the Rift


[PRIVATE] Travelers in the Dark

Hotaru the Valkyrie Posts: 295
Outcast atk: 7 | def: 10.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3hh :: 6 Years 3 Months HP: 67 | Buff: NOVICE
Alice :: Royal Hellhound :: Acid Brit
#1

She’d made it to the edges of the Steppe before she could go no further. She’d been drawing on Alice’s strength for days, eating listlessly and limping every mile, pushing through the agony and the night terrors just to try to find her way back home. It was the slowest journey she’d ever managed, but she was terrified of her broken ribs and – more importantly – her fractured leg growing any worse by jostling herself too hard. Hotaru felt like a shadow of her former self, huddling in the blue cloak Thranduil had thrown around her, staring out at the world with a fearful expression that hadn’t twisted her features since childhood. When she was young and afraid of the monsters in the shadows, long before she broke herself apart and poisoned the remains in order to become one of those monsters. Was it not fitting, then, that the monster of the fairy tales had been the one to break her so completely? After all, she’d convinced herself that she hadn’t believed in them any longer.
 
Alice refused to leave her side, fur warm and familiar against her legs at all times. She could sense the constant, pervasive terror inside her mistress’ heart. But even that could not quell the agony of Hotaru’s spirit, the constant terror that kept her from sleep, kept her moving even when she was sure she’d simply crumple to the ground and give up. She had been broken, twisted, and shattered so fully that she could not even recognize herself in the fragments. How could she return home like this? How could her people see her, so frail and scared, and not despise her for her weakness? Would they turn her away from the gates, spit upon her as they wrenched her well-deserved crown from her head?
 
Hotaru had never been more scared in her life. Her body hurt in every fashion, her hooves dragging limply across ground that grew more frozen with every step she managed onward towards the Basin. The cloak provided warmth, a solitary comfort as Thranduil’s scent seeped into her nares. He had saved her, and yet…she had no idea how to feel. Those cold, distasteful eyes that judged her for a weakness she’d already lashed herself for. She loved him like something broken, trying to place the fragments of herself in the gaps of his composition. Trying to burrow inside and make a home for herself in the empty caverns of his heart, because no other place would take her in. Did she love him, or was she simply looking for the one person who could – would – give her what she thought she deserved? Was he just another whip’s lash against her back? A reason to hate herself even more? A punishment, for daring to want for the romance her mother had regaled her with as a child?
 
The Lady shuffled onward until she could find no strength left in her battered body, too exhausted from nights spent awake and fearful of Tingal’s return, too many miles traversed on battered limbs. She sank into the snow, the cape spreading around her like cerulean wings, the deep rose of her hide the only thing left to stand out beneath the sharp color of the cloth. She panted softly into the snow, Alice whining as she curled up against Hotaru’s breast. There was nothing she could do. And in her grief she lifted her head to the heavens and howled, a long and drawn out song of distress. 


Set after their spar!
Image Credit


@Mesec
[Image: 515265280ffff]

::Strong like the sea is stormy::

Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!

Mesec the Nightwind Posts: 476
World's Edge Glazier atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 5
Stallion :: Tribrid :: 16.3hh :: 7 years old HP: 76 | Buff: NOVICE
Lucius :: Royal Zephyr :: Roc & Lyra :: Common Kitsune :: Dreams Sarah
#2

Fight the darkness,
it lives inside your heart.

Mesec certainly didn’t have any logical reason for continuing to visit the Steppe - especially this late in the year - but when he went out for a flight it was becoming more often he would come this way. Was he hoping to come across more friends? Or, perhaps, a particular friend? Lucius was certainly free with his opinion on the matter, chattering about the pretty pink mare as soon as he noticed they had started to travel north. Despite Mesec’s pleading for him to stop the zephyr wouldn’t have it - eager to flex his growing vocabulary now that it had stretched beyond the word ‘bitch’ that he reserved for a special friend of Mesec’s.

They were both thankful that the weather was cooperating enough that their matching shadowed bodies continued to soar toward the Steppe. Just a loop, Mesec thought through Lucius' chatter, and then they could head back south again. Only, that was the plan before the howl ripped through the air - far in the distance. Not a wolf, and not a normal howl, Mesec and Lucius were quick to agree something was wrong and they should investigate. They angled immediately toward the sound, scouting the ground below for anything.

~*~ Amp vs Hotaru fight happens ~*~

Mesec thought he could hear screams and shouts which only increased his worry. It took them a while to get close enough for Lucius’ keen eyes to spot the figure in the snow - a call of surprise and shock coming from the zephyr as he recognized the rose coat and was quick to report to Mesec. “Hotaru?” The demigod repeated the name out loud as dread made his wings feel heavy and his heart rate pick up to the point where it was pounding in his ears. He dropped a few feet as he forgot to flap his wings when his silver eyes found the figure, lying in the snow where she was. “RU!” Her name ripped from him as he plummeted to the ground purposefully now, landing so hard that it shook his legs but he barely noticed. The panic was rising as the gap between them was closed, as he saw the funny angle her leg was sitting at. He lowered his head toward her but was afraid to touch her in case he were to cause her any more pain. “What happened?!” But of course it didn’t matter, not really - it just mattered that she was injured. Very injured.

He lowered himself to the ground near her - wanting nothing more than to curl himself around her but feeling the same shyness that had caused her to recoil from him the last time they had met here. Wanting to avoid being presumptuous, and he wasn't entirely sure Alice would let him get that close. A groan of frustration escaped as Mesec was reminded of what he tended to forget - the healing magic he had was useless to help others. The shadows he called upon only swirled uselessly around himself and did nothing to help heal Hotaru.

‘Lucius, go to the Basin - find… find someone.’ Mesec wasn’t sure who was a healer in the Basin anymore, now that his father was gone. He tried to remember any faces he knew from there at all but he couldn't tear his eyes away from Hotaru, couldn't form any thoughts that were not filled with her. Anyone that Lucius could find would be able to help, surely, for at least they would know who the healers were. The zephyr took off once he received the direction he needed to go in.

But he couldn't give up hope. “Lucius is going to go find someone. Ru, it’s going to be okay. He’ll be right back soon and we...” What could he do? Aside from offer what little comforts he could. “You’re going to be alright.” He spoke the words with determination - for both Hotaru and her bonded.

mesec

It's not your fault my dear son,
it is simply your past.


image credits
table by Kyra <3

@Hotaru D:
please tag Mesec in replies
non-life threatening force is allowed at all times

Hotaru the Valkyrie Posts: 295
Outcast atk: 7 | def: 10.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3hh :: 6 Years 3 Months HP: 67 | Buff: NOVICE
Alice :: Royal Hellhound :: Acid Brit
#3

Ampere's departure doesn't register in her head, too enveloped in this world of grey and black. The cold is seeping into her bones and she's horrified by the levels of crimson that stain the snow around her. At least half the ribs on her right side are broken, she has over twenty lacerations on the same side, her right foreleg is snapped - and if it was fractured to begin with, she fears it did not do so in a clean and comfortable fashion. Her throat and just behind her ears are clotted with scabs from Tingal's abnormally sharp teeth, not to mention the scrapes and clawmarks he'd left all over her hide. She is covered almost entirely in blisters and burns from Ampere's last attack, and her left eye is sealed shut from where the blood had dried and glued her eyelashes shut. And all throughout it, dimly categorizing her injuries, Alice is howling like the damned. It stops intermittently, dissolving into wounded cries and whimpers that hurt far worse than any wound the champion had left upon her body. She doesn't have the energy to move her tongue to verbalize her soft reassurances, but she lets them float down the bond, trailing and hazy. Don't leave, I love you, Alice is crying, because Hotaru has gone from not wanting to move to being incapable of it. The color keeps draining from the world in fits and starts, but the episodes are lasting longer. 

Is this how mother and father felt? Did they die like this, too? Alice's wounded noises return at the word, in utter denial of this fate that Hotaru sees so clearly before herself. No, no, no, Alice is sobbing, the only spot of warmth that Hotaru can still feel, pressed up against and beneath her, trying to keep her out of the snow. Trying to keep her body upright and supported. Tears stream silent and vapid down her cheeks, and Hotaru doesn't know how she can cry while feeling so numb and peaceful, when her face does not even twitch to register any sort of emotion that would correspond with those tears. 

I just got Raeden back. I finally started to be a Lady the Basin deserves. How could Tingal take all this from me so easily? Most of her musings are nonsensical, and interspersed between her fading, struggling thoughts she tries to soothe Alice. It's okay, Alice. It's all going to be okay. But the sun had been setting when Ampere had first arrived and now night is falling, and the cold is seeping so far into her bones that she finds herself giving a short, aborted shake of a laugh. It's ironic, when she rules over the coldest and farthest reaches of the North, to die by the same hand. 

But maybe she's not meant to die today. The sound of her name registers with Alice long before Hotaru, who dismisses it as some sort of hallucination. But then her nickname is screamed across the snow, bearing down upon her from an odd angle, and Alice is whining and barking and howling at her side. Hotaru turns her good right eye to the skies, too tired to move her entire head. Thranduil? she thinks distantly, even though she knows he is not capable of flight like this savior of hers. He had saved her once, she comforts herself, trying to stifle the tiny flicker of hope that burgeons inside her breast. But Alice fights for her when she does not have the strength to any longer, shuffling and jostling her until Hotaru lifts her head and -

He's there. 

She can only see him from one eye, but the tears start anew, and her lips tremble with emotion. This isn't the end. But what she says is, "Mesec." His name is croaked and broken but she's crying with relief because he's here. She's not alone, she'll make it home. Or at least she won't die alone, if it ends up being too late for her here. He lowers himself beside her but she doesn't have the fortitude to try and move towards him, to curl up beneath his wing like she wants to. Like she used to do as a foal, tucked against Phaedra's side, whispering furtively beneath the mare's belly to her twin on the other side until Phaedra would wack them both to get them to shut up and sleep. 

"Tingal...and then Ampere..." her voice is hoarse from screaming, nonsensical names that fall from her lips, clueless to the meaning and importance one would hold for the boy. Alice is staring at the moon child, a desperate sort of sorrow on her face. She can't help her sister here. She is failing her, even as Hotaru heaps forgiveness upon her every moment. But maybe this stallion, who had made Hotaru laugh and smile sincerely for the first time in years, could save them both. 

"I just want to go home," Hotaru cries, too beaten to try and preserve her pride. But she understands dimly that Lucius is fetching someone, and her heart lurches. "Lena," she sobs. "I need Lena." If she could bring an immortal daughter back from death's doorstep, perhaps she could do so again. But this time for the mother, who did not have the gifts of immortality to rely upon. And she's thankful that Mesec is here. Even though her numbed emotions - shock, she tells herself - have cracked and come pouring out passionately, it is better than death. I can't let this be my ending. And so she keeps her eyes trained unwavering and helpless upon his face, afraid if she looks away he will prove himself the mirage she believed him to be and disappear. "Don't leave me, Mesec," Hotaru begs, because even if she does die tonight, she wants it to happen with his untarnished, naive love surrounding her tainted soul. 

She hangs on. 

OOC thingies here
Image Credit
[Image: 515265280ffff]

::Strong like the sea is stormy::

Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!

Mesec the Nightwind Posts: 476
World's Edge Glazier atk: 5.5 | def: 9 | dam: 5
Stallion :: Tribrid :: 16.3hh :: 7 years old HP: 76 | Buff: NOVICE
Lucius :: Royal Zephyr :: Roc & Lyra :: Common Kitsune :: Dreams Sarah
#4

Fight the darkness,
it lives inside your heart.

It was worse, so much worse, than he had seen from the air. Mesec was glad he had sent Lucius to the Basin right away - every moment could be precious here in the growing night. She croaked out names in response to his question of what happened - the latter of which was a lashing to his heart. How could Ampere do this? What had Hotaru done to deserve the wrath of two? The blood and the injuries, the signs of electrical burns, would be enough to cause his knees to give way if he had been standing. The name of Ampere swimming in his mind caused a flurry of curses from his companion, cementing the already-harsh feelings Lucius had toward the mare. But Mesec couldn’t let those thoughts distract him, couldn’t dwell on her when Hotaru was in this state - crying, bleeding, broken just a few feet away from him.

She managed to give a name to who he assumed must be a healer in the Basin and he was quick to relay the information to Lucius. “Lena, get Lena.” Mesec described the bay unicorn as much as he could from their brief acquaintance, but he hoped it would be enough. How many of them could there be? And she had a companion too but his head was swimming again, the information too hard to reach as Hotaru spoke again, begging him not to leave her. “Oh Hotaru. I won’t. Never.” The promise came without the slightest bit of hesitation as his own eyes started to flood with tears. There was nothing he wouldn’t promise, nothing he wouldn’t do, for her in this moment.

And that was enough to get him moving, to get him past the uncertainty and hesitation he had felt when he had landed. With more care than if she were made of glass he stood up to move closer, folding his legs once more to the blood-stained snow by her back. A silver-lined wing extended to drape gently across her - feathers brushing blood as he maneuvered as gently as he could to drape it across her. Hopefully the slight pressure would be worth the heat his body could give her while they waited. This close, he could see more of the damage and those brimming tears fell silently from his silver eyes as he reached out to touch her mane in the softest of caresses. “Stay with me now. Just a little longer and Lena will be here.” However fast Lucius could fly to the Basin did not seem fast enough but he didn’t dare look away from her now to see how far the zephyr had gotten. What if he looked and she slipped away? He didn’t think he could bear it - didn’t even think he could handle blinking in case he missed her... them. He looks to Alice, knowing the pain he felt was nothing compared to the hellhounds. She remained close, a faithful companion if there ever was one, but he beckoned her now to join them, to add what more heat she could.

It wouldn't be long now.

Even those few moments he had looked away felt too long to turn his attention from the pink mare he held against the soft glow of his body - growing stronger as the night deepened and the moon rose. His voice cracked as his whisper interrupted the thick darkness of the Steppe night, making a lamenting chorus with the haggard and pained breathing of his friend. “You are so strong, Ru, but you don’t have to be right now. I’ll be strong for you. We’ll hold on together. Just stay with me.”

mesec

It's not your fault my dear son,
it is simply your past.


image credits
table by Kyra <3

@Lena whenever you're ready to jump in just PP Lucius coming to get her and leading her back!
please tag Mesec in replies
non-life threatening force is allowed at all times

Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#5
The stars have all aligned
A brighter day is coming my way
They were marching fairies along setting suns and rising dawns, streaking against the sky for what felt like a lifetime. They raced, the molded, they melded, they scalded, and amongst the layers of hope and finesse, they acquired the esteemed, precious boldness of icy dwellers; who feared but never showed it, who dared, defied, and forged audacity within their very souls. A song swallowed her breath and collided with the atmosphere, drawn to light, puffy fumes of air, crossing and weaving in whimsical lines and curls. The Mender and her fox might have spent ages in the confines and collections of spruce, of fir, of cosmic, otherworldly designs, striving to stay afloat in the arches and palisades of a much grander realm – had something else not snagged their attentions entirely.
 
At first, she thought the loud bird sounds a match to her aria, and she proffered another tune, a bit more gentle, a bit more fine. But the swell, the rush, the tirade of screeching and outcries left her dismayed, spun into silence. Their stares were drawn and etched towards the skies, expecting a monster to float amidst their abyss (and her heart pounded, not yearning, not wishing, not desiring to be present amongst demons and infidels again). But what came, what flew, what scurried along their wake was familiar and not at the same time; her head tilted, curious, inquiring, because she recognized the shape of his wings and the depths of his hues, all the brilliant, beautiful markings (as if he’d been carved out of the moon, alongside crescent waves and ebullient tides). Yet, there was no name to be given, naught granted; too much hysteria was laced amidst his dirge. Her ears pricked and her thoughts pinpointed in a variety of directions (what could it be, what had happened?), but Imogen, cunning and wily, bestowed the streamline of sentiments and notions through their bond. The communication was a panic-laced lance: Hotaru hurt, ask for Lena, and a thousand quandaries burned into her heart, her lungs, her soul, but none of them were voiced. She trusted the bird, she trusted the kitsune, and she had no time to spare in the lost, lingering annals of what might have been and what could be. Her vocals sprung across the chiseled, icy void, immersed in only strength, only vigilance, only ritual benedictions. "Take me to her."
 
It was as if they flew next to the great beast, so quickly, so swiftly, did they reach over rock, rubble, rime, and ruin, pressing their reverence, their prayers, their raptures on inhales and soothing fluttering nerves on exhales. The nymph asked for time, precious, precious time, for she didn’t know how injured the Lady was, she didn’t know how much repair would be in order, she knew naught at all but the virtue of rapidness and the harsh, glaring balms of the moment. Her eyes scanned the horizon, eventually coming upon two shapes – both eerily familiar, both fallen pieces, but only one truly broken.
 
The sylph stepped beside them, and looked down at the whittled, huddled mass of blood, barbs, and thorns. She didn’t have time to despair over how Hotaru had come to be naught more than frayed roses and snapped stems. She didn’t have time to ask how this had come to be, which cruel creature had dared to maul, mutilate, and ravage their Queen, or why the world decided to brutalize everyone and everything around it. The Songbird merely stared death in the face and closed her eyes.
 
An ethereal essence closed over her mind, sketched, twisted, around her soul until it was a gilded, golden wave of calm – hours spun, songs chimed, and echoes of the past began to come undone. Like streams, like rivers, like valleys of woven, silken lace, the rich elements of time and space coiled together, breathing in unison with their commander, with their wielder, as she urged them along their rapturous course. In streaks of billowing, luminescent satin, they stretched their ribbon of soothing, assuaging alms over the length of their pale Queen, shattering over the weight of bruises, of broken bones, of fractured feelings and torn ligaments. They spiraled over gaping lacerations, sealing them shut, stitching them together as if they’d never been touched, never been maligned, never been so perilously broken. She took a breath and pervaded the surroundings with beautiful, blissful, bountiful song, allowed it to soak the world in its riches, in its lacquer, in its sweet, cordial devotion and diligence, reducing wounds and ailments to mere memories, to vacant, distant marvels, to faded shapes and faint scars. Only when everything seemed over, complete, mended, and whole (perhaps not in mind, but at least in body), she opened her gaze to the lingering shreds of light and a gods’ machinations, bestowing a small smile to Mesec. "Thank you for calling me," for it’d been his companion, his bonded, who’d been able to drag her from the reaches of ice and snow. Then, she lowered her maw, touching it gently to the Lady’s cheek, ascertaining some damages had been taken, snagged, and snarled away – successfully stealing and poaching from the grim’s masterful scythe for one more day, one more night. Not today, she thought. You shall not have one of mine today. "Are you well now?"

the songbird


@Hotaru @Mesec

Hotaru the Valkyrie Posts: 295
Outcast atk: 7 | def: 10.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3hh :: 6 Years 3 Months HP: 67 | Buff: NOVICE
Alice :: Royal Hellhound :: Acid Brit
#6

His words were a quiet, stubborn thing, but she did not allow herself to believe in them. They all promised not to leave. Nobody had ever proven her wrong, but she sank gratefully into the sweet cadence of his lies. A last minimal comfort as the cold seeped into her knees and joints. She wondered hazily whether to die by the hands of the elements she'd ruled was ironic, but the thought was disjointed and distracted. Until at last, blissful warmth, a slow seep into the twinging muscles she'd abused so heavily the past few moons. Hotaru had little strength left to give but she spent it willingly on moving closer. She loved him, this moon child who was so warm, in eternal defiance of the bloodline he'd inherited. He was a contradiction, an endless snub to the cold stars he called family. She shouldn't be surprised - he would always be the child from the forest, with a heart too big for his body and a sideways smile she couldn't escape. He'd returned to her, in the end. Present for her humble beginnings and her humble ending, a constant she could only feel gratitude towards. 

Surely her love for him was different, shaded with nostalgia and a desire for a life she could never return to. But it didn't matter when he was here now, cradling and comforting her when she was convinced this was her last stand. 

His tears fell hot along the crest of her neck and she turned her head to try and comfort him, his breath a warm metronome inside the wild cloud of her hair. He begged her to stay, and while she did not have the strength to laugh, she felt it in her dying heart. Had she not asked him to lie to her the same way? To promise eternity where there was nothing to give? Hotaru could not forsake him the same false comfort. "I'll try." Because even she couldn't stand to lie any further, not when the colors were losing themselves and everything was going still. She'd never been this wounded, couldn't discern between extremes, but she knew Alice - and Mesec, for all his battered heart could muster - would keep her tethered to the world until the very last moment. For someone who'd lived her life looking over her shoulder, afraid of the nothingness at her back, she could scarcely comprehend the fact that she had others to lean on now. 

“You are so strong, Ru, but you don’t have to be right now. I’ll be strong for you. We’ll hold on together. Just stay with me.”

His words churn her heart until she's gasping with emotion, too tired to properly cry but diamonds clinging to her lashes stubbornly nonetheless. She turns her head against his breast, careful to keep her bloodied horn away from his untainted skin. "Thank you," she's whimpering, her quick tongue useless. "I'm sorry," it's gasped painfully, a broken plea for forgiveness her wicked soul doesn't deserve. "I shouldn't have brought you into this." Alice whines where she's pressed against Hotaru's side, curled beneath the canopy of Mesec's wing. Hotaru knows the curse that follows her, the one that strips away everything good and precious right when she finally comes to love and rely upon it. She hurts those around her in turn, as if losing everything was not enough of a burden to bear. She can only hope that if she does leave him here, to cradle what's left of the person she was, that his heart won't break too deeply for a childhood friend he'd never known the depths of. 

She loses time, pressed into her guardians beside her. All she knows is that Alice is stirring frantically as Lena crests the mountainside, and then there is a sweet whisper of song. For a second she believes it's her mother and doesn't know whether she wants to weep with joy or sorrow, for she must have lost this battle to live. But as the voice takes wordless shape she feels skin knit together, an odd experience she has not encountered since foalhood. There is nothing to be done for the lack of strength in her body but Hotaru kicks out her broken leg, trying to align the bone better as marrow and cartilage replace themselves beneath Lena's bidding. She hurts and aches, but she is alive. 

Only when she finds the courage to face this cruel world she must still remain in does Hotaru look up to the savior that seemed bound to Hotaru's lineage. "Are you ever going to grow tired of healing all of my mother's bloodline?" It's the only joke that springs pitifully to her lips but she's smiling. She's alive and she can smile because Lena and Mesec would not let her slip into the void so soon. "Thank you," she says instead, her free eye creased with one last tear of relief before she shakes away the shock and terror still lingering in her heart. Pushes them back, compartmentalizes everything until she can fall apart freely in the solitude of her home. 

The woman pushes to her knees, wobbles onto her legs beneath the press of Mesec's wing. Alice darts out to rush between Lena's legs, whining and trying to press up against her, and if a hellhound could cry Hotaru is sure that she would be. Delicate bloodstained face turns to Mesec, seeks the touch of his skin with her trembling lips. "I kept my promise," she points out quietly. "Will you take me home?" And her free eye flickers tiredly between the two, a pitiful girl in a ripped up dress, no crown to speak of in this snowy wasteland stained with her blood. She is lucky they are so pure, that they will not mock her for this weakness. That they would seek to save her instead of ending her as so many others would. 

OOC thingies here
Image Credit
[Image: 515265280ffff]

::Strong like the sea is stormy::

Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!
Plot with me here!


Forum Jump:


RPGfix Equi-venture