rage, rage against the dying of the light

NOITCERRU Darkness had settled hours ago.   Noitcerru had watched its descent, trailing his eyes over the demise of the day as he had flown towards this place. Night fell in dribs and drabs in the Rift, almost as if wanting to take its inhabitants unawares - and then falling suddenly, smothering everything beneath. The land below was shrouded in mist, veiling the towering thing in a duvet of dove-grey, of beclouded ivory in some places and patchy eigengrau in others. The only thing to shoot through those mists were sharp slivers of rain, almost diagonal to the sky and slating down one after the other after the other, the droplets shimmering like arrow-tips as they fired towards the ground. Rain was pouring over him, too, suspended as he was above most of the sliver tendrils of the mist. There was no cover up here, but when the alternative was to be snared in by trees and forests the birdman knew what he preferred. He coursed in circles, large figure of eights, infinity loops, the odd course leading straight and then curling into spirals and whirls. The sheen of rain falling over the land below like a curtain - a silver sheen cutting it off from the outside world. But he had found something below; something dark, like a spindly tower reaching out from the fog. He would have almost thought it to be a tree but it was surely too massive. The stallion swerved and circled, leaning into the currents - but no angle revealed its secrets, no gap in the mist revealed itself. His feathers ruffled with a light breeze, a smile snapping across his face. He knew what that meant. He went as low as he dared, but lowering himself through the mist was like wading blind. Even his wings felt heavier, as if shifting through something almost like water. Each beat was loud in the sudden silence - painfully loud, too loud against a cold absence of background noise to mask his approach. Noitcerru's breaths were cloudy in the gloom. He was rendered slow and loud and blind, and already he was painfully aware of that. But the prickle of unease that should've rattled down his spine at the thought of being discovered here by any of the hoofed and landed horses didn't come, only the rush of risk-taking. And after a moment he saw why. It was a tree, as round as it was tall with branches reaching out in all directions. But there were no leaves bright with the vitality that Drench usually brought to the other plants - its limbs were bare. He leant in towards it, his nostrils flaring. What happened here? He didn't have to ask. The Rift's dangerous forces had torn and ripped at this tree like it had any living being. But not...quite. No. There was something still lingering here, live and almost breathing and peaceful, and beautiful in its destruction. His eyes narrowed - not with suspicion but with intrigue. As he went closer to the tree his hooves scraped against one of the lower branches, kicking ash down to the ground below.   "Talk." @Moä Te run boy run this world is not made for you

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