[AW] my voice drowned out in the thunder

[Sloane]

Who the fuck thought that a desert environment was appropriate for people to live in? It was hot and dry and it made her skin crack. If someone looked close enough, it looked like she had fucking dandruff. DANDRUFF. Sloane much preferred the humid atmosphere of her island, even if it also had its drawbacks. But at least she didn’t look like she had leprosy.

Not only was her skin flaking up like a shedding lizard, but she was sweaty. You’d think the sheer amount of sweat might work as some sort of moisturizer, but no, it didn’t. All it did was make her mane stick firmly to her neck and appear stringy and yet clumpy all at once. It was definitely not a look Sloane cared for, but she supposed it would just have to do when she willingly walked into a fricken desert.

Not only was it hot, dry, and made her look like she didn’t care the least bit about looking good, but it was covered in sand. Sand that got into every nook and cranny. How did people live like this? She had sand in her twat, up her nose, and between her cheeks, you know…the ass cheeks. Sloane could feel the way the sand grinded against her skin. It was exfoliating her already dead and dry skin, making her dandruff look worse. Someone really needed to rethink this desert climate nonsense.

But alas, she had chosen to venture into Solterra just to be a little bit nosey. She had never been here before, never cared to. But considering she had been pretty much everywhere but here, she supposed she needed to at least check this arid no man’s land off her list of “places no one ever wants to visit”. At least she knew why she had never been here before, it wasn’t at all impressive.

Ears lay flat against her skull, her annoyance clearly painted all across her face. Slit pupils blinked back the brightness of the sun and for a brief second, she wondered if she had made a mistake. But Sloane doesn’t make mistakes, so she just continued onward in sheer annoyance, hoping that she might come across something that remotely interested her.

[Sabrina]

sabrina,

Sabrina was learning a lot about the natural world in her quest to find her sister-- things she never knew she cared about, and, if she was being honest, still didn’t care about. Like how the desert was not all heaping sand piles and gritty wind-- it was hard, in places, with compact, gravelly soil, and knee-high shrubs, and cacti that towered even above her. There were mountains in the distance, great monoliths of sandstone colored in layers by the etching of time. Absent of rain, the sky was always clear and beautiful, and when the lighting was right, an aurora of purple waves would dance along the horizon.

It was still pretty shitty, though.

Look, maybe, secretly, she liked the desert. Maybe that’s why she had stuck herself here in Solterra, besides just being the first place she’d come to when she got here. Maybe she liked being alone and being tested by the elements. Maybe she liked the idea of her body being swallowed by the sand should something happen to her here-- snakebite, broken leg, lightning strike. Maybe she could see Puck again and be like well, I tried.

But dying would be giving up and Sabrina hadn’t given up on a damn thing in her life.

Delph’s trail had gone cold once she’d come to Novus. All the leads and letters she and Teska had pieced together-- the ties that bound Delphine to the strange organization known as the Indigo Road and its shady members-- had vanished in a puff of smoke. Which meant that she was either here, on the continent, or there was another trail to pick up.

The Indigo Road was a magic elitist society that believed (from what Sabrina could glean) those with magic would rule over those without. So Sabrina was busy scouting for the strongest sources of magic. Novus was a place where god-like beings walked the earth. Solterra had been the first; Delumine and Denocte were also on her list of places to check.

In the distance, in front of the violet waves of refracted light, there was a shadow. Sabrina squinted. It was moving, which meant it was probably alive. Or the heat had finally scrambled what little wits she had left.

The shade, whatever it was, was moving perpendicular to her; as she got closer (unwilling to change her direction out of sheer stubbornness and, maybe, a bit of a deathwish) Sabrina could mark some familiarities, most notably the fluffy, white feet, like some bad children’s art project. Sabrina squinted harder. She recognized those dumb white feet.

She hated those dumb white feet.

Before she could think to stop herself, her stolen wings snapped out in anger; foreign magic fizzled in her blood and went straight to her head, sending her heartbeat racing. She lifted off the ground in a wing beat, sending pebbles clattering out behind her, and made a beeline for those ugly red streaks. Her scapulars flexed forward and she went into a shallow dive, ears pinned back, high on the magic boiling her blood.

She landed in front of Sloane with her nostrils flaring, sending up a cloud of dust with her impact.

“Hey, chameleon bitch,” she snarled, “I got a bone to pick with you.”

@Sloane | "Speech." | here we go yo here we go

[Sloane]

Despite the lack of scenery, Sloane was a little impressed that the desert did offer something different than just rolling hill after rolling hill of sand. Even as he walked through the hot sand now, she could see a palm tree here or there, a cactus trying to catch the rays of the sun before being buried beneath the sand, and she even swore she saw some sort of animal that looked like a squirrel and a rat had some sort of fucked up child. The desert was different than she expected and yet, it was nothing surprising at all. She had expected the hot and the sand, but perhaps she hadn’t thought that a desert climate could look so different from one area of desert to the next. Unfortunately for Solterra, Sloane did not like it enough to continue her exploration. She would already thinking about ducking out of his hell hole before some vulture decides to shit on her head while waiting for her to die a slow and painful death. Horse jerky was not something she was interesting in becoming today.

All that said, Sloane was busy minding her own damn business when she heard and interesting sound to her left. Head turned just a little to see another figure walking towards her, but it wasn’t enough to keep the mare’s attention. Shadows were not all that interesting. If they were, then she should have found herself far more interesting on a daily basis.

Perhaps the display of emotion that the other was hoping to elicit encompassed some form of surprise, shock, anger, fear, or some other sort of emotion that Sloane rarely displayed. Rather, when the mare suddenly appeared in front of her, Sloane only managed to blink her eyes. The only reason she blinked her eye at all was because she had kicked up some dust and sand that Sloane swore scratched her cornea. All it did was make Sloane a little more irritated than she already was.

Once the sand had been cleared by the tears of her insults, Sloane looked at the other with a rather non-interested look. And despite that, Sloane couldn’t deny that she was a little interested in her new nickname. "Chameleon Bitch. It’s catchy. I think I like that one, miss temper tantrum who looks like a fucking cow." In all her years, she couldn’t remember a time when she had seen a grown ass mare display such child-like behavior. But regardless of her attitude, her appearance made her think of cows. She’d seen them a few times before in a book. "mooooooo." The imitation came out of her mouth before she could even check herself. Then again, when did Sloane ever filter her thoughts? Never. She just said whatever was on her mind.

Sloane didn’t give a rat’s ass what bone she had to pick with her. Must be the bone shoved so far up her ass that she needed help digging it out. Sorry for her, but Sloane didn’t make a habit of pulling anything out of another one’s ass. She wouldn’t do it for a friend or family and this mare was certainly neither. And so, instead of waiting to figure out what her beef was, Sloane simply stepped around her and kept walking further into the desert.

@Sabrina

[Sabrina]

sabrina,

Some of the cacti were in bloom, their beautiful pink flowers a sharp contrast to the dry, dusty green of the succulent. At their core they transitioned flawlessly to a pale yellow, sharp-edged and only slightly wilting. They filled the air with a cloying sweetness. A tarantula hawk, with its jet-black thorax and stained-glass wings, crawled from the depths of one, shook itself, and lifted, buzzing heavily, into the hot air. A tumbleweed tittered past. An elephant shrew poked its head out of a sagebrush, peeked around, then dashed to a cluster of red rocks, where it disappeared amongst the crevasses.

Sabrina realized she was more keyed-in than normal, from the magic buzzing in her veins. It gave her sort of… super-vision was a bad way to describe it, but Delph often had. It made her jumpy, more responsive to visual cues, and she noticed more, noticed even the slightest movements. The shadow of a vulture circling far overhead, the shifting of the sand as something burrowed into the depths out of the heat; the yipping of a distant coyote set her skin to jumping.

She faced Sloane down and watched the mare blink. Then she heard her the most stupid-ass kindergarten thing she’d ever heard in her life.

Sabrina screwed up her face in the picture of underwhelmed disbelief. Part of her had longed for a good verbal spat, she realized, so the very blase response coming from Sloane left her feeling incredibly disappointed. “What are you, a yearling?” she half-snorted, half laughed, having to feel some sort of emotion at the pitiful attempt at an insult. “My baby sister had better comebacks than that when she was a wet newborn.”

Honestly, of all the things Sabrina had to feel insecure about, her appearance was not one of them. She didn’t have insecurities, not anymore. After going through what she did-- losing the love of her life, having her entire existence uprooted and torn to pieces like a tilled field, burnt and salted so nothing more could grow, petty things like looks no longer mattered. Why would being called cow-like make her any more hurt than watching the muscles in Puck’s back flex, post-mortem, as she sawed the wings from his dissolving corpse?

“I expected so much more from you,” Sabrina said, mocking, her voice taking on an angry-but-not-disappointed tone, “and, honestly, more fool me for thinking you knew anything about anything at all.” She’d never really figured Sloan knew anything at all, but the mouthy bitch had been her first lead in months. Teska’s letters were becoming more and more pressuring, a heavier weight sitting atop her shoulders.

She scuffed at the dirt with a hoof as the magic buzz began to die down; the clenching nausea in her gut began to fade.

“Keep walking, ugly,” she called; then, under her breath: “Probably dumb enough to die out here.”

@Sloane | "Speech." |

[Sloane]

Sloane had been minding her own God damn business as she walked through the desert. She didn’t ask for Sloane’s company and she certainly didn’t want it. This was a mare that had absolutely nothing in common with her, let alone a microorganism. She didn’t want to expect the effort in humoring her with better insults, she just wanted to be on her merry little way. And so, when Sabrina asked if she was a yearning because her sister had better comebacks, Sloane grumbled. "Look fucker, I’m being nice." This was Sloane being nice. Already irritated with the weather of the desert, it was quite funny that Sloane was being kind at all. Normally it would make her more bitchy, but Sloane wasn’t going to let the other win.

She began to step around the mare, unwilling to give her any more of her presence. But something stopped her. A grin pulled at the corner of her lips. "Speaking of your sister…find her yet?" Sloane remembered the temper tantrum. If she thought a childish comeback was juvenile, she needed to take a long damn look in the mirror because she was just as juvenile, if not more.

Perhaps, though, what irritated Sloane the most was that this mare seemed to think she knew something about Sloane. She knew jack diddily squat about her life. "You don’t even know the first thing about me." She might know her name, sure. But she didn’t know about her past, her family, what court she lived in, or her affinity for buying and selling secrets. This mare new shit and she was just trying to stir up trouble. Generally, Sloane was all about stirring the pot unnecessarily but today, she wanted to get out of this fucking desert and into something much more habitable.

Sloane continued forward, though, knowing that there really wasn’t anything that she could say that would get her to stick around. Her comments were not altogether unsurprising then, when she said she was probably dumb enough to die out here. "Not as dumb enough as you are for living here. I’ll be fine, but thanks for your concern." She knew Sabrina didn’t care a lick about her, but she laid the sarcasm on extra thick. "Good luck finding your fucking sister. She’s probably dead." Did Sloane care if her sister was dead? No. In fact, Sloane probably hoped that her sister was did. Then just maybe she could see the mare break down and sob. It would prove that she was weaker than a tadpole.

@Sabrina

[Sabrina]

sabrina,

I’m being nice.

Sabrina rolled her eyes so hard her nose hurt. She rolled her eyes into the fucking stars.

And at the back of her mind, she heard:  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say any of this has been particularly pleasant--,”

“You being nice looks an awful lot like you being a stupid shit, so could’ve fooled me,” Sabrina managed to say once her eyes had returned from orbit and righted themselves in her head.

At one time, when there was a possibility that Sloane had a brain in her head and she’d mentioned Sabrina’s sister, yeah, that had gotten a response out of her, a rise. But this time, Sabrina just rolled her eyes again-- a little bit smaller arc this time, they were still recovering from their last launch-- and snorted. “You ask stupid questions. If I’d found her, you think I’d be here talking to your ass? Please.”

No, if she’d found Delph she could say buh-bye to this entire loser continent full of loser people and just. Just go home. Go home and… and do what? Mourn?

She frowned, then. She’d never had the time to mourn.

Sloane’s head-bully-in-charge comeback snapped Sabrina out of her somber thoughts. “Oh, please,” she scoffed, “like there is anything to know about you. You’re shallow, you’re self-centered, your only real power is disappearing. You ain’t novel.”

The comment about Delph probably being dead was, most likely, meant to drive some sort of fear into Sabrina’s heart-- but it just made her laugh. It wasn’t fake, either, it was a genuine, chest-rattling guffaw. It felt good. “Haaa, thanks for that, I needed it.”

Delph was going to outlive this whole world.

And if she was dead? If Sabrina was chasing ghosts?

It’s not like she had the choice not to. It didn’t matter, in the end.

And if Delph was dead, and Sabrina found her eventually, well, then she’d probably, finally, have enough time to mourn.  

"Do you even know where you're going?"

@Sloane | "Speech." |

[Sloane]

Sloane being nice could be seen as being a little less of an asshole. Stupid shit isn’t exactly how she would have described herself, but bad ass tough bitch practically the same, so she let the words roll off her shoulder. Sloane had so many other things to do together and trying to argue with someone who had a brain smaller than an atom was just wasting her time.

When she mentioned her sister, she smirked. She could tell that it had hit a nerve, even if it wasn’t an overly dramatic reaction. It was just enough to satisfy Sloane and it even managed to pull a chuckle from between closed lips. "Sister or not, I’m a little surprised you opted to talk to me at all. I don’t know what about myself invited you to tea." The last thing Sloane really wanted to do was converse with her. She was hardly worth her time and Sloane had far better, more pressing things to attend to.

Sloane was willing to just walk away, leave her alone without any more fuss, but when Sabrina started to speak about what she thought She knew about Sloane, she couldn’t help but roll her eyes. "Yeah…and you’re sooooooooo much better than me." The snarky comment was made with a little extra razzle dazzle and topped with an eye roll. But she paused the eyeroll and snapped her eyes back to the other. "You know shit about me so stop trying to act like you do." She didn’t know anything about her. Shallow, she could be from time to time, but shallow wasn’t the best adjective to describe her. Self-centered? Not all the time. She just had a very low tolerance for stupid. Disappearing power? Not really. She couldn’t disappear, at least not yet. She could blend herself into various backdrops which served her quite well in acquiring information. At least she had something useful unlike Sabrina who only had a set of wings so she could flee the scene faster like the coward she was. So continue, Sabrina…Sloane is ready.

But alas, Sloane had better things to do. Yes, she could continue throwing insults until the stars fell to earth, but she didn’t want to waste enough time. Already she was turning, taking a few steps in the opposite direction before she stopped. Craning her neck to look behind her, she huffed at Sabrina’s question. "I do fucking know where I’m going. Why the fuck would I be out here if I didn’t?" This wasn’t exactly the place to just go on a leisurely stroll. While Sloane might not have an exact destination in mind, she had a general direction. She wasn’t really going anywhere in particular, just exploring. She’d spend her whole time in Novus on her little island, rarely branching out. It was time she corrected that.

@Sabrina