Novus
an equine & cervidae rpg
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Novus closed 10/31/2022, after The Gentle Exodus

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Thaleia
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#1



T H A L E I A 


SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

She could still see the sudden bursts of emerald fire, the heavy smoke of the burning hull of her ship still strong in her nostrils. Behind closed lids, she dreamt; horrible nightmares that stank of charred flesh and bone, the cries of her loyal crew, the stars shimmering high above them with nothing more than a glimmer of sorrow. The sea gods did not save them.. no, they damned them. Their enemy a mad man who dared call himself a pirate king over her own.. her lover. Her mate.

The last glimpse of his face still haunted her as she drifted. Her memories tugged and pulled, showing her how they had all been surprised, terror sinking in and drowning them in fear. So sudden, so unexpected. The perfect target for a night raid in the middle of the wide ocean blue. Her muscles twitched as she remembered the taste of wine on her tongue, the feel of her lover's lips grazing hers before the screams started. Ambushed; their beloved crew taken, under siege. The sharp tang of metal on metal as her king clashed with his cutlass, and she with her own rapier. She would not let their rivals overtake them; her blood had sung a war cry that broiled deep in her bones and her heart. Stronger than the call of the ocean itself, her need to protect and defend burning brighter than the green fire that began to eat away at her own ship. The hull exploding in sheets of wood, splintering as the sea began to drown them.

They were ocean-blessed sea fairers that were drowning drowning drowning; in salt and brine and blood.

She shook, silently crying as her mind relentlessly replayed the memory. Her stomach pitched as she recalled falling; her last view of the ship and her beloved's face as he looked at her. The shock that lined his beautiful features, his silver eyes going wide with anger and grief, and rage before he turned back to take on his enemy captain headlong. Then she had smacked the water, sinking deep below and choking for air before she reached the surface, sweet oxygen flooding her lungs like the bliss of tasting sugar. She recalled searching; for her crew, for something to grab hold to.

She did not remember pulling herself onto a large plank of wood before the smoke coating her lungs and her wounds lulled her to sleep.

Where her skin did not touch the water lapping at her sides, and her back legs still halfway plunged beneath the ocean's surface, heat flooded her skin. Shivers of warmth ran the length of her spine, bright sunlight burning the back of her eyelids as she whimpered, her dreams continuing to replay the terrors of the night before. Dawn had risen, the sky streaked in the colors of morning; and the shores of a new land laid close to her. Unconscious, unknowing. The cove encircled her, the waters becoming shallow more and more as she drifted ever closer to the sandy shores.

The Blue princess, the Takarian Queen, was asleep and unaware of where she was and how her crew, her ship, and her mate had fared from the horrors before.

Gods help anyone who told her.


her arrival in novusland!
anyone welcome <3











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Diarmuid
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#2

The ocean was a familiar friend for the fallen knight.  The crash of waves against the chalk white cliffs had been his lullaby as a child, the counselor of his youth, and the drumbeat of his marches.  It had even been dirge that saw him off the island, away from the home that he would have laid his life down for.  To leave, and to choose to live elsewhere.  To devote himself to another cause- could he do that?  As scars had healed and muscle regrew, he had found the strength of his body again.  But not his conviction.  The place in him that had once welled with purpose now lay empty and hollow in his chest, echoing his failure like a bell with every gentle thump of the copper pendant he wore.  That too had once meant something.

So he'd come to the ocean.  As it had once been his silent counselor so he sought it again.  This time though, he had no words.  The cliffs seemed darker here than the ones at home, both because the stone was darker but also because the water seemed to churn more violently.  The wind whipped his mane, the coarse strands tangling around his remaining ear and attempting to obscure what remained of his vision.  For a moment he closed his eyes and allowed it, welcoming blindness though it did not make him blind to memories.  After a moment of reverence, he shook his head to toss the strands away.

His dark eye scanned to beach below as the tide pulled back.  There was a cool bite in the wind as summer gave way to the inevitable turning of the year.  He though, faintly, he could taste smoke on the wind but it was faint and ethereal as the memory of a dream.  Then his eyes fell on a dark, wave tossed shape below, nearly invisible against the color of the water itself.  Only the plank of debris the equine lay on drew the attention to her true shape.  

Diarmuid plunged down the steep path, rocks skidding as he made his way to the beach of the cove, what little of it was left relatively dry.  There he paused, uncertain.  Was it a selkie or siren?  The lure of some wave-born fae?  For a moment superstition gave him pause.  But the strange neither cried out pitifully nor beautifully, only rode the waves nearer and nearer.  Somehow they had avoided the worst of the rocky breakers and had been driven into the calmer waters of the cove.  Powerful legs carried the stallion foreward into the surf, strong lungs carrying his voice across the stretch of water between them.

"Ahoy there!"  What most worried him was the apparent unconsciousness of the waterborne stranger.  He swam out to meet them, concerned that he might have to help drive them aground on the sand and figure out how to wake them from there.  His eye briefly looked to the horizon, seeking sign of where they might of come from.  And yet he saw nothing, only the clear horizon framed by the arms of the cove.

@Thaleia :)









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Thaleia
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#3



T H A L E I A 


SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

The Blue princess of the Sea, the pirate queen, slept a fitful, fevered slumber adrift the ocean blue. Lukewarm waters lapped at her steel grey sides, shivers of gooseflesh running lengths down her spine and skin, brine coating her lips as her cheek laid on the wood plank that kept her above the surface. She whimpered, helpless against the nightmares crafted from the horrors from the night before; her worst fears come to light. Now, she lay unconscious, murmuring, her orbs flickering behind closed lids as she drifted ever closer to a foreign land she knew nothing of.

She did not hear a voice calling out to her; only the screams of her crew as they drowned, and of explosions of splintered wood and crackling fire, and the sharp tangs of metal on metal as her lover clashed with their rival pirate lord. Her ears listened to the soft lapping of waves, lulling her deeper into unconsciousness instead of pulling her up up up and awake. The princess groaned, a rough wave of water crashing over her nostrils, filling her airways with salt and brine and the faraway taste of blood still on her lips.

The surf was more violent, growing unsteady and ever unpredictable. Her eyelids heavy and filled with sandman's dust and exhaustion, she grumbled, her muscles burning. A voice broke through the roaring sound of the ocean and her sweet call. Seaweed tangled around her legs and then she was falling, slipping below the surface of the sea, her wooden plank that had kept her afloat — alive — now capsized as the ocean claimed it's daughter.

In all of years that she spent flirting with the ocean blue and her mysteries and hidden treasures, Thaleia, an ocean fae princess and lover of the sea, had not yet learned to swim. A pirate, a land mermaid, cursed with legs instead of fins. Salt water gargled in her throat, in her lungs; oxygen robbed from her and leaving a burning, liquid fire in it's wake. The cove was shallow, but not shallow enough for she. Her orbs widened beneath the surf, molten silver and pupiless, unseeing to the stormy waters that encased her. She could not decipher where the surface lay; her body thrashing and unable to bring her either up or down or whichever way.

She was helpless; coughing and desperately searching for air. A mermaid-hearted woman, ocean-blessed, and simply unable to swim and save herself.


@diarmuid <3 this post is meh, i'm sorry love :(
"Thaleia speech."











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Diarmuid
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#4

The lightning-scarred knight lost his hesitation when the siren slipped beneath the waves and the debris bobbed empty and wave tossed. His mother had taught him to swim in his youth, for fear that their closeness to the water would be too dangerous if he did not. It was a skill he had never regretted knowing- especially not know. The seawater darkened his rose-grey coat to ruddy slate, lit with the fine lines of white that traced his pewter scars in sharp relief. The sea tugged at the rose pendant on the cord around his neck as if demanding tribute for the life he intended to try and steal from it.

He could see where she had gone under, still closed to the surface so her thrashing was clear. He had to turn to keep her out of his blind spot- it would do neither of them any good if he could not see what he was doing. Diarmuid thrust himself beneath the surface, ignoring the sting of salt. It wasn't graceful or pretty, but in the dark water he could see the seaweed that wrapped around her legs like mermaid hair- it almost turned her into a creature of myth as he had first though in fleeting fancy. Now he struck out to rip the stands away, to loosen them so she could fight to the surface.

A burst of bubbles, life's breath snatched away, burst from his nostrils as a stray hoof caught him in the ribs from her flailing but he thought he got the worst of the snatching strands free. Lungs burning, he drove his shoulder into her, thrusting her towards the shallower water of the cove and up towards the surface. Then he had to break away himself and fight for the surface to refill his lungs with air, coughing as the sea flung spray in his face.

He tossed his head, trying to find her and cursing inwardly at his limited vision. The shore was not so far off, nor the soft silted sand that would provide sanctuary for the shipwrecked sailor and her would-be rescuer.

@Thaleia Eh... not sure mine's much better. Let me know if it's too gm-y or anything and I'll edit!









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Thaleia
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#5



T H A L E I A 


SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

She was entombed in salt and brine and shatters of light piercing the dark blue sea. Her hooves kick against the thrashing of waves, desperately trying to find the sand at the bottom of the cove. Her breath is gone, each ounce of space for sweet oxygen now filled with the ocean that is suffocating her, coating her lungs in burning saltwater. Seaweed tangles around her ankles, pulling her under, like shackles chaining her beneath the surface. Where she belongs.. to at last drown, like any pirate queen. To sail to Calypso's heavenly sea along with her beloved crew and her ship.

But today would not be that day.

Despite the shadowed faces of her loyal crew and the reflection of her lover's face flashing before her silver eyes in the water, she roars. She does not realize how exactly her ankles become free; one hoof hitting solid sand, or flesh, she doesn't know. Instead, she immediately thrusts upwards — or at least, where she believes up is. Her guess strikes true, but it is the slam of a shoulder into her side that drives her lithe body towards the surface. At last, she breaks through the waves, her nostrils flaring with sugar sweet oxygen. She coughs, sea foam bubbling in her throat where the ocean had begun to claim her lungs, her airways. A dark wave crashes behind her, nearly pulling her under once more, but at last, Thaleia's hooves toe the shallow cove beneath the sea. She begins to prance through the waters towards the shore, her legs pushing and pulling with the ebb and flow of the sea.

Her muscles aching, twitching with the effort of her swim, Thaleia pulls herself onto the soft, damp sand of the beach, before she collapses onto her side. Her lungs heaving as she catches her breath, seaweed tangled into the silver tresses of her salty mane and around her legs. An ocean daughter she appeared to be; a mermaid with four legs now washed onto a foreign shore. Behind her, the Unknown Sea that almost claimed her. Her, the Blue princess of the Sea Court and the Takarian pirate queen.

She did not realize that her fate had been decided by a rose-touched warrior whom had braved the angry seas to save her.


@diarmuid <3
"Thaleia speech."











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Diarmuid
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#6

Though the fire in his lungs eased with the influx of air, it seemed to spread through his blood to his muscles, air starved and driven to work they were not used to.  It was with great relief that he felt his hooves catch on sand and he waded through the shallows until he was out of reach of the worst of the waves.  The surf still lapped and foamed around his hooves as he turned to see what had become of the sea-maid.  His legs were braced wide, chest still heaving as he caught his breath from his ungainly dive.  The wet had turned his coat to ruddy, salt-flecked pewter like a sword catching the red light of dying embers.  His mane is slick to his neck, sticking uncomfortable and catching in the whorls and fern-like branches of the scars that bite deep into his hide.

The knight's good eye find her collapsed on the sand not far away.  Some inner anxiety eases at the sight of her, alive and breathing.  Slowly, heavy black hooves move across the wet packed sand to her side and he lowers his muzzle to just brush her damp shoulder, checking if she is conscious or not.  He hopes she is- he's no healer and he wouldn't trust leaving her this close to the edge of the water to try and fetch one.  Better if she can move under her own power.  It is one thing to thrust someone along when they are buoyed by salt water and another thing entirely to try and drag someone on dry land.

"Are you alright, lady?"  The words are spoken low and oddly formal for their current position.  He lifts his head again and turns it this way and that, trying to get a good look at her.  Trying to tell if she is hurt or only half-drowned.  He cannot- does not- try to hide the mutilated side of his face from her.  He is too busy checking for hurts, a little concerned that in trying to help he may have caused some hurt as well.  She seems small to him, delicate.  Fragile even.  The more he looks though the more he notices strangeness.  It isn't the horn that strikes him as odd.  He has seen that before.  It is her ears.

Long and curving, they are like little he has seen before.  He shifts back from her, superstition warring with concern for her well being.  It seems that everyone he meets here carries a stamp of the otherworldly, like the delicate gilded marking on Israfel's wings to now this.  If this is a place for the fae-touched and fire-souled, what place had he here?

@Thaleia









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Thaleia
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#7



T H A L E I A 


SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

Her chest heaved with every inhale of sweet, sweet breath, her dappled body splayed onto the soft sand beach. Grounded, like a magnet pulling her to the center of the earth. She did not hear her savior approach her; her ears thundering with the waves as they lapped at the shore, and her heartbeat that fluttered like a mad, caged bird in her chest. It was the soft brush of lips on her damp shoulder that caught her attention; the shiver of touch sending shocks through each of her tired muscles.

Are you alright, lady?

With a great heave, she rolls herself upwards, and with a grunt, her legs curl beneath her as she stands on wobbly hooves. Silver-white tresses are matted against the delicate curve of her steel-blue neck as she shakes her crown, her breath shuddering in her throat as her burning lungs begin to cool. She blinks upward, pupil-less silver orbs landing on a rosy-grey man, his coat damp and muted only by the dark sea behind them. Her mind flashes, and with satisfying clicks she connects the dots; he must have been the one she accidentally kicked while she was thrashing in the ocean. He must have been the one to chuck her towards the beach as she nearly drowned. This man that she did not know, had saved her from the one place that she held dear, the one place that had her soul glowing with untamed happiness: the ocean itself.

She does not falter as she meets his gaze, nor as she notes the deep scars marring the left side of his face, and all of the way down to his chest. If anything, a pang of pain shatters her as she wonders for a moment the story behind those scars on his dappled skin. She shoves her curiosity aside, gratitude flooding her in thick waves of thankfulness and also.. anxiety. Quickly, she cranes her neck to look beyond her savior, to the angry sea and the line on the horizon where the sky touches the ocean. Searching, wondering.. to what unknowns about the fate of those who held her heart and soul.

"What is this place? Where am I?"


@diarmuid <3
"Thaleia speech."











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Diarmuid
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#8

She rolls and he steps back again to give her room to rise to her feet.  Standing, she still seems small to him but her build is not so delicate as he first assumed.  He should have gathered that, he supposed- after all, she'd the strength to survive this far despite the fact that there was no sign of where she'd come from.  Then again, Novus had proven again and again that it was a place of strange happenings.  He was no scholar to decide if it was he fault of fate or the gods or just some happy coincidence.  He only knew it to be what he had observed.

He doesn't move too far away, still hovering concerned close enough to try and steady her if she starts to fall.  His head drops to bring himself closer to her eye level though he does not face her straight on.  Instead he head turned slightly to gaze upon her fully with his good eye, dark and worried.  The turn also shields the milky white of his blind eye from her, protecting the side out of caution that has become habit.  

The sea-maid's eyes search beyond him, hunting the cliffs that surround them as the knight looks her over now that she is standing.  Diarmuid is more than a little relieved that she seems to have sustained no major injuries from her near drowning.  She is standing steadily enough, at least, and doesn't seem to be favoring anything.  With luck she will recover quickly from her trials- physically at least.  

"This is Novus."  He answers both her questions at once, though in the heartbeat that follows he wonders if he should says more.  If so, what?  He knows little about the land, just what he heard from sailors on his way here and from listening to the more senior members of the Dusk Court.  "There is a path up to the top of the cliffs, and the Dusk Court is not far from there.  There should be a healer about who could see to you."

The offer is careful, for he does not know how it will be received.

@Thaleia









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Thaleia
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#9



T H A L E I A 


SEAWATER LIKE SUGAR ON HER LIPS -

The sea breeze tossed and flirted with the salt-white of her mane, the sting of ocean water burning her nostrils, her throat, and her lungs. Molten silver eyes looked on, seeing nothing and everything at once. To the waves of the raging sea, to the edge where the sky touched the ocean blue, and the far away fate of her sunken ship, her crew, and her beloved. All of things she cared about, everything that the Blue princess held most dear in her heart, gone, in explosions of emerald fire and metal and splintered wood.

She does not notice that her muscles are trembling, exhaustion setting in as her body is tired from her drift along the sea for unknown hours.

This is Novus.

"Novus?" she inquired, turning the word carefully over as she spoke, her voice accentuating the ov. Her skin shivers as the chill settles into her damp skin like little fingers of ice, each droplet of water soaking her suddenly freezing her down to her very bones. With soft blinks, her teeth chatter, her orbs roving over the rose-touched warrior hovered near her. A comfort, a shoulder to lean on, she realizes, with a soft smile tugging one side of her lips upwards. Her emotions roil like a hurricane, swirling anger and grief that dare to plunge her into the deep. Dark and depthless, a cage of shadow and murky seawater that would swallow her whole, should she give into the waves that crash against her heart and soul. But she does not allow it an inch, instead standing tall against the frustration and tears that threaten to spill over.

There is a path up to the top of the cliffs, and the Dusk Court is not far from there.  There should be a healer about who could see to you.

Her gaze is a broken thing, full of longing and despair, but she meets the warrior's stare nonetheless. Leia's body shifts, turning away from the sea, her heart cracking as she does. With careful, slow movements, her hooves sink into the damp sand beneath her, as her eyes take in the view of the foreign land behind her. The tall cliffs of white stone and changing leaves like earthen fire; a sea of green and a city hidden in rolling hills. All strange to her, like a dream.. nothing like any she had found or known on any map of worlds and seas once traveled before.

Brave and weak, the pirate queen looks to her savior, her companion, in hopes that he will guide her. To a kingdom she dare not know, but maybe, just maybe, a place where she could find out the fate of her people. Her lover. Her home.

"Yes," she replies, her voice slithering over the ending of the word. Dragging it out, long and slow, as she breathes in the salt and brine of the air. "I think that would be best. Thank you." She tentatively steps towards the cliffs, to the trail that would take her beyond, before she cranes her slender neck to take a look at the ocean. One last time.

Calypso, I'm in your hands now. Take me home, she prays, and then she departs, her back to the sea.


@diarmuid pooey exit, I'm sorry love :c thank you so much for saving her and threading with me!!! <3
"Thaleia speech."











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