When everything’s meant to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Breathe. Just breathe.
There was no use fretting over once was, no use of mourning losses or questioning existences. There was no time, no point. It had all happened so fast and it would be useless to cry, to fret, because this was not Helovia and there was no point in pretending that it was.
Instead, he would just breathe. Inhale, exhale. Rinse and repeat.
… But they were gone. Nothing could change that. Nothing could rid the images from his mind. They were all gone, all lost, valiantly trying to defend their home and losing their very lives for it. Kaos had slain them,murdered them, familiar names and faces and souls that he had once called family. The usurper of lands had cast them out and wrenched their lives away, twisting and warping until there had been nothing left save vaporous wisps, disposing of them like a horse swatting a fly with their tail.
Legs trembled beneath the Merciful’s ebony bulk, chest heaving in the wake of his panic and sweat mottling his flanks, foamy and hot. Nostrils flared, ears swiveled forward at attention, honey-brown eyes wide with wonder and terror as he remembered, and oh,Godsdid it hurt.
When the portal had opened, the gateway to this land of mystery and after the killings had started, Apollo had watched with wide-eyed terror, shocked and hooves rooted to the spot, unable to move. Some stayed, some fled. Some, like him, were completely blindsided with terror and seemed to be unable to move. It had only been Zola’s voice screaming in his head that his petrified body found motion.
’Run!’The cat had howled, tail puffed to twice its size, the blind feline tucked securely into the latched pouch that hung off of his shoulders and secured about his neck, the sleek black of her head poking out of one of the bag flap corners,/’Apollo, run!’
With a choked sob, Apollo the Merciful had done just that. He ran and didn't look back.
And now…
Breathe.
The world around him was a new, strange, frightening one. Eerie glowing eyes peered at his trembling bulk with judgmental gazes, watching him through the furling mists and shadowed trees, like darkness incarnate. His youthful fears of the dark had returned with a vengeance, but at least he wasn't alone. Zola was with him, her tiny body warm in his shoulder pouch.
“This place,” he breathed out upon a whisper, lips quivering, “... I-I don't know where to go, Zola. I don't know.” Inside his satchel, Zola gave a small ‘meow’, her voice resonating anxiously in his head.
‘We must try, Apollo. We have to. Maybe Lyanna is here? We must find her. Ktulu and Eytan? Safety in numbers, yes?’
No one was here, and no one would help him. The Grey was not here to sweep him away into their comforting folds of brotherhood. The Foothills and Falls were no longer there as a safe haven. The Edge was gone forevermore. This… This place, this world, he would need to discover on his own.
“... We can try.” He murmured, tone uncertain.
It was all he could do.
----
Magics:
{SAFE} EarthxLight | Able to dig his horn into the dirt, and touch said dirt-covered horn to a wound to heal it ]
:: [ Restrictions | Dirt must have touched the horn to activate the healing properties; larger wounds will require more dirt, energy expense, and focus ]
Enchanted items
None
Rift-god / Kaos items
None
Amulets : 1
Companion/s :
{SAFE} {Zola - Black Cat | None | 2yrs 9 mos | Mid-Drench 1169, October 14 2014}
Requests: I would like to have all of Apollo’s regular items transferred from Helovia, please!
Regular Items:
:: [ Item: Band of the Tree | Bracelet of gold leaf and green stones (from the Giving Tree 2015). ]
:: [ Item: Satchel | Hemp satchel on shoulder ]
:: [ Restrictions | Of no use in battle ]
:: [ Item: Jewelry | Blue beads in mane ]
I hope I did all this right since Apollo only has one magic and one companion, and no enchanted items! Let me know if anything needs changed, please!
07-16-2017, 03:52 AM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2017, 03:20 AM by Rift Presence.)
These woods are lonely, dark, and deep.
But now filled, filled with life. Filled with hope—filled with fear. And the drenching, pelting rain washes all to the earth, soaking its parched soil with new life. Dark mosses erupt with light; neon fluorescence reaching eagerly, sharp tendrils of light towards all these moving, milling new legs.
These revived, writhing energies strike out at anything near—magic, life, death. It wants it all.
How long had she been there? A few minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Trapped in the portal, tumbling through darkness she had lost all sense of time. She was alone. So utterly alone in the darkness. Lost, confused, and scared. Nothing made sense, and her young mind couldn't comprehend the things she had seen and heard before her mother and father had ushered her and her siblings into the portal.
Requiem's entrance into this new world came rather suddenly. She was tossed from the portal, landing on the ground with a hard thump and a soft grunt. The filly was motionless for a few seconds before she lifted her head and opened her eyes. Almost immediately she squeezed them shut again, because this was all a bad dream. When she opened her eyes everything would go back to the way it had been before. She may have only lived in Helovia a few days before the mass exodus, but she had liked the land she had been born in to.
But when she opened her eyes ... it wasn't Helovia.
"...mommy?" The child said as a realization slowly dawned on her. "Mommy?" She clambered awkwardly to her feet, teetering unsteadily for a moment. "Gabriel? Daddy! Mommy!" The more she called the more frantic and panicked her voice became. They had all gone into the portal together, but neither of her parents and her brother hadn't arrived with her.
Requiem didn't want to be alone in a new and unfamiliar place. She couldn't be alone. She was only a few days old and had never been more than a few feet from her mother's side, and she had never been far from Gabriel. The smart thing to do would be to stay calm, but as all children do when they realize they're lost she panicked. Fear bubbled up in her chest so violently that, for a moment, she couldn't breathe. Then, as she sucked in a ragged breath, the world grew distorted from the tears that flooded her crimson eyes. "Mommy! Daddy!" The child wailed fearfully.
She had started to run, frantically searching for her family even while being blinded by her tears and nearly crippled by panic. All her running, however, wasn't bringing her any closer to finding her family. But it did bring her closer to someone who might help her search, or at the very least keep her safe from whatever monsters were lurking, just waiting to feast on a succulent little foal.
Apollo's form was blurry due to her tear-laden vision, but she rushed toward him nonetheless. "H-h-help!" She sobbed. Personal space wasn't a concept that the child understood, and so she pressed herself against the stallion's chest. "I-I'm lost! I can't f-find my m-m-mommy!"
Magics:
{SAFE} :: [ Magic: WaterxEarth | Can summon rain that speeds the growth rate of plants ]
:: [ Restrictions | 5m radius ]
[ Magic: Earth | Able to compress granules of sand into glass ]
:: [ Restrictions: 1 large item, 2 medium, or 3 small per season ]
Enchanted items
N/A
Rift-god / Kaos items
N/A
Amulets : (provide number)
Companion/s :
N/A
Items:
:: [ Item: Appearance change | Genetic Mutation. Removal of third wing growing off other wing. ]
Species change (if applicable) :
Requests: Her magic isn't listed in her records, but it is on her foal stats here
She is a song for the dead, and in response, the wind shifting through the drenched, glowing forest shifts—it grows mournful and haunting, it vibrates, eerie wails drifting along with banks of purple haze. Blue ferns rustle. Hollow logs and burnt-out trees moan. They might be saying hello, as they break off the small growth of the third wing and suck the marrow from the hollow, brittle bones.
Magic:
Crafting: Can summon rain that speeds up the growth rate of plants.
Crafting: Able to create glass from sand. Each time she uses the magic, a small part of her turns to glass.
It’s difficult to hate the godkillers when they’re crying for help, Anuya finds. Her plans for playing pranks on them, messing with them the way they have messed with her life, are falling a little flat. She had been wandering among the crowds of those that came from the portal - many had moved off, but there were still more coming through.
How many were they going to have to suffer? How much were they going to change her wild, beloved home?
They’re all rather ugly, too, which is a shame - though she has watched with a keen interest the way the magic of the Rift has affected some. As if the land wishes for them to blend in, become one of them.
Her large ears flick this way and that until they pick up on the cry of someone young - someone who had lost her mother. Although Anuya sometimes wished her mother would be the one to get lost - she feels an uncomfortable swell of pity for the child and it’s enough to cause her to drift towards the pair. Her sister’s caution sticks in her mind, however, and she leaves a fair amount of space between herself and them when she asks quietly.
“Do you two need help finding someone?”
Her head tilts to the side, causing her large ears to flop around a little bit with the motion, and she smiles warmly at them both - hoping that it’s at least little encouraging. As far as citizens of the Rift, she’s fairly sure she’s one of the few that might approach these strangers, invaders even, so kindly - not to mention one of the few that looked almost passably like the ugly creatures that came through the portal.
It’s not a fact that she’s proud of but right now it might be to her advantage.
When everything’s meant to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
It did not take long for another to cross his path, but it was a form that he had least expected. The bleating cries of a child were his first warning that a youth was in the vicinity, followed by the said petite form crashing through the darkness around him. Perhaps once upon a time, Apollo would have started with terror at the sudden arrival, but nothing but terrified compassion for a filly so obviously young and distraught was the only emotion he felt.
All of his own personal doubts and worries, all of his own fears about this new land were suddenly forgotten with the arrival of the child. She burst from the foliage like demons were on her heels, and without any form of hesitance she threw herself at his side and pressed against him as though his warmth, his presence could assuage every fear she felt.
“Shh,” Apollo cooed, finding himself paternally shifting closer to her, head lowering and nuzzling at her face and her little forehead with a gentleness that came almost naturally, “Shh, now, little one. Shh, it’s quite alright. You’re quite safe here with me.” Or so he hoped. Honey-brown eyes focused on the filly’s form, taking in her appearance, and something about it tugged at the folders of his mind, dredging through memories long past. She looked so familiar, this filly, but he just couldn’t place it…
Nuzzling her cherubic face, Apollo lipped gently at the tufts of her forelock. Within her pouch, Zola perked her head out from the corner of the flap, peering at the filly through sightless sockets in curiosity. “There now. I’ve got you, you’re safe. Breathe now, slowly… Can you tell me your name, little one?” Here, the Merciful lifted his head and regarded the spotted filly with as warm a smile as he could muster. “My name is Apollo, and this little cat in my bag is Zola.”
But it seemed that others weren’t quite done with arriving. No sooner had he introduced himself and Zola to this little filly did another traipse upon their sudden meeting, and while not a fighter, never a fighter, Apollo’s ears tipped back at the arrival of another, as though daring them to bring harm to this child that he suddenly found himself with. The look upon the stallion’s face, however, was quick to falter when it became obvious that the second newcomer held no malice for them.
One of the first things that Apollo truly noticed about this newcomer were her ears. Large, floppy things that looked somewhat comical, and her coloring was remarkably bizarre but no less beautiful, but she didn’t appear to be threatening. Lipping once more at the filly’s forelock in hopes of soothing her worries, Apollo spoke softly, tucking his head protectively around the youth at his breast. Diplomacy had served him far better than violence in the past, and he wasn’t about to change his ways simply because he found himself in a new world.
“… It seems that this little lady has lost her mother. I-I’m sorry that we appear to be intruding, but… I don’t believe either of us are from this place.” In a way to put it truly, horrifically bluntly. “My name is Apollo, this cat is Zola. Could you please tell us where we are, exactly, ma’am?”
At first Requiem cried louder because, more than ever, she wanted her mother. There was saftey beneath the black and gold feathers of her mother's wing where she would stand pressed against her side with Gabriel right next to her. But she didn't know where any of them were or where to even begin looking for them. The stallion she found continued to shush her and even claimed that she was safe there with him. Gradually she calmed, her wailing quieted to soft sobs punctuated with sniffles and ragged breaths.
Daddy had told her that not all strangers could be trusted and her mother had warned her against talking to strangers, but the stranger she had found didn't seem to be bad at all. Her tears had finally stopped, but she still hadn't caught her breath after her panicked run through the forest and her crying. The child's nostrils flared as she sucked in a breath and let it out slowly like the stranger said. "R-Requiem." She answered, still a little breathless, but much calmer than she had been when she'd burst from the forest. "I w-wanna go h-home." She whispered, tears stinging her eyes, and she tried her hardest not to let them roll down her face.
The child almost started crying again, but Apollo's introduction of himself and the cat -- mostly the cat -- was enough to distract her for the moment. "Is sh-she your com-companion?" The girl asked as she looked at the eyeless creature. "My Momma h-has one." Her breathing became more even as continued to calm down. "She says that my grandma has a bear, but I've never met either of them." She continued. "And my daddy says that his parents had dragons. I've never met them, either." Again, she remembered that she was separated from her family and tears welled in her eyes.
“Do you two need help finding someone?”
Requiem turned her tear-stained face to the newcomer, though she couldn't see her clearly through the tears that muddled her vision. "I can't find my mom." She whimpered. "I don't know where I am." Before the tears could fall she turned and hid her face against Apollo's shoulder.
The Portal
