"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
06-01-2020, 08:11 PM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2020, 08:44 AM by Cassi.)
Things are odd, at the mountain.
The gates of the afterlife remain flung open, and things stir beneath it, things that ate out of Beqanna’s control. But the mountain stands tall, as it has for so long, their monument to magic, their place of requests. Its well-worn paths serve them, and the faeries delight upon its peak.
It's almost peaceful, or, as peaceful as Beqanna knows how to be. Peace is not a common thing, here, with the constant ebb and flow of thrones changing hands, with the gates of the underworld flung open.
Something rumbles, in the heart of the mountain. No one knows what. There is a shift, but this does not matter – not now. The rumble extends further, reaches the surface of the mountain, and the dust blows.
It blows from the mountaintop, and it is soaked in magic, whipping through an errant breeze. It flows down, and whips across their cheeks, stinging – and changing. Not all of them, but some. A touch of magic, in their skin. Sometimes it yields to their wishes – conscious or not – and sometimes it does not, instead making changes that are unasked for, or even unwanted.
Magic is fickle, you see.
The wind blows, and the mountain’s dust whips on, finding them, changing them.
OOC:
-Free 0 space trait alert!
-Reply to this post, IC, describing how the dust affects your horse (random, asked for, perceived punishment, perceived gift, whatever) and what their trait is. Please also make a clear OOC note describing 0-space trait your horse is claiming (e.g. “Bob is claiming Cloven Hooves.”)
-One 0-space trait per player.
-If you don’t have a specific 0-space trait in mind, you can ask the faerie to roll to see what your characters gets, just tag the Krav Fairy (or message Cassi on discord)
-Reply by June 8th, 11:59 PM CST to claim your trait
06-02-2020, 02:16 PM (This post was last modified: 06-02-2020, 06:08 PM by Locheed.)
It's a strange, easterly wind that wakes her, and not because of the way it pulls at her sort mane or tickles her nose. Locheed lifts her head from the pillow of her twin's shoulder, Laia's outreached wing falling away from where it had draped across her sisters back... and she feels sick.
Her stomach turns uncomfortably, the way it had the first time she tried eating meat instead of grass: a hard lump sitting heavily below her ribs. She stands as the wind blows harder, and against the glow of the volcano, she can see it does not come empty-handed.
The air is full of a fine dust that burns her eyes, and she looks around to see if she is the only one who notices this, who feels this. And oh, how terrible it makes her feel. The pale cords of her tail snap against her barrel in agitation and she takes a step towards the sleeping forms of her mother and father.
But the wind keeps moving (taking its evil dust with it) and the strange feeling in her belly begins to fade. Locheed's lip curls back to reveal the flash of ivory fangs, but as the churning in her guts slows, she halts. Unsure of what has happened, but not feeling like explaining it and having to answer hundreds of questions, she gives a glare to the west and sinks back down into the grass at her sister's side - making sure to cause just enough of a commotion to get a grumble out of her twin before falling asleep until dawn.
OOC: I would like to give locheed egg laying! Thank you!
The night creeps by peacefully in the Taiga woods. How many days has she felt true peace? One not masked by the comfort of her gift, though she wraps it tightly around herself now. The disappearance of her mate and her son, the turmoil of Pangea and the North, the heavy weight of responsibility that she had taken upon herself, it would all suffocate her with out her security blanket of peace.
This day was no different, her dreams riddled with terrors and pleasures keeping her in a restless sort of sleep. One particular dream found her in a flurry of dust. It stings her soft, velvet cheeks. Kissing them like a ruthless lover, changing her very being.
The kiss of magic pulls at her blanket, soaking it with more magic. It grows heavy and then with no warning the dust leaves, and all that is left is the soft, deep purple glow of the peace she holds so dearly. Unbeknownst to her that it was not simply a dream, and as her eyes flutter with her mind to the next unsettling dream her body now generates a physical blanket of soft, deep, purple glow so that all who looked upon her could see just how much she relied on her gift of peace.
A facade.
Ooc: Izora Lethia has glowing, an all over soft, deep purple.
06-02-2020, 05:14 PM (This post was last modified: 06-02-2020, 05:15 PM by Skeleton Ghoul.)
if i stare into the abyss, will it stare into me?
It takes ages for the dust to drift into Taiga.
But when it does, it's strangeness evokes a visceral dread in the titan's stomach. It wasn't natural -- no, it was merely dust, but it moved with a certain terrifying purpose, like a fog hell bent on enveloping everything around it, or a pyroclastic flow hurtling down a mountain side to destroy everything in it's path.
Skeleton Ghoul ran from it. His dinner-plate sized hooves churned the ground beneath him, sending up rotten tree debris with every cantering step. But no matter how far he ran, he was there. Behind him. Waiting like a predator with gnashing teeth for him to tire. Eventually, he did, and a wayward root caught his step.
Crashing to his knees, the black stallion looks over his shoulder, feeling his heart shudder with trepidation. He gets back up, turning to face the encroaching dust, ears laid back against his neck. He stands and faces it, and whatever evil it may bring. But the evil it treats him with is pain. An agonizing, white hot burn in his very veins that pulses with his thready heartbeat. Skeleton Ghoul can barely take it, blackness ringing his vision.
He wakes some time later, and all evidence of the dust has vanished. Despite his ordeal, the stallion notes that he feels ... spectacular. Better than he has felt in years. What the devil was that all about?
He stands beneath the shadow of the volcano that seems to breath with life of its own. It rumbles and groans, its molten epicenter thrumming dully. It has never erupted, even in the years before Warden was born, and even before his father had come across Tephra as a young stallion. The volcano seems to value its people that worship it, looming above them all like a tall, still giant - a silent protector amongst the tropical jungle and black sand beaches and roaring ocean waves. Its black plume is a constant reminder, however, that lava can spew forth at any moment and Warden’s deep, navy gaze stares up at the black volcanic rock in silent sentiment and respect.
In the distance he can hear the cry of the gulls, squawking loudly in protest as they fight over the remnants of fish caught in the tide pools along the beach, as well as the steady sound of low tide hissing over sand. He listens carefully; black tipped ears flick behind him towards the sea, wondering if the sound of her voice would come tinkling through all of the noise. For a moment, the ivory of his lashes close around the dark ocean color of his eyes and he pictures her, not in the way his vision did but the way he wanted to - curled in beside him, like they were nights ago.
He swallows hard, immediately overcome with concern. His vision left him little to interpret, but the horned overo stallion felt it his duty to keep careful sight on her to prevent her from succumbing to whatever fate he had seen. His eyes open with a sharp snort to find ash from the volcano littering the air like snow. He tilts his head up, blinking away the flakes that brush against his lashes and sharp cheek bones, looking to the darkening plume that rises from the volcano. A familiar sight and sensation for a man born in Tephra, but that sense of familiarity soon begins to change.
It is not ash that falls against his auburn and alabaster skin; it doesn’t stain his coat and his vibrant white wings with soot like it so often does. There is a glimmer within the dust that falls around him, much like a mist after a heated thunderstorm on the summer winds. He feels it soak into his skin much like water does, absorbing into each crevice as if it was meant to be there. His mouth falls into a hard line, wondering why such an occurrence would be happening without one of his visions first, but he soon relaxes - if he hasn’t seen it before now, it must not be anything too destructive.
Warden turns to begin his walk towards the shoreline, the dust still spackling onto his skin as he walks through it. He feels no change, but the next person he encounters would notice the shining dark blue of his thick twisting horns that would match nearly perfectly in color to each of his hooves.
WARDEN
Warden is receiving jeweled touch for dark blue opal horns and hooves!
I've seen devils, i've seen saints I've seen the line between them fade
I lay sleeping, fitful and alone. My mother is gone again, and I don't know when she'll be back. Longer and longer leaves me, and I know one day it will be the last time. My stomach aches and whines even when I'm not aware of it, my body hungry for nourishment it receives far too little of. Instead I dream, and dreams let me escape my reality.
I dream of stars and storms. Of flying like my mother, free of the earth. Or slipping beneath the water like she does, to the cool and quiet of the deep river. Places she goes because she knows I can't follow, and that's all I want to do. My mother is beautiful, and powerful, and I'm a stone about her neck. If I were more like her, maybe she would want me then.
Unknown to my sleeping senses, a mischievous wind blows. It carries dust, simple dust, from high on the mountain's peak. It does not sparkle or glow or anything unusual, but when the wind carries it to my little bed of tall grasses, it's power is made known. My coat, unkempt and raggedy, draws the fine particles like iron to lodestone. Where it touches it burns.
My coat, solid and inky dark reacts aggressively to the fey dust. It ignites and crackles softly in lichtenburg lines, branching and spreading until I glow in electric pulses. My heartbeat, made visual. Lightning, made tame. I snort in my sleep. Kick erratically at my dreams.
When I wake, i will be that much closer to my mother. And it will still not be enough.
TARTE
OOC: Tarte now has Lightning Markings, were carried now expressed <3
Shipka is sullen tonight, the delicate features of her faced curling into a petulant frown as she wanders the meadow near the border with red Pangea. She idly searches for Islas the starwoman, but, like the stars that hide behind the thick layer of black cloud above, she is nowhere to be seen. Time and time again, Shipka reaches out, she even calls softly into the pitch of night, but only a passing stranger calls back, hallooing into the darkness, and then rushing off awkwardly when the midnight blue girl freezes and remains silent, nearly invisible.
She does not think he saw her and she wonders what he thought as he scurried away.
A rumbling that is not thunder catches her attention and Shipka turns to look for its source, the Mountain is close here and its noise vibrates against the soles of her feets, a growling, crashing, an exhalation. Grey eyes glance upwards in time to see the cloud that pours form the mountain center, and perhaps she should be more startled than she is, perhaps she should be more wary, but she knows only the joy of magic, and she lives so near Pangea that she is certainly not about to be troubled by a bit of dust.
With a wag of her flowered tail, Shipka turns away from the Mountain and its magic cloud, returning to her fruitless search for stars, for Islas, for anyone that is like her, searching night sky. The dust cloud settles heavily on her as she wishes - and not for the first time - for this muted feeling to be burned away by a taste of starlight.
The change comes on her suddenly, but it is subtle at first. It is hard to tell the difference between a foal-short mane and the black, starry wisps like that curl softly at her neck like clouds. Without hair, the flowers in her mane gather along her crest and at the dock of her tail, resting in the strange place where flesh turns to darkness. The starlight catches her attention, of course, startlingly close. Shipka gasps, sucking in a lungful of heavy magic dust that sets her to coughing and crying, wheezing and weaving in circles trying to catch an awkward glimpse at the patch of brilliant night sky the clings to her as desperately as she had sought it.
It is not the same, she finds, it is like the magic she can draw at noon when the Sun sits at his peak and spreads his bright rays across the land, smothering the distant stars with his flame. Barely enough to shift an acorn, she thinks, with a smirk, and yet, the music of the stars hums gently in her ears again, and perhaps that is enough, for now.
Photo by guille pozzi on Unsplash
Shipka's mane and tail have been turned into tiny nebulas and without any hair to grow in, her flowers sit along her crest and tailbone because I cannot get on board with flowers floating through space.
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
Her father had told her the mountain was a strange, awful place that should be avoided. As her mother sleeps beside her, Echis keeps her bright eyes trained on the outline of the mountain against the backdrop of the stars. Larva is a strange, awful thing and she can’t decide if that makes him an authority on the matter or a biased fool. The rumbling shoves her heart up into her throat and she tucks herself closer to Ryatah’s side as she peeks over her sleeping form.
The dust shimmers and swirls across the wind as it blows over them. Her mother hardly stirs but Echis finds herself coughing and sputtering as she breathes it in. Involuntary tears run down her cheeks from her wheezing as she closes her eyes tight. When she opens her eyes, her vision is still blurry with tears and she extends a small hoof to nudge Ryatah awake.
“Mama,” she gasps, “I don’t feel very good.”
Her mother’s wing curls over her and hugs her close as she coos softly to her. Echis pouts and whimpers for a few seconds more before a kiss to her temple soothes her headache and alleviates her worry. Come tomorrow, the dawn will find her shimmering in pink jewels, but for now she is simply a sleeping child tucked safely beneath an angel wing.
Echis is now jewel touched with morganite and rose quartz. Thank you!!
that day even the sun was afraid of you and the weight you carried
Firion has not been alive long enough to know when things are odd.
To know when there is a change in the tide, a shift in the winds. He simply knows the things that make him a boy—that make him alive. He knows the way that the water tastes sweet on his tongue and the way it feels to sleep underneath the wide open expanse of the Hyaline sky. He knows the simple pleasures of life, as any young boy should. His father had even taken a sporadic interest in him—teaching him the way of the predator. It struck him as odd how he would sometimes find Atrox’s sharp eyes on him, sometimes almost thoughtful as if trying to pick at something under his skin, but never dwelled on it.
Today though. Today rises him early and brings him to the edge of the Mountain.
Leaves him there standing with his head tilted back and his wide, gold eyes curious.
Leaves him feeling a strange strike of sorrow, a weight that settles on him.
When the wind whips across him, when the dust strikes his eyes and finds his lungs, he has no word for it. Does not understand the sudden bitterness on his tongue or the agony that begins to scream through his veins. He does not understand the burning, searing pain across his spine. The cracking of his marrow.
He takes a deep breath and tastes something like the copper of his own blood on the back of his tongue but he does not know why. He frowns, his mouth creasing in the corners, and takes a step back.
Something different, but he does not know what. Something is wrong, but he does not know why. The day stretches long before him and, behind it, the night—and, with it, answers he should never have wanted.
so you saluted every ghost you've ever prayed to and then buried it where bones are buried
Claiming Cursed for Firion because he should not have nice things.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts,
with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts,
he thrusts his fists against the posts
and still insists he sees the ghosts.
In this world, her life had frozen between a dreamless sleep and night terrors. A horror tinged in pink and white as she wilted and shrunk against the bruised purples and greens of an angry nightmare. She is calling outward but her voice is too weak and lost against the dying wails of a storm drenched delusion. It rages, her body beaten between tall trees as she searches and searches.
Beqanna wakens her with deep vibrations in her wretched soul. The black eyes flutter open from breath sooty lashes sand they blink rapidly, wet and wide. Was she still in the safe compound of her cave home? Did her gardens still flourish in their depths with her obsessive nurturing? No, no...it’s all vanished despite her efforts to run from her roots.
Upon wooden limbs, the cherry blossom mare finds her points. A soft moan of pain wracks against her gritted teeth, gnashing them tightly as she suffers to erect herself. The petals lift and fall around her as though they attempt to create a soft shield for their garden maiden mother but it is all a fruitless diversion to her reality.
Beqanna...
It floods too fast into her bones and makes her woozy, unstable. She titters and nearly collapses but instinct drives one wooden leg outward to maintain her grip on the ground. How had this magic returned her? Had she not escaped. Nikoline draws a breath...bright green life and crisp rain waters...was this still the same Beqanna she had fled so many years ago? Her head feels far too heavy to lift as it sinks slowly, her eyes rolling upward in spite of the action to watch as a dust coated the hazy sky and her own silver skin.
It floats downward, picking though her petals and slipping between the curves of her mare-ish form. The particles pry their way into her damp eyes and soon are ingested from her heaving sides. There is magic in the air and it prickles with danger. Nikoline can not feel sorry for herself for she has been returned for a reason yet to be revealed. Her doe-like eyes are half lidded and heavy as she looks to the ground, to her body, to inspect for damage...as she soon notices her glow returns to her skin...
In this world, she had not yet gained her aura...and yet, here it is! A small spark of hope flickers within the small cavern of her heart. Could her life be different now? Could she break from the image of the small, ungifted and unloved, filly?
”Yes.”
Because she has too. Her fate did not permit her otherwise.
Speech, @tagged
TABLE BY CISSY, ART BY ELDAFER
Nikoline now has glowing as her 0 space trait. Thank you so much! I missed my girl and it was amazing that she was the one to speak up for this quest after so many years!
