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08-29-2016, 03:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-30-2016, 11:44 AM by Sohalia.
Edit Reason: forgot to mention taking a feather.
)
It was as average a day as any, though the hours to come would not be so lucky. The morning dawned, as it often did, in a myriad of reds and oranges and yellows, the brilliant Sun rising in the east to coax the mortals below into the new day. Sohalia - barely the Transcended, no longer a Forger, almost a forgotten Sultana - blinked sleepily in the growing light. Even her dust-covered pelt seemed to shimmer in the Sun's rays as she shifted from her nightly position beneath the palms of the oasis, shaking her head to clear the night's mental cobwebs away. A long drink from their little lake was next, as it was every morning, and then she was off with her youngest daughter whining beside her. The scrapyard was her intended destination. Her pace was leisurely, for she knew that the day to follow this morning's beauty would be long and hot amongst the piled metal. A sudden flash interrupted the pair's morning walk, alarm flaring to life in the mare's mind. Her head snapped around, her ears pricked and her eyes scanning for trouble on the horizon. Much to her confusion, she saw nothing - nothing save for a column of flame and three circling fire-birds. With a bemused tilt of her head and a sinking feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, the dove changed course. Her trot covered ground quickly, as she had long since grown accustomed to the way her weight shifted with the sands. It no longer bogged her down as it would those unfamiliar with the terrain. She might have flown, had it not been for Vinati, who was leaping and bounding in her effort to keep up. Somehow she knew that she could not leave her daughter behind. Not for this. The column of fire was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared, and yet Sohalia pressed on. She crested a dune, and then another, searching suspiciously for whatever had caused the strange appearance. She half-expected to find the Sun God roaming the sands, almost thought that perhaps a child of Gaucho's might have been practicing with some inherited fire magic. Whatever she had expected, whatever thoughts she had conjured, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw. She found herself at the top of a final dune. Below her, Gaucho the WildFire was splayed out upon the sands. For the first time in years, there were no flames upon his body, no movement in his limbs. She ordered Vinati, who was some distance behind her, in the valley between this dune and the last, to stay put - and then her legs were carrying her forward of their own volition. Oddly, there was no feeling, not yet - there was only Gaucho and Sohalia and her various rationalizations, her unfinished prayers: - he's only sleeping - please let him stand up - this is a dream - please don't leave me - And then she was beside him, and he wasn't moving, and there was no more flame, and Vorsa and Mara were tangled in his antlers, and there was nothing except Gaucho and Sohalia and pain - And then she was collapsing to her knees in the sand beside him, her muzzle exploring the masculine lines of his head, resting against his motionless maw, hoping that perhaps she would feel a breath of air - And then there was nothing, no wavering breath, no stirring of limb, and suddenly she was crying - "No," was the first whisper, the next denial a scream: "NO!" And then Astraeus was slipping away, darting to the air above to oasis and raining lightning and sparks, calling for help while his bonded could not - And she couldn't breathe and she couldn't think because she had never gotten to apologize, because he had never told her what he had decided about them after he had gone off to think - And she had never gotten to tell him - "Anha zhilak yera norethaan, shekh ma shieraki anni," she whispered, for the last time. "Talk talk talk." |
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OOC :: Soh will take one of Gaucho's feathers when she leaves. :3
