the Rift

ask no questions

She doesn’t know what to do. It’s such a strange feeling for her, to be this purposeful. Life outside a herd is not unfamiliar to her, but then she was traveling, learning the ways of one place with every intention of leaving them behind. Then she’d wormed her way into the local’s good graces (usually) as a guest, under the pretense of being a stranger just passing through. Other creatures are endlessly more welcoming when they know you intend to leave. So far, she doesn’t think the same is true of the Rifitians, and Weaver doesn’t even blame them. A bunch of wayward Helovian’s just came crashing through the Portal, basically taking over. Not that they wanted to come here, but here they were nonetheless.

Weaver’s taken to spending most of her time on the Key, finding it to be one of the only pleasant places around. The fruit was sweet and nothing seemed likely to kill her. The Key was somewhat unoccupied though, and while that was all fine and dandy, she also wanted to be around the other Helovian’s as they figured out what the hell to do. So, she came back to the mainland, usually to the cliff and the Rainforest, but sometimes to the beach in Ultima as well. It was one of the only other tolerable places around here, and though the sand was wet and sucked at her hooves, at least it wasn’t miserably hot or pouring impossible amounts of rain.

It still bothers her that Raven doesn’t move from her back, that he isn’t enticed by the sea glass and shells that glimmer in the fading daylight. Before this place, he would have picked up everything he could manage to carry and would have stuck yet more stuff in her wings for her to carry as well. Now though, he simply sits there, curled into his nest of her cloak on his back. She’d love to stop wearing the thing sometimes, but one, she doesn’t have anywhere to put and two, she can’t bring herself to take away his nest anyway. So she walks along the beach like that, picking up a few particularly colorful bits of debris and tucking them into his makeshift nest with him. Maybe a get well gift will help him, though she doubts combating the Portal will be so easy.

- weaver -

and you'll be told no lies

Image | Quote by Charles Dickens

This had been her favorite place.

Here, they had first met, and later, fallen in love.

It was an unusual encounter, and an even more unusual match. He, scarred and coarse, set in his ways, bound to the Path and the Path alone, and his faith in humanity rapidly deteriorating. He had been younger then, yes, but he was not a creature of change, and even after all these years, he could not say he had changed much more than when he had loved the woman with the raven hair. And she, a sorceress, priestess, enchantress. Proud and unapologetic as a magnificent, raging thunderstorm; such was her unpredictable, unyielding nature. She did not apologize for who she was, or what she was, and he supposed he saw something of that in himself, too.

They had tampered with the forbidden here, she driven by greed and an insatiable lust for power, and he, well, his motives weren’t entirely pure either, although he desired something other than power. He had never encountered such a woman, and already he found himself unable to resist her, enchanted by her passion, her unwavering intensity. And so together in the unending twilight of the sea glass caves, they had released something dark and twisted, unleashing a Fate that had intentions of its own, and it had made its will known, binding them together. He was unable to think of anyone else, save her, and though they defied the Binding for many years and sought the company of others, they would always wind up in each others embrace once again.

It was a curse, she had said.

He now wondered, many years later, if she was right.

The portal had brought him home. His first thoughts were of her, and how they had left things…how he had left her. It had been one of the happiest times they had ever had together and he had ruined everything. The cost was a heavy price, of that he was certain. He did not know if she lived or died in the aftermath of the great disruption, the first portal to Helovia. The battle of gods and mortals. How foolish was he, to be caught up in the affairs of those he despised. He had awoken in another land, another dimension, wondering if he would ever see her again, but knowing in his heart that he would not and he had no one but himself to blame.

And yet, he returned to their place. It was as if he visited a beautiful, fleeting memory preserved in time; he could almost feel dampness of the sea on her skin, smell the sage in her raven hair. But the corruption of the Rift had found its way here, tainting and staining everything in its wake. The sea glass shifting beneath his hooves seemed less vibrant, as if the darkness of the Rift had managed to leach what little light remained. Veins of shadow threaded through the crystal walls, and eerie, floating balls of light haunted the silent beach. The silence was as he remembered, the stillness, as if you could shatter the crystal with a mere whisper.

And then he saw her.

His breath caught in his throat, afraid that any sort of movement would shatter the illusion he saw before him. She wandered slowly across the beach, as if she had been waiting for him a long time. Her black cape trailed behind her like a veil of shadow, and her wings, raven black and glistening…and yet, something seemed…off. Her wandering seemed aimless and lost; she did not carry herself like the queen she had always thought herself to be. The woman he had known had never been without purpose—she was a creature of ambition, every waking moment spent planning, plotting, and every movement was precise with efficiency.

He released his breath. It was not her. The markings were wrong, her eyes were wrong. Everything was wrong. Of course it was not her. He realized he was staring, and they were now separated only by a short distance. “I’m sorry,” he said roughly, pulling himself together, otherwise fearing that this overwhelming sense of numbness would consume him. He wondered if he would ever feel anything again. “I thought you were…someone else."

ask no questions

Weren’t all good love stories between those who should never be together? The best pairs did not fit together seamlessly. If they did, their stories would be bland and boring; their stories would be lost. It’s those that raged against the expected, those that fit together with frayed edges and imperfect lines that made the best stories, made the best pairs. Her story is too young to be a story at all, though one the outside it makes sense. Both she and him are touched by death, are familiar with the Devil and the Reaper, call their gods friends even. Ah, but to be cursed as they are cursed leaves one rather incapable of love. It leaves them both broken and battered and bruised in the only ways that matter. They do not fit together really, but they do.

His story, if she knew it, would make sense to her (not that she could even yet admit to herself what she felt for her own dark demon). Not that she knows what brings him here today, not that she knows who he mistakes her for. Weaver was not unlike his sorceress. She has never been aimless or lost, has never been without purpose, has never been anything less than a princess destined to rule (perhaps not as Queen, but simply by the power of her name). She has never been any of those things, until now.

Purpose would come again, certainly. It always did. Weaver’s purpose was not to explore though, was not to collect information with no end. Oh, she would collect information because were was power to be had in it, but right now, she wasn’t sure what power she was seeking, what knowledge she would need. Though it was becoming clearer. Kaos was the product of a dead god, yes, but then what had the tigress been if not a dead god. Was she dead? There were questions just beginning to form in her mind, but she was not yet at a place that felt purposeful again.

The stallion that finds her, staring without a word for too long, is not Helovian. At least, she doesn’t think he’s Helovian. There’s too many things that scream other about him, even for Helovia. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” she says, when he finally breaks the silence, and the tone of her voice makes it rather clear she’s not sorry at all. Her tone is not unfriendly though, but simply playful, her usual mischievous self. At least that much had found its way back to her. Losing one’s personality was a terrible shame. “I’m Weaver. Might I ask who you were hoping I’d be?”

- weaver -

and you'll be told no lies

Image | Quote by Charles Dickens

Weaver

Raistlyn

Weaver