At last; the day to sow a nation's worth of food had arrived, and while the commander would be more than pleased to finally not be getting by with old roots and rations, he was certainly not looking forward to the toil that the day would bring. Perhaps, though, the worst was over. Thanks to Inkheart's help he had managed to get enough soil transported, and with the back breaking boulder moving out of the way perhaps there ere others who wouldn't mind stopping to help work for a spell.
"Caretakers! Sages! Commoners!" The king had begun to boom from his place among the barren ground just inside the north wall of the fort. With a glance to the pile of river mud he'd transported days before, a gruff sigh falling from his lips, Maxence decided he best get to work while he waited for the others to arrive. "There's work to do!" he finally called, hoping at least a few would heed his summons. There was no way he could do all of this by himself.
The king began by taking pales of water from the spring under ground and heaving them up to stand beside the old (and very dry) well. Stretchin his neck upwards until the joints gave a satisfying crack, Maxence was sure that he was not cut out for this much physical labor in one week.
GREETINGS, here's our garden planting thread for the less boulder-moving inclined. Still lots of hard work to do so i am expecting lots of good grumping. 1 week between rounds!
Again, not compulsory, but it ould be gret to see u here!
@Velorca @Oz @Voltaire @Bexley @Eithne @Rhoswen @Raum
by blair of shine, translated to html by meverrnind
That was what they called him here, though it seemed an empty label. For all that the desert looked like home he had not yet found it a comfortable, welcome place. Still, he couldn't imagine himself in another setting. Where else did the wind roar so freely and kick up the sand in the way it should? He would rather outrace all the sandstorms in the world than live on verdant pastured where the air was still and dead. He had taken to avoiding the foreign stone structure as much as possible though that also seemed to leave him lonely for company in the vastness of the Solterran desert. But he had seen the notice and he could easily understand the need for food in such a climate. His people were not given to agriculture- they had sustained their herds on the scarce bounty of their home. Not all could thrive so well though.
So he entered the court almost immediately upon hearing the roaring voice that he had come to assosciate with the current sovereign. Why a lion? Did he know lions? Had he seen them kill the young of their enemies and steal the kills of better predators? Did he know they were bullies? Did he admire them? All these thoughts tumbled through his head and yet he held himself mute and uncertain. His skin jumped nervously and then he advance quickly and lightly across the court.
"Many shoulders will ease the burden of the work." He offered the phrase almost as a greeting, something like a smile on his white-masked muzzle. He moved to the piles of river mud and without much worry for dirtying the bright gold of his coat he began to paw the earth and shift it. It would take many hours and many bodies to form a good bed for planting, sew the seeds, and then care for it each day. Though he knew little of the ways of such things, he was curious to see the project progress through the days and through the seasons.
He paused once or twice, head turning towards Maxence and almost freeing one of the questions that chased themselves in his head. Then he shook his head and turned back to the work at hand, mute. On the third time he paused, the words exploded from between his lips, so quick one nearly chased the next off his tongue.
"Why do you bear a lion's head?" And then his teeth clicked shut and he bowed his head to his work. One ear stayed cocked towards the sovereign though and he watched the painted stallion at least as much as he watched his own hooves.
For once Bexley’s descent into the Court finds her in a good mood. Thoroughly heated by the white eye of Solis and dripping in water from a stop at the Oasis, she arrives in a flurry of wet braids and bright eyes, light fracturing off damp eyelashes, the bruise at her side fading just to lavender, the scab on her shoulder almost entirely stitched back together. The desert is calm and languishes in heat; insects chatter and hum, but everything else remains quiet. Buzzing with a pleasant energy, Bexley trots toward the north wall with a sway in her narrow hips and a high-pitched tune humming from bone-white lips, in strangely high spirits for a girl about to throw that delicate frame into a day full of manual labor.
Just as she expected, Maxence has already arrived, head bent to the task of replenishing their garden, but with him, surprisingly, is another - a man slightly shorter than her with a strangely similar coat, one of gold and sunlight, even with a similar band of white over his face. Bexley dislikes him immediately. She’s supposed to be unique, her own brand of beautiful, and here comes a stranger asking Max questions with the same bleached lips, the same blue eyes, only a lack of hair and of feminine curves separating the two of them. Incensed, Bex’s ears flatten to the back of her head. She brushes past the man with an unsubtle blow of her shoulder against his and slinks to the opposite end of the field, starting to cut into the dirt with violent energy, though still she operates with feline grace, the slices exact, the strides faultless.
At the sound of the stranger’s voice, her ears flicker, and Bexley glares up at him through a thick swash of lashes. You’re new, she points out, voice surprisingly warm, though it purrs with derision. Great. We love fresh meat.
A sharp smirk cuts across her white lips, into both cheeks.
09-04-2017, 01:27 PM - This post was last modified: 09-04-2017, 01:28 PM by Bexley
The sovereign's ear swivelled at the hoofbeats of another, one who seemingly approached carefully and with calculation. Out of the corner of his eye he spied a flaxen creature and immediately assumed it was Bexley, though curiosity caused his gaze to turn. Blue eyes found a similar pair in the stranger's face, a man who was not unlike the champion of community but rather very similar in colour. Whether the male who stood before him was handsome or not Maxence would not know; even the most beautiful would not sway the stern commander to appreciation of any kind.
This stranger smiled far too much for the King's tastes, so it was with a breathy sigh that the chestnut turned his gaze away toward the field where lay the work at foot. "And you are?" Maxence asked of the man, his back remaining turned, eyes fixed ahead, not even an ear lent for attention.
Soon the actual Bexley presented herself, and thank Solis that she did - he was beginning every sage, commoner and healer in the capitol had abandoned him. Her stern dismissal of the man who appeared as a weedy doppelgänger of herself was slightly entertaining to Maxence, though emotion such as that never displayed upon the soldier's face. "Bexley" he greeted her with a tip of his poll, crownless head bending in her direction, and soon he followed her lead.
Dragging a hoof through the fertile soil transported days before from the Rapax, Maxence aimed to create a corrogation on the field - lines in which the crops to grow, orderly and well maintained. Not a moment passed before a question was raised; an unwelcome and unsolicited one.
By the time the king had looked up the man had slunk his head down to work, and grinding his teeth Maxence wtched him from afar. In all honesty, the answer was not all that private - he just disliked personal questions, especially from strangers. "It was given to me by my soldiers after we took back the city of Babel from those who would see my country swallowed by invaders" the commander began, stepping forth a pace or two and continuing his own work once again. "The opposition controlled all manner of beasts and this bastard nicked half my patrol."
Pausing once more, Maxence straightened his head and glanced to Bexley and then the strange man "I slew it and my men awarded me with his head. For some reason I was known as the Lion of Babel from that day on."
Hallo!
@Vadim @Bexley !
by blair of shine, translated to html by meverrnind
09-09-2017, 05:02 AM
Played by
Obsidian [PM] Posts: 146 — Threads: 16 Signos: 0
The call came, at last, for the hands of all who were not soldiers.
The roar of Maxence’s demand seeped its unwelcome way into Raum’s room. It was coarse and loud and unavoidable, as was any king’s right. Yet the silver Crow’s teeth ground together, his limbs aching their furious protest, his spine still tight from his labour the day prior.
Blue eyes, churning like a wild sea, rested upon the filled water buckets he and Rhoswen had helped collect. They lay, cool and delectable, a reminder of the world that existed outside of Solterra: of a place with a lake that shone like glass... Denocte.
It was not just Raum’s limbs that began to ache then, but his heart, his soul. This was not a place for him, Caligo sculpted him for shadow and darkness and yet he wove himself silently into Solis’ society, much to Rhoswen’s chagrin. The fire girl watched him, his secret safe but her threats still resounded in his ears. Never had he heard such vehement threats spit like sparking flames from her tongue - not even when they fought before she left Denocte.
Her words were leeches, sucking away his confidence in her as though it was little more than blood to be let. She had been a sister to him once, and yet they far from that now. Love was a gossamer thread between them; so thin, so fragile that some days not even he was sure he could see it, nor feel its pull.
With reluctance keening through every limb, he rises from the bed, still quicksilver, still fluid despite everything. Placing the slings across his back, two pails hanging from each side, the Crow slowly made his way towards the gathering group.
It was not a long walk, but it was slow. Where once the orphan boy had never lacked for water, now he had begun to value very drop. And so, each step, even liquid like his, was shaved and smoothed, until he slunk slowly, slowly across the ground. Voices ahead snag his attention, his eyes settling first upon Maxence and then a boy of gold and sunlight, and near to him, a girl so similar.
The Crow moves the pails to the gathering of buckets beside the thirsting well and dipped his head to Solterra’s lion. “Forgive my delay, I did not wish to loose water, so my progress was slow.” Indicating to the pails he downs beside the rest, he says, “We bought these from the river yesterday, extra stock.”
The trio were already toiling, a cloud of dust pluming from where their feet ploughed through the soil. In such quiet compliance as to make his presence quite unremarkable or memorable, the quicksilver Crow silently falls in step beside the labourers. He listens to the tale of the Lion of Babel, his eyes shifting fleetingly to the lion upon Maxence’s back, his maw parted in a perpetual roar.
It was a good job lions were not interested in the affairs of birds.
The golden stallion isn't quite sure what he expected. His presence wasn't exactly... welcomed. Still, that wasn't unusual. Though hospitality had been a matter of course among his own people he had met enough strangers on his journey to Novus that he knew that wasn't true of all. Still, he was asked his name but almost before he could answer another golden equine entered- one who was like and yet unlike himself. He found himself admiring her sheer loveliness- she was all graceful lines and curved from her thick mane to the swell of her shoulders. Until she pushes past him though he was not in the way. He shies a little out of her way, ears flicking uncertainly in this new environment. Her words are biting, sharp.
"Ah... I'm Vadim." He chooses to address the Sovreign's questions, though his words are more subdued than previously, his smile chased away by the sharpness of Solis' chosen folk. He bows his head to the work in silence and is grateful when another arrives. It is strange to work in relative silence. No song to lighten the work and help to align the rhythms of the workers.
The story though, the story is almost good enough to fill that gap though it lacks any finesse or theater. He listens attentively all the same and this time it is easier to keep from asking further questions. It is already quite clear they aren't welcome. So he bends to the work, though his is not yet very good at making himself invisible. That has never been a skill he tried for. His hooves dig in, ploughing up the soil to make it suitable for planting.
Unknown to any but himself, a rhythm beats in his head and his hooves keep time, all but lost in the general shuffle and work. He can at least pass the time in his own head, even if no one else seems to care. They are each their own people, separate from the other. They work their own patches, do their own tasks. The bonds between them so scant as to be shadows, threads. If Maxence didn't hold them here, would they just scatter? Live in Solterra as they would, ignoring each other except when need or chance drove them together?
She wakes lazily, blinking dreams and gentle light from those ambrosially cluttered lashes. The day is young - rays of pale morning sunshine come fracturing through her door as it stood ajar the way she had left it last night. Last night - into the depths of the darkness Rhoswen had travelled, moving not with her body but instead with her mind; sleep had evaded her, as if taunting the red girl. Images and memoirs of glacierblue eyes and moonlight skin had circulated perpetually: a gramophone caught in replay; her animus married forcibly to ... to - gravitation. For like a summer wolf drawn to the white winter moon Rhos finds herself hopelessly pulled to that boy of secrets and inexorable metal, be it with ire or hope in her heart. Yesterday, with him, had been different. It had felt like times of old, and there had been a lightness to her gaze that she'd forgotten had ever existed at all.
Sighing, Rhowen rolled upward, briskly smoothing her wild curls as she did so. There was no time for dreaming, only living. Easily she pushes through the door and out into the great hallway, listening to the bustle of the court as was her morning custom. The peace was broken by Maxence's thunderous voice booming throughout the castle - bruising her delicate ears. The prospect of work instantly soured a good mood, but she knew she had avoided it for long enough. If she was ever going to shake her Denoctian past it wouldn't be by shying from effort and endeavour. With a saturnine look sprawled across her porcelain face Rhoswen drifted languidly through the passages until she breached the sunlight, feeling the Solterran heat lavish her fiery skin as she approached the gathering.
"Morning." There were three figures aiding the Sovereign already, making it a group of four - four that she watched with searing eyes of smoke. Bexley, as ravishing as ever; Maxence, tall and surly; then Raum - at the sight of him she paused, acknowledging him and the buckets they had collected together with a self-assured raise of her brow, and finally a golden man she'd never met. It appeared she'd missed most of the conversation, catching only Vadim's brief introduction. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Rhoswen," she takes a step toward to this handsomely-spun boy, flashing a dazzling smile, "but you can call me Rhos," andwith a flick of her tempestuous tail she swished past him, moving toward a patch of arid land yet untouched, all the while desperately ignoring the desire to sneak a glance at Raum's expression.
Bexley works in silence, for the most part; for once she is not in the mood to talk, though she does acknowledge Maxence’s greeting with a dry smile, not entirely immune to his charming tolerance of her. His story floods in one ear and out the other. She is entirely too distracted by the work to pay attention, and besides, listening would take energy she doesn’t have, drained suddenly by the presence of this stranger, this off-brand copy of herself. Irritation flooding from her body as sunlight floods over the walls of the Day Court, she bends her head to the dirt and flicks her ears, blocking out the noise.
Raum and Rhoswen show up almost in tandem. At the sight of the redhead Bex finally glances upward, pausing to raise an eyebrow at her in a silent question - together? They haven’t seen each other in a while; it’s entirely possible that Rhoswen and this weirdo are involved somehow, though of course Bex knows her friend is much too good for him. She watches the pair with a dim curiosity, then, quiet, turns back to her work. They’ll talk later.
From the corner of her eye, she watches Vadim, wondering, suspicious. He smells strange, his accent is foreign, he obviously doesn’t know any of them, and yet he has offered little in the way of an introduction, and even less in the way of an explanation. Bold move.
Why have you come here?
@maxence @rhoswen @vadim @Raum she's so stupid sorry LOL
As his laboring continued, Maxence grew easily distracted by the story he had just told. It had been months- no, years since he had spoken of the lion upon his back. Had he ever truly told that story before? It was an odd feeling, one that came with both relief and terror. Now they knew, now they understood, but now that was one step closer to knowing too much. It was a risk sharing such a precious story to a stranger.
The sloshing of water was what distracted him next, drawing his oceanic eyes toeward another gentleman he had never beheld before. This one reminded him of a curious and over-confident bird, though still modest and grey. With matching eyes of the sea Maxence saw an innocence in the young man, perhaps he even took a liking ot him immediately when he approached with water buckets at the ready for planting. It was innitiative he admired, and the water would be of great use. "Thank you, Soldier" Maxence bellowed to the young fellow, a genuine smile threatening upon his lips as he looked at the amiable scout. He was unnaware of this man's rank, though all who toiled in Solterran earth were Soldiers.
"ah... i'm Vadim"
A strong name, one Maxence would easily remember too, especially since he would be keeping his eye on him. For now though he was more than grateful for the work nad his supervision would remain relaxed - his trust was extended.
Rhoswen's approach was acknowledged with a nod from the commander, grateful for her help and involvement in the garden also. He would certainly not forget the toiling hooves pressed into this earth to mould it and create their food supply, and he'd not forget where the soil came from and the two Dawnish fellows who allowed the a bounty of rich earth. Rhoswen's contribution would never go unnoticed, even if all he had done was nod her away. Maxence was already back to work by the time the conversation began, his labouring taking him to the opposite end of the field where he began dropping seeds into the rows. Bexley's question did not go unheard however, and one ear was kept pricked for an answer; hopefully from both strangers, Vadim and Raum.
Hallo!
@Vadim @Bexley @Raum @Rhoswen !
by blair of shine, translated to html by meverrnind
If Voltaire could have one wish, it would be to become invisible. He wanted to fade away into quiet obscurity, for no one to notice his passing. It was this obscurity that would allow him to wander like a ghost in the darkness, anonymous and unnoticed. The blue-black stallion never wanted to draw attention to himself, and yet he knew that this place was a herd that would expect his participation and contribution. It was the first step to his penance, to his quest for forgiveness. Though he was new here, the stallion felt an urgency among the others as they gathered to work together and build the garden.
He watched for a while, trying to determine what the end goal was (for Voltaire hadn’t attended the herd meeting, and had only met one other since arriving to the Day Court). It didn’t take long though, for the blue stag to understand. Each creature here had a role to play, like a cog in a greater cycle. Some carried water, some dug neat rows, and still others seemed to carry soil to gather in this place. It seemed that the process worked like a well oiled machine – and for a moment, Voltaire had a thought that he might turn away and return to his hole… but he needed to contribute. He needed to work. Through his work, he could find some peace.
He slips unnoticed into the fray, not speaking and trying not to draw attention to himself. He doesn’t introduce himself as some of the others did, but simply began to drag his scimitar horn through the dirt, feeling the smallest sense of satisfaction at seeing the red clay against his cursed crystal. Sweat gleaned upon his hide as he dug in the fertile loam, unearthing and removing stones that might stand in the way of new growth, and relishing in the toil of physical labor even as his thin denim ears flicked to catch the various strains of conversation.
Some were new and hopeful, others seemed almost jealous by the tones in their voice. It wasn’t hard for him to realize Maxence was their leader, for both the mannerisms and deference shown to him were those of power. Making a mental note to introduce himself at a later date, the stallion simply continued to hoe his lines, hoping that no one would notice his presence.
![[Image: x341oLX.png]](https://i.imgur.com/x341oLX.png)
