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
Used to Be
RP Wanted The Portal 
Roland
Currently championing:
#1



The roar of chaos had not yet quieted in Roland's mind as he was spat out into the dark of night. 

The air was punched violently from his lungs as he hit the ground, hooves scrambling for purchase on a surface slick with rain and molding leaves, and he crashed down onto his side under the weight of exhaustion and shock. His sides heaved with every breath, limbs trembling beneath him as adrenaline continued to race through his system with all the tenderness of an electric shock. In the moments before, he had feared for his life, for all of their lives, watching as blood soaked the ground and stained hides. Now he didn't know where he was, nor could he see any other shapes moving in the dark of the forest. The pinpricks of cold that sparked across his skin, he soon realized was not the dancing of his nerves, but icy raindrops slipping past the canopy of leaves overhead. He struggled on the ground for a moment, pulling his knees beneath him and pushing himself to his feet. A curse, out of place for him, was uttered beneath his breath. 

Roland's eyes were wide when he looked about, trying to piece together any fragments of familiarity the forest might have carried. Everything that had transpired before the portal was now a blur in his mind, a cacophony of fear and anger, and now he was no more at ease than he had been while being marched across the northern fields of his homeland. A home no longer, he supposed with a heavy heart. The air smelled different here, felt different, and the collection of plants and trees surrounding him were unlike any he had ever seen before. 

The collective cry of friends and strangers alike still rang in his ears like a crack of thunder, his mind still caught, trapped, replaying what he had witnessed before the sudden embrace of darkness. He felt a wave of relief knowing he had escaped alive and relatively unharmed, and also a crushing, sickening sense of guilt, sitting like acid in his chest, for the very same reason. How many had fallen before Kaos while he still drew breath, as he escaped through a portal with the rest of those fortunate enough to evade the God's wrath? He took a few, shaky steps forwards, attempting to orient himself. Nothing else stirred in the shadows or called out to him, no one fell through the portal at his side. Perhaps he had arrived late, or been transported somewhere else, apart from the rest. It wasn't an easy notion to swallow, and he tried to calm the anxious pounding of his heart as he searched for a familiar face, hoping for one in particular. He refused to fear the worst, to think she had not made it through, that he had not been there for her again, when she needed him most. 

There was a faint glow lingering between the trees, something off in the distance that he had not yet the courage or energy to explore, and so he stood and he listened, the pain blossoming from his knees a welcome distraction in the face of what he had been confronted with. As he waited, he was embraced only by the most unnerving thing of all, lurking beneath the gentle drum of rain upon the ground.

Silence. 

---
Magics:
(SAFE)
:: [ Magic: Light | The ability to mask his true form by taking on another appearance. ] 
:: [ Restrictions | Magic is illusory (not receive traits of identity); limited to: pure white pegasus, black friesian with 2 golden horns, palomino equine (gliding rules apply). ]

Enchanted items
None

Rift-god / Kaos items
None

Amulets : 1

Companion/s : 
None

Species change (if applicable) : none

Requests:
:: [ Item: Horn Circlet | Circlet wrapped around the base of horn with a ruby in the middle 
:: [ Item: green leaf charm | a green leaf charm that glows green in the dark ]


Push your luck if it makes you a promise
that turns con men honest.

Image Credit
Rift Presence
Currently championing:
#2
Colors writhe, bloom, combust around you. In the wake of the kaos you leave, there is naught but lights, shadows, and colors before you. What would, at first, seem bright and cheery quickly reveals itself to possess sharp shadows and never-ending blackness between the glowing neon lights.

And so they explode into you, with a vicious energy unfelt before.
the Rift
a dream deferred



| TRANSFER NOTES : ROLAND |

Magic:
Transformation: The ability to mask his true form by taking on another appearance.

Items:
Vanity: Green leaf charm that glows green. *

Amulets:
The lone amulet explodes as the Rift’s powers shove into it. So great is it explosion that parts of it embed into your horn, causing it to droop and become rubbery.

*This is an enchanted item.
Normal items transfer fine. Please use this thread as link-proof in your profile!
» Presence of the Rift «


Lena
Currently championing:
#3

Lena the Songbird


Lena had refined the art of waiting. Her patience was a valuable virtue, her forbearance, her fortitude, her endurance an infinite reverence, a breathless wonder, a careful brushstroke of passing hands and thwarting time. The seraph might have been carved from perseverance, the sweeping, idle caresses of a patient, dedicated craftsman; his last oeuvre. Hopes and dreams, wonders and whimsies, buoyed the breathless abandon of wandering, of presiding, of maintaining repose when the worst was promised. It was all she’d ever known since the day of her birth, how she’d survived, how she’d calculated, how she’d refined kindness, compassion, and beneficence when other realms, other forms, other beings chose to malign and ruin. She preferred healing, mending, standing still, watching, observing, when the empires threatened to turn asunder, so she’d have a moment, a chance, an opportunity to extend her well wishes, her wisdom, her incantations, her strength, towards those who needed it. She couldn’t be taken over by impulse, by audacity – and it was why she willed herself not to fret, not to worry, not to collapse in apprehension when a familiar face had yet to show themselves amidst the abyss.
 
She’d anticipated his return before. She could do it again.
 
But she still took to patrolling the edges of mist and fog, peering into the void, yearning to see gold instead of black, always black (Stygian and sable, the deepest of perils and treacheries, the stretch of annihilation, what a consignment to oblivion must’ve looked like). It was the same, day after day, hour after hour: a chasm opening to reveal others, strangers or known souls, thrown and tossed into the unknown. But they were never Roland, and despite the tug at her soul, the interloping of bestial, barbaric things, the sheer, desperate notion of what could have happened to him, she remained in serenity, in tranquility, in equilibrium – going back to what she understood best (because it was a form of rebellion, and she wouldn’t let this place consume her, devour her, control her). Sometimes as they, for she was never alone, traced and chased over the eerie, eldritch foundations she’d murmur to Imogen: today, he’ll come today with a small smile and stalwart gaze, staring out over the horizon and wishing him to appear from thin air. Other days she’d offer the ivory kitsune a simple excuse, a reason for him to still be gone, never remarking on the smoke and fumes, the embers and death, stinging the back of her mind. Maybe he landed elsewhere, in some other land? She’d sing, she’d chant, she’d proffer, and Imogen would just nod, obliging her in the only way she could.
 
Today she tried not to be frustrated, vexed, irritated that there were more ghosts loitering here than tangible, corporeal beings. She tried not to crumble bit by bit, ponder into treacherous depths, or stick herself in the depths of the shadows, turn her head, or give in. The Songbird’s eyes were on the horizon when colors blossomed, bloomed, vibrated, then collapsed into the feral darkness, her breath a sudden inhale, a gasp, and her movements abrupt, swift, keen, hope heaving in her chest as she took and stole over the ground, following, following, following to the ends of the earth.
 
The healer didn’t care about the rain assaulting her pelt, her eyes, her ears – she was blistering motion and endless conviction, crooned from the flames, from the embers, from the stoking of beguiling affection – wishes, dreams, and aspirations curling from her rushing form, her ardent figure.
 
Then, through the fog, through the mist, through the whirl of smoke and fallen hues, she saw him - real, tangible, solid, definite, a manifestation of everything she’d ever wanted or craved. In an instant, she shouted his name (it sounded like bells and sonnets, stanzas and warmth, a declaration of love and affection in a blessing of syllables). “Roland!” Something greater, more profound, came with her essence, bounding from the pockets of the abyss, reaching out, slowing only so she didn’t collide – and throwing her neck over his, a reverberating embrace. The mender didn’t even pretend, didn’t even try, to hide her happiness, her tears, her ebullience, shaking all the while, laughing in the midst of her calm, her elation, her relief, pushing a zealous breath from her lungs, from her mouth, from her lips, with the brightest grin hidden in his mane. “You made it.”



Image Credits

@Roland
Roland
Currently championing:
#4


The darkness opened its arms and engulfed him as he stood, waiting, listening to the rhythmic sound of rain as it collided with the ground, a ceaseless, whispering cascade of water that soon sparked a chill along his spine. Try as he might, Roland could not decide on which way to turn, whether to walk or to run, or if he should simply stay put and hope for the wakening rays of sunlight to filter through the closely knit trees.

That same glow he had noticed earlier remained, something hazy and out of reach, but the pale light would bend with every gentle breath of wind, swaying against the pressure of rain. Fireflies, perhaps, or some spectacle he had never seen before. Whatever world he had stepped into had dressed itself with none of the comfort and familiarity of the home he had known before. This one writhed with all the fatal allure of a poisonous flower, unfurling with tantalizing sparks of colour in the darkness, inviting one to lean in and inhale. It was poised to strike, like a snake in the underbrush, with fangs sharpened to a point. Roland had been bit by one such viper before; he was not about to fall victim to the same ploy again.

The first stirring of motion to fall upon his ears was the soft staccato of footfalls, a flicker of movement between the trees as Roland turned towards its source. What emerged was not a beast of the forest, violent and hungry, but a small and graceful shadow, painted in the lines and curves he had come to know and love. Lena. She had been the first to welcome him back once before, and she was there again, folding out of the darkness with a grace that stood in stark contrast to the sharp edges closing in around him. As she rushed towards him he forgot, for a moment, that he wasn’t home. Her laughter, her voice, was a beacon to him, and he moved towards her with little care for the pain sparking in his limbs. “Are you alright?” He questioned as she closed the distance between them in a rush, his name echoing from her lips.

Lena wrapped herself around him, despite the mud that had splashed up his side and across his chest, the scrapes on his limbs and the rainwater tracking down his neck in thick rivulets. The Songbird welcomed him into the abyss with her warmth, her fervor, and somehow within her embrace, this new world didn’t seem so frightening after all. Roland’s bloodied knees trembled as he sank into her touch, holding onto her like he would clutch a torch in the darkness. He breathed in her scent, so familiar and pleasant, so it would block out the taste of all that was strange around them. Yet, she no longer smelled of home, of northern winds and the icy air, and Roland grew still, troubled, beneath her grasp. “Where are we?” He said, voice a quiet whisper beneath the rain. “Where are the others?



Push your luck if it makes you a promise
that turns con men honest.

Image Credit


@Lena
Lena
Currently championing:
#5

Lena the Songbird

It was the same and not – because there’d always been patterns to their moments, to their occasions, to the way they’d lived and faltered. She wished for it to be winter, constant, unbendable winter, near her gardens, beneath the rise of the mountains and the sullen, chilling wind, where her breath would curl around his red mane and she could laugh at the whimsical art of it; the movements, the motions, the soft, cordial layers to their ghosts and refrains. Instead, for all her light, they were enclosed in warped, discordant darkness, rain and pestilence – and still, she didn’t care, because he was here, safe, whole, and for now, that was enough (it’d have to be – there was no other choice, no other alternative). She wished for things that couldn’t be, for moments sprinkled in time that had yet to fissure, that she could lead him to a new home, a new land, a new kingdom, shelter from the storm, from the peril, from the agony of what this void proffered and preferred. The Mender emboldened her smiles, her virtues, her arts instead, slid her grin into his hide, touched over the crimson and golden fringe, delighted in what she had in these minute moments, embraced the present because she’d always lingered in the past. “I’m okay,” she whispered back, and it was partially true, for she hadn’t had any occasion to assess her worth, her entity, her being until now – every instance had seemed sparked and incensed by calamity, by drama, by the feral, bewitching unknown. Even now the earth seemed to rumble with intrigue and vitriol, just enough poison and temptation to leave the world unhinged and uncertain, so she pressed herself further into him, pulsed her strength, her potency, her power into a vibrant, gilded hum, beautiful refrains that ensured she was all right – laced and layered them down into the wounds scattered along his frame. Imogen sauntered forth two, wrapped a few tails around limbs and feet, aching to feel the few, scarce, timeless chances of indulgence, to believe in sanctity when none could be found. “Are you?” The Songbird echoed, her eyes drifting over the scrapes and lacerations, loosening the hold she had on him begrudgingly to take in his entire frame, to view him away from shadow and sable. He wasn’t a ghost: alive, breathing, not a being stolen and replaced, positioned as a demonic puppet, another masquerade by the Rift or Kisamoa’s hand.
 
Then she bent and flowed into him again on the last thought, pressed her maw into the juncture of his cheek and nape, and just stayed, still, memorizing the lines and scents, the strokes and sketches, an outline of love and compassion. It’d been so fleeting, so rare here, and it almost made her laugh, made her cry, made her explode in sheer happiness – but she maintained her calm composure, merely reaching out for him because that was all she had left to do. The Songbird perfected the notes of his voice too, the pitch, the intonations, the tones, committed them to anything and everything, as he whispered, as he craved to know about this horrific empire they’d been stranded within. She was disappointed that she had so little to offer – a dulcet murmur of her own, smile dipping, falling away along his neck, pushed down to his throat. “We’re in the Rift.” There were too many lands to name, too many abysses to recall, some fragmented and awful, some once blessings of Helovia and squandered into further hell zones. He’d see it all for himself: the riddles, the speciousness, and the gallows (and where was the delight, the joy, she yearned to ask the world, but knew she’d receive no reply). Her voice, trying to find hope and salvation in the murky rain, in the rolling fog, could barely enlighten him any further – there were too many vacuities, pits, and pendulums. “We’ve all scattered, but there are still quite a few from the Basin here.” But when she’d roamed along Kaos’ awful schemes and cataclysms, the number had seemed even less – and in the back of her mind, she persisted that they hadn’t been foolish enough to wander into the webs, the traps, and the lies again. 


Image Credits

@Roland
Roland
Currently championing:
#6



The darkness fled at her touch, what threats might have lurked beneath its shroud shrunk into the distance at the softness of her voice, the radiance she brought with her as she embraced him in the rain. Imogen joined them, curling herself around Roland's leg, and he felt a swell of gratitude in his chest, that he was lucky enough to have the two of them there, to catch him and set him back upon his feet. The solitude, the loneliness, might have eaten away at his resilience in the unsettling darkness, and Roland shuddered to think of what could have become of him if he failed to find his way. 

Lena released him then from her hold, and the warmth faded from his skin as she drew back to appraise him. The rain continued to fall, sliding across his skin with a chilling bite, but it was a small annoyance in the face of everything else he had been confronted with. He eyed Lena as she looked him up and down, gaze lingering on the wounds he had sustained in his brief, and yet tumultuous, travels. His knees were sore, and his limbs ached, but he did his best to appear unaffected by it all, to stand tall and confident in the midst of so many unknowns, and not allow himself to be weakened by a few cuts and bruises. The last thing he wanted was for her to worry about him, to burden her with more concerns when there were greater problems ahead. Roland had no idea what stretched beyond the edges of the dark forest and torrent of rain. Perhaps there were blue skies and pale sand beaches that swept away from this cesspool of shadows, a sun bathed haven waiting over the horizon, but there was something about the way Lena held herself that warned him against such hopes. It was unlikely they had been thrown into anything unlike purgatory.

He knew the answer to her question, or rather convinced himself of it, ignoring the aches and pains, the uneasiness he felt settling itself further into his bones with every raindrop. "Yes, I'm ok." In spite of it all, he managed the smallest of smiles for her, a moment of composure when he wanted to gasp for air. 

Much to his relief, she returned to him, tucking herself back into the space beneath his throat, where she belonged. Roland curled around her, drawing everything he could from their embrace and committing it to memory, to fuel him on through every trial they might face. Lena put a name to the place around them, a word that was neither soft nor unassuming, but rang of conflict and fractures, like something torn, shredded, forced into existence, and yet it seemed fitting. It was how it made him feel, stuck in a middle ground, a liminal space, as if at any moment the ground might drop out from underneath him. Perhaps he just needed time to grow accustomed to it all. At once he missed the snow, the biting winds, the coldest of winters weathered in the icy caves of the far north. They paled in comparison to the discomfort he felt in an unfamiliar darkness, without a light to guide their way.

Lena offered little else about the nature of the Rift, meaning much of it remained undiscovered; or, she was sparing him the most gruesome of details, allowing him that feeble, futile spark of hope, to nurture it a little longer, until he could find the answers for himself.

"Is there somewhere we can go?" Roland asked against her skin. He longed for shelter, warmth, the familiarity of voices and bodies moving about, some semblance of a makeshift home to covet until he could find his footing. It was time to take his first steps into a new realm.


Push your luck if it makes you a promise
that turns con men honest.

Image Credit


@Lena
Lena
Currently championing:
#7

Lena the Songbird

She wished for a multitude of things in those few, precious moments – somehow, someway, the collapse and fall of Helovia, the monstrous beckoning of the Rift, hadn’t curtailed her ability to dream (quietly, beneath the shadows instead of the stars). The most vivid ambition was to see them in a world not shrouded in deceit, back in the familiarity of winter’s touch, or merely coasting along the streams, the mountains, the meadows – anywhere but here. She’d seen too much treachery, she’d been eclipsed in too much violence, and she couldn’t understand, couldn’t fathom, why their chances had been so slim, their moments so finite, miniscule, unbalanced. The Songbird had always regarded them as precious, but perhaps they were even more so now, so few, so vague, so in between soullessness and discord, and there was naught she could do about it. It was a powerless, agonizing feeling, and she bit down against the frustration, tried to rejoice in the whirl of the present, in the here and now, without wondering what would befall them next, what anguish, what torture, what melancholy the void had in store. He was ok, he was all right, he was scraped and bruised but otherwise untarnished, and the way it echoed across her entity enlightened her for those brief instances without calamity – striking her face in such a vivid, bright, ebullient portrait. She hadn’t worn the beneficence, the gentleness, the warmth in what felt like a lifetime, and allowed it to radiate there, away from the torturous sway, the nefarious entanglements, or the daunting dawn. Then, when her eyes caught the smallest of grins floating across his handsome features, she yearned to bottle that heartwarming occasion too, savor and relish in it in the cold, darkening days to come. The Mender tucked herself away in the promise of his grin, in the layers of his presence, because that was all she could do now – when they had nothing left but one another and the beckoning hands of damnation.

“I don’t know,” she answered, for she’d yet to find shelter. Their brethren had dispersed into the wind, in all directions, sometimes seen again as Kisamoa hissed and growled, sometimes spotted when the hour of need was at hand. But there’d been no place to gather and unite, not like Helovia, where they could bend and bleed beneath the weight of the mountain. They were lost, lingering refugees, and there was no end in sight, no empires glowing on the horizon, no lands for refuge without seething, conniving maelstroms behind it. She detested it was the only response she could give and grant, that no hope was laced in its parallels, that there was only the unknown distorting the background. The nymph nearly offered herself up as sanctuary, to be that sliver of deliverance and liberation; but even she had her limits. Perhaps they could only persevere, endure, day after day, night after night, until something happened. “You could explore with me?” Her eyes were illustrious and honeyed in the lack of light, in the torment consuming and chewing the scenery, proffering more promises and hopes, ambitions and aspirations – it was all she could do. “Maybe we’ll be able to find something.”


Image Credits

@Roland
Roland
Currently championing:
#8


Around them the forest had descended into an eerie darkness as the rain persisted, and they were lost in its midst, with no knowledge of a new establishment built up beyond the wooded walls. There was no light to guide them forwards, stranded as they were in the depths of night, and there was no bread-crumb trail to follow back to sun and safety. Lena could offer no other information as to where they might find shelter, or a gathering of fellow misplaced beings, and so the void tightened around them, simmering with a little more doubt and a little less potential.

Roland looked at her, hair dark and wet against her skin, thick rivulets of water tracking their way down her neck, and his smile grew at her presence. He felt emboldened just by her proximity, like there was still something of value worth holding onto in oblivion. There was a gentle change in her expression, a sort of determination, an appreciation, he thought he saw flickering in her eyes, and he knew then that he would fight to keep that spark within her alive, to give it fuel to burn. Her suggestion was met with an encouraging nod, and he cast his gaze once more into the hazy air around them. "Happily," he declared, because he would rather delve into treacherous provinces and struggle through the rain and shadow with no other.

As much as he wished it to be true, there was no chance to retrace their steps, no trick to following the unravelling threads of their path back to the serene harbors of home, into high reaches and illuminated valleys that Roland had come to know down to the last frost-tipped petal. He could take her with him, and they could escape the darkness to a place where the sun would once again fall warm and golden across the grass, where the rain wouldn’t bite and draw shivers across his shoulders, so that his muscles began to ache from their trembling.

We’ll be ok,” Roland said, with a kind of resolute certainty that felt forced even to his own ears. His voice betrayed him, quivering in his throat, not quite possessing the courage to resonate in the rainy night air for fear that it might echo on the trees, come back to him sounding all the more unsettled. The words might have been spoken more for himself than for his companions, some reassurance to cling tight to in absence of the sun, that they might carve something beautiful or bearable out of this strange land; yet it was a platitude now ringing hollow in his own ears, a mantra that had exhausted itself in the moments he had spent alone preceding her arrival. Regardless, he wanted Lena to know it, that they would be alright together- the three of them, with feisty Imogen at their sides, sharp senses and even sharper claws. He wanted to hold onto that glimmer of false, forced hope for as long as it might endure in the dripping shadows. There was no sliver of light piercing through the trees, no path carved through the leaves and roots that lay in tangled knots underfoot, no sign to guide their first steps beyond the darkened glade. Without a moment’s hesitation he blindly took his first steps forwards, hoping to find a break in the trees, a gust of air guiding them through the coiled labyrinth, something that might hint at a hidden haven resting beyond the reaches of those wet and gloomy woods. 


Push your luck if it makes you a promise
that turns con men honest.

Image Credit


@”Lena”
Lena
Currently championing:
#9

Lena the Songbird

We’ll be okay was an echo amidst the endless chasm, and it reverberated through her heart, pulsed amidst her smile, until she was vibrancy and heavenly light again. Though the resonation quavered, as if it was stuck in his throat and not entirely resolute (too much of the unknown ricocheting in those blinded folds, in those unyielding veils), she brought it back to her chest, to her essence, to her soul, and locked it tightly away. Her assurance, her confidence, would be enough to warrant them through, to connect the dots, to flourish the schemes, plots, and designs, to quietly immerse themselves in the threshold of unsung sedition – noble, dignified rebellion, by refusing to delve into irreverence and disaster. She refused to falter, refused to stumble, refused to fall further into the muck and grime, and the Mender, the Songbird, would never allow Roland to crumble either – she’d be the rock, the stalwart swallow, the intrepid healer, until the moment she took her last breaths. “Of course,” Lena whispered, grin triumphant and glorious, anointed and consecrated, because they’d be more than false promises and hollowed hopes; deliverance and liberation lining their bones. She sighed, shook her head, forgot the rain drops and the mist clinging to her mane, to her pelt, to her hide, and turned her gaze to glance at the world beyond ghosts and shadows; to where there was a place in the sun, in the earth, in the kingdom, where there was more than emptiness and sorrow. “Together,” she pressed a kiss into his cheek, and another below his jaw, sliding past his apprehension, and believing in more than just the unsettling wares coating their existence. They were bold and brilliant, glistening and defiant, and they’d show the realm, no matter how murky, exactly what they were made of.
 
This time she followed (mighty steps and pad-foot decibels into the drifting haze) instead of led – for none of them knew what lay beyond, and the territory was an eternal mystery, but they were more.


Image Credits

@Roland {just taking five years to wrap things up. ;D}