"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.
04-26-2015, 12:19 AM (This post was last modified: 04-26-2015, 12:19 AM by Africa.)
In all truth, Africa would have wanted nothing more than to bury her only child beneath clouds of cotton wool - layers and layers of hope and positivity (no matter how false each might be) - but she was fast losing touch with reality.
Still bleeding, weeping, throbbing, was the wound from when she had been so cruelly impaled upon the rack of the wily, white Arah, an enemy that had lulled her momentarily to trust, to forgive. So too did the nearly severed wing fester in the mild Orangemoon sunshine, beneath the voracious harry of black flies; maggots hatching, feeding, in a pulsing white frenzy. She seemed none the wiser now, that blood-stained mare, as she staggered blindly ever onward, eyes set always upon a hazy horizon - the prospect of finding her lover alive. Pain had become so normal, both physically and mentally, a nagging reminder of all the many wrongs she had served in this life (she could not find the good any longer) - she needed it now, craved the agony she felt she so deserved.
While a world of loss and regret stormed around her, drove her ever nearer to the brink, the superficial agony caused some grounding at least.
The snivelling of her daughter behind, came as a fading echo of reason to her mind.
"Midas would've never…"
It brought new tears to her eyes, still a greater feeling of disappointment, failure. Was there anything on this earth she could not spoil? The once elegant crest, nestled beneath bright eternal flames (yet another tattoo of her failure), bowed savagely as she sobbed into the wind, and Silas sailed down to rest upon her; flaring the downy black feathers of his breast to warm the chill prickling her tatty, stained coat - it was all he could do, the only support he could offer his miserable beloved. Her skin crawled beneath his tender gesture. "I will find him..." she blurted abruptly through their bond - thoughts streaming by the barrier she had constructed. The Zephyr trembled with concern, and his ornate crest lifted from a slender, glossy nape.
'He’s de…'
“NO!”
Silas was lying, that much was clear… There was another way. Somewhere ahead was the stallion who could replicate Midas’ spitting image - that was where they were going, come hell or high water. Anger renewed and wild desperation forced the bird from her mind once again, and the frail creature pressed forward beneath a potent wave of intoxicating adrenaline. “Come Zahra,” the drawn, harrowed voice of a stranger called out - but Africa the Starry-Eyed didn’t turn to discover her daughter lagging.
The air grew ever colder, and heavenly blue turned a bleak wash of grey; only days later she was striding through fresh powder snow in a region she had not dared cross since that very first encounter with death. Aurora Basin she knew, lay nearby - somewhere - and in it was Midas. Light-golden and glittering with anticipation, her eyes searched for any sign of life; her heart thundered, pulsed deafeningly through her swivelling ears.
“MIDAS!” she screamed into the vast emptiness around her. It was flat, white, and not even a bird's startle broke the eerie stillness. “Midas… Please!” There was pitiful longing in her voice, but it never occurred to her that there would be no answer returned - Africa would not stop until she found him.
04-26-2015, 12:58 AM (This post was last modified: 05-03-2015, 05:45 PM by Zahra.)
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
“But…” you beg, plead, voice trembling and lungs gasping for air enough to fuel this mindless journey into the north – Bird upon you, brings welcome warmth and closeness. The pale-grey face which has always brought you so much comfort, kindness and love, is wrought with pain, festering anger… it is not your mother who leads you now. This mare’s heart is wounded beyond repair, her soul has been destroyed and all that remains of the life that once was, is frayed skin and maddened sense. You are terrified, Bird is too, and you cry bitterly as the icy wind stings your raw, reddened eyes. You have no other choice but to follow (where else would you be if not by her side?), hunger growls fiercely between your ribs again and instinct drives you on - you must drink, must - though the effort is quite in vain. The trauma of this season has brought an abrupt end to her supply, her life giving milk has dried up entirely – but your mind is still immature, you cannot understand this sudden, new resistance.
“Where we goin’?” …you try again, and the chill blowing off the mountains ahead of you forces you to hunch lower. You are cold, missing desperately that loving caress - without your father’s for longer than you can bear to remember. Mounting loneliness frightens you, and the grip of both upon you tightens, slows you, hinders your struggle as you strain to keep your mother in view ahead. She is stumbling so quickly though now, it is like she has forgotten - she has - she cannot find that love which bound you together because she is damaged, ruined. She is upwind and you can hear the frailty of each sob, the crude emotion spewing like lava through every pore of her being. Her agony confuses you, it is devastating – but you are far too young to comprehend the level of her loss. It has been a life of torture, a burden she and your father have always protected you from.
Rocks litter the ground all around you, and though the haze of tears, it is difficult for you to see any safe passage between. Your tiny hooves trip and stagger as the terrain rolls beneath your nervous tread – you have never ventured this way, know nothing of snow or ice. “Ma, wait!” you bleat helplessly as her flames vanish into a field of blinding white.
Your knees stiffen and stop. You throw you chin to the sky - “Da…” you sob - tears thickening as they pour pure, liquid heartache from your soul. “Why did you have to go…” Like a snowball effect, the world began to fall apart around you the moment he left. You cry bitterly for all of the hurt your mother suffers, for the ache you are feeling, for the destruction of everything you have ever known. Bird slides warmth against your quivering spine, and your lips fall heavily backwards to find comfort in her thick pallid coat. “Why is this happening?” … her rough tongue sweeps tenderly the frozen stream from the nearest of your cheeks, and she whimpers, touched by the same confusion - twin sorrow. She is all you have left.
Perhaps…
You draw a full breath from the milder air beneath the young Kitsune’s fur and bristle. You need to find your mother, to remind her that there is hope – that she has you, and Bird as well. You love her, and that is enough. You had a dream only nights ago, and the message imparted in it fills you with conviction, hope – though it still holds little meaning really, you draw courage from it enough to continue. He would not have you give up, ever.
“Ma!” your feeble frame hurls into the wind, “Ma! Ma!… Wait!”
Only the moan of the mountain answers, so you delve deeper into its midst, and Bird cowers closer – you are not alone, you can do this. Your fine ears flick backwards and forwards as the wind pummels you, hoping always for any trace, the smallest hint of your mother ahead. But it seems she is too distracted and has not noticed you are missing. Though your immature ego is hurt by this realisation, you do not let it deter you,and thin legs drag you determinedly across a new wintry wasteland. Golden eyes peer left and right, and you cannot help but feel intimidated, overwhelmed by the vastness of this place – there is just so much more than the sanctuary of your home (that was your home). “Ma!” Your small voice rings through the open - Bird barks as loudly as she can too, and her effort encourages this desperate mission that you refuse to abort.
There is a concealed entrance nearby - and little do you realise it is for this your stricken mother is searching. She is close, just beyond reach. It is only when you stumble across blood-stained snow that you realise she is there. The wing she carries was broken, you remember - you saw it - and your eyes fight the rising vision of jutting bone and crimson feathers that had accompanied your last reunion. Your sight grows vague, your stomach woozy, and you trip over a part buried rock. It protrudes from slush with a sharp tip and this slices your fetlock as you fall heavily across your already grazed knees. Golden blood bubbles slowly from both – leaks from the gash upon your leg, and Bird’s cold nose is suddenly upon it (she has slipped from your back to come to your aide). The pup licks your wound with all of the love shown by your mother when she had cleaned your sticky coat, for the very first time.
Those days, that peace, it all feels like a lifetime ago now…
He needed it most desperately, but it would not bless his golden coat. Sleep, or that sleep which can heal the sick and cure the blind. Even now his heavy golden lids flutter with its teasing, but they could not fall completely then, and they cannot fall completely now. How many hours ago had that been? It seemed impossible to count such distances. After meeting Gaucho at the head of the Basin he shuffled to his high top cave, collapsing on the wolf skin. Haldir, that foolish fawn was all over his bonded, checking for injuries or just the excitement of him being home, the gold did not know. He had laid there, burying his head in the soft furs of the cloak, all his tack still upon him. No sound sleep would come. Fits and snatches he stole, but always they were ended with a groan and tossing. Images of war, blood, bodies, and death, and the harrowing of Kahlua, then the charred form of Midas spun like a madness about him. He couldn’t take it! Body rips from the ground with surprising force.
Poor Haldir had received the worse of it. Still fidgeting about the collapsed golden form, the deer was knocked to the ground by the golden’s anger filled movement. A bleat rang out but is not answered as with trembling pale white eyes the bonded deer tried to understand what had done this to the gold. As much as he had tried to study the gold’s strange race these horrors were unknown to him. For the dark deer had never seen death.
Looking wildly about the golden paced his cave. He couldn’t stay here. The walls were closing in on him. The air slipping from his grasp. Snorting he suddenly took off out and down the slope. The dark deer, once again seriously worried for his bonded followed.
Out the fitful golden’s path wove, in madness almost it seemed. He was desperate to find air, and space, not trapped here between the mountains. No, above them, there he could find, so there is where he drug his body, delusional almost with the lack of such a needed blessing. It was always said though, that it took the lost, to find the lost.
So now, upon a high top plateau, he stands in the snow. His coat shivers now and again but he doesn’t seem to take mind. He could breathe up here, and the numbing cold was welcomed. Haldir stood, leaning against his bond’s leg. His winter coat (being in the Basin mostly) was already growing in and so he was protected from the harshest winds, but he could still feel the cold of his soul as he waited for the golden to come back to his senses. He had tried to use that strange power he had found before. Persuading mists to float about his hooves, but the gold had stopped him. At first sight of the fog the tall creature nipped him sharply and told him off for trying to put him under his control. The deer had been ever sullen after.
A cry rings out over the snow. It was ill timing for him. Eyes were closing for longer and longer, but with the cry they opened, and sought it. It echoes again and feels like a cry out of place for it calls a name of one dead, in a tone of the present. He should let them be the gold decided. Let the poor dame find out for herself that the world was a piece of shit, and chews everything up, only to spit it back out at you. Haldir though had already left his side and stepped towards the crying voice. His soul was not so dead to the world and is still stained with a foreshadowing of doom at the sound of that voice. Turning he looks back at the gold, and again in a defying moment, calls to his bonded, stomping his hoof in the snow.
The gold’s ears flip back as he looks with annoyance to the fawn, who was no longer a babe. Yet he struggles to find the energy necessary to show his anger. It would be far easier to just give in. So he stumbles behind. The deer bounds through the snow and with continued movement the golden comes more to his senses. He assumed some lost herd member of the Falls had comes, shock still clutching their heart after battle to find the lost czar, not knowing he lay back in his homeland colder than the snow about him. What he did not expect to find was her.
Her gray form would have been hidden permanently from him had it not been jerking and bleeding. The deer had stopped in shock, watching it. The golden charger, shoulders still slouched with the weight of the world stops next to him, and raises his horned head to its full height. The vision before him, like cold water to the face, sobers his on fitful soul. It was Africa. Snatching images of him in a disguise remembers her much different from this day. She had smiled then, and with a cold realization, had loved and been loved. Now her coat was tattered, and spirit looked worse. In comparison to her, the golden looked like a happy spring bird. For she wore her weariness worse, and pained heart tore upon her mortality.
Standing there, watching her struggle over the rise and call her dead lovers name in the assured fit of madness, the golden felt a most rare feeling. His quivered at the touch of the sight before him, and it yearned to reach out. It was pity. He felt for this doomed soul, pity. Golden coat, under his cloak quivered at the touch of it. It was not a feeling the gold had much experience with, and especially did not enjoy recognizing. In this case though especially, it could not be helped. It was not though, for the death of Midas. That czar and any he touched would never have even the thought of the golden. No, it was beyond the name she called, and the banners she had born. This was not politics, nor war, this was called forth from a shared feeling of being creatures of this earth. Of being vulnerable. For that form which stumbled and dragged her dead heart through the snow had been him a time too many to count. Like a terrible nightmare it came over and over again in his world, and tortured his soul. His ability to lock away the pain, was never complete, and though he would have said it was a few weeks, he had been that same creature just days before in the last thunderstorm of summer. He pitied her, because he was her.
The only thing which had stopped him from falling completely to her level had been a kind soul, a harboring lion among the terror of lightning and thunder. It had patched him best it could, and saved the scattered shards of his soul enough for him to move on She too, needed that kind soul. In her world, the golden knew only so well, the dark clouds above might as well be pouring forth their wrath and ruin. Her mind and body would not know the difference. They needed a protector, and shelter. The gold pitied her, because he could not be that kind soul. How could he? He could barely shelter himself from the storm, he did not have the strength to do so for another. He was not a saint, and he was not a savior. He was guilty of the same crime as she, bound by the same chains. He could not save her from he himself could not escape.
Why would she want saving anyway. Even when the golden had been protect, and sheltered, and the shards of his life stitched together again, look at him as he truly is. A hollow shell. His life all about him was placed together again, but there was nothing inside of him to truly feel as he once had. Luckily for him he was a liar, and a damned good one. So good were his skills he had wrapped himself in them. It made the days easier and the nights less long. It allowed him to laugh and forget, most days. Too many days recently had been plaguing him with the sickness of reality. But most days he fooled himself, and could lie his way to a less harmful place. Most days he could believe the rain was a sunshower of peace. Could she? Could she tear from her own breast her own beating heart? The golden, as he stood watching her come stumbling towards him, feared she could not. So the gold pitied her, for he saw she would be cursed to continually drag herself through the world as she was now.
The deer at his side shuffled in the snow, watching the coming figure as the golden was locked away in his mind, dragging out such long dark thoughts. The babe though was having a struggle of his own. The hairs upon his neck and back had begun to bristle and stand on end. His legs began to twitch and fidget. Down through the long lines of his unknown heritage the deer’s race were keen, and sharp. And though it may not have crossed the mind of others yet, he felt a cold hand follow the mare towards them. His soul, good and light, unabashed by a world of death, pain, and fear, as always wanted to fix her. His pale eyes, as they saw for the first time, blood and fester did yearn to bring peace back. His large good heart yearned to send the foreshadowing cold away with a warm peace. As before, a mist began to swirl about him in is desires and he stepped forward towards the mare.
A cloven hoof, and golden limb bars his away. Looking up sharply he is ready to stand his ground again. Ready to fight for what he wants. But when his pale eyes look upon the golden’s face the deer stills. It still stares at the mare, never looking from her, but there was a tone upon its features that made the deer stop. There was more here than what his little mists could fix. Looking back the deer resolves to his place watching.
If that had been all to cross above the rocks, the gold might have kept his outward face a little better. The world though never made it an easy task though, and the still babe face of Zahra popped up from the edge of his view. A cloven hoof steps back, as she calls out in desperation for her mother. Her sanity called the grey and the golden back to the world. A mercenary of hope coming to try and reclaim their souls in one last desperate plea. It gnawed at him to see her struggling in the snow, and brought a bitterness to his blood to see a babe at this time. To prevent becoming a complete mirror to the gray mare, he ignores the crying child.
At last he steps forward, and Haldir, still uncertain steps timidly behind. What would he say? What could he possibly say to her? To himself? Was it she he saw before him or a mirror? A weariness drags his steps but in the throes of such great forces it has grown small and weak, just as everything did. Coming towards her the golden stops a few paces out, and whispers in the air. “Africa….” It trails, lingering on the snowy banks, trembling in the virus of pity and empathy that has sickened his soul. Haldir looks round, seeing the girl coming after the mother and his large ears lift. Watching her. There is a heart in her more alike his own than the others here, and the small deer feels latched on to it. A soldier of hope finding another on the battlefield. Slipping behind the golden, he begins towards her. Not to bring her comfort, or shelter. He was not strong enough for that either. But to curl up under hope’s mercenary, under a soul still good as his, and renew what was being torn apart before him.
The golden let him go. Now too absorbed in the gray’s torn form. To caught in the mirror, and for once not because of his looks. Sleeplessness has torn away his masks and his skill. Like an old woman stands before a mirror without makeup and seeing the dark puffy eyes, and wrinkles he gazes at her. There was not thought bright enough to shine in their shared darkness. And though the golden’s day of feeling the biting sting was over four years ago, he pitied the woman before him, for he could say with experience, it never grew better. It never healed. Nor could he begin to help her. He was powerless to sew her back together, and give her at least a hollow shell. He pitied her, because he and she were both beyond help. They carried worse than broken hearts. They carried shattered hearts, unfixable, with half the pieces stolen beyond this world.
"talk talk talk"
OOC:: I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry. Damnit -cries-
Tag:: @[Africa] @[Zahra]
Wardrobe:: circlet, golden cloak, hawk necklace, armband, satchel (invisibility cloak, polearm, knife)
Identities:: Amphere, Cashmere....ugh I need to timeline this a bit more XD
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.
04-27-2015, 06:42 PM (This post was last modified: 04-27-2015, 08:01 PM by Africa.)
She knew only the echo of her own mourning, the madness descending upon her. Africa paused as the voice of their treasured daughter rang through the thin, brisk northern air - but it wasn’t the earnest desperation of the young foal that she heard. He was answering, he was looking for her! Long grey ears searched, swivelled and scanned, pricked perfectly above the flaming poll as it turned left and right with her long raddled face. “Midas!” she screamed again, the voice split and deranged as she answered her mate’s calling excitedly. “Where are you?” Her glazed, flashing creamy eyes caught sight of the figure struggling along slowly behind - but it wasn’t the Ascended, was far too small and insignificant. ‘You can’t keep me from him…’ she hissed silently, convinced that the callous Basin-sadists would be fast on her heels. “You won’t take us! MONSTERS!”
“MIDAS!”
The Zephyr nestled tenderly across her bloodied spine rumbled sadly, helplessly, solemn violet eyes falling back to find the innocent infant as she sought so pointlessly to pull her broken-hearted mother from the pit of this darkest depression. Zahra was alone out here, in an endless winter-wasteland. She was so vulnerable.
The mare leapt forward frantically, knees groaning and shuddering without energy enough to continue - but she would, she must… They would not claim her like they did Sinuhe, all those years ago. The white Unicorn was probably still preserved perfectly on that frigid doorstep, blood as pure and pungent today, as the moment it had been spilled by those merciless fiends. No, she was weak - Africa would not give up so easily. Her chipped hooves sliced viciously through the wet, thick snow as the mission originally intended began to twist most pervertedly in her mind - she would rescue her lover from the jaws of death, they would not take his flight; his life.
“MIDAS!”
‘Why won’t you answer me?!’
Yet another hour trickled by ad then another. Her lungs gasped in futile effort to fuel her ambitious adventure and her battered, shattered body writhed in agony; Africa stalled and plunged headfirst into the freezing slurry below, she was growing ever weaker. The deep wound beneath her barrel was growing soggier the farther she pressed, the scabs and fetid puss was melting away; the hanging wing too, free of those badgering flies at last was growing heavy, the few feathers spared from her self-destructive plucking were saturated. Both injuries harboured toxic bacteria now beyond even the capacity of the cleansing snow’s touch, and it was leaking slowly through her bloodstream - suffocating her crippled heart and every other throbbing organ in her body.
Silas was thrown clear as she fell and he had not realised his own fatigue until that moment. He lifted wearily across his frail, naked legs and looked hopelessly at the flailing mare as she thrashed, struggled and hauled herself at last, again, to a standing position. He watched with lead sinking through his chest as his beloved turned to continue without him, blind, fading…
It was only by will of the whispering wind that the sick mare paused again.
She was too weak to throw her voice again into the sky, could barely summon the strength to lift her head to listen. But there was definitely a voice born upon it. Africa… it seemed to call softly. Lashes fluttered open, lazy, reluctant, and her filmy eyes saw ahead the dimmed, golden silhouette of the God of the Sun. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed faintly, before a hacking cough robbed her of breath. ‘…for… never being good… enough.’ Again she coughed, and wavered in place dizzily for a second after. Quiet scarlet began to leak slowly as her flaring nostrils worked ever harder. But it wasn’t the God she had strived so desperately to impress - to please. There was another behind him, smaller than Arah… but so, similar. Her heavy skull tilted as confusion cramped all thought, distorted her reasoning.
“Who… are you?”
Long trembling legs stilled abruptly, and she gazed forward at the blur as it stepped still nearer.
“Midas?”
Africa drew a long shuddering breath. Why had she come here? The cold gnawed at her bones, and she was so horribly wet. Her face craned left and she glanced through one eye towards the blazing, blinding sun - why did it not warm her? Where was the grass? The trees?
05-01-2015, 04:26 PM (This post was last modified: 05-12-2015, 11:08 PM by Zahra.)
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
You wait a little while longer in the cold, wet embrace of the mud-slick snow, hoping, praying for your mother’s flaming, luminous form to brighten the horizon ahead- or even your father (because despite the dream and his words imparted in it, you are yet to realise the true gravity of your loss). To the south your weary skull points briefly and you catch a glimpse of the glinting coastline. There are rocks there, the likes of which you have never seen before. They tower like jagged teeth against an endless blue sky, shimmering ice that both intimidates and captivates. Perhaps when this chaos has all come to rest at last, you will ask your mother to take you nearer so that you might poke about the frozen coastline and touch them. “Yes,” you mumble inaudibly to your tenderhearted companion; it is a fine idea.
The little Kitsune’s rough tongue soon has the gash upon your fetlock, and the graze across each of your stinging knees well cleansed. Your pale eyes fold in to find her sweet pallid face and a smile distracts the melancholy from your expression. She gazes up at you endearingly in return and you both feel a surreal flood of warmth overwhelm your thoughts - all despite the bitter wilderness around you, and the hopelessness of the predicament you both have found yourselves in. You cannot express in words how glad you are to have her company, so for a moment you rest your little sooty chin between her big, triangle ears. “Bird,” you whisper softly, “…sisters f’ever.” She leans her thickly furred shoulder against your cold, shivering breast, and you are amazed by the strength she now possesses after only a week by your side. You draw inspiration from this - you have to find your mother…
You pull your soggy mass from the snowy tundra and wet mud stains your slender undercarriage a putrid dun-brown. Quickly your gangly legs align beneath you and though you offer before starting off forward, little Bird refuses to ride. She bounds forward through the slush and presses a gesture of support against your lean, lower limb. A grin tempts your frown, but the aching worry in your heart is too great.
There is a murmur of movement in the distance ahead of you (and a little to the left). You think you can see her! And your pulse quickens until it drums raucously in your ears like the pace perhaps, of a thousand soldiers. Your sister gallops off to the side, clear of your rambling hooves as they collide suddenly with stiff dirt. Your knees jar and you gasp loudly, but you both find quickly that the gravelly earth is far better for traction than the slippery snow behind you.
The melting landscape is a blur of changing colour now - but your eyes remain fixed to the firelight before you.
It is because of this you fail to see him. It is Silas’ shimmering star-shine that snares your attention away, and you throw yourself off course brazenly so as not to trample him altogether. You cry out as Bird slides to a panicked halt - you stumble perilously close, but you collect your balance and quickly turn back towards your mother’s black, feathered companion. “S’las?” He is not so spritely, as you look down at him expectantly; his wings splay out to either side of him and he lies there, almost entirely motionless. Your nostrils flutter softly as your lips move to brush against him, and his tiny skull lifts slowly to greet you. There is a weakness about him that disturbs you - it has an uncanny similarity to the withering posture of your mother in recent days. Nevertheless you and Bird work him to his feet eagerly.
You glance back up to find that the glow above your mother in the distance has paused. A great sigh of relief escapes your young lungs and you fuss about and pester the glittery bird, entirely unaware of the bond sapping him of vigour. “C’mon!” you insist, lifting your wings into the cool wind like you have seen him do time and time again, but he resists, fluffing his feathers in sickly fashion and settling low across his grounded talons. His behaviour baffles you and you nudge him curiously, playfully (an act that once upon a time might have provoked a swift nip before flight), but he almost topples and you recoil with a start. There is something wrong you realise, though your experience with illness spans only to the strange shift in your mother’s manner. Puzzled, your imploring eyes travel towards Bird, but the Kitsune only mirrors your confusion.
05-04-2015, 11:29 PM (This post was last modified: 05-04-2015, 11:44 PM by Thranduil.)
It was a terrible nightmare. It had to be. Who in this world, which held such things as flowers, blue skies, and the sun could have seen this scene and let it be so. Here upon the windswept snowy plain, with the sharp edges of rocks piercing up through like reality, they could have let such two souls as the grey and the golden join and not feel the hundred pounds of guilt weighing upon them. Did it weigh upon the golden? Certainly some heaviness like a weighted blanket had settled on his shoulders as he saw the grey mare. Was it guilt? If the golden was moved to feel pity, he certainly could have felt guilt, but was it there? Who had stolen Midas? By who’s high hand was it arranged? Who was the last to speak to him? Who was the last to taunt him...Perhaps not, for none of those darts seem to be able to pang his chest though most certainly some were true.
The golden would not feel responsibility for the downfall of the Galant Midas. The long descent of that czar to the downfall which he accepted was an accepted outcome, and far removed from the individual actions of the golden. There were forces at work here, where the golden admitted were beyond his hand alone. Be it the great pegasus’s stubbornness, or the need to escape of evil from the Edge members, he would have met his end somehow, if not in body then in spirit. His fate was decided long ago, and now was just the finishing of the deal. It was done. That part at least could be sealed with washing of hands in terms of business. It was all just good business.
But this. A widow, crawling in the fits of madness to the feet of the heavens in the throes of her grief. Was that just good business?
The form wavers, the grey mare choking on her own grief and madness. Body flinches with each hack, under the golden cloak. Though she sighes, and the blood begins to signal a worse fate in sight, the gold is too wrapped in his thoughts to notice how closely the cold hand grows. His mind absorbs his whole self, as it does so often, but why was this so different? To be sure it was the same golden standing here as had thrown lies to the face of Gaucho, and danced before the dark eyes of Deimos. This was the same vain, proud, sleuth, yet it is not. A chill runs down his spine and he feels the cold more than he had before. It is the same golden, but he is set naked before the frozen hells. The lies woven had been tied snug about him. Those which called him handsome, strong, and unbroken becoming a blanket which padded him from the world, and warmed his heart enough to live. The golden was the same, but the blankets had been stripped away by the grey. The hollow shell created cracking to reveal the terrifying form within. A failed, withered, torn creature.
To have so much commandeering his own mind, and restricting any effort to put forth a display of concern, it should be forgiven that his eyes were so hard. Gold and earth brown, usually a spark of energy, now dulled like cold furnaces, and dead ashes. His head, swarming, and locked as it was still held high, as it looked down to the mare’s low form. It could have been mistaken for arrogance with its seeming unaffected stance towards the pleas of her coughs and wounds. Instead it stood as a broken machine, run dry of oil, and frozen in place, ready to rust away in the snow and ice. How could he move normally? When such rules and manners had been tossed aside along with the protections he had built round himself.
It took her chocked question to finally breath life onto the broken machine. Harks flinch with the volume. It was so loud. Though to a normal creature about it may have been but a whisper, to him she was practically yelling it at him. Foreleg twitches, but at last the creature moves. Horned head at last lowers, but it is not the fluid movements full of grace and effortlessness which usually waltz him through life. This was slow, and grinding, as if he was having to crank down his head with old gears still sounding out their age. They were now no more than a half a length from each other. In a whisper, he breathes like a faraway voice. “Thranduil…” Earth eyes connect to hers and in those glittering gold eyes he loses himself.
Haldir was losing himself as well. The small dark deer, now most scattered by this shivering torn figure, and the golden’s obsession with it, was side skirting around the pair. His fear, of this scene, gutting him, and could not stand it. Pale eyes tear away and see the half dark figure of another (the white hidden against the snow). Her voice rises, though undiscernible in the winds, and the deer hurries towards the keeper of innocence, and hope. He did not like what had taken the grey, and he could feel the icey spears growing in his heart with the fear the same power was affecting the gold. But though he keeps his path to the keeper he cannot help but also look back. He can feel the chill rising, and his little heart beats faster for its coming touch. Jittering pace, losing its natural grace brings him close to the winged girl, who reveals to be in her own dramas.
The golden, was left to be lost with the grey. Did he see the wounds at her side anymore? How could he when such a wound has torn across her eyes and soul. Again his withered heart swells with pity. There is not cure among the healers of Helovia which can stitch up such wounds. Though even if there were, such would not be sought out. This was not the time for the fast and hurried call of healers and the assurances of healing and tomorrow. Being cursed with the same sickness the gold knew too well, upon such a cliff as this mare tread, there was no thought to tomorrows, only yesterdays.
Was there such things as comfort in this place? In this world, where all has been torn asunder and towers crumbled, could comfort really exist? Could actually be felt? There were touches, graces of breath and skin, a grasp or clasp in the quaking of hearts. There are words, soft and kind, smooth and gentle. There were always gestures of given gifts, and lending of cloaks and blankets for warmth. There was comfort, but how could one give it, if they felt none themselves? How could he give her warmth, when he could not even light a fire in his soul to start? How could he give her comfort when he knew it not to help? What good would it do her to hear a falsifier’s voice in the throes of a tornado? What good would it do to feel his rough touch against the silk of a memory? What good would it do to feel the artificial warmth of things, when a beating heart is needed? They are nothing but to prolong the half-life, and so are in vain. Again, the gold pities her, for there was no comfort he could give.
So the gold does not even move to reach his muzzle out to hers, and falls silent again. She is not though, madness blinding her to the fate she has placed herself in, she calls out to the golden figure. He flinches to hear it for such happens with the name of the dead are called like the living. When they are expected to answer. How is the golden to answer? He is not Midas, and as uncovered, he feels no remorse or responsibility for answering that call. But to leave her as this? Her face turns and one eye searches depths blind to mortality. Yet could he tell her the truth of the world and say the three words she knows but does not wish to see. Midas is dead. So instead, in the pain of pity her name whispers out again. “Africa….” But it fades into the cold.
Haldir turns to hear his bonded’s voice, but he still cannot stand the scene. He has come to more unhappy tidings though. The beautiful bird was standing over a wilted figure, looking on with her own bonded with braced features but wrinkled faces, confusion. It brings the deer in closer to look himself, but he wished most instantly he had not. It is wilted, listless, and followed by the same hand as the mare before the golden. A bleat of pleading echos from him as he backs up to cower beside the girl. Had Haldir ever cowered? You would not have thought he knew how, but so he does. Needing the light heart of the girl beside him he shelters there, but as he looks upon the scene before him he fears even her banner for hope will fall. Pale eyes turn, with the truth of fate hidden in their pupil less depths, to her and seek to find hers. A dark mist swirls about his hooves, this time unbeckoned and uncalled. Coming forth from the very need of his own soul, to sooth it, and if gleamed, hers. Together sheltering under the banners of tomorrows.
The golden, was still a world from his bonded. Perhaps the connection is what drove the deer so fearfully to the girl’s side, for he felt the true weights kept in the terrors of the world. For surely, in those was the golden lost. The mare’s name whispered into the air, the gold lets out a long exhale, his breath steaming the distance between them. Would she accept the truth, or would she cling to the illusions? The golden had faced the truth. He had let it write the novels of the repeated story upon the walls where his heart had been. One story of truth written over and over, with each remembrance it burned the walls where it had once been kindled. This was not a moment of pity to be washed away with the next thought. This pity ran deeper and deeper with each unfolding of the story. It hit harder, for instead of the same truth the golden had learned to shoulder, this was a new story, burning with the freezing cold for it was another’s which he could not touch. “Africa…he…” But the golden could not finish it. It was not his truth to tell. He pitied her, for only she could write that truth, and only she could burn the first telling on the wall of her soul. He pitied her, for neither could he stop it and restore her, nor could he bear away the truth which set to burn her. And what after the stinging pain of that first telling? There were only more to come. A lifetime’s worth, awaiting her in the dark shadows of the world, or when she glimpses upon her daughter. The golden pitied Africa because he began to realize, she might not be able to bear that burden.
"talk talk talk"
OOC:: Haldir is using his magic, Zahra chooses to be affected by it, the reactions are a slowed heart rate, and un-tensing of nerves (basically calming). If not it'll just be him. He's basically worked it up because he's a bit terrified.
Also someone needs to hit me atop the head with a novel and remind me I'm not writing one of those XD Once again, sorry for the word count, please do not feel the need to copy it.
Tag:: @[Africa]
Wardrobe:: circlet, golden cloak, hawk necklace, armband, satchel (invisibility cloak, polearm, knife)
Identities:: Amphere, Cashmere....>>
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.
Oblivion pooled around her like stewing vultures before the feed. Africa was a pitiful sight to behold, certainly not the gloriously effervescent, young-hearted creature known during yesteryear. The haggard creature standing there so decrepit in the north-snow, remembered nothing of the lighter moments in her life; like when she had played with the young rummy-nosed colt called Voodoo, fleeing molten armies through twisting labyrinth caves beneath the deep forest; blushed when even a tiny moment’s notice had been given to her by a certain gilt General. Times when she had gathered mushrooms through dingy, dark woodlands, outwitted raging Basilisks and taken emerald clovers prisoner. No, only darkness plagued her mind now, blackened her soul like the vast ocean depths - and she was drowning, without the will it seemed, even to thrash.
Thranduil… the wind whispered hauntingly, but the word struck no chord in her sinking heart; bore no weight amid the chaotic tangle of recent events.
Though her ears slunk heavily forward, drawn from the frothing fire above, there was no acknowledgement in the vacant stare as it held weakly the golden figure in its sight. It was a sound somehow familiar, so strange… surely she’d heard the soft nature of that voice before. Crazed, unfocused vision of her daughter slipping into thick undergrowth flooded her mind suddenly, and that voice - there - warmed her through like the sung lullaby of a tender mother’s tongue.
Africa…
The stench of war lay thick upon the breeze, steaming bodies, aliens, descending upon the hidden sanctuary en masse. Booming demands, frightened cries, thundering hooves, colliding flesh, gnashing teeth, roaring, crying, agony, fear, confusion…
Golden eyes rolled feverishly as the mare’s long dappled skull abruptly swung beneath flailing forelock and writhing fire, in a vain bid to be rid of the echo of the invasion - the rising terror - as it sought wickedly to consume her. She rocked precariously across feeble limbs as the weight of her helpless frame followed in sequence, and the buffeting wind dragged viciously at the dangling, broken wing like a wolf, devouring it’s prey. Pain resonated through her core - but it was all more of the same - torment which had become in these last weeks, all too normal for the wretched Starry-Eyed.
The glitter of vivid sand tempted her back again from the brink, and she found herself trained beneath another horse’s gaze. Both suddenly stunned and awakened (if only momentarily), thick black lashes narrowed suspiciously and Africa’s pinched face bounced to meet him. “Who are you…?” she probed curtly, impatiently, but only the muffled groan of her blood-starved lungs passed by her grimacing lips. As the eyes diverted unexpectedly, below the visible pitch of putrid, muddy hips her gut seemed to twist horrendously; again red-raw whites flashed as her head careered away, tossing left and then right, as though that mad sea she were lost in had risen into a lashing fury. The streak of a moving silhouette, dark against the crisp snow, snagged her thoughts for barely a second - the small horse, a deer had slipped by.
She was alone…
‘Mid…’
But the wind was calling again. Barely…
Africa…
A golden figure loomed before her engulfed in blinding sunlight, and the mare dipped her burning eyes hesitantly beneath the shadow of her own form. Strange musk clouds the distance between, though she has not the energy to investigate it - not the will. He spoke then, and the voice held not the chilling, ghostly quality of before. Africa glanced jadedly towards him and her bent neck uncoiled by half. “He?” she queried vaguely, passing her bewildered gaze into the corridor of memories stored beneath his own. She found many things there, tales of bitterness and resentment, lust and loathing… wickedness… She coughed roughly, hoarsely and for a moment severed the connection - but as sour crimson spilt across her lips, pooled within sputtering nostrils, she found a picture that stirred her heart to race. “He is here!” she sang suddenly, loudly, almost folding forward across trembling knees.
There, within the shimmering bronze of the stranger’s eyes was Midas the Ascended, the gilt - the Gallant. “Oh… love…” she mumbled ignorantly, eyes glazing as a bitterly cold shiver clawed through her chest… “No… n…” the broken creature hacked violently after, rocking back across hocks that wished her burden no longer. “Come back!” she choked, sinking backwards into the open jaws of her icy grave - back Africa was not quite lost.
She drew an agonising, wheezing breath and desperately hurled her bulk forward, the tortured mare searched through the growing dim for her mate. Only the sunlit stallion remained however, and she struck out angrily (uncharacteristically) to the front with a chipped, filthy fore-hoof. “No!” she seethed as tears simmered behind her eyes; bloody spittle sprayed as her nose swung ahead of the lead weight of her skull. Africa swayed dangerously above her weary legs but did not for the moment fall.. “What’d you do… Where… is he…” The snarl in her voice was not her own, it was not born from the gentle-nature inherited by her mother, nearly seven years before - it leaked from the gaping wounds of her taunted and harried heart, her fractured mind. Teeth flashed, but just as abruptly as her temper had flared, it faded, and the ill creature moaned as a wave of light-headedness distracted her.
“Who’re you…”
Confusedly she looked towards him, the dark, looming shadow before her. For a moment his eyes caught the cascading light and she was stirred by another secret nestled in their midst.
There were many hidden throughout a rolling, wooded region; a thick looking draft - midnight coated and tall - who towered beside. That beast bellowed through the tranquil silence, and a softer voice followed, brilliantly practiced, but unfamiliar all the same. Africa…
She was growing weary as the wind tested ceaselessly, dying - every organ concealed beneath the tattered tapestry of grey was pulsing desperately. A losing battle. She watched on though, with fading hope, as the stranger turned towards the a vast pine wall towards his rear - the Sunshower, the Queen, she was lingering in ribbed shadow. Africa saw too though, a golden coat, above which rested unmistakable golden dipped wings.
Lashes closed helplessly against that image, and she returned with a jerk to her morbid reality. “I don’t understand… Zahra? Where is… Zahra?” she hummed loosely, a sickly grin curling through quivering smoky lips. Still her eyes remained closed, and the once Sultana swerved perilously left towards the snow.
:: [Magic: LightxTime (U) | Can look through another’s eyes into their mind and travel back in time to experience their memories as well as alter them by planting new memories.
<3
Glazed and weary Zahra’s golden eyes slid from the comforting, familiar embrace of her bewildered sister’s. They followed a vague path along the glaring white of the snowy tundra, towards the glittery, black bird who had been naught but lively and valiant for as long as (at least) she could remember. Silas stood there like a severed leaf upon a windy precipice, the brink it seemed, and the trembling filly could think of no way she might be able to draw him back. “Dunno what’s wrong?” she admitted grimly as the little kitsune crept nearer, tucking hesitantly against the bony, rigidness of her sibling’s long leg. There was dullness to his stark violet gaze that she noted quickly upon second, closer inspection, and though the black ball within stared out towards them, it seemed so vacant, or distant – like he was trapped somewhere beneath it, unable to escape…
With all of the gentleness she could manage, the black and white foal ran her lips down the sleek, satin-like smoothness of his back. Zahra wasn’t sure what next she should do about him. Often she had witnessed the proud avian perch upon the back of her mother, and briefly her small face lifted and turned as she sought to assess her own for ride-ability. Wings, still only partly-feathered lifted into the cold air and she wondered how he would arrive upon her, if even that was a possibility. They couldn’t force him, lift him – her mother had said a long time ago, that those blessed with flight knew a brilliant kind of freedom (that Zahra too, would one day understand) - any action against that right would feel too disrespectful.
A loud, snort rattled by her thin, flared nostrils.
That pattern of thought, however, was suddenly interrupted by the movement of a figure between the dim glow of her mother, and their lowly, trailing position behind. Bird noticed the antlered creature first, and alerted her sister with a low, rumbling growl. They were so far from anything even remotely familiar – there was no grass to dress the land, no vegetation into which they could retreat – and both filly and fox felt a similar apprehensiveness. The pallid canine’s lips pulled subtly from her gums as she shrank beneath the dim shade of her sister, and Zahra’s delicate inky ears wavered with new nervousness. Many times she had seen deer about her home; often, she and her mother paused through the later afternoon to watch small herds emerge from the thicket to graze, but never had the wild creatures shown trust enough to approach.
His dark body was a stark contrast to the fresh snow he passed above, and though at first he appeared rather standard in height, it quickly became apparent that he was far littler than his lookalikes from Hidden Falls. The filly cast a curious eye towards him as he neared without the hesitation she naturally expected – carefully she placed herself above her mother’s frail companion, and Bird came to rest at her front with four tails curled in unity against her downy, chest. Still the kitsune rumbled warily, but Zahra touched sooty lips to her sister’s head soothingly. The creature’s stride held not the smooth elegance of those like him she had seen; there was a tension about it, nervousness that seemed not to stem from her existence, alone. “Shhh… Bird.” the child whispered gently, and the younger fell into baited, trustful silence.
For the moment, her focus fell away from the mounting predicament they were in.
He came with a soft bleat to stand in their company, and though still towering protectively, Zahra reached towards the stranger wishfully, curiously, as though at any moment his instincts might tear him away. A light smile danced through her otherwise haggard expression – adding softness as a lure, an invitation – but it seemed he needed no such thing. The deer paused and turned towards the figures in the distance. Zahra too glanced beyond him momentarily, and the sun-like glow of her mother lingered on. Silas seemed to stir below, swaying as each breath filled his lungs a little less, and Bird slithered back to find him; to wrap herself about him like a fine fleecy blanket.
The tiny forelock falling slack across the foal’s forehead slumped left as her skull tilted, heavy in thought. So peculiar was the creature, the stag. As his eyes returned to find her own, he began again to move and Zahra found herself welcoming his slight frame to her side, her bewilderment all the more potent. She turned - puzzled, nervous, delighted - and their eyes met suddenly, a grave depth sinking below his that she could not penetrate, or even hope to comprehend. Oblivious to the weight of his heart, she reached brazenly to perhaps sweep her nose by his; to revel in the most peculiar, but wonderful occasion (as only a child's mind could view it).
An eerie fog began to swell around her hooves - between the cloven black toes of the deer. It was a rolling dark mist that should naturally have provoked suspicion through the souls of all three in his company; so swift was its anesthetic quality however, that the trio began to numb instantly of all worry before felt (as readily as each breath taken). Silas’s eyes closed quietly as he nestled down against the wet, cold snow and a wave of quietude and stillness swept right through him; it dulled instantly the agony ripe between the bond shared with the dying mare out of reach. He took a deep breath and his throbbing heart shuddered softly and painlessly to sleep. He would rise in turn to the heavens, to find beloved Fina, and young Neve – because they surely, would be waiting.
Zahra too succumbed easily and obliviously to the intoxicating magic (like the pair her frame covered), and thought of her father, her mother and far brighter times past, flooded her mind. Vaguely gilt eyes passed between the descending dream-like world she had wandered as a perfectly pure babe, and the scene unfolding in the near distance. Like a mirage she might never touch, vision of her father’s bottomless, golden eyes appeared and startled the foal from her peace – but it wasn’t that dearly missed gaze at all, it was the flames of her dam flaring above the motion of their plunging host…
“MA!” her small voice shrieked, and Bird too woke with a jump. Gangly legs flung forward erratically as she hurled herself into a clumsy sprint, all care taken to avoid trampling the two companions as she went. Zahra’s panicked eyes were set upon the slumped form of the mare, confusion riddling the strained voice as it chimed out again… “Ma! Ma!”
With adrenaline fueling her weak, hungry body’s lunge, the filly was upon her mother (the stallion close by) in barely a minute, fore hooves straddling fearlessly the burning neck draped along the snow. Pleadingly she turned to the tall golden stranger. “Help! Help!” she cried, begged, desperate to spur him into action – to make any decision that might see her fallen family rise again. Zahra’s quivering mouth traced from behind, the bulge of the dappled mare’s barrel before she leapt impressively to the other side. Neat hooves bumped tenderly against each leg as she made a path along the familiar belly back along towards her mother’s face, and when she fell upon it her knees buckled.
“Ma, it’s time to go…” A tear rolled from the burning well behind one eye and she buried her face against the lingering warmth of the mare’s soft jowl.
“Let’s go home now, I don’t like it here. I’m scared Ma…”
It is coming. The cold hand reaching up to the north draws ever near. Every moment the air seems to chill, and the rotation of the earth slow, as it breaks upon each creature the realization of this fact: the time is near.
There was yet breath in that grey creature’s breast, and with it she shows more and more her fate. The golden faces her, and his earth eyes looking into hers. He does not yet see her doom. He sees only the mirror of himself years ago, which blinds him to seeing how much farther she has fallen than he had. The golden in those days long ago had not carried the physical wounds she held. Had his own hand been of more power that day he might have, for their pain had felt like a pin prick compared to his heart. For you see, unlike this poor mare, who’s blood spills upon the snow before a still and silent brethren, the golden had found others in his grief. He had known the ties of herd, and unlike the fate of this mare, those ties had stopped what could have been the same death march to the heavens.
He has yet to see the canyons of differences between his tale and hers. For now, all that rests upon his heavy chest is that they are so similar. The urgency of her madness though unsettling was, he thought it the same, a dramatization of memories. Had his fall been as shattering? Was this how cracked his mind had been? How fractured is being? It had been years ago, and a never shrinking nightmare, leaving seams which assumption and imagination had begun to fill in. With such a vivid picture before him, it could not be helped that he assumed her pain the same as his. Her fate would be as his had been. It was what kept him so locked onto her, and looking with such a reserved hand at the mare’s pain. He pitied her, but he did nothing more, for he felt he could do nothing more.
Then the mare begins to crack the mirror. Grey head swings about. Golden harks, having been forward flip back. The pale whites lining her eyes sent shivers down his spine, but he held. How could he imagine what fate was about to befall her, or what cold dark hand haunted her steps. So he stays still, looking towards her. As she turns, earth eyes find the scars digging deeply into her flesh, and a bitter copper taste grows in his mouth. In reaction to the gore of the image his body signaling its distaste. Yet he holds. They alone did not seem severe, and her thrashing and swaying proved distractions. The gold leans back from her. He did not want to be tossed about with her, for he was still locked away a reserved. The paleness in the mirror did not frighten him. Only when her body sways dangerously in the wind does the first pang flash gold in his eyes, like from an echo of striking clock. It does not piece it together, but he can feel the first crack in the mirror.
The gold steps forward and leans in again, as the mare stills and looks to him. Like a line tracing over the crack in the mirror over and over he looks to her eyes and into her soul. Wait though, what was- The gray mare shouts. Whole body flinches at the exuberant voice shouting with the joy of a child. Earth eyes grow more and more present to see hers coming to life. What was this? Was the gold mistaking grief for complete insanity? He seeks to pull away but her voice continues its narration of what only her eyes can see. The gold having not a clue what has sparked this as she looks to him wants to pull back. The gold wants the space between them again. Perhaps if he backed up, the cracks in the mirror would not seem so large.
Her voice and the confusion hold the gold though from simply stepping away. She cries to the face of the gold for some unseen ghost to come back. Or was she speaking to him? Surely not? The thoughts of confusion swirl with those of pity and shared stories to prolong yet still the golden’s thought of her doom. Then comes what he did not expect. A hoof strikes out, coming close to the gold and he startles, stumbling back a step. She throws her words on him like knives. Pulling them from her own flesh she throws them at his. Haunches tuck and shoulders drop. His body losing the rigidity it possessed earlier. Where is he? This was no worse than calling out his name and expecting an answer. Another crack ripples through the glass and this time in tracing it, it slices his finger, letting blood swell up from within. His heart shutters to see it. He does not like the way of this grief. Why does she not accept the truth? Why does she not do as him and find others who can aid her? Did she not know what she felt? The golden had pitied her before, reserved and without guilt for that reservation. Now though his mind begins to muddle. The wayward emotions clouding the water so he could not see clearly. Call it from sleeplessness, the trauma, or the mare, he could not hold himself as he had. Instead of rationalizing his inability to aid this lost soul in the mirror, he feels it now.
-------------------------------------
Haldir was falling to the same troubles, but his instincts were keeping him from the black hole. The small dark deer had come to the child and her bonded with a sunken head and low ears. Especially as the kitsune growled at the deer he sunk all the more, but he came all the same. The threat of a growl was nothing compared to the horrors of witnessing the gold alone, and feeling his heart tamper from their bond. The small creature was being tortured by his own protector, much as the black Silas felt in his faintness. But this was not a dark corner, or cold cave to hide in. The bright girl was the banner of hope and light, and she did not disappoint him, yet. Her frame leans forward and it causes the deer to trip a little faster towards her. That small smile, like a cup of hot chocolate warms his soul from the cold that threatened it. Had he not seen the small dark bird he might have even smiled back.
But the fainting companion could not be ignored. Even this place of hope and light could not be untouched by the black shadows of the ill-fated day. Oh but this carrier of hope and life was not afraid. How the deer, looking into her eyes, marveled the warmth they still possessed. It called him and drew him to let his nose touch hers. Oh to feel the warm breath and soft comfort of another! The small deer had almost never felt such tenderness and true heart. Like laying by a warm fire he leans in all the more to her side, intoxicated by even the small act of comfort so honestly and whole heartedly given. (Haldir didn’t get out much you understand). His ease might also have had to do with dark fog wrapping about him. Perhaps in later ages he would learn more control so as to not fall under its spell himself, but here it was a most welcomed circumstance. The small deer too breathes easier. Safe, he thought in the warm fireside of life’s banner.
Such respite from the terror of the scene beyond was not to last. We cannot by magic or shelter under another hide from the world forever. It will be there when we awake and it will continue while we hide. So is the lesson the deer was to learn as the girl tears away from his side. He lingers in his peace though, like waking from a sleep he loathes to leave its soft comforts. A scream though pierces his heart and like an electric shock, fills it with the dread of the world again. His little heart patters back up to speed and breath comes short again. Head, having drifted back up in the lulls of their moment drops once more, and as the girl continues to yell he shuts back his ears and eyes to cling one last moment to what peace he knew. For the horror of this moment was worse, it was full and bold, for now in that scream the dark deer could see the banner of hope falling. He saw in its place the same of those in the heart of his bonded, and he wished it all away. He wished he could leave and his soul never to feel the taint of the golden again. He wished to be free. Haldir wished, for the first time, he was not bonded.
The small dark deer, cowering in the snow from the cries of beyond was not exactly alone. As the mountains and snow muffed the scene beyond he opens those pale eyes, watered as they were with tears. He did not find comfort in what he saw though. There in the snow was a black zephyr, without breath or heartbeat. Shivers went down the babe’s spine as he saw the still bird and could feel the cold hand had come. He moves, with shakes and tremors to look back to the gathering. Their shapes were formless and distant. Haldir was much alone with this creature of death. Much much alone. His soul reached out though. A small, weak and tailless bleat whispers to the cold bird. Ears lift slightly, in wait, perhaps in the same fit of grief as the grey mare beyond him. But of course it does not come. His body fall back again and his soul begins to tear at itself. The watery eyes can not hold back any longer, and in the fit of aloneness and the realization of death the small dark deer cries. Again, never in his life had he cried. Tears pour forth from him and he sniffles and hiccups once. His body in a reaction all its own moves forward, slinking to the dead creature. Its dark outline blurred by the tears. His small dark head nuzzled the small creature, lift its head as his legs tuck and body wraps around it. Like fawns awaiting their mother he has curled with the lost zephyr, crying in a bitterness of loneliness. Wishing away all his short life had so far brought him.
-------------------------------------
The golden’s wish was not much different. Though the current madness of his own soul kept his bonded’s plight from his thought’s grasp. Starring into the eyes of Africa the gold was losing his reserved attitude, for the blood had poured from his finger and stained the crack on the mirror as yet more began to fissure it. The grey mare pulls back and mutters. But it is not what broke the glass. She smiles. A grin twisting at her lips she lets them curl. Another flash of gold, like the strike of a clock flashes in his eye. He can feel the cold of the coming fate, it grows on him. A final crack splinters the mirror. So many now lace the glass he can not see his face. This is not his tale. This is not her fate. The mare swings, swooning to the left, and she falls. The glass shatters. The cold hand revealed. She will die.
Before her body hits the snow the gold breaks his reservation. He steps forward, crowned head lowering as if to catch hers. This was not some thought out movement or in fit with his earlier calm thoughts. She was not him. This was not his tale. The cold which began to smother her, now strangled him. It burned in the coldest fires his estrangement from this place. It threw in his fact, like a cold slap those thoughts, and that this death was what would break him. It was not a mirror, it was a prophecy. And it scared him.
Many times in grief he had warmed to the thought of death. A long slow sleep where he could forget all that plagued him. Where he could never step into the throws of a thunderstorm amid madness again. The hand of death may have been cold but it was a hand to hold you, and keep you. It wanted you. More than once, with the sting of pain still fresh on his heart he had paused a top a cliff or ledge. How quick it would be, how easy. He was not scared then. How could he have been? But he had not taken that last step, nor let his body fall to never rise. Perhaps he had was so wrapped in his lies there was still a glimmer or two in the darkness he could fool himself with. They fooled him into thinking there was more to himself. There were plots to plan, and manipulations to twist, all of which he was still in fine shape to do. Perhaps there was still a small wick flame of let of his form self. Some inkling of the banners of hope and Perhaps in a twisted way he had grown used to the pain. Felt it come and go like winter’s wind without a sense of anger towards it. Its weight upon his back, felt familiar and secure.
To have death thrown like a cold bucket of water over him, then startled him. It scared him. Seeing her body fall like a slow motion, he steps forward. He moves to stop it. He moves against death. In the prophecy before him he sees those long plunges he thought to make, and his form illuminated in the lightening storms, and he does not want them. The golden does not want death to claim him like this. His pain was still hard pressing on his throat, but there was more that should keep death at bay. For him, and for her.
But it was too late for her, she was falling. The cold hand caressing her back already. The golden steps forward, perhaps to break her fall, but he never makes it there. A screaming call rings out over the snow and the gold freezes, to look up upon it. The girl he had ignored earlier now came barreling towards the fallen mare. Jerking back the gold gives her room, his thoughts a swirl of chaos. A child. A child. That is what this was all about right? No- that was his tale and this is hers. The roles reversed, the damage doubled. She cries at the mother’s feet, not the other way around. He was lost for a moment in the detanglement of the stories which he had woven together. His heart began to pound and rattle. There wasn’t much time. But perhaps in the, dare we say, panic of the moment he found himself spinning his wheels stuck and struggling to comprehend and process.
Then she stops and looks to the gold and pleads. She’ll find there a sunken dark sea, where his soul is as much a lost ship as hers. For it pains him worse to look upon the youth’s features. To see the babe’s short crest of mane, her spindly legs, and narrow shoulders yet to fill out with life. The lies he had wrapped in that babes and children were but ordinary had crashed down. What strength they gave to look upon such features without the twinge of a heart were torn, shattered in pieces of glass on the ground. This emotional chaos, a hurricane of massive size in his soul could little be seen on the outside. To the world his bones had gone rigid and his face washed away to its base of heaviness and weight. He could not move, with such a storm inside of him as the filly was spilling forth. Only when she turns her pleas to the mare does the gold move.
Whether from weariness or grief it can not be told, but his legs give way. They crumble, falling slow but forward, so his body rests near the babe. He does not touch her. His own grief, finding it impossible to detangle from this can not bear to yet look directly on her. For her pleas, this was all she receives. He was no religious guide, not enlightened enough to speak of better places and peaceful souls. He was no comforter, not with a blanket to spare to cover her shivering shoulders. But worst of all, that which cut his own grief the most. He was not the father, not entitled to shield her eyes or protect her from the truth unfolding. So all the gold could do was lie beside them, a fellow pained soul. But his heart rediscovering some pieces which cling to life, willing himself to not die with her. Though their stories and grief the same, he could not fall to the same fate, and the struggle and realities of the pathetic ties to life left him without strength to even stand.
Head heavy with the weight of these thoughts sways as well, but it holds for a moment. His lips, finding themselves unexpectedly dray and cracked speaks up. He was trying to make sense, trying to do something. Though he could not place himself in those roles he was here, and he chosen not to follow her. Pain would still await him when he rose. And it would most likely follow him like a curse still as it always had, but his fate would not be hers just yet. And though he rejected this prophecy before him, he welcomed it for her. For though death and madness he could make a choice against she had not been given the kind hand of fate to choose. She had suffered the shackles of her doom, but she was done struggling. The golden may have rebeled against his own acceptance of death, but for Africa, it was to be her salvation. So he at last faces up to her earlier questions, though forgotten perhaps they were some reality he clinged to. “Zahra is here. She is strong.” It was a strange twist of tongue, and it came out broken and jointed as he glanced to the girl. It made all his being twist inside out to do so. Yes she was strong. Even the golden, as hateful of Midas as he still was in this moment would not deny she had his strength. She would carry on. The gold could not say she will be fine, though it is a traditional phrase, or other such assurances, for they were not true. And this was not a place for lies. So he moves on. Knowing she struggle and pines, and seeks only one vision. He offered it, in a rejection of his death he rejects his earlier limitations of comfort and gives her all he can. “He is not here. Go Africa. He is waiting.” Then the golden’s crown head lowers, and lays by hers in the snow, with one long exhale rolling out of his tired body. Two souls admitting the same struggles on a long road, but each taking different paths, for the gold would inhale, but it seemed soon she would not.
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.
A weak light flickered on the horizon, obscured by stone and a veil of light flakes of snow. The monster stood still against the screaming winds, thick knots of hair bouncing off of his broad shoulders and muscular neck, chips of dried, rotting blood flaking off of the mats. Deep indigo eyes narrowed against the weather, focusing deep within the valley, the source of light becoming more aware in his groggy mind. Heavy crowned skull tilted to the left, forelock wrapped around the neighboring ear and wind-blown back into the rest of his dingy mane. Fleshy nostrils rattled while his prying mind mused over what could be happening in the distance; a healer playing with potions, perhaps? The idea of colorful, venomous liquids sloshing around in glass beakers allows the right side of his face to curl up in a smirk. Perhaps he would pursue a career in poisons and magic once his body begins to age past his prime.
Finally, the beast wandered deeper into the valley between the mountains, heavy silver plates leaving behind little evidence as erosion played in the wind. Animated eyes stay trained on the dim light as the creature approached. The voices, they make no sense to straining ears. Massive jaws flex as the stallion bites down on hard bone, the blood of remaining cheat grass and sopping wet moss sliding through stained teeth. The water, having been sitting between tooth and cheek, dripped down the back of his throat in a thin warm stream. The heat could be felt traveling all the way down and into his gut, the cold seeming to have settled into his thick body, even with the aid of a shaggy pre-winter coat.
A cluster of two, maybe three bodies finally formed as the man shuffled over the tundra, white ears laying down in dry hair as soon as the smell of a foreign body slithered into his nasal passage. The coppery sting of blood and decaying flesh made his lips twitch excitedly; surely this wasn't a brother or sister of the tundra, they wouldn't smell so out of place. The shuffle is switched to a brisk walk, crown rising once more and bobbing rhythmically with his stride. All three equine bodies and their companions are in a huddle on the frozen earth, clustered together around what may as well have been a corpse. Those were the flames he had spotted, dancing around a dark head of hair and curling around that short, curved neck. A child and a man rested at her side, the bird's head slumped uncomfortably in the babe's lap, the sweet stench of blood and grime wafting from her delimbed body.
The wind continued to howl, but had lost some of it's strength behind the jagged hillsides, and their voices were no longer lost in the swift air. The monster stopped to the right of the antlered stallion, dark eyes staring down at the woman he could place in his memories, but not give a name. A flash of her gangly, youthful legs and wide eyes played on a dim screen behind his eyes. Wet, yellowed teeth show behind tri-colored lips while they peel apart, the woman's remaining feathers that had been harvested from her departed wing flopped about on his thick neck.
"Well, well-" he breathed, deep voice hanging heavily over the dire scene. "look who's made it back home." The Gypsy dropped his lightly bearded jaw to sniff at the dying woman's dark stained cheek, icy eyes connecting with her own weak, vulnerable ones; even on the verge of meeting the Grim Reaper himself, those pretty yellow eyes still shimmered.. or maybe that was just an illusion with the help of the fire? Sharp eyes turned on the child, a rough scoff emptying his lungs of their remaining air before his attention refocused on Africa's battered body.
Pink and black lips reached down once more, rubbing softly on one of the woman's hot ears. "What's wrong little bird?" he whispered, a cold, heartless chuckle following the soft coo.
"Speaking"
@[Africa] @[Thranduil]
Permission for minor power play from Riv.
Awful start on my part, but here we go. ;-;
The wind’s melancholy moan seemed only to amplify the mournful rhythm resonating with the shudder of her hopeless, withering pulse. A strangling grip upon her mind seemed to tighten, strengthen, suffocating all thought within and so too the very blood from her brain as it throbbed beneath, surging roaring pain. In the same moment, her heart seemed to balloon, to swell agonizingly, and then burst finally beneath the soft tissue of her breast – and then nothing… Horrifying stillness, eerie silence – a chilling sombreness rose within the tattered dapple canvas as though Africa’s conscience had fallen both mute and deaf all at once. She felt heavy, like she was sinking, falling, plunging into the hellish pits of the earth; but as her tear-stained eyes jerked into the light once again she found the stranger still standing before her, and they closed softly.
Dying… dead… dying… dead… her erratic heartbeat seemed to chant.
“Silas…” Africa cried out in thought, desolately, but she knew that her beloved Zephyr was no longer there; that their joined souls had been severed. The bond which had tethered her for so long to the realm of reality was no longer, and the grief was immeasurable as she lay dying without him, sprawled across the cold, unforgiving tundra snow. Boiling tears spewed like molten lava from a seething volcano as her heavy black lashes flinched apart; but there was no anger riling the mare’s unravelling emotion now. The fallen mare sobbed pitifully painfully against the cold truth of this bed. There would be no salvation this day.
No knight in shining armour.
All the while, there seemed born upon the wind a cry so delicate and so pure, rising through the heavens, across the snow-slick plane and all about her like white, twirling cloud; dainty, brittle.
Sudden warmth sliding beneath her cheek moved her lungs startle – to inhale – and broad nostrils wheezed desperately as her chin tried to lift. The voice of the stallion swam about her limp ears as though descending through a dream, and beside it hummed a more familiar tune. It was Zahra, their child; her beloved babe. “Zahra…” She rattled tiredly and weakly, one golden eye rising to find the shimmering reflection of herself. “There is so much you need to see…” she wanted so desperately to tell the young filly, but the energy to do so she had not. Lashes sealed as reluctant muscles supporting the crane of her neck began to tremble frantically, and the weight of her flame-trimmed skull sank wilfully back into the bony limbs of the girl.
She sighed grimly, straining to restore oxygen as her body sank further into the grip of this sad fate.
How Africa would have loved then to slip away into the beckoning world of fond dreams.
Bulging eyes reopened, weighty lids forced apart by the whimper of her brood. “Dear… don’t cry.” she groaned, rocking her chin again so that she might find the red-stained gaze of the foal. As mother and child, gold upon gold, then collided, the broken mare descended into the small sacred treasure-vault of her tiny daughter’s memories. One after the other, she placed images and visions of times long now passed – of a bitterly cold basin, filled with creatures of a tendency much the same. Faces from which she had been long shielded became the forefront, fresh and firm; vicious, battering, thieving monsters (black and white, a mixture of both) the mare spared no truth for her innocent babe. Thoughts that were still raw within her own mind, glinting scars so thin – it took so little to reopen their aching wound.
Antlers and siren eyes accompany next a cunning mind and double edged tongue; more recent times, pain not let yet to fade. She was a monster as brutal as she was beautiful, and Africa filled her child’s head with bitter bias – so too the beast and his tribe who had accompanied her. He was tall and black, built more like a mountain than anything living and he had the cold core to match. Like stones scattering into a grand avalanche he had lead them to beat without mercy those dwelling in peace upon the Earth’s tranquil land. Cruel and hard were his disciples – another black and white, the stark opposite of the Sunshower her name otherwise impressed – and a steed of milk and fawn in their company, each of who were to be met with utter caution.
Memory of soured relationships were purged, any which held merit – bloody and bitter, the lost and the living – all which had at some point been discovered. There were siblings who had forsaken love so forthcoming; nameless faces who were framed in black; for they had all more or less punctured the heart of their father with callous swords of indifference, hate or resentment. There was a crimson tinged banshee whose face appeared too beside the beastly black hulk and many more who came to mind the deeper the dying mare delved. Features she delivered, because names meant little in this untrustworthy world; where the gods turned on each other and destroyed the lives of their followers so ungracefully. One ear, antlers and tribal markings, a ghoulish roan…
There were fond times too, faces that brought warmth and ignited weak passion as they passed – rummy-nosed adventures, clover prisoners, and missions through the dank underworlds, where glowing creatures were the light. There was an obnoxious mare who’s beliefs were as inspiring as the were wild, and many others who had been sunlight in an existence marred and black. The Starry-Eyed offered them all….
Any worldly lesson she could find there, lining the chaos of her past.
But there would be no time to finish and another voice sliced clean through the suffering creature’s concentration – it was the voice of hell itself.
Already light and flimsy, Africa’s breath snagged in her throat as foreboding flooded her maimed core. “No…” she gulped, hard, pulling her lethargic eyes from the foal. “No…” He was the greatest source of her pain in this life, a merciless animal and the taker of both flight and freedom; and now he was there, looming like a manifest cloud of evil above them. His ravenous, morbid gaze slipped from the innocent child she nestled against and a fear struck her as the stallion’s thick head sauntered nearer. “Run!” Her mind screamed in vain as the tightness in her chest locked out all breath. Her expression hid none of the terror ignited, the anguish engulfed her and every inch of soggy, puddle-grey coat began the shake.
With a jolt, the mare’s head slumped against the cold wet surface of the tundra – the frightened filly was stumbling from his reach. Rolling eyes searched for the stallion who had stayed so near, though with each feverish beat of the strained organ in her chest, the darkness clawed closer. “Mons-ter…” she murmured brokenly as his dense shadow fell before the bright, distant sun, and a perverted halo beamed around him; forced her eyes to shut. Guilt swarmed through her mind, pain for the so desperately loved child she and the Gallant had crafted so passionately. It was too late now.
“ZAHRA!”
Defying the chains of gravity pressed down upon her, Africa heaved from the ground and perched awkwardly upon quaking, splayed forelegs long enough to find the filly hesitating, turned half around. The pallid fox-creature stood snarling between Zahra’s long, thin legs but the mare had not the time to waste upon it; her eyes sought frantically the girl’s, the distress pooling within them. Again she delved into their midst, threading together a new web of lies – brilliant memories to blanket those barely moments ago installed. The story of undying love, of passion and commitment; a mother and father locked in a lifeless, eternal embrace, sheltered deep below the Earth’s mountain below golden laden walls. There was no hardship in this tale, nor pain or horror, and the devoted mother made certain to blur her own face throughout it.
The cold wind battered her worn frame and as Africa’s balance began to skew, their connection failed – the foal turned to run, and she did not look back.
:: [Magic: LightxTime (U) | Can look through another’s eyes into their mind and travel back in time to experience their memories as well as alter them by planting new memories.
<3
05-31-2015, 10:15 PM (This post was last modified: 05-31-2015, 10:16 PM by Zahra.)
Zahra, Ilham, and Hanna
It was pride that turned angels into devils
The sun-kissed stranger, cloth draped about his tall frame, lay so near to Zahra as she huddled against the fading warmth of her mother, that she drew from his breathing presence vague comfort – because she had been surrounded always up until mere weeks ago. She had always been the centre of a loud and spinning universe. As her hot tears soaked beneath the ragged grey hair adorning the limp neck of the mare, her aching eyes journeyed from their fiery veil to find him fallen alongside, a triangle they formed almost, thawing the frozen wasteland below. Before any word was uttered (the croak of death’s voice, the small comfort offered), the young foal was wondering about him – fleeing the painful world she had fallen into, and into one of make-believe which had delivered him so unfortunately to their side.
But words invaded her sanctuary, inevitably (there was to be no peace here), and the filly’s raw gaze slipped from the strange, horned face of the other, back to those warm golden pools that had nursed her from infancy. A gruesome labyrinth of swollen blood-vessels coloured them, confused that honeyed glow, and across each was a glass film, a barrier into which she could not let herself be taken. “Ma…” she wept heavily, curling her small crest to lie across the mare’s strained expression. Zahra… came the call, though weak and wind-whipped it was, and the tiny face of the girl lifted so that she might gaze ever down upon the face she loved beyond all else. “Ma, home time…” she insisted, but her mother’s chin lifted, dear don’t cry. Tears spewed from an untapped reservoir, the child far too young to tether such emotion.
She leaned heavily upon that glazed wall between them, until finally it collapsed and down into her mother’s weathered gaze she plunged – it was curious, there seemed to be no end. Zahra could not feel the new wealth of information being lathered through her mind, though a phenomenal weight did settle through her core, and the filly grew evermore weary as she watched. It was only when the cold tone of another fell across them that she came too, and the face above set panic her heart’s thundering beat into a frenzied panic. Though she had never seen the duel-coloured beast before, the history of his crimes came barrelling to the forefront of her mind like the terrible events had played out only yesterday.
“Go away!” she shrieked, voice fraying as it her lungs could hurl no more breath behind it. There was a new conviction within her, a burning hatred that had not been there before, and the puny creature’s glossy white teeth snapped with aggressiveness beyond natural habit of one so young and pristine. She trembled ferociously where she lay, but the stallion was already upon them, descending like the wrath of a tornado – unflinching and vile. His hot, revolting breath cascaded down across them and anger was quickly displaced by suffocating fear. The foal, though burdened by that weight of her mother’s own, was still a babe, held fast by the vice of her instinct. Her courage unravelled quickly as his skin lowered to her mother’s sullied cheek, and between a fretful glance by the golden stag, Zahra’s knees pulled out from beneath the dead weight of the mare.
“Help! Help!” she began to squeal again, dancing between moral resolve and the mounting desire to flee this awful scene.
“Please mista!” she begged, turning, fumbling to place distance between she and the horrid monster. But her name rang out boldly through the wind-ravaged region and the foal halted abruptly, stunned by the unexpectedness of her return. “Ma…” she whispered, overwhelmed by confusion and her ultimate powerlessness in all of this mess. She wanted so desperately to drink, to indulge the savage sting of her gut with that intoxicating goodness of her mother’s honey-sweet milk; collapse into a full-bellied coma and sleep beneath the shade of the standing mare until her father’s smooth baritone words lulled her from sleep. From the pits of despair however came memory of his death – the charred body draped above a wheeled-platform – and she turned, stunned, disturbed and fell again beneath the spell of Africa’s dying eyes.
Tortured thoughts began to lift all at once, as did the lead imbedding her soul, and her eyes seemed to numb as the mare’s eyes ripped from her own.
The stench of fear was ripe all about her, as was the taste of sweat and filth upon the air. The filly’s stomach knotted within her, and her fine, tapered nose pinched at the small crowd just nearby. A mare lay beneath another, a giant in comparison, and just beyond was another stallion similarly strewn across the wet earth. Though peculiar the scene was, and inquisitive her mind, there was a foreboding chord in her pulse that warned her to venture no nearer. Her sister stood between her forelegs, snarling like never Zarha had seen before, and as her lips lowered tenderly to caress the tiny creature, Bird leapt forward and away towards the gathering.
Though the memories of the foal had been so graciously spared, those belonging to the puppy remained – they would haunt her on, perhaps forever more. She made haste through the churned snow, lips drawn and sharp milk teeth gliding beneath the ghost of her roving tongue. In her eyes was set the worn leather bag about the mare’s fallen body, the buckle had slipped apart as the horse who owned had thrashed. Zahra had often spoken of the treasures stored within – the times she had been trusted with its care, to fill it and return with favoured bounty. Bird could not understand her sisters bizarre change of heart, but she could feel the stress withered away; the agony diminishing from her own mind just as it had the filly’s. There was little she could do to salvage the dying mare, but the bag, snatched quickly between her teeth.
With every inch of her being she shook, and the old leather came free.
Relief poured through her veins and she turned too quickly, stumbling across her own mud-stained limbs in hasty effort to escape. From the satchel scattered two amulets across the ground, but Bird had not the time to retrieve them. She leapt and bounded towards her sister who in turn had swivelled to flee also. Undoubtedly Zahra would not understand the kitsune’s brazen effort, but one day perhaps, memory of this day would return and with it, a longing for such prized possessions. Together filly and fox departed through the snow, not for one second looking back – because the strange meeting which the trio held, was far beyond the foal’s fleeting interest.
Bird has claimed Africa’s satchel, but from it fell two spark amulets as she ran away. One each for Thranduil and Crash Course.
It was a beautiful moment. How strange to call it such, as the darkness of death and grief begin to wrap around their communion, yet it was beautiful. A life of old and new parting through the mists, while giving heart to another. It sounds so lovely to call it such rather than to degrade it with phrases such as the blackness of death, the torture of grief. The darkness though is not pure, here where a child cradles her mother’s head there is a stroke of grace, and love, so often the conqueror of death. There in the golden a heart beats with a faint but determined struggle. It paints the continuing life and loss. And she who centers so much in this frame, will find hope in the darkness. You see it is not the pure black of horror and terror in this image. There are beautiful strokes of other colors melding into it. Perhaps that is why it is so beautiful, yet tragic.
The golden rolls his head. His mind was on another beauty. His crowned head rolled to the side, letting though earth eyes close, giving himself permission to go to that place. That place long ago. He had been so confused by the detangling of stories, by trying to remember his own. It came to him that unlike when he looked like she still, their faces no longer flashed like twisted horror shows when he thought about them. He actually had to try to remember, and it made the golden groan with the struggle. Yet if the shattered mirror on the floor did not show him the faces, perhaps that black wrapped text could. If you write and rewrite a story so many times, do you lose its meaning? Do you forget the names in the senselessness of the task? What happens to the images, so detailed and painful, where do they go? Did they even exist anymore?
While the mare and child hold their precious moment, the golden too, finds himself in memories. He for once was searching. Where had his story began? What had lifted his soul above her state. What did her face look like? Had he sunk so low as to forget her face? It was pale…no white. White as the fresh fallen snow, yet instead of melting in the spring it blossomed. Her hair, like the gathering of dandelion wishes would drift in the breeze, lighter than the clouds above. What else had captured that golden’s eye? That’s right gold. Defiant of her heritage the gold and curled about her shoulders and hips. Their link she always said. They were meant to be, he and she, tied by heart and coat. Though she always said her’s was the only one to shine brighter than his. Her pride of such fact ever showing. How he had laughed to hear such a thing, and yet let her have what she desired. Of course her shown brighter than his, for hers sprang from a royal heart. Or was it just the light she always seemed to stand in?
The golden’s face twists as he struggles to remember, as each moment brings the twisted happiness which stabbed him. There had been other things, what where they…Something clacked against his. When they laughed and rattled them against her cages. Antlers. She had had antlers, that’s right. Huge tines of her ancestors rising above her head as her permanent crown. She hadn’t wanted them, maybe that’s why they were so hard to picture. They always bore the mark of her attempt to rid them. Why had she not, oh, he had been there. His head wrapped about her shivering frame, and her tears staining his gold shoulder. His mind struggled to picture her fully. Had she a tail, well of course she had. It was, was it full? Yes, full and thick. It was hard to remember. His memory twisted. It was red, and tangled. No, no that was just the last he saw. Before it had been silken, and white, sweet as it brushed his face or flew back at him as he let her win. That was before, before it had become the only soft cradle their too young son had felt. Wait, no…that had not been seen. That was drawn. Etched in by another’s rough tongue. It had made it burn all the more.
A shiver runs down his entire body, but he stays, for there was one more thing he could not remember. It burned in his chest, and his mind compounded to think. Her eyes, where were her eyes. Like a blind man he reached out to his memories. His touches yield nothing. They were closed. As they had been seen and last touched, they were closed. But underneath. Desperate he struggled on, underneath what had they been? Had he truly forgotten? Had he forgotten how they shown in the moonlight mists, capturing the holy stars above? Had he forgotten how they eased to look at him, and the strain of any ill wash away? Had he forgotten their spark and life as they laughed to see what trouble they were in? Had he forgotten the sweet golden glass that for three years made his heart pound in his thr-Gold. That’s right gold. They had been golden…
A long exhale came from the golden body. The steam wrapping around the scene and he seemed to ease, and be at peace. The pain still shattered his soul, and it burned worse than before, but she was there, standing before him. Her face bathed in light, with those solid golden eyes gleaming back to him. Earth eyes flutter open and for a moment his heart pauses. Those eyes were there. Looking out. Face startles. She was-no, that was another tale. Africa’s golden eyes were turned from him to the child, and were no his to hold. His face fell, and heart ached anew in his breast, but the spiraling downfall was sliced short but words which did not belong.
Rough and harsh, it collided with the tragic melody of the scene, in discord. Crowned head lifts from the snow, its weight causing him to swoon and spin, the image not quite placed together. A white but dark face grins back and earth eyes instantly clear their haze. He knows that face, and it does not belong here. It awakens like an electric shock, that these were gone memories, and not revolving any more on this earth. It reminds him of anger, and hate, of what had finally crushed that tragic love. It reminded him of what made him forget. Pain follows next. He wanted the beast to go, for he of all knew what would come of colliding these two images, these two worlds. He wanted to be free of it, to relinquish the causes of this moment. He wanted to remain alone. Alone with his sweet memories.
So his body answers, quickly. In the spur of survival and desires it activates mechanically. The golden’s form shivers in sight, and then falls away like dust. He is gone. But only to their eyes. For see he still lays there at the feet of the painted brute. Screams fill his ears even though they see him not. They terrorize him, and anger him. This foul creature disturbs what was won back. Not so much for the safety of the child or the memories of the mother, but he angers more for the breaking of his peace, a hard won peace. Now it all as it was. Her eyes closed, her tail in blood, till in a snap it was gone, and he could remember her face no more. Shoulders heave up, horns rising up dangerously, threatening. Body, wet and cold from the snow, rose, and turned. Never more than a few inches were his horns to the other as it leaned over the mare. But it was a blind anger. Like one waken too sharply from sleep. He had forgotten this place and this time, and as he looked to the mare at his feet for what she was, limp and stained with red, he remembered her already determined fate could be no worse. It might even be a blessing, to pass quicker.
So he moves back, his hidden face twisted, but once more solemn. He is pulling back, giving in, and letting life do as it must. Cloven hooves move him to leave, but a figure leaps in his path and onto the grey ghost. Harks pin back and legs shuffle, confused as it tears at her. It swells in him that he cannot watch such tragedies, even though he knows they must be so, for he still feels them. But the small creature tumbles loose. Snorting the gold continues to shift, swaying with the reactions. It was not taking her life, it was taking her satchel. Snorting, and shaking his head the gold tries to gather himself. He struggling, with all his shell thrown about, but he knows his goodbye must be swift. His head swings, much in the same way hers did at first, to look one last time upon her fallen figure. As he sees the shadow over it, the small piece of him which continues to force his lungs to open to air again, reaches out. Was he really going to doom her to this fate? This pain from a brute that dared call him brother? It begged him, it pleaded with him to stand over her body and protect its solemn rest. Its not your story. Torn and shaking with the conflict the golden steps to her. He will save all his soul is able. Teeth reach out and pluck from their place two long grey feathers. They are all he can save, all he can protect in his shattered heart. These he will keep, and these will he be reminded of, that death offered him her picture one day, and he could not let it take him. The golden sighs and turns away.
Hooves clink on an object in the snow. A gem tossed from the run of the companion. Absentmindedly he takes it and stores it with the feathers in his satchel. Stumbling he walks, ready now to let the dull sleep take hold. His body can take the struggle no more. There was still one tragedy to face. One heart still breaking.
A dark figure appears in the snow, and at first the golden nearly stumbles past. But he is stopped by a soft sob, trailing, and in the string of a long trail before it. The golden knew that cry. He had heard it before, but not in this tone. Suddenly their bond shivered across his frame the low rocky place his companion had fallen. Haldir. A parting of his lips and agony twist his face, and the connection with the present shivers his form back into sight. Haldir, oh sweet Haldir. The golden thinks. Never did the gold link the deer so close to his breast as in that moment. Low golden head turns to the shadow in the snow, and his eyes find it wrapped around a limp black figure. They are confused for a moment, but then it washes away in a pity and pain again. The deer’s state and its causes understood. All creatures will know the time they first found the pain of death on their soul. The golden especially knew its bitterness, and the utter defeat it brought.
The small deer had laid there still as he had fallen, crying as he wrapped around the dead bird, pouring out his heart in hopes it would take him someplace else. Then his face feels warm. Skin, which was dead with cold, shivered and leaned to it. A cold wet nose it finds. The dark head, confused, but ready to be taken, rises. Those large moon eyes finding not the end, but the earth eyed golden. A sharp bitterness flew up in him all over. It was the golden’s fault he was here. The golden’s fault he felt things his young, innocent heart should never feel. In rejection, he turns away again. The golden does not move though. His eyes only reflect the added hurt of it. Always had Haldir leapt to him, even when the gold had been determined to leave him to death. Now, when the deer turned away, a new crack formed over him. It shivered over, and broke all anew. Yet this pain he could fix. He could yet mend, instead of leave broken.
The warm breath came over the deer again, and the small creature tightened against it, not wanting to reveal how good it felt. Then comes a now warmer touch, gently brushing his neck and stroking his back. It pulls him, and seduces him to give in, but the bitterness was deep and still throbbed with hurt, so he remains turned away. The golden left more dejected. His earth eyes move to the figure the deer wraps around. It reminds him of the need, the desperation his soul (unwillingly) felt to console the deer. In the ancient tongue the deer knew well, his voice cracked but soothing, whispers to the deer. “They are not lost.” An ancient speech, filled with the lore of his past swells through. “They are found, together above in the stars.” The deer softened, but did not move. Nearly begging the gold goes on. “Haldir, hearts need each other, and as he died for she, so mine will for you, and yours mine.” It was a hated notion, for long as he tried to abandon the deer it had come to him in its truth. But here it was true. What happened that day in the cave where his egg was won, even in sickness, could not be changed. Some events are out of our control to understand or to know the hand that made it so. The deer, with eyes still swelling and glassy with tears, looks to him. His small notions of love, and life wrapping around this ideal that the gold needed him. And that he needed the golden. “I am sorry.” It cracks and breaks upon the golden as he says it, and his head falls away, lost in it.
A warm touch graces the plan of his head on the white leaf, and then leans into it. Earth eyes open with a suddenness and see a dark small figure there. Haldir leans into his bonded, and the gold, with eyes closing back, leans in as well, and the world is still.
When the pair moves again, the golden breaks the contact, leaving with a nuzzle against the deer. The crowned head looks off at the towering mountains, and a whisper from their tops promises rest can be found in their midst. Rest. That is what they needed. Haldir looks up waiting, his own body weighted down. The gold looks to it, and knows once more that they must move on. Nosing the creature forward they walk. Each dragging their hooves. But there was something left unfinished. A task yet complete. Haldir was a part of him. He needed to know every part. The story was half begun, with her image awoken again, it could not be left open, or a madness, he could feel, threatened. So as they walk the rolling sweet musical melodies of his olden tongue came again. “There is a tale you must now know.” It pauses as a rise of bitter, sickness rises in his speech. But there comes a warm touch on his moving leg. He turns to see Haldir, with sunken eyes, concerned but waiting. Tell me. They commanded for the deer could feel the weight in his soul as well, like holding a cannonball in the sea. So the golden shutters as he walks, but speaks. “When I was born I was not what this world sees…..” And he tells as they walk the story. Never before had it been told on this earth, and each who had known it, near and far did not dare repeat it. Now the silence was broken. Here the golden speaks, and his bonded listens, as the winds carry its long sorrowful tale to the stars.
"talk talk talk"
OOC:: ;-; Thranduil is speaking in elvish to Haldir, but it is beyond my small skill to translate just yet. He has taken with him an amulet and two flight feathers.
Tag:: @[Africa] @[Crash Course]
Wardrobe:: circlet, golden cloak, hawk necklace, armband, satchel (invisibility cloak, polearm, knife)
Identities:: Ampere, Cashmere
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.
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: 5381546acbe33]](http://images.helovia.net/index.php/view/5381546acbe33)
