Some men craved power, would topple empires and slaughter innocents to achieve it. It was a drug, heady and intoxicating in it's might, and those who chased power and reknown, addicts. They became tyrants when they grasped that power, that strength, and could only be deposed by one who had gained power equal or greater than the predecessor. Power started revolutions, rebellions, crusades. Power corrupted.
Which was why Deimos ran through dark tunnels, heedless of anything but the turning of the ground beneath him in his terror and determination to rid himself of the strength of the godsoul inside him. The soul he had stolen, had taken from another with his dying breath, had devoured unwillingly with hunger like a child to the teat. He fled, because the desire to use that power burned in his breast, a flame that crackled and burned within him, his very veins humming with the magic of the soul. With his power he could usher an age of Dark to the Gods that had forsaken him and his people. With his power-
That power wasn't his.
That sent him further into a pounding panic, his breath harsh in the stone walls unseen, his eyes wild in the blackness as shadow and terror itself mantled about him. In his panic, he did not notice the ebbing of that soul, of the insidious power, of the fading of his mantle of darkness and fear. He did not notice that shortly the very thing he feared and wished to be rid of was gone, leaving him hollow and devoid of that spark of life, only for it to be replaced with something else. A thump in his chest, weak at first, a single beat, then a second, and a third, until the beating in his breast was so rapid the pulses were hard to distinguish from each other. He did not notice his new heart beating, pumping true mortality through his barren veins, did not notice the cave lightening gradually, shade by shade. He noticed none of this in his wonton sprint, not until blinding, brilliant light seared his eyes, and dread and sorrow slammed through him. He had gone in a circle, he was back to the land of the Gods, to their accursed and beautiful city. Despair filled him as he stumbled out of the cave tunnel, collapsing by the entrance. He had no further will to venture forth, the despair settled itself around him.
Deimos waited for the madness to come.
For several long, agonizing seconds he waited, draped in that despair, until something... most strange caught his attention. A movement in his chest, a painful fluttering that the despair was tied to, a rapid beat as he lay panting on the rocky ground. His ears pricked forward, his head tilting so he could look at his chest, confusion slowly replacing the despair. Was something the matter with the soul? Had he damaged it somehow? But no, this lacked power, lacked the burning liquid heat of a soul. It was then he noticed the cloak of shadow and terror was gone from his shoulders, his back barren of it's rippling fabric. For a moment, he stared in numb shock, his mind not processing before he tried to stoke the soul within him and flare his magic.
Nothing happened. There was no miasma of fear, no billowing shadow erupting from his being to devour the ground and instill primal terror in whatever lay in its path. There was nothing. Did that mean the soul was gone? Had he somehow gotten rid of it in his return to the land of the Gods? Frowning, Deimos turned his gaze upwards... and was knocked breathless by the sight before him. The sun hung heavy and low on the horizon, flinging up an array of colors on a barren, mountainous hillside. It was beautiful, heart-wrenchingly so, that it stole the very air from his lungs in a single, awe-filled gasp. The sun had always been incandescent before in the land of the gods, but it had always hung high in the sky, untouchable and impossible to gaze upon. Deimos watched the sunset in wonder, his fear of the loss of the soul gone.
Waiting for the rest of me to die
Open for any Day courties to come bring Deimos home ;D Expect some weirdness from his end lele
This is my prayer in the desert
When all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God who provides
Transformation comes to us all in a never-ending train of choices and decisions. The needle of the compass seeming to point one direction but suddenly spinning and halting in another direction. Some choices are easy and some come with costs, costs that you never realize until months or years later. The ripples returning to you in small waves but sometimes with a tidal wave that it strikes you numb. What has Nephele done now that she has chosen to leave her people? She wants this, needs this, craves this! Everything in her wants to stop running all the time since these strange horses appeared, tourists, transplants, and foreigners. Part of her is disgusted by this disease that has taken over her home but the youthful soul inside her wants to be a part of this revolution. She watched them from afar, knowing every time they came near so that her tribe could run. This time she uses the skills taught her as a yearling to stalk them.
The first victim she notices as she drifts on the warm currents of pressure remaining from the day. Her presence disguised in the fading light of sunset. The low hanging clouds protecting her presence. The dark stallion with a crown of spikes emerges from a cave in the thieving grounds like he is about to melt. Nephele thinks he is about to fall over and die but he doesn’t so she decides to circle. This is entertainment. He is sleek and like many of the immigrants, he looks strange and stranger. She uses her wings perfectly build for stealth and speed to observe him before descending slowly.
She lands with only the slightest disturbance of dust and miniscule rocks as she was taught to do from a young age right here in Novus. She tucks her wings neatly at her side as she eyes the stranger in the colors of the evening. She chooses a spot above him where she hopes to be secretive but in no way possible to be completely undetectable.
It’s not like you have never seen a sunset before!
She speaks sarcastically with a lighthearted laughter. She looks at him from one of her two-toned eyes. She wants to see what makes these creatures tick and why it led them to her home. Is there any way to stop their advance? Maybe she can get them to go away so that her people can live in peace again.
The scent of incense and jasmine blossoms clung to the silver’s coat as she crept down the meandering pathways of Veneror. Her head remained dipped in a quiet respect, even as she descended the mountainside. For her frigid demeanor, Seraphina was nothing if not devout, and she found her way back to the gods whenever she could find her way out of the library. She found comfort in divinity; she always had, though she couldn’t see it as clearly as she had in her childhood. (When she was a girl, stumbling between her mother’s legs…well, she remembered it in flashes, fragments…when she was a girl, stumbling between her mother’s legs, she thought that she could see Solis in every ray of the sunlight and Caligo in every star, Vespera in the crisp breath of evening and Oriens in dawn’s gentle blush...and with each passing day, each moment, she felt Tempus tug the world along, devoid of the horrors that she would come to see. Why weren’t their images so clear anymore? Was it just another product of growing older, this disillusionment that lingered around her like a dark cloud whenever she bowed her head in worship? Why did she feel like her prayers were strangling her, like they tugged her lungs out of her chest?)
(Maybe a little part of her had stopped believing when she begged for the gods to save her and they left her there, all alone to ache, curling in upon herself, aching---)
The faint hum of wings drew her attention from the path that stretched out beneath her hooves, and she caught sight of a shape as it dropped through the cloud cover – a girl with a great pair of antlers and wings like a hawk. She followed the girl with her eyes as she spiraled down towards the ground below. As she dragged her eyes down her trajectory, she spotted another – this time a dark stallion with a tragic look to him – in her path; seemed like she intended to approach him. Seraphina considered them for a moment, then, with a hint of reluctance, broke off from the path and began to make her way down the rocky mountainside, ears twitched forward to catch the girl’s words as she opened her mouth to speak, her tone slightly venomous. (She laughed, but Seraphina thought that it didn’t sound much like laughter.) She didn’t think that the girl was wrong, though. As she approached the pair, she noticed just how astounded the dark stallion’s expression was as he stared up at the setting sun – there was a distant quality to him, as though he was recognizing something that anyone else would have seen so often that they’d forgotten.
The girl smelled of hot sands and desert wind; she didn’t recognize her, but Seraphina assumed that she was Solterran. The stallion, on the other hand, brought with him a scent that she couldn’t place – he was foreign, she imagined, but she couldn’t place any region that he might have originated from, no salty sea air or musty, dark forest. Seraphina’s eyes flickered between the two of them thoughtfully, and she seemed to consider them before she allowed herself to speak. They were both well-built and capable, likely warriors by trade – even the youth, though that was hardly unusual to Seraphina, who had been raised for warfare herself. They would both be beneficial to Day, if they were wanderers that she could coerce to her cause…and Seraphina was always prepared for persuasion. (She’d have to riddle out their motives, first, of course – couldn’t just drag in any wanderer she found whilst traveling.) She eyed them evenly, then, in her cool, thickly accented drawl, addressed the stallion. “Are you…unharmed? You seem disoriented.” She didn’t seem particularly concerned; scientific was likely a more fitting descriptor. Her gaze flitted to the girl. “And…another Solterran? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
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@Deimos @Nephele - apologies for the quality; wasn't completely sure where to go with any of this
I'M IN A ROOM MADE OUT OF MIRRORSand there's no way to escape the violence of a girl against herself.☼please tag Sera! contact is encouraged, short of violence
There were no words he knew to describe the sensations in his chest as the sun glistened brilliantly on the horizon, it's colors and dramatic hues so startlingly bright and drastic they stole the air from his lungs. What new land was this, that the sun looked so? Had he somehow fallen into a void between the Above and the Below? Or had he simply entered a new area of existence within the land of the gods? He was interrupted from his awestruck wonder and reverie by a sharp, sarcastic voice, her laughter mocking, and he rose elegantly to his feet, crowned skull turning to find a winged, antlered mare painted in brown and black, with strange runes. Her appearance almost drew him back into that wonder. Thanatos had been the only one of their ilk he could recall that bore wings... what strangeness was this?
"Sunset?" He turned and looked towards that dimming sun, noting how it was already much lower than it had been when he staggered from the tunnels. That strangeness in his chest did something, a rapid pulse, and he twitched, lowering his head to brush his muzzle across his chest, a light frown on his features. "No, I have never gazed upon a... sunset, before." Then his blue gaze focused on her sharply, and with a toss of his head he turned to face her, ears erect. "Are all the folk here so rude as to make light of a new experience for another?" Movement caught his attention, and from the side came another mare, but this one as different from the brash girl above him as an Undying was to a Mindless. Her tone is cautious, less a question and more of an observation, and he flicked an ear with a faint, rueful expression. "I suppose you could say I am disorientated."
There were so many things to think upon, so many different emotions and thoughts whirling in his head. What was this new rhythm in his chest, why was the sun growing dimmer and the world darker? How were there so many colors? Even the Above had been mostly brilliant white and gold, to see so many hues painting even the darkened sky was almost beyond his comprehension. The grey mare's words to the winged girl caught his attention, and he turned his focus fully to her. "Solterran? Is that your race?" The word was foreign to him, as everything was growing to be.
This is my prayer in the desert
When all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God who provides
The air at this altitude is hard to inhale but being genetically designed for the sky, she has larger than normal lungs to handle more oxygen with each breath. The air is harsh and dry on the delicate skin but she feels all the moisture that the barren peaks offer. Her eyes and thinned to protect her dual colored eyes from the last of the evening winds. Her skin can feel the pressure dropping with the sun. She listens to the breathing of her victim as she notes his strange coat and eyes, he even smells like something foul, like something that has been long abandoned in a box and grown dusty and moldy.
Perhaps Nephele should be kinder to strangers and play better with others but she knows no one besides her family and all strangers have done for her is nothing but push the people she loves into a life of scarce food and always running to save their way of life. These foreigners have ruined everything so part of Nephele is bitter, why not? Does this stranger deserve it? Perhaps not but he is part of a larger change that Nephele is having a hard time accepting but she is trying.
With the same sneer, she stares right back into the leering look the male sends her way. Not all of us, just the cool ones. This one will be a delight to observe with his strikingly blue eyes and little black toothpicks. Reminds her of the porcupines that roam the deciduous forests of the higher forests. I wonder if when they break, will they grow back? In all honesty, Nephele is only 2 years of age and in no way immune to arrogance and idiocrasy but she is also not completely senseless.
Nephele’s gaze with the blue-eyed raven is broken and her ears glance backward when the tiger mare arrived. She is different. She smelled familiar and Nephele has seen this one before in the sand land. She didn’t seem very nice from a distance but her initial statement to the male suddenly gave the impression of gentleness. Nephele had already looked over the male for blood dripping or bones splintered through the skin and seen none from her position above him. There is nothing physically wrong with him so Nephele leans back and raises her head in observance and rocks back to relax one of her hind hooves with the flick of her silver and dusky tail.
The males comment is almost annoying but with a soft, exhale of air Nephele rolls her eyes and returns the grin to her face and gives her best impression of honey in her voice. Hers maybe, but not mine. Casually Nephele stares right at the dusty tiger mare and hesitates, she just reminds me so much of someone. Without missing a beat, Nephele gives breaks into a smile that flashes some of her pearly whites before answering the tiger's question. I came from that direction but we have not met before. I am Nephele. Trying to continue the conversation away from any further questions about her past she changes the conversation and leaves out the part where she already knows the female. Out of curiosity, what do you mean a new experience? There are no such places that have no sunrises or sunsets. Anyways you are in Novus now crazy man. Nephele had a feeling this would get under his skin a little but she wanted to see him huff and puff. If things got bad, Nephele could just fly away. Now she directs a question towards the Seraphina. Yes, Nephele knows her name form listening to the winds of conversation but she won’t tell her that. Are you from this Solterran? Those are the warrior people correct? Truthfully, nothing you hear from Nephele can be trusted unless she has sworn it to be so.
@Deimos @Seraphina
This post went in a direction I didn't expect but I had fun with it.
I hope you guys like it!
