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

Private  - never told no one but we look so cute

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Played by Offline bruiser [PM] Posts: 99 — Threads: 13
Signos: 1,000
Inactive Character
#1

She is tired

It is as bone-deep as the cough that rattles her chest, no longer able to be ignored with their people safely nestled within the walls of Denocte, without the guise of duty to keep her on her feet and constantly moving. It is with quiet solemnity that she weaves through the few equines still scattered throughout the Night Court streets, offering a weary smile to those who glance her way but never pausing, never offering the chance to be waylaid. 

She aches for company, for the brush of skin-on-skin to remind her that they are alive and safe now, and damn any sort of propriety that says she shouldn’t, that it is some sort of bad idea to seek comfort from the only person she wants it from -- the only person as war-torn as she is, who understands the continuous ache in her soul for their people and for their Court.

“Commander,” Her voice is hoarse from coughing, from shouting orders and cursing every single God she knows, and yet it is still so soft as it cradles the name on her tongue when she finds the mare alone. She doesn’t pause, only presses herself close, one wing slinging over Marisol’s back and her forehead glued to the other mare’s cheek, drinking in the strength the commander has always exuded while offering what’s left of her own.

"Speaking."
credits

@Marisol





she wasn't looking for a knight,
she was looking for a sword.





Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 277 — Threads: 28
Signos: 180
Inactive Character
#2



heaven talks
but not to me



Denocte is unsafe as anywhere can be. She does not trust them - Isra, or Raymond, or even Asterion. (When she looks at the boy-king still she only sees the boy part, the shy, gloaming luminescence of a star that does not quite know how to shine.) And so as her people fall into the trap of gullibility, as they let down their defenses, shed their weapons in the doorway and offer their chests like bleeding-heart doves, Marisol skulks through the streets of Denocte and always keeps her wings half-opened.

There is no room for error, anymore.

Above the sky sparkles with its lace of stars, and in the silver glow Mari winds her way through the streets. She is gaunt now with stress and sickness and in the near-dark her narrow hips, her sloping shoulders, the slats between her ribs catch the moonlight. Her gold-tinged mane is cropped with punishing exactness. On edge, watchful, Marisol’s ears swivel constantly to catch the noise around her, and so she is not surprised when Theodosia appears, knowing the pattern of her hoof steps on stone.

What she is surprised by, though, is the almost-foolish brashness of the cadet, to slip her wing over Marisol’s back and press her head to the Commander’s as if that is a thing they are allowed to do.

Her heart bangs in her chest, sickeningly loud, and her breath starts to hurt, painfully tight in her lungs; for a moment she almost wants to give in, to the light warmth of Theodosia’s skin on her own, and to the way she almost grows dizzy at it - but quickly she steps away, shifting the Cadet’s wing from her spine, raising her head so they don’t touch.

Something like anger burns in her veins. "Theodosia," she responds, and it is almost, almost bitter.

credits





[Image: ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda...jvUop12efQ]





Played by Offline bruiser [PM] Posts: 99 — Threads: 13
Signos: 1,000
Inactive Character
#3

Her skin burns wherever it brushes against Marisol, a feverish heat she thinks perhaps the Commander might even be able to feel radiating from her body. She’s on fire, it seems, so intense it feels like she just might combust, and yet whenever the slightest gust comes whistling through the streets it sends chills up her spine enough to make her ache. Another gust sets her teeth on edge, constricts her chest into a tight knot, and before she can blink she’s coughing hard enough to rattle her slender frame, as though her lungs want to vacate their current position.

She can’t seem to get enough air to respond to Marisol, and even if she could, she doesn’t know how ---

The ground seems to sway beneath her feet, her gaze fever-bright when she turns to muffle her coughs into her wing, and maybe if she just closes her eyes for a moment, everything will just… stop, because she’s dizzy with lack of oxygen and she doesn’t know whether she wants to press closer to Marisol or try to run away, try to hide this weakness like she’s been doing since the rains first started and her chest began to ache.

She doesn’t get the chance to run, because the world turns to static in her ears even as her knees buckle, the harsh coughing easing only as she loses consciousness.

"Speaking."
credits

@Marisol oops





she wasn't looking for a knight,
she was looking for a sword.





Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 277 — Threads: 28
Signos: 180
Inactive Character
#4



heaven talks
but not to me




She hates her heart for the way it bangs against her chest, so loud Theodosia must be able to her it passing between her skin: it is not the heartbeat of a grizzled commander and yet in this moment she is not a commander, not even a soldier. Not anything she recognizes. Just a soft, stupid girl finding it harder and harder to breathe.

Her lungs tighten and tighten until it hurts to inhale, and yet by the grace of Vespera Marisol remains, somehow, discrete. She holds her shoulders back against her spine and raises her chin until the blood rushes away from her cheeks. Power, power, power, she says to herself, gritting her teeth, blinking against the dark wet air. Power power power, keep it together - 

Then Theodosia falls against her shoulder, and her composure faces an infinitesimal crack.

The cadet smashes to the cobblestone and Marisol can’t help the gasp choked out of her throat. Shock flickers through her system like a flash of electricity. Theodosia - her coughs ring in Mari’s ears, grating and metallic against her brain, and without thinking she grabs for a piece of Theo’s mane to keep her upright and shoves a shoulder under the girl’s chest, trying to support her weight.

Overhead the wind picks up speed and Marisol thinks she might feel rain speckling her shoulders, and she sets her teeth into a growl.
credits





[Image: ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda...jvUop12efQ]





Played by Offline bruiser [PM] Posts: 99 — Threads: 13
Signos: 1,000
Inactive Character
#5

Her breath burns in her lungs, galaxies spinning behind her eyelids with bright pin-pricks of light that burst and flash as though their only goal is to blind her. Everything is a sense of falling, of a flight where her wings could no longer hold her and her legs have failed to carry her weight, of a spinning world that no longer stops at her command and a rushing river that blocks out all sound in her ears.

Her knees crash into the pavement and begin to bleed, sluggishly at first and the blood mixes with the rainwater around them to trail down her pale legs and stain the fur there a delicate pink. “Commander,” She rasps back when her eyes finally open again, bright and glazed with the fever that’s overtaken her body, and there is no stopping the small smile that pulls across her lips when she sees Marisol’s (worried, why did she look so worried?) face.

“You’re really cute when you do that,” She laughs, fever-drunk and leaning onto Mari as though she might topple (she would) if she were let go, gesturing with her muzzle towards the set line of Mari’s jaw. Her skin is cold and clammy, chills beginning to run down her spine, and she presses closer without realizing, seeking out the heat of Marisol’s body -- and yet to Marisol, it likely felt as though she were on fire, so high was her temperature.

“S’cold, you know that? Be nice weather to curl up under a blanket with a pretty girl like you,” The words are almost slurred, the cadet leaning her head heavily onto Mari’s shoulder and blinking up at her owlishly. “---M’actually kinda tired, can we do that? That sounds nic--” And her eyes were closing again, the rush building in her ears and the galaxies spinning behind her eyelids once more, her knees threatening to buckle without the solid support of Marisol holding her up.

"Speaking."
credits


@Marisol





she wasn't looking for a knight,
she was looking for a sword.





Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 277 — Threads: 28
Signos: 180
Inactive Character
#6



heaven talks
but not to me




It is when Theodosia falls to the ground that Marisol thanks her predecessors, for the first time, for beating so much apathy into her.

It is what keeps her sane as she reaches to pull the cadet back up; it is what keeps her heart from pounding completely out of her chest, hard as it beats now; it is what keeps her head clear as she thinks desperately please be okay, please be okay and watches the rainwater at their feet go rose with blood. Almost, she thinks, this is worth than a battle wound. In the middle of a spar there is no time to regret and no time to think twice about you’ve done; here, in the cold silence of the night, Marisol cannot quite do anything but think about her wrongdoings.

She presses closer to Theodosia and feels the wet burn of her skin and prays, prays, that the coldness will not stay, that it is not fatal.

The cadet sounds drunk, almost, and Mari’s heart constricts as she remembers their meeting in that bar in the heart of Terrastella. Shut up, she says, but the timber of her voice is panic, not anger. Shh, stop talking. You’re wasting your breath. Yes, we can, but we have to go home first, yeah? They’re not going home. Marisol knows the path to the hospital as well as she knows the feathers on her wings, and she raises her chin to seek out the building rising high over the others and grimaces at how far it is. 

Just lean on me, she says, and takes a first painful step forward.

credits





[Image: ddg6quy-9d15dab5-339c-4b09-8b57-20a99fda...jvUop12efQ]





Played by Offline bruiser [PM] Posts: 99 — Threads: 13
Signos: 1,000
Inactive Character
#7

There is solace in Mari's skin against hers, in the rat-a-tat beat of the commander's heart as they press together and as she tries to keep herself from losing her balance and her consciousness once more. There is a coursing heat through her veins that pulses with every thrum of her heartstrings, so similiar and yet so different from the heat she'd felt that night in a run-down bar in Terrastella, and for a moment she aches to be back home.

There was nothing wrong with Delumine, except that it wasn't Terrastella. Her quarters here were almost lavish in comparison to the spartan cadet quarters she'd made into her home, the people all welcoming towards the refugees of her court... but it wasn't home. Even more selfishly, she longed for her Dam, for the soft voice that had sung her lullabies through all of her childhood sicknesses and the quiet, almost amused look of patience Anzhelo had worn whenever she'd try to deny she was sick.

"Okay," She sighs at Marisol's command, the commander's voice pulling her out of a hazy memory of her own childhood, and perhaps that is the most alarming sign of all, that she doesn't try to fight or hide her weakness any longer -- she's tired, too tired to fight, too tired to do anything except lean against Marisol's shoulder and pray to the Gods she no longer trusts in that the commander won't think less of her in the morning.
credits

@Marisol fin.





she wasn't looking for a knight,
she was looking for a sword.





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