The inky blackness above is peppered with small constellations; tiny pinpricks of light adorning the vast expanse of above, however starlit the night may have been it was certainly a moonless one. The glow of the statues of previous rulers, their humming magic around the Valley was alive. The flame-kissed mare ambles, a quiet, nonchalant amble. Her long limbs gliding over the valley’s crisp ground. Her head, like a finely carved monument at the end of her willowy neck is craned upward, her orange eyes surveying the valley’s darkness, the treeline with their looming shadows, the way the starlight picks out random glistening boughs, the hoot of the owls and the howl of the wolves patrolling the borders. It seems as though she'd never left her home, it all came back to her like sharp daggers entering her brain, welcoming sharp daggers.
Fiery tendrils lay against a light sheen of sweat upon her neck – summer’s early warmth was already taking hold. She feels as though she spends most of her time dusty, sweaty and a mess. Of course the beautiful fire-kissed lady was unkempt as can be, but through all the matted mane full of burrs and thorns from recent scavenging in vain hopes of finding memories, but ending up succumbing to the dust and mud from her roll in the copse of wet swamp. She bathed herself in the slick mud, her doing of course (the heavens opened and poured rain at her merest glance, making the ground sodden beneath her hooves, wet beneath her fiery skin.) she was still quite a sight. Almost iridescent, like flames against the blackness of the valley. her golden swirls alive like heartbeats, fiery and dancing up her limbs. Azula’s mind is a haze of recollection – her past, her present, the future. She wonders, with each dawdling step forward, if her future is still as bright as the fire within her chest, the passion to push forward, as bright as her mother had wanted. She was certain of that. Her ashen nostrils flare, inhaling the damp night, the flies were still about and her tail was doing a good job of swatting, swathing over her loins like fire lapping against fire. She is unsure of any old inhabitant's whereabouts; she had gone off years ago, in a storm of wind and hail, was adamant on flaunting her ability and of course the mare never returned. Ash tipped ears swerve atop her head, listening to the sounds of the night. A low chuckle breaks the silent night, slipping from hallowed lips. Her smile is neither broad nor minuscule, it is just there, a small line, a curve of her ashen muzzle.
There's a dazzle in the dark sky, a piercing light, a strike of lightning, purple, red, blue, then stark orange. She laughed again, a bright sound seemed so foreign to fall from her lips, and then one single stamp of her hoof and all was still, all was silent once more. Her thoughts shift, just like her walking pattern; deciding for a large circle, like a circuit around the valley's borders, with her head craned upward, her eyes a pensive haze but still observant of her empty surroundings. The magic around her tonight seems more.. Aggressive perhaps. Riled. It tasted like home then, she was back, she was back on soil that was born into her flesh, embers that tainted her heart and soul.
She stood there, fire against black, orange eyes staring out into the valley before her. She may have felt at home already but that wasn't deciding the outlook on others. She wondered how things had changed, the ranks, they must have shifted in the years she's been gone. She knew the sharpness in the air, the coolness from the rain she'd ordered the skies to cry. But it occurred to the fiery mare, then, that no one would have known her like the valley knew her.
AZULA;
the orange eyed, weather manipulating daughter of jackal lantern & calcyfur
let's burn something beautiful
|
Thorunn was rarely without her father these days in the way most children who idolize their parents are. At just over a year old Thorunn shed her lanky legs for something a little more stable, something more sturdy. As she matured she looked more and more like her mother - the same color, the same sleek build, the same muscle patterns. Her face, however, was entirely her fathers - orange eyes, vacant look, always looking a bit inconvenienced. She doesn't follow him like a duckling, more like she is always aware of where he is. He gives them lessons - her twin sister and her - every few days. Lately, though, the lessons are shorter. He is less likely to step in, preferring to vocally dictate them. Thorunn doesn't know about death (not yet) or age (not yet) so it never occurs to her that something so ... final ... could be happening to the 130+ year old horse. But it is.
Covet is all too aware of what it means to have your immortality up and leave you. He feels every ache in his bones, every injury from the last decades, every bone spur and scar. He looks old, too, and not in a good way. His scars look like pockmarks, his eyes are glazing over with white fog, he walks slower and with more of a limp. He prefers the cool summer nights to the warm summer days, even in a place like the Valley that never truly gets hot. Well, not like other places he's lived.
It's the dead of night when he feels the shift against his skin. He's lived through enough disasters to know that there's no such thing as a "natural disaster." All disasters are created by someone more powerful, someone with an end game. Covet feels the shift and leaves his position to investigate, finding himself staring at a fire-colored mare with similar orange eyes to his own.
Another sister? Thorunn thinks, tracing her fathers steps through the swaying grass, following the impossible origin of the mess in the sky. She is not so versed as to understand it's coming from the mare, she can only stare at the orange eyes and assume what she's learned over the last year - her father gives most of his children orange eyes. She must be a sibling.
"Hello," Covet greets, his voice the same quiet noise it's always been. Now, however, it shakes a bit with age. "I'm Covet, this is my daughter Thorunn," he nods to the filly a few lengths behind him. "How can we help you?"
The Valley's borders still have the same weary feel to them, the magic a rigid pulse beneath feet, riding into veins like blood and life. Azula remembered things as she strolled, little tidbits of the past -- it is uncanny how certain things make you remember. Even a decaying leaf on the ground, a certain blade of grass, a scent. It sends memories through her mind, twisting and turning, like an old reel of film, it crackles in places. She feels old, old enough to know better, but young enough not to care. That was her mother's expression, she wondered where the chestnut mare was now. She wondered where her father was now.
Mostly, she just wondered.
Fire and flame twists and turns as she scents the wind change, bringing with it the earthy valley smell. Someone who had lived here for quite some time, and she wasn't just thinking about the valley. His actions were aged, the young one beside him made that all too apparent. She watched, curious, yet respectful (she was brought up well, not dragged up like some. She knew when respect was due.) her flame eyes meeting their double in both his and the young one. And she thought at times she was a special little thing..
Her ash tipped ear turns, catches his words and the briefest of smiles curves on her lips. He has the tone of a grandfather clock, slightly rusted with age but still ticking, still tocking. the young girl beside him makes her even feel old against her young skin, her impressionable mind. Azula smiles, the slight sardonic little grin, it's smooth and unnoticeable in certain lights.
"Evening, Covet, Thorunn." there's a deliberate pause on her part, a tail swishing, gliding over her hocks, her flanks, she shifts her head so that her eyes sure the valley beyond. it is derelict in places, barren, and empty, but the soul she still felt beneath her feet, it still had life. even if it looked as barren wasteland might look to vultures. home.
"I was born here, some time ago now. I thought I'd come back home. It's seems pretty... barren now." another pause, another long, almost loving look over her old home and she turned back to face the midnight stallion and his daughter, with the twin sets of eyes and shoulders. "I'm Azula." pleasantries, they tasted too sweet upon her tongue, but they were still offered with a neat smile and a respectful incline of her muzzle.
AZULA;
the orange eyed, weather manipulating daughter of jackal lantern & calcyfur
let's burn something beautiful
|
 Plan? I don't need a plan! Thorrun is rarely without her father, and the both of them are rarely without Valkerine. She's less tied in to the family when compared with her sister, but not for lack of love. Rather, there's only so many hours in the day, and Val seems to make a point of covering as much ground as possible. She's constantly going places and getting into things, dragging her sister along whenever possible. But in the end, Thorny is just too much her father's daughter. Despite the fact that they're nearly identical in appearance, there's only so much mischief that Val can convince Thorny to get into. Which doesn't bother the girl in the slightest. She knows she loves her sister, and her father and her mother, and she knows the feeling is mutual and she's at that age where that's really all that matters in the world.
She has been off goodness knows where doing goodness knows what and is thoroughly covered in mud by the time she finds her father and her sister again. And when she finds them, interestingly enough, they're not alone. She joins them just in time for light to split the sky, a riotous display of colors. And Val, ever tactful, watches it entirely without fear, her jaw dropped and mouth hanging open in a rather silly looking fashion. "Wow!" she exclaims, delighted by it. She doesn't feel threatened, but she's not especially good at feeling threatened. She continues to look up at the night sky as Covet and Thorrun move forward and approach the stranger, who Val has barely even registered as she continues to stare entirely upward.
Covet introduces himself and Thorrun, and Val is reminded that she's forgotten to be near them. She snaps her head down from the sky and walks over to join them, just as the mare starts explaining that she was born here. Val listens curiously as she introduces herself. The girl is nothing if not intrigued by those she doesn't know.
"I was born here, too, but only a little time ago." she says, her voice tomboyish, obviously young. There is something infectious about her, something precocious and adorable. "I'm Valkerine, but you can call me Val. Welcome home, Azula!"
VALKERINE!
Thorunn can almost sense her sister before she appears, if that makes any sense. It's that strange twin bond people are always talking about, and with Thorunn and Val it's particularly tight. See, while the sisters are two sides of a coin, they are of the same coin. As Thorunn grows older she'll often wonder if they were once one creature, split down the middle, which accounted for their similarities and striking differences. The electricity that separates them is almost palpable and when her sisters strays too far she can feel it. She could almost tug on it if she so desired. She's well aware that Val is standing just out of sight, in a position where their father can't quite see her. She considers nudging her father to remind him to introduce them both - wasn't that the polite thing to do? Thorunn knows her father isn't very talkative and probably not that polite, either.
Covet turns his head in the direction of Val as she moseys up, an exact replica of her sister - except the eyes. Thorunn's orange eyes are entirely Covet and Val's brown eyes are entirely Librette. It's the only real difference between the two - physically. Though as they age their differences will shape them physically, for now they are carbon copies.
He doesn't recognize Azula, but then again Covet hasn't always lived in the Valley. He's lived in the Dale, the Tundra, herds, and the meadow. The Valley was both a recent move and an ancient one - he came searching for his daughter, Aranea, who hadn't been spotted for quite some time. Decades. Centuries, it seemed, to someone as old as Covet.
"Looks are deceiving," he says, referring to her comment about how barren it was. "But in any case, welcome back." That's all he has to say, because Covet is not really the talkative type. He is awkward, so much so that even Thorunn feels it.
"Where have you been, then? Lately, I mean." Thorunn asks, her curiosity making the words come out sharply and suddenly, as if from nowhere and everywhere at once.
She had made presumptions. Her mother would be most dreadfully upset. Azula made a point then, of mentally noting not to do so in future. She was perhaps a little too brash sometimes, respectful but maybe a little to presumptuous for her own good. The fiery girl gained knowledge, absorbed everything like a sponge, until every little pore is filled with knowledge. This was a little blip. The chestnut mare shifted her gaze to another approaching vessel. Smaller, compact. Another child. Oh yes, she had made presumptions. At first glance the valley did seem barren, deserted, not full of life like it had been years previous, but perhaps, perhaps nowadays many lurked within the shadows, scouting the borders like the regal wolves of old. She made a snort then, shook her head and disheveled her muddy flame-kissed mane.
Her ears tuned to Valkerine. The way she slipped herself closely next to the other two was pretty evident it was a relation. Children. The future, the gifts that are given from a mere seed that blossomed into something great, sometimes greater. A smooth smile cracked her dry lips. Polite to the end, a little bittersweet but trying to grasp the friendly aspect. She had never been interested in children, she'd perhaps been too engrossed in herself, her power. A flick of her tail, slapping against her hocks and the rain started to twitch in the clouds above, spitting here, dropping there, the warmth still clammy against her skin, it was refreshingly cooling.
"Pleasure. Valkerine. Val. What a great little greeter you are." she smiled, a little bit toothy, a little bit sweet. Azula then nodded, slow, letting the long curls of matted red mane to fall in torrents down her neck. "Thank you, it is... good. To be back here." she was earnest then, as true as the skies that were brightening above with but a single look, the moon was coming back out in it's bright, pale light, bathing the valley in a luminous, homely glow. She was back, it felt good to step back on home soil, the soft mud squelching beneath her foot reminding her of what she had lost when she left. She lost her mother somewhere, her father somewhere else, and of course, Azula had lost herself somewhere along the way. She hoped she'd find pieces of herself, like little puzzle pieces scattered around the Valley. it looked like she had found one already.
"I should have known better of the Valley." she gestured to the orange eyed steed, her own halloween stare matching him. He was worn with something a little more than age, she could tell, but she was polite, she was a little miss fire-cracker but she knew respect and offered it in just. She gave a little smile then, of knowing, of something else entirely, "It's good to see the Valley has a bright future. Children little blossoming seeds of prospect, are they not?" she made a deliberately long sigh then, of some strange want to be as bright as a prospect, or perhaps another thing. Azula had a mind full of things and she would pick them at random. Her gaze then fell to Thorunn, she poses questions like Azula had when she was her age, but of course, you never learnt anything without asking questions. "I've been around, many places, but nowhere near as majestic as Beqanna, or as homely as here." she held the young girl's gaze for several moments longer than she should, a crooked smile pulling at her lips. She then directs her attention to the night black stallion, she did not wish to pry, but with feet upon home ground and a weary head, she wished to know things, be brought back into the loop, so to speak.
"I'm assuming again, but I take it much has happened in my absence. The Valley seems different somehow. Whatever happened to the Red and Blue Queen?"
AZULA;
the orange eyed, weather manipulating daughter of jackal lantern & calcyfur
let's burn something beautiful
|
Plan? I don't need a plan! "Aww, thanks! she says when the new mare calls her a good greeter. Azula's reward is a big filly-grin, the kind of uninhibited one that Thorrun would never think to give. Val has no such compunctions - the mare was talking to her, and it's the least she can do to reciprocate. "It's nice to meet you too."
The new mare is still speaking, and Val feels like half of what she says goes right over her head. She looks to her sister, to her father to see if they have any kind of a better grasp than she does as far as what Azula means. I mean, of course she understands the part about her, and she's got enough maturity to understand that there is subtext there, and to understand that it falls away as the mare talks of it being good to be back. But blossoming seeds of prospect? Majestic other places? And by the time she's gotten to red and blue queens her mind is straight up running wild.
"Red…and Blue queens?" she speaks without thinking, as is more or less usual for her. "Were they actually red and blue? Like, their colors?" she can't help but let the enthusiasm creep into her voice. Wouldn't that be something, if they were actually red and blue? She hasn't seen much in the way of that thing yet, being as young as she is in the world, but she's pretty pleased that such a thing could exist. And if her father and her sister have orange eyes, well why not, right?
She pauses then, and a little bit of the crusty mud that's drying in her small tail brushes off as she flicks that tiny tail across her haunches. "I think lots has probably happened in your absence. But I don't know any details, being as I'm one of the things that happened in your absence, and really recently too." she thinks she's quite clever, and gives the mare an adorable little grin before turning to her sister with that same grin, as though to advertise just how clever she really is.
"But seriously, can you tell us more about this Red and Blue Queen thing? They sound pretty fascinating."
That's Val – never shy, especially not when she's curious.
VALKERINE!
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