[O] he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - 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] he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; (/showthread.php?tid=16407) |
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he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 11-24-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
Eyes closed and faces to the sky, .. and this is how we died. I am no more a God than you are. Blue eyes, washed out to silver in the starlight, opened slowly in the darkness, cracking open with the reluctance one might greet a particularly trying day with when it seems so much more tempting to remain where you are, soaking up some early morning sunlight. But, of course, there was no sunlight—it was the dead of night, somewhere between midnight and the wolf hour, with only the cold and distant stars to shed light on the world. His head canted to the side, long forelock sliding off his face to bare his right eye to the sky. Far away they shimmered, those stars, those tiny pinpricks of light, lighting up the vast blue canvas. Would they ever go out? Would they ever let him down? Would they ever rob him of this—of a world coated in the finest of snows, of their cold touch upon its crust, the way they glittered upon the layers of frost coating every rock and tree and every dead thing? Mauja could not imagine a world without stars. A world without snow. A world without this frozen perfection laid out before him—without this mirror image of his soul. His breath rose in front of his face each time his sides fell. With the same slow grace each of his movements had held the past few hours he turned his head, his neck, and let his gaze sweep over the unbroken expanse—over the shimmering snow, black-rimmed ears listening to its own peculiar brand of not-quite-silence. Winter had a voice, as much as it had a face, a cold and quiet voice whispering in the barely audible crackle of the snow, and the low singing of the stars. Tonight, winter was cold and merciless, sharp as a steel blade left out in the snow to chill. He loved winter's voice. No matter if it was this, this frozen, glacial perfection, or if it was in the sparse warmth of bleak sunlight, or the soft sound of falling snow. He loved it, because it was the one thing that remained the same. The one thing that reminded him of home. Of himself. Of what slept in his veins. They rose, slow without the wicked touch of his temper to urge them out of hiding, rattling the loose snow and reaching towards the sky. Five spires. With a groan they strained ever upwards, passing his back in height, his head, his horn, until the passive yearning in his soul was not enough to coax them higher. He held them there for a moment, rooted them in the world, left enough of himself in them to make them stand without him breathing life into them—and his mind released its grip, and they still stood around him like sentinels, sharp tips glittering coldly in the pale light. He'd been away again. He'd traveled with the gale in his veins and the storm by his side, that godsblood brother of his. Left Helovia to finally face the one thing he'd spent all his life running from. His gaze wandered the horizon. He should've felt relief, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, as if he could breathe a little easier, or.. anything. As if he'd finally dispelled the ghosts of his past. He felt no different in that regard. Just older. More tired. As if he was heading for his death. RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Chernobyl - 11-24-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 11-24-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 11-25-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
We are not alone. Her voice was as cold as winter's, a sharp whisper brushing the back of his mind—a familiar caress, that light, knife-like touch. She came and went in his mind with much the same silence as she haunted the skies, a ghost riding these northern winds; Mauja's head turned again, a fraction, the compass needle in his heart honing in on her position. Perhaps she was no more than a star, a smear of white against their distant brilliance, or perhaps she was nothing at all, a wisp of cloud, a bit of imagination. If not for the weight of her soul resting against his, he would not have been sure it was her he was seeing at all. There were, after all, many things a-wing in the night. A faint smile curves his dark lips. If he wanted to keep lying to himself, he would say he had no idea why he was out there. He'd say he'd been wandering, straying, thinking, trying to figure something out. That he didn't know. Bullshit. The depth of his focus changed to watch his smoking breath drift upwards, and dissipate. He knew very well why he was out here. He knew why he'd finally started to roam these northern lands, looking for a drop of blood in the snow—looking for a desolate, forsaken queen he had not met in years, but still remained perfectly etched into his memory. Who was she now? Where was she? That which had made her her—that which had made his mind spin and heart ache—was it still there? If he found her, could he tell her what he should've said all those years ago, or would too much have changed? He was out there, looking for her, passive and yet desperate, stalling, because, who knew how anything would end? And perhaps this torment was better than finality, and dreams better than truth, and once those words had flown from his mouth his excuses would have run out and the Edge would have their trial and.. maybe, just maybe, it would be the end of him, and frost would finally claim all of him.. as it had another of his old friends. Mauja blinked. That sudden chill around his eyes was definitely water leeching away his heat and freezing. He was trying not to mire himself in the past, but damnit, it wasn't easy when he felt like he was letting everyone down. She—for it was definitely a she, his nose told him—was much closer now, approaching with something he couldn't quite place. On one hand, she seemed cautious, and on the other.. bold. Brazen. Unafraid. Familiar. Star-silver eyes traced her contour, drawn to her face, her horn—he'd seen it before. He'd seen her before, but he could place no name to her face, no meaningful interaction.. nothing. Just her horn. This new ghost of his past paused at a distance, close enough that he could see her, but not close enough to kill. That small smile on his lips curled upwards on one side. Or? He'd never needed to come in close. The spires of ice around him were testament of that. Not that he meant to kill her. He had no right to take the life of another. “Hiding from the snow monsters, are we?” Hiding? In a loose circle of ice spears? Hiding, out in the open, under the stars? One 'brow inched upwards as a dry bark of a laugh drew itself out of him. "I am the snow monster," he retaliated, mind spinning unbidden back to days of being a wraith and a beast—what had happened to that? When had he gone from a wolf to a broken, wounded animal? Another. A deeper mind-voice, as smooth as Irma's but less cold; amusement lurked beneath the spoken word. He saw glimpses of the world through their thoughts, of a young child working her way through the darkness and towards them. “Wait...you're not like...sick and contagious are you?” "No," was his short answer, a flash of worry needling through his soul. Were others? The girl was almost there, and his mind couldn't help but spin back, to another young girl in a winter landscape.. and her rotten, frostbitten heart beating through the bared ribs of her chest. "Are others?" And then they were three (or five, if you counted the owls circling overhead), and the young one says, "Excuse me. But have you seen a mare come by? She is glossy black, with a white blaze, and dark blue swirls on her front legs and horn. Her eyes are also of the same blue.", and his heart sinks. But his face betrayed nothing—perhaps the silence between his breaths was a little heavier, a little more tired, or perhaps it was nothing at all. "I know of her," he began, his quiet voice almost at odds with the figure he cut in the starlight, surrounded by his weaponry, "but I have not seen her, not tonight." Not for a long time. Was this young creature, midnight black and spotted white, a child of his? The result of one chance encounter upon a beach? Was she a punishment, or blessing? What was even her mother's real name? Slowly, his gaze returned to the first mare, the one with the crooked, familiar horn. "I know you. You belonged to the Aurora Basin once, did you not?" [ @[Chernobyl] and @[Glacia] :) ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 12-04-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 12-05-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
[ you're more than welcome to pop in again psilo, I hope you don't mind the way we handled Chernobyl right now :) ] Dark; brooding. Quiet. Silence was his only answer from the elusive black mare—a tense, quivering silence, the kind that had four ears straining in her direction, twin sets of blue eyes like spotlights. Did their rapt attention close the doors to her soul, or did she not like that he remembered her? To be pinned down to a time and a place? To be contained by parameters, caged by an imperfect memory, defined, not as a creature but as someone who had once been somewhere, at a certain time.. someone who was more tangible than a shadow, and left more traces than smoke. Mauja had the patience of glaciers, steady as the mountains, a heart of glass and ice. He could've stood there for hours under the level onslaught of her black gaze, and waited, waited until the words spilled out of her velvet mouth again. Wanted to. There was always silence before secrets. But youth had not the patience of wolves and so her voice startled the moment away as she burst forth too soon, too soon, and Mauja knew the sound—feeling—of more doors of potential slamming shut in his face. But as always, when one door closes, another opens somewhere. "How do you know my mother?" I fucked her. The bitter venom spread in a thin, curving line over his mouth, a half-formed sneer before he curbed it. What was done was done, and nothing would get better by him trying to erase it from his memory with the acid wash of denial. It would only hurt the more when it caught up to him. He didn't know how to own the memory, though. Didn't know how to make it his without cringing and wondering and doubting and hating. So he just stared at the little girl who seemed to have so much energy it wouldn't surprise him if she burst into flames, or started to shimmy on the spot. "What is your name? I am Glacia! In case you would want to know." I didn't. But. Now I do. The distance he wanted to put between them, between Liam and Alleshia, was closing. The inevitable was catching up. Life. Reality. You can't screw a stranger and not expect repercussions, some kind of echo to keep bouncing until you finally came back to it and heard it again. His white tail flicked, once, the only disturbance in the perfect night. "I am Mauja," he finally said, the voice of a beast defeated, "though if she has ever spoken of a Liam, we might be one and the same." Briefly his eyes roved the sky, tracing the outlines of the two birds, watching their effortless flight—and envying them their freedom.. and bitterly pitying them the chained weights keeping them locked to him. If he fell, so would they. It was an unspoken truth, something whispered in the spaces between their heartbeats—we are one, we rise and we fall as one. He let his gaze descend again, carelessly discarding the black mare for now, as she remained silent as the stones anyway, but one ear remained tilted in her direction.. some parts of his senses alert, waiting, for words or for violence. You didn't survive in Helovia by sleepwalking. "Glacia," he finally murmured to himself, tasting her name, eying her spots, her fetlocks, the telltale proud arch of her neck and haunches, the promise of a build as regal as his. Glacia. Had his Alleshia suspected, then, that the frost of his soul was mirrored by the frost of his eyes? Had she felt the chill radiating from him, and named this hell-spawn after glaciers and snow and everything cold? His calm, level eyes remained on her. The distance between him and the world had always been in his mind, in the way he held back, in the silence when he should've spoken. "Who's your father?" he asks, nonchalant and cruel, but he already suspects the truth. [ @[Chernobyl], @[Glacia] ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 12-05-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Chernobyl - 12-09-2014 [no i don't mind at all! so sorry for dropping off randomly like that. thank you for incorporating her still <3] @[Mauja], @[Glacia]
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 12-11-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
Fading away, when you're drunk and alone... It always went like this. It was so bitterly, achingly familiar he could've laughed, or cried, or both at the same time—he knew that look, this feeling, the guarded, shattered remains of a young girl's dream. A dream of a father. He'd seen it a thousand times before, in a pale, pretty varnish face, in another set of blue eyes, and in the lines in her face, the hardened face of a woman grown.. felt the backlash keenly in her barbed words and heard it in the stunted, hesitant beats of her heart. And here he was, doing it again, all over. Like the Gods had granted him some kind of second (fourth, dammit, fourth) chance and he was just burning all his bridges again, setting them ablaze and cackling manically and never meaning to, but it had to happen because the alternative.. the alternative.. fuck, what was the alternative even? "You." "Why now?" "You've given me no reason to believe otherwise." "You should have killed us both." "How else was I supposed to feel?" "You've changed into a boring fossil, I think I prefer the sound of the old you." "Don't get lost in the deep dark woods, oh fallen one." "What? What do you want?" "You." The alternative was being strong. He couldn't find his strength again—so the alternative was, actually, forcing his strength back into the light, some ice back into his spine, and once and for all slamming the doors to his heart shut, to keep the blasted mess in something resembling one functional piece. He drew in a breath through constricted nostrils, his eyes about the only honest part of him—fractured and conflicted, apologetic, tired. Another breath, a mingle of voices echoing in his mind—the only two he hadn't failed where the ones who weren't around. Hard to fail 'em when you can't talk to them. Or whatever. He should just get himself gelded. "I'm sorry," he finally said. Of all the things he could say, of course he picked the most useless, the most base, cowardly way of apologizing without changing or fixing anything. What cravens and idiots said, or proud nobles who would never truly admit to being wrong. Another breath. Try again. Snö probably would've heaved a sigh deep enough to make the mountains tremble if she could see them, him repeating every mistake and not being able to own it up. "I.. was not expecting to see you out here," one ear flicking back, listening to the silence of the black mare. It didn't feel honest. It didn't feel right. He didn't want to come closer, to sweep this girl up into the tidal mess of his life, to let her in, hold her close, be any part whatsoever of her thoughts and dreams and days—he just wanted to slam the door in her face, and run far, far away. If it was the right thing to do, did forcing himself to do it make it right? He suddenly wished them, both of them, far, far away. Because all he wanted to do was sink down next to one of his ice pillars and cry—it felt like about the only thing he could do that made any kind of sense. [ @[Glacia], @[Chernobyl]-- sorry for the wait, been pretty ill ><; the italicized quotes are random excerpts from other threads I've had. xD ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 12-13-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Chernobyl - 12-18-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 12-18-2014
i am the vanguard of your destruction
How did others do it? How did they manage to wake up, and smile, and go about their day without a leaden weight attached to their soul? How did they do anything at all? How did they find purpose in existing? Existence was, in its most simple and base form, meaningless. Useless. A pair of lungs and a tattered old heart, crimson blood pumped through dusty veins and licking the edges of scars—a body, a mind, too keen a memory and a pain so cutting it dulled the senses. His eyes closed. He wished his heart could close as well. In a moment's stillness he knew that he had not always been like this. Always dutiful, always proud, yes, always wanting to do the right thing (and at some point believing he did it, too), but he had done it. It had mattered. It had meant something. Psyche, Snö, Tamlin, Irma, d'Artagnan, Korra and her temper, Deimos' silent stoicism and Ulrik's calculating, relentless mind; Tolio, Faelene, Roland... They had meant something. Life had meant something. Life had been something, other than the rising and setting of the sun and an endless plodding walk through time. The contrast between now and memory nearly frightened him. Mauja's pale eyes slipped open again, one black-rimmed ear flicking, almost as if it apologized for listening at all. "I forgive you." You shouldn't. I don't deserve it. The black thought stirred, but his heart remained devoid of emotion. His gaze slid sideways. He had become as empty as the ice he controlled. "The fire went out a long time ago," he answered, voice rough around the edges. He said it to the world, to the horizon and the sky between everything and nothing—but a tiny pinprick of guilt had his eyes returning to her. Glacia. Glaciers. Glacial. Was he causing her heart to freeze over already? She was too young to walk down the road they all walked, spawned of the north as they were—too cold, too cold. He gritted his teeth. "The truth is all I can offer you, glacial child of mine. It does not paint a pretty picture," and something genuine crept into his heart, a feeling of regret, sadness, what was the damn word? It lingered in the softness of his voice, lurked in the corners of his pale gaze, and he followed his child's attention to the unfortunate mare caught in their disaster. He found nothing to say to her. [ @[Glacia], @[Chernobyl] ] [ "Though she isn’t the kindest old mare in the woods, she certainly took no joy in being a dickhead to orphaned children." Ouch. xD ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 12-25-2014
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 01-07-2015
i am the vanguard of your destruction
Somebody make me feel alive and s h a t t e r me... He had wanted to do better, be more than this. Not that he thought anyone aspired to be a failure—it hardly seemed something you wanted to be—but he knew how it could end. He had seen it once before. He had felt it once before, in the stinging, needling disappointment of his eldest daughter. And no amount of wishing seemed able to thaw the heart he'd forced to freeze over. He hadn't wanted things to go that way. And after the fact, he could see where he'd gone wrong, and what he should've done, or not done, or just.. anything. But here it was, happening again. Those ice blue eyes with their disappointment. The casual insult hidden in her voice, the scorn for his weakness, his inabilities, his shortcomings. She had had dreams of some sort, and he had fallen short of those. But he was what he was. No amount of wishing could change that. And, to be completely honest, he didn't have any idea whatsoever what would fix things. What Glacia wanted of him. He didn't have a single, bloody clue. The bitter wisdom of the north tainted her young voice. "It has been my experience that a pretty picture is nothing but a lie anyways," she said, and the corner of his mouth curled upwards in a mirthless expression. "The world is cruel," he rumbled, a touch of ice, a hint of darkness—some kind of bleak, black and evil sense of humor. It was all he had left. When he became too fragile he retreated into the evil bastard, because it was easier to be someone else rather than himself. But it wasn't honest. It wasn't right. And he never knew how long he could hold on to that other, false skin—or what would tear it from his bones and leave him as naked and exposed as he truly was beneath it. Mauja was raw, worn down. His walls had all shattered and fallen. So he hid behind whatever mask he found at the time, and in between, he was just tired. His gaze was calm, calculating even, as he watched the child—his child—tentatively come closer. The wolf cub approaching the bear. Did she fear him? Surely not. He was nothing but something old and tired. There was nothing to fear, because there was nothing left. Her muzzle was soft. Warm. Slowly, his pale neck bent, his long hair rippling with the motion, and his nose reached out towards her charcoal body—but she was already pulling back, and it struck another crack in his heart that there was only the cold, empty spaces of the Steppe for him to touch. He was tired and he was lost, he hurt, and he was weak—and when he needed warmth and support the most, the world robbed him of it. He tried to swallow the sudden onslaught of tears and hurt, but they lodged painfully in his throat. Blinking, Mauja turned his head away. [ @[Glacia], @[Chernobyl] ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 01-07-2015
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 01-08-2015
i am the vanguard of your destruction
All his life, he had been afraid of making mistakes. All his life, he had been afraid of doing the wrong thing. And the one time in his youth when he had made an actual mistake many had died. So much for "it's okay to make mistakes". It wasn't okay if people died. So he'd bottled up the truth, bottled up the guilt, and when it consumed him from within, he had buried it somewhere in the tundra, and left. Taken it with him, hidden the guilt and the shame beneath layers of ice and snow and the dazzling blue of his eyes. Hidden the truth, lived and breathed lies. Mistakes meant people died. You couldn't make that right. So you didn't do mistakes in the first place. That road of perfection was the only one he could walk. So in the dark, empty spaces between him and his child he didn't believe they would change—that they wouldn't remain dark and empty, a buffer of frost carved out between two frozen, insecure hearts. She had pulled away. Mistakes meant people died. Maybe he was dying, just a little, but— The point is, Glacia made a mistake. Because she rectified what she did. So maybe, just maybe, you could make mistakes, and no one died, if you were just brave enough to own up to the fact that you had made one in the first place. He hadn't been looking, too busy trying to force down the mind-numbing sense of grief and loss. He hadn't been looking, he hadn't been listening, hadn't registered the soft shuffling of snow as the yearning, cold void was bridged again, by someone not even half his size and already three times as brave. A soft touch that was more of an attack, roughly shoving its way past the permanent aura of get-the-hell-away-from-me, past the tension and straight into the depths of him. And this time, it wasn't just a muzzle's velvet touch, full of hesitant pity and anger, but the entire broadside of her neck pressed against his chest, head straining against his shoulder as if to hook over his back and hold him there. Maybe Glacia was just as lost as he—just as frozen, just as insecure, and maybe she, just like he, retreated rather than risked hurt. He could, after all, just push her away. Lock up his heart and all its whispered painful secrets. He was, what, ten? Maybe it was time that he too grew a spine. He didn't care about the black mare anymore. He didn't care about ghosts. He didn't care that they had a witness. He didn't care if the world finally got to know all that he was and wasn't—he didn't care about anything aside from the feeling of a small girl pushed against his chest. The feeling of, finally, being wanted. His large, white head hooked over the curve of her back, tilted so his cheek pressed against her on the opposite side of her spine—warm, she was warm, and small, and in a way she was vulnerable, but he was vulnerable too, but simply through sheer size he became her shield. His long hair tangled over hers, spilled like the ethereal stuff of memories over her black skin as he pressed her against himself. And for a moment—he didn't care if it wasn't more than just a moment, a heartbeat, because for that moment at least it was his—he felt peace. Warmth, in the darkness of the backside of his eyelids. He forgot the world. He forgot their witness, the black mare. He forgot his name and he didn't care who was the mother of this child. He forgot everything but the feeling of her, small and black and tentative, and the warmth where her skin pressed against his—he forgot everything but those four points in the compass of his heart. Two for the owls, One for her, And one— for himself. [ @[Glacia] ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 01-18-2015
RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Mauja - 02-02-2015
i am the vanguard of your destruction
[ casually sucks at life xP ] Darkness. Warmth. Refuge. From the pain of his battered heart, and the chill of the harsh winds. Purpose, because he was needed, wanted, in this moment, his white shape a shield and his frozen heart thawing as it pounded next to hers. Their odd witness retreated, but he barely noticed, registered it only in the subtle shift of the atmosphere. Otherwise it meant nothing to him—she meant nothing to him, onetime allies or not. His mind could not run all these parallel tracks anymore, because it was too tired, so in the prioritization game she disappeared, consumed by the small, black body nestled against his frame. This was what it ought to be like, wasn't it? Holding one another close, sharing love and warmth in the silent way no words could ever convey? Simply feeling, and trusting that feeling.. sharing it in the silence, with the rhythm of your blood. With his body promising that he was there for her, while his mind knew that he would disappear again, like snow blown away by the wind, and when she truly needed him she wouldn't be able to find him—she would only meet him at odd times, chance encounters, because he was the shadow that could not exist in full light. She shifted in his embrace, pulled back a little, breaking the moment and the glass sphere he'd erected around them. It shattered soundlessly, the brief disappointment drowned between one heartbeat and the next. They couldn't have remained there forever, after all, they were made of flesh and blood. For a moment, two matching sets of blue eyes met, before hers swung away, and he trailed them in the direction of the north. The idea of going near the Basin frightened him, and for more reasons than one. Did he still have friends there? Or had they turned against him? Would anyone still know him, or had they all disappeared? But as she gazed back to him, his eyes remained on that distant mountain kingdom a little longer, listening to her rambled request and finally, at the end of it, chuckling and looking back to her. A small smile curved his dark lips, a throwback to days of old when he always smiled like that. "I'll eat her before I let her eat you," he rumbled, reaching over without a thought to lip at her forelock. Truth to be told, the child's mother was intimidating, almost frightening in her intensity and power—Alleshia, a mare on a beach, soaked in sweat He didn't like that thought at all. So he dropped it, like something too hot to hold, and blinked it away from his eyes. Returned to the present. With a panther of a mother and a distant glacier as a father, what would this child become? Loveless and hostile? That seed was already planted, wasn't it? Could he do something to fix it? To give her the kind of upbringing he'd been blessed with? No. It took two to tango. She hadn't been meant to be the glue to hold a family together. She hadn't been born out of years of camaraderie and loyalty. She'd been made on a whim, urges and lust, and now she was stuck in this shitty world with a shitty conception and not a very promising future in terms of parental love and security. "I'll walk you to its borders," he finally said, blowing hot air on the drying tears across her cheeks, though there was something heavy in his voice. "But I cannot come in with you." [ @[Glacia], maybe a last post from you to wrap this up? <3 Mau's still a bit stuck atm with this whole Kahlua thing but once I know what's what they should meet again C: ] RE: he watched a falling star at the edge of the world; - Glacia - 02-23-2015
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