Music and laughter fill the air, a stark difference to the sleepy, sombre silence that had filled Terrastella mere days before. There is a prance in everyone's step as they go to and from room to room, place to place. Fires crackle and the air smells of sweets, incense and the unmistakable smell of wood burning on a cold night.
Lilac eyes reflect it all, sparkling with something akin to adoration as the Regent casts his gaze over the Throne Room, nodding his head in a soft dip as eyes also look and meet his own. At last, Terrastella is alive — living and breathing in the World. Just like the spring that threatens to now chase away the tendrils of dark and winter cold. They will thrive, but first, they celebrate.
Here they paint themselves, some out of loyalty, their faces creased in concentration as they paint the Dusk Court's banners onto their skin. Warriors. Sages. The most steadfast of loyalists, they leave with their heads high and their pride worn for all to wear. Others stand huddled together, a muzzle to a soft cheek as paint brushes declare their love on their beloved's flesh. Silent vows which can be viewed, but their meaning never truly understood. It is for them alone, and for others to stand witness too.
Then there are the pious ones, who mutter praise and quiet prayers to their patron God. Vespera's twilight colors splatter them in her loving hues, Calligo's night paints her devoted with dark abandon. Solis' people blaze in his gilded trappings and Oriens bestows quiet wisdom in the colors of dawn.
Isorath is naked in comparison, startlingly so. His pristine white skin would make a crisp canvas, his leather wings a wall on which many murals could be hosted. It appeared he is not the only one to notice, as his gaze drifted outward again, he spied a gathering of foals, excitedly whispering to themselves as they glanced his way and then to the paint they had managed to procure. They look at his wings with a starry-like wonder, until one, who barely scrapes his shoulder comes forward.
"May we paint your wings?" They chirp, an excited outburst that is quickly hushed down with a small start, as if they hadn't realized until too late. "Please?" It came out much meaker, barely above a whisper, but the Regent heard well enough above the throng. The Kirin spared a glance into those blue eyes and then the glossy, starry-eyed ones of the children not too far away.
Why not?
"Come, children." The Regent responded, voice gentle and welcoming, beckoning them forward as his head lowered to their level to better look at them all. They're splattered in paint, their cheeks striped and their hair flecked. A ember of warmth cascades through him and he cannot deny them. How could he deny such sweet faces? Who look at him so, paint pots quivering in their teke as brushes slosh in the twilight paint.
His wings open, spanning across their heads gracefully to envelop them in their embrace. A clean canvas for them to paint, one that they took to with abandon, yet have careful consideration for. Swirls of lilac, blue, deep shades of royal purple soon began to appear in swirls and shapes upon them.
Isorath watched them with an amused expression dancing across his face, occasionally flicking his gaze to take in the rest of the room. "How about a dragon? Or Vespera?" He commented idly, to the smallest of the group who seemed to be stuck on a decision.
HE USED TO CALL ME DN
THAT STOOD FOR DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
CAUSE I WAS FILLED WITH POISON
BUT BLESSED WITH BEAUTY AND RAGE
In the midst of laughter and dance and song, the stormsinger is alive.
She wanders, carefree and without destination, through the city streets that pulse with drums and party goers. The drums that beat with the strong of her heart are sweeter than any drug. For she is cradled in Calligo's shadows and smoke and stars, and the galaxies swirled upon the silk of her skin are a pledge to that fact. And although this festival is not of her homeland, the revelry sings to her so. For she is full to the brim in wild passion and the need to feel the embers of fire licking her skin under a sky of falling snow. All ice and heat and bliss.
Her thoughts are light light light, despite the heaviness that draws in lavender blossoms and gypsy coins and twilight clinging to mahogany skin.
Aimless, the stormsinger suddenly finds herself in the midst of a foreign castle, who's walls of smooth stone rise around her like glittering glass under the fading light. The beautiful colors flecked into the brick remind her of sea opal and sunsets — truly befitting of the kingdom of everlasting Dusk. Music and voices carry to her ears as she melts into the shadows; the darkness embracing her wholly. The hallway opens up like a serpent's mouth, a cavern of torchlight and a softness that reminds her of the inside of a pearl. She curves around the outside of the room, her gaze marking every face, until her ears flick with a familiar tone.. one that brings with it the sounds of ocean waves crashing against a cliff face, and wind flirting with the underside of her wings.
How about a dragon? Or Vespera?
He is just as she remembered — his beauty something akin to dragons slumbering on mounds of treasure, with the scales that flow across his skin in burnished gold. Once, they had met, like the stormchildren they were, at the edge of a hurricane's grasp as lightning crackled across a bruised sky. And then, once more, they were together along the curves of the sea, as the ocean sprayed at their underbellies and the wind carried them across the lands of Terrastella.
And now, the beloved kirin stood on the dais overlooking the throne room, with his wings outstretched and paint swirled across the ivory canvas of his frame.
Her heart began to swell.
From the shadows, she steps into the firelight. Her eyes are glimmering jewels that dance like flickering flames, but it is her smile that brightens the dark of her features. She cannot help but chuckle — a raspy, musical sound — as she watches the foals flit around the kirin with their paintbrushes stroking the expanse of his wings. The coins wrapped around her throat jingle with the song of her laughter like tiny bells. "You are a wonder to behold, friend," she says through soft, giggling fits. Her voice is as light as feather kisses, becoming the calm after a stormy sea. Blue orbs blink upwards to meet whorls of lilac. "How long has it been?"
I CAN HEAR SIRENS, SIRENS
HE HIT ME AND IT FELT LIKE A KISS
I CAN HEAR VIOLINS, VIOLINS
GIVE ME ALL OF THAT ULTRAVIOLENCE
@isorath bloop here ya go darling <3
"Aislinn speech."
The World seemed much more than it was, in the passing moments where paint was carefully applied to his skin, the foals giggles and quiet mutterings drifting in and out of his ears. Those in the Throne Room continued in their merry making and their declarations, huddled close by the braziers or entangled in conversation and dancing of their own.
It is light, oh so very light.
Sweet. Simple. Safe.
There was no looming daggers behind deceptively exquisite curtains and no scythes swinging closer and closer. Each unspoken confession and lingering thought, serves to lower the executioners sentence to the remnants of himself kept chained within an ivory cage.
Occasionally they looked to him, approval and encouragement lurking in their glinting eager eyes. New flecks of paint smeared their cheeks as they clutched their brushes mere inches from the leathery skin they were absorbed in marking. Waiting with baited breath as the Kirin examined their work, and only continued when he'd nodded at them and uttered quiet words of encouragement, a gentle smile upon his face all the while. Vespera graced one wing, painted in all the colors of twilight upon the sea and sky, her hair catching Calligo's stars in it's embrace. On the other, there is a dragon, dancing within the stars and constellations.
You are a wonder to behold, friend.
He knew that voice, one which sang with joy at the howling wind and rolling thunder. Rain drops and lightning bolts, and the untamed currents tugging at starlight strands in the eye of it all. Another capricious and wild heart who reached out and connected with that lost part of him, pulled it through time and set it free. How long had it been? and how had he missed her unmistakable presence among the Terrastellan?
Ah, but the citizens of the Night Court are one and same with the shadows. Calligo had blessed them all with her intangibility, her ability to slip in and out of being like smoke and darkness intertwined. There one moment and gone the next.
Aislinn is a welcome wash of relief, the steady drum of rain against the stone walls at midnight, as the troubled mind soared toward the stars. She's exactly as he remembered her, with coins around her throat and the sky in her eyes, her voice the rasp of thunder somewhere far away. Isorath wished to go back to that night, to escape once more and simply be, where they had danced on the waves and left their troubles upon the ground. "And you are a vision yourself." He returned with a smile, his own breath of laughter ghosting across his words. "It has been far too long, my friend. Far too long."
The foals are ushered away with a word or two, back into the crowd with their paint brushes and pots, looking for their next canvas and satisfied with promise that he would find them again. If only to let them paint him once more. His path free, the Kirin easily strode toward the tempest woman, nose outstretched to greet her properly. A rare show of affection seeping through the porcelain mask he often wore, and fiercely protected. "Tell me, where have you been?"
HE USED TO CALL ME DN
THAT STOOD FOR DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
CAUSE I WAS FILLED WITH POISON
BUT BLESSED WITH BEAUTY AND RAGE
In the cavernous throne room, a stormsinger and a kirin smile, and her heart swells at the sight of him. She had not realized how her much she had longed to see the warmth in his familiar face. And in this room, in a kingdom that was slowly becoming apart of her; in the way her heart was sewn in the colors of twilight falling on an unsuspecting sky, and stars awoke on an expanse of watery pinks and gold and violet as deep as Calligo's bruised knuckles.. Aislinn was glad. Glad for the strings of fate that have brought her to this place, these people. Although she was her goddess's daughter, a Child of the Night, Dusk now held her by a finger — like a child holding onto their mother's hand. A tender touch; a gentle one. And she stepped into it gladly, basking in the crystalline light inside the room and out of the shadows. With him, by her friend's side.
The smile that curves her lips is softer than the downy feathers of her angel's wings.
It has been far too long, my friend. Far too long.
"I cannot begin to tell you how good it is to see you again," she tells him. Aislinn feels the relief wash over her soul, for it is not the crash of ocean waves and tears on atop a cliff. But instead, a sea breeze that invites storms into an intimate grasp — wicked and wrought in a lovely sort of chaos. Befitting of two souls that share gypsy hearts born for adventure. Those memories bring her a comfort, a light in the dark. And she desperately holds onto that flickering light, that beacon in the darkness that grows. Now, Isorath's voice finds her, unknowingly freeing a shadow that bursts forth like a beast who devours the sky's brightest stars.
Tell me, where have you been?
She did not want to think of her absence, or her cowardice, or the darkness that gnawed at her insides in phantom claws. Without her consent, the memories of her time away flooded; an abyss of tears wider than the mouth of any monster she could face. Her grief would be the worst of those monsters, and her guilt. In only a moment, a heartbeat, she remembered. Flickers of emerald fire burning a pyre for grandma'ma's wake; the salt burning in her lips and eyes and staining the silk of her cheeks; and the blood of torn knuckles and purple bruises, deeper than the darkness of Calligo's skies. But she did not voice these memories; she did not breathe life to them. Aislinn's mind wrapped them into chains of silver and gold and starlight, before she locked them into a vault crafted of moonstone and adamant. For safe keeping, a voice whispers. Her voice.
Not tonight.. she would not — could not — speak of them just yet. The corner of her mouth simply curls, shadowed in the light of the room and in Isorath's welcome presence. Her voice is nearly suspiciously soft as she sighs: "Everywhere and nowwhere." The blue flames of her eyes are icy orbs that burn and cool and frost over with each blink that hides those memories. And before she realizes it, her hooves are moving.. for is she ever truly still? Her own heart has warmed at his caring words, but now she looks up at Isorath through a thick of lashes dark with unsaid words. The bright of her gaze lands on the diadem swirling in opals upon his head, and oh, how it fits there perfectly so.
Her own eyebrows raise, shifting the light from her and setting it upon him — for he is a shimmering, painted star, amidst the crowds of twilight and growing shadows. She nods towards that diadem as they walk, her hooves carrying her without destination or rush. "It appears I have missed much in my time away." The words are hiding the heaviness that sits upon her shoulders, her wings; but also, there is a lightness that burns in truth. Reichenbach.. Florentine.. Asterion.. and now Isorath. So much has happened in a short time; now she is a stormsinger drowning in the consequences of her silence, and she does not know how to swim above the waves.
It was as if the moment she stepped away from the shadows of Denocte and ice blanketed their world, reality shifted with each snowflake that fell. Beautiful and fragile and cruel. What had she done by walking away?
It was refreshing, to feel the bloom in his chest. It seemed like an age, a turn in time's hourglass, since he had last felt something like this. The exhilaration of seeing a friend once more, after a heartbeat had echoed in the absence, to know that he was capable of feeling like that again. Novus had caused his garden to grow once again, flourish one bloom at a time until there was a burst of color burning in his soul. Dusk lilies and Night roses bloomed in defiance, around and in the ruins and crumbled remains that he had burned and similarly broke in. Now there were storm iris' and ocean violets dappled in among, reaching toward the sky in the Stormsinger's presence.
Here under the canopy of Vespera's heavens, they smile. They reconnect. In the glittering light of stained glass and tinted firelight, Aislinn looks every inch the Night's Daughter, down to the hue the gods had painted her in, and the moonlight they had threaded as her hair. But, the Twilight's colours suited her too, they illuminated her in a wash of pastels which brought out her beauty, her ferocity. A woman of many banners, made to dress and suit her well. Lilac eyes regarded her fondly, did Aislinn know that too?
I cannot begin to tell you how good it is to see you again.
"You should try, I'd love to hear you try regardless." He quipped softly, tilting his sharp face a fraction as a good natured grin appeared on his pale maw. It passed after a moment, a blossom off the branch of spring, when silence reigned in answer to his question. It's stagnation, a hesitation that he knows only too well. It's tragedy, angry bruises and tear ducts that have no more to give. Ash on the tongue and rattled bones. Isorath is many things, some good, some bad, but there is a mutual understanding here. One wounded soul reached out toward the other silently, feathering on an ethereal touch before it drew away with a nod.
He knows better than to press on such things, many had tried with him once upon a turn of the moon. They had received only rage, the moon and the sun coming together in his wrath as his scales flared and hair whipping in the wind. A banshee, a dragon and something not quite holy. The shattered remains of something scattered across a cold stone floor, wet with tears and crawling with shadows. Shadows with bright gleaming eyes and a smile made to rub the skin raw.
Everywhere and nowhere.
"Everywhere and nowhere." He repeated with a solemn nod, lilac eyes understanding where hers are iced. They had been hard too, still were hard. Yet they fractured and fluctuated as much as the breeze did. Capricious down to his core. "I'm glad that it has not lead you too far afield. It is easy to let it." They're spoken quietly as he embraced her, all her wildness and unspoken words, wings taking it all and pulling it close as they closed around her. Such sentiment, gentleness and care, it caught him off guard. Had he truly been so closed off? Were parts of him still frozen solid, waiting to thaw? or would they be lost now? Would he have to choose which parts of himself to save and the rest to cast out? Too many questions...and now was not the time.
His embrace is gone after a moment, as they settled into a leisured pace. Instead, he chooses to focus on something else as they wander everywhere and nowhere in the safety of the citadel.
He didn't miss the way her eyes peered at the diadem which now rested upon him, crowning him and condemning him all at once. Isorath had been content to simply be, to drift until the time came for him to go home. The inexplicable pull in his soul all of his people had, all roads eventually lead home. A crown had sat upon his head twice, and twice he had burned for it. Now a third hung threateningly over his head, the diadem was merely a promise. A whisper of what was expected should the unexpected happen. Florentine had put her trust and faith in him, and the thought caused a painful spear to press against his ribs. No..now was not the time to focus on that. "You have. Dusk and Night are a hive of activity, Dawn and Day too are shaking off the edge of winter and finding their way." Isorath hummed, a pensive frown decorated him and a thought spared toward the moon charm glinting in the firelight. "Florentine made me her regent, and then there is this festival. To Celebrate the coming of Spring and her own crowning. It was unexpected, I think for her to be handed a crown and Rannevig to simply depart." The crown never sat easy, even to a line born to wear it, or a self-made king crowned upon the favoritism of the people.
"I think she will do well, once she has found her wings." Isorath commented idly, lilac gaze seeking out stormtorn blues. "Do not feel as though you have missed too much, you are back now, and that's all that matters. You will find your feet again too."
HE USED TO CALL ME DN
THAT STOOD FOR DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
CAUSE I WAS FILLED WITH POISON
BUT BLESSED WITH BEAUTY AND RAGE
Everywhere and nowhere.
He echoes her, and she stills, remembering all too well the reasons why she had left. The memories of her time away have been carefully bound and chained; save for one, shining star that burns brighter than the sorrow that clouds the rest of her absence. She notes the flash of understanding in his lilac eyes, and the icy blue of her own warms and flickers into familiar twin flames. A sigh escapes her; a relief that sheds part of the phantom weight from where it has long stayed upon her shoulders. Like a world that sits in the center of her spine, on her wings, her pain and her memories have stayed like a second shadow. But now, in Isorath's presence, she feels at ease. Even a little, and still it is so so much to her.
And she will never be able to explain how eternally grateful she is for it.
Suddenly, remarkably, she is scooped into an embrace. Aislinn had not realized how much she needed the solace, the comfort, and affection from a friend. She had not expected such from Isorath, but she is thankful all the same. The stormsinger accepts it nonetheless, with a soft sigh that whispers into the golden scales upon the curve of his neck. That sole, shining star of memory flares brilliantly in the growing shadows as the sun sets. And she can feel, with a hyper focus, how her lightning crackles under her skin where they touch. She remembers then the gifts that have been blessed upon her from Calligo; the only part of her absence that is not shrouded in cowardice and guilt, but of a gratitude that is only fitting for a woman born of shadows and stars and summer storms.
Only a heartbeat passes, and they step apart. The space between them is a sea kissed by calm winds after a hurricane. Her eyes are no longer heavy lids that hide in memories of frost, but warm pools of sapphire that almost glow in the fading light. Oh yes, she is different now, but also, not different at all. Only.. awakened.
Their hooves move once more, and soon, they are carried through the halls of opalescent pearl and stone. She takes his words with a pinch of salt, masking the dagger that twists between the curve of her ribs. "So much has changed since the snow has first begun to fall, hasn't it?" she muses, with a heavy chuckle rumbling deep in her throat. "I am happy for you, my friend." Her gaze seeks his in the soft orange light that filters in through the windows, long and beautiful, casting shadows across the planes of her face. A smile tugs at her lips, genuine, despite the cloak of emotions that drag her stomach to the stones beneath her.
Her crown tilts, regarding him and trying to find words for the gratitude that fills her and swells her heart to fullness. She does not think of her words to Reichenbach, nor Flora, or how she yearns to find her lover amidst the crowds of twilight dancers. There is only this moment, however serene and hanging on the balance of so many things all at once."Vespera has chosen well, it seems. Dusk seems to be in capable hands." Aislinn's steps halt, soft and without realizing so, for they are at a crossroads. One hallway is basked in what little light is born from the setting sun; all burnt umber and reds and dusty pinks that turn the walls into the insides of a sea shell. Rainbows glitter against the opal that shines in the bricks that build around them. The other is a depth of shadows that build in the darkness that grows from the newfound night; the only light save for a few sconces of firelight. From it's darkness, stars will be born in shocks of silver and moonlight. A sort of beauty that can only be found when drowned in the spilled ink of nightfall eternal.
She does not yet desire to leave, but yet, the stormsinger cannot help but feel her heart is being torn.
Her voice is a whisper, a murmur, but also a cool breeze that dances along the waves of a silver sea. The same sea, perhaps, that they flew above, with their hooves flirting with the spray as they explored not so long ago. "What will you do now?"
He remembered well the pain that had driven him from the place he had come to call home. The one place he had entered, settled and fell in love in. The place he had been betrayed in and brought to ruin. That pain had thrust him onto a pyre and lifted him to the Gods, and crashed him back into a body that was and wasn't his own. A new start. Yet, those pains seemed to have been reborn too. A different skin, different faces, a different script. But the pain is real, the shadows are real.
Isorath understands those chains, blackened horrible things made to drag their wearer to their knees. He cannot in good conscience ask Aislinn to bear them for him, to see the rubbed raw flesh and the lightning which lanced beneath her skin in furious, mournful arcs.
The embrace though, he can do that. As foreign as it is to him after so long, to dust those tender hallways of cobwebs and it's sheets — is refreshing. A page turned to reveal a new chapter to curious eyes, the first drink of spring water after an era in the desert. He held her closer than he had anyone in an age, the gilded scales upon his marble frame shifted and rose at her electrified touch, as if they were unsure of having someone so close. After a heartbeat, the slid back into place, smooth once more to the touch, instead of spears of defense for unbidden nerves.
Their pace is easy, surrounded by music and braziers, sheltered beneath the citadel's imposing walls and stained glass. Terrastella's seat of power often reminded him of the ruins dotted upon the very edge of the Tharmesh Expanse. Remnants of a bygone age, the stained glass their tears now littered and strewn upon the grass in grief and ruin. He liked to think they looked like the Citadel once, his lilac gaze flicked to the depiction of Vespera and then back to Aislinn as her voice reached his ears. "Much has, and there are more changes coming, I feel." The Regent mused, caught between curiosity and apprehension. He hoped that the latter didn't reveal itself on his delicate features as their gazes met, he hoped the curiosity and inquisitiveness within burned far brighter.
How he wanted to say something to the Stormsinger, but the words ended up choked before they could take their first breath. In the end, all he can manage is a humble "Thank you."
Still, the feeling persisted, as a wound would. His porcelain skin rubbed raw and red as time ticked forward. Even if he cannot feel time crawl forward, he felt suspended. Taken out of time's flow until the time came. At her words, he uttered a soft snort, the diplomat in him amused. "Indeed, though I fear her inexperience may be detrimental in these first seasons of her reign. The Crown is a fickle, uncomfortable thing and it gives power to emotions that they should not have." He responded honestly, there is more again on his tongue he wished to say, but he swallowed it with an impassive tilt of his antlered head.
Lilac eyes spare each path a glance, long and measured. He wished to leave. But he cannot.
He is suspended here. He cannot go forward and he cannot go back. Aislinn provided him a moment of relief, and part of him wished that it would never end. Though truly he is a son of Vectaeryn, and they never ran from their problems.
A Crossroads, it is fitting. Caught between light and shadow.
What will you do now?
"What I must." Isorath replied quietly, a breathless thing which is almost swallowed by the crackle of the fire and the wind which danced upon the night sky. "I fear..." He began, and for the first time in a long time, he allowed the apprehension, the concern, the fear to wash across his delicate features in traitorous waves. Pristine marble suddenly smudged, soot stained fingers spindled across the the golden cracks. He wanted to vanish beneath the volumous curls of starlight which fall down his neck in waves to kiss the stones beneath his hooves. "My heart found it's fire again, and I fear there are consequences for it."
He does not let his confession linger for too long, a nervous laugh, a fleeting skittering thing, escaped into the air between them. "You should go, enjoy the festival and all it has to offer. There is much to see and I'm sure there are others who would be pleased to see you."
HE USED TO CALL ME DN
THAT STOOD FOR DEADLY NIGHTSHADE
CAUSE I WAS FILLED WITH POISON
BUT BLESSED WITH BEAUTY AND RAGE
What I must.
His reply is a spark, a flame that is almost snuffed out by the winds that ensnare them in this in-between plane of light and shadows. But she desperately holds onto those words, clinging to them with a recognition of her own damnation. Her own fate. What Aislinn does not realize, as she cradles those words of truth, that they will become a mantra. A war cry when her guilt, her darkness, her demons come knocking. And now, she can not be more glad for it. That here before her, her friend stands and is so incredibly honest to her.
She does not know how to express the sheer weight of the gift he has given to her in just three little words.
I fear.. My heart found it's fire again, and I fear there are consequences for it.
She takes his confession carefully into her palm, like a precious gold coin turning over with tender fingers — realizing the weight of it. Where she had cradled her new affirmation, now she stands with the heaviness of both longing and knowing upon her shoulders. The diadem upon Isorath's crown is a symbol of both status and growth, but now, she can see the line that has been drawn in the sand between their Courts. And her heart.. oh, her heart is torn. Reichenbach's curse of empathy might not be her own, but it is her undying loyalty that may very well become her undoing. Aislinn knows Florentine's heartbreak all too well, and her anger still simmers because of it. She can feel it's crimson fires blaze and burn, and her lightning crackles in answer. But it is also the other half of her coin that mourns, and understands.
For once upon a time, she had also been Isorath.. in love with a man born from shadows and smoke and stars. A man who was just as much a wild, untamed soul, as she. As Isorath.
"No one should apologize for the whims of their heart," she tells him; a murmur, an even whisper that is like the kiss of a sea breeze after a storm. A blessing. "You can't help but fall in love."
You should go, enjoy the festival and all it has to offer. There is much to see and I'm sure there are others who would be pleased to see you.
Yes.. perhaps then, he is right. Perhaps now, with the shreds of her guilt carefully chained in the far reaches of her, may she be able to find her lover at last. In their short reunion, Aislinn's shoulders no longer bare the weight of cowardice, or shame, or regret. She is a light creature of lithe bones and a warmth of pinks and gold and Dusk that swathes her in both the colors of her kingdom, and also a kingdom who now held part of her. Now, they stand at a crossroads. Befitting of the highways in her own soul, that have been carved from both Calligo's shadows and smoke and Vespera's world of twilight and dreams. Together, they stand at the cusp of choosing which road to walk on.
Except, before she turns, her gaze catches onto the lilac pools of the man before her. He is porcelain and flames and ice and gold, and yet, she still cannot quite believe how much her heart has swollen in this time they have been reunited. It is because of this, the stormsinger finds that her smile wobbles, and silver threatens to prick at the blue of her eyes.
She does not allow her tears to fall, however joyful they may be. Instead, Aislinn dips her crown, bowing and rising with a grin that does not shake upon the bronze of her lips. Her voice is velvet — velvet and sweet. A promise made on the stars that slowly begin to cling to her, much like the painted night sky across her skin.
As she looks at him, her gaze is unfaltering. Strong. Her. "I will see you again soon, Isorath, my friend." Her smile grows with that promise, before she fades into the darkness of Calligo's shadows, with only a wisp of stardust and silver left in the memory of where she stood.
Because now, her heart is open. Now, she has her prince to find. But not before a whisper trails behind her, unspoken and hidden within the weight of her words.
Thank you.
I CAN HEAR SIRENS, SIRENS
HE HIT ME AND IT FELT LIKE A KISS
I CAN HEAR VIOLINS, VIOLINS
GIVE ME ALL OF THAT ULTRAVIOLENCE
@isorath thank you so much for this thread!! <3
"Aislinn speech."
It's the story of his life. Doing what he must. It had never been in his blood to back away from the tide, no matter how much it pulled at his hair and crashed against his sides, threatened to drag him so far out that he could no longer see the shore. Even now, as it dealt with something as delicate as his heart. An ugly broken thing that demanded to be loved, to be allowed to heal and move on from what had broken it in the first place, yet it was ever so fragile. It's pieces had fractures and his mind flared protectively as fire whipped into an inferno, to keep it from harm.
He wouldn't flee. He would stand against the tide as the mountain did.
He's glad at least, that Aislinn does not immediately admonish him, dismiss his confession with a callous flippancy or a scalding remark. The Herald knows that she is in the middle of this battleground, the stormsinger is friends with the Regent and Sovereign both. She knows the duality of their situation so intimately, having trodden there before. He wouldn't of held it against the Stormsinger if she had.
No one should apologize for the whims of their heart, you can't help but fall in love.
The sigh he hadn't known he'd held is released in a soft sigh, as she finally spoke. Her words soothe the tension laced within his muscles, gathered as the world continued to go on as they stood at this fork in the road. A hint of a smile ghosted his lips for a heartbeat in time. "Perhaps you are right." Isorath murmured back, oh so thoughtful and careful as he spoke, his mind caught on each hook and careful curl of his words. He would say the same to her, would he not? Tell her to be unapologetic in her love, regardless to who or what it was.
What silence lingered between them is not laced with guilt and tension, the words shared between them have lightened it so. Lighter than the embers which crackled and rose into the air on the night wind, lighter than the laughter he heard behind him, echoing off of stone walls. He hardly felt the weight of the chains metaphorically wrapped around his slender frame, the burden of consequence seemed far away from here, even as they stood at the Crossroad. On the precipice of the stormsinger leaving to find her love, while he had to answer for his.
It's hard to ignore the way her smile wobbled, or the way her eyes glittered with forbidden tears, and the Regent cannot abide to see such things upon her fierce countenance. "Come now." He said with a delicate, graceful smile on his maw. "Now is not the night for faltering smiles." A wing reached for her, their taloned fingers brushing against her midnight fur in a gentle, playful push, as her head dipped and replaced what been there with a grin.
"You will see me again, I promise." He affirmed with a nod, his own head dipped in a bow of his own, as she went. The Regent lingered even after she became a trail of moondust and starlight, until finally his limbs woke and he turned, disappearing back into the confines of the citadel.
TAG: @Aislinn NOTES: thank you so much for this thread ;o; I can't wait for them to interact again!
