"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
05-11-2020, 12:07 AM (This post was last modified: 05-11-2020, 10:05 AM by ghaul.)
GHAUL
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
He lands with a thud in the snowdrifts of Nerine. Snow still swirls in a small cyclone around him from the gust his wings have kicked up. When he arrives, the scent of blood is thick in his nostrils. A series of thoughtful clicks escape his throat before he ventures further into their kingdom. Although he is still suspicious of what exactly is going on, he finds himself growing concerned with unraveling the mystery presented to him. None of it makes sense to him no matter how he tries to look at Lilliana’s story.
Ghaul lifts his head and gives a short screech to announce his arrival to the Nerinians. Normally they had been so quick to approach him, but the snow continues to fall silently around him. His small ears swivel forward and back as he strains to catch the sound of snapping twigs or the crunching of footsteps in the snow. If they are dead before he managed to set fire to their homeland, then he would find their attacker and destroy them.
His anger blooms like a dark flower as he stalks through Nerine. Finally, he stands at the edge of the cliffs with the wind chilling his face as it rolls off the frigid waves. The world all around him is blue and black with the winter cold. Perhaps their attacker is already gone? Ghaul grumbles to himself as he mulls over the thought of using scent to track down whatever monster Lilliana had spoken of.
this is for anyone who wants to tell ghaul about wolfbane attacking, or maybe bargaining between nerine and pangea.
The thick scent of blood lures her north, carried by the thick winter breeze down along the Taigan coast. She’s followed it here to Nerine, and though she casts about for hours she finds no sign of the victim. She knows the attacker, of course, but the falling snow has obscured any trail the wounded horse might have made. Wounded, she knows, because if her father had meant to kill the Nerenian queen she would be dead where he struck her. Celina does not know why her father had chosen his victim, but she knows better than to doubt him. He has been in a temper since, glowering through the woods, and so she cannot ask him. Instead she has come here to find what she can, to report back the results of his actions so that he need not bother with gathering the information himself.
Celina is a good daughter, after all.
The screech catches her attention, and the pale mare becomes quite still. Against the white snow she is somewhat camoflauged, but when she sees the caller at the edge of the cliff she realizes that it is useless.
She is no Nerinian, and so waits to answer his call long enough that she hopes that is clear. When she does, taking flight and soaring upward to where he stands on the rocky outcropping, it is with a good amount of distance between them. From there she looks him over carefully, perhaps rude in the amount of time it takes. He should be grotesque with those stwisting horns instead of eyes, but Celina admires the points of them, and of his teeth and the brilliantly marked talons. This monster looks like it could eat her for dinner, and she is instantly besotted.
Celina had thought her vicious sister-in-law and the toothsome kelpie woman the most beautiful things she had seen, but she decides now that Reia and Rivuline are nothing beside him.
“Can I help you?” She asks him, her words slurred by the long shape of her mouth and her many teeth. How shall she woo him, Celina wonders? Shall she hunt something down for him? Or perhaps she should attack him now to show her strength? Her pale eyes look for soft places where she might sink her teeth – perhaps just below the wing? If she tears the leather of them to shreds, mayhap she can ground him for a long enough time to convince him he will make her a good mate.
@[Ghaul]
celina i'm that bad type, make-your-mama-sad type make-your-girlfriend-mad type, might-seduce-your-dad type
05-12-2020, 12:50 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2020, 12:50 PM by Amarine.)
Tornados from a butterfly's wing
She was but a tender yearling, stepping out into the late season snow from the cavern she'd been sheltering in. It had been days since she'd last seen Neverwhere, and worry caught at her heart like a thorn. Deep down, she couldn't help but wonder if the elder mare had finally gotten tired of her, but that made no sense. If she had, it was Ama who would have been told to go. Neverwhere cared about Nerine too much to abandon it for the sake of one small girl.
She might have stayed inside all day, huddled against herself and watching the snow spin to the ground endlessly. The sound that drew her out however, was strange enough to pull her from the relative warmth and out into the open.
By now her dainty hooves knew the paths and pitfalls of her home, even hidden beneath the blanket of white. It took little enough time to seek out the strangness. Less, because the tremors and stabs of emotion that grew from faint suggestions to vivid pulses of Anger and-
She paused, heat rising in her cheeks. An undercurrent of Lust had risen. That was not usually a helpful trail to follow. But the scream, the Anger, decided her. If someone needed help, she was bound to do what she could. It was worth the possibility of an uncomfortable encounter.
When the feelings grew their strongest, she emerged over the crest of a snow hill to see two strangers casting their shadows on the icy background. Strangers not only because she had never met them before, but because she'd never meet anyone even like them before. One winged, that was normal enough. But as the dark little pony girl approached, she noticed the rather macabre growth of spiring horns from where his eyes should be. It was ghastly, but... Her eyes were weird too.
He was the source of Anger, and it was this and not the strange eyes that made her give him distance as she neared. The other, the mare, was the one who exuded Lust. Waves of it, making the vivid yearling feel warm and very aware of herself as she absorbed the sensation. "Can you stop that?" She asked, unthinking. Only that she wanted the feeling of physical hunger to halt, or at least simmer down to a reasonably low level. Grown ups were so gross sometimes, with their feelings.
Standing as firmly as a yearling pony could, she eyed both parties sternly with her translucent stone eyes. It was an expression that unknowingly copied the one shop frequently found on Neverwhere, a look that said she very clearly had no time for this nonsense. It translated somewhat comically between the scar-faced mare and her velvety ward.
"Who are you and what do you want," she asked, a little snippy. "It's just that you're making a bit of a ruckus." Disapproval coated this addition. She kept both adults in her blue-tinged sight, standing primly between them. Neverwhere wasn't here, so someone had to keep things in order.
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
He watches the outlines of Celina as she draws near, coming into focus a little more with each step. Ghaul sniffs lightly at the air and he is curious about her scent. She smells like scales but not like his. There is no smoke or fire to her, either. His head slowly tilts as he examines the length of her jaw and the little teeth peeking out between them.
Without invitation, he closes the distance between them and extends his neck so that his lips trace the contours of her face. There is no concept of beauty for him but rather the mundane and the strange. Celina might have fallen into the mundane category in another life, one where others could find her pretty and easy to look at. But in this one she is unusual – something he likes. So while she does not fan the flames of his heart, she does seem like an excellent hunting partner.
Before he can answer her question, though, he spots another blooming spot of warmth coming closer. This one smells of neither smoke nor scales, but he remains interested in their body language. Perhaps they have the answers he seeks? Amarine offers only callous words instead and he finds himself disappointed.
“Perhaps you can hunt your own monsters, then. You’ve done an excellent job so far,” he replies with a rasping laugh. His voice lacks any genuine malice to it, but his strange humor could easily be taken as such. His smile after is sincere when he regards her. “I am Ghaul, king of Pangea. I come at the request of your Lilliana to track whatever is hunting your people.”
Here, he turns his head to the scent of that blood long cooled in the snow. The grin across his scarred lips grows wider as his crooked teeth show. Ghaul hopes it is something worthy of his time, something that will fight back and reward him with more scars.
“But if I darken your doorway, I will return to my home and tell her I was not welcome here.”
the secret of walking on water is knowing where the rocks lie
Her visit to Taiga had clarified one thing - where Lilli had gone off to this time. However, the chestnut was still stolen and Neverwhere still nowhere to be seen in the rocky seaside kingdom. Wen had looked for Brazen, but come to the conclusion that the mare was just not that much of a diplomat, though she could surprise at times.
The situation was worrisome to say the least, but at least she had hope that one of them would return safe and sound. How odd then, to find Ghaul on her doorstep and not Neverwhere - and with a little crowd, too. One of them had come from the south - though in Nerine, most anything is south. The scaled mare wasn’t any different from the one time they met in Taiga, with Reia - she couldn’t recall her name, but she seemed mostly indifferent, if not fascinated by the ruckus; though perhaps Ghaul intrigued her, and that was the explanation right now. She probably wouldn’t be the first, Wen would think - at the very least she hasn’t come to meet the call just to be iffy about another woman’s taste. She gives her a nod in greeting, but otherwise doesn’t think she is here to talk to any of Nerine’s diplomats in the moment.
Amarine puts on a bold face and bolder words, but the dotted mare had learned by now that it wouldn’t phase the dragon-horse. As she closes in on the group, she chooses her position carefully close to the gemstone girl, brushing by her side shortly as a way of affection and greeting, and a little warning to perhaps leave most of the talking, swallow whatever words would come next. The girl is of her own as much as her twins - even more so now that two of her mothers are missing - but that doesn’t mean that her current brash behaviour was very much appreciated for the situation.
”Ghaul, how nice of you to offer.” she starts, knowing full well that he probably has more than just a weakness of heart to come chase a monster out of Nerine - a monster she personally never had a chance to meet. ”And congratulations, as well, I hear.” she adds, having picked up on the word king, no longer being heir. He didn’t like her last time, as much as she had displayed her dislike of him - or maybe just his careless burning of the forest. It was a small fire in comparison to the Isle, sure - that didn’t mean she’d had to like it though. She smiles ruefully, remembering the wish he’d expressed to eat her slowly at the time. She wonders briefly if he holds a grudge, but she’ll soon find out from his response.
Brutal and forceful he may be however, she has no reason not to believe him. He was never much of a liar, and he reasonably would have spoken with Lilliana since her being stolen. ”I’m afraid Neverwhere’s ears are not around to greet you this time. If there is a monster out here like Lilli says, it’s perhaps most likely that when you find one, there might be the other.” she reasons,
though her tone is questioning enough at the end for him to know she can’t be certain on this idea.
There is still much she’d like to know about the situation but she doesn’t think the scaled man is much of a talker or diplomat in that regard. Some questions can wait a year, for a certain chestnut mare to return, if he is not in the mood right now. As long as he doesn’t set fire to her home again, he can visit, as far as she is concerned.
The dragonlike creature lurches closer, and Celina’s mouth falls open in a sharp-toothed warning that he cannot see to heed. She will forgive him for this, she decides as he traces the shape of her face with his; it is not his fault fate has blinded him to a woman’s signs that he has come too close. He’s overcome fate’s handicaps, it seems, and for that Celina allows this transgression. She might want him, but it would be on her terms, in her time. Now is certainly not the time, so she snaps warningly at the air beside his soft muzzle.
Can he breathe fire?
This is a concern Celina had not considered before acting, and she remembers only now her father’s warnings about dragons.
Perhaps fortunately, he turns away from her then, toward a soft voice to her side. Celina had not heard the filly’s arrival, she was so focused on the winged creature in front of her. Fool, she thinks of herself, and hides the embarrassment in a low hiss at the bejeweled little creature in front of her. The black child is covered with crystals, their blue-green depths shimmering even in the weak winter light. Celina's irritation changes immediately to fascination, and she draws nearer without thought. From where they had clung, unseen in her deep blue mane, fireflies begin to flicker. They’re an unconscious sign of her lack of caution, and they light the air around her in a yellow-green haze as she draws nearer the girl who tells them they are making a ruckus.
Celina does not notice the creature’s scowl, and she is only passingly familiar with the queen that Amarine emulates so well. She might have come closer still, as close as Ghaul had, but the sound of that stallion’s voice pulls her attention away. He speaks of monsters, and Celina scowls. Hunting monsters? He means her father, Celina realizes. The last time she had seen Wolfbane he’d spoken of finding refuge in Pangea, yet the Pangean king is here now to track him down. Nash’s mother was in Pangea? The frown that mars her long face deepens as he continues to speak, an ugly expression that she does not change for the arrival of a spotted mare.
She has seen the woman before, but she can’t think of where. The meadow, perhaps? Or as a child? The woman is by far the most skilled at conversation among the adults gathered, though Celina rather likes the casual way that Ghaul speaks of hunts and violence. The mare with the fetching spots and intriguing marking says something about someone’s ears, and then she too speaks of monsters.
The mare shakes the last of the instinctual haze from her mind and focuses on the conversation at hand. It has been some time since she has felt anything other than her most primal emotions, but the worry is so strong that it wakes her not much differently than a splash of a cold wave against her face might. He’s hunting Wolfbane, and with this attack on their queen, Nerine might soon be hunting Wolfbane as well. The northern woods behind her seem suddenly rife with danger. The fear of being trapped is stronger even than the worry, stronger than the interest that peaks when Ghaul grins and shows a delightfully large amount of teeth. The filly’s request be damned, Celina thinks, she will have this one. There is a mate somewhere in Pangea to convince, she knows, having caught the undeniably feminine scent that is interwoven in Ghaul’s scales so tightly she can only be a lover. No barrier is insurmountable, and Celina has many years yet before she finds a beautiful mate of her own and the two of them have need of a father for their children. Time enough to convince him, even if she need beat him bloody.
The thought of that does soften the scowl on her face a little.
“I will visit Lilliana in Pangea,” Celina announces. “I have news for her from her son.” This is a lie, but a convenient one that she knows the two Nerinians cannot prove. Not unless either has mind magic, the bad magic. The thought makes the hair on Celina’s silver back stand on end. Her proclamation is not especially relevant to the topic, so she begins to step away. Her white wings flare out around her when there is space enough, the sky and navy blue badges at her shoulders in the same pattern as her mother’s wings. Her departure is likely to be viewed as suspicious, but Celina does not care. She needs to find her father and tell him of this. There is much he needs to be made aware of, and she has only the faintest idea where to begin looking for him.
@[Amarine]
celina i'm that bad type, make-your-mama-sad type make-your-girlfriend-mad type, might-seduce-your-dad type
ooc: celina can be assumed to be leaving unless someone stops her
05-12-2020, 08:42 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2020, 08:43 PM by Amarine.)
Tornados from a butterfly's wing
Perplexed, the shaggy coated girl tipped her head at the strange man. Monsters? It was then that she caught and registered the metallic edge the snow carried here. Noted the dark hollows where warm liquid had melted through the icy crust. Never before had she smelled blood like this, but that was what it must be. Her stomach turned in the horror of understanding.
He invoked her aunt Lilli, and that added another layer of confusion. She opened her mouth, ready to put voice to her bemusement when a softer presence joined them. Aunt Wen, composed and calm on the outside, while traces of her own worry threaded in the feelings hanging on her frame. The soft touch of her muzzle to the girl's shoulder was all it took to cause her jaw to snap shut again, but the question hasn't left her mind. If Aunt Lilli was their prisoner, why was this imposing stallion, this King, doing her a favor?
The gem studded girl stared at him unashamed, trying to reason it out between the grown-up's more sideways conversation. Gradually, her attention slipped from what was being said, to what was being felt.
King Ghaul thought he was Funny, though Ama waa struggling to connect his words with his humor. He was Hungry, always hungry and this was an Exciting hunt for him. He practically glowed with the Thrill when he spoke of monsters and hunting. The filly decided he was more like the wolves that roamed the edges of the forest than any other horse she'd met. Instinct and Hunger and feral Bloodlust, very little else. That was what frightened her, more than his looks ever could.
Aunt Wen was Scared. Things were not how they were supposed to be, and that made Ama press more closely against the light spotted mare's side. But her Aunt was also Wary, and a little Doubtful. Not for the first time, the darkling girl wished she could tell what others were thinking, not just feeling. It would make things so much easier if she could.
Last she tuned in to the scaled woman, almost as viciously endowed as the blind king. She was the least interesting to the girl, mostly because her emotions were almost entirely centered on very physical things, things Ama had not yet learned to be curious about. But mingled with those feelings were tinges of the same Bloodlust Ghaul felt, the Euphoria of the hunt. The girl's black velvet nose wrinkled subconsciously at the feeling.
She was deep in the emotions now, almost blind to the physical events taking place. When Celina's thoughts sharpened suddenly, throwing Focus and then Fear in jagged waves. Amarine felt her own heartbeat pick up the pace in response to the proxied adrenaline surge, her eyes widened as Danger took over. Her own little feet began to follow in the sharp toothed female's tracks as she began to walk away, before the cut of ice on her legs shocked her from her emotional reverie.
"You're lying. Why are you lying?"
Amarine stood facing the scaly mare, the words out before she could rethink them. She'd had every intention of obeying Aunt Wen's tacit command to be silent. But it was certain, she had felt Insincerity before the her focus had broken, and now the mare casting it stood ready to part, wings spread wide. Suddenly urgent, the black coated filly turned to look at Eurwen, hoping the elder mare would know what to do.
05-12-2020, 09:49 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2020, 09:50 PM by ghaul.)
GHAUL
And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire
He turns from the child and focuses his attentions of the third to approach him. The drake sniffs at the air and her scent, coupled with her voice, confirms that he is somewhat familiar with this one. It is not the violent armored girl or the stub-eared Neverwhere, but he does not know them by names. In his mind, she is the one who sought to cage him. Her voice is calm when she speaks though and so he is not inclined to disrupt the relative peace between them all, apprehensive as it may be for some.
“Lilliana tells me the monster wears my skin. I want to see if its blood tastes like mine, too,” he explains as his black tongue eagerly fidgets within his mouth. The last opponent he felt he might truly struggle to overcome had been Sochi, when his scales were not yet hardened and his fire not so hot. How thrilling it would be to find an adversary now that he is in his prime.
But Eurwen tells him that neither the monster nor their queen is anywhere to be found within these borders. He does not understand the morals of this world, of doing what is good or evil, but he knows that he had intended for her to face the fire with the rest of her people. This time, at least, it would serve his own interests to keep Nerine safe from whatever stalked in their shadows. A snort leaves him and he mulls over the problem a little more. Perhaps this will be a long hunt after all.
“Then I will track her scent. The Nerinians should sleep within sight of one another until she returns. If your monster comes back, you will have advantage in numbers,” he says flatly, almost as a command. Had this problem arose within his own borders, there would be no suggestions to his voice. But then again, the pack would actively hunt together until they took down anyone who threatened their own. Ghaul does not believe most of the northern kingdom has the stomach for the savagery in which he revels.
He turns his head to observe Celina when she speaks. The stars across his curling horns and cheek bones glimmer softly as he listens to her. Initially, he is quick to dismiss this since it just barely concerns him, but the child that had grown silent is quick to speak up now. His large head tilts to consider her accusations. Lying? Ghaul’s wings spread halfway as his mood shifts, darkens.
“Lying?” he echoes aloud this time. “The scaled one?”
His wings stretch further now as the corners of his lips peel back into a grin once more. Ghaul’s talons knead the frozen ground eagerly as his focus shifts to Celina, eyeing her feathery wings as saliva pools across his tongue. Could she outrun him? Could she bite through his scales? The questions draw a shiver down the length of his spine.
05-13-2020, 12:40 PM (This post was last modified: 05-13-2020, 12:40 PM by Eurwen.)
Eurwen
the secret of walking on water is knowing where the rocks lie
She has little to offer the hunter, but she is weirdly glad he came all the same. Deep down, she knows it is just because he doesn’t want others to hurt what he’d claimed as his prey, his to maim, but right now it’s all the same to her. If he is able to track down Neverwhere - or at least her ears, which might indicate where she had gone, at least temporarily so that they might pick up a trail - then at least she had an idea what happened, and if the mare was still capable of ruling at the moment. And an idea of what was terrorizing their coastline, although honestly, she thought it was an oddly specific behaviour, indicating some sense to this monster-being.
She’s about to say something of the like, but she is distracted by the behaviour of the others currently present. The scaled mare turns to take her leave, saying she has a message for Lilliana from her son. This makes Wen frown a little, wondering which son she means and why through this Taigan predatory mare, but of all those around, it seems that none pays attention enough for them to see it, as even Ama is focused on the leaving mare.
And it is Ama, indeed, who says something about it, though Eurwen might not have said it as directly as the girl had; but there is no need now anyway for diplomacy. Ghaul seems to change into something more dangerous before her eyes - it is interesting to see that he doesn’t tolerate lies, a side of him she had never seen. (Though, in fact, she had only seen him burn for no reason that she could see.) There must be more to him than her first impression, and for now, she would rather heed his warnings than be sorry later.
Anyway, it’s the kind of warning she would have issued on another, as well.
She watches the scene play out before her eyes, then turns her attention to the mare as well. ”What are you not telling us?” she interjects softly - softly, but her voice is rather stony and edgy - into the silence that falls after Ama and Ghaul’s accusation and question.
“I did not invite you into my head, little shiny.” Celina tells the bejeweled filly who pursues her. The mare’s voice is disgusted, but Amarine is likely to find fear strongest of her emotions. She has stopped moving backward at the accusation, and her wings remain flared as she lowers her head with ears pinned back. Ghaul repeats the accusation as a question, and the mare’s pale eyes turn to him. Beneath the snow, she hears what she knows are talons digging into the earth, and she can taste the tension in the air. It feels like a hunt, like he might launch himself at her any moment, forgetting his hunt for her father entirely.
Amarine will be disgusted again as Celina slowly licks her longest tooth, but perhaps this can be her lesson in how quickly emotions shift in those who allowed themselves to be governed by base instinct. Amarine with her dirty magic is a threat, but she is also small, and Celina is sure that she can dispatch her quickly. The ban on harming the Nerinians has surely been lifted by her father’s assault on their Queen. If he can attack them openly, surely he will not begrudge Celina the necessity of eliminating any that are threats?
Get rid of the filly, and lure the stallion away so he might forget the hunt he is currently on.
Her plan of action seems clear enough, and she even lifts one dark hoof to move that last step she needs to reach Amarine when the words of the spotted mare remind Celina that the three of them are not alone. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’ the woman asks, breaking Celina’s focus for the second time. She growls, low in her throat, irritated at being reminded that the child has a parent (or at least an adult) to defend her. Celina had been certain of her chances against a child, but who knows what the spotted mare is hiding beneath her colorful skin. She might have the same sort of filthy ability that the girl has, the kind that she has warned Nashua of.
“Many things,” she replies, knowing that there is no dishonesty in her words this time. Celina believes these things. “Your queen deserved what she got, and you will never catch the one who did it.” The last she ends while looking back at Ghaul, still slavering in her direction. His hunt is impossible, she seems to be saying. Will that anger him, she wonders? She hopes it, really – Celina would like to see what he is like when he is angry. Eager to rid herself the other two, the distractions, the winged mare says dismissively: “You should have listened when you were warned before. Then you might have been prepared for him when he came.” That last is untrue – there is no preparing for a monster – but Celina hopes they will become busy blaming themselves and leave her to her other pursuits.
She needs to find her father, and if she gets to test herself against the sharp toothed dragon before she does so, all the better.
@[Ghaul]
celina i'm that bad type, make-your-mama-sad type make-your-girlfriend-mad type, might-seduce-your-dad type
