Beqanna - Islandres

this is going to bring me clarity

Sun, 24 Apr 2022 23:24:37 +0000

[Mature for Gore and Violence]

Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you

His sleep is fitful, plagued with dreams and ending with him waking sweat-soaked and terrified, his jaws clenched shut to keep from screaming.

Over time, his nightmares have grown more specific, his general terrors replaced by the bits of memory from his time Cursed. They are like Visions seen through his manipulation, almost different enough to seem the life of another man. Almost.

But he’d seen his navy claws sink into the Malik’s belly back, seen his face reflected back from Mazikeen’s red orange gaze as she stalked closer, murder in her eyes. He’d watched Ryatah die, and tonight he wakes from dreaming of it again.

Gale gasps, shaking his head and sending his mane flying. It is no longer the head of a monstrous beast, his sharp beak is no longer slick with bile, his throat is parched instead of coated in wet hot blood. Catching his breath is a lengthy process, and each beat of his heart feels like an anvil falling between his ears. The stars overhead are so bright they hurt his eyes, and the low rush of the tide is deafeningly loud.

As the dream fades, so does his sensitivity to his environment. The stars recede to distant pinpricks, and the tide is once more softly hushing as it slides against the black sand. The late autumn breeze lifts Gale’s white mane from his sweating neck and back, but it is too warm to feel refreshing. He sidesteps into the sea, graceful despite his exhaustion, but that, too, is warm. Taking a breath, Gale plunges deeper into the water, hoping that a swim will clear his head and let him get a few more moments of sleep before sunrise.

No luck.

Hours later he is still walking the beach, having been unable to clear the image of the white mare from his mind with any of his usual tactics. Instead, he’d tried thinking of something new, like what to do about Islandres being empty and the Chiefs he’d appointed having vanished. Had he done it? Killed the pair of young women and the rest of the reclusive residents? It was possible, he admits to himself.

There are a great many ways he might find out if that is true, but the easiest is to see if anyone remains on the island. Gale raises his head and calls out. He feels the lightning dancing in his throat as he does, and knows his dreams will be the worse for the use of magic. But it aids his calls, so that anyone on Islandres might hear the summons for what it is.

link to proof of activity for takeover

Be our guest

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 22:31:59 +0000

Somewhere near the kingdom of Baltia, if you happen to be standing along the shoreline, a small (very harmless) army of brightly colored frogs begin making their way out of the water. Some are orange and blue, others pink and purple, some sparkle like glitter. They ribbit and croak and…sing?.... as they hop along their way. How they know where to go is entirely uncertain, but they disperse, each in the direction of their targeted land. They seem to be dragging a small package of sorts held together by seaweed.

As they reach their destination, they begin to sing. Or at least, something akin to singing. The tune is not lovely and there’s some croaking involved, but the words are intelligible. You can almost forgive the frogs for being off key for the sheer fact that they can speak at all.

We invite you to our feast,
beneath the briny deep,
to celebrate new friends and new beginnings,
and to share a meal.

We bring with us a treat,
breath beneath the waves.
Take one or five,
there are plenty for all.

The frogs finish their song and stay put. Though their voices carry well, they know that their job is to deliver the message a few times before hopping home. In addition, they will wait for someone to collect the kelp package, for they are well trained frogs. Inside that package are many small, round plants that are clearly the “treat” for breathing underwater.

***

Everyone in Beqanna is cordially invited to a feast in Baltia for the duration of April. Throughout this month your character can breathe underwater and may visit the kingdom as much as they like. You may have individual threads or just participate in the main feast (coming soon). Have fun!

everything looks worse at night, i think i'm overthinking

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 18:41:54 +0000

Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you

Spring had been slow to come to Islandres this year, but there is no sign of that as Gale makes his way through the colorful paradise of his homeland. He can hear the soft croak of frogs as they sing from the damp hollows of the trees, and the whir of insects as they move from one impossibly colorful flower to the next. A jewel-bright butterfly floats across the thin deer-trail that Gale follows, flapping lavender-and-blue wings before disappearing into the shadow of the trees.

The wind that carried the butterfly is thick with the scent of salt, and it tugs at Gale’s white mane with sea-damp fingers. Should he head down to the beach for a swim? Or continue on this path, which he is mostly sure leads to a grapple grove?

The navy blue stallion pauses, considering.

He stays there for several weeks.

Long enough that the lightning-that-is-his-magic was forced to act for itself, to restore his drought-dry body. The lightning flickers across his skin, slowly at first, emanating from his closed eyes.

Just enough to keep his heart pumping, his lungs rising, his blood flowing.
Just enough to keep him alive.

But the lightning does not come alone. (If it had, perhaps Gale might have remained there - frozen for centuries in eternal indecision)

With it comes the black memories of the creature that had once worn his skin, inextricably linked to the magic of the lightning that had only intended to heal him.

When Gale comes back to himself he is screaming. Opening his eyes to an empty path and not the broken blue-and-black body of a child cuts the sound off in his throat, but he gasps for breath in the silent morning sunshine.

Who had the girl been, and why had Mazikeen killed her?

No. No, he doesn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it will mean more memories, and he can already feel the bile writhing in his stomach, can still smell the blood pouring from the girl’s slit throat and see the afterglow of Mazikeen’s orange eyes.

A long bird begins to sing. After a time, others join, and the frogs take up their chorus. Gale turns and begins to walk toward the beach for a swim.

love me like the blackbird loves the night

Sat, 26 Feb 2022 17:19:29 +0000

Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you

Thunder peals overhead, accompanying the staccato patter of rain that pours down from full iron clouds. Water has been falling the better part of the day, drenching the colorful flora of the island and turning the turquoise sea to dull gray green. Where Gale stands beneath the heavy boughs of a violet tree, he is protected from most of the rain, and the chill in the autumn air is held at bay by his thick navy hide. He appears less iridescent than in the summer months, and the near-white brindle marks along his neck and sides are so grown out he appears more roan than striped.

He’s staring out into nothingness, a habit he has had since childhood: lost in thought.

Sheltered in the bole of a nearby mango tree, a black osprey keeps watch for the both of them. Erne’s eyes have become yellow once more, losing the matching shade of electric blue he’d had while Gale had been afflicted with the Curse. With them, he peers through the colorful undergrowth, searching for any sign of movement. Soon he will leave to feed himself, and when he does he will call his companion back to himself. For now though, he allows the stallion his time to think.

He can feel the lightning where it flits across his skin, feel the warmth as it darts through his tangled hair and then sinks back beneath the surface of his body. It calls to him, almost as loudly as the lightning in the clouds does, a call so strong that he feels it in his bones. He remembers the first time he’d answered it, and how everything in the world had become so bright and simple.

The world had felt right again, felt like a place he might belong, just for a moment. And then…
Then he had begun to remember.

They were not his own memories. Gale has his own memories, patchy and incomplete as they are. No, these were the memories of someone else - something else. Memories so terrible he does not want to remember them, but when the lightning comes they inevitably strike, like the death and destruction that follows in the wake of a glorious storm.

Yet still the lightning beckons him, tugging at him like the wind pulls at his long white mane. Gale had hoped that his desire to answer it would grow weaker with time. But autumn is a season full of storms, and the navy blue magician feels the lightning no less with each squall, and nearly as strongly between them.

Gale’s usual method of distraction is to wander the island, staying always on the move. The place has changed some in the five years since he had lived here, but he has no desire to see it in the rain, and so has instead been trapped (but dry) with his thoughts for the better part of the morning.

The harsh scree of an osprey pulls him from his melancholy, and Gale turns his head to see Erne taking flight, circling Gale once, and then heading toward the freshwater lake at the center of island where he preferred to find his meals.

Though neither stallion nor osprey have seen anyone in the months since their return, the pair remain wary. With Erne gone, Gale takes up the position of watcher, doing his best to keep his mind from wandering. When it does, he steps out into the rain despite the chill. The steady beat of his hooves as he moves along the black sand fills his thoughts, and he thinks of nothing as he runs beside the sea.

hold me like the night sky holds the moon

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 01:34:28 +0000

Gale
started under neon lights, then it all got dark
i only know how to go too far

Gale’s memory of his first death had been burnt alongside his body, lost alongside any part of his childhood that he’d neither Seen nor seen. Those visual memories had returned slowly, trickling in slowly, and Gale had been content to let them come in their own time.

Each time that Gale has died, the web of his memories becomes a little more difficult to unravel. These last years he has lost track of his deaths, and when he wakes this autumn morning below the fiery boughs of the Forest, this time at seems no different.

He remembers a white mare and a storm held at bay. Quick flashes, like the lightning that runs down the length of his white mane, and flickers down his white stockinged legs as the iridescent blue stallion does his best to shake off the leaf litter. Who had she been? Had she been the same mare he can remember fighting so often? Was she an enemy? Is he dead now because she is not, or had the Curse killed her too?

His head begins to spin, and his legs wobble unsteadily beneath him. He has just enough time to close his eyes before he topples face-first through the forest floor.

- - -

When he wakes again, the sand he rests on is red instead of black, and the sea is all around him. This had been the shoreline of Loess once, he knows without knowing how. The cliffs behind him had once soared high into the open blue sky. They are sunk beneath the water now, and Gale presses his eyes closed.

- - -

The sun is sinking toward the western horizon, and Gale’s blue eyes narrow to avoid the double brightness of the sun and glittering water it illuminates. The sound of a puffkeet and the black sand at his hooves tells him this is Islandres. Something moves in the greenery behind him and he turns, half expecting to find Ruinam standing there.

But who is Ruinam? His mind’s eye finds the image of a bright eyed fox but no - Gale frowns - that is not quite right. What emerges is a black boar, which eyes the horse with wary interest before continuing toward the shore. It searches for remnants from the storm, Gale surmises, looking at the debris that litters the shoreline. There had been a great storm, early in the season and incredibly destructive.

The navy horse walks down half-familiar paths for the better part of the evening and well into the night. He adjusts his vision as he must, flickers of lightning flashing across his already electric blue gaze whenever he does. Though he no longer possesses that particular method of manipulating vision, it is a gift he had been born with and one of the firsts he had perfected with the lightning magic.

By the time he emerges on the northernmost point of the black sand island, the full moon is high and heavy in the night sky. It appears especially large tonight, some trick of the atmosphere or perhaps some wayward magics playing a trick with his eyes. He squints, attempting to draw it into better focus, but the effort results only in a quickening of the rhythmic pounding in his skull.

Gale flinches, waiting for the Curse.

It doesn’t come.

The sound of the waves keeps coming. And with them comes the smell of freshly broken wood, of seaweed and aquatic things both dead and dying. Gale takes in a long breath, and opens his eyes.

There are no shadows at the edges of his vision. Not even when he looks for them, turning his head quickly side to side, and then down to his feet. Shadows no longer curl at his feet and trail in his wake as he begins to move south again, back toward the lake at the heart of the island. As he walks, he begins to search for the Curse. Probing first at his edges, Gale Looks through each bit of himself and by the time he stands in the freshwater lake he is very sure of one thing.

The Curse is gone.

He is only himself, Gale. The holes in his memory are not unfamiliar. Unlike his first death, he knows who he is this time. The details are hidden still, some far deeper than others, but he recalls enough.

Enough to feel an aching hollowness in his gut when he thinks of the mainland and the destruction he’d wrought there. The things that he does remember are horrific enough. What else had happened in those black spaces he cannot remember?

just me posting to myself

brought the dark to the light

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 12:59:21 +0000

Gale
started under neon lights, then it all got dark
i only know how to go too far

Dawn is just coming to Islandres, replacing the starry black eastern sky with one of molten gold. Though the water will be turquoise in full light, this morning the waves are still charcoal grey, foaming with white where they climb the obsidian sand. Farther and farther they climb, until they brush along the half buried body of a horse in the sand.

The touch of the cool spring waves does not wake him immediately. Gale is lost, his mind somewhere between the endless Void and nightmares. The self-healing with which the pegasus had been born has always kept the smallest piece of him alive, immune from the infestation of the Curse that had struck him at the start of the Eclipse. Losing himself had been a progressive thing, and every now and then Gale would wake - fully himself - with no memory at all of his recent life.

Those moments (meeting Sabal, wandering in the woods, blinking for what he’d have sworn was a half-second only to find Mazikeen mid-sentence instead of asleep beside him) had been few and far between. As he stands, shaking off the sand, Gale finally recognizes them for what they were. Moments when the Curse inside him had been distracted or weakened. Weakened like it is now, reduced to something not unlike Gale so often was - a shadow in the back of the mind.

It will return, Gale knows. It will come back, and there is not anything he can do to stop it, only wait for it to happen.

He feels drained, Gale decides, as though his body has been fighting many battles. It is more than physical, he finds; the exhaustion is deeper than that.

Gale does not remember the explosion of light, or the way his very existence was twisted about by the dark god.

He knows only that he goes to pull his wings tighter to his sides to comfort himself just to find that they are not there. He is nothing but a horse, each bit of his magic stripped away. His back feels uncomfortably cool even on this warm spring day, void as it is of the white spinal mane.

He shivers, but remains standing at the water’s edge, enjoying the sunrise as he waits for what he knows is inevitable.

need something to change, need to take off the edge

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 11:06:35 +0000

Gale
started under neon lights, then it all got dark
i only know how to go too far

The pain is excruciating.

And then it is gone, and the blue horse lies alone on the black beach, far from the mountain upon which it had stood an instant ago. The horse does not know it is alone, or know that it is on a beach. It knows nothing at all and sees only blackness.

For a long, long time it does not move.

i had a feeling so peculiar, aedan

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 01:24:16 +0000

Islay wasn't usually prone to spiteful thoughts, but the moment she had heard that Southern Kingdom was swallowed by the sea, she found some minute amount of joy at imagining the Pampas underneath the water. Her time there had been mostly uneventful; the hardest part of her captivity had been the journey there when she had been forced through Tephran jungle by the Seneschal that Islay would come to learn was called Aela, and her accomplice, a rather suspicious stallion by the name of Erupt.

She had stayed in the Flower Court for a year, learning about all the plans to expand and the great power they learned to achieve (by both recruiting and stealing). And then it seemed as quickly as the Flower Court had emerged - like a blossom in springtime - something in its ascension caused it to wither. The summer heat could be sweltering at times in Islandres, but Islay was simply glad to be home and glad that it hadn't been their island that had been claimed by the Gods.

Their island remained virtually unchanged, looking almost exactly as it had when Gale had left it to her and Fenwe's care.

Sighing, the tobiano mare emerged from the ocean. She had been wading in an attempt to escape the heat, and as the sun began to set, Islay began to make her way out of the crashing surf. The salt tangled her mane and tail; it clung to her skin as she made her way up the beach and left the island-mare content as she settled amongst the saltgrass. Home enveloped her in every sense of the word and as the sun started to sink below the horizon, Islay looked up to the waking stars, feeling a glimmering relief that darkness would be upon them soon.

my fingertips stained, looking over the edge

Sat, 02 Oct 2021 14:59:02 +0000

Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you

Despite the magics that it had taken from her body, the murder of the angel had been deeply dissapointing. Her Self-Sustenance has slowly eaten away at the Curse’s bloodlust, leaving it with a hollow core that the Empathy threatens to fill if it ever stops minding that other angelic ability. At the edges of its consciousness, the creature can feel the remnants of its host attempting to stir each time it wakes from slumber.

Each time this body is killed, the resurrected Gale is able to hold off the Curse a moment longer. There are only a certain number of lives the thing is afforded, it seems, and as it approaches the end of them it becomes ever more difficult to kill the soul tied to this body - and to keep him dead.

So the cursed thing sleeps only when it forgets not to, when it grows physically exhausted of always using some magics and of never using others. Of thinking always of some things and never of others. Tonight it wakes disoriented and groggy, crammed into a crevice of rock far too small for the brindled equine body it wears. The last thing it had seen were a pair of silver eyes, but there is no recollection at all of what had transpired afterward.

There is blood on the stallion’s navy lips, and the pink tongue that tastes it finds the sharp tang of a carnivore. Divest is probably not dead then.

A gust of air into the cavern brings with it the sound and smells of the evening, as well as the indistinct images of those souls it has brushed across. None that it recognizes, so the thing becomes small enough to slide free, and then returns to its glowing navy and perlino coat before it slips out of the cave and into the moon-dappled midsummer night.

The thing that looks like Gale shakes out its white mane, growing long and pale down the length of his navy spine. The feathered wings at his sides are pale white save for a crimson V on the left, and though illuminated infrequently by the bolts lightning that flickers across his body, are nearly hidden in both the night and the long tendrils of Shadow that lurk beneath him.

The brindle stallion takes a deep breath of the humid air, thick with the scent of ripe grapples and the sound of insects. The bright blue eyes close for just a moment, and when they open again, the cursed creature stands on the black sand shore of Islandres’ central isle. It can feel Gale, stirring at the familiar sight, and squeezes both life and magic from him in a vicelike grip until he's nothing but a shadow.

In a nearby lime tree, a blue-eyed osprey watches as the stallion winces, shakes his head, and disappears into the brightly-colored jungle.

Just some character development and Gale moving to Islandres

Waste my time pushing daisies

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 18:28:40 +0000

And the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love

Eyas did what she knew best: leaving Ehko and the others behind on Icicle Isle, flying away. Traveling through the winter tempests, back south but not back home. She didn’t think she’d ever go there again in her lifetime. When the day passed over into night she guided herself by the stars, soaring along the lion’s mane and floating past the bull’s thundering hooves. It was peaceful, cold. She thought about her final duty to a beloved daughter, hoping the girl would be alright on her own. Ehko knew what she had to do. She knew how to fly, a little. That was the best Eyas could provide for her now.

They both had unfinished business that needed attending.

Before long Islandres loomed ahead in the distance and for the first time in a very long time, Eyas reached for that dangerous thread of dark connection between herself and her once adored triplet, Gale.

It was true that he scared her. She - who’d faced down a dragon and made love to it, who’d let a magician toy with her spirit and body on more than one occasion - was terrified of what Gale would do when he sensed that old, familiar tug. All her life it’d felt like they’d been swinging opposite one another, held together by something indescribable and deep, twirling them both around and around. Now that felt severed. For all the effort of the universe at bringing him back, Eyas still believed her brother had died all those years ago.

She found him roaming, and landed downshore on the same old, unsteady legs that were overgrown by a winter coat. As always, Eyas looked unkempt and moody. She folded her wings, losing a feather or two in the process, and swallowed down the feeling of regret as she approached him.

“You were never quite comfortable in your own skin, Blue.” Eyas slowed to a stop. “But I still love to see you.” She admitted.

Grey clouds roll over the hills, bringing darkness from above

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 21:51:08 +0000

Ever since Picard had left the nest so to speak, the golden spotted colt had spent his days exploring the common lands of Beqanna in search of new friends and the tiniest bit of adventure. Today though was the first day he had decided to do something entirely different.

He wakes in the early evening and silently flutters his large gold and white butterfly wings. within moments he rises from the rivers edge and he flies northwest. He flies first over Loess and then through Tephra. Then over the ocean waters. Lowering himself above the waves the young colt allows his hooves to graze against the waters surface. In that moment he knows true peace and he cherishes the sensation. Somewhere below him and underneath the water's surface Carl swims excitedly. Only glimpses of his small rounded body touched the surface.

Before long land could be seen and the island growing closer forced the pair to pick up speed. "Carl, look! An island, Carl!" The young colt cheers excitedly and his wings flutter even faster. It only takes moments after that for Picard to find himself landing on the shores of black sand. With light steps the colt trots in a small circle before facing the water and watching Carl waddle his way onto land. Panting happily the pygmy hippopotamus makes his way across the sand, following Picard with little to no grace whatsoever.

For days they explore the island together. With each rising of the sun comes a new discovery and today was no different. Early in the morning they had been woken by the rising sun and with it they set off searching for breakfast. Without realizing it, they managed to remain on the island for weeks and somehow it was quickly becoming a sort of home base for the pair. Though if Carl had the option he'd stay forever. It certainly had everything he needed even if Picard wanted more. Though this doesn't go unnoticed by Picard and on this particular morning he looks at Carl and sighs. "This is home for now, Carl," and with the declaration the shadows around them pulse as though they've understood and are passing the message through the island.

With an excited leap of approval Carl waddles quickly through Picard's legs before crashing his body into the lake at the center of the island and with that Picard turns towards the palms. "Home," he whispers to himself while images of the bright red flowers of the pampas filter through his mind.

Picard would kind of like to adopt this entire island for Carl, his dog.. I mean hippo. :|

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i cant see the end of this

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 15:06:50 +0000

i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do
---------- i hope you dream of me

When Gale woke, it was to a world of darkness and the sensation of immense pressure. His sides cannot expand to breathe, and he dies again not long after, succumbing to the dark edges at his vision.

He wakes again, is able to force his way through several feet of snow, and dies again.

Time passes - perhaps hours or weeks - but eventually he breaks through the crust of snow much as he emerged from his first red dirt grave: panting and sweating, heaving great breaths of the high mountain air.

The Curse is nothing more than a hard dark knot within Gale’s chest, protected from these deaths with the very last of his magic, and protected from the detection of the blue-eyed stallion who looks up at the soaring peaks and the star-pierced sky and does not recognize them.

He wants to be home in Islandres, and so - in the blink of an eye - he is.

The magic had come from his worry, and it wakes the thing within him. In the pitch black of a moonless night, the Curse obliterates its host with astonishing speed, destroying the conscious mind and turning his soul to dust.

That complete, he reaches for the magic to take him away from the island, only to find himself short. The island hadn’t been entirely empty when he was here last, Gale recalls. Perhaps some of the nereids have come ashore to sleep; they’re slippery but delicious, and he is sure he could keep one on land long enough to hurt her.

So he sets off toward the shoreline, the only light coming from the soft glow of his brindle markings and the distant stars.

GALE

when it falls in place with you and i

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 02:21:06 +0000

Gale
this is going to break me clean in two --
this is going to bring me close to you

“I know just the place,” he murmurs against her cheek, and in the next moment they are in Islandres, and the wintry mix that had been falling around them is replaced instead by muted sunlight that dapples her fur.

The air is cool but not cold, and Gale shifts to become a large bird. He is still colored like himself - palest gold with a blue throat, and the same iridescent blue lines along his belly and the lower half of his neck. He glows, which is not atypical of the many parrots of the land, but the flickers of blue lighting across his feathers are certainly unusual.

They are on the island within the island, the black sand meadow and small forest that Gale had called his home for the better part of a decade. The grass shifts color in waves that match the turquoise waves, and only a narrow line of black sand separates the lush grasses from the gentle waves. When the tide is out the beaches will be far wider, and sandbars will appear from beneath the clear water to allow someone who knows the way to cross without getting too wet.

At the heart of the meadow a cluster of mares graze. He runs sharp teeth along her spine, recalling his promise to the white mare. Not even to hurt them. It is not so hard a promise. Before her, sex had been a tool, one use for procreation and pleasure (his own, which came in no small part from the weeping and moaning).

There is something more now, something that sets his skin ablaze everywhere they touch, and he is glad for this moment that there is space between them.

“Which one?” He asks, deciding that he will bring her the heart when he has had his fill of whichever mare she sends him after.

current appearance: glowing perlino wildcat with lightning and iridescent navy blue scarring -> glowing perlino macaw with lightning and iridescent navy blue scarring

she rules her life like a bird in flight

Mon, 10 May 2021 15:03:50 +0000

And I know it's true that visions are seldom all they seem

oh me oh my, i thought it was a dream...

The rainy season in the tropics. She holds her bright scaly face to the wind and pattering rain, facing the lapping waves of the eastern coast. She’s been here for some time, ‘ruling’ with Islay, whom she hasn’t seen again since the day the place was handed over. She’s sure that her partner Chieftain is doing the same as her though, exploring, enjoying their home – and also patrolling for danger and intruders. It’s so quiet in Islandres, the contributing factor to their sudden inheritance of this paradise; there is no one here but them. It’s not quiet as far as sound, but as far as activity. It is so quaint, wild still, its most raw self shining brightest at all times. Nothing political to distract anyone, or anything aggressive, only a peaceful and pretty existence among Beqanna’s usual chaos.

Tonight the moon is crescent, but still radiant, grinning silver and devious. The gray clouds spitting misty rain try to snuff the light, but it hardly works. The small storm, gentle and moving quickly, will pass soon and the moon with light the world up again, leaving everything dripping and glistening after. It is a serene night in Islandres, like most nights here, and she wonders if she might see Islay – or anyone.

Fenwe

@[Islay] or anyone at all. Fen's just enjoying a nice gentle misty rain and some moonlight on the beach <3

Just a rat in a cage // Eyas

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 17:18:36 +0000

Leonine, the stallion paced the shoreline. There was murder in his eyes, impossible to miss, and made worse by the impotence he felt. Eyas remained huddled by their daughter's still form. He knew better than to disturb her. Instead, he had flown miles daily in search of the vaguely-described antagonists, patchwork images taken third hand from his son's mind.

It was futile. Maddeningly impossible to track the waterbound mare and her scaled companion, though he made every effort to drag them back. They'd had their fun though, and it seemed they'd vanished as soon as Brash had broken through into their vicious game.

The colt shivered now, though it had been some time. He wouldn't leave his sister's side, even if Eyas didn't let him near enough to touch her. Tana wanted justice for the wrongs done to his family. For the chasm that had so suddenly broken the serenity they had pieced together on this island.

It was a hapless bull elk on the mainland that had taken his wrath instead.

The draconic stallion returned to Islandres stinking of gore and no happier than he'd been when he left, but spent of any energy to continue his quest. For once, the Dragon's bloodlust was matched by his own. He suspected that neither would be quenched until he held two heads in his claws, and tore them from the necks of their owners, and had presented them ever so sweetly to the mother of his fallen child.

Pacing was getting him no closer to that day. It was only winding the spring in his chest ever tighter, and causing weak threads of smoke to vent from his nose.

"There's no sign of them," he admitted roughly upon returning to the makeshift den. It galled him to say it, but it was true. Worse was to say it while Ehko's body lay curled and torn within sight. He'd let her down. More than Eyas, more than anyone, he'd let his baby girl down as her protector. As her father. He had to look away.

@[Eyas]