[P] between love & lust, i never know which to trust - 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] between love & lust, i never know which to trust (/showthread.php?tid=22473) |
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between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 01-18-2016
He raged.
This was not the silent rage of boiling in his barrel, nor the outer rage of burning eyes and angry words. This was rage. In every sense of the word. Violent, uncontrollable, aggressive. The giant had left the sandy shores, hovering on the precipice of control. Before, when he had been in the Flats, there had been a similar anger in him. But that had been directed inward, for he had created his own isolation. And then… then he had not known the devastating power of his anger. It had sprung out of him, with the advantage of surprise. It did not have that now. He controlled the beast… well, partially. But then, on the Flats, had been a sadness pushed and manipulated to anger by the newfound magic within him. This, today among the trees, was a fury in its own right. He had lost a love, once. It had lead the the ruin of an empire. Now, it was leading to the ruin of a man. He had walked and walked, legs laboring between walking and trotting; attempting to use these ceaseless motions as a way to tame himself. As he always had done— walked from the Edge, walked from Dorobo, walked across Helovia. But it was a futile endeavor. Perhaps he knew this, perhaps that was why had had walked away from the Edge— to spare it his demolition. Because, as he finally reached a part of the forest where the trees were so thick that he could walk no further and his hide began to heat and tremble, he knew there was no controlling this. Emotions swelled, heat and red filmed his darkened eyes. His demon cackled, ‘You are no King. You are no soldier. You are a vanguard of vengeance. You are a man whose existence burned his family alive. A man who cannot hold the love of a woman, not even a Thief.’ The great Elephant crashed to his knees beneath this onslaught in fruitless supplication. And suddenly this demon, this monster, wasn’t just a voice anymore. It was him, hissing and heaving with hungry hands reaching and grabbing for power. His chest burned with the anger, with the desire, and out from his chest exploded the calamitous beast, the force throwing up back up to his hooves. The elephant of flames, with ignited ears waving and trunk raised in a silent and flaming trumpet, swung its tusks as it searched for a victim; someone to burn. But, as the Elephant King (now enslaved to this rage) had intended, there were no victims to be found here. Yet the beast still charged, finding the nearest and largest of trunks, not to be denied its explosive destruction. Its detonation did not disappoint, the angry spray of lava splattering on him in this close range while infuriated flames licked up the thick pine trunk. Sap crackled in the heat, adding more fuel to the lonely inferno. Rage and aguish were such heavy burdens. And his knees, one burned and one bleeding, trembled once more beneath the weight. Dark eyes stared, empty and blank, while he internally wavered. Was he satisfied? Was this enough? Tembovu
the Elephant King @Mauja bae <3 Tembo went boom. RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Mauja - 01-18-2016 but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
He knows not why they drift—
But drift they do, tumbleweeds and wave-crests, driftwood washed up on dark, abandoned shores. And if there were any stars here to guide them they were distant and cruel, laughing down upon silver sands soaked with heavy hoof-prints—dents as deep as their hearts. He shifted, a lone ghost in the pallid light. In the dark, he couldn't see the blood soaking into the sand. In the dark, he couldn't pick out the color of the heavy water. In the dark, still his shadow was cast, long and lonesome, reaching for something it would never find, never reach. Sharp, moonlit edges rushing towards a distant horizon, a distant land, through red spray and broken wings—and coming exactly, nowhere. (For all our dreams are anchored in our souls; all our longing carried within our hearts.) Just the way his shadow was anchored to his feet. He rarely went to the Deep Forest. It was not a place of joy, of light, of happy memories, of treasured connections and fondly remembered encounters. No—the forest held no fond memories for the snow-ghost drifting in through thick, dark trunks, following a set of steps left upon that blood-washed beach. The prints were deeper and darker than his own, leading away from where all drifters wash ashore, because what was a drifter, if not one who drifts? Lost in his own world of night-fog rolling in, of an empty stillness so much deader than any he had experience in this world, he wove his tragic tale of the scent left upon trunk, root and leaf, and the occasional dent made by large hooves. Tembovu had passed here, seeking something he could find in the depths of the forest—but what? What drove the dutiful King so far from his given realm, so deep into this ancient, dark place? Memory haunted Mauja as he followed, knowing that Tembovu had come from ruin—knowing that corpses laid at his waysides too, knowing that he had walked a road paved with destruction. Yet for all their similarities, they were different. And for all his poetry running like quicksilver through his mind, nothing was certain: perhaps Tembovu did not drift at all. Perhaps he had not found the same listless apathy ruling brought; perhaps he was immune to the weight of toil, to the boredom of stubborn routine, the spotlight. Perhaps it did not chafe at his soul and numb his mind as it had Mauja's. Perhaps he had went to the Deep Forest for an exciting date night with some exotic lady, or simply for a stroll, or.. or.. or anything. Just because Mauja's memories of this place held more evil to them than any other singular place it did not mean this had to be a place of malice. (Yet the trees whisper something else, with their scars and wounds.) —fire. Up ahead, it burst through the fading evening light, fire and flame, shearing—a sunburst among the thick trunks, halting the one who fears it dead in his tracks. This place was fucking cursed, and this sudden fire was in between Mauja and Tembovu's tracks. Well, fuck—before he had much of a chance to do anything the light moved, hitting something with the low-key roar of warmth and flame being belched out; it seared his retinas and Mauja shied back, eyes closed. The fuck was going on here? He didn't even want to know—didn't want to get close to angry fire, because fire hurt, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught in the crossfire of some deranged pyromancer. But Tembovu— He didn't even know why it felt so important to find him. It wasn't like he had much to say; his questions had gone back to hibernating after the herd meeting, his vague unease soothed by the steadfast leader's presence. Surely Tembovu was nothing bad, nothing to fear—it had been a good and just choice to entrust the crown to him. (Like he had cared about that at the time.) He was a man come from ruin, much like Mauja, but that was no guarantee you were bad. After all, was there not much good in he himself? Hidden, deep, frozen, but there, in the ice-spiked chambers of his heart? As if in a dream his frosted hooves whispered over fallen leaves and a carpet of pine needles shed through the ages; eyes were wide and reflecting the flame lingering along the edges of a tree, breaths quivering, in and out, near silent in the growing darkness. He was nothing but a ghost, and then— The trees parted— But it didn't make sense— Tembovu stood opposite the flame-licked tree. Well, whatever, he could stand where he wanted, it wasn't that— It was his eyes. It was the deep, deep blue eyes reduced to black. It was the hungry tongue of flame reflecting in their depths. It was the blood on his knees, the smell of singed hair and burnt skin, charred flesh, the angry, distorted swelling upon one of his carpals. It was his deep, deep blue eyes reduced to black. It was the emptiness gazing upon the ruined tree. "Tembovu," he said, quietly, from the shadows wherein he lingered. So this is what your soul looks like. Mauja
the white queen RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 01-19-2016
Eyes were ebony in the night, hollow pits reflecting vengeful carnage licking as hungry flames up the doomed pine’s scarred trunk. Only fire filled his vision, hearing, senses. It blinded him to the vacated forest around him.
Except that it was not vacated. A man stood among the trees, drawn like a moth to the flame. But this moth knew much more about flames than any usual winged creature. This moth knew the devastation fire had burnt through the King. He knew of the destructive loss. “Tembovu,” the quiet voice from the shadows reduced to a whisper in the face of roaring, red tongues. But the ravaged beast heard it— perhaps because he wanted to, mostly because he needed to. An ear snapped sideways, followed by the abrupt turn of his heavy head. Fire had overwhelmed his eyes, blinding them to the subtle shadows of darkness. A sheen of black, flickering with phantom flames, replaced the trees around him. Panic, or something like it, bloomed amid the rage in his barrel— an unholy combination of fear and fury. Ears quivered, caught between straining for further words and pinning against his skull in warning. The heat returned in his chest, building and burning— no. Not again. The thick, black hide of his deep chest grew hot, glowing as the tree burned. This magic was magnificent, incredibly powerful, but came at such a cost, his spent and burnt body shuddered once as the anger reignited. Darkened eyes scour the trees, still stripped of their sight— though it slowly returned as flames become trunks and smoke becomes shadows. A silhouette of white, more a smudged glimpse than true form, managed to impress itself on wrath-lit retinas. “Show yourself!” The deep growl of his voice was not his own, but something drug by demons over smoldering coals. Tembovu
the Elephant King ...approach at your own risk :| RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Mauja - 01-19-2016 but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams and the water creeps to my chest Mauja knew of suffering: he knew of darkness, of ice and torment. He knew of taking, of standing dark-eyed as the scythe fell and another life ended (—another dream laid to waste, family shattered). They had begged and pleaded, cried and raged, attempted to make unholy bargains, tried anything to save themselves, and their beloved ones. And he, he had not heeded them. Mauja knew of suffering, but he had only ever suffered at his own hands. It was almost curious to think of all the evil he had inflected upon this world—how he could stand here, now, with a heart that beat, how he could mourn those he had lost, how he dared to love, live, at all. If there was any kind of justice, anything that was fair, Mauja ought to be dead. But nothing in the world is fair. For if something was, how could this be happening? The hiss and crackle of flames, sparks spat into the heavy darkness, reflecting in eyes that had suffered too much already. Mauja lingered in the shadow, safe in its embrace, kept away from the rush of heat embedded in the tree trunk. (Safe, from the rage blazing red in Tembovu's chest.) How had it come to this? Tembovu had come to him bearing scars and smiles, had stood by him as the world crumbled, carried him from his daughter's death and into the future: picking up the cursed crown, putting it on his own head, preparing to lead them into days that weren't so dark. Mauja had always known there had to be a darkness as deep as his own within that scarred, broad chest, but it had always been so well-contained, perfectly locked away, merely raising its head to sniff the wind when seared by fire— (—slavering jaws gnawing on their metal bars, throwing itself against the walls of its prison). He had seen it, that day, a ghost in the Elephant's gaze. But now, the ghost was Tembovu, hiding behind the abyss of his own rage and grief. In the darkness, his black chest smoldered like embers refusing to go out, each breath upon them glowing hot red, making him seem a demon. It was as foreign as his voice, a rough command uttered from dark lips, spurred out through a raw throat and rushing like a tide of red along the coals upon his chest; Mauja shivered in the cool shadows, wondering what he had walked in upon. Possession? Or just a magic as fickle and unfortunate as his own? They all had secrets, and where Mauja had buried his in ice, perhaps Tembovu had burned his, giving rise to this.. this dark-eyed monster, a devil in the Deep Forest. The fire in his eyes—was it just a reflection? Tembovu either hadn't seen him, or didn't recognize him. He could still get out of this. He could back out, quietly, the way he had come, disappear to his northern snows, never look back, a wolf ousted by himself and his own cowardice—left to live in the reek of his shame, another life he let down. Would this fire consume Tembovu? Would it ravage through him, until nothing remained but blackened ribs, a blackened skull, charred, crusty flesh? Would they come here, and find the scorched ruin of greatness, and see the horns, and know who it was who had fallen here? (Would they cry, 'murderer, murderer', and come hunting him again?) Mauja had teetered upon the edge. The storm had whispered and roared around him, his long, white hair a halo in the gale. He could've simply fallen, but between him and the precipice there had been someone—someone who dared place his hooves just upon the edge of life to push him back into safety. Mauja could've charged him. Bowled him over. Taken him down to oblivion with him. But a quick fall and a broken body wasn't fire. Not that it ever was a question, not that he ever had a choice. In the face of obsidian and embers threatening to burst into flame he simply stalled, folding in on himself, wishing he could get away but knowing that he couldn't. If Tembovu was a god, he was proving to be one hell of a god. "I am here," he said, his voice gentle in the suffocating darkness. Something, some caution, kept him from moving too quickly. Because where could the fire licking up the tree had come from, if not the rage blowing red in Tembovu's chest? So with the faintest of sighs, Mauja steeled himself, went into the ring, facing the one thing that had ever laid him down. Furious fire. A single, lonely sparrow of flame flickered into life by his head; its wings beat softly, casting a gentle light upon his pale face. It did not move from its position, straining against its invisible tethers, wanting to be free, but he smothered it, held it close, refused to let it go. Accompanied by the small bird Mauja began to head for Tembovu, praying to Gods he no longer believed in, clinging to his shred of courage, and hoping—hoping that he was not wrong about this. Mauja
the white queen RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 01-21-2016
The silence stretched, ominous and roaring with flames. The Elephant— the beast— searched the darkness. Slowly, blackness morphed to smudges, and smudges became silhouettes. His retinas, torched by staring at flames and the fires burning within him, strained and demanded to know who dwelled in the trees. In the absence of an answer, his chest began to pulse with every angry, powerful beat of his great heart. In warning, in anticipation— preparing to unleash the inferno once again.
“I am here.” The words were gentle, nearly missed or discarded as they did not belong amongst all this darkness, hatred, and rage. They were too soft, too caring. Vaguely, the enraged King sees white— a seraphim to his diabolus— move between the gnarled fingers of trunks. A horse, a vaguely familiar voice— one he should know, despite the crackles and elephantine trumpets in his skull. A single prong of comfort pierces the agony in his soul. It is not enough to douse the conflagration; but it is something, it is a start. The pulsing of his chest subsided to a soft glow as black eyes peel away the blur of blindness. Roaring breaths slow from their angry, alarmed rate. Perhaps there was hope, as the deafening trumpet in his mind dulled to a din. But then, there was a spark amid his fire-seared vision— a spark among the flame filled silence. And it was the cursed combustion for all the raging, agitated kindling in him. And from his chest burst a beast of molten tusks and flaming eyes, charging with the madness of an Elephant. The insidious seraphim, with threatening flames, was its mark; starkly white and inviting against the night. In the absence of his anger, as it charged away from him, clarity came and recognition prevailed. Mauja. He was on the heels of the flaming beast, a bellow of warning— of fear— echoing above the roar of rampage. No. Not Mauja. Not his friend. A demonic tongue of triumph swirled in his skull, blackness blooming in his barrel darker than ever before. This was progress, this was what his demon wanted— what it needed. In this destruction, it etched a permanent corner in his skull; No longer was it relegated to the obscurity of his barrel. Now it had real purchase in the Elephant’s mind. “I am here.” Oh, but you shouldn’t be. Tembovu
the Elephant King RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Mauja - 01-21-2016 but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams [ post #1,200 is for you <3 ]
There is always a time when something gives way—when bridges go out under heavy burdens, when tethers and chains, bones, break, when logic misfires and control slips, when things go where they should not be— Red blood spiraled slowly down the sharp edge of an ice spike, the tip hidden in the golden man's chest cavity as it had punched its way in there, through ribs and lungs. —and it was always so easy to be wise in the aftermath, to trace these rugged, jagged lines to their source, and the nightmares turned to if only's, but nothing ever turned back time, and nothing ever seemed to make you wiser, Mauja. (I suppose that's why you are where you are now.) You know how destructive fire is. You know how a single, errant spark can incinerate nations. You know fire, much too intimately, a memory etched permanently in your mind—of how it slips and crawls along your skin, down your throat, how it bites and sears so deeply you nearly breathe it in. Fire doesn't just burn you, it takes you, digs its roots in deep as it makes its home in your flesh. You have felt it more than you've seen it, the black, charred ruin.. the single, brief moment of respite when it just hits, the shock which numbs all nerves to the agony they are about to endure. Being burned is a higher, purer form of pain, white-hot edges delicately pushing you out of your mind and into something glorious as it ravages your body—until you fall back into it. Until you feel it, with every fiber of your being. And then, it'll haunt you, forever. While you're the one who has been lost in the fire, Tembovu is the one who has lost to it. You know this, Mauja, you know why Torasin died in this forest, and yet you bring flames to the burned man's hearth. What did you expect? Truth is, he had barely thought about—something in the back of his mind had rebelled, whispered do not bring more fire, but he hadn't really heard it. Hadn't really thought about it. To him, it was just—just light. It was just a sparrow. Something to show Tembovu where he was, who he was, to put a face on his pale, nameless body; a selfish little comfort here in the absolute darkness and smothering rage. Oh, he had seen it, Tembovu's rage. Heard it in the low roar of his breathing, a mirror-image to the flames. Mauja's rage was of a different kind: cold and calculating, sharp edges of ice, precise and clear. When Mauja's ire was roused, things died with lances of ice embedded in their hearts. (He doesn't know of flaming fury, but he knows how little it takes to pull the trigger.) To your credit, at least you weren't surprised when it came. In the slight moment between hope and despair, you had seen it, a ripple of red through the black chest, and when it had spawned you at least had had the decency to think oh fuck and the little sparrow (—your hope) had gone out in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, we just.. wish things would turn out differently. That we would be wrong about something (or right, depending on what we thought), that we would do something right—but there's always something that has to go wrong. That's what he (you) is doing. Wishing. (But wishes can't save you now, Mauja.) He heard it as if it came from very far away—like an echo of a dream, a hand extended to save him, but he had already fallen from where it could reach him. It was wordless, a sound of raw emotion, unaltered, unhindered by meaningless words. It was just a shout, a bellow, a roar, coming from behind the veil of charging darkness; sudden sweat pooled against his dark skin, the low, insidious glow reflecting in his blue eyes. It was a warning. It was fear. It was everything Mauja needed—a little compassion. To know that he was loved, even in the face of this beast he had, needlessly, unleashed. Time seemed to slow. The molten beast came closer, a shadow on hooves thundering behind him but hopelessly unable to catch up with the destructive force he had set loose. Tusks and eyes gleamed in the gloomy darkness, and Mauja, oh Mauja... His heart beat out his panic, his eyes searching, once, above the back of the igneous beast—looking for that again, a little assurance, a little love.. something to hold on to. And shadow to his pulse were two others, wings locking in agonized glides. There's so much at stake and you don't know what to do, because there's nowhere you can go. You're just a horse, just flesh and bones, and this thing coming at you is so much more—so much hotter than your body can handle. You do what you can, you do the only thing you can, even if it seems foolish: like a single rock attempting to hold back a flood. But there's just no way you can avoid it. But you're not wired to lay down and give up. You're wired to flee, haunches bunching as you start to spin to the right—but that's as far as you get. You should've known better, Mauja, you should've known not to bring more fire to a man already burning, and that's why you are where you are—lying on your pristine, snowy side, presenting charred ruin to the tree-covered sky. Fallen, as you ever were. (But your hearts have not fallen from the sky.) [ I did some very brief research. Magma has a temperature of 700-1300 degrees Celsius/1300-2400 degrees Fahrenheit. Ouch. Basically, Mauja is lying on his right side, his entire left side more or less...destroyed by fire. He's alive, just 100% traumatized. Short quote from this thread. ] Mauja
the white queen RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 01-26-2016
A flash of white, blinding against the darkness, seared his eyes once again. But this was not accompanied by the crack of incinerated wood and snap of boiling sap. No, a soft and sickening thump of giving fleshing and the acrid smell of singed skin and hair billowed out into the night.
Those eyes— those two, pale pools reflecting the oncoming elephant’s rampage— had met his own dark gaze above the beast’s back (but he was the beast, he was the monster). And those eyes, they seared into black eyes and lightened them to navy with their fear— their trust. But never trust a wild, injured thing. Too quickly does it turn, too ruled by instinct. The explosion of his heinous creation splattered his chest and forelegs with scalding bits of molten rock, adding burns to his bruised and bleeding knees. His legs slowed, then stopped, as his vision was again robbed by the overabundance of light. Only roaring flames and the pungent odor of burned flesh filled his senses. He had been here once before, weaving among charred trunks, legs burned by residual flames and heat. The distant roar of flames had warned him away, the smell of singed skin a promise of what he would find. Mind roiled between the past and present as the edges of his vision began to clear of their sunspots. But no longer did he see the great pines, branches lit from underneath by the ravenous flames that devoured the trunk (how much longer would that tree hold? would the fire spread?) No longer did his hooves fall on the softly needled pine floor, nor did his head fall to the charred flesh of his friend. No, now he was stuck in another time, another hell— also of his own making. Heavy ivory hooves, burned by the smoldering coals on the forest floor, do not pause in their frantic pace. He had seen the smoke rising above the rainforest’s canopy, he had felt the awning hole that opened in his barrel, the numb dread that flooded his veins. Ears were ringing from the massive roar of flames he skirted to find the charred camp, while his vision was tunneled and blurred— searching among the ghastly standing trunks and fallen black logs. Smoke rose in lazy wisps from the scalded earth— there. There was a long and curved horn, starkly holding it’s shape against the coals. And its pair, the longest horns seen on a mare in the Plains; they belonged to Fatiishi, Mawindo’s woman. His great head dropped to the neck of Mauja, dark lips just hovering over the hot, cracked skin. What was once snowy and speckled was now black and laced with red. He didn’t dare touch— not yet. The steam and smoke rising from Mauja’s hide was enough of a warning for the Elephant. Still, he drifts his head carefully, cautiously over the fallen body. Down the neck, past the shoulder, to the chest. The chest, a place of life— but his own chest created only rage and destruction, was this not proof enough? Broad and pale, his muzzle hovered over the scorched chest of his friend. His own heart, the cursed and angry organ, pounded relentlessly in his roaring ears, begging for some kind of answer in the fallen Queen’s chest. But there was no answer to his heart’s beating. No fast drums of a foal’s pulse nor the fluttering arrhythmia that was Mara’s gentle beat. His muzzle, broad and covered with ash, then pressed against their dead skin— so deceptively hot. A low moan leaked from his chest, navy oceans spilling saltwater to douse the flames that incinerated his family. But they were too little, too late. An anguish swept through him, so crippling that it robbed him of his legs. He crashed beside them, rocking and holding black bodies leaking fluids— bodies that were once everything. They covered him with their sloughing, black skin. But he held them, held them until the heat had left and only cold carcasses remained. The pain was so resolute, so absolute, that it numbed and burned all at once. But there was an answering beat to his questioning heart. A painful rhythm of life that flooded the Elephant, jerking him to the present. The rage in his soul had calmed to a smolder beneath the weight of what he had done. Perhaps it was satisfied, perhaps his past had outweighed the anger. Perhaps… perhaps it was the coldness that consolidated in him. It was heavy, new, and a rival to the heat of his flames. It was fear. Not the fear of what stalked him in the forest. Not the fear of losing his friend (though that still coursed strongly through him). It was a fear of himself, of this destruction over which he had no control. Heavy and icy, it sank in his chest and pervaded his mind— freezing the demon in its new resident corner. And, strangely, he welcomed it. Lowly groaning as his eyes drank in the sight of Mauja, he slowly sank to lay behind this man (his friend?). Carefully, his lips lowered to the down ear, gently opening to stroke the un-seared flesh. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” An apology, a prayer, for the past and present, was whispered on broken words to the dark night. “You shouldn't have come. Those I love always burn— I am not worth this.” Eyes cast upwards, looking for his owls and hoping they would find help. Tembovu
the Elephant King RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Mauja - 02-04-2016 but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams But I blinked ... and the world was gone Their wings were locked in agonized glides; a visceral fear held them tight, tight, hearts pounding out a terror so fleet-footed it became a blur. The moment stretched, spanning ages, horizons crumbling, eyes going blind—nothing existed beyond the fragile link in the aether, nothing mattered and they knew not even where they flew. They were frozen, helpless, as he ever so slowly fell, like early snow. Then, their heart hit the ground, and the world shuddered, and all was silent. It felt like an eternity. And the silence stretched. () Their pulses were racing, as if it could somehow save him. The sound of their frantic life, their desperation, grew into a din, a low roar, a scream going through rugged nerves and frozen veins— Their hearts beat as if they could beat in stead of his, but how could they ever, when they were so small, so fragile? Diego's wings—resolve—was crumbling; the width of his span grew smaller, and smaller, as he folded in on himself, fell under the onslaught of terrible despair— There were no more stars. No more dreams. No more hope. His world had ended in this terrible, terrible silence— But she flew on, resolute, refusing to give in—to give up— Diego's wings folded haphazardly as he chose his fate, tumbling from his throne, the sky. —but the world shuddered again, trembled, and the silence began to shriek—like metal grinding against stone—a cacophony drowning out the sound of their pulses, of their fears, of their lives. It was a tide, a flood, an earthquake and an avalanche, it swept through them like purging fire, hammering on nerves and fragile psyches, such a counterpoint to the rugged silence of His shallow breathing. It grew and grew and grew and grew, invading every space, every piece of them, every fiber and every particle, threading its way through hollow bones and slipping through their fear-stained blood, and still it grew—but it never broke. Irma screamed even as Diego crashed into Tembovu, talons raking for purchase on foreign skin, eyes wild as the other owl's haunting cries died as echoes in the night. And still it grew as the heat sank ever deeper into His fallen body, a lonely flame going out on the charred mess of his haunch, leaving him in complete, utter darkness. His breathing came fast, too fast, slipping in and out of black velvet nostrils, and his heart beat (too fast, too fast), but the rest was just silent. Tembovu's words stirred the fine hairs in his ears, but they did not flick to avoid it, and his eyes were trapped open—unseeing, as his blood grew warmer and warmer with each circuit it made of his broken body. And Irma came crashing down too, a lonely speck of white upon the needle-laden ground, her raw voice shrieking time and again as she looked about herself, as if unable to see, unable to find what she was looking for. She was looking for him but beneath the scream defining his existence there was just silence. [ Look. I posted. Wow. xD @Tandavi @Alysanne @Evangeline + anyone else welcome! ] Mauja
the white queen RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tandavi - 02-04-2016
@Tembovu a wild Tandavi appears! RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Alysanne - 02-04-2016
sorry not sorry he'll always be Queen Mauja to her xD RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Naerys - 02-05-2016
RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Evangeline - 02-05-2016
[Image: 56afc2d55ad46] RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 02-09-2016
The thick hid of his back twitched as Diego’s talons rake through his flesh— though it is but a small drop in the King’s sea of misery. The freely bleeding slashes are welcome punishment, a just retribution for the sins he has committed this night. Haunted, navy eyes watch the white form of Irma fall to the needled floor. Blankly, they watch her blind searchings, ears twitch at her raw shrieks.
So that’s what it looks like. That’s what it looks like when everything you hold dear is ripped from you and burned— and you are left searching and screaming until your voice leaves you and the blindness doesn’t. Mindlessly, he continues to gently stroke the unburned, silken ear of his friend— a strange sense of numbness pervading him. Not numbness to the pain and fear, for that he felt acutely; but numbness to action. He could not gather his legs to rise, he could not call out into the night for help. He could do nothing. He had never felt this before. But it was short-lived, for suddenly an orange mare (whom he might have recognized from the Rift battles, had he been in a different mindset) appeared from the trees. And beside her was a fox of many tails. And suddenly there were embers, more fire blooming from the fox’s tail, all coming towards him and his fallen friend. A hoarse, guttural stallion’s scream ripped from his throat, ears pinning flush with his skull as teeth gaped and bared while his head snaked out. His neck covered what it could of the immobile Mauja, protecting it from further insult from the woman’s fires. He didn’t know— couldn’t know— that she was healing his friend. He saw only further harm descending upon him. And he tried to buffer, to use his body, as shield. Hide ripples and teeth snap towards the feathers that suddenly brush his skin— he is too raw, too savage, to immediately recognize Alysanne, his friend. Even the appearance of Evangeline, his friend and second Moon Doctor does not register to his mind. Ears twitch at the sound of his name on their voices, demanding tones and pushing wings. Confusion clouds his haunted face— only clearing when the sight of a young face and teary teal eyes. “Please. Please tell me that you didn’t do this.” His eyes fall back down to the charred body he protected and cradled. Yes, he had done this. And suddenly he is lurching, surging to his great height and back away to give the healers room to work. To heal. To save. “Please,” the plea escapes his lips, low and hoarse, please save him.. Eva tells the young filly to talk to him, to make Mauja focus on her voice. The man, the broken Elephant, watches with wide eyes— gripping onto the newly formed, cold fear into his chest as a lifeline. It would save them from him, it would save him from himself. And they would save Mauja. They must. An ear swivels backwards, towards the crackling roar of fire behind him. How easily he had become accustomed to that noise, a soundtrack for destruction. Eyes then fall on the fallen Irma. And, for unknown reasons, he moves towards the white owl— perhaps to be close to his friend in anyway that he can. Perhaps to comfort, to seek comfort… Heavy hooves stop beside her in the needles, great head dropping down beside her, “I’m sorry.” The futile apology is whispered, not knowing if she will even stay to hear him. Not knowing if she will understand him. His eyes do not leave the healers and burnt man before him. Tembovu
the Elephant King @Mauja RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Mauja - 02-09-2016 but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams And they screamed—
She was his voice; she, the lost one, who stared wildly at the dark, fire-stained forest without seeing, screaming out the pain of the one who lay silent upon the ground. For he was still on fire—his mind still burned, trembling with memory and broken nerve endings, and, despairing, he fled deep. He showed nothing. He was the embodiment of stillness, rapid breathing so shallow it barely stirred his sides, and somewhere, somewhere, he saw the insidious glow of orange cast upon distant tree branches, and how their shadows danced and wavered—but he would not be able to recall it later. It simply was, like the fire's reflection in his fear-stricken, open eyes, as his memory so cruelly replayed it over and over again. The heat; the heat that had been like death's breath down his neck, the heat which had come as the beast had charged. The air had trembled with it, had blurred the blue eyes chasing after its devastating creation, and in the darkness the stark contrasts of its molten body had devoured all else. Each moment was agony. Merely existing was agony, trapped in a time loop in which things never changed: something in the back of his mind whispered where did things go wrong? despite already knowing the answer, but it all crumbled and turned to dust, fragments of thoughts falling to the floor as the pain crippled his mind. And still she screamed out his pain, as others burst onto the scene. He saw them, too, as he had seen the trees and their distant crowns; like ghosts they flitted across his field of vision, but the pain obliterated their existence in his mind. For all that he knew, they might've actually been ghosts, things conjured up by a restless soul still seeing sparks and sunspots. He knew nothing of what happened, of how Tembovu leaned across his charred hide to snap at the poor moths drawn to his flames—but he felt him, felt his sturdy spine beneath warm flesh and sticky skin, talons embedded deep in his unfamiliar back as Diego clung to his perch. He could feel the rocketing of his forceful pulse, feel his terror in his heart's fleet-footed rhythm—Irma's shrieks died out in a helpless kind of confusion as she just sat there among the pine needles, feathers ruffled and blue eyes sad and lost. And Mauja, he was floating somewhere in between them all, hovering upon the edges of consciousness. But as they traded, screams and silence, the pain she had felt for him became his own: she sat quiet but the screams started again, a mindless howl dying out into a whimper. It hurt too much to scream. It hurt too much to live at all. It hurt so much that the only thing he could do was weep, softly, silently, wishing he could fall asleep—his body cried out for darkness, his mind for reprieve. The healing falling like sparks and dark fog brought the pain into bearable proportions, tearing him cruelly from the high spires of out-of-his-mind agony and into the dirt and grit where his nerves had words for just how badly it hurt. Irma, finally, turned to look at the broken body convulsing under the ministration of the healers—muscles spasming with the trial of mending, a small pebble which had somewhere set off a rockslide, and he could not stop because one movement set off another involuntary response. Hemlock had been babbling about something, but she hadn't cared to listen, and once her tired gaze had found the whimpering, twitching shape of him, she did not bother to look at anything else. The jagged scream shearing through her mind and soul had died out, leaving profound silence in the bond: like a child, he grasped for them, but without words, without much thought, and doggedly they bore his onslaught with their love. For what else could they do, but watch as charred flesh grew pink and tender? What else could they do, but sit there in exhausted silence and love him, offering the only comfort that they could? Diego remained upon the giant's back as he made his way over to Irma—and Irma, when cast in his fire-shadow, peered up at him blankly. Heat burns and a few cuts littered the massive pale knees, but they were soon obscured by his head. They knew what had happened—the memory of the charging, molten elephant was etched as permanently in their minds as it was in Mauja's. But they also knew that in the midst of his agony, in the calm of his tired (burning) mind drifting off into a darkness in which the pain was simply a deep throb, he had never been angry. So she leaned against the black nose bridge, blinking, waiting, watching, loving. [ @Tandavi @Alysanne @Evangeline @Naerys || Mauja is starting to sort of.. fall asleep, as the healing progresses. ] Mauja
the white queen RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tandavi - 02-13-2016
@Alysanne Tandavi's overwhelmed and awkwarding out! RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Alysanne - 02-19-2016
@Naerys RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Naerys - 02-20-2016
@Evangeline RE: between love & lust, i never know which to trust - Tembovu - 03-08-2016
The soft, silken feathers of Irma’s back splay around his ash-stained face, a downy comfort amid the roaring flames. Cobalt eyes stare, watching the healers work on Mauja from afar. They seemed calm— the bright one even left, taking her burning fox with her. So the incinerated form of Mauja must be healing, slowly knitting flesh beneath the charred, cracked skin. There was no panicked looks, no uncertain glances. There was only calm, persistent healing occurring in the eerily lit clearing. Glassy eyes reflect the inferno the licked up the trunk behind the Doctors, cracking and splitting the living wood as it sluggishly plumed smoke.
He felt the ice in his chest. The only burn he felt was was lingered on his skin from the magma-splatter and the white-hot anguish on his soul from what he had done. The quiet words of Naerys slipped into his scalded ears, pushing a painful pulse through pain-deflated veins. His heart shuddered against her gentle voice, and suddenly he needed to take his dangerous demons away; far, far away. Until he was less raw, more controlled. Despite not feeling the trumpeting beast in his breast, he did not trust this fearful control. He did not trust himself. “He shouldn’t have been here,” was his quiet, broken rumble, as much to himself as to those before him, “I should not be here.” And, with a soft stroke and nudge to the owl that leaned against his muzzle (another, tactile apology, for he could never say enough sorries), he faded into the smoky murk of the trees. Tembovu
the Elephant King Tembo needed some closure from this thread <3 Thanks you all! He's gone to go fine Mbwene, now! |