As autumn continues to spread across Novus, something strange begins to happen within the Solterran desert.
Snow falls.
First the land grows cool, and cooler and cooler, until the native horses find themselves shivering for the first time in their sleep. Clouds roll in, one by one, darkening the sky and blotting out the sun, so that it may provide no warmth or respite to the hot-blooded equines.
The temperatures continue to drop, and when the clouds finally decide to spill, their tears are not wet nor warm. They’re cold and white, snowflakes that flutter upon the wind and shift like the sands. First they are light and few, melting as they fall upon the ground. At first the sight may bring joy - Solterra has been hot for years, centuries even. There is rarely rain, but never snow; could this be the gods blessing them for their good behavior?
But then the snowstorm begins in earnest.
The snowflakes become bigger and faster, until a sheet of falling white is all the eye can see. The snow is thick and obscures vision, covering the ground with blanket upon blanket until it makes for difficult walking. As far as the eye can see it’s white, as the sands of the desert are replaced with the white of a winter wonderland. Left, right, forwards or backwards, it all becomes the same - dare to venture into the storm, and you may just find yourself turned around and unable to find your way back home.
What’s this? Snow in Solterra?! Thank the gods!
...Or hold your prayers, because what starts as a light and simple snowfall quickly turns into a blizzard! Perhaps some will call it a miracle, and others a natural disaster. Whatever your thoughts on the snow, there is only one thing for certain: it doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon. It snows hard and in earnest, covering the ground and limiting vision. It would be easy to get lost in such a storm.
Will you seek shelter within the buildings of the Day Court? Or have you been lost out in the snow?
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His body lay partly tucked within a hole. Violets were sealed behind lids, and the sockets of his skull helped to shadow resting eyes. Although he appeared fully dormant, his ears flickered every minute, and nose wiggled constantly. As he embraces the heat of the sun, skin feels a cool breeze run over it. A grunt sounded in response to the gentle wind. Soon, he fell flat onto his side, continuing his rest.
He thought of nothing wrong once temperatures began to drop more. Desert nights usually brought the air to freeze, so Kauri embedded himself into his makeshift bed upon these sands. How he wish self had the materials to spark a cozy fire, then would this be a typical night. Slowly, his conscious slipped further into sleep; however, a rather cold peck on his body prompted him to roll back onto his belly. Fluttering eyes were met by something strange, a phenomenon he hasn't encountered since his younger years.
Confusion on top of a half awaken brain; he thought all of this brewed from within his mind. The former warden watched with dead eyes following each speck of snow that fell to the ground. It took a minute before he shook himself completely awake, but by that time did a light snowfall become a roaring blizzard. The assaulting snow told him clearly that this was not his imagination. He lay still in uncertainty for another moment as body took more of a beating.
At last, he struggled back onto all four legs. Winds whistled loudly into his ears, and sight was only met by nothingness. The desert had nothing to begin with, so his lack of seeing isn't a total loss. Taking this phenomenon as if it were a massive sandstorm, he would trudge through it—head tucked, ears flatten, and nostrils contracted. His steps became higher and stressed once snow grew more upon the ground. Huffing and puffing through the storm, he endured the endless stinging body felt.
Although shivering right into his bones, he will not stop.
He didn't have anybody or anyplace to retreat to, so he would remain upon this land hit with snow. Inner compass could point him south, and that is where he would go as perhaps it was better down there than far up north here. While switching his path to such direction, he'd try to keep an eye out or ear out for anything—anyone.
So much for escaping the colder seasons. He sighed.
His words are tired, accepting, resigned. The vulture sits upon its prickly perch, head cocking from side to side, beady eyes never once leaving his figure. It is plump with the feasting of the season, feathers shiny and mottled, and he is too tired to even bother with his usual surge of anger at how it feeds off of him.
What does it matter, anyways?
His lips pull back into a mocking grimace of a smile, exposing teeth that sometimes he thinks are still stained with Adriana’s blood. He can taste it in the back of his throat; thick, coppery, warm, the way it had sprayed and drenched him, and he thinks that he’s never been clean since, no matter how many times he’s scrubbed himself raw.
Monster. Her voice rings in his ears.
Only the one you made me, had been his reply.
The vulture hisses out agreeing laughter from atop the cactus, and he closes his eye in tired acceptance.
The vulture already has a name, he knows, and it is not the myriad of curses that he has tossed at the creature over his lifetime.
Around him, the snow is falling, building up and threatening to trap him, and yet he does not move.
ooc: the vulture is a frequent hallucination of mattie's, so no one will be able to see who he is talking to.
if anyone wants to try and 'rescue' him, or get him to move to shelter, feel free!
07-22-2018, 08:43 AM - This post was last modified: 07-22-2018, 08:43 AM by Mathias
When Bexley sees the snow coming down from overhead, she has to laugh.
Of course. Gods on the earth, ice in the desert - bad omen after bad omen, nothing in its place. Even Acton coming to visit, something that had brought her as much excitement as it did suspicion, is starting to feel like another disaster, rampant in following on every other disaster’s heels. The disbelief, the sheer strangeness of everything, is overwhelming.Watching the first flakes whip through the air through a stained-glass window in the citadel, Bexley has to laugh, and she does, loudly: but her moment of indignation passes as quickly as it came, and, remembering her station, zips down the stairs and into the heart of the Court.
Hordes of Solterrans are standing at the edge of the deset. The expression on every face seems to be that of shock - many of them very well may have never seen such a thing in their life, and even those that have are, of course, appalled by the sight of the flurry. It’s coming down in clumps now, not just flakes but ice and hail, so quick and heavy that the cracked sandstone buildings of the far-away court and the golden sand under their feet is already disappearing, swallowed in white, drowned by the frenzy of the storm overhead. A wall of cold air slams into the Regent and sets her jaw to chattering; already frost has collected in a thin stripe through her hair.
Still no one moves. They are equal parts entranced and horrified.
Dumbasses, Bexley mutters under her breath, and finally she slams a shoulder against the nearest civilian, wakes them from their reverie, and snarls in their ear, Get inside, now. The affronted colt takes one glance other and turns to scurry toward the nearest building, and then she’s off, winding a path through the crowd, roaring warnings to whoever will listen and forcibly jostling those who won’t in a well-intentioned (if violent) effort to get everyone to shelter before they freeze to death outside.
Already the snow under her feet is inches thick, the frigid wind whipped into a frenzy. Fear rises like bile in her throat as she attempts to clear the crowd, nauseating and adrenaline-inspiring, but in the glare of the storm it is, thankfully, hard to see.
your hands are wet with the blood of an empire you lick it off
She is in the desert when the first, fluttering flakes of snow begin to light on the hot ground.
Seraphina lurches to an abrupt stop, sending a spray of red-gold sand up in an arc in front of her; mismatched eyes widen like waxing moons, and she feels her heart catch in her throat. For a moment, she is sure that she has mistaken the small, glistening fragments for something else – because Solterra is hot and dry and ablaze. Ash, maybe, from the flames that seem to consume the sand-swept land so very often, but never snow. Snow was ridiculous, impossible -
But the gods walk the earth, now, and a slave girl wears a queen’s crown. If she has learned anything in the past two years, it is that nothing is as impossible as she would like to believe.
She stares at the flakes. One comes to a slow, looping landing on her eyelash.
One thought crystallizes in her mind, clear and crisp as the bite of winter wind. Oh no.
She is in motion before she even processes the words, whipping back on her heels to turn towards the distant silhouette of the capitol city. Whatever this is, she doubts that it is good, and she – she can’t fail her people like this. (Not again. Maybe by ice this time, rather than fire, but not again; she promised them that she would do better, be better. She promised herself.) Great, surging strides send her cascading across the sands like a bullet, blinking thick, fluffy white flakes out of her eyes.
At first, the snow seems innocuous. Innocent, even, like a blessing in a land so hot and arid; were she younger and more naïve and altogether less aware of the events of the previous weeks, Seraphina might have seen the light snowfall as a blessing. As she continues to dash towards the great, glowing shape of the capitol, however, the snow begins to pick up – and quickly. She strains at her own limits, her breath coming out in hoarse white gasps and her limbs growing gelatinous and trembling beneath the weight of her. All around her, the wind grows colder and less forgiving, and it starts to bite, little pinpricks into her sweat-slick skin. The world turns white, the snow a great cascade, less of a flicker and more of a waterfall.
But she is close enough to stumble inside of Solterra’s gates by the time that the storm breaks, though gasping and weak at the knees; bent-double, she still manages to bark out orders to anyone who might be listening, iron-hard, urgent voice crackling at the edges. Her throat is dry enough to taste like blood; she licks melting flakes, mingled with sweat, from her lips. “Light the braziers on the ramparts!” She yells, in hopes that anyone stranded out in the desert might be able to make out the lights against the thick sheet of white that had come to engulf the world around them, “And get inside – as quickly as possible!” The queen herself, however, does not go inside. Instead, she clambers up the ice-slick stairs that lead to the great walls of the fortress, her hooves slipping clumsily beneath her frame; she comes to a halt beside of one of the lit braziers, shivering in spite of the dull warmth provided by the flame, and stares out into vast depths of endless white.
The hairs on her spine stand straight up, and she can’t shake the feeling that it isn’t just the cold that puts her on edge; something is coming. Something is coming.
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
Eik goes to the wild each and every night. It does him good to have a secret thing, a place in the physical world that mirrors the unkempt and unknown places of his mind. His is a church of stone and sand and starlight, untouchable by the gods themselves. But tonight something is different. He awakens with a shiver and it takes a dumbfounded minute to realize it was a shiver of cold, not fear. With nothing to drive him other than a certain nagging feeling, he turns his head toward the court and begins to walk.
(Three words on repeat: "change is coming")
A few weeks ago and he would dismiss the gently falling snow as an artifact of the white-noise of his brain. It is an unusual manifestation of his madness, but what's insanity if not unpredictable? A few weeks ago he wouldn't be bothered at all but the gods roam the earth now, and the wildest corners of his mind are tame in comparison to the whims of the divine. On one hand, he grows uneasy as the snow begins to fall. On the other, he is captivated with a childlike sense of awe at seeing the desert blanketed in white. As the snowfall thickens and visibility grows poor, he quickens his pace to a lope. The court is still a fair distance away.
Over halfway there, Eik abruptly changes course to intercept a poor fool heading south. "You're going the wrong way." He says plainly to the stranger, gesturing towards the court. "Come." It is not so much a demand as an offer the stranger should accept if he wishes to survive. The grey leads the way at a run, letting his mind's compass guide him to the unseen citadel. Weather like this, caution becomes a lost cause- all you can do is hope you don't run headfirst into a cactus.
He makes it to the court, finally, as the fires are lit. "Where are Seraphina and Bexley." Eik asks the first man he sees, gaze scanning each shape around them urgently-- but he can hardly see now through the thickly falling snow.
- - - - - I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if
E I K the secret of secrets is inside me again
He steadily moved along and noted the sting in his chest as he breathed in the freezing air. His skin has certainly gone numb, but he would pay that no mind. Time and time again, the male stretched the limits of his body. Perhaps he deeply wished to punish himself for his sins, or simply let nature decide his fate. He was not trying to stay alive at this point but intentionally throwing knives into his suffering. And in the process, play the hound that tracks down the lost and wandering more worthy of living.
Judging the direction of the winds, his attention was grabbed away by someone interrupting his venture. He reared up and bared his teeth in a snarl; brows furrowed at the words spat at him. Stopping his movement, he watched the grey fellow disappear into the white. Kauri shook his head with lips drawn into a frown. I will not come. He huffed in the direction the other headed. Legs resumed their initial path, and mind brought itself back on high alert. He was not going the wrong way, the oasis is indeed south. Just a little more to go.
Nostrils flared as he breathed deeply, coughing up what bits of snow intruded his chest. Slowly working his way down a hill, he noticed a figure off to the side. He paused for a second before his lips would lightly break apart. A whinny sounded from him, the male then approaching the stranger.
The unfamiliar equine seems transfixed by a cactus before them; Kauri trying to determine what about it had their full attention through this rushing snow. Shaking off the chill that ran through his shivering form, he trudged to the other's side. "Having a bit of a look, hm?" he jested. Scanning what he could of this equine's features, his muzzle reached to gently nudge his shoulder.
"How long do you... plan to test the mercy of this blizzard?"
Tiredly looking at the stranger for an answer, he spoke the question to see where their mind lies in this situation. As his own mind remain careless and body restless, he was tempted to pull the equine along whether they wanted it or not. It is not about him, never was it, but about this fellow here now. Gradually, Kauri could feel his heart and breath slow, a sure sign of hypothermia kicking in.
Well, Mother, what will you do now?
"Speaks" | Thinks @Mathias for interaction & @Eik for referencing <3
Fire, dark and burning bright
Bright as day, yet, gives no light
In the shadows of the night
Teiran is all militaristic, sharp movements and hard angles as she stalks her way down the quickly snow covering streets. She has no thought for gods, or damnation, just that like in any disaster, she has a job to do. A job to protect her the people of Solterra. This may not be a threat she has any familiarity to, but she will face a threat all the same: head on.
The snow falls harder and quicker, blanketing everything. Soon, Solterra will no longer be golden and sun streaked, but frosted and snow covered. Already she can feel the chill of it on her skin, and the way it crunches under foot is a bizarre sensation compared to the shifting surface of the sands she is so used to. As she walks, she sees faces she recognized. Bexley, directing dumbstruck citizens to their houses, and then Seraphina, shouting orders that immediately give Teiran a purpose.
She is moving quickly, pulling a torch from the wall, climbing the stairs and setting the braziers closest to her alight. As they come to life, more are lit around the wall that she can see. She imagines more will be lit too that she cannot see through the growing blizzard. For a moment she pauses, looking out over the desert beyond the wall. Desert it is no longer as the minutes pass. Soon, too soon, it will be a winter wasteland.
How many will be lost? How many more will be taken from this kingdom?
The warrior’s jaw tightens and she turns, knowing that out there she will be as lost as anyone else, but in here she knows where to direct others to safety and warmth. She is perhaps even more robotic in the chill, like a machine whose gears don’t turn quite as quickly as they should. She feels no fear, no worry and it is wrong. This is wrong.
Teiran does not bark orders, does not shout above the din like Bexley. She arrives in shadows, sage green eyes as cold as the air has become, and leads the frightened and shocked through the streets to their homes like a ghostly, silent guide. She works efficiently and as quickly as she can. She tells them to start fires and to find the warmest coverings they have. She tells them to stay inside no matter what, and irregardless of her own warnings she continues to pace through the streets, searching for every last citizen she can find.
ooc things
08-03-2018, 07:45 PM
Played by
Rae [PM] Posts: 301 — Threads: 41 Signos: 15
"Where are Seraphina and Bexley." He asks again to a stranger who does not know. Eik knows there isn't much he can do for them now anyway-- he had simply wanted the reassurance they were safe, unlike the man he had passed out in the Mors, wandering the wrong way. He looks around at the madness surrounding him. The ramparts are slick with ice and snow- horses are falling on the way up and down- and the streets are packed with horses trying to make their way inside.
There is nothing I can do.
Helplessness rises in his chest, so sadly familiar. It cripples him- he cannot even save himself, does not even want to if he can't be of help to others. He thinks of that man again, the one he left out in the snow. What was his name? What was his story?
Suddenly, in the pit of his despair, magic flickers into his awareness. It pulses with a certain sense of independence, and he knows (the type of knowing you are not sure how you know) this is not a thing to be wielded or even tamed... not yet at least, but perhaps it can be worked with-- he feels a place deep within himself resonate in response to its violent energy. He makes his way to the southwest where the worst of the blizzard is held back by the court walls (it's coming from Veneror, he realizes, stomach twisting) and without knowing what will happen he submits mind, body, and soul to the wild magic.
At first, all he sees is brilliant white. The howl of the blizzard becomes magnified louder and brighter and colder and just when he thinks it is going to consume him in a blaze of white anger-- his vision cuts to black. He extends feelers into the darkness, first prodding shallowly then delving deeper and further. There is an odd shape far away, and the magic in him flows out and gently grasps at it. There is another, off to the left, and as soon as he realize it's there the magic reaches out and grabs it too. One after another, his magic tethers him to these odd shapes.
Eik does not know how long it takes him to realize these shapes are horses lost in the blizzard. It is as though he always knew but had simply forgotten, like a childhood memory so buried and internalized it has shaped the landscape of your adulthood-- and yet it takes a whiff of a long-forgotten smell or a certain pattern of colors and shapes and you're there again and it all makes sense, that little quirk about yourself that before had just seemed like a random side effect or a few misplaced genetic sequences.
He can feel them out there, their strength, their weakness, as keenly as an extension of himself. He can feel the cold they feel even though his body is ablaze with wild magic. He tries to pull them toward the court but he cannot sustain it. Like a lighthouse, his signal comes and goes-- a mental tug, and then silence. Another tug, more silence. But with every beacon his strength wanes. His summons become weaker and weaker, with longer pauses between each one. Until the magic depletes itself entirely, and the connection flickers and then fades completely.
When he opens his eyes he is slumped on the ground, steam rising weakly from his sweat-soaked hide. Even tucked behind the outer wall, the wind has whipped his hair in a tangled mess and deposited a fine layer of snow on his body. Exhaustion forces his eyes closed once more, this time to a darkness that feels oddly lonely.
(After an unknown amount of time, a cold shiver awakens him.
From the red-grey darkness, a feral whisper from the survivor in him,
the guardian and the demon- Move)
He scrambles to his feet slow and clumsy, every cell in his body painfully exhausted. Eyes closed (he knows the way, every step) and ears tucked to his neck, he puts his head down and begins to trudge slowly, so very slowly, toward the inner court.
- - - - - I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if
E I K the secret of secrets is inside me again
Those lost in the storm will feel a sudden mental pull toward the court. After a few minutes, the pull will fade to intermittent tugs. The frequency and strength of these tugs will decrease over the next hour or so until fading completely.
... I hope it's okay that I sneak this in past the deadline :3 sorry for the rambles!
The snow shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. All day and all night it rages, the flurries falling hard and fast. Visibility is severely limited, and going out into the desert where it is the roughest might seem a death wish. The snow drifts are now deep enough to swallow even Torstein alive. And they move much like the sands of the desert, their dunes constantly rolling and shifting and piling up against the walls of the capitol.
The temperatures, too, continue to plummet. Solterra, once the warmest part of Novus, is now known as the coldest. Finding warmth is difficult, and the already scarce desert food has now become even harder to find. This winter wonderland is quickly beginning to wear on the residents of the Day Court, finding themselves unprepared for such an extreme storm.
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