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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    Solace, Velk, Valdis;
    #1
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    The plague is spreading quickly, extending its dead fingers across the lands and inhabitants, hungry. Castile took to the sky, his body rippling and contorting until he was a dragon again. Sabra’s body remains on the lonely outcropping of rock off Nerine’s shore; safe, he hopes, from this destruction. The ramming of his heart against his chest fuels him with fear. Beneath him, Beqanna is dying and wilting piece by piece. Witnessing it from above quickens his momentum. Trees are a mere blur underneath his racing shadow until he banks above Hyaline.

    Velk, Valdis, and Solace.
    Raul and Santana.

    Castile’s primary concern is his children and their lives facing the land’s turmoil.

    Among the clouds, his body twists and reverts back into that of a horse, no longer requiring additional speed and strength to rush here. With a practiced grace and swiftness, he descends until all four hooves have made contact with the tall grass. Heavy bellows rattle his throat as he beckons his family, wanting desperately to see their faces amid the chaos to reassure him that they are okay, at least for the time being. Being a Caretaker of Hyaline, Solace is likely busy with her kingdom family, but Castile doesn’t take this to heart, setting aside their changed relationship for the sake of their children – and for the beautiful relationship they once had.

    ”Solace!” He blares again as his mismatched eyes dart back and forth across the knots of horses. ”Velk! Valdis!” His wings remain vigilant, standing high in preparation to fly and search another area of Hyaline for them. Quietly, to himself, he begs and wishes for them to find him quickly.



    castile



    @[Solace] @[Velk]

    Castile just loves his kiddos and wants them to be safe Big Grin
    #2
    And in the darkened underpass I thought,
    "Oh Satan, my chance has come at last!"


    Many seemed panicked and worried. Kagerus is calling to them all, beckoning them to a central location and ushering them to a new land. Confused, Valdis hangs behind. Her eyes dart back and forth to watch the masses muster themselves to the Caretaker, heeding her words feverishly and weighing their options. Unable to follow like a lost lamb, the girl wanders Hyaline and seeks out any stragglers. She knows the direction in which everyone has fled, so perhaps she can at least guide those that are muddled. A feeble grin trembles across her lips at those passing her by, but silence keeps her lips pursed tightly shut.

    The world is speeding by; Valdis almost feels sluggish in the flurry of events. Bewildered, she looks up at the sky and considers taking flight until she hears her own name carried across the hills with a powerful bellow.

    Castile lands heavily from his flight with panic painted across his face. It doesn’t help to calm her firing nerves, but she runs to him still. Her own heartbeat is in her throat, hammering even in her head and ears. Weaving among the few stragglers, Valdis tunnels her vision on her father and ignores all else for the last few seconds before she is front of him. The air has a thickness that threatens her, and frightens her. Alas, she desperately attempts to mask her worry with a mild look of concern instead. The overcast clouds darken Hyaline more so, shading them in an oppressing grayscale. ”Dad,” she mutters, knowing only the vaguest details of Beqanna’s turmoil since he didn’t obediently follow the herd. ”What’s going on?” Her voice trembles with the challenge of keeping level, not wanting to betray how weak and vulnerable she feels in this moment.

    Glancing over her shoulder, she tries to see whether her mother and brother are here or if they sought refuge in alien lands.

    VALDIS
    But then a strange fear gripped me and I just couldn't ask.
    #3



    Nearly the second the Kingdom Meeting in Silver Cove had concluded Solace had taken to the sky again. Hyaline pulled at her like a magnet, and with an eastern wind at her back, it's only a matter of moments before she is skimming low below winters thick, grey clouds above her home. 

    Her gaze is roaving each dip and rise of the land, some unfamiliar with this new configuration, as she searches for anyone - but one young mare most of all. When the caravan had first begun to crawl around the cove, seeking the safety of the new land, Valdis had been there. Solace had given a sigh of relief as she saw her eldest daughter in the mix of bodies, and mentally she had been accounted for. It wasn't until she began to address the gathered refugees, and the kraken from Pangea, that she realized that Valdi's intense gaze was not looking back up at her from the crowd. She had felt sick.

    Finally, the sounds of her own name on the wind is what leads her to her daughter. 

    And Castile.

    The Caretaker lands just as Valdis looks back over her shoulder. She allows her momentum to carry her forward, unable to resist the urge stretch a wing over the young mare and pulling her close, if only for a moment.  Their crystalline intensity of her blue eyes follows the lines of her daughters face, reading the fear that she tries to hide. Anyone else you can fool, she thinks, but I know you.

    Solace had spent the entire day wearing the face of calm collection, attempting to lead her with actions instead of words, and she doesn't stop now. She pulls her wing back to her side, content that her daughter is not in immediate danger, and lifts her face to Castile. 

    "Thank you for checking on us," she says with sincerity, her voice low and soothing, despite the surprise she feels at finding him here when most others had been evacuated. "Hyaline is no longer safe. Kagerus has claimed Silver Cove for Hyaline - the place is free of any disease and protected by magic - we should be there now." a pause as, only the length of a heartbeat, "Castile?" She questions delicately, "Do you have a safe place to go?"

    She doesn't mention that she is staying, that she knows that she may contract her death by doing so, she doesn't want Valdis to get any ideas. But behind the calm facade of her feature, there is a sadness in her eyes as they search Castile's again. 

    S
    olace
        we're reeling through an endless fall
    we are the ever-living ghost of what once was


    @[Castile]
    Solghostdoll2

    #4
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    Castile’s heart nearly bursts upon seeing Valdis whip around and see him. She stands out among the crowds to him, her bright face the very sunlight of his life in this moment. His only daughter, he realizes, and she remains here in the line of peril. The urgency of shouting her name again nearly escapes him, but he chokes on his own emotions when he sees Solace also heeding their daughter, then him. Mother and child exchange the warmest of smiles and embraces as wings reach in adoration. Castile, watching helplessly from afar, can only bring himself to clumsily canter a couple strides forward because they are quickly upon him, radiating urgency.

    Valdis discerns the expression of knowledge that sharpens her mother’s face. Sheepishly, she grins because nothing can truly be concealed in the face of Solace; naturally, a mother knows her children all too well. However, the awkward smile melts away into something far sincerer and loving as she happily accepts the embrace before fleeing to father’s bellowing cry.

    A near look of shock freezes across Castile’s face when he hears Solace for the first time. His teeth clench together, taken aback, but he responds with a delicacy and tenderness that he refuses to share with anyone else. ”You’re my family,” he affirms in a husky, commanding voice, ”of course I will check on you all.” The reassurance eases Valdis’ worry to a small degree, but the tumultuous churn of events is nipping at their heels and pressing nearer, threatening to consume them. While mostly oblivious, she at least knows the detrimental nature of staying in Hyaline. Her blue eyes dance between her parents expectantly, awaiting their orders and course of action, but there is a silky tone of concern that entwines mother’s words. Glancing away, she watches the world around them while still keeping an attentive ear glued to them.

    Weighing his options, Castile reads into Solace’s instructions. Hyaline is no longer safe, much like Nerine. Their lives are being jeopardized, and yet he still stands with them, unable to move or set their welfare below his own. Hearing the honeyed sweetness of her voice, Castile meets Solace’s eyes. He searches them, desperately willing himself to hear her thoughts but there is nothing. ”Are you staying in the Cove, Solace?” He noted that Kagerus laid claim to it for the sake of Hyaline, but the corresponding Caretaker has not included her own agenda amid the ensuing chaos. Inching closer, he considers touching her.

    The urge is there, the temptation firing across each and every one of his nerves.
    But he doesn’t do it.

    He replays how she last ghosted herself to elude his affection. Unable to endure it again, especially in front of their daughter, he refrains. ”I need to know that you and our children will be safe,” a fleeting glance finds Valdis as she stares across the hills, lake and mountain, but then he is looking at Solace again. What he sees is the girl he flew the skies with and with whom he shared laughter. When he looks at her, he remembers the tender evening that resulted in their twins. ”I’m not leaving you until you are all safe.”

    His breath is heavy, intoxicated by adrenaline.
    But he takes the moment to finally reach for her, to press his lips adoringly to her forehead. ”I’m not leaving you again,” he whispers, shutting his eyes as he breathes her in, again and again.


    castile



    @[Solace]
    #5

    and I could easily lose my mind; the way you kiss me will work each time

    As the Tephran mutiny dissipates, the once-prince finds himself elsewhere, mentally; home, mentally. Without waiting a breath, his wings burst from his sides and he runs into the sky, wishing that maybe, just maybe, the plague would not find its way to his lungs. Not yet, at least; not before he can find mothers.

    He is in luck; for as he approaches the eastern portion of Beqanna, a glinting gold spec soon becomes the shape of Solace, and his eyes follow her as she descends into a valley between the mountains. Though anxiety tears at the muscles in his chest, the sight of her alive and well gives him some comfort... but not enough. Something tells him he will never feel enough comfort in the coming months.

    A blackness surrounds them, even in the light of day. He feels its teeth sinking into the marrow of his bones.

    He lands some ways off from them, separated by stragglers making their way to the Cove. He'd spotted it from above, and would have travelled there were it not for Solace's presence here. As he approaches, Rhaegor recognizes his half-sister Valdis and the stallion he knows to be her father, Castile. The two have never met, but the prince finds that in these trying times, even the presence of a stranger will not stop him from doing - and saying - what he must.

    He arrives at the group just as the stallion presses himself to his mother. With a surge of an unfamiliar emotion, Rhae quickly nips Castile's nose, his teeth clunking ungracefully against his elder's bones; it doesn't break skin or perhaps even hurt, but the protective nature of the son lends itself to this useless show of masculinity in a time when perhaps he ought to have been more charitable. Still, he considers his forgetting of the inappropriate moment between the two to be the charitable act, for he only glares once at Castile before settling onto his haunches and addressing those gathered.

    His voice is as the wind; felt more than heard.

    "Tephra is under mutiny. Magnus may be the king soon, if the vote goes his way. Tephra is also a safehold, thanks to grandfather." He feels no need to call Warrick by name in this crowd, given that he is also Valdis' grandfather. His eyes turn now to Solace, and the hardness of his gaze softens, looking almost - almost - as he had as a young, silent boy growing up and loving the softness of his life.

    "Mother... please tell mom that I'm okay, and tell Will and Sviko too. I will see them all as soon as I can." Pausing, the son reaches and folds into his mother's neck, tears welling in his eyes as he is presses there where no one else can see. "I'm scared, mother," he whispers; but after a moment to absorb the strength that radiates from the Caretaker like rays from the son, he pulls back, wondering how the others might react.

    calling me to come back to bed, singing Georgia on my mind

    Rhaegor

    [Image: rhae]
    #6




    The fact that she still cares for him abrades the very fiber of the Caretaker's being. The tenderness he offers her feels wrong, that the scent of another mare clinging to his skin even registers in her mind, feels wrong. It feels wrong to notice such things at a time like this, as her wife remained behind performing the duties of Heart, Ambassador and General with an aptitude that left Solace awestruck. 

    "You owe me," Kag's voice purrs in her mind, and Solace knows that she will also be left speechless by the end of the night. 

    But the way Castile melts Valdis' fears touches Solace, and although her gut instinct is to over-correct, she doesn't want to ruin her daughter's second interaction with her sire as she runs to him. You can't say that every time, some prudent inner voice reminds her, but his voice trumps her private one, at least for now. 

    Are you staying in the Cove, Solace? 

    "I will remain the Caretaker of Hyaline," she replies, resolute. She would not abandon Hyaline to whoever found it empty first. The day-to-day details still needed fine-tuning, it was true, but she didn't have to decide all that now. Her main focus at this moment was getting everyone to safety. "But tonight we will all travel to Silver cove," she concedes, with a pointed look to her daughter. 

     I’m not leaving you until you are all safe. I'm not leaving you again. 

    As he offers her this heady promise, stepping forward to lay a kiss on her brow, and she responds with the smallest shake of her head under his touch. His lips trail across the delicate white hairs of her forehead, and she bites her tongue, keenly aware that he did not answer her question.

    No, she thinks, you will, and it's for the best that way. He may be ready to escort them to the cove, and she would allow it, but Solace knows that it won't be long before he unfurls those black wings and they carry him to wherever-the-hell it was he went. He would leave them before the night was over. She just hopes her daughter didn't hear that last confession, because she doesn't want Valdis to have her heart broken. 

    She's thinking of a gentle way to say this, drawing breath to move them to the safety as she does, but her son is suddenly between them. Stepping back with a jolt, Solace looks to Rhae then Castile as she steps toward the former instinctual concern. The buckskin boy's impulsive action would have drawn a good-humored laugh had the world around them not been in such turmoil.  She still smiles though, unable to hide the joy and sheer relief she feels at finding another of her children. Solace reaches for the colt, seeking to sooth him as he glares, and also prevent a pissing match between her son and the dragon shifter. 

    Solace attempts to read into the meaningful look the colt turns to gives her, but before she can decipher it, he is (surprisingly) speaking up.

    "Then we know we at least have one friend in all of this, Warrick will be glad to hear it." Solace knew of Magnus, he had been a re-occurring name in her father's history lessons. 

    But the tears in his eyes stir the mother's heart, and she reaches her wing around him, much as she had done with Valdis, curving her neck back to nudge her son encouragingly on the cheek. And for a moment he is completely sheltered from the world. Solace breathes in the rich scent of Tephra clinging to his coat, taking the length of a single breath to draws strength from him, just as he does from her. 

    Then the earth grumbles again.

    Regal and collected again more Solace addresses her children and once-lover. Every minute the performance takes more energy from her.  "Rhae, come to tell her now." She says, afraid of his true meaning her tone grows firm as her cerulean gaze sweeps across them all. "I must insist that we move this conversation to someplace safer," she says, and it is not a request.  

    S
    olace
        we're reeling through an endless fall
    we are the ever-living ghost of what once was



    @[Castile] @[Rhaegor]
    Solghostdoll2

    #7
    and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left
    a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
    Her response is a terrible pang in his heart. He knows the underlying message, that she is remaining in this diseased land despite what awaits her in the sanctuaries. Undoubtedly, Castile knows that it will never again be in his embrace, pressed to his chest, that Solace will find security and love… or even a home. Their reunion had been a painstaking reminder of what he let slip between his fingers. They caressed one another, blossomed life within her womb, and smiled adoringly at one another without the knowledge that it would be their last, years ago.

    The memories surface when he sees how steadily she anchors herself to these hills and shakes her head beneath the soft brush of his lips. This – she – is no longer his.

    As he withdraws, he hears the pop of teeth as Rhaegor nips him away. Admittedly, Castile’s attention was so heavily focused on Solace that he didn’t take notice of the boy’s arrival. The pinning of his ears is a chain reaction, but before they’ve completely fallen back into his mane, they are swiveling again. More or less, he is an outcast here, but in truth, he always has been. Even when Amet ruled these hills and Ciri curled underneath his chin, Castile was a misfit. Hyaline always seems to rip him away from love, taking pieces of his heart, bit by bit.

    With a low sigh, Castile glances to Valdis pointedly when she grumbles under her breath in response to her deliberate instructions. ”The Cove,” he echoes to her, but it doesn’t pacify the distaste she expresses toward the idea. The girl snorts and abandons the group, moving in the direction of the refuge before veering off course once out of their site. Her youthful curiosity leads her astray.

    Solace interjects when the world once again groans, insisting they leave. Unable to immediately move, Castile meets her eyes, searching them and memorizing them as he once had years ago. A lovely thing for their daughter to have inherited them. ”You go to the Cove,” he solemnly says despite how his heart writhes knowing that’s where her love and happiness is now, ”and I will check on Nerine. I will be visiting frequently.” It’s a promise, one that he clutches onto desperately, never intending to break it. Not this time. He won’t fail them again.

    But before he turns to leave, he whispers for only her to hear, knowing that it will likely fall on deaf ears. ”You were my first love,” he holds her gaze, his eyes soft, ”and that feeling will never fade.” And with that, Castile lurches forward, immediately taking flight and soaring north to check on his home.


    castile



    @[Solace]
    #8
    @[Castile] rolled a 3 and is infected.
    A roll of 5 means he is symptomatic.
    A roll of 1 means he will not express a trait.

    @[Valdis] rolled a 3 and is infected.
    A roll of 2 means he is symptomatic.
    A roll of 4 means he will not express a trait.

    @[Solace] rolled a 6 and is safe...for now.

    Rhaegor is already infected.




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