The young woman had never been to this part of the Rift before. Yet, her and Khairi continued their attempts at exploring, trying to see what else the Rift had to offer, and to see just how far her ball of hope would spread. So far, it hadn’t spread at all, and she worried that perhaps she wasn’t doing something right, but the thought soon died as she realized that living here and bringing that life to the darkness that creeped around the corners of the world was good enough. She had saved Kisamoa from an early demise, surely to bring them all down. If she failed in this small task, she didn’t think the young god would smite her.
Or so she hoped. Aside from that, she continued to venture through the small pines along the edge of the lake in the center. Khairi swooped from branch to branch, scouting and surveying in the off chance that dinner might come scuttling by while Kiada continued to seek out anything of information. However, the only things she found were strange markings etched into stone – much like the ones she recalled on that odd pillar from Helovia where Kisamoa had met her for the first time and began this enormous descent. She paused near one, eyeing the runes as if it would summon the god to her, to ask if she was doing what he wanted, if what the inhabitants of this land were even doing any good to fight off the sickness of the land. But nothing happened.
Khairi continued his hunt to search for food, telling her that he was going to be slipping further away to see if something would crawl out if there wasn’t a horse crunching on sticks nearby. She simply let him know it was a good idea before continuing her concentration on the strange language. She wore all her armor, despite the heat of Scorch. There wasn’t a way she could carry it all without wearing it, though the armor sat limp against her skin. Her shoulder plate remained, not fully extended along her shoulder while her faceplate sat a bit further back on her neck, the blades glinting in the light. And along the other side of her shoulder where the guard didn’t sit, her wound upon entry to the Rift continued to seep a glowing teal liquid, slow and steady like thick blood, down her bronze chest and onto her inky legs.
Aurelia wasn't sure why she was here. There were certainly more important things to do over simply exploring the pretty little lake. Nonetheless, she was here in all her gold glory. She was stretched out in the middle of the pond, her wings extended outwards completely on the surface of the water, legitametly glimmering and sparkling as the sun beams down on her. It reminded her of her time with Watcher, right before she had given birth. However, this time she wasn't bloated, she was lean and fit. She swam in large circles, her submerged body moving smoothly, gliding through the water with every forceful thrusts of her hooves to propel her onwards. Her mane and tail flowed through the water in the most ethereal of ways, reminiscent of ink dropped into water. When her strange, dual-colored eyes focused on the narrow strip of shore ahead of her, she diligently swam towards it. After a few powerful thrusts, Aurelia feels the ground beneath her hooves. The transition from swim to walk is smooth and effortless as she begins to rise out of the water like the very sirens who inhabit them. Water droplets cascade down her sopping wings and body, allowing the sun to glint through them and highlight the soft curves and dips of her porcelain body. Dropping her whiskered snout to the ground, her two gold necklaces swinging back and forth for a moment from the sudden movement, her lips begin wiggling side to side in the moist shore, searching for nothing specifically, but more so just interested in the land.
The shuffle of hooves within the pines draws Aurelia's attention away from the ground. She raises her head back up from it's lowered position, her velvet lips coated with the ground- a mixture of moist sand and dirt. She doesn't see anything, not at first anyway. Aurelia had mostly gotten used to the strange sounds of being watched- scratching and scurrying and screeching and shuffling were all pretty common sounds throughout the Rift; the sounds of being stalked. The gentle but firm plodding coming from just within the pine was enough for Aurelia to garner that this company was larger than most of the small, glowy-eyed things that watched her from the shadows. To say the plodding of hooves nearby was that of a horse would be a huge jump to conclusions. In the Rift, all sorts of animals existed. If it acts like a horse, sounds like a horse, and looks like a horse- don't assume it is a horse. The Rift threw many curveballs at its inhabitants, the illusion of a horse would certainly not be its most devastating.
Aurelia nickers softly, the floaty bugle wafting through the trees gently and quietly, searching for ears willing to hear it. Only a horse would understand what she meant by the soft sound- is anybody there? A non-horse would've heard the sound and simply thought it was a horse making some random noises (unless non-horse species had suddenly become very educated about horse lingo, anything is possible here). She waited patiently for some sort of response, truly unsure if she would ever recieve one.
She pushed a breath through her nose as her lips formed a tight line. Her eyes raved over each strange symbol etched into the dark onyx stones, brows furrowing slightly as she did her best to remember them. It was an effort to continue staring without going cross-eyed, or seeing them everywhere she looked as if they burned into her retinas. After a few long moments as she listened to the rustling leaves from the wind and the sheer silence that seemed to surround her, she finally looked away. Her tail swished against her hocks in a quiet dismissal of these seemingly pointless tablets before a nicker echoed through the area she was currently occupying.
Her ears swiveled, wondering if Khairi had found something. Much to her dismay, he was still too far from her, unable to speak through the bond newly rejuvenated, and there was nothing but silence along that tether. Her inky head swiveled toward the sound, still, angling her body toward it. It didn’t sound menacing, but she refused to give the Rift the element of surprise anymore. Quietly, she nickered back, moving through the brush of trees along the lake’s outer ring as she attempted to stay quiet. After a few moments of heading in the direction she thought the sound had come from, there was the slight glint of gold and wings. Curiously, her ears remained perked as her icy gaze surveyed from her standpoint.
After a few long moments, Kiada sucked in a breath quietly and emerged from the brush. As she came into view, she noticed the mare she had met before. Aurelia she recalled from the ‘not-herd’ meeting. This mare must have been the source of the nicker, though Kiada didn’t want to assume. Still, she offered the gilt ivory mare a small grin as she padded somewhat closer. “Aurelia, right? What a pleasant surprise.” She offered the woman, stopping and letting her gaze land on the mare. “Are you, by chance, searching for something on this endless quest as well?” She asked, amusement flickering in her ice blue eyes as she gestured toward the ball of hope that floated alongside her hip.
12-31-2017, 11:07 PM (This post was last modified: 12-31-2017, 11:07 PM by Aurelia.)
Aurelia
She hears a reply from within the trees, furthering her idea that there is a horse around here. The being doesn't appear immediately, but instead is nowhere to be seen for a proper amount of time. Aurelia's ears swivel forwards, listening for sounds that indicate the approach of another. She cranks her skull to the left and then to the right, curiosly watching to see who will join her.
Aurelia, by any means, is far from inconspicuous. She carries around the lingering smell of smoke, no matter how clean she is. Her coat is extremely bright, reflecting light off of her golden dapples. That, coupled with the literal sparkling of her body (thanks to her locket) and humongous ivory wings, she can easily be spotted, especially in the sun's rays on the shore. Surely her company would have no issue locating her.
The lingering silence was broken as a familiar face emerges from the foliage, accompanied by a simple nicker and the shuffle of leaves. She smiles softly in greeting before searching for clarification that Aurelia's name is, in fact, Aurelia's name. Then she says, what a pleasant surprise. Aurelia smiles kindly but wonders inwardly what made seeing her a pleasant surprise and why Kiada had been the first horse to ever use those words in the same breath when speaking of her.
Before Aurelia can respond, Kiada eyes her glowing orb and asks a rather straightforward question. "I believe the quest has an end." Her voice is soft and floaty as she replies to Kiada, clarifying her beliefs. "I'm not searching for anything specifically. I do not believe we will reach an end if we search in specifics." Aurelia assumed, from Kiada's gesture to her orb, that they were conversing about healing the Rift, but she wasn't exactly sure so she didn't say anything too precise.
Quickly, she shakes her body back and forth, water droplets are flung from her body and wings as she does so. Her mane is tossed around wildly, the crystal beads tied into it pulsing excitedly. Now that she is somewhat drier and more comfortable, her hair tussled and tangled, her eyes refocus on Kiada. "What do you think about it?" She inquired, returning Kiada's question back at her.
“I believe the quest has an end.” She begins after offering Kiada a simple smile. As Aurelia continued to speak, talking of not searching for specifics. Quietly, the young woman bobs her dark inky head toward the ivory gilded one. She watched in silence as the woman before her began to shake the water droplets from her pelt, before turning her attention toward her, the woman’s body glowed as though she was the embodiment of the sun, and Kiada allowed her icy gaze to soften on the woman, a small fraction of being impressed.
As Aurelia asked the spotted mare what she thought of it, Kiada offered her a small shrug of her shoulders. “I think that I’m willing to try anything to make this land better, though I’m hoping Kisamoa doesn’t expect things too highly from me.” A breathy laugh escaped her pink splotched maw. “I think that in the end, he’s really trying his best to help us restore the Rift, and I’m hoping to all the gods, new and old, that it’ll work.” She offered Aurelia a small grin. “Yet time will only tell, right?” She tossed her ivory forelock from her forehead as she turned her gaze out over the circular body of water.
“And I’m wondering if perhaps it doesn’t work out, if he’ll be kind enough to offer us a chance to leave in order to survive, if it comes down to it.” Her voice took on a more serious tone as she paused a few moments. When she finally looked back at Aurelia, she shrugged her shoulders again. “I’m hoping it doesn’t end like that.”
As Kiada explains her thoughts, Kisamoa is brought up again. His name was a constant reoccurance. It was as if everyone had met the god, but her. It was strange how everyone easily spoke of him, but she could not. In Helovia she'd been so obsessed with the gods, was this how the reverse felt? Once she had been so found of the four mighty dieties that ruled Helovia, but now she didn't look up to anyone and everyone around her did. She felt slightly outcasted, unsure of exactly to react. "Time will certainly tell, I agree. I've not been here very long, but it seems everyone is trying to help him heal the land. I honestly believe we will be able to achieve something, perhaps not perfection, but at least harmony- peace."
She speaks of the worst, her words instilling a sort of dread in Aurelia's mind. What if saving the Rift proved to be impossible? Could the god of these lands truly forceit's inhabitants to die with it? Such was a cruel way to end. The Helovian gods did not make the Helovians die with Helovia, why would the Rift god? The Rift was an evil place that seemed to live, Aurelia, in some roundabout sort of way, could maybe see them dying here should they not be able to fix the land? A chill ran down her spine.
"Have you met Kisamoa? I've yet to meet him" she asks curiously before continuing. "I've yet to meet anyone that hasn't met him." Everyone spoke of the god as if they knew him, leading Aurelia to assume such. She had never directly asked if they knew him in the way she was to Kiada, but she got a weird feeling everyone did. "Do you think he is cruel enough to murder us all?" Aurelia's worries were taking shape in questions that she could ask Kiada, who seemed to know much more than the golden pegasus did.
Aurelia's eyes scan the mare so quickly it is nearly imperceptable. She was larger than Aurelia, but had a similar color scheme. They were both gold and white, the only diffrence being Kiada's darker points. This was their only similarity. Aurelia had wings and dapples, Kiada had spots and a horn. They were also built differently. Aurelia looked like a mustang, stocky and thickly built, but for some reason Kiada just seemed more graceful. In many ways, the mare before Aurelia just seemed more pristine and put together, something Aurelia unfortunately was not and would never be.
If there was somebody Kiada felt like she could get along with, it was probably Aurelia. They both could be blunt when needed, yet able to carry a conversation that went somewhere. It was a welcome reprieve for the young woman, to see different sides to a story that she had only herself and Khairi to speak on it. So when she mentioned that only time would tell, Kiada bobbed her inky face, a small smile blooming on her pink splotched lips. “Hopefully something that makes a difference.” She answered in agreement to Aurelia’s statement.
But when the golden woman asks her if she met Kisamoa, a mischievous grin blossomed across her mouth. “Oh yes. I worked for him in Helovia before we were taken here.” She offered as a small tidbit of information. “Then, here, when he tried to revive the dead I went against my better judgement and fell into the river of the dead to save him.” A small breathy laugh escaped her lips as she tried to fight the coughing sensation that gathered in her throat – a side effect of the Scint River. “It was horrible, I watched myself die and then suddenly was floating in a bit of nothing, except him. Then I searched with him and Erthe for pieces of the old Rift Gods from Helovia that he could wear – I think they somehow embedded themselves into him and we emerged from the river.” She announced. “But when I came back on land, into where there was life residing, it left me with a lung condition that feels like I’m constantly drowning. I’ve gotten used to it over the days, but in the mornings the feeling still surprises me.” Her ears wavered as she pushed a sigh through her nose.
When she asked if Kiada thought Kisamoa was cruel enough to murder them all, she rolled her golden, scarred shoulders. “I think before we arrived here, yes he was that cruel. But I think he’s really trying to save this land, and he’ll do anything he can to make sure it lives. That and I'd say he’s grown rather fond of us.” She offered Aurelia a small smile, as if it answered Kiada’s own question of before, if he’d let them leave or stay and die if the quest didn’t work. She leveled her eyes on the woman in front of her again before the smile faltered. “I rather like Kisamoa, even if he killed those I loved the most and forced us here. He at least apologized for it.” A distant sort of look crossed through the woman’s ice blue gaze.
Kiada explains her closeness to Kisamoa- literally saving him from a river of the dead (and soon to be revived, according to her story)- and Aurelia's mind flashes back a few years when Gaucho had bragged to her about being able to call the Sun God and actually having him come meet the Sultan. Was Kiada as close to Kisamoa as that? The golden pegasus felt slightly outcasted. The Rift, according to Otem, had been alive for only months and yet everyone seemed to know and love Kisamoa (perhaps more than the Helovian gods?).
The closest Aurelia thought she'd ever get to meeting Kisamoa was through the interesting stories those around her told him, so she listened curiously as Kiada described the sensation of drowning and the likes. Aurelia, the ex-homophobe, would kill herself if she had to deal with the sensation of drowning daily; she would never be able to look at the water again, a fear that she had worked so hard to get over.
Kiada answers Aurelia's next question with ease, explaining that it seems he wants to heal the land and that he's grown rather fond of it's inhabitants. That statement forces a quizical expression to blink across Aurelia's face for a moment. She'd never thought that it was possible for a god to truly hate the ones it rules over, but anything was possible (especially here).
At the end of her words, she quickly mentions how he forced her over here and killed those she loves. Aurelia's eyes widen as another question forms on her lips. "Could you tell me, perhaps, of those who you know died?" The questions seems random, very personal, and slightly vulgar as it leaves her lips. Realizing this, Aurelia adds on: "I came from Helovia too, but later than the rest so I never saw who made it and who didn't. In my 6 years living in Helovia, I'd never really heard of anyone I know dying either, and I really need to know who is still well." The desperate need to know came from the small spark of maternal instinct deep within her gut. Had her children made it? All four? Ryuu and Faeanne, Alala and Shahrohk? Who had made it and who hadn't?
Aurelia had somewhat left Kiada's story unanswered, her only responses to the mare's words being a nod here and there and an inquisitive hmm towards the end. She had every desire to return to what Kiada had said, but the urgency of Aurelia's asked question took precedence over all the other ones that still bubbled and boiled within her mind. Her very own blood could be dead. If Kiada asked about why Aurelia truly wanted to know, she would realize Aurelia has a much deeper, wider range of connections- alliances even- than previously imagined.
@Kiada wowow this was so random lmfao aurelia man what da heck :p also sorry if it tagged you twice i accidentally posted instead of clicking preview so i had to delete and finish the post and then repost wow im just a mess
She was quiet for a solemn moment, instead watching as Aurelia’s head bobbed along with her story of the fall of Helovia. When she was finished, she wasn’t hurt that the ivory and gold pegasus hadn’t had more to add to her story. She understood the urgency of what she asked. Coming from a place and trying to make sure those you loved lived as well – and so Kiada sucked in a quiet breath, trying to block the reoccurring images of their deaths, and offered a small sorrowful smile toward Aurelia.
“I’m not sure who I know that knew you, but those closest to me were Ru’in and Romina. Both the children of Hotaru.” She paused for a moment, waiting to see if the names registered. “I didn’t really pay attention to the others. I’m sorry if it doesn’t answer your question.” She frowned as she offered her condolences. She hadn’t paid attention to anything else after Ru’in and Romina charged in toward their deaths. All she could see was the teal light that illuminated her face plate, tearing them apart from the inside – and then the blurred vision through her tears as she crossed into the portal.
“My mother and most of my siblings made it. I’m unsure if my father did, or my twin.” She added in, turning her head away from Aurelia toward the sparkling water in the Scorch heat, trying to find something pleasant to look at rather than dwell on the fact that half of her heart was still missing after all this time.
When the name Ru'in begins to leave Kiada's lips, Aurelia initially believes she is going to say Ryuu, one of her older children. Her heart jumps up her throat, nerves set alight by the possibility of her son being dead. But alas, it is Ru'in who has been given death, not Ryuu.
The mare begins apologizing, sorry she cannot answer Aurelia's question, but Aurelia just shakes her head side to side. "Don't worry about it," she began softly, a gentle expression kissing her porcelain face. "They could've died long ago, perhaps even before you were born. I've not seen many of my comrades in years." Kiada looked young, nearly too young to know any of Aurelia's friends. Aurelia could be triple- or even quadruple Kiada's age. The mare looked young and vibrant and healthy. Aurelia was still those things too, but she also wore time on her hollow bones.
Kiada continues, explaining that most of her friends and family crossed successfully, but that she was unsure if her twin or father made it. Aurelia watches forlornly as her company's gaze slips across the vast lake, perhaps out of sadness or perhaps out of a desire to change the topic. Aurelia ignores the social cues, unsure exactly what they mean and begins to speak, her voice humble and quiet, "I'm sorry for asking, I didn't realize what bringing it up may mean for you." Aurelia never apologizes. The simple admittance of a mistake may seem like no huge deal, but beneath face-value it truly is.
After a brief pause, she adds one more statement: "I had four children and carried a fifth within my belly before crossing over to the Rift," vocalizing her position pre-portal is not a tear-jerking thing to do, but as she continues she can feel the sadness creep up her spine and through her body. "Now I have no idea where the first four are. I don't know where my mate" or rather, ex-mate "is, nor do I really know anyone here." She felt isolated and alone.
In Helovia, Aurelia didn't have many friends nor allies. Usually, the pegasus mare was alone, but it'd been a different kind of isolation than now. In Helovia, her loneliness was a choice, one she made early on and never changed. In the Rift, her loneliness was forced upon her and she felt hopelessly unable to lift the feeling off of herself. What was the difference between the lonelinesses? In Helovia, she hated others and others hated her but she at least knew them and could communicate with them easily. In Helovia, the line between enemies and friends was often non-existent. In the Rift, she had no one, anything. In the Rift, she doesn't have allies nor enemies, friend nor foe, she has nothing here.
Amidst her thoughts, only one thing truly stands out above the rest. Helovia had been horrible to Aurelia, but compared to the Rift it had truly been heaven.
Siren's Summit
