This forum uses cookies
This forum makes use of cookies to store your login information if you are registered, and your last visit if you are not. Cookies are small text documents stored on your computer; the cookies set by this forum can only be used on this website and pose no security risk. Cookies on this forum also track the specific topics you have read and when you last read them. Please confirm whether you accept or reject these cookies being set.

A cookie will be stored in your browser regardless of choice to prevent you being asked this question again. You will be able to change your cookie settings at any time using the link in the footer.

Hello There, Guest!

| Register
Home » Search » Roster » Whitepages » Records » FAQ » Guidebook
Crystal Children
Private Ultima 
Maude
Currently championing:
#1


The girl had been left to wandering as her only devices for distraction, and, entirely weary of that horrible forest within moments of realizing it was where she was fated to be, now, she had set out in search of its end and exit no sooner than she could.  Choosing south, but not sure why (or knowing that it was south at all), she wound through the squelching woodland and slimy trees and terrible smoke until, at last, the sound of the sea met her ears.

 
It was familiar, that song, and though it was distant and the drone of the rain tried to swallow it, and the crash of its waves was wild and fierce, the tempo of that melody called to her soul in such a way that no words ever could.  Her step grows swifter, her utterly soaked cloak and river of pale, rippling mane clinging to her sides despite her speed, and with her eyes wide with a hope she does not truly comprehend, she almost flees to the comfort of the shoreline.
 
What she finds is indeed the ocean; endless and reaching, its horizon blotted by an island that seemed near enough to swim to, if she were not such a coward, and a dark shadow that suggested, perhaps, a reef, or something else beneath the churning surface of the water.  What else marred the otherwise perfect line of the horizon reaching out forever was a cave, which seemed very oddly placed, and familiar…
 
Struck with the memory of the Moon’s glass tunnel, her heart plummets into her belly, and she stops, the wind wrapping its cold, emotionless embrace about her.  The Goddess is not here, she reminds herself, the breeze blustering all the more stiffly for a moment as if to affirm it.  Yet, something about the cave makes Maude feel as if the Moon does exist, somehow, in this place, and, true or not, she clings to this tiny, desperate hope as she drinks in the sound of the sea, and wonders what is within that alluring cavern.

[ OOC: Table gone rogue, tag removed ;D ]

Maude
How should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.

Image Credits | Table
Otem the Hopebringer
Currently championing:
#2
 
there are no markings on her country roads
no signs that show the way back home


Otem too, drawn inexorably to (or perhaps by) the sea, halted stiffly, suddenly unsure where she should go. She hadn't been alive when the Goddess and Kisamoa had created the crystalline tunnel beneath the Endless Blue, and so the sight of the shimmery chasm did not cause any sort of untoward feelings to well up inside of her.

Though perhaps that was only because there just wasn't room for any more feelings. "I don't know about this-" The autumn-child began to murmur to Pandora, when the small owlet suddenly cut her off and hooted happily. Clicking her beak, Pandora turned her brilliant golden stare to where Maude had halted not so very far away. Surprise briefly stomped down Otem's grief, for she hadn't expected to see anyone this far out. It was as if the Rift was entirely uninhabited, like an island that only she had been deposited on. Of course that wasn't true at all, but even so, it appeared far less populated than Helovia.

"Hey!" Otem called, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by loneliness. Trotting forward, the tribrid filly tried to make herself appear as unthreatening as possible. What if the girl thought she was some sort of monster from these lands come to gobble her up? "I'm from Helovia!" She added after a moment, her breath coming in short bursts as excitement and anxiety replaced her earlier surprise.

Image credits

You may always use magic/force on/against Otem.
Maude
Currently championing:
#3

The call of someone down the beach draws Maude’s eyes with a gentle start, her attention having naively been drawn out to the motion of the water, rather than those about her. Feeling her body ease as she realizes it’s just a little girl, her ears perk forward from their wary, sidelong position, looking out at what appears to be a hybrid, colored like soil, and flecked with lighter patches, as if she were dappled sunlight. With her is an owl, which draws Maude’s attention as all companions do; though she knew more about plants, she also really liked animals, too.

The girl seems nice, her call cheerful enough that the copper kissed filly moves towards her, especially after being told she was from Helovia. Not the sort to distrust anyone, and homesick herself, it felt good to see someone who knew what she was going through, at least a little bit. She’d barely seen anyone since she got here, which, Maude supposed, made sense. The whole forest was just about the worst place she had ever been in her life, besides that stinky, black marsh that Kaos had holed up in, ,and it had not stopped raining for even a moment’s time in days. No wonder people didn’t want to live here – it was terrible.

"Me too!" answers the girl, pausing with a smile, its usually limitless bounds held down by the sadness which hangs in her heart; nodding hello, she does try to be friendly as she might, eager to have any sort of friend in this frightening, awful new place, "I’m Maude, a gardener from the World’s Edge."



Maude
How should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.

Image Credits | Table
Otem the Hopebringer
Currently championing:
#4
 
there are no markings on her country roads
no signs that show the way back home


Me too!

Relief washes over Otem. She's from Helovia. She's nice. The filly stops her mind before it continues onto thouhts such as maybe we could be friends, because the grief of losing her mother so recently prevents her from considering having any other real attachments or relationships, but the fact that Maude is here is more than good enough for the time being.

The horned girl introduces herself as a gardener, and at this, Otem is immediately hooked. "Me too!" She immediately lies. It wasn't a big lie. She would have been a gardener (did the Throat even have that rank? She couldn't remember. But .. her Father was the Sultan, so she was pretty sure she could be whatever she had wanted to). "See?" She continued, feeling the need to justify her lie so the girl wouldn't ask anymore questions. A bluish sprout of ivy suddenly burst forward from the ground. It twisted slightly, appeared to stutter, and then shrivelled onto the ground.

Otem frowned, her lips tilting sideways in a comical : / motion. "Hmm." She hmm'd, then sighed. "I'm Otem." The filly added after a moment of continuing to scrutinize her failed display of magic. At least she hadn't said she had been a particularly good gardener.

Image credits

You may always use magic/force on/against Otem.
Maude
Currently championing:
#5

When Maude hears that this girl, too, is a gardener, she becomes so wrought with emotion that tears actually well up in her citrine eyes, the corners creasing with happy delight, her smile so robust that it actually borders on being one of her old expressions. What were the odds! Of all the things she missed from Helovia, what she felt to be most absent from her life (aside from her friends and family) was the garden she had loved so much. The thought that she had found a fellow herbalist in the middle of all this chaos was such a hopeful thought that the girl could barely contain herself, hooves eagerly moving beneath her as she cranes her head to see what the girl is gesturing too.

Suddenly blooming from the ground before her, an oddly colored plant sprouts up, its soft, baby leaves supple and smooth, and very strange to see amidst the sand of a beach. Not surprised (as the sand was not suitable soil for most things, though she was a bit disheartened), her happy smile downturns ever so slightly for but a brief second, before she is smiling, and attempting to be uplifting. Especially so, when she realizes that Otem seems to be a bit upset by her magic not going as planned.

"Its okay, I can only do stuff with plants already there, so you’re already doing better than me. I think you just need some more lessons, is all," she says with smile and a sage nod, recalling her hours upon hours of studying and tending to the plants in the garden, with a sorrowful sigh that drowns out her initially cheerful words; doing her best to stuff that terrible loss down underneath the delight of potential friendship, though, she carries on with a struggling smile, "I’m sure if you’d tried in properly aerated and prepared soil it would have lived."

The filly introduces herself as Otem, which Maude decides she likes, quite a lot. It makes her think of the deep rumbling rhythm behind all music, or the steady thrum of the water dropping onto the shore.

"It’s nice to meet you, Otem," she says, genuinely meaning it; remembering her plants, now, she excitedly asks, "I have some plants I grew with me! Wanna see ‘em?"

Not waiting to hear the answer, Maude promptly plunges her muzzle deep into her endless pockets, wary of her somewhat tempestuous plants. It was odd, but ever since she’d showed up here, they seemed to, well, have a mind of their own. Thankfully, however, she manages to retrieve one of her peculiarly behaving potted plants (pretending to be normal, at the moment) with relative ease, and sets it down on the sand. Carefully nudging its jostled twigs back into place with her muzzle, she gestures to it proudly with a fore-hoof.

"Ta-da!" she declares, feeling only the slightest pang of sadness when she talks about the pocket battered specimen (she really did need to find a more permanent place to stay soon, before they died…), "it’s called Nightshade, and it grew all over the Edge back home. My Auntie gave me this one. I sure hope she’s… AHHH! Oh no! Not again!"

Kicking sand at her suddenly on fire Nightshade, Maude’s frantic squeals come to a sudden stop when the plant ceases its odd burning. The flowers are left piteously wilted (looking how the ginger and cream maiden feels on the inside), but the plant is incapable of the frustrated tears the burst forth from the girl’s eyes as she stares at it.

"Why does it keep doing that?!" she half shouts, stamping her foreleg down aggressively, and rubbing her suddenly intensely itchy back leg against its compatriot, her brows furrowed with disgruntled anger at the way life has gone since she’d been forced through the portal here. Looking at Otem apologetically, though still quite cross with her ill mannered plant, she sighs. "I’m sorry, it didn't burn you, did it? It doesn’t normally catch on fire like that."


Maude
How should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.

Image Credits | Table
Otem the Hopebringer
Currently championing:
#6
 
there are no markings on her country roads
no signs that show the way back home


Reassurance was something that Otem never received from her mother or twin. Volterra offered her compliments and praise, but the words always sounded a little pale to Otem, as if even from a young age she knew that he was obligated to adore and cherish every single thing that she did. Hearing praise from someone who had no such obligation was like feeling a warm breeze when you were soaked and cold. It invigorated Otem, and without realizing it, she found herself beaming at the older girl. "You're right." She gushed. "The Throat was never really the best place to learn. Cacti don't really need a lot of tending to, and there wasn't really anywhere fertile to practice."

Although Maude hadn't waited for Otem to answer before pulling out the nightshade, had she looked, the filly's response would have been clear enough: her eyes had grown wide and glistened with intrigue and anticipation. Slyly Otem peered forward a touch, as if trying to see into Maude's bag as the girl searched and searched, finally pulling out a potted plant.

"Oh! The Edge! I was almost b-" She began, but as the plant caught fire the filly leaped backwards, wings spread from her flanks and nostrils wide, ready to take off should this present danger continue. Tactfully Maude put it out quickly, making the younger girl feel a bit silly for how abruptly she had reacted. "No I'm fine-" Otem answered, trying to hide the shake in her voice as she folded her wings tightly back against her flanks.

"This place just seems mean, doesn't it?" Otem said, her voice lowered as she looked around, as if the seashore could hear her and prove her words correct.

"Anyways. I was almost born in the Edge. My mom lived there, until my Father asked her to move in with him...I think I would have liked living there.." The thought of her dead mother and a home and future she would never have access to made her lower lip curl and her shoulders slump.

Image credits

You may always use magic/force on/against Otem.
Maude
Currently championing:
#7

Support was a way of life for Maude; like a grove of trees, she and her family had grown together, their roots intertwining, their branches melding into one breezy canopy. They uplifted one another, supported and enfolded each into a tightly knit forest, filled with secondary life that could never be attained were they separated.

Without them, she was a lonesome tree atop a hill, and no love coursed through her branches now, but that which she carried in her own heart. It left her feeling quite desperate to meld her branches and roots with anyone, and the act of spreading her metaphorical shade over Otem was as easy to do as breathing. It felt right, to be the mentor, to tend to someone else, to remember her teachers and do emulate them as best as she could. It hurt less than worrying that they were lost to her forever, either trapped in a world inaccessible without great magic, or dead, like grinning, happy Doctor Sacre definitely was.

Smiling when her new friend talks of the desert, and its numerous cacti, she really wishes she had got to see it before it had gone. Her father had called it a sea of gold. It sure sounded pretty.

"Fire isn’t good for plants," ironically smiles Maude, her smile fleeting, the pain at recalling the death of the Gods piercing through her, and cutting her talk of natural balance and the odd way everything worked out so perfectly short, "did you know my Auntie Aelfwine? She lived there, until…"

She drops off, not liking that topic a whole lot, and moves on.

It seems like Otem is saying something excitedly when the nightshade bursts into flames, and all conversations are put on hold. Glad the plant hadn’t hurt the pretty earth-toned girl, but also quite ashamed of her plant’s behavior, Maude lifts her ears and eyes with tentativeness, glad to note that the winged filly is not upset with her, at least. The question she asks makes the ginger and cream girl bob her head in agreement almost immediately, looking back out at the horrible forest she’d first been thrown into.

"Mhm," she concurs, her fear of this strange place cocooning her insides like a cold, clammy blanket of the smoke she talks about, "the black mist in the forest back there felt like it was, I don’t know, grabbing me, and now, my poor plants... I’m never going back in that terrible wood if I don’t have to."

Her statement is said with as much bold certainty that she can manage, considering how deeply she now understands the reality that, sometimes, you have no choice but to follow a path. Terribly afraid to have to face that forest again, regardless, she tempts fate with her declarations, but is quite glad to turn the topic to home.

She too is afraid the beach is somehow listening.

"It was very beautiful," says Maude of the Edge, feeling her heart breaking apart into impossibly smaller pieces, tears coming to her eyes as she remembers it, shining, shimmering, alive in the mists, "filled with silver mist, not awful black stuff, and everyone there was happy. I…"

Her words break away, and she stares at her cloven hooves, tears rolling from her eyes without abandon. I was happy there, she wants to say, it was my home. I was born beneath the branches of a tree called Trewdwellan, and everyday, my father and I would walk to the garden, and I would sing songs to miss Evangeline, daddy, Lyanna, everyone... Everyday…

"I miss it all so much!" she mourns, tears dripping into the sand which darkens; though she feels ashamed to be so weak, her eyes clench shut, and her chin presses to her chest, as if she could smash the pain away, or smear it thinner, so that it caused her less agony to feel.


Maude
How should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.

Image Credits | Table
Otem the Hopebringer
Currently championing:
#8
 
there are no markings on her country roads
no signs that show the way back home


The name Maude says isn't particularly familiar, but not wanting to let her new friend down, Otem takes advantage of the commotion caused by the plant to let the question drop.

"I don't really want to go anywhere here." Otem mumbles in agreement, looking out. She could see what looked like an island in the distance, but so what? There would just be more of the same there - weird plants, maybe weird choking smoke...It didn't matter. Nothing about this place seemed hospitable or worth adventuring into. She, like Maude, just wanted to go home. Only ... her memories of home were fused with her memories of Isopia and Vulkán. She was rarely ever alone, but instead was always with one of them. They were her home - not any one place in particular.

As the elder girl started to cry, Otem felt like that was her permission to cry too. It wasn't as though she strictly needed permission, but being raised by a sociopath and a warrior, with an emotional-robot for a twin left certain insecurities in the filly when it came to displaying emotions. She felt pinpricks at the back of her eyes as crocodile tears welled up and Otem allowed herself to tumble into her own internal world of grief and hurt. "My - mom-" She sobbed, taking big dramatic breaths in between each word, "tried - to -" sob, sob, "save - us". Her ram-horned head shook. Us didn't just mean she and her family. She meant everyone. Maybe it was just the filly being selfish, but she wanted everyone to know that it had been her mom up there with the Gods. Her mom who had died to protect them. "-to - save - " Otem's wings flopped uselessly. She looked to where her plant had crumpled on the ground and suddenly opened her mouth and screamed for all she was worth.

As the sound left her lips an earth sprite appeared before them. It appeared made of wood and vines, spinning in circle with a vaguely elfish face. It opened its mouth to silently echo Otem's screams before crumbling to dust on the sands. "I don't even care that I can do that." Otem wailed, wings now slumped at her sides. "I just want my mom..."

Image credits

You may always use magic/force on/against Otem.
Maude
Currently championing:
#9

"This beach doesn’t seem that bad…" murmurs the girl in reply, trying to stay positive, despite the overwhelming urge to give in to defeat; aside from the malevolent storm brewing out there, and the endless rain, of course. In comparison to the totally creepy woodland, however, it was paradise. At least she could see any monsters that decided to eat her out here, and the cave seemed interesting.

She had never got to go, but daddy had told her of the Heart Caves, and how one was full of crystal. It was slightly consoling to know that, while she’d never get to see that Crystal Cavern, she could go see this one. That is, if some sea beast didn’t rise up from the sea, jaws snapping, and eat her on her way over to explore it.

It’s not enough consolation to stop her river of tears, and no sooner does she start to cry, than her new friend does, too. Maude, compassionate and caring, quickly moves to embrace the crying girl, though she cannot staunch her own tears, and, together, they fall to the sand, sobbing and whimpering. What Otem is blubbering makes the healer’s daughter cry all the harder, her tears thicker, and more steadily flowing than they had been at her own pain. The Mountain! Otem’s mother had been the Mountain?!

Had the world been a normal one, not rife with grief and fear, she would have asked the aching question burning within her breast that no one knew the answer to: why was the Earth’s daughter called a mountain, when she was a horse? It greatly flummoxed young Maude, this conundrum, but, in the throes of her weeping and Otem’s grave, terrible loss, the question doesn’t even rise to mind. All she can think of now is the image of the Mountain’s death, alongside the strange girl trailing embers and ash, and how they had become one in the energies which had shielded Maude and everyone else from Kaos’ malevolence.

Struggling with her own fears and worries that her family is dead or lost forever, the appearance of the fairy is, at first, uplifting: her tears seem to slow as she looks up hopefully at its magical presence, but, when it falls away, clearly a contrivance of personal magic, not a blessing from the one kind nature God in this terrible, dark place, she feels that fleeting light crushed away.

"M-m-me too," she cries and sniffles, rubbing her cheeks against her knee. Though she tries to stop the tears, they refuse, stubbornly flowing, her nose a font of goo that she sucks back to keep it from running. " I d-d-don’t even know wh-where mine… i-i-i-i-i-is."

Sucking in a deep, warbling breath, Maude unleashes a hot sigh, which she hopes to cast out all her crying with (a trick her vanished dam had taught her). It works, somewhat, at least allowing her to clearly speak again, though she still leaks from both eyes with slow, steady trickles. It was childish of her, to complain about someone merely being missing, when someone else was dealing with death.

"I’m sorry about your mom," she quietly remarks through her sorrow, glancing at her new friend in a way she hopes truly expresses how she feels about her sacrifice, "I...I was writing a song, about the Gods, and Helovia. Before everything…"

The upset threatens to overwhelm her again, but she sucks it back with a warbling breath, and carries on.

"We were making the Moon a temple on the Edge, overlooking the sea. I was going to sing the song there when we finished, but… well, doesn’t matter now when I finish it, so," her shrug is defeated, sad, her teary eyes looking down at her pearly knees with a hollow ache building in her breast, "I’ll change it, now. To remember the Gods, and how brave your mom and that other woman were, and the others that Kaos ki-... How brave all of them were."

When all I did was run away...


Maude
How should we like it if the stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
let the more loving one be me.

Image Credits | Table
Otem the Hopebringer
Currently championing:
#10
 
there are no markings on her country roads
no signs that show the way back home


Because Otem's life really wasn't that long yet, there were still so many firsts that she got to experience on a regular basis. Often she would overlook them as being rather mundane, but a few stood out in her mind: the first time she was caught in a rainstorm in the Throat, the first time she flew, the first time she managed to scary her brother. Other things (the first time she stubbed a toe, the first time her brother scared her), were forgotten.

And today, in this place where just about everything would be a first, she still experienced something worth remembering: Otem had never ever cried like this before.

As her body collapsed to the ground, tangled and tossled against Maude's the girl realized for the first time how nice physical comfort was. Isopia and Vulkán didn't appreciate it, and so Otem wasn't really used to it. For a moment she wanted to recoil from Maude's embrace, but once she realized that the body heat coming off of the unicorn actually made her feel better, she allowed herself to slump against her newfound antlered friend, and cry properly.

"Is yours alive?" Otem sniffed one she was able to speak. Selfishly she almost hoped Maude would say no (why did her mom get to live?), but of course the girl wouldn't actually wish that. Not with how terrible losing her own mother was making her feel. She'd never wish this anguish on anyone, much less a friend.

As Maude mentioned writing a song which would include history, a history that she promised would include her mother, Otem felt an overwhelming surge of relief and love for the cream coloured filly. Yes! She wanted to cry loudly, yes! , for all Otem wanted in the world was for her mother to be remembered. She wanted her to matter and live on the hearts of more than just she and her twin. "Do you remember it? The parts you wrote already?" Otem snuffled, her tears slowing now and her breath becoming more regular.

Image credits

You may always use magic/force on/against Otem.