[AW] you can run if you want to

[Cress]

There's no walls & no ceilings as far as I know

just the echo of scars and the unbeaten road

It’s all in the arrival, the entrance, the beginning. How did your story start, and with what words, and did you draw your audience in quick enough? The where, the what, the who… those don’t ever matter as much as the how.

Or at least, that’s what they say.
Never mind who they are.

In this case, the where was by the ocean, the cliffs rising up from the brine like a jagged fortress, the spray filling the air already laden with the scent of salt. Gulls cried and circled, as sea fowl tend to, endlessly searching for small fish and crabs. The sun had risen but it was early yet, and the heat was still finding its way into all the crevices, and while it was busy making the stones warm, a lazy sea breeze ruffled along the edges, idly moving through tall grasses and heather, displacing bees as they wandered through the air toward thistle blossoms. 

It sounds peaceful doesn’t it?
It’s one of those situations where ‘if the tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ moments, where everything is still and sweet and picturesque…
You know what happens next, right? Please don’t tell me this is going to surprise you.

She arrived.

Where did she come from? We’re never sure. But she soared through the morning air, bright blue wings catching the early rays. She spied the cliffs and headed toward them, braids strung out behind her, excited to see what new land she was encountering. The small mare folded in her wings and dove downward, fully prepared to make the most elegant of landings – 

There was a noise like a roar, and wetness, and she snorted and spun, lurching sideways through the air as her wings tried to catch up to the frantic messages her brain was sending. The land came up a bit quicker than intended and she landed roughly, dirt and grass and pebbles spraying as she skidded to a stop. Did she land on her feet? Almost. She’d ended somehow on her bum, eying the cliffs and the water that had betrayed her by daring to gush upwards when she hadn’t been looking. 

She snorted again, quieter, and picked herself up, stretching her wings out fully before folding them against her backside. A few loose feathers drifted gently down to the ground and she left them there, a silent apology to the earth she’d torn up. It had extracted a toll from her, too, her right haunch was scraped, but nothing that had broken the surface. She’d be sore for a few days, but that was nothing new in the world of Cress Crash Landings^TM. 

Finally, satisfied that she was mostly intact, the little blue jay glanced around, bright yellow-orange eyes landing on the one person that had likely born witness to her marvelous entrance. She grinned and trotted toward them, the word embarrassment nowhere to be found.

“Did you see that?!” She shook her head, as if she could hardly believe it herself. “Woo! Ocean tried to get me!” She shifted her wings a little against her back, the crest of feathers on her head standing up as she looked over this hapless victim of her now undying friendship. “I’m Cress! Who are you? Where are we?”

Ah, she never really did well with small talk.

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[Maude]

& I think to myself Maude The cliffs were impressive, was Maude’s first thought upon discovering them; tall and jagged, they rose from the landscape and reached out over the sea like some sort of magnificent, mountainous being, and though she was sure it would be a dangerous journey, she wanted to see what could be seen from somewhere atop them. It was, after all, the first mountain she had seen here, and, without wings, the only way she could get such a keen vantage point to look out across the land, and the sea, which she could hear, but not quite make out yet. So, with the sky colored pink and violet, and bleeding into the lightening indigo of the dawn, the youth began her ascent of the impressive realm, and thought, all the while, of the Heavenly Steppe back home. The promise of natural beauty that was sure to take her breath away drove her on, even when she stumbled and nearly slipped down the precipice, or when her muscles began to ache and groan for relief from her relentless trek up the snaking paths. As the morning drove on, and the sun appeared, flushing the floral tones from the sky to replace them with radiant gold and blue, and sweat slipped down her flanks, the filly began to regret her impulsive decision. Perhaps, she thinks to herself, she should have chosen a smaller summit… Yet, some few moments later, the maiden trudges out onto an open meadow, ringed with boulders, and breasting the ocean. The salty smell meets her nostrils with its usual tang, and she breathes deeply, one inhalation after another, finding renewed vigor in her step as she makes her way towards the precipice, to look out on the waves beyond. As she does so, a great jettison of water rises up the wet stone face, startling the young doe, and sending her back onto her haunches with a girlish squeal. Dancing away from the edge of the world, her fear is replaced with laughter, which is, quite surprisingly, answered by the mirth of another. Startled, her giggles halt promptly, replaced instead with wide, citrine eyes that pin on the female jay with only a moment’s fright. Her smile is quick to return, her nose bobbing at the mention of the wild and unexpected wave that had, seemingly, frightened them both; at least Maude hadn’t fallen from the sky, she thinks, shrugging her shoulder at the question that follows after. "It startled me, too," she begins with a giggle, her gaze looking out over the distant, blue-gray water as she continues, "where I’m from, the cliffs are too high for the sea to reach up over them like that. It’s quite dangerous but impressive, if you ask me. "As for where we are, I just got here, so maybe someone else is a better bet," she smiles, her pearl laden, antlered head tilted as she returns her playful eyes to the pegasus, "but I was told it is called Novus. I think this is still in the Dusk Court…" She laughs, shrugging a pale shoulder. "Maybe not, though," she muses aloud, "it’s pretty here, regardless." [ OOC: has muse, so you has a Maude! she is useless for information but I think they'll get along at least. :'D ] what a wonderful world

Image by Stephan Mignon@Flickr - Code by Me
@Cress

[Cress]

There's no walls & no ceilings as far as I know

just the echo of scars and the unbeaten road

The little blue jay eyed her new companion, tilting her head slightly as she did, the dark rimmed feathers on her head lifted curiously. Her candle-bright eyes quickly slipped over the cream and rust girl, the antlers sprouting from her poll and the waves of hair curling down her neck and smiled broadly at her as she agreed with her about the ocean and told her a little bit about herself.

Cress bobbed her head enthusiastically, the thick braid of her mane slapping her neck lightly. “That sounds very pretty, your home place!” She said, grinning, shifting her wings against her backside quickly, moving them into a more comfortable fold. She thought about her own upbringing, about the mountainous lands that her flock had spent the most time in between winter migrations. There had been high cliffs in parts, some that had reached over lakes, but not oceans. She liked the ocean, though, liked the smell of brine and the call of gulls.

The younger girl continued, telling her that the land was called Novus, and that they were likely in a section called ‘Dusk’. Cress considered that, glancing up at the bright morning sun and wondering how a place could be named for a certain time if that time was not always present. She decided, in that brief thought, that it was alright – she, after all, was named for a plant, and she certainly wasn’t one.

“It is pretty here, too. And thank you, that’s more than I knew before.” She said, still smiling. “I only just got here, too. Are you going to be living here? I think I might like it here, it feels nice.”

She paused a moment, gazing out over the horizon and then back at antlered girl. “Do you need permission to live here? You said it was a court…” She trailed off, uncertainly. She hadn’t been part of a true herd or flock or anything since she left home. She’d only ever really been a visitor, a stranger in strange lands. It might be nice to stay for a change. At least for a while.



[ @Maude - she's adorable! they're gonna get along great! <3 ]

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[Maude]

& I think to myself Maude "It was," Maude answers with a solemn smile, her tone quite oppositely morose, and though tears threaten to bloom from her eyes, they instead only wetly shine for a moment, before she manages to carry on (for now) without falling into her overwhelming melancholy. She was, after all, an optimistic child, made of sunshine if ever there was such a girl; to dwell in the darkness, as she’d been forced to for this past half a year, was unnatural and painful, and for the green-eyed damsel, it was easier to pretend that the world she loved, and all the things she had loved within it, had not been destroyed by a jealous and angry God. She is glad that her company is young and cheerful. It helps her keep her mood there, especially considering its tendencies to drop into the mournful range whenever she was alone for too long. Memories, Maude was learning, had a way of chasing you about, even if she’d rather not think about them, at least for a little while, until it didn’t hurt so much to remember. It made getting along in a new world especially difficult, if one was crying all the time. "I like it too, but I just got here, too. I’m looking about before I decide if I’ll stay here, because I don’t know if I want to yet," she answers, because, well, she doesn’t; though the people she has met in the realms of Dusk have been kind, so far, and she has found Evangeline, she also wonders what else is out there. The youth trusts fate as much as any young poet does, of course, so she is certainly going to give the place where she arrived first the most consideration, but what if beyond the rolling fields and towering cliffs of this place, there was a world even more inspiring to her? What if Helovia wasn’t actually gone, just waiting beyond some horizon somewhere, entirely intact? Perhaps it was a far fetched dream, she keeps telling herself, but if the God had lied to them once… Giggling as Cress’ worried question draws her back out of her thoughts, the maiden smiles towards the jay, and playfully shrugs. "If we need permission, they’re awful at enforcing it," the girl tells her of her own experiences, colorfully giggling or wincing when appropriate as she continues, "most everyone I’ve met so far has just arrived, too, except Damascus, but I was a bit of a, er, mess, and miss Eva was, well... Miss Eva. It’s possible that if he was supposed to demand our loyalty in the name of the Dusk empire, he forgot." what a wonderful world

Image by Stephan Mignon@Flickr - Code by Me
@Cress

[Cress]

& those dizzy stargazers
who dreamed of the black
kept their heads in the clouds
& they never looked back

Let’s be honest, Cress isn’t the most…detailed orientated creature.

She completely missed the soft sadness that had washed over her antlered friend, completely missed the ‘was’ in her answer, not putting together that this young girl hadn’t traveled to Novus because she’d wanted to, hadn’t just been out to explore the world… no, in some way shape or form, this girl’s homeland had been taken from her, ripped away without the possibility of her being able to return. No matter that Cress had no intentions of ever really returning to her family, it wasn’t impossible for her to do so. It was always there, a safety net, a plan b, waiting and ready to catch her.

But that wasn’t the point.
The point was that Cress missed all that, because she is not good with subtleties.

The little blue jay turned away from the view of the horizon and back to the cream and rust girl, who answered her question easily, and her worried brow eases, her smile returning as quickly as it had gone. She bobbed her head and giggled back at her, stopping as the girl continued. She crooked her head a little… so many names that she didn’t know! It seemed this Dusk land had a lot of new friends she needed to meet.

“Maybe this… Dusk court… is new? Or Novus. Or both.” She said, as if the idea of a new realm just popping into existence wasn’t strange to her. “But its been around long enough for you to have had some adventures here! That’s always fun!” She said with a grin.

“So if it’s a Court, does that mean there’s… a castle? Maybe we should go there! Introduce ourselves!” She said suddenly, body quivering with the desire to prance in place (she restrained herself, barely). She remembered then, what her friend had said, about not being sure about staying here. “Hm. Or maybe we should look around? What do you think?”

@Maude

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[Maude]

& I think to myself Maude Cress suggests an idea that had not ever crossed Maude’s mind. Instead, it smacks her flat in the face, like a branch let go by the leader too soon, and it resounds with such clarity that she wonders why she’d not thought of it herself. "Why, Cress! You’re a genius! Of course it is!" cheerfully laughs and praises the maiden, the idea of a kingdom appearing out of no where not as strange to her as it might have been before she’d watched an entire realm disappear into nothing. Smiling at the winged girl alongside her, Maude shrugs at the mention of adventures. "I wouldn’t call them that, really. The only thing worth a song at all so far has been winding up here in the first place, and I don’t remember it well enough to tell anyone else what happened. I think I was sleeping, or maybe I fell… How’d you get here?" As the conversation diverts towards the tower she’d seen, the girl’s smile falls away slightly, replaced with an expression of contemplation. Of course, her initial desire had been to just barge in, too, but a small part of herself had warned her that maybe it wasn’t so smart to just walk into other people’s houses. What if the Dusk Emperor (she hadn’t a clue who ruled what in Novus, at least not yet) was like a bear and the tower was like his winter cave? Maude would rather not risk it. "I don’t know," she says, "it didn’t look like too many people were there when I went, but I didn’t go in, either. Besides, you’d beat me there by hours." Her laughter is easy, the sort that casually accepts the natural unfairness of life – at least in this instance. "I don’t have wings like you do," grins the antlered maiden, the first to admit that it would be awful cool if she did. what a wonderful world

Image by Stephan Mignon@Flickr - Code by Me
@Cress

[Cress]

& those dizzy stargazers
who dreamed of the black
kept their heads in the clouds
& they never looked back

Our little blue jay has been called many things in her life, the vast majority of which were not said to her face, but genius? Genius was absolutely not one of them. For those keeping score here, the petite sky-blue mare wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, not the sharpest tool in the shed, not the...well, let’s not overdo it, I think you’ve gotten the point. As sweet and kind as she was, she was neither book smart, nor street smart, and this guess was really just a miracle shot in the dark that she’d gotten something right.

Maybe I’m being mean… maybe I don’t give her enough credit…
Well. This is the same girl that tries to talk to frogs.

Regardless of my musings, Cress practically preened at the compliment, yellow-orange eyes bright and round. Sorry Maude, there’s definitely no getting rid of her now, she’d decided the two of you will be friends for life, even though she doesn’t know your name yet!

She paused at the girl’s words about how she’d arrived there. She herself was no stranger to suddenly arriving in strange lands, sometimes with very little recollection of how she’d gotten there. Sometimes it was as if certain places just… snatched her into their realm, and then just as suddenly spit her back out again somewhere else. It was all part of her adventure and journey, really, and she just didn’t question it.

“Hmm. I’m not sure! I remember being in another place, and I met a lot of friends there. And then I had flown somewhere else and…suddenly the way back wasn’t there anymore, so I kept going forward. And then there were all these cool islands…and then I thought I saw another island in the distance so I flew toward it and… then the other islands were gone and I was landing here! Talking to you!” She grinned, as if she thought this was the best possible ending to her story.

They continued talking about the court then, and at first Cress was confused by her friend’s words, titling her head a bit to the side until she clarified. “Oh!” Cress shifted her wings a little on her back, unfolding one for a moment and glancing at it briefly. “Well, I’d walk there with you of course! It wouldn’t be fun to fly there alone!” She bobbed her head with a smile.

“And it’s okay that you don’t! You have such pretty antlers! They’re really cool! No on in my family has anything like that!” She reached out to gently nudge the girl’s shoulder earnestly.

@Maude - sorry for the delay!!

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[Maude]

& I think to myself Maude Maude drinks in Cress’ story with the same sort of interest she listens to most: ears perked, eyes earnest and wide, and her mind turning over each detail of the tale as if it were a shell, or a stone, searching for the parts that were most interesting, or beautiful. So, what Maude hears is that, essentially, her newfound friend had flown into a magical discordance, which had slowly (and craftily, it sounded!) brought her here, to Novus. That the blue jay tells a tale that is mostly mystical with little terror eases Maude’s worries even further. It seemed that, for the time being, she was safe from horrible, shadow infested places that endlessly rained and rained, and that, perhaps, there was some chance that she could be happy here, after all, even if… She tries not to think of Helovia, she does, but it slips up on her regardless. Getting better at ignoring the sudden, overwhelming sorrow that threatens to drown her whenever she does remember it, however, the girl manages a smile, and bobs her ginger muzzle. "Maybe that’s how I got here, too," ponders and grins the maiden, the expression all more genuine as she adds with a giggle, "well, except the flying part." Grinning as Cress explains that she would walk to the Dusk Court, the young healer nods her head, inwardly chiding herself. Of course the pegasus would, she thinks; most people were nice, after all, as far as Maude had experienced in her life. Smiling even wider when the blue bird complements her, the cream-haired youth leans towards the gentle gesture of the winged mare, and playfully lips at the pegasus’ shoulder in return. "Thanks! Everyone in my family has antlers, even Uncle Bart…" cheerfully begins the tree-maiden, before quieting slightly. Maude quickly changes the subject from precious, dear faces she may never see again, emotion flooding her words as she continues. "They took ages to get this big. When I was little, they were just little…lumps." Having never asked her pegasus friend, Gawen, about his wings, the girl curiously asks of Cress what she had always wondered quietly to herself. "Were your wings small once, too?" what a wonderful world

Image by Stephan Mignon@Flickr - Code by Me
@Cress