"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.
01-18-2016, 09:25 AM (This post was last modified: 01-18-2016, 10:06 AM by Tembovu.)
He raged.
This was not the silent rage of boiling in his barrel, nor the outer rage of burning eyes and angry words. This was rage. In every sense of the word. Violent, uncontrollable, aggressive.
The giant had left the sandy shores, hovering on the precipice of control. Before, when he had been in the Flats, there had been a similar anger in him. But that had been directed inward, for he had created his own isolation. And then… then he had not known the devastating power of his anger. It had sprung out of him, with the advantage of surprise. It did not have that now. He controlled the beast… well, partially.
But then, on the Flats, had been a sadness pushed and manipulated to anger by the newfound magic within him. This, today among the trees, was a fury in its own right. He had lost a love, once. It had lead the the ruin of an empire. Now, it was leading to the ruin of a man.
He had walked and walked, legs laboring between walking and trotting; attempting to use these ceaseless motions as a way to tame himself. As he always had done— walked from the Edge, walked from Dorobo, walked across Helovia. But it was a futile endeavor. Perhaps he knew this, perhaps that was why had had walked away from the Edge— to spare it his demolition.
Because, as he finally reached a part of the forest where the trees were so thick that he could walk no further and his hide began to heat and tremble, he knew there was no controlling this. Emotions swelled, heat and red filmed his darkened eyes. His demon cackled, ‘You are no King. You are no soldier. You are a vanguard of vengeance. You are a man whose existence burned his family alive. A man who cannot hold the love of a woman, not even a Thief.’ The great Elephant crashed to his knees beneath this onslaught in fruitless supplication.
And suddenly this demon, this monster, wasn’t just a voice anymore. It was him, hissing and heaving with hungry hands reaching and grabbing for power. His chest burned with the anger, with the desire, and out from his chest exploded the calamitous beast, the force throwing up back up to his hooves. The elephant of flames, with ignited ears waving and trunk raised in a silent and flaming trumpet, swung its tusks as it searched for a victim; someone to burn.
But, as the Elephant King (now enslaved to this rage) had intended, there were no victims to be found here. Yet the beast still charged, finding the nearest and largest of trunks, not to be denied its explosive destruction. Its detonation did not disappoint, the angry spray of lava splattering on him in this close range while infuriated flames licked up the thick pine trunk. Sap crackled in the heat, adding more fuel to the lonely inferno.
Rage and aguish were such heavy burdens. And his knees, one burned and one bleeding, trembled once more beneath the weight. Dark eyes stared, empty and blank, while he internally wavered. Was he satisfied? Was this enough?
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
He knows not why they drift—
But drift they do, tumbleweeds and wave-crests, driftwood washed up on dark, abandoned shores. And if there were any stars here to guide them they were distant and cruel, laughing down upon silver sands soaked with heavy hoof-prints—dents as deep as their hearts. He shifted, a lone ghost in the pallid light. In the dark, he couldn't see the blood soaking into the sand. In the dark, he couldn't pick out the color of the heavy water. In the dark, still his shadow was cast, long and lonesome, reaching for something it would never find, never reach. Sharp, moonlit edges rushing towards a distant horizon, a distant land, through red spray and broken wings—and coming exactly, nowhere.
(For all our dreams are anchored in our souls; all our longing carried within our hearts.)
Just the way his shadow was anchored to his feet.
He rarely went to the Deep Forest. It was not a place of joy, of light, of happy memories, of treasured connections and fondly remembered encounters. No—the forest held no fond memories for the snow-ghost drifting in through thick, dark trunks, following a set of steps left upon that blood-washed beach.
The prints were deeper and darker than his own, leading away from where all drifters wash ashore, because what was a drifter, if not one who drifts? Lost in his own world of night-fog rolling in, of an empty stillness so much deader than any he had experience in this world, he wove his tragic tale of the scent left upon trunk, root and leaf, and the occasional dent made by large hooves.
Tembovu had passed here, seeking something he could find in the depths of the forest—but what? What drove the dutiful King so far from his given realm, so deep into this ancient, dark place? Memory haunted Mauja as he followed, knowing that Tembovu had come from ruin—knowing that corpses laid at his waysides too, knowing that he had walked a road paved with destruction.
Yet for all their similarities, they were different.
And for all his poetry running like quicksilver through his mind, nothing was certain: perhaps Tembovu did not drift at all. Perhaps he had not found the same listless apathy ruling brought; perhaps he was immune to the weight of toil, to the boredom of stubborn routine, the spotlight. Perhaps it did not chafe at his soul and numb his mind as it had Mauja's. Perhaps he had went to the Deep Forest for an exciting date night with some exotic lady, or simply for a stroll, or.. or.. or anything. Just because Mauja's memories of this place held more evil to them than any other singular place it did not mean this had to be a place of malice.
(Yet the trees whisper something else, with their scars and wounds.)
—fire.
Up ahead, it burst through the fading evening light, fire and flame, shearing—a sunburst among the thick trunks, halting the one who fears it dead in his tracks. This place was fucking cursed, and this sudden fire was in between Mauja and Tembovu's tracks.
Well, fuck—before he had much of a chance to do anything the light moved, hitting something with the low-key roar of warmth and flame being belched out; it seared his retinas and Mauja shied back, eyes closed. The fuck was going on here? He didn't even want to know—didn't want to get close to angry fire, because fire hurt, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught in the crossfire of some deranged pyromancer.
But Tembovu—
He didn't even know why it felt so important to find him. It wasn't like he had much to say; his questions had gone back to hibernating after the herd meeting, his vague unease soothed by the steadfast leader's presence. Surely Tembovu was nothing bad, nothing to fear—it had been a good and just choice to entrust the crown to him. (Like he had cared about that at the time.) He was a man come from ruin, much like Mauja, but that was no guarantee you were bad. After all, was there not much good in he himself? Hidden, deep, frozen, but there, in the ice-spiked chambers of his heart?
As if in a dream his frosted hooves whispered over fallen leaves and a carpet of pine needles shed through the ages; eyes were wide and reflecting the flame lingering along the edges of a tree, breaths quivering, in and out, near silent in the growing darkness. He was nothing but a ghost, and then—
The trees parted—
But it didn't make sense—
Tembovu stood opposite the flame-licked tree.
Well, whatever, he could stand where he wanted, it wasn't that—
It was his eyes. It was the deep, deep blue eyes reduced to black. It was the hungry tongue of flame reflecting in their depths. It was the blood on his knees, the smell of singed hair and burnt skin, charred flesh, the angry, distorted swelling upon one of his carpals.
It was his deep, deep blue eyes reduced to black.
It was the emptiness gazing upon the ruined tree.
"Tembovu," he said, quietly, from the shadows wherein he lingered.
Eyes were ebony in the night, hollow pits reflecting vengeful carnage licking as hungry flames up the doomed pine’s scarred trunk. Only fire filled his vision, hearing, senses. It blinded him to the vacated forest around him.
Except that it was not vacated. A man stood among the trees, drawn like a moth to the flame. But this moth knew much more about flames than any usual winged creature. This moth knew the devastation fire had burnt through the King. He knew of the destructive loss.
“Tembovu,” the quiet voice from the shadows reduced to a whisper in the face of roaring, red tongues. But the ravaged beast heard it— perhaps because he wanted to, mostly because he needed to. An ear snapped sideways, followed by the abrupt turn of his heavy head.
Fire had overwhelmed his eyes, blinding them to the subtle shadows of darkness. A sheen of black, flickering with phantom flames, replaced the trees around him. Panic, or something like it, bloomed amid the rage in his barrel— an unholy combination of fear and fury. Ears quivered, caught between straining for further words and pinning against his skull in warning. The heat returned in his chest, building and burning— no. Not again.
The thick, black hide of his deep chest grew hot, glowing as the tree burned. This magic was magnificent, incredibly powerful, but came at such a cost, his spent and burnt body shuddered once as the anger reignited. Darkened eyes scour the trees, still stripped of their sight— though it slowly returned as flames become trunks and smoke becomes shadows. A silhouette of white, more a smudged glimpse than true form, managed to impress itself on wrath-lit retinas.
“Show yourself!” The deep growl of his voice was not his own, but something drug by demons over smoldering coals.
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
and I'm on my knees
and the water creeps to my chest
Mauja knew of suffering: he knew of darkness, of ice and torment. He knew of taking, of standing dark-eyed as the scythe fell and another life ended (—another dream laid to waste, family shattered). They had begged and pleaded, cried and raged, attempted to make unholy bargains, tried anything to save themselves, and their beloved ones. And he, he had not heeded them. Mauja knew of suffering, but he had only ever suffered at his own hands.
It was almost curious to think of all the evil he had inflected upon this world—how he could stand here, now, with a heart that beat, how he could mourn those he had lost, how he dared to love, live, at all. If there was any kind of justice, anything that was fair, Mauja ought to be dead.
But nothing in the world is fair. For if something was, how could this be happening? The hiss and crackle of flames, sparks spat into the heavy darkness, reflecting in eyes that had suffered too much already. Mauja lingered in the shadow, safe in its embrace, kept away from the rush of heat embedded in the tree trunk.
(Safe, from the rage blazing red in Tembovu's chest.)
How had it come to this? Tembovu had come to him bearing scars and smiles, had stood by him as the world crumbled, carried him from his daughter's death and into the future: picking up the cursed crown, putting it on his own head, preparing to lead them into days that weren't so dark. Mauja had always known there had to be a darkness as deep as his own within that scarred, broad chest, but it had always been so well-contained, perfectly locked away, merely raising its head to sniff the wind when seared by fire— (—slavering jaws gnawing on their metal bars, throwing itself against the walls of its prison). He had seen it, that day, a ghost in the Elephant's gaze.
But now, the ghost was Tembovu, hiding behind the abyss of his own rage and grief. In the darkness, his black chest smoldered like embers refusing to go out, each breath upon them glowing hot red, making him seem a demon.
It was as foreign as his voice, a rough command uttered from dark lips, spurred out through a raw throat and rushing like a tide of red along the coals upon his chest; Mauja shivered in the cool shadows, wondering what he had walked in upon. Possession? Or just a magic as fickle and unfortunate as his own? They all had secrets, and where Mauja had buried his in ice, perhaps Tembovu had burned his, giving rise to this.. this dark-eyed monster, a devil in the Deep Forest. The fire in his eyes—was it just a reflection?
Tembovu either hadn't seen him, or didn't recognize him. He could still get out of this. He could back out, quietly, the way he had come, disappear to his northern snows, never look back, a wolf ousted by himself and his own cowardice—left to live in the reek of his shame, another life he let down.
Would this fire consume Tembovu? Would it ravage through him, until nothing remained but blackened ribs, a blackened skull, charred, crusty flesh? Would they come here, and find the scorched ruin of greatness, and see the horns, and know who it was who had fallen here?
(Would they cry, 'murderer, murderer', and come hunting him again?)
Mauja had teetered upon the edge. The storm had whispered and roared around him, his long, white hair a halo in the gale. He could've simply fallen, but between him and the precipice there had been someone—someone who dared place his hooves just upon the edge of life to push him back into safety. Mauja could've charged him. Bowled him over. Taken him down to oblivion with him.
But a quick fall and a broken body wasn't fire.
Not that it ever was a question, not that he ever had a choice. In the face of obsidian and embers threatening to burst into flame he simply stalled, folding in on himself, wishing he could get away but knowing that he couldn't.
If Tembovu was a god, he was proving to be one hell of a god.
"I am here," he said, his voice gentle in the suffocating darkness. Something, some caution, kept him from moving too quickly. Because where could the fire licking up the tree had come from, if not the rage blowing red in Tembovu's chest? So with the faintest of sighs, Mauja steeled himself, went into the ring, facing the one thing that had ever laid him down.
Furious fire.
A single, lonely sparrow of flame flickered into life by his head; its wings beat softly, casting a gentle light upon his pale face. It did not move from its position, straining against its invisible tethers, wanting to be free, but he smothered it, held it close, refused to let it go.
Accompanied by the small bird Mauja began to head for Tembovu, praying to Gods he no longer believed in, clinging to his shred of courage, and hoping—hoping that he was not wrong about this.
The silence stretched, ominous and roaring with flames. The Elephant— the beast— searched the darkness. Slowly, blackness morphed to smudges, and smudges became silhouettes. His retinas, torched by staring at flames and the fires burning within him, strained and demanded to know who dwelled in the trees. In the absence of an answer, his chest began to pulse with every angry, powerful beat of his great heart. In warning, in anticipation— preparing to unleash the inferno once again.
“I am here.”
The words were gentle, nearly missed or discarded as they did not belong amongst all this darkness, hatred, and rage. They were too soft, too caring. Vaguely, the enraged King sees white— a seraphim to his diabolus— move between the gnarled fingers of trunks. A horse, a vaguely familiar voice— one he should know, despite the crackles and elephantine trumpets in his skull. A single prong of comfort pierces the agony in his soul. It is not enough to douse the conflagration; but it is something, it is a start. The pulsing of his chest subsided to a soft glow as black eyes peel away the blur of blindness. Roaring breaths slow from their angry, alarmed rate. Perhaps there was hope, as the deafening trumpet in his mind dulled to a din.
But then, there was a spark amid his fire-seared vision— a spark among the flame filled silence. And it was the cursed combustion for all the raging, agitated kindling in him. And from his chest burst a beast of molten tusks and flaming eyes, charging with the madness of an Elephant. The insidious seraphim, with threatening flames, was its mark; starkly white and inviting against the night.
In the absence of his anger, as it charged away from him, clarity came and recognition prevailed. Mauja. He was on the heels of the flaming beast, a bellow of warning— of fear— echoing above the roar of rampage. No. Not Mauja. Not his friend. A demonic tongue of triumph swirled in his skull, blackness blooming in his barrel darker than ever before. This was progress, this was what his demon wanted— what it needed. In this destruction, it etched a permanent corner in his skull; No longer was it relegated to the obscurity of his barrel. Now it had real purchase in the Elephant’s mind.
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
[ post #1,200 is for you <3 ]
There is always a time when something gives way—when bridges go out under heavy burdens, when tethers and chains, bones, break, when logic misfires and control slips, when things go where they should not be—
Red blood spiraled slowly down the sharp edge of an ice spike, the tip hidden in the golden man's chest cavity as it had punched its way in there, through ribs and lungs.
—and it was always so easy to be wise in the aftermath, to trace these rugged, jagged lines to their source, and the nightmares turned to if only's, but nothing ever turned back time, and nothing ever seemed to make you wiser, Mauja.
(I suppose that's why you are where you are now.)
You know how destructive fire is. You know how a single, errant spark can incinerate nations. You know fire, much too intimately, a memory etched permanently in your mind—of how it slips and crawls along your skin, down your throat, how it bites and sears so deeply you nearly breathe it in. Fire doesn't just burn you, it takes you, digs its roots in deep as it makes its home in your flesh. You have felt it more than you've seen it, the black, charred ruin.. the single, brief moment of respite when it just hits, the shock which numbs all nerves to the agony they are about to endure. Being burned is a higher, purer form of pain, white-hot edges delicately pushing you out of your mind and into something glorious as it ravages your body—until you fall back into it. Until you feel it, with every fiber of your being.
And then, it'll haunt you, forever.
While you're the one who has been lost in the fire, Tembovu is the one who has lost to it. You know this, Mauja, you know why Torasin died in this forest, and yet you bring flames to the burned man's hearth.
What did you expect?
Truth is, he had barely thought about—something in the back of his mind had rebelled, whispered do not bring more fire, but he hadn't really heard it. Hadn't really thought about it. To him, it was just—just light. It was just a sparrow. Something to show Tembovu where he was, who he was, to put a face on his pale, nameless body; a selfish little comfort here in the absolute darkness and smothering rage.
Oh, he had seen it, Tembovu's rage. Heard it in the low roar of his breathing, a mirror-image to the flames. Mauja's rage was of a different kind: cold and calculating, sharp edges of ice, precise and clear. When Mauja's ire was roused, things died with lances of ice embedded in their hearts.
(He doesn't know of flaming fury, but he knows how little it takes to pull the trigger.)
To your credit, at least you weren't surprised when it came.
In the slight moment between hope and despair, you had seen it, a ripple of red through the black chest, and when it had spawned you at least had had the decency to think oh fuck and the little sparrow (—your hope) had gone out in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes, we just.. wish things would turn out differently. That we would be wrong about something (or right, depending on what we thought), that we would do something right—but there's always something that has to go wrong.
That's what he (you) is doing. Wishing. (But wishes can't save you now, Mauja.)
He heard it as if it came from very far away—like an echo of a dream, a hand extended to save him, but he had already fallen from where it could reach him. It was wordless, a sound of raw emotion, unaltered, unhindered by meaningless words. It was just a shout, a bellow, a roar, coming from behind the veil of charging darkness; sudden sweat pooled against his dark skin, the low, insidious glow reflecting in his blue eyes.
It was a warning. It was fear. It was everything Mauja needed—a little compassion. To know that he was loved, even in the face of this beast he had, needlessly, unleashed.
Time seemed to slow. The molten beast came closer, a shadow on hooves thundering behind him but hopelessly unable to catch up with the destructive force he had set loose. Tusks and eyes gleamed in the gloomy darkness, and Mauja, oh Mauja...
His heart beat out his panic, his eyes searching, once, above the back of the igneous beast—looking for that again, a little assurance, a little love.. something to hold on to.
And shadow to his pulse were two others, wings locking in agonized glides.
There's so much at stake and you don't know what to do, because there's nowhere you can go.
You're just a horse, just flesh and bones, and this thing coming at you is so much more—so much hotter than your body can handle. You do what you can, you do the only thing you can, even if it seems foolish: like a single rock attempting to hold back a flood.
But there's just no way you can avoid it.
But you're not wired to lay down and give up. You're wired to flee, haunches bunching as you start to spin to the right—but that's as far as you get.
You should've known better, Mauja, you should've known not to bring more fire to a man already burning, and that's why you are where you are—lying on your pristine, snowy side, presenting charred ruin to the tree-covered sky.
Fallen, as you ever were.
(But your hearts have not fallen from the sky.)
[ I did some very brief research. Magma has a temperature of 700-1300 degrees Celsius/1300-2400 degrees Fahrenheit. Ouch. Basically, Mauja is lying on his right side, his entire left side more or less...destroyed by fire. He's alive, just 100% traumatized. Short quote from this thread. ]
A flash of white, blinding against the darkness, seared his eyes once again. But this was not accompanied by the crack of incinerated wood and snap of boiling sap. No, a soft and sickening thump of giving fleshing and the acrid smell of singed skin and hair billowed out into the night.
Those eyes— those two, pale pools reflecting the oncoming elephant’s rampage— had met his own dark gaze above the beast’s back (but he was the beast, he was the monster). And those eyes, they seared into black eyes and lightened them to navy with their fear— their trust. But never trust a wild, injured thing. Too quickly does it turn, too ruled by instinct.
The explosion of his heinous creation splattered his chest and forelegs with scalding bits of molten rock, adding burns to his bruised and bleeding knees. His legs slowed, then stopped, as his vision was again robbed by the overabundance of light. Only roaring flames and the pungent odor of burned flesh filled his senses. He had been here once before, weaving among charred trunks, legs burned by residual flames and heat. The distant roar of flames had warned him away, the smell of singed skin a promise of what he would find.
Mind roiled between the past and present as the edges of his vision began to clear of their sunspots. But no longer did he see the great pines, branches lit from underneath by the ravenous flames that devoured the trunk (how much longer would that tree hold? would the fire spread?) No longer did his hooves fall on the softly needled pine floor, nor did his head fall to the charred flesh of his friend. No, now he was stuck in another time, another hell— also of his own making.
Heavy ivory hooves, burned by the smoldering coals on the forest floor, do not pause in their frantic pace. He had seen the smoke rising above the rainforest’s canopy, he had felt the awning hole that opened in his barrel, the numb dread that flooded his veins. Ears were ringing from the massive roar of flames he skirted to find the charred camp, while his vision was tunneled and blurred— searching among the ghastly standing trunks and fallen black logs. Smoke rose in lazy wisps from the scalded earth— there. There was a long and curved horn, starkly holding it’s shape against the coals. And its pair, the longest horns seen on a mare in the Plains; they belonged to Fatiishi, Mawindo’s woman.
Blue eyes sweep over the burned, collapsed hump that once was Dorobo’s dancer, incessant legs moving frenetically, now. Where had their tent been? He had only visited but for moments two nights previous… there. His pace slowed, then stopped above a small, limp form.
His great head dropped to the neck of Mauja, dark lips just hovering over the hot, cracked skin. What was once snowy and speckled was now black and laced with red. He didn’t dare touch— not yet. The steam and smoke rising from Mauja’s hide was enough of a warning for the Elephant. Still, he drifts his head carefully, cautiously over the fallen body. Down the neck, past the shoulder, to the chest. The chest, a place of life— but his own chest created only rage and destruction, was this not proof enough? Broad and pale, his muzzle hovered over the scorched chest of his friend. His own heart, the cursed and angry organ, pounded relentlessly in his roaring ears, begging for some kind of answer in the fallen Queen’s chest.
But there was no answer to his heart’s beating. No fast drums of a foal’s pulse nor the fluttering arrhythmia that was Mara’s gentle beat. His muzzle, broad and covered with ash, then pressed against their dead skin— so deceptively hot. A low moan leaked from his chest, navy oceans spilling saltwater to douse the flames that incinerated his family. But they were too little, too late. An anguish swept through him, so crippling that it robbed him of his legs. He crashed beside them, rocking and holding black bodies leaking fluids— bodies that were once everything. They covered him with their sloughing, black skin. But he held them, held them until the heat had left and only cold carcasses remained. The pain was so resolute, so absolute, that it numbed and burned all at once.
But there was an answering beat to his questioning heart. A painful rhythm of life that flooded the Elephant, jerking him to the present. The rage in his soul had calmed to a smolder beneath the weight of what he had done. Perhaps it was satisfied, perhaps his past had outweighed the anger. Perhaps… perhaps it was the coldness that consolidated in him. It was heavy, new, and a rival to the heat of his flames.
It was fear.
Not the fear of what stalked him in the forest. Not the fear of losing his friend (though that still coursed strongly through him). It was a fear of himself, of this destruction over which he had no control. Heavy and icy, it sank in his chest and pervaded his mind— freezing the demon in its new resident corner. And, strangely, he welcomed it.
Lowly groaning as his eyes drank in the sight of Mauja, he slowly sank to lay behind this man (his friend?). Carefully, his lips lowered to the down ear, gently opening to stroke the un-seared flesh. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” An apology, a prayer, for the past and present, was whispered on broken words to the dark night.
“You shouldn't have come. Those I love always burn— I am not worth this.” Eyes cast upwards, looking for his owls and hoping they would find help.
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
You said you'd wait forever
But I blinked ... and the world was gone
Their wings were locked in agonized glides; a visceral fear held them tight, tight, hearts pounding out a terror so fleet-footed it became a blur. The moment stretched, spanning ages, horizons crumbling, eyes going blind—nothing existed beyond the fragile link in the aether, nothing mattered and they knew not even where they flew. They were frozen, helpless, as he ever so slowly fell, like early snow.
Then, their heart hit the ground, and the world shuddered, and all was silent.
It felt like an eternity.
And the silence stretched. ()
Their pulses were racing, as if it could somehow save him. The sound of their frantic life, their desperation, grew into a din, a low roar, a scream going through rugged nerves and frozen veins—
Their hearts beat as if they could beat in stead of his, but how could they ever, when they were so small, so fragile? Diego's wings—resolve—was crumbling; the width of his span grew smaller, and smaller, as he folded in on himself, fell under the onslaught of terrible despair—
There were no more stars. No more dreams. No more hope.
His world had ended in this terrible, terrible silence—
But she flew on, resolute, refusing to give in—to give up—
Diego's wings folded haphazardly as he chose his fate, tumbling from his throne, the sky.
—but the world shuddered again, trembled, and the silence began to shriek—like metal grinding against stone—a cacophony drowning out the sound of their pulses, of their fears, of their lives. It was a tide, a flood, an earthquake and an avalanche, it swept through them like purging fire, hammering on nerves and fragile psyches, such a counterpoint to the rugged silence of His shallow breathing.
It grew and grew and grew and grew, invading every space, every piece of them, every fiber and every particle, threading its way through hollow bones and slipping through their fear-stained blood, and still it grew—but it never broke. Irma screamed even as Diego crashed into Tembovu, talons raking for purchase on foreign skin, eyes wild as the other owl's haunting cries died as echoes in the night.
And still it grew as the heat sank ever deeper into His fallen body, a lonely flame going out on the charred mess of his haunch, leaving him in complete, utter darkness. His breathing came fast, too fast, slipping in and out of black velvet nostrils, and his heart beat (too fast, too fast), but the rest was just silent.
Tembovu's words stirred the fine hairs in his ears, but they did not flick to avoid it, and his eyes were trapped open—unseeing, as his blood grew warmer and warmer with each circuit it made of his broken body.
And Irma came crashing down too, a lonely speck of white upon the needle-laden ground, her raw voice shrieking time and again as she looked about herself, as if unable to see, unable to find what she was looking for.
She was looking for him but beneath the scream defining his existence there was just silence.
They smell fire, and hear owls, and it is not right
Copped child and her shadow brother observe each other for a heartbeat's pass, a million thoughts and questions exchanged in the time it takes to blink. In the end it is neither a question nor a choice; something is wrong, and it is for the crimson knight and her ardent squire to investigate, to pursue, to ensure that the world is safe from the wrongs, the cruelty of wraiths and sorrow and pain. Perhaps it is a hopeless mission, but it is one which gives her purpose in the darkest of nights; so she clings to it, desperate and hungry to fill the hollow corners of her bruised and battered soul.
Fire is not the only scent. The world is full of magic, if you know how to look, and Fire Dancer pauses beneath the autumn trees to carefully untangle the tapestry of arcane. Tension quivers down her body, setting the embers which dance around her form into quivering, shadow-casting motion as she reaches out with all her senses, trying to find the fire's source. There- it smells of sand and forgotten dreams, tastes like acrid smoke and stone. She sees in in ribbons of cinnamon red, and without thought the girl pursues, three-tailed brother clinging close to her hooves. The girl does not pause to consider the dangers; she if she does, she knows she may falter, afraid.
The scene they are met with is a depiction of despair. Fallen soldiers side-by-side, coiled and clenched within each other, a giant and a familiar figure: sooty specks on a snowy hide. The girl breaks before them, black eyes assessing the situation, emotions compartmentalized (for now) as she meditates momentarily upon the scene. She hesitates, half-hidden, at the edge of the woods, unwilling to break into this tableau without knowing she must. What happened?, she wonders- but her brother does not hold her pause. Something wrong, he answers simply, keen nose picking out the stench of seared flesh. He pushes his way to the fallen Queen's side, his large ears picking up heartbeats (too fast), his sensitive eyes searching for the source of the problem. Who attacked? he wonders, but his sister only shrugs.
They have come to this stallion's rescue before. It appears to be written, intertwined, in their fate.
She steps forward carefully, calling forth the embers which reside within her pelt. She is a glowing beacon, lit with fire and stones; she brings with her shadows and light, but beneath it all she is slender, small. She lets herself focus on the patient for now, ignoring the massive stallion (who?), ignoring the new magic that settles so gently within her heart, ignoring the way her blood thrums through her veins, uncertainty beating a arrhythmic pulse that echoes in her ears. Because this, this, she can do- this is her gift, her purpose, granted by the Sun God and filling her with hope. Perhaps she is doomed to be alone in this world, to lose the ones she loved- but at least alone she can make a difference, can help and heal and protect the world with light.
Fire Dancer stands beside him, letting her magic freely flow. Embers rise from a tangled mane, dancing down her outstretched neck and between them, around them, to settle on the black, seared skin. Her focus is complete, her dark eyes closed; behind their lids is a face, a memory, a figure of starlight and hard angles and kindness, and she hears his words as a whisper from her mouth, an exhalation of desire and demand. "We have to keep living for the ones who can't," she murmurs to the fallen figure, the one who burned the DragonHeart's body when the girl was too weak, too afraid to step in and be by her cousin's side.
(Would she react differently, if she knew who this was? Would he, if he knew her?
Did it matter?)
Somewhere far away (yet so close) an owl shrieked his rage, and a kitsune growled in attempt to understand, tails shimmering with fire, prepared for a fight, for justice, or perhaps just to calm a wounded mind.
02-04-2016, 08:12 PM (This post was last modified: 02-05-2016, 10:53 AM by Alysanne.
Edit Reason: typos D:
)
Night had come, effectively putting an end to the search of herbs through the deep forest. The two Moon Doctors had been travelling together, looking for plants that were seeding with the season that they could bring back to the Edge. Alysanne had just been about to suggest finding somewhere that they could rest for a while when a flash of orange through the trees ahead. “Is that Tallis?” She asked Evangeline quietly, the smouldering light a beacon in the darkness of the night as she hoped it was her friend's companion - perhaps he was hunting but even as she asked there was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her otherwise.
Any thoughts of finding somewhere to rest were quickly abandoned. There was no desire to go and fight flames but she felt concerned. It didn’t look like a wildfire but the night breeze brought to them the stench of burning wood and flesh. With a quick look at her friend to see if the same conclusion had come to her fellow Doctor, Alysanne started to move through the woods in the direction the light had been with Hemlock flying ahead - his small body weaving through the trees and the darkness with ease and faster than she could.
A few moments later, he reported back - his deep voice filled with panic. “Queenie hurt.” It took Alysanne a second to realize who he was talking about but the image of the white unicorn came easily enough. He might no longer be the queen but the imagery had stuck nonetheless. “Mauja.” The pegasus muttered the name under her breath but her pace quickened as fast as she dared in the dark and in the woods until she was upon them. She recognized the mare that was already there - her knowledge of Tandavi as a healer was the only thing that kept her calm about the embers that were flying towards the burn.
She hurried to join, flapping a wing in a gesture to get Tembovu to back up and get away. She didn’t, couldn’t, know that he had caused this but even as she shouted “What happened?!” at Tembovu her attention turned away from the king and toward the fallen queen. She had never seen burns like these before and her knees wanted to buckle at the sight but she couldn’t let herself be drowned by worry and despair. She had a job to do and she was already calling upon the dark mists - already making the decision that she’d pour her entire energy into healing Mauja. How fortunate that she and Evangeline had been in the area and Tandavi too. On their own, their magic might not have been enough but together they could do this, they could save him.
Hemlock flew away from her, knowing that he couldn't help and sought out Irma to try and calm down his larger cousin, his higher-pitched calls being added to the night.
Mother had left with her fellow Moon Doctor in tow - the chestnut mare that Naerys still couldn't bring herself to like or even trust. (But then, should she try? Mother didn't like or trust each and every one of Naerys' friends, so to expect something different from her daughter seems rather hypocritical.) They left and Naerys followed. She doesn't precisely know or understand why she follows or what she expects them to do but she settles in behind them, trailing yet keeping her distance. It had been a rather quiet and uneventful outing - the mares gathered herbs and she watched, carefully storing any and all information she could glean from where she quietly followed behind.
And despite the ache of boredom coursing through her veins, she welcomes the momentary peace - taking those moments to gather her own thoughts and figure out her own future. Just where did she see herself within the herd by the time her second birthday finally graced her youthful body and thrust her into adulthood. Every day the moment drew nearer and her desire to taste it, to experience that freedom, the heightened sense of responsibility grew stronger. And she longs for it. She doesn't shun the opportunity, doesn't hide from it and cling to the remnants of her childhood. No. As surely and easily as she thrusts herself from the edges of the cliffs to soar over the ocean does she throw herself towards adulthood.
Time ticks ever forward, slow and agonizing to the girl that is so close yet still so far from achieving her desires. So when darkness settles in around them while they still linger in the depths of the deep forest, her teal eyes shift to the form of her mother; a bit surprised they'd stayed away from the Edge as long as they had. Mother seems to be mostly at ease, given their current situation, until something catches her attention and her voice breaks the silence. The question wasn't directed to Naerys, not even remotely, but the girl still attempted to listen. Her ears forward and alert but she couldn't quite hear due to the distance and the quietness of her mother's voice. Just as she begins to move forward, to inch herself closer to the two mares, something changes in her mother - a subtle shift that sent a small feeling of dread coursing through her veins, chilling her blood and speeding her heart. Caution (or is it fear?) prickles down her spine but she doesn't fully understand why.
Her gaze catches the small blur of Hemlock flying through the trees towards the strange glow somewhere through the trees and she almost moves closer. Almost. But her hooves are frozen in place, clinging to the comfort of the purple blooms blossoming around her hooves. For several moments there is nothing but silence. Silence and the thumping of her heart in her chest and the uneven, stuttering of her own breathing. Little does she know that her mother (and likely Evangeline) has already left their little area. Little does she know just how alone she is in that moment. But then she is moving, her slender legs taking on a mind of their own as they carry her with caution and curiosity through the woods - moving towards the strange glow. The air is pungent with a smell not so familiar to the yearling, one of burned flesh and hair mixed with the smell of charred wood.
Mindlessly the girl moves closer, her own pace increasing as the scene begins to unfold before her eyes. Mother is already there when she comes upon them and she struggles to see past the glaring brightness of the flames and the haze of smoke. Her teal gaze shifts, examining the scene and trying (though failing) to make sense out of everything she could see. There was her mother, of course, an orange mare that she didn't remember ever seeing before, and her King. The girl is riddled with confusion and curiosity until her gaze falls to the fallen form at the center of everyone else's attention. Mauja. Fear might have glued her to the spot had it been anyone else but instead dread sinks her delicate heart and moves her closer - ignoring the burning tree, ignoring the smell of smoke and other burning things. Once again, the girl practically flew to his side. Once more she wanted to simply hold him close - to keep him safe. Racing to place herself between her mother and the king, she gazes down at Mauja (the white queen) and somehow manages to choke back a sob. A single tear escapes, sliding down her cheek before she manages to hold back the rest - though the act merely leaves her eyes moistened and glistening.
"Please." she almost croaks, her voice strained as she pulls her gaze away from Mauja to pin Tembovu with her watery, tear-filled eyes. "Please tell me that you didn't do this." she begs, her words - strangled and pleading - sliding from her dark lips. There is a glimmer of hope in her eyes and in her heart but that's all it is - a glimmer; faint and easier to snuff out than the burning tree not far away. Mauja she loved and trusted; the Mauja she knew wouldn't have done anything to deserve an attack from Tembovu. But in that moment, the way she saw it, there were two possibilities. Either she'd been wrong about Mauja (entirely possible, though it would completely break her heart), or Tembovu is not to be trusted (also possible, though terrifying given the fact that he is her king).
There was a quiet sort of comfort that came with being in Alysanne's presence. The mindless task of gathering herbs, small talk about what they'd found and what they could use helped to ease Evangeline's mind. Before she knew it night had fallen and they were just making their way out of the forest so they could go back home. Her emerald eyes were set on the path before her, so she was unaware of the orange glow until her friend asked if it was Tallis. "No... he's asleep." Evangeline murmured. The orange dragon was draped across her back, fast asleep. The monotony of herb gathering had taken its toll on the dragon. "Tallis. Wake up." The mare hissed as, she too, saw the orange glow in the trees. The dragon stirred, lifted his head, and yawned. 'What?' He asked groggily. "Go with Hemlock and see what that orange glow is. It might be fire." The dragon stood, stretched in a catlike manner, then took to the sky and followed after the owl.
Evangeline stood beside Alysanne and waited for Tallis to report back his findings to her, anxiety making her head beat just a little faster. What if it was a fire? The whole forest could go up so quickly and they could be trapped inside. But her thoughts of it being a fire were doused quickly when Tallis finally told her what he found. 'Sir Queen hurt..... bad' He said. 'Temb with him. Another mare healing.'
Even though there was another mare healing Sir Queen Evangeline still took off through the forest. If Tallis was telling her that he was hurt bad then it had to be bad. She suspected that there would be a need for more than one healer and when she finally burst onto the scene she stumbled to a stop. It was bad. "My god." She muttered as she took in the severity of the burns. The orange mare started forward again with Alysanne, her magic reaching out to Mauja before she even got to his side. "Move, Tembovu." She said, her voice stern and offering little room for him to argue. "Give us room to work."
"Please. Please tell me that you didn't do this."
Eva's gaze moved to Naerys and she felt a stab of pain in her heart as she saw the look on the girl's face. It was the same look she'd worn when she'd been her age and helplessly watched a mercy killing. She knew the trauma and the emotional scarring and she wished that the girl had stayed in the Edge. "Naerys!" She called the girl's name to get her attention. "Talk to Mauja. Get him to focus on your voice." Get him to focus on anything but his pain.
02-09-2016, 02:01 AM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2016, 02:01 AM by Tembovu.)
The thick hid of his back twitched as Diego’s talons rake through his flesh— though it is but a small drop in the King’s sea of misery. The freely bleeding slashes are welcome punishment, a just retribution for the sins he has committed this night. Haunted, navy eyes watch the white form of Irma fall to the needled floor. Blankly, they watch her blind searchings, ears twitch at her raw shrieks.
So that’s what it looks like.
That’s what it looks like when everything you hold dear is ripped from you and burned— and you are left searching and screaming until your voice leaves you and the blindness doesn’t. Mindlessly, he continues to gently stroke the unburned, silken ear of his friend— a strange sense of numbness pervading him. Not numbness to the pain and fear, for that he felt acutely; but numbness to action. He could not gather his legs to rise, he could not call out into the night for help. He could do nothing.
He had never felt this before.
But it was short-lived, for suddenly an orange mare (whom he might have recognized from the Rift battles, had he been in a different mindset) appeared from the trees. And beside her was a fox of many tails. And suddenly there were embers, more fire blooming from the fox’s tail, all coming towards him and his fallen friend.
A hoarse, guttural stallion’s scream ripped from his throat, ears pinning flush with his skull as teeth gaped and bared while his head snaked out. His neck covered what it could of the immobile Mauja, protecting it from further insult from the woman’s fires. He didn’t know— couldn’t know— that she was healing his friend. He saw only further harm descending upon him. And he tried to buffer, to use his body, as shield.
Hide ripples and teeth snap towards the feathers that suddenly brush his skin— he is too raw, too savage, to immediately recognize Alysanne, his friend. Even the appearance of Evangeline, his friend and second Moon Doctor does not register to his mind. Ears twitch at the sound of his name on their voices, demanding tones and pushing wings. Confusion clouds his haunted face— only clearing when the sight of a young face and teary teal eyes. “Please. Please tell me that you didn’t do this.”
His eyes fall back down to the charred body he protected and cradled. Yes, he had done this.
And suddenly he is lurching, surging to his great height and back away to give the healers room to work. To heal. To save. “Please,” the plea escapes his lips, low and hoarse, please save him..
Eva tells the young filly to talk to him, to make Mauja focus on her voice. The man, the broken Elephant, watches with wide eyes— gripping onto the newly formed, cold fear into his chest as a lifeline. It would save them from him, it would save him from himself. And they would save Mauja.
They must.
An ear swivels backwards, towards the crackling roar of fire behind him. How easily he had become accustomed to that noise, a soundtrack for destruction. Eyes then fall on the fallen Irma. And, for unknown reasons, he moves towards the white owl— perhaps to be close to his friend in anyway that he can. Perhaps to comfort, to seek comfort… Heavy hooves stop beside her in the needles, great head dropping down beside her, “I’m sorry.” The futile apology is whispered, not knowing if she will even stay to hear him. Not knowing if she will understand him.
His eyes do not leave the healers and burnt man before him.
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
And they screamed—
She was his voice; she, the lost one, who stared wildly at the dark, fire-stained forest without seeing, screaming out the pain of the one who lay silent upon the ground.
For he was still on fire—his mind still burned, trembling with memory and broken nerve endings, and, despairing, he fled deep.
He showed nothing. He was the embodiment of stillness, rapid breathing so shallow it barely stirred his sides, and somewhere, somewhere, he saw the insidious glow of orange cast upon distant tree branches, and how their shadows danced and wavered—but he would not be able to recall it later. It simply was, like the fire's reflection in his fear-stricken, open eyes, as his memory so cruelly replayed it over and over again.
The heat; the heat that had been like death's breath down his neck, the heat which had come as the beast had charged. The air had trembled with it, had blurred the blue eyes chasing after its devastating creation, and in the darkness the stark contrasts of its molten body had devoured all else.
Each moment was agony. Merely existing was agony, trapped in a time loop in which things never changed: something in the back of his mind whispered where did things go wrong? despite already knowing the answer, but it all crumbled and turned to dust, fragments of thoughts falling to the floor as the pain crippled his mind.
And still she screamed out his pain, as others burst onto the scene. He saw them, too, as he had seen the trees and their distant crowns; like ghosts they flitted across his field of vision, but the pain obliterated their existence in his mind. For all that he knew, they might've actually been ghosts, things conjured up by a restless soul still seeing sparks and sunspots. He knew nothing of what happened, of how Tembovu leaned across his charred hide to snap at the poor moths drawn to his flames—but he felt him, felt his sturdy spine beneath warm flesh and sticky skin, talons embedded deep in his unfamiliar back as Diego clung to his perch.
He could feel the rocketing of his forceful pulse, feel his terror in his heart's fleet-footed rhythm—Irma's shrieks died out in a helpless kind of confusion as she just sat there among the pine needles, feathers ruffled and blue eyes sad and lost. And Mauja, he was floating somewhere in between them all, hovering upon the edges of consciousness.
But as they traded, screams and silence, the pain she had felt for him became his own: she sat quiet but the screams started again, a mindless howl dying out into a whimper.
It hurt too much to scream.
It hurt too much to live at all.
It hurt so much that the only thing he could do was weep, softly, silently, wishing he could fall asleep—his body cried out for darkness, his mind for reprieve. The healing falling like sparks and dark fog brought the pain into bearable proportions, tearing him cruelly from the high spires of out-of-his-mind agony and into the dirt and grit where his nerves had words for just how badly it hurt.
Irma, finally, turned to look at the broken body convulsing under the ministration of the healers—muscles spasming with the trial of mending, a small pebble which had somewhere set off a rockslide, and he could not stop because one movement set off another involuntary response. Hemlock had been babbling about something, but she hadn't cared to listen, and once her tired gaze had found the whimpering, twitching shape of him, she did not bother to look at anything else. The jagged scream shearing through her mind and soul had died out, leaving profound silence in the bond: like a child, he grasped for them, but without words, without much thought, and doggedly they bore his onslaught with their love.
For what else could they do, but watch as charred flesh grew pink and tender? What else could they do, but sit there in exhausted silence and love him, offering the only comfort that they could?
Diego remained upon the giant's back as he made his way over to Irma—and Irma, when cast in his fire-shadow, peered up at him blankly. Heat burns and a few cuts littered the massive pale knees, but they were soon obscured by his head.
They knew what had happened—the memory of the charging, molten elephant was etched as permanently in their minds as it was in Mauja's. But they also knew that in the midst of his agony, in the calm of his tired (burning) mind drifting off into a darkness in which the pain was simply a deep throb, he had never been angry.
So she leaned against the black nose bridge, blinking, waiting, watching, loving.
They appear, swarming like mayflies around a bloated corpse. She is not the only buzzard, and as more (women) flow into the clearing the girl grows anxious, uncomfortable at the sudden explosion of this intimate scene. With bright voices and brighter magic the medics storm the battlefield, and the Fire Dancer slinks away from the moon doctors, painfully aware of the confidence the women exude, the familiarity with the patients and the way they take charge. She is a flickering nurse beneath these surgeons, and she is blinded by the strength of their power; she steps back, giving them space, black eyes wide and observant as two-toned ears try to make sense of the mess.
Which is not to say she is not grateful- she looks upon the mares with some amount of relief, happy to leave things in their authoritative care. She is particularly fond to see the medic from the Caves; under different circumstances the may have run to her, thanked her for the part the paint played in saving the Fire Dancer's own life. But the sensation of their abilities, coupled with the latent fire which caused this issue is overwhelming to the sensitive girl, who sees and tastes and hears the magic with every sense available. Her embers still linger on the spotted beast's (Mauja's) hide, still sink and surge over his (Mauja's) wound, knitting burnt skin and glittering in the mist as pink skin rises from the red on Mauja's-
Mauja.
Wait.
I know that name.
Puzzle pieces fall into place, stories connected by a single thread, a familiar name- Mauja the FrostHeart, frozen king, age old foe of her entire clan. The burning of Mirage's body means something else, now; her own presence here means something else now, and the girl reels with the realization, blinking as she tries to achieve comprehension and miserably failing. Have all her steps led her here, to the side of her family's enemy where she acts as a source of salvation, rather than vengeance? Is this justice?- is justice real? Should she even judge this man based on her family's history, their triumphs and sin?
Does she have a choice?
Slowly, unremarkably, the copper child backs away. There are too many people, too much commotion for anyone to care; and besides, she has done her duty here. Let the issue remain in the care of those who care, who are capable and confident and have more understanding of the situation than a girl who lives beneath her family's shadow. At her hooves her brother follows, worried by this change in mood; they leave as quietly as they came, Fire Dancer dancing from the flaming wreck.
It was with a complete lack of surprise that Alysanne, focused as she was on Mauja’s injuries, recognized her daughter. Apparently ‘I’m going herb collecting with Evangeline, I’ll be back soon’ meant ‘go ahead, sneak out and follow us discretely’. Had it been just a normal gathering trip she wouldn’t have minded, not much anyway, but there was nothing normal about the scene that the young pegasus girl stumbled into. There was certainly no time for thoughts about reprimanding the girl. How could she, when she could plainly see the tear that was rolling down her daughter’s face? As much as she resented the bond that had formed between Mauja and her daughter (purely due to jealousy, mind) she would forever wilt at any sign of distress from the girl. “Naerys…” Before she could tell her daughter to leave (a pointless exercise, she was sure) Evangeline stepped in and told her daughter to talk to Mauja, to get him to focus on her voice. Distracted, Alysanne just nodded her agreement to this plan - encouraging her to go to his head.
It was a good thing there were two other healers present for her own magic ceased for a moment out of surprise when she heard her daughter’s question to Tembovu. Venomous green eyes look to him, catch him backing away and the faint whisper of an apology to… what was that, Mauja’s owl? Was that apology an admission? Anger as hot as the magma that turned the skin before her into crisp charcoal flashed in the Moon Doctor. She was quick to check it as soon as she noticed it had interrupted the healing shadows, letting it simmer beneath the surface. There would be time to deal with their king afterwards. The gentle weeping of Mauja brought her attention back to where it was needed and she dug deeper into that gift the Moon Goddess allowed her Doctors and she wished he would fall asleep, wished she had the power to do that to spare him as much of the pain as she could while they mended his body.
As he started to drift, Alysanne panicked - thinking at first it was to death and not into sleep - but it seemed like his breathing was coming easier now. She did not notice Tandavi leaving, though she would regret that she had not said goodby later. She lowered her head closer to Mauja’s side, checking his breathing in the shadows as bodies blocked the light of the flames behind them. “Don’t you dare die. Not in front of her.” She whispered low to the stallion, thinking it unlikely that he could even hear her but feeling the need to say the words - the half-hearted threat - anyway.
Not that he would be able to help it.
That was their job.
She could feel her energy draining as she put it all into the healing shadows, her legs shaking so she lowered herself to the ground to keep herself from falling. That he was drifting into sleep was a good sign but she did not think it time to let up. She was determined to bring the burns back to the surface, to knit the damaged skin into something pink and fresh, and above all to keep her daughter’s friend from dying on this night.
She'd almost expected them to discover that she'd been trailing them at some point during their herb gathering session. Yet, they hadn't; at least as far as she could determine from their expressions. Had it been any other time or someone else so horribly burnt upon the ground, she might have been more impressed with the way her mother and Evangeline moved and acted. But it was Mauja and as such, she barely noticed the forceful command in their voices; the sternness of a doctor fully and completely engrossed in duty. It was a gruesome scene, no doubt. One that would give the girl nightmares after this was all said and done. Though she hasn't really seen it, yet. Instead her gaze is pinned to the elephant king, pleading and hopeful.
He answers her with silence.
His blue eyes falling from her own back down to Mauja and then, almost suddenly, he's standing and backing away. He utters a low and hoarse please and that's all the confession the girl needs. Anger swells up from within, burning as hot as the nearby tree, threatening to obliterate her concern. Her ears fall back, pinned flush against her skull. Her expression is dark, darker than it's ever been, as she watches him retreat to Irma's side but his whispered apology never reaches her ears. "Naerys!" Another voice overshadows everything, effectively pulling her from her anger enough for her to be rational. The girl's teary eyed gaze finally breaks from its' hold on Tembovu's form; refocusing on the more pressing issue: saving Mauja's life. "Talk to Mauja. Get him to focus on your voice." only then does she recognize that it was Evangeline giving her a task. A task far more suited to her liking and capabilities.
A task she would willing accept any day; whether Mauja was hurt or not (though she could only hope he wouldn't be hurt again). So without any further hesitation, the girl moves to lay herself beside the wounded Queen, gently pressing herself against his shoulder and neck. Her placement is careful - wanting to do what was asked of her without getting in Alysanne and Evangeline's way or causing Mauja any pain. The girl reaches down to brush her soft lips against his exposed ear, her teal eyes focused entirely on his wounded face. She could see the flesh improving but with three healers, how could it not? Everything was (relatively) okay, however, until the stallion trembled and whimpered softly; the sound threatening to rip her heart from her chest and send the tears to flow freely down her face. "Mauja..." she whispers, her voice cracking and strained. Her own body threatens to whimper her own agony over his pain but she holds it back. Now is not the time.
Now she needs to be strong.
Naerys, so entirely consumed by Mauja, doesn't notice Tandavi's departure or the strain of the sheer amount of magic use on her mother. Within moments, nobody else existed. Even the sound of the crackling fire faded out and all that was left was Mauja and herself. "Mauja, stay with me." she begins, her voice simultaneously louder and softer than it had been only moments before. "Do you remember when we met in the Edge last Frostfall? It had been snowing, making everything so quiet..." And her voice is suddenly gentle, soothing despite the fear still radiating through her. In that moment, the tragedy is gone and everything is okay again. In that moment, the girl can't help but to smile at her own memories - hoping against all hope that if he drifted, he would drift into sleep and dream of their peaceful first meeting. As usual, her passionflowers spring up from around her, growing and stretching beneath them. Their presence helped the girl to relax even though she found it to be a difficult task.
Yet as Mauja drifts, presumably into sleep, she can't help but to feel a slight surge of panic. What if he was dying? And in that moment her gaze quickly finds her mother's face. Seeking some sort of comfort or affirmation. But her mother is concentrating, focusing all of her energy into healing Mauja. And though that gave her hope, it didn't entirely erase the fear and anxiety swelling in her chest and squeezing her heart. Instead she returns her attention to Mauja, allowing her teal eyes to focus on the small details of his face, mentally caressing the beloved contours of his features. Whatever happened, Naerys wasn't about to leave his side.
She wantsneeds to be there when he finally wakes up. There simply are no other options.
03-08-2016, 03:40 PM (This post was last modified: 03-08-2016, 03:53 PM by Tembovu.
Edit Reason: word count
)
The soft, silken feathers of Irma’s back splay around his ash-stained face, a downy comfort amid the roaring flames. Cobalt eyes stare, watching the healers work on Mauja from afar. They seemed calm— the bright one even left, taking her burning fox with her. So the incinerated form of Mauja must be healing, slowly knitting flesh beneath the charred, cracked skin. There was no panicked looks, no uncertain glances. There was only calm, persistent healing occurring in the eerily lit clearing. Glassy eyes reflect the inferno the licked up the trunk behind the Doctors, cracking and splitting the living wood as it sluggishly plumed smoke.
He felt the ice in his chest. The only burn he felt was was lingered on his skin from the magma-splatter and the white-hot anguish on his soul from what he had done. The quiet words of Naerys slipped into his scalded ears, pushing a painful pulse through pain-deflated veins. His heart shuddered against her gentle voice, and suddenly he needed to take his dangerous demons away; far, far away. Until he was less raw, more controlled. Despite not feeling the trumpeting beast in his breast, he did not trust this fearful control. He did not trust himself.
“He shouldn’t have been here,” was his quiet, broken rumble, as much to himself as to those before him, “I should not be here.” And, with a soft stroke and nudge to the owl that leaned against his muzzle (another, tactile apology, for he could never say enough sorries), he faded into the smoky murk of the trees.
.svg/2000px-Google_Chrome_icon_(2011).svg.png){kind=icon}
![[Image: alysanne_by_schwartze-d89se15.png]](http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/348/8/6/alysanne_by_schwartze-d89se15.png)
![[Image: 2PHncqI.gif]](http://i.imgur.com/2PHncqI.gif)
