the Rift


[PRIVATE] Nothing Left to Say

Roux Posts: 57
Outcast atk: 5 | def: 7.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 5 :: Orangemoon HP: 62.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Edison :: Red Kite :: Rage Semper
#1
Hand on my heart allegiance to the night
Every star waits for the darkness to shine

Shivers of nervous energy, and maybe a little bit of excitement, coursed through my black and blue veins as monochromatic eyes rested on the grey and white scene before me. Home, I was nearly home. Or at least what little resemblance of home the frozen grasp of the Basin would be without either of my parents or any of my siblings. The moment of grief was stifled by the overwhelming joy coming across the bond between the red kite and myself, the idea of being home and done with travelling was almost too much for him to handle. A glance upwards proved that as the bird of prey swooped around in circles and spirals that would have made even the most agile of humming birds jealous.

A smile tugged at my inky lips and my crowned skull shook slightly, a chuckle slipping loose from my throat before mismatched limbs struck into the hard packed snow of the Steppe. There was still a little ways to go before the great metal warriors of the North would welcome us with their frozen gaze and stern expressions, but regardless the end of our journey was in sight and I couldn't help but kick up my heels a little. Most likely influenced by Edison's odd excitement.

Nothing would deter me now. It was time to go back to the clutch inside the mountains and take my rightful position as the new poisoner. To learn the tricks and ways that my father had worked so hard on perfecting during his time here, before he had decided to leave. It was at this thought that I hesitated slightly, an ivory dipped limb hovering over the thick blanket of moon lit snow. Moon eyes looked over a bloodied shoulder, back at the lands of Helovia where so many other oppertunites were available. Maybe a different herd could use the learnings of the poisoner?

Edison screeched angrily in my skull at the thought that I might be headed back to the mainland rather than continuing deeper into the snow. Not that I could blame him, all of this wandering was getting quite old. Steam billowed in the air before me as a sigh tore through inky lips and the levitating hoof disapeared into the snow just beneath it, leaving me standing still rather than moving forward as the original intention. Returning would be more bittersweet than I was sure I could handle at this point, but was running from the past my wisest choice?

"Speech."

@Mauja
<3
image credits :: falony
Now waking to the sun
I calculate what I had done
Like jumping from the bow
Just to prove that I knew how
</style>
pixel by nikkayla
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#2
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
Step by step, the buzz inside his skull died out. Each shivering breath of frigid air calmed the fire raging beneath his snowy coat.

It was not clarity that came with this distance, but peace. The constant too-fast pace of his heart settled into something more normal (—healthy), and the interval between each smoky lungful of air expelled through his nose lengthened.

The discordant, ever-present shrieking in the back of his mind had grown quiet, overpowered by the simplicity of the sound of shuffling snow. And Helovia had fallen away behind him; the Edge was beyond the horizon, and the vast expanse of the Thistle Meadow laid behind him, covered in snow which should not have fallen, but yet had. In the west, the sun drew its last, gulping breath and disappeared in a burst of red and purple; in the east, the first stars shone like pinpricks of light against the darkening backdrop of a strange winter-spring sky.

Ahead of him lay the isthmus connecting north and south; he was near its western edge, and the murky, icy sea lapped against a frozen shore. Warily, Mauja turned his head.

There were ghosts on both sides. No matter if he went forward, or back, he was haunted.

But with the owls soaring above him, Irma glittering like crystals in the moonlight, the pull of the winter won out: Mauja turned his gaze from the distant, white cliffs of the Edge, barely visible now that he had come back to the shore, and set them upon the northern horizon. Far, far away lay the Basin; he had not intention of going there tonight. But just a little further.. to see the splendor of the northlands awash in the moon's glow again, to dance across the vast, unbroken expanse of snow, a ghost in his own right...

The snow parted easily where his forelegs swept, and his long tail dragged across its pristine surface. A sunny day had formed an icy crust, and the faint sound it broke with rang like a forgotten lullaby in his mind.

(This, is home—)

So he continued into the night, moving along with ease and grace, straight as an arrow headed north. Hours passed, the stars wheeled and shifted, and for a long, long time he was blessedly alone. White breath smoked out of dark nostrils, and a cutting night wind tore at his long forelock, throwing it into his eyes.

But then, he was not alone anymore. On the horizon a speck grew. The owls, having rested upon his spine and left their little black pinpricks of blood, took wing again, speeding ahead of him. And somewhere, what they saw was so achingly familiar—dulled in the moonlight, but the coat was a vivid blood bay, and he bore the same narrow features.

But white socks marred two of his charcoal legs, and no dog tracks had followed him.

For all their similarity, it was not d'Artagnan, and with that pain throbbing in time with his pulse Mauja still approached. His trot had slowed to a jog, eventually to a walk, and then a halt next to the silent stranger. Slowly, he canted his head to the side, blue eyes shimmering in the moonlight.

"Lovely night, no?" he said softly.

[ Sorry for the wait, @Roux <3 And Mauja is wearing d'Art's bags and the crystal staff (under the leather straps and resting across his back), just didn't find a way to fit it into the post. ^^ ]
man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Roux Posts: 57
Outcast atk: 5 | def: 7.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 5 :: Orangemoon HP: 62.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Edison :: Red Kite :: Rage Semper
#3

I could hear our company approaching long before I even thought about spending the energy to turn and look over a bloodied shoulder. For some reason I could just tell there was no threat in this being, and if there was I would spring into action just enough to keep myself alive, or just long enough to break past the metal guardians of the Basin. If they were even still there as it seems like everything I had grown used to liked to leave. Ink stained ears flicked back, listening carefully as the approaching steps changed pace without much effort.

It wasn't until the avian circling overhead began to send me mental images of the black spotted creature that I decided to turn and allow my moon eyes to make an attempt at making out his pale form against the snow laden background. Finding the company wasn't as hard as I had originally expected, the leather bags hanging from his frame stood out wonderfully from the black and white world around us, he was tall, a pure white marred with randomly sized black spots and a crystalized horn sprouting from between his eyes. Much like the broken one that had decorated my sire's features.

I watched as he made his way closer to me, pulling to a halt along side me, the heat from his body causing steam to lift off of him in clouds until the cool air around us claimed it. "Lovely night, no?" His rich lyrics filled the air, replacing where the steam from his body had been, as moon eyes drifted to the leather bags that hung at his shoulders. Something about them seemed so familiar, memories of d'Artagnen carrying bags similar to these, flashed to the forefront of my mind but I didn't allow them to linger long for fear of my mental status altering before this snowy stranger.

"Quite." I tore my eyes away from the leather bags to look back to the horizon, still contemplating if I should go to the Basin and work towards taking my late sire's place, or if I should venture elsewhere and make my own path. "I am Roux, who might you be stranger."
 
"Talk?"
roux
am I just paranoid?
or am I just stoned
woo hope this is okay!
@Mauja
image credits
Now waking to the sun
I calculate what I had done
Like jumping from the bow
Just to prove that I knew how
</style>
pixel by nikkayla
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#4
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
Stillness

(Almost as if he can't see you, can't hear you—)

ghost.

His eyes were silvered in the moonlight, only the faintest hint of blue lurking in their sterling depths—the frost upon his horn and hooves a similar opaque shade. Night-time did interesting things to you; he glowed (like a ghost, that same voice whispered), he stood out, robbed of all color. And this stranger, whom he shared the darkness with, was bled of a vibrancy Mauja was sure he possessed in sunlight. (His memory said it was, his memory—his memory of someone he had never met.)

Even as the red bay turned it was done with stillness, grace, as if their corner of the world moved at a slower pace. Little seemed to stir around him, no wind ruffling his thick, black hair. Only the steam rising from his nostrils gave his life away.

The owls wheeled overhead on silent wings, two different sets of eyes watching the kite with wary curiosity—their own brand of neutrality, before Diego gave a soft cry and darted in closer, feinting with his claws, inviting to play. With an expectant gleam in his muted-amber gaze he hung back, awaiting a reaction.

And meanwhile, the stranger spoke; his voice was pleasant, his truly silver eyes locked on the northern horizon. For a moment, Mauja's gaze traveled between Roux's face and what lay beyond, wondering if there was something there, tugging at his feet (—heart?). Memories? A future? Promises?

All of them, perhaps—not even Mauja's memory was that awful.

Sacre. Roux. Twins, younger brothers to Aviya; sons of a dead mother and a now-lost father. Mauja's eyes closed, and he raised his head to the moonlight. A small, sad smile curved his dark lips.

"Mauja," he simply said, knowing that he was a spotted ghost from Roux's childhood, a presence who had lingered in the deep snows of the north and then one day, simply been blown away south by the tides of revenge. He wasn't sure if Roux would remember him—they hadn't shared words or names, and if not for his lineage, Mauja doubted he would've remembered the name. Where have you been? he wanted to say, Where have you been all this time?, and deeper, darker, Where were you when your sister died?.

Did he even know?

Mauja's face was smooth—serene, but for the tightening of the skin around his eyes as his eyelids pressed together harder, trying to contain the swell of emotion.

"I'm a friend of your father's," he ended up saying, a smoky whisper on a cold, cold night.

[ just... destroy me, okay? @Roux ]
man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Roux Posts: 57
Outcast atk: 5 | def: 7.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 5 :: Orangemoon HP: 62.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Edison :: Red Kite :: Rage Semper
#5

Edison wheeled overhead, his gaze switching from the peaceful ghost to focus on the two owls that circled him with their judgmental eyes. Images of the dark and pale bodies against the inky cobalt of the night sky flashed against the glass panes I had up between our minds, I could easily take them down if the need arose, but I had little interest in the antics of the trio. A squealing screech erupted from the sharp, piercing beak of the kite as he spun out towards the darker avian. Talons outstretched as a strangely playful light sparked in his dark eyes. It wasn't long before they were rolling around in the cool night and I was able to focus instead on the adult conversation on the snowy ground below them.
 
Moon eyes watched the spotted stallion carefully as he looked at me and then past me, only to focus back in on me for a moment before looking up to the sky, his silver eyes closing tight against the world as a small sad smile crept across his pristine features. "Mauja." Monochromatic eyes widened with surprise for a second before I was able to regain my composure. Memories from my childhood flashed back to the front of my mind, the rush of emotions distracting the kite from his games, images of my father and this ghost standing in the distance as Sacre and I rolled around as foolish young colts did when there wasn't a worry in the world. Of course, the memories were blurry and smudged as if they had been hand painted while being described to me by my twin who was gifted with sight.

I swallowed hard, pushing the conscious of the bird of prey out of my mind so I could wallow in the emotions on my own for a second. He knew my father, and knew my father well enough to have been a presence in the background of many of my childhood memories. Of course then he had just been a passing character, someone to fill the background of the vivid images that had been spun by my brother's magical words. "I'm a friend of your father's."

The cold world around me shattered like a windshield tapped by a window breaker. I could see the cracks creeping across my vision as everything blurred momentarily, moon eyes slamming shut to fight back the strong emotions that were dangerously close to the surface. Ebony dipped ears flicked back into travel tangled tresses as a blast of steam erupted from my delicate nostrils, forcing the emotion from my body before I dared to pull lids away from my vision impaired eyes. "I...he's gone. Sacre too. And Kou....mom's dead.." A shiver passed over my bloodied coat before I was able to fully get my emotions in check, a rattling sigh slipping from between my midnight stained lips as I attempted to get my vocal chords to work again. "And Aviya she's dead too. I'm the only one left Mauja. How did that happen?" Was I cursed? Did the gods think it was funny to make me suffer a life without my family?

"Talk?"
roux
am I just paranoid?
or am I just stoned
@Mauja
image credits
Now waking to the sun
I calculate what I had done
Like jumping from the bow
Just to prove that I knew how
</style>
pixel by nikkayla
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#6
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
Everything was quiet—still—frozen. Winter had settled in the bones of the world, dug deeper and deeper, until everything had slowed, heartbeats, thoughts, life. There, in the darkness behind his closed eyelids, he heard his heart boom out the passage of time. Each pulse thundered through his body, fierce, so alive.

It was strange to know that this song was quiet in the chests of so many he had loved while it would never cease in his. He would sing his song of life for an eternity.

Perhaps one day he would know rest. Perhaps one day, the God and he would let his bones fall to the earth, and his flesh rot, until all that was left of him was memory and dust. Perhaps one day, he would know silence.

He swallowed. It didn't matter if he had a lifetime or three or a hundred. Would any of them ever be the same as this first one? Where he had been fresh and lost, innocent and naive, loving carelessly, dreaming of glory and great things and steeping himself in blood—

It didn't matter how many lifetimes he had, when d'Artagnan had only ever shared this one. He would die, but Mauja would go on, until everything had become a vague memory: his hesitant emotions for Psyche, Snö, Lotus' abuse and Tamlin's birth, the invasion of the Qian... Twenty years from now, would the love in his heart burn as brightly? Would the new lives surrounding him still matter?

"I...he's gone. Sacre too. And Kou....mom's dead.." Roux's voice was a hesitant, trembling thing in the darkness, a gust of wind trying to be heard over the thunder of Mauja's heart—but hear he did, and one eye slipped open to watch the younger stallion shudder. As he went on, he seemed steadier, and spared Mauja the pain of having to add Aviya's name to that list. He let out a sigh of his own, and blinked the tears from the corners of his eyes. Already he could feel them freezing on his lashes.

"I know," he said softly, white smoke rising towards the distant, beautiful sky. (Why is it always under stars?) "The longer you live, the more you lose." Pale shoulders moved in a slight shrug as he took a step forward, long tail trailing upon the snow's surface. Above, the owl and the kite rolled through the darkness, but down here, gravity pulled hearts close to the ground. "But," he went on, watching the silver moonlight glittering upon the world, "you are wrong about one thing. Sacre has returned. He's at the Edge."

Perhaps it would be some comfort, a small light in the vast darkness of the world.

[ @Roux <3 ]
man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Blu the Bootyful Posts: 443
Administrator atk: 99 | def: 99 | dam: 99
Mare :: Other :: 5'7" :: 25 HP: 99999 | Buff: TWERK
Blu
#7
unarchived per request
 HP: 1100

Helovia Hard Mode

Roux Posts: 57
Outcast atk: 5 | def: 7.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1 :: 5 :: Orangemoon HP: 62.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Edison :: Red Kite :: Rage Semper
#8

Edison's enthusiastic emotions reeling overhead seemed so...out of place with the events that were occurring where Mauja and I stood, the weight of my own depression and various other emotions weighing heavily on my heart and keeping me form being able to wheel in giddy circles through the night sky with my companion. Moon eyes filled to the brim with tears as I thought of all that I had lost in my time of wandering.

How foolish I had been to waste precious time with my loved ones...but I was still am quite young, how was I to know that those I cared so deeply for would be gone by the time I made a presence in the real world once again? "I know, the longer you live the more you lose." The sound of the speckled ghost moving a step closer brought me rushing back from the darkest corners of my shadowed mind. My body contracted harshly at the thought of losing anyone else and I bit my tongue to keep a cry from escaping into the cold air. The metallic, salty taste of blood coated my taste buds as I listened to the words that were coming from my father's friend this time, expecting more bad news to be spilled forth.

"But, you are wrong about one thing. Sacre has returned. He's at the Edge." Part of me didn't want to believe him, his blurry pale figure could easily be a mirage brought on by the thick emotions that flooded my veins. But, I knew he was there, I knew it was all real otherwise I would have had Edison screeching in my ear to snap out of it and hurry on my way to the Basin so he could return to his familiar cave and out of the cold. Rather he was squealing with excitement, the feelings of happiness scratching at the glass walls of my mind in hopes of infiltrating the darkness and bringing some light.

My jaw dropped, worn ivories stained a crimson still from the blood that had once flowed through the veins in my tongue. If my moon eyes were not lifeless they would have lit up brilliantly with the little bit of hope that had managed to wiggle it's way through the shadows at the thought of my brother not only being alive, but within travelling distance from where I stood currently. And Mauja, the pale ghost, had seen him. I struggled with words for a second, my mouth closing and opening unceremoniously as I tried to find my voice. Tried to get my vocal chords to understand what the spotted beast had just told me, my brother wasn't dead.

"C-can you bring me to him?" The original plan had been to return to the Basin and take my role as a medic. But it seemed as if life had another plan, maybe this time I was meant to be a medic under the Goddess rather than under the God.

"Talk?"
roux
am I just paranoid?
or am I just stoned
@Mauja
image credits
Now waking to the sun
I calculate what I had done
Like jumping from the bow
Just to prove that I knew how
</style>
pixel by nikkayla
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#9
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
A sense of unreality—of dreaming, of being a dream—stole over him. It was something about the pallid starlight, the quiescence of the night; things slept but Roux walked and Mauja, he was something not quite real. An angel in the darkness, a snow ghost, wearing his cloak of grief yet bringing a small, faint light with him. You will suffer, he said with one breath, the ones you love still live, with the next. (With one hand he hits him, with one hand he soothes him—)

He didn't know any other way to live. Mauja had never been one to lie; to twist and trick and refrain from letting slip certain facts, sure, but when he had been able to get away without lying, he had.

Perhaps his honesty had been his downfall.

Perhaps it was the reason he stood in darkness on a perfect winter night, breathing softly in the moonlight, tear crystals on his lashes as he watched with sharp compassion as the red bay bit his tongue. He couldn't see it, only the awkward movement of his jaws, the set of his lips, and the slowly strengthening scent of fresh blood.

He didn't even know if he knew before or if he only knew when the lower jaw came open in near-disbelief, but somehow, he wasn't at all surprised to see the darker stain of blood upon Roux's teeth. Eyes, silvered by the moon, slid from his dark mouth to his flat gaze; he could practically taste the yearning in the younger stallion.

And the shadow.

The one which hung over him whispering what if he's lying, what if it's not real, what if Sacre isn't there, what if I get hurt again

Mauja knew that shadow well. "C-can you bring me to him?" Roux said while the birds rolled in the sky above, carefree in the frigid air and sharp in the starlight. Mauja gravitated closer, so many things unsaid, so many tears unshed; he had forgotten why he had come out here, why he had fled north, for he had once again found purpose. He was here to bring Roux home. He was here to bring some joy into the aching and worn life of another.

He had a shadow to hide his own shadow in, a tangible grief he had the means to fix.

His soft, dark muzzle reached out, to brush against Roux's nearest shoulder; to press against it, to say I am real, this is real, believe in me. (Believe in me for me, as I can't.) Was it lying if it was not put into words? Was it vile to ask him to trust Mauja in this, when there was so much else he could not be trusted in?

But he would not trick him. He had nothing to gain by tricking him. He would take no pleasure in stomping on the fragile pieces of his tested heart. So, "let's go," he said, so quietly, white smoke slipping out between his lips. With a last look towards the northern horizon and a flick of his ghastly tail, Mauja turned, and began to walk south.

(If only someone could find him and lead him back to that which he loves but has lost.)

[ Since this is so old maybe we can let this fade out here? Mau walking with Roux for a bit and then just giving him directions for the last way..? @Roux ]
man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here


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