the Rift


[PRIVATE] Hunger.

Aithniel the Inquisitor Posts: 169
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 4.0
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.0hh :: 4 Years HP: 75 | Buff: NOVICE
Zerachiel :: Royal Griffin :: Molten Dagger tamme
#1


Aithniel
The first flame burned gloriously, but the second flame burns cold.



She wanted to cry for help. After managing to wander far from the gold stuff where she was born, small, deer's hooves met soft green stuff. The gold stuff had gotten in her eyes and her skin, and it itched, rubbed and irritated. Raw areas from the sand against her babe's fur stood out in the folded skin just behind her shoulders and under her chest, marring the white. Silvery gray eyes blinked with unshed tears as she bleated out a few cries, not understand this world.

The sun girl who had saved her from that soft shell had been kind, but she could not wait any longer. She was hungry. She felt weak. How long could she keep moving? Long, spindly, dark legs shook and trembled as she made her way through the tall grass, sides heaving with each, small breath. The tiny wings against her side were so small, the feathers were barely indistinguishable.

However, two, dark nubs of horns could already be seen upon her brow, and the hair she sport was soft, curly and tinged with a bright gold. Hunger. It gnawed at her stomach like an angry wolf, causing sharp, stabbing pains. Still, she did not shed tears from her molten, metal eyes. But, she stopped in the middle of the field, looking up at the sky that was now a shade of blue. The babe let out a single cry, hoping beyond hope that someone would find her.

That someone would love her. Like mother.

But she did not have a mother.




@[Illynx]

But burn down our home
I won't leave alive


Please tag me in everything!

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#2


What if this whole crusade's a charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid

I have wandered away from momma’s side, perhaps not ultimately smart on my behalf, but I find that the allure of things I have not seen is greater than my desire for comfort nestled against her. Either way, she’s only eating food, our lessons for the day closed as she has shown me the waters and from where they come and why there are here and I am quickly grasping what paths lead us home and which will lead us astray, though there are many I do not know to where they go for she has not told me and I am not allowed to go so far away on my own.

Even now, she can see me if she really wants to. The last time I wandered out of her range of sight she knocked me against the head so hard with her long, powerful horn that I will not be attempting such things again anytime soon, but she’s so busy shoving clover down her mouth that I doubt she’s looked up in the past ten minutes to glance at me.

(He’s quite wrong, let me assure you.)

I’m busy watching the silver streaks of the fish slide through the water, giggling now and again when one of my hooves splashes into the liquid and sends them darting madly in a thousand directions to avoid it. It probably seems like a simple game to someone as profound as you, but to me, it’s quite fun; that I never manage to hit the fish no matter how quickly I try to jab at them and that they boundlessly return no matter how often I kick at them are adding up to a good time, not to mention that the water is cool and feels nice in the midst of all this sun beating down on my black body.

I lift my head to look over at momma, wondering how she can stand wearing all that damn metal all the time. If I was her I’d be nothing but a river, considering the amount of sweat I already have all built up in the folds of my legs and the crooks of my cheeks, but I suppose its one of the many things that make her as powerful as she is.

Father doesn’t seem so regal as momma, even on his best days. He’s more of the dark swell of storm clouds to her flashing lightning, droll and simple. His strength is less loud than momma’s. I’m not sure what that means other than that adults make about as much sense as the rest of this world I’ve been born into – not much at all.

It’s almost like I hear something whimpering off to the near distance, my bright little gaze switching over towards the source of the sound with wonder etched into each feature of my face, but I see nothing but the swaying grass and the purple flowers that momma calls Thistles and which are quite obviously then what this place is named for. Either way, it’s across the little arm of the creek I’ve been splashing in, and momma won’t like if I cross it without her and surely won’t be able to see me on the other side.

I look back over at her. She’s looking out towards the sound, too, and walking closer.

I look back out towards the sound, finding only the chirrup of sparrows and the creaking song of the grass hoppers. Momma is there alongside me, her face all business as she looks out across the water and I look up at her assuming she’ll hear nothing as I hear nothing.

But then the sound comes again, and it’s a voice. It’s definitely a voice. This time we’re both looking into the sea of spiked flowers and grass and momma is stepping into the water, her wise eyes looking at me from over her gold dappled shoulder. The sun catches on the marking under my right eye (I know it’s there because I’ve seen myself in the ice caverns to the west of my birthplace) and I’m partially blinded and squinting at her as she talks to me.

"Stay close," is all she says, as if she had to. Tucking my ears down on top of my head like I’ve seen other tough men do when presented with trouble I bouncily follow after her, reveling in the sound of all my hooves splashing through the creek and my golden gaze nervously watching ahead through partly closed lids; it’s only a veneer of toughness, inside I’m full of crazy ideas about it being a maimed body in the process of being savaged by hundreds of monsters or that it’s a deranged mad man exploding little boys with his mind.

I know it’s not these things. Momma wouldn’t let me come if she thought that was so – but I’ve experienced so little and this is the most emotionally charged moment of my tiny life since I was dropped out onto the stone and all those people had come to stare at me.

We walk for a while, further than I’m sure the voice had come from, when I see something moving to the side of my vision and I nicker softly to momma as I skirt off towards the small white blur in the middle of all that green.

What I find there is not a monster, or a body, or a crazed magician…

But a little girl.

"Momma!" I shout back to the woman no more than a couple of feet behind me, fear for the really ratty looking kid in the grass bright on my face and my mind too innocent to notice the buds of wings growing along her sides as anything more than an odd coincidence to match her partially bald and really… dusty appearance.

Momma is there before the last syllable of my shout dies in the air, nudging the little shoulder in the grass for a few seconds before she raises her proud crown with a shudder into the air and looks about her, nostrils broad and deeply breathing. I mimic the motion, wondering why in Time’s name it is she is hyperventilating at a time like this and deciding it is surely some logical thing instead; I smell nothing but me and momma and little golden snow in the grass, a few other scents faint and faded and not present as we were.

Interesting.

"She’s been alone for some time," is all momma says, and I guess that makes sense considering I don’t see anyone but us out here and momma seems to know just about everything worth knowing. Still, there is something in her voice and in the way she had recoiled when she’d touched the puffy thing on the girl’s side that settled within me the notion that she didn’t particularly care to help the weird orphan of the meadow. I shake my head hard, right to the left, the way I’d seen adults do when they meant to say no, when they disliked the idea of something.

"We help?" I ask, desperation clinging to my voice because I have some reason burning in my belly that we have to save her, even if momma doesn’t think she’s worth our time. It seems like she wants to tell me no as she stands there looking at me with a really odd expression, almost like she wants to kill me or the ivory orphan but also that she wants to cry or cannot bear to look on me for a moment longer. I am not sure.

I have said it before and I will say it many times. Adults make no sense.

After what feels like forever (really only about a minute) she sighs and the sharpness of her features fades, her eyes shorn from my face and returned to the fallen figure in the grass. "I suppose. Help me get her up."

I smile.

It seems I always get my way with momma.
For the blood on which we dine
Justified in the name of the Holy and the Divine.





Aithniel the Inquisitor Posts: 169
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 4.0
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.0hh :: 4 Years HP: 75 | Buff: NOVICE
Zerachiel :: Royal Griffin :: Molten Dagger tamme
#3


Aithniel
The first flame burned gloriously, but the second flame burns cold.



Something approached, and she leaned back onto her haunches, two ears perking up from the grass. What was that? She snorted, breathing deeply and catching the strange, unfamiliar scent of others, and realizing that she was not alone. That gave her an ounce of hope, and she looked up when a tall, long-legged dark boy stopped and stared. When he shouted toward someone, she started, snorting warily and putting her ears back with distaste. What a loud noise. She had never heard anything that loud before.

The attitude was quickly quashed though as someone much, much larger approached. Silver things adorned her sides, and she was thick, tall, the ground shaking ever so slightly beneath her hooves. Aithniel looked up with wide, molten eyes, inhaling a hitching breath. The large stranger nudged her shoulder, but the little girl barely moved, too awestruck to say anything.

They spoke their strange words, and she gleaned they they were family. Maybe she could be family too? The big one shook her head, but eventually, they both approached, urging me to stand. This gave the girl even more hope, and she put her full effort into standing again, revealing her sand-worn, dusty body all over again. On unsteady hooves, but standing with their help, Aithniel looked around, hungry. While she did not have the same behaviors as others, instinct took over. For some reason, she knew that food was under the big one's belly.

"Maaa?" She asked questioningly, as if asking permission. Aithniel knew this was not her mother, but they were helping right? This was not too good to be true?



But burn down our home
I won't leave alive


Please tag me in everything!

Illynx the GildedBlade Posts: 413
Hidden Account atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16hh :: 13 HP: 67.5 | Buff: ENDURE
Kyst :: Common Griffon :: Zapping Jab Bunnie
#4

& not to pull your halo down
around your neck and tug you to the ground, but...
Her babe circles anxiously and nudges occasionally as the little snowflake of a girl rises to her unstable legs, Illynx herself serving more purpose with a guiding muzzle and gentle bracing when it seemed the thing would topple over. It’s not to her liking, that she is assisting an obviously impure blight on the earth, but her son is still naïve to the ways of his people and she cannot deny that it would pain her to see his heart break from her callous hatred.

Once the girl is standing, however, Illynx must admit to herself however silently it may be that the lost one she has found is pretty, the color of snow etched with golden borders and two knubs protruding from her brow. She’s much smaller than Rikyn, perhaps from breeding or simply malnourishment or both; the Lady sweeps her eyes across the delicate lines of the bastard, feeling at last what her son had noticed most immediately when he’d discovered her.

She is different.

How, Illynx cannot explain; she is different in the ways that the stone shrines are, the way the mirror in the mountain is. The filly simply radiates some sort of aura that implies she is something important enough to save from death, a second reason found in the relentless heart of the ice queen as the young, innocent eyes find her own, such a sweet coo rising from the lips of the golden babe.

Maaa? she says, and Illynx feels her heart flutter beneath the tender touch of sweetness, hears the desperation hidden beneath the weakness and the sheer lack of understanding in the young half breed. Her son looks to her with serious curiosity in his features, judging her already though she has not turned the child away or harmed her, for he can see what she knows within her heart.

She cannot love her, not as she loves him. She feels only loathing when she looks on the wings lacing the back of the should be perfect girl, a burning in her guts that makes her want to turn away and leave the little shit to her sniveling in the grass if it wasn’t for the tears sure to come from the eyes of her dearest treasure. Snorting again in disgruntled agitation with the mix of emotions flooding her, she gestures with a golden horn down her flank, to where food hides from the starved ones mouth, disdain writ all across her face as she watches the approach of the dirty and worn child.

Her Rikyn smiles again, and it is enough to hold her still, to ease the desire to smash her hind hoof into the brittle jaw of the orphan.

"She’ll need a name, you know," she tells the boy, who perks his ears up and grins foolishly in the sunlight, skirting around to her other side to nudge his velveteen nose under her belly to attach his lips to the nipple not being used by his newfound sister.

"Thistlebabe,” he says with all seriousness before taking charge of his half of the afternoon’s meal, drawing a sweetly exasperated smile and sigh from the Golden Lady.

Certainly not that, she thinks, slipping into the rhythm of the tugs and suckling sounds rising from beneath her.


I'm more than a little curious how
you are planning to go about making your amends to the dead
with your halo slipping down, your halo slipping, your halo slipping down
slipping down to choke you now.




image by candy<3
Magic/assault allowed to be used on Illynx at any time, in so far as it does not kill or seriously maim her without my permission. 

Aithniel the Inquisitor Posts: 169
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 4.0
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.0hh :: 4 Years HP: 75 | Buff: NOVICE
Zerachiel :: Royal Griffin :: Molten Dagger tamme
#5


Aithniel
The first flame burned gloriously, but the second flame burns cold.



Aithniel's churning, silver eyes follow the line of the long, sharp, golden bone of the one she called Maaa. There, she found what she required to survive, sustenance, antibodies, protection. She ate hungrily, listening to the rumble of her words without understanding. Underneath her belly was a safe place, and she struggled to understand why she did not have a Maaa when she was in the sandy place.

The boy who found her joined her on the other side, and shyly, she stepped away, just for a moment. Aithniel made sure she was not in the way before returning to eating, for once, not starving. The sun girl had been kind, but she had not had this... delicious... stuff.

He said something in response before eating again, and she blissfully ignored their strange language. When she was finally full for the first time in her very short life, she stepped back and yawned, stretching her gray muzzle and blinking, walking around comfortably, more confident. Very carefully, she shook out her coat, a cloud of sand and dust poofing from the white hairs.

Now, she was ready to go with them. Ready to follow her new family wherever they were going. This sense of belonging and hope was scary.


But burn down our home
I won't leave alive


Please tag me in everything!

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#6


What if this whole crusade's a charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid

My new sibling, for that’s all I can consider her to be, is polite and shy. She doesn’t want to be in my way and she seems like she’s not quite sure about the situation; I guess I can’t really blame her. Momma can be kind of a bitch sometimes from what I can tell, to such a point that the others we’ve met so far can be less than kind to her. Momma just doesn’t care about their dislike of her; I think Thistlebabe does.

When she steps away from the food, I glance at the receding of her cloven hooves and spy the end of her tail from beneath momma’s round, brown belly. She’s not that much different than us, is she? As far as I can see we could have been born from at least one similar parent, and part of me wonders if she doesn’t belong to my dad just like I do. I wonder who her mother is and why she isn’t here when my mother never leaves me for even a moment alone.

It seems that my dam has been thinking, too, but about different things. She watches the gold embellished snowflake of a girl stretch and yawn while I absently pull away from her side to look at the orphan alongside her. "Don’t take this the wrong way, but Thislebabe is the dumbest name I’ve ever heard," she says down to me with a faint laugh on her lips, the cloud of dust settling on the grasses alongside the girl she discusses with me.

How am I not supposed to take that the wrong way? My lower lip pouts outwards and my brows knit tight over my eyes, ears slipping astray either side of my head. At least the other child can’t understand her yet, I don’t think, as she hasn’t said anything and looks at us like we’re weaving magic while we talk, and so I don’t look foolish in front of her.

"Something tells me to let her name herself, though," momma continues, and my features soften from shame to interest, "maybe she already has one. Either way, call her whatever you will until you are told otherwise, even if its Thistlebabe." She’s still smiling but she shudders, and I grimace at her once again with a dark light arising behind my gaze.

Prowling away from her in agitation at her haughtiness, I walk up to the girl and nudge her shoulder with my nose, feeling the soft edges of those white things against the rim of my muzzle and wondering again why it is mother didn’t like them. They are soft, and they smell sandy like the rest of her. "Sister," I say, looking at momma for approval of my selection to find her glowering with faint amusement lighting the corners of her eyes.

I think mother is crazy; her face says too many things at once in comparison to other people when it says anything at all.

Either way, she shakes her head and turns to go, asking if I am going to follow as if I have any other choice over her armored shoulder. "Com’mon, Thistle Sister," I say, glancing over at her with a smile on my lips as I trot after mother a few steps, "we goin’ home."
For the blood on which we dine
Justified in the name of the Holy and the Divine.






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