the Rift


[OPEN] kings with no castles

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#1
Яikyn

My long legs pull across the earth, a sleek ebony streak through the grey-green-blue-white-heythatsyellow blur that is the Steppe as I push my muscles to their brink.  It’s a breakneck run, a flying thing that is dangerous as much as it is fun; I don’t have time to watch for holes in the path before me and I have very little time to react if I startle some creature and it leaps into my way, but that is the reason I’m hauling ass anyway.
 
Nothing is ever good if it’s easy, is it?
 
Besides, the season has filled me with vigor, as if the renewal to the vegetation along the mountain paths has spread to my body, and though I’m bruised all over, I find that I don’t care, having savored their initial ache into the nothingness they were now, like some kind of peculiar hard candy.  Since the spar with Ashamin, it seems the only blokes I’ve found to spar with have been Gods – and while it is thrilling, it’s not quite the carefree release of pent of energy that I need. 
 
Actually, it was nothing at all like a release at all.  More like some sort of bedazzling disco ball memory that kept flashing about in my head recklessly, leading me to do the sort of things like charge down narrow and treacherous mountain paths, the thunder of my hooves resounding through the halls of the Steppe.
 
The rise I’d been climbing evens out for several paces before dropping down into an open meadow framed by boulders and sloping peaks, and with an added burst of speed I leap from the top of the rise to the downward scaled path below.  My breath is deep and steady, a heavy whump whoosh whump that escapes a slightly open mouth curved into a smile of utter delight and carefree abandon.
 
As the hillock flattens out I level my speed, easing from a wild gallop to a canter and then a slow, easy lope, letting each gait slowly move down the ladder as the rate of my heart followed suit, until at last I’m slowly walking through this pristine little flat section of the mountain’s breadth that, as I search my memory, I don’t think I’ve been in before.
 
Adventure runs through me now, replacing the rampant madness that had brought me here with the lure of seeing new things worth seeing, having found that, as one ages, the wonders in life seem to slip further and further apart; I can’t help but worry that, one day, they’ll be gone all together.
 
 
[OOC:  IDK if Chan already threw something up for you smack me because it was totally not worth making you suffer through that crap post then. ;D ALSO it hates tagging Lyn. D: ]

in every heart a hole
Image Credit


@Ahvelyn

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Ahvelyn Posts: 44
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 13 [Orangemoon] HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Jen
#2
Long Gone, Most Beloved

Dear son,

I once met a boy not unlike yourself in that he was a boy. I cannot consider him to be like you in any other regard. I have imagined you as somewhat noble some days, but I must resign myself to the fact that these are only unfounded hopes.

I am assured only in this: you must be nothing like our father. Were such the case, I know that I would fall to pieces.

But we won't talk of such possibilities, now. They are too difficult to bear. And I have a story to tell, don't I? Here, take this letter up in your heart and learn it. I think you will like the tale.


I had wandered what I was resigning myself to consider homeward in the wake of a battle. Somehow my luck had lasted, and your mother was remarkably unscathed. So I walked then only with aches and pains, into a vast plane of white and abandon.

Everything around me was empty. I was empty. But given that there was nothing but cold to fill me, I had resigned myself to staying that way.

But not everyone was so grim on that bright day, and it was one such excited soul that I watched dash through the ice. He moved with an admirable energy, the sort that I hoped for in you. I was almost scared to draw closer, for fear that the illusion would be broken. So many in this land were proving themselves to be an intolerable sort.

Would he?

But I risked it, regardless. And I wove between tall stacks of ice to appear in the clearing, a cold coal dripping with frozen blue. My hair traced along the ground, my dark neck was lifted high and my three wound horns created a proud silhouette. I recognized him, actually, and I was somewhat thankful that I had come to a point in my life here that I was not to be constantly surrounded by strangers.

He had been there, too, at the battles of the gods.

"Taking a day off from fighting all manner of deity, then?" I queried with a dark tone. My blue eyes glittered in the odd light, and my long hair spread in waves across the ground.

Maybe I was in a good mood. Maybe I just wanted to talk to someone without driving them away. But whatever it was, I made myself available.

When will you?


""

[[If you can manage to work in talking to Lyn about ranks (for either plague or Basin and/or both) that would be swell cause she NEEDS to get ranked. :X ALSO your post was great hush.]]
AHVELYN
image credits

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#3
Яikyn
A voice draws my eyes up, hot breath bursting from my nostrils in heavy exhalation from the vigorous dash that had carried me here. She, known instantly from the gentle lilt of her tones, is as old as my parents, perhaps older, the faintest whisper of gray among the dark coloration of her pelt, wisdom and her common expressions etched into her features by the wrinkles in her flesh; if I paid more attention in life I might have been able to read what sort of person she was or, at least was for most of her years, right there on her azurite lined mask.

Instead, I see only a face, one with eyes that seem kind enough, paired with words that seem to hail me as someone who is recognized from the battles with the Gods. I turn about and trot the remaining distance towards her, a smile shining on my youthful face in return of the good natured greeting I’d received, letting my mind replay what brief glimpses I’d had of her during the bout with the Bear and the Wolf – not truly surprised to find her in both.

Much of Helovia had been there, after all.

"Can’t fight all the time!" I breathily chuckle as I slow my pace and pause before her, nodding my head in a polite greeting to the elder mare and admiring what surely was great beauty in her youth, "and the mountains are their best in Birdsong, if you ask me.

"I’m Rikyn, a soldier in the Basin," I add with a slight incline of my head towards the mountain, having already smelled traces of pine and musty caverns upon her that suggest she lives there, too.


[ OOC: Woohoooo rank mentionings ~ He's not really aware of the ranks within the Plague, as he only went to a meeting or two, but he does know about their general mission and who all was at those meetings, so he won't be much help in Plague rank departments. ]

in every heart a hole
Image Credit

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Ahvelyn Posts: 44
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 13 [Orangemoon] HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Jen
#4
Long Gone, Most Beloved

And so he was kind.

I learned this because of the way he laughed when he spoke, and I committed it to heart and memory, and I convinced myself of the good in that young heart that stood before me, then. He was kind. He was still, in some ways, a child.

But man enough to know when to hold his tongue and bow his head. Man enough to be endowed with as much manners as pleasantness. I was thankful, for that.

Your sister is older than you. If she is anything like I was as a girl then surely she brushes you aside at times, such behavior is unavoidable. That said, I would hope that she has passed some of her good manner onto you. Surely she must have some, for I would never have raised a daughter without them.

I got by, because of my manners. I survived because I knew when to say the right thing and when to keep my mouth shut.

But I suppose none of you would have survived, either way.


His politeness was in stark contrast to all I had experienced, but I was not one to reject the unusual--particularly not when it turned out in my favor. Thus, I returned his nod with one of my own. I added, too, a rare smile. Had I ever been given the opportunity to serve as a mother in this life, perhaps the upturn of my greying lips could have been described as motherly.

I'll never know what it was.

But with that smile I watched him and listened with delicate ears facing forward. I gave him as much of my attention as he gave me of his. It was a fair trade.

"True enough," I told him then, looking Eastward towards the not so distant site of the first battle. But my gaze wandered only for a moment, and I turned my head back as soon as he gave me his name. So quick, so trusting.

"A soldier, oh? That explains it, then. Good to know I've attached myself to a herd with one as steadfast as yourself then," boy, I thought at the last second but did not say. Better not to wound whatever pride he might have, I was too smart for that. He was clearly aware of my age, he treated me with due deference, but there was no need for me to treat him any lesser than he treated me.

Still, I wouldn't yet give him my name.

""
AHVELYN
image credits

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#5
Яikyn
It’s a warm smile she returns me, the beginning of a positive encounter. And while it is not the rush of a carefree sprint across loamy mountain earth in the crisp spring air, the sky is blue as a robin’s egg and littered with white fluffy clouds; it’s a good day to make friends, as good a day as any I’ve cared to notice in a while.

I tend not to note the weather, wonder why I do such now.

But, there is something in the yellow light of the sun as it kisses down on the meadow that demands I take notice of it, perhaps how it slants down her face as she smiles kindly and makes conversation with me, turning to look towards where the Bear had fallen not so far from here.

She doesn’t give me her name in return, something I have become used to in others and puzzle over; I don’t really understand why they can’t just lie and give me a fake one if they don’t want me knowing who they are, though I do understand why one would want to guard themselves. Maybe she’s an honest soul, one that shines with white light and builds around itself thick walls to keep others away, so that they might not tarnish its gleam.

I can’t know until I get to know her, right?

Her complement earns a gleaming grin, quick to latch on to the little dizzying boost of pride that slips into my heart from her words. My mother is gone, my father distant, and to receive such praise from someone who has seen as many years and warriors as they have warms me towards her; while I know my parents love me, a more recent supplement planted by my sire (his greatest creation, my mind echoes), it is nice to hear such praise from a stranger.

"You haven’t been here long, then?" I ask, letting hoping the smile the flashes across my face says it for me – I don’t like being grateful, it makes me feel weak, as if I’ll owe them something later, and I don’t feel like I owe anyone a thing for being kind, "we’re not always waging war against foreign Gods, honest."

My tail swishes behind me in humor, my features roguish, alive with my cheeky youth.


in every heart a hole
Image Credit

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Ahvelyn Posts: 44
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 13 [Orangemoon] HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Jen
#6
Long Gone, Most Beloved

I liked to consider myself an observer. On that day I was somewhat distracted, but I still cared to get somewhat lost in the sun and the pale blue shadows it cast over fields of permafrost. The one before me, so dark a brown and so boldly accented by gold that he appeared a shadow, stood in stark relief. But he was young, and he was handsome for his age and I ventured to guess that someday he would make someone else very happy.

Some live life beautiful, others are content to simply be in its presence. I was an unwilling member of the former caste, one desperately seeking the contented peace that the latter life could afford me. To be beauty is to be blinded by it and unable to find it anywhere. It was only in aging, in my fading physical charm, that I was able to ever find this pleasant joy.

I suspect your experiences are different. I can't imagine one as you are must be burdened with such mortal and trivial things as beauty. But as it was, I found myself plagued by it.


I let the day soothe me. I found myself thawing, my typically icy exterior too brightened by the day at hand to maintain its frozen coat. When he asked about my time here, I simply nodded to confirm what he already believed. His defense of Helovia's activity was simply something to smile at.

My chuckle was airy, the little nickering exhales barely audible above breaths taken in the cold. "That's what they all say," I remarked with a bemused twitch of my tail, one so slight that it hardly stirred the lengths of blue ribbons. "No need to defend your land. It seems I'll be settling here for some time, epic battles aside; I've not the same will to wander as I once had," I added, my gaze seeking his. That was my assurance, really. I wasn't going anywhere.

Where would I have even gone, with you still so far? And the mare, the one I'd somehow managed to not yet find even in the two battles where she and I had both been, I could sense even then that she was in Helovia. I could feel it, if only for the fact that this was the end of the world and the line.

""
AHVELYN
image credits

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#7
Яikyn
How much of life did Narcissus let pass unnoticed as he stared into his mirror?

And, even if I had known who Narcissus was, would the tale have made me look out from my inward cast gaze?

Doubtful; even as she warms to my presence, I have not noticed she was ever reserved or frigid at all, having leapt to the decision that she was fine with my company, as she had initiated the conversation. I take notice of the obvious, such as her nod, but am too absorbed in what I think and I feel to care much for the emotional state she finds herself in.

She smiles, and laughs, each line of her life creasing, revealing (to a skilled eye, anyway) the story of who she was. To me, it is a face that instills trust, a warm liking of her rising in my heart for the simple fact that she is a matron, a soft and gentle ambassador of life. I cannot know that in all her years she has managed to give life to none, though she has tried; I have never thought that there could be such a wound in a woman’s soul.

Surely they could all give life. It was the gift the Gods granted us all, was it not, our rightly power as beings born of their grace, their ultimate understanding?

I smile in happiness that she likes Helovia and the Basin despite its currently tumultuous setting; I’m glad I won’t have to defend it further.

"Ah, but you have to like wandering some, still," I reply with a roguish wink to accompany the cheeky words which follow, inclining with my horn towards the path she had been walking along as she’d called my attention (it leads back home, if I recall correctly), a suggestion that we walk and talk as I take a few paces forward, "or you would be alongside the lake, with the rest of the droll homebodies."

I pause to see if she’ll take my offer to walk. I find that, while I could tolerate standing and talking for at least a few minutes, the energy that ran through me this afternoon couldn’t be restrained for anything much longer than that. If she doesn’t want to wander and converse, I may have to jog in place.

"Not that they aren’t nice," I amend, an obvious after thought that lacks any sort of sincerity to the discriminating ear – I guess it is sort of rude to call your herd mates names, even if some of them never really seem to leave the Basin, but it doesn't mean I approve of hanging out in one valley forever and ever.

What sort of person enjoys that sort of confinement, such smallness? The world is vast, the least they can do is pay homage to the First Gods who built it by getting a good look on at least some part of it beyond a single herd land.


in every heart a hole
Image Credit

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Ahvelyn Posts: 44
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 4.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 13 [Orangemoon] HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Jen
#8
Long Gone, Most Beloved

I followed him because I didn't know where else I would have gone. He was right about me, I did still like wandering. I think it was because I didn't have anywhere I felt I could really stand still. Others in the Aurora Basin were content with looking out over the lake and seeing it as if it was new, bright, and exciting—as if they had never seen anything else like it. But when you get to be the age that I was then, and when you have seen so many things, such small joys become more difficult to take pleasure in.

"I find it less to be a desire and more of a need," I answered, simply at first, keeping my fair distance and flicking my tail imperceptibly as the rest of it trailed in my wake. I looked over him then, youthful in his figure but not seeming to lack some experience based on the muscle he bore. But his skin, was it thick or thin?

I wanted to know what kind of boy he was. I wanted to know if he was like mine, if he was like you, or if he was like so many of the wretched ones I've known. Was there any harm in that curiousity, or was I hurting my chances just be acknowledging the possibility that he might not be one of the good ones?

They are so rare, child, good men. Hard to find and harder to hold on to, they more often die at your feet and haunt your heart than they stand by your side. This is simply the tragedy of their being; it is difficult for kindness to exist in a world demanding cruelty.


"These aging limbs grow tired of standing too long in a cold and dark cave. Try as I might to retire, I often find myself looking for something..." I went on, then, feeling forthcoming in the presence of idle youth. I consoled and assured myself with the thought that he would have displayed lasciviousness already, were it in his bones. I didn't go on completely, having shared my goals with no one on that earth, but rather turned my blue eyes to his and tried to see what I can learn with flattery and open honesty.

"And why do you wander, man?"

""
AHVELYN
image credits

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#9
Яikyn
She answers quickly, that there exists a need to wander within herself – a notion which settles unevenly in me, the boy who had tried to follow his dam away, who ended up somewhere he had never planned to be. Ever since I have come home, there is a small part of me which looks over my shoulder, out the pathways of the Threshold, over hills and through mountains, to where that forest looms, tall and ethereal.

A need.

I don’t wish for it to grow into such a thing. I would like to think that the wanderlust I feel, the loneliness for Xynia’s no nonsense approach, and elderly Vaelenne’s gracious smile, are only wants, the grasping of an ever needy soul. To think that these feelings that try to tug me away will only deepen makes me frown.

I know nothing of retirement, as she talks of next, and yet I do understand the pressing urge to leave the confines of a cave. Even before I had struck out into the greater world of Loorien, a certain adventurous nature had drug me all across the face of Helovia, my friends in tow. Never had I been known to linger in one spot for too long, and while it may only be my youth which restlessly sends me out into the world, I cannot help but feel that it is an integral part of my being.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, she asks of them, the smile that had faded as I waded deep in thoughts, returns to my lips, a sparkle igniting in my golden eyes that reveals of much I enjoy that she has taken such an interest in me.

"To see, and to learn," I answer honestly, though there is more depth to the reality than that, my tenor continuing forward with the explanation of my heart’s yearning for new stretches of road, visions yet unseen, "to meet as many of our kind as I may…"

Truly, I am supposed to be in Helovia on the business of the First Gods, teaching as Vaelenne had asked of me in exchange for her kindness; thus far I have taught no one a single thing. That I have become distracted by the violent course of removing failed Gods from the face of Loorien is little excuse, especially when I think of the people of the Nightwalk, their happiness, and the great struggle that my mother and the Reaper seemed to feel within themselves, so contradictory for their aims being so similar.

"…and to teach what I might, and to learn what they have to share."


in every heart a hole
Image Credit

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).


Forum Jump:


RPGfix Equi-venture