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don't care to settle in
Open Siren's Summit 
Erebos
Currently championing:
#1

It wasn’t the sirens that called him here – but the mountain.
 
Perhaps it was like a toxin, like a temptation, like an enticement all its own – without the grasping songs or the weightless musings – because he saw it above the heavens, looming like a fortress, like a proud monolith, and it called to him. Ice and glaciers were in his blood, born from the wintry, chilling tempests, the glorious heights, the cold, nonchalant winds, and though this wasn’t the same (it never could be), it still poured through his soul and traced over the foundation of his veins. He chased after it as if it were a dream, entranced and enshrouded, beguiled and allured, by its calm, guardian stature, by the promise of snow on its crest, by the benediction and solidity of ancient monuments always rising, conspiring, to stand above the rest. The prince’s movements and motions were zealous, nearly savage in their wake, in their zest, to clamber into its surroundings, forgetting the words of looking ahead, glancing fully backwards until he thought it could’ve once been the Basin, one lonely peak grazing the sky, one sword, one dagger, one knife, piercing its blade into the finery of empires and the fortitude of palaces. He could’ve been the scion again, studying under his father’s watchful eye, gallivanting in search of adventure, in search of disaster, in search of absolute wonder and merriment; devilry before the fall (and it had come to him – after all those years of yearning – thrust directly into bedlam and misery). Orsino trailed behind him, wary and uncertain, but their disconnect was still too rampant, and his uncanny eyes, because the boy was preoccupied with the range, with the dormant volcano, and not the clear, vivid lake presiding nearby (perhaps more treacherous, more dangerous), couldn’t provide the reasons or advice Erebos so desperately required.
 
Even the pine groves, even the evergreens, even the fir, had a distinct regard to him – he pressed his maw into a few branches and remembered the glory of racing through their threshold as a child. He nearly yielded entirely to their spell, and stood amidst their glamor, their enchantments, their invocations, intoxicated, hypnotized, thought about bowing and pledging his allegiance to its soil, to its earth, to its summit simply because it felt almost like home. The scion’s eyes traced over the foundation, the rock, the crag, the shifting of earth, and though it wasn’t the same, a piece of him felt whole, for the slightest of moments.
 
Until his stare found the obsidian rocks, sticking out of the ground. They were like Stygian monuments, inscribed with faded lettering he’d have no hope of reading – and he knew he wasn’t in the land he truly belonged within – made all the more clear as his stare continued surveying the world, glancing off the blue lake (which could have been like theirs - unfreezing, where his strides gathered, launched, leaped, and fought). It haunted, a ghost right on the horizon, and he sighed, leveling his stare down to Orsino, who could only drum an unremarkable growl. He’d always wished, hoped, and strived for far too much.

Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

image || table

@Weaver
Rift Presence
Currently championing:
#2
the Rift
You have entered a realm nothing like your home. You may feel like these are somewhat familiar grounds, may be drawn by its likeness to the home you once knew, but beware... Danger lurks here among the obsidian rocks and in that lake your eyes survey. But here you can also find beauty as evident of the closed flowers you see floating on the blue water.

The buds call to you, even if you resist the beautiful flowers will draw you nearer. You feel like you need to touch them, smell them. Maybe even try to pry the buds open? And while you walk closer something sees you - it knows you are there.

» Presence of the Rift «


Weaver
Currently championing:
#3

ask no questions

She is so freaking happy to see a mountain. Even if it’s actually a volcano with sirens hanging out at the bottom of it, she really doesn’t care. There’s a mountain and like her long-lost Chamber, there’s a pine forest. It feels like home in a way she had never expected to find in the Rift and truthfully, she’s seriously tempted to roll about in the snow and ice like a ridiculous child. She doesn’t, of course, because that would ruin her carefully tailored look of disheveled beauty, the ‘I don’t care’ air that she wears as if it’s easy.

She doesn’t make it to the summit, truthfully. Her feet are still on the ground today, flying less and less as it’s difficult for Raven to stay on her back when she does. He rarely leaves his makeshift nest there, her black cape tucked all around him as he curls into her, still so wrong and weak. There’s been no developments on that front, though this, at least, was something. A beautiful, glorious mountain that makes her heart skip a few beats with sheer delight. Excitement keeps her from thinking to what this might mean, what game Kaos might be playing, what role they really serve here. For a moment, her mind ignores all those questions that jumble in there with nowhere to go and no answers to be found. All she cares about is the mountain.

And then, all she cares about is Erebos.

Of course he would be here, drawn to it as she is and perhaps as others from the Basin will be as well. She missed their herd, missed their home, and she didn’t feel quite grounded without them. How strange for a girl that left her family behind with little remorse, for a girl that lived without home or friend for a year of her young life. A smile, something almost genuine and not simply mischievous, curves the corner of her lips before she makes her way over to them.

He’s staring at the lake and the obsidian rocks that remind her all too much of Kaos’ altar, that obelisk that will forever live in infamy in her memories. “Erebos,” she says, closing the distance between them, at a loss for words other than his name. How unlike her in that too; perhaps the Rift has stolen the words from her mouth. What do you say in the wake of losing everything though? I’m sorry, doesn’t cut it, and she’s never been the kind to believe in apologies anyway. They were nothing but wasted words that left one feeling as if they did not need to act because they apologized. Action was the only thing that mattered though, and what could she do now?

- weaver -

and you'll be told no lies

Image | Quote by Charles Dickens


@Erebos
Erebos
Currently championing:
#4

The stones were some source of information, and he desperately wanted to figure them out – like the obelisk once in the Spectral Marsh, signatures of graveyard convictions. The youth drew in the air and wondered just how many catacombs haunted this region too, elongating his stare so they were solely fixated on the monuments, drawing closer, always so easily tempted, so easily led by the calls of curiosity – never entirely sated, desperate for answers, for signs, for conclusions instead of the endless parade of lies and deceptions. He’d tried to employ wisdom the way all schemers did – for corruption, for avarice, for power and distortion; entranced by the notions of something else, something he couldn’t explain, could only begin to ponder. He didn’t want to be outsmarted again, sketched over an outline of a great, grand fool, an idiot incapable of doing anything for those he cherished. There were bound to be answers in the mountains (because not once had a summit ever betrayed him – they toiled in his blood, ice and upheaval, the cold, the chill, the seditious spread of Machiavellian designations), in the rocks, in the strange, eerie silence. What was hidden here? Would it be enough to take Kisamoa down, to puncture, to devastate, to ruin just as the fallen God had done? The inquiries spiraled and curled, breathed an unrelenting force through his cranium -

Then something caused him to turn his head, swivel his gaze towards the water, and land upon the blossoms resting there, at peace, resigned to tranquility.

He’d been ensconced, captured, trapped, ensnared before he’d even had a chance to fight it off (and lord, he always fought; it was a part of his namesake, part of his being), and he was angling himself towards the serenity, away from the stones, spun away from furtive secrets for new ones. The blooms reminded him of many things, but mostly of his sister (the lithe petals always serenading her presence, always plaited into her mane), and he had no recollection of doing anything but following their eldritch intoxications, fuming one moment, and dreaming the next. Orsino pulled at his tail with his fangs, with his teeth, with his might, but the warrior seemingly felt none of it, traced and defined by the allure, by the beguiling, of witches and their invocations, crushed into their enchantments like a leaf, like a moth. He’d even lowered his head to brush over their dulcet glamour, their radiant opulence, wondering, in this strange, unwinding haze, if Loth had left them here, nearly placing his hoof upon the edges of the embankment to coast over the surface – reign as an illustrious prince Poseidon again.

However, a voice cut through the throng, sending his mind spinning, confused, muddled, and perplexed. Erebos! His ears caught the beckoning, recognized the inflections, the tone, and his cranium turned towards her, narrowing his eyes in uncertainty, because he couldn’t remember arriving to the water’s edge, couldn’t recall Orsino hanging off his tail, couldn’t place what was happening or what was going on. He blinked once or twice, shook his skull, inclined his stare back to her, bewilderment and mystification stinging his brow, pulsing through the maddening, piercing depths of his eyes. “Weaver,” he spoke, but then didn’t know what to add, conforming back to normalcies, back to platitudes, struggling to regain his senses. “How are you?”

Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

image || table

@Weaver
Rift Presence
Currently championing:
#5
the Rift
Now you are two at the lake’s shore and neither one of you may escape the lure of the buds resting on the crystal waters. They pull and demand your attention - or is it the very earth beneath your hooves that wills you to temper with this beautiful flowers? Can it be that the malicious Rift wants you to set something off?

The magic lay thick in this place, as it does everywhere in this world, and beneath the surface of the lake something watches you and waits. Growing more and more dangerous the closer you get to the flowers.

» Presence of the Rift «


Weaver
Currently championing:
#6

a dog will look down when they have done wrong

In places like these she wishes she were more like her mother. The Raven Queen, the queen of deception and power and impossibilities. Weaver has always lacked the sharp edge of her mother, has always lacked the pretty words and gone straight for the heart of it. Straia had danced around the truth, had weaved beautiful pictures in your mind without ever really lying. Kaos had done the same and she should have seen it, should have understood what he meant because she spoke as her mother had. Ah, but Weaver was too concerned with the threats standing right in front of her, too concerned with the things she could fight than with what they might really be saying. Weaver was her mother’s daughter, yes, but Weaver was not her mother.

There are old words on the black obelisks, but she has no hope of reading them. Even if the words weren’t washed away by time and relentless rain, they were in a language she did not know and could not read. And even still, if all those things were not true, would she even know what they said? What they really, truly said? Kaos had promised to save, he had promised peace, and he delivered on those things but she’d never once understood in what way he meant to deliver. Her mother, however, would have known. Her mother would have read right through his words to understand his true meaning because his language and hers were the same. They were beautiful languages that lived just outside Weaver’s grasp.

Erebos moves away from the black rocks before she can close the distance enough to even call his name. Something calls to him and she’s still too far away to know just what it is, but as she follows him, she begins to feel it too. Something pulls her to follow him, something more than just her desire to see him, to feel like maybe things will go back to some version of normal in this place where she can call him General and they can rip each other to shreds on and off the battlefield. They could dream and scheme and make something great, make some name of whatever home they found to become the Basin again, or to become something like the Basin, because how could they ever replace what they lost?

Raven caws at her, stronger and more urgent than he’s managed since coming here. Warning pulses in their bond, and though it’s a weak sensation, she’s so startled by anything at all coming from it that the trance lifts long enough for her to remember that Erebos is here and she calls his name. He replies, asking how she is and she has to laugh at that, because how does anyone answer that question now? Even resilient, determined, unbreakable Weaver has her tipping point and she can’t bring herself to lie or pretend that she’s okay.

Her hesitation is all the Rift needs, and the flowers pull at her attention again. She turns her eyes back to the blooms, to the place where they have both ended up when certainly, surely, they would have both gone to the mountain’s summit instead. She shakes her head, trying to clear it, clinging to the thought that neither of them would choose a lake over the frozen mountain nearby. “What do you think this place is?” she asks, not answering his question, her voice a little distance as she looks at the water, vaguely aware that something lingers below the surface.

She is not afraid. Weaver is never afraid. There are perks to being somewhat immortal, and fearlessness is one of them, though recklessness is it’s dangerous cousin. “What do you think happens if we touch the flowers?” She sticks a hoof out, ready to touch one, but she doesn’t quite. Raven is trying to scream through their bond and though it’s distant, it keeps her grounded enough to remember that Erebos is far more capable of dying than she. She turns her amber eyes to him, looking for permission to proceed, looking to see if he’ll do it instead. She can throw her own life away easily, but still, she cannot risk his.

- weaver -

but a snake will look you right in the eyes.



@Erebos
Erebos
Currently championing:
#7

The General was in a cloud, in a haze, stuck in some hallucinatory trance, befuddled, beguiled, ensnared. His head felt heavy, cumbersome, like a weight pulling it down, down, down towards the water, to the embankment, to the shores, to the extension of petals and blossoms, ripe for the plucking. It was as if nothing else mattered but the soft, dulcet clamor of their beings, and he couldn’t figure out why, couldn’t figure out how, simply enamored. The youth didn’t feel the rush of magic, the push and pull of enchantments, of siren wails and toxic, eldritch concoctions, so weakened, so pathetic, so inept, caught in the crossfire of otherworldly throngs. He was full of power, yet couldn’t fight off the spells, the invocations, reaching past the void to see what was beyond its fragrant caresses and beatific strokes, a devil’s plaything, a witch’s puppet, a demon’s marionette, marching to the tunes they played in his cranium. Even Weaver’s voice, her words, were faraway, off in some other delusional mist, where he couldn’t touch, where he couldn’t feel, and everything was simply benign and meaningless; barely capable of flicking his eyes towards hers. He didn’t think about how she ignored his inquiry, or how she could pierce him with her knives, with her daggers, with her words like he’d always dreaded, like he’d always presumed, for Weaver had been a manifestation of potency and ruin, dragged on his sentiments at his lowest points – there was naught now but light laughter, stupid, drunken spoils. He shook his skull again, blinked hard, attempted to focus at the world beyond flowers and enigmas, but then his eyes would travel to their presence again, and he was damned thereafter. Orsino was a lost cause entirely, pulling, hissing, growling, to no effect – Erebos was numbed, dulled, lost in a listless, comfortable blur. “I have no idea,” he stated to her, because it was the truth and his tongue, his mouth, his rattled notions couldn’t come up with a worthy lie or indulgent tale. It fit with her second inquiry, and so he laughed, a ridiculous rumble of chuckles reverberating through his chest, before stepping forward without so much as a warning – all impulse, all boldness, all audacity in the face of deceit and incantations.
 
“Let’s find out,” was his last proclamation before sauntering forth, breaking every damn warning that should’ve been circling, spiraling over his brain, but it was too full of chimeras and reveries. There was no forethought, no consequences, no idle effects tracing over his figure, over his once-Machiavellian mind; only cobwebs and pleas, only goading and beguiling, lures dragging him further out to sea. He stepped first into the water, pressing over the surface just as he’d done ages and days and eons before in Helovia, brushing along the top of the lake like he reigned, like he ruled (when he was just the weakest link, the one torn completely asunder). Then the fool lowered his head, his face, his maw, to the precious bulbs, intending to draw his muzzle over the silken, smooth petals.

Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

image || table

@Weaver
Rift Presence
Currently championing:
#8
the Rift
A slight disturbance on the lake’s surface. A ripple. A whisper. Then a SPLAH!

From the lake two sirens rise, their tails thrashing up white foam around them. They hiss and one of them points a scaly finger your way. Gurgling sounds, words of some foreign language, leave her mouth and the lake starts to boil. You can see scores of bluish gray blobs, looking like tadpoles the size of your hooves, underneath the bubbling water.

The creatures emits a screeching sound as they lunches from the lake towards Erebos. And now you see their round mouths - complete with a thousand churning, razor sharp teeth. The tadpoles cannot each Weaver, but they land on the unicorn stallion and begin to suck and bite.


» Presence of the Rift «


Erebos
Currently championing:
#9

It was inevitable that he’d be punished for his curiosity. The beast had always been too enamored, too befuddled, too intoxicated by the bright, blistering chords of the unknown, lost to their fathoms, to their riches, to their desolation, soulless and transfixed until he’d discovered the roots and causes. Even now, drunken and stupefied, addled and chained, he’d been poised to be taken in by the taut lines of intrigue and recklessness, driven down into the depths of his passions – allowed to be himself, for just the tiniest fraction of moments. Eventually, even the sparks, the notions, of so many chaotic, bedlam embraces, fervent finesses, would catch up with the cretin.
 
He broke out of the stupor the moment the sirens appeared, screaming, screeching, bellowing at him with their long fingers and their horrifying allure; his eyes widened, and he had nothing to add, nothing to say, for what he’d done. He thought, in the minute instance, to look across and find Weaver, to almost laugh it all away (because that’d be simpler, that’d be easy, to shrug and forget his transgressions when they continued to eat at him, piece by piece, morsel by morsel). But seconds later, it didn’t really matter, for he was forced to the embankment, to the shore, backing towards the ramparts as the water began to boil beneath his feet, and the rapid churn, turn, of events coiled within his mind (everything was a threat here, everything was dangerous, treacherous, and even in his most savage, sadistic occasion, he couldn’t measure up to their prowess). The boy, the once-prince, the idiot should’ve seen it all coming, but he’d been robbed of his senses, he’d taken leave of anything but the mountains, the sea-side, the way the earth was cloaked in constant shadow and duplicity. The situation only became worse as the blobs bubbling below the surface were suddenly unleashed in a torrent of flailing rage (as if he’d committed the greatest of sins for touching a flower, for daring to dream in softer things and vivid details). He had no escape as they launched at his side, as their teeth cut into his hide, as he emitted his own blunt shouts and outcries of pain.
 
Because it was suddenly misery all over again, and he was going to drown, he was going to fall apart, he was going to finally come undone, after all these indiscretions…
 
Orsino grumbled, hissed, and grabbed ahold of some of the beasts along his bonded’s lower legs, snapping, ravaging, and threatening to peel them until there’d be nothing left of their entities. It’d be enough – to fight back, to always dig in, to forge onward as he’d always done (when his father died and he wanted to launch from the highest mountain, when he lost Enyo and promised to get her back, when he stretched out the darkest emblems and oaths of his life and dragged Calstron to hell), to be an unstoppable force, to be another fiend in this game of lies and corruption, condemnation and deceit. He might’ve roared, looked past the void to stare at Weaver (not asking, not yearning, not longing for her to come closer, because she’d wouldn’t be safe here, but maybe to watch as he tore the world from limb to limb), and asked for the embers, for the flames, for the burning, seething maelstrom of his magic to swirl, to smoke, to fume, to sigh, into the chaos.
 
Then the invocations didn’t answer.
 
It was gone, barren, a void, a careless, empty vessel – no fire licking at his veins, no inferno threatening to engulf the soulless channel, and the most wicked laugh poured from his mouth in response (it was all so stupid, so god damned stupid). It’d been one of his father’s gifts, a lineage drawn to Ignatius, from hours, days, months, and years spent in the rush of rapture and reverie, a kiss of antipathy and acrimony, a promise of ruin, of devastation – silenced, just like Orsino, vanished, just like Enyo.
 
He didn’t have time to mourn its loss either, sweeping it aside in a flurry of absolute rage, so tired of losing everything, so tired of dreaming with naught coming to fruition, so tired of the constant misery, the endless trials. His teeth dragged over the lampreys’ forms and ripped them from his own flesh, his wrath, his contempt, his abhorrence grew and grew, an expansion of rage and barbarity, blistering over his mind – painting an illuminating portrait of misery, of woe, of constant corruption and agony. Then he funneled the savagery deep into his bones, felt the carnivorous blend of broken, beaten miseries, and attempted to launch it at each and every beast devouring his soul – pain for pain, an echo, a chasm, of other beings’ sent to rest into this dominion of damnation.

{While Orsino tries to take some lampreys off of Erebos, Erebos attempts to use his teeth to knock some away. Erebos then tries to use his dark magic on the creatures, hoping to imbed enough pain/torment/agony into them so they’d leave/gtfo. ;D}

Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

image || table

@Weaver
Rift Presence
Currently championing:
#10
the Rift
They reach you, latching on either those rows and rows of teeth, spinning in a macabre attempt at ripping and tearing flesh. Those that squirmed near the stallion's legs were ripped away with intense and angry snarls as their glaring eyes stared at Orsino. The rest, continued to churn and hum their delight as you reach either teeth bared to remove them. Yet, it wasn't until your magic blossomed in their minds and reverberated in their skulls that they released their grip on you, leaving wounds and blood in their wake.

Some moved back, the original two clutched their heads in their hands, shrieking in their foreign tongues while they stared at you. They moved back to the safety of the water, slinking into the bubbling and boiling lake. It grew more intense as the center of the lake churned and spun. Another siren rose, this one larger and far more beautiful, sitting atop a throne made of the smaller sirens. She sent a sharp grin your way, her eyes, bright pink and glowing, glued to you.

“You have caught our attention, young Knight.” She began, her voice loud and booking, completely ignoring the presence of Weaver for the importance of you as she started nearly through you. “You will never be safe.” A wicked grin spread across her scaled lops, revealing a row of sharp spikes for teeth. The smaller lampreys hissed in agreement. “But I'm sure you already knew that.”

Her tail mashed against the coursing water, sending a flurry of hot water toward you, steam leaving trails in the colder air from the droplets. Her smaller sirens screeched in delight at the action as they all stared through you in the hope or retaliation. What could you do?
» Presence of the Rift «