[P] Knights and Damsels - 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: [P] Knights and Damsels (/showthread.php?tid=21966) |
Knights and Damsels - Hotaru - 12-16-2015 RE: Knights and Damsels - Ashamin - 12-18-2015 Here, I prepare my body for you: a toy, some trifling aspect of the sins you wouldn't have it for. Take it, before I am gone. Destroy me someplace quiet. It had been a long time since the Haruspex had allowed himself to cry, but upon returning from the Goddess of the Moon, he allowed himself this outburst. Lochan was sent home, immediately. The haruspex could not face those white eyes, so sure of everything that they saw and yet so free of judgement. His own coal ones dripped with wet. And it wasn't because he was scared, really. And it wasn't because he was finally feeling the emotions he had kept locked within him to make room for the problems of others, no. It was some sort of instinct he couldn't understand. He came home to the Basin from his talk with the Goddess of the Moon, and though he did not know why, he could not stop the tears. The only solution he could find would be to walk. And so he did, far from his cave along the lake and the wide shadow of the sentinels--far from everything he knew and understood. In the steady light of now dawned day he climbed mountain shelves. He wanted to look down on the world, if only to understand that he had no power over it. But as he made his ascent, he saw winds stir in sudden storms along a shelf too high for him. It looked deadly in a way he had never seen before, but the urge to thrust himself into its chaos and dry his tears with its rushing air was quelled by the reminder of his new and painful task. No, he had to save his body for the pain of magic. So Ashamin stuck close to the mountainside, a shelf coming out over his for once nearly bare form (natural save for the coils he always wore and an amulet on the chain of the false god's blue fang) and casting a shadow over him. Only when the storm subsided did he pull his weary body further up the mountain. What he saw, standing before the last of the settling winds with her trusty companion, was Hotaru. It was too late to stop crying, and to see the lady before him was no help. Old and complicated feelings arose in his breast--cold encounters and intimate ones haunted him. The red lady of winter, the woman of storms, had been the cause of this magic. And though perhaps she had already hurt him too much without knowing--perhaps he had already let himself think more of nothing, dwell upon fleeting and meaningless moments--she apparently had exactly the kind of power that he needed. His face was still tear stained--the distance between them close enough that she might even be able to see the wet marks. His coal eyes were still brimming and wet. He felt his own heart beating with pain and he listened for hers; in vain, he hoped to find a rhythm that matched his own. "Hotaru," he breathed with a puff of white air and a shudder through his bones. No title, no formality. Not for all he had thought and wondered in desperate, hopeless hope. Just Hotaru. He watched the last of the magic settle and the destruction it had caused in the surroundings--small chips of rock cut from the mountainside, little pebbles tumbling down, maybe threatening avalanche. He let his teary eyes look for hers, even as he still sought out her heartbeat. "Hotaru, I need your help." ""
ASHAMIN
(Would you think Ru would be cool with also putting the magic in his sun amulet? Also, what would her heartbeat be like right now? No need to tag me, just poke on skype. Would love to speed thread this if possible, I have work today but can get stuff in at some point.) @Hotaru RE: Knights and Damsels - Hotaru - 12-18-2015 RE: Knights and Damsels - Ashamin - 12-18-2015 Her touch was as reassuring as her heartbeat. Both calmed him, both drew him closer to her. Ashamin wanted to just listen--to fall at her feet and allow himself to be broken. But he couldn't be broken, not yet. She hadn't even lifted a finger. She hadn't even stirred up the storm. He needed to ask her a favor, and that favor was this: "I need you to hurt me," he asked, hollow. He pulled his face away, let her heartbeat fill his ears and let his own slide into her being. Would she understand his seriousness if she could hear it? Maybe, maybe not. But he sent it to her anyway. He needed her to know. Know how, but not why. "I saw your storm. At the fight with the gods, I saw your electricity. Strike me with them, and don't ask me why." He tried to meet her gaze, tried to make her understand. Surely she would object, surely... but he had to try. Suddenly, he remembered the herbs he'd taken from Tiamat so long ago, nestled in the folds of his sarong for safe keeping. "I have herbs in my cave. I'll be fine in the end, you can take me there if you want to be sure. But for now, I need this favor." He stepped back, stood before her, and shut his still wet eyes. Don't ask questions he prayed. Just help me. Ashamin looked down at his chest, at the amulets there, and thought of how they had redirected Isopia's magic when he had not commanded it to. Two storms. Two bursts of whatever magic she would use to hurt him like he needed. He would need two, before he could fulfill the Moon Goddess' attack. Bold, hurting, and desperate, he searched deep for her heart in her eyes and felt the rhythm that the storm had given her: something you could dance to. But he didn't want to dance. ""
ASHAMIN
RE: Knights and Damsels - Hotaru - 12-28-2015 RE: Knights and Damsels - Ashamin - 12-30-2015 I have died so many times What harm can come from just one more? Hotaru was in pain. Ashamin understood this: the deep, emotional hurt that came with getting close to another. The both of them had been born with this knowledge. Born, raised, made to learn, something. But they both knew it now more than ever, more even than the night of Hotaru's confession came in the cave. The knowledge was this: love always came with hurt. So when Hotaru's body crashed into his he did not hesitate. He wrapped his neck over hers, he let her weep and take whatever little comfort in him that she could. This would be the last moment like this, for them. The last moment before the day that she tore her friend to pieces and watched him bleed; the last moment before he was ignorant of her real power. When at last she drew away, whispering what were truly sweet nothings, Ashamin stood in patient wait. There was nothing he could do to prepare himself, nothing he could do to shield his body from the pain. He stood tall before her, chest forward and eyes open for as long as he could bear to keep them. But when the first crackle sounded they were shut tight to keep him in place. Somehow, Ashamin knew that he would have run at the sight of such power headed towards him. When the lightning ball struck, it hit Ashamin squarely in the chest. What was left was a burned mark with veiny edges and bloody, red flesh. The skin was torn, the body was covered in tiny shocks that sent him into uncontrollable convulsive shock. He fell to the earth as if the ball had been a bullet, shuddered there in the snow and could do nothing to save himself. This was his punishment, his task, his pain he would make himself bear. Not just, now, for the promise he had made to the Goddess of the Moon. He would take the pain for the promise he would soon break to himself: the promise to hurt no member of his herd--to use his power for good. By the time the storm began to rise, Ashamin had managed only to pull his face to his chest. He still shook, still bled, still felt as if his very bones had shattered and re-connected incorrectly in a moment. He watched, helpless, as the winds first picked up a few pebbles, then more. When the razor sharp edges of the storm met his flesh his sides were shredded, covered in long, red lacerations that bled freely and without shame. None of this was shameful. Perhaps he would die, perhaps he would go out as a fool for taking the harder path and be laughed at by the Gods, but he would die with what little honor he had left to cling to. When he heard the second crackle, felt the second wave of the winds, he wanted to tell her to stop. But his voice was lost from the shock that had climbed up his throat, his senses overwhelmed. He stared ahead with eyes stuck wide, watched her at an angle with the ground taking up half of his view. He had withstood the attacks; as if sensing this, as if understanding that there need be no more, two of the amulets around his neck soaked up her second round of magic. Had she seen the charms, thought of them? Ashamin didn't have the energy to wonder if that was her gift to him, her apology. But he didn't know, either, if he'd ever have the strength to use such destructive powers as hers. Certainly he did not now, as he slowly struggled and failed to get back on his feet. His breath came in heavy gasps, his eyes rolled and showed their rare whites before settling into normalcy again. Alice and Hotaru stood before him like distant shadows, with garbled words but clear sentiments. Through tears that electricity had forced from his eyes, Ashamin somehow gave his lady a pained smile. Surely she'd draw closer, the dust would settle, and she'd panic. Surely she'd get help, he didn't need to ask for these things. So he simply focused on lifting his head, on trying to touch his nose to whatever part of the shaded lady was nearest. "Nothing... I can't... withstand." ""
ASHAMIN
Ashamin withstands the first two attacks. Sun amulets soak up the second round of attacks, electricity and storm, respectively. @Hotaru RE: Knights and Damsels - Hotaru - 01-27-2016 RE: Knights and Damsels - Ashamin - 01-30-2016 Ashamin the haruspex found it difficult to breathe. A sort of shock set into him, numbing his senses and paralyzing every function within his body. When he looked up (for he could not move his gaze from where it had hopefully flicked, skyward) he felt a dread of loneliness. In the moments after the attack and before Hotaru's shadow crossed his wounds, Ashamin felt so terribly alone. In those moments his pain felt solitary, self-inflicted, and incurable. Time, though, would someday come to an end. For now this small series of shocks, this steady drip of blood, was soothed by the lady Hotaru and her sorrow. But the comfort of her body against his was short lived, for the words that fell from her lips were a declaration of something Ashamin understood better than most. In an attempt to do the honorable thing, to help those in his herd and take their pain himself, he had hurt Hotaru. The sobs that ran through her, the tears that fell from her face and onto his injuries... were these not the cries of the wounded? Ashamin, were he able to move, would have pushed Hotaru away. She didn't want to do that again? No, what she didn't want was for him to make her. He had made her do this, had commanded of her a pain so intense that perhaps her hurt was far deeper than his. Ashamin knew that as heavy as the physical pain was now, it would heal. He would, in time, stand tall again. Hotaru was strong, or at least Ashamin had always seen her that way. But now? What had he reduced his lady to? He had hurt her so much, wounded her in ways he had not thought imaginable. So it seemed that the Moon Goddess had won, after all. Ashamin flexed his jaw, grunted and stirred beneath the rosenshade. She didn't want him to hurt her anymore? Then he wouldn't. Slowly, painfully, Ashamin lifted himself. A hind hoof slipped in blood, his teeth ground, but he did not give in until somehow, somehow, he was standing. The shock was lifted, his warrior's spirit rose in him like a white flag. This, whatever this was, was over. "I promise, Hotaru," Ashamin said through clenched teeth and tears. "I will never hurt you again." With those words the haruspex turned to leave her, his tail dragging broken behind him and his gait awkwardly hindered. Were it not for his warrior's spirit, for the control he had trained to burn in himself, he would have been forever at her mercy. But Ashamin knew this was not how he could live any longer. He could not, would not, allow himself to cause pain like this to the ones that he loved. He was no one's liability; he would be their protector. As he dragged himself down the slopes and shelves, stumbling down the last of the way and at last crumbling at the mountain's base, Ashamin thought about pain. ""
ASHAMIN
@Hotaru, Ashamin out. You can post again if you want, but either way thread again soon? |