It is spring - at last it is spring - and all of Terrastella is shaking off its slumber.
The waking began beneath the bare canopy of Tinea as the ephemerals began to bloom. Rue anemone, trout lily, bloodroot and bluebells; each unfurled from cool, damp ground, brief and lovely, a kiss on the cheek in lieu of a promise. The wind blew warm air in from the sea, and the grasses began to wave green in the meadows, and all the birds were coming home.
Asterion tells himself it is a good time for change. A good time for letting new things be born, and letting die what must. Yet it does not make the walk to the cliffside any easier.
He is too taut with nerves, his heart a white-knuckled fist. Far above him Cirrus is describing lazy circles, a calmer scene than the one he feels a part of; but as he watches her, with first cloud-shadow and then warm sun on his face, he draws in some of her easy peace. There, too, is the sea, and each sigh of a wave upon the beach whispers home.
When he stands before the people at last, the bay is smiling. He wears no crown, no colors of dusk but the ones he was born with; his hair is loose as always, made unruly by the breeze. Perhaps the only thing that marks him as a king pride in his heart as he watches them. The cliffside smells like salt and wildflowers and Asterion marks each face that turns to him now.
“My friends,” he begins. “We have been through so much together. So many things that might have broken us, so many that have left us with scars. It doesn’t matter from where these trials come - other courts, the gods, even ourselves. Each time we stand. Each time we grow.” His voice is not the sea-foam wisp it once was; it is steady as a current, deep but gentle as a brook.
“And we always will, together, no matter what waits for us on the other side of every evening. For years Terrastella has been my home, and it has been my great honor to rule it as best I can. But I think you have long since earned the right to choose your ruler.”
Now he pulls in a deep breath, now his gaze is searching on all of their faces. His belly has become a garden of butterflies, but oh how they buoy him up! Stronger, now, his voice carries over the cliffs, and even the waves are near-silent as the king speaks, a held breath (one that his magic may have had a hand in).
“Terrastellans, it is time to vote. Choose me and I will continue to lead you with what small measure of wisdom and honor I possess - choose another and know I will support you and them, always, whatever comes.”
king of dusk.
to: everyone | ooc: eeyyyyy DEMOCRACY. So here’s how it works (unless it works poorly, and then we will change it!). First, everyone is encouraged to respond! For anyone in a position of power or interested in holding a position of power, this is especially important. Your character can vote for who they would like to lead (king/queen) IC or OOC; if you would like it to be anonymous please send your vote to someone on staff. Voting will be open until 6/14. Whoever has the most votes then will be Dusk’s ruler! (if anyone has been considering a coup, now’s the time haha).
If Asterion is chosen to continue, then he/I will fill the remaining positions before the end of this season - Regent, Emissary, and possibly Champion of Wisdom/any other Champion positions requiring it. If it is someone else, then I will leave that in their hands :)
As spring begins to blossom, Rhone is reminded how precious life is. He misses seeing new life born in the early spring morning. He thinks of his lovers, his children, his once subjects. He thinks of all of them now and wonders how they fair, if they even remember him. So many things had separated him from those that he loves, so many bad choices made and miles traveled.
And yet, he finds himself here in Terrastella, watching as the flowers bloom. He allows his magic to flow through him, to boost the flowers and increase them in number. Every day he has come to regrow Terastella after the floods and the wrath of the gods. Every day he watches new life bloom. Every day he thinks about all that he has loved and lost.
It is Asterion’s voice that calls him to the cliffs this very morning. He obeys the call of his king, following obediently and quickly. When he arrives, he realizes that he is the first to arrive, but there are others that are slowly filing in. He sees new and old faces alike, faces that he should like to build friendships with.
But when Asterion finally speaks, his thoughts are silent as he listens to his announcement about the opportunity to vote on a new leader. He had always been raised in kingdoms were monarchies are appointed, never voted. It is a unique concept, but one he can stand behind.
Asterion asks for votes and Rhone is silent for a moment. He looks through the crowd, looking for any that might be worthy of the role. He would never vote for himself, despite his experience as a leader. But there is something humbling about Asterion asking his people to vote. It was a sign of a strong and faithful leader, putting others before himself. Asterion was a good king and he would continue to do Dusk Court right.
Slowly Rhone steps forward, his eyes resting softly on Asterion, not caring at all what any others might think of him. They may not know him, for he is relatively new and stays amongst the crowd. He’s had his time in the limelight and it was now time for someone else. "Asterion, you rule your people well and by offering this vote, you have once again put your people’s needs before your own. A sigh of a good leader is one who is humble, which I can see that you are. I will continue to put my trust and faith in you, Asterion." He offers the man a gentle smile, filled with sincerity and hope. Hope for the future of Dusk Court, hope for a life that meant so much more. Yes, Asterion would get his vote with confidence.
The soft blue shell of the ocean cracks open like an egg, explodes into a shower of salt and foam, and the girl comes rocketing up from the depths of the ocean of dark and white, wings and blood, skin and teeth —
A sound escapes her as she breaks the surface, half snarl and half shriek. She is plummeting straight down — no, up. Up and up and up into the perfect darkness of the sky, gasping as the water in her lungs is retaken by air. Clusters of birds shatter as she passes them. The salt of the ocean falls away, replaced with the sensation of cold wind so bitter it almost stops her heart. And the world is falling into a tumultuous carousel of blue and gold and brown, the edges of the land and the water are melting into a terrible encaustic painting, she is rocketing further and further from the terrible ocean and all the ways it’s poisoned her. But no, even this high in the air it follows her - the crust of salt in her ragged mane, the way it burns to breathe through her nostrils. She cannot escape it. She cannot move away from how her mouth now wants for blood. She cannot fool the feeling inside her that grows teeth and shakes her heart like a dog.
The sky melts into a blur of pale blue and white, and just as Marisol thinks it will swallow her whole, she starts to fall again.
Her wings are too heavy, saturated with salt water, pulling her ceaselessly back down. Her joints ache; the weight tugs at her bones. She wavers for a moment in the crux of her flight, trembling with the effort of staying aloft, and she is sobbing, wishing, praying, but no, the sea calls her again, sweet like a siren and just as violent —
And who is she not to listen?
Down, down she goes, a tumbling flurry of legs and wings plummeting toward the cliffs at the speed of light. To a bystander she is nothing more than a comet, hurtling down from the sky, but a comet could not feel like this. Burning and frozen, blood-thirsty and weak, both drowning and flying — the wind is howling so loud Mari suddenly cannot hear her own thoughts, only the perfect dark beat of her pulse throbbing against her forehead. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. The world roars upward. It rushes toward her, a charging bull. Too-quickly Terrastella sharpens in her view; as fast as she can see the plains, the citadel, the barracks, they are replaced by new and more complex sights. A lone figure stands somewhere between the grasses and the cliffs. Nothing more than a dark blob. Vespera please, Marisol howls, don’t let them see me.
But it is all happening too fast. Even if Vespera is listening (a pretty big if) it would require a miracle above miracles. And God knows Marisol is no vessel for miracles —
She crashes into the ground, an angel thrown from the silver gates, and the ground practically eats her the impact is so severe — a high keening noise escapes her involuntarily, she leaves a dent that is nearly a crater in the soft ground. The world spins. Marisol thinks she might throw up, but there is nothing in her stomach anyway. For a long moment she lays with her eyes closed in the dirt, holding back the sting of tears, thankfully half-covered by a carpet of bleached grass. Bile builds in her throat.
Mari spits blood into the dirt and climbs, ever so slowly, to her feet.
Asterion is standing not fifty yards away. Posturing as if he’s about to start a dull conversation, Cirrus drawing circles far above his head. Marisol is covered from head to toe in bruises, bites, long, thin scratches; every muscle and bone in her body begs to be rested, but dutifully as ever she drags herself toward the sovereign, shaking mud one feather at a time from her aching wings.
She says nothing as she approaches, terribly, painfully careful not to let slip the new needle-sharp teeth in the corners of her mouth. <3
The silence after he speaks seems to him to hang like a shroud. He tries to brace himself for anything, tries to think only of the sea and echo its rhythm with his breath as he waits. When Metaphor steps forward he smiles, but it fades from his mouth as the man begins to speak. Humbled he drops his head, curls his chin to his chest.
Because of his focus on the group it takes Cirrus’ voice too long to catch him, to steal his attention. At last he glances up, an ear turning as she calls his name in her own tongue, a gull’s rough sob. Look, she commands, and the bay turns just in time to see Marisol fall like a star to the ground.
“Atreus,” he says, and his eyes cut to the healer’s and hold them just for a heartbeat until he is turning back to Marisol, rushing up to meet her like a wave. He hopes the man follows, though that the Commander is among them at all must surely mean she’s alright, that death is not following her like a wolf haunts an injured doe.
Asterion stops just short of her, meeting her halfway. He near enough to touch, near enough to make out every livid line on her dark skin. She smells like blood, which is nothing particularly new, and she smells like the sea - but though everything in Terrastella holds that scent of salt this is more, this is most.
His eyes search for hers, his heart races as though he were the one to plummet to earth. Somewhere behind him, he hopes, is at least one healer; somewhere, he knows, is Theodosia. But for the moment it is only the two of them.
“What do you need?” he asks, and hopes she says anything other than nothing.
Dragged by the wind, taken by the stars
Carried with the madness and scars
He stands before Asterion, shouldering his way past those who would stand in his way so that he might view the King without obstruction. Only Fiona is welcome at his side, his wing brushing tenderly against her slender side should she choose to join him. Quietly he looks on, golden eyes narrowed in minor scrutiny as he listens to the bay speak.
There are a myriad of things that leap into the healer’s mind, but more predominantly than the others Atreus wonders if Asterion is simply afraid of the rapid changes happening around Novus. To jump ship now when his people needed guidance the most was a cowardly thing which, until now, Atreus hadn’t viewed the man as such. His words are cutting when he speaks, unrelenting.
“It would be unfitting to place another on the mantle of sovereignty in the wake of Novus’… anomalous events.” The emergence of a volcano soon to erupt, followed by days of ash and then a peculiar bridge stretching the length of the ocean. The mystery was yet to unravel itself, the cause behind the occurrences yet to be unveiled, making it a poor time for a shift in leadership in Atreus’ eyes. “Your idea isn’t unjustified – but your timing is poor.”
The words barely leave his mouth before a wave of panicked gasps rush over the gathered crowd, and Atreus cranes his neck just in time to bear witness to Marisol’s fall. His feet are moving beneath him before the King can even finish saying his name, abandoning the crowd in his wake as he joins the frantic King and the battered Commander. Experienced eyes drag over her form, taking note of the bruises, the gashes, the tensing of muscles begging for release. He sees too the ferocity in her eyes, though for what reason he doesn’t know. Perhaps the sea had swallowed her, chewed her up and spit her out, too volatile for its taste.
“Can you reach the hospital?” He asks, knowing he was of little use without his proper supplies. The roan glances back in search for either Fiona or Theodosia, trusting only them to fetch his things should Marisol be too stricken with pain to reach the medical ward.
She has been pushing herself to her breaking point again, or perhaps she has surpassed it already -- her pale eyes are ringed in dark bruises, and yet she continues to fly, continues to search, continues to ache. Even a renewed sense of tenuous faith cannot hold back the thoughts howling in her mind -- that she has failed as Dusk’s Champion, that she has failed Ard and Erd, that she has failed all of Terrastella -- and they batter at her like cannonballs, more bruising than any fight she has ever been in.
She has been summoned to the cliffs, and like the loyal hound, she answers the call despite the exhaustion dragging at her bones.
She is flying over the ocean when she sees a wave nearly explode beneath her, a dark speck that hurtles out of the sea-foam and coalesces into the shape of Marisol, and she is too startled to react -- the Commander soars upwards and then down, down into the Cliffs with an impact that she can almost feel in her bones; and her stubborn, traitorous heart has lodged itself into her throat as she begins her own dive.
She lands next to the Marisol harder than she means to, hard enough that her knees almost buckle and send her down into the mud herself. Somewhere behind her is her propriety, her duty -- perhaps it is still hanging in the air above the ocean, for it is certainly not here, not while her heart is beating in her ears and she has to choke back a panicked snarl while the others approach, has to deliberately hold her shaking wings against her side to keep from covering Marisol beneath them and hiding her away from the world.
She doesn’t say a word, for fear that her tongue would betray her -- she only glances between the Commander and Atreus, waiting for an answer, waiting for a command.
The smell of the wet earth makes her want to retch. It has never bothered her before — in fact, at times, the petrichor of dusty rain has been the only thing holding her to the ground. But now, well. Now it burns like bile in the back of her throat. It stings like rubbing alcohol in her nostrils. She closes her eyes and breathes through her mouth, trying vainly to keep nausea from roiling in her stomach. Overhead the wind roars as if it is trying to tell her something. She hears it and the song of the ocean in her ears, loud as beating drum or Mari’s pulse against the inside of her head, and the sound of the waves rolling gets louder and louder and louder until she can hear absolutely nothing over its screaming, not Asterion’s voice, not the drum of hoofbeats, not even her heart, and then it all falls away. Instantly.
Marisol opens her eyes and the world is bright again. The sun splits down in a shower of perfect white. She is standing, though shakily, and from her wings stream tears of mud and salty water, forming a pathetic puddle at her hooves. A little crowd has formed in her front of her (Asterion, Atreus, Theodosia) and when the Commander sees the horrible softness in their eyes — pity? concern? — she wants to throw up again, and can’t help spitting a thick stream of blood into the dirt, face furrowed in disgust.
Her whole body thrums with movement, though she is standing perfectly still; it is a strange kind of electricity, then, that burrows its way under her skin and flares until she feels as though she might burst. Heat is burning an ember into the pit of her chest. She is hyper-aware of the slightest change in the air and how it kisses her skin, salt and savage — hyper-aware of the way they are all watching her like she is a child to be looked after, the tone in Asterion’s voice as he asks what she needs, as if Marisol knows what she needs, as if anyone, even Vespera (and much less the boy-king!) could give her whatever it is she needs to be normal.
She glances at Theodosia, inscrutable.
“Ha!” the Commander barks, grave and callous, “I want for no hospital and I need for nothing. Vespera owes me a death, if I collect now, so be it.” Her eyes blaze as she looks around the circle, and though her heart is beating ten times too fast in her throat, no one would ever know for the way she squares her shoulders and settles her breathing. The wind howls past, ruffling hair that is overgrown for the first time in years. Finally her gaze settles on Asterion’s. “Ah, I’ve caught the conscience of the king. Lovely to see you, and we’ve gathered the countrymen.” She laughs again, bright and brittle. (Careful to keep her mouth closed.) “What is the meaning of this?”
And something in her eyes is, for a moment, utterly amused; it shines loud and ethereal, as if she takes pleasure in knowing the absurdity of the situation.
If Marisol had not tumbled from the sky like a struck falcon, Asterion might have responded to the potionmaster’s remark. He might have said there may be no more time, how if this was the end of all things he wanted them to face it clear-eyed, knowing they had chosen, and that choosing meant faith, and hope, and what else to combat the unknown?
But there is no time to respond. He doesn’t like it, having those words hang in the air, unanswered, for all to hear - yet he forgets the sting of them as he approaches his Commander. She is wind-torn, a wild thing, sharp with the smell of salt and brine, metallic with blood. When she spits a stream of it between the two of them he does not step back, but there is sharp concern in his gaze, and something like fury building in his chest like a storm. He is not an idiot; he knows something has been done to her. He knows already that whatever it is it will pay, blood for blood.
She laughs and his gaze flicks back up, watching her square herself, speaking as formally as a priest. His ears give away his uncertainty, flicking back and forward again, and dimly he is aware of the rest of the crowd behind them, curious, pressing nearer. He hopes that Fiona or Rhone or somebody reasonable is reassuring them, keeping them back, giving the smaller group space. As if to echo the sea that drenches her, he can feel his magic whirling in him, a hungry Charybdis, and when she speaks again he isn’t sure where his anger comes from, and who it wants to strike.
The king leashes it, his heartbeat slowed now to something almost-steady, his gaze fastened on hers. There is no pity in it, not now, not yet. “I will fill you in later,” he says. “For now, you will go the hospital with Atreus, who will evaluate your condition.” Is that amusement in her eyes, he wonders - it makes something writhe in his stomach, sick and uncertain. His voice his even and his gaze is hard when he adds, “And that is an order, Commander Marisol. For both of you.” He only spares a glance for Atreus; then, expecting their obedience, he turns to Theodosia. She had trailed the Commander’s landing like the tail of a comet, and her own feelings are clear, betrayed by the shivering of her wings and the look in her eyes. Quietly, he speaks to her, remembering what Israfel had told him. “When they have gone, tell me anything you may have seen. And then you may follow them, if you wish. I trust your judgement on what she needs - space, or a friend. Both of you are to rest.” Oh, he wishes then for Florentine, or Rannveig, a Regent he could trust to take over the meeting or accompany the healer and the commander to the hospital.
When he pulls away from Theodosia it is to see Cirrus dropping toward him, a piece of cloud torn from the sky, and though no words pass between them the slight weight of her on his shoulders when he lands is more comfort than he can say.
Dragged by the wind, taken by the stars
Carried with the madness and scars
He has half the mind to turn his back and rejoin the others, a shift of his weight a subtle cue that it was precisely what he intended to do. If the Commander possesses a wish for death, he was keen to let her have it, but he wasn’t given the chance to even break eye contact with her before Asterion was dishing out a command to the both of them. His scowl is only somewhat concealed as he stands squarely once more, gazing down at the wreckage that was Marisol without an ounce of pity for a woman he does not know, to whom he holds no fealty.
A deep breath causes his barrel to expand and then quickly deflate as he exhales, craning his neck as he looks over his shoulder. His attention falls to those he knows as soldiers or medics, not only because he knows them to be capable in helping the Commander to her feet long enough to reach the hospital, but most importantly because he refused to do it himself. “Help me assist the fine Commander back to her feet and to the medical ward,” he instructed to those who lent their aide.
As they depart, he stays close to Marisol and does his best to make sure she maintains herself and does not push herself beyond her limits (even though she clearly already had), but before they get too far he spares a glance back toward the King and his Champion as they whisper – taking quiet note of them before focusing back at the task at hand.
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