[AW] Rich Youth [Relic Contest]

[Camdis]

Camdis Lohir

Upon the mountain, within the arms of the gods, all else fell away. 

Hooves clacked and echoed noisily against the stone walls and floor of the cathedral, and Camdis Lohir wished briefly that his steps were lighter, for it seemed a wretched thing to disturb the holy silence of such a place. Despite the fact that he had been lead here along treacherous, frigid trails and passes by the yank of the relic's magic, Camdis felt the mantle of Caligo's love press onto his shoulders. While he had skimmed through the history of Novus in a dusty old tome that he had discovered in Denocte's keep, he had yet to commune with his beloved demi-goddess. Despite this, though, his heart ached and yearned for her attentions, for the affection and validation from a deity that he had only accepted as a part of his heart and soul a handful of days ago. 

Silvery eyes misted over, tears threatening to spill over his black and scarlet painted cheeks as he thought upon the strife that had waylaid his Caligo. Camdis knew all too well what it was to be unwanted and what it was to attempt to push past the resentment of others and appeal to one's own better nature. 

He also knew what it was to fail, and to ruin things in the process.

"Caligo," He whispered to the torch-adorned halls, their fire flickering to life as the sun dipped below the horizon, "I am one of your children, I am one of your own." There was a pause as his throat grew thick with emotion, brow creasing in frustration as he struggled to bring the words forth, "Please, if there is anything I can do to serve you or our people better, please, tell me."

In the shadow of the Most Holy, the relic's magic had been cast aside. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[Rhoswen]

RHOSWEN,

Rhoswen had lost track of all time upon the hour her solitude was desecrated; she might have been shrouded in the cathedral's darkness for moments or days, who was she to say. Almost reluctantly she had made the journey skyward with gritted teeth and the taste of chagrin slapped against the roof of her mouth, but she had journeyed all the same, if only to cease the incessant memory of her father's voice ringing like a broken record. "To forsake your Priestess is to forsake oneself, Rhoswen" Iscariot had always been a scrupulously devout man, and part of her had admired him for such devotion - yet still the other, stronger, part of her had declared him foolish. Doubt had gnawed at the silver-skinned girl from a young age: had these proposed Gods and Goddesses truly existed, all those thousands of years ago? And even so, were they benevolent and receptive to prayer? After years of thought, Rhoswen still had not arrived at any definitive conclusion, and perhaps it was time to accept that she never would. Regardless, her return to Novus and her abandonment of the Court she had been born into, for another, had left her feeling... uncomfortable? It was an itch she could not seem to scratch.

And so Rhoswen she had made her first pilgrimage to the Holy grounds of Veneror Peak in search of atonement, elucidation, acknowledgement, something. She had stood - fists clenched, damp auburn curls cast astray - waiting in the cool of this house of hallowed stone for anything close to enlightenment. It never came. 

What did, however, was a man dressed in red and marred by horn. So entombed in his own thought, he did not seem to notice the smoke-eyed figure hidden also within the shadows; watching as he seem to empty his very soul into the air with every delicately whispered syllable. Rhoswen felt as though she were intruding on something private, something sacred, and she supposed she was. Had she been a different girl, gentle and saccharine, Rhos might have stayed hidden so as to guard this stranger's privacy. But, she was not. She was carved from sharpened steel, carrying stolen jewels between her teeth; a shark, a wolf, a blade. "She is not listening," the words dripped from her tongue like honeyed arsenic as she emerged into the light, a smile threatening to break loose, "but I am."

 

@camdis hey!!

[Camdis]

Camdis Lohir

It was not the voice of his goddess that answered him, nor was it a voice of any god. 

No, it were a mortal that had deigned to pull him from his worshipful stupor and approach through the flickering darkness, a wraith in the night. The stallion inhaled, not recognizing her scent as that of the Night Court's and feeling his lip curl of it's own accord. She was the same height as he, and silver as his eyes, though her own gaze was borne of storm clouds and wrathful seas. Where he was bleak, she was fruitful. Where he was empty, she was overflowing. Where he walked with the heaviness of a thousand souls upon his back, her steps were feather light. 

He tried to convince himself that it was her intrusion that enraged him so, not the security and the surety with which she held her faintly dished skull. It was the way she shoved herself into his life without his consent, a stake driven into stone and a knife plunged between ribs. 

But he knew this wasn't true. 

He was envious of this woman, viridian-eyed and seething at the saccharine smile that splayed over her overtly feminine features. The comfort with which she wore her skin was a white-hot brand of humiliation to him. He was a king, yet he had never carried himself like one. She was a plain citizen, no crown adorned her head, no jewels pressed to her throat, yet she was a queen in her own right, regal and elegant with enough humility that Camdis knew that if she were to sit the throne beside him, the people would accept him only because of their love for her. 

"What do you know of my deity? Has she spoken to you, a child of Day?" He spat the words at her, full of venom and disdain, "Why do you approach me here, in this holy house. You know well enough what your lord did to my Lady of Night."

His eyes flashed with his misplaced fury, teeth clenched against the maelstrom he struggled to hold at bay. Some small part of him knew that it was not the stranger's fault, the quarrel of the gods. It was also not her fault that he was what he was, it was no one's fault but his own. 

But fault be damned, he was angry and she presented herself a target.
                                                                                                                                                                                                      

 @Rhoswen  Ah jeez, I love her a lot. Sorry Camdis is a raging pile of garbage

[Rhoswen]

RHOSWEN,

Derision dripped from this haunted man - haunted because of the rage in his gaze, haunted because of the anguish lingering upon his scarlet skin, haunted because she could not bear to look away from this house on fire; watching as he burned from the inside out. For a moment she was almost breathless, her heart ticking to a curious beat; who was this dying creature? 

Yet, breathe she did: her lungs expanding smoothly as they had done countless times before. And she brushed off his malevolence with unadulterated ease, swatting it from her shoulders with swift precision - curiosity would not kill this kitty cat. The man's words poured into the air, hot and scathing, but she only smiled; teeth glinting in the dim light. Rhoswen did not mock him with her amusement, for in a sweeping rush of something close to pity she almost felt sorry for the horned stranger - how little he knew of her world (the world). From Denocte he had come, and once more Rhos allowed her torrid gaze to study his bones, his lips, his bitterness. A stranger indeed. He had merely adopted Night Court - she had been born to it; darkness ran in her blood no matter whether she had chosen to discard it. The red-haired siren had never suited the soft elusiveness of Night: she was the light incarnate, she was heat and volcanic ash; to the song of the sun she danced. 

Having grown up in Denocte, Rhoswen had known every face, every smile - this stallion was new, it was glaringly obvious.  "More than you, fool," she hissed back, ocean eyes burning just as hot as his, "I was born beneath Caligo's gaze, were you?" She'd heard the myth, who hadn't? If only she could bring herself to care. "Perhaps your Lady should have grown a thicker skin," her head tilted, "and perhaps then I would not have abandoned her for a more tenacious Deity." The dark clamoured around them both, stifling in its absolute power. Rhos did not often dredge up the past - for a girl so confident in herself, it was perhaps the one thing to penetrate her guard. But she did not break her gaze, did not look away from this nameless man. "Rhoswen. You are?"





 

@camdis this was really all over the place, sorry D; PS I LOVE HIM

[Camdis]

Camdis Lohir

Oh, how he grinned at the whiplash of her words, the insult she flung back at him with the bite of a blade and the burning of those storm cloud eyes. Yes, this confrontation is what he had been craving, what could sate the appetite for chaos beneath his thickened skin. Camdis had never been one for proper battles, for sword and smoke and the screams of the dying as they fought to defend or progress; no, there was too much honor in that. There was too much glory to be found in the victory or the downfall of war, too much respect and reverence amongst brothers in arms, too much fanfare from those he would inevitably save from invasion. 

He was not to be entitled to goodly thoughts from strangers, not to be placed upon a pedestal because they believed he had done well for them, that he had killed for anything but his own selfish reasons. 

No, the Exile King, the Emperor of Nothing, the Sovereign of Burned-out stars and Empty Skies found release in a different sort of fighting. He found his sanctuary in drunken brawls, in bruised skin and fists clenched in hair and cloth, in blood and gritted teeth, in throats scratchy and hoarse from the screaming of profanity. He wanted someone to insult his mother (As if they cared about each other in the first place), to insult his honor (what honor?), for someone to rile him and for someone to be riled in return, to find the religion that was needless, heedless violence among strangers and their ilk. 
                                                                                                                                                                                                    And while the mare before him, with hair of wildfires and scorched skin, may not raise a fist toward him, she could offer a close second - the deep stabbing pain of words flung with an arrow's accuracy; and fling them, she did, all the while maintaining her poise and her elegance, her very demeanor insulting to his own. 

It made her all the more beautiful. Truly, she was a sight to behold.
Gods, how he wanted to watch her topple, only to rise up again in all of her burning splendor. 

She was magnificent. 

"I was born beneath the gaze of gods silent and forgotten, but with Caligo's fist about my heart," His words were not cruel, though neither were they kind. "Perhaps your tenacious deity, as you put it, could have cultured some semblance of honor amongst his own. Perhaps then, he wouldn't have nearly burned himself out like a yearling still learning to stand," There, he paused, a cruel smile curving his lips as he took a single step toward her, not caring whether it read as threatening or casual, "But then, I'm a hypocrite for saying that, aren't I? There is no honor among fools and exiles."

He considered her with a predatory gaze, injecting as much heat into his inspection as he could - he knew the consequences of a mare being eyed in such a way, how it could make even the strongest female's skin itch and crawl to be eyed as meat, to be looked at as a prize to be won, to be toppled, to be conquered. For while he did not desire her in such a way, while he was not a man of lust or misogyny, he wanted to make her uncomfortable, he wanted to make her squirm, if only to watch the inferno of her vengeance against his sins. 

Maybe then he could be absolved, after this vicious sparrow with talons of gold and a will of iron burned him to ash. 

"Camdis Lohir," He proffered a mocking bow, "I would offer my services, but I have none other than being generally unlikable, and I've already made that clear." 

 @Rhoswen  So I'm finding out that Cam gets off on girls being mean to him.

[Rhoswen]

RHOSWEN,

This man seemed to relish the cut and slice of her sharp words; his face decorated by a multitude of curious, macabre expressions. What an oddity he was. His reaction, though unexpected, only seemed to further ensnare Rhoswen's intrusive interest. Many things he might have been, but dull - that he was certainly not. Grit seemed to cling to his skin and voice; his salt-soaked cologne stinging her tongue as she tested the close air between them. She scoffed internally as the word honour fell from his blackened lips, who was he to speak of integrity; he, a rogue, with his carefully cultured belligerence. But, almost as if he had read her mind the stallion spoke again, reeling off the script to this dark and delicate play. "My father used to tell me 'honour was a mere scutcheon'," she smiled, softening almost at the thought of Iscariot, "and I consider my father to be a wise man."

Camdis Lohir. A strange name for an even stranger creature; Rhoswen was enthralled, even if he had crept uncomfortably close to her side. The motive for this pilgrimage had all but disappeared into the walls of the church, casting aside her already faltering devotion for a far more beguiling ritual. "Oh, do not be so modest, Camdis Lohir" Her stormborne eyes danced, clustered lashes sweeping against high set cheekbones. "I am sure you possess many uses, regardless of whether you wish to share them with a girl like me." The tone of her voice was not yielding, nor was it harsh; in the midst of night, Rhoswen had steadied - her fire quietened, if only for a moment.



 

 
@camdis /cough shakespeare ref cough\

[Camdis]

Camdis Lohir

It seemed that the flames that had burst from the woman's lips to lick at his heart and scald his skin had been tamed. If his tail weren't so heavy, if the length wasn't so cumbersome, he may have flicked it against his hocks as he considered the phoenix and her artfully composed replies. Prose spilled from her mannerisms, songs fell from her tongue; poetry in motion and melodies within sight. Silvery eyes tracked her own simmering gaze, though the false heat that had filled his expression mere moments before had faded away into an almost companionable familiarity.

Of course, he had no right to presume any sort of companionship between them - especially when the pair had began their knowledge of one another by trading insults. A huff shoved itself from his nostrils, pressure building in his chest as he felt a sudden and confusing wave of self hatred mixed with what could be perceived as satisfaction. Could a creature hate oneself while also finding himself satisfied with the monster that he had grown into? A small smirk curved at blackened lips as Camdis decided to tuck the unsavory question away to ponder at a later date.

Blinking slowly, ears rising from their place amongst the tangled mess of his blackened mane, the scarlet stained stallion listened intently to the singsong voice of Rhoswen the Golden Priestess. As his name slipped from her serpentine tongue, the males teeth clenched and the muscles about his spine tensed with painful suddenness, yet he could not quite surmise why. Was is rage, black and oozing? Lust, unfamiliar and strange? Sorrow, chilled and stifling? Camdis did not know - he did not wish to know.

With a thick swallow and a few moments of discomfort, the brute's jaw loosened enough for him to offer a reply, "I'd consider your father to be wise, but also dead, from the way you speak of him." A brow quirked as he leaned his weight to a side, cocking his back left hoof beneath him - effectively settling into the conversation, "But what do I know, as knowing things is far from my many uses. Indeed, Rhoswen, I'm a man of many paltry and petty uses, not one of them any good for a girl like you." There, he tilted his head, pale eyes sparkling with something akin to mirth, "Unless you have a penchant for things dark and lonesome?"

  @Rhoswen wowza sorry for the wait

[Rhoswen]

She'd met many men in her short, sweet life - cocksure men, dangerous men, loud men, quiet men - but none that seemed quite so conflicted as this one. Camdis seemed to writhe inward to a dance she'd never seen before, a song she'd never heard. Rhos was not often so curious, but here she was: staring through hooded eyes of ash and smoke. Oddly, she did not wish for his lust; more so she wished for his mind. How she longed to crack open his skull and peer at all the peculiar workings of this man she would not forget in a hurry. "Actually, I don't know if he is or not." The words came freely, no strings attached, for it was the plain truth of the matter. She had not seen Iscariot since leaving Denocte, who was she to speak of his health. 

"Is yours?" There - it glittered in the corner of her lupine smile, lurking deep and dark: her hunger. The probing question rang out between them, as if taunting the silence. She pondered his words, rolling them around on her tongue. It would be easy to play into his open arms, by confessing her proclivity for - as he put - all things dark and lonesome. Instead she merely rolled her eyes, "I think you're right there, doll." The smile on her lips momentarily growing wider, brighter, before dying completely. "So, Camdis Lohir of Night Court, what does my brother think of you then? I'm sure he'd find you quite charming; Reich always was drawn to the black sheep." Rhos spoke casually, knowing this man had not the faintest idea of her connection with his sovereign - you couldn't blame him, it wasn't as though they looked alike in any capacity.

@camdis this is an old thread but i love writing with you so -boop-

[Camdis]

Camdis Lohir

She was something altogether different and wholesome, moonlight and smoke and cobwebs and mirrors. Silently, he compared her to a bauble that one may find at an exotic bazaar; gilded and wrought with care, but with levers and pulleys that lead to dead ends and compartments that only produced more questions. A fascinating girl, it seemed he had piqued her interest and Caligo knew that she had ensnared his. Yet, within his fascination simmered something sinister and twisting - a series of confusing emotions that tangled themselves about his tongue and his thoughts before he could make sense of anything.

The stallion inhaled primly, noting no unusual scents that could be used to fog his mind, nothing that could explain the stupor that Rhoswen's presence had summoned. It was possible that she was a sorceress, a demon, a witch; he did not doubt that the phoenix before him had capabilities beyond his knowledge (Don't we all?). Indeed, the scholar within him yearned to crack her pretty skull like an egg and watch the secrets spill out while the monster that perched inside his bones thought of things rather less pleasant. 

Despite the storm of confusion and sin that roiled within his crowned skull, Camdis was easily whisked away from his musings as Rhoswens's reply echoed down the dim hall. A grin found it's place upon the stallion's lips and he discovered that he rather enjoyed the sound of the mare's voice. Quirking a brow at her question, the Regent merely nodded his answer- of course his parents were dead, it seemed obvious enough by his wretched behavior that he hadn't had the privilege of having his poor manners beaten out of him. Then, at the mention of Reichenbach - her brother. Her brother. - his eyes widened almost imperceptibly as understanding clicked together within his mind. 

The essence of the ethereal that clung to her frame, the cobwebs and moonlight that peppered her aura, that infuriating, intoxicating confidence that laced her every breath... of course she was related to his Night King, his beloved savior and friend, his curse and his blessing and the fire that raced through his veins. Running a suddenly dry tongue over his teeth before responding, Camdis was surprised to find that his voice still fit within the parameters of a casual conversation despite the excitement and curiosity racing down his spine, "I'm his Regent, actually. Your brother is a fine King and we love him dearly. I'm lucky to serve alongside him - luckier to name him friend." Cocking his head to the side at the notion of him being a black sheep, Camdis narrowed those silvery eyes in an almost playful manner, "Why not stay with him in the Night Court, then? If you are his sister, how could the two of you part ways?" 

It was still a new concept to the stallion, that siblings could choose to leave one another when he hailed from a realm where the two were inextricably bound - indeed, that notion wasn't truer anywhere but with Camdis Lohir. 

 @Rhoswen
hi it's me, the worst.