Black bunnies blunder out from beneath the last leaves of cruciferous in her garden. At first, they startle her. Emersyn lifts her head sharply and narrows her eyes down on them all. She is about to say something chiding to the nefarious nibblers along the lines of shoo - or - you are better then that, but instead a rush of hot steam clouds out from around her. Each bunny crowds closer to one another, and they all crowd closer to each other too, a weird reflex twines its way through her - she doesnt know what it is that she feels. An ear twists to catch the sound of a frosty leaf scraping a wilted cabbage leaf as the last one of seven slides into place.
“Well?” She huffs through a puff of smoke, freezing and impatient. “Are you raiding my garden or do you have something for me. Show me your paws - all of them.” The bunnies petrify as they stiffen with fear. Emersyn does not soften, she has never been fond of rodents, even cute ones. Their whiskers stop twitching but the trembling in their ears is real. "Come on now! Out with it you ruddy lot!" Each scroll is surrendered, every message carrying one word.
Bunny messengers are cheap and easy to train, they only travel in groups and her only contact is too cheap to set up a time to see her face-to-face. He prefers to remain out of town. Positioned strategically within the city to either alert her or to remind her of things beyond her reach. In this case, he looks after her agenda.
Your, Boss, Is, Coming... Emersyn rearranges several of the scrolls until the rest comes into focus.
“Damn Rabbits."
He, Is, Here.
Two more show up, late, but for what the words say, effective. Emersyn wonders why some men have to be so cocky.
We’re Bunnies, the first message reads. Emersyn bristles when the second scroll corrects her, Not Rabbits, it reads. Somewhere her agent is having himself a good laugh over a fresh pot of tea.
Emersyn snaps at them “ Enough of that! Get out of here!” The ream scatters when she stomps her hoof down and shatters the earth. The frozen ground splinters like glass. Her teeth are long compared to the skulls of something so small. In the eyes of a bunny she is a terrifying beast, spitting ice and breathing steam. Nine cottontails disappear into the woods and she hopes she won’t see them again.
A week ago, she invited the Ipomoea … somewhere then promptly forgot. A week later, he is here, right now. A pock of color at the last edgerow of her dead winter garden. Emersyn’s hair is just settling from scaring off the messengers when she sees him, her blood still cooling. Not only has she forgotten that she invited him out here, but she forgets why. It comes back to her quickly now, what more of a moment can she be in when his starling red gaze meets her staring eyes, lammergeier gray. Realization and intrigue tend to soften the distant and cold stare.
“Ipomoea,” Emersyn is surprised at first, she can’t help it, “- I thought they were raiding, as they often times do. Who sends bunnies? They are so very disorganized, you can imagine my frustration.” She hesitates no longer, “Please come in, thank you for making the journey to see me.” And although it is not long of a journey, it is enough of one when it is so cold outside. At least her contact within the city has impeccable timing.
The soldier lives farther away now than she ever intended to be. She thinks about that often. Emersyn rarely focuses on the reasons which lead her here, out to the meadowlands - sewn into a seam of trees. It is nothing like her to want this life, this hassle of keeping after herself. She should want for so much more because she has always had it growing up. Handmaids, timekeepers, tutors, everything prepped and prepared for her. Lately, she finds more interest in doing it all for herself. A form of mindful meditation through daily rituals.
Perhaps then, for some peace of mind, she has chosen the distance to keep her focused. She and the army of winter birds and anxious squirrels living in her garden paints a life of someone experiencing the death of an ego. It seems perfect, but the soldier is still not soft, nor her voice tender, and she does not warble with the warblers at her window. In fact, she still shakes them off her panes and yells at the deer to stay off of her front lawn and out of her lilies.
“How have you been? I’ve been scarce since our last meeting. Strangely, the city seemed crowded.” Emersyn cannot help the ironic pitch of her lips as she grins while walking past him. Her home is beautiful, fit for one, designed and kept by a sterile, strategic mind. The only whimsey in it all are the evergreens that creep on in the winter. Windows are verdant and green with houseplants which press themselves into every light-bearing space. Emersyn has been absent from the streets of Delumine, all in the name of experiencing a personal renaissance.
Emersyn has almost grown feral in her absence away from society, but her eyes have still been watching. Mind keening. Her shadows into the wood stretching longer and deeper into the forest.
“After we spoke on Veneror, I felt .. different. I did not need to speak to God that day to find my way back home, but it took looking for him to find a good friend.” Emersyn nurses a fire and coaxes more heat from the hearth, flames paint her gold in all the places she should be silver, somehow she still seems to be made of marble. “I’m talking about you, of course.”
The only other thing that is alive are the various species of Philodendron in groups, vines, and hangs. Moss grows in corners, falls like emerald lace down the walls, and disappears behind a work table covered in leather, deerskin, and various tools. She has been taking on other projects too. Her house is made out of wood, and it breathes with them. So does the fire too.
“I hope being this far removed from our people will be acceptable for the time being. It has come to my attention that we may have poachers.” Just as she says this she pokes at the leather straps to a harness that appear to be attached to skillfully crafted wings. It won’t fly, this much is obvious, but judging by the books that surround the table, Emersyn isn’t thinking about flying based solely on the principle of mechanical engineering alone.
She carries on.
“Viride is big. The people of Dawn are .. lacking in numbers.” She is not unkind with her words but neither is she gentle. She has never been a gentle person, this much can be seen by the stillness within her eyes. “There are not enough of us, what will we do about this?” Wherever her worry is, it is not written on her face. It is the intensity that electrifies the air around her. “I love this forest but I do not want to kill to protect it. -- Can I get you any tea?” She says it more for herself than for Ipomoea. The soldier’s eyes read differently, I will kill. Even if I don’t have to.
@Ipomoea
Ooc: Why is my head always full of hurricanes?
11-20-2019, 01:23 PM - This post was last modified: 11-20-2019, 02:12 PM by Emersyn
There are clouds in the sky, low and grey. Ipomoea tries not to think of the way they seem like they’re watching him, waiting, the way their very presence promises that something bigger is coming. He tries to ignore the way the wind stretches itself like an icy knife across the meadows, flattening the dry grass beneath it. He tries not to listen when those golden stalks shiver and bend themselves to the ground, and whisper to him to take cover.
A storm was brewing, that much he could tell.
And Ipomoea had a sinking suspicion that he would be caught out alone in this one.
By the time he reaches the small house nestled at the edge of Illuster, the first few snowflakes have already begun to fall. They cling to his mane, his back, his eyelashes, dusting him with a thin layer of white that makes the blanket pattern on his skin complete. His breath is visible when he laughs, the sound as soft as the wind whistling through a spring forest.
“Have you considered using carrier pigeons for your messages?” he asks, watching as the last of the bunnies disappear over a nearby hill, white tails blending into the falling snow. “Or - owls?” Delumine certainly had no shortage of those, and Ipomoea could think of at least one person experienced with the avians.
The warmth of her home is a welcomed reprieve after his long walk. Walls and countertops alike are decorated with a multitude of creeping vines and flowering houseplants, so numerous they seem to turn the air itself a thousand shades of green. Combined with the wooden foundation, it’s enough to make him question - if only for a moment - whether it was truly Emersyn’s house he had stepped into, or the Viride forest. Still, it suits her, and all her shades of grey.
“I know the feeling,” he tells her, pausing in the doorway to admire a tendril of ivy that hangs low near to his head. “The Court can seem that way at times, especially to newcomers. Somedays it still overwhelms me. Is this heartleaf? It seems to be doing exceptionally well here, I did not know it could flourish this far north.”
He turns to see her stocking the fire, until a warm orange glow begins to fill the room. As always, just as Emersyn finishes one task she starts another.
It takes only one word for Ipomoea’s smile to fade, his brows creasing into a frown. “Poachers? Are you sure?”
He comes closer to the table, glancing only briefly over the leather harness before doing a doubletake. But he doesn’t question it - as the Emissary continues to speak, the appaloosa files the crafted wings away in his mind, alongside a list of other things titled “to be Asked Later.”
The air itself feels charged when he meets her stare, as if the intensity in her eyes has leeched into her surroundings, turning it all alive. Ipomoea can see it in her eyes what she’s able to do, what she’s willing to do.
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” he says quietly, matching the stillness of her eyes with his voice. “Let’s leave that as our last resort.”
He shakes his head, and turns to look out the window. The forest stands as tall as ever, branches waving at him from afar with a false sense of peace. Ipomoea looks at them still when he begins to speak.
“Are you sure, Emersyn? What have you found?"
He doesn’t want to think of what if might mean if she’s right, of what he might have to do. The soldier-turned-Emissary had had a lifetime to accustom herself to doing what she had to, not matter the cost. Ipomoea had had only a few months. Some things would never sit quite right on his heart. @Emersyn
let's get this thing started
The snow begins to fall, the fires in Emersyn’s home are stoked, and the tea is on the coals. Soon the savory sweet smell of turmeric and licorice add edge to the heat by spicing the air. Cleansing it more like, with the blur of cinnamon-clove mulling beneath the bright colors of the tea. Emersyn moves a clay pot to the wide flat-stone and lets it warm up slowly. Everything is accounted for. Everything is perfectly arranged. It is effortless for the woman who moves like wind. Everything moves around her, no energy goes unaccounted for. If not for the lesser telekinesis, Emersyn would seem enigmatic, -- even though she would never want to try and be something as stupid as a transparent idea.
Steam is piping up into the air, all the plants are leaching up what they can of the moisture, with everything gilded in gold and firelight, the whole room is verdant, everything is awake and everything is breathing. Everything is bending towards Ipomeae, hello, the growth seems to say. Emersyn spends too long watching the mist deteriorate into thin air and contemplates what happens next once the steam dissipates, carnivorous plants hang dejected and hungry towards the other end of the room, where most of the sun pours through and gives the whole cottage varying degrees of exposure. Every form of life has been carefully considered in its positioning...the most violent plants of all are farther away. “I will miss the roses and peony, my first lodgings in Delumine had them outside in a small garden.”
Her mind weaves a scene on its own, pots stir, coals turn, pages lift and curl on workbooks at the side table. Even in the comfortable silence her mind is going, it must always have something. She tries to look at him when he is talking to her, but her mind tends to wander over his appearance, and the braid he wears in his hair seems too tight for her visual liking. She sets her jaw for a moment.
He can catch her looking at him with some care, and concern, her eyes never warm even in the golden light. The heart of her soul seems to be encased in ice, although she has rendered herself benign, even benevolent. All of it could easily be mistaken as fondness from Emersyn, but it is actual jaw clenching concern. The soldier watches her triggers, traps, snares, and snags so that they do not become Ipomoea’s problem. Of course, she invites a boy over with birdfeet, and although she finds it intriguing, she worries more about the snare that his things are idly moving against which lays flat by the makings of a triggerwire. It is to keep out small forest critters, designed to deliver a stinging snap to the pesky intruder and to scare it straight back into the woods. Not to assault her friend.
“This is heartleaf, I am letting it grow long. I brought it home from Denocte.” It is her favorite plant despite the fact that her whole house is a jungle of hobby and intrigue. Newly potted potterings, bulbs gathered to winterize in woven mats, more starts from clippings bound in cloth for rooting purposes. “The heartleaf has helped me find a place here. Before I was growing plants .. I was sword fighting.” And killing lots of things, Emersyn tries a smile and immediately regrets it like a bad food choice because seeding wildflowers isn't the same as praying for forgiveness, but it is a start. Thankfully the kettle starts whistling to keep the energy flowing around the room. “You should take some back to the city with you."
The conversation dies off quickly but they both know it wasn’t going to last for long anyway. Emersyn starts off by sliding a hot cup full of a soothing sweet winter tea. Too bad the comfort won’t last, even though she doesn't appear tense, the tension in her grinding teeth could crack diamonds between her molars like walnuts. The tea only goes as far as to wet her lips and makes her chest warm. She hates the way it makes her feel, the dull ache that it leaves once the sensation has gone always makes her feel empty.
Are you sure, what have you found?
“I have been tracking hoof prints from out here, none of which match the citizens of Delumine. As far as your birds go, I have half the aerie out here, I’m relieved you are not here to complain about the owls being so busy all the time.” Emersyn gazes out of a window facing east, somewhere out there in the fuzzy mess of wintry landscape there are several owls, and two carefully placed handlers waiting for those owls to come to them in warning. "My sources tell me they have not been able to see anything, but I can know that can't be true." In her reflectionEmersyn smolders with a quiet rage, her livid expression is focused away from her friend, he doesn't need to catch her bad vibes if she can help it.
“My wings will not be ready in time. Until then I don’t have enough coverage, if we could gather a fleet of wings we might have a better and more realistic idea of what we are dealing with."
Find the enemy, eliminate it. Her father's training voice comes to her in the form of smoke signals from the steam in her tea, she would swear to Tempus himself that he is staring back at her from the forest, expecting her to take action as he raised her to do. Between her and Ipomoea's recommendations, she decides that declaring martial law on poachers may not be the best approach as far as Delumine's morality code goes. "Come with me, it is best if I just show you." She isn't asking him. She's telling him.
Outside once more, the snow has started to leave a thin blanket over all that it touches, Emersyn doesn't know how to feel cold anymore and so it doesn't bother her when a chill rushes to greet them once they have left the warm cottage. "I have travelled as far as Viride would allow me to. I have camped deep in the woods on a few occasions hoping to find something.” The soldier knows no fatigue. By nature she leaves Ipomoea behind and talks over her shoulder most of the way. She moves like a patch of moonlight slipping through the trees. Silent and sleek, the dark slipping off the silver glow of her skin, separating like oil and water. She is easy to track in the limited light because she wants to be.
“I expected to be hunted while I went camping and was surprised to find it rather peaceful, I even meditated.” The woman’s voice is woody and deep like the soft calls of owls in the night, nothing stirs around them now, everything is quite still. “It is up there.” The woods feel colder by some degree of danger, dread, and discovery - she slows down and waits for him. Emersyn's eyes seem haunted, even her velvety smooth skin seems rippled with nerve-wrecking goosebumps.
They ascend the forest floor ran sere by winter as the elevation picks up. Their feet sound hollow over the root-riddled needle beds as they carefully pick their way to the top of it. She warns him last moment “,brace yourself.” What else is there to say?
The sight of it is the most shocking at first for Emersyn. A kill pit opens up wide and deep at their very feet. Hooves, toes, wings, tails, horns, teeth, skins; one or more of these things are missing from rare and precious mystic animals, hacked apart and as dead as the forest they were dumped in. Emersyn doesn't mention the unicorn she found with its missing crystal horn, but the horse laying across the pit is something Ipomoea can see for himself.
A bountiful mass hunt on the beautiful, rare, and weird mystics of Viride, if they are not safe here then wherever else will they go? This is dangerous, she thinks, to have such powerful entities without their vassals. Now, magic creeps here, low energy and dangerous and in the form of negative rot and disease carrying pestilence. When the wind breaks all she can think of is the rot of the past when the smell of it cuffs her in the face.
Without thinking, she steps into his shadow and raids his existence of its presence and warmth. Emersyn isn’t aware of how close she is to him, but if he is the source of her gravity in the moment - he’ll have to suck it up. “It has grown since I last visited it." She admits with horror, eyes scanning the fresh bodies laid over the bodies that she discovered days ago. The unicorn is new, and it doesn't seem to be a resident that she knows about. "This is happening now, in our home." She can't believe it, the reality is enough to upset her balance but she maintains by rooting herself to her friend. "Ipomoea, who can help us?"
@Ipomoea One day, in the unforeseeable future, Po and Em will meet when the weather is better and the topic is not soul crushing. Until then, enjoy another severe post.
The smell of cinnamon and clove is calming, the spice in the air settling a part of him he hadn’t even known to be disturbed. Ipomoea nods his head along absently to Emersyn’s words, watching the vine shake itself sleepily and extend one waxy leaf towards him. He presses into its touch, greeting it silently even as it greets him. And only when it breaks the contact does he move away, and follows after Emersyn as she leads him back out into the meadow.
The snow is falling in earnest again by the time they leave the warmth of the small cottage. As Ipomoea lifts his head he can see the landscape beginning to change, a blanket of grey covering the pale gold of the meadow.
He can hear a cracking sound in the distance, sharp and menacing. He can feel the tree shaking as its branch snaps like it was his own leg breaking off, as snow and leaves and dead things fall to the ground in unison. It sounds like a warning, echoing out through the forest, like the forest is begging them to turn around. But they don’t. And Ipomoea follows along beside the grey mare, trying to ignore the way his stomach heaves uneasily and despair settles like a pit within him.
And as they walk, Emersyn talks. Ipomoea is silent for much of it, letting her words wash over him as the snow settles across their backs. The forest turns colorless as the clouds block out the sky, a grim feeling settling all around them. He lets her take the lead, following her hoofprints through the snow.
She tells him to brace himself, right before they reach the scene. But she didn’t need to. The trees have been telling him all the way there, preparing him for the sight they’re about to see.
He wonders how he hadn’t seen it before, how he hadn’t heard the trees whispering about the blood and the bones and the missing animals. Surely they must have been talking about it - but it was winter now, and their thoughts were always slow and quiet when they went to sleep beneath the snow. But the trees here are awake, the ivy climbing up their trunks is away, and all of them are rubbing their leaves and branches together like they’re trembling, like they’re wringing their hands together.
They’re awake, but they’re still quiet - whispering in voices that are too quiet for him to make out, a steady undertone of murmurs that fills his ears like static.
For the first time, he is afraid to ask them what they’ve seen. Afraid to ask them what they know.
His mouth is dry, so dry, and when he swallows his throat feels as though it’s glued itself shut. Grown, he echoes hollowly. Grown like it’s a plant that has spread. Grown like it’s something good that has been tended to and nurtured.
It is not the word Ipomoea would have chosen.
He forces himself to look, at the nearly unrecognizable parts that fill the pit. The snow is still falling, a thin layer of white spreading over the bodies like the forest was trying to bury it, forget it, hide it. But the blood seeps through, red and bright and tainted, and Ipomoea knows there would be no concealing this.
I, I don’t know. He clears his throat, shifts his eyes away from the unicorn. But it doesn’t matter where he looks, because there’s still red, and gore, and dead things that shouldn’t be dead. He stares, and he stares, and he wonders how the earth could hold so much blood.
We need to let the people know.
At last he turns back to Emersyn. This has been going on for some time, it still is - the forest is big, it’s impossible to go far in Delumine without crossing through it - he turns away abruptly, pressing his eyes shut.
Whoever did this could be anywhere, Emersyn.
They could be in the forest now. Watching them. Tracking another unicorn. Polluting the forest where children play.
@Emersyn oof sorry this is shorter haha, and like all internal dialogue
There are clouds in the sky, low and grey. Ipomoea tries not to think of the way they seem like they’re watching him, waiting, the way their very presence promises that something bigger is coming. He tries to ignore the way the wind stretches itself like an icy knife across the meadows, flattening the dry grass beneath it. He tries not to listen when those golden stalks shiver and bend themselves to the ground, and whisper to him to take cover.