"Where brilliance is good and madness is better..."
Helovia Info
Helovia opened in February 2012! We are an active fantasy equine RPG
Where once the world narrowed into naught but gray dust and desolation, the gods called for life. Wielding the elements of fire and light, dark and wind, earth and water, spark and time, they have created Helovia. The realm is set within the mythical globe of Loorien, a planet rich with all variety of creatures and blessed with all manner of magic. Originally populated by nomadic, tribal characters, they've since grown into massive empires saturated with culture and history. Separated into four distinct segments of Helovia, called "The Regions," each band of horse strong enough and capable enough, took up the power and responsibility of leadership. Unicorns, old, wise and mysterious, took to the north, hidden in forests of mists and shadows and rarely making themselves known beyond their cliffs of the World's Edge. Equines, vast, organized and militaristic, split into two, one group went north to the Windtossed Foothills and the other group went south to the Dragon's Throat. Pegasus remained nomadic, making their homes in various parts of The Wilds in a migratory manner. For many generations, the land was peaceful and calm, but peace was never the way of the gods. With a clash of argument, war and bloodshed massacred Helovia, and in the aftermath, the realm was eerily quiet. Now, as newcomers sweep into this land, they are met with the lingering bitterness of the gods and the struggle to reclaim what was lost. Nothing remains safe or certain while sorcerers and soldiers alike brood and bide their time for revenge, honor and glory.
Site Wide Plots
Kaos :: The Beginning of the End ☼ - 6/2017 - Kaos placed Helovia in a time-bubble for a short period of time, but the Helovian gods are fighting back. But Kaos is powerful- far more powerful than anyone thought. This may be the beginning of the end of Helovia as we know it.
Kisamoa :: A New Kind of Kaos ☼ - 3/2017 - Kisamoa asks Helovians to help him restore the Spectral Marsh. Which side will you choose?
Invasions :: All Out War ☼ - 5/2/16 - New layout and the brand new invasion rules are up! Thank you for your patience and we look forward to getting started with this new adventure.
The Rift :: Gods Do Die ☼ - 8/2015 - Helovia Gods are saving the Rift from corrupt gods! Can Helovians band together against these foreign deities?
The Literal Ship ☼ - 2/8/15 - Oh no! You have to pair up for Valentine's day!
Sky Island :: Murder ☼ - 10/25/14 - Vesta has been found dead on the island, and the gods have called to you to solve the murder!
Sky Island :: Peace ☼ - 7/7/14 - An island has appeared in the sky! Clouds carry Helovians from the Veins to the sky.
Restoration :: We Welcome the Dawn ☼ - 9/21/13 - The sun has finally risen on this day, giving the land new light, but the Time God and the Sun God have yet to be seen.
Endless Night :: Broken Magic Plot ☼ - 8/30/13 - The earth god has returned and is walking across Helovia to heal the land. Every area can now be considered lush and prosperous, but the sun has still not risen.
☼ - 7/19/13 - The moon has risen in the sky, heralding the return of the Goddess of the moon. Lamp trees which light the paths have grown brighter, moon flowers which grow in dark places have begun to grow and prosper and the world is brighter, filled with a new hope.
Endless Night :: Dead Magic Plot ☼ - 6/22/13 - The gods of Helovia, in order to protect the world, have disappeared into the rift, leaving the world sunless, moonless and magic-less in their absence. Only the herdlands have a source of light, but lamp-trees with glowing leaves and branches sporadically line the popular roads and paths from place to place.
Doppleganger Plot ☼ - 6/20/13 - The God of Time is still struggling to close the rift though which the dopplegangers have come. He has requested that his brothers and sister assist in closing this hole, but without knowing why it opened, the task is proving difficult. Magic still remains faulty and hard to control, but the herdlands continue to be places of refuge for those who are fortunate enough to call these lands home.
ORANGEMOON cools off the lands with a a viscious force. Colder than normal, a sign of things to come during Frostfall, Helovia is bathed in a rich tropical lushness - albiet a cold one. The coastlines of the Dragon's Throat are pelted constantly by tidal waves, and the desert climate is humid but chilly. Ice begins to form early in the Aurora Basin leaving the winding trails slick and dangerous. The mists of the World's Edge coat everything in a glistening crystalline shine which encourages mould to grow everywhere. The Spectral Marsh is the only area which remains fertile, blissfully temperature and lush.
Cotm
Character of the Month for
June, 2017
WEAVER, Corporal of the Aurora Basin, is a relatively recent addition to Helovia and has taken it by storm. Branded with the seal of Death on her chest, intrigue and interest follow both her past and present. Though she is assuredly beautiful, her sometimes sharp personality reveals that there is more to this uni-peg hybrid than meets the eye. Proving herself able on the battlefield in the Basin’s warrior ranks, we can’t wait to see her test her mettle against the looming Kaos happenings! Congratulations!
Helovia RPG was created by Tamme and Blu and coded by Tamme also known as Schwartze. All coding, palettes and imagery are copyrighted to the website and are not for use outside of Helovia. Thank you to our ServerMaster for hosting Helovia. A special thanks goes to Neo for all of her coding help and fixing Tamme's errors, Boom, for her loyal service and creation of the Time God, and to Ali for her consistent contributions and dedication.
01-08-2016, 01:27 AM (This post was last modified: 01-08-2016, 01:31 AM by Caneo.)
If he were not hoping he might have missed it altogether.
As the crowd at the Giving Tree disperses, Caneo's gaze sweeps once more across the field of bodies. He ought hope for nothing - history taught him that much - but ever a greedy and foolish child, Caneo searches one last time. Vague flickers of recognition synapse through his brain at the sight of certain faces, certain bodies, but all those he ignores. The press of strangers and half strangers means no more to him than a flock of birds. He drifts quietly, looking as he once looked at the stars. Please. If ever he has known a home...
Just as the last stragglers clear, just as he prepares to turn away for good and pick up another trail, he glimpses something. A spark like pain beats once through his heart and he stills, rooted, pale eyes keening into the distance as the speck of fire disappears.
But he follows.
He cannot say for sure who. Time has changed him and it will have changed his former friends, if they still live, but Caneo has survived on thinner hopes before. He moves like a ghost, his long gait swallowing the distance, though at a glance he appears unhurried. His cloven hooves leave snow and wonder far behind, carrying him to the Thistle Meadow at midday, Orangemoon painting a hint of frost into the air. He remembers he last saw this place at night. He stops.
Surely it was not a dream.
The movement of his eyes grows plaintive; tail whipping, Caneo ups his long walk to a hard trot, jostling and full of pent up energy. He wants now, and he cannot be denied; to allow that irks him. He is not a child any longer, to cry and accept and move on. He has come back - he has come back...
The stallion's voice rings out, a sharp silver note, wordless and aching and sharp. He rarely calls, and yet now his voice shatters what little peace remains. Caneo keeps moving, his head swinging, his body a compressed spring, ready to bolt. Now it isn't fear thrumming in him but something else, and he longs to run, but he isn't sure where.
And then -
He spies it again: something orange in the distance. And it can't be anyone else but who he wants it to be, because his mind is made up: she is real, she is alive, he has not returned to make again a new life with nothing to lean on from before. And her name breaks from his lips in a shout, maybe the best evidence of how time has changed him, made him bold, made him himself and no longer a pale mirror to reflect the world. "TANDAVI!"Please be her.
She is caught between her cousin and her brother, trapped in the warmth of their embrace, but for once she does not try to drift away. Fire Dancer is content to let calm wash over her, to bathe in the happiness of strangers and the touch of her cousin; she watches the ongoing excitement with distant eyes, but there is some warmth there, some softness which was not present before. The liveliness of the environment touches something deep within her soul; the shadow of a smile floats eerily over lips so deeply scarred, these days, by pain.
Still, being close is a foreign thing to the girl. Eventually the touch of her family grows stifling, and Fire Dancer gently dislodges herself, carefully, kindly, willing her loved ones to know it is not them. She leaves her brother in her cousin's care, a silent sentinel at her side, and glides through the gathering like smoke upon water, collecting no greetings and leaving no mark but the lightest of hoofprints in the unnatural snow. Her eyes drift restless over the assembled crowd, dim embers of recognition gleaming, at times, in their depths, but fire never blooming behind the onyx haze. She exists, it seems, in a different sphere; on a plane outside and above the rest of the world; in a bubble of distance, where she can be safe.
She thinks she sees a glimmer of moonlight, but when she looks again it is only the snow.
Unnoticed, unacknowledged, she makes her way through the bodies as silently as a summer breeze, floating aimless until she finds herself alone upon the outskirts, staring across an empty field and wondering who would look for her, were she to simply wander away. Slender frame shivers in the orangemoon chill, fraying braids dancing in the fingers of the wind. A zephyr rises around her, strong enough to sting; the girl is narrow as a kite. Around her the world begins to shift, to glitter, to fade from reality and become something soft, something wholesome, something strange. It is beautiful, this reality seen out of her periphery, beautiful and dangerous and merciless and dark. It is the night she has always feared, the night she now calls out to steal away Were she to stand here long enough, could she simply disappear? Would the wind take her far over the sea, scatter her across the world like the ashes of a Viking's ship? If she waits, will she be free from the agony of this mortal coil?
Or will she trapped, condemned forever to live on in someone's mind, someone's memory?
She has thought about it often, this concept of longevity, the idea of immortality brought on solely by the regard of others. Perhaps it is why she cannot die, why she has always returned- because the image of her lives here forever, held by some misplaced affection in the hearts of an unhappy few who are just enough. Though Natraj is not within her sight, the girl always feels him searing in her heart; and now Amaris lives there, too, as much a shadow as the vulpine brother, and Fire Dancer knows she cannot leave, so long as they are there to follow.
Heavily, angrily, the girl sighs, and a rush of embers surge from her throat, illuminating the wrath painted on a moon-cut face. The world once more grows vapid and dim, and the girl wants to scream- would scream, were in not for another voice rising first, a cry so distant and familiar that Fire Dancer can only freeze, black eyes wide and hair raised high -
TANDAVI!
- and she feels a flickering, frightening flare of familiarity, a fearsome uncertainty and desperate desire, confusion, yearning, anger, regret -
Slowly the Fire Dancer turns, copper neck leading waif-like body in a graceful pivot until he is fully within her sights
(you called me a firefly)
and he's older, bolder, more than she remembers him to be, with his voice like silver and his daring eyes of blue
(you made me your friend)
but still fragile, still that same puzzle she once wanted to solve. Does she remember the pieces, how unevenly they fit? Starlit skies and desert stories, he spoke of his grandfather and didn't share his loneliness out loud, but somehow she knew.
(I thought I could save you)
Does she remember the way she laughed with him, once, laughed because it felt so good, because she was young and happy and he helped her feel alive?
(you left...)
"Chandrakant," the girl whispers, and there is a crack in the darkness of her voice, hope behind the furrow of her eyes. Silently she stares, soaking him in, reassuring herself that she is real, wishing that he were not.
It is easier to regret a memory, than to dare yourself to love the flesh and blood that make a face.
(I don't want to be alone anymore)
At last her black lips part again, and now there is the barest hint of a smile behind the dullness of her pain, the palest memory of something brighter, something of the Fire Dancer the girl used to be. "You look like the moon." She watches him through black eyes dulled by hardship, watching his face for some hint of that gentle boy she used to know, and some hope of that vibrant girl she used to be.
Because if that's how he remembers her, then maybe it means that girl is still alive. And maybe they'll be able to find her.
Maybe it's a good thing she didn't blow away, after all.
"talk talk"
o. pixel pony credit to tamme
o. permission granted to use force and magic on Tavi
o. only tag me in opening posts, please!
01-21-2016, 12:54 AM (This post was last modified: 01-21-2016, 12:58 AM by Caneo.
Edit Reason: I CAN'T PROOFREAD
)
It's the simplest of love songs,
Lost children, Grandfather once said, are destined to remain that way. Caneo had been a pile of matchsticks then, a bundle of nerves and dark fur propelling a pair of too-big eyes through the world. He had not known he was lost before he got found. He hadn't even a name... Every piece of him remembers namelessness more keenly than hunger, or fear. Down to its thinnest fibers, his body cries out, giving her back that which he never knew until too late.
He fears she is lost (like him).
And he wants to run. This body made for running, for stretching out under the moon, keens toward its oldest purpose. Instead, somehow, impossibly, he slows. It is her; every step builds certainty on top of certainty, until he knows it better than he knows the stars, or the sound of his own heart. He doesn't need to hear the whispered word caught on her teeth to recall the dusky softness of her voice; they spin here in his head, a thousand kindnesses, accepted and rebuked. He is a child again, staring into flames and grasping desperately at their warmth. A child, afraid of what the light will show. “Tandavi...” he breathes once more, softly. Caneo is slightly breathless, though not from the moving. His body coils and coils upon itself, now a thousand sharp points jostling, a snake curling round and round the thin architecture of his haunches. He stops well away from her, as if he fears she will be a mirage, as if touching will shatter them both.
He can't look away. She is the same Tandavi, Fire Dancer tilting through his memories between shadows and stars, warm though nothing else is. She speaks, and it is her voice, that same voice, and a slow curl of heat - like smoke - begins in Caneo's chest. You look like the moon. He sees himself reflected in her eyes - himself, and nothing else. Those eyes have gone from pools of ink to flecks of obsidian, like wells running dry or freezing over, and he doesn't know what to think. Only this: he does look like the moon, like the smiling edge of a knife.
Caneo's mouth opens to speak, but only the soft noise of air sucks into his lungs. He thinks, oh. If he closes his eyes, he is in this same place, laughing, because She is a goddess and he - this wayward child searching for answers among the stars. In the end, Moon never gave him what he asked for, and he left. Maybe it wasn't Her he loved, at all. Something crosses his face now, something ugly and too truthful, like a shadow kiting across the sky. His insides bite at him; the smoke burns, chokes in his lungs, and he wants to go down on both knees. But he stands, rigid. Stands, a child waiting again to be named, and not with that name - with another. Something softer. Something good.
“I'm Caneo,” he breathes. In the back of his mind, Essetia's voice hisses, dreamer, and again his body strains to run. Slowly, as if it pains him, his long neck stretches out as if to brush his muzzle to the Fire Dancer's, never mind if it might burn. He doesn't make it all the way. “I found you.”
TANDAVI & NATRAJ</style> we walked a lonely road
beneath the fire of a thousand suns</style>
He fills her eyes and stays there, quivering, a bundle of starlight shot by a bow, fatal, final, into the smoldering ashes of her overcast heart. She regards him as though through a mirror, from afar; he is a memory given corporeal shape, manifesting even as she fades away. He has grown stronger and she has grown cold; he has been crownless and she has been queen, but today she stands before him a pauper, penniless, begging for scraps of a once-verdant happiness wrest too early from her luminous soul.
He inhales sharply and his breath takes her smile; she is left quivering, wondering, tentative hope replaced with blooming uncertainty- what did I do wrong? Her gaze searches him for some sign, some clue, some indication of the steps he wants her to take. She wants to dance but has forgotten the notes; they are swallowed, drowned out by the pounding of blood in her veins and the weight of her grief. Embers lay listless on her burnt ochre hide; she tilts her head and they stir but do not ignite, a cascade of light back-lighting her figure, a halo of protection from the whispering dark. He promised her, once, they'd be safe in the dark- safe together, safe as friends, safe in the laughter he brought to her lips and the wonder which glittered so bright in his eyes.
She does see that wonder tonight. Instead she finds something dark and austere, a cold rejection slicing cruelly across his guileless face- for me? she wonders, but then, why did he seek her out? What is he looking for here, in her shadow, in the cast off reflections of embers and baubles which shroud her, defend her from the terrors which so plague her sleep? Has he come only to leave her, to draw out her smile and throw it away, scoff at the memories of moonlight and soft words, adventures and secrets told under the moon?
No- and anger flashes over her face, a moment of heat snarling up through her veins which flares out, crimson, across her bright form. But her fury is not for him, just as his rejection is not for her, and with a second's still her eyes draw open, rising up to meet his gaze. She will not believe his malice until it is proven through act or word. She has spent too long shielding herself in the sunlight; she wants to be able to enjoy this night.
His voice startles a laugh from deep within her belly, something rusted and withered, but still real, still her. "Yes," she affirms easily, some ember of mirth bringing light to the dark, rich timbre of her alto voice. She takes a moment to look him over, really look him over, endless eyes sliding across the brittle lines of his figure before returning to rest upon his face, the slimmest hint of a smile tugging once more at inky lips, coupled with wonder, a delicate hope. "You are Caneo."
She reaches out to meet his touch, neck extending delicately, silver mane dancing in the light of a thousand sparks. She does not mean to, it is not planned, and even as their noses grows closer she feels the rapid beating of her pulse, feels the way her breath comes fast then hitches harshly in her lungs. She closes his eyes and feels his breath, then skin, the softness of it surprising, the warmness of it enticing. It is a butterfly's kiss, barely there, but she wants to hold it, cling to it, remember on days when the sun goes out.
"I lost you," she whispers against his lips, eyes still closed. Her voice shakes. "Where did you go?"
He expected, somehow, to leave years between them and yet find the same girl waiting for him when he bothered to return. Not a conscious decision, but a cruel one. If Caneo recognizes the error now, his features betray no hint of regret. Mild confusion lingers in those wide, bright eyes; this is not how he dreamed their reunion. In the past, when he thought of it, they stood beneath the laughing stars and she burned with warmth and kindness and he was, again, free of the hole in his heart. Now he wonders if she will rebuke him.
Caneo doesn't react to the savage darkness passing so briefly over her features. He is half lost in himself, warring against what was and what is, and half afraid any mention of her anger will only stoke it higher. Has he done wrong? He cannot bring himself to pull away just yet, so it is with relief he moves toward her instead, glad when her face is Tandavi again. When she speaks once more, at last, he wants her to never stop. A spark of laughter lingers in her voice and slowly heats the emptiness of her eyes, and Caneo is no longer lost, no longer struggling to breathe. His smile is brilliant and genuine at the sound of his name: summer starlight, full of laughter, forgetting all bad dreams. For once he shines as brilliantly as she, not in reflection but here with his own light, pale and brilliant to match the soft heat of her glow. Caneo does not move away when she closes the distance between them.
His heart, heavy before, beats like a small, excited bird against his ribs. Not fear; it trembles full of something else, something building into an electric tremble as it works its way outward. Blue eyes shift to trace the long, smooth contours of her face, and she smells faintly of firelight on the dusky sand or stories told amidst the swaying grass: a sweet, dusty smell that makes a nameless muscle inside him clench. His eyes narrow to slivers as they touch, velvet on velvet, an astonishingly innocent thing for all the cold flame burning inside him.
"I lost you."
It occurs to him now, in fragments: the pain he has caused. Caneo never considered it before, and it hits him with a newness, and one ear twitches back, but that is all. He can't stand it any longer, can't be here or he might burst, might shudder right out of his skin, he is so full of nameless feeling. Sharply, Caneo pulls away, but he's smiling, and it's hard to tell if it's his lying smile or a true one (they both look the same). “Tandavi,” he says. I didn't know I was lost. But his voice is a bright thing, and cloven hooves dance a thoughtless jig in the grass beneath him. Does it matter where he went? Does it matter why? He is here now, and he can't contain it, and he wants to run until they are both nothing but bodies.
Caneo leaps aside, tail snapping, mischief in his eyes. His heart already beats like thunder. “Run with me,” he breathes. He is too often a still thing, a statuesque observer, but now life limns him in cold light and he is clearly made of moving parts. He doesn't quite wait for an answer, but feints boldly toward her and then darts away.
TANDAVI & NATRAJ</style> we walked a lonely road
beneath the fire of a thousand suns</style>
At last he draws away from her, and she is surprised by how cold she feels, how freshly distinct his absence becomes even after this briefest of touches, this most cautious exchange. The motion is sharp, deliberate, like him. Her eyes fly open, but she does not shrink back; she is learning more of who he is, this brittle creature of starlight and slate, this bewitching stranger she calls her friend. She watches him warmly, something flushing foreign in the abyss of her eyes when her name once more slides off his tongue.
Caneo, her mind replies, and her lips fall into an easy smile. A breath of embers pushes past her throat, lighting the space between them with a cluster of flickering fire. We are not alone.
The glow of her happiness is a steady vibration; it expands out from her core with the force of a cyclone, and her copper form tingles from forelock to tail. She is brightening, literally, the embers of her magic rising up with her hope, circling and flowing like streams down her flanks; they rest in her hair, pool by her eyes, enliven and fade with each breath of her lungs. They make her something ethereal, something alive - and for the first time in what must be eons she is happy to feel - for the first time since Lace died she delights in her life.
She begins to coil her neck back, slowly, as though reluctant to widen the space between them, as though afraid he'll run again- but her face is sanguine, her gold cheeks warm. Her heart flutters like a trapped butterfly, beating relentlessly against her chest, an unsteady rhythm of ba-dump, ba-ba-bump pulsing hot through her veins and echoing in her ears. She feels within herself a fearsome desire to make him laugh, to make anyone laugh, to light the paths of those she loves and sweep away the cobwebs- she feels like herself, and he has given it to her, restored within her a touch of the fire which makes up her soul. She is bewildered and grateful, afraid and alive. She is ready to conquer demons and ascend mountains - if only he will stay here, at her side.
Run with me, he demands, and she blinks, anoetic, unable to do anything but pull nimbly away as his body suddenly bursts toward hers, edgy and acute in the midday light. She hears laughter and realizes that it is hers, bright and deep and bubbling up from some place deep inside, following him even as her long legs unfold to offer willing pursuit. If asked what she'd expected this reunion would hold, tag might never have sprung to mind- but now as slate hooves bite into the dirt she wonders how it could have been anything else. What was she to do if he ran but chase him, follow, her silver mane a banner against the beryl sky. He is quicksilver and she is the dawn, drawing close behind him and reaching out with pearly teeth to playfully grab at his tuft of a tail.
In the back of her mind is a tendril of guilt, coiling and uncoiling in spite of her joy. A question, a memory, a stab in her gut- were it Amaris, would she still pursue? Her brother and cousin wait, yearn for her love, yet even now she runs from them, leaving them in her lengthening shadow, unprepared to face the flurry of remorse and resentment their faces inspire. Shouldn't they be more than this, more than him; the thing that completes her, not what breaks her down? Her heart trembles treacherously with rising regret; she lets it wash over her, lets it course through her sinew and impel her on, until she is flurrying, flying over the terrain, torn chunks of earth marking her passage, sweat falling fast along the curves of her frame. Behind her follows a cloud of fire, embers twinkling harmlessly in the crisp autumn air.
She stops at last when she can go on no more, skidding abruptly to a halt at the wateway's edge. Fire Dancer's sides heave with the weight of her breath, rising and falling in quick, shallow movements; she stares across the water at something she cannot see before finally turning, onyx gaze unfathomable as it soaks in the boy and his wintry blue eyes. "I want to be happy," she confesses at last, the last word lilting as it exits her throat- but her alto voice does not plea, does not lament or implore. It is a statement, a verdict, a pivotal step back from the ledge where she's balanced, precariously perched between hope and despair. Her face is flushed with blood and wonder, quiet resolve and fervent excitement- saying it aloud makes it real, a promise, pledged witnessed by him, but made to herself. Somewhere, far away, she can feel her brother, his happiness swelling like a great gold balloon- and it fills her too so that she laughs again, before stepping boldly toward the slow-moving stream, lowering her lips to take in cool water and reveling in the freshness, the brightness, of it all.
And maybe if he'd known this existed - this feeling - before now, things would be better for them both. Caneo didn't - can't change the long, shadowed road behind him any more than he can change the stars - but a part of him wants to live in this moment forever. He is bright and young and beautiful, untouched by doubt or the specter of fear. And he runs.
The laughter in his eyes, too quiet and too private to be heard, sparkles brightly nonetheless. This body was made for movement, and he feels more a part of it now than he has in a long time, as if he was born to be this, only this. Tandavi takes after him, a brilliant flare of firelight beside the stark glow of his star-kissed skin, and they might be children again for all the world seeks to stop them. Caneo keeps one eye cocked back at her, gauging her speed and checking his own to keep pace. The brief, terrible moment where he wondered if she might follow at all drops behind him, left for dead. Now she snaps at his tail and he whisks it away, his hooves kicking up well away from her face, his cloven hooves tearing up clods of dead grass. If this is living, living isn't so bad. If this is joy, he wants to see it in her every day. But these are quick thoughts passing like clouds overhead, unexamined by the silver creature as he moves.
Something bright glints in the distance; Caneo's stride slows and then stretches out, and for a frightening smatter of heart beats he moves as it to clear it. But then the water thunders up and he checks momentum violently, his tail lashing and his haunches coiling up. Flecks of dirt and bits of grass toss into the water before him and he rolls to one side, half rearing, before he circles around completely and halts, at last. Joyful shudders race along his sides as his lungs heave for breath, drinking in the crisp air with the satisfaction of one who too rarely expresses anything now reveling in joy. His gaze is bright and slightly unfocused when it finds Tandavi again, though he quiets by degrees when he notes the change in her features. She hasn't dimmed like before; a suggestion of the dimness hangs around her edges (like a threat). Concern plunges everything else back into darkness and, tail flicking, Caneo steps forward. He won't stand as close as he did before - touch remains an elusive thing, precious in its rarity - but he will stand beside her.
As if he can be a guard against despair.
He says nothing in response to her just yet. Blue eyes drink in her face and the way it changes in laughter. Ears cup forward to catch the noise and his own features soften just a little, though he's closing up again, sacrificing motion for the sake of privacy. “Are you happy now?” he wonders. He never asked enough about her, content to ferment in his own misery, his own mystery. He feels he ought to touch her though not in the physical way; to be for her as she was, once, for him. “I am,” Caneo allows, more quietly. His voice is soft; it feels like a secret, though he isn't sure why. As if to draw attention from it, he scans the meadow around them and adds, pure curiosity, “Where is Natraj today?”
02-02-2016, 03:41 AM (This post was last modified: 02-02-2016, 04:53 AM by Tandavi.)
TANDAVI & NATRAJ</style> we walked a lonely road
beneath the fire of a thousand suns</style>
Something hums softly in her chest, quiet now, chilled by the water which rushes down her throat, but constant. She brings her gaze back up to meet him, and the expression in her eyes is careful, almost shy. She lets herself step back from the water and back from him, widening the distance between them, as though afraid of what will happen if they come too close again. A warm smile curls on her still-wet lips, softening the lines of her gaunt copper face; her forelock hangs across it like a veil, and she tosses her head, wanting to see him, wanting him to see her. Is this what it is like, to have a friend, and believe that they have you, too? she wonders. She thinks of Sacre, of Hototo, of Amaris and Natraj. With them it has always been so difficult, such a challenge to gauge where she stands, what they feel. Her love for them is fierce and defensive, a desire to protect, to hold and defend. So what is different here, with him?
Perhaps, she thinks, she has fallen so far that where she stands does not matter- only that she stands at all, and that somebody is beside her.
Her attention lingers on the curve of Caneo's horn, the way his eyes glow, the way his face dances with shadows and his words fall like waves, each one a confession for her ears alone. He asks her if she's happy, if she has reached already that lofty goal- has she, she wonders? Is this what happy is? She has always thought it would be something more, something mighty- but here, in this place, with the gentle humming in her chest-
Maybe this is enough.
"I am."
Fire Dancer's smile broadens, brightens, spreads as embers down her back until she thinks she may burst with light. Two words, and they send the hum back into a roar; it is all she ever wants to hear, all she needs. Warmth spreads over her copper hide; her expressive eyes gaze gladly, gratefully, to her quicksilver friend, and the light they hold tells of something special, something which means the world to her, even if he never understands. Her voice is a soft, low note, a hanging melody in the quiet meadow which reaches out to stroke his cheek- "I am too, Caneo," the girl breathes, and it takes her aback because it is true.
From across the field and across their bond, she can feel the joy in her brother's heart.
As though sensing the silent exchange, Caneo asks where the kitsune is. "He is with our cousin, Amaris, back at the tree." Quietly the girl dims, her expression growing somber, the memory of her graceful cousin stark within her mind. The tendril of guilt grows sharp, cutting dangerously near her heart. I left her behind, she silently whispers- but she needed this, this moment. And if she could share what she'd gained here, couldn't that be enough? She looks at Caneo as though seeking an answer to a question unasked, her expression conflicted: a million things dance to her tongue, yet every one struggles to take tangible form.
The girl sighs, and lowers her head, letting her gaze drop from his face to his chest. "We've lost so many," she says at last, her voice soft and honest and tired. "Natraj is strong -" and she smiles here, fondly, fiercely, love for her brother filling her with pride "- and she needs him more than I do. I love her - love them - but I..."
She falters, her voice growing quiet as the memory of Kaj flashes through her mind, his words at Lace's death a knife in her gut. "You know nothing of grief, insolent child!" - and not for the first time she wonders if he was right. Perhaps she is nothing but a collection of nerves, self-centered and blind to the suffering of others- perhaps that is why she cannot be strong, not for Amaris and not for Natraj. She wants to be, yearns to be, but she is so young, so tired, and...
"It's hard, sometimes," she says at last, but the storm which raged within her is still, and she turns herself back outside, back toward him. A rueful smile flickers at the corners of her mouth, sadness and happiness waxing bittersweet across the crescent face. The words are a fraction of what she is feeling, but they leave her like ballasts off a diver's belt. She hopes he will not chastise her, will not withdraw his friendship in light of her failure- hopes that he will take her confessions as the treasured secrets they are, shared pieces of a guarded heart so rarely offered (or examined), and let her continue to stand here at his side, the glow of his starlight fueling her flame, encouraging a dream that maybe - maybe - it is not too late to start again.
"I am too, Caneo," may be the sweetest thing Caneo's heard - ever. Maybe that means little coming from a creature born to desolation, but for him it means something. Her voice twists his name into a better thing than ever it was before. In the moment, he vows to live up to that, to be a harbinger of joy and not of loss. Maybe loneliness doesn't own him anymore than the rest of the world; maybe he stands still upon a precipice of choice. He smiles truly, and it's a surprisingly soft and weary thing, to match the threadbare velvet of his silver coat. Contentment unmasks him like little else, lays bare the weight of years spent wandering, dreaming of better things.
He thinks he may have found them.
Caneo quiets now, ears canting forward to catch the deep roll of Tandavi's voice when she does speak. He makes a better listener than orator; interest blinks keen from the cold depths of his eyes. He never dreams of interrupting, but he takes in the new name she gives him with curiosity. Amaris. A cousin. He forgets, in his own (narcissistic) fashion, how others have families, mothers and brothers and aunts and cousins, and Tandavi must be no different. The familiar ache eats at his heart, keening with its soundless voice into the darkness of a past life, but nothing ever answers. Family is a word reserved for luckier beings. He may try to paste it on the creatures of the Throat, but not with sincerity. Tandavi is what he has, and what he clings to, solemn as she spills the things kept in her own heart.
"We've lost so many," and Caneo wonders if he once numbered among the lost. He wishes, for a brief and selfish instant, she could sever any care she feels for whoever else, but it's cold and bitter and the whim disappears between heart beats. Slowly the silver creature's head tilts, mimicking empathy, though he doesn't truly understand how the losses drive her apart. “Do you think they care if we mourn?” Maybe it seems a cruel question, but he's thinking of someone long ago as he says it, someone who would call him stupid for wasting the time. “Or do you think we're better off doing what they couldn't?” His eyes are far away as he blinks at the stream, recalling the terrible blackness of the water in his memory, the sound of hooves on a dusty plain. If he reaches for grief, he finds only emptiness. “Live,” he clarifies a moment later, the word barley audible.
"It's hard, sometimes," she says, and Caneo's eyes travel back to her as he nods. “Yes.”Life is hard, he thinks. He never questioned why he engaged with its struggle so. For a long time, struggle was all there was. And it seems a luxury to stand here grieving the dead, when they themselves both live. “I won't be lost again,” he says with renewed certainty. “If you need me, I'll come to wherever you are. It's what friends do.” And it's the most he can promise, in his failure to understand those she mourns, and how she mourns them. “Is there some place safe for you to go?” Caneo wonders, because he has secured home for himself but never asked about Tandavi's. A part of him thinks, come with me, but he cannot bring himself to force his sacrifice on her. So he quiets that small voice, and waits.
TANDAVI & NATRAJ</style> we walked a lonely road
beneath the fire of a thousand suns</style>
Do you think they care if we mourn?- and copper child wonders, Do I mourn? Is that the rock which sits in her chest, the weight which presses up against her seams, threatening with every moment to shift and tear the girl apart? Mourning, she wonders; for whom? Is it the loss of them which threatens to swallow her, devour her with the appetite of a ravenous beast- or the loss of them, the marching faces, the eyes she remembers (and she remembers them all) staring back at her in the dark? The girl has lost so much she is no longer sure who all her heartache is for. For them? she wonders again, black eyes focused on something only she can see. Or for myself?
She looks up at him, biting softly at a velvet lip as she considers the implications of his words. Do they care, wherever they are: the lost ones, the missing, the ones who left? In the quiet of the meadow the girl considers, her body little more than a vessel for her thoughts. Live, he says, but she is afraid; afraid of living, afraid of moving on, afraid of letting them go. For if she lives when they do not, is it not a betrayal, an abandonment of ideals, of a pledge to love and defend?
Yet what of Sacre, of Semira and Vikram; what of those who are not dead? Fire Dancer would never with apathy on them, could never condemn them to torpor simply because she no longer holds them in her life. Is it not selfish, then, to assume they would wish such dormancy upon her; to blame them for her fear, to hide behind a veil of mourning in the names of those who have no say?
From under long lashes she peers up at Caneo, Caneo who glitters like far distant starlight, Caneo who makes her shake with sincerity, with a yearning to live. Is it not better to burn for those who remain, than to fade in memory of those who are gone?
As though hearing her thoughts he makes her a promise, and the girl's heart clenches against with the confidence of his words; for she does not trust them, cannot trust them, though she may wish it with all her might. Still her lips curl into a smile, something vulnerable creeping across her face; she wants to reach out to him again, to reaffirm that he is real; she wants this moment, this memory, to remain, forever etched so perfect and sharp in her mind. Hesitantly a single gold-dipped leg rises, and the girl braces herself, readies herself, building the will to extend her neck, to let her muscles reach for his; but she pauses, still coiled, before she can spring, his next question making two-tones ears fall. Silver hoof kisses earth again; she lets her expression retreat and distort, carefully held hope falling once more into the soft mask of her gold-slashed smile.
"There will be," she answers, alto tones vague; for she intends, one day, to return to her home, if only she can find herself first. She has been too lost to belong in the Throat, too caught in the night to enjoy the desert's days; and now she is fading again, falling from him, though the light of her eyes does not extinguish- it merely dims, growing further away. For he has a home now, perhaps, a family, love; he is not the lonely boy she remembers, but something bright to aspire toward, and now she is the one who has lost her way. Perhaps, she thinks, when she finds it again, she will find him, too; and perhaps, one day, they shall walk along together, quicksilver and firelight once more.
For now, however, she is content with this memory, with the humming of her chest and the touch of his skin still fresh upon her, enhancing the Fire Dancer's inherent glow. "I should go now," she tells him, and it is true; she should go now, before it is lost, before she wakes up and is empty again. But the sadness is purged from her eyes, and the smile she gives him is genuine, vibrant; and the thing in her heart beats quickly as she turns to depart, black eyes locked on his until her body is twisted and she can see them no longer, until all she can see are the glowing lights of the real world, beckoning, a warm invitation instead of a threat. "Look for me, Caneo," she whispers into the wind; though whether to him or to herself, a request or a prayer, she is not sure.
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