Once long ago, there was a bedtime story parents told their children...
There’s a river below our home, and the roots of our garden, and below the streets running through our city. The river flows not with water and it does not race across a bed of rocks and rough metals. And this river does not run towards the sea like a river ought too.
This river below our hooves runs towards the mountains, and the sky, and the seconds woven together to make up our clouds..
Of course there is always more to the story, but somewhere between the light and the mountains all the children fell asleep. Each generation remembers the ‘more’ to the story differently. Some children dream of fish in the current, and their children dream of seaweed that whispers, and their children’s children dream of whales and sharks schooling together like a flock of morning doves in the bright river.
No one has ever discovered where the story began, or if it's a tale or truth, or if the river really is silver bright enough to be god-blood instead of water. And soon as the generations passed like seasons, and the world shifted into something more political than magical, the story was forgotten (buried beneath the layers and layers of forest loam and storm deposits left behind on the shoreline).
But perhaps they might start to remember and wonder when the first horse discovers the tree.
It started with four seeds, each blessed and watered on the way from the mountain to the plain. The tree does not start as a sapling or a small tangle of newborn roots. This tree blooms suddenly as the summer turns to fall and all the grasses start to turn brittle as the nights cool. No one remembers how it happened and no one saw the tree rise from the ground like a slumbering giant.
They might guess at it though, when the rumors of the tree start to race through Novus faster than the wind. And like that forgotten bedtime story the features of the tree change with each telling, and each court, and each glass of wine.
In reality the tree is just as magical as the stories suggest. But perhaps they have unstated the wonder of the stained glass trunk and the way that no matter the hour the glass bark shifts and shimmers like a cloudy twilight sky.
Perhaps they have left out the way the grass around the tree is sand-golden, or the way it seems to shift and blow in the wind like Solterra’s dunes that never stay in quite the same place as the day before.
Or perhaps the tale has changed so much in the telling that it’s forgotten how the flowers bloom red as
Delumine’s poppies that never fold their petals into slumber.
And perhaps the last teller of the story forgot to mention that the leaves do not seem like leaves at all, but like stars that dance in the breeze instead of the cosmos.
Does it matter in the end, when you discover the tree for yourself?
A tree has appeared so suddenly in the Plains that no one remembers a moment between when it was there and when it was not. The tree is surrounded by golden grass that from a distance might look like desert Dunes. The leaves are silver and seem to be stars hanging off the branches until one gets close enough to see that the ‘stars’ do look a tiny bit like leaves. The tree truck is not made of wood but glass that shifts and shimmers between every color the dusk sky has ever known. The flowers blooming from the leaves are dawn-red and they open towards both the moon and the sun.
No one knows how the tree came to be (besides suddenly) or no one knows why the tree has chosen the plains to tower over like a god. But everyone might wonder, especially when the ‘once’ forgotten tales start to circulate again.
How to Participate
Happy Three Year Anniversary Novus!
This is a single IC event post to celebrate the event. Your character may discover the tree up close, come with others or alone, or perhaps they only see the tree at a distance and do not brave coming closer. How you respond to this prompt is totally up to you.
You can reply to this thread with each character if you'd like, and each character will be awarded a +1EXP bonus. On top of that, each player will receive 100 signos for participating. Please do not claim either of these in the update threads, we will be awarding them directly from this thread and will post a note on the bottom of your reply once completed.
This event will close on July 1st, 2020
To tag this account: @*'Random Events' without the asterisk.
Please be advised, tagging the Random Event account does not guarantee a response!
It is between the milliseconds of a blink that it forms—
It does not presently occur to her that it might never have been there at all, catching the honeyed fall gloam in the fragmentary dusk of its glass bark, refracting it across the golden, shivering grass in splayed dapples of mauves, tangerines, pale pinks and deep blues. It does not cross her mind that its roots may have only just taken purchase in a vacancy of unsettled land. Casting a long, purplish shadow across her breastbone that had not been there before; that, just seconds prior, had opened like wanting hands to the last bit of heat radiating off a low sun. The vermillion flowers, genuflecting this way and that ‒ at once to the sun and then to the pale, nascent shade of the moon at her back ‒ and the quintillion tiny stars, rustling strangely as leaves do in a purl of chilled, preternatural breeze, are not newly bloomed things. They are ancient and venerable, had always been there and always will be.
She shifts, her long, silver-white hair trailing behind her, leaving yellowing speargrass prostrate in her wake.
Had she heard about this? Fabled thing, this numen of creation; of gods and goddess, for whom she has no names, no way to identify, though she can feel them, somehow, proffering this totem of themselves to her. Had she heard murmured tell of an argent groundswell; a sacred sapling made of Time? Certainly, she had not been privy to the nursery rhymes and bedtime stories, for hers were northerly things. Of badger’s blood and pine tar; ice and granite. An elephantine Mother and a leonine Father.
She stops just as her silver hooves meet the margin of gilded grass, clutches of dusky colour brushing the rosy-pink lips.
She feels foreign at this altar, all of a sudden. In a millisecond ‒ blink ‒ she knows once again the tawny meadowgrass that had come before, the idle swath of land not imposed upon by the monument of divinity, unknown. It calls her and repels her at once, for how many gods can she put her faith in? How many of their prayers can she take and settle in her breast like a seed in pink flesh? She exhales, turning her cheek to it, standing in the space between here and there, listening to the way those astral leaves speak.
His very first memory of Novus is of the Eluetheria Plain.
More a feeling than a scene or series of events, he recalls the moment as a sense of freedom, of possibility and joy and a deep, incorruptible rightness. Something about this wide expanse of grass had called out to him, drowning out all higher reasoning, all his careful thoughts and ideas, had penetrated down to his barest nature and harmonized with the very beat of his heart.
It had thrummed there, in the space between his lungs, risen to a crescendo that sent him galloping, spontaneous and headlong, his hooves pounding out a theme of primordial bliss nearly forgotten amid the years of study and discipline. For those few moments he had simply been, as he is, as he was born, as he will always be underneath the layers of philosophy and ethics.
He cherishes that memory still, and now, whenever the weights of scholarly endeavor become too heavy to carry inside his head, he comes seeking that clarity, that acceptance of self anew, but today is different. The Plain itself is different.
A new installment dominates, drawing the eyes despite gleaming almost too brightly to look at directly. It shimmers as if alive and moving with breath, light refracting and reflecting across the open ground in dancing spears of color. Eyes wide and lips parted in rapt astonishment, the tips of his long, long ears nearly touching with how hard they strain forward, the peachy, pastel stallion stumbles forward, whatever stressor might have sent him here originally instantly forgotten.
"Wow..." Is all he can manage, drawing close to the tree - is it a tree? - dimly aware of others nearby, but unable to split his attention. Its trunk is translucent, dyed from within like stained glass, but with richer colors than any glass he's ever seen.
The stallion's back is dappled with color as he cranes his head up, examining the leaves, which sparkle with an otherworldly quality, and sniffing delicately at the ruby colored flowers scattered among its branches. He dares not touch them, reverent of their uniqueness, but he wonders, too many questions crowding behind his paralyzed lips.
OOC: Can I just say I love this event? *v*
***STAFF EDIT
@Townsen has been sent +100 signos!
@willfur has been awarded +1EXP!
On my body, the grace of shadows and in my heart: all Hells
The tree came into existence as instantly as a blink. As suddenly as the Big Bang brought about existence. The spread of gossip was so much slower and the tree had to wait what felt like an eternity for the news of its becoming to reach all the corners of Novus.
But the news spread and it reached Tenebrae. People whispered of the wonder, of the magic of this strange, instant tree. He came to witness to its beauty and see just how such a tree had been woven so instantly into the fabric of Novus.
It does not take him long to find the tree. Through the Plain many have worn down well-trodden paths. The grasses and plants know the sight of pilgrims and they shed their seeds upon their knees as Autumn already demands their leaves to fall, their bodies to wither.
When the monk finds the tree, she is not shedding her leaves of stars. Nor are the golden dunes at her feet wilting as the grasses of the plains are doing. There is nothing about the tree that is at all normal. Except, the longer he looks, the more he sees the art of each court - from her bark of stained glass, to her leaves of stars, her roots of golden sand. The ancient tree (for how can she be anything but?) holds the whole of the cosmos within her gnarled-glass arms.
The Disciple watches and feels the way magic rouses in his bones. His own magic moves, casting shadows across the tree’s starlight. She gleams bright. She is not overcome. There is a prayer upon the monk’s lips. He speaks it out into the silent, humbled air about the tree.
Such a beautiful tree idea friends! <3 I want to see one in RL! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
***STAFF EDIT
@Obsidian has been sent +100 signos!
@Tenebrae has been awarded +1EXP!
blessed be the one whose lips spill the truth of gods
All-encompassing starlight, unbound, free to run around in the comsos above with little care for the ones that stare at it from below. The stars dance, unhindered by the gravitational pull of a dark, devouring black hole.
All-encompassing starlight, bound, entombed inside a crystalline case. It shifts and shimmers, adopting colors of dusk and tossing them away like a scrap of clothing.
He wonders what would happen if it broke.
Forever the resister, the runaway oracle questions. It would be swift— a simple swipe of his metal hoof against the shifting bark. He can already imagine how the sterling leaves that dance beneath the dark sky would shudder. Would they merely quake, though, or would they fall entirely?
How long until they wither and die without their nurturing mother to tend to them?
Tail twitching -agitation or interest?- the instrument of the gods paces a half-circle around the trunk of the ethereal tree.
(Yes, he can spy beauty; can make note of it and appreciate it. However, that does not mean it is safe from harm.)
Drune hadn't grown up with the stories told here — hadn't grown up with any stories, actually. His stories were something else entirely. They were coveted, revered, and thirsted after. They were not stories a child as young as he had been should have to bear witness to. Yet, bear witness to them he had.
Blazing fires, gaping chasms — they swallow and swallow, try as you might you cannot escape.
He has heard the tales, however. They spread like a blistering heat across the land.
Head tilting, thoughtfully, his glacial gaze narrows.
Do you bleed? He dares to ask; dares to defy.
He waits, preparing for the vision without a single dam in place to block it. He wants to know, and therefore, welcomes with open arms whatever the gods might choose to brush on his brow with poisoned fingertips.
Waiting and waiting. The leaves above sway expectantly.
The side of his mouth twitches. Contempt.
He is nothing but a puppet, meant to be used only when they deem it necessary; only when they want to have fun. Damn them to the deepest chasm. To the farthest depths where molten rock churn and rupture.
Sneering, an expression that is accompanied by a huff of air, the pawn jerks his head away from the trunk.
Cowardice are the ones that dare to place an unconsenting touch upon his skin. Foolish they are to believe he will ever come to finally breathe out their foretold visions to the populace ever again.
The sky burns red against your skin
The world we know turns in the wind
-
This was not a fairytale spoke to Aehra upon her childhood bedside, by either of her lovely mothers who spun her stories of their old gods—the lands they’d left behind. Too many times, she had fallen asleep to the slumbering gurgle of a river hymn, but never a folktale such as this land’s.
When she lays eyes upon the glass tree, it is from a distance. Standing upon the apex of a slope amid the plain, the grass tickling the fetlocks as her narrow chest heaves. From afar, it appears that the deep roots that burrow into the ground and sprout into bark-made-mirror might, perhaps, be kindred to her. Another opal in this wild, strange place.
But where the tree is beautiful, Aehra is not bold enough to coin herself the same.
She doesn’t know that it sprouted overnight—that it’s a novelty to this plain that once rolled smoothly, unbothered by the perfection of its newborn companion. To her, it is a monument—something so lovely must surely be.
Her eyes watch, soft and unsure, as another horse inquisitively approaches the tree’s base, their head tipping heavenward. So captivated was she by the splendor of its trunk, Aehra had barely noticed the blood ret petals that unfurl from its branches, set alight by crimson sunsets and wild poppies. It’s enough to make her breath quicken, her lips parting in wonder, as she manages a smile.
Still, the girl doesn’t dare to draw closer. The tree is a lantern—she is a moth. And no matter her hunger for adventure, her thirst for the unknown, she does not dare brush against that which surely must have been given by gods.
Speech
***STAFF EDIT
@rayoflight has been sent +100 signos!
@aehra has been awarded +1EXP!
i'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly
it's hard to say that i'd rather stay awake when i'm asleep
'cause everything is never as it seems
❖
This place is so far from home and the Dellymean… Deloom… whatever it's called land. But I heard rumors of a tree that appeared out of nowhere and just had to see it for myself. The way people were describing it, it sounded so magical! Like something out of a dream or very special magic. A kind of magic I'd love to have myself some day. I could just create things out of nothing and have them be so beautiful for everyone to see. Just being able to create something to make someone smile would be a dream in itself.
For now, I'm off to admire the thing of someone else's creation. At this point, I've sneaked off from both of my moms, so I'm sure I'll get an earful soon. Momma Zahra doesn't seem to mind as much as Momma Morr though.
When I come upon the tree, it's even more beautiful than it was described to me. The tree's bark is like glass, almost reminding me of the Eventide Arch back home. At first, the grass around it looks like sand, but I see that it is indeed grass upon my approach. There are flowers too, as if the season of spring is encapsulated here.
However, what's most spectacular about all this are the leaves on the trees. They're more like something made from stardust than the leaves I'm used to. I so badly want to reach up and touch one or maybe take one for myself, but I'm too short. I frown.
I look at the tree's trunk again and marvel at how it reflects the sunset behind me. I wish this was closer to home so I could show Momma Morr how pretty it is, but also so I could visit more often. Part of me wants to stay here forever.
Isra and the fallen constellations “sing me a song I can never learn”
T
his a a story I have heard only in whispers caught in the currents of the night (somewhere between stardust and cedar smoke). Perhaps if I trusted the gods, or perhaps if I did not have this terrible stream of silver magic running beneath my own skin, I would have listened closer.
Perhaps I would have followed the cracks in the earth and the god-blood river instead of a war.
But I am so full of war-stories, and elk-stories, and owl-in-the-rain-stories, that I do not have room between my teeth for another seed of a tale. My soul is bloated with all the things living in this universe tumbling over and over again inside me.
I am dreaming of a bison herd and snow thick enough to sink knee deep into as I wander through the bent fall grass of the prairie. I am dreaming of frost on my eyelashes like tears, and of sailing on a sea that exists only in the places where my soul ebbs against Eik's. The earth carries on only beneath my hooves as I close my eyes to anything but the dreams stretching cobweb and paper-thin in the blackness. Their tendrils crawl underneath by skin like salt-water and seaweed.
I am lost to to the feel of them. Lost,
Lost,
Lost,
Until Fable rattles the ground beneath me as he lands beside me. There is seawater clinging to his wings and I know, before I open my eyes, that the drops of it will ring my horn like a crown and dust my eyelashes in diamond-salt. When I do open my eyes (because he has begged it of me) I don't see the tree bark, or the salt-stones, or the shadows of a bison herd flickering at the edge of my vision like phantoms.
I see only the leaves of the tree upon which bloody flowers are nestled like newborn sparrows in a nest of starlight. And I know enough about the stars (how they are chewed up and spit out by teeth instead of lips) that I do not need to feel my own magic to know what has born this mark upon the prairie. There are lines between the star-leaves, where the branches shine through with twilight lilac and lapis blue, that whisper bits of the forgotten story to me.
The story the tree whispers is a discordant thing (as broken and jagged as my soul when it forgets how to sing). I can feel the struggle in the beauty of it, in the way the grasses still sway like grass instead of gold-leaf in the crisp autumn wind. So I lay down in the grass that does not billow like a cloud because I know how it feels to be cracked in a million dark lines in which the light only barely shines through. Fable curls around us both the tree and I.
I rest my cheek against the twilight bark even when stardust pollen falls from the leaves and the flowers. And I listen to the muted roar of the silver river with the solar tree singing its ragged song to me like a hallelujah.
Faith in their hands shall snap in two, And the unicorn evils run them through;
The tree calls to her as all things made instead of grown (or born) call to each other. She can feel the lines of magic running through the grass as much as she can see the blaze of it on the horizon. It whispers not to her of stories, or legends, or gods.
It whispers of forgotten wars and blood-of-the-earth. And the notes of it seem to her as much of death as they are of life.
She does not waiver in her path to the tree, nor does she pause to greet the others gathering around the base of it like lambs. The coming night soothes the roar below her skin, settles it into a purr instead of a snarl. And perhaps the crowd can see it in her, that touch of savageness, when she walks though them like each of their forms is nothing more than a weed.
While others might see beauty, or wonder, or magic, Thana only sees a reminder in the arcane tree. She sees fire instead of stars. The red blooms are not flowers but stones of blood. Twilight wood is not the fall of night but bruises laid down on top of each other until lilac turns to almost-black. The grass is not gold but blood, strained out like a stream from the gods that have long since forsaken this world.
Perhaps it's the god-blood color of the grass that makes her tap her horn against the tree and whisper I will not forsake you in the only language that things made understand-- bone to bone, root to root, sharpness to sharpness.
Around them the bison bed down to slumber. Night-birds start to roost in the stardust branches. A thunderbird bellows at the rising moon as it passes across the meadow. Eligos joins the howling and Thana can see his black form racing after the wolves as they join together for the last hunt of the day. Hunger blooms in her stomach as it always does and moss starts to crawl across the tree from the tip of her horn.
And the sight of it sets her hunger to aching.
Soon, she tells the tree with a tap, tap, tap of her horn. Soon.
and at last i see the light, and it's like the fog has lifted
The tales had led her here – tales of a tree, magical and strange. Solstice wanted to see everything, to experience all that this new world had to offer. So while she has some trepidation in leaving the comfort of the few places she’d come to know in Novus, she does so with hope battling the fear in her heart.
She walks alone in the field, ears flicking to catch sounds around her, wings tucking gracefully against her sides. They hug her tightly as she walks – her lion tail flicking back and forth, leading bystanders to wonder if she were agitated or merely caught up in her own thoughts. Her doe-eyes are wide as they drink in the expanse of this new place, drawing forward in search of the mythical tree as she goes.
It stands tall ahead of her, unmistakably the tree of lore and not another more ordinary tree. Taller than two or three trees combined, it is the only thing standing in a sea of gold. She whispers a quiet prayer of admiration, creeping closer and noting that the leaves were not truly leaves, but tiny bits of silver stardust which twinkled with every shiver of the wind. The trunk shines brightly in a kaleidoscope of hues, so fantastic that she reaches to touch it, gasping as her lips find it cold and diamond-hard.
Only magic could do a thing like this, so Solstice takes a posture of wariness, not fully trusting the strange magic which could create such a thing. Still, the tree is a thing of beauty, one which brings the mare peace, so she stands beneath its star-flecked leaves for a while. In the quiet, she can simply absorb the wonder of it, staying until the sun began to fade in the sky, and sighing as she turns to leave for Delumine once more, regretful to leave the magnificent structure behind.
