the Rift


[PRIVATE] past and present
Ascended Helovian

Ophelia the Amaranthine Posts: 701
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 hh :: 6 Years HP: 77 | Buff: BULK
Tinek :: Royal Silver Dragon :: Frost Breath & Shock Breath Tamme
#1
Ophelia the Forsaken

Sweat clung to her sides in foam, reminiscent of the oceans where her childhood lay dead. Nostrils flared in rhythm with her relentless pace, gaze unwavering to the north. Home - she needed to get home. Traveling to the Dragon’S Throat to warn Gaucho of their impending actions was necessary but the risk was great. What were the chances of not making it back in time? Of being too tired and exhausted to fight? She did not think that Deimos or Archibald would take the lead without her presence, but she had deserted a war before - it would not be the first time she had failed her herd.

The thought brought sharp pains to her chest, coupling with the knife’s blade prodding between her ribs. Her dancing gate was an obligatory shift now, silver armor weighing upon her back as the star from the Sun God danced around on her elegant forehead. Only when she could go to further, white hide drenched blue from the heat, did she stop to walk, hanging her head low. Day faded to night and night to day again, pressing ever onward. Stopping to eat and drink made her anxious, a knot curling in her gut as she ruminated on past failures and anger.

Not only was this the perfect opportunity to prove herself, but her heart was filled with rage that only violence could cure. Ophelia sighed heavily, moonlight catching and scattering in the lost stones that shimmered in her bloody hair, and the light upon her brow glowed demurely, as if sensing the future darkness. The pale princess rested between the Falls and the Edge, tension curling between the two herds with a sense of romanticism and right. Finally, after mounting slights and traveling, the whispers were turning to shouts and plans were becoming action.

Tinek, having taken to spending time in the trees with his kin, sensed Ophelia’s emotions, crying loudly through the night and spiraling to her back, resting carefully on her spine. He rubbed his scaled head across her neck in a sign of support as she picked up her pace again, a driven ghost heralding death in her wake.



Credits: Image by perfectperfection @ DA




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.


Please tag me in every response!
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#2
He was always out there, somewhere, haunting Helovia underneath star-cast skies. Ever roaming, like the waves rolling in to different shores, and while he had some kind of home it wasn't.. it wasn't home in the sense that he returned to it every night. It was just a safe harbor, a free pass across fractured glass walls, a means to be able to find her without having to go through the hassle of border guards.

To be fair, the only reason he didn't have to put up with that shit was that he knew too many cross-country paths in. That, and the fact that he'd gone there like, what, once? Twice? In the past months. When she'd first brought him back to that place, he'd stuck around a bit more, but in the time since he'd seen less of her and it had had him straying. She was the magnetic pull anchoring him, and without it, he drifted.

Night had come again to relieve them from the day's sweltering heat; moonlight glowed gently along the edges of his pale frame, touching and reflecting, creating a ghost in an otherwise shadowy world. It was the curse of being a white horse—you were a torch in the darkness, an easy mark, but also, he found, intimidating. Some didn't know what to make of those who were so visible.

For isn't it those who are so, who are unafraid to hide, have reason to be?

Mauja was dangerous. From the tip of his horn to the furnace in his soul, all of him spelled destruction.

And even in his heart, liquid gold passing through flame-sheathed veins, there was danger, sharp knives protruding from the frostbitten mess.

But they were all tip-in.. left there by others. Little things to remember them by. And some, he had probably punted in there himself.

Like this one, its ivory handle inlaid with the finest of red, the name tag covered up in rose petals. It had grown brittle and fragile, as brittle as his voice as he whispered, "Ophelia,", and he felt the remnants of its spine dig a little deeper.

At first, it was just a slap in the face to stop him in his tracks, that quiet way your heart beats just before the ground erupts and tries to shake you off, something so deadly and calm and quiet you're not at all sure the world is about to end.

Then, it was everything else—a feeling like falling, the desire to fall to his knees and cry, sweats and shakes and cold, clammy fear, everything crawling over his body like ants on a corpse, tiny feet tap-dancing for the devil.

And his voice formed whispers but nothing made it past his teeth, because he didn't know what was truth, and what was lies anymore. It had been so long, those years he had spent hunting and running and agonizing, that final secret laid out in his blood and trapping him—his own perfect device, jaws closed and holding him still. It had been so long and then it had all gone wrong, there had been blood and murder and a shadow and something in him had died a little.

Given up.

And something else had bloomed in its ashes.

Mauja's blue eyes slid to the side for just a moment, the moonlight tracing sorrow in the white rims. He had dreamed and wished for so much else, for so many different things from this, but here they stood, after all this time; she bedraggled and exhausted in her pitiful, dogged march, and he, as cold and distant as ever. But he was tired of turning away.

Just because things had changed within, his fragile, delicate hope shattered like glass on a marble floor, it did not mean that he had forgotten, or that he somehow cared less, or.. or that he wanted to see her in this state; what had even happened to put her in this place..?

Just dare.

"Ophelia!" he cried, but it was still hushed in a way, and his hooves thundered over the night-damp earth. Uncertainty had his heart hammering in sync with his feet, because.. because... He set his jaw.

He didn't care about the risk of some black mongrel barreling in between them yelling filth.
He didn't care about what he felt or not felt anymore.

All he wanted to do was wrap himself around the slivers of her heart and hold them together long enough for her to heal.

I swear I won't let you down again.

You lie expressionless
face set like the Old Testament
silence always your best defense
I bet you guess I came to settle debts

They tell me you'll get better
I don't know what to say
'Cause they could sew your hands together
but they can't make you pray.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here
Ascended Helovian

Ophelia the Amaranthine Posts: 701
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 hh :: 6 Years HP: 77 | Buff: BULK
Tinek :: Royal Silver Dragon :: Frost Breath & Shock Breath Tamme
#3
Ophelia the Forsaken

Focused as she was on the future - on what was ahead, she did not stop to look at her surroundings. The shadows were simply dark, and she barely noticed who was hiding there, watching with wolf’s eyes. Like a wraith she moved relentless, unseeing eyes glaring through the darkness as her bruised, cloven hooves tumbled across the stones toward her home. Memories ran at her side, childhood friends she would never see again, and the dead who would never rise from earthly tombs. And she ran with them, just another ghost in the night. Another wandering soul with a purpose so futile in time that she disappeared into an insignificant speck in space.

Al-Shahin, the noble stallion who had saved them on the tides, guarded her even now, his memory keeping him alive. Soleil, the war-mare, smiled at her with motherly warmth, hooves never quite reaching the ground, never quite alive. Psyche glared into the distance, and Ophelia mused that the independent beauty would be rather irritant to be captured in the realism of her head. Djinn. Tor. Adele. Osiris. Comadre. Ailith. Hototo. Nyra. Her father. Gossamer. Olema. Surema. Kri. Knox. Circe… An entire herd of those who resided only in the confines of her mind stood at her side, ghosts who haunted secret thoughts and wrapped her heart in satin strings of fate.

They heard his voice first, the ghosts of her memories turning their heads, dead gazes converging upon the point where he stood. Ophelia took a shaking breath, furrowing her brows as she looked around at their faces, so real, all looking toward him.

Was he another figment of her imagination? Did he come to nip at her heels to send her flying faster into war? Not believing he was real, she watched for a moment, saying nothing at all. Exhaustion tainted the luminous orbs trained on his position, nostrils flaring with expression lax in confusion. What reason did her memories of him have to be here now? Fighting at her side? He had faded, disappeared into the ocean, and he had drowned part of her with him, leaving it tarnished at the floor of her soul.

As she had always done, Ophelia picked up the pieces, put them back together, and made a fragile, frozen whole. Vengeance and rage shut out the pain, and she let herself freely loathe those who hurt her - well, a few. Hate was hard when hope still lived.

But she was different.

The world had moved on, and she was not strong enough to remain a fixture in time. She changed, evolved and hardened until crimson blood was hard as stone and her heart as unyielding as winter. Trust, never given twice, was laughable, and she knew there was little remaining of who she used to be. The naive, curious and compassionate oddity of her youth was left far behind, and there was no turning back. Perhaps if she was better - if she was good. She wasn’t. She never would be.

Reality set in, and she felt numbness itch from her hooves to her soul, protecting her fast-beating heart from suffocating emotions.

There wasn’t time.

But there were seconds for silence.

What could she even say? Everything that popped to her mind sounded rude, and she frowned slightly. ”I cannot linger…” she said finally, settling on rather innocuous words that were factual and real. Still they settled uncomfortably; no matter how honest they were, they said nothing.


Credits: Image by perfectperfection @ DA




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.


Please tag me in every response!
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#4
The closer he came, the deeper the concern settled in his stomach. This wasn't the cold porcelain figure staring at him with cracks in her soul and the paint frozen on her vivid eyes—this wasn't a creature with her heart's cracks rimed together with ice. This was.. this was a creature worn out and down, to the point of something awful. Breaking? Going mad? He didn't know her well enough anymore.

Maybe he never had, either.

The thought hits him like a thousand blocks of ice through his heart.

She had come, elegant and curious and spitfire, sun-worship dripping from dark lips onto a scorched and ravaged ground (scorched and ravaged soul); vindictive, and young, her emotional storm witness to words that should've fallen on deaf ears, kill-command stops and laments of.. of... He didn't want to remember that day, and the startling white-and-crimson mare who had blasted her way into his life, subtle as a ray of sunlight and ferocious as a storm.

She was poetry in motion in his life.

He had watched her grow into something else, something more, those traits of youth diminishing but staying alive still, somewhere in the depths of her glittering eyes, and her presence had given him wings. Even when she had been bloodied in the aftermath of a war there had been something of that girl in her—something of the young, brash and headstrong woman who had come to the Edge that day, great enough to ask forgiveness for her transgressions and aggression. It had been humbling.

But then the darkness had come, and eventually, Mauja had disappeared. The last time he'd seen her had been at the Veins, blue flowers glowing in the absolute night, hope written in silent words across their hearts. That time, they had still been friends. Words had fallen freely from her tongue, some kind of concern written in her eyes and voice—he had factioned into her life then, somehow, been a part of it.

But who was she now? He had seen her confidence shatter in the face of his arrival back onto the stage of her life, he had seen her moment of weakness when she sought support against a black stallion's side, and he had felt the cold emptiness as she had turned away from him—there had been nothing of friendship there, just strings of memory, ethereal and fragile, slowly coming apart just like the knife in his heart did.

"It cannot be easy having to remember me," he rumbled quietly to her distant eyes, sorrow lacing his voice, his face. He still wasn't sure of all he had done wrong, just knew that it had been years when he'd found her again on that sand-swept arena (that place is destroyed, just as your hopes of a shared future; blown apart, a fine dust blown away by the wind).. years, and something had changed, and he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to fix them,

or if he even could,
or if it even was right anymore.

Maybe she wasn't his to fix.
Maybe she never had been.

”I cannot linger…” she said into the heavy silence, the words as awkward as their reunion, drifting out from an empty soul. Was this even real anymore? She shimmered in the moonlight, the unfamiliar contour of silver armor cold and sort of menacing in the bleak light. It felt more like he had stumbled upon the ghost of her.

"Then let us go," he urged her gently, not knowing where she was going or why, but he would follow her regardless.

You lie expressionless
face set like the Old Testament
silence always your best defense
I bet you guess I came to settle debts

They tell me you'll get better
I don't know what to say
'Cause they could sew your hands together
but they can't make you pray.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here
Ascended Helovian

Ophelia the Amaranthine Posts: 701
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16.0 hh :: 6 Years HP: 77 | Buff: BULK
Tinek :: Royal Silver Dragon :: Frost Breath & Shock Breath Tamme
#5
Ophelia the Forsaken


Friends… Was that possible when her heart was full of mistrust and memories of his transgressions hovered at his side? Ghosts of memories never allowed her to see the present alone, and she frowned. A Mauja from memory stood shoulder to shoulder with him, cruel blue eyes looking down upon her fragile, dying form, complaining about the cumbersome nature of her dead body. To his right was the Mauja who confessed nothing but emotion and had to have shared those same words with many other mares.

She was not special.

How many had he captured with his blue eyes and soft words? Would he take a child from her too? Like the God of Time? Would she die like Psyche? Be forgotten like Sno? Would the child never know of her father like Glacia?

Love did not abandon, threaten or judge, but perhaps friendship was still possible if they both could start back from the beginning and slowly push the past further and further behind. Ophelia thought that maybe, just maybe, she could accomplish something similar in her own, pristine mind. The poem’s verse changed in time and tune, ebbing and flowing with the natural way of age and words a she fell in and out of love and grew, and now her song was deep red, a bloody scream of injustice and a desire for pain.

Above all else was this vehement rage, crushing her throat and sending her hooves onward past her body’s point of giving up. She wanted Midas to end, to bow at her hooves, to kneel and declare her superior, but he never would. The martyr would cry injustice and whine like the coward he was, never looking in to find that the true problem was his own, foolish heart. His blindness and paranoia would be his downfall, just as all arrogant men find their end, and she would be the harbinger of his fate - in the shadows, of course. There she lay as a spy, using his own friends against him, friends he had neglected.

His voice struck her like the breath of winter, and she frowned. ”No, you are not,” she agreed without hesitation. Mauja was not easy to remember and she could not forget. ”I see more sides to you than I can reconcile, and I do not forget. You are not alone in this prison in my head.” Absently she looked around her at the ghosts of memories gathered, following in the wake of her future. She supposed that he could truly change in all this time, and for as often and as strangely as they met, every action had been chaste. Perhaps, to him, she was a friend and not one of his many… females.

Ophelia had tried more than once to fix herself, but the only mending strong enough to keep the pieces together was ice. She burned out the holes of pain and built a blockage of apathy and serenity, removing the anguish from her soul.

And she had changed, unforgiving and cold.
She was not an isolated point to be revolved around - merely a dancer on a string.

Grateful that he did not stop her, she walked steadily forward, nearing the location of a future meeting which would change the fate of Helovia forever. The many paths of the future criss-crossed like strings, ever changing and unknowing. A single breath could cut this path short, and she walked precariously on the shaking wire, inching toward her goal.

Fortunately, she had spent her entire life walking a fine line. She was used to the danger.

”The World’s Edge is invading the Hidden Falls and the Aurora Basin is assisting,” she said simply, knowing that this information would be safe on his solitary, wolf’s ears, and he could do with it what he wished. Ophelia’s strange, two-colored eyes snapped to Mauja’s, lips set in a grim line. ”Midas will pay for his ignorance, and I will set right the crimes against you and the unicorns. My father was a paranoid fool and now the Gallant is no better.”

”We attack on the first sunrise of Orangemoon. If you want to avenge your former herd, we would welcome skill,” she said again, remembering how he had crushed her in the sand so easily. Compared to his strength and ability, she was but a leaf on the ground with a tough exterior which shattered at a single step. Absently, she hoped he would join the fight - maybe, just maybe, it would help him out this wandering pit of desolation. Maybe, he would find who he was and lead again.

Maybe not. Maybe this is the real Mauja.

A memory popped into her mind and she glared at him furiously. ”My daughter, Roskuld, is old enough to make her own decisions, but do not think that your presence with her has escaped my notice,” she growled protectively in a way only a mother bear could. Though she did not deserve the title given to her by nature, having only birthed Roskuld and not much else, she loved her dearly and she wanted to try. She wanted to be better. ”I surely hope for your sake that your intentions are pure lest I be forced to bury you in the dirt on which you walk - such is a mother’s love, of course.”

Was she jesting or serious? There was a bit of both lacing her tones...


Credits: Image by perfectperfection @ DA




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.


Please tag me in every response!
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#6
Mauja was not blessed by the god of time, and yet he had a particular, natural skill with it—the creation of pauses, of silence, of deep and detached moments of contemplation. They were in his hushed breathing, in the lull of conversation, in the words he weighed before giving voice. For him, those moments of infinity interspersed into everything were natural, and he never noticed how his presence seemed to slow the world down.. much as it did when preparing for the long, long sleep of winter.

”I see more sides to you than I can reconcile, and I do not forget.”

And yet, he thought into the icy stillness of his mind, thoughts running like air through crystalline corridors, perhaps it is to you I have been the most honest. From the detached, practical mind, to those boyish grins she used to draw from him, to the way it had once been easy—the words never weighed so heavily in his mind before they found their place in the world, because.. because she had understood. Because she had responded with much the same ease, and it had just buried her deeper within his heart. She was still there, somewhere, glass fragments and splinters buried beneath so many layers of ice, and.. and part of him desperately wanted to feel that flame again; to love her still with the nearly worshipful devotion he had once felt.

For many years, it had been the flame scouring his soul clean, but just as it had kept him alive, it had also been his downfall. He had burned up in it, and now, there were just.. ashes. He swallowed, not sure what he could tell her; that all she had seen of him was still, him? But that he had also changed? That he would still consider it cumbersome to move a dead, or unconscious, horse? Because he'd thought much the same thing when finding Shadow washed up on the beach? So there was nothing he could say—more than he already had.

She wasn't easy to remember, either, nails hammered deeper into the coffin with each beat of his heart. He did not have her memory, so pristine and pure, but he doubted he would ever forget her reaction upon that sandy arena. His ears flicked back uncertainly and he moved beside her, half a step behind. He had buried himself out of fear of everything, pain and death and life, and then.. and then, he hadn't been strong enough.

And now...

Now.. now... Now was now, still playing out before his eyes, washed in the silver light of a distant moon. And the world, was about to change, lines eradicated and borders re-written.

History was about to be made.

”The World’s Edge is invading the Hidden Falls,” but he barely heard the rest for the sick pounding starting in his chest. Kahlua. War. He wasn't afraid for her (shit that's a lie), it was, uhm, it was—

Things were being set in motion. Things were changing again after eons of stagnancy, and.. and he, the blade, would find a home in flesh again. Someone's grasping, fumbling hand had found the dusty hilt of his mercenary mind, lifted the sword and found it notched and rusty but still whole; the gore dried on it simply testament to what it could do.

She asked, some kind of life back in her eyes or maybe it was just that she was coherent now, and he knew what his answer was. "I will be there," he promised the ghost of his love. War. It was time.. to go back to war.

And maybe, he had thought he would be left alone at that point, with the promise of blood written in the words between them, and the curiosity of one owl and the deep, primal satisfaction of the other.

But no.

Her eyes were flat and angry and he had the time to think oh shit what have I done now? before her voice came out in a thick, ragged growl.

And her words hit him like a brick in the face.

Daughter. Roskuld. Your presence, intentions are pure, bury you, pure, love, buried love,

her daughter,

a name he had heard before, once, vaguely, remembered only because it had been she who had said it, Roskuld and Mesec are safe...,

—intentions are pure—

and suddenly he was two yards behind her, cross-eyed and trembling, staring vacantly ahead.

“I thought my Ma left me the first time ‘cuz she hated the daughter she had...”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.”

“—instead they got me and now TOTO’S DEAD!!”

She's a hurricane and she's lightning.

Spark.


His mind was straining, trying to connect dots, spindly hands reaching out to form a spiderweb he wanted to no part of but was caught up in all the same. He had thought it then, feared it as the kind of wicked irony the world would play on him—

It can't be.

"Roskuld," he said, for the first time, weakly and kind of pathetic in his confusion, legs moving to catch up and fall back in by her side. "Roskuld," he said again, mind reeling, heart and voice trembling.

It...

He didn't know why it mattered.
Didn't want it to matter.
And it didn't.
Except that.. that...

That he hadn't know.
Or, well, he'd known, but he hadn't known and he still wasn't sure because he just called her lightning anyway and—

"Spark?" he blurted, graceless and inelegant, voice and mind stumbling like his heart.

You lie expressionless
face set like the Old Testament
silence always your best defense
I bet you guess I came to settle debts

They tell me you'll get better
I don't know what to say
'Cause they could sew your hands together
but they can't make you pray.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here


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