A quiet, early day; that was what Cally thought in regard to the coolness of the morning. The air was fresh, and crisp, with a slight lingering chill that was already starting to warm up. Off of the eastern horizon, the first rays of sun was touching the sky, and splitting the heavens with the softest hues of color. Pinks, and red and purples as the dark black gave way to the dawn hues. A soft huff of a sound left the little female at that sound, not quite a laugh but almost there. A little dawn court doe purposely noting the start of dawn time. How ridiculous. She shook her head but shifted her shoulders, realigning her cloak over her shoulders. At her side, holding her cloak back slightly on that side, was the satchel that already contained a growing handful of berries should hunger strike her while she was out and about. Attached to the satchel, hooked through loops on either side of it rested her new bow, and a quiver full of arrows, mix-matched feathers adorning each of the shafts. To some it seemed chaotic, to Cally it was a useful system to tell the arrowhead tipped arrows from those that were merely sharpened branches.
The doe moved calmly through the plains, her head held high as she traveled, her frame slight and graceful like the doe she was before she hit this odd-half mix stage she was in now. Even after so long of being in the odd form, the doe still had a hard time recognizing it as her own. Her forehead was too smooth, her ears too small, and her coloration too new. But it was starting to grow on her. Instead of seeing what she once was, she was starting to accept the odd looks as her own, and as she did so, so was she accepting that growing darkness into her heart. That desire for revenge that had cut the druid off from her magic. That desire to show them that she wasn't going to sit meekly and become a horse. She was a doe first, and she'd remain that way.
So she held her head high, her eyes determined, and the set of her jaw gave no waiver to her pre-existing plans to make the gods rue the day the portal placed her in the world, and the magic placed upon this land corrupting and locking her own magic away. Whether it was truly the fault of the gods, Cally couldn't know . . . but she placed it firmly in their jurisdiction. It was their land, their land's magic. And it had corrupted what she had been. Twisting her appearance. Twisting her magic. And slowly, twisting the very doe into a creature some from her home lands may not recognize. Gone was the playful and caring creature she had been, and in its' place was a heavy hearted doe out for revenge for her stolen magic.
She was beginning to feel like she was walking on more steady hooves now that she was starting to gain back items formerly lost. Nothing was as strong and reassuring to herself as having a bow at hand. The gold and emerald engraved bow had been a gift, and a treasured one at that. The bow gleamed from a daily polish, the bow string oiled frequently to ensure a quick release when in use. Each arrow for the bow was crafted by Cally's careful hoof, not trusting others with what she considered to be a life-line to her past. It was a reassuring feeling, knowing she had a bow at hand - even if her magic was still kept out of reach. For now. Cally was determined to gain it back, and when she did . . . . all of Novus would know the wrath of a druid scorned, and the Gods would feel it as the quaked to their bones. There were many things Cally could function with out . . . but not that, not her magic. It's what had made her, her. And with out, the ex-druid was finding her heart darkening with negativity towards the gods, and only the tempering of that darkness with new friendships and small favors and gifts (such as the bow) was keeping the ex-druid from truly going dark.
But that's a topic for the future, Cally knew the task of reawakening the magic within her would not be an easy one, and until that day came she would continue to see what the world of Novus held, learn a little more about the land, which is what had led her to Eluetheria Plain on this early morning. She looked up at the sky, the sun starting to climb, beginning it's ascent into the heavens. Morning was upon her, the sky now shifting to the soft blues of day. The druid, sorry ex-druid, squared her shoulders once more before moving across the plains, keen eyes taking in every plant and burrowing creature she passed, but not pausing. She didn't know what had led her to choosing to come to the Plains on this day, but she was keen to explore it, and see what she could find.
"Speech"
@Isra
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
Isra waiting at the edge “by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being,”
L
ast night there had been a whisper moving quick as a secret around the bonfires. It twisted and twined from body to body like a black, hungry snake. Each dancer that heard it danced a little closer to the fire, a little closer to the walls, a little closer to anything that was warm and safe. On and on it went from fire to fire, dancer to dancer, drum to harp.
Until finally, Isra watching in the night garden, heard it.
A merchant told me, it never said who or where or when, that he saw a thunder-bird on the other side of the pass. There is never anything more than that (and maybe a black whisper about a summer storm and rolling thunder that sounded like gods shaking loose). It is enough she thinks, enough to keep her city awake long after the moon has set.
It's enough to make her eyes spark like galaxies and her magic to sigh like a distant god through her blood. Fable, watching from the turrets of her castle, turns down to look at her. There is an ocean rolling in his eyes. Isra smiles and it's a dangerous thing shared between a woman and her dragon.
It is a look that crumbles worlds.
---------
It's dawn when they finally find themselves prowling the godless lands. Bison are spread low in a valley like small black speaks in a sea of golden waves. For a moment Isra feels like the shark in the sea, quiet among all that gold (but so, so dangerous in her soft silence). Above Fable is flying low lazy circles.
Sometimes he keens like a dying thing just to see what might answer back or come to feast. Each time Isra shivers when the sound of it turns her blood to glass as cold as a glacier.
In the crease of her chest the moon on her bow harness is glowing and pulsing to the sound of her glass blood (and her magic that has not stopped roaring). It's brighter than the pale golden sun just brushing against the dark horizon. Were it not for the way her shadow stretches low and black Isra thinks that the sleeping flowers would unfold towards the blinding whiteness. Flowers don't know what wicked, lovely things the moon grows-- but Isra knows.
A crack sounds behind her and she can tell it's neither bison stayed to far from the heard or thunder-bird creeping low and hungry through the golden wheat. Something in the sound of it settles the moon-fire blazing above her heart. The light blinks out as she turns.
Isra never even draws an arrow. What need does she really have for weapons anymore? There's a dragon circling through the clouds above her and god-magic in her blood.
“Hello again.” Her voice rings out like a bell-toll in the hushed dawn. She smiles. The curl so her lips is the only soft thing about her. Fable lands behind her and the ground trembles beneath her feet (and she thinks it's perhaps more of a comfort than the feather-soft barley brushing at her hocks). The dragon cocks his head in a look far more suited to a curious bird than a dragon.
In the valley all the bison take to the trees with lowing cries hurry, hurry urging on their young.
The doe crossed the plain with an easy walk, her hooves clacking against the occasional rock, the grass brushing lightly against her limbs as she moved forward through the lands. Bison grazed nearby, and the little doe carefully kept her distance, least the try to trample her. A few started to move, and with a shift in her posture the doe was bounding away a little more quickly least a stampede start. It was a dead concern though, the herd soon calming down and finding a new spot to graze. The doe watched them for a brief moment more from her greater distance away, before she continued her walk.
She should have seen the figure infront of her, but so distracted was the doe by the surroundings, she never thought to keep a close eye on the other equine around. She steps on a branch, a soft crack, and the other turns - the creator of her prized weapon strapped against the bag against her side. She shifted a half a step back, rolling her shoulders slightly to recollect the lay of the cloak draped across her back, and offered her own smile in return to the mare before her, Isra. "Ah, hello!" She greeting kindly, before turning her attention as the dragon landed behind the mare - a dragon she knew about it passing but hadn't properly met the last time.
The little doe's eyes went wide, and her smile stretched into an awed grin of delight, and her warm tone instantly melted in one of "Oh my goodness!" She stated, her eyes locked onto the might dragon, "You're so handsome! I don't believe we actually met the last time Isra and I kept company! The forest was too tightly woven for you then, I'm sure." She squeaked, her tiny doe tail practically wagging with her excitement, occasionally flashing hues of white from the long fur on the underside of it.
The bison take to the surrounding trees, but Cally never moved, her eyes watching the dragon with adoration for the beast, her heart unable to feel fear before such a predator - having long ago erased that flight instinct to further tackle the adventures she went on. Daredevil, absolutely; thrill-seeker, no doubt. She was an explorer willing to take the scary path because no one else had before, and she was a creature willing to greet a dragon, because who knows when she'd be able to see one again (other than the fact this was the dragon companion to a mare that was slowly becoming a friend to the little doe).
Ah, speaking of the other female, her eyes turned to Isra once more, "What brings you both out this way? Sight seeing?" She asked conversationally, even as her eyes glanced over their surroundings again for a brief moment; before once more turning to look towards the Sovereign of Night.
"Speech"
@Isra
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
Isra with the thorn-cut “At the strangest, most unpredictable hour.”
T
here is a moment between the lowing cries of the herd and the way Fable's breath in echoing in her ears like the sea, that Isra has to inhale to remind herself that it's loam and seed beneath her hooves and not sand. Sometimes it feels like drowning, all this happiness and low roar rage all at once. And at night, when she closes her eyes and curls up against Eik, it's only the bottom of the sea she can see behind her eyelids.
But the dawn is coloring the sky with rose-golds and the grass is autumn thick along her ankles. Callynite is a welcome distraction to the way her eyes keep drifting up to look for a thunder-bird. The bright-white glow to her bow dims to a dull sliver shine, like moonlight cutting through haze. Gold blooms in puddles of molten-cold around her hooves when she steps closer. The magic makes a sighing sound through the grass as it changes it to golden petals, and diamond, and roses. The cut of a thorn against her ankle brings her all the way down into the place where she's only a unicorn in the tall-grass.
Fable lowers his nose to the ground as the doe approaches. He tries to smile but the look is full of too many teeth to be anything soft as the grass tickling along his jawline. Isra laughs at the sight and something dark-as-night in her dims to gray. The dragon huffs hard enough that the air around them starts to smell like brine and marsh-water. “This is Fable.” A sea-dark eyes turns towards her and a sensation like cool-water brushes across her thoughts. “He's glad to meet you.” Fable ponders lifting a wing in greeting but the lowing cries of the bison are still echoing in his head so he only stays still with that strange, toothy look upon his face.
In the distance a bit of thunder moans even though there is no storm-cloud to darken the dawn. When Isra shivers it has nothing to do fear and everything to do with that low-hum roar (the one that sounds like the waves) echoing in her chest. “I heard a merchant say that they spotted a thunder-bird not far from Veneror. So I came to see if I could find it.” A gleam blooms in the corner of her eyes that is as moon-sharp and sea-deep. Her heart aches with the memory of the island and the two of them hunting through the jungle.
This time it's no mortal she's hunting.
“Have you found what you were looking for yet?” Isra knows she did. And when she licks her lips it still tastes like blood and sand.
The company had not been expected, but welcome none the less - and the sight of the might dragon was one of even more delight to the doe-hybrid who had never seen one before. Her eyes were lost on him in delight as he lowered his nose towards her. His face split, showing many, many teeth. She giggled at the look, her eyes raking over him in absolute delight at his antics, showing no fear in the face of what could easily hurt her. His huff has the air smelling different and Cally's eyes widen wider with wonder at what this magnificent creature seemed to be. Isra titled him at that point, calling him Fable and stating he's glad to meet her. Cally smiled brightly, her deer tail flagging up and actually wagging in delight - something she hadn't done since she was but a fawn herself, "It's delightful to meet you as well, Fable!" She returns, speaking to the dragon with a delight before glancing back towards the mare.
Thunder cackles across the sky, and Cally glances up in surprise, looking around but seeing no clouds. A frown touches her face at the oddness of it, before noticing Isra's reaction - the shiver and then the story. A merchant spotting a creature - one not familiar to the young foreign doe. Thunder-bird? Cally could see what this was though, a quest - and for a moment her heart pained for her friends and her lost magic. Hadn't she once jumped for these kinds of discoveries and needs of assistance, with her magic behind her, and her company at the side, all ready to work together, warriors, medics, support alike. But Cally's mind is pulled quickly at hand, her stance shifting into a more battle-ready one that defied her small size and gentle nature. Small and sweet, the doe was an adventurer, and the creatures she'd faced in the past with her party at her side were none to scoff at, and this sounded like a quest worth learning more about.
She was instantly on information mode, her head tilting lightly to the side, "Thunder-bird? Where I come from, I don't know if we have such a thing? What . . . is it exactly?" Size, weakness, strengths, she'd take any information she could get, already looking to the heavens, making connections between the thunder of before, and the bird of the name. Gone was the doe who once hesitated about hurting others, replaced by someone who was more determined to aide and protect. This land was more dangerous than the one she'd come from anyway . . . there was no place for hesitancy anymore. Before, the creatures could be reasoned with easily - here . . . it seemed less likely. And anything that could make the sky roll with thunder, and alarm the locals seemed like a great threat.
Isra's follow up question had the young doe pausing, glancing towards her current companion. She paused before shaking her head, "Not yet . . . but . . . soon." She hadn't given up on her magic. Some mornings she could almost feel it stirring, like an old memory yearning to be remembered. Of course it was never there when she went to touch it, when she went to react with it, or to it . . . but she knew it had to still be within in her. Her magic was too much a part of her. She wouldn't give up on it, on locating it once more. And until she did - she'd continue to distract herself with making new friends and connections, and going on what ever adventures she could find.
"This . . . Thunder-bird you seek? Can be of any assistance?" And it seemed this time the adventure had found her.
"Speech"
@Isra
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
Isra and the roaring beast “ I can reassure you - whatever you have conquered, it shines through your mind.”
F
able is too concerned with the roaring over the mountain to listen in to the mares as they talk. It's waking something up inside him, something that has slumbered since he first learned how quickly (how like the tide coming in) it can rise. The sound racing through the mountains reminds him of the basilisk and of the way his whole body said to hunt, and be, and consume. Isra can feel it too, that rush of water clasping her heart like a first, when Fable focuses on whatever it is that's too far away to see.
And if her heart leaps in joy she says nothing of it when the bow on her shoulder flickers like a dying star.
“Thunder-birds were one of the creatures that came to Denocte the last time the gods decided to shake loose reality.” Her tongue wants to shape the curl of a story and her heart wants to beat out the thrumming of her war-drum soul. What comes out instead is some strange combinations of the two, rusted wonder and sharp sided rage. “At first they attacked the warriors trying to defend the city. They have skin like glass and their wings can cut as cleanly as any blade.” And when she says cut her own horn sighs in the air like it's the world Isra's is dreaming of cleaving in two. Like even that curl of bone upon her head is dreaming, and smoldering, and preparing for the hunt.
“When they came back a second time it was a story that turned them away. Or it could have been the god laying beside me listening that changed their minds.” Isra doesn't tell Callynite how much she distrusts their god, how much she still hates her for letting her city flood, and burn, and some of her citizens die. She doesn't say that she's wondering what color gods-blood is.
She doesn't say that she's wondering if her own blood would be the same color if they cut her open.
Isra is about to say more but there is another crack of thunder coming in from over the distant mountains. Beneath her skin her magic opens its mighty mouth and prepares to roar back. Her spine trembles and her heart starts singing that war-drum melody. Fable brushes his nose against her hip and it's enough to remind her that Callynite is still there. It's enough to remember that her magic is a terrible thing-- a dark godlike beast waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Just as she's about to turn, to run off with her friend into whatever shadows there are waiting in the thunder, there is another sound. It doesn't sound like thunder; it sounds like a cry of fury (or maybe of pain). Isra's bow flares to life. She doesn't smile, but it's there in the way her lips tighten in a way that has nothing to do with fury (only wanting).
It's getting harder and harder to remember how she once was a slave with ghosts nipping endlessly at her heels. Sometimes all that sorrow seems like nothing more than a dream.
“Maybe that's what you're looking for?” She says even though she doesn't think magic would make a sound like that. But for now it's a good enough excuse to kick her legs into a gallop and rush into danger. And it's a good reason, she tells herself, to forget that she's both a queen and a mother.
Because today she wants to feel like a warrior and nothing more.
The air seemed to hum with what ever was in the nearby surroundings, causing the thunder to roll across the heavens even when the sky was clear and the sun peppered her hide with beams of soft light. Still she tries to keep in the moment, listening to the information Isra gives her of a creature in Denocte when the gods had shaken reality loose, "Shook loose reality? What are we - toys for the Gods to mess with?" The words were bitter as the deer's face twisted, but still her ears pitched forward as she spoke, her expression widening in shock at the description of these creatures, "What kind of . . . gods lead creatures like that to us?" Her voice was softer this time, her eyes widening as if imagining the chaos, the destruction those creatures can create. And in that moment, Isra was a bit more brave, a bit more of an awed inspiration to her at the knowledge she knew of these creatures and . . . she hunted them Sure, Cally was willing to join a party - to hunt a creature down, but it was less about bravery and more about determination and a lack of fear in the unknown. Okay, so Cally tended to leap blindly and forget to practice self-preservation.
She eyed skies again as another crack of thunder echoed, before her primary set of ears flicked at a second sound - beneath the thunder, of fury and pain. Both ears swivel, and her eyes widen as she turns into that direction. Beside her Isra's bow flares to life, and Cally's follows with the green glow she formerly remembered from her own magic. She glances at the other when she speaks, of the sound being what she's looking for. Cally's muzzle twists into an uncertain frown, not for the words, but for the sound made and what it could mean. Her shoulders stiffen, her gaze turns hard and determined, and with a solid nod her tiny hooves move her forward, her trot shifting into a bouncy run that spoke of her original deer form. Her ears flicked forward, her head dipped forward to keep the horn from being caught in anything, "What do you think it might be?" She asks quietly.
Her gaze peers through the darkness as another growl starts up, but a whine seems to be mixed into the sound. A flash of a furred body - the mass rugged and matted. Alarm bells start to ring, and it's like a need for caution is presented to her. She ignores it pressing forward, and a flash of red eyes are visible and a snarling mouth rimmed with foam. Her eyes widen and she steps back, an arrow suddenly aimed and her bow steady . . . and then she sees the pain and she hesitates, she panics, she stares with uncertainty, waiting. "It's . . . in trouble." She whispers, still unable to see what it might be, but starting to loosen the draw on the bow, her arrow unnotching. She didn't know what it was - but maybe . . . she could help it.
"Speech"
@Isra
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
Isra and the knowning “ I want to change the world.”
B
efore I would not have said bitterness, rage, and all this wanting were things that had a taste. To me they had been nothing more than sleeping, sharp-toothed beasts curled around my heart. They were feelings, bright as stars but not cold enough to curdle and frost. But now in the humming air and the weight of cloudless thunder I can taste it all. Iron, loam and brine.
Sometimes I wonder if the brine isn't just the sea leaking out through my insides, like blackness through a window at night-- consuming.
Can Callynite feel it rising in me, this iron magic and rebellion? Does she knows I can change the world for us?
The light of my weapon is bright enough that I'm almost surprised it's not a taste too (maybe it would be sugar moonlight or the ashy taste of a dead star). It's blazing through the dawn more than I thought any light could cut through the dawn. When it bounces in the corner of my gaze to the beat of our hooves running through the meadow it makes me think of a star learning how to rise instead of fall. Later I'll wonder how high I could shoot an arrow, if I could pluck a thunder-bird out between a nest of clouds as easy as breathing.
Later I'll wonder so many things...when the night come to call against the curl of my spine again (and when it touches all the brine beneath and starts to sing).
I can see the something in the way Callynite runs that reminds me of before, of loping through the mountain paths with the deer and the goats. It reminds me of how it felt to run like air, back when war was not this stone hanging hard and heavy in my stomach. I try to mimic her stride but my joints have forgotten how to be light. When I stop trying I know I'm running like war, fast and fleet and ready to consume.
Freedom, I'll call this stride of mine. Freedom and fury.
Fable is flying over head and when I tilt my head back to look at him I think I'll call the way he's flying low enough to cut long tracks in the dirt with his tail: lighting. The wind he's brushing towards us feels electric. I can feel both curiosity and something monstrous floating up in the air around him. Potential perhaps-- although sometimes I can't name the terrible things we have the potential for, it cuts too deeply to known it. Ahead the bright-eyed thing in the grass is hissing out the song my heart-knows and Fable keens softly back in both warning and commiseration.
We understand, beast, we understand.
“It could be anything.” I answer, although what I want to say is, I could make it anything. I could make it a wolf to eat our hearts. I could make it a deer to run fleet footed away from my dragon starting to circle back towards it. I could make it into a bear pale as the bones aching with a memory under my skin. My arrow brushes against my side like it's warning me. Or maybe it's just hungry. The moon is always hungry these days, always.
I step closer, because what's growling in my heart is louder than this mangy, beaten down thing. Part of me hopes it will snarl or lunge. Another part of me wants to tap my horn across its brow and whisper things like, become and you are mine now..
And I know when I turn towards her and ask, “would you like to save it?”, I sound more like a god than I ever have before. My heart smiles.
Something was changing in the air, it was a barely notable shift, but for a moment Cally could feel it just as deeply as she could feel it stirring something in her chest. Instantly she had reached for that stirring, only for it to disappear again with a harsh slap to her determination. The earth hummed around her, as she ran through the forest. And in that brief moment, she could almost feel the forest around her.
She slowed as she could feel that creature before her, something hurting, something pained, something that sung to her to fix, to protect, to return to normal. She briefly heard Isra speak, making note of it being anything. She doesn't respond though, as she steps closer, her bow lowering, her arrow returning, her heart aching to help. Isra's words break through to her, but their words are almost haunting, but they're echoed around her. Echoed by another. Another.
Another spoke those words with my friend. It's odd, calling Isra who is nearly a stranger to me - and even Fable - a Friend, but it fits. But the voice that echoes those words do not belong to her. Do you wish to save? To purify? I don't bother looking for the one speaking, the presence is familiar, but one I haven't felt since I passed through the Portal. The last time I'd heard that sort of voice, felt that sort of feeling sink over my pelt had been when it had been urging me away from the surface of the portal, begging me to return, begging me not to step through. This voice, however was more powerful. It echoed through the trees around me, the grasses and bushes. The very land beneath me seemed to chime. Do you wish to save it? You know what to do.
I did, I knew I did. But, I also don't have access to that ability. Try. Reach for me. Remember. I force myself not to flinch, and instead I focus on the voice, the feeling of it's presence all around me. I reach forward, I reach with in. And I feel the answering song behind the cage Novus had wrapped it in. The magic is pulsating beneath my touch, eager to reach me, to reach out. Remember me. Remember you. Who are you? Who am I? I'm Cally. Some half doe-half horse monster. Still I almost feel myself wrap around the bars of that cage, eager to touch what I'd been separated from for so long. No . . . you're more. Who are you? A touch, it's the briefest of touch, that magic connecting with me. But it's sudden, it's forceful, it's . . . home. My eyes snap open wide with the same green glow of my telekenetic magic. The same green glow that once connected me to my druid abilities.
And I remember.
The change seems to come from nowhere, a vast amount of power that erupts off of the small doe creature the moment her psyche touches her trapped potential. It connects to her and floods her vision with vibrant green, the magic cascading off her in waves that seem to hum in tune to the very world around her. In that instant, the currents open up to her, and she can feel the very earth welcoming her home, welcoming her back. The trees chatter to her eagerly, the grass whispers reassurances, the world folds her into it's touch. Home.
Her vibrant green-glowing eyes turned towards the creature, and trapped in the very currents that had called to her, she can see the energy coursing through the animal, the darker parts where that energy is being tainted. Look. Look at it. Don't you wish to save it? To purify it? The current whispers the words eagerly, desperately, it's voice echoing through the trees and foliage, Let me help you. Let me teach you. The current directs her actions, as she steps closer, walking along the line of energy that flowed through the forest. Before her the creature that she now recognizes as a young wolf snarls and moves into a lunging position.
Cally doesn't give it time to response. She draws from the currents itself, reacting as she once was, who she once had been. The magic flares, almost to hot, too much as she directs it into the creature before her, the energy currents rushing through it, leaving the creature unharmed even as the current grabs onto the darkened, tainted energy, tearing into it, wrapping it up into the currents. Cally stands still as the current is pushed by her will to help the creature. She's unaware of the visible bit of energy that had formed from the original lash of green energy when the cage had been broken. The energy clung to her, possessively staying close to her skin, hovering over her pelt with all of the determination of the currents that had directed her. Yes. Yes. Remember who you are. The current and the energy surrounding her seemed to whisper to her ears along.
The current came crashing back then, forcing itself through her, her body. She'd called it forward, and the snapping of it back into place had a scream leaving her muzzle, the energy burning hot through her, warping her original magic to match it's own energy. The doe's eyes flutter close as her limbs collapsed under her, and the energies gently lowered her to the ground, even as it pulled and tugged her own energy, both strengthening her and bonding with her, corrupting her magic to something that would let her connect to this new home earth easier.
The wolf looked up with clear eyes, whining in confusion, in relief, in the lack of pain. It seemed to hesitate, before approaching the downed doe, nosing her once in thanks before it turned and bolted. Cally's eyes slowly blinked open, her head hurting. The green energy hung heavily over her, tendrils seeming to gently stroke her fur as if rewarding her for accepting it, accepting herself. She slowly sat up, her body aching from using too much magic when she wasn't properly prepared to call upon it, a necessary sacrifice the current had deemed, to prepare her for merging with it. Even now she could feel the currents, the flow of energy beneath the earth and all around her - flowing through her at the core of her being. It had asked who she was, and in wake of the pain, Cally was remembering what she'd forgotten. She was a Druid. She stood for the protection of the Earth and it's creatures, its' champion, and in return the energy protected her.
Cally groaned as she slowly shook her head, as the energy clinging to her pelt seemed to shift in worry before wrapping around her back and neck like hug, feeding her bits of the flow, even as it cost her more of her energy to replace what had been taken. It was a cycle she'd learn about the hard way as she rested from the unleashing and manipulating of the full current to remove the tainted energy of the wolf, to rid it of the rabies that tried to corrupt it. Her gaze slowly turned towards Isra, blinking as the energy settled around her now that it felt it's new champion was okay. Cally climbed slowly to her hooves, limbs shaking like a young branch in a storm, "The wolf? Did . . . Did I save it?" She spoke to Isra, but it was the trees that answered her and her head snapped up to stare up at them, her eyes wide as the yes, and thank yous echoed around. A few chimed in about other topics, one seemed to veer off the course of conversation with wanting to share a tale. Moisture gathered at the corners of Cally's eyes and she turned back to her friend, her smile relieved, reassured, "I can hear them again . . . ." Her voice was filled with joy, with disbelief, a touch of shock. Her gaze turned back to the nearest tree that introduced itself by stating it was called 'Oak,' a name that was shared by a bunch of its' neighbors. Cally laughed in shock, delight - almost afraid to believe what her ears were picking up, "I can hear the trees again. It's back, Isra . . . My magic."
No, not just her magic. Cally's limbs had shifted, her head held a little higher, and with the energy that seemed to cling to her like a parasite, possessive of it's new champion, she could be mistaken for being a new citizen of Novus. Her eyes shown, the shock wearing off and leaving joy and determination in her place. I am Callynite, the Druid of the Earth. The energies sung in joy, and that voice returned one last time, before it would fall silent unless she needed it, Welcome Home, Druid..
"Speech"
@Isra ;; I cannot say how much I loved this. Not quite what I had originally had in mind for her unlocking it - but I liked taking the extra steps of having the earth call out to her in response to her desperate call to it to let her help. <3 Somehow that energy has taken on a possessive state . . . more so than I originally imagined it would.
Let's jump on the sun and ride it to tomorrow together, where everything is brighter and sure to be better.
Isra rolling like a stone “because they're calling, calling, calling”
My
magic hums something that feels like a welcoming song to the newborn magic hovering in the air. It makes me think of the willow tree and Ipomoea, of the way he whispered to the branches. I remember now how happy the willow branch felt when I made it into a weapon. At the time I had thought it hunger, but if it was was hunger it was adoration too. Now I can hear that same song in the shaking leaves when they turn towards Callynite like she is the rain.
The magic in my bones is ancient and terrible. It only roars, and roars, and roars.
When Callynite lowers her bow my own blinks out in response. It takes ever ounce of my focus to cool the roar in my blood and the hunger of my weapon. They are each chanting deep in the marrow of this body for a hundred different things I'm almost ready to give. I want to follow her into the darkness, to that beast snarling in fear. But I know I'd consume it and this--- this is for her.
A thunderbird is still summoning a storm over the mountain and somewhere the weight of what I must do is pressing against my spine.
So I only watch as she starts to glow and vibrate with a magic so much gentler than my own. For a moment I long for it-- the way the forest hums to her instead of becomes, the way it's easy, easy, easy. For a moment I only want to be a unicorn in the thicket that knows nothing of war, dragons, and purpose burning heavier and hotter than the sun in her chest. I would be anything else if I could because I know Eik loves the sorrow and the softness more than this.
I'm afraid that I'm learning only to love the violence.
The wolf settles to some song she's sung through the roots and the leaves that I cannot hear. He comes closer and I inhale slow as the sea until my blood is saying, hush, hush, hush to all this destruction in me. I don't move closer until it settles, because she's swaying with a weakness I know too well (or at least I used to know how it felt like blood pooling behind my eyes). Her skin feels cool when I touch my nose to her small shoulder once the wolf moves away. “You did.” My lips pull into a smile even though I'm not sure what exactly it is that I'm feeling.
It should be joy. I know it should.
“All it took was a little patience waiting for the magic to find you.” I don't think mine found me. But I don't tell her that mine has consumed me. “Rest a little and then we will see what we can do about the rumors of thunderbirds.” Her skin feels almost too soft when I tap my horn against the ridge of her brow.
And when Fable flies off, still hunting, I try not to shiver with worry. For now, I'm needed here.
What need really, does a dragon have for a unicorn when it comes to facing beasts?
