[open] skin to bone, steel to rust.

[Set]

He's quiet. Pensive.

He'd sent his brooding son to search the underworlds for Frostreaver a full four seasons ago but it was only yesterday Niklas' hound had brought him news they'd found her.

Ill-suited to long bouts of inactivity, Set leaves the hollow he'd passed the night in (and many before that). There is no particularly discernible path he follows as he climbs the mountainside, traversing a narrow ridgeline before turning back north to descend into the Chamber. He winds through the evergreens, thirst in his throat and nothing but the caw of ravens and slowly pinkening horizon to accompany him. Winter isn't yet in full swing but the temperatures no longer fluctuate and tease; it's cold this morning, the deep shadows moldering with frost. As the trees begin to thin out, he picks up his pace, hooves drumming on the hard forest floor. No matter how many centuries he sees, he will never cease to thrill in pushing his body to its physical limits …

He is a piebald blur on the banks of the river, legs churning as he races the water to the center of the kingdom. A long time ago, he was young in both body and mind treasured son of Starlace and Chain, untouched by magic with the world at his feet. For just a few minutes, he slips back into that skin. Landmarks pass him in indiscernible blurs as he lengthens his stride, ears pinned tight to his skull. Breath keeping time with his impossible pace, bright eyes flashing with life as the lakeshore rapidly approaches. The lake is ringed in ice, the deeper center still dark, open water, but he does not hesitate. His feet barely touch the ice but it still cracks underneath the weight of him, the sound renting the air as he reaches the point where it gives way to open water. Before it can lose its integrity completely, he plants his hind feet and launches himself into the cold depths, a wild crow on his lips even as he disappears beneath the surface.

The lake has gone still by the time he emerges, on the far north shore as an otter shivering with the cold. His heart thrums with simple thrills, a trout clamped firmly between his teeth. Shaking the excess water from his coat, he moves toward the ever-burning pine, mentally embracing the ache of his earlier exertion. Settling down to his meal just close enough that it will warm without singeing, he grasps the trout with his front paws and tears into it, ignoring its final death throes as he chews.

[Orieta]

In my dream I am running. I have four strong legs, and though the way they move beneath me feels just like swimming, I know that it is better.

Even in a dream, the four beat pace feels right. So right, that at first I do not realize that I have woken, and that the hoofbeats exist outside my dream. The water around me is dark, the distant surface barely aglow with dawn.

That is where the noise is from, echoing down through the ice and into the depths.

And then, just for a moment, it is perfectly silent. 

I remain still save for the dappled edges of my gills and the waving dark hair that ripples up from where I lie curled on the floor of the lake. A splash overhead has me lowering my head to the silt, trusting the dim light and my dappled body to keep me unobserved by whatever had just jumped into the lake.

The splash had been large, and yet as I slowly raise my head, I find that the shape moving through the water seems far too small to have caused it.

And the otter certainly doesn’t have hooves.

I drift upward as it swims toward the surface, far enough behind that I do not think it will see me. I keep to the depths of the water rather than pursuing it to the shore, and break the surface in time to see the dark shape climb onto the bank with a silvery trout. It certainly looks like just an otter, but I cannot shake the sound of hooves I had heard, or the dream sensation of possessing four legs and running as swiftly as the wind.

I drift closer, enough to talk but not quite in the shallows.

“Are you really just an otter?” I ask the creature devouring a meal in the pink light of dawn. “Or was that you running along the ice before?”

@ Set

[Kreed]

A frosty breath blew into the kingdom almost overnight.  I anticipated the change in the atmosphere as fall came to a close.  In response, my coat grew thicker, my goat hair more pronounced.  It kept me warm as I traversed the mountains of The Chamber.  The high peaks my vantage point to viewing the ongoings of the kingdom.

It wasn’t the sight of them though that made me aware of their presence within the land.  Over the past few seasons I have explored nearly all of my kingdom, familiarizing myself with each scent.  From the musky decay of the forest floor to the salty brine of the ocean breeze, each aroma put to memory.

So, when a new scent fills the air, I can’t help but notice.  It entices me to crawl down from my craggy ledge and investigate just who has found themselves amongst the pine forests.

—

There is a damp chill in the lowlands, the usual mists of the forests heavy with cold.  Some cling to the pine needles in delicate shards of frozen glass.  The transformation is quite striking, even to someone as callous as the illusionist.

My stride lengthens, cloven hooves giving to the hardened earth below.  As I weave through the tightly packed columnar trees I scent the air for the newcomer.  Adjusting my path accordingly, finding physical traces amongst the forest floor litter.  Minor disturbances that had not been there before.

Just as I reach the tree line, my silver eyes find a dark figure at the lakes edge.  I stop my pursuit and simply observe.  You could learn a lot by just watching within the shadows.

My crowned head tilts as the form races across the thin sheet of solid water.  It was an unusual sight, but no more unusual than what happens next.  A chill runs up my own spine as the dark form plunges within the open expanse of liquid at the very center, untouched yet by the winter's grasp.

I mull over the reasons for the action.  Perhaps the creature had a death wish and who was I to deny them what they wished.  I continue watching though, waiting to see if they resurface.

About to turn back into the mists, noting the time it has been was far too long for any horse to survive.  A gentle shrug of my shoulder is all I give to the demise of the being.  But as my heavy head turns, a flash of brown emerging from the icy waters catches my gaze.  It is small, much smaller than what had dove in.  For a moment I consider if the being was a shifter, or if this Mustelidae is simply a wild thing of the lake.

The pause of thought is all I needed to find yet another thing surfacing within the lake.  It is enough to draw me out from the trees and bring me to the southern edge of the frozen waters.

I look across the expanse and towards the north where the brown carnivore is ripping into a fish, and a form of a head rising out of the lake and moving towards it.  If nothing else, this would make for a nice morning show…

Kreed

Crown of Bone and Thorn

@ Set Hope y'all don't mind a creeper creeping >:]
@Orieta

[Set]

When the Chamber had re-emerged, it had called him home like the proverbial siren. In the time since then, he’d done little else but patronize old haunts, his presence easy enough to conceal from (nearly) anyone he deigned, given the skills he’s acquired over nearly a dozen decades. A hermit emerged from a lengthy sabbatical, the only sign that he is caught unawares at the presence of the first is a brief tensing of the muscles along his back, the twitch of a whisker. He takes one and then another bite before discarding the fish and turning back toward the half-frozen lake. Padding closer, but not so close that the stranger might flee, he sits on the bank’s edge with a tilt of his head in that curious manner that otters do, as if her question requires deep thought. He smiles suddenly several breaths later and somehow it’s not menacing, despite its (albeit small) toothiness. If you asked him he’d tell you it’s because he looks rather adorable in this form. Cheeky bugger.

“Sometimes yes and sometimes no?” He thinks she might understand his reply, where others would call it cryptic. “Though,” and he smiles wider, “I’ve never been a just anything. I don't think I would care for that.”

She’s young, that much he can tell. Obviously comfortable in the cold water - he’d had to suppress the urge to gasp when he’d plunged into it - and clearly not entirely equine. Are any of them, anymore? It’s been a long time since he was, back when the kingdoms were separated by haves and have nots. He sets about washing up, licking his paws and running them over his face. Briefly, his gaze slides from water’s surface to the silent goat queen on the southern shore, taking in the cloven hooves and ... is that a beard?. He grins again, letting loose of his otter form, original Set restored, and shaking out his dreadlocked mane with a low groan before addressing the girl again. “Surely there are warmer waters to lurk in.” He dips his head lower. “That bearded creep a friend of yours?” he asks in a whisper conspiratorially, the gold of his eyes bright with mischief as he tilts his head in Kreed's direction.

ooc - the more the merrier! I am just so excited to have replies <3 bear with me as I learn how to write again!
@Orieta

[Orieta]

In the beginning, I had only dared show my head above the water. Only my head, and only just high enough to see the shoreline.

The first time I saw something move, I ducked beneath the water. I did the same many times after that, and only after months of watching, stayed above.

A few years older now, and with the experience of life at sea and in the Dale behind me, I am not so quick to flee back to the depths. When the otter turns and scampers toward me, I’m all too aware that this is not typical otter behavior. It should make me wary except, well, it scampered, and the black eyes with which it peers up at me are large and liquid, and the whiskers and tiny twitching nose are so like its seafariing relations that I almost reach out and greet it. Without even realizing it, I have drifted closer, the soft scales of my belly sliding up against the silt of the shallows.

Sometimes yes and sometimes no, it answers, as if the fact that it answered at all was not indisputable proof it certainly was not just an otter.

It smiles, baring many pointed little teeth, and continues so politely that I remain where I’d drifted, listening to the little creature and watching with delight as it washes its little face with little paws. It’s never been a just anything, it says.

I don’t notice when the otter looks toward the far shore, glancing at the mostly-eaten trout. What else are you, I begin to ask, feeling for the first time a little strange at being just a nereid. But before the words emerge, it answers for me.

The expanding size startles me, and I stand up in the shallow water to take several steps backward, having drifted too close to back up any other way. Being so revealed to the open air is uncomfortable, and my fins twitch at my sides. I eagerly sink back to my dappled shoulders when the water is deep enough, and by the time I settle at a safe distance, the otter has finished its transformation into a stallion.

I’d thought of it as young, if only because it was so very darling, and the mostly black horse is definitely far older than I am. I know my eyes are impossibly wide, and they grow wider still as he asks about someone behind me. I spin in the water to face the south, sinking until my eyes are barely above the waterline.

I can make out a figure on the far bank, but nothing more. Still, I shake my head in a silent answer. I know very  few who can walk on the land, and none of them would deign to swim in this cold lake in this season. The answer is likely little more than ripples to him, and a clump of drifting debris to the stranger across the lake. I glance back toward him, my eyes catching on his hind legs. I glance back and forth from those, to the pair in the front, seeing that they bend differently.

Doing my best to remember the angles, I rise a little higher in the water, enough that my mouth is above the water so I can answer: “I got stuck here. The rivers stopped flowing sooner than I thought they would. As soon as everything melts, I’ll be back to the sea.” Sooner, perhaps, if I can ever master the seemingly impossible task of growing a second pair of legs instead of a gloriously finned tail.

@ Kreed @ Set

[Kreed]

During the time I spent away from this world I was shielded -physically- by the creatures unlike myself.  That didn't mean that I was naive to the many forms that inhabited Beqanna, I had simply not seen most of them in the flesh before.  The dreams were much different than reality.  Always forced from the deep recesses of your mind and twisted into concoctions of trauma and fear.  Your mind could show you many things, especially under the skillful hand of an illusionist.

---

As I stood unmoved, the heavy mists had started congregation along my bristled hairs, forming frosted spikes within my coat.

With silver eyes still cast across the expanse of water before me, I remain watching.  I watch as the otter scurries about.  I watch as the water creature follows it.  I watch as they converse.  Even though I cannot hear the words spoken, I am sure they are exchanged.

Again, I watch as the form that I had seen earlier plunge into the icy waters, shifts from the web-footed creature to an equine.  It was almost a foreign form to me now days and it piques my interest just slightly.

But then the figure, half out of the water, then not, draws my attention.  Most my dreams had been of land creatures.  Horrid monsters of the darkened forests and shadowed crevices.  Creatures of all shapes and sizes, but they never came from the waters.  Krampus didn't like the water much.

The interest is enough to draw me from my solitary position on the far side of the lake.  My steps are evenly paced as I walked the shoreline.  I was in no rush, and they seemed to be getting acquainted without discord.  My crown of bone tips slightly is disappointment.

Thick clouds began to linger overhead.  They were unlike that of the spring storms; less broody, more suffocating.  Only enough light filtered through to coat the land in muted tones.  It almost made me smile. Almost.

As I rounded the last bend in the shoreline my focus shifted back to the odd pair, my expression emotionless per usual.  Within hearing distance now, my ears twist forward should anyone direct words towards me as I approach.  No vocal answer would be given, but simply a nod of my head, before coming to a stand a few paces off.  My silver gaze lazily shifting from one to the next.

Kreed

Crown of Bone and Thorn

@ Set  They are lovely : )
@Orieta

[Set]

By the time he’s asking if the horned creature is her - it was a her, that much he’d discerned - companion, she has retreated wide-eyed back to deeper waters. It had not been his intention to startle her, but nor is he bothered by the fact, never one to stifle anything about himself for the sake of others. She whips around to locate the someone in question, her emphatic head shake barely perceptible from where he stands, though it grows lighter by the moment as dawn slips into morning. She turns back and answers him, her reply nearly muffled by the water. He tucks away the bit about her ability to survive in both fresh and saltwater. A Baltian, then? He'd not been around Beqanna when the Baltians and Stratosians had appeared, so his knowledge of them is limited.

Pawing at the crust of ice until it breaks and there is room enough to drink, he takes several long draughts to wash the fishy taste out of his mouth. His eyes track the silent third’s movements as it makes its way around the water’s edge toward them. Not long the leader of the Chamber, he knows little else about her. Thoughtful, he reaches out across the lake with his consciousness, brushing up against hers with the barest of touches. He finds no quarter. Can’t fault a guy for trying. His gaze swings back toward the lake, water dripping from his chin.

Sharpening his sight to better catch her facial expressions - and keep an eye on the unhurried approach of goat-girl - he tilts his head in question as her gaze darts from his front legs to the back ones, and back again. “You can’t leave the water? He’d spent a lot of time in many oceans but antisocial as he is, preferring the company of wild creatures to most, he’s not seen anything like her before.

By now the other is no longer approaching, standing several paces off from him. Yet to speak, ears twisted forward, belying the disinterest on her stony face. He spares her that glance over his shoulder, a flash of a grin and a wink, then turns back to his conversation. As his head swings back around, he shifts back into an otter. The young one is far enough out now that he would have to shout or otherwise use magic to satisfy his curiosity and so, first shielding himself from the cold, he darts back out across the ice and slips back into the lake, chittering as he goes. This plunge is a far more pleasant one and he again disappears beneath the surface.

His head pops back up a few moments later with a whiskered grin, the tail of a small fish clutched in each of his forepaws. His strong tail and back legs keep him upright in the water as it laps at his armpits and then he is (perhaps with a little help of magic) hurling the fish at the dark brown mare’s head. There’s enough speed and force behind it that she will have a hard, but not impossible, time dodging them. Not intended to hurt much, he has no real reason behind the action except to see how the somber thing reacts. Treading water and keeping one eye on the shore, he searches the water for the alien life-force that is the water dweller’s, bright eyes dancing with youthful mischief and humor, well-belying the decades behind them.

@Orieta
@ Kreed

[Orieta]

I watch curiously as the figure on the far side of the lake draws nearer. She is as fascinating as the rest of the land dwellers, with a shaggy coat that I imagine must feel enviably warm right about now. I wonder if there will be more snow soon, glancing up at the clouds gathering overhead.

When I look back down, the dark-haired creature is close enough for me to see that there’s more than horns atop her head. That is a crown. This is a queen. My sapphire eyes then flick down to her silver ones, to the blood that drips from them, to the scarred stump of a wing that I can see on her near side. I swallow slowly, but offer her a smile nonetheless.

The sound of the black horse shattering the ice with a hoof is a welcome reprieve, even if it does startle me a bit.

I am not usually so jumpy.
I think it might have something to do with this lake, with how I feel very much like a minnow trapped in a tidepool, with how cold it is and how the aquatic grazing is bland and tasteless.
There is very little I enjoy about this place at all, come to think of it, and so even though the approaching queen has reminded me that this kingdom once had a longer and more descri[tive name, I am not so easily dissuaded from the first conversation I have had in months.

‘You can’t leave the water?’ He asks, and I shake my head as I answer.

“Not and move quickly. Not with this. I twist in the water, lifting the end of my violet tail above the water to demonstrate my lack of appropriate anatomy. I’ve done my share of sunbathing on sandy beaches, but my body was not made for a life on land.

It could be, if I’ve inherited the ability and I can master it, but thus far I’ve had no luck at all. I’d never bothered to learn, and I wonder if learning now in adulthood will be harder than if I’d asked to be taught as a child. How long had this shifter been practicing, to transform so easily back into the form of small brown otter? Those glittering eyes now seem all the more mischievous with the knowledge that it is not at all what it seems, and I find myself smiling as it skitters across the ice.

The otter dives beneath the water, and though I long to follow, I cannot leave the queen of this place alone on the shore without a greeting. Being in this lake is terrible enough, I cannot imagine being both trapped and unwecome would do much to improve my situation

“Hello, I’m Orieta. I don’t…” Before I can distinguish myself from the shapeshifter, he emerges from the water once more. I can only stare in awe as he hurls the pair of fish at the queen, my expression belying my inner battle between horror and hilarity.

@ Kreed  @ Set

[Kreed]

As my gaze shifts from one to the next I consider what I have learned about them just by observation alone.  Clearly the one that has remained within the waters, revealing to them her finned tail versus hindlegs, is not adapted to the lands.  Something about the creature does not strike me as one who would be in this kingdom by choice.

The other being I am not quite sure their intention here.  A shifter by trade obviously, but as the thick furred creature skitters across the frozen water, dives into the water, returning with a hand full of fish that it proceeds to hurl at my head, I consider it potently a trickster of sorts.  Not that I was opposed to such antics, but I didn't have the personality to appreciate it.

When the hunks of fish fly at my head I angle my horns to take the impact.  Allowing them to reflect and bounce back onto the froze surface.

My silver eyes cast down, viewing the gore with slight pleasure, before looking back to the waterlogged pair.  The nereid had been speaking, when she was so rudely interrupted, and I do not allow the gesture to go unnoticed.

"Orieta.  Pleasure.  I am Kreed," I say plainly with a tip of my crown.  My bristled hair, laced with frost, glints almost delicately in the gloomy light of the day.  "It is most unfortunate you have found yourself trapped in The Chambers' loch."  My gaze shifts to where the other may be, expecting to find it up to no good.  "And you, Trickster," I call out loud enough that it would know I was speaking to it, "Do you have a name?"

Kreed

Crown of Bone and Thorn

@ Set 
@Orieta

[Set]

The queen’s reaction is as dull as he had anticipated. She tilts her head, staring blankly at the fish wriggling futilely on dry ground, their mouths gaping in staccato horror. He cannot recall when he had taken himself so seriously. No doubt there was such a time, when the Chamber’s crown sat crooked on his two-toned head and his world lay submissive and prone at his feet … With an invisible tug, he returns the fish to their original state and their watery doldrums, ducking under the surface himself.

Using his powers had not always come easily. It had started during the Alliance, the magicks involved changing the very fabric of his being. There was a time where he had little to no control, relying on the manipulation of his own emotions to force the changes. Or changes back, as it were. He distinctly recalls the helpless feeling a caterpillar experiences when flung through the air by a capricious child … Now, after so many years and experiences, though still a drain on his natural energy, there is always energy to siphon and replenish, Beqanna being rife with all kinds of creatures.

He resurfaces nearer Orieta, spitting water through his teeth in a stream that doesn’t quite reach her. “Pleasure, Orieta of the lovely purple tail,” he replies to her earlier introduction, as if he’d not taken a cheeky fish-throwing detour. He gives her an exaggerated wink, treading water and ignoring Kreed for the moment. “Why leave the sea for dark places such as this? You don’t strike me as too awfully adventurous.”

As if suddenly remembering the Chamber queen’s presence, he spins in the water to face her on the shore. “I do!”

@Orieta
@ Kreed