[P] Can you read my palm as I rise it to strike your face?

[Asta]

A s t a

do you believe in reinarnation?
'cause i thought i saw your soul

I have made it this far throughout my exploration of this stupid place.

As I moved deeper, I avoid certain areas - alters for the gods, filled with gifts and snacks. The individuals spouting gospel like it was meant to make their world seem easy to comprehend. Just in general the whole mess of bullshit, if you ask me. But, I'm biased against the idea of loving gods. What god loves me so much to make me live through lifetimes of pain and loneliness. But, I was curious. I hate being curious, it usually leads me to pain, to hurt. Curious if someone looks as nice as they seem - you make a friend that doesn't last into your next life. Curious if that stallion's hair is really as soft as it looks, three life time laters you'll wake up with the desire to run your muzzle through it, but not only does he not know you, he's married to another. 

Yet, I've always wondered if I am a glutton for punishment.

So I approach the shop slowly, staring at the maiden who apparently can read the future with some sort of silly cards. She's with out a patron at the moment and I hover for a moment before I walk in. I've never thought to enter a place, why should I. Most are hacks, few could look at me and feel the age of my soul, could properly read what I've been through. What I've experienced. They just give the usual bullshit of 'love is around the corner' and 'you'll be rich and happy.' So as I stare with her in skepticism, it's not that I'm skeptic of the craft.


I am skeptical of her.

I enter with a slow swish of my hips, my shawl sitting just right on my shoulders, stupid gems and chains bouncing against my chest and face. You know how to use those, for real? I ask, uncertain now as I enter closer. I take a steadying breath, and suddenly, I feel as old as my soul, as if I've been dragging myself for years upon years (which in a way I had, I am one of the very first horses). I settle down across from her, Prove it. I challenge with out hesitation, my eyes locked onto her as if in a battle of wills, Prove your craft to me . . . I'm tired of always being disappointed. Not just from fools, but disappointed in life, disappointed in never dying, disappointed in never being allowed to have others remember me in another life. Never being able to forget the others in my next. 

I hate how tired I've grown to become.

FROM THE MOUTH
INSIDE THE MIND
@Nefertari
Notes:: Yessssss

flashing and dancing on the horizon
shades of jade and emerald

       

Artist Credit to Bingo

[Nefertari]

NEFERTARI

We've Become Disillusioned

So We Run Towards Anything Glimmering

Several equines from all walks of life had come and gone from the tent, some with simple questions, curious of the art of reading cards, and others to mock in their ignorance. She had grown tired of both for different reasons. While Nefertari did not mind explaining the basis of tarot reading, it was difficult to provide further context for those who did not wish to have their fortunes told to them. It was a largely intuitive artform that was best served through demonstration rather than a barrage of inquiries. The latter came in bad faith and actively fought against anything she had to tell them and would be the first to claim horseshit when her less than favourable predictions came true and tout dumb luck when the better ones bore fruit. 

Cynicism was not uncommon, but the bitterness that swept through the silks of her tent weighed like a ten ton stone in her belly. Dressed in regal hues of the morning sunlight the mare carried herself with an air of superiority, thinly veiled exhaustion and a deep loathing. 

Facade. 

Her audits twitched, the elongated tips flicking in annoyance at the tone this mare used. Entitled. You did not simply enter some one’s abode and demand they prove themselves to you. Nefertari straightened, the falls of her golden hair shimmering about her dusky shoulders as she pushed the cards to one side, pride roaring like a hungry lion at being insulted for the umpteenth time that day. 

As the clairvoyant adjusted the well worn deck of cards on one side of the table, she made pointed eye contact with the woman opposite her. “I know how to use them very well,” she said. “But I do not need them to read you.” 

Golden orbs stared out from smokey frames, her usual flirtatious manner cast aside. If this mare would not show her the respect owed to another living person, she would not be gentle with her. Her eyes searched the depths of the woman’s lavender pools, as she allowed her carefully grounded walls to fall, leaning forward so that she fell squarely within the aura that allowed her to taste for a moment the turmoil that swirled around the mare who so rudely came to her tent. 

“You are heavy like a stone at the bottom of a lake,” She breathed, her gaze unflinching as the stream of consciousness fell from her sooty lips. “Forgotten by those who tossed you in and covered in moss. Changing and unchanged. Passersby can look beneath the surface and see you there but as seasons go they do not notice that you are the same stone. You are nothing but a part of the background of their lives as they continue forward. The weight that keeps you buried beneath the slag of the world is your own eons.”

The mare’s audits twitched and her cranium tilted slightly, recognition flickering briefly across her face before it became neutral once more. “No one can live so many bitter and empty lifetimes without being swallowed whole by them. You are a victim to the flow of time, cursed to watch life go on oblivious to your turmoil while you sink lower and lower to the bottom of the lake, reaching forward, desperate for air, for reconciliation, for someone, anyone to remember. They do not remember, for you change and you do not change, and souls are blessed to live each lifetime anew.” 

Her voice grew distant, quiet. “Except for you. An immovable stone, forgotten at the bottom of a crushing weight, drowning slowly as you grow bitter to those who once knew you, before you were covered in moss and swallowed by time.” 

Nefertari let her words fade into the atmosphere, leaning away slowly, screwing her eyes shut and shuddering. Her heart struggled to beat under the weight of her own chest, lungs trembling as she attempted to take in air. The sorrow this woman felt, the betrayal, the anguish, lifetime upon lifetime, ancient hurt. It was suffocating. It took the seer several long moments to ground herself, to rebuild the crumpled wards she tossed aside to prove a point. Pride goeth, as they say. 




"Speech." | @Asta

art by pacificdash character by scapeh table by sunny

[Asta]

A s t a

do you believe in reinarnation?
'cause i thought i saw your soul

I often pretend I pay little mind to those around me.
I come off abrasive, after all.

Perhaps a little harsh, rude. But majority of it is really a coping mechanism, a defense to keep others at bay. I've stopped trying to make relationships prosper properly a few lifetimes ago, when I grew tired of the pain of it all. When I realized that the growing number of familiar faces who wouldn't be able to share the same stories that I remembered, would continue to grow by each life time I live, full of relationships made . . . I stopped aiming to make relationships. Sure, it might seem lonely. Sure, it might be stupid.

But I was surviving because of it.

I've seen those who work with the mythical arts before. I could usually spot an imposter fairly quickly. But there was also a level of talent that even if one had some talent - you had to see them in action to really see the reach of their intuition. But, naturally my own offensive attitude is what I lead with as I approach the being who proclaimed herself to be a teller, a truth sayer, a conduit of the divine. I approached in my usual fashion, and I can see the shifts in this mare's reactions as well. Ears flicking in annoyance, the way she straightens, pushing cards aside to stare me down.

I don't falter, I don't even blink. I've looked more lions in the face than she's seen stars in the sky. I've faced beasts far fearsome with her - some of them being my own reflection. I've felt the teeth of fate tear into my body when those very lions feasted upon my flesh because I wasn't fast enough then. Because I had looked back. It took many life times even after that before I learned to stop trying to look back. To stop trying to cling to what had been. The mare makes eye contact with me, her voice almost portrays her distaste for me.

Even just a few life times ago, such immediate annoyance against my presence would have seen me turn tale, apologizing, making rights. It's amazing how quickly exhaustion could set in when you realize no matter what you do, you cannot die. Still I snort when she speaks of not needing the cards to read me. Yes, because what could she see? When no one else looks upon my face with remembrance. Maybe she was a quack, and I was another sucker in her pond of fools.

Sometimes I wonder, though; if anyone can ever truly look at me and see what is buried in that surface. See the lines of exhaustion and know they make me more susceptible to danger, because I stopped fearing death - and eagerly long for the next embrace in hopes it will keep me. Do they see that loathing, can they unbury deep enough to know I loath nothing more than my own cursed existence. Even my hatred of the gods that made me this way fall short to the hatred I have for my continued survival.

What did this mare hope to see inside my soul. Could she handle the brunt, the weight of it.

The words that began to tumble from her muzzle had me initially scoffing. Heavy, like a stone at the bottom of the lake, huh. How poetic, while not meaning much . . . it was that third sentence, however that had me freeze. I felt my muzzle grow dry, swallowing hard against the sand paper. Surely it was a prank, a joke. She couldn't see. She was trying to be hurtful, just pointing me out as an angry wall flower, not a center stager. That's all. This wasn't alluding to who I really was. She couldn't see that.

She couldn't.

The casual mention of my own eons had my heart dropping. But she keeps going. Bitter, empty life times, victim to the flow of time. She talks of sinking further, desperate, with nothing unchanging. Stop. My voice rips from my sawdust caked throat, weak in the air between us, but she doesn't stop, stating how I sink lower, lower into the lake, that they do not remember me. That voice of hers is growing distant, quiet, and I hardly notice. My heart is pounding in my chest, hurting, crushing me, as if that very water pressure is closing in on me. The water wrapping around me as blood pounds in my ears.

Forgotten. Am I really forgotten. Drowning. Swallowed by time. I'm stumbling to me feet before I can make sense, my entire body is shaking, horrified, exposed. I can feel wetness on my cheeks, and I'm befuddled to realized I'd started crying at some point. Stop. Just . . . just stop. Is that soft, weak voice really my own? My entire body temples, just as she herself seems to tremble from where she had spoke so callously about my situation. Just stop. I shouldn't have come. This was stupid. Coins are place before her, falling from my weak mental grasp, clattering to her table before I could properly set them out.

My entire world seems to be fading into a small point and I suddenly feel the need to escape. Escape this Festival. Escape this life. It's a sudden gut wrenching thought, that there was no escape from my fate though. My hooves scrambled slightly, as I try to back up, stumbling over the gathering of pillows, I- . . . I'm sorry. It's that sudden need to bolt that still remains, and it's in that moment that I realize where is there to really bolt to. When this life ends, those places of shelter I hold so dear now will be gone again . . . Novus has become my undoing again. It's just as she said . . . They will leave me in the bottom of the lake, forgotten by others, and yet unmoved by time. Just collecting moss, while the lake around me goes stagnant and dead.

Just as it does in my nightmares, when I'm the last horse on a dead planet, wandering the world again, and again, and never allowed to be free of the cycle of death and rebirth I've been cursed into . . . I never should have come to this fucking festival.

FROM THE MOUTH
INSIDE THE MIND
@Nefertari
Notes:: So . . . uhm . . . yeah, Asta's a little . . .

flashing and dancing on the horizon
shades of jade and emerald

       

Artist Credit to Bingo