[AW] we asked for signs, the signs were sent;

[Elif]

it was meant to be simple
just one golden rule

F

or the first time in her life Elif wishes she were a little less of the desert, a little more of the world. Ever since she’d first ventured from Solterra, with each horse she met she began to doubt the things she’d heard as a girl. But it isn’t until she’s staring down at the clue inscribed roughly on stone that her ignorance of the other courts has truly hindered her. 

She can’t make any sense of it. Until today she’d never been to the Dusk Court at all, and she knows nothing of its geography except that it is so green she might not have believed it, had it not been for the education of the island. 

What she does know is that it’s beautiful; she curves on an updraft now like a hawk, Terrastella below her like a map. The sea and the cliff-side and the castle, then the city and the fields. 

Just as it divides sea and city. And leaping from the ward - 

It must be the castle. Like a sentinel on the hillside, watchful over sea and city. With a few powerful beats of her wings she’s dropping, coursing through a cloud that kisses her cheeks in cool mist (what a luxury it feels, fresh from Solterran summer), and her shadow joins those of the millings birds as she drifts over the city. 

She lands on the ancient stone of a wide balcony, facing the sea. And steps toward the edge.

{ @redandblack and any! Elif's guess }

♢

[Aeranas]

Echoes of you, repeating from the beating of your tell-tale heart

The sea continues to prove that she is his most reliable friend, as she leads Aeranas parallel with the horizon, onward to the Dusk Court. Dusk had not been far from where he'd met Uzuri. The woman had been so adamant that she did not visit the sea often, and denied that the sea was a friend of hers. The words of her denial were empty, but Aerie still inferred the lack of a relationship by she did not say. The Dusk Court had been the court his grandmother had most wanted to visit because it had been her favourite time of day. Aeranas races the sun across the course sands beneath his spindly limbs. His limbs are carved from marble, but they appear as though they will shatter beneath him. The ghost is blessed with the warmth of the sun, as he is with good health. So far he has met a kind phantom and a woman whose words flow uncertainly. Aerie only wishes that his grandmother could meet them too. He only has this scarf wound comfortably around his slender nape to carry her memory with him. It is like a warm embrace that he always has with him, to comfort him on the days he misses her so terribly. Each new day is still as hard as the previous to continue on. Aerie remembers his grandmother telling him how she was afraid of their adventures but grateful to have him at her side. Did she know what it felt like to dive into new adventures without someone at your side? Salted tears spilled from his lids and were forgotten in the sand. If only they could have turned into crystals so that he would not forget them as much as he fears to forget the woman who raced beside him for so long.

In time his swollen eyes cease to leave a trail of his tears along the shores. It is something the sea will never tell anyone. She will not tell anyone how he weeps for the one he has lost. The ghost ceases his race with the sun when he can see the jagged stones turn to lush grass. Then he knows he is growing close to the Dusk Court. The court will soon be haunted by his presence until he disappears from her walls to find the home he belongs in. Aeranas knows that he belongs in the Dawn Court, though he also knows that it is the time of day he now resents. At night when he dreams, his life is full again. When he wakes he is reminded of the terrible hole carved into his very soul. It will take more time to heal from her absence, and the stories he now gathers is slowly filling them. The ghost will always reserve a place in his soul reserved for his grandmother so that he can carry her with him. When the grasses turn to ancient stone streets, when his lungs burn like fire, that is when he stops. In the sky, another like the phantom soars toward the ground. They are not a phantom, they are not kissed by the heavens. Stars are not spilled across their coat. They have wings made of once roaring embers. Their wings only hold the memory of the fire. This is no phantom, this is someone who appears as though they could set the world on fire. Their tail is made from woven mud, and their nape is bound by fire in a gilded cage. Daggers forged from rich terracotta collide with the ancient gray stone. The dying embers come to rest at the earthen creature's side.

Aerie is not concerned if he gets caught admiring the gentle green that rests comfortably on their face. A gentle smile wakes the ghost's face as he approaches his new companion. He would tell the stories of the winged dragon made of the earth who wore fire in a gilded cage upon their neck. "They must tell stories about the one who is brave enough to trap fire in a gilded cage, and wear it upon their neck. Do your wings remember the flames too?" Aeranas speaks to them with soft, but leading words. He is complimenting them, but he is also building their story. "What do the skies taste like? Please enlighten a story-teller. An adventurer who aches for the skies. How free it must be..." He speaks longingly to his companion. The ghost still speaks to his companion as though they have been friends for a very long time. As if it is good to finally catch up with them, for after today they may never see one another again.

"My name is Aerie." This will be the only souvenir he gives to his companion.
 

"Speech" Thoughts

@Elif @redandblack  | I hope dropping him in here is okay with you guys <3 | 798 Words

[Elif]

it was meant to be simple
just one golden rule

S

he doesn’t realize that she isn’t alone until the voice comes brushing up against her like a breeze while she is leaning out, looking over the white-caps and breakers of the sea.

It would be hard to tear her gaze away, if she had been given time for a choice; she has never seen the ocean so close (save for the island, but that still felt more like a dream than anything of the real and waking world) and there is something mesmerizing about it, something that transfixes her as easily as the weaving dance of a snake might a bird. How it moves, ceaseless, how the light shimmers off of it, how far and far it goes, drawing a line to the horizon! Elif could almost forget why she is here, and linger forever upon the parapets.

Until the voice. At the sound of it she shuffles back a few steps from the edge, already rounding on the speaker, opening her mouth with no idea what she will say. Their words are nonsensical - bravery, and cages, and flames? - but before she can say so the grass-green of her eyes is touching on every part of the stranger, and she finds herself disarmed by their beauty.

He is tall, far taller than she, and more elegant than any gilded noble she has known from Solterra. Their coat is as cream-soft and varied as a marble carving, with soft rose eyes, a waterfall of hair (she could never keep hers so long, or so neat, even if she could grow it). The column of his neck is bound in a scarf such a soft blue that it makes everything more beautiful, like a swath of dusk light.

Elif feels small and crude before him, though such things have never really bothered her before; it annoys her that they do now, and she tucks her wings in tighter like a moody eaglet to hid the barrel-slats of her ribs. She has never been beautiful, but Raum’s rule has turned her leaner yet, dull as a pauper.

It isn’t until he says story-teller that she relaxes a little, for now the poetry she was greeted with makes more sense. And any question about flying is enough to coax a smile from her lips and loosen the cautious set of her shoulders.

“I’m Elif,” she says, for it is the easiest place to start. “And I know nothing of fire - this band I wear is my alaja, and it bears the prayers of my family. Though one of those is for bravery.” She realizes she hasn’t stopped looking at him as though he is more art than man, and she is grateful for the excuse to look away when she shifts her gaze back to the sky, an uncomplicated blue.

“Here everything tastes of the sweetness of grass and the salt of the sea. But high enough, or out over the desert, where I am from - well, it is too cold and clear to taste like anything, but it feels like…” Oh, she is no poet. If Mateo were here, he could tell this beautiful stranger exactly what it is like, she is sure. “Like dreaming, or like galloping full-out but never growing tired, with nothing but the wind to touch you. Safer than anything, and more wild.” With each word she says she grows more self-conscious, which in turn makes her more guarded, until at last she’s peering back at him with her chin tilted almost haughtily (her defenses always make her look as arrogant as a falcon).

“Are you looking for the armor too, Aerie?” The lilt of his name on her tongue softens her, enough to add, “That’s a flying name, you know.”

@aeranas | she was wrong about the clue but I'm not even mad. Excited for this thread <3

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