Rainforest Cliffs have heart, my dear - Printable Version +- the Rift (http://riftrpg.net) +-- Forum: Archives (http://riftrpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=20) +--- Forum: Year 1173 (http://riftrpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=29) +---- Forum: Completed (http://riftrpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=25) +---- Thread: Rainforest Cliffs have heart, my dear (/showthread.php?tid=237) |
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have heart, my dear - Kiada - 07-17-2017
@Erebos RE: have heart, my dear - Erebos - 07-17-2017
The warrior searched, hunted, and followed remnants of long ago trails because he had nothing else to do. His mind was pinpointed squarely on finding, on stalking, on traversing through each and every hellhole until he’d found her - it circled through his brain and curled along his core. Every facet, every notion, every sentiment was consumed with the flick of a bird’s wing, the scratch of talons, the click of the wilderness, for, if not, he knew he’d miss his chance (and go truly insane; the lunatic’s light barring down on him now, holding him in its grasp, allowing him to see the same nightmares evening after evening, twilight after twilight, and he’d wake up choking on the irreverent air). More than once he thought he saw her, a pathway of ghosts and stars, sable markings and long, Serval legs, the hook of a raven’s nail pressing into loam, the flight of birds crossing over the horizon, swooping, and falling. He’d screamed her name, yelled, hollered, screeched, beckoned like a savage siren, but if it’d been her in the streamlined sanction of avian flight, she never glanced his way, never saw him, never bothered to turn her head. At first he believed it was punishment for his nefarious acts before they all fell here – but they’d be righteous, they’d been just, they’d been vengeance too, and he couldn’t find fault in the way Calstron had fallen, perished, dead, disgusting, corroded by the eldritch contempt of his magic. It’d been a line to cross and he’d done it with so much ease and hardly any trepidation, hardy retribution and revenge for a life wronged, altered, changed, and morphed. However, Erebos hadn’t anticipated his being, his figure, his soul twisted again, back into the cycle of doldrums and melancholy, circumventing the globe with naught but chiseled determination and inspiring, invoked madness. There was hardly anything left else for him now – no home, no family, no companion – Orsino had been eerily silent, even more so than before, and Enyo’s vanishing had left such a chasm in his essence that he thought he might plunge into oblivion (had they not already been there). Even former Basin members (and the word, just the word former made him sick, made his stomach churn, like the mountains weren’t right outside the distant fog, like they didn’t rise from the skyline and soar into power and damnation) were amidst the few and far between, but he’d been too disheveled, too decrepit, too ashamed to seek them out. Rikyn was here and there, with other matters to attend to – his own family, most very much alive – and Erebos was somewhere, muddled in between, neither a prince nor a pauper, but a ravaged ruin of his former self. His heart had been slammed, jilted, and punctured one too many times, and he could feel its minimal efforts, its fading tides, pulsing through his veins. The only reason they hadn’t given in was the pursuit of Enyo, and sheer force of will (his father’s vicious endurance, his mother’s constancy, the summits where he’d been born, never bowing, never yielding). So they persisted amidst the sultry canopies, where the breeze was lacking and the humidity stuck to his skin. He resisted the temptation to gasp and wheeze, for he was a soldier, a warrior, a blade, but this was a fresh, summer hell, and it wore down his sentiments until he was a finite specimen, muscles undulating, and movements slowing, clinging to desperation and hope when there was none to be found. A distant rustling caught his attention, made Orsino shuffle towards the noise, and he stopped to glance (to perchance dream it was little Enyo, chirping, ready, fervent to go to their next destination or annihilation), eyes fixating on a familiar form of gold and flames. “Kiada!” There was a tender burst of relief through his lungs, warmth denied to him for what felt like eons, glad to find she’d made it into their specious, Tartarean threshold too. He inclined forward, walking towards her, brushing against ferns and leaves, making him appear as an earthen prince when all he craved were glaciers and ice, eyes narrowing as he came closer. Where fire should’ve been, dancing, a caricature of animals and motion, there appeared to be armor, then a fresh coating of blood, her knees dropping, pain (torment – why was there always torment? Couldn’t anyone ever find any god damn happiness here?) flickering, bounding, coiling off the eaves of the rainforest grove. He leaned in, just short of her shoulder, a steady beam of support (valor, gallantry, something he thought gone, but habitually there, resting below the surface) should she require it. “Do you want this off?” His maw rested just above the slate of piercing blades, ready to remove if she deemed it necessary; hazardous, dangerous, questions barking through his haze, but not allowing them to slip across his tongue (for now). Erebos i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want @Kiada RE: have heart, my dear - Kiada - 07-21-2017
@Erebos RE: have heart, my dear - Erebos - 07-23-2017
It wouldn’t be the first time, nor the last, that he yearned for simpler days, when the rush of blood didn’t sing through his heart and carve out irreverence after irreverence, boil at the notion of sedition, teeter, tilt, and lean towards the promise of sacrilege. Kiada wouldn’t have been so broken then either, just a tiny filly eager to make her mark across empires and civilizations, discovering magic, gaining new friends. They should’ve been able to have something more than this: rubble, ruin, desecration, and annihilation. Perhaps he was merely being avaricious and greedy again, taking, taking, taking, because they could’ve had naught at all, been swallowed, condemned, and devoured just like their brethren, and he couldn’t help wishing to flee entirely and run right back to the gallows, be christened in the sepulchers next to his fallen comrades. But his eyes caught hers beneath the rose hued mask, the gilded facets, the gleaming blades, and he stepped back as she denied his request, watched in one more helpless stance as she took them apart herself (reminding him of stored knives slicing apart skin, rippling across flesh; then gone, gone as if they’d never been there in the first place, dissolving completely into shadow, into mist, into nothing). He saw her wince, he saw her bleed, he saw the dried remnants of tears blemishing a face that he’d always believe to be one of the untouchable – strong and guarded, always ready to enchant the world – but life had a way of reshaping, unthreading, unfurling, loosening a foretold knot and hastening everything to the wind. The warrior wondered how many she’d lost in that debacle, when the darkness had cleared and bodies lay either strewn or disappeared altogether, how it’d change her, how it’d warp everything and everyone around them (and maybe then others would see the value of revenge, maybe others would be willing to join in the game, in the hunt, in the glory, in the triumph, of ripping a being apart that had taken so many things). It wasn’t fair, but naught ever was, and to utter the notion seemed ridiculous. He couldn’t even understand, fathom, how she managed to smile at all. I’m glad you made it came on a ghostly path, a phantom’s whisper, as she stared out over the cliffs and the jungle, and he wasn’t sure if he could agree. What was here for them now but bones and survival, the merest, slightest scraps of information, the entangling webs, the constant feeling of being watched? What the hell was he supposed to look forward to (and he wanted to shout it to the heavens, but the Sun God wasn’t here, couldn’t take his spite, couldn’t hear his vitriol, his rancor, his defiance)? What was out there? Or was this all part of the mystery, the great, debauched, damned web of life, and they were all little beasts and pawns within it, moving to the sounds and waves of catastrophe and ruin? Let’s see what they do this time, the earth seemed to say. It made the infidel want to burn everything down, until it was all ash, soot, and embers. “There was nothing else I could do,” followed her words, sullen and discordant, not full of the exuberance, the charisma, the charm they’d embodied once before; gaze narrowed, sticking to the shadows, to the waves of darkness, to the fine mist. It was the truth – he’d been helpless and pathetic, incapable of doing anything but escaping, fleeing, feeling the destruction sizzle over his skin. Then she asked how he was, and he laughed – it was laced and lanced with dark humor, with coal, with a wild, vicious bark, entangled in too many barbaric tendencies, in the remnants of who and what he used to be. There was no point in lying to her, not like before, when she’d wondered about his wellbeing and he’d said fine, he was perfectly fine (as his father lay buried under mountains that no longer rose into the sky, as the world threatened to cave down over heir heads). He was miserable, he was condemned, he was a discarded mess, he was so utterly, stupidly lost – and Orsino’s silence fell over him too, because even when he thought he had someone, their was a connection, a cord, snapped. “Sometimes I’m filled with so much rage I think I might burst.” A cruel smile coiled itself over his lips, as he stared out into the wilderness, a warrior circling his prey, promising and pledging all the vicious, abhorrent things he yearned to do – then it dissipated, until that too was only a ghost, a hallucination, a fantasy, an apparition. “Other moments I’m consumed by sadness.” He let the phrase hang there for a snippet of time, hollowed out reasons and decrees floating, barbaric and nefarious, until he turned his head to glance at her again, wonder just how far she’d fallen too, just how much the world had taken out of her. “How are you?” Erebos i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want @Kiada RE: have heart, my dear - Kiada - 07-23-2017
@Erebos RE: have heart, my dear - Erebos - 07-28-2017
It was all a cavalcade, a procession, of rancor and melancholy – they succumbed to it brilliantly, nothing left but shadows, air, and mist, intoxicating, suffocating, pushing them down into the bellowing regions of hell where no one heard them scream, no one heard them cry, no one heard anything but the discordant strikes of upheaval and misery. It was an exchange of hidden parcels and specious daggers, the lines drawn between concealed secrets and inner flames; he had naught to hide now, as bare and pathetic, as stripped and useless, as the day he’d been born. His mask had fallen somewhere, between the crack and rubble, between the sands and time, unguarded and wretched, tattered and torn. She seemed less indulgent on other things, alterations, and his eyes only strayed to the armor, to the X, to the blaze of new wounds he had no ability to fix (what could he do, anyway, when all was said and done?). So the warrior didn’t focus on them for long, harked his gaze solidly on her features, on her face, on the pieces where they seemed eager to achieve the same means, sharing a soulless adoration for vengeance and disaster. He permitted her touch, she was familiar, she was strong, she was stalwart, and he needed to be reminded of those things too – how they’d once been a greater part of mountains, majesty, and power. Her words were more drumbeats of fallen figures, and though he hadn’t known them (he should’ve, some deep, piercing cutlass slammed into his skull, he should’ve recognized the beings from their world, honored them in some way), he could understand her abhorrence, her grief. “Orsino is nearly silent to me. Enyo has vanished.” The truth corroded his throat and scorched his tongue; his stare landed on the sable kitsune, who usually growled and hissed and pledged every asinine twist and turn, every cunning, Machiavellian pursuit – and without him, without his voice, without his barbaric insights, it’d been Erebos, just Erebos, in his irreverence, in his fire, in his fury. What did that say about him? How much was Orsino, and how much was his dastardly, wicked, condemned self? “Aithniel and Ode were killed.” The General didn’t draw up his shield, and allowed their names to circulate, to pervade, to haunt, as their lifeless frames, their phantom figures did in his sleep. “Remember them. Never forget their faces, their heroics, and what they hoped to accomplish.” It was a burden to bear, even as he nodded, even as he pledged, but it was a welcome agony he’d thrust over his shoulders, pressed down with the other cumbersome loads, and when everything was overwhelming, he wouldn’t care any longer; because they were only memories now (when they used to be someone, something, bright, incandescent beacons) and they couldn’t possibly be too heavy. But her admission, of following the beast, of caving to his whims, caused a brief furrowing of his brows. He would’ve thought better of her, to not be so easily enticed, intoxicated, or tempted by the whims of so many eldritch things, but to voice such a sentiment would lacquer him in further hypocrisy. They’d all been tricked, all been duped, all been escorted right into the slaughter, done his bidding, orchestrated his tasks, sometimes without a damned thought. So the scion’s voice quieted, not harsh, but unyielding too, a pressing force of veracity meant to hit her ears, her heart, her being. “All of us were deceived. What matters now is that you’ve seen him for what he truly is.” A monster, a heathen, a fiend, a foe that needed to be stopped. Revenge sparked between their marrow, an infernal gallows sweeping in oaths and assurances - he must be stopped - and a haunting, feral, savage smirk swept over his lips, just briefly enough, just brutal enough, to know the nefariousness brewed within him. “I agree with you,” he nodded again, eyes alight with ardency, with fervency, with every ounce and fiber of his father’s soul reaching past bloodlines and voids; you will be better whispering through his skull, a monster on a mission. “But we have to wait. He wants us to learn.” The smirk grew, wild and chaotic, a virile, Cheshire grin that held no impishness – just danger, potent, savage treachery. “So we shall – and then we’ll use our knowledge against him.” Erebos i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want @Kiada RE: have heart, my dear - Kiada - 08-01-2017
@Erebos I figured we could have them leave here, but I can edit it if you'd like to continue :) RE: have heart, my dear - Erebos - 08-02-2017
Her information was noteworthy, and he paused in his brooding, in his brewing, to silently ponder over the depths of her proclamations and wisdom – if two companions weren’t compatible here, if there was always a piece of himself, of his soul, of his heart, of his mind missing – he spoke aloud, quickly and efficiently, forcing himself to strive instead of lurk, meander, and fester. “Then I shall just have to get stronger to support both bonds.” The speech was made by a being who’d long ago decided if anything was going to transpire, it would always be by action, by tenacity, by endurance and fortitude – far too princely, far too obstinate, another cataclysm of rebellious, seditious nature. It’d always been his way, despite the shortcomings with relying solely on savage determination and sheer will, and this world, though foreign, though strange, had already toyed with him far too much. He wouldn’t allow the games, the mocking, the sneers, snickers, and jibes to go on any longer – he’d find her because he was born to venture as a renegade, as a crusading beast, as a fiend who yielded to naught (even that was lie, but he couldn’t hear Orsino uttering the truth, so the boy pretended again, caught in his own web of deceit), not even this hellhole. Erebos nodded to her, extended a wink, that soft, impish smile, as if daring her to prove his antics otherwise; pushing and pushing until there’d be nothing left of him. The subject altered, back to those remembered, those lost, those owed retribution (he didn’t say it here, but the vows, the oaths, stuck to his tongue and pierced through his skull, sworn and declared). “Together,” the warrior stated, one more heinous grin coiled along his lips, a devastating figure of menace and potency. Where his father had always ventured alone into nefarious ends and deeds, the youth encouraged others to follow, to shadow, to chisel away with him – so the blows would be more ruinous, so the beasts would shudder in fear – still the formidable General of the Basin, lending more arms and munitions before they all breathed slaughter and damnation. But he’d assist them too, because they were his friends, his allies, his companions, his kin, and when harm came to them, his contempt only grew, only flourished, only thrived. “Find me when you discover something, and I will do the same.” His promises were coated in steel and marked in allegiance, formed by the little gallantry and valor he had left in his soldier’s poise and prowess, watching the traces of her form blending back into the shadows, uttering “Be careful!” as she retreated into the mist and fog. The fiend took a sharp, bestial breath, then turned back the way they’d came, uncanny, quiet Orsino in tow, looking for a way to ensure his assurances could come true. Erebos i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want @Kiada |