[O] If lightning strikes tomorrow - 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] If lightning strikes tomorrow (/showthread.php?tid=19106) |
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If lightning strikes tomorrow - Ulrik - 04-18-2015 A broken man, unsure. He had never felt this way before, barely ever felt at all. Now, a vibrantly colored mare with silver eyes had shaken his world upside down, poured the salt from his soul and into his wounds, and he wandered. Ulrik had never allowed himself the luxury of these strange sensations before, and now he remembered why. Childhood torment was a piss poor excuse to shut off from the world, but he had done just that, finding comfort in the world and his machines. The subtle whir of component parts and a gentle whine of electronics had been enough until he had seen Torleik again, the beginnings of a feeling stirring in his chest at having family again. Bolverik, one of his tormentors, had followed, stirring even more feelings. Now? He just wanted them all to go away again, crawl back into that dark pit where they could fight and give his mind peace. Ulrik did not want to care whether or not Essetia hated him or blamed him for Midas’ death, but the ultimate problem was that he did. Swallowing back his pride had revealed a smaller side of Ulrik, something so fragile and easily damaged, and he was struggling to hide it once again. The frown on his black, velvet lips was a deep chasm, an expression leading straight into his chest, and the depth in his eyes were an abyss, swallowing any who looked at his troubled features, drowning. Those normally vibrant and amused bronze eyes were plagued, shadowed, and the ghosts of his past sang their taunts in his ears. Why wouldn’t they just be quiet? A big, hitching breath shook his ribs, and he wandered deeper into the snow, feeling the cold bite at his lower legs. He didn’t’ care. A little pain made him feel alive. The ache brought him back to reality, and he needed to be grounded. Funny how he was constantly worried about grounding the charges generated by his machines, and now he was that same live wire, his current lost and ready so strike whoever came too close. The mechanical wolf he had fixed earlier clunked at his side, followed by Kirchoff who whined in his wake, upset by his bonded’s sudden and drastic shift in mood. The hellhound had never experienced this side of Ulrik before, and honestly, he was worried Ulrik would walk straight off of a cliff just to keep from feeling again. He may not have been far from the truth. The bulk of his muscular body felt like dead weight on his bones, pulling him relentlessly to the ground, and he stared at a storm pooling overhead. The dark shadows thundered, icy rain drops falling one by one onto his hide. A harsh wind billowed through his thick, black hair and beard, and he lifted his corded neck, looking over at the looming mountains in the distance as a white breath smoked through his lips. Home. Should he even go back? He would miss his sentinels and Torleik, but else was left there for him now? Illynx was gone. Rikyn…. His son… Just the thought alone made him want to fall to his knees in despair, but he stood firm, frozen. What had he done with his life? If lightning struck him down tomorrow, would he feel complete with his life? A lost lover? A possibly dead son? A failed father? His legacy would be two, massive machines, and perhaps, only his cousin, would mourn for his loss. He would not be missed. [[ @[Roskuld] because smithers said she wanted an Ulrik moment - but no rush! Otherwise open]] RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Roskuld - 04-19-2015
Don’t ask me what I was doing up there again. Just…don’t. And don’t assume it’s ‘cuz I don’t feel like talking about it (which is usually the case, in all honesty). It’s…it was just a lot of different things all tangled up together, beautiful and broken, like glass or some shit caught splintered in your skin. Now that I knew the north—well, I couldn’t quit it, for one reason or another. It was like some exotic candy your old man let you sneak at dinner, but now you keep sneaking in his briefcase, taking a little at a time, because it’s sweet and sour and tangy and crunchy and it does a whole bunch of stuff on your tongue. He knows you’re sneaking it, too, but he lets you, because this candy comes from somewhere far off and this is probably the only chance you’ll get to get sick off the shit. The metaphor was weird, okay. But it was still spot on and I couldn’t tell you why. I didn’t have a reason to wander the snowy reaches, where it was only getting colder from here on out; I didn’t have a reason to put you under such tiny torture, because you stayed huddled in my mane, just as miserable as you were excited, because lizards and cold don’t mix. You pressed me to go though, because you knew it was an urge growing hard and hot and heavy inside me that I couldn’t push away even if I tried. Too many things had gone on up here; to many sensations felt, and new things discovered, too. Sparkmarrow was found here—but that wasn’t the only big thing on my list, was it? I found Leos here again, once; I found Ma up here, too. And in-between the pain of all of that awkward shit—I saw the aurora in the sky, silk ribbons beautiful enough to kill with. Yeah, let’s go with that. Let’s make this a cheesy love-story and say my love for the aurora is what kept me coming back up here again. Okay, so. I was lookin’ for my boo-thang, the aurora. But it wasn’t out when I travled up there—just nothing but sky and sky and more sky, and maybe some (a lot of) cold to go with it, and I there was a tiny twist of disappointment in my chest from it. Whatever, I thought, and since the aurora wasn’t out, that meant I had to go back down south, right? But I didn’t. I lingered and subjected your poor tiny body to the cold and even though you assured me you could hack it, I still hated myself for it. But I just…I dunno, man, I couldn’t quit the place. Something was itching in the back of my mind and my shoulders and I couldn’t shake it for the life of me. I needed to be here for….something. Ain’t even like I liked the snow before then. Ain’t even like I like cold at all. Can’t give you a reason why this place stuck so forcefully with me…but it did. I smelled the bro before I saw him—this heavy, vaguely metallic tinge to an otherwise male musk is what made him stand out to me before, and I wasn’t about to forget that scent anytime soon. It…it attracted me in a way that was weird and new, so much so that I ain’t even embarrassed to admit it. I perked my ears up and you perked your little eyes too, feeling my sudden alertness—and paying close attention to me, like you always did when you were ready to learn something new. It didn’t take me long to see a shadow somewhere in the tundra; there was no way his black ass was about to blend in all this white shit anytime soon. “Hey!” I shouted, coming closer to him. And that was when I realized I kinda-sorta-maybe forgot his name. “Uh—Elrik? Ulrik? Derrik?” I tried, still approaching, and now I was coming close enough to see his bitchin’ bronze tattoo laced up his left sleeve. Shit I needed something like that. Maybe I could get the tat I got now modded sometime down the road? I slowed down as I approached him, though—because something crossed my mind. The last time I had seen him hadn’t been the most…um…cordial of times. And by that I had shouted at my Ma. What could he possibly think of me? Would he even trust me to be around him? "talk" @[Ulrik]
Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it. ♥♥ kate has it going on RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Ulrik - 04-21-2015 A curtain of color was completely lost on the Engineer, stuck up in the sky as it once, and he was so pitifully and mortally grounded. The stallion let the cold bite at his pelt, lion’s tail hanging limply behind muscular haunches that held no more will to move. Pathetic. He berated himself in his own mind. Weakling. Fool. And yet even those edifying personal thoughts did not give him any urge to make the miles toward his home and machines. Depression was a word he had never heard before, and though he would stubbornly deny its legitimacy, it very much applied, currently. Ulrik’s thoughts wandered, racing between past and present. What ifs. Maybes. Whys. Things he never used to give a single fuck about. The Engineer ground his teeth together, wondering when this self-pitying streak would end and he could go back to caring about nothing and no one other than his precious machines. Eventually his heart would give way to its natural, unfeeling state. He would forget about Illynx. Ignore the nagging pain of Rikyn’s disappearance. Someway and somehow, he would just go back to being himself, but he rightfully assumed that this process would take much, much longer than he could ever hope. A deep breath of white curled from his pursed, velvet lips, tainting the blackness of night with a white cloud. The rains had stopped by now, thunderheads having moved from the sky. Water turned to ice on his back, a thin layer of white plating – like armor, almost. Ulrik listened to the silence, trying to internalize the world’s atmosphere into his own soul when all of that was shattered by a single voice. The tones were like a gunshot in the peace of night, so much so that he visibly winced – one ear darting back toward the offending speaker. Ulrik slowly turned his head in her direction, raising an irritated brow until he remembered who she was. Aaahh… the bastard child of Ophelia? He wondered how that must make his cousin, Torleik’s, blood boil. Roskuld had given her mother straight hell there for a while, and his lips curled up in wry amusement. Her name was Roskuld, right? Didn’t seem to matter though, as she could barely remember his. For a moment, the tragedy of Midas’ death and the accusations from the Falls disappeared, and he nodded his head slowly. The ice on his back cracked, falling from his slick, black hide. “Ulrik,” he clarified, tones deep and guttural. “And you are… Roskuld?” he returned, hoping he got all the sounds put together in the right sequence. She was short and stubby, but what she lacked in femininity, she made up for in sheer volume of personality. His bronze eyes were unwavering, gaze almost creepy. “I would ask if you are running away from home, but I fear that humor may be too soon…” he trailed, smirking slightly until it faded. The expression never reached his eyes. Humor was rather tasteless at the moment. “Asking ‘what brings you out here’ seems so trivial. Suffice to say – hello.” @[Roskuld] RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Roskuld - 04-21-2015
I saw the bastard turn and face me, something bitter in his eyes before his gaze shifted and he seemed to recognize me. Well, okay. I’ll take it. At least he’s not shouting at me or anything this time. Something about this north, man. It was home to such…haggard…tragic creatures. This fool didn’t seem as lively as he was when I first saw him. Well, okay, he wasn’t lively then either, but at least he had some life behind the bronze of his eyes. Now, though? Something was tugging on him—physically or figuratively, I couldn’t decide, because his whole body seemingly sagged with something or other. Then he spoke, and there was a flash of irony and black, black humor that made him come alive, if just for a second: *“And you are… Roskuld? I would ask if you are running away from home, but I fear that humor may be too soon…”* I almost laughed; I could feel it bubbling in the back of my throat, and you cocked your head, curious at the sensation, because laughter didn’t in any way match with what I was really feeling in my breast at that moment. So it was probably a good thing I was able to swallow it down—because I probably would’ve burst out into tears, and I was sick of that kind of shit. “Ros is better,” I said, feeling even shittier because he had the decency of remembering my whole name, a courtesy I didn’t even seem to be capable of extending. I couldn't comment on his snide-ass remark--I wasn't brave enough. *“Asking ‘what brings you out here’ seems so trivial. Suffice to say – hello.”* “’Sup,” I returned, my voice still kinda subdued with that little crack of his. I wasn’t mad though—the shit was just tore up from the floor up in every way possible. It would never not be too soon. “Don’t know why I’m up here, actually…” I said with a shrug. He was looking at me—intense and piercing, and even though it didn’t threaten me like Shapes’ gaze had, it was still too penetrating for me to return, so I just sort of looked over my shoulder and all around, doing my best not to stare at his sweet tat. “…can’t really stop coming here, now that I know there's something up here.” I paused—and I turned to him, my embarrassment forgotten for a second, because something came to me. “What’re you doing in the middle of nowhere?” It was pointed and rougher than it should’ve come out, but I can’t really help that about myself. “What is it with guys going out in the middle of nowhere just to….stand around?" "talk" @[Ulrik]
Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it. ♥♥ kate has it going on RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Ulrik - 04-27-2015
@[Roskuld] RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Roskuld - 04-29-2015
Something or someone? he asked me. I couldn’t stop the softest of snorts from leaving me; I mean, come on. The question was so obvious—the answer was so evident--that it almost wasn’t worth an answer. “Yes,” I said, because I’m a jerk and I can’t just keep the shit to myself. For all I know it was an honest question—didn’t need to be rude to the bastard, the one good thing about the sentinel-guarded valley that was my— --my what? Birthright? Inheritance? Like my Pa would give a rat’s ass that I was his daughter—like he would give me the shit on a silver platter. I didn’t even know the place. He asked me about the north, and the…trend…I had noticed about this frozen desert. Things that I couldn’t stop thinking about whenever the wind nipped harshly and the drops of water froze immediately on whatever it touched. He had unknowingly tapped into a trove of memories I didn’t really care to think about right now—but I thought of them anyway, even as he started shooting a barrage of questions my way. “Uh—“ I said, kinda floundering under the tidal wave in inquiries: Stallion? Engineers? Fools? “I guess stallions,” I said with a shrug, “and uh…maybe fools too but I can’t really tell. I don’ know you like that.” I was smiling something crooked--I didn't realize it at the time-- and if I did, I probably would have flayed myself alive. I couldn't help it. Blue eyes had a way of doing that to me. But then he kept talking and the smile faltered because it was getting kinda unnerving with all these words that were pouring out of some stoic, hairy beast of a man, but at least he was answering my question: *“I am here because I am undecided. I could return to my herd and my life while ignoring the collective ‘fuck you’ I was given for returning a body I did not kill, or I could return to keep tabs…”* I raised my brow. On…? was the question in my eyes. But the bastard kept talking— *“Or, I could go ensure that I am not an enemy though I set myself up as much…I take slight umbrage with that, however…”* I stilled, tensing a little even as you burrowed deeper into my mane for warmth. I wasn’t playin’ the fool—I knew exactly what he was talking about, something that made a fire light inside chest and my stomach grumble in such a sick, sick way. I couldn’t shake the memory of those two lil’ babies all teary-eyed in the meadow; I couldn’t escape the vow I had made them to kick the nearest ass I could get ahold of. I still held myself to that promise. So what the fuck was I doing in the north, so far north, so far away from the *“Why am I the ‘bad guy’ just because I am more skilled?”* How am I the good guy by thinking about terrorizing my Pa’s herdland? He was asking me questions—deep things that wrapped around us both, trying to suffocate and drag us down into the permafrost. Questions that could whirl in your head and keep you up at night if you let ‘em. “Bein’ skilled don’t make you the bad guy,” I said; my brain was too numb with convoluted things to really think about his questions. It was my mouth that let the words flow—whatever came to my throat and tongue, I let it loose. “Bein’ powerful wasn’ never a bad thing. It’s motive, it’s all reason to it.” I looked up to him (shit he was kinda tall), into bronze eyes that sparkled with a brilliance that didn’t really match the rest the grease monkey he was. “Because for y’all,” I said, my voice low, steady, careful in a way that was new to me, cold to me, “for y’all it was all about winning. For them it was about life. It was a game, a plot, a design that y’all probably worked on for—“ sour things rose up in my throat, “—for I don’t even know how long. Them? They just woke up one morning and suddenly they were attacked. Surrounded on all sides and watching their parents fight, their Ma get hurt, and confused as to why.” I let the breath fall from me in a rough sigh/snort, noticing for the first time that my blood as started to boil, warming me a little in this climate. I tried to shake it off; I wanted to keep talking to Ulrik and picking a fight was one way to chase someone off. “Hell, I don’t know why you should worry about someone else’s feelings. Cuz’ you’re right; the world just doesn’t give a fuck. It’s cold and harsh and stupid and everyone buddy’s up to fight a tragedy and the minute it’s over they decide to turn on each other and fight because—“ I snorted again, “—because I don’t even know why.” The blood was pumping again; I started pacing back and forth, trying, trying to keep myself from flying off the handle. I slowed slightly, but my nerves still jumped and I was still moving, walking a slow figure eight. "So" I finshed, "Why do you care?" I paused, chewing my tongue and my lip. “...Ulrik,” I asked, my voice soft and gravelly, even lower than before, “why was the Falls attacked?” "talk" @[Ulrik]
Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it. ♥♥ kate has it going on RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Ulrik - 05-24-2015
RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Roskuld - 05-31-2015
*“I am not sure if I care or not.”* My mouth pulled to the side, a smirk but not really I guess—but I let him speak, needing the words he was speaking, a reason, an explanation for a madness I didn’t understand. It was still madness that poured from his tongue, though. Just a different type of madness; a controlled madness, a madness that had had a method in its history, a madness that had started its life so innocently, just like any other infant, before it was taken and made deranged and senile but the forces of – --what? The forces of what? I stood listening to Ulrik, my pacing paused for the time being even though my body itself hadn’t stopped moving. Like, yeah, I was stationary but everything about me said “agitated”, from the way I jutted my hip out, to the ultra-tense way my shoulders sat hunched as I chewed on his words, on a history lesson I had never asked for but craved all the same. Building-blocks and brushstrokes I had never cared to look for—even though I had spat at the finished painting and called it evil. “So--wait,” I said, my ear cocked and my eyes screwed up in thought as his words finally dried from his mouth. “Wait—what was Midas paranoid of? What was scaring him? And like—“ I shook my head slightly, “They had rejected your offers to be allies, so you stomp ‘em in the nuts for it?” I was trying to make my own sense out of it—but I didn’t understand how a desire for friendship could morph so easily into a total invasion of your home. Didn’t really feel that “friendly” to me. It’s like…it’s like choking a starving man with a home-cooked meal. He was talking about other stuff though—someone named “Mirage”, and a time when his home had been taken, too. And other stuff about a “racist threat”, which really confused me, cuz I’d never heard of a shit like that before. “What’s racist?” I kinda muttered to myself, and maybe I would’ve asked him properly, but we were in a middle of conversation and I didn’t wanna derail it quite yet. So I shook the word out of my mouth and the unasked questions regarding his past: Where did you live before? Why haven’t you tried gaining it back yet? If you know the pain of losing everything, why would you wish it on someone else? His comment about how lazy the Basin was caught me off guard—so completely that I let out a bark of laughter that made no sense, cuz I was wasn’t feeling anything light in me at that moment, anything bubbly or sweet or capable of laughter. But I dunno, man. He pulled it out of me. “Good to know,” I said dryly, pondering what he said about “wanting to apologize to someone” and not knowing why. Was he doing it on purpose? Being this thick, I mean? Cuz there was shit he was spitting that a calculating kind of sense to me when he explained it, but it felt off that he wouldn’t understand the other shit he was blurting to me like that, these tiny confessions that almost seemed to confuse him as he pondered on them. “You probably feel shitty, I dunno,” I shrugged—I mean, that’d be the response I’d have. I’m not sure if I was being helpful or not with trying to figure out this turmoil of his—and let’s be honest, I’m not even sure if I really wanted to, yet. I opened my mouth—closed it—opened it again, cuz there had been a thing I was about to say but it felt cruel as it passed the threshold of my throat. So I swallowed it and asked a different thing, a question to his question. “Did you fight, when your home was taken?” It came out quietly—honestly, wondering if this shaggy black bastard was the kind of guy to care about something like that so hard. I snorted softly, chewing my tongue. “I mean…” I trailed, kinda wondering out loud at that moment, “I'm bein' real, here. I’d hate myself if I hadn’t even tried to fight back. Like I wouldn’t even deserve to call that place my home if I didn’t try to earn my keep.” But that didn’t even really sound that logical though, did it? Cuz he was right in pointing out the futility of it and the stupidity in it, in shedding blood and sweat and tears over a cause that was lost from the get go— (we all have to learn how to drop the fight one day) --but even with all that nestled in the back of my head, I knew that deep, deep down in my marrow I’d be fighting to my last breath. If it were me. “…you know you do care, right?” I asked him suddenly—something sly lying on my tongue. “That ain’t no question. Cuz if you didn’t we wouldn’t be talking about this. It wouldn’t have been brought up. Your ass wouldn’t be freezing up in the far north, just standing around in the cold. You don’t do that sort of thing for nothing. You put shit in cold when you’re trying to numb it.” "talk" @[Ulrik]
Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it. ♥♥ kate has it going on RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Ulrik - 06-03-2015
RE: If lightning strikes tomorrow - Roskuld - 06-04-2015
*“I wouldn’t really say we stomped them in the nuts. We forced new leadership at the request of our allies.”* Something was starting to itch in the back of my head and my original complacency towards the Edge was wearing thin. Before I’d been content to just let them sit in my mind as bland, faceless assholes on a shitty corner of the map—but increasingly their name kept popping up in ways I wasn’t expecting and I wasn’t sure if I was willing to let their name keep sliding from my vision like that. The World’s Edge. Something told me I was gonna keep tabs on them, whether I was trying to or not. I didn’t really react to his definition of “racisim” all that much but I latched onto it hard, gnawing on it in my head, picking apart his words and wringing the meaning out of them. It was a concept so foreign to me, the idea that you’d only want to hang with people who were the same race as you; growing up with Jiji, who had both a horn and a pair of wings, it just felt…I dunno, ass-backwards to let little shit like that matter to you so hard. Did that make them wrong? I wasn’t so sure—but I know that if I wanted to be left the fuck alone by the majority of the world I’d shoot the first bastard who came creeping on my doorstep. I mean…I dunno. I guess they had a right to their own form of privacy. I…I guess, I dunno. I sighed—the knots in my body easing and loosening, surprisingly, even though we were talking about some heavy shit. But there was something…I dunno….soothing about the act of talking about something, hashing through it back and forth, your heart fluttering here and there with the ideas but none of them lashing out and making it all muddier. Not gonna lie though. I almost sprayed laughing as his eyes cut at me, glowering and angry at the way I poked at his care, like he couldn’t fight against my logic. Which was a weird thought in and of itself, the fact that I had logic that no one could refute. Not sure if I was proud of that or what. *“I care when I shouldn’t, and that is… fundamentally bothersome.”* I snorted loud and sloppily. “Preaching to the choir,” I muttered—cuz having a heart’s only fine when it’s not always twisted and sore and bleeding and scarred and bursting and breaking breaking breaking and healing just in time to break again. *“You won’t change the world in a day; it’s rather set in its ways. But, you are bright, which is not much I can say about others. Do not let your heart trip up your head.”* I opened my mouth—almost, almost shocked into speaking, but then I just looked at him funny, at the words he had said that were digesting in such a weird way in my heart. “I…” I started, but it was no use; these kinds of things didn’t have an answer, didn’t need an answer, cuz I was realizing that these were pieces of wisdom sticking to me too tightly to ignore and shake. So I accepted them, swallowing them down like fat, sticky pills doing their damnedest to cling to my throat on the way down. Not gonna lie—kinda fucked me up when he called me “bright”. I don’t think anyone’s ever really...called me that before. To my face, anyway. Usually I was content with running around like I was the village idiot. “I…” I started again; something felt like it was wrapping up, cuz he needed to make this apology he didn’t really understand (or want, I guess), while I had my own…shit…to deal with. But I wasn’t really done with Ulrik, not yet, cuz here was a guy I could pick out for days and probably never get bored once. “…Hey,” I asked, my voice going softer, “If I…If I’m ever…uh…able to swing back by here, again….” And I didn’t pretend to mask my real meaning, a meaning surrounded by mountains and graced with a beautiful lake, “I wanna…well…I wanna check out that metal horse thing a little closer.” It spewed out of me seemingly from nowhere and I was unabashed about it but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t awkward at all, “Cuz that shit was savage.” Now wasn’t the time for that, though; he had an apology to make and I wasn’t gonna be the one to stop him. "talk" @[Ulrik]--but no need to reply again!
Quit Hollerin' "Why God?", he ain't got shit to do with it. ♥♥ kate has it going on |