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@Mauja
[PRIVATE] Love ain't for us, We crave a different type Buzz
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04-27-2016, 10:33 PM
@Mauja
05-24-2016, 09:23 AM
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams The smell of blood drew them.
Wild things lurked in the Edge forest—wild things lurked in all of Helovia—and the unfortunate demise of small animals was not uncommon; but the owls were opportunistic. Bound together by a third soul they had one advantage over their still-wild kin: numbers. It had happened on more than one occasion that they had stolen the kill of some unfortunate predator, but given how easy it would be for the owls to live a lazy lifestyle as thieves it was a bit surprising how seldom they did it. Perhaps it was pride, or the love for the hunt, or some other reason no one exactly knew—but their keen senses picked up the smell of fresh blood, and for a lack of better things to do, they wheeled away from Mauja to investigate the source. Sunlight glittered along the metallic barring on Irma's back; it struck deep navy glints and it was with a twinge of sadness that Mauja watched it. Sometimes, it seemed like the owls cared more for each other than they did for him—he was the glue holding them together, but they were two of a kind, made from the same stuff down to their hollow bones. They loved—deeply, fiercely, two pulsating wells of warmth in the frigid darkness. But he could not fly with them. He could not hunt with them. He could not perch up in the trees, sleeping the days away; he couldn't swoop in on near-silent wings and grasp the fragile, warm body of a mouse in a well-padded, taloned foot. He was a horse. They were owls. They would have had nothing to do with one another if not for whatever magic it was which brought their souls together. His blue eyes fell from the sunny sky to the snow-laden shadows, and with a decidedly unhappy look upon his face he sidled in under some trees. It wasn't that the rays were warm—they weren't, they were still cold with winter's lingering bite. But it felt like he was watched, as if the sun-beams chased along the muscles of his neck to his face, and bored deep into his pale eyes, straight to the core of his soul. And he didn't want anyone hearing his spirit sigh the words, "perhaps they would've been better off without me". The fact that he and Irma had been fated for one another—that someone, presumably Spark, had bent the fabric of time and space singularly to make sure they had found one another—was a small comfort. Diego, aside from a spirit blessing him, hadn't been fated in any way. He had been Irma's choice, and there they were, flying wing-to-wing, one made of ice, the other of fire. He smoothed the sorrow from his face, and followed them. What they found—and by extension, he—wasn't a fresh kill, though. It was a mare, one he didn't know, with blood dripping from her muzzle, staining the snow around them. A pile of glass shards lay nearby, tracks, both hers and that of her cervid, churning up the snow. Clearly, someone had been at work here, and cut herself on the still-sharp fragments. The owls, uninterested in Helovia's equine population, settled on the crystal staff jammed in between his back and the leather satchel. Mauja, on the other hand, couldn't just back out of the situation in the same way, so he stopped where he was and merely tilted his head at her. [ @Raeden ] man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
05-29-2016, 05:24 PM
@Mauja
06-14-2016, 06:22 AM
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams He wasn't sure what he was doing. Hells, he wasn't even sure this was real—that he was real, and not just sleep-walking. Maybe he had shifted out of time again? It certainly wouldn't surprise him, because .. there was just something about the situation which felt vaguely unreal. Maybe it was the lingering winter, maybe it was the way the sunlight fell between the needles and filtered down, and how the gilded dust motes danced in the air—or maybe it was the slow drip of blood from her pale nose, and the silence which hung heavy between them. Eyes met, pale blue and silver-flecked teal, and Mauja felt at a loss for what to say, or do. Part of him still wanted to back away and go to sleep, but that would be very rude.
He didn't need to alienate more of the herd than he already had. But what could he say? 'Hey, you're bleeding'? As if she didn't know. What was standard protocol when interacting with a bleeding herd-mate? Call for a medic? But it was such a tiny gash— She solved the problem for him. The silver in her eyes had somehow hardened, glinting like steel with a light of their own, pushed into sharp focus by the narrowing of her eyes. (Ouch.) "Hello I am Raeden." And her lips, which had parted previously but in no expression he had been able to decipher, pulled into a bright, charming smile. At least he thought it was charming—it was inviting, and from a purely aesthetic perspective, it made her prettier. Maybe it was something about the way it made her seem more open? Whatever the case, it seemed she had decided he wasn't intruding terribly much, and a tension he hadn't been aware of went out of him in a smoky sigh. Times were changing, becoming stranger and stranger, if it truly was so that he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach just because someone might dislike him. Maybe it was because he was judging himself through the eyes of others all the time. If they found him wanting, then surely, that was the truth. "Hello," he answered softly, quietly, the word barely more than a breath. The dappled light playing across her hide struck glints of gold from her coat, but, he noticed absently, there were some streaks of silver, too. Scars, or just a pattern? "I am Mauja." (And not the Mauja she had met once, a lifetime ago, the Lost Prince of Skogamark—that Mauja had, by the grace of the gods, found his way home again.) Slowly, he shifted his gaze away from her face. She was beautiful, but.. he wasn't blind; even he could see that. But his mind was replaying a memory, of having brought Katerina home from the Threshold, and the way Tembovu had been drawn to her, exchanging small, flirtatious comments, and how deeply it had disturbed him. He wasn't ready to think about it, not right now, but as his gaze brushed across Raeden's shoulder while heading for Tin, he realized that whatever it was which had driven Tembovu to compliment Katerina in such a way, Mauja wasn't feeling it. The thought, the idea that he was lacking something, was uncomfortable, so he busied himself with studying the Cerndyr. "The pair of you cleaning up some?" he asked, feeling like he had to ask something, and it was the most tangible thing he could ask. [ Sorry for the wait, again. Life went om nom nom on me. @Raeden ] man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
07-01-2016, 04:37 PM
@Mauja
07-06-2016, 12:07 PM
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams So.
Socializing when you had nothing to hide behind—purpose, role, duty, whatever—sucked. It was like having someone rip the carpet out from underneath him all the time. He already knew all that, of course. He hadn't lived for nearly thirteen years and learned nothing. (He had lived nearly thirteen years and learned ..well, but a fraction of all there was to know, a thin, slim sliver, like a distant glimmer of sunlight behind snow-clouds.) No, it was her words. "Do not look so tense, I feel like you think I am judging you Mauja." Like being slapped in the face with a cold, wet fish, all damp and clammy and full of little scales getting into your eyes, your nose, your mouth. He didn't blame her keen eye for having seen the tension in his shoulders and spine, or at least having seen it leave him, but he blamed her for the too-accurate guesswork. He didn't need anyone jumping to conclusions and guessing his state of mind. There was a reason he had for so long practiced the art of hiding what he felt: to avoid someone knowing his mind. "I'm always nervous around strangers," he replied with blunt honesty, unaware that it might insult a herd-mate to call them a stranger. But, that was how he was—when he wasn't speaking silence, he spoke the truth. He had no need for lies anymore. He had no need for deceit, beyond the game he played with his body. But her guesswork had stolen some of the warmth from him. With words of explanation about her doings she turned her back on him, retracing her steps through the disturbed, bloodied snow towards the glittering pile of shards. "Noble," he said, lightly, long pale trail dragging through the snow as he took a few curious steps after her. "It seems a never-ending work." The glass tinkled as the last shard joined its kin, kicked into place by the pale mare. She turned her head to face him again, and the sunlight glowed upon her forelock and back. "Bothering me?" he replied with slight bewilderment, fighting down the urge to pounce on the opportunity to leave this awkward meeting behind. "I'm the one who stumbled over you, you're the one who can lay claim to being 'bothered'. But, as for your question, I have lived here for, oh.. one and a half year now, maybe?" And for a year a long, long time ago. He had been the first King of this land after the long, bloody war, but it was something best left unsaid. His tail flicked, once. "And you?" [ @Raeden ] man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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