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Home » Search » Roster » Whitepages » Records » FAQ » Guidebook
stranger than earth
Open Bloodmountains 
Savera
Currently championing:

Player is absent until

#1

s a v e r a
We might be hollow, but we're brave

Woosh!

A bullet of gold and steel: that is all the observer might see, should they try to track the Morning Star's trajectory through the Rift. Far below the world streaks by, a smear of white and red slashed with towering peaks and plunging valleys, the violent topography eerily quiet in the frozen half-light of glittering dusk. Around them mountains cut into the sky, behemoths casting shadows, blotting out the sky and creating a cage-like effect that the girl finds thrilling. It is cold, far too cold, and the air is thin; every breath is a challenge, every action a feat. Her muscles ache, but Savera does not care: the challenge is exhilarating - and besides, she deserves a degree of punishment, for in leaving the North and her family's embrace she has done A Naughty Thing.

Far below, Devi disagrees. Like a shadow the gryphon tracks her mate, bronze wings outstretched in a lazy glide as the little cat drifts on a current of warm air. Why hurt yourself, the creature reasons, just because you grew tired of isolation, of a life spent chasing a past you never knew? It is the reasoning they settled on, after all, the argument for their departure: their family may mourn Helovia, but for the quiet pair home has ever been the Rift. Things have changed, surely, settled, shifted in time - and even if they haven't, a little excitement is better than hiding away.

A little excitement never hurt anyone - this is what the girl retorts. Yet she acquiesces in a way, wide wings snapping shut, streamlined body suddenly arcing, spinning, plunging toward the far-away ground. A meteor, she plummets out of the sky, cold air biting cruelly at her body. She laughs, and it is torn away by the raging wind; she aims for her companion and the griffin hoots indignantly, lunging form her languid glide to avoid the falling filly. The ground rises to reach Savera, now fifty lengths away, now forty, now closer, closer, and she continues to fall -

Snap! the wings open, catching the cold air, and the girl slips into an updraft before becoming a smear on the ground. She can scarcely hear the roaring wind over the thunder of her heart, and as she lands her pulse pounds hot, blood searing through her body, adrenaline firing through every nerve. The griffin's descent is slower, more graceful; she lands upon her companion gently, unimpressed by the theatrics and glad to be on land. They have reached the foothills of the southern ridge, the first leg of their great journey done, and the morning star breathes heavily, terror and thrill and guilt and glee dancing merrily in her fluttering heart. She misses Neaera desperately, but Devi is right: they cannot mourn Helovia forever. It is time for them to reenter the world, to be home.

ooc ;; time: dusk | color: steel
@Virga & open!

Virga
Currently championing: None
#2

You: a shadow in the wake of her light. You follow at a distance, your black wings scraping the belly of a bruised sky. No hurry; she gleams like a newly drawn blade here in the dusk. You won't lose sight of her.

So you glide.

Flight still requires more effort than it should. What the world owed you naturally, it still refuses to give. And so magic quivers in the long flight feathers of your wings, silver and tenuous. It's a string pulling taut at the back of your mind. A wire quivering with strain. The muscles in your shoulders ache. The things in your head grind and grind. You don't care. You follow the girl.

She descends, eventually. Too fast — but she won't crash. You follow her in a slow spiral, and only when she has touched down, only when she and the griffin stand breathing and staring and full of youth, do you grace her with your presence. You: black angel, alighting with a clatter of hooves a few paces nearby. You aren't sure if she knew of your pursuit before. You aren't sure how self-absorbed she is today.

You study her without amusement in your dark eyes. Just: a sort of frown. You want to breathe hard but you don't, ignoring the scream of your lungs and instead rationing the oxygen they claim. You won't appear taxed before her. You won't embarrass yourself. As your wings fold, the long silver feathers edging each of them fade, and you are a stark black thing here at the foot of the crimson hills. Here in the frigid north.

Like home.

Not home.

Your head tilts, just a little. You blink at the girl. Hard to tell if you disapprove or if that's just the way your face looks, now. You don't speak. You forget to do that, sometimes, and just stare instead. As you are doing now. Does she think you angry with her? Is she annoyed with your presence? Maybe you should explain.

You don't.

countdown to selfdestruct
image


@Savera
Savera
Currently championing:

Player is absent until

#3

s a v e r a
We might be hollow, but we're brave


You have been shadowed, Savera, or didn't you notice? In the sky behind a shape pursues, constant, committed, a black cloak of memory in hunt of the child. Does the girl fail to spot her brother, or are all the staggering spirals, the dizzying dives for his benefit - it is hard to say for sure. If she does see him, she certainly does not mention it, does not slow in her escape or lessen her silent challenge to go higher, steeper, faster. She knows it is hard for him to fly, harder than for her, she of natural wing and easy grace, but she does not slow until she stops. If she knows he is there, can she be faulted for cruelty, or should she be praised for respecting his ability, for refusing to condescend because he could be seen as less? No- if the boy wants to follow, he can do it by her rules. He can handle the difficulty. He can excel, can overcome.

He is her brother, after all.

She lands without a backward glance, hazel eyes ever trained on the next horizon, auerate lips folded in a quiet smile. She does not turn as he strikes the ground, though one ear flips in a silent acknowledgment, a betrayal of some underlying concern. It is not her intention for him to be hurt, and the fact that he lands without significant incident pleases her, a chord of relief struck within her blazing chest. From the girl's back Devi croons, a welcoming purr resonating from the griffin's feline chest. She rises to a seat, great eyes trained on the onyx boy, pleased at the prospect of pets and pampering.

For a moment they are still like this, the two grandchildren of deities, each the lesser half of their absent pair, each the darker side of the moon. Is Virga angry with her, has he come to take her home? He does not speak, and so Vera does not listen, and the silence threatens to stretch eternally. The griffin flashes an image of them as statues, stubborn siblings turned to stone by their collective failure to communicate, to break the tactile tension that binds you. If she leaves, will he follow, her sentinel shadow? She must admit, she is somewhat surprised it is he who came- but then again, maybe not. They are both the victims of their discontent.

"I'm not going back," she says at last, her voice a little higher and more petulant than she might have liked. She frowns, bites her tongue. She turns to him then, suddenly, sharply, her hazel eyes stubbornly set, a challenge glinting in their depths. He is bigger than her, stronger, his expression unfathomable, but Savera does not think he would hurt her, not really.

His face is impossible to read, and he may be furious, but the morning star does not relent. In for a penny, in for a pound.

ooc ;; time: dusk | color: steel
@Virga & open!

Virga
Currently championing: None
#4

Soft song from the griffin's throat — maybe something softens in your eyes. Maybe not; maybe that's just a trick of the light. But then you feel the girl's attention shifting toward you, soft and luminous. Not a pinning gaze like your mother's. Not a wrenching gaze like your father's. Just.... soft. "I'm not going back." The steel in it! She speaks the words like a promise held at your throat. In them, you hear something a little different: You're not taking me back. You snort, your breath a jet of pale fog. The nearest thing to a laugh you've uttered in a very, very long time.

Your gaze shifts. Dark eyes rake the southern horizon, if not with interest then with scrutiny. A long time since you ventured farther south. You'd prefer not to return to that time, but you'd prefer a lot of things which will never be. You understand this. “There's nowhere to go back to,” you point out. The resonant tones of the words are a far cry from the fluting lilt of your childhood voice, almost comically deep combined with the delicate shape of your features. You're being honest, though. Your eyes narrow and pause at a random point, something dark lancing through them. She probably means something different than you do because she never had a home, but anywhere you spend in this place is.... well, it's just a waste of time. You don't know where the others are right now, and you tire of looking for them. Vesper, grown, shines better in her own light, anyway. You're sure of that.

Your head turns back toward Savera. Ears flick up. “Where are you going?” you wonder aloud. It hasn't occurred to you, really, that you wouldn't go with her. She is family. At least — she is the moon's blood, and therefore yours. Precious, even if she lacks the steel of your mother's spine. Heir only to your father's wandering heart, and whatever her own mother passed down (nothing of use, you're sure). So it is in your mind already, that you'll watch over her. You will, as naturally as breathing. The two of you, lesser than your siblings but alive. If you don't watch out for each other, who will?

countdown to selfdestruct
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@Savera
Galahad
Currently championing:
#5
 
He was beginning to see why there were so few venturing up here. Perhaps this place was for the birds.

Rosen gold limbs clawed their way up the narrow path through the interlocking hills. Already his limbs were burning with the strain, and his breath labored by the cold thin air. It was making him question the whole endeavor. His attempt you see, was to explore just how much this land had grown. When he been but a colt here, the place had been no more than a forest and beach. Now it seemed to have expanded into wholly strange, wild places, and some he could even label as beautiful. He was not one to be comfortable knowing his small patch of claim and sticking to it. He, much like his father, wanted to wander the vast expanse and know it all. Though, this was not exactly as romantic as he had envisioned.

Plus…he’d met a few new faces, but he was still lonely. Now finding the world so vast, he felt even smaller in it. The colt, if he desired it, had always had someone to go ‘home’ to if he wished. Even when it was just him and Da in the wilderness, he could visit the old man if he wished. Here, for the first time, he was without his family. It was like a security be taken from him, which put him on edge about other…. situations. With his mind being so absorbed of late, and the problem mastered for so long he hadn’t thought about it in a while. But here, alone, now, the thoughts of fire birds began to seep back in. A nightmare invading his reality.

Of course, he kept himself rather well together considering. At least his lessons on stealth and thievery were good for that. Charging up the mountain slopes, feeling ever muscle pull and strain, he didn’t look bothered at all. The youth was just in his own little world, climbing up the mountain because it was there and in his path to nowhere. So when he crested the foothill at last, it took a second before he even realized that he was no longer alone.

It jolted him to hear another’s voice and he stops with head up only a few feet from where he’d surfaced. “Oh.” It seemed to be the growing tradition of his hellos of late to begin with such. The pale gold was quick on the recovery though. “Apologies if I’m intruding…” He lets it rumble in a harmless greeting, and even let curl a corner of his lips. One hark twists to the side, thinking of the path continuing onward. He could just as easily slip on past these two birds, and continue his own journey…but then, something him didn’t want to. Something in him wanted to stay, to socialize. So he pauses, looking between the two creatures of sky, as if, asking for someone to call him into a conversation. To ease the tension he felt in his shoulders, and remind him he was not alone.

OOC ::  Kae said I might could join you two? =D
"speech"
---
credits


@Savera @Virga
Savera
Currently championing:

Player is absent until

#6

s a v e r a
We might be hollow, but we're brave

He does not defy her (wise), nor does he wilt beneath her glare (good); instead he laughs, or nearly so, a very quiet huff exhaled from behind that placid, dull facade. It is the most emotion he has expressed, a stark contrast to the stoicism so vigilantly wielded, and Savera feels something inside herself soften in response. He has emotions, good, she can work with that. She turns an ear to his response, a eyes closing somberly in a slow blink. It's true, but for her a different reason. Virga has lost the home he once belonged to; Savera has never known it. Both are lost, shooting stars in a directionless sky, no load-stone by which to navigate.

Selfishly, she is glad for his sadness. Misery loves company, and the girl is happy to bask in her brother's austere shadow. If he is lonely, he will need her, just as she needs Devi, needs him. She can be his tether, his waning morning star. She lets her own silver gaze drift to the horizon, dark with possibility and the swiftly falling night. "Everywhere," is the breathless answer, a promise and a threat. Where would she go but everywhere? Nowhere, but that's no longer an option. She is committed, now.

Are they having a moment? Is this what bonding is? Savera was born in a web of love - for her parents, her sisters, the gryphon on her back. Comfortably caught, she let herself sit at its center and did not seek to build new ties. But now she has a brother, an unexpected hitch, and she is not sure what to do next. Does she smile? Laugh? Touch him gently, bite him hard? Does she tease or torment, as little sisters are so historically wont?

It is not a decision to be made just now. The pair of moonchildren are no longer alone, and as easily as she softened the girl grows tense, quicksilver seizing into stainless steel. She spins to face the interloper, surprisingly graceful on spindly legs, her face a careful mask of 'oh.' If she is angry she does not show it. Impassively her gaze slips over the boy, all white-gold and wingless, easily close to as young as she. Virga could kill him, probably - a thought not entertained for long, but good to know, to keep on the back burner just in case. Murder is probably a bad plan if you've come to expand your horizons, and the girl instead lets herself become something pleasant, not quite smiling but not vicious, either - curious, quiet, a well-mannered thing. "No," she tells the boy softly, a girl's soprano in a woman's face.

She shifts suddenly, a hopeful earnestness bright in her eyes. "Can you help us? We're lost." She glances at Virga, wondering if he'll play. Normally Neaera would fill this role, but... well, best not to think of Neaera. Today it is the lesser twin's turn to take a greater role. She brings her bright gaze back to the boy, pupilless eyes wide and waiting. If nothing else, she will learn.

ooc ;; time: dusk | color: steel
@Virga @Galahad

Virga
Currently championing: None
#7

Everywhere — a breath. Were you ever so hungry? Did you ever see so much potential in the horizon? No; no. You wanted only your home and your family, the cool strength of your mother's voice and the soothing comfort of your father's. The stories he told. Knowledge of your clear superiority.

Now, all you have is her.

You make no comment. Your eyes rest coolly on her silver shape. She is going to get into trouble, and you are going to follow her. She is going to be threatened by this world, and you are going to tear it apart the moment it tries. You know this. You know this without even thinking about it — the decision made without conscious input. You, the two of you, dark stars burning through the Rift —

But then something else.

Sharp — danger in the sudden twist of your head. The flare of your nostrils. The flick of your ears. For an instant, you're all muscle and sinew. The flaring of wings, the gleam of violence in your eyes. But it's only a boy, wingless and ugly and gold. A boy who might be a little familiar if you had cared to study anyone in your homeland, but you did not, and so he is not. Your gaze narrows as it travels over him, assessing now for threat. His voice is soft. Uncertain.

Good.

He should fear you. He should be bowing his damned head in deference, but he's probably stupid, and so (in a rare act of mercy) you don't hold it against him. Instead you step forward, your entire body drawing up to its full height, swan's neck holding a graceful arch, eyes suddenly full of — something. Maybe the word is anger, but that doesn't quite fit, does it? Maybe intrigue is better. The expression is just — you. Intense.

Savera speaks first, and it isn't really what you wanted her to say. Your eyes move but your head doesn't, a brief sideways glance which might be a question and might be irritation. She's playing some kind of game. You don't understand it. You don't want this stranger's help in any way — you're better than him!

A muscle stands out in your jaw as you grind your teeth, deliberating. You could — you could trample over whatever plan she's making. But you don't want to upset her. She is your little sister, and she is clever, even if she is strange.... Maybe you ought to let her lead, for now. You think you could take control of the situation if needed. So with a heavy sigh and a too-obvious roll of your eyes, you step back, grunting. And maybe to the stranger you just seem like any other older brother exasperated by his little sister's need to ask directions.

countdown to selfdestruct
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@Galahad @Savera
ooc// You are absolutely welcome, Hawk ;D