She had always been a lonely child, running off after birds, gazing at the sky in silence, closing her eyes and imagining entire realms on the inside of her eye-lids. However she had never felt this particularly lonely, not like this.
She had always known deep down in her core that she was alone, it didn’t take her very long to confront her family about it. She had always known that she didn’t belong, that she wasn’t theirs..not really anyway, it’s impossible to fake pure and unconditional love. They never even tried, only wanting her for one thing only and that was to carry on the family line. To be a slave. At least her and her brother were able to escape their homeland. Though..she hadn't seen her brother in years, she still had hope she would one day.
A sigh escapes her lips, just the faintest of smiles showing. She bats her lashes and cocks her head to look at the sky, why is she no longer content with watching the sky in silence? Perhaps she had grown out of it, maybe she was finally grown up?
Shaking her head a bit, she decides to continue with her wandering around the sideralis prairie. She was only a commoner in the Night Court but that didn't mean she didn't have things to do that were important. She still had much to learn about this land, it's history and it's people. She was not a native and it left her feeling even more lonely. She desperately wanted a friend. Just one..
Through dim and caliginous eyes the serpent watched her, this little blue bird drifting across the sloping prairie. Of all the names, and of all the faces that Lothaire had come to memorise into the spider webs of his mind, this girl was not one. Even from where he stood at the edge of a copse, shadows contorting his unusual form, the emissary could feel the slow despondency in her movements. From the way she poured her yielding gaze up, up, up into the sky to the gentle swish of her long midnight tail.
Lo had not long returned from his voyage to Solterra, and he could still feel the scorch of that summer sun upon his skin. The shadows of Denocte soothed his fine, patchwork hide and it did not appeal to him to step forth into the sunlight once more - even so far from the desert. So he stood, and he waited. Patient as a predator lying in wait; though he did not intend to consume this child - he had never consumed anyone, Lothaire found it unlikely he ever would. Nebulous he may have been, malevolent he was not. His soul was too pale, too empty to care for the passions of rage or lust or blood.
So there he stood, watching her from a post that he had deigned as his own. A python curled at the foot of an ancient tree, biding his dark solitary time.
Lyra had been deep in thought it never occurred to her that maybe there was someone watching her. The midnight blue mare picked her way through the prairie towards the areas that had more cover. Today the sky was clear, the sun shone brightly and she enjoyed it's warmth over her skin. Her silver colored gaze finally broke away from the sky to look around her surroundings. Her eyes landed on the edge of a copse where an odd shape seemed to be. As she took a few steps towards it, she started to see a shape out of it. Another equine to be exact, though..she didn't know this one. She hardly knew anyone since she was rather new to the Night Court and it's people.
Still..she guessed she should make some conversation. It was only polite right? Besides how else would she make any friends or..at least get to know the people in her own Court. Mentally giving herself a little shove of encouragement, Lyra took more steps forward until she could actually see the male in front of her better. He wasn't just all shadows and creepy. "Good afternoon..enjoying the shade?" Lyra spoke softly with a small gentle smile on her lips. First meetings were always so awkward.
Truly, Lothaire hadn't expected the girl to unearth him with those mercurial eyes, eyes he knew to dance and glimmer even from where he stood. But so she did, and he passed no judgement upon her approach; impassive and placid as ever. His heart was the cold clasp of a winter blizzard, a library collecting dust, an alien galaxy far from here.
This girl was the shade of an oceansung midnight, Denocte's heat capering upon her effeminate silhouette and Lothaire tilted his head ever so slightly. He did not claim to know of every soul under Reichenbach's sovereignty yet, but certainly it was his intention, his business even - as emissary of the court. When the girl, smaller than he had expected, came to stand within his proximity, the towering stallion offered her nothing but a slow blink of his starless eyes.
"I suppose." Matter of fact, as ever. "The shadows of Denocte serve me well." A second blink, unassuming and cool. There was a pregnant pause, the silence thick between them before a sigh fell from his dark serpentine lips: conversation had never come easy to such a sheltered man. "Lothaire. You are?"
Lyra normally learned from awkward silences that people probably didn't want to speak with her. However..just before she had decided to say a farewell before heading off, he spoke. It wasn't a long reply but at least it was something? With a slight bob of her head at what he said, she watched him curiously with her silver colored eyes. "I suppose shadows have their uses especially in daylight." Lyra mentioned with a slight smile upon her lips. There was another silence that seemed to last another long eternity. They clearly weren't great at conversation were they?
"Lothaire..it's nice to meet you. My name is Lyra." She offered with a slight sheepish look on her face as she completely forgot to introduce herself before just walking up to him. She could be a little scatterbrained at times. "What has brought you out here today? Not..that you need a reason or anything!" Lyra quickly added so as not to sound accusing or even..rude, that wasn't her intent at all. With a small sigh escaping her, she thought she must look like a fool in front of this stoic man. Why was making friends this much harder for her?
Pale and viridian, was he; standing tall within the ink of a fern's shadow. He was the wraith of Denocte, haunted and spectral. The pull and tide of his ancient kinship with solitude was incalculable and bottomless, but there was something hidden within this court of night that seemed to unburden some of the weight from his bones; the marrow deep within beginning to breathe once more. The dust and the cobwebs collecting upon his old barren heart existed still, but they were finer than before, as though someone had washed them with a delicate mist. And so, instead of moving on from Novus as he had in every other instance, Lothaire had chosen to stay, until the nightmares returned and the torment came calling once more.
This girl was saccharine; he could almost taste the docility upon his serpentine tongue and his mind's eye curled around her as though she were a small bird - fluttering upon his palm. Lyra faltered, almost stumbling over herself as she spoke, Lothaire watched through timeworn eyes. An old soul within a young body. "Calm, child. You do not need to fall upon your own tongue."His thin, baritone voice rumbled quietly. "The peace of a summer afternoon brought me here," he paused to gaze out over the prairie, "it's quite beautiful, isn't it? So raw and open."
Lyra was complete oppositeto Lothaire, where he was pale with subtle darkness about him. She was dark with subtle starlight marking her. Such a difference between them she noticed but she still hoped to get to know this spectral being. If only she was a bit more confident when it came to actually conversiing with other equines. If she could have blushed her entire body would have been red with embarrassement, though she was grateful he didn't seem to be annoyed with her.
Upon listening to him she couldn't help but slightly smile as she glanced towards the sky and the area behind her. "I agree. It really is a beautiful sight to behold." Lyra replied softly with a tiny smile, her silver gaze returning back towards her new companion. "It would be a perfect spot to stargaze wouldn't it?" She mused thoughtfully with a small flick of her long leonine tail.
When Lyra looked toward the open canvas of the sky, with a smile dressing her lips, Lothaire could not help the way his mind drifted slowly toward another girl he had met, not long ago. A girl with flowers in her hair and wings belonging to a bird he'd once seen in the northernmost reaches of Denocte - he thought not of Florentine with lust or enchantment, or even a lilt of tenderness, no he mulled instead over the way she had looked at the stars, like she was looking for something she had lost.
The starlit girl speaks, and Lo turned back, coolly drinking her in. "Certainly."Again, he scrolled back through the archives of his mind; one more attempt to place her in a past memory, but still he came up short, knowing positively that she was new here. Lothaire cocked a large hind hoof, shifting into a more comfortable position, "how, then, did Denocte find you?"
When he asked her how she came to Denocte she was silent for a moment as she thought of how to answer. She wasn't afraid to tell others why she had joined the Night Court, those here had become more of a family then her actual family ever could. She owed Denocte and it's people her loyalty. She glanced towards Lothaire once more and with a slight shrug of her shoulders she began to speak. "I suppose it was when I needed a new home the most.. My homeland..was nothing but endless war and bloodshed, I grew tired of watching so much death occur so I left. That is when I found Denocte and joined the Night Court."
She paused for a moment to let that sink in. "I also hope to find my brother, he left home as well. My family believed him weak and a disappointment so he left..I wish to find him eventually. I'm hoping he is somewhere in these lands."
