the Rift


Simple things [whoever it may concern]

Iyana Posts: N/A
Unregistered
:: :: ::
#1

Iyana
so we bend. so we break




There is dust gathering at her feet, lazy clouds of dirt spiraling up and around her fetlocks, accompanying the rhythmic sound of her footfall. Like curtains, eager to be wrung apart, aflame with the zeal to present whatever they hold in the shadowy underbelly that lies behind them. But the entrance is not of a spectacular nature, however white and pristine they young mare that emerges from the thin filigree of summer-dust and morning-mist might appear she is no spectacular thing.

Her pace is unhurried but her gaze is bright and curious, dancing and goring itself on the vastness that spreads luxuriously before her. Iyana knows that this is a place foreign to her. Not only because it smells so, but because there is something inherently different about this place – something so tangible and at the same time utterly inexplicable. She can almost taste it. She does not understand precisely what it is and decides, true to her rational nature, that she will not spend any more time dwelling on it. In time, she tells herself with a shrug of her shoulders, it would reveal itself.

And she inhales a morning that is still fringed with the silvering chill of night – Iyana is as early as the mists themselves – stepping from the path and into the meadow. As the path that initially lacerated the landscape with as sharp and clear edges as cusps of blackened mountain-rock gradually grows swollen and blurry with grass – only to bleed out into spring-green oblivion – the white mare stops. (Where the path begun, she does not remember but she knows she has travelled far).
On the wind, she can smell the distinctive signature of horses – sweat and musk and stupid infatuation, greed and tragedy: the treachery that befalls them all. Time and time again. Iyana sighs as the ghost of a smile, hard and dour whispers its presence on her lips.

She is young, but she has smelt this before.

The swaying grasses, however, are quick to welcome her, bending and tickling, cajoling.

And Iyana? There have been many things said about the young unicorn, and particular is not one of them. She begins walking across the threshold into a world she does not know, giving herself up to whatever is to be made of her.




Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#2
Dancing through chambers of springtime bliss, they sang on the vestiges of harmony and melody, flowing and howling into the midst of sunshine, of sanctities, of serenity and tranquility. Perseverance had shown them another regime of sovereignty, dragged them from the regions of nefarious schemes and feverish doldrums, and prospered their determination, their resolve, their valor, through honor and enchantment. Returning into their kingdom manifested her guarded heart into its whimsical benevolence all over again, rising with the flames of her bravery, her strength, and her vigilance. With this recurrence, another duty spurred her movements, her motions, into staunch, stalwart enterprises and crusades, similar journeys down worn paths and primrose entities. Through the webbing of Birdsong, with its trills, thrills, buoyant ebullience, she glowed and finessed amongst the enigmatic quandaries, along the pondering, wavering, wayfaring strangers, plucking at the plumes of their guarded secrets, smiling, ducking beneath boughs to search for the scattered remnants of long lost souls. She wondered the same queries, the same mysteries, the same stories, collected and postured before her, but dared not ask of their power, of their finesse, of their refinement – attempted to piece together the shards and slivers of withered campaigns – and remembered her own. Imogen, for all her curiosity, asked none, speculated in silence along the blooming, floral essences, into the murky lace of shadows and copses, a fox cloaked in ivory dove tails amongst the misty fragments of another morning. Together, they pierced the shades, the veils, the nocturnal splendor and the clinging dew, damaging listlessness and providing harpsichord rhapsody, contagious reverie.

The chase for a new figure was not long; the tender warmth of Lena’s gaze caught sight of white amongst the folds of greenery and verdant heights, the creed of a sword matching so many other brows as she approached on fanciful strides. Perhaps she belonged to winter, her pelt a child of the snow and ice – christened and anointed so many times through the chilling winds, the hardened glaciers, the rising summits and daunting peaks. The stranger was taller than the nymph, lankier, limber, willowy conjectures of refined fronds or melting Siberia, and Lena smiled in turn, brought forth a genuine grin, a wholesome expression, towards the nomadic femme. Stepping closer, soft, dulcet clamors of a charitable croon stoked through her vocals, flowed merrily into the veins of the Threshold, offering keys to the locked doors and gates. “Hello! Welcome to Helovia!” The chirp of a bird, hastened and bright, jubilant and exultant, continued in its flowing stead, as Imogen matched it in tone, extending her nose from beneath the fairy’s still legs. “I’m Lena, and this is Imogen. Who are you?” Pleasant curiosity, foundations scraping against the unknown, attempting to form a picture, a scene, vivid clarity along the abyss of haze and mist, precise and vague all at once; so much to beckon, to query, to follow, to say in the midst of traveling flames and snowflakes.
Lena

Iyana Posts: N/A
Unregistered
:: :: ::
#3

Iyana
so we bend. so we break




Her solitude does not shatter like glass upon stone but rather, melts away like chunks of ice in a babbling spring-flood. A speck on the horizon, as if the night has left a morsel of itself behind, either in blissful forgetfulness or the deliberate intention to let the growing, dancing silhouette fend for itself. And alongside it, a quaint looking and foxlike thing stepping in tandem with the dark, horned creature: from what she can perceive, it seems they are sharing the berries of purpose in cupped, juice-stained hands.

Friends, she takes it.

How quick they come, she thinks without the gusset of neither surprise nor self-satisfaction; of all the places her has been to and the myriad dictating social schemata that have cast their long, condemning shadows over her, she has found at their nadir, each and every time, an explanation. Everything means something, she reminds herself as she looks at the approaching strangers. Briefly, she wonders how she must appear in the eyes of that spring-folded stranger. With the stark but pale morning-light that encompasses them, Iyana assumes that her shape is wreathed in that strange wintry glow that sometimes decides that it is to cling to and illuminate her simple form. And then what? What else might her presence suggest? Which of her manifold secrets will be poorly kept, reflecting dully of her slanting, wintry shoulders? Not too many, she prays and knows no less that there are certainly some things, morsels of dust that will betray her and bear testimony of what she is. Whatever that might be: Iyana is not too certain.

“Thank you,” her answer is immediate and quick like water but her voice is nothing extraordinary, un-filigreed by lilt and singsong. She looks at Imogen and as she does so her face adopts the appearance of uncertainty and perhaps a little gleam of childish wonder. We cannot forget, despite all her rationale, Iyana is still young and pristine, a newfangled waif entangled in webs of mystery and the perplexing nature of the world. “I’m Iyana,” she answers as she looks back up at Lena, her manners already forgotten.

It is funny, she concludes to herself, still unsure of the foxface peering up at her, how every ritual of meeting is different, albeit the sameness of them all. “Could you tell me something of this place?”





Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#4
The warm embrace of spring, the symphonic sway of the mist, the trees, the boughs, and lantern light of dawn fed her smile into sanguine shades, and the growing curiosity fueled her mind into intriguing concoctions and sentiments. The opposing femme revealed little, save for her requested name, Iyana, and Lena was driven into inquiries, incapable of voicing them aloud. Where did the winter girl come from? Why did she traverse through the lonely oasis and into the gates of the Threshold, waiting for the right key, the right passage? What drove her here (and if it was something awful, something treacherous, something sinister and nefarious that followed pinnacles of divinity, of virtue, or even condemnation, could they restore and save her?)? What were her ambitions, her aspirations, her hopes and dreams? Did she yearn to scale great walls of triumph and conquest, subjugate the world beneath her feet, bewitch and allure enemies into cloaks and daggers? Did she wish to grin in the murky, dread born heels of silence, did she twist foundations of licentiousness and cruelty into honey-spun lace and taffeta? Was she as tainted as the rest of them, at times patient, wise, and wholesome, and other moments lost in the translation of slaughter, of amber ambiguities? Would the world contort and distort her values and paragons, ripple though voids and hallowed portions, until she was anointed and embittered? Through the tender reverie of her content expression, too many questions and queries flowed, never reaching the edges of her lips, creased into benevolence and benediction. While others may have prospered the wild, untamed examination, she kept her secrets guarded, and presumed others relished in the same stead.

The juvenile fascination enlightening her features upon glancing at Imogen, however, was a telling sign; she hadn’t been to a world where these creatures existed. Truthfully, before her nomadic, Romani glance into Helovia, the fairy hadn’t either, but the delight shown by Iyana had registered within her as well, settled and bloomed, blossomed into a vibrant, fervent bond between kitsune and fey. The sienna nymph nearly giggled as Imogen preened in response, eternally delighted in attention devoted to her, snapping her five tails in the rhythm of the wind, bestowing a few fine embers stoke along her pelt, doused by the Birdsong shortly thereafter. She even ambled closer, extended her soft, furry muzzle towards the newcomer’s legs, chirped and twittered as Lena sought to answer Iyana’s prior question. She could release a dam of information all at once and overwhelm the poor figure, cut out soft snippets, or drum a dulcet credence of nothingness – her eyes drifted over the canopies for a moment, searched for mountains, peaks, and crowns, then poignantly directed her gaze back upon the Siberian femme, with all her rites to icicles and powder. Her silken voice flowed once more, tracing the fine, satin web of ease and contentment, puzzling over how to accurately describe the world they’d entered and reigned within. “It depends on what you wish to know. You’ve come to a realm of magic and enigmas. You’ll find many different things on your travels, from open lands filled with adventure, to herds layered in crusades.” She paused briefly, ruminating, coaxing further song into the warrens and mazes, and added one more query into the mix and measures. “What do you seek here? Perhaps I can aid you in some way.”

Lena

Iyana Posts: N/A
Unregistered
:: :: ::
#5

Iyana
so we bend. so we break




She is not without sin.

This is how they will glance at each other: with measured uncertainty and curiosity, prodding deep into soil plowed and sown richly with secrets, tragedies and decomposing, corroded pasts. As time passes, they will come to unravel themselves to the other, spilling allegorical entrails onto sand – from which the might weave companionship or enmity, perhaps neither. Perhaps the outcome of the myriad questions that form and reform inside the raggedy framework of unacquaintedness will be an ebbing of roaring pry into a wasteland of indifference. These things they can wonder at for as long as they find it of any use, but they cannot know. Not yet. Time will pass and they will fall into place.

Iyana tilts her head ever so slightly, glancing at Lena from behind the proverbial curtains of curiosity – fresh and rare and delicate – before lowering her muzzle to Imogen, less wary but not quite at ease. The sleepless child in her wants to brush against that soft fur which bears whiteness so different to her own. Where Iyana’s coat is white and milky like hoarfrost, she thinks Imogen harnesses whiteness akin to white-hot embers before turning into ash. “This is a strange place,” she nods as if in agreement with the shorter mare and her kitsune, all the while considering their apparent differences – that steadiness the bay mare seems to contain.

The mare looks up at her company and for a moment her face is unrevealing of her secrets, unsmiling and guarded. But, as quickly as it came, the moment is gone and with it the glimmer of queer hardness.

She must be made form earth and fire, forged from root and rock, Iyana decides and here a faint smile slips past her as she realizes the absurdity of such an assumption. But, there is kindness here: something immensely comforting, like the ghost of sleigh-bells in a cloud of snow. Perhaps then, precisely that perceived kindness is what leads to – of her, uncharacteristic – the unreserved quality to her reply. “A home,” she shrugs, “someplace moderately safe. Or wait, it does not have to be safe – those places are hard to come by, these days.” Something about her faint smile seems almost apologetic, and yet not, “but, as I’m sure you’re aware, every granted wish comes in the wake of the prize that is to be paid for it.” Returning her sooty muzzle back to the ground, so that her face is level with Imogen again, Iyana blows a soft hum of breath in her direction; a gesture that speaks no threat, no disrespect, merely whimsicality and childish mischievousness. “So perhaps the question should be what it will cost me.”

More than a home, of course: Iyana is not simple enough to be content with belonging to somewhere, someplace (someone?), but she is not without sin and for now she decides that everything else that she has come to seek is best kept a secret.

“If you can aid me in finding a home,” the smile widens slowly and pronounces itself more boldly on her lips, “I’d be indebted to you.”

What she means by indebted, remains as uncertain as how they will glance at each other, as time has passed and entrails have been spilled. This too, will fall into place.





Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#6
Guarded, lilac melancholies and furtive boundaries, specious thresholds and gallant passageways – Lena knew the particulars, the distance, the stretch between existence and clandestine, covert trails, wove her own primrose paths, led others away from their outstretched thorns. Never did she utter a request for another’s private, concealed machinations, for she realized in return she’d have to bestow one of her own, and each haunted, poignant ministration of the days before her arrival festered enough in her memories – she had no need to give them voice or power. Each sin was carried alongside her veins, pulsing beats of monstrosity, awaiting some eager, tender moment when they contorted back into villainous rapture, surged beyond her sanguine brow or warm embrace. Reminders were heady, quick, and swift, and while she gazed upon the winter stranger, with her veils, gossamer threads, mantles, airy cloaks, the fairy recognized vigilance and caution; wore them directly over her own heart. Vibrant, tenacious, and strong, she’d built a wall of composure and composition, chiseled it into the wake of her finery, of her essence, until it breathed within her elemental fervor, became a part of her lissome perseverance and strength. Perhaps Iyana had done the same, carefully, intricately, demanded the labors of her prowess to combine into massive fortifications and beautifully, balanced bastions with their citadels, towers, and carillons, desperately hoping they never fell. For all their curiosities, neither mare bent into the fixtures of prying, too diligent, too conscientious, of what wounds could prick from a single inquisition, what lacerations would widen from a single query. Instead, the nymph collected her fey existence into ebullient, exuberant qualities, a spring smile, a lithe movement and motion, blending and molding into the forest as a sprite, as a sylph, child of the repressed ancients.

But the attention was not solely reserved for her, as Imogen gained separate confidences and explorations (and she tried to remember the times before she had the vixen at her side, when war ravaged over her home and they were sent to the icy gallows, where she cherished empty promises and the hopes, the dreams, of a better world over the inches of ash and decay). The kitsune, a prideful beast in her own right, sometimes Lena wondered who possessed more power or wore the better mask, she, with all her spirit and valor, or Imogen, with all of her might and domination by fire, brushed her maw towards the Iyana’s muzzle, ivory against ivory, before chirping amidst a quandary of her own bestowals.

Amidst the twittering and twirling, the songbird listened to the pale mare, her insecurities rising in the bellowing of decrees, in the strange salutations of a world so unlike any other. The land was untamed, wild, belligerent and wonderful, awaiting the press of her dagger, the twist, the turn, of her footsteps into various parlors and hallways. The remark about a safe refuge was taken in stride; experiences taught the Time Mender that sometimes sanctuary was sown between companions, brethren, and kinship, and not the kingdom (something easily lost to another). But the other also wondered over cost, debts, repayments, and Lena nearly scoffed – she wouldn’t warrant such a decree. Her purpose, through adamant whirlwinds, through brushstrokes of war and villainy, virtue and faltering prides, through determined, resolute convictions, had always been to assist, to assuage, to guide with the little wisdom and sage apertures she’d gained. To condemn Iyana to another deed, another harsh moment of tribulation, was not a proclamation she permitted or sanctioned. There was no price, no fee, or fare for searching for sanctuary. Her words, a vibrant, melodic trill, pervaded and surrounded the open copse, the lavender, the clover, the cluster of joy and elation christened from her chest, from her cordiality, ardor and fervor. “You owe me nothing.” Her bright smile, strands of the angelic and beatific, spread like a heart’s honeysuckle song, benevolence strung on bows of grandeur and opulence, the glow of persistent paragons. Her gifts were frequent, eternally proffered, and often taken. “But, I can offer you my home, the Aurora Basin. Flanked by mountains and summits, we possess hot springs, valleys, caverns, and a lake that promises to never freeze.” She mirrored the mare’s tilt of her head, a tiara’s slipping halo, indulgent, sweet, and dulcet, candied sonnets of whimsical, satin strings.

Lena

Iyana Posts: N/A
Unregistered
:: :: ::
#7

Iyana
so we bend. so we break




Spiraling around them, slowly churning and breathing, writhing lazily around itself the strange, foreign world whose mouth Iyana has just passed into seems to fade slowly from her perception. With a slow persistence, not wholly unlike sprouting flowers – their petals unraveling with purpose and panache – her attention shifts further and further away from the vastness of unchartered terrain. No matter what awe-inspiring sorcery that might upholster these lands and cast long shadows in the silent, unmoving wake of its mountains, Iyana has never quite understood the charms of whatever environment she has found herself in. Sure, she too can gasp at the pristine bleakness of dawn and she is certainly not unmoved by swelling dunes of sand underneath blistering sun. She never dwells on it for too long, that is all. She cannot use that abstract beauty and thus, her indifference is soon to spill over it.

The complex tangles of moods and the unpredictability of strangers, friends and even lovers, now that is something different entirely. She is keen and diligent in her curiosity, wringing meaning and intent out of every syllable, every intonation – not necessarily because she is probing for answers but rather because this is what constitutes the young mare. This is who she is. A pinch of uncertainty ground against a mortar of past betrayals as much as against the jagged rock of unrefined, innocent prying; some ulterior motives as well, to be sure. Perhaps a little of the infatuation with the inconsistency of romances and friendships and envy, even loathing, yes, there is some of that there too.

She hides it well, however, and most of her bubbling essence and that unsettling ability of analyzing and picking things apart are kept well in check, folded neatly beneath snow and grey-green dreams. She keeps that smile politely on her lips as Lena simply states that she is not indebted to her. I doubt that, she thinks and all of a sudden she is young and wild and thoughtless amidst the thick cobwebs glittering with bits and pieces of information that she struggles to put together. This is a glimmer of her automatic response to every kindness offered, every gift bestowed. Iyana does not doubt the benevolence or the gregariousness; she has no reason to mistrust Lena, no. The doubt, rather, attaches itself to the statement and how it crumbles into flawed dust in her ear. And perhaps an explanation is in place here. Ever since a very tender age a certain reductionism has clung to her arguments and more often than not she finds herself glancing at the world through retinas of pessimism. Certainly, this trait might seem unsightly as it reveals itself on its own. But it is not unwarranted, once Iyana speaks and cements it into the gaping holes and slathering jaws of certain events in her past. There is an explanation for everything.

However, there is no reason for her to contest her newfound company, the mare whose presence decidedly grows on her – not as if she would not let it do so, despite all her flaws Iyana is a kind creature, doting on camaraderie – and Imgoen who unabashedly revels in the attention given. Childishly enough, Iyana takes it as flattery and amidst the juxtaposition of things that constitutes her she grows more and more content. “I like the mountains,” she admits, looking straight at Lena again, trying to catch her own reflection in the mare’s eyes. “I grew up in the shadow of mountains,” a murmuring disclosure underneath that smile which, while it remains courteously on her lips, wanes into greyscale, bleak and revealing of some despondency.

“I would like that,” spiraling at the nadir od her soft voice is something apologetic, and she shakes her head ever so slightly, “if you would take me there; and perhaps you could tell me more of this place on the way?”





Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#8
The nymph didn’t demand, didn’t coil her feathers, laurels, and fig seeds into banners of obligations and gratitude. Her outlook, her view, had been cast so deeply into shadows by an early age, that each step, each motion, each stride away from it was a blessing, a sown, worn conviction she tied neatly around the lace and taffeta of her existence. Benevolence was one of her many gifts and virtues, never receiving it as a child, and she refused to herald its entity, its elegance, its refinery, into debts, beholden frames and figures into masses of her bestial fixations. Some spurned her kindness, laughed, mocked, thought her foolish, thought her naïve (but there was no innocence left, she’d seen, felt, touched too much), and cackled at its beautiful little trinket and sparkle, like the illustrious spirit of a halo cast down into the thorns and branches. Some exalted its presence, extended their own, breathed jubilation and buoyancy along the same light, airy conjectures. Others ignored, pressed away into burrows and caves – and then, there were the few who speculated, wondered, and she offered them the bright grins and illuminated smiles over and over again, restored from the ashes of a phoenix, resurrected and hallowed. A newcomer deserved their place in the sun, their rune thrown and collected into the mysteries, the specious pools, the whirlwind of beauty and purpose, clambering, exploring, wandering into the foreign traces of their unfamiliar kingdom. A stranger merited amiability, tassels of the selfless, for once in their unknown lives, where cretins didn’t cater to their flesh or pinioned, beckoning sirens washed over the rampant sea of their memories. Lena was entirely unaware of Iyana’s journey, but gave, gave, and gave a thousand times over to ensure there was a path offered to her; lined with icicles, glaciers, stone, rubble, and a sanctuary, a haven, where glory spread between lakes and strength. Once, she was granted the same courtesy, and spent part of her life bestowing it upon others.

Acceptance drew near though, and the fairy and vixen listened, piecing together the stitches of a past, of the little snippets given, cherished the glow with an earnest smile, a gentle, tender expression. I grew up in the shadow of the mountains, slinking and curling into the boughs of pockets full of pebbles, springing from the enigmas like the first scribble of a long lost sketch – and Lena nearly told her how’d she grown beneath fir trees and branches, berry bushes and chokecherries, alone, discarded – but the thought scattered quickly away, laid to rest at the bottom of their passing words and whims. She refocused back upon the confirmation of her assertions, of joining her brethren alongside the wake of time and space, light, auroras, bright, dazzling hues beyond imagination and augured sentiments, kept her gaze locked upon the femme beckoning for the clamber of winter again, nodding her head towards the reel of actions, soft murmurs floating into the copse. “Then, follow me!” They whirled, companion and fey, like honeysuckle blooms and fiery credences, a whisper of snowflake pinnacles passing between them, drumming a dance, a dream, through their direction change – towards the Basin, where the world started over and new infernos were forged. Through a laugh, a smile, she rekindled her singsong words amongst the fluttering leaves and embroiled promises, to tell, to explain, the kingdom Iyana was due to enter. “I’ll do my best!”

[I'll make a board for you in the Basin later today and tag you in it! ^_^]
Lena


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