[O] my silver lining; - Printable Version +- HELOVIA || The Way to the Sun (http://helovia.com) +-- Forum: Out of Character (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Archives (http://helovia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: [O] my silver lining; (/showthread.php?tid=15277) |
my silver lining; - Mauja - 08-13-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
Take me some place where there's music and there's laughter I don't know if I'm scared of dying but I'm scared of living too fast, too slow It had been so long ago—so very, very long ago. He had known these slopes intimately, every nook and cranny, every path, tree, and rock. The land had whispered up through his hooves, through his legs, to his heart; it had wrapped itself around him, whispered in his ears and sighed through his veins. It had welcomed him, cherished him, and known him. Now, as he ascended towards its forests, it hushed and sang around him, curious, beckoning, wondering who this heavy-hearted stranger was.. and maybe, somewhere, dimly remembering the rhythm of his pace, and the cold touch of his frozen feet; but he was a stranger nonetheless. Since that time so long ago he had not set foot upon the whitewashed slopes of the Edge. Since that time so long ago he had never walked among its trees, or felt the playful swirl of its mists around his legs, or seen the magnificent view over the ocean, the sun sparkling upon its wavy crests... Three years. Back when he first came here to be crowned its King, three years was about half of the time he'd already lived; he'd barely been seven when he lost it. Now, he was approaching ten. It felt odd. Mauja's slow climb paused, white neck turning to face back the way he had come. It was a lonely, winding path, scaling the cliff-face with the night-dark ocean at his back and stars wheeling overhead on a pitch black sky. In just an hour or so it would lighten, but for now, it was just him and the night. Him, halfway between heaven and earth, and the night all around. A slight smile curled the corner of his mouth upwards, and gliding on lonely wings the owls watched his progress. Nothing else stirred—no bird flew with those predators a-wing. Three years. And now the circle was fulfilling, finally closing, and perhaps his aching heart would know some rest. He moved again, lifted one hoof to put it down higher, hindquarters bunching as he kept on climbing. It was a long way down, but he had no fear of falling. Not anymore. He'd come to make his peace, and he would never be more ready—and yet, he couldn't shake the feeling of not being ready enough. There were so many things left unsaid, undone, if, if, if... if. All that stood between him and the blind wrath of the Qian was Kahlua, a girl of sunshine and flowers, and much as he hated to doubt her he didn't know if she was as fragile as the latter, or as fierce and burning as the former. But it was too late now. He couldn't turn back, because then he would never come, and the further he climbed, the louder the Edge sang to him, with its pine-needle voice. Even now it smelled so familiar, enough to make his heart ache, and his mind race back to glorious times—times of hope, no matter how dark a hope, times of success, of.. of being more than just a vagrant. Times, when he'd not been disappointed in himself whatever he'd done, when life had been vibrant, full of taste and sound and something akin to joy. And it was easy to remember: to remember the control, the games, the mask he wore so well it might as well have been welded to his skin. He missed that mask. He missed the calm and the composure, the patience, the confidence to toy with others and still be sure he'd come out on top. He missed being Mauja—whatever the hell that meant. The first tentative rays of sunlight arced over the horizon, skimming the white cliffs, touching his pale frame with uncertain hands, for who was this stranger staring at the brilliant refraction of a shattered glass wall—from within? Who was this stranger, a shadow of the moon standing in the break of dawn? Pastel colors lined the blue, heralded the early sun, and Mauja blinked back the moisture from his eyes. He'd forgotten how beautiful the Edge was, with the thick fog curling around his legs, and the first morning rays sparkling in every single drop of dew. No matter where he had roamed, no matter how snowy the Basin and how snowy his past—this was home. Irma came down through the trees to settle upon his withers. She'd only been an egg when it was lost; Diego came shortly thereafter, settling further back along his spine. Home, with the earth thrumming beneath his hooves and the familiar, comforting weight of owls upon his back. Home.. where he surely was not welcomed by any but Kahlua—and if he were to survive 'til nightfall, she needed to be his sun-spear, his shield, his defender. He drew in the cold, clear air; here, so close to the cliff's edge, it smelled strongly of the ocean, but mixed up with everything else that made the Edge the Edge. Mauja turned his head back, to peer again at the shattered glass wall; it was tumbled down almost artfully, bright and nearly friendly in the early morning sunlight. It pleased him to see it so—to see this violation of his forest perished, undone, shattered and fragmented. Slowly, he walked deeper, not far, just a few paces, perhaps ten, twenty, just living, breathing, remembering. But he was an unwanted guest, an interloper, and who knew what of the Qian remained here? His ears shifted, and he stopped, regal head raised and some of his posture regained—that easy grace with which he carried himself. The fog ceased its swirling, stilled as he stilled, and only the occasional flicking of his tail disturbed it. "Kahlua?" he hedged, too quietly for it to carry; his best bet was to wait for a patrol, and find her that way. There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on And you've just gotta keep on keeping on [ Open for anyone due to its location! All I ask is that you reply in a timely fashion (~3-4 days) or I'll ask for you to be skipped. :) For @[Kahlua], but again, due to the location of the thread, you do not need to wait for her! ] RE: my silver lining; - Kahlua - 08-15-2014 k a h l u a
Looking very much like a hoarder, and not very much like a queen, the Sunshower wandered the Edge with her eclectic collection. On her head rode a mechanical scorpion, nestled contentedly into her forelock. With each step it clicked and whirred, keeping its balance and watching the world with lifeless eyes. It did little but move and click, as far as Kahlua could tell, but she loved it all the same and carried it with her for friendship and companionship here in the lonely wood. With so many gone to the island in the sky, the draconian forest was eerily quiet. A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes RE: my silver lining; - Mauja - 08-23-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
He was content to wait. He was home. He had waited a long time, and all the while, he'd never known he was waiting. But now he knew, and the wait was, in one way, over. Slowly, his eyes shut, and his head lifted—and he breathed. Existed. The slow rise and fall of his chest gave him away, but his mind grew blessedly silent. And for the first time in a long while, life didn't feel quite so heavy, and his heart not quite so tired. For the first time in a long, long while, he felt what he could only describe as hope. And he remembered how to live in this forest; how to listen, how to pick the scents apart, and how to feel it. Slowly, his eyes cracked open again to the early morning sunlight, and his head turned. Someone was coming. He didn't need to know more. Peace had settled across him, smoothed the worries from his face. He would face whatever that would come, and he would give this life his best—because soon enough, he might not be able to give it anything at all. And that thought, now that he nearly stood face to face with it, frightened him more than he wanted to admit. So in many ways, it was a relief that it was nothing but Kahlua's black-and-white splotched shape that came through the forest, the sun glistening upon the dew-drops trapped against her legs. A basket dangled from her mouth, refracting the pale sunlight in much the same way as the broken-down wall did. More glass, then? It was the Moon's gift, after all, though the Edge unicorns had seldom made use of it at the time. It hadn't seemed durable enough to use for war, and war was what they'd been made of, even if the same gentle, early autumn sunlight had filtered down on their last days there. She yelled his name, and his ears flipped forward. It was something.. something in her tone, in the loudness of her shout, that gave him pause; something that made him wary, all his old doubts flaring into life, as painful and tangible as the memory of fire. Had she turned her back on him? Been poisoned by the words of others? Had she decided that he was a murderer after all, and not simply a man who had been burned too many times? He didn't want to ruin the peace of the forest morning with his black fear, so he said nothing as she put the basket down, simply stared at her with a wariness he had never regarded her with earlier—and never wanted to regard her with again. But he couldn't deny that his heart pulsed with the old memories he couldn't ever shake, and that he feared what words might roll off her tongue next. “I looked everywhere for you! Where were you!?” Moss bent beneath the force of her hoof, and Mauja's ears fell back in hesitation; she'd hardly given him an exact date to return by.. and besides, much had happened since. Gods burning—how long had it been? Last winter? So nearly a year. Then Diego had taken ill, and they'd left, and come back, and everything, which had always hung in a kind of precarious balance, had just come crashing down. He'd told himself, all those months ago, that he would find Ophelia. Tell her all the things she needed to hear, just in case. But that had dragged on, and on, and on.. and he hadn't found her. So he'd come anyway. But the Sun was never angry long, was she? Like the God who burned him once and healed him another time; the stomping hoof was exchanged for a bounding, bouncing approach, and Irma gave an indignant owl's bark as she fled to the sky to avoid being knocked clear off his back. It just drew a gentle laugh from Mauja, a sound so alien to him—his eyes closed, again, and what shadow she cast upon him from the sun was no colder, because she was more than warm enough. Silently he pressed the side of his face against her mane, against her neck, hiding in the folds of her white-black hair and wishing the world could just leave him there, where everything was simple and nothing hurt quite so bad. But it couldn't. Wouldn't. Because it was the world, and Kahlua needed to dance, and she couldn't do that when he clung to her. So he let her step back, and Irma returned from her circling to settle upon him again, favoring the girl-mare with an icy stare. It seemed to say, this place on Mauja's body is mine, so don't try to take it again. "I've missed you too," he responded, but his eyes were on the device crawling down her neck, and his surprise at how honestly the words slipped off his tongue was drowned in the curiosity of how she'd come to be in possession of it. He remembered Snö's wolf, Tarak, very well, and thought the machinery of this was familiar—and besides, who else had such a peculiar art, as the taciturn Engineer? But how had she, a hornless, come to have one? Ulrik was hardly known for his fondness of the "lesser species", and had, in fact, been the one ready to boot Mauja out for his political move during the Sun Cult days. So why did Kahlua have one of his creations? He motioned towards the whirring creature with the tip of his nose, and asked, "is that one of Ulrik's machines?" RE: my silver lining; - Kahlua - 08-31-2014 k a h l u a
What was it about this enigmatic beast that had so completely and thoroughly drawn the queen in to his life? She knew him from a handful of meetings, of chance interactions, and yet as she looked upon him she knew peace in a way that had eluded her for some time. Perhaps it was the fact that she knew he had secrets the way she had secrets, just a few, that she would not (could not?) share with the world. Perhaps it was the way he was steady when the world around them seemed to be full of chaos. Perhaps it was something else, something primal within him, which just made her feel safe. Whatever it was, the queen was glad to know the feeling again, now, here in his presence. A falling star fell from your heart and landed in my eyes |