspire in the heat. Still, many others clung to the shadows, darkening the ends of alleys with their blackmarket trades and questionable intentions. Teiran’s sage eyes took everything in with the barest of flickers, subtle sideways glances and a twist of her ear here and there. She observed completely without ever looking like she observed at all.
Though the court recovers, the people recover, there will always be lingerings of the transgressions against them in wearied, wary eyes and scoured walls. Keen as the serpentine girl was meant she had seen the blue fire that had risen from the pass to Denocte and she wondered: what transgression had befallen their neighbors of night? So long as it was no threat for her home and her people, she had little unease of the situation though she would be wrong to admit she had no curiosity at all.
Teiran paused alongside a fountain, dipping her head to drink from the crystalline water. Its mist brought a coolness to the air that soaked up some of the swelter brought upon them by the sun as it nipped at the backs. Solterra carried so much unforgiveness within it that it was no wonder why Solis’ people were hardened as they were. Though, perhaps, that had been changing in recent weeks. The rose hued warrior’s ears latched onto the sound of approaching steps, and her eyes slid over the reflection of another as she finished drinking and straightened to meet their arrival.
like a fresh cut flower promises sure to wither up
Shrike has lost count of the number of days since the attack on the city because they have all been the same: dog-hot, bone-weary, bloodstained.
It is not the first of those kinds of days that she has seen, and it is not the first time she has walked in a place wearing the strange kind of anonymity that comes from bleeding for it while still a stranger. More than the bloodshed, more than the fact of the uprising, it is the architecture of the place that she finds strange. Until she woke in this desert (woke with the memory of hot, wet blood in a weeping smile across her own throat) she had never seen a wall.
She had arrived only the morning before the attack (uprising, she has heard, but she does not know enough of the sides to consider it truth), and had taken uneasy shelter within the shade of the city. That night, when the first sounds of it reached her (and oh, no matter how strange the world, the sounds were always the same) she intended only to stay hidden. They were not her people, and her magic was gone: there was no bear sleeping uneasy in her bones, no whisper from the rock of this place, no promise that it would move for her.
When a painted, mad-eyed desert beast came shrieking like a demon into her alcove her choice was made for her. If nothing else there was this: Shrike’s muscles remembered how to fight.
And now it was done. She walked like a ghost with the rest of the city’s dazed survivors, offering little, listening much. She knew there was little to separate her from their suspicion: she, too, had just risen from the desert, unknown, the memory of death in her smile, in her eyes.
So she expects the expression, canny and assessing, that meets her over the chipped stone of the fountain’s border. She does not let her gaze linger long on the figure, only enough to mark her healing wounds and her strange collar (it is not the first of those she has seen in her time here, but she has not seen many). Nor does the paint offer a greeting; all resources were precious in the desert, even speech. Shrike only nods tightly and drops her head to drink. Not too much, only enough to beat down the dry dust of her throat. Even a belly full of water is a weakness in a place like this.
When she does lift her head, muzzle still dripping, it is to settle her frank gaze on the other mare’s. She might have been content to still say nothing at all, but there is a part of her, faint as a memory, that craves companionship. A word simply spoken, not something growled or spit or screamed. “What happens if these run dry?”
@Teiran here have a terrible phone post written from an airplane!
The other woman drank and Teiran took a moment to observe her. She did not recognize the dark eyed paint, keenly and quickly taking in little details that others might find unimportant. A newcomer, most likely, but there is a certain quality to the way she carried herself, to the light in her eyes, that says she has seen, perhaps even been a part of, the battles that had wracked their streets not too long ago. Curious, that. Did she fight for her own safety, or perhaps for the thrill? Why fight for a place that was not your home.
“I suppose we would all eventually perish, wouldn’t we?” she said without fanfare, voice rather monotonous, “Unless another Court offered aid, or we could find another source of water quickly.” There was the oasis, of course, although the constant trips out there in order to quench their thirst would almost be a waste considering the distance and the heat. To imagine a time during which all of Solterra succumbed to dehydration was almost laughable. What a pathetic end for a bunch of lifelong desert dwellers.
“You’re a newcomer,” a statement, an assumption based on her earlier thoughts. It was almost strange for Teiran to think about being outside Solterra. She had never left. She was born inside this court’s walls and she would surely die within them as well, one day. Probably the mouse hued woman would go out fighting. She’d be damned if she didn’t take anyone else down with her, too. “Why here?”
Admittedly she was curious. Teiran assumed the other courts were far more bearable. Less sun bleached, less dust to coat you every second of the day. Still, and she was certainly biased, but there was a lot to like about her home. Granted, some of that had to do with the hardiness that seemed to flourish within, the toughness of its people. There was a certain beauty to the endless quality of the sand, the way the sun shined off it like it were the sea. Regardless, Teiran was too attached and loyal to go anywhere else.
like a fresh cut flower promises sure to wither up
Shrike has long fought for places that were not her home. Home had long ceased being a physical place, a patch of land to return to again and again; home was Calliope her shield-sister, home was justice, home was righteousness.
She was still looking for those things here, but she does not feel as far away as she first had. There was something terribly grounding about the taste of blood in your mouth.
The medicine hat wrinkled her nose at the other mare’s response, casting a final glance at the stranger’s reflection in the tepid water before meeting the real thing. “The people would never abandon this city?” Another horse might have carried derision in their tone, but Shrike’s was flatly curious. She has met many peoples, many tribes, in her worlds and years of wandering, but none of them had built cities of stone like a false canyon hollowed by caves.
She wondered if it had been built by magic, but the thought only makes her ache for the loss of her own.
“I am,” she answered, almost amused, but at the following question she turned her gaze away from those piercing teal eyes. As she had many times in the past days, she ran her eyes over the structures both ruined and whole, over the few horses who battled the sun, the heat, the bone-dry wind that left grit in your teeth.
It was not a question she had the full answer to, and her pale lips pulled down at the corner. “I had little choice in the matter,” she said, something wry in her voice. “I woke not far outside the city. I am no stranger to deserts, but I dared not walk this one not knowing how far it went.” Shrike was not meant to die between dunes, her bones sun-bleached and swallowed by sands.
Even by the time she learned of other courts in Novus (a patchwork map in her mind), there was little she could do. It was full summer in a foreign landscape to which she had no guide, and so Shrike was stranded here in this ruined city.
Home, she thought again, and pictured a black unicorn with white markings tracing lightning down her side.
Shrike sighed and shifted her weight, once more assessing the younger mare. She reminded the paint of one of the rangy, fierce coyotes in the desert of her youth: small but tenacious, a gleaming intensity in her gaze. She was not sorry she’d wound up fighting for her side.
“Would you recommend I stay?” she asked, and her smile then was the closest she’d come to laughing in a long time.
If they do, then Solterra is not their mother," she said, wild and unforgiving as the desert is, "the sun does not bleed through their veins, the smell of the sand does not cling to their skin." And it is not that she would think less of anyone who this did not apply to, it is not that she thinks any who might leave are cowardly or somehow less Solterran than she, who would never leave. It is that she was raised surrounded by others who were filled with the same blind, unquestionable devotion as she. It is that she did not understand that there were those who would not lay down their life for the Day Court, regardless of what comes, as she would.
Teiran's sage green eyes roamed deftly over the ivory and red mare's face, noting the way she averted her own eyes and the downturn of her lips. Try as she did to place the expression, the rosy woman struggled. Shame, uncertainty? The other's cryptic response offered little assistance in the matter but how she came to be on Novus, let alone within Solterra, was curious for one who had never left the confines of their little corner of the world.
Teiran had never known anything but the sand and the sun and the court, and she had no reason to feel discontent. Despite the things that had happened in her youth she could not imagine leaving, had in fact been trained to believe in nothing, trust in nothing, but her court. Even after the deaths of both Zolin and Viceroy and the following chaos in which their little child army had fallen to pieces, she had never learned any differently. How could she, with nobody to show her there was another way? Many other ways, even.
"Your decision to come here was smart," she said, and it was perhaps as much of a compliment as the soldier would give anyone. When the medicine cap asked Teiran whether she would recommend staying in Solterra, she well and truly considered it. The simple answer was yes. She could fight, and had fought with them against the Davke. She seemed to have good sense, and Teiran could respect the fact that she seemed to talk about as much as herself.
The more important answer, however, was, "You should only stay if it feels like the right choice for you." Perhaps, if she had once been given a choice, she would be living a very different life.
like a fresh cut flower promises sure to wither up
There is an echo of something familiar in the dusky mare’s words, in their pitch and tone of meaning. Shrike watches her sharply, then, for the teal-eyed mare was speaking as Calliope might (as she had, in fact, as they followed the red river deep into the heart of Velius years and worlds ago).
This place might suit her yet, more than just sand and sun-bleached bone. Maybe it should not surprise her that all deserts bred the same sort of brood – always survivors.
“Well spoken,” she said, and there was a touch of admiration in it.
Of course, Shrike’s own loyalties lay far from here (or so she thought), no matter that her own veins may as well be canyon walls, and the heat of the sun lived always on her skin.
Her mouth pulls wryly at the stranger’s comment then, and Shrike met her gaze with an amused brow. “Smarter than the decision of those feral horses to do the same. It could have easily worked out otherwise for me.”
She doesn’t mind the pause as the woman considers her question; it is yet another opportunity to sweep her gaze across the windblown streets, short of their shadows by high angle of the sun. Empty doorways looked black as gaps in teeth, the street a crooked smile.
When the answer does come, she turns back to her companion. Her head is tilted in consideration, her expression even and unreadable. “Diplomatic,” she replies, and then lifts her head and gives a little shrug of her shoulders, loosening still-aching muscles.
This may be her afterlife, but her body was seemingly beholden to the same laws as the last one.
When she spoke again, her voice was as even as the line of her mouth, but light and friendly enough. “I may as well remain until it’s cool enough to travel. Is there a way I can make myself useful in the meantime?” A beat of silence, and then:
Teiran did not miss the sharpening of the other woman’s eyes upon her, did not miss the way she watched her nor the inflection in her voice that spoke to something else. Something akin to appreciation, which she did not understand. What she also could not understand, could not know, is the way her companion was reminded of someone else, someone important to her, someone who was not here in the desert sands, beneath the unforgiving sun. If there was a heart string pulling the medicine cap in another direction, Teiran did not see.
“Maybe,” she replied, though there was really little introspection to the word, “but it didn’t, did it?” Had the rose hued warrior ever thought that she would fail against the Davke? Honestly, no. When she fought, she thought of nothing but victory, of tearing down anyone who stood in the path to her people’s safety and wellbeing. She thought of nothing else, and she would do whatever it took to ensure such things were maintained. It was not a matter of choice.
Her sage green eyes slicked over the woman as she spoke, lifting her head and stretching. Was it diplomatic? Teiran had little knowledge of politics, other than what she has discerned over her time among the Court. What she had said simply seemed like the proper thing to say. Was it not courtesy to do do something other than demand? Perhaps then, she was allowing too much, over observing. Somehow she managed to keep finding herself in positions where she needed to socialize with very little knowledge on how to do such a thing properly.
Fortunately for her, it seemed she was going to fed an out like a dog a bone, and Teiran gladly snatched at it. “It is wise. The desert, she is a fickle thing.” Her statement was not ironic, or joking. More souls than she cared to count would have been swallowed up by the desert over the years. Some, perhaps, still lingered, forever wandering the sands as though trapped. Besides, the Davke may very well still be out there, while Day Court licked its wounds, planning to return.
“I need to get back to my patrol. If you are interested in a job, I can show you to where they are working to clear the streets,” an offer, of sorts, and the warrior stepped away from the fountain and made to head back to the maze of sand covered streets, empty doorways and dark alleys. Soon she would be prowling again, her shadow falling over every nook and cranny. She paused, only for a moment, to look back over her shoulder and say “Call me Teiran,” before setting off. Should Shrike decide to follow, Teiran could not say she would wholly dislike the company. If not, well, perhaps they would meet again in the future.
like a fresh cut flower promises sure to wither up
“No,” she agreed, easily enough, “it didn’t.” When Shrike fought, it was only survival she thought of. Neither side would have cared if she had watered the sand with her blood, and likely she would have found a place in this world (had she lived) whoever the victor that night.
But she was not dismayed that it wound up the way it did.
If her companion was as ill-suited to chatter as Shrike herself, then the medicine-hat did not notice. Just as the roan hadn’t read her thoughts of Calliope, Shrike was aware only of the keenness and coolness in her eyes, the relaxed-but-ready way she stood.
She nodded at the next mention of the desert, and her eyes swept out to the landscape in question – what little of it she could see beyond buildings tumbling or tall. The heat here is a corporeal thing, like it was leaning on them; she wonders if she will have grit in her teeth the whole summer.
It would not be the first time.
At the offer of a job her attention shifts back, an ear flicking forward with interest. “I’d appreciate the way to pass the time.” Without a glance back at the fountain and its glistening surface, Shrike steps after the stranger - Teiran, she learns, and dips her muzzle in wordless response – to go learn what she could of this new world and the horses than inhabited it.
