"Where brilliance is good and madness is better..."
Helovia Info
Helovia opened in February 2012! We are an active fantasy equine RPG
Where once the world narrowed into naught but gray dust and desolation, the gods called for life. Wielding the elements of fire and light, dark and wind, earth and water, spark and time, they have created Helovia. The realm is set within the mythical globe of Loorien, a planet rich with all variety of creatures and blessed with all manner of magic. Originally populated by nomadic, tribal characters, they've since grown into massive empires saturated with culture and history. Separated into four distinct segments of Helovia, called "The Regions," each band of horse strong enough and capable enough, took up the power and responsibility of leadership. Unicorns, old, wise and mysterious, took to the north, hidden in forests of mists and shadows and rarely making themselves known beyond their cliffs of the World's Edge. Equines, vast, organized and militaristic, split into two, one group went north to the Windtossed Foothills and the other group went south to the Dragon's Throat. Pegasus remained nomadic, making their homes in various parts of The Wilds in a migratory manner. For many generations, the land was peaceful and calm, but peace was never the way of the gods. With a clash of argument, war and bloodshed massacred Helovia, and in the aftermath, the realm was eerily quiet. Now, as newcomers sweep into this land, they are met with the lingering bitterness of the gods and the struggle to reclaim what was lost. Nothing remains safe or certain while sorcerers and soldiers alike brood and bide their time for revenge, honor and glory.
Site Wide Plots
Kaos :: The Beginning of the End ☼ - 6/2017 - Kaos placed Helovia in a time-bubble for a short period of time, but the Helovian gods are fighting back. But Kaos is powerful- far more powerful than anyone thought. This may be the beginning of the end of Helovia as we know it.
Kisamoa :: A New Kind of Kaos ☼ - 3/2017 - Kisamoa asks Helovians to help him restore the Spectral Marsh. Which side will you choose?
Invasions :: All Out War ☼ - 5/2/16 - New layout and the brand new invasion rules are up! Thank you for your patience and we look forward to getting started with this new adventure.
The Rift :: Gods Do Die ☼ - 8/2015 - Helovia Gods are saving the Rift from corrupt gods! Can Helovians band together against these foreign deities?
The Literal Ship ☼ - 2/8/15 - Oh no! You have to pair up for Valentine's day!
Sky Island :: Murder ☼ - 10/25/14 - Vesta has been found dead on the island, and the gods have called to you to solve the murder!
Sky Island :: Peace ☼ - 7/7/14 - An island has appeared in the sky! Clouds carry Helovians from the Veins to the sky.
Restoration :: We Welcome the Dawn ☼ - 9/21/13 - The sun has finally risen on this day, giving the land new light, but the Time God and the Sun God have yet to be seen.
Endless Night :: Broken Magic Plot ☼ - 8/30/13 - The earth god has returned and is walking across Helovia to heal the land. Every area can now be considered lush and prosperous, but the sun has still not risen.
☼ - 7/19/13 - The moon has risen in the sky, heralding the return of the Goddess of the moon. Lamp trees which light the paths have grown brighter, moon flowers which grow in dark places have begun to grow and prosper and the world is brighter, filled with a new hope.
Endless Night :: Dead Magic Plot ☼ - 6/22/13 - The gods of Helovia, in order to protect the world, have disappeared into the rift, leaving the world sunless, moonless and magic-less in their absence. Only the herdlands have a source of light, but lamp-trees with glowing leaves and branches sporadically line the popular roads and paths from place to place.
Doppleganger Plot ☼ - 6/20/13 - The God of Time is still struggling to close the rift though which the dopplegangers have come. He has requested that his brothers and sister assist in closing this hole, but without knowing why it opened, the task is proving difficult. Magic still remains faulty and hard to control, but the herdlands continue to be places of refuge for those who are fortunate enough to call these lands home.
ORANGEMOON cools off the lands with a a viscious force. Colder than normal, a sign of things to come during Frostfall, Helovia is bathed in a rich tropical lushness - albiet a cold one. The coastlines of the Dragon's Throat are pelted constantly by tidal waves, and the desert climate is humid but chilly. Ice begins to form early in the Aurora Basin leaving the winding trails slick and dangerous. The mists of the World's Edge coat everything in a glistening crystalline shine which encourages mould to grow everywhere. The Spectral Marsh is the only area which remains fertile, blissfully temperature and lush.
Cotm
Character of the Month for
June, 2017
WEAVER, Corporal of the Aurora Basin, is a relatively recent addition to Helovia and has taken it by storm. Branded with the seal of Death on her chest, intrigue and interest follow both her past and present. Though she is assuredly beautiful, her sometimes sharp personality reveals that there is more to this uni-peg hybrid than meets the eye. Proving herself able on the battlefield in the Basin’s warrior ranks, we can’t wait to see her test her mettle against the looming Kaos happenings! Congratulations!
Helovia RPG was created by Tamme and Blu and coded by Tamme also known as Schwartze. All coding, palettes and imagery are copyrighted to the website and are not for use outside of Helovia. Thank you to our ServerMaster for hosting Helovia. A special thanks goes to Neo for all of her coding help and fixing Tamme's errors, Boom, for her loyal service and creation of the Time God, and to Ali for her consistent contributions and dedication.
01-12-2015, 01:45 PM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2015, 02:04 AM by Ophelia.)
Ophelia made to leave, her hooves already dancing toward the exit when the familiar sound of wooshing flames made her stir. She stiffened, all too familiar with that bite against her hide, and Tinek quickly descended to her back, red eyes glaring at the offending, white stallion. The pale princess turned on her haunches, leaving a wake of billowing, bloody hair in the wind. Psyche was burning. Just like her mother. One by one, her family fell, their bones turning to ash and disappearing as if they had never existed.
What legacy would Psyche leave behind? Sno? The memories she apparently shared with Mauja? Her stomach turned. How long ago had this been? Sno barely seemed an adult. Did his flirtations cross over? The timeline had to. There was no other way, and she felt the icy walls and steel armor wrap around her insides, protecting them as she stared with dry eyes at the scene unfolding. Unfeeling was better than pain - at least at this moment.
She ignored by accepted the passing words of anger. She saw Tandavi appear. The form of Roskuld was just a glimmer, one she wanted to follow but did not see until it was too late. Yelling created chaos, too many bodies in one place filled with too much emotional, and she was overwhelmed. Pale ears laid back against her skull, the ache in her chest dull and throbbing - easily ignored. But the mystery remained unsolved, and her suspicions were confirmed by Mauja's question.
But why?
With billowing flames her suspect returned to the scene of the crime. The stallion swept in, and she was surprised at his restraint even with his yelling accusations. Why would the murderer return to the scene of the crime? None of this made sense. Gaucho's mind was blocked in a way she couldn't see, but she had assumed it was because of whatever drugs his homeland herd had given him to forget. Idiots. Yet he stood here, casting his words against Mauja.
Of course she had been told that he had disappeared into the sea. The only reason she had been attacked was because Gaucho had thought she was a part of that plot to disappear. As for Mauja's actual crimes, she was unaware. The invasion could certainly be related, but this seemed far too personal. Her first instinct, seeing Mauja over the body, had been to suspect him too, but he seemed quite heartbroken over the entire ordeal. Obviously, since he now stood over the ashen, charred corpse of his mate.
Ophelia took a single step forward, standing between the two stallions. She narrowed her gaze at Gaucho. The snake skin pointed so easily to him, but yet here he stood accusing someone else. She didn't think Gaucho dishonest enough for such a ruse - not when his morals and tenants were so fundamentally simple. "We found snake skin upon her corpse," she said pointedly, looking at Gaucho.
Mauja could answer for himself. "I know of no other snake than Mara. Do I have permission to look into your mind again?"
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
Slowly, the fire took the empty house of shades—and she would be nothing but a shadow in their minds when it was done. The reign of the Dark Empress was over. Her deeds would live in the memories of those who remembered, but when their lives winked out, one by one like candles in a snowstorm, she would be lost with them. And in time, the tears evaporating on his heat-licked cheeks would dry, and this wound would become old, a scar across his heart. He would not forget but the pain would lose its edge, until it barely hurt at all.
He knew it to be truth. He'd been through it before, after all.
But as he watched the body of someone who had meant so much to him, knowing that was a small comfort, a threadbare blanket in winter, or just the dream of a cold wind while you're slowly burning up yourself.
Besides, he didn't want to be in this situation in the first place. He didn't want to have to let her recede to nothing but memory, hoof prints in the dust of his mind. He didn't want to have a scar bearing her name across his heart. He didn't want to have to stand here, on a floating island in the middle of a nosy crowd, burning her and having his grief put on display for everyone to see.
Another block of ice sheared off of the glacier, crashed into the sea.
Who the hell even cared.
This bad, the feral, icy huntress whispered in his mind, her clear voice worried, rushed; it was unusual that her language skipped back to those early stages, but then again, she rarely rushed what she had to say. Irma took her sweet time when she talked, delivering each sentence with cold clarity and all the right words she needed—this, though, had just been a more efficient way to catch his drifting attention, and now that she had it, he realized a trickle of unease he hadn't been aware of before.
From where she perched with a quiet, unhappy Diego he saw a large stallion with flaming wings, a rack of antlers upon his head, and something sterling tangled up in them—and the fire in his chest unfurled, heart beating a little harder, a little less gently, and he turned fully from the pyre to clear his eyes. Gaucho.
And, well, it seemed like Gaucho held more hard feelings about their little spat than Mauja did.
"YOU," he practically yelled, and Mauja's ears, which had been sort of courteously flipped forward, fell flat against his neck as he pulled his head a little higher, horn spearing the sky. Well, damn, yes. Me. He wasn't here to be shouted at when he wasn't even done burning the body of one of his closest friends. His teeth clicked warningly in the air as some other Pegasus came down behind His Royal Idiot. Blue eyes flickered to her for a moment. She was familiar.. but he didn't have the time for her, now. He had an interrogation to suffer through, it seemed, and if his hunch was correct Gaucho liked to yell.
Mauja didn't want to be yelled at. He was tired. His ears were tired. His head was tired and his angry blue eyes flashed dangerously, masquerading to make up for the strength that slowly seeped out of him. And Ophelia.. she stepped in between them. Sensitive as he was, he didn't need more chastisement than that. Gaucho might've lowered his antlers at him, and yelled, and now accused him of murdering Psyche, but Mauja wasn't prone to giving in: he wouldn't have yelled back, or done something stupid, or counter-productive, or..
.. okay, well, if he'd had his way, he just would've murdered the dun on the spot for being annoying, and the fresh pain in his mind took the snake skin and his annoyance and justified it.
Besides, who would even miss the dumb buffoon?
Fury was too easy to take refuge in. Ophelia was right to stand between them. She was everything he had been and now was not, the glaciers that had been purged by the fire he'd set in black flesh. Behind her, for once the one shielded, however much a coincidence and less of an actual intended action, he closed his eyes. Breathed in, deep, through ragged nostrils, tasting and smelling the char of meat, the pervasive scent of burning hair.
He hated it. He hated watching bodies burn. Feeling it, in the heat licking his haunches. Hated the sound of it. It ground away at his resolve, and at the fragile links of his sanity. "We found snake skin upon her corpse," Ophelia was saying to the stupid dun. Mauja still lived in his world of darkness, Snö somewhere by his side, heart thundering painfully in his chest. The anger was fading.
When he opened his eyes again, they seemed lighter, glazed again with a sheen of tears; his ears were flipped back but not pressed tight against his neck, and his posture was tired, haggard.
Mauja was, in many ways, already defeated, and even wrath seemed meaningless in the face of the grief. What would more death solve? What would it be except a quick fix, a moment's refuge from the pain? Killing anyone over Psyche wouldn't bring her back, it would just leave another hole blown in someone else's life.
Ophelia, Ophelia... In the silence after her polite demand Mauja's rough voice surfaced, his gaze with its low intensity slung on Gaucho as he drew a step sideways so as to not hide behind the porcelain queen so completely anymore. "I didn't kill her," he said, quietly, forcefully, and silently he added, and for everybody's sake lets hope you didn't, either.
Because if he had, and it came to light now..
.. Mauja wasn't sure what would happen.
01-13-2015, 01:06 PM (This post was last modified: 01-13-2015, 01:07 PM by Gaucho.)
And it's not a cry, that you hear at night -- It's not somebody, who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
What should have been the crashing crescendo to all that Gaucho had worked towards for the past several seasons fizzled and died. His surge of passion, of self righteousness and a quest that was finally to be completed died a fowl death in his throat as the words left his lips. The taste was nearly unbearable, and yet Gaucho bore it, for what else was there to do? Had Gaucho really changed all that much, that time would be the thing that killed his notions of revenge? He had mercilessly taken his anger out on Ophelia in days past simply for resembling the stallion who now stood before him - and yet where he offered Ophelia the prowess of his body, now he only offered the Frostheart his pathetic words.
He knew nothing of Mauja's relationship with Pysche - nor of Ophelia's for that matter. Might the knowledge have restrained the dun even more? Possibly. Though enough of what felt like unfounded wrath still boiled in his veins that things might have ended up just the same. All he had done after all, was yell.
Perhaps there needed to be quite a bit more yelling going on. Now was not the time for soft spoken words and sappy sentiments. Now was a time for action if ever there was any - had they not all lost someone close to them at the hands of whatever murderer was running rampant? Of course Gaucho yelled. Of course he accused - it was a significant step up from merely impaling Mauja for his past treacheries. And yet it was against him that they turned their eyes, their accusatory glares.
Mauja the dissapear-er, and Ophelia the never quite pleased.
As Ophelia mentioned Mara the Wildfire's eyes seethed with anger, as if her intention had been to spurn his beloved bonded rather than impart a truth that he would otherwise not have known. His blackened ears flattened against his skull as once again the thought of running Ophelia through with his horns bloomed in his mind. She has chastised him for failing to understand that his line of thinking wasn't always correct, and wasn't the only one in the offing. He wish he had the words to tell her she was guilty of precisely the same sins.
"Mara say snake skin look a lot like dragon skin." He didn't care that her words were likely born out of hatred for Tinek. It was true. How did she know it was snake skin rather than any other type of reptile skin? "Mara also say owls eat snakes." He concluded, his flattened glare meaning to seek out Mauja. There was nothing here that tied this murder to him anymore than it did either of him.
Then again, he wasn't the one burning evidence and standing over a burning corpse.
However Gaucho was not prepared for what would follow, when the words dripped from the traitorous horned one's lips. I didn't kill her. Gaucho had expected to see fire burn and bloom around his blue-tinged hooves, a sign from the God of the Sun himself that Mauja was lying - but the only flames were those from Psyche and himself. A shiver coursed through his spine as the anger that he so badly wanted to hurl at Mauja deflated within him. He felt empty and defeated, hollow and broken. He wanted to accuse him of the crime anyway, but to do so would be to scorn the gift given to his herd by their God. That was a crime that even Mauja amd his seething hate couldn't make him commit.
Angrily Gaucho stomped a black hoof into the ground, furious that a reason to kill had been taken from him. Snorting, as if he could simply expel the wash of emotion within himself, he spoke to Ophelia, even as his eyes continued to bear into Mauja.
Leaving ladies all a fluster was such fun in a devilish way. Turning away from the pink spy the golden walks on an air of confidence towards the dark Reaper. Hotaru may be one of the stronger spies below him, but she was still below him. Besides surely she should know better than to cause a scene about this place, with so many watching. Coming through a few cherry blossoms on the ridge towards Deimos the golden heard a most familiar noise. The powerful downbeats of wings, and rustling of brute came overhead, but that is not what made the golden stop. Lightly over the sound of the great beast landing, was the crackling of fires. Devilish face lit up with a wicked grin. The dun fire bird was the only one the gold knew who had a snake, such as the clue suggested and here he was right before them! Still, it would not be wise to flash himself so boldly and carelessly.
That grin never faded though, for the golden had a few more tricks up his sleeve. Calling upon the magic gained from his rank the golden began to fade until at last nothing was left. He was a nothing in a no where, and so could walk anywhere. Coming down slowly from the ridge back down towards the burning body the golden kept his distance from anyone in particular. Invisible though he maybe, he still made sound and hoofprints if he wasn’t careful. Hopefully though the gather was already too wrapped up among themselves to notice.
Nares flinched at the smell of burning flesh, its wretched bitterness too much for any horse priding his own skin to enjoy. It seemed he had come back down just in time, as his lady levelled with the dun. Oh this wasn’t a very pleasant social was it! It took the gold’s skill not to snicker at the chaos. The curious stallion though, Mauja…his cold face was most curious. It was reserved and held back, perfectly acceptable, unless you had just been accused of murder. The spotted one was tricky, the golden surmised. That was only a guess, but the golden’s guesses were rarely wrong. The dun for his part did flared out in a stomp and attitude. Brows rose. How delightful it was so be slipped in here and be able to let himself have a bit of fun with all this. Usually there was so much work in keeping up appearances and masks that he didn’t get such pure entertainment out of a tense situation. He was usually in the middle of the tense situation. But this time, standing on the edge looking in with hidden earth eyes not even the smell of the burning corpse and morbidity of the moment could crush the theif’s utter excitement at his sly trick of listening in.
Thranduil Speaks
•• TAGS: •• NOTES: Thran is just hanging aronud invisibly like an ass. Pay no mind to the man behind the curtain. lol••
Feel free to use any force/magic on Thranduil, short of killing him.
Please tag in every post.
Ask Thranduil any question in the world, he'll be forced to answer on his profile. PM with your question.
There was a part of Sno that suspected that her father would shun her, ignore her because of every harsh thing she'd ever said to him. For evey ugly look she'd ever gave him. She was both surprised and thankful when she felt his neck drape over her own, his hair falling in a thick curtain over her eyes to shield her from the sight of her mother's body. She kept her eyes shut tight, unwilling to look upon her mother's corpse anymore. If I don't see it then its not real. Its not true.' She scarcely breathed as fire crackled to life and Psyche's body began to burn. She wanted to ignore it all, tell herself that none of it was true, that it was all nothing more than a very bad dream. She'd wake up and everything would go back to the way it had been.
The varnished girl would have continued to ignore the burning, ignore the crowd, ignore the way her heart ached with every beat had it not been for Ophelia speaking to her. Sno opened her eyes, shifted her head enough so that she could look at the pale beauty through a gap in her father's mane. Its real. She said nothing but leaned more into Mauja, prayed that he would stand strong for her just once when she needed him. He hadn't been there when Monster had been murdered, but this was different. This was her mother.
She probably would have remained exactly the way she was until there was little left of Psyche but charred bones, but there is always someone that has to make a scene. Sno's body straightened and she turned to look at the horned stallion who arrived, ready to cast the blame on Mauja. The girl cast a glance at her father, looked at his face, saw the sadness in his eyes that matched her own and she knew in her heart that he hadn't done it. He may not have always been there for them, but he did care, didn't he?
Sno's ears lay flat against her head as she turned back to Gaucho, her own bellow matching his. "NO!"She stamped a cloven hoof into the ground and snorted. They couldn't even grieve properly and she hated the antlered stallion for it. There was no way that Mauja could have done it, she was convinced. "Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about and you're ready to blame my dad! You're the one that did it, aren't you? You're just trying to make someone else look guilty." She couldn't know for sure, but she wanted so badly to blame him just because he was so willing to cast blame on Mauja. She was already convinced that it was because he wanted to cover his own ass, throw the blame off of himself and onto someone else. It was the oldest trick in the liar's playbook.
Ophelia stepped forward and Sno's ears tilted forward to listen to the older mare as she spoke and when she mentioned the snake, Mara, the girl snorted harshly. Again, he was trying to throw the blame to someone else, a dragon, owls, and that made Sno step forward. "Stop trying to blame everyone else." She hissed. It only stoked the flame of her anger and sudden hatred when he claimed that he hadn't done it. She hoped that he was lying, that Ophelia would point it out when she tapped into his walnut sized brain, because she wanted blood.
"."
Snö
you're looking at an absolute zero
i'm not the devil but i won't be your hero
01-13-2015, 04:57 PM (This post was last modified: 01-14-2015, 12:55 AM by Megaera.)
Megaera waited for an order. She hated waiting, hated every thrice-damned second that she could not act but the warrior forced herself to remain still. The year she’d spent wandering had put a horrid deficit in her training and she knew she had a lot to learn of the fighting arts, but she would not let her Sultan stand unaided against this horned brigade.
It was not for their horns that Meg distrusted them, not really. But they were of the Basin, at least the blood-stained mare must be, wasn’t that their queen? She certainly seemed to act with a good measure of authority but Meg could not be sure. Meg had never been to the Basin, had never met a soul that called the place home, but the things she had heard… The rampant racism, the invasion of Dragon’s Throat, constant attacks and robberies until this past season. Meg was a creature of the desert and it grew in her mind that the northern mountains must freeze hearts as well as water.
She tried to ease her restlessness with planning, taking a survey of all those present and trying to plan who she might strike and how if it came to that. Her recent spar with Gaucho was fresh in her mind and the burns were only started to heal on her body. She tried to remember what she had learned then. Step by step it replayed: her strike, his strike, her flight, his fire, a pair of ice blue eyes hot with anger and seen through a haze of smoke.
No! Than hadn’t been Gaucho’s fire, the memory was of her first dance in flames and when she moved her gaze again upon the white and spotted stallion, Meg remembered. “Mauja.” It was a whisper, so soft she hardly knew she spoke it, for there was the beast that had met her fresh out of fire. She often thought she must have dreamed that brief meeting, as strange as it had been. They’d taken it in turns to nearly attack each other and then he’d stood watch while she slept. She could almost hear the crack of ice and hiss of flame and a shiver ran down her spine.
The two stallions were at the forefront of her mind. One had watched her burn and one had burned her, take that by itself and somehow it didn’t make sense that she should stand behind the latter.
The young mare that had stood with Mauja hurled her own harsh words at Gaucho. Meg heard only the anger in her voice and nothing of the grief, it was not an emotion that she would have recognized. Then Ol’ Blood-Tips seemed to flat out accuse Gaucho as well, citing the skin of a snake as evidence and that incensed to warrior and she didn’t even register the odd request she made. She couldn’t stand for this, could not sit and listen to this filth that dripped from angry mouths. For a moment Meg’s short temper got the better of her. Hind legs pushed the lithe body forward and the dark head thrashed, wildly aggressive.
STOP! The better part of her mind came through and had the mare skid to a halt placing her only a nose ahead of where her Sultan had stood. Using all her limited restraint, she bit back her own harsh words and forced herself only to glare at unicorns, each in turn. She was a soldier, and a soldier obeyed. She trusted in the stallion next to her to act in the right. If Gaucho fought, Megaera fought. If Gaucho retreated then she would follow.
Black Hairs and sand. Feathers and burnt flesh. Bone and a reptile’s skin. If the clues pointed to Gaucho, Megaera would not allow even a hint of that thought to enter her mind. Gaucho had given her everything she had. Gaucho was everything she wanted to be. If her faith in him was blind, then somebody had best get her a seeing-eye dog because her loyalty would not be shaken.
Notes: Ugh, so you admins know, but I swear to god, if Gaucho’s the murderer, even if he was like, possessed or something, Meg is gonna have a rough time.
FAC FORTIA ET PATERE
be brave and endure
:: permission given for use of magic and force :: please tag Megaera in all posts ::
Ophelia heard Mauja's words of defense echo behind her, but unlike Gaucho, she could not see into his mind. At her attempts, her power faded into mists, got lost in fog so thick she could not find her way out again. Every thought, memory and feeling was completely lost in a void, guarded, and she wondered if he was blocking her intentionally. That would be suspicious, but she had no proof. The pale princess was at a lost with the Frostheart, unsure of his honesty but trusting, regardless, that he could not kill Psyche - not if they shared a child together.
The thought settled in her gut with a burn, like a hot stone dropped into a pot of water. She felt sick.
Still, she slid her body between the two stallions', her gaze falling to Gaucho who held such an angry, belligerent expression. Anger would get them nowhere, and tensions were already thick enough to cut with a knife, tainting the very air surrounding all present. The throat king stubbornly denied the evidence, claiming Tinek or other creatures could shed - even Mauja's owls could have dropped the scales. While true, in a way, everything else pointed to the antlered beast. Still, she held her tongue.
Sno's yelling did not help, and Ophelia grimaced, understanding the passions of losing a parent but struggling to be the fifth barrier between the pair of warring parties. Eventually this verbal spar would turn physical, and she wanted answers before they tore each other apart. Psyche was her aunt, and the jackal-mare meant something to her too. The murderer deserved to be stopped, but knowledge was their only ally at this point. A swift lurch of another pegasus mare made the pale princess tense, and Tinek, aware of the movement, descended, exhaling a warning breath of ice and static that crackled in the air.
"Quiet now," she murmured, her voice soft and delicate but holding so much weight with the position of her body and the dragon on her back. "Gaucho has accepted I look into his mind, and I shall do so now. Bloodshed will not allow us reach to the killer." Her advisement was uttered with seriousness, though her heart hammered in her chest.
Gently, she reached out toward Gaucho's mind, picking and prying through memories that held a single, beautiful word across all: family. He tenants were sound and morals important, holding others above himself - a warrior servant to his clan. A dark shadow tainted where she watched his hooves land on this island, and then blackness. The darkness was consuming, dragging her into his mind as hers was almost ripped from her soul. She could not break free. Trapped with the connection she had mind, Ophelia struggled, growing nauseous and slipping.
Her breathing was ragged, and she leaned on her bones, weakening with every attempt to fight for her sanity to return. The very tint of her strange, dual colored eyes was dead, fading to white like a corpse on the ground. Then, it snapped, and she groaned, feeling her mind reel back into her own consciousness, reeling. Ophelia stared up at Gaucho in confusion. He was innocent otherwise, no signs of lingering anger or issues against the dead. The king had not even met a few of the bodies.
"I... I can't..." she stammered, struggling to regain her thoughts. "There... there is not enough to know..." Ophelia shook her head, blinking furiously. "More is at work here. I cannot make a definitive ruling."
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
The name of the void in his chest was Apathy, and with each passing breath it yawned wider and wider, consuming all his righteous anger and all his sharp-edged pain, until nothing but a dull, throbbing ache remained somewhere in the region of his heart.
But he wasn't there, not yet. It still hurt, keenly, a burning in the back of his mouth—a hitch in his breathing, and the stagger of his heart.
Something so fundamentally simple as a dead horse had taken his world, rattled it and shaken it, and where he had previously been adrift he was now completely lost. But what does it matter? the cold voice of his logic whispered, you never saw her anyway, but it did matter because.. if he had reached out, she would've been there. If he'd asked, silently, for her forgiveness again, he could've received it. And if he had wanted, as he had but never dared, they could've walked beneath the stars and spoken of all the things they ought to have. Who they had become. Who 'they' even were—they had shared much, and who they had been had had a chance at a future of dark love, but who they had become had grown apart in that regard.
Perhaps he had cared more than she, in his own way. Perhaps he always held on too tightly, except he never dared to let it show.
His ears flicked to Snö's angry defense of his honor, gaze sliding meaninglessly off the dun and to gaze behind him at a funeral pyre. He found himself with so many questions and doubts, but he'd never get any answers, any reassurance, from her now.
"Go ahead. Gaucho not do this."
Words held nothing but the air they were carried on, and air was as intangible as truth, so in the end, words were meaningless. He'd bent them often enough himself to know that. But he said nothing. Just stood mutely by as Ophelia said she would look into his mind, and for another second nothing changed—and then the words hit home. Look into his mind. Could she do that..? For a moment, the sorrow and directionless anger was devoured by horror: had she ever touched his thoughts..? And Gods if she did, he would seem the most creepy, obsessed, miserable old stalker she'd ever come across.
Seem. Was. Bah. Maybe he was. Maybe he needed a reality check. But in the next moment he realized that she probably couldn't. There was that wall of ice around his mind.
As untouchable as a glacier. Suddenly it seemed like isolation, and not a blessing.
The moment passed as something in the air shifted—he couldn't put his hoof on what it was, but it was something that stirred him from his blue thoughts. One black-rimmed ear flicked, eyes blinking, turning sideways and onto Ophelia.
The world stopped again. His heart stopped, every thought blown away by what he saw, and heard; her whitening eyes, her sloping posture, the ragged, tired breathing coming out of her lungs. "Ophelia..?" he whispered, terrified that he would lose another one today. Black muzzle reached out, quivering slightly in the tense air, until its soft tip rested against the point of her hip. What foul, vile, sorcery was this? He didn't even have time to be angry, just stared at her, stricken with panic, his tired mind unable to contain the flow of incoherent thoughts and fears.
And just as abruptly as it had come, it went away. Life returned to her eyes, a groan broke the rhythmic struggle of her breathing, and Mauja—guilty, guilty of touching her in an attempt to anchor her to this life—pulled back. He wasn't sure whether he wanted her to have noticed or not. Once, he wouldn't have been afraid. Once, he would've been able to sling his neck over her back and hold her, shield her from the world, and feel her pulse just against his skin as it thrummed through her chest.
It felt like a lifetime ago, and every ounce of shame Psyche's death had brought out could be applied to her as well. The easy companionship they had had was as dead as the Empress, and in his exhaustion the thought grew insurmountable. Broken and helpless he looked at her, not caring that Gaucho stared daggers at him as if looks could kill—he couldn't care. He couldn't even speak. He could just stare at her with a shattered expression of at least fifty shades of pain.
01-14-2015, 03:03 PM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2015, 07:52 PM by Torleik.)
Torleik the Bloodskald
Choke on your own misdeeds
She was gone again.
This happened often, his setting out for the day, looking for her form or face - just to greet, to acknowledge, to begin each passage of time with a brief radiance of her presence - only to find his world colder and more grey without her there.
Why did she do it? Just...go away?
Of course, she had no responsibility to tell him she was leaving, or where she was going or why...but Torleik wished she would. He would come with her. Protect her. Help her. Just...be with her. Instead, here he was, haplessly following in Ophelia's footsteps, searching for her.
Last time he hadn't gone looking, she'd come back to him bruised and beaten and the rage that sat in his chest, burned his muscles, was too much to allow him to remain behind, remain still this time. So he tracked, and he followed, all of it taking some time. The Bloodskald had an idea of where she'd gone but only from rumors and small signs; no concrete evidence. He'd be late for whatever it was she was going to and that drove him crazy right now.
What if she was running headlong into getting hurt again? What if he couldn't get there in time?
What if he lost her?
He couldn't. Gods, he couldn't. Not when she'd just started to...warm to him. Not now. Please.
Hooves shifted impatiently on the cloud that ascended to the mystical island in the sky and the stallion nearly leapt off as soon as he could make the change from cloud to land. Scents and tensions collided with his senses and the Bloodskald followed both with swiftness, every muscle in his body coiling when the little angry palaver that was occurring came into view.
Nothing mattered in that moment except Mauja and Ophelia.
He saw no one else, save for that polkadotted fuck reaching out, his muzzle going for his woman's hip.
Initially there was no feeling, no emotion, no nothing. He was as cold inside as the ice that pooled around his hooves, stuck, frozen - but then, like his magic, the ice cracked and melted away and a deadly storm brewed inside. It hit, and it hit fast, and it hit swift, and then he was moving and yelling and no thoughts were happening: only emotion.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized he smelled what he knew was a burning body and perhaps that tempered his actions, but the sick, infected hate he felt towards this cowardly bastard was too much to bear so soon. Torleik wanted to kill him. He wanted to kill him slowly, watched Mauja's face as he died, know that the Frostheart realized who had killed him and why...
And then he would keep his blood for warpaint, a testament to the fear his enemies should feel at all times.
"YOU!" the warrior thundered, sprinting at nearly a full gallop towards the white and black male. "GET YOUR FILTHY MAW OFF HER! YOU DO NOT GET TO TOUCH HER YOU FUCKING SWINE!" With all of his will he wished to drive his horns deep into this putrid, rotten flesh that was supposedly male somewhere. Torleik saw only the weakness of traitor. For Ophelia's sake he did not attempt murder right here, in front of her, but that did not stop him from barreling between the two and doing his best to force Mauja back.
Away.
You lost her.
She's mine.
"I will see you rot in hell before you lay so much as a breath on her again," Torleik hissed a deadly whisper in his face, the words devoid of any warmth Ophelia might have come to know him for. This was not the same man. This man was willing to do whatever he had to do, kill whoever he needed to, in order to protect her. He loved her, and it was not within him to abandon her to anyone or anything. Nothing of his could ever be more important than the pale princess; such self-absorption did not run in his blood and never would.
Turning to Ophelia his eyes raked over her, the endless concern he held for this woman clear on his face. He didn't care who knew. Love was not a weakness. "Are you hurt?" he murmured, tone soft as a warm cloak. Suspicious eyes glanced around, seeing some he did not know, and one he believed was called Gaucho that he had never met officially but seen more than once.
And there his eyes stuck. Large. Black feathers. Flames. The murders came flashing back - a body was burning nearby, whose? - and Torleik's suspicion mounted. But his concern was not with them. Not right at this moment.
They could wait.
OOC: Invited to participate so here he is in all his rage. EDIT because herp don't know why I forgot Thran was invisible. Mea culpa
And it's not a cry, that you hear at night -- It's not somebody, who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
His gaze bore into Sno with an odd patience. It was the same he had given Mirabella when she had accused him of monstrous crimes for taking away her mother. It was the place of children to be filled with unbridled emotion when they were confronted with things they didn't understand. He remembered the pale girl - the two had sparred together long ago. She had been weak then, as she had been now. If accusations were really an admission of guilt, then whose to say she wasn't the murderer? After all, she seemed happy to jump on board with blaming him even though he had just arrived. It wasn't He who had burned the body after all. And even Gaucho wasn't stupid enough to return to a murder scene after having committed a crime.
A flaming wing dropped from Gaucho's flank to gently brush against Meg. The movement was subtle, but it was enough to let his warrior know that he sensed her fire, her anger and pain. He could fight his own battles, but he would not reject her support. He did not do this - Ophelia's magic would show as much and then all would be put to right. Perhaps then he and Mauja could finally get down to the business of his sea-departure.
Gauch's bulky head lowered, as if Ophelia's magic needed physical access. It was a sign of not necessarily submission, but of compliance. He had nothing to fear from the tendrils of her magic - he had allowed her access to his mind once before. He owed the restoration of his memories to her. The Wildfire felt a vibrantly blue tingle pierce his thoughts. It itched and cooled, feeling almost like a gel that was forming around his very consciousness.
The black backlash that struck out towards Ophelia felt like a twinge in the back of his skull. His body felt numb for a moment, before it was suddenly gone. A wash of fog seemed to mist over what had just happened, as if the feeling of whatever had reached out towards Ophelia was a distant memory - one that would not be held onto.
Through Mara's eyes Gaucho tried to find Ophelia's gaze, to discern what it was she made of what just happened. As she offered an ambiguous judgement of his innocence, the dun wondered whether or not it was simply some ploy to propel the anger against him. What did the blackness have to do with his innocence? He had not done this. Surely she must have seen that? Whatever hold over there was from his memories being erased the lsat time (as surely that was the cause), had nothing to do with the new memories that he clearly had? Still, she appeared ... genuinely distraught. There seemed to be no malicious intent behind her words, only honesty.
Like Mauja, the dun meant to step forward to ensure that the queen was alright, until the explosive body of Torleik entered the picture. Amongst the males (the ones he could see anyways), Torleik stood shorter, for both Mauja and Gaucho were several inches taller. Even amongst the females Torleik was not much taller, save for Meg. Expecting to have another voice attempt to pin the murder upon him, Gaucho was both surprised and mildly relieved to see the darkened warrior turn his wrath against Mauja. Deciding not to make a move towards Ophelia for apparently she belonged to the braided warrior. Ophelia did seem the type to be anyones woman but ... the stallion seemed fairly confident of his assertion.
So that was it then. A charred body, a grieving child, an ex lover and escape artist, his warrior, braids and his woman. And of course, Gaucho the accused.
"What now." He asked, more or less the entire group. Would they try and take him on? With Meg at his side he felt confident she could take on Sno if he took Mauja. Whether he would win would be another story ... but Warrior Braids and the Queen? Which side would they chose? Would they even try and hold him here, accused of crimes to which they had nothing but circumstantial evidence? Evidence that they were now burning?
01-15-2015, 04:18 PM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2015, 04:19 PM by Thranduil.)
T H R A N D U I L
My, my this place was hopping! The golden could not be more thrilled with how this little exchange was going. Again, if he did not have the blessing of his invisibility his mood of course would be much more sober. Yet no standing to the side listening in without judgment the golden felt freer than he had in ages to truly enjoy himself. The show surely was not disappointing! The bitch of Mauja’s blood riled against the dun fire bird. For as much as the golden hated her, he couldn’t help but smile as she attacked the creature larger than she. Of course Gaucho was most likely only securely being attacked for the numbers surrounding him, cept for that one curious bird by his side, he was alone.
Had that dune fire bird done it though? At this moment the golden had little doubt otherwise. Though it was curious he would result to such violent means, and even attack a few of his own race, there had been so many unicorns and Basiners slaughtered. The golden wasn’t sure of motives, but it certainly seemed this was a guilty man.
Though. The golden paused while his bay defender spoke her silence, but all too clear opinion. If a rational horse were to examine these things, they might find there could be no darkness deep enough in Gaucho’s soul to commit such crimes. Perhaps misunderstanding and anger, but those are rarely carried through silently. So those earth eyes linger on the dun fire bird, then maliciously snatch away to return to a happier view of this lovely chaos. It does not do to dwell on proving innocence when proving guilt it by far more enjoyable.
Then the golden caught a snippet which was really quite exciting. His lady was about to preform her spells. The maw of the golden so openly grinned and neat laughed with delight at the timing. This was perfect. The Foresaken called for quiet and as she closed herself to her task, so did the golden. His earth eyes sealed away and his mind called upon a stone locked onto the circlet about him. It was difficult to keep his mind balancing all that he must at this moment and his jaw gritted with the effort to multitask his abilities. There! The dark violet stone flashed and began to swirl with a black darkness before locking away to pure ebony.
Oh how the golden near bucked for delight at his excellent trickery! Ophelia’s magic was most powerful as well, and certainly should be prized. However it seemed she couldn’t handle the effects of it. Perhaps leadership weakened her skills. Those earth eyes flashed viciously at her weakness, but then with a smirk and flare for trouble saw the curious Mauja. His reserved nature did break for a moment, and his gentle head reached out to the ragged lady. How curious was this. Clearly the man got around. First his lover dies and now the red tipped. For a creature seeming so reserved this-
Thundering hooves sounded behind the gold and for the first of this adventure a look of panic strikes across him. Shit! A yell from behind came screaming to the gathering as the golden scrambled to unnoticeably dodge a runaway train.
Whew! A brush of air rushed past him but they did not touch. The golden let a long sigh out and sent the glares towards the now yelling at the spotted brute. Brows raise but not in much enjoyment. He and this thick soldier had met before. He was everything ill-conceived weakness of a soldier. Love, temper, and threats. Pathetic he was, utterly-
Wait. A wicked grin flashed on the gold’s face. Oh it was cruel. Utterly cruel and devoid of any morality he possessed with his current powers. But it was also wickedly cleaver. And really when did he ever get to have any damn fun around here. So the golden bites the bullet and slips quietly, but as quickly as he can slips around the group and comes back into the circle to face the darken warrior. He calms his body, making sure his breath does not huff nor hooves recklessly slash through the grasses. Slowly he creeps closer to the warrior’s ear. He had just questioned the lady by his side, and Gaucho was clearing his voice to speak. Here. He would slip it in here, under the cover of the other’s words. The golden’s invisible maw reached out and in the lowest whisper for only, hopefully, the dark to hear comes gilded tongue. “Can’t you see their love lives? He steals her.” Low, hissed, and (possibly a bit too shrill for a male, but he was channeling his inner evil witch here). Then the critical escape.
Twin horned head swung back as far as he could pull, and his cloven hooves lifted high to not move the grass, but landed softly to make a sound. The wicked golden side stepped and backed till he was standing by Mauja, then behind him. And to have seen the evil, cruel, wicked grin lit upon his face would have made your very flesh crawl with unease.
Thranduil Speaks
•• TAGS: •• NOTES: He is an ass, but he is my ass, so please don't kill him. XD lol Also, Ophelia's magic captured for his quest. ••
Feel free to use any force/magic on Thranduil, short of killing him.
Please tag in every post.
Ask Thranduil any question in the world, he'll be forced to answer on his profile. PM with your question.
01-16-2015, 12:12 AM (This post was last modified: 01-16-2015, 12:13 AM by Ophelia.)
Everything happened so quickly. One second, she was reeling on her hooves, struggling to stay afoot, and Mauja's nose was pressed lightly on her body. The next second, a familiar yell accused the Frostheart, and she furrowed her brows, trying to come back from the hell she had just experienced. Words had moved past her lips without her realizing what had been said, and she lifted her foggy gaze, watching Torleik yell at Mauja. Torleik was here? Her heart flopped uselessly in her chest, and she wanted to tell him that everything was all right.
Where were her words?
Dual colored gaze snapped between Mauja, Gaucho and Torleik, taking a deep breath and trying to regain her composure. The Bloodskald's concerned words brought her into reality again, and she furrowed her brows, frowning. "I... yes," she answered, unaware of the black stallion's inner most thoughts. He was protective, but given that he had seen her wounds and listened to her heartbreak after the battle she had fought, she could not blame him. Still, the explosive violence and wicked fury was so different than she was used to from him.
"Honestly..." she trailed, looking between the group again and suddenly feeling uncomfortable with the crowd that seemed to bow around her. Being the center of attention like this made the mare fidget, weight shifting on her cloven hooves and self-consciousness settling in. Here, so close, they could all certainly see her flaws. "That felt like Deimos' magic." Her eyes snapped to Mauja's with minor accusation. He was there when his general had almost drained her of her life. Ktulu had stepped in to ensure her survival. Surely he would remember? Perhaps not as well as she...
"And you're being rude." Moon-covered eyes settled on her, hard, his pale tail flicking behind him. "Provoking. Like a vulture, picking at an old wound."
The dialogue raced through her mind.
"Is that who you want to be?" he asked, demanded, of her in a voice that bore no traces of love and warmth.
Her eyes never left those of the Frostheart.
"This is inconvenient. It'll be hard to drag her away."
Inconvenient...
Had he truly changed? She could not read his mind. Everything she tried to find was blocked from view, and trust was not easily given - not for the Forsaken. Ophelia tore her eyes away, looking to Gaucho who stood with an expression she could only really label as judgment. The Throat King stood so unaffected, whatever emotions he was feeling trapped so tightly behind his roughened exterior. Perhaps he was the strongest of them all. The weight of his guilt rested now upon her testimony, and the Forsaken shook her head, rolling her shoulders at a loss.
Ophelia took a step closer to Torleik, leaning on his shoulder. The fact that her aunt's corpse was burning had not faded - the hurt had not faded. "Gaucho, have you seen the rest of the evidence?" she asked curiously, her tone open and lacking the cold demands that would set him on the defensive. "The pegasus that died here first had black hairs on her body. Ailith, my noble warrior, was covered in sand. An elder, white stallion had a chip of a black feather. Phaedra... my... my friend had white feathers. A babe had chips of bone." Ophelia frowned. "My aunt had snakeskin." Her eyes darted to the burning body, sadness etched in her graceful features.
"Gaucho, so much of it points to you, and yet your mind seems guarded. You have never lied to me before. You've even admitted your faults openly..." she trailed, shaking her head. "I can only suggest we bring this matter before the gods." She wanted to believe Gaucho. He was not the type to lie. Ophelia looked back to Torleik. "I don't know what to do." A helplessness reserved only for the Bloodskald flashed in her strange, dual colored eyes.
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
01-16-2015, 05:44 AM (This post was last modified: 01-16-2015, 11:55 AM by Mauja.)
i am the vanguard of your destruction
And for the second time that day, his entire being was reduced to a single word, compressed into the rage of a thundering voice. "YOU!"
What was that I said, about him being tired of being yelled at?
"GET YOUR FILTHY MAW OFF HER! YOU DO NOT GET TO TOUCH HER YOU FUCKING SWINE!" But, his exhausted mind protested weakly, I'm already pulling back.
As if that mattered. As if it mattered that he cared, that all he'd done was try to fucking save her, that.. that.. well, fuck. Nothing mattered. And he didn't understand. What the hell had he done to deserve this? Who was this ugly brute? And what on fucking earth had Mauja done to upset him?
And who the hell was he to decide things for Ophelia?
It ignited a slowly burning rage in his chest, the embers glowing as blue as his eyes, preparing to flicker into life as white-hot flames—who was he, to say he couldn't touch her, when she'd said nothing about it?
If it was one thing Mauja loathed more than anything, it was the concept of getting to decide for others. Thinking you had a right to it, to say what someone else could and couldn't do—he wasn't saying Mauja couldn't touch Ophelia.
He was saying Ophelia couldn't be touched by him.
Controlling.
He saw it so often in males it blew his mind how anyone put up with them. He saw it so often and he hated it almost as much as he hated rape. He hated it and on that basis alone he could've run the black bastard through with an ice spike on the spot.
Murder at the scene of a murder, just another corpse dancing in the fickle sunlight, and his guilt would be as clear as day. And you know what?
He would've laughed in their faces if they thought he cared.
But the tentative spark of anger found no fuel to burn in his tired, tired mind, and a broad, black shoulder slammed in between him and the angel of white; the impact forced him half a step aside with a grunt, pain blossoming in the smashed nerves and blood vessels.
What, the fuck. What the fuck had just happened.
A black storm had blown in yelling, and now Mauja stood alone again, robbed of the only one present that was strong enough to shield him. Cold air that had nothing to do with the season pressed in around him, cementing his isolation. A shiver ran down his spine. He felt physically sick with it.
And his eyes spun to Ophelia, wanting to beg her for reason, for a voice, for the words he could not speak, because his anger had disappeared into the dark void, and his mind was not eloquent enough to form the words he wanted to spit into the air. The only thing he thought to say, and said as a low, heartbroken whisper, was this: "You suck." And he said it to Torleik, who probably wouldn't hear it, because it was little more than an exhalation anyway. It couldn't even begin to cover the reasons but it stated the conclusion well enough, but even breathing two words, stringing something together in the roaring chaos of his mind, had been too much.
He couldn't say more. He could barely think, grasp it in his mind, or make sense of it—but then she was looking at him, something he couldn't begin to place in her eyes, and she mentioned the Reaper's name.
Wait. She had looked into Gaucho's mind, and found something like Deimos lurking in his soul? That.. didn't sound good. At all. Mutely he stared at the stallion for a moment. He didn't look like a necromancer. He could, though, be the tool of one. Mauja supposed he wouldn't be too hard to trick, as long as you didn't act shifty. Being shifty hadn't really worked out for him.
Selfishly, he wished Sarazheha would come and sweep him up into a gale.
But then Ophelia moved, just a little, just slightly, so subtle, a white shoulder finding support against a black, and he felt more alone and abandoned than he had ever felt before.
"I awoke one day nothing more than a child, an empty mind, and... happy."
He couldn't forget the blood in his heart. He couldn't will his lungs to stop breathing. The only thing he could do was impale himself on an ice spike, and in the face of the hurt he felt, it was a very tempting option. She was leaning on the black bastard, accepting his control and his anger, and Mauja's soul roared into life again, all blue wrath cascading in front of his eyes. He couldn't even separate it from the grief anymore.
You do not get to touch her...
His mind knew a thousand intricate, intimate ways in which it could touch—wreck—her just to hurt him.
And he knew that he never would, because this black, braided, angry mess wasn't worth hurting anyone over.
Least of all her.
He thought, in the haze of his anger and pain, that there were some depths he would still not stoop to.
But he wasn't sure. And it terrified him beyond reason.
So it was just barely that he heard Ophelia, suspended between a pole of fury and a pole of apathy, slowly moving from one end of the spectrum to the other. Trapped between all the things he wanted to do he remained rooted and silent, tormented and taunted; he wanted to forget reason and logic and just feel, but murdering the black wouldn't solve any problems.
And wasn't it just as bad of him to attack Torleik, as it was for Torleik to try and separate him from Ophelia? Did he have a different reason? Did he have any reason at all, except that he was angry?
Did he have any right to try and champion Ophelia?
She had accepted the fucker anyway. Leaned into him.
He felt something in him wither and die, a perfect glass rose dropped onto a too-hard floor and shattered—and in its ruin it was still perfection, sharp edges glittering beautifully in cold, cruel light.
Its name was disappointment.
He couldn't stand feeling it, so he forgot the whole damn thing, and just stared vacantly at Gaucho as Ophelia spoke, listing crimes and evidence, pinning it all on the sand-man. Mauja hummed some sort of mute, dumb agreement, but something was wrong, something was off, and why did they have to involve the Gods..? What did they care, anyway? They were distant and cruel and mean and—no, that was unfair of him. There had been times when they had helped him.
And times when they had nearly ruined him beyond repair.
"White," he heard himself say, his voice so cold and calm in his ears—how was it possible? How could it be that he didn't sound as shattered and lost as he felt? "I don't.. white feathers?" And he motioned helplessly towards Gaucho's flaming, black wings.
He didn't even know why he cared.
Maybe because he knew what it felt like to be accused.
Maybe because he was losing his mind completely and it was about the only thing he could hold onto right now.
01-16-2015, 12:49 PM (This post was last modified: 01-16-2015, 12:51 PM by Torleik.)
Torleik the Bloodskald
A fragment of what's been left behind
Controlling was not a sentiment that registered in the Bloodskald's mind. Who was he to make Ophelia do or not do? Feel or not feel? Who was he to force anyone here - the mares he didn't know (one of whom looked rather like the very polkadotted coward he loathed), Gaucho, even Mauja - to do anything?
He couldn't control a one of them.
But he could damn well try to protect the one he cared about. If that meant trying to force the Frostheart back, he would do it, over and over, until his joints stopped working and his hooves bled and he collapsed without a breath of life left, if it meant keeping Ophelia from his toxicity. To say the pale stallion was not to touch her was a matter of honor, an observation of truth: something so despoiled did not deserve to touch something so pure.
And perhaps that is what he should have said. "You don't deserve to touch her." But the folly of emotion was that words oftentimes gave way and eloquence fell by the wayside, like a bucket full of rocks kicked off a cliff. Torleik knew he should do better, be better, but he couldn't will himself to improve at this junction of space and time. Besides, what did it matter? Was he so wrong to be so angry?
"Can't you see their love lives? He steals her."
An audit flicked to the side, hearing these words whispered so serpentine in his ear, and frowned. That voice was not of his own mind. Torleik's eyes darted right, left, seeing no one that may have spoken it, and he felt his mouth go dry. His recent palaver with the Goddess of the Moon...was she warning him of buried truth? The thought of this pale, blood-splashed perfection still loving the craven brute beside him made him sick and his muscles quivered with a nauseating concoction of fear and rage. Was it true? Could it be true?
Could he handle it if it were?
Brazen and thundering as he was, headstrong and impassioned, Torleik knew that if Ophelia were to turn to him and defend Mauja, push his concern away for the selfishness that polluted the pure desire to see her remain unharmed because she deserved better...
He would let her.
It would hurt like a thousand shards of glass driven beneath his skin, but he wouldn't fight her here. And when he made his case to her later, if she rejected him again, he would let her. Mauja was a fool to think Torleik had any intention of controlling Ophelia; the Bloodskald was all too aware that he could not even if that was his desire. Would his anger make an exception of this and try to bend the Frostheart to his will? In this moment, yes. Would he throw up the siege of his dogged determination against the fortified walls of the spotted stallion's yearnings in this realm? Every time.
But that was because he could only do what he believed was best.
And he could not conceive of a world where Mauja was best for Ophelia. Perhaps, that doubting sliver of his mind that had been set afire by the voice outside his consciousness prodded, he was not best for Ophelia either. Perhaps he was unworthy. If so, then he deserved to lose her. The rabicano prayed it was not so, but only time would test the validity of that. As it marched on, he would do his best to be the best for her sake, and nothing else. Not for pride, for proving anyone else wrong, or even for smashing Mauja's face in it to show him his own failure.
That sort of foundation could not support anything pure.
But when it came down to it, if he had to, could he let her go?
The frail, fumbling answer his mind strove to come up with was silenced when he felt the warmth of her voice break the cold stillness of the air that had pervaded after his stormy entrance. She was all right. She was okay. Tension melted from his bones at this relief and he took a slight step back. If she claimed she was fine he would not undermine her statement in front of others. Torleik knew he had failed her once in a situation with a crowd; he had promised he would not do so again.
She claimed 'it' felt like Deimos' magic and the understanding that he knew utterly nothing of this situation crawled over the rune-horned like a thousand spiders. A tiny little speck of hotness flickered on inside him, a pilot-light of shame. He'd come thundering in without taking stock of anything else. Casting his gaze around, his crystalline orbs fell on the burning body with little outward change. Who was this one? Not that it might have mattered...Torleik had found his relatively short time in this land had left him without ties to many of the dead.
Still, out of respect, the dual-horned stallion studied the sad pyre, searching for clues. Teasing them out was difficult; the flames were distracting and he felt like his throat was closing - then Ophelia's words returned to him.
"Fire... Fire is destructive and strong, but is it not also powerful and beautiful?"
Another murder had taken place here, another life lost, but was it not beautiful that the dead were honored with cleansing flame? Was it not beautiful that something so strong consumed and freed something so weak? From his limited knowledge, Torleik assumed Gaucho had done this given the fire he clearly wielded. That added to the suspicion. But something clicked then, in the places the fire hadn't taken over, the colors, and he knew.
Psyche. No.
He'd met the one-time Lady of the Basin long ago when he'd first chanced upon Helovia, and while she'd struck him as an expert manipulator, there had been something...more about her that he'd wished to learn. Then she'd abdicated, disappeared, and Torleik had never seen her again - though he had helped Illynx to find her. Now Illynx was gone, too.
The barbaric pegasus gruffly inquired as to what they did now and the Bloodskald glanced down in shock when he felt Ophelia's body against his, her warmth mingling with his own, pleasure filling his nerves. It was good he was here, then. She needed him - or at least, was willing to lean on him. The satisfaction at being useful faded and worry crept in at her action. Was she not all right? Had she lied? If so, he would keep her lie and not let others see it. So he stood, bolstering her quietly, drawing no extra attention to her movement as Ophelia spoke. She directed her words to the warrior Gaucho, speaking of how his mind seemed so dark. She had been in his mind?
She could do that?
The idea that the Forsaken had free access to come and go from his mental space did not anger Torleik as he thought it would. He had no darkness to wrap in pretty cloth to make it seem better; no lies to guild with glittering bits of truth in an effort to conceal. Or did he? Scarred lips frowning once more under the realization that there were things in his head he wished to keep his, Torleik began to wonder. But that was for later. Now would wait for no personal matters; now had to be dealt with now.
As the head of his herd asserted, he, too, found these clues indicative of Gaucho's involvement. But - Mauja had a sentiment Torleik echoed. For as much as he loathed the man, the Bloodskald wasn't so petty as to ignore him or belittle valid statements. Phi suggested they bring this matter before the gods and his spine clenched.
The gods.
What good were they.
His expression softened when she looked up at him saying she didn't know what to do and it scared him to think Ophelia was looking to him for guidance. What if he failed her? He had to try...
Gently, words murmured for her only, he gave her his answer: "We try to do what is right."
It was simply stated and no so simply executed, but it was a truth he felt confident in. Now he would elaborate for the others.
"Ophelia makes a point - many of these clues do speak to your person, Gaucho. The feathers, the bone, the snakeskin..." he trailed, voice much calmer than before but no less strong. "But," he stated, glancing at Mauja for the briefest of moments, "Mauja speaks to a question I also have: the white feathers. Clearly you have none. And the crystals on another body? I see none on you." Thoughts flew apart, came together, and he took a breath, pausing - should he? This was too delicate of a situation to stay quiet for fear. "I do not know how justice works in Helovia, but my people required unanimous consent of punishment for any alleged crime amongst those gathered at the hearing. These deaths span multiple herds and that would be far too difficult but...he must be given fair trial somehow." Only traitors were put to death without chance to absolve themselves. Gaucho was not a traitor, as far as Torleik knew. Mauja...well. His anger had cooled and his thoughts were clearer. Though the pale Ice King might have betrayed Ophelia in the Bloodskald's mind, he knew nothing of him betraying those he once served or led.
If either were the killer, they deserved a chance to speak to their innocence before being condemned.
The issue of the gods still hung in the air and he glanced around at each face. "My experiences with the gods...do not reassure me they will help us," he said honestly, floating his indifferently dissenting opinion from the Forsaken's with some tact. "Perhaps Ophelia is right; maybe this concerns them enough to give aid or take action. I do not know. What does this party think?" Torleik questioned. In a sense, all here were a small tribunal. They could discuss, make decisions, take action. He had to be fair; his honor demanded it.
And it's not a cry, that you hear at night -- It's not somebody, who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Perhaps thankfully, much of what occurred next completely bypassed Gaucho's senses of perception. Mara was his eyes for now, but even with her inquisitive gaze falling over the slight changes in posture, tone, and expression, it was still up to Gaucho's primitive brain to reconcile and make deductions from these inputs. Which he failed to do.
So much of the nonverbal communication excluded him completely - as a subject, and as a participant. He was unaware of whatever subtle changes took place within Mauja's icy gaze, or the words whispered to Torleik. Ophelia, as always, remained a veiled mystery to him. She spoke of Deimos, although Gaucho believed he only knew the name in passing. Had he ever spoken to the Reaper? He couldn't quite remember, although as of late that meant very little. He was finding that many of his memories were still veiled by whatever drug he had previously given. Either it wasn't in the Sun God's capacity to restore his mind to its original state, or perhaps he had simply decided not to.
The flare of anger - ignited by Mauja's appearance - of being accused of this murder had been almost completely quelled. The dun was confident in his knowledge that he had not done this. Whatever ambiguity Ophelia saw in his mind surely was indicative of something else. He hadn't done this. Let them cast their accusations. He was clean of this.
Gaucho not do this..
As Ophelia listed the evidence mounting against him, the Wildfire set his lips in a thin line. Circumstantial was the word he was looking for, although his lips didn't know it. He nodded as spots and braids provided some amount of defence - pointing out that not all of the clues could be linked to him.
Oh but they would say, There are those in your herd with white feathers... or You could have come in contact with crystal... But if it was that easy ... then why did it have to point to him? He was sure half of Helovia had black hair somewhere, on either their bodies or a companion. More still had feathers, or at least access to them. If all it took was coming into contact with it, then surely he was no more culpable than anyone else?
Raising a hoof, Gaucho shook it, before slamming it back into the ground.
Nothing happened.
"No sand." He commented. A flaming wing rose from his side, moving back and forth, but again nothing happened. "No feather. You going to say it could have come from Gaucho. You going to say white feather and crystal could have come from someone Gaucho has seen. Right?" He stumbled through what was meant to be a fairly deductive argument, only it sounded more like some drunken detective trying to bullshit his way through an interrogation. "If white feather and crystal can come from someone else, why not everything else. " He didn't pause for a response. "You think because Gaucho have lots of other things that it ... it more likely, more probable (mentally he thanked Mara for this word) but think of this." His gaze turned to Ophelia almost pleadingly, for she was the only one there who knew him in any capacity. The two had spoken in the past, but the pale princess had peered into his mind. She knew him better than perhaps even Sohalia or Ampere ever could, for she had seen a side of him that his fumbled words could never express. "Gaucho able to kill. Easily. But ... Gaucho not do this without a reason. Gaucho not hide." He had come to the Basin, before all to declare what he was doing and why. He had been open and honest with Ophelia about his reasoning for attacking her, and had offered a genuine apology for his behaviour. Even if he had a reason to commit these murders, he would not do so secretly. It just wasn't who he was.
So which was more probable? That their circumstantial evidence suggested that Gaucho would simply break the very core of who he was and what he stood for, by murdering his own and doing so in the shadows? As Sno accused, did they really think him clever enough (at least with this language game) to 'take a page out of the liars playbook' and try to use his words to throw suspicion off of himself? Or was it more likely that they were simply wrong?
"It look like Gaucho do this..." He admitted. Even he couldn't deny the evidence. "But if Gaucho not do this then ... why it look that way?"
For the first time it occurred to him - was someone pinning these murders on him? He had certainly sparred enough that bits of bone, his feathers and hair, as well as Mara's skin were plentiful if one knew where to look.
Ophelia's suggestion to see the Gods did not surprise him. It was what she had thought to do the last time they met under bizarre circumstances such as these. For as hardened as she had been during their past meetings, what did surprise him was her ever willingness to help him. Although perhaps her interest was not in him so much as it was in the truth.
01-16-2015, 05:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-16-2015, 05:57 PM by Megaera.)
The brush of feathers along her side worked wonders for such a light touch. It served as a calming hand and quick rebuke. Steady! It seemed to say, and she was steadier for it. The mare felt her temper ebb slowly and dark eyes turned to watch the beast beside her. He would know how to maneuver this situation, and she would be doing neither of them any favors by provoking their opponents. Relaxing her posture she took a step back, not in retreat, but acknowledgement of Gaucho’s leadership where she was concerned.
Immediately, her war with her own temper was challenged when the dun lowered his antlered head towards the Basin’s Lady. What on earth was he doing, lowering his defenses in such a manner? A short snort left her nose as her eyes flashed toward the white unicorn, if they dared attack they’d have Megaera to deal with(if that was even much of a threat).
Confusion replaced ire when the other mare spoke. Look into his mind? Could she do that? From her words, Meg though she was at least determined to find the truth unlike the quick accusations of the young one, but Meg wasn’t sure just how far she could trust any of these strangers.
The two leads seemed to stand still for a moment, and Meg looked between the two as if to see something passing between the two. Ophelia was suddenly thrown backwards, pushed by some invisible force and Meg’s ears flattened to her skull. What of earth was happening? She did not understand what had passed and that frustration pushed at her temper again and the words that the Blood-Tipped spoke only worked to make Meg unsure. “Gaucho…what happened?” She leaned to ask her sultan, but was interrupted by the explosion of black that burst onto the scene in an angry fury. She tensed, ready again to charge and fight but apparently the two pegasai were not the target.
Meg had been quick to see this collection of unicorns as a unified front; now she was starting to realize that may not be the case and she kept her sharp eyes moving from body to body, trying to pick up all of the nuances as the new black beast raged at Mauja.
When Ophelia addressed Gaucho, the bay mare was brought back to the matters at hand, and her frustration with the situation mounted. Still the white questioned Gaucho, laid the wisps of evidence at his feet again. But hadn’t she seen into his mind? How could she have done that and still be unsure of the his innocence, for meg was sure that innocence of these crimes was all that Gaucho’s mind would have shown, not believing for a second that he would be capable of such things. Did her power fail, did it even exist?!
The black spoke, too, and connected some of the pieces to Gaucho and all Meg could do was make impotent angry noises in the back of her throat. Her heart was so eager to slay and belittle any shred of evidence that might suggest that her Sultan was not as she imagined him to be. Set to anyone else’s account a trail of items like this would have assured Megaera of guilt, but here her mind made them only trifles, coincidences that could not be looked upon as anything useful. She could not, wouldn’t allow herself to believe then. If Gaucho was guilty than what did that make her?
The black called for opinions and Meg could restrain her tongue no longer, even if she still worked to keep her voice steady. “Gaucho is right. These items might have been dropped or placed by anyone, and with the dead so varied, who’s to say that they must all be assigned to one account. And the gods? Surely it was right to go to them, Meg had had few dealings with two and none with the others, but it was they who had commanded the investigation at the scene of the first murder. “We should call the gods, if we can. They commanded us to find the murderer and they would not abandon Helovia at such a time.” She hesitated, this kind of diplomacy and argument was not her realm and she wondered if she would be corrected for forgetting her place as a soldier but her commander had so recently tried for a ceasefire with the Basin and she thought he would agree with her. “The other herds should be sought as well. This is not a war between the Throat and the Basin and all of Helovia should have a hand in if it is justice that we seek.” Her last sentence blazed as a challenge, if they didn’t agree to that than they must be the warmongering fiends she’d heard rumors of.
Edited because Aud is a sneaky sneaky poster!!!
FAC FORTIA ET PATERE
be brave and endure
:: permission given for use of magic and force :: please tag Megaera in all posts ::
Ophelia followed suit with Mauja's question which seemed issued so quickly and without much thought. She followed with a blurted. "Sohalia," the mare who had introduced herself as the second half of Gaucho. If the pale princess had known about Sohalia's magic to make crystal when Torleik's additional information made her heart lurch, she would have been more sure. As it was, Gaucho had an excellent point. Stress ate away at her insides, gnawing up her throat until she was forced to close her eyes, to block out everything in her aura.
Torleik's deep voice resonated against her white fur, speaking of justice and a single, harsh laugh barked from her throat bitterly. "HAH!" She grimaced, afraid of the cruelty and anger she heard buried so deeply within her voice, as of some inner demon had chose to rise and consume her vocal chords. Dual colored eyes flashed with deep seated rage, an anger old and slow, a fire years on kindling now blooding into life. It heated her belly, warmth and power billowing in her soul like smoke. "There is no justice in Helovia," she grunted, thinking of every ignored transgression and every condemned, blooming flower.
"We bow to gods at war. Justice lies on the side of those who bleed less than their victims." She glanced up at Torleik, her stunning eyes filled with visions of destruction and desolation, crimes and punishments. Loss. Hopelessness. Helovia was her home. Good, bad, cruel and beautiful, and she would stay with her until her last breath. But what she spoke was truth. The gods played their followers against each other, stirring controversy among already rivaled individuals. Prejudice and hatred resided in all sides. Could Gaucho truly stand before her and not feel superior for his ability to fly? Did Torleik not think himself more lethal for those demon horns protruding from hellish brow.
They were surviving.
Gaucho spoke, and he had an excellent point. Mara might be useful, but Tinek was eyeing all the males possessively and even started pulling at Torleik's braids. The tension was making the hot blooded dragon rather agitated, and Ophelia had to tell him to knock it off through their bond. He chirped an apology to the black beast and then continued to stare around, having to stay close in case the mood turned even darker and his breath was needed to ensure his bond-mate's swift escape.
The pale princess sighed, and she nodded to the antlered dun. "You have always been open, honest, and never hid," she agreed with him firmly. "Even when... Well, when you attacked me thinking I was him - " her head knocked in the direction of Mauja - "you did not try to hide or escape your actions. We have come to an agreement, you and I - one that I value, not only for the Basin but on a personal level." Deep down she believed that he was good, that he tried the best for his herd and that his honesty was his greatest strength. The fact that he had opened his mind to her willingly was a testament to this fact since so many hid atrocities behind the walls they thought were safe.
"The evidence still just..." she trails in open confusion, not hiding her emotions or pretending to be the proud, powerful queen. "All of it combined leads to the throat, to a winged stallion, one who burns, apparently, the bones - from your antlers perhaps? - the sand from your homeland... I do not understand the crystals, but if we were to build a court of our peers as Torleik suggested, do you think that we would find you guiltless?" Her question was not pointed. Her question was earnest. She desired to know what he thought - if he too saw the correlation or if he was simply defending himself stubbornly.
Then, the mare who had so impulsively made to attack with little knowledge spoke, and a single brow raised. She looked to Gaucho, wondering what he thought of those words. With an inhale, she stood taller, assuming the carefully woven mask of queen, one that guarded her heart and supported her weight. The previously open tint of her soft eyes hardened, almost narrowing at the women. If Gaucho could punish her own, could she lecture his? She didn't stop to ask. This was not about grudges. This was about something greater than them all.
"Your loyalty to your commander is commendable," she began with an honest compliment. "But you trust too easily in gods and herds. The tensions between us is rooted too deeply to ignore, even for a murderer. For what if the killer is Kahlua? Would the Basin not race to condemn for her crimes? Would we not march to war crying justice while accomplishing ulterior goals?" she asked pointedly. "Ah, but what if it was one of you... would Gaucho so easily give you up to our mob-demands? Our thirst for blood? Eye for an eye?" she almost purred. "The gods will know, but it is our responsibility to find the truth. Who is only the beginning."
Ophelia's strange, dual colored and eerie gaze never left the girl. "The more voices you involve, the less rational as all of our demands will fade to cacophony. We will shred our humanity under the false guise of 'justice', 'honor' and 'gods'. The war we fight now is with ourselves, among ourselves. No one else needs to know what happened here because nothing did happen." Her tone firmed.
"There is no drawn conclusion, only speculation. I will not move against Gaucho." Her position was stated. "But I agree that we, just us, should see the gods." The power lusting vipers that hid in corners (one among them right now) could so easily manipulate this situation. Ophelia would be damned if she gave them the chance.
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
Steady. Steady now. It was like losing a thought—one moment you had it, at the tip of your tongue or the forefront of your mind, and in the next.. gone, like yesteryear's snow. He hurt, and he hurt damnably, but he wasn't really sure why anymore. Because life was fragile? Because he was an ass? Because Ophelia was leaning on another man? Because Gaucho stared daggers at him? Because his daughter hurt?
He didn't know anymore. The words that could've straightened out the situation and smoothed the confused wrinkles from his emotions had lost all their meaning, sucked empty by the vortex roaring in his mind, and whatever he had been accused of—whatever they all meant when they yelled you! at him as if it somehow explained anything—was lost along with them. And it was only through an effort of will that he was able to cling to his tentative query, black-rimmed ears straining desperately in the darkness to catch an answer.
For someone to shine a ray of light. For someone to tear this burden from his soul, and not let it rest upon him to voice the gaps in the evidence. He couldn't do it, not when there was not much of his mind left whole. Everything lay in shambles around him, the life he had once had a mess crushed underneath the stampeding hooves of fate and himself. All doors kept open, until one by one they slammed shut in his face. He let the moments walk past him and then he lost them forever. And then it hurt. And it was all his fault. And as if he wasn't aware of that already, half the goddamn world saw fit to make it incredibly clear to him what an idiot he was.
Rubbing glass shards into his wounds.
He swallowed. No one said anything he needed to hear—and oddly enough, it was Torleik who saved him. He breathed out, a long, heaving sigh the likes of crumbling mountains, and he even forgot to be angry at the fact that the black stallion knew his name, while Mauja had no bloody idea who he was.
Someone else had caught on. Someone else had taken up the shield Mauja had begun to edge in in front of Gaucho, and thankfully he let it slip through numb fingers, somehow confident the now-much-calmer black wouldn't let it fall to the ground. Though.. somewhere, in the back of his mind, he couldn't quite understand why he wasn't angry anymore. He knew he had been seeing red (or, in Mauja's case, blue), he knew he'd wanted to rip him apart on the spot, and of course he wanted to be the one with whom Ophelia had sought refuge—but, the anger was gone. He couldn't hold on to it.
Besides, the man was being sensible now.
Mauja swallowed. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to do this. He wasn't strong enough to be here. The only reason he was still standing, still looking so calm and composed and fucking perfect in his armor, was because he'd pulled down the blinds and locked himself out of his own mind. The world was a distant thing hidden behind a mushy kind of wall, a veil between him and the world; he was floating down a sunlit stream, detached and numb, humming under his breath as he rolled over in the water and watched the blue sky slip past. And the others gathered were no more than rocks in the river, insignificant and distant.
They had been talking for a while, now, saying things Mauja had no idea about, because he hadn't been listening. And even if he had been, he wouldn't have processed the words, just heard them but not what they meant. Noises, noises in the back of his mind, and with an almost creepily vacant look in his glassy blue eyes he tilted his head and stared silently at Gaucho.
[ super-emotional mauja is kind of exhausting so here, have a dumbdumb mauja instead ]
The entropy is pushing me deeper down into the storm
She'd looked up at him, eyes piercing him with their emotion, asking - he thought - for his aid, for him to prove he could come alongside and bolster her instead of abandoning her like he'd unintentionally done once before. So he'd tried. He'd spoken from his heart, releasing the truth he felt in his soul to the vibrations of the air so that others might hear and comprehend.
"HAH!"
The noise was like she'd gagged on something odious, the repugnance of what he felt honor-bound to proffer too great for her constitution to digest; so she retched it back up for all to see. Though Torleik's face remained utterly impassive, like a carved sculpture eternally bound to one visage for the rest of its days, he could not stop his ears from practically becoming one with his skull.
Why.
If she leaned on him, needed him, pleaded him with her fucking eyes, why would she then humiliate him in front of this crowd? His ego, caught unawares and stabbed fiercely like fateful Caesar on those damnable Ides of March, bled and gasped on the cold marble floor of his shame, disappointment, and hardening anger. It seemed, then, that he was to be a silent scaffold for her power; something strong and steady but without voice; a rock upon which to build her foundation of self-decision, immobile, unquestioning, tacitum subsidium.
Willing each millimeter his ears returned to their upright position, the Bloodskald let his glacial gaze frostily cool some unimportant spot in the distance, his hearing vaguely taking in everything everyone else said. Ophelia didn't seem to give two shits about his ideas for fairness; yes, the clues pointed to Gaucho and yes, the overwhelming evidence did lead Torleik to think it was the firewashed brute, but there was still doubt - and that doubt deserved to be explored. Condemning someone for a crime was a serious decision in his homeland and was not taken lightly. A man's reputation was everything.
Reputation and justice did not appear to be woven into the same tapestry in Helovia.
Tinek was tugging on his braids and to be truthful, the snow-dusted rabicano barely noticed until he was apologizing. "S'alright, Tinek," the words murmured distractedly past his lips. He'd chosen to check out of this situation for the time being and he could not come back; not so soon, because if he did, his temper would crack like two icebergs kissing in the night, and lash out like the giant sheets of ice sheared off from that clandestine but thunderous meeting.
Words passed over and through him like wind.
"...court of our peers, as Torleik suggested..."
“We should call the gods, if we can."
"...all of Helovia should have a hand in if it is justice that we seek.”
"...our mob-demands? Our thirst for blood? Eye for an eye?"
An involuntary snort left his muzzle. That was not at all what his tribunal was meant for, but let her bastardize his idea further. After all, who was he to have an opinion?
"...the more voices you involve, the less rational..."
"...the false guise of 'justice', 'honor' and 'gods'."
The Bloodskald's icy facade, so unknowingly similar to the one he hated most here, cracked for a split second and a hoof lifted a fraction and smacked the ground. The false guise of justice, honor and gods? Perhaps the Lady of the Basin was making a vocal admonition of the fallible nature of mortals and their propensity to corrupt everything they touched, but her prior attack on everything he'd said didn't set the stage well for that little performance.
To the warrior's credit, he soldiered through it all and never once pulled his shoulder away from Ophelia's. Let it not be said that he did not support her in this moment; let it not be said he wasn't by her side. So she claimed, as did the other mare on Gaucho's defense team, that they should meet with the gods, and Torleik's stomach churned. That was utterly the last thing he wanted. To see the Sun God, who spurned him when he tried to be reverent; the Moon Goddess, whom he'd pledged himself too and hadn't the faintest idea when or what she'd call on him for; the Time God, who...he banished that thought. Only the Earth God was one he didn't find detestable or threatening. Quietly, he sighed. He had little choice. Ophelia had made hers and he'd been caught in her riptide. Now he was being dragged out to sea.
And it's not a cry, that you hear at night -- It's not somebody, who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
As Meg insisted the Gods should be called down, Gaucho internally wondered if that was still the correct thing to do. The Earth God had tasked all of Helovia with finding the murderer ... but surely they expected more than mere circumstantial evidence to be thrust at their feet? Would they have some means by which they could judge who had done this? Perhaps peer more skillfully into Gaucho's mind? But were that the case, and were it also the case that they cared as much as this assembled group at getting to the truth then ... why hadn't they done it themselves? Surely by whatever manner they would judge Gaucho's innocence they could judge all of Helovia in only a matter of minutes, routing out the killer immediately.
But they hadn't. Why hadn't they?
Perhaps this was some test that they were tasked with ... some ... errand that they were all obligated to try and complete. Not only that, but the idea of calling down the Sun, wasting his time with such nonesense (for he would see immediately that Gaucho wasn't the killer), was disheartening to the stallion who devoted so much of his time and energy to serving him. How could he knowingly subject his deity to a round of questioning to which he already knew the answer, just for the sake of this group?
His nose stretched towards Meg's shoulder now, exhaling softly into the muscles that pulsed with every word she spoke. When was the last time Gaucho had ever been defended so loyally? So valiantly? Normally he was at odds with the world - with his family - regardless of how often his plans turned out to be beneficial. Were they in another circumstance he might have voiced his appreciation, but now - with whatever my side vs your side was happening here - he could not. He wouldn't weaken their position. However, he could show her that his thoughts were on her and of her. As his nose lowered, Mara slithered down his broad face and up her wither. The snake - quite long now - draped herself across the mare's back like some sort of bizarre silver dorsal stripe. Her head rose upwards so that she could still see and provide sight for Gaucho. However if a fight was going to take place here, should he back taken away in chains, he would ensure that the two female's who would come to his defense would at least have each other.
...but if we were to build a court of our peers as Torleik suggested, do you think that we would find you guiltless.
It was one of those strange moments that Gaucho felt himself overwhelmed with the desire to open his mind again to Ophelia so that she could know his thoughts. Or perhaps to ask the God of the Sun to allow him the ability to communicate telepathically, in a way that transcended words. He had much to say on this topic and yet ... yet he already knew whatever words he managed would fall short.
Did he think an assembled court would find him guiltless? Of course not. The ad hoc court before him had not found him guiltless, why should a larger one? But that he was found guiltless did not mean that he was guilty. They seemed miles apart, especially now. What Helovia would judge to be the case, and what was in fact the case need not always align. Uncomfortably, Gaucho shifted still saying nothing. Ophelia was too rational to suggest surely that democracy was the right answer here? That somehow a congregated court, not present to see the evidence and already with doubt cast upon him, would somehow transcend their biases and reach and epistemically justified conclusion?
However the mare was not finished speaking, and as her words continued Gaucho felt himself relieved by them. His blocky skull nodded.
"Maybe gather evidence -" Then, looking at the burning body of Psyche, qualified: "or what is left. Gaucho know Hotaru take things ... take clues from bodies for Goddess. Maybe she have evidence still. Gather evidence and then call Gods."
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: 5381546acbe33]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/5381546acbe33)
![[Image: 531c0b471919e]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/531c0b471919e)
