The heat was stifling at best and suffocating at worst. The sun beat the expanses of solid rock mercilessly, resonating the heat tenfold. And it was among this heat haze that it took place. The walls of a particularly unimpressive area of stone vibrated with the intensity of electricity, pieces of gravel seemingly ripping apart from one another..
But there was no lighting or thunder storm in sight, no hurricane nor tornado.
Suddenly, a sharp tear did form - warping the pieces of slate - edges buzzing with a static, blinding light. The fissure continued to expand, pulling sharply upwards towards the clifftop. Ripped unceremoniously from their resting places, large stones and boulders plummeted towards the ground, splintering upon impact. The expanse was without shadows and without light, as seemingly endless as it was vast. Somehow, it existed as it didn't; and all at once, it spit out its cargo with vehement contempt.
Hurled from one continent to the other in the blink of an eye, Torstein was spit from the fissure and skidded twenty some-odd feet in the soft but scorching sand, shoulder first. The heat did nothing to ease the massive ache his body felt, from not only the impact but the transport itself.. being in whatever that was felt like having a hundred rusty fish hooks sunk into his skin, their lines pulling them in every which direction.
For a few moments, the Beast sat there, crumpled into the ground. He questioned if he was even breathing, but then remembered how heavily his sides were heaving, how flared his nostrils were and hot the breathe that escaped from them was. His chest was on fire, the muscles wrought with pain - but they did the job. The spines enclosing his heart stayed taught, firmly shielding the delicate organ from impact. Not even a speck of sand was able to penetrate through the jagged expanse of fang-like spines.
Everywhere else was not so lucky. He could smell the aroma of clay and dust in his nostrils, taste the grit of sand in his mouth, jesus he could even feel it between his teeth...
Slowly, he opened his eyes, a groan slipping past his lips. He lifted his head from the earth, eyes swimming for a brief moment. Gaze wandered around the expanse of dry dirt and shrubs that surrounded him - wandered up the canyon walls, drifted across the expanse of desert and shrubland. This was not a land he was familiar with... nor was it even a land that surrounded Stolthet, as he knew them all too.
Bewildered, Torstein slowly regained his footing - and slow it was, as his limbs, aching and oh so sore, strained to lift his massive frame that stood at a horrifying eleven feet tall at the tips of his impressive horns. Painstakingly, he shook the sand from his body and scraped his colossal, weathered hooves in the dust. For a moment, he was quiet as he scoured the landscape.
"Where the fuck am I?" Muttered to no one, in a setting that might as well be the valley of death.
Typical.
The sun beat down on her spine, burning red-hot against her shoulders and back; Seraphina had learned how to remain as comfortable as possible whilst soaked in the perpetual sweat and sand that came with living in the middle of a relentless and viciously temperamental desert, seeking out shade beneath the dunes while wandering the Mors and the rare overhangs and shrubbery while stalking the Elatus. She had opted to remain close to the walls that lined the far side of the maze-like canyons for the duration of her patrol today, if only because the heat seemed even worse than usual – even so, she found herself dipping in and out of spindly, jagged patches of shade and sun, never comfortable for very long. It was so dry and rasping that she felt as though her tongue was swelling in her mouth, the sort of heat that scraped the insides of her lungs whenever she breathed. She wished, rather desperately, that she had chosen the Elatus for her morning patrol and saved the Vitae for noon, longing for the shade and cool water that the oasis provided – but here she was, bored and soaking in unpleasantness. (Or simply sweat.)
As she rounded the next bend, weaving through a sharp dip in the canyon’s width, she felt a dull humming in her bones – brow furrowed and eyes narrowed, she glanced around for the source. (She would run into some sort of weird magic today, wouldn’t she? A sudden thunderstorm? Heat lightning?) Her gaze came to a standstill towards the top of the canyon wall. A patch of stone seemed to be pulsing, quivering with nervous energy, warping and shattering the canyon wall. Drawing her lips into a firm line, she edged back into the relative safety of the narrow patch from which she’d emerged, muscles tensed as she readied herself to run at the first sign of danger. Rather abruptly, the quivering segment splintered, spitting stones and violent, blinding light from its rim – bright as the sun – out in its immediate vicinity; she shied away from the paradoxical fissure, practically crouching up against the canyon wall, frozen in a sort of existential fear but far too intrigued by this evident break in reality to tear her eyes from it.
The fissure closed as quickly as it had opened, though not before throwing out a mass of violet and cream that it took her a moment to recognize as another horse. He skidded to a landing that was at best unkempt, sending thick clouds of sand and dust up in his wake; she winced instinctively as he made contact with solid ground, gritting her own teeth in imagined – or understood – pain. She wondered, for a moment, if the stallion was even alive, but she soon caught sight of the heave of his chest and the twitch of movement in his neck. Seraphina jerked out of sight before he could see her, throat clamping up and usual courage dissipating with a sudden influx of nerves. What in Solis’s name had she just witnessed? If that rift was as dangerous as it looked, what did that say of a creature that came tumbling out of it? (And that wasn’t even accounting for how massive and threatening he looked.) Shell-shocked and rigid, she stood in the shadow of canyon walls, limbs completely frozen. Should she run? Should she investigate? It was her job, after all, to investigate anything unusual.
Seraphina finally let out a ghost of a sigh, peering around the bend to stare the stallion down again; he was standing, now, though facing the opposite direction. He was even more intimidating now that she could make out the whole of him, distinctly muscular and so tall that she’d practically call him excessive; she rarely felt intimidated by a potential opponent strictly based on their stature, but, looking him over, she was left with the distinct impression that, should they come to blows for some reason or another, she might very well find herself in a fight that she couldn’t win. A set of violet horns that almost reminded her of fins sprouted from just behind his violet ears, and his creamy mane and tail were kept in a mixture of warlike choppiness and unkempt braids. (The feathering about his massive hooves, however, seemed to have no rhyme or reason.) His coloration, though obscured by sand, was primarily cream, but she spotted a bit of various shades of purple – largely around his hind legs, though she thought that she could make out the occasional spot of it across the rest of his frame. He was facing in the opposite direction, so, if there was anything unique to the front of him, Seraphina could not make it out; she thought that she remembered seeing something spiny on his chest, and the flash of virulent red on his forehead, but she hadn’t the time to take a closer look. She sucked in a breath and stepped out into plain sight, muscles still tensed to run back in the direction from which she’d come should things turn sour – for all she knew, he couldn’t even fit through the opening in the walls.
Seraphina cleared her throat, eyeing the gargantuan stallion with thinly-veiled suspicion. “Are you…unharmed? That looked like quite a fall.” She ventured reluctantly, mismatched eyes scanning his frame for any wounds in his sand-caked coat.
@Torstein - the worst welcoming party has arrived
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
07-05-2017, 04:57 PM - This post was last modified: 07-06-2017, 10:39 PM by Seraphina
Not by the canyon walls, not by the surreal happenings that took place moments before, not by anything surrounding him. When his senses gathered and he stood, there was a distinct absence of knowing. The red seething eye atop his forehead had sensed the danger, its lids closing for the first time in years. And with it, the sixth sense the Triennial Eye inherently brought closed in upon itself, and left Tor feeling distinctly disorientated.
Weathered, cracked hooves stepped forward, bringing him to peer curiously over the edge of an expanse that he stood over. Eyes wandered across the vast valley, peppered with dreary patches of dry grass and the occasional pop of oddly-placed color. Far, far in the distance, he could see the silhouette of rolling dunes cascading across the horizon. Black-tinted ears twitched annoyingly forwards, and a heaving sigh blew from his nostrils with abruptness. His whip of a tail swung, cutting through the air like a whip, as he regarded this pallid landscape with hesitant contempt.
One thing he was certain, at least this was not Roskildar. Which meant that putrid sack of skin and poor excuse for a mage was probably not here... not yet, at least.
As Torstein was so lost in his thoughts, he was left briefly unaware of the small mare peering at him from behind rocks and walls. He had come to rely so much on his Triennial Eye and the knowledge it brought, that for a moment he was left helplessly unaware. But it did not last long, because he could have swore he just heard something while contemplating in silence..
One ear lilted backwards, and Torstein stilled. The raspy, heat-stricken rattle of a deep inhale caught his attention, and he peered backwards over his shoulder towards the small(er) mare. Do people around these parts regularly stalk after large, intimidating stallions? But then again, he did have a peculiar entrance...
And she spoke. Her concern was positively touching, but she did not appear to be good at hiding the suspicion that leaked between her words - or maybe she wasn't trying to. Either way, he would be more concerned if she wasn't suspicious of such a massive Beast, afterall..
"My shoulder is rubbed raw. I'm sure I'll survive." His voice was not particularly as deep as one might expect. There was a tang of an accent - distinctly Norwegian - that existed within his speech, although otherwise he spoke largely without inflection.
He regarded her for a few seconds longer, his eyes unamused but not quite upset, either. She wasn't small by standard (standing next to him, everyone is small regardless), and she was pretty but not excessive. The collar, snug around her throat, caught his attention - and his eyes were distinctly drawn to it. It was old metal, but not weathered; it must have been there for some time. Was this a land of slaves? Or some sort of weird fashion accessory?
She was strong, but not intimidating to the likes of him (few were, honestly). He could tell she wasn't keen on him; hell, she was probably second guessing striking up a random conversation right about now. But while Torstein was unforgiving in many aspects, he was not violent without warrant. But at the same time, he had no personal space, either...
Turning with a lumbering gate that his time-worn hooves had no intentions of hurrying up in, he faced her for the first time since she magically appeared from behind a wall (well... he appeared out from one, so who's at fault here?). The teeth that surrounded his heart were still clamped firmly shut, although concerning-looking none-the-less. To make matters worse, it happened to be around this time that the Triennial Eye decided to bless the world with it's crimson gaze. It moved independently from Torstein's own eyes - and in an erratic, fast-paced fashion - but still made eye contact with Seraphina.
His feet never stopped, and the beast continued to step forward. Nothing about him was overly aggressive, per say - but like we said, he has no sense of personal space. Should the smaller mare not back off, he would stand directly in front of her, a foot or so separating the two... His head held high, nostrils flared as he took in the scent of the Canyon and this smaller mare that inhabited it.
"Mind telling me where I am?" He rumbled. Again, his eyes were drawn to her collar; they lingered.
As his gaze turned to face her, Seraphina froze for a fraction of a second, sucking in a breath and narrowing her eyes at the lump on his forehead – she thought that it looked a bit like a closed eye but quickly dismissed her suspicions as ridiculous. She confronted trespassers on what felt like a daily basis lately, but most of them didn’t fall out of magical, reality-warping portals in the walls of the Elatus Canyon. (And most of them weren’t so large, and, frankly, warlike.) When he spoke, she couldn’t place his accent. She already imagined that he was foreign, by virtue of his unusual entrance, but there were magic users within Novus, so she hadn’t ruled out the possibly that he was another native. Her response was short and sharp, though slightly unsure, “I see. Good.” She did not sound especially convinced that his present state was actually favorable.
He moved, then, and it was all that she could do not to dart back behind the wall from which she’d emerged. As he turned to face her, she noted the bizarre set of spines on his chest, clamped together like a set of teeth. He meandered towards her, and she gritted her teeth together, wiry muscles tensing. There wasn’t any aggression in his stance, and she sensed no violence in his gaze; she was left with the distinct impression that in spite of his slow – almost predatory – approach, he had interest in hurting her. For her part, Seraphina stood her ground as he ambled towards her, pulling together the tatters of her somewhat frazzled composure and stiffening to her full height, chin raised in some small gesture of dominance. Not that it mattered; she could have stood on the very edges of her hooves, and he still would have dwarfed her. A flash of red from the stallion’s forehead drew her gaze momentarily, and she found herself staring at another eye. She locked gazes with it for little more than a second.
That second was long enough for Seraphina to feel like the ground had just been pulled out from beneath her hooves. If you were to ask her why, she likely would not have been able to tell you, but she felt a prickling sense of familiarity – something that was not the same, but similar – when that eye stared her down. Her gaze flickered down to look into the stallion’s eyes, purely on what she wanted to imagine was instinct – but the collar around her throat felt like it should be burning, or maybe it was. Thoroughly disconcerted, she felt an unintentionally panicked shiver run the length of her spine and quickly averted her gaze, blinking furiously at the ground in front of her hooves. It was rude to stare.
He moved ever closer, and she didn’t budge an inch, even as his hooves slipped into her field of view. Just how close did he plan on standing to a complete stranger? Seraphina wasn’t willing to give him any ground, but she did wish that he would stay a bit further away; she braved another look up at him, practically craning her neck to meet his gaze, which seemed to have found its way to her collar. Red sclera – it was far from the strangest thing about him, though. (She didn’t look up at the other eye. She didn’t want to.) He proceeded to ask her where he was. “You’re in…” Her mouth felt dry, and the skin around her collar was still prickling. “Novus. More specifically, you’re in the Elatus Canyon, on the border of Solterra, the realm of the Day Court.” Her mismatched eyes narrowed as she took in his stance. For someone who had just stumbled into another realm entirely, his posture seemed bizarrely confident. Seraphina realized, rather abruptly, that she needed to maintain control of the direction of their conversation, and quickly added, “How did you get here? And who are you?” Her tone remained largely neutral, but it held an uncharacteristic hint of curiosity. Then again, after what she’d just witnessed, Seraphina imagined it would be stranger if she weren’t curious about this stranger’s origins.
She waited patiently for his response. The sun beat down on her shoulders, red-hot and scalding; she barely noticed it.
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
His gaze, neutral of most emotion, regarded the overconfident mare as she puffed up, chest inflating and posture stiffening at his approach. At no point did he look away from her, even as he came to a quiet halt in front of the gray mare. It was almost like he was assessing her - like a drill sergeant would scrutinize a new recruit, fresh to boot camp. Oddly confident was true - although maybe it was more calm and collected dominance, if anything?
Her eyes adverted, staring at his feet. He could imagine her cheeks felt hot; her body language screamed of her uncomfort. The corner of his lips curled oh-so-slightly upwards, and a throaty chuckle reverberated from the massive stallion. His head lowered, and he sought to edge his muzzle under her chin and tilt her head up to a more acceptable angle. He did this just as she stole a glance upwards at him, which would most likely result in her getting an uncomfortably close view of the Triennial Eye if she didn't jump away. It stared at her with a steely gaze, lacking it's usual erratic movement. Additionally, he was awfully close to the collar for a brief moment...
And his muzzle was oddly soft.
"It's awfully inconsiderate not to look at someone whom you're speaking to."
His breath was warm. Another chuckle escaped his throat, and he pulled his head up and away from her. She seemed so frazzled; why? Was she scared of him? She could deny it, but Torstein could feel her hesitation, her crumpling composure, her anxiety. Body language gave her away; but he didn't appear to be taking advantage of the situation.
Instead, he turned his body away from facing her directly. Instead of staring at his chest, spines, and the third eye - she was left to look at the oddly plum-colored expanse of his side. Even for it's.... peculiar.... colors, it was hardly the most unique thing about him.
"My name is Torstein," he spoke, his accent becoming especially heavy at the mention of his own name. Stealing a glance back at the mare (Have you recovered yourself yet, my dear?), braided whip-like tail flicking lazily at his painted hocks.
"I come from a nation called the Empire of Stolthet," he answered, "although I can imagine you do not know of it, just like I did not know of... what did you call it? Novus?"
A smile touched his lips. It was an odd expression on his face, and it looked just.. so out of place. Not a fake smile, per say. "And what is your name, my collared sweetheart?"
