Disappointed, he turns away from the jewelry booth piled high with necklaces and bracelets, baubles and wind chines and other hanging decorations crowded onto pegs that jut from its wooden frame. The craftsman has sea shells and sand dollars, sharks teeth and little bits of seafloor with spiral fossils imprinted in them. They have sea glass, worn smooth and given a frosted finish by the ceaseless waves, but warmly colored sea glass, they say - the reds and oranges and pinks that Willfur most adores, the colors of sunrise and warmth and new beginnings - are apparently exceedingly rare.
He might have settled for a deep, emerald green instead - another color he quite admires, the color of life, of nature - but those too are in short supply, most often dulled to seafoam and teal and lime, the salinity of the water bleaching the dyes and stains to a mere suggestion of what they once were. "Ah, well." He shrugs, moving on. It was nice to have a look at least.
All along the beachfront there are visitors playing, shopping, building sandcastles, and clustered around campfires in pairs and small groups. Willfur would have thought, given the sheer number of horses gathered in one place, that he would feel crowded and overwhelmed by noise pollution, but it's surprisingly peaceful. Between groups there are pockets of quiet, where the shhh-shh of the ocean can assert its dominance over the festivities and the light of the fires gives way to moon and stars.
Alone in one of these pockets, he cocks a leg and watches the night sky overhead. There aren't any constellations he recognizes - Novus must be very far from anywhere he's been before - so he admires the splashes and pinpricks of light without trying to give them names or meaning, just enjoying the splendor of something so much larger than himself.
Io was adrift in a great grass sea. It rose and fell like waves, pulling at her and drawing her forward.
Her flanks and underbelly were sodden with sweat, and her back and butt had been roasted to a perfectly crisp potato chip texture. The tips of her ears were even sweating where they were pressed against her neck in frustration.
The sun had fallen below the horizon at least an hour ago. The blistering heat had finally faded, but the air was still thick with humidity and moisture. Moonlight illuminated the prairie around her in a soft pale glow. Tall grass extended in every direction, rolling over hills and crinkling in the weak breeze. Tree cover had been minimal at best once she'd walked far enough south, and drinking water was few and far between.
She was much happier climbing the winding, uneven paths through the mountains. The chill nipped at her skin and turned her breath milky white. When she finally crested the rocky ridges the vast, echoing chasm below would pull at her chest in excitement. She could turn her gaze skyward, to the dark blanket of the night sky, dotted with tiny, beautiful lights. Sometimes an aurora would paint the sky with stripes that bled like colorful spilled ink over the monochrome expanse. Looking at it all made her feel so small.
Different from how small she felt now. Belly deep in grass, lost beyond measure, and further from her home than she’d ever been. She felt like a bug in a sea of shrubbery, when she so clearly was destined to be a star in the sky.
Finally, after hours of endless roaming, the whispering grass gave way to a new sound. It was loud. It was the sounds of other horses. Strangers. The looming horizon was illuminated by distant lights that polluted the deep blue/black that swelled overhead. Her tired legs carried her to the fringes of the grasslands, where the ground became soft and crumbly underfoot. She lingered there, half hidden, watching in a daze. There was so much activity and artificial light, so many nameless, exotic faces. They were were all bright, flashy colors that caught the lantern and torchlight like gemstones. She couldn't help but to stare at them all.
A single sound filtered out from the rest. It was soft and repetitive, a crashing sound that came every few minutes behind the bustle.
She walked with purpose toward the noise, ignoring any possible onlookers. Just act natural, she told herself. Hopefully none of these strangers would question her presence or try to make her leave.
The sound wound up to be an endless expanse of water, stretching as far as she could see. She swung her head to the left and right, but each direction was also marked with a stripe of land and water that continued off into the distance, beyond the reaches of the torchlight and moonlight, swallowed up by shadows and darkness.
Her wisp of a tail flicked behind her as she turned to peer at the horses around her.
There was one, a giant rust colored one, that seemed as captivated by the night sky as she felt sometimes. He wasn't colored like a winter sunset before a blizzard. His ears were long and floppy like she’d never seen on an equine, and his form was somehow both stocky, stout, awkward, and knobby all at once. A real dork, to be sure. It was hard to be intimidated by him.
“Hello,” She called gently, making her way over to where he stood. Her efforts to appear unaffected by her surroundings were hindered by the way the soft ground pulled away from her and sank up to her fetlocks.
“What is this place?”
"talk"
the darkest nights reveal the brightest stars
12-03-2020, 10:29 PM - This post was last modified: 12-08-2020, 03:38 PM by Io
A voice - or, really - the upturn at the end of the voice's greeting that suggests a question and the following pause that triggers an instinctive, "who, me?," reaction turns the mule's head, bringing him somewhat reluctantly back to earth. "Hello." He answers politely, eyeing the way the mare struggles to find footing against the shallow, billowing waves, her eyes flashing gold as they cast up and down the shoreline. "Do you mean the festival, or more… everything?" He ducks his head apologetically. "I'm sorry, I mean no offense! You just look as if you might've fallen from the night sky yourself, all stars and crescent moon. You're well within theme, actually! The Night Court is hosting a 'Beach Bash,' a party for anyone to come and enjoy the lands of Denocte. There are vendors, drinks, entertainers, and, of course, the natural wonders."
He stops himself short of joking about himself being one of these wonders, not wanting to give an impression of propositioning the poor girl, especially after that falling from the sky comment. "They say this is one of the best places to watch the sky - sunrises, sunsets, moon, stars - though I'd suggest the Tinea Swamp as well, northwest of here, in Dusk Court, if that's your sort of thing. The way the water stills and reflects everything above is beautiful."
His own eyes, an ordinary, earthy brown, have wandered out to sea during his monologue, out to where the black of the ocean meets the black of the sky in an almost indiscernible gradient. "This is the Terminus Sea." He gestures with one ear, turning to face the mare again. "It surrounds all of Novus, as far as anyone can tell. I'm Willfur, by the way. Are you new here?"
![[Image: de9u07z-4f04f887-21ff-4105-a8ce-ef1f5e00...hqwHwl6qfI]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/fbfd3dcd-71d0-46ab-866a-aa99fe76a594/de9u07z-4f04f887-21ff-4105-a8ce-ef1f5e00d6f3.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOiIsImlzcyI6InVybjphcHA6Iiwib2JqIjpbW3sicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvZmJmZDNkY2QtNzFkMC00NmFiLTg2NmEtYWE5OWZlNzZhNTk0XC9kZTl1MDd6LTRmMDRmODg3LTIxZmYtNDEwNS1hOGNlLWVmMWY1ZTAwZDZmMy5wbmcifV1dLCJhdWQiOlsidXJuOnNlcnZpY2U6ZmlsZS5kb3dubG9hZCJdfQ.oZIl4zh1NHth49yqTFHhc9S7LcqRrh4VOhqwHwl6qfI)
