fault lines {AW} - 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: fault lines {AW} (/showthread.php?tid=26470) |
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fault lines {AW} - Althea - 02-07-2017 althea "VIENNE LA NUIT SONNE L'HEURE LES JOURS S'EN VONT JE DEMEURE" ooc : lazy table and emotionally compromised child || open; prolly going to end up throwing her in edge, though Her first recollection upon awakening tasted like copper. The sunlight was painfully bright to her aching eye, and she had to turn away from it, bury her head between her legs; her eye was rolling, monocular gaze bleary and quivering. She closed both of them again, leaving her little to focus on but the throbbing pain that seemed to come from all over and a darkness colored red and green with the afterimage of the sun. Althea tried to think about other things, but she found that they hurt far more. A small, swallowed sigh struggled to escape her lips, and she slipped back into oblivion. When she awoke for the second time, she felt raw - the soreness had been replaced with a dull, prickling sensation, as though ants were crawling just beneath her skin. In the disoriented moments that followed, she thought that it would be nice to peel it off, like a snake. When she finally opened her eyes, she found the forest shrouded in darkness; moonlight crept in, cool and soft and dappled silver, through the patches in the leaves. Althea stared blankly at the figures of the trees in front of her for a long few moments as she struggled to process where she was or how she had gotten there. She should have felt something, she knew. She should have felt something, but apathy was eating a hole in her chest where the pain should have been. In a way, she was grateful for it. Apathy was easier. Apathy (Or ignorance. She struggled to remember.) had always been easier. Her coat was covered in scrapes, burns, and bruises – none appeared too serious, but they jabbed and ached with every move she made. She recognized some from her desperate flight from the palace, propelled on unsteady legs, rendered senseless from months kept locked up. Others she’d never seen before. She wondered if she’d fallen when she was unconscious, thrown from one realm to another by some unhappy coincidence. She wondered why she was here at all. She wondered if it mattered, because she was here, wherever here happened to be, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. The forest, at least, seemed tranquil. Staring out at the mass of trees and thick shrubs, hazy and misshapen in the scant light, she felt a sudden, squeezing sensation in her chest as she realized that the forest was not at all like she remembered forests. She hadn’t been outside since she’d lost half of her sight, she remembered, with a sudden pang. Althea had been furious when it had happened, then miserable, but even the misery had eventually faded in the singularity of the days that followed. Now it was back again, fresh and nearly overwhelming – it should have been the dead bodies that upset her, she thought. Not this. The dead bodies didn’t feel real, though. She could have reached out and touched them when she fled. Some of the faces, turned up with ghost eyes – she knew them. Her hooves splashed in their blood. Once, she slipped and fell. It should have been the bodies, but, now that they were gone, they didn’t feel real, and she didn’t feel anything. She felt her lips contort in something reminiscent of a snarl, then, trembling, droop down to nothing again. “There is a reason for everything, Althea,” He had said. Well, she didn’t want his words – the memory of them made her shake with some quiet fury. There was no reason for what he’d done, really. There was no reason to be so selfish. No reason to save her, no reason to destroy his own kingdom, no reason to take her eye, no reason to throw it all away for her sake. Did he think that he was saving her? Did he think that it was love? She had nothing. She was nothing, not now. Everything was gone. Althea sucked in a deep breath, forcing herself to reign in her scattered nerves. She tensed her legs beneath her and struggled to her feet, swaying and stumbling as she grasped for balance. For now, she needed to figure out where he had thrown her, and that meant finding a way out of the forest. The girl let out a rattling sigh, and, with what determination she could muster, started out in the dark on unsteady limbs, motions mechanical and riddled with exhaust. RE: fault lines {AW} - Yael - 02-10-2017 yael Oh. Oh. She’s seen all this before, hell, she’s been through all that: swaying, unsteady steps, driven almost solely by pure determination and a giant, self-made wall between one’s self and one’s emotions. The filly (she thinks) is a slip of a shadow in the sunlight. If it weren’t for her horns and irregular markings that note her movement through the trees, Yael might have missed her. Compassion and empathy drew the little golden mother towards her, calling out with what she hoped was a kind, warm-sounding “Xello?” trust your heart if the seas catch fire live by love, though the stars walk backwards @Althea Hi! Hope this is ok! RE: fault lines {AW} - Althea - 02-10-2017 althea "VIENNE LA NUIT SONNE L'HEURE LES JOURS S'EN VONT JE DEMEURE" ooc : it's perfect, thanks! yael's a sweetheart <3 || open, yael She told herself to focus on walking – one foot after another, after another, after another, after another –, but it seemed that every time she blinked she saw those eyes, saw the bloodstains on the marble stairs, saw the silhouette of her father pressed against the cold red of the flames swallowing up almost everything she had ever known. Althea had never known fire to be chilling, but it seemed that whenever she thought of that fire, she felt something frigid and stiff well up inside of her throat. She told herself that she was simply tired. These were strange lands, and it wouldn’t do to be caught unaware; she succumbed to her musings anyways. Once the thoughts had burrowed themselves inside of her head, she found it was far more difficult to force them out. When her memories were still hazy, ill-formed with exhaust and denial, it had been easy. Althea was tugged abruptly from her musings by the faint sound of movement from her side and a faint ”Xello?”. Momentarily blindsided, both figuratively and literally, she stumbled back, nearly losing her balance entirely; for a split second, she considered dashing off, in the hope that the grimy brown of her coat would provide her some camouflage in the forest, but, given how weak and uncoordinated she was, Althea knew that she would be captured if the source of the voice was hostile. She didn’t seem to be, though. The girl had little time to process the woman’s tone before she whirled around to look at her, trembling and tensed to run like some sort of cornered animal, but she did not seem especially angry. Althea remained hesitant and speechless as the woman approached, barely tilting her head to see her – she hoped that her blind eye was not readily apparent, obscured beneath layers of flaxen hair, but she knew that it was obvious she was favoring it. The woman was a beautiful gold, rich and brilliant as the sun and graced with great wings. As her eye swept the extent of her feathers, she felt it widen in surprise – she had heard stories of horses with wings, but she had always imagined that they were simply myths, stories told around the hearth to entrance small children and teach them to dream. As the woman came closer, she took a small step back, then forced herself to stand her ground. No good would come from running; she’d already missed her window, if she had hoped to flee. The woman’s eyes attempted to meet her own, something she couldn’t quite place within their brown depths. Sympathy, perhaps. Althea felt a small pang as she realized how pathetic she must have looked, disheveled and cowering and small, although she was taller than the golden equine in front of her. The woman spoke again; Althea noticed her accent, this time, lilting and quite unlike anything she had ever heard before, but far from unpleasant. Her voice held an audible warmth that, while somewhat soothing to the girl's frayed nerves, was greeted by a clenching sense of distrust that curled up like a snake somewhere inside of her chest. “Xello? Are… Are you all right?” Was she all right? Althea was not sure that she had ever been faced with that question before, except in the moments after the soldiers pulled her from Hazel. She found herself unable to meet the woman's eyes, and, instead, directed her gaze at her hooves. Althea did not know how long it took her to formulate a response, but she was certain that it was an embarrassingly long time; worse, when she did find it in her to speak, her voice, usually so smooth and composed, came out stammering and squeaky. “A-ah…I-I…I…” She trailed off, swallowing. “T-t-the wounds…are…are shallow. T-they…it…w-w-won’t take long for…for t-them to heal…” She was not sure if that was what the woman was asking, and spared a quick glance up to her face again in an attempt to gauge her reaction.“B-b-but…I-I...I don't...don't know wh-where w-w-we a-are...w-what i-is this...this place?” RE: fault lines {AW} - Yael - 02-12-2017 yael Maybe it’s the stuttering or the shallow wounds that trigger a brief flashback. Not to her arrival at B’kanna’s gates and her overwhelming need for water - any water - but to a tottering, nearly forty year old mare who was reduced to a child in the face of the most extreme example of adversity. For this, she should not be shamed, though one would have a hard time telling Yael that and making her believe it. Standards for herself are higher than she would ever bestow on others. In this case, there is an immediate sense of connection with the girl, a feeling that she knew almost exactly what she was going through, even if the details weren’t entirely the same. trust your heart if the seas catch fire live by love, though the stars walk backwards @Althea Sorry that took a couple of days :/ RE: fault lines {AW} - Tilney - 03-01-2017 T I L N E Y
RE: fault lines {AW} - Althea - 03-01-2017 althea "VIENNE LA NUIT SONNE L'HEURE LES JOURS S'EN VONT JE DEMEURE" ooc : ahahahahha sorry this took fifty years, life hit pretty hard the past few weeks || yael, tilney, open Althea remained tensed, a slight quiver to her bony frame, but she made no move to run; the woman seemed to have any desire to harm her, her movements slow and relaxed and something akin to sympathy – no, definitely sympathy – in her expression. She probably would have appreciated the sentiment, had it not stung, more of a slap to the face to her wounded pride than anything else, at least inside of her own head. With that in mind, she gritted her teeth and attempted to keep her gaze steady, even as the woman dipped her head down to eye-level, almond-brown eyes meeting her own bright turquoise. She’d never had any difficulty meeting the eyes of anyone else before now, and, with her thoughts tangled up in such a disoriented mess, she couldn’t fathom why she was having such difficulties, or why she was so afraid. It was an instinctive fear, animalistic and primal, entirely out of her control. She was used to complete composure and a strong grasp over her own emotions, not this. It left a sour taste in her mouth. “You are een Xelovia, child. Come now, I’m not going to xurt you…My name ees Yael.” Yael. Helovia? She’d been sent to an entirely new land, by the sound of things, then – no wonder the woman hadn’t reacted to her antlers. The Horned God might not exist in this land. “I vas een your poseetion not too long ago.” Althea fixed her with a searching gaze, unable to disguise a hint of skepticism. Tragedy, of course, was common and inevitable, but, in the midst of it, it was quite difficult to feel understood. Nonetheless, the sentiment was not lost on her, and she had some dim appreciation for Yael’s attempt to establish a connection to her. Thinking about why she was here threatened to bring back memories that she knew that she would rather keep at bay, but Yael spoke before the floodgates opened again, to her relief. (She could swear that she heard movement somewhere in the distance, but she didn’t bother to dwell on it.) “And I xappen to know a very nice lady xoo vould be xappy to look at your vounds, eef you like.” She considered her response – or, rather, she started to consider, because a voice from the opposite side of the clearing sent her skidding back just a few inches, eye widening with surprise as she spotted its source. “You are in Helovia.” The stallion was golden, though not metallic like Yael, and a white marking that reminded her of a tree ran up one of his front legs; more distractingly, she realized that he too had antlers, and barely managed to smother an instinctive cringe of fear. Another child, like her. (Well, perhaps not. This land did not have a horned god, did it?) Althea was not sure what the twisted feeling in her stomach was; not disgust, certainly, and not the same sort of fear that was the source of her tense stance. She hadn’t thought that the folktales had gotten to her, given her own…condition, and it was a bit disquieting to realize that they had. She tore her eyes from his antlers, barely noticing the lantern hanging from them, and attempted to process his words. Althea didn’t think that he had been standing close enough to hear her stammered questions, so how had he known what she had been wondering? A lucky guess, she told herself, and decided that it was better not to think about it anymore. Not right now. He said something, then, though she couldn’t quite make it out, and the lantern on his antlers burst into life. Althea had to steel herself so that she didn’t skid backwards again, sucking in a breath; she had to be grateful to that instinctual fear, though, because it kept her from stumbling back into memories of scorched flesh and red and gold swallowing up the night sky. Lanterns were simply for light, she told herself, keeping her cautious gaze fixed on the stallion as he moved closer, eyes skirting down her frame. She recognized that look – she had seen it many times on the court herbalists and doctors, and she’d worn it herself, on occasion. Stiff and uncertain, she looked back and forth between the stallion and Yael, unsure of what to say or how to proceed. After a lengthy pause, she swallowed, and managed a soft, “H…Helovia? I-I…I see.” She still didn’t know if she could trust either of them, but she also knew that she didn’t have much of a choice, so, before she could regret it, she added, “A-and…I…I a-am... Althea.” Her voice was a bit less squeaky now, and the stammering had receded just a bit; Althea told herself that she'd reign it in yet, though she knew that, at least for now, it was probably empty consolation. RE: fault lines {AW} - Yael - 03-06-2017 yael The first thing that comes to mind, rather selfishly, is that she hopes Tilney doesn’t think she needs help out here. It should have been that he is a healer, and a father, and is more than qualified to help her coax this young, frightened little doe to a safe place. Or, to simply keep watch over her here, if that is her wish. trust your heart if the seas catch fire live by love, though the stars walk backwards @Tilney @Althea Sorry this took awhile! RE: fault lines {AW} - Tilney - 03-11-2017 T I L N E Y
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