[P] between the pages

[Ipomoea]

The library was quiet. But not in the way Ipomoea was used to.

It was as if the building were holding its breath, as if it had not taken a proper breath in years. It made him all but agraid to breathe himself, lest he disturb some great and slumbering giant. There’s an imagined danger in the air, like he’s standing in a church that’s lost all pretense of holiness.

He feels half a ghost, slipping between rows of crumbling bookshelves as dust motes swim in his wake. All around him he can hear the papery whisper of pages turning, the scrape of a book being pulled free from a shelf, the creak of a loose floorboard as someone stepped upon it. Each sound was painfully loud, silence stretching between each disturbance.

The library is willing itself away, he can’t help but think. If he blinked it might vanish forever, a pocket of space folding upon itself and collapsing into obscurity, like a book who’s main character wants only to disappear from their own story.

He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised - there were not many scholarly Denoctians, at least from those he had met thus far. It was part of why he was drawn to the southern court to begin with: their passion for life, their willingness to not just read about something, but to go see it for themselves, to take life by its horns and wrangle with the gods themselves.

He has a lot to learn from them, he knows, he knows. It was why he was here in the first place, to join in their crusade, their war, their life. Ipomoea had always been called to their fast-paced frenzy, their bonfire smoke filling his soul and his heart dancing in time with their music. It was such a stark contrast to his own life, back in Delumine, and a highly intoxicating one. Now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure he ever wanted to leave.

Perhaps he could bring a piece of Denocte home with him; he would certainly try, after all. Their passion and community, even if only a small sliver of it, would breathe fresh life into the dusty halls of his Court.

But for now he wanders the library corridors, few that they may be in comparison to the Dawn Court library. His eyes rove over countless titles, pausing every few steps to brush a speck of dirt almost lovingly from another cover.

So it was with surprise that he turned a corner to see an antlered man - with all manner of jewels and trinkets hanging from each tine - browsing the shelves similar.

“Oh, hello,” his voice breaks the silence, and it feels wrong amidst the hush of the room.



And then, because he can’t bear to let them lapse back into silence, lest that silence go on indefinitely, “It's been so quiet in here, I thought I was alone.” But his laugh hints that he doesn't mind the company, not in the slightest.

we are here
to laugh
at the odds
and live our lives
so well
that
death will tremble
to take us




@Septimus ! fast post to get us started
hope this is alright <3
”here am i!“

[Septimus]

BE BOLD, BE BOLD
BUT NOT TOO BOLD

He’d been searching the library for what felt like hours.

Septimus is a researcher, but he is not the type to spend most of his time among the shelves; he preferred field research to what could be found in books, and it was far more effective for his studies besides. However, under the circumstances, he didn’t have many other options. He knew nothing about this Novus or its people, beyond what little he’d picked up from the citizens of Denocte and members of the Scarab (who were hardly the most trustworthy sources of information that he could find), and, because he knew nothing, he didn’t even know where to start looking for his magic. So, although it was hardly his favorite subject, he was presently neck-deep in the history section, devouring all the information on this strange island – continent? He couldn’t figure out how it was positioned in space, from the maps, which never seemed to extend too far into the sea – that he could find.

According to the locals, magic was a blessing – a gift from the gods. Septimus isn’t sure that he can believe that. It would require the gods to be entities, for one, and it would require them to interact with mortals. He had travelled to many lands which boasted of physical gods, in his once-immortal wanderings, but he had never encountered any of them for himself; perhaps it was because he was no worshipper, or perhaps it was simply a matter of luck, but, without any evidence to prove that they existed, Septimus could not believe in them. Particularly given what Novus’s gods seemed to represent – time, day, night, dawn, and dusk certainly existed outside of Novus. (Though they did not exist in the forest.) If they were truly sovereign over such elements, surely their existence – and their worship – should not be restricted to Novus; however, he’d heard no whispers of their names in his travels, unless, like some religious figures he’d encountered before, they wore a different name in other lands…

It doesn’t matter, though it is suspicious that this land – of physical, magic-giving gods – was the one to strip him of his fae-blooded birthright.

Septimus is staring down blankly at a page in a history textbook on Terrastella, his eyes darting the words without really processing them, when he becomes aware of the sound of movement behind him. “Oh, hello,” comes a soft voice, interrupting a silence that Septimus hadn’t been aware of until it was broken. He turns, and he finds himself looking at a smaller man – he is a mottled patchwork of mahogany and white, lean and somewhat effeminate, and winged, but only on the front ankles. What catches Septimus’s attention is his eyes; he thinks that he’d call them a rather vibrant shade of pink.

“Hello,” he responds, quietly. Septimus isn’t sure if he should say anymore; for all he can discern, the winged fellow’s greeting might have been just that, rather than an invitation to further conversation.

…so it relieves him when he initiates conversation instead. “It’s been so quiet in here, I thought I was alone.” A gentle laugh – Septimus decides that he is a friendly fellow. He has that kind of face, and that kind of bearing.

“I’ve been engrossed,” Septimus admits, examining the book spread out in front of him. “I’d never even heard of Novus until I…narrowly avoided a fall directly into the Terminus. Minor miscalculation with a transportation spell,-“ He’d forgotten a period. “-disastrous consequences. I’m just trying to get my bearings.” He offers up a friendly smile of his own, though he does not let his lips curl far enough to show his pointed teeth, for fear of unnerving his newfound companion; some horses, he’s discovered, do not take well to his more wolfish characteristics. “I’m Septimus – and who might you be?”

---

@Ipomoea || <3 

"Speech!" 

@

[Ipomoea]

There are so many parts of the stallion that catches his attention, from his captivating green eyes to the broad, many-tined antlers crowning his brow. A tangle of gemstones hung from their points, and when the pegasus shook his head they knocked gently against one another and produced a soft chiming sound.

Ipomoea hardly noticed his white-tipped wings or his earthy bay coloring, already so preoccupied with examining the rest of the eccentric looking stranger.

He takes another curious step forward, so that the two are sharing the same space.

”I’ve been engrossed,” the bay man admits, and Ipomoea’s eyes flicker down to the still open book laid out before him. It’s a thick volume, and he believes he can make out the name of the Tinea Swamp somewhere near the top of the page. But the rest is a sea of black-on-white words, tiny lettering that swims together in a blur across the page. He might have asked what the green-eyed stranger was reading - whether it was a history or a fable, or perhaps a collection of short stories or a compendium of plants - but he doesn’t get a chance to. The stranger continues on, opening a conversation between them.

Ipomoea lifts his gaze from the book, and their eyes are like two gemstones meeting, cherry topaz and an intense emerald.

His ears flick forward inquisitively at the other’s admission, instantly engrossed. A teleportation spell? From somewhere outside of Novus? Ipomoea had never been to any other worlds before; his entire life had been spent here between the four Courts, despite hearing from many other horses who had seemed to stumble into his home.

“That’s quite the arrival,” he mused, his tone still hushed in respect of the library. 

Of course, he couldn’t complain that he had landed here, instead. "Where were you trying to go?"

“Septimus,” he repeats, rolling the syllables across his tongue, filing the name away in his mind. It fits you, he thinks to himself, although he can’t explain why. Something about the name simply matches the stallion, in the way leaves match a tree, or flowers a field. “I’m Ipomoea.” He dips his head with another smile, and now that they’re acquainted, steps forward without shame to stand closer besides the antlered man.

“Have you been here long, then? In Novus, that is? I hope you’re enjoying your stay thus far, even if it was an unintentional visit.” A thousand questions are already forming themselves in his mind - Ipomoea wants to know everything. He wants to ask about the world he’s come from, the worlds he’s seen, the world he meant to see. Were they larger than Novus, or smaller? Did the same plants grow in them that grew here? Florentine had promised to pick flowers from another world with him once, so he assumed the flora and faunas must be different between worlds, at least to some extent.

The “outside world,” as many of Novus’ residents referred to the lands beyond their shores, was simultaneously compelling and terrifying. There was no way of knowing just how many worlds were out there, waiting to be discovered and explored.

And the teleportation spell he mentioned certainly sounded like an efficient way of exploring them - when it worked correctly, that is.

we are here
to laugh
at the odds
and live our lives
so well
that
death will tremble
to take us




@Septimus ! <3
”here am i!“

[Septimus]

BE BOLD, BE BOLD
BUT NOT TOO BOLD

The man steps forward, close enough to look at the contents of the book he’d been reading; his eyes dart down to the pages, then back up to meet his gaze. He is a striking creature, Septimus thinks, and not just in coloration – his eyes are the lush cherry-pink of deep jungle flowers, which he would expect to find blooming on a vine in some tropical rainforest. He asks him where he was trying to go, before he landed in Novus.

“A land called Svarstell,” Septimus says; his eyes remain trained on Ipomoea, but his gaze is strangely distant, as though he is looking past him – past the walls of the library, or the borders of Denocte, or the furthest stretches of Novus. “It is currently consumed by an eternal winter, which has coated the entire kingdom in ice and snow – a curse from one of the fae. I thought that I might be able to assist them in breaking it.” Septimus doesn’t specify why. This Novus didn’t seem to have fae, but he has been to lands where his bloodline would be as good as a death sentence if his otherworldly heritage were revealed; best to keep quiet, until he knows a bit more about this land’s culture.

The man introduces himself as Ipomoea. Septimus nods, dipping his head in turn and returning his smile with a warm one of his own, though his lips do not pull far enough to show his carnivorous teeth. “Ipomoea – it’s a pleasure to meet you. Are you from Denocte, or somewhere else?” The name of the kingdom still slides off his tongue a bit oddly, but he chooses to ignore it. He has heard a bit of the other courts, and, from what he has discerned the borders in this land are almost universally open; it would not be so strange to encounter travelers from other places in the Night Kingdom. A large part of Septimus hopes that he answers in the affirmative. In the short time he’s spent in Novus, he has only encountered citizens from Denocte, and he would like to hear more of the other kingdoms. What he seeks could well be in one of them, not here.

He asks him if he’s been here long and enjoyed his stay in spite of the circumstances; a polite creature, this Ipomoea. “Not long at all. A couple of weeks; barely enough to get my bearings.” If he’d been in Novus any longer, Septimus likes to think that he would have already gone out exploring, rather than remaining in the – relative, for Denocte seemed to have a rather substantial criminal underbelly (a portion of which had been his hosts) – safety of Denocte’s capitol. “This land is beautiful, though I have yet to venture out from the Night Court. I can’t believe I’ve never encountered tales of it in my travels.” Indeed, this Novus seems strangely isolated. He has been assured that the population is relatively large, and full of travelers from other worlds. (He wonders if this land keeps travelers, in some form or fashion; he has encountered lands which have tried to hold their citizens captive, and this could well be one of them. Those were less of a problem. They never drained him of his immortality, so he had plenty of time to devise a chance to escape.)

Of course – there were countless worlds which begged to be explore. He’d be a fool if he thought he knew everything, in spite of how long he’d lived, in spite of how much he traveled. After all, if he did, there would be no point in travelling at all.

---

@Ipomoea || <3 

"Speech!" 

@