"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
Although Isilya would be happy to continue being queen forever, she recognizes that change is good. And in a tropical environment where the seasons don’t come along - sometimes change needs to be urged along in other ways.
She will not be leaving this jungle, not when she feels it’s pulse within her. This is her home. But she can tend to it, care for it, and care for those within its borders without carrying the mantle of being its leader.
So she makes a call - not entering the minds of Tephrans but carried on the wings of her flower-woven birds that swoop beneath the canopies and through the clearings. An invitation to anyone who might have an interest in taking over the throne. She waits in a clearing, with the warm spring sunshine filtering down, and wearing her favourite rich wisteria blossoms that drape from the vines trailing down her spine.
Surely someone will come! And if they don’t well, she will keep this option open for the future. It was never in her intention to become a tyrant that did not give up the throne.
simple and sweet
Isilya
Open post for anyone to come and pitch themselves as the new leader of Tephra!
The petals of its wings are wind-blown and bruised, buffeted by an unexpected sea-crossing. I hold it carefully, balanced on the bridge of my nose as he cross the low-tide strait that separates Ischia from Tephra, and only when we have reached the shore do I allow it to find a more comfortable spot clinging to the long blue-violet strands that hand over my shoulder. I hadn’t wanted to risk drowning one of Isilya’s flower birds, and the relief I feel at having returned it (mostly) unharmed to the kingdom where she lives is strong.
Papa has told me I am too young to answer the summons that the bird had carried. I am one year old, I had retorted, I could answer anything I wanted!
(I hadn’t really wanted to, but being forbidden made it seem all the more alluring. Even Daddy’s disappointed look as I trotted off toward the sea to return the flower had not been enough to give me pause.)
Now, though, now that I am standing on the beach and staring up at a volcano that is much larger than it had been in my childhood memories, I grow hesitant. I am very good at ruling our tiny island (even if Aureus and Barley never listen to my commands), but this place is far from tiny. My earliest memories are of these Tephran jungles, and yet as I make my way through the forest I find that little of those half-remembered memories match this place. Perhaps it is my vantage point, I think, and try lowering my antlered head to where it might have been as a child. No, that’s not it either.
Before I can determine what it might be, I’ve found Isilya. Or she has found me? Magicians are tricky, sometimes, but I have only ever heard benevolent stories about this one.
“Hello!” My greeting is perhaps overloud, shouted from the edge of the copse, but I nod very politely when I am a little closer. “I’m Asena! I found your bird and Its wing is a little bit torn so I brought it back to you!”
The more important task complete, I decide it is time to launch into the speech I have prepared on my way over from my home in the Tephran territory.
“Also I think I could be a good queen! My daddies said no BUT they have also told me that I am brave and stubborn and headstrong” (the two latter are listed as proudly as the first), “and also I can make flower birds too! Well, almost.” At her words, a flock of them burst from a nearby bush, shades of red and orange like the hibiscus they emerged from. They flutter about Asena’s head, and she recalls her last, but perhaps most glowing, endorsement. “AND I talked to a fairy. Not just one time but twice!”
@[Isilya]
A S E N A
i’d rather run the other way than stay and see the smoke and who’s still standing when it clears
He rose with the dawn, not ashamed that he does so only because he enjoys watching the sun’s rays filter through her ruby skin, making tiny rainbows and gentle fractiles as it moves across her sleeping body, all lit up with endless rays. It’s beautiful and though he’s told her, he’s unsure she truly grasps what he means.
Perhaps it is because of her (and this intimacy and emotion that they are racing towards each passing moment) or maybe it is because his visions have only gotten worse - fire sears the back of his eyelids, charred earth intermingled with blood and bodies, the face of a dark God sending strangers into the afterlife (and back again?).
Whatever the reason, something had changed.
Warden, the silent Watcher, feels it thrumming within him as he watches the sunlight set Flower aflame like a molten gemstone. He touches his pale lips to her shoulder, not in order to rouse her awake but to ensure that she is a living, breathing being beside him and not some figment of his imagination. He often forgets and needs the reminder.
Something like a flutter of wings catches his attention - the sound is nothing like when his own wings beat against the summer-like air, but is reminiscent of feathers, perhaps like lashes against the skin. He turns his great horned head, their dark blue color sparkling in the morning’s light, his own cobalt eyes fixating on a tiny, fluttering thing that zips to and fro before him like a hummingbird. The stallion snorts softly, tipping his head forward and stretching the length of his auburn neck towards it, nostrils flaring.
It wants you to follow it, comes to her sleepy voice, and it is like she is speaking into his heart.
With a kiss to the crook of her jawline and then one to her brow when he had stood, Warden follows the spirited bird in gentle silence from the warmth of their shady nook.
The little avian brings him to a clearing with a kiss to his pale pink nose before diving away and up into the canopy that rises overhead. The moisture here is thick and trapped, but Warden does not notice the way his home seeps with heat and humidity. He knows nothing else. The stallion watches it disappear, his ocean eyes rising into the trees as his head tips forward, those spiraling horns nearly touching his neck. That is when, of course, he notices the shape of Isilya, porcelain and stoic, with purple flowers draped across her withers.
He comes towards her and the younger filly, his head now lowered in a gentle greeting. “Good morning,” His voice is deep and slow as it comes from his mouth, his dark eyes flickering from each of them. For a moment he is confused as to why he had followed the flower-bird, his brow furrowing slightly as if deep in thought.
And then, that same feeling pulses within him as it had done this morning and - as he had mused only hours ago - something changes.
His expression softens and with a slight tip of his chin, he tells Isilya: “Tephra has been our home for generations. A legacy now lives and breathes on its shores and beneath the shadow of the volcano.” Warrick, the once-King and Warden’s father, cherishes Tephra still to this day; titles did not matter and for Warden, it is much the same. The stallion pauses, taking in a quick and careful breath, a wary eye on the younger girl before continuing: “I am done with the torture my ability plagues me with. I am ready to not only foretell the darkness but to use its terrible knowledge to better protect those I love - to stop any violence before it begins.”
The stallion does not go into further detail - he is sure the Magician understands his ability (that his visions only foretell death and destruction) and if she did not, she could easily flip through his mind to see the unfathomable and gruesome scenes that have unfolded there since Warden’s first breath.
A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them, and now it's left me blind
She had thought about not coming. She is young, certainly. Too young to have considered it, she thinks. But she does not know how not to answer Isilya’s call. It is not a matter of obedience but a matter of allegiance. Because she owes the magician queen her life, she knows. Her mother had never been shy in explaining to Astra how they had labored through the lands of Beqanna in search of the magician hours after Astra’s birth. And Astra can still taste her mother’s desperation like something caught at the base of her throat. The grief that had twisted through the both of them when her mother had realized that she was hurting the child, burning her from the inside, and how she could not feed her in the hours after her birth.
Isilya had saved them both.
So, she is young and she has no business making the journey across Tephra to the meeting Isilya has called. Trailing after a soft-petaled bird the same way her mother had once, she is only strong enough to follow because Isilya had made her so.
She emerges in the clearing to find two others flanking the queen. A girl roughly her own age and an older stallion. Immediately, the other filly’s enthusiasm slides down her throat and curls itself into the cage of her ribs. Tempered only by the stallion’s softness. A kind of wariness that cancels out whatever the other filly is filling. And, again, Astra is left to wonder what emotions are hers and what emotions belong to the others in the clearing.
She is still learning how to protect herself from the emotions of others.
She has no business being a ruler, as young as she is. But she steps forward anyway, smiling softly, shyly at the other two before she addresses Isilya directly. “I’d like to help any way I can,” she tells the queen. “I think I could learn to be useful, to make you and my mother proud.” She nods, unaware of just how good and fair a rule she herself would be.
Isilya breathes a sigh of relief when the first candidate arrives - not thinking anything about the youth of the girl. Age alone did not make for a good ruler! She was looking for a good heart, for someone that would care for this kingdom (and allow her to continue to garden within it).
“Thank you so much for bringing it back to me, Asena.” With a blink, the bird’s foliage wing mends and it flutters around Asena in a few circles before disappearing into the canopy.
Isilya’s attention is on the antlered girl, genuine delight shining in her two-toned eyes as the qualifications are listed - and it is an impressive list. She laughs with delight at the show of the flock of flower birds she produces. “Twice! That is impressive, that’s two times more than I have.” Isilya confides with a grin.
Another arrives and Isilya’s delight continues to grow. She recognizes Warden as being part of the family that has lived here for a long time, and she dips her shimmering-gold head in greeting. Although her smile does not fade, she gives his words all the attention they deserve - her expression only softening a little at the allusion to how his visions only foretell darkness and not the light. A burden, to be sure, but it is no small thing that he sees the benefit in it as well. “I believe in you, Warden, and in your ability to use your visions for the benefit of this kingdom.”
The last to come is one Isilya knows well and her heart swells to see Astra. It has been one of the great joys of the flower queen’s life to see the star-roaned girl grow, to have played a part in her life. The smile she gives Astra is one they’ve shared a hundred times already, one that shines with the love she feels. At the mention of the girl wanting to make Isilya and her mother proud, something twists in her heart (in the best way). “You already have, my dear Astra.”
With a grin her attention moves to the group - gaze flicking between all three. “You would all make such wonderful rulers, I can already feel it. I just have one question - would you change anything about this jungle home? And if so, what?” She leaves the interpretation open - would they change something about the jungle itself, about their policies, alliances, the structure for those living within it? Hazel eyes dance as she looks among the three potential leaders and she feels alive with the future that is thick in the air.
Isilya seems pleased by Asena’s careful return of her creation, and the four tines of her violet antlers bob as she nods in acceptance of the queen’s thanks. When the pale mare mends the little creature before her eyes, Asena finds herself wondering if Fern could do that as well. She had grown a flower from nothing, so perhaps she could grow a flower bird from nothing too. Thinking of the plant mage she’d met in the Field causes the other’s color to flash briefly across Asena’s coat – pale green and white.
Asena blushes, having not lost control of her own gifts in front of strangers before, and looks away.
Looks away only to find another stranger, one with a pale face and overo markings not unlike her own on bay sides. Something about him looks familiar, but after a few seconds of intense staring she abandons the mental search for who it might be he reminds her of. Later, perhaps, she will realize that he reminded her of Daddy’s whole side of the family, and perhaps will someday put together that he is her great-uncle. He does certainly sound like a great something, deep-voiced and noble. He sounds like Papa when Papa is imitating a dragon in their bedtime stories, but also like Daddy when he’d told her how to properly imitate nobility.
He could probably do a really good monster voice, Asena thinks, and from Isilya’s response the flowery monarch seems to approve of him as well. The navy blue filly with stars on her skin that had joined them is someone that already knew Isilya, but isn’t her daughter. Astra. That is a good name, like the stars, and matching her own and her brother’s. Asena smiles, deciding that she will be this girl’s friend. The filly agrees with the queen: deep-voiced Warden and future-friend Astra would be awesome rulers. When Isilya asks her single question, it takes Asena a moment to think of her answer. Change about Tephra?
Well, she doesn’t know Tephra all that well, to be honest. She’s already decided that she doesn’t think she wants to be ruler more than she wants the others to be. “I think there should be more parties. More reasons for others to come and visit and see how nice Tephra is.” More reasons for her to be allowed back to the Mainland, too, but Asena couldn’t possibly be thinking about that. “I could be the party thrower!” She exclaims, and with a toss of her head throws the brief illusion of a shadowy night light by an impossibly large moon and a myriad of stars floating below the jungle canopy.
@[Warden]
A S E N A
i’d rather run the other way than stay and see the smoke and who’s still standing when it clears
ooc: she is taking back her pitch of herself as leader because I need to be realistic about my free time :|
10-21-2020, 07:46 PM (This post was last modified: 10-21-2020, 07:49 PM by Warden.)
resurrect the saint within the wretch
Another join him, and the deep blue of Warden’s gaze slowly falls to her. The girl is touched by the stars and for a moment the horned stallion’s breath catches in his throat - he had cursed the stars and continues to do so, silently, beneath the open expanse of night time sky. It is strange to see them sprinkle so casually across the dark navy, peppered delicately along her skin. He snorts softly, his pale nostrils flaring, as if clearing his mind; the stars in her coat had taken him by surprise, but there is the gentlest of smiles offered to her on his pink mouth.
He had not come forward willingly; had he felt there was a choice, he is sure he would have denied it. He always had in the past and would continue to do so now - but something has shifted, changed. Perhaps it is hope that now alights within him instead of the darkness he knows so well - maybe that is the name of it, but he isn’t sure, for how is he to name something he has never felt?
Isilya addresses him and his ocean eyes fall back to her, stoicism along the hard planes of his white face. Her question brings a shadow across his expression as his brow furrows, the familiar terseness finding itself in his jawline. The heaviness of his wings that are folded gently at his sides now flutter absentmindedly, their down releasing the scent of smoke from the volcano and salt from the sea. Warden, the Watcher, is in silence for quite some time.
“I’m not sure I would change anything, Isilya,” he finally admits with a softening of his brow. The future always comes. Words that he lives by echo in his mind, a cautionary phrase to some, but perhaps words of peace to another. “I have seen beyond the present; nothing done here ever changes what will come.” Warden pauses briefly, feeling the weight of his words as they fall from his lips and knowing that they do not hold the hope and wistfulness of a possible king should. “But I believe knowing that - and understanding that - gives Tephra the greatest advantage of all.”
Warden bows his head slightly, the inky tendrils of his forelock falling across his forehead with the motion, part of it tangling in the midst of the deep blue of his twisting horns. “Would you change anything, Isilya?”
