I wasn't born with enough middle fingers

Яikyn Fuck you, and you, and you...   Each syllable in my head is met with a strike of my horn or clatter of my hooves against leaf, trunk, stone… anything it can come into contact with.  Any hapless creature or plant that can't come back to bite me in the ass is given a healthy dose of every bit of frustration I feel roiling inside of me.  I’ve been doing this for about an hour or so now, according to Duir, who morosely plods along behind me, nervously watching a glowing light that trails along after us, wondering if it minds that I’m pretty well trashing its forest.   Oh, and you too.   This thought is had as I lay eyes on a pair of small eyes glowing in the shrubbery; reaching out with my magic I’d quested to improve, I fully expect the shrill sound of pain which is due to burst out of the shrubbery to be one that fills me with glee.   It’s not.   My stomach lurches, and everything starts to spin.  My legs sort of get a life of their own, moving to find purchase in a world that tilts and spins and warps, and something warm feels like its flooding down my legs.  Sure enough, the sound of something shrieking in pain and scampering away as fast as it can meets my ears, but it’s not satisfying, not when everything is lurching aimless about, like it is now.    The ground feels like up and everywhere as I feel my shoulder impact it.  With a damp splash of mud and gritty rainwater I lay there, breathing heavily, waiting for the world to stop revolving.  When it finally does, Duir's face is hovering directly before mine, his green eyes glittering with far too much mirth, vines tickling my face.  As I blink and shift my head out from underneath them with annoyance, I flash him an aggressive glare, and I kick out with a fore leg, which he dodges (having expected me to be aggressive and petulant on a day like this).   Wh…what happened? I blearily ask, and his ears lift up, the gold flecks in his gaze illuminating with amusement as his lips tilt upward in a deer’s smirk.  Seeming to be aware what he's about to tell me won't be taken well, he continues to dance giddily away, even after he's well out of the range of my horn or hooves.   You pee yourself! he chimes, his laughter ringing through my still boggled mind like wind rushing through noisy leaves; he clearly disapproved of my mistreatment of the creepy jungle natives, and fall down!   Glad you’re so worried for me, I grumpily groan, scooting myself out of my pee puddle by some many feet, but choosing to remain where I am, watching the glowing… thing that had followed us all this while whirl in the air above me with hatred of everything about this cursed place coiling inside of me like snakes.   there's no place to hide down here

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Ava It was supposed to be home, but somehow it wasn’t. The child had left the portal, slipping through this world. The child she had met had helped, she was at least standing, walking, willing to talk, but there wasn’t much improvement in the poor girl beyond that. Still, she was here, and that was better than being at the feet of the portal where death and gloom pervaded every thought. The youth she’d met at the entrance had at least begun that desire, the desire to seek something beyond an end. A desire she had not had in quite a while. What she sought though was rather simple, and not really a solution either. Though the memory stung and was covered in cobwebs, she remembered a beach. A beautiful beach, hot perhaps, but long. It was at the edge of a forest, she’d rushed up into it…So now she was here, slipping through the world to try and find some fleeting memory. Not all is as it should be though. Though she walks with ever a grace, the usual lightfootedness is still gone, and though her wings, bare of their armor, hang carefully tucked by her sides, her shoulders sag. And the ocean breeze, ever her mirror, lays still and dead upon her back. It was all still there. The potential of the pearl. But it was weighted and drowned in the long nights of loneliness and solemn grief. In such a state she walked until the world woke her from it. A howl rang through the thick humid air. She stops and grows alert. Her old ways of carefree wandering have been rubbed raw by her recent months to where she no longer hears or sees scenes of fright without trepidation and fear. A shadow, the wind, something rushes by, just on the otherside of the vegetation. Curved ears fold back and she sidesteps from the rustling. Whatever it was far too busy with its own life to notice her. With harks still back, the looks forward. Her pale coat pricking with unknowing. Then slowly, one step before the other she walks on (fearful, but still letting her fearlessness take hold). What she finds around the corner was not as strange as she had imagined, but just as curious. A stallion… before a stag as her sea eyes find him. Had he been hurt? Or done the hurting? Was that his voice? “Are you alright?” Her voice bares the level tones of her current prison, but her head does tilt, and her legs carry her own into the clearing. “I heard the...noise….” She speaks, revealing she’s not all she used to be. Her thoughtless questions now also weighed down by the weight of thought and mindfulness. "their speech goes here and this is the color OOC:: Wake her out of her duldrum mood Rikyn! =D

Image by Tamme!
@Rikyn

Not the five feet of water to your chin It is, of course, only a matter of time until the sound of hooves is heard, squelching in the mud. Laying in the murk and mire, I don’t even bother looking at whoever it is when they come, half way hoping they won’t notice me. I forget, of course, that I’ve got a great big, bronze shoulder plate, and gold markings, to boot. Blending into the ground probably isn’t all that possible when you have glaringly obvious markers. Duir, well, he reacts, like he always does; moving behind the ridge of my back, as if I’m keen on doing more than just laying here, he radiates worry that the stranger is malevolent. All the trust in the world which had been garnered in the safety of the Basin was probably blasted into bits with the mountain, I guess. He’s back to not trusting anyone, even pretty ladies who are clearly as wary as he is. "It was the whatever it was, not me," I remark from the damp, assuming she means the shriek of the creature I’d struck with my magic; Duir quietly appears in my mind. You did too. Sighing, I don’t ask if it was womanly, like the creature’s. Duir just answers. Not sharp, like animal. No worry. Just the pee. The sigh I’d been unleashing becomes a groan, my head somehow managing to sink all the further into the mud as I flatly state: "I’m fine." but the inch above the tip of your nose.

He left the Portal of shadows behind.   He had no desire to be anywhere near a portal ever again.  Somehow, he was home, and he had no intention of a the sameportal sweeping him away again to gods knows where and dumping him there to rot.  He left behind the newly stranded Helovians, who staggered from the Portals grip through the mist, terror and hysteria clouding their vision and their judgement, not knowing where they were or who to trust.  He could relate.   The Rift had changed little in his absence.  It remained dark and twisted and more unpredictable than ever.  Rift creatures had been following him ever since he had emerged from the portal, prowling in the shadows with unblinking, hungry eyes.  But there was something new…a presence, dark and tainted with gleeful malevolence.  Raistlyn could not see it, this strange force that had greeted him as he stumbled through the portal and into the sea of white mist. The earth had shuddered beneath his unsteady legs, wind clawing through his silver hair, leaving him breathless and his head pounding.  Shadows had emerged, snaking towards him, pulsing as they billowed from nothingness. And a voice.  It had pried open his mind with relentless claws, bring him into his knees, blackness enveloping everything.  He could not see, he could not move.  He could only listen to the voice in his head.  Welcome home, traitor, it had said.  Make your move. And then it vanished, and the shadows retreated to their normal shapes beneath the forest trees.  The screaming wind fell to a mere, crooning whisper and the pounding in his ears receded, leaving him alone and weak. Whatever that thing was, he had felt nothing like it in his lifetime, and he did not wait around for the dark presence to invade his mind again.  With his silver pup dangling from his mouth, he had set off through the mist, determined to discover what had happened to his friends in the aftermath of the first portal that had rendered the Rift asunder. --- The Temple on the cliffs of the Rainforest.  That was his destination.  If she still lived, that’s where she would be.  He did not relish the thought of entering the Rainforest, as it was a haunting place with spectral wraiths and water hags, but he had frequented it enough in his past to know the better paths.   — And that was how he ended up here, in the depths of the forest, traveling at a swift pace through the shadows.  He had formed a makeshift sling around his neck from vines and massive leaves to carry the tiny pup.  She did not cry or make a single peep during the journey.   The Helovians were scattered now, some had ventured deeper into the Rift.  He did not know if that was wise, but what else were they to do?  Sit at the portal and pray to their dead gods to take them home again? What would this mean for the natives of the Rift?  The Helovians would not survive here for long, not without aid, and he wasn't so sure his people would be willing to give it.  The monsters of the Rift were too many, and after he had discovered the new reigning presence of the Rift, that was now the least of their problems. For once in his life, Raistlyn was unsure of his Path and where it intended to take him. The time was more difficult to determine here than in Helovia, where the sun and stars maintained a regular rhythm, as sure as a strong heartbeat.  The stars rotated beautifully, there.  Here in the Rift, there seemed to be only an oppressive blackness and an endless night without stars.  It would take him a while to adapt once more. Blinking in the dim light, his feline pupils dilated and adjusted, allowing him to see near perfectly in the blackness.  He could hear something ahead.  He braced himself, drawing forth the shadows surrounding him to wrap and warp into black armor on his body.  If a monster had decided to ambush him, he would be ready.   Something crashed through the thick, tangled undergrowth of the old forest, snarling and yowling.  He whirled, bracing himself for an impact that never came.  Moments later, the creature’s cries faded and silence settled over the forest once more.  Something had spooked the Rift creature.   He did not release the shadows bound to his body, knowing the deeper he went into the forest, the more creatures would follow him, waiting for an easy dinner.  They would not find one in him. He heard voices next, just ahead.  Raistlyn found them a few minutes later, a pale, winged mare the color of a sea opal and a dark horned male with burnished gold markings. He assumed Helovians.  Something about the male seemed oddly familiar.  He dismissed the idle thought, and curled his lip at the stench staining the area; the male reeked of piss and looked winded. What had happened? The female, obviously concerned, seemed just as dazed.  A small, impish looking deer lingered apprehensively behind the horned stallion.  No one appeared wounded, but he knew the Rift was capable of causing more than physical wounds. “It is not wise to linger, Helovians.” Raistlyn did not approach any closer, remaining wary.  Shadows still swirled over his striped skin, maintaining his black armor.  How would they feel about a native Riftian?  Perhaps he should have left them to their own fate. Another time, Raistlyn would have done just that. The Temple could not be far and he wished to be on his way, but he found he could not leave them, not without giving them a little parting advice that might ensure their survival a little while longer.  He eyed them closely.  "You should keep moving. That will not be the last of them,” he warned, motioning with a toss of his head in the direction the monster had fled.  His feline indigo gaze settled on the male unicorn, unable to discern why he felt the stallion’s dark face was so familiar.   I know you, he thought to himself, but from where? --- R A I S T L Y N --- of the rift

Ava The curled ears twist and move unsure as the sea eyes look down at this creature half covered in mud. For a moment the companion is a distraction. The deer, one she’d seen tied to Helovians before, moves away, behind the others back. The girl tries to comfort herself that perhaps he’s just shy, or not used to strangers, but it certainly does not improve anything for her. It is just another hit for the pearl to see distrust, however non-personal it was, thrown at her. At least the fallen creature speaks, breaking her gaze on the stag and pulling her attention back. “Oh” She merely says, her voice leaving it like hanging like a period at the end of a sentence. The girl looks around them, as if looking for some sign of trouble, but there’s nothing except him, in his crumpled pile, in a puddle. She’s drawn back to him as he affirms his health, but her head tilts. He still didn’t get up. He looked utterly exhausted, with his coat damp with sweat, but then maybe that was just from the rain. Unsure the girl stands there for a moment, her feathers beside her shifting slightly, but her kind heart is unable to remain passive long. She steps closer, lowering her refined head. “Here let me-“ Oh dear. The mare’s nose wrinkled and she recoiled slightly, the smell of his…trouble, now coming to her. “Oh…” Was all she could bring herself to say as he stepped back. The manners keeping her from doing much more. Thankfully another soon brings a change of subject. He was a unicorn, but not the usual natural colors of the Helovians. The creature was a dark tiger stripped, but it was his eyes, purple and feline that caught the girl’s attention. The scars did not. Her own land being too full of them to warrant much of her concern. Still his words, though trying to be of some help made her harks flick back and her eyes narrow with distrust. Helovian? She had been born here. This was her home. You don’t look it. You say you don’t feel it… She bites her lip. Had she not just been saying it didn’t feel like home? Was her magic which wrapped around her not still dead. The bay stallion below gets little attention now as the girl shifts looking on to the other, her wings rustle. “I was born here.” She says, her voice gaining something…something deeper, more awake. A slight breath of air, only a thread, moved through the tassels of her tail, but it is soon dead still again, gone unnoticed by her. But she does not call herself home, nor does she call herself not Helovian. What was not said, said more than what was. The shadow wrapped stallion speaks again though and the girl finally looks back to the other upon the ground. “He’s right…you should at least stand…” At least get out of your own puddle…Her voice had fallen flat again though, the deeper edge in it once more gone. And though her harks feel back flat on her head at the smell, the girl attempted to reach out and touch his shoulder, laying or standing. Something to draw the stallion from whatever kept his thoughts. Look at her. Some joke, a lost mare trying to show a stallion where he was. "their speech goes here and this is the color OOC::

Image by Tamme!
@Rikyn @Raistlyn