01-12-2017, 03:34 PM
She stirred. The vagueness of her body was proof that she was still alive. Though there was something so very very different about her. She was changed. She moved through the wood silently, graceful as ever, but she could tell—the land was not as she remembered. These trees—they were not the same, and the coastline, her beloved Dale. It was all gone. With a sigh, her dark hair fell in her eyes as she stepped further into the wood, allowing the sunlight to dapple shadows onto her already mottled hide. Though she was perhaps lost, she was no stranger to these lands, and woe be it to any man who forgets her.
Charlemagne moves with a grace that shows exactly who she is. She the golden child, and her black thigh-high black boots step over twig and root as if they were nothing more than serfs under her charge. Her lithe body shivers against the cold, and her eyes span across the horizon, what little she can see of it. Beqanna winters were atrociously cold, and Carli had picked the worst time of the year to return to the land of her birth. Why now, when she could have gone literally anywhere else and potentially been happy? Precisely that she has been everywhere, and found happiness nowhere. Upon her back---golden wings, transplanted there from her exchange with the fairies. She had seen them first—and her magic, the glorious stuff, was gone.
The sound of a river was nearby, and her ears flick towards the sound—her body soon follows, swaying with all the promise of—well, something. She was beautiful and nobody’s fool. A former Queen, former magician—former everything.
For the moment, a woman with nothing, looking to build something new.
But the thirst of a new life was where she would start.
She dips her head to drink, her black tail careened down her back like the train of a beautiful dress; her feathers, preened and perfect laying against taut skin. The water is cold and clear and perfect, and her thoughts turn towards finding the common lands. Of all places, they had been the most protected; surely they survived the Reckoning. Once she has had her fill, she turns north, towards where the water lets out into a small lake. The scent of another is overwhelming, and she is immediately put on guard. Her eyes search the banks; coming to rest upon a shadow—a man clothed in black, staring pensively at the water.
Charlemagne tilts her head, flaring her nostrils and shifting her weight, her muscles flexing under her pristine form. She is not prepared to break his reverie. And so she starts to turn, presenting her profile to him—a golden bird against a drab white canvas.
Thus begins the story of Charlemagne and Stillwater.