there are nights when the wolves are silent and only the horses howl
Maerys was regarding the trees as she whirled towards the library, how they swayed in the wonton breeze while enrobing themselves with the most becoming verdurous tones. It was that time when summertime began to prosper into something the body perceived as much as the brain when sentiments caught their tepid updrafts. The heaven burned azure and the sun was a triumph of ochroid in its awning.
The library wasn't hard for one to find if they knew where to look. It was developed from the tree trunks, quaint, sitting subtly within the Viride Forest. As Maerys crossed through the threshold and into the eccentric edifice, her eyes were met with a maze of bookshelves. The floor was pitted, each mark the commencement of a narrative that would never be told. This library had been a soundless spectator to so much, the great and the tragic. Admiring the imperfections felt like a direct link to the past - the grooves filled with dirt dragged in long ago by hooves no longer alive and the faint scent of must clung to everything like an eternal perfume. She neither beamed nor scowled as she pushed herself forwards and onwards, merely tipping her skull to the lingering bodies that watched her with silent marvel.
The silver-haired girl was quick to find a secluded area in the library adjacent to a collection of books with subjects all related to combat and war. It was a vulgar topic for such a mellow environment, but Maerys had always loved to study in a way that would later benefit her as a warrior.
Her ax is tossed to the side with a loud clank as her eyes scan the area.
The soft candlelight of the library highlights the outlines of books, shelves, and desks with a calm glow that distracts Maerys only momentarily before she sinks to the ground, laying on top of an assortment of blankets and pillows with one of the many vulgar books spread out in front of her.
The act of sitting in the library with the familiar glow of candle flame reminded her so much of home; memories, cold and warm all at once.
She threw herself into studying and tried to rid her mind of the past.
She dances and sings in the light,
she lurks in the shadows and she always gets her way.
Lately, the library has become a bit of a sanctuary for the gray lately with all the troubles afoot in the tree ranges surrounding the Rapax. Emersyn's nook is crammed with journals and reports of animal studies, and wildly theorized notations on magic. None of these topics have anything to do with actual murder, but that isn't what she is looking into them for. Emersyn has been cross-referencing the reasons why some animals get maimed, while others do not.
What parts are vital?
What parts are not?
What are they used for?
Where do they go once they are harvested?
And lastly,
How much money can someone make off of an Elderdeer Horn?
. . . is the crime worth the time? The danger of getting caught? Some think so. Some.
And she knows this to be true.
In the New Testament of Emersyn, she has learned that there is magic. All she understands of that, is that the world has become vast and overwhelming, all in one night and all at once. She must have some form of gravity at this time, and so she clings to her Regime, her people, her citadel. For now, it is all she has knowing that there is more abound.
Since the patrols have begun, time has been less of a friend and more of an enemy. Time off means time alone, time alone means self-reflection. Anything else that happens after that is nobody's business. Almost everyone uses their down time to sleep- but the marble-eyed Emissary knows no such word.
It would seem as though she is not the only one who embraces the library's more .. timeless hours. And with her luck, it is another attendee from the meeting. Her presence had been loud and accounted for by all of them, and her point had been made very clearly. While Emersyn wanted to see what would come of it on its own, she decided it might be better to address it, just in another setting.
Like a library, at dusk.
Clandestine.
Not wanting to readily interact, Emersyn hangs back in her nook when attendee slips by, luckily unnoticed and not engaged, she waits .. waits. But something else happens instead,
Maerys happens, and distracts Emersyn when the soldier's axe hits the ground.
What luck!
But Maerys is beautiful, Emersyn cannot decide her priorities. The woman is rendered enigmatic and holy by firelight in the tones of rose and gold. A candle creates a halo as light darts around her, and meets the glow of flames which dance from above. It is such a lively, magical glimmer over her every muscle and darkens the nature of the universe known as Maerys. Emersyn admires how the warm light casts her in bronzes and immortalizes her.
Pocks of light make stars out of shadows, light streaks down in shades of gold, it cuts out the hardness of a soldier with the deep shadows it grooves. Emersyn has been staring long enough to make out the color of the woman's eyes, observant but not obvious. She believes that the eyes of the woman are the colors of the cosmos, it is mysterious. A thing of beauty. A thing of wonder. A thing.
"Maerys, right? You came to my meeting .. " Emersyn smiles demurely, How could I ever forget such beauty? It is a rare smile, a dangerous one, Trust me. Her smile grows, fondness shows. But her darkness clings to her like the haunting chill of a deep winter. "Thank you for coming. It means a lot to me when people want to know what is going on." She smiles with her eyes,
The Emissary decides to come closer,
closer and closer,
creeping like a tide,
like the moonlight rising over a field,
like a reaching hand - a wanting one.
"Care if I join you?"
~~~
@Maerys I don't know what this is. Not yet at least.
12-27-2019, 02:33 AM - This post was last modified: 12-27-2019, 02:34 AM by Emersyn
there are nights when the wolves are silent and only the horses howl
Those that occupied Delumine grasped very well how daybreak tasted.
It was announced by the cockerel's vocation, minutes that stretch out with each stirring blade and grassy baton. Just being there accompanied the soul into winsome resignation, at one with nature, vigorous yet untroubled. Every perfume was pure and each burst of birdsong was unprecedented, an unrehearsed chorale to waken the thought, to subdue whatever drowsiness persisted. Thoughts and heels rambled, lungs inflated, time wheeled by in its soundless and limitless way.
That was the feeling that fluttered in her gut when she saw Emersyn peeking into her life in that way. Soft, subtle, inching closer.
Maerys, right? Her voice was composed yet welcoming and that smile entrapped Maerys' mauve eyes in its shimmer. Her cranium, dawned by a multitude of shades, moves up and down in a nod that confirms the Emissary's assumption.
She volunteered thankfulness to Maerys, for her initiative to stay familiarized on the ongoings of Delumine, but the silver-haired girl could feel the guilt slithering through her arteries like rime. She hadn't just attended, she'd become hostile and cynical and it was not what she had wanted to do. It was not easy to rein in the girl's passions for they were powerful and boisterous and commanded to be heard. Others had been worse than her, however. The Champion of Battle, for example, had nearly slit a man's throat. This was disturbing to the soldier as she did not want to follow the lead of a violent, savage mare. Those in charge should not be so cruel to their inferiors, equals, or superiors no matter the occasion.
Respect bred respect just as violence bred violence.
But Maerys was not concerned about that champion, those that were violent never stayed in a position of power for long.
"Yes, please do," she motioned towards the ground around her. Maerys' limbs were deftly tucked beneath her as she rested peacefully. Emersyn could stand or lay, whichever she preferred. "Firstly, however, I wouldst like to apologize -" her eyes watch the mare carefully, honestly. "- I did act harshly in the meeting, but I am aware we art all just attempting to do our most wondrous in such a grave situation and am mournful the tension got the best of me."
She said the words as she finally took in the woman's appearance. She was velvet and sleek, with slender muscling on her frame. She was about equivalent in height as Maerys, only incrementally more diminutive than her at most. There was something in those azure eyes of hers that swam so mischievously that Maerys thought was simply enthralling; that made her ever the more curious.
What did the emissary want with her? She considered herself so unimportant nowadays. Didn't the emissary think the same too?
Hello, hello, hello, beautiful stranger,
how familiar the danger,
slipping into the shadows.
Emersyn hazards a guess and thinks that Maerys might be an apologizer. She counts down the seconds that it takes before the first apology slips from the mare's lips.
.. five, six, seven ..
Emersyn anticipates the apology, she wants it, it both thrills and unwinds her.
.. ten, eleven, twelve ..
Maerys vindicates herself - so freely, it seems a sweet relief - and Emersyn takes all of it like it is some sort of sacrifice. She deserves none of it but Maerys doesn't know that.
'My apologies' (how tender), her accent and cadence makes her seem all that much more gentle and exquisite. Emersyn appreciates the tone in her shoulders as the light plays off of the curves of trained muscle. She is rose-gold in the light, one of Emersyn's favorite colors, and the honey sweet disposition attracts her. She is no bee however, a wasp.
"You certainly caught my attention tonight. I admire your courage to stand up and speak out." Emersyn admits finally. Her voice is as dusty as the shelves she is leaning against, and as dark as the shadows between the cracks between the floorboards. In this light, the emissary seems far more sinister as the black in her cheeks cut deep, straight lines down the length of her white-white face. The rest of her is the same hazy gray in the din of the evening light. Her presence feels both phantasmal and meddlesome like a poltergeist.
She smiles. It is like a knife flashing in the dark.
Like a scythe. So bright.
Sharp. Fleeting.
Handsome.
"I must to tell you a secret .. "
" I am the one who found them all. I waited so long before I said anything. It took me a full moon cycle to document them all. The unicorn was very new, I was finishing his obituary when you first came into the meeting .. " She drifts for a moment, remembering the long night she spent sketching the missing pieces in the unicorn's face. Then she continued, "You can direct your anger to me and speak your sorrows to the dead if it will bring you peace, I will take you there."
Her own sorrow is a tangible thing, it projects from a fragment of wintry magic embedded into her brow as a small, meaningless crystal of snow. From it, a creeping chill scumbles across the shallows of the nook but it doesn't last long. That might only be because her sorrow is a silk flower, a fake. It is only a parlor trick, one of many.
Two blue eyes glow like moon-filled rivers, ominous and mantic, they are flashing and alive, she could drown Maerys in them if she so chose to. "What I am saying is, if I reported one body, nobody would listen - but, if I reported thirteen, it suddenly becomes an outrage. Why do we only respond to tragedies?" Singularities are almost always overlooked. "It makes me laugh. Thinking about how ridiculous that is."
The origin of the emotion she places in her words is unknown but neither is it empty-hearted. Wherever it comes from, one should not look too deep into the abyss to search for it. As if to punctuate the danger that lurks in the air, the candle flame jumps three times, flickering like an s.o.s. . "Do you still think you owe me an apology? Am I not the one who should be apologizing to you?"
![[Image: maerys-pixel.png]](https://i.ibb.co/kM48w8r/maerys-pixel.png){kind=tracking}
