"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
They come, one by one. When they do, they beg for more. Always more.
But Beqanna is patient with the masses. She is kind.
For those who love her lands just as she does, she is giving.
And so, when they do come, this time, they need not beg.
The crowns are just in front of them, within their reach at the top of the Mountain, suspended mid-air.
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Yes! We are introducing crowns made for every kingdom. A few things:
In this thread, each kingdom's leader(s) - which means yes, you will need to choose leader(s) - must reply IC to claim their kingdom's crown. Crowns should represent your land and can be made of whatever natural materials you want (yellow and red rocks for Pangea, lavender for the Gates, etc just as an example). Crowns may also include very minor magical things that don't affect other characters (fire that doesn't burn anyone, mist, stars, etc). At this time, you will not be able to change the appearance of the crown after it's finalized in this thread, but this is subject to change.
You are free to structure your kingdom however you like, whether it's king/queen or council. These leader(s) are still subject to activity requirements. All leader(s) will receive a crown.
You will not have to do this every time there is a change in leadership; crowns will automatically be passed down.
If your land is no longer a kingdom (disappears, becomes a territory, whatever), the crown goes away, though it may reappear if they become a kingdom again. If a new land becomes a kingdom, the first leader must come to the Mountain to claim their own crown.
Once you have decided amongst yourselves, your leader(s) must respond to this thread claiming the crown IC with an OOC note of the crown's description.
You have until May 31 at 11:59 pm CST.
As always, feel free to PM any officer/owner with questions.
The day is early when Iris makes her way back to the Mountain for a second time, not for her own gain but for the Chamber. Wasn’t that how it always was? Everything for the Chamber. The benefits to herself were secondary, and she imagines that is much how her mother had felt. Though it had been a different world then, with magic flowing in the land itself. There was something empty about the Chamber, she suspected, though Iris would never fully understand what the land was like once. She would never feel the loss of Atrox’s heartbeat beneath her feet, for she only experienced it in stories. She would never understand what the power of the kingdom had been like, what it might be like to be granted magic from the land itself.
Though Iris doesn’t seek power in that way either. She has what she needs and then some. The ghosts come with her today as they always do, some venturing even beyond the bounds of the Chamber to join her on this journey. It is vastly easier for ghosts to trek up the Mountain than it is for her, but she makes the journey without complaint. The ghosts entertain her with stories as they go, though as always some simply complain about being dead or the wrongs done to them in their lives. She passes the time plotting revenge with them, much of which will never actually be enacted but sometimes the idea of it brings its own sort of healing.
The sun climbs higher in the sky, and she is thankful that it is spring. The weather is beautiful and the temperature drops as she climbs higher, but still, much of the day is gone and sweat darkens her already black coat as she finally comes to the top of it. All this for a crown. Perhaps it is a little for her, in the end, since she will be the one to wear it. ”I seek a crown for the Chamber,” she says to the wind, to the ghosts, to the fairies that may or may not actually be listening. “Pine boughs with a constant mist around it, if we can choose.”
The Chamber would like a crown made of pine branches that constantly have mist swirling around.
Myrna suffocate the fire i started-------------------- right when it kindles
The air around her is warm, and tastes of a summer thunderstorm. The clouds that carry the rain have hardly edged across the horizon, but Myrna has no trouble seeing them from where she hovers as a pale falcon, hundreds of feet in the air above the Gates. She has been waiting, though she is not certain what she waits for. Only that there is the sense of anticipation, of excitement.
When she turns toward the Mountain on short, swift wings, she knows it is what she has been waiting for. The fairies, the magicians of Beqanna’s innermost workings, have called.
She answers.
At the base of the Mountain, she transforms back into her natural shape - a pale palomino mare with a pair of glowing curved horns. One four hooved feet she climbs the rocky crags, agile and sure-footed from a childhood in the Hyaline peaks.
At the peak of the Mountain she finds what she has been waiting for. It hovers, and it seems clear that the crown has been waiting for her as well.
Made of twisting twigs and greenery, the crown is decorated with every type of flower that Myrna has ever seen in the blossoming in the Gates. As she steps forward, it settles on her head, some of the vines wrapping around her curved horns to secure it to her head. It is light, she finds, weighing hardly anything at all.
After descending the mountain, she pauses near a still pond to view her reflection. She smiles, pleased, but stops when she turns to go. Behind her, along the trail she had walked to get to the pond, flowers are now blooming that had not bloomed when she walked by. She takes a few steps to the side, and watches as a pair of purple violets open out-of-season petals and reach toward the sky.
It continues as she walks back toward the Gates, flowers bloom as she passes. They fade after her passing, no longer subject to the magic of the crown, but they are glorious while they last. Myrna smiles, and makes sure to walk past the pink hyacinths that usually are limited to early spring.
The Gates has a crown of branches, greenery, and flowers, which causes nearby flowers to briefly bloom out of season
She climbs the mountain, and thinks of Ea. There’s an admiration for the older mare and it inspires Beyza. She was seeking a new chapter for herself, a new story, and while that did not require a crown - this certainly counted as something new. She could protect the Dale, and any who might want to settle there. For now Beqanna was still quiet, as though it were still trying to decide whether to surge into the world it had once been.
Would these kingdoms as they are now ever see war? Or had some sort of equilibrium been reached where the generations no longer craved that?
Beyza had once craved destruction for the sake of purifying, once believed that only the strong should survive. But no more.
So she climbs the mountain and she sees the crown waiting for her. Pebbles from the lake form the base for twisting twig-branches that form a jagged line with their tips reminiscent of the line of the mountains. A faint golden glow radiates from those tips, like the sun rising behind the peaks just before it is visible.
A new start, a new chapter, and Beyza barely feels the weight at all as it settles upon her head.
Dale crown: base formed by lake pebbles, twigs wrap their roots around them and their tips branch out to form the jagged shapes of the mountains. The tips of the twigs also glow a soft gold (like sunlight)
Iris
