It had been a time of peace and prosperity for the Davke; a time that they would soon come to mourn and would then later grow to be a bitter people full of contempt for the outside world. Peace has never resisted them since.
But at the time, he did not understand peace and war, or tyranny and genocide. He was a but a boy. A serious, solemn Davke boy, but a child nonetheless. He did not splash and play with the other Davke children, but would come here alone instead when the still pool of water would reflect the stars and moon overhead.
He would listen to the the serene chirp of crickets and murmur of the night wind through the palm leaves. He would drop pebbles into the water just to watch the ripples ebb and flow. Sometimes the more curious kelpie children would throw the pebble back, and they would entertain themselves like this for hours. All the while the Davke boy known as Jahin contemplated his place in the world and desperately missed his mother in secret.
He had many mothers as a child but that did not stop him from missing her or wondering about his father. He would swim, sometimes, when the emptiness of missing someone you had never known felt like too much. He would float, listless and still, liking the way the water made him feel weightless and grounded all at once.
He would come back still, many years later as a grown Davke warrior to throw a pebble into the water. He was still Jahin, but different too. He contemplated other things, then; heavier things. Concepts like love and duty and shame and responsibility. He came here to wash the blood from his skin after the trial to earn his place as a warrior among his people. He came here and wept like a child.
He comes back now, much older. He is world-weary and tired. The stars blink overhead, lacking sympathy in their cold, distant light. The wind sighs through the palm leaves and there is a sweet floral fragrance on the breeze.
He tosses a pebble into the water.
03-25-2019, 08:58 PM
Played by
e-cho [PM] Posts: 48 — Threads: 12 Signos: 0
t first, she is a comet merely streaking through the skies. Pale, distant, something to look upon and make a wish. So you wish upon her as she flies. You do not expect her to fall.
Then, she is the tsunami as the pebble drops, a great ball of wings and hair that crash down only for tidal wave of monsters to rise up. Waves ascend, reaching new heights the desert water only dreams of, and among it all the comet wilts.
She coughs, half of the sea falling from black and white lips. Green eyes are wide and wild, as wild as the banshee in the pool before him. And oh how she glistens, oh how she shines with water dripping down her. From the night skies, she could be one of those stars come to life, come to earth, come to Novus at last. Ethereal and ephemeral, Juniper rises as a ghost instead of a half-drowned phantom seeking revenge.
The world flashes and it's the morning. Everything is normal, or should have been. There is so much to do, so much to see. So she takes to the skies, th eskies intead of the treetops as her swamp would only allow once upon a time. Towering cliffs spread before her, Terrastella splayed out like a feast for her eyes.
And Juniper has been starved in those swamps for too long.
She heads North, and then East. The winds pulling her further and further, closer and closer to deserts. Endless stretches of sand at last meet her eyes. The heat presses down as the sun crawls into his bed, as Vespera whispers goodnight, as the wind finally lets up when her eyes drift closed.
Then, there is water. Water, and Jahin.
He is a wild thing, a sad thing, but not of her sort. Where she wears wings, the purple-eyed man wears a horn. Where her tail is too long to measure, her hair bound in braids and knots to keep from tangling too much, his is free and short. War-like, she thinks, picturing him as some pagan thing ready for battle. Some foreign thing bent on devouring the sun and the world.
Scars are his badges just as the gentle, demure glance she gives from under pale lashes at last is her weapon. Juniper never was any good at fighting for she never had to be, oh, but touching... She's had years to practice the best way to inspire another.
It is not a spirit that rises before him now, walks from the water and lifts her wings to watch the water fall. It is a star, a goddess, a glimmering jewel in a mortal body for the heartbeats that last between them that stares with eyes so green they are as fresh as the spring. And then, she smiles that dawn-bright smile, challenging even Solis for his spotlight and beauty. "Hello, earthling," she croons so softly, a tinkling on the wind, so soft it could be the breeze itself merely fluttering in Jahin's ears.
@Jahin | "speaks" | notes: coughs awkwardly hey there <3
Jahin has never seen a goddess in his lifetime. But he has seen a god before. He has witnessed Solis walking the earth in all his arrogant, wrathful glory. And now, comparing the two experiences, he has to say this goddess is considerably more attractive than Solis.
He stands soaked, drenched, far too surprised to do anything other than what he is already doing: standing at the pool’s edge staring at the feathered goddess like a dumbfounded idiot. Should I bow? he asks himself absentmindedly, still blatantly staring as she emerges from the pool with droplets of glistening water beading her ivory skin like vintage pearls.
Earthling. Her voice is soft, ethereal. Demure, glittering emerald eyes pierce him like a dagger blade. She is something out of a fairy-tale.
“Er, hi.” Realizing he is staring and standing there like blithering simpleton, he quickly moves to make himself useful and helps her out of the pool, allowing her to rest her wings on his shoulders. The feathers feel like gossamer satin on his damp skin.
“Hey, uh, are you okay ? Did it hurt?”
He’s referring to her fall in the water, but realizes too late—utterly horrified—that the sentence is the beginning of a dismal pick-up line that drunken capitol dwellers in taverns like to use on beautiful women who clearly have no interest whatsoever. He’s not sure how the rest of it goes….something about heaven. The last thing he wants to do is objectify women like those lewd, vulgar scoundrels in the capitol—he is Davke and he prides himself on treating women with honor and respect. Women are sacred. Mothers, warriors, matriarchs.
“Not that you fell, you know, from heaven.” He is wracking his brain for the right words, for something that might sound even remotely intelligent; the strain is immense. “I mean maybe you did, you look like their sort.” He really needs to stop talking. “I just meant that you hit the water pretty hard…”
Solis, smite me now.
Best just forget the ordeal. He clears his throat, hoping he sounds less like a love-struck idiot and more like a revered Davke warrior when he speaks again. After he has helped her onto the sand, he scans the sky with hawk eyes. “Is something chasing you?”
03-29-2019, 06:47 PM
Played by
e-cho [PM] Posts: 48 — Threads: 12 Signos: 0
As the angels fell from grace with wings burning, Juniper imagines that they sang. Sang and cried and rebelled against the injustices and atrocities they were to bear witness to. Their golden hearts bleeding out into the skies until sunsets were born from their mourning and sunrises were softened under their ire. And stars burst from their flaming feathers, stars her unknown parents plucked from the heavens to lay greedily in her spring-bright eyes.
Amusement flickers now, welling in the pit of her stomach, bubbling through faerie veins, and a wicked grin breaks over her features as Jahin comes forth, almost stumbling as his words do. Is this what Vespera feels? This laughter and love? She'd like to believe it so as dove-grey wings settle over his shoulders, wrap him in a sopping hug so warm, cocooning him in a world just for them. Juniper is no marble statue, no broken doll. Long legs match his pace, his steps, his dance as they tango back. Out of the water they go until they are face to face, chest near to chest.
Is that his heart she feels, hammering and screaming and pounding in his chest?
"Their sort?" she coos at last, keeping that cool amusement spread on her long, skinny face. Oh, he's a delight like no other!
"Perhaps some, but never to one, She is incomparable even by...me." Secrets dance on her lips, in those star-studded eyes. And how they eat up the redness of him, the storm-purple gaze that betrays the blush. Reaching forward, the dove pushes his nose up playfully; she gasps and looks behind him. A look of terror washing over her face as the almost-goddess takes a step back, another, seeming to shy away from whatever is in the heavens.
Alas, she giggles, letting her laughter bubble like a gurgling stream, trickle between them as a soothing balm. "Nothing chases me from the heavens save sleep, but I wouldn't mind being chased by the likes of you, earthling." Juniper winks and dances back, taking the liberty to wrap herself about him once more and let the desert sun dry out her drenched flight feathers. There would be no flying with them water-logged.
