[private] the dark awaits us all around the corner

[hysperia]

can we stay a while and listen for heaven?

Curving a dainty path around the river’s largest bend, Hysperia breathes deeply and watches the fog of hot air billow in front of her face. She creates smoke with that air, twirling the permeable gray into tiny, battling birds. Their flights and attacks are epic and consuming until Hysperia stumbles over a particularly slick bed of shale. The birds disappear suddenly as the little mare bites back frustration.

It is early still in Beqanna’s winter, though the chill wields a sharp bite. The first snow lightly dusts the ground despite the late morning sun making its best effort to melt it. Hysperia has always preferred the challenge of the cold to the heat; so now she basks in the crisp air, skin rising with goose flesh from each shadow she passes through. That tight, clean feeling she loves pulls her skin and muscles taut.

This is as close to relaxed as Hysperia gets.

A believer in Ritual, Hysperia walks a well-worn path next to the water. Soon, she’ll branch off from the babbling water to weave a path toward the base of the Mountain. There, she will curse and curse the Gods for their uselessness, for making her so plain yet too prideful to ask for more.

But for now she is the image of peace and quiet, strolling leisurely over damp soil and rock.

hysperia

@Squirt

[Starros]

The arrival of winter meant it was time for Starros’ slow migration across Beqanna to shift once more. He had grown nomadic as he aged, every day and every step bringing him a little further from the boisterous colt that would have thrived in Loess if it had not crumbled. Instead he has grown comfortable in this life, a hereditary trait passed from his mother with some regret. He drew in on himself, becoming quiet and reserved, content to map the entirety of Beqanna with his hooves.

When he sees the black mare also walking along the river, just on the other side, she looks so peaceful that he considers spreading his sun-adorned wings and taking off right then and there so that he will not interrupt her.

But sometimes nature wins out - and that boisterous colt that he feels so separated from still lurks within the shadows of his heart. So he pauses where he is. No words come to his mind that would be interesting enough to catch someone else’s attention and hold it so he uses magic instead. The winter morning light bends and coalesces into the shapes of two hummingbirds, and he sends the pair of them out towards her to flit around her. Even if she does not pause or notice him standing across the frigid water and ice, he hopes to see a spark of a smile and get the rewarding warming feeling that he brightened someone else’s day.

STARROS

@hysperia