02-21-2021, 04:38 PM
<center><img src="https://i.postimg.cc/DzDdxtSJ/CA439-AD0-C2-E5-4-C49-893-E-E5-ECD0-D00659.png"><table bgcolor=017fe7 style="border-color: black; border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: -245px" cellspacing=30 cellpadding=30 width=640><tr><td><p align=justify><font face=times new roman color=091849><font style=font-size:9pt;line-height:12pt;letter-spacing:1px><font style=letter-spacing:4px><Font color=091849><p align=right><i>s a b a l .</i></font></font>
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She honestly hadn’t expected it to stay dark this long.
To some degree, she was accustomed to living in the dark. The bioluminescent markings evident enough of that (evolution is like, totally rad), but even still she’d be lying by saying any part of this whole situation had been simple.
There were her own personal vanity-driven reasons for missing the sun like the lack of her favorite pastimes like sunbathing on the shores of <s>her</s> Hyaline’s lake. But it was the bigger implications that had her worried. Like the fact that the environment needed the sun and all that. Everyone knew but no one said anything about it.
Oh and then there were the <i>monsters</i>. And that was probably the part that freaked her out the most. She hadn’t slept soundly since Mazikeen had told her that the monsters had come as the world’s worst freaking side effect of the eclipse. Darkness was one thing to worry about, but they also had literal actual monsters prowling around. Which was...awesome.
She’d been on guard from the very moment Maze had told her of the threat. Her direct exposure to the creatures had been blessedly limited, though she felt guilty even admitting that to herself. She’d spent most of the early days of the eclipse confined to the lake in Hyaline. And she’d be totally lying to herself (and everyone else) if she didn’t admit that her seclusion was born out of her fear. Part of her wanted to dive to the bottom of the lake and simply wait out the whole situation, but the kelpie within her knew that wasn’t a possibility.
She was scared, but she wasn’t a coward.
So the one time she <i>had</i> encountered one of the creatures, she’d done what instinct had driven her to do. She clamped her jaws around the monster’s throat and dragged it beneath the surface of the lake – determined to end its life before it could hurt anyone in Hyaline. However, try as she might, the damn thing refused to drown. It continued to thrash and slash until she’d had absolutely no other choice but to let it go. It was her life or the monster's - and she'd chosen her own. It had moved so quickly she’d been unable to track it after it escaped her jaws. And the whole incident did absolutely nothing to curb her insecurities regarding the whole situation. She was having a hard enough time grappling with the fact of whether she was even equipped to help protect Hyaline in the first place.
Her whole existence had basically boiled down to a series of existential crises followed by, you know, actual crises. So that was fun. But it still wasn’t enough to get her to throw in the towel. Because as much as she wanted to, she wasn’t one to run from her problems. Even if her problems were…unending darkness and otherworldly monsters.
All these thoughts lingered in her mind as she allowed herself to drift on the gentle current of the lake, so soon to be pulled under by the equally gentle current of sleep. Until she heard <i>something</i>. It was soft and weak but undeniably <i>there</i> and that is enough to rouse her from sleep almost immediately. For a moment, is wary. She has her suspicions about who calls to her. She thinks, for a moment, of Maze and the task that she has been given by the faeries. She knows that to be called does not come without cost, but the hesitation lasts only a heartbeat before she is following the voice into the river that flows out into the common lands – the same river that curls along the base of the mountain. She uses her wings to speed the trip – flying through the water as if sensing the urgency in the plea.
She pulls herself from the river at its closest point to the mountain, shifting into her equine form. The water drips quietly off her scaled skin and she glows softly in the darkness. It’s a small comfort to have, all things considered, though she doesn't glow quite as brightly on land as she does in the water. She pulls her fin-like wings closer to her sides as she walks. Being on land is totally not her thing, but she knows in her very soul that being here is important. She can see that others have already gathered but doesn’t find any familiar faces in those who have come. And Sabal, never one to be content with silence, immediately opens her mouth.
<b>“So, ummmm. I’m assuming that you all heard the voices too?”</b> And immediately after speaking hopes that they did, in fact, hear something and she isn’t the resident crazy person hearing voices in her sleep.
<center><font style=letter-spacing:4px><Font color=091849><i>can’t stop staring at those ocean eyes. </i></font></font></table><a href=“https://www.deviantart.com/littlewillow-art”>manip by squirt</a></center></center>
</align><p align=justify>
She honestly hadn’t expected it to stay dark this long.
To some degree, she was accustomed to living in the dark. The bioluminescent markings evident enough of that (evolution is like, totally rad), but even still she’d be lying by saying any part of this whole situation had been simple.
There were her own personal vanity-driven reasons for missing the sun like the lack of her favorite pastimes like sunbathing on the shores of <s>her</s> Hyaline’s lake. But it was the bigger implications that had her worried. Like the fact that the environment needed the sun and all that. Everyone knew but no one said anything about it.
Oh and then there were the <i>monsters</i>. And that was probably the part that freaked her out the most. She hadn’t slept soundly since Mazikeen had told her that the monsters had come as the world’s worst freaking side effect of the eclipse. Darkness was one thing to worry about, but they also had literal actual monsters prowling around. Which was...awesome.
She’d been on guard from the very moment Maze had told her of the threat. Her direct exposure to the creatures had been blessedly limited, though she felt guilty even admitting that to herself. She’d spent most of the early days of the eclipse confined to the lake in Hyaline. And she’d be totally lying to herself (and everyone else) if she didn’t admit that her seclusion was born out of her fear. Part of her wanted to dive to the bottom of the lake and simply wait out the whole situation, but the kelpie within her knew that wasn’t a possibility.
She was scared, but she wasn’t a coward.
So the one time she <i>had</i> encountered one of the creatures, she’d done what instinct had driven her to do. She clamped her jaws around the monster’s throat and dragged it beneath the surface of the lake – determined to end its life before it could hurt anyone in Hyaline. However, try as she might, the damn thing refused to drown. It continued to thrash and slash until she’d had absolutely no other choice but to let it go. It was her life or the monster's - and she'd chosen her own. It had moved so quickly she’d been unable to track it after it escaped her jaws. And the whole incident did absolutely nothing to curb her insecurities regarding the whole situation. She was having a hard enough time grappling with the fact of whether she was even equipped to help protect Hyaline in the first place.
Her whole existence had basically boiled down to a series of existential crises followed by, you know, actual crises. So that was fun. But it still wasn’t enough to get her to throw in the towel. Because as much as she wanted to, she wasn’t one to run from her problems. Even if her problems were…unending darkness and otherworldly monsters.
All these thoughts lingered in her mind as she allowed herself to drift on the gentle current of the lake, so soon to be pulled under by the equally gentle current of sleep. Until she heard <i>something</i>. It was soft and weak but undeniably <i>there</i> and that is enough to rouse her from sleep almost immediately. For a moment, is wary. She has her suspicions about who calls to her. She thinks, for a moment, of Maze and the task that she has been given by the faeries. She knows that to be called does not come without cost, but the hesitation lasts only a heartbeat before she is following the voice into the river that flows out into the common lands – the same river that curls along the base of the mountain. She uses her wings to speed the trip – flying through the water as if sensing the urgency in the plea.
She pulls herself from the river at its closest point to the mountain, shifting into her equine form. The water drips quietly off her scaled skin and she glows softly in the darkness. It’s a small comfort to have, all things considered, though she doesn't glow quite as brightly on land as she does in the water. She pulls her fin-like wings closer to her sides as she walks. Being on land is totally not her thing, but she knows in her very soul that being here is important. She can see that others have already gathered but doesn’t find any familiar faces in those who have come. And Sabal, never one to be content with silence, immediately opens her mouth.
<b>“So, ummmm. I’m assuming that you all heard the voices too?”</b> And immediately after speaking hopes that they did, in fact, hear something and she isn’t the resident crazy person hearing voices in her sleep.
<center><font style=letter-spacing:4px><Font color=091849><i>can’t stop staring at those ocean eyes. </i></font></font></table><a href=“https://www.deviantart.com/littlewillow-art”>manip by squirt</a></center></center>