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

Private  - prince with the swift warning

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Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Maximus
Guest
#1

DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER
PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING,
BE CUNNING AND FULL OF TRICK
AND YOUR PEOPLE SHALL NEVER BE DESTROYED
--- ♕ ---

He follows her in a quiet that is not quite—there is always a quip that could be exchanged; a challenge that could be issued. The excitement too, that makes his too-fast heart beat even faster, tests the limits of his patience. He takes a few long trot steps here and there, feeling the slide of sand beneath his hooves, tucking his chin to his chest where the skull bump-bumps.. It is all can to do discharge some of the energy that has built up in his fine, sinewy body.

After some time, the formlessness of Mors begins to take some shape. 

First, the watery, paper-thin form of some oasis or another—glittering like a blue gemstone set in a golden crown. He shifts his jaw, feeling the thickness of his dry tongue. Mirages, each, as they fade from sight the moment he thinks they may be close enough to be believed—

Then, in the distance, the sand begins to build. Rising from the dunes and plains like an old soldier, the walls are pitted and weathered, but they stand all the same. Turrets, too, reach for the sky—battered and bruised, rippling in the heat. He squirts, his mouth set in a thin line that says he will not be fooled again. But, towards it, they go on, and when those walls do not crumble, when they do not fall like water to join the sand below, he begins to think this might be the more she had been referring too. “Day Court?” he asks, rhetorical, for it must be.

It is not grand, this bastion in the wastes, but it is impressive. It has withstood so much, and to some undiscerning eye it might seem weakened for this. He thinks otherwise—it has only hardened under the abuse it has endured.

As they approach the defensive wall he falls back, much more reserved, bending completely to her lead (hard as it is). Sitting flat in the wind, he can see a banner bearing the image of a figure more Sun than anything. He opens his mouth to inquire when suddenly the first, fat flake of snow lands square in a red-pink eye. He winks, his long ears pulling back, “What the bloody–”

It is only the first… 

----
@Bexley











Played by Offline REDANDBLACK [PM] Posts: 302 — Threads: 37
Signos: 135
Inactive Character
#2

Anyone else might’ve been a little more worried about a stranger unceremoniously dumped in a desert. Bexley, for all her sociability, for even the practiced way she flashes her smile like a sickle, has spent so long in the now-comfortably hot embrace of the desert that she does not even think of how dry Maximus’ tongue might be, how much he might be sweating, or how weak he might be feeling. It’s a thought that hasn’t crossed her mind since she very first entered Novus. To her, the omnipresent wash of sunlight, and and the blinding kind of heat that comes with it, are so constant they’ve lost the ability to even make her break a sweat.

Which is why she notices the cold so immediately.

The sky above them bruises a deeper blue, streaked suddenly with faint gray clouds; Bexley tilts her gaze upward to watch the change, feeling a barely-cool breeze against her exposed throat, and blinks in a nervous kind of surprise. Even fall weather in Solterra doesn’t bring this kind of chill. Especially not in the middle of the day.

(For a moment, she laments the loss of her magic so much it causes a physical ache in the pit of her stomach, wondering what it would feel like to be able to warm herself against the cold, or what she’d be willing to do for the ability to light their way once again.)

Teeth grit, she lowers her head to her chest. Snow flecks her hair, melts against the gold of her skin, fizzes in her lungs as she breathes it in, hoarfrost already spreading silver streaks over the too-cool sand. She is plowing forward now with a grittier kind of determination. Hurry up. Her voice is not unkind, but neither is it as steadily playful as it has been. First rule of Solterra… snow is bad news.

She plows a path through the wall and into the city.

Scandalized citizens flood the streets, silent in dread or keening with confusion, heads tilted to watch the flurry as it comes down, and as Bexley wriggles a way through the crowds to make a path for Max she snaps in the ear of more than one awe-struck resident, snarling Move! or Get inside, so authoritatively that most scatter at the sound. The vast majority of them know her, or know of her - Solterra’s golden girl, the scar-faced Regent - and have the good sense to take her advice, fleeing toward the nearest shelter with only a murmur of dissent. The rest at least move out of her way.

Sorry, she calls over her shoulder, slowing so Maximus can catch up and shaking a layer of ice from her hair. You came at kind of the worst time ever. I’ll explain, but first things first -

With that, she turns a sharp left, headed on a straight path for the citadel.
Bexley
my dragonfly, my black-eyed flower -










Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Maximus
Guest
#3

DIGGER, LISTENER, RUNNER
PRINCE WITH THE SWIFT WARNING,
BE CUNNING AND FULL OF TRICK
AND YOUR PEOPLE SHALL NEVER BE DESTROYED
--- ♕ ---

The cold comes. Unlike her, Max hadn’t felt it—(how had he not felt it? for now it is slipping deep into his bones)—until it had hit him straight in the eye. Typical. Somehow he managed to get so stuck in the suck of his own bloated tongue and the growing wails of his arid throat...

He squints up at the sky, as she does, where clouds have gathered on the endless, sun-soaked plain of blue—fat, angry things of black and bluster. So very misplaced that even he can see they are intruders here. He doesn’t need to ask her if this is normal—it is self evident, besides, by the time he is done staring shell shocked into the sky, she is commanding him onwards, yelling back over her shoulder;

’First rule of Solterra… snow is bad news.’

He jumps forward, careening past the portcullis and through into the teeming, roiling streets. He trails the regent with a single-mindedness that has him almost trampling wide-eyed citizens, gazes skyward, skidding to stops and grunting angrily from them to move! They do so with a hard reluctance, otherwise, he must sidestep some. He hadn’t known it then, in the hinterland of Mors, but now he can see Bexley wields some real measure of power here. When she yells move, they do. When she tells them to get inside—

(He has experienced his fair share of winters. Once the stores of food were chewed through—and this happened quite quickly—the next step was woody things. Twigs. The bark off the trunks of trees. Not the most appealing of delicacies, but the cold months are lean times. It is what it is.) 

She slows, and he is thankful for it, breathless and disoriented, he moves to her shoulder, long ears flicking wildly. “No kidding‒” he heaves, following her at a more manageable pace to the stronghold of the Court. “I won’t even play stupid, though it is a strong suit of mine,” he calls over the huffs of northerly wind, swirling thick flurries around his head. “This is clearly… abnormal...”—ice has begun to crystalize on the whisters of his muzzle and the eyelashes surrounding his pink-bright eyes—“do you… have any idea what is going on?”

----
@Bexley (and @Seraphina if ya want)











Played by Offline REDANDBLACK [PM] Posts: 302 — Threads: 37
Signos: 135
Inactive Character
#4

It is a small thing to be thankful for, but Bexley appreciates that the space Maximus has left between them means her anxiety can go unnoticed. No screwing on a brave face, no plastering on that sharp-edged smile: plunging through the crowd with Max lagging behind her, her breaths are steeled through a row of gritted teeth, her heartbeat a rapid tattoo, and the screwed-up expression on her face is one of obvious discomfort.

At least her steps do not waver. There is some strength in that.

The citadel looms high in the distance. It is a gilded thing of sandstone and glass, many feet high and yellow against the bruised sky. As many times as Bexley has walked this path for an audience with Seraphina or a meeting with Eik, today is different. It is not just a building - it is the hub and the heart of the Day Court, and it is only to be infringed on for serious purposes. She traverses the familiar steps with an increasing sense of urgency, every so often pausing to agitate a fine white layer of snow off her body, but never long enough to stop completely. It is within one of these pauses that Maximus catches up to her and Bexley finally remembers he exists. It had been pushed right out of her mind.

Well. The regent shakes like a wet dog, shedding flakes of ice, and starts forward again: this time she is slow enough for Maximus to keep up, watching him with a gaze of piercing interest as they walk but never turning her eyes from the citadel for too long. A week or two ago the regime of every Court - oh shit, do you know the courts? Strange to think that only a year ago she was as lost as he is know, blissfully unaware of Novus' intricacies and complications, the same ones now making her sick. There’s four - okay, anyway. We had to go the highest mountain, slash, biggest pile of bullshit on this entire continent to meet the gods.

And, she says, tone lapsing into something deeper and more serious, They said change was coming. She still hears that voice in the back of her mind sometimes. When Tempus speaks it is a hundred drums at once, the singing of every kind of bird, a string plucked across the entire world, and it’s hard not to remember. Snow in the fucking desert. Some change - Bexley snorts, shakes her head, as if clearing the memory from her already-muddled brain. She kicks a pea-sized ball of hail from her path absent-mindedly. This all makes about as little sense to me as it does to you, if that you makes you feel any better.

She knows it probably won’t.
Bexley
my dragonfly, my black-eyed flower -










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