"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
01-14-2018, 08:04 PM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2018, 08:05 PM by The Creator.)
“Once upon a time….” no, that's overused and tired. The sharp sound of a paper being ripped from the metal reem that held all the sheets of looseleaf together filled the room followed by the crip scraping and bending of the paper being crumpled up and thrown to the floor. “In a land far far away,” his hand wrote smoothly in a flourish. He pulled the paper back and read it again studying the structure of words and the feeling it left, the way it could engage the reader. But that too was not fitting for the man tore it out and left it crumpled on the floor as well. All around him lay paper balls, thrown out ideas, and the visual representation of his writer’s block. Nothing he wrote seemed to work and all the ideas he came up with were tired, old, and unoriginal. The rest of his stories were due to his editor at the end of the week and he still needed a few more to make the quota the publisher set in order to move forward with his collection of short stories. The man, let’s call him Author, cause he’s the author, dropped his head in frustration and fatigue. He had been working so hard, and this writer’s block was about to cost him his book. The Author kept his eyes closed for a moment, allowing the weight of his eyelids to soothe his eyes that ached from staring at empty pages all day. It didn’t take long for his breathing to grow slow and even, and his consciousness faded into the depths of sleep.
It wasn’t long before Author found himself dreaming, everything was white but hazy as if a fog had set in, his feet echoed with each step. A desk became visible and on the desk was a leather-bound book. He opened to a random page and thumbed through allowing the pages to cascade down as the grazed over his thumb. All were empty. He looked around again as he called out hesitantly, ”Hello? His voice just echoed around as he glanced around some more. The Author couldn’t believe how real all this felt, he didn’t quite believe he was dreaming.
When his attention returned to the desk, the leather pad had opened to the first page, and a traditional quill and inkwell sat next to it. On the page there was a note, ink still wet on the page. ”Hello!?! Author called out again. He hadn’t left the desk’s side, simply looked around...he must be dreaming. This time he looked at the words written in perfect script.
The magic of Beqanna has smiled upon you. If stories are what you want, ask and help will come to you. Write a story's beginning or a story prompt on a page and sit back to see what happens. By the time you wake surely you will have the stories you need. Good luck! - The Fairies
Author scoffed at this, no way it was true. And for a long time he did nothing- just stared and waited, as he had been for days. Believe it or not, staring at paper gets tiring, so he turned the page, and picked up the quill, only to put it down. This happened several times before finally he picked up the quill and dipped it in the ink. His hand moved across the page and when he pulled it away from the page it read. ”Ok Beqanna ‘Fairies’ I need characters, if you can bring me that, then maybe I’ll believe you.
The Creator
--The Author--
Round 1
If you decide to participate, describe how you end up in this magic story book, controlled by Author. Start wherever you are, and end your post as your appear in the story book’s blank page with your name beside you. Yes you are in horse form, and yes you can move around the page with your name moving with you. This is an individual post, though you may reference seeing others (other participants), it will not affect anyone else’s post/story.
POSTS ARE DUE BY: Thursday January 18, 2018 @ 10pm EST
In this round, your posts are LIMITED to 587 words Maximum. Why 587?-- Because the Author can do what he wants.
The details
This is a writing/elimination quest. All posts will be judged on how well the prompts are met, your effort in drafting a creative story- full of vivid imagery and detail that helps the author envision your story, and how well you react to the challenges ahead.
Grammar and sentence structure will not be judged unless it makes the post difficult to read/understand.
No editing allowed once posted
There are no limits on number of participants, but only one character per player.
This quest is open to all characters ALREADY born, mare or stallion
Note that there may be topics in this quest that are not foal friendly and I will not make exceptions b/c you chose a foal, but it may be in your favor in another round-- you won’t know until each round starts.
You have no traits/abilities unless otherwise stated
The Author has every right to change his characters to fit his needs, this includes changing form, species, even if you are writing alone or interacting with others.
As always there are prizes at the end: 2 top prizes and 2-3 runner up prizes depending on number of entries.
DEFECTS: permanent defects will ONLY be given if you do not post by a deadline WITHOUT notice. You may drop out by PM or posting so in the thread w/o fear of penalty. Short term defects may be given with elimination.
NO EXTENSIONS will be given.
If need be, the Author withholds the right to a roll of dice if a decision cannot be made on who will advance.
Any and all questions can be addressed to The Creator, in PM or in Connect. Good luck to you.
He hears the mockingbird first. Its patent cry ripping through the trees to settle angrily in his ears. The stallion shakes his mighty head, groaning into the grass he was laid upon. His tail flicked lazily at his hocks as he rolled into a more comfortable position, not quite allowing the world to wake him just yet.
That damn bird was persistent though.
He glances around, noting the few that dotted the field, many (if not all) were still asleep in the dotting hours of the morning.
Quietly he shifts to allow his limbs room to unfurl. He is blissfully inclined to see what that bird may be so damn excited about. Brilliantly colored hues trail across the meadow, the emerald haze reflecting off of his murky depths. He rises with a grace unpossessed by many, a glorious twist of milky locks dropping from his back before curling above splattered white shoulders. It was no lie that Vitalo was a beautiful being. He moved as though he were floating, a phantom of a thousand existences.
He walked for quite some time into the surrounding woods before he spotted the nuisance. It was small as mockingbirds tend to be, but it was alone. A strange occurrence.
It stopped its croak momentarily to stare at him. The bird flapped its tiny wings and hopped excitedly upon its branch before swooping towards him. He grumbled in response to the creatures rapid movements about his head. Quickly it flew north, away from him , and in an act of curious fascination, the stallion followed along. He (unlike anyone else) had nothing better to do than follow such a curious creature.
Any other would have noticed the absence of sound, the fading smell of the flowers giving way to the thick scent of chemical enhancement. He was just so mesmerized with that damn bird. The brush and foliage soon gave way to a pale landscape, one dotted with age and ink splatters.
It was then when the world changed that he heard it. A faint scratching noise arose, startling the piebald stag out of his head.
'V i t a l o'
The words appeared beside him in a rolling black script.
He nearly fainted.
"Oh dearest me.... oh my that's...why thats me?"
He whispered this to himself as a question. Perhaps he had eaten something bad. No... Not hat was not it. This was real. A glance around the landscape allowed him the knowledge that he was alone with this writing. The bird (that damn bird) had gone. Leaving him utterly alone.
"Oh d- Oh, oh I don't know where I am,"
He turned in a frantic circle, horrified to find that the scroll stayed loyally on the left side of him no matter the direction fo his movements. It shimmered and drifted as though a wind was sifting through the land, Vitalo felt nothing.
"Oh help me!"
He shouted (to who he knew not). His echo attacked him, pouring into his ears so loudly that he crumbled to the smoothe earth in almost fear.
"Oh help me..."
All the while the name still lingered, just slightly above his grullo form. A shimmering black phantom whispering all the while.
Days began to intertwine on the volcanic island of Tephra. Wasting it without a care in the world. She had her lover, her son. She had security in her home and a few friends. What more did she need? This was her happily ever after.
As time drained each day, with the turning of the hourglass, she had forgotten much of her past. The torture she had endured in her raising. Finding the courage to runaway from everything she knew. Only to find her saving grace here in Beqanna. Even that had it's challenges though. A few shifty run-ins with equines and creatures of the Underneath. In the end, nothing could stop her from finding happiness.
Today she searches the kingdom for her son, calling his name gently into the wind. Her gown of prestige feathers flowing elegantly behind her. The base of the volcano was the first place she'd look. The colt had an unhealthy fixation with fire. She had found herself warning him to steer clear of the lava flows so he did not misstep and burn, but he went anyhow. Defiant like all children were at his age. He would give her worry lines if it was the only thing he'd ever give her.
Gently she steps across one such channel of molted rock. Slowly making a circle around the base of the giant formation. Navy eyes scanning the area for any signs of the boy. "Phoebus?" She calls out, "Son?!" Worry straining her voice. Suddenly, there was a muffled sound coming from a dark crease in the mountain. Mother?! Help me! The flutter in her chest quickens as she reaches the opening. Eyes squinting to see within the tight quarters. The hole was just big enough for her petite frame to slide into. One careful step after another brings her deeper into the shadows. A steady clip of her hooves echoes off the stone walls. Clip Clop Cli...
"Nooooo...." With a shrill cry she is falling. Her wings useless in her downward spiral(but when were they ever anything more than just for show). Her body scrapes along jagged edges as she is pinballed back and forth. Limbs frantically try to catch hold of something, anything...
Silence.
She is unsure if she had gone unconscious due to fear or the pressure of falling, but when she comes to, her view is empty. Oh, she can still see but what she sees is nothing. A blank canvas with nothing but a name.
Her name, AuroraElis.
Rising cautiously to her hooves, her carmel face swivels to look around. Gone is the tropical flora and rocky terrain. The warm sea breeze coming off the granulated beaches and erupting mountain. It was all gone...
She dances with the wind and laughs with the sky, as free as wild bracken that grows on hillsides long forgot. Perhaps she has been civilized once, but today she is no more distinguishable from the earth than clouds from the sky. She is star-spun; distant and shatterable, in that untamed way of hers.
Saedís is waiflike and sprightly and her step is spry as she winds through the breast-high grasses, nose tilted to the vast sky, admiring the stars and their untouchable beauty; their near-intangibility, so that they are little more than myth and legend to the creatures who stare wondrously at them, earthbound.
Saedís has made her home in the forest, in the earth and the sea and the sky. As she has grown used to them, so they have grown used to her – and she is so much the same as the stars that she so astonished admires. Saedís – of the stars and sea. Born and raised by them.
Beqanna, she thinks, must have expanded. When did the forests end and this forlorn meadow begin? She cannot recall. She has been too busy tracing the flight of the crow with her smoky muzzle; too busy caressing the earth´s luscious turns with her feet – so busy she has forgotten where she is. Silently, Saedís scolds herself, she must not be inattentive. She begins to turn around – to trace her own steps back to where she has come from, the quicker she makes her exit – the more probable she won´t get into any trouble.
It is then that she sees her: a mare. She is as Saedís, or halfway so; startlingly white, as the snow, as the lamb, as the stars and Saedís must follow, for it is in her nature to always yield to curiosity. The mare looks so carefree, so hapless! Saedís allows a slow, careful smile to crawl on her charcoal lips as she follows, bird-song lilts from her gentle tongue, and she is at peace. She does not know the horror of the world yet, and her eyes brim with a beautiful, pure innocence. In them the stars and moon are reflected, silver dapples in the black cups of her eye – and she wonders at the way the silver shines off the coat of the mare so alike her own.
There is no wild screech, no terrified squeal from the white mare to alert Saedís that something is amiss as the world suddenly slips topsy-turvy into shades of white and yellow and darkness dents the corners of her sight. Saedís tumbles into the weathered page of the book with a loud yelp and her eyes are saucers of fear and confusion as her nostrils takes in the musty smell of old parchment. The mare is gone; shattered as all illusions must shatter sooner or later and Saedís finds herself alone and terrified in this new place – cursing her naïvety and youthful confidence.
Her only company - and this realization forges a strangled gasp similar to a sob of shock escape through clenched teeth – is her own name, ink-black and hovering just above her head as if a quiet observer following her every move.
Was I ever someone to forget? No matter. I wake regardless, like the rest of you. I blink my eyes in much the same fashion too, when the haze of a full night’s sleep begins to wear off. Tucked beneath the makeshift roof of a Loessian rock formation, I have come to know the meaning of the word blend so well that I feel I am nothing substantial at all.
I never have been.
But today, (without my prior knowledge) this will change. I have waited in anticipation of this moment since my birth and yet, when it strikes, I’m just as much caught up in the oddity of it as any other creature might be. Perhaps this is because it happens so slowly, or rather so quickly that it feels slow, and then (like everything involving change) it will be too late for me to stop it from happening.
It begins with my awakening. I have stretched now; extended the crystal-clear wings between my shoulders to their full length and given the rest of my stiff body a quick shake. Fresh dew slings free of my pretty skin in great veils of glittering sunlight with the action, while the more stubborn droplets have frozen across my whiskers and the tips of my clear feathers in the night. I need sunlight, maybe a dip in the steaming twists of water. It’s with languorous freedom that I move out from my hideaway to complete these actions.
There is no one to tell me no here, no one to stop me from leaving or going as I please, though I haven’t left since Ivar first brought me. Loess has become as familiar as any other stable thing in my life, though it doesn’t define me. I am in Loess, true, but perhaps I am not Loessian, like my shady rock or the steaming rivers. I am Rey, the girl with no true color who sometimes finds it in herself to grace the more habitable areas of her Kingdom with the ghost of her presence.
“Strange.” I find myself murmuring aloud, noting the oddness of an oncoming fog. It had not felt as if rain was on the way last night - no discernable pressure in the air or fluctuation of temperature - but it’s here all the same. The lovely warmth of the hot springs draws me on, however. I can’t be bothered by the weather today.
The weather will bother me anyways. “Hello?” I call out as the thick wave of nothingness blots out the sun. I turn around - I’m blocked in. The damn wall of mist was everywhere, all around me, devouring Loess and I can do nothing but huff in frustration and turn back ahead. But now even ahead is gone! There’s only a thing, a … a name? My name, and it hovers beside me presently - strangely ominous for something so simple.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Or so it seemed to Moggett. He had existed in this land, a hidden inhabitant, for close to two decades now. He watches as they come and go – relationships are built, foals are born, some amongst them pass on. He hears them speak of battles, alliances, wars… but the words pass him by as quickly as their speakers. The lands themselves had changed as well. Even with all of this tumult, he remained relatively the same. Sure, there were the usual signs of aging, but the male felt he would simply die as he had lived, in quiet and unobtrusive loneliness.
Today would be a day like any other, he muses as his teeth snip the tops off the fresh blades of grass beneath him. The day was young, and many were just beginning to stir or still remain motionless like stones, dotting the land around him like some strange equine memorial. Despite being rather unsocial, Moggett felt safest in the company of others. He was smaller than the majority of them, and his best bet in remaining unmolested by some of the powerful folk that he knew to reside here was to fade into the masses. It’s how he has lived this long and he intends to remain on in this way.
That is until a ridiculously tall spotted stallion almost steps on him. Moggett grunts and throws himself to the side just in time. He blinks several times, obviously phased, before turning to see what on earth was wrong with the larger male to go around stomping on people this early in the morning. The dust-colored stallion seems to be in a sort of daze – his ears and eyes perked towards some nonexistent stimuli. Moggett shakes his head disapprovingly, the young male having disturbed him greatly, and bends to take another bite before his curiosity gets the best of him and his earth-colored eyes turn to look after the sleepwalker’s progress.
Suddenly, Moggett decides to follow him, if for no other reason than to perhaps get a good laugh. It wasn’t long before he regretted his decision; his little legs were no match for the larger male’s and he ended up huffing and puffing just to stay within sight of him. For a moment he thinks he has lost his target and he slows to catch his breath. Looking around, he glimpses the painted body turning past a large oak and he makes to follow only to notice that something was not quite right. The ground past the large tree seems to be less vibrant, less real somehow. “Wait!” He calls out, hoping to wake the male but he can no longer see him through a patchy fog that has enveloped both the horse and the tree. Warily he follows, but the minute his hoof touches the fog he feels the ground open up beneath him and swallow him whole.
---
When he opens his eyes, he can see nothing but the fog. The meadow, the oak, the sleepwalker - gone. As he waits for the fog to clear he silently berates his own curiosity that had led him here. Sullenness turns to fear as he is surrounded by an alien sound, like the scratching of birds after worms, but amplified. The mist begins to lift and his eyes grasp out at the first thing they can see – black lines against white. Letters. A name. His name. Moggett.
He had been pacing back and forth along the shore, waiting for that time when the tides receded, exposing the bar of sand that sometimes connected the island to mainland Beqanna. It would be soon, and his nerves were prickling in anticipation. Later on, he would seek out Nyxa, because he was always happier with her by his side. Just this once, though, he wanted to do something for himself.
It was a still day, no wind playing among the fronded palms, almost as if the air itself was holding its breath. Even the parrots, who's constant noise was a hallmark of the island, were unusually quiet. The gritty sand that crunched beneath his dark hooves was familiar, his muscle tone having been built by it. The sweet, floral air of the jungle intermingled with the light saltiness of the ocean, creating a unique perfume that he adored.
At long last, that rushing noise that had frightened him so badly that first night began. The tide was flowing out. He had to move quickly, as it would only be low enough for him to cross for a short while. The pale man worked his way forward gingerly, wet sand sucking at the soles of his feet. For a moment, he could see himself being sucked down, down, down, until there was nothing left of him but memories. Maybe that's what had happened to Bragi...
Pace quickening, he wondered how much further he had to go to reach the mainland. Surely, it couldn't be much longer. Nyxa had mentioned that you could see the mainland from the near shore. The steady sounds of the sea to both sides of him seemed off. And... what had happened to the seagulls? They had been screaming only moments before. The water seemed to be behind him now. Had he made it to the other side?
Moving more cautiously now, he noticed unexpected changes changes. Had he been gone so long that he had forgotten what Beqanna was like? The ground had gone from soft sand to a hard flatness, which rustled almost like autumn leaves underfoot. The scent of the sea was gone, replaced with something strange. It was light and almost like the bark of a tree, but different in a way he couldn't pin down. The sound of the water was gone now too, all that existed was the smooth scraping underfoot, and his own breathing.
He felt... flat. It didn't make any sense, but it was true. The depth of himself was simply no longer there. Fear started to set in. He stepped erratically forward, hearing his feet echo off the edge of wherever he was. With a shriek, his wandering brought him to a complete stop, having run headlong into something tall and flat. Eyes watering at the pain in his nose, he prodded it more gently. Tall, flat, smelling of earth and chemicals, and a bit damp. There was an identical shape beside it, and they seemed joined by a smaller line in the center. A small gap, and there was another shape of the same material, this one round and open. Lastly was a shape similar to the one in the middle, save for one side being flattened. Puzzled, Hod stood there. As far as he could tell, only he and this series of lines existed anymore. Perhaps someone would come along who could explain it, and soon. Nyxa was going to be worried sick if she realized he was no longer on the island.
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
tell you my sins so you can sharpen your knife
Sleaze only knows terrible stories.
His life is rich with them (he once came face to face with a creation from another story, another author, a clown with grinning red lips and a laugh like rats scampering on broken glass, screaming you’ll float you’ll float you’ll float). They are all terrible, and he wears them writ in exhaustion across his face, in his unstable mind, his sleepless nights.
(There are nightmares, ceaseless and unrelenting, he wakes up in cold sweats, sometimes with tears on his cheeks. Sometimes thinking of an old, old mantra: she loves us.)
He is not thinking of stories, as he moves through the meadow. He is thinking of nothing – he feels best, when he thinks of nothing – when he thinks only of his feet. One before the other.
He feels a tug, low in his abdomen. He smells something acrid – ink.
A story. A beginning. Once upon a time.
He’s had enough of stories. Of beginning. He’s ready for endings. A denouement.
“Don’t,” he says out loud. Begs. “Not again.”
The tugging is stronger. The scent of ink, stronger.
(A thing about him – his name is ugly. Just like his father. Fathers. Cancer and Garbage made Sleaze. A name for debauchery and wretchedness. He’s lived up to the wretched part. A stupid boy. A worthless boy.)
(God, he’s so sick of stories.)
And how would one describe him? A simple boy, a purple so dark it’s almost black until the right light hits him. His knees are bare and hairless, a symptom from a life he once spent praying.
(The prayers he knows are garbled and nonsensical. His father grasped at religion but never quite took hold of it.)
He is pathetic, a man who no one loves, who has no children. One father is dead, the other one was dead but now isn’t (that’s a story, too, a long one, not fit for today). He doesn’t know his handful of half-siblings.
He is alone. He is stupid and alone.
The hand writes and, having writ, moves on. It writes a name. It writes Sleaze.
The scent of ink is so strong he wants to vomit. He’s no longer in the meadow. He’s somewhere blank and white. There are other names, blurred, and he doesn’t recognize any of them, anyway. But his name stands out like a bleeding wound. Sleaze.
A pause. Another tugging sensation as the author plays with him, with the idea of him, of such a wretched thing writ into this work. Sleaze was - no. Erased. Sleaze is - no. Erased.
He doesn’t know the tense of this, only that the whole thing makes him tense, muscles taut and coiled in his shoulders and when he tries to scream it’s into a white void. Sleaze, scrawls the pen, and thus he is written, thus he is brought into this, a story waiting to be told.
let me pick your brain, girl. and tell me how they got that pretty little face on that pretty little frame.
She was too busy running to know what was happening to her. Ceara's life had gone from conventional, to harried in a quick minute, and she had all she could within her not to positively scream from frustration. The trees brushed passed her as she pounded the earth, kicking up dirt and dust behind her. Those pine needles brushed against her like a lover - a touch she has never known, and at this juncture probably would never, but that is another story, for another time. Tears were in her eyes, and in this story, Levi does not catch up with her.
She cannot hear his voice, she does not stop. Instead, she runs toward the sea, racing as fast as her body can carry her. She is black as night, sinking in to a rust colored sunset, her red eyes rolling like the waves of the ocean at Tephra, or like the pages of a book. As she runs, faster and faster, it seems that the ground beneath her feet is disappearing, flittering away in fragments of earth that falls way in glittering chunks. The trees begin to blur together in a miasma of color, before they too have gone colorless. Her world is black and white, but still Ceara keeps running, needing to escape whatever is holding her back is in Tephra.
Her love of Warrick, its Oveseer.
Her love of Levi, her wayfaring brother.
Even they go colorless inside her head and fade away into nothing, Ceara flipping the pages on her mind, starting fresh, blanking to something new.
The trees lose their leaves, until they are just trunks, and then finally sticks. Ceara's movements slow down, until she realizes that unless the pages are turning, she is no longer moving. As if she is a piece of animated art in a flipbook. The sticks have turned into pages that are flipping in a book, and her world is now a world of nothingness. A void, determined by the dimensions of whatever this was...
Soon the pages slow down, and the trees disappear entirely. And as Ceara slows down (unwittingly, because she would have kept running if she had been able to do so), her eyes flash red as she hears the echoing scrawl of what sounds like a waterfall somewhere below her... Or was it beside her? Her hearing and depth perception have narrowed drastically... narrowed to the second dimension. With what little movement she has left, she is able to look below her... and see that her name has been written in florid script.
'Ceara'
With a grimace, she realizes she is on display. Her right front leg is up, as if she was mid-step. her dark red feathers appear that she is a woman in motion, and her ears are back in an agitated manner. Her mane and tail hang unnaturally behind her, stuck there, like the wind was at one time blowing past her. Ceara's body now feels as though it is made of wax, as if she were drawn with a human child's crayon. And then, she feels nothing at all. She is a completed project. Ceara wonders what would become of her, then she feels the heat the sun resting upon her back (it is really a desk lamp), and an ethereal being as if a god staring down upon her with a smile on his face. His handiwork. His artistry.
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart. “I am still broken in two part.”
Ischia or Loess. No, not Loess, Loess has never really been part of her consideration. It merely is the land where hé lives. Ivar, Loess’ king. Now she knows the irony in that. The kelpie king bound to land, instead of sea. Her beloved sea. His beloved sea. Oh, how easy it would be to not have to choose, like Kylin feels she has to.
“There is my mind, there is my heart.”
And her mind and heart don’t agree. Lately she has secluded herself more and more often, retreating to one of Ischia’s smaller islands. It is where she is today too. Just staring at the ever moving sea. The tide is high, meaning those bound to land aren’t able to come to the island that has become her isolation.
Just as Kylin prefers, or thinks she prefers. Her own thoughts keep her busy enough. It would be such relief to not have to think of them, about the choice, but thus far her wishes have fallen to deaf ears. Kharon, her parents, Kali, uncle Reilly, all still haunt her thoughts too, though memories might be a better word. Nothing more than ghosts of the past. And yet, the lavender and white young woman is unable to let them go.
“Nowhere for me to run and hide.”
Or was there? Hazel eyes blink against the bright light, both the from the sun and the light reflected on the surface. Her dished head tilts slightly to the side and her ears perk curiously forward. Before Kylin realises it she has taken a couple of steps onto the surface, waves gently running over her hooves. In the distance there is something, someone, could it be? Her heart skips a beat. Weren’t her eyes deceiving her?
She nickers, soft and shrill, almost as if she is a filly again. That would be the sound he knew. He would recognize her, right? Kylin whinnies high pitched and loud. Another couple of hesitant steps are taken, but the further she gets out onto the sea, the more she speeds up. The silhouette gets closer, and yet at the same time, it seems like she is still far away. ”KHARON!” she calls and finally, finally, the figure stops and turns around to look back at her.
But only for a short moment. The air in front of him changes, but only slightly. As if it starts shimmering, in the form of a perfect circle. He looks at her, their gazes meeting, and Kylin is about to say his name again when he disappears through the portal. It doesn’t need explaining that the lavender and white woman doesn’t need to think twice, jumping through in an attempt to chase after him.
The world around her changes on instant. She’s no longer in Ischia, no longer out on the sea, but instead finds herself on a blank page. Her mind is all taken up with thoughts of her twin brother, leaving no space for anything else. His name – Kharon – lies on her lips, but only hers is written on the page besides the lavender and white illustration: Kylin.
AuroraElis
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