"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
A shrill whinny carries across the territory. Calling to whomever may be lingering, the new and old blood of the Chamber alike, to gather in the clearing as she stood cloaked in glimmering night in front of the burning tree at the heart of the territory. She had waited days, yet no one answered her challenge. The dark mare finally had her crown, and the raven who bestowed it upon her was perched atop one of her spiraled horns. She felt herself clawing out of the black hole she had let herself spiral into within her own mind. It held her prisoner for years and turned her mind to a black pit of tangled memories. Until now. The return of Havelock and her unchallenged claim to the throne was enough to bring her back to life from her once withered state of mind. This was her purpose.
”Chamberlings, our kingdom has dwindled in numbers…The Chamber I knew from almost a century’s past was once a powerful kingdom, full of ambition and struck fear into our enemies. As your new queen, I vow that I will lead us to rekindle the old flame from these dying embers!”
The dark queen's voice was strong with a resolve that had long been slumbering beneath half a century of self doubt and misery, the aura of night around her pulsing with her intensity. She never thought the day would come that she would wear a crown. Especially not the Chamber's. She felt such deep devotion for the dark kingdom, and watched it through the eras of glory and its downfall. She was sure she could revive it again. She raised her horned head, her inky gaze sweeping over those who gathered and spoke once more.”I seek dedicated souls, ones with a keen sense for battle, quick on their hooves, who will defend our borders. As well as those who can become one with the very shadows, the eyes and ears of the kingdom. Should you join me, you will be dubbed the Chamber's Shadowsingers and Shadowsworn. ”
The dark queen's words coiled into the air in thick wefts of steam, awaiting the response of those gathered. Hoping to begin their work to bring the kingdom back to its roots, and to see it flourish once again.
09-24-2025, 11:12 AM (This post was last modified: 09-24-2025, 03:30 PM by Warship.)
i'm on the wrong side of heaven, and the righteous side of hell
He doesn't need directions to The Chamber. It is ingrained in his heart and soul, molded into the very fiber of his being. His heart beat for it, his lungs expanded for it, his body bled for it. Born there, died there, resurrected there, served there. He has done it all within her borders, hidden amongst the shadows and rocks and fog that lingered over every corner. It is more than his home. It it bigger than his sense of duty. Being one of the few left who had seen The Chamber through all of her changes...it was his birth right.
His pace changes as he nears her borders. He shrugs off the slow ambling walk, replacing it with a gallop he rarely used outside of war. It is a powerful thing, and he feels like a spring that has come uncoiled. All around him the forest comes to life, and his wolfish senses allow him to hear everything from his own rushing blood to the heartbeat of a startled squirrel roused from its tree. Despite the season, sweat slicks his blue-black hide, accenting the muscles that even time hasn't withered. With a shake of his handsome head he charges faster, pushing through the shadows and into the nigjt. A wolf howl leaves his mouth as he answers the new queen, the eerie call taking up the airspace around him and moving through the trees. That call contains many unsaid words, the most important of which are "I'm Back." Perhaps, in his own way, hes never even left.
With his nose pushed into the wind and the great gulps of air being sucked in, it doesn't take him long to find her. They had met in The Meadow, and perhaps years before that. Relics, the both of them, but unchanged at their very core. Throwing his haunches down into the soil he grinds to a halt, stopping only slightly before launching himself into a rear. He makes a fine picture, that ancient black stallion with golden eyes and a heart full of fire. Shadowmere looks every bit a queen, and he can't find it in himself to be jealous of her crown. "We meet again. I'm sure you can find some use for me. The Chamber and I, we go way back. Warship. General several times over." he says with a smirk that makes the gold in his eyes dance. Thunder rumbles in the sky, and lightning flashes in the clouds. A storm is gathering on the horizon, as if The Chamber herself is waking angrily from her years-long slumber. It a promise of violence in the name of rebirth, and he can think of nothing more fitting for the kingdom he has loved for so long. She has been a sleeping giant.
Sleeping giants never stay sleeping for long. It only takes one reckless soul to poke the beast with a stick. They are those souls, and The Chamber is that beast.
Abrus has been haunting the Chamber for some time now, lingering with the other shadows. Having a handful of different forests to choose from in Beqanna is enriching for him and his magic has long since recovered from when he teleported into this world by accident. Time doesn’t pass for him the way he imagines it does for the others — not just like a single tree but like the entire woods. A constant cycle of life and death in overlapping chaos and repetition.
Something besides the antlered stallion has stirred within the forest the last few days and he now follows the call of… well, whoever. He picks his way forward slowly, carefully, choosing as he often does to make his first impression as a blind old man. His raven companion is perched quietly in his branching antlers, her dark eyes keen and taking in the scene. All it would take is a touch of magic to share her sight and see these strangers for himself but he’s not sure it’s worth the effort just yet.
(probably for the best, as it would seem the new queen and the forest magician have worn the same clothes to the party - their ravens)
Ideally he would haunt the back of a crowd and avoid notice so he could observe but the numbers are small enough that it is incredibly obvious when he arrives.
A queen is it? He had thought he had left all that behind, had seen no sign of the history she suggests in her speech as having any power over the present. Well, minus these two - a general and a queen from times gone past, potentially hoping to relive those days.
None of it means much to Abrus, aside from the likely fact that his days will be disrupted more. There’s no historical or emotional attachment to this place for him but he does like the trees.
Abrus surprises both himself and his companion by speaking up and asking the only question on his mind, the one bit of information that was missing. “Do you have a name, queen?”
She watches them from afar, swathed in the shadows of the tree she sprawls across a limb of. Her tail flicks idly as she holds them with her rose-gold eyes, the faintest hint of curiosity in her otherwise impassive stare. She recognizes the mare that names herself queen as the one that had arrived not long ago — she was a little surprised that previous queen had done nothing to preserve her throne, though she supposes it has been awhile since she last saw sign of the strange, goat-like creature. There is a man next, and she does recognize him — though something in the structure of his face causes her to narrow her eyes in concentration — and then the magician with his raven companion that she recalls meeting some time ago.
Normally, she would have disappeared after these observations. Her loyalty to the Chamber was not quite the same as her father’s. She had been raised by Atrox in a different era of his life, and when she thinks of him she does not think of this place, even though she knows that somewhere beneath a different iteration of this land is where his heart still beats.
But Hyaline — her birth land, the place where her parents had raised her and nearly all of her siblings — was long gone, and the Chamber is all she has left.
Before she can change her mind, she leaps from the tree, landing with a muffled thud. The shadows fall away and in the sunlight her blush-colored rosettes appear from the crushed velvet of her fur, making her way to the group with the easy, languid stride of someone that was far too comfortable with her feline form. She draws alongside Abrus, offering him the smallest of smiles, before directing her attention to the newly crowned queen. “My name is Iliana.”
For now, this is all she says.
-- the shadow is mine, and so is the valley
I wrote this on my phone before work and didn’t proofread it even once so just pretend it makes sense. She will most likely choose to be a spy <3
Shadowmere
