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

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Briar
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#1

briar
In the depths of her heart, Briar knows that she is meant to wander. That is why her eyes sparkle with life with every turned rock and every new species of flower. There are crystals where she has found herself, near-clear and white whenever she turns the brown and studded sides over. The wine-stained mare smiles to herself when she catches the emerald of her eyes reflected in pale surface below her. Her hoof cracks against the stone when she gently pushes it to the side, sidestepping so that she may continue her journey to nowhere.

Briar does not know how she found Novus—she just knows that she is here, existing amongst its wondrous structures, and now is the most alive she has ever felt.

It feels like no time has passed since she found herself amongst the company of the Dusk Court. She finds its people fascinating and delightful, though she cannot claim to know much of its history. It has been hard to immerse herself in the culture and the religion, but she is trying, and this alone time is imperative to her adjustment.

She just hopes that she can make sense of it all at some point—she thinks she will not be able to survive feeling so lost all the time.

Briar steps to a cliff’s edge, the white frothing of the crashing ocean reflecting in her clear eyes. She peers down at the water so far below, feeling a mixture of fear and exhilaration. For a moment, she wonders what it would feel like to fling herself into the air, to allow the water to crush her bones and envelop her warm skin. She thinks she would be cold on the bottom of the ocean floor, but maybe the sea would not have to be her end.

Wind whips her golden mane around her face and into her eyes. She does not fight it, though, allowing the locks to tangle in her antlers and catch on her mouth. The sensation leaves a smile on her face, one so quiet and secretive that any onlooker may think she has discovered the truest gossip to pass between listening ears. It is just the land that speaks to her, though, and with each passing second she finds herself melding into its strange existence.


@Marisol hope this is okay <3









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

i'm not weeping, i'm not complaining
happiness is not for me.

The girl on the edge of the cliff is beautiful, and strange. She stands strong and dark against the rolling sea and cloudy sky. From where Marisol is walking she is little more than a suggestion of red paint, but still the sovereign is drawn forward, over the rocks, over the dying grass. Her antlers remind Mari of Lysander and her golden hair of Florentine, the way she stands at the edge of the cliff reminds the sovereign of Asterion; then she chides herself for only thinking of the past.

Focus, Mari tells herself. Ahead, not behind, or your people will never prosper.

It rings in her head like a bell, like a song. Your people will never prosper--that is Atlas' weight on her shoulders, pulling down until bone crunches against bone. But no one has to know. Disciplined as ever, Mari manages to push down her heartache, and there is no visible sadness in her eyes or the royal slope of her shoulders as she picks her way over the stone. The wind coming off the sea is salty and frigid; it rustles her short-cropped mane into a frenzy. Fall is already waning. Now winter’s gnawing at her coat, stirring the waves into white-capped foam, brushing stiff bristles onto the trees and turning the leaves from yellow to sick brown.

She does not recognize this Terrastellan, which is unusual: either she’s new or Marisol’s been falling behind on her introductions, which isn’t unlikely, considering the amount of time she’s spent poring over paperwork recently. Still a kind of guilt rises in her chest. What kind of queen is she that cannot keep track of her citizens? She bites her lip, and for a stride her step seems to falter as if uncertain. But it’s only a stride, only a moment, and then with a shake of her head she’s straightened up again and is coming up steadily to the girl’s side.

“By Her hand,” Marisol calls out, voice cut in half by the way the wind seems to thin it. The curiosity that runs through her is audible only as a tone of mild interest (though inside her it echoes much stronger). When she steps up, matching in posture with the girl shoulder-to-shoulder, she dips her head in a greeting that is almost but not quite formal, and meets the girl’s gaze with cool, dark eyes.

“Speaking.”
credits





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





Played by [PM] Posts: N/A — Threads:
Briar
Guest
#3

briar
To things old and new.

Briar thinks this as she hovers over the cliff’s eyes, emerald glittering with that curious indecisiveness of a secretly reckless creature. Her quiet smile hovers on her lips; her sharp cheeks smooth and ready for some unexplainable tear to fall; but one does not, and the only water on her face is the ocean that reflects in her eyes.

To things old and new: that is what she told herself when the initial shock of leaving her mother set in. Regret burns like the incessant drainage of a cold in her throat, but it is easily swallowed—

I owe peace only to myself.

Truth is hard to swallow, especially when the truth is meant to free one from abuse. Even as the wine-stained mare recognizes her freedom, she feels that pain sit uncomfortably in the back of her mind. Her mother, a victim, does not require Briar’s protection—but she is still just that: a victim. She is someone the two year old cannot save, but the savior complex builds and builds in her chest until it makes her head spin. This her mother taught her: Briar must save all who remain in distress.

Marisol’s approach goes nearly unnoticed beneath the din of the wind and the waves. The maroon woman turns slowly to find her Sovereign’s gaze, one that is cool enough to act as a balm to the burn of her shame. A new smile, one that does not mask her feelings, curls the corners of her lips.

“Hail Vespera,” she murmurs, eradicating the uncertainty she felt just days before. Their religion is new to Briar—it is not quite her's yet—but assimilation has come easily (or so it may appear to those that observe her).

“The wind and the sea—don’t you wish you could be them?” her question is followed by a turn of her head toward the ocean. The wine-stained mare wishes that every time she encounters cliff tops like these. To feel as whole as one with only a single purpose—to feel as whole as one that knows their purpose. “My name is Briar.” This she says louder, eyes stinging from the cold and the whipping of her mane.

When the antlered woman turns to Marisol, an innocent expectancy softens the hard lines of her face. Though Briar is aware the Dusk Court has a queen, she has yet to put a face to a name—or even a name to the Queen. Perhaps she should recognize the royal slope of weighted shoulders, but her kingdomless life leaves her ever so naive.

@Marisol <3









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

i'm not weeping, i'm not complaining
happiness is not for me.

The wind and the sea—don’t you wish you could be them?

I am them, Marisol wants to say.

She is the wind because of her wings. Because of the way she travels like a bird. Because of the hundred feathers that rustle in the breezes and chime against one another when she moves. And the sea is inside her newly-salted blood, inside the sharp, iron-edged teeth under those dark lips. It is guardian and master of the way she is awoken at night by the sound of an ocean that isn’t there, of the hunger that scrapes at the inside of her stomach and begs to be given iron. The wind and the sea—something inside her twists bitterly, convoluted. I am them, Marisol thinks, and nothing else.

Not girl, not lover, not queen or Commander. Just the wind and the sea, these two wild things that refuse to be good.

She swallows, with some effort, against the raggedness of her throat. Tries not to take not of the way the sharp, salty air burns the insides of her nostrils, or how she does not shiver at the cold the way a normal woman would. It is not in her anymore; it is hard to feel any kind of chill, even when she should. Somewhat sheepish, the Commander draws her head closer to her chest, as if against the wind. As if she feels it at all.

“Briar,” she repeats. Rolls the name on her tongue, falls silent for a moment with the sound pressed up against the roof of her mouth. Her ears flick back momentarily. Then with a blink Marisol turns her gray eyes to meet Briar’s—calm, curious in a way still quite restrained—and nods, as if in acceptance or encouragement. “I am Commander Marisol.”

Commander still, not Queen.
“Speaking.”
credits





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





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