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

Private  - i should move to a new city, teach myself to die;

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Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 11 — Threads: 3
Signos: 45
Inactive Character
#1





I am looking at myself in the mirror.

I am looking at myself in the mirror, and I think: I hate this bitch.

I am blurry in this silver surface. I don't know if it's that someone hasn't cleaned the mirror recently or that I can't see properly because I'm crying, but I am cryingI know I am, because I see that she's crying. This other Miriam. The one I hate to pieces. 

Her cheeks are streaked with dark tears. Her eyelashes have clumped together. Her hair is a mess, the curls wild and totally broken, half-heartedly braided in some places, matted in others. This is not what a princess looks like, I think to myself. This is a living disaster. And I am not sad. I am angrybitterI am infuriated that she has not kept it together.

"Do you know what this makes us look like?" I ask her. My throat burns. When the words come out, they're broken, from a place so deep in my chest it sounds less like a voice and more like a snarl; they snag in every possible place on the way out, like I am trying to throw up pieces of glass.

She looks back at me. Her eyes are tortured and pleading. Her lip trembles as she tries to hold in her tears (and fails; they spill over her cheeks pathetically, and I can hear them hit the floor all the way in the opposite universe). I realize, looking at her, that her face is not marked by any kind of a jewelry, and that she must be my child-self. 

Someone else might think this is an excuse. All children cry, they might say. Even royalty. 

But I look at her and I see weakness. I see the girl I was all those years ago. I see how good I had it and how terribly sad I still was and I want to kill her, or myself, or both of us, and end it all before I'm forced to wake up and see the sun.

"Say something." I want it to be a snarl, but it comes out a whine, the pathetic yelp of a puppy whose tail was stepped on. She stares back at me in silence. My anger is growing insurmountable. I feel it in my mouth like a sting of acid. I feel it curdling my muscles like venom, sitting in my stomach like a rock; I feel it rising and rising and rising, a wave of heat and bright-white pain, pain, pain, pain from my legs to my chest to my throat, until I can't hold it in anymore, and I hack out a cough.

When I open my mouth, bones come out.

Bones. A few of them get lodged in my mouth sideways as they tumble out, and I have to crack them in half and spit them out so I won't choke. 

I cough out bone after bone after bone. They pile up on the floor at my feet. They clatter against each other, making so much noise I think I must be waking up the whole house up. They fall out of me until it's literally impossible, until my throat is raw and broken, until I simply can't cough anymore, and I gasp for breath. 

Most of them are small. They are bright-white; they are old, sun-bleached, and have been picked clean. 

I cough once more.

Miriam the Younger's hairpin clatters to the floor.

It sits there, in the horde of her bones, as still and dead as she is. Blood dribbles out of my mouth. It drips down onto this little pile of what is left of her, and I am too horrified to even feel sick: I can only feel the numbness of my body, and how the terror crawls over every inch of me with spider legs upon spider legs. 

This is a nightmare, I think to myself, finally.

Behind me the door opens.




@Dune | speaks










Played by Offline Rae [PM] Posts: 82 — Threads: 12
Signos: 0
Inactive Character
#2






D U N E


- ☾ -


W
hen Dune opens his eyes, he’s standing in front of a wooden door. It is tall, wide, and carved with intricate patterns. The grain of the walnut has been polished to a deep, rich shine that still smells of a living thing. He finds himself strangely moved with pity for the tree that has been cut, milled, and carved all while it was still alive, still breathing, still reaching down to the earth and up to the sun.

He looks around and to his surprise he recognizes where he is. He knows these hallways, though not as intimately as he knows the gardens outside and the well-worn road to and from the dock. It is objectively a perfect place in multiple ways. Perfectly symmetrical, from the balance of arches to the dramatic swoop of the vaulted ceilings, clean (the servants saw to that), and quiet. So quiet! Every door was fitted to perfection, so not a peep would slip through when closed.

Dune hates it all.

A light breeze swirls down the hall, scented of cinnamon and rose. He hates the smell. Before him the door tenses like an animal about to spring into motion. He can feel the rage on the other side of it, and the fear, and the terror. “I don’t want to go in there,” he thinks, “don’t make me go in there,” but his body is not his own. In fact this dream is so oppressive, its truths so definite, he’s not sure it ever was. When he wakes he will blink his eyes, and stretch his limbs, and reassure himself “Yes, this is mine.” But he will wonder, for days to come, if he’s not mistaken...

The door is silently swinging open and his body is proceeding stiffly, step by step, like the limbs of a puppet. Dune’s face is molded into a neutral expression, although his eyes gleam with cow-headed defiance.

The dreamer turns.

It’s Miriam Ieshan. Of course he knows her, although he’s sure most of his “knowledge” is exaggeration or entirely falsified-- he once heard, for example, that she dyed her hair with goat blood.

They’ve crossed paths before, more than once. He’s helped scrub the floors, repair the broken tiles, prune the floral juniper hedges. She wouldn’t remember him, he’s confident of this. If he had any doubts, he would have changed his dream-face... He very much does not want to be recognized by her. When it came to nobles, it was better to flit in and out of their lives unseen and unnoticed, free from the peril of their rage and the corruptive poison of their favor.

Lady Miriam.” He dips his head in greeting, eyes skimming her precisely beautiful face. A mass of wild, half-tangled hair almost covers the hawklike pierce of her stern eyes. The tangled arms of this nightmare are tugging him into hysteria, and he doesn’t have much will to fight it. All he can think of is how many goats she would have to slaughter to dye all that hair. It takes incredible self control not to burst into laughter, tears streaking down his face.

Dune sees the pile of bones, and he wonders how they weren’t the first thing he noticed. They tremble, as though someone is pacing nearby with a very heavy footfall. But the two inhabitants in the room are so quiet and still that he can hear the gentle rasp of Miriam’s breathing. “Gross,” he says bluntly. He grasps at self-control but it slips out of his reach-

Dune giggles.



dream a little dream of me
« r » | @Miriam










Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 11 — Threads: 3
Signos: 45
Inactive Character
#3






The old Queen—Seraphina—had a vulture. A big, ugly, dark thing whose body was once white, now turned rust-brown by sand and dried-up blood, a bird whose patchwork-colored eyes were always too unsettling to be looked at directly. 

Once upon a time, when I was a real princess, I went to go visit her. I felt old, somehow; I remember being surprised by that, how young she was when I met her. Like my little sisters. I saw the vulture, perched on the back of her throne, and my blood ran freezing cold when she looked at me and opened her mouth and let out a truly mortal kind of laugh. I had heard that it was a demon. But I didn’t believe it until I heard that laugh—until I looked up and saw the rows of teeth in her beak, concentric, crowding against one another like a shark’s.

Looking down at the pile of bones, picked to pearl-shiny cleanness, I think of that vulture, and I wonder—with a sense of dread so overwhelming it makes my heart literally ache—if my dreams are really prophecies.

The door opens. 

Fear shoots through me. It lances in a straight electric line all the way from my head down to my chest: it strikes from the inside out, forks through me in a web like lightning. Suddenly I am frigid and panicked and nearly shaking, and when I whip around to look at him it is with the frenzied immediacy of a prey animal backed into a corner. 

I am sure I look wild. I am sure I look like what the rumors say about me—that I dye my hair with goat’s blood; that my mother built me wrong and now my heart has fallen apart; that I’m not stable enough to be head of house. That I’m not even stable enough to live in the house, anymore, and I should be sent out to live my days in some facility on the coast where the ocean air will cure me. (Sometimes I think that wouldn’t be so bad. I imagine a little room with the windows open, with the smell of salt ingrained in the stone walls. I imagine that Ruth will come to visit me; maybe she is even my doctor, who comes in and crushes up my herbs each morning. Sometimes I imagine that things will be okay. But that’s a pipe dream.)

I recognize the boy in the door.

Despite myself, I blink in surprise. I don’t think I’ve ever recognized the people in my dreams; besides my siblings, or the barely-knit-together bones of my parents. And I don’t even know how I recognize him, exactly. I can’t recall his name—I look at him and my mind goes dark and blank, like the place where I should know him is suddenly a black hole, a vacuum I can’t draw any knowledge out of.

I look at him and I know I should know him; but I don’t, and I’m scared.

He’s taller than I am. And rangier, like he’s gotten used to not knowing where his next meal will come from. His coat is a dark, rich brown all over, smooth and even as the door that swings open behind him, and the eyes that stare out at me are dark brown too, ringed like oak and just as old. 

I wonder: am I supposed to love him?

Lady Miriam, he says, but I am too startled to answer. Instead I stare back at him, my eyes so wide they feel wind-battered and cold, my body leaning slightly away from him of its own accord. I am thinking of a response; I am trying to But then he says—gross. He giggles.

Indignance flares up in my chest, burns in my face. I feel like myself again.

“Well,” I counter sharply, “that’s quite rude. Isn’t this my dream, anyway?My mouth turns down completely, aggressively. 

I won't admit I’m glad I’m not in here alone.





@Dune | speaks










Played by Offline Rae [PM] Posts: 82 — Threads: 12
Signos: 0
Inactive Character
#4






D U N E


- ☾ -


E
verything Dune is, he’s learned how to be. The way he walks like a cat, casually tense, has been slowly beaten into him each time he doesn’t strike or flee fast enough. The way he stands tall and still, the way he can keep standing like that for hours and hours, is the result of many shifts worked as security. (It was the most boring job- rich people always thought others were out to steal from or assassinate them, but this was unfortunately never the case, at least while Dune was working)

But nobody has ever looked at him the way she does now, with fear and bewilderment. And so he hasn’t ever learned how to respond to such a look; taken aback, his ears flick back uncertainly.

(And oh, this is the first time but not the last. One day he will be far too used to being looked at like that as he learns to sweep through dreams like a god or demon. Remember this, if you can, girl-- this is history in the making.)

He almost, almost pities Miriam and her pile of bones.

But then she frowns, that ugly little twist of her pretty little lips, and whatever grudging sympathy he might have had- it’s gone, all of it, just like that. “Well, that’s quite rude. Isn’t this my dream, anyway?

my dream-” the words ricochet in Dune’s head. My dream-- no one yet recognized that this is really his dream. They are all his dreams. But he can play along. He laughs and looks around appraisingly. It fills him with slow delight to be in this position, to stand in front of this garishly wealthy woman and look at her with a raised brow to suggest- “I thought you could do better.” Dune is all too familiar with derision, although he’s generally on the receiving end of it.

I’m so sorry, miss. You’re right,” he says. “my dreams are much nicer.” He grasps at her pile of bones, and with a twist of his magic they turn to fireflies and white-winged butterflies. Mindless creatures, they scatter across the room. Fireflies land in Dune’s mane, illuminating his dark skin with a warm glow, and a single large butterfly lands on the tip of Miriam’s nose. It shivers there, wings flexing in search of a sun that doesn’t shine.

And then the walls begin to melt. Objectively, it is terrifying. Nobody likes to see reality dissolve. But the body does not respond in horror- it finds the melting to be soothing. The mind recognizes the freedom, the release, the clarity that comes from seeing for the first time that the rules are really just suggestions. Something in you softens in response, your worries drifting up and away on the fluttering wings of butterflies. And when you fall, if you fall, satin pillows will be there to cradle your heavy body.



dream a little dream of me
« r » | @Miriam










Played by Offline RB [PM] Posts: 11 — Threads: 3
Signos: 45
Inactive Character
#5






I feel the air between us sour as soon as I frown. The immediacy of it—the sudden sharpness in my chest, the gust of cold that blows in through an imaginary window—startles me. 

I realize it is because I am not used to people seeing me. Really seeing me, the way this boy does with his buckeye-brown gaze. Perhaps it is because there’s nothing left to distract; it’s just us in this dream, shut off from the rest of the world. Curtains drawn and dark. The room still. Certainly, I am not used to anyone acknowledging my pain; when he sees me jerk in fear, his ears flick back, and there is a terrible part of me secretly delighted by this acknowledgement. 

(Terrible because it is insecure and so deeply pleased. It makes me feel real in a way I haven’t felt at all recently—real enough to be paid attention to, real enough to take up space. Heat rises to my cheeks, and I pull my head to my chest for a brief moment, looking away.)

But then he laughs at me. For the second time. His voice is low and rough, supremely self-assured; I see his gaze fall into a derisive slant. When he speaks, there is a lazy, acrid sneer in his voice: I’m so sorry, miss.

The sound of it scrapes my ears sends me jolting through a cycle of emotions. First, anger: how dare he speak to me like that? (I tell myself this is less about my birthright and more about basic manners, and I think I even believe it.) Then, when it fades, my chest seizes with slow, heavy guilt. I feel bad that I’ve snapped at him at all, rude as he is. How many times have I let my siblings get away with far worse offenses? 

And after that I don’t feel anything at all. At least not over the bright shock and awe that slams through me. 

The bones make a musical rattling. I look down, and at my feet I see them fall apart into sand; the next moment they come together again, but this time they are fireflies with yellow halos, and butterflies with a pearl-white wings. They rise up around me in a divine cloud. One even comes to land on the tip of my nose, where despite myself I cross my eyes to look at it and gasp. “Oh.” But there is the sound of a laugh in it: it is a noise of pure pleasure and surprise. I think I’m even smiling. It feels awkward and unlike me, but I can’t help it.

Then the room grows dark. I’m so distracted by the insects that I almost don’t notice it at first; all the dream-light bleeds out, the way it does in real life when I draw my velvet curtains. But the darkness brings a strange feeling to the surface. My vision goes blurry; it looks as though the walls are melting. That can’t be true, I think. 

But it is. I see the cobblestones bleeding into one another. I see their grays and browns go dripping, dripping down the side of a wall that isn’t there anymore. And behind what once was my room there is—nothing. Just a thick, dark velvet that seems to shift colors so quickly it’s dizzying, and I want to panic at the sight of it—the infinite beyond, a darkness with no end, its many facets flashing from gray to black to blue to something I don’t even have a name for—but my body is so heavy. So, so heavy.

I’m staring at him, but my eyes are soft and dark now. The scowl has fallen away; I’m not quite smiling, but my expression feels unusually… well, dreamy.

“I apologize,” comes my voice. “For my rudeness.” I hear myself speak, but it’s not quite my the usual tone—it’s lower, and softer, and edged roughly by something almost like desire. “Thank you for the butterflies. I’m Miriam. By the way.”




@Dune | speaks










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