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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


    [open]  You pray to stars that can help you get by [Any]
    #1
    TW: Violence/death

    all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was

    Sunlight filters behind her eyelids and the song of birds begins to rouse her from her sleep. There had been a terrible dream. One where Gale had actually been a monster in disguise and had attacked her, one where she flees from him with failure drying bitterly on her tongue. So slowly she wakes, her head aching and her body feeling as if it had been broken to pieces.

    And then the reality sits in. The one that’s worse then what she had dreamed. The only thing that was real in her dream was her failure. Because she hadn’t escaped from him. She had failed, immensely. He had been so much stronger than her and had managed to break her shield. Had sliced clean through the burning layers of gas and light when she had gone to strike him with her hooves and slashed her across her already scarred face and chest. She had been knocked prone to the ground, blinded by a pain and a fear that she had never experienced before.

    This was nothing like the Underneath.

    This was worse.

    The high of her adrenaline was the only thing that had kept her conscious when he had snapped the bones in her legs, a screaming fiery white-hot pain that courses up her limbs and floods into the rest of her body. There is no time for her to cry out and any words die in her throat, swept away in a tidal wave of agony. The swirls of her eyes have never moved so fast as they look up, glassy and confused, at the stallion she had once cared for. Her friend. No, the thing wearing her friend's face. That swell of fear she tastes is so different from anything she has felt before because she knows she is looking at the face of her death. And it's smiling at her. It's that irritating grin that makes her refuse to give up, still tries to rise on broken bones and take some part of him with her. Refuses to give up so easily.

    He carves her open and the stars around her begin to dim with the exception of the ones that she calls “companions”.  They seem to glow incredibly brighter with outrage and despair as he pulls out her magic and takes it. He fails to sever her link to the stars above when he leaves her heart in her chest and she doesn’t know how lucky she is that he leaves that behind. Crimson pools from the wounds he has created, staining the ground around her as the pain becomes so overwhelming, blood bubbling from her throat and nose, as she watches him devour her magic and smiles.

    “Delicious.” He says and she spits blood at his hooves with a snarl. “I hope you choke on them.” She manages from her strangled voice, coughing as the heavy coppery taste of blood fills her senses. And then he kicks her in the head and the world goes black as the fallen star dies.

    Dies and comes back to life because when she wakes she doesn’t remember being anywhere other then here. She hadn’t returned to the night sky in her release from life and it must have only been a whisper of a death for the hole in her chest is filled. He had healed her. She doesn’t understand why. And then with a sick laugh she realizes that he hadn’t healed all of her.

    Her front legs remain mangled and useless and a fresh wave of pain threatens to overwhelm her. It eventually wins and she becomes sick all over herself, unable to stop retching at the brutality of her body and what Gale had become. She lays in the sticky remains of her blood that stains the grass a brownish hue and rolls to her side, simply breathing heavily and replaying the nights events in her mind. Over and over again she sees her death and her magic being taken from her and something within her starts to harden at the edges, something steals away the last of her innocence as the Curse in Hyaline burns the wisteria she had loved so much. All that had been left of a simpler time.

    And so she waits to die again but her mind refuses to give up the thousands of ways she hopes to carve Gale apart the way he had done to her and how she might find the power to do so if she manages to live.

    -- Ciri

    Image by Phil Botha
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    #2
    The blood draws her, that rich, crimson, scent that turns the air copper and the anguished cries that lead her to the creature flailing, broken, on the ground. There is nothing hurried about Manikin's approach, no reason to run when your quarry has already been split and splayed and made ready for sacrifice. Her steps are slow, savoring the music of the mare's wailing and retching, and when she breaks through the stand of cottonwoods that have hidden her, it is with a knife-sharp grin and a whisper-soft purr rolling in her chest.

    The scene is disappointing, not so much blood as she had expected, no artist's stroke splashed across the meadowgrass, but two broken legs is encouraging. Sweat and panic fill her nostrils, and Manikin draws close with a cloak of the peaceful magic that lulls her prey when she grows weary of the hunt.

    Calm.

    "Tsk," the hippogryph circles the downed mare once, then lies down beside her, amber eyes glittering, "you need help, Love."

    There is only one kind of help that Manikin can give her, but she delays. Even injured, it's risky in a world full of magicians, so she watches hungrily, waiting to see the effect of her own power, and while she waits, she reaches out to touch the twisted pathways of the mare's memories, tentative at first, but with ever-increasing audacity. It is not like Avo, whose memories she is so familiar with, twisted and altered to suit her. Her head tilts, birdlike, as she wanders these other halls and thinks how she might change them, and when she speaks again her voice rough but sympathetic. A lie.

    "I can heal you." She pauses, as if hesitating, as if waiting for permission, "It's a new thing, though, I-- I'm not very quick with it. Please, hold still. And, I'm sorry, it might hurt at first."

    A white-toed paw reaches out for the mare's left leg, careful of any tricks, but it is her memory she is after instead, hooking unrelated alleys to one another. It's a tricky business.

    "My name is Popinjay, what's yours?" Concern shadows accross her face, "Oh, it's worse than I thought. How did you do this to yourself?"
    Image by ratty


    @Ciri I'm sorry, don't have a wheelchair
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    #3
    Leilan
    He is studying the veil, on the Beach, when the mental warning bell sounds. The tie he has with Ciri is only a loose one, not at all as familiar as a blood bond nor as ancient and ever-present as the one with Nashua or Yanhua - even though the latter is fickle lately. The star mare’s pain and panic are too short for him to localize and react to, and are then gone for a while which, sadly, takes away the necessity of speed.

    The gyrfalcon is first to arrive, landing on the mare’s poll and staring down any and all visitors, including the hippogryph who comes their way. Toski screeches softly, but leaves his place on Ciri’s head as Leilan appears, the magician now drawn in by the scent of blood and the life that still is in Ciri. Catching the bay and grey mare’s last words, he chuckles to himself as he greets her. ”Ah, Poppy, I was wondering where you’d been hanging lately.” Nevertheless he does interfere- depending on how persistent Manikin is in touching Ciri, she might or might not notice. Magic becomes a barrier, not unlike Leilan’s very first trait in Beqanna; a frost aura that could potentially cause a frostbite on her leg if she lingers too long, or persists in her approach, now surrounds Ciri as if it were her own aura. If she’s smart enough, perhaps Manikin would know not to push her luck with the memories, too, but Leilan is okay with the wait and see approach. It’s not like it couldn’t be undone; in fact he studies the magic and the way it works for a short while. It could be useful later.

    He regards the pair and makes a shrugging motion with his shoulder. ”Sorry, but I think I have a leg up on you on the healing part. Besides, she’s my friend.” He says it casually, but he thinks she knows predator from prey, so he doesn’t expect too much difficulty from the hippogryph. She’s too clever - clever enough to use her mother’s name, even. Too bad he already knew the real owner of the name.
    no more counting dollars
    we’ll be counting stars


    @Ciri @Manikin
    Let’s make her into an ice pirate, arr
    Sorry it may be garbage but I wanted to out something up
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
    Reply
    #4
    I can see through you, see your true colors
    Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
    He can sense Aela’s disappointment in him not “doing more” and he grows tired of her persistence and seeks to find peace among the remaining flowers of the meadow. He does not expect the scene that he finds before him. A dark scarred mare sprawled in blood and vomit, a strange creature that smells strongly of Sylva (one of Sabra’s creatures he thinks darkly), and a scaled stallion that seems to be manipulating the mare with some sort of ice magic. It is too interesting so he ambles a little closer, catching bits and pieces of the conversation and getting a better sense of the situation.

    The downed mare’s legs are shattered and his nostrils wrinkle in disgust at the strong coppery scent that lingers in the air. It seems a predator had been interrupted from it’s prey but there is no blood on the feathered chest or paws and it seems that something else had caused this destruction. What could break a horses legs with such force he wonders and internally he recoils at the thought. He doesn’t want to know. The air is thick with magic as they both work their opposite opposing forces on the mare and he simply observes for a moment.

    The mare becomes encased in a frosty barrier that keeps the Sylvian hippogriff from finishing whatever had been started but as Leilan speaks of having a “leg up” on the healing, it is his turn to chuckle. He comes up from where he had been watching, the red of his eyes glittering with the sudden opportunity he has found. “I’m not sure about that.” He looks down where the legs still remain mangled and  snapped in odd places. So much damage that for a moment he’s unsure if his power is capable of such healing. There had been the mare close to death after childbirth which had taken much from him and perhaps this would not be as hard as that.

    Frost crackles around the broken mare and he looks at her with little interest, an ends to a mean. “If she’s your friend then surely you want her healed properly.” His sly gaze catches the other mare, hoping that she will have enough sense to fall back from her killer instincts and see a bigger picture for the lands they call home. “Icicle legs are… amusing... but what happens when they melt in the summer?” He looks to Leilan with those glittering rubies, the pointed tips of his Fae ears curved towards him and that charming twisted grin on his dark lips. “I can heal her. Properly. For a price.”


    obscene


    @Leilan plot twist, blame Aela  Tongue
    @Manikin
    [Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]
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    #5

    all of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star that ever was

    The only time she had cried was when he had killed her. There had been no time to scream during the assault, so quickly he had broken her down, and the agony of her pain and the blood gurgling in the back of her throat had taken away any ability to make noise except for those final words she spat at him. The moment his hooves had connected with her skull and it dropped lifelessly to the ground, a few tears had found their way out from her unseeing still eyes. Her cheeks had long since dried and she had yet to cry at her predicament, yet to cry over the grief of what Gale had once been and what had been lost, she had yet to cry over her death.

    Some tears had come unbidden during her retching, forming in the corner of her swirling silver eyes with the force of her projection. But other then that she was silent. There was nothing to say and no screaming or wailing would change what had happened. It wouldn’t fix her legs or bring Gale back. All she can focus on is the steady climbing of her rage that swirls within her, an anger she’s never felt before. She holds on to that so tightly because she knows if she lets go, if she allows herself to feel anything else, then she is lost.

    It doesn’t take long to bring out a scavenger.

    She watches the lazy way the strange mare circles over her. A vulture, she thinks hazily as her eyes follow the patterns of Manikin in the sky. And then it comes to lay by her with a glitter in her eye and she knows that look. It was the same one she had seen in the electric blue eyes of her death. At the comment of needing help she can’t help but bark a low malicious laugh of her own, one that makes her wince and regret moving at all. “No shit.” She manages, eyeing the other mare warily. There’s a strange calmness falling over her and she finds she doesn’t like it but can’t resist it. There is nothing to be calm about and she holds on to that pit of rage within her, focusing once more on the inferno of her anger.

    She barely makes out the words the other says, something about healing, as she starts to think about things she hadn’t been planning on thinking of. Memories of Amet and her son and the Underneath. They seem to change slightly, as if something is trying to move the pieces around on how things had played out. She thinks of Gale and how he had smiled at her as she struggled before him. But now she is the one smiling down at herself. “How did you do this to yourself?” Asks the stranger and for a moment she is confused. She hadn’t done this to herself. It had been someone else. But she see’s her face instead of Gale’s and for a moment it seems she might forget the truth.

    Then she catches the scales out of the corner of her eye and stupidly she wonders if Castile has finally come back and has once again found her in a state of needing assistance like he had done the night she had gotten that nasty slash across her face. As an ice aura starts to surround her and blocks the magic from the hippogriff the shifting in her head stops and it is still Gale eating her magic. As well as the realization that she was being manipulated and her anger intensifies ten fold.

    It is not that she is not happy to see Leilan, she’s never been more relieved to see a familiar face, but they way he quips to this Popinjay who is apparently not Popinjay (and if she could seethe with actual fire her whole body would be lit in flames at this point, that someone else was trying to trick her as Not Gale had done) and then the insufferable nonchalantness of yet another stranger that offers to heal her at a price becomes too much. It is all too much.

    She had never been able to wield her stars in the daylight and today should be no exception. Except her emotions are so much that somehow she seems to draw them from wherever they hide behind the sun and they glow brighter than any shield she’s ever created. She surrounds herself with starlight and draws deeper and deeper into her anger until the shield shatters around them in an explosion of stardust. She knows deep down that it will be days before she will be able to access that power again, that she has expelled too much this time, but she doesn’t care. She’s not even sure she wants to access it anymore, it feels off now. Tainted by the Curse’s touch. And it's worth it if it makes the terrible leg puns stop.

    She is sick of them treating her like a piece of meat and with each second ticking by is less time to warn Nashua of what Gale had become. With each second she is being drawn further in by pain and exhaustion which makes her fury sputter.  Her skull still lays in the dirt and stickiness of dried blood, her eyes continue to stare straight ahead of her as she says through gritted teeth, “I’d like to go home now.”

    -- Ciri

    Image by Phil Botha


    @Manikin
    @Leilan
    Reply
    #6
    Well.

    She'd been right to be cautious, though perhaps she should have simply dispatched the mare rather than toy with her. A cat's mistake. Too late, now. The chimera might try her luck with a dragon, but a Magician is above her pay grade. Not to mention one that must know her mother to so quickly give the diminutive of her name, but she is quick to switch gears, to fully assume the role she has claimed for herself. It does not matter to her if anyone believes her at all, she is a committed liar.

    When the starlit mare's legs turn ice cold she does not pull back right away, lets the cold burn her paws. Frost creeps up the hairs, sprouting its delicate, crystalline leaves, and that soft purr plucks at her throat with a strange hunger. It reminds her how she misses the Otherworlds' monsters, that pain - the way their hands had pressed against the inside of her skin, the feeling of their claws and teeth in her belly - but it fades too soon, to a burning vibration, to numb dullness. It's the dullness makes her pull the paw away, and she wants to frown at the disappointment of it, but instead, she turns her gaze to the scaled stallion with a wry smile.

    "Well, I never can stay in one place very long." This is true enough of her mother. Probably. Manny does not know this mage but the ice makes her think of the North, and she knows her mother has disappeared from there after ruling the empty sea-cliffs through the Night. The wry smile melts away to relief.

    "What luck you're here to help, I'm sure you'll heal her much faster than I could do." Manikin looks back down to the injured mare, who lies suffering in pain while her magician friend makes jokes at her expense. From behind, yet another draws up to their party and her black-tipped ear turning to follow his approach. He brings the familiar smell of flowers with him, and memories of her childhood - hunting beetles and bees and brothers through the bright tangle of the Pampas. The Pampaian's offer of help for a fee makes her scoff. Manny would have helped her for free. Eventually. And perhaps not the way anyone else here would much like, but it would have only cost the thing that the mare was rapidly losing anyway.

    The starfire catches her off guard, pushing her back with a sizzling heat so different from the roan stallion's cold, so hot that it singes the feathers on her chest, but only for a moment because it burns too bright and explodes, raining glitter down over them like so many sparks from a flame. They burn where they touch and Manny grins at the shell of meat that has barely enough strength to ask to go home. She's lost her dinner tonight.

    What a pity.
    Image by ratty


    @Leilan
    Reply
    #7
    Leilan
    Honestly, the things people expect from him sometimes... he never was good at healing, so he has to do it creatively and without killing her or ruining her legs, but hey, having the ‘title’ of magician now - well known as king of the north - he finds that they are not the first to assume he’ll help instantly. Not that he won’t, but with some things - like legs - he should be more careful.

    Leilan tilts his head at the hungry hippogryph, and smiles wryly. It’s not entirely true for Poppy, but he can accept the answer if it means she keeps her talons in check. ”I always found the River good hunting grounds from above,” he murmurs in her direction, casually because he’s not too interested in if she takes the advice or not. His icy scales glitter when his shoulder moves at her sarcastic remarks, instead focusing on the third to join the party.

    Obscene offers... just about nothing. It’d cost him an arm and a leg, no doubt, and he’s about to say so when Ciri demands attention. Frost and ice instantly shield him - and only himself because he’s not too bothered about the Fae creature or the hippogryph, who had seemed delighted with the little frostbite - and when the starburst is gone, he nods to Ciri. ”Of course.” Teleporting her away is easy, so he does it immediately. She and Toskr, whom he sent with her, will land in the snow in the same position that she way lying in right now. The ever-lasting snow and ice of the northern half on Icicle Isle envelope her softly, where the cold may numb some of her pain for the minute it will take him to talk to the Pampas’ healer now. A mental tug on his bond with Nashua follows, though no-one here would know - to go looking.

    Leilan turns to the faerie man, slightly bored with the idea of needing a price. ”I”d love to hear you talk the legs of a donkey, but I’m afraid if you want something out of this, you’d better be quick about it. Either I teleport you and you heal her now and maybe I’ll feel like I owe you one, or don’t bother.” he’s not very patient right now, because really, the current king of the north did in fact know how to heal as well, and if not, Leilan could still try himself. It’s a matter of timing only - of how long the star-mare needs to suffer. And since she’s an asset for the northern kingdom, it better be short.

    He starts a countdown in his head - ten, nine, eight - and if he doesn’t get an agreement soon, Leilan supposes he’ll just get going.
    I said no more counting dollars
    we’ll be counting stars


    @Obscene heh :)
    Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
    |
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    #8
    I can see through you, see your true colors
    Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
    It doesn’t take long for everyone around him to become completely annoyed and he enjoys this quite thoroughly. The hippogriff mare grins despite losing her easy dinner. The ice magician seems to be losing patience rapidly but not as quickly as the broken horse on the ground.

    Stardust falls around them, little burning embers that singe his coat but leave no mark as a shimmer of magic runs across his dark skin wherever they land. He pointedly looks at Leilan as the star covered mare flatly requests a visit home and it seems the man obliges as she is simply gone, broken legs and all. The scaled roan seems a bit more irritated now and Obscene merely smiles his charming yet infuriating grin in response. “I doubt a visit to the Pampas is asking too much. My Seneschal Aela would have loved to meet you. But if that’s a price you find too high…” And here he shrugs slightly and raises a hoof as if to leave. It matters little to him if the mare suffers or not, she had already been doing so for… hmmm.. hours it seems. But he is firm on catching this magic man for Aela, at least to bring him home to hear her offer. She did have a way for convincing people after all.


    obscene


    @Leilan
    This is poop I'm sorry  Undecided
    I'll get a Ciri post up in the Isle
    [Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]
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