"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.
There was something very wrong. Each step she took only strengthened the knowledge that there was something very wrong with her. It had taken her some time to force her way from beneath the tiger's massive body and even longer to convince herself to walk away. She coughed and wheezed, blood colored her teeth and muzzle crimson and her hooves dragged the ground as she forced herself away from the battlefield. Blood continuously ran from the deep wound in her side where the tiger's claw had slipped between her ribs and punctured her lung. Her head hung low and her blue eyes were not as clear and bright as they normally were and she didn't have the energy to hold herself in the regal manner that was typical Snö.
As the girl reached the shore she stood looking out at the land that was far out of reach. In the back of her mind she knew that she would never make it across the sea back to the mainland. She would never feel the snow crunch beneath her hooves, or watch the mist as it swirled around the trees in the Edge.
She was tired.
Tired of fighting. Tired of trying to make herself better for everyone else. Tired of trying to fit in. Tired of hurting and being hurt. Tired of running.
Snö's legs folded beneath her body and she hit the ground because she no longer had the strength to stand. She groaned and she rested her head in the sand and looked out at the water as it lapped so gently against the shore. The sound was soothing, calming, and she couldn't help but think this isn't so bad as she lay there. It wasn't the mountains, but what a view.
The edges of her vision had begun to grow dark and keeping her eyes open began to be a chore. She realized that she was slipping away, but she couldn't make herself care because the warm pull of death was too alluring for her to resist. As she slipped away there were only two things that she regretted. "I didn't get to tell my dad I'm sorry. I didn't get to tell him that I do love him."
I'm so sorry, dad. I love you.
"."
Snö
you're looking at an absolute zero
i'm not the devil but i won't be your hero
"Who will die today?" he asked, tiredly, of the God—of the world. "Your daughter," the world replied.
She had been there, at the fight—lost in the chaos of fire and tar and bodies, swallowed by the stench of burning flesh and singed hair, drowned in the screams of agony and rage. She had been there, his child, his firstborn, fighting alongside him in this pointless, dreary battle—but he lost her to the flickering sheets of flame, and to the strength of the tigress.
He lost her, and when he found her, it was at the edge of his vision, staggering drunkenly towards a horizon she would not reach.
And he felt something in his heart. Something deep, something dark; a cold fist sinking its claws into him and holding on tight—
"Snö!" he shrieked, blood welling out from his riven chest as he charged over the sands; it was a beautiful contrast to the stark white of his fur, bitten by the salty breeze.
He didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to acknowledge it. He didn't want to accept it.
But he knew it, in the way she staggered, in the way she slowed, in the way she started to fall—
"SNÖ!"
But his voice could create no miracles, and the love in his heart was not enough to save her.
She fell. (Click, the buckle on the leather came loose.)
An eternity later, she hit the ground. (Thud, the leather satchel landed by his feet.)
"I think I will not return to the mountains."
Snö had fallen, but Mauja was still running, wild with panic and denial. "SNÖ!!!" But there was no answer, and would be no answer, and—and—and—
He had nothing left anymore. He had been there at her birth in the Edge, watched her brought forth into the world by the shadow-mare he had grown to love; and in the very same mists he had seen Aviya born, stood guard over Kou as d'Artagnan would've, had he not been a captive in the Throat.
Kou was murdered. Psyche was murdered. He had watched Aviya die. And now, he had watched Snö die.
And d'Artagnan had walked away from him.
They were in heaven now, but he had been left to walk the earth.
"NO!" he shrieked, slipping in the sand—slipping on her blood—and falling down, crashing into her still and lifeless form, neck and forelegs draped carelessly over her. "No," he whispered, breathed, tears blurring his vision of the corpse that had been his eldest daughter.
"Who will die today," he repeatedly dumbly to himself, wondering why he did this—time and again, why he loved, when it was all taken from him and he was left with nothing—
His heart wasn't cold. It wasn't empty; hollow.
It was full of glass shards and misplaced blood.
"Snö, I love you, I love you, my girl, my baby girl—" He was babbling into her mane, into her cold neck, into her lifeless veins and into her valiant heart that hadn't been strong enough to keep fighting against such odds—
If only he had done more than glance at her before charging with his fire. If only he had kept an eye on her, been there to protect her, take the blow for her—if only he had managed to tell her how much he loved her, how much he had always loved her, how beautiful she was, how blessed he was to have seen her grow into such a lovely mare—
How much his heart ached that he had never seen her in love, that she had never borne children and felt the same pride over them as he had felt over her—
He had imprinted his icy, fucked-up view of the world on her and now she was dead, lifeless, trapped in his bloodied embrace as his screams of her name grew louder and louder again, high-pitched and broken, torn from the last shreds of his shattered sanity.
"It's okay," he was finally murmuring, rocking from side to side against her as if it could somehow cajole her back into life, "it's okay, it's okay, you're with momma now, you're with Psyche now, she'll take care of you, it's okay, she'll take care of you—" He was wearing d'Artagnan's leather satchel, wearing what he had left of love pressed against his shoulder. It felt as empty as his future. "—you'll be fine now, love, you'll be fine, it's okay, we'll be fine..."
But you won't ever be fine, Mauja. You've lost too much. Your heart's barely beating as it is.
Still, he kept promising her cold body that all would be fine, because what else had he ever had for her, but well-intended lies?
Where there's no Law tying my heart from the start..
I’d heard him shriek like that before—so I guess that’s why I shot to my feet so fast.
I was still dizzy, though. And clumsy and weakish and weird and my bones felt thick and it felt waaaaay too comforting for Mr.Archibald to stand over me like that, protecting me from something and letting me be…a little girl for just a moment.
But—but then he…he screamed.
He did.
And there was nothing for it but to scramble to my feet (even though my side was splattered with something smelly and awful and hot and weird that burned into my skin), my eyes wide and searching for the big white ass that snared me so easily. You saw him first; I looked through your eyes and your hammering heart and all I saw was—
--was this huge white figure falling to the ground—
--and I was already running for him (“LEE!” I think I was screaming, “LEE, LEE--“) before I recognized another pale figure, this time lying in a pool of—
(--red, red, we’ve all got veins and they all beat and we all have a heart and even though it hurts and it sucks to have one that’s the point—)
(It hurts, doesn’t it?)
And he was still screaming and I was to scrambled to figure out why, so I kept running for him—because laying there like the idiot child I was, he could’ve been hurt, or killed, or maimed, or some shit and I had to get to him, I had to I had to I had to I had to I…
…I…
…oh shit.
And he was mumbling now and…and I had run close enough to hear the words that poured from his mouth (so like blood)…
My baby girl.
His baby girl.
His…
….oh shit.
And…I was already there wasn’t I? Had had hurried to him when I heard the misery clawing out of his throat—and so I gave myself a front-row seat to his pain.
A pain that hit way, way, way too close to home.
It was…he was…I couldn’t…
What the fuck could I have done?
I stood there, my sides heaving, my breath shaking as I watched him clutch the body of what was clearly his—his daughter (we could’ve been the same age, she was a woman--) and the shock of learning that this icy bastard had a family paled in comparison to the realization that he had—lost it.
What could I do but cry? They fell thickly, way too fast to stop them; huge, fat tears sliding from my eyes, out of shock and the hurt that emanated from him in grueling waves. I had seen that heart of his already (the heart I told him he had, the heart I made him acknowledge) and I had seen in frostbit in the north, shaken in a grove, tentative and soothing in a crystal cave somewhere. I was seeing it now. I was watching it shatter.
(Not break, but shatter)
My cheeks were soaked and the tears weren’t gonna stop coming and I was just standing there stupidly (uselessly, of course) with a sword strapped against my side and my whole ass filled with a spark that couldn’t revive the dead. (And his daughter was dead, his daughter was dead, his daughter, his DAUGHTER, his daughter—)
“…Lee,” I whispered, or croaked, or groaned or something, whatever, it was a whisp of his name crawling out from between my tears, “….Lee.” And I wasn’t really sure what I was trying to do, or…or what to do, what to say, what the fuck do you say to someone when their heart is laying shattered in pool of their daughter’s blood?
He had touched me before, when I had been broken from Toto’s death (and my failure to prevent it—). I stood there and wondered if I could ever have the balls to touch him, to ground him to reality like that (but why would I ever want to bring him back to a place where his daughter was—) My muzzle fell somewhat, lowered near his body, near the heat of his anguish—but that’s all that happened, because it turns out I didn’t have the balls after all and it felt sick to remind him that there was still a whole wide world of blood just waiting to be shed.
10-29-2015, 09:55 AM (This post was last modified: 10-29-2015, 10:00 AM by Ophelia.)
Ophelia the Amaranthine
"Musing through memories, Losing my grip in the grey. Fighting to hold on, clinging to just one more day"
Sno...
Ophelia watched her fall, and she lunged forward, wanting to pull her to her feet and demand that she be all right. But words were meaningless. There were no incantations or whispers that could turn back time or heal a soul already being ushered by death. She was in his pocket now, ferried across the universe to the afterlife, and while this should be a comfort, all she felt was pain. No magic she possessed could mend any wounds, let alone these, and she stood helplessly to the side, sounds of anguish from Mauja a choir of regret. The pale princess lowered her head, feeling the guilt gnaw ceaselessly at her gut.
Roskuld was there as well, but she was standing. She would heal. And she was focused on Mauja. It would be wrong now to fuss over her state of being so selfishly. It would be wrong for her to say anything at all.
This was her fault.
Sno's sides were still heaving, and Ophelia reached out, trying to find her thoughts and heart beneath the layers of pain. What she heard was the last words Sno would think, and she hurriedly replied, hoping to ease her passing with a sense of peace. "I will tell him," she replied honestly. "He will know..." This would be her repentance. Only she could deliver this finality and make only a tiny silver lining in a hurricane. Ophelia blinked harshly, feeling tears roll down her cheeks despite her best efforts to cage her own heartache.
"Her last thoughts were: 'I didn't get to tell my dad I'm sorry. I didn't get to tell him that I do love him.'" she said quietly, hoping to give Mauja one more moment with the memory of his daughter. The Amaranthine watched with a breaking heart before hanging her head low. "I am so sorry..."
Then, she moved to Roskuld, making sure that she was okay. Trying to do anything right in a world where she seemed to only do wrong.
And all this time she was thinking... she was but one mortal. The Earth God could have done something- should have done something. He was the god of healing and renewal. He was the one who healed her sisters legs. Why would he do this?
Anger.
Coding by Tamme with credits to Sevin | Art by cos-tam
(permission from ali for the mind reading!)
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
“LEE!” (—don't.)
“LEE, LEE--“ (—please, don't—)
I can't—
His whispers meant nothing, dead words falling from lifeless lips as his warm blood kept spilling out over her—as if it could somehow fall into her silent veins and bring her back to life, make her wake up from this cold marble slumber. She shouldn't be dead—she shouldn't be dead, she wasn't old enough, she was the future, she was hope, she was everything and she was lying cold in her own drying blood.
"No—" he sobbed into her unyielding neck. Faced with the darkness of the world, there was little else he could do. It whispered for him, beckoned to him, rose to a shrieking gale around his ears; what did he have left? His foundation had been torn from right under him, his world brought down brick by brick until someone had just torn the whole fucking thing down, because hey, why not? It was going down anyway, this ship sinking, and still he cried for her, and not for himself, because how could he pity himself when she was the one who was dead?
“….Lee.” She was breathing on his back, near his shoulder, but he just flattened his ears and buried his face against Snö. He didn't want to hear. Didn't want to know. Didn't want to be called back into the cold, cruel world where there would be no more Snö.
It was like losing Psyche all over again; they hadn't met much in their last years, but he could've gone to find her if he wanted to. And now.. he couldn't.. she had burned, black and beautiful and utterly, irrevocably dead.
Their daughter would follow the same path—and he hoped she would not get lost in the winding pathways of stars, but find Psyche wherever souls went when their bodies died, and that they would be happy, up there somewhere.
(Or down there, or wherever the fuck they were.)
And that they would run together and prance together and do all sorts of silly, funny things, and maybe, just maybe, every once in a while look down towards Helovia and watch him struggle on and miss him but not too much—he had to live his life, for them, so that when the time came for him to join them he would be able to .. what, exactly? Tell them all they'd missed out on?
".. how senseless death, how precious life," he said, weakly, exhausted. The world was a cold and empty void, but with Snö lifeless in his arms, how could he turn his back on life?
"Her last thoughts were: 'I didn't get to tell my dad I'm sorry. I didn't get to tell him that I do love him.'" And the tears that fell were slow and silent, his pulse a spent thing, as he peered up towards the distant sky. "I love you, too," he mouthed at the clouds. Had he ever doubted? She had been cold, and distant, let down at every step by him—rightfully disappointed, but had he ever doubted that she felt for him, like he did for her?
He had worried, yes. He had thought it would've been fair if she had. But.. all the pain he had caused her; all the pain she had admitted to—wasn't that the proof that she cared?
Drawing in a ragged breath he lowered his head again, resting it against her best as he could. Snö had been the princess of the Edge—without her, it was nothing.
Without Kahlua, it was nothing.
Without Snö, the world was nothing.
"I don't want to do this anymore," and it was like a hesitant sob, like gently poking a tiger, or feeling a sore; his head was pounding and his chest felt like it was on fire, but what else could he do? How could he rise in the morning with the strength to protect others, and guide others, and care for others, when his mind lay in shambles around the ruins of his heart? His tear-blurred gaze rose with his heavy head, and focused on the first, nearest horse he saw—which, of course, was Roskuld. "I don't want it. The Edge. Take it. It's yours."
And then, he lowered his head again, sagging against the body of his child as he exhaled.
The world could go on without him, even if it came to ruin. He did not care anymore.
10-29-2015, 02:09 PM (This post was last modified: 11-07-2015, 12:16 PM by Ophelia.)
Ophelia the Amaranthine
"Musing through memories, Losing my grip in the grey. Fighting to hold on, clinging to just one more day"
Ophelia watched, understanding the grief he was feeling. When she and her sister fell upon her mother's corpse in the woods, she had felt numb, the agony too great to comprehend as tears failed to form from shock. She had stood as Torleik build a pyre, honoring her mother as a warrior queen, and she had leaned on him then for support. They had come a long way since they, but that was the moment she knew that he was the one for her. Selflessly, he had honored a woman he didn't know - simply because she was important to Ophelia.
That was why she had abandoned leadership in the Aurora Basin. That was why she had given up everything she had fought for there and followed Torleik. For him and for the Edge, she had served loyally, gathering many and bringing them together. Ophelia had saved their own from getting their things stolen, she had stolen Gaucho, proving that the Edge was once more a proud nation, capable of great things. She had given up everything to give to the World's Edge, expecting the leadership there to, in turn, recognize and support the rest.
But in his grief, he turned to her daughter - a tempestuous girl without thought to politics. She was great, capable of kindness and the daughter of a god, but she had chosen no loyalties. Roskuld had not lived in a herd to understand their dynamics. Had not served in a rank to know what it means to be a leader. There was no progression of learning and understanding - from lowly rank to queen.
No.
Mauja handed her the World's Edge - a position beside her Torleik - as if it were nothing. Nothing. When she had given everything to be there. Ophelia was standing right there. She was there. Giving the last words of his daughter. He knew she had brought back many to their herd, had served well, protected those within their borders, taught what she could, and he ignored her presence completely! Her ears slammed back against her skull, and that spark of anger burned in her gut as she felt the slight of his offering.
How carelessly he threw away what others had strived to make great.
Someone had to tell Torleik, and she bristled, drops of blood beginning to paint her coat of violent, cruel rain. Tears turned to red streaks slipping down her hide, and it took strength to remain rooted to her spot, cloven toes digging in the ground.
High tide was soon, and she was trapped on his island until it receded. She would wait this out. See what happened.
Coding by Tamme with credits to Sevin | Art by cos-tam
(probs wont be able to post this weekend, so I had to reply now ;-; sorry for post order! )
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
10-29-2015, 05:00 PM (This post was last modified: 10-29-2015, 05:01 PM by Roskuld.)
Roskuld & Zchiraxicon
Where there's no Law tying my heart from the start..
My whole body clenched red hot when he drew away from me—shrunk from the hint of a touch I was too cowardly to give him. And I guess I was right to fear that touch. He wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready, shit.
But it made the tears hotter and saltier and I felt you climb onto me, zpsnk!ed in your smallest lizard body, weaving yourself in my forelock as you felt the blood pump through my ears and my skull. “Lee…” I said again, and it was stupid because it wasn’t doing anything; it wasn’t fixing an impossibly broken heart and it wasn’t breaking a soul back into a body and it wasn’t rewinding time itself to a point where he still had his daughter.
(And I was still trippin’ over that—he has a daughter, he has a daughter, he has a daughter, a daughter, a daughter—)
I caught her scent before I even saw her, but the shock of it hadn’t entirely escaped me when I looked up at my Ma and her quiet words of refined silk. My eyes were bloodshot and wide, way too big for my face and all kinds of soaked from the sloppy shit that was cascading down my cheeks; I looked at her like a lost child looks at their mama, and the fact that she was telling Lee how much his daughter regretted her last words struck all kinds of chords within me, breaking me way too hard on the inside, causing some inner certainty and hammer itself into my head.
I gasped and tried to control the sobs that wanted to shake me so hard. “Ma—“ I croaked, not even knowing what I wanted to say but knowing, in my heart of hearts, that it was now or never, “Ma…Ma, I’m s—“
"I don't want to do this anymore."
The dead man was talking. My gaze shot back to him, cutting off my words, his broken body looking up at me with eyes filled with broken, melted shards of ice.
What can I do for you, Lee? I thought rapidly, desperately, the need of it coursing through my veins and making my head spin a dozen directions, What can I do to fix it, what can I do, what can I do—?
"I don't want it. The Edge. Take it. It's yours."
…
…
Wait—
I stared down at him, my sight blurry with salt and confusion as I tried to quickly analyze the things he said. Which didn’t help, cuz I guess I was thinking about it WAY too fast or whatever, because the only thing I could think about when he said the “Edge” was the herd, and that didn’t make any sense—so I stood there, at a huge loss, a complete and utter loss, useless and flailing miserably with how to help one of my best friends.
It didn’t help when I looked to Ma for guidance—maybe she would know what he was talking about—but all I saw from her was a wall of PISSED that damn-near made me snap my neck back in trying to avoid the flame of her blazing eyes. Which only confused me further and amped up the panic fluttering in my breast; my gaze switched between the broken pile of a man clutching the body of his daughter to the icy flames that almost seemed to leak from my Ma’s taught body—and I’d never been so lost before in my life.
“…Lee,” I said, and my tone shifted to something of a stronger whisper cuz now my voice had purpose, “Lee, please. I don’t…don’t want—“ Don’t want to lose you. But my voice failed and I choked up for a moment and I gathered my voice again and tried once more.
“I want…I wanna help, Lee. Please. I want—but—“ My face was still soaked and all I could do was shake my head slowly, my eyes lost, so wide and afraid he was finally going.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally confessed, and goddamn I felt so small when I said it, just as small as the words were themselves slipping from my teeth like that. And who wouldn’t feel small from where I was standing? Before me was a bottomless pit of a darkness I had always feared instead of seeing with my own two eyes—and to my side was a blaze of fury that eluded me almost as much as it terrified me.
What did Lee say to get Ma so pissed like that?
[...except Ros never knew Mau was Queenie of the Edge :D So that's fun.]
Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.
A low, broken keening rolls over the battlefield— drawing in the elephantine man. It is the sound of a heartbreak so selfless, so thorough, and so complete that it can only be from one cause:
The death of a child.
The great stallion knows that timbre well. So he approaches his Queen slowly, for blood flows freely from the slashes in his side and the jagged end rattles dangerously in his chest.
But he must get to his lead, to his friend. He watches him fall to his knees. Watches a unicorn of strange horn and markings stand above his rocking, shattered form. The crimson-laced woman comes near as well. They are speaking, but he is too far to hear the exchange of heartbreak.
He is close enough to hear the white stallion speak to the skies, “I love you, too.” His heart shudders at the bereaved words. His strides falter, could he console him? No, there are no condolences, no comfort, to be had from this loss. He knew. But his experience with this drove him onward to stand beside his fallen friend.
As his strides slow and halt, Mauja speaks to the electric mare, to everyone, and to no one “I don't want to do this anymore.” Yes, he understood that sentiment. The world was a cruel and unforgiving place, why would a father wish to live while his daughter was dead?
But the world continues to spin on its unforgiving axis, oblivious to the breaking souls on its surface. He stops close to his fallen friend, trying to rest his thick legs against his back, pale hooves making strange ripples in the congealed blood. He had seen the speckled hide draw away from touch, but Tembovu still tries pressed his gentle, unyielding pressure against Mauja. Not for comfort, not to ground him to this reality, but to serve as a lifeline in the overwhelming sea of grief. “But you must, Mauja,” his low voice rumbles quietly to the fallen King, “Your child would wish it.” It was this notion, that his family would want him to continue, that had allowed him to rise from their ashes. He could only try and offer it as aid to the white leopard.
He falls silent as he gives the Edge’s leadership to the electrified, stocky mare. His brows raise slightly, sweeping to her. Did he mean this, or were the grief-stricken words without sentience? The vibrating anger from the crimson lady drew his deep gaze to her and her weeping of blood. She was coated in it. Now his brows fully rise— hadn’t enough blood been shed?
Such anger had no place beside a father bereaved of his daughter. The fury rolled off her in waves just as the blood rolled down her cream coat. Again, the uniquely patterned mare was speaking— Ophelia’s daughter. She was so unsure, so lost in this emotional blackhole. The mammoth’s heart squeezed at the fear and panic in the look the she bestowed on the fallen man. Though the recesses of his mind questioned if she could lead the Edge.
A flash of protectiveness (perhaps poorly placed) sweeps through him— his broken comrade needed to grieve. Not play politics. Unconsciously he tries to lean more firmly against Mauja with his legs. “Mauja is— was— a lead of the World’s Edge,” rumbling voice still quiet, he briefly answers the unspoken question.
"Do you want that title?" his deep voices grows slightly stronger as his dark blue gaze briefly pins the mare. "And you, my friend, are you certain of this choice? You've lost something unimaginable," he pauses as he speaks to Mauja, "And no words can offer you solace. But do you mean the words you speak?" Guilt and shame at asking such questions ripples through him. But Mauja was a King, and men of power must make decisions in the face of crippling loss. Unsure of anything but the overwhelming grief that emanates and envelops all near Mauja, he falls silent.
somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
Rid of the monsters inside your head
Put all your faults to bed
You can be king again . . .
But how could he, when his world had come to ruin? When his sun had ceased to rise and set, the stars had died and gone out, and the rivers no longer flowed? Soon they would dry up, barren and empty, and all life would be gone—
“But you must, Mauja,” someone was saying, thick legs pressing into his spine, trapping him against the body of his child; “Your child would wish it.” What was he talking about? What on earth was he talking about? What did Tembovu know of what Snö wished? Why did he have to remain a Queen of the Edge?
But you must, Tembovu had said, and Mauja felt a racking sob tear its way out of his chest—like he couldn't refuse the giant, like a scolded, exhausted child trying to climb back onto his feet and keep running, when all he wanted was to fall into the roadside ditch and weep. Why do I have to? he wondered, and that was when he looked to Roskuld, and tried to give it to her, before sagging back against Snö's limp body and hoping the world would let him be—because he hadn't been strong enough to get up again. He couldn't keep running this marathon of life with a broken heart and pierced lungs.
Except, of course, they wouldn't let him be.
“Lee, please. I don’t…don’t want—“ I won't force you.
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Me neither, really.
“Mauja is— was— a lead of the World’s Edge.” I suppose I was.
"And you, my friend, are you certain of this choice? You've lost something unimaginable."
Certain? Certain? Of course he wasn't certain! How could he be certain of anything, but the fucking void gaping in his chest where his heart should be? He was trying to do something at least, to not leave the Edge in ruin and confusion, like a boat in a storm but with no helmsman to steer it—in all honesty, as long as the closest horse to him had been an adult he would've tried to pawn the Edge off on them, to give them something, anything, and so that he could fade into the oblivion he craved so much.
As he looked up from Snö's body, some blood stuck on his face, he happened to catch sight of Ophelia.
He had only been slightly aware of her presence, half-convinced her voice had been some hallucination of his, but there she stood, and looking at her was like receiving a sledgehammer to the face. "And no words can offer you solace. But do you mean the words you speak?"
His daughter had died, and they were pecking at him like vultures around a carcass. It made him want to yell and storm off, to be alone with his grief, but he was trapped in the sand—there was no way he could rise up without trampling Snö, and he wasn't going to do that.
Wasn't. Going. To. Do. That.
He gritted his teeth, ears flat against his skull, soul at war; anger was spilling out the cracks, because it was easier to be angry than it was to be sad. And if Ophelia thought she had the right to be angry when Snö had just died, Mauja sure as fuck had the same right.
Like, what was she even angry about? That Mauja had happened to offer the Edge to Roskuld? That he hadn't said thank you for taking Snö's last thoughts, and speaking them out loud?
This was exactly why he didn't want to be conscious. Why couldn't they just take their bickering elsewhere, and leave him to mourn?
He couldn't find the energy to deal with it. To bother with it. His head fell down into the sand, muzzle half-buried in the strands of Snö's mane, and he closed his eyes with a sigh. “But you must, Mauja,” Tembovu was saying in his head, and Roskuld was crying, choking out his name. Was this how pitiful, how pathetic, the world was, that it could not function without him? Were they not all grown up, capable of making decisions for themselves? Why did everyone have to be so fucking scared?
"I don't care," he said flatly, his rough voice without passion, without inflection, without life. Each time he breathed, his chest was trapped between Tembovu's legs and Snö's unyielding back.
It never pressed back against him.
His world had fallen apart with these God battles, and they expected things of him still. A short, bitter laugh accompanied his tears. "Look at how much I can protect anyone," and the voice that had been so cold was rank with that bitterness as he poisoned himself. "Look at how much I want to get up each day and not throw myself off the fucking Edge!" The last was a hysterical shriek, his body convulsing with it once, digging deeper into the blood-wet sand.
"I. Don't. Care," he repeated through clenched teeth, spitting it out before the ocean pulled him under again. "You take it, then."
Just leave me out of it.
Please.
[ @Ophelia@Roskuld@Tembovu || I'm amused they thought he meant 'I want to die' when he meant 'I don't wanna lead the Edge anymore' <3 ]
10-30-2015, 10:27 PM (This post was last modified: 10-30-2015, 10:28 PM by Naerys.
Edit Reason: fixing a tag
)
N A E R Y S
'...not throw myself off the fucking Edge!'
Naerys had just stopped before her mother when Mauja's hysterical shriek slammed into her ears. Immediately, her head whips in his direction, in their direction. Any hesitation she'd felt, any reservations she'd had only moments ago are instantly gone. She turns and she runs to him, to the shattered man just trying to mourn his daughter in peace. The burns on her back legs sting from the movement and her shoulder throbs from her collision with the other mare but she doesn't care. Physical wounds can heal, will heal. This, whatever this is, is urgent.
She thunders towards them, racing across the blood and tar soaked battlefield and across the sandy shore. Her hooves kick up sand, the substance clings to the tar coating her rear legs. But it doesn't matter. She is desperate to reach him, to put herself at his side and silence them. They meant well, even she could see that but from her point of view - their words aren't helping. They aren't helping him and that only pushed her faster, harder. As she draws near, a few lengths away, she seeks an opening and moves to place herself beside him with her body parallel to his. Due to her position, she's thoroughly in Tembovu's space. Close enough, perhaps, to place a nip upon his hide but she wouldn't do that, couldn't do that.
Her teal gaze shifts over each of them, one at a time and slowly - lingering. There is no fear in her, no tears form in her eyes (not yet). In her, there is only calm. In her, there is compassion. "Please." she almost begs, her voice firm but still polite. "Now is not the time for this." for words; useless, meaningless words. Her eyes plead with them to back up, to take this conversation somewhere else. There would be time later, after he's had the chance to just grieve.
The girl doesn't speak anymore; she has no desire to. Without hesitation, she reaches her nose forward with the intent of lightly bumping Tembovu's chest. She wants him to move, to allow her some space and some time. Her gaze remains soft and gentle, she does not distrust the stallion's ability to help Mauja. Instead, she feels that perhaps what he needs is a softer and far quieter touch. Her touch. If he'd just move. If he'd just give her space, she could lay by Mauja's side - soft, supple, and quiet with her wing blanketing him. But he doesn't move as quickly as she wants, so she simply stands there persistent and stubborn.
Where there's no Law tying my heart from the start..
The irony of it didn’t escape me—actually, I think that’s what was torturing me the most. Having my Pa’s—no my sword swung on my side, latent but just as deadly laying there was it was flashing all the blues of an asskicking. I had Sparkmarrow beside me and I had you perched on my head, this tiny little shit of a lizard but we both knew the badassery you were now capable of; and I had all that, all that and my Pa’s words, his blessing his thing laying across my brow like drops of holy water (sparklight, sparklight, what even the hell is a sparklight) and you know what?
None of it mattered.
I was probably the most powerful I had ever been in my life—the most capable, I guess. And I was still fucking useless. I still couldn’t make it--stop.
I backed up a step—ears were pinning and teeth were gnashing and he was screaming again and it sounded like the shard of crystal was being shoved deeper into his chest with every movement, every word, every spark of crackling anger that ignited between the group. And my chest was aching with his aching chest—but standing there in pain wasn’t helping the poor guy. You dipped down from my forelock, nothing but lizard feets and your tiny lizard tongue, and you plastered yourself on my right eye, gently lapping up the tears that still seeped from them. You knew me, and I guess that means you knew better; you can’t really see out of eyes that are blinded by salt.
My side was throbbing because oh yeah I was burned by some evil-looking black shit after it squirted all over me (I guess someone had been happy to see me, I dunno). But the dull throb of that pain was nothing to what was going on in my head and my chest and everything else. It was drawing the energy from me, pulling my knees even weaker and my ass even smaller and reminding me with every passing second that I had just come back to this plane. I had spent so much time in that sick, sick place—and it seemed only right that I come back to a complete and utter clusterfuck.
Something about that sick world lingered in my eyes—it made everything dark.
Some massive motherfucker had come—and you can bet your ass he had bigger, sweatier balls than I had, cuz he went right up to Lee and was there, just as strong of a pillar as he looked. I didn’t miss the way he treated Lee, even before he told me the stuff. He was so…I don’t wanna say gentle, cuz that brings to mind all kinds of other things and even though he was careful in his movements, there was something more to it. I guess reverent was a better word. Respectful or whatever.
*“Mauja is— was— a lead of the World’s Edge.”*
I was too fucked up to think about the implications of those words.
All I knew is that it cleared up some confusion: When he said the Edge, he really did mean the actual herd. Okay, cool. Got that squared away. That’s not fucking happening.
I just wasn’t sure why Ma was so upset—oh shit, wasn’t she supposed to be part of the Edge now? I had forgotten for a moment in all the bullshit, but it made a little more sense for her to have some reason to be upset now that her herd was pulled into the mix.
Oh ooooookay. So this was some political bullshit happening. And I didn’t give a fuck about any of that.
All I knew was one of my best friends was on the ground—broken, shattered, pulverized--and it was causing me physical pain to see him like that—and I didn’t know what to do about it but I didn’t want to leave him, I didn’t want to leave him, I couldn’t just leave him like this, at his lowest, when the bottom of the world seems to have fallen from his—
--okay, no, fuck this, because someone else had come, some brown and white woman with wings and a voice too soothing to bear right now. You were already moving across my face to lip up the tears on my left eye, but the flow was starting to stem anyway. This mare came up, so close to the elephant bastard and so obviously smelling like the salt I had missed on everyone’s hides—and something was driving itself home in my head.
I backed up; I backed away from Lee (even though it broke my whole ass and then some to do it) and broke away from the throng of—of a herd. His herd. And of all the implications of the huge guy’s words, one of them was starting to finally break on me.
Lee used to be a king.
…and I guess he was one now.
And these were his subjects, I guess? Ma was, too, which felt so much weirder than my brain would allow to process, so it was more of a vague idea than anything, but yeah, Ma was under his rule. And so was elephantitis, and the winged chick, and probably dozens of others who would cry out and feel pain to see their king—
….their king.
Their….
…I backed up another step. And other. And another. Because this shit was getting too stuffy and crowded.
I wasn’t gone yet, though. I didn’t want to leave. He was crazy and sad and on the ground with a corpse that would never, ever be his daughter again—how could I leave him like that? But I was starting to wonder if my pain for him, my lo—uh, my care for him, my concern—
…did it really matter against multitudes?
Who was I to him?
(A friend, probably--)
But who was he?
Who was Lee?
(And once again, we circle back to the one question no one ever really wants to answer.)
10-31-2015, 01:15 PM (This post was last modified: 10-31-2015, 09:51 PM by Ulrik.)
Ulrik had been on the island, but he and Kirchoff had wandered much too far away to make it to the battle until all was said and done. He watched as some left, others bent over bodies in mourning and many injured tending to their wounds. There was little place here for an engineer, though he would admit to fantasizing about bending those bodies and bones with metal, seeing if his currents would send impulses through their systems. If only the world weren’t so narrow minded; he could do his work in peace.
“Narrow minded? You’re a sick bastard and you call others narrow minded?”
The bronzed stallion stared at Kirchoff, snorting in amusement. He couldn’t deny that particular accusation, so he didn’t respond. Instead, he found a gathering of those in his own, new herd and looked at them curiously. Mauja was in the ground wrapped around Sno – the filly he had given a wolf to so long ago – when she was just a babe really.
She was obviously dead. Something stirred in his chest, an emotion he struggled to define, but he felt something. What he didn’t realize was that it was akin to sadness, and he approached slowly, watching a mare practically throw herself at the grieving stallion and another one question his choices. Ophelia looked downright batshit, but when did she not? Ulrik frowned, seeing Roskuld walk away and he approached quietly, leaning down to offer Sno a final ruffle of her forelock.
Then, he stepped away, starting the task of building a float for her body. This island of destruction was not her home – not any place to be buried. With metal and magic, he made a large tray and a spinning fan on the back. They could drag her to shore and guide it back to the mainland. This would be the second time he made a vessel for a corpse. They should call him the Mortician, not the Engineer.
THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF KIRCHOFF STATES THAT
the sum of currents entering a node must equal the sum of currents exiting a node
11-01-2015, 08:09 PM (This post was last modified: 11-01-2015, 08:12 PM by Tembovu.
Edit Reason: tags
)
Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.
He feels a shift in the body he pressed his legs against. It morphed from limp loss to rigid anger, and the giant stallion flicked his ears and eyes towards the fallen man. ‘I don’t care’ his voice was lifeless, answering his questions from a place that no father should ever have to experience. A flash of acutely painful empathy breaks through the continual ache he feels for Mauja.
He had been alone when he found his dead loved ones. He now understood what a heartbreaking blessing that had been. Mauja was surrounded, regrettably so. Tembovu, himself, had been drawn to him by good intentions. But he arrived only to see a soul shatter.
The white leopard shakes against his forelimbs as he shrieks, convulsing against the thick columns that mean to give support. But now he sees that they only trap him, for Mauja does not need or want comfort now. Despite all the elephantine man has been through, he cannot ease the path of child death.
Thick ears catch the words that spit from clenched teeth, ‘You take it, then.’ He is at a loss, for he did not mean to take that from the electrified mare. He had only meant to act as a buffer between Mauja’s grief and the repercussions of his choices. Tembovu struggles for words, knowing too well the overwhelming emotions his friend feels— yet is unable to aid him. “Mauja, I— I only wish help…” his deep, quiet words fade, for he knows how useless they are— how moronic. There is no help he can give. He knows this. Quietly, he regains his words, "I will make sure the Edge has a lead to take care of it," he offers quietly. It was not an affirmation of taking leadership (did he want that?), but he was taking the burden of finding a new lead off of the grieving stallion. At least he could do that for him.
A winged yearling that he had seen at the Edge approaches, speaks, and is overwhelmed by the grief. She wedges herself near Mauja, pushing the mammoth away with gentle pressure on his chest. Indeed, it was too crowded, too bloody, too much. So he removes his attempt at understanding, stepping away from his friend. The congealed blood flops lazily in the holes left by his massive hooves.
He fades away, similarly to how the electrified mare has. Though he, too, remains; a potential lifeline in the sea of loss.
Yet another appears, and he feels his ears fall backwards. The black and bronze unicorn ruffles the dead mare’s forelock in familiarity. Then begins to craft a vessel. At first his giant head cocks in confusion. Then the realization dawns: the raft is a way for Mauja to return the body of his child.
He could assist in lifting the mare. His large frame was good for that. He takes a half-step towards the body, deep blue eyes watching Mauja closely to await his wishes.
somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
Pull out your heart
To make the being alone
Easy, easy . . .
He should feel something—regret, remorse, at the way he treated those gathered around him. He should feel anything, a desire to help, to.. fix things...
But the only thing he felt was contempt: he was a broken man who had thrown his crown to the ground, and none of them had the guts to take it from him. They all kept shying away from it like it was cursed, or trying to put it back onto his head, but it wouldn't fit anymore.
It probably never had fit, either. Why else did it keep falling off his head like this? The Edge haunted him in his sleep, haunted him in his years a northman and a wanderer, and when he came back it—it just didn't work anymore.
He had no place in this world anymore.
His tethers were coming loose.
Was it worth it? Trying to form new bonds? To start over, when everything kept tearing him up, and apart? Snö laid dead in his embrace; nothing could ever replace her. To take more in to love, was to invite loss.
Loving took a kind of courage he didn't have.
For the first time since he had come to Helovia, Mauja felt a deep, profound desire to die.
"I will make sure the Edge has a lead to take care of it," Tembovu finally said, figuratively bending to pick up the discarded crown. Heck, it probably was cursed, dipped in poison or some such shit. "Good," the fallen one said, his voice a blend of too many things to make sense of: satisfaction, relief, confusion, .. that contempt ... and his gaze flitted among them once; Ulrik, busy doing whatever the fuck he did, Ophelia, white once more, Roskuld, faced with an owl sitting stubbornly right in front of her, Tembovu, backing away to the gentle presence of Naerys, who was folding herself down next to him and spreading her wing.
It blocked out the sun, but it didn't block out the bloody sand sticking to his side—
"I’m not sticking to you with all that shit also stuck there," d'Artagnan said in his head.
—and he felt the overwhelming need to rush into the water and scrub the fucking shit off himself, to scour every crevice of his body free of sand, to get rid of all of it, as if it somehow could bring him back.
Instead, he laid on a bed of passionflowers and groaned, closed his eyes, and pressed his head hard against the ground.
Because what else was there to do?
[ Terribly sorry for the wait, guys. Ophelia and Naerys were mentioned this way with permission from their players. Hail to the King, baby! @Roskuld@Ophelia@Tembovu@Naerys ]
"Musing through memories, Losing my grip in the grey. Fighting to hold on, clinging to just one more day"
Ophelia watched the rest gather and rolled her eyes at the 'who can comfort better' contest that set Tembovu in the defensive. If someone had smothered her with affection at the apex of her grief, she would have turned murderous, but perhaps this is what Mauja needed. She couldn't give it - not like this, so open and seemingly fake. Her heart went out to him. She understood the loss of family, and she knew what it was like to see your family laid out upon the ground. What she did not know was what it was like to lose a child, and she calmed the red seas that painted her hide.
Tembovu took the crown, and that was good. Ulrik was doing... something Ulrik-related. She offered the giant stallion a look of gratefulness, glad that he took up the mantle since he would make a good lead. He was dedicated to the World's Edge and its success, and deep down, she could see that he cared about those who lived within the misty woods.
Mauja laid out then, one with his grief and bent. She thought about the differences between them. How when she lost her mother, she stood so silent and still, frozen as a statue as she watched the body burn. Torleik had been there for her to lean on, but she had been so cold compared to how Mauja was now. Ophelia frowned slightly, only the sounds of metal breaking the silence. That was when she turned to Ulrik.
"Ulrik, what are you doing?" she asked quietly but with a sternly confused expression. Ophelia then took a step closer to Mauja as Tinek landed on her back, seeing Irma and giving the owl a look. The silver dragon then snaked down and approached Mauja's front, understanding from Ophelia's emotions the sadness. Quietly, he attempted to pat Mauja's mane, wanting to work through the white hairs like he did when Phi was anxious.
Coding by Tamme with credits to Sevin | Art by cos-tam
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
11-07-2015, 01:07 PM (This post was last modified: 11-07-2015, 01:07 PM by Ulrik.)
The Engineer was interested to hear that Tembovu was taking over as lead, and Ulrik was fine with that. He had no protests and thus continued working without complaint. Kirchoff sat off to the side, observing with irritation - especially now that they might have to stay here longer because of the tides. Absently he wondered if the newly returned Illynx would care that Mauja had stepped down again or if she was going to go to the Basin to try to take on Deimos.
He didn't see any wisdom in that, but Illynx was her own animal entirely.
The large, black stallion continued to work until the piece was built, and he stared back at Ophelia when she cut him a look and asked what he was doing. Ulrik grunted, glaring back somewhat but trying to be nice. "To bring her home across the channel," he answered back in his deep, graveled timbre. Though it was entirely up to Mauja, Ulrik couldn't imagine leaving anyone on this island. It was too hot, dank and irritating, but he knew better than to say that out loud.
Ulrik approached his old friend then, leaning down to where he was laying on the ground with big, bright bronze eyes. The Engineer sighed, knowing that he was the least apt to give any words of comfort, but he could offer solidarity and loyalty. "Let me know when you are ready, friend," he said quietly. The Engineer then moved to give him some space, not wanting to suffocate his grief.
THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF KIRCHOFF STATES THAT
the sum of currents entering a node must equal the sum of currents exiting a node
She practically flew to him. Stupid? Probably. She is wounded, lest you forget. Desperate? Well... yeah but what is she desperate for would be the better question. Does she give a flying fuck what anyone else thinks? No. Especially not now. With her father not around, the girl had unknowingly latched herself onto the white king. Yet what that means exactly is difficult for her to identify or label. (Does it even need a label?) Regardless, the girl is surprised to see the sobbing mare back up as she slips between Mauja and the rest. With her gentle prodding, the elephant man also steps back. As he does so, she carefully lowers herself beside the grieving man - close enough for him to feel her but not so close as to pin him to the corpse on his other side. She doesn't hesitate to embrace him gently with her wing and she doesn't spare another glance at any of the others. They don't matter to her. He does.
Naerys isn't so much overwhelmed by the grief. Rather, she felt a strange desire to protect Mauja. She wants to shove away their questions and silence their voices. Of course political decisions had to be made but not before the body runs cold. How much could it hurt to give him a day? Just one? Surely they could exist in such a temporary limbo. But then, what does she know? She is just a child after all. A mere yearling with little knowledge of the underhanded nature of politics. So she continues to ignore the rest. She pays no mind to the pale mare and her surly vibe. Doesn't even notice the arrival of the dark stallion or the shifting of the companions. She doesn't even notice her own flowers as they grow around her, snaking and stretching out beneath the stallion in the way that vines so often do. After a short period of time the passionflowers have created a soft, fragrant bed for the two of them of their own accord. She couldn't control them, not completely, but maybe their presence would help him in some small way.
He groans and the sound tugs at her heart, her soul, her very essence of being. As he lowers his head, pressing it against the sand, she reaches forward to press her lips against his hide. Ever gentle, ever comforting, and ever silent. There are no words, only warmth as she breathes against his flesh. The scent of him mingles with the aroma of tar and the sharp, metallic tang of blood but yet it is still there, still pulling her ever tighter and ever closer. She'd wanted to touch him that day she'd stumbled upon him in Frostfall but her reasoning then had been different. It had been a childish curiosity (was he as cold to the touch as he seemed?) and one that she'd been able to resist. Now she touches him with confidence (no, he's not cold at all), without hesitation. As she breathes him in she finds herself shifting to press her face into the widest expanse of flesh she can reach. And then she sighs. A deep, profound sigh that leaves her both comforted and frightened at the same time. Mauja's presence, so closely pressed against her, comforts her - completely - and that is terrifying.
But she couldn't pull away. She couldn't flee. Not after she'd deliberately pushed the others back because they were wrong and because she could comfort him more or better than they could. So she remains still, her head pressing softly against him and her ears tuned only to him. She listens, preparing herself for any abrupt movements so that she might avoid further injury.
Nature's great masterpiece : an elephant ; the only harmless great thing.
His avowal that the Edge would be looked after was met with a single, broken, dead syllable. ”Good.” That was all the antelope-marked stallion need to being to direct his efforts. Naerys bloomed a bed of passion flowers, the Frozen’s ivory head pressing into the lilac blooms. The despair, in every sense of the word, rolled out in tangible waves, crashing into the mammoth. His ears twitched towards the Amaranthine and the Engineer as they traded words about his growing raft.
Ulrik’s words to Mauja, “Let me know when you are ready, friend,” bring the entire setting into surreal focus for the Elephant. Mauja pressed against a bed of fresh blossoms in acute anguish. An injured, compassionate Naerys hovering over the broken, glacial father. An electric mare, confused and hovering at the edges, unsure but wanting to ease his suffering. A darkly bronze, bearded man with a uniquely crafted raft. The Ascended Ophelia returning to pristine white as the last traces of blood-anger slid from her coat. And, lastly, the unmoving, roan body that was the convergence of misery.
This was not a way to remember a daughter, or any loved one. Laying in a pool of sandy, congealed blood. Stiffening with death. No, this was not the way to love, remember, or honor the dead. A few, long strides brought him closer to the grieving father. “Mauja, get up,” his low voice gentle, but firm. “Lay her in her resting place, grieve for your loss, and remember her for how she lived,” he paused, “Not like this.”
Though his words were decisive and compelling, the painful empathy he felt for his friend was written clearly and achingly on his marked face. He spoke from a place of personal suffering, wanting to help his friend in the only way he knew.
somebody shine a light
I'm frozen by the fear in me
Is it that, until you've lost something, you didn't know just how much it meant? That, when it floated somewhere in the periphery of your existence, it felt safe to put things off for another day—because you could just come back, and pick it up later? Snö was a problem he hadn't known how to tackle; when they spoke, biting words and scathing gestures slowly melted into some kind of truce and forgiveness, but then time and distance drove them apart and next time they met, had they come anywhere at all? It was almost like her dislike of him had powered her to go on.
So he had let her be, unsure of what to do—of what she had truly needed from him. Where he had given her space to think (but maybe she hadn't done any of that, anyway, and he had simply treated her like he thought had been best), maybe he should've come back in close, never giving her time to rebound into her frigidity and chill.
Just like how d'Artagnan had sat comfortably in the outer rim of his existence, easily accessible when needed, but not pulled in so tightly as Mauja realized he had wanted to—and maybe he had been afraid, too, of what he felt, and it had been easier to live with the intensity of that on offhand occasions and not at all times, every day. Maybe, in his strange, subconscious crusade to protect himself, he had grown complacent and lazy. It was easier to blame the world for being stupid, than it was to realize that maybe you weren't doing enough.
How many chances and bridges would he have to burn, before he learned? How much grief would there have to be, before he found some peace?
(Selfish, even now—)
But wasn't grief also selfish? Grief was mourning something you had lost—and maybe d'Artagnan grieved too, because he was still alive to know that he missed something (and gods how Mauja wished he could guilt-trip the bastard from afar, so he'd come home), but Snö? Snö was just dead. Snö was just dead, and, selfishly, he wanted her back from that abyss.
His blanket of feathers was soft, Naerys' gentle breath the only thing he felt in his weighted darkness: Snö did not push back against him, nor did the sand and the drying blood. It was just him and Naerys and the fragrance of passionflowers overpowering the scent of war and loss. And he was content to stay there, in the shadow, taken from responsibility, given reprieve from life, from duty, from difficult decisions and hard tasks like getting up off the ground—
Then there was something else, like a tug at the roots of his hair, a gentle pulling, the faintest, cold touch of scales. What..? Those blue eyes, shut against the cruelty of the world, slipped open, but all he saw was the sky, so he closed them again. He didn't want to raise his head. He didn't want to signal to anyone that he was still alive, because frankly, he wished he wasn't. He had spent his entire life not feeling, so now that he did, it was like a wildfire and a flood, the dam-wall burst from pressure and he had no way to contain it. And in the face of that, he would rather not feel.
Tinek, Irma told him softly, calling the silver name up from the depths of his memory. It was Tinek sitting by him, running his claws through long, silken strands of white, and—and—and why—
The quiet tears grew stronger again, a half-quelled sob racking through his body. Tinek was comforting him. Tinek was soothing him. Tinek, Ophelia's dragon, she, the one he had always let down in one way or another, the one he had failed, the one he hadn't been strong enough to love—
They had grown cold and distant and frigid, and the blazing red of her coat—but here was Tinek, her dragon, sitting by him in his grief, and did it mean anything? Was there still a chance for them, to rebuild what he had ruined..? Not love—he was far too fragile to love—but something, anything that was better than what was between them now.
After all, Ophelia was still alive. He could still do right by her. Right? Right?
But then Ulrik was there, saying something, whenever he was ready—but what did ready mean? Would he ever be ready, if all he wanted was to lay here until death claimed him, too? It was cowardly, the easy way out, but he wasn't strong enough—
“Mauja, get up,” and he moaned and groaned in protest. Couldn't they just leave him be? It was what he wanted, to expire on this beach, to never have to rise from his bed of flowers and blood, to pull the cover of the soft wing from his body and stagger upright...
Who were they, to tell him how to mourn?
Who was he, to know how to mourn?
He had never mourned before. Slowly, drunkenly, he disentangled himself from Naerys wing, brushing it gently aside with his plush muzzle; he half-rolled into a position he could move from, and the world spun around him. They were a lost corner of this world, a forgotten place revolving around a dead creature; were the rest of the warriors too sensitive to his grief to come and stare like vultures, or did they simply not care? He brought his head around to Tinek, and attempted to push his face against the dragon, not knowing any other way to express his .. gratitude? at the gesture—at reminding him that there were still things he could fix. "Tinek..." he murmured to the sterling creature, before getting his hooves under himself and hauling himself up. His hind legs quivered.
Mauja rose, from the lowest to one of the highest—such a marked difference when he stood, coated in sand and blood and some unfortunate petals stuck onto his grisly flank like an artwork made by some delusional jerk, from when he had lain, folded and beneath them all. And still, he shrunk away from his height and size, looking awkward and lost. "This place does not know her," he said, softly despite his rough voice. "But she—she passed among friends, at least. We will.. we will burn her in the Edge. Where she belongs."
And he nodded to Ulrik, then. If he could not grieve as he wanted to, lost in the darkness beside the body of his daughter, then, well, he better trust those who had seemed far more successful at living without being reduced to rubble.
[ If you guys want to post again that's fine! If not, I figured we could end it here and just agree among ourselves they went back to the Edge and burned Snö. :) @Ophelia@Naerys@Roskuld ]
"Musing through memories, Losing my grip in the grey. Fighting to hold on, clinging to just one more day"
Ophelia had finally calmed, a deep breath settling her temper to glassy sea. She was quick to anger and passionate in her fury, but she was not so petty that she couldn't let go - sometimes... Still, she had to respect Mauja and his pain, no matter what foolish choices he tried to make while in the throes of sorrow. Just because the world had beat her into heartlessness at the signs of sadness didn't mean that he had to share the same experience.
Thus, she let her cloven hooves rest as Ulrik made his... thing to get across the channel and she watched the scene unfold. So many threw themselves at him with advice and comfort, but Ophelia knew that she couldn't offer anything that would make the pain go away. He had to know that it would stay there forever, an unshakable shadow on your very heart - a dead spot which didn't beat in time with the rest.
Tinek ran his talons through his mane, jumping to attention when Mauja spoke his name. The silver dragon watched the stallion swing his head around to him, and the scaly creature rubbed up against his face like a cat. Secretly, he wanted to shove his tongue out at Irma, but he decided that maturity was a good option at this juncture. Either way, Mauja's mane should be less tangled now, and that was good, right? The dragon watched as the tall beast rose to his hooves and he scampered back to Ophelia, jumping back onto her hip.
He wanted to take his daughter to the Edge, and that was where Ophelia would go - helping where she could. She would wander in silence, no words able to mend this rift of loss.
Coding by Tamme with credits to Sevin | Art by cos-tam
Undertow has come to take me. Guided by the blazing sun. Look at everything around us. Look at everything we've done.
Please. Anyone. I don't think I can save myself. I'm drowning.
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