A different time, a different place, but the same ritual hastened his ruthless being along – twisting through the shadows, manifesting rebellion and revolution within his savage motions. What shall it be this time? He wanted to shout into the abyss, part his jaws, laugh because he had naught else to do. The beast had even done as he’d been commanded (explored), and all he’d received was more haunting vignettes, more poignant, malicious, treacherous ghosts filling up his eyes, his mind, his body and soul. What good had come of it? What had he learned?
Suddenly he just wanted to leave, paint the walls in blue and black, coil right back from where he’d come from, out of sight, out of mind, drawn into the darkness, into the abyss, where no one could see how disastrous his plots had been.
The little snakes still writhed around his chin, misty wraiths, mere reminders of the hellhole they’d been snatched within.
But he stayed because curiosity and sedition compelled him, sketching his way down towards the river, Orsino tucked close behind (still silent, still eerie, still out of touch), eyes narrowed, standing close to Kiada (yearning to see how she toyed, how she schemed), waiting for the next escapade, collapse, and venture into the eldritch whims of Kaos’ bidding.
Sidhra remembered this place, long gone from the Rift.
The fae looked cautiously amongst the others, trying to discern if any others from the Rift had come. For the most part, the faces looked foreign. The little fae was still more than wary of these strangers, but did not find them to be as unapproachable as she once feared.
The little fae remains quiet and has no questions for the deity. She wouldn’t feel right speaking to him via magic anyway, especially when it seemed like so many harbored so much ill will towards this creature. Sidhra had long since learned to reserve judgment. She had begun to piece together what had happened to this Helovia but she had not been there, she did not know. And was this creature not putting her home back together?
However what she didn’t know was what was happening. A sense of foreboding blossomed in the fae’s breast but she could not bring herself to flee. She felt as if this was something she needed to see. To witness.
There wasn’t a particular Helovian she stood nearest to nor furthest from. She did not distance herself from the gather as she had done in the past, yet she did not initiate conversation either. For the time being, she simply watched and waited to see what would happen. And to see if she’d be noticed.
She wanders again, drawn by this new set of wonders, a heavenly body seeking eagerly some gravitational force great enough to orbit around. Savera and Devi are wayward stars, cast adrift by circumstance and abandoned by the night - or so it feels to them sometimes, when they wax dramatic and dream of the moon and try to grapple with the slippery vastness of the world. They search for meaning, and though it is hard to find purpose in a world so large, to narrow down an infinite beach and filter out the important grains of wisdom, the pair do try.
They are stubborn and stalwart, the girl and her chick. Eventually, something is bound to make sense.
The quest for purpose brings them here, to a gathering of strangers on the edge of a stream. Savera pauses, a gold hoof raised, her eyes peering owlishly into the water as she tries to make sense of the strange goings on. It is hard to see a dark figure against the dark glass of the river, but the soft glow of the bonelights helps. Beyond the growing assembly she can see the point of interest, a silhouette that wanders and weaves effortlessly through the water, an ever-growing trail of fire abandoned in its wake. Devi yawns, uninterested in anything that does not pertain to food, but the little morning star's heart is rising in a tumultuous beat, excited and enticed by this interesting display. The creature in the water is abyssal and inconsistent, a black hole that tugs at her attention, drawing her nearer, compelling her on.
Is this the thing she's been looking for? Is this the power around which she shall revolve?
She does not join the crowd - large groups still unnerve her, leave her overwhelmed with information that she cannot hope to process in so brief a time. Instead the girl drifts toward one, an isolated mare of black and white. On dainty legs the filly flutters, emboldened by youth and naivete until she stands beside the older adult, silver eyes reaching out for gold, a brazen anticipation of acceptance and indulgence upon her creamy face. "Inter-esting?" she asks the mare, her voice a chime of silver bells. She looks back on at the river, the lights. "What is?"
She fully anticipates an informed answer, some great and complete knowledge to be imparted by this adult. On her back Devi stretches, body arcing and wings splaying as the kitten purrs and yawns before lying back down, her owlish eyes turning to the stranger as if to say, children, right?
Without a lot of effort, the painted mare who had spent thus, far a very antisocial existence, was able to fall back into the comfort of seclusion and shove out the pain that the external world (and its ludicrous inhabitants), seemed so determined to inflict. Even as the crowd that way gathered, Zahra ignored them simply, plainly, concentrating her energy and emotion into the monster of a Lord before her - as it were, a very small part of her was eagerly anticipating the cataclysmic death of the silly child who apparently and so acceptedly, wanted to disobey the very easiest of instructions.
‘Don’t knock over the bonelights…’
“Or touch the water,” Ilham promptly added for the sake of accuracy.
Zahra nodded. ‘Do as you are told, or…’
It seemed to both that there were too many of Helovia’s spawns in this fresh start to life anyway (she had never denied that she herself, only contributed to that number). Golden eyes traced the path of the engorged river all the way into the north until it vanished under the same wall of black fog which had before veiled the very location she now stood upon. As her wondering gaze returned, she studied these bonelights, increasingly curious as to what it all meant.
It was at that time that a voice piped up beside her, and for a moment, Zahra just stood there frozen; staring straight ahead.
“Where did…?” The winged mare shook her head, unable to answer her bonded’s silent question, and she felt almost dismayed that the stranger had picked the same - set apart - position as she. At last her pale face turned left, and the same amber eye studied the (startlingly attractive), golden child; the colourful, earthen gaze that looked back. "Uhm…" she hummed quickly through her nostrils, pensively, if for nothing else but to fill in the gap while her thoughts collected from those bitter recesses in her mind.
The other… she’d already turned back to the river. For a second the strange-looking cat-bird, stretching upon that sun-kissed spine below, shed a look that almost completely mirrored the bemused nature of the older girl's thoughts; then drawing a long, slow breath, Zahra too returned her focus to the unquestionably peculiar scene.
"He's Kisamoa…" she pointed out first (it felt like a reasonable, comfortable place to start). This was a mare who liked spiders, pretty things and being alone - she wasn’t articulate, or witty or even very smart. "And he wants us to stay out of the water," which was gushing by, most uninvitingly. Then she made a slight gesture to the clean ivory stake and it's pretty glowing flower perched on top, "the bonelights… He said don’t touch those either." Quickly her jaw fastened the blunt molars within, tightly together, and she shifted with some wariness to view the filly’s reaction, to see if she would lash out just like the other idiots had.
08-13-2017, 08:51 PM (This post was last modified: 08-14-2017, 04:30 AM by Varuna.)
VARUNA
Dead?
Your concept of death is limited to the squishing of tiny bugs, or grass bent underfoot. Dead? Is your mother dead? The thought passes like a pinprick, so far removed from the gravity of it in your youthful ignorance. Your ears twitch without understanding and you gaze around at the gathering group of bodies with a thousand yard stare.
Then that great big shadow shows up again. This time, he seems to have shrunk (actually, you've just grown since you saw him). He presses his muzzle into you and your ears press back. But he his big and imposing and you obey when he tries to pacify you. You hope to be great and big like him some day, so he must be right. Your little legs move under you as he guides you away from the strange bonelights, your cheeks still wet with tears but the well now run dry.
You fall silent, looking around at the gathering spectators with a million thoughts thoughts swarming behind your mismatched eyes.
The harpy noticed movement beside her, easy enough to see when she stood alone. It hadn’t been on purpose, she didn’t know anyone there – yet the man that stood beside her seemed oddly familiar though she didn’t recall ever meeting him. He must have been from Helovia, that familiar feeling meaning more than the simple “I’ve seen you around” to a family familiarity, as the spotted girl considered those from Helovia to be more of a family in this strange new land. So her sapphire gaze slipped over to the Pegasus, dipping her head in greeting as he spoke out to Kisamoa.
But then a question was directed at her, as another body sidled up beside the two of them. “What makes you want to help him?” Her lips parted slightly as she turned her inky head to him, only to be cut off before the words left her lips by someone she had met before. Iskra, as she recalled that day in the Flats as she sought her twin. A slight nod left her head as Iskra mentioned favor, to which her tail flicked against her hocks as Erebos approached. She aimed to make eye contact with the onyx man before looking back over to the colt she hadn’t met before. A half, empty laugh escaped her pink lips from beneath her faceplate, still flaming in teals and blacks. “I think I already have some favor.” She announced, her eyes returning to the bonelights and the creature putting them up. “I helped him in Helovia.”
She announced it almost proudly, completely uncaring what the rest of her Helovian family might think of her. The creature killed her friends, and she had inadvertently helped him do it. The large X gash in her chest that no longer hurt but still oozed, her fury and anger toward the God as she appeared at the last gathering, and the turmoil and struggle of having helped someone that could cut people down so quickly had started to change her mind – and somewhere within her it still hurt and burned – but he had apologized, promising her of riches and yet failing her.
“Might as well continue the streak in his home, right?” Her shoulders rolled from beneath the rose gold armor, her eyes glancing over at Erebos once again in the chance that her half hidden ghost of a smile on her lips would be something that the once-Prince would understand. "He hasn't exactly broken the promises he made to me, anyway, even if he killed my best friends."
It was difficult for the child to make sense of the comings and goings, of the ominous lines, of the treacherous sanctions lining the halls, spiders in parlors, and snakes in the mist. There was always just enough trepidation in the air to have him question, allow the trepidation to linger in the pit of his stomach – but uncertain as to the whys and hows. He followed after his father because that’s what he’d always done, trailed after the mighty exuberance and force of his sire, smiled at his uncle, turned and became captivated by the throng, the din, the mass gathering of so many souls over and over again.
But this one seemed different, and he couldn’t fathom the intricacies, the bellowing, foreboding threads snagging, pulling, tying him up in gnarled knots and frayed ends.
So he watched, as any curious babe would do, eyes narrowing in brief speculation, witnessing the glimmering lights and the promises of upheaval, of chaos, down by the river’s edge – fascinated, excited, expectant – a grin forming on the depths of his lips. “What’s happening?” His voice was a blend of ebullience and exuberance, for he still hadn’t learned the measures, the schemes, or the specious webs behind Kisamoa’s reign, power, and supremacy. The boy’s head turned to each individual nearby, hoping for a diverting answer, an exhilarating cause for all this commotion.
Mauna
CROWNS HAVE THEIR COMPASS-LENGTH OF DAYS THEIR DATE-
TRIUMPHS THEIR TOMB-FELICITY, HER FATE-
OF NOUGHT BUT EARTH CAN EARTH MAKE US PARTAKER,
BUT KNOWLEDGE MAKES A KING MOST LIKE HIS MAKER.
More unnerving elements held their sway, beckoned, called, murmured to them in the most haunting refrains; so they came, so they gathered, sheep to the shepherd, moths to the flames, waiting, biding their time to see what would happen next. Unfortunately, the Songbird didn’t expect lilies and daffodils, bright sonnets and sunsets; she’d seen the horrors, the treacheries, and the bewitching calamities maligning them time and time again (and it was like they’d all forgotten, reaching, brushing forward into the balm of Kaos’ calculations just like before). She did just the same, wandering down into the unknown, trickling past the brazen river, the scant reminders of worlds not so burdened by maliciousness (those beautiful walls and tapestries of ice, or of halcyon days; brushed with gold and repose – no matter how short, how sweet). Curiosity furrowed her brow, but disaster plunged its way into her heart, a certain, particular sensation of dread forming along the restless whims of her soul. What was he going to do this time? Would there be a repeated chapter, fluttering pages from a recycled entry – murder, mayhem (and if so – she knew where she’d be, mending, stitching, sewing back together the ones who could be bound and whole once more)? Or was this some other show, one more demonstration of power – to ensure they knew who was supreme, who dominated, who controlled?
Imogen unleashed the growl Lena dared not court; but the notion was there, fierce and rebellious. She’d exist there, in this moment, in this midst, to ensure the survival of others.
As it had happened several times before, more times than I wished it, for I am not some cur, some filthy mongrel, to be called at whim. Still, I turn my head towards the voice, and I know that the last time I answered the call, I was gifted with magic from one of the fallen gods. It was a gift, a blessing, the last he would ever hand out. Within the glass that crowned be swirled blackened smoke, and with it I could reign victorious. Well, someday at least. Not yet.
But some day, and that’s all that you should worry about.
Along I trot, trying to avoid the other dogs heeling to their invisible master’s whims, and soon I arrive upon the banks of the river. This, this, this thing, though I had seen him before, never seemed to spare on the dramatics, and here he was, pulling bones out of his shadowy mass, and setting them alight to illuminate the river’s edge. I stand back, several paces from the river, knowing well enough to listen to the nameless being. Others came, too, and they seemed to obey his orders as well. We stand together, though it seems as though this is the only time we may stand among each other without quarreling, as other things always seem to take importance.
I tip my head, brow raised, as the river begins to speak. It’s whispers are more powerful than those who I have grown used to ever since the start of my journey to restore my horseshoes’ magic, and as they chant and hiss I can’t seem to make sense of the words. It would probably be easier if so many of these bodies would shut their mouths. Many talk, joke, stomp their feet petulantly. Even the children grow smart, yammering out about stupid nonsense. I remain silent, though my ears twist back. Their insane stupidity falls upon numbed nerves. Nothing could surprise me about these newcomers.
Still, as magic stirs and makes the air heavy, I pray that maybe, once more, one of our past gods will return, and perhaps this time, he will stay.
KAHLI
What survived might not be kind, but it’s me
I knew that was dangerous in a place like this. That and I had two little sisters to look out for. So far there’d been no sign of Mama, Papa or the rest of the family. I suppose our family was a little more unorthodox looking now, but things like that seemed less important now than they might have been before. At least I had family left. From what I was learning of the rift, we were lucky to even be able to claim that much.
Of course, that didn’t extinguish the pain of my own losses. The loss of Grandmother Moon was still raw. Every time I closed my eyes, her death replayed over and over behind my eyelids - unable to be chased away by will alone. And then there was the loss of Virga. It seemed coming here made the loss of him more final, somehow. How would he ever find us in this place?
I bit my lip absentmindedly. It was easy to be caught in the loss, but I needed to focus on what I had right before my eyes. My sisters. They needed me, depended on me in a way that no one else did. That gave me strength in this strange new world.
My silver eyes sought out my sisters immediately and I sent Everly off to fine Neaera as soon as I found Savera, who had already found herself a companion. A friendly one, I hoped. I made my way to them quickly, but quietly, drawing to a halt at Savera’s side. I dropped my nose on the filly’s withers before looking up at the stranger. “Vera, who’s your friend?” I asked, softly, before my gaze was drawn to Kaos. My gut still rolled at the sight of him, but I knew better than to raise my voice or say anything foolish. Now was not the time to get myself killed.
”Bonelights?” I questioned, “I wonder what they’re for...” I spoke aloud, but as soon as the words left my lips I realized I didn’t really want to know the answer.
Scint River
