the Rift


[OPEN] waste time with a masterpiece

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#1

There were days, months, seasons where all he did was crave. He stared into the oblivion and simply wanted everything and anything in his path: destruction, mayhem, corruption, glory; if it had a name, if it had a tangible entity, he hoped to snag it for himself. Even things seemingly so far out of his reach (friends back together, musketeers brandishing cutlasses and flourishing across the countryside, all for one and one for all) tugged and tangled within the demon’s mind like a chokehold, like a salvation, like an endless piece of sanctity and sanctuary. He was used to the noose, he was comfortable in yearning, in longing, in hankering for moments and foundations and lives he couldn’t have, because it gave him something to hold onto, it gave him something to cherish, it gave him a reason to continue fighting. The scars, the Machiavellian schemes, the traces of heartache and depravity would be worth it in the end – he was certain. He was sure. One day, he’d awaken capable and ready, fervent and ardent, slashing his sword through painted hide, through dreaded, horrible, vile flesh and watching it boil down into nothing.
 
But on this drizzly, Birdsong morning, he chose to appreciate the things he did have. It was difficult to surmise all the notions, all the sentiments, all the wild, untamed, savage bits of him had managed to grow into more than a fumbling, stumbling soul, had somehow taken his experiences and become a beast of note, of recognition. The fiend was nothing legendary, nothing exceptional, but maybe, just maybe, prowess on the rise.
 
He had his family, either in shadows or corporeal existence – his mother rained upon him now as he touched his feet to the river and slithered across its rippling force. His sire led the Basin with his brutal, calculating, cold devotion, and his sister scattered amongst the stars, and his dam lay in between the unknown and the clouds (so he turned his face towards her now, smiled and gave thanks for her warmth, her delicacy).
 
He had his herd, conniving and chilling as they were, and wove his dedication within their sanction because if there was one thing Deimos had always taught him, it was loyalty, and the boy knelt in ice and snow and laid waste to weakness. The miniature infidel had taken a rank, soldier, and it meant more than a tripping, faltering fool – it held precision in its name, a warrior embrace, a catastrophic balance to the scars mottling his hide and the trenches he labored within. It presided as a gateway to his desires, as a bridge to his wanton hopes, for one day all the senses honed, all the piercing, keen notes pressed against his skull, would be enough to vanquish his foes.
 
He had his friends, even when they seemed few and far between. Even when they weren’t there beside him, frolicking and laughing as they once did, they were still locked away in his memories, and no one could take that away from him. They were beautiful depictions of a life he’d taken for granted, of moments lost amidst the splendor, of shattered pieces and remnants of scalding, elegant wings, Cheshire grins, and plots that would never come to fruition. Maybe one day he’d see his childhood friends again, and they could stitch their seams back together (and it would be glorious).
 
He had Orsino. Even if he was an abominable, scathing, vindictive soul, they were tied together now, knots on a gnarled, vile string. The little beast had led him down darkened corridors and Stygian pursuits, and Erebos regretted none of it, clouded and mired and moored down in the muck and brine of their connection. They were stuck, entangled, side by side with blistering damnation and insistent, barbaric corruption simmering below their brows; and in some time, they’d be unstoppable.
 
He had his magic – it crooned and christened, it blistered and scalded. It was molten and devastating, chaotic and fractious, and every bit a part of him as he moved, as he swindled, as he smiled. It anointed him Poseidon of the river, it threw him into fire and brimstone, it shackled him to the bindings of immorality and decadence, and he wanted nothing more than to sink into each savage embrace.
 
Even now, Erebos was lost to its divine powers, scaling across the water’s edge, dancing, floating, rampaging along the folds of the brook, racing its unwinding, unraveling ribbons as it flowed in various directions. He chose the left and pretended to chase after demons, saw their vehement shells and struck the air with his sword, a combatant of the misty dawn, drinking in the vicious waters and the cool, entangling stroke of spring fruition. The beast beloved the honing of his strength, the undulating coil of his muscles, the endurance, the persistence, the perseverance surging through his veins – ignoring Orsino’s grumbling along the riverbank as he followed the mighty warrior – and clutched for what he held dear.


[Open to anyone! ^_^]
Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

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Fiachra Posts: 21
Outcast atk: 7.5 | def: 10 | dam: 2.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3hh :: 5 - Ages at Birdsong HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Gebo
#2
fiachra
Home, where I wanted to go,
And nothing else compares.
By the Mythics, this place was huge.

She had been in Helovia a matter of weeks now, and Fiachra had barely stepped outside of the safety of the Basin's borders. She had found her cave, found a place to belong, met people, became cozy, and she had let herself grow stagnant. Not that the white-rumped mare wasn't ecstatically pleased to have a herd again, a for-sure place to lay herself down at the end of the day. She was, truly. It had been too long she had wandered aimlessly through the world, through life, looking for a long-lost dream that she had known for years was gone for good. The had let her irrational mind get the better of her for so long and she had been so miserable, so lonely and tired, and now....

Now that was was happy, content, and comfortable, Fiachra worried that she was going to get soft. No, that wasn't quite it. She worried that that would allow herself to forget. Her past, her losses, they were part of what made her... well, her. She could be comfortable, but she could not lose herself in the coziness and safety of her little cave in the Basin.

So today, on a grey and dreary day that was still warmer than those past, she had wandered away from the herdland borders. She had decided to go exploring this beautiful place she had heard named Helovia. And she had found a lot. A lot of diversity in terrain and foliage and environment. A lot of space. A lot of room to roam. There must be a thousand souls calling this land home. She had heard a number of other herds mentioned at the Basin meeting. But so far today, she had been wandering alone.

Her brow furrowed as the paused in her path through a broad prairie. Green sprouts had begun to break through the cold, barren ground as the weather turned warmer. A river forked before her, splitting to the north from which she had come and running from the unknown south. She realized now that she had been content to be alone today. As glad as she had been to finally be surround by people again, as relieved as she had been to no longer be alone, she realized now that she still enjoyed time to herself. Not all the time, of course. Not even often, but sometimes she needed to recoup on her own, reminisce about those lost and left behind, ponder forward on the future. She wandered to the western branch of the stream and carefully placed her toes on the edge of the water. It wasn't deep, by any means, but still she was hyper-aware of her footing. She lowered her head to suck in the cool water, easing the dryness that had started to form in her throat from her exploration.

As she lifted her head again, the dark clouds of Birdsong broke open and water began to pour from the sky. The rain was slow at first, but began to pick up. Fiachra snorted, irritated that her day had been interrupted by the soggy weather. She turned, searching the distance for any form of shelter. A giant oak tree nearby caught her eye and she grinned, despite the rain pelting down on her from the heavens. Of course, she thought, picking up a quick trot to make her way under the protection of the large canopy. She had spent her entire childhood hiding under oak trees. They had been more constant in her life than anything else had ever been. Of course there would be an oak here now to offer her refuge from the elements.

She looked up as she came to a halt beneath the strong branches and gave her hide a firm shake to rid herself of some of the water that soaked her. The newly formed leaves were small, not yet fully blocking the sky, but at least they offered better coverage than nothing. A small shiver ran down her spine as the water on her coat soaked through to her skin. She shook again, harder this time, and as she did, a movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye.

A large, dark form was moving down the river towards her. Wait, what? She looked again. Yes. A large blue-black unicorn was, quite literally, roaming down the river, over the water, his hooves skating over the surface. How on earth? She stared, watching as the stallion drew closer. Helovia truly is a wondrous place, she thought. She smiled, lifted her head, and nickered to the stranger. He seemed familiar, as if she had seen him somewhere before.

"Hello there!" she called, cheerful and bright despite the springtime downpour. "That's quite the neat trick you have there." What I wouldn't give for magic like that, she reflected to herself, imagining being able to simply walk over the water that had terrified her her entire life.

"Talk."
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@Erebos Sorry, that got a bit longer than I expected. Hope it's okay for Fia to join!
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Please tag Fiachra in first posts only!
Minor force is fine, but please ask before inflicting lasting damage, etc.

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#3

The rain was sublime, coasting and ghosting and unwinding over his form as he brewed an infernal tempest against the rocks and the bank. The fiend lowered his skull as he careened along corners and apertures, rose to his hind limbs and pinpointed his sword into an invisible enemy. Thereafter he scalded and brewed in vicious displays, one right after the other, hooves flailing and daggers tracing, brutality varnished and garnished in slender, intricate movements and motions; a warrior retracing his steps, his zeal, his strength for the oncoming storm, the foretold wars, the battles of good and evil. He neither floated away nor fought the current, becoming the embodiment of torn, river depths, an unraveling minstrel and minister of fortitude, of devilish scrapes and scopes, of Machiavellian, Mephistophelean tendencies, laughing and chuckling while Orsino sneered; sculpting and chiseling the finery of his precision until he could feel it in his marrow, in his bones. He forgot regrets and forged power, prowess, puissance, precise, delicate ministrations of calculated divinations, a miniature warlord rising to knighthood beneath showers and abyss. He might have spent the entire day perusing and gliding on the channels, surging and surfing, unwinding and unraveling (for it beat back rancor, bitterness, predilections of past failures; today was about conquering and cherishing, believing and granting), had another not spoken up over the cascading droplets.

The boy stopped immediately, a beast with no sea, an infidel with no lair. He narrowed his gaze and peered through the spring haze, too lost to have seen anything or anyone, roaming closer and closer until he was nearly pressed against the embankment (Orsino balancing on a rock, steady and serpentine), clutching the form of an unknown mare between the rain and the meadow. She wasn’t familiar to him at all (another one of those nameless figures); he would have recognized her by hues and colors alone. Even while the deluge surfaced and reigned, the prince could see the bright fixtures of lavender and icy blue peering from her brow and tapestry, colliding neatly with ivory and Stygian properties, as if her body had long since given up on choosing the right color and simply decided on all of them at once. But she’d been bright, cheerful, in her salutations, and he had no reason not to be – no need for masks, for pretenses, for Cheshire upheavals and cretin exploits. His smile wove easily along his face, charming, charismatic, endearing in its boyish indulgence, like he wasn’t a monster buried beneath allure and appeal. “Hello!” Impish, he glided a little closer, still fully immersed on the surface of the river, hardly maneuvering along its rapid, undulating movement. “It’s not a trick at all!” Erebos winked, indulgent and silly, still a youth, still a challenging, audacious blackguard, beating a fine crescendo amidst the downpour. His voice, ebullient and wild, savage and untamed, born from death and damnation and the sweet, nourishing bits of rain, sprung in its hedonistic passion, a marvel, a spectacle, of magnetism. “It’s magic!”


Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

image || table


@Fiachra

Fiachra Posts: 21
Outcast atk: 7.5 | def: 10 | dam: 2.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3hh :: 5 - Ages at Birdsong HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Gebo
#4
fiachra
Home, where I wanted to go,
And nothing else compares.
The shadowy stallion drew closer to the bank, still amazingly perched atop the surface of the water. Now that he was closer, as close as they could be without her exiting her shelter from the rain or him coming off from the flowing river, Fiachra could see that he wasn't as large at she had originally though him to be. In fact, he seemed to be a bit shorter in stature than she. He had a enormous air about him, though, that made him seem bigger than he was. What a character, she mused to herself.

She refused to come out from her shade and cover unless given ample enough reason, so she watched him from afar. Magic, he explained. Fiachra's ears pricked in singular interest. He was the first to exhibit or even speak of magic here in Helovia. In the Oaken Riy where she had grown up, magic was often spoke of in legend and song, but never had she been seen any performed. Long ago, she had forgone the idea that magic really existed, filing it away among the other things that could never be proven, much like the existence of the Three Mythics. There were few things she believed in that could not be seen with her very eyes and until today, magic had been one of them.

Her ebony lips parted in a quiet intake of breath. Peering at his hooves, she tried to detect the movement he must be performing to remain gliding across the water's surface. He seemed to not exert any effort at all. "How wonderful!" Fiachra exclaimed, wishing to look closer, but unwilling to step back out into the downpour. "Were you born with such an ability, or did you acquire it somehow?" She was abrupt in her eagerness to learn, she realized. "If you don't mind my asking," added she, for fear she may have seemed rude.

"Talk."
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@Erebos
Stock Credits

Please tag Fiachra in first posts only!
Minor force is fine, but please ask before inflicting lasting damage, etc.

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#5

The little cretin watched her through the rainstorm, specious, divine, and devilish, intertwined with too many elements all at once and bursting through the seams of his skin; yearning to twist, to encounter, to entangle himself back into the ruins of the river, but also to compress his interest, his intrigue, to the femme yielding to cover and shade. Her questioning glances, her lingering inquiries, however, kept him at bay, tethered him to the babbling of the brook beneath his hooves, and strayed, stayed, breathed amidst the fumes of showers and mist. A part of the sun, the shoal, the clouds, the surf, the ice chiseled beyond their sights, the boy tilted his head in wonderment, made entirely of mischief and mayhem, colliding temporarily with the bank as one of his daggers rested along rocks and stones, restless and divided. Were you born with such an ability? her voice reached his ears, snagging and ensnaring, so that they swiveled back and forth in impish degrees, shameless and silly, fiendish and deplorable, curling the same boyish smile between his lips. Oh, he’d been christened and anointed with many things (some he’d likely never even touched, had no knowledge or wisdom of) in his short life, blessed with the entity of damnation, corruption, and embers from an early age. While sometimes it scorched, shocked, and unraveled him, he’d begun to embrace it within his tender years, stoking the fires kindled within his soul, funneling the darker predilections smoldering at his edges, ruffling the plumes of his anger, of his wrath, to fine-tune their contemptuous convictions. Magic was a collection of power, of wonder, of notions and nuances and sentiments that could undo or enrapture an entity; and he didn’t know where he fit quite yet – if he’d already been ruined, intoxicated, ravished and ravaged (bit into the savage apple and swallowed all the toxins, all the poison), or he’d simply not gained enough, thirsting for more and more and more. The beast’s voice shattered through the deluge again, innocent and buoyant despite the stitches of trickery and duplicity hovering over the taut strings of his figure, proclaiming the parcels of sagacity he’d managed to squander and clench through seasons and cycles. “I was born with it!” With fire, with darkness, with water he laughed to himself, as if they were everything he needed, everything he required (but it’d never be the case; he was too wanton, too covetous, too greedy, clinging with avaricious claws and charismatic grins). Then he yielded closer, springing from the river with a few shakes of his frame, sending droplets cascading in wild, untamed disarray, mane matted to his neck. Erebos’ gaze peeked under the tree’s branches, brow arching, a lingering piece of promising destruction. “Though, I’ve been on a quest to strengthen their abilities.” The boy wondered if this would entice the mare further, if she was another soul burnished and furnished with incredible interest and the thirst for prowess (to be something, anything, grander than their present beings). Would she want to know how he’d acquired such a journey (how he’d suffered, how he’d serenaded, how he’d tricked and inveigled?)? Or would she be one more accepting creature, lost amongst the ferns and fields, indifferent to each and every cause?

Erebos
clever got me this far - - then tricky got me in

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@Fiachra


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