the Rift


down with the hammer

Talbot Posts: 2
Unclaimed
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 4
Tay
#1

TALBOT





The sunset was beautiful. All was gold.

Trees had the aura of embers, they’d been smoked out all summer, left to glow bleakly in fast wind. So much of the forest was a tide: the high surge of molten leaves gushed and pooled around my legs in ways that were like the ocean. So long ago was the pelting of a good wave so exhilarating on my legs – and running at it, with it, was a freedom fight. I loved how the world would peel against me as I rode through it.

I was independent again.

But this beauty is independent of me. No matter the cadence of my heartbeat, there was no matching, melding, micro-synchronizing with the nature of my surroundings. The trees were on fire and I was only steely eyes, peering and glinting back at what I longed for. The immobility of such a consequence as an article of nature was impossible for me. There is nothing my mobile soul can do to live and stop simultaneously. There is no breaking of one form for another, or both. There was none of that there in the threshold. That is why it was a threshold, a dam between one river to the next. I believed I was full of that water magic: the way I behaved as a child when I could bound for hours and enjoy breathlessness. But the world I entered then, as I paused in the embers of an autumnal forest…it was just all becoming ash.


live or die, but don't poison everything


Sacre Posts: 274
World's Edge Emissary atk: 5.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16hh :: 5 Years HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Inari :: Red Fox :: Heal & Ríona :: Common Kitsune :: Electric imi
#2
I’m standing in front of destiny
That has passed me by again.

---x---

As Sacre entered the Threshold, fawning over the many colours of autumn and her deft painters hand, he began to realise (or maybe he’d simply forgotten) just how difficult it was to spot a pair of foxes in the midst of an auburn woodland. If they sat still for long enough he often lost sight of them, amongst the scattered leaves that had fallen rusty and dead, devoid of summer, littering the forest pathways. Of course, his two beady eyed friends had also realised this too and preyed on their unknowing friend, springing out from piles of mulch to frighten him witless only to receive a berating every time. His rebukes were largely ignored by Inari and Ríona, however, who much preferred to risk the wrath of the fox boy in exchange for the absolute delight they got out of scaring him. 

The sun soon started to fall, the deepening red of the light imbuing with the season and finally the two foxes gave up trying to give Sacre a fright, instead they fell asleep on his back. Their gentle, rhythmic breathing began to make the lids of the fox boy grow heavy with tiredness, he wasn’t physically weary as such, but the peacefulness of his two sleeping friends was enough to lull him towards sleep.

He wondered aimlessly, trying to keep himself awake, but not really caring where his cloven hooves took him. His tangled black mane was sat messily to one side of his face and he yawned a few times as he travelled. In the end, he might have fallen asleep in the middle of the Threshold if he hadn’t of run into another, whose grey coat stood out against the reddening backdrop.

Sacre, blinking his eyes free of the slumber he had almost embarked on, went to trot over to the stranger before forming a halt where he thought it might be more polite. There were a few beady blinks from his back when both foxes raised their heads to see who had disturbed them, but neither rose just yet.

“Hey” Sacre called out to the stranger, his voice was light and inviting, “are you new around here?” he asked the usual question. It was an easy gateway into conversation, but his senses bubbled with curiosity.



Tay <3 Hope you've been well! :D

art credit


There's something wretched about this
Something so precious about this

❚ Force permitted!
❚ Please tag me!

Albrecht Posts: 249
Aurora Basin Impersonator atk: 6 | def: 8.5 | dam: 2.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.1hh :: 19 (Orangemoon) HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Strom :: Suma Ball Python :: None Townsen
#3
Albrecht

He watches her move into and across the no mans land that separates Helovia from all points west, all points past. Why? - Because she's pleasing on the eyes. There's a touch of something refined in the way her nostrils flare to suck in the crisp Orangemoon air. Her mane and tail appear black at first, but when they sway with her hips and the churning muscles of her chest - and they do, ever so slightly - strands of silver gleam from between their ebony brethren and as she draws nearer his ailing eyes can see that her coat follows the same pattern, black at first glance, but peppered with silver that lightens the overall tone of her hide upon closer inspection. It makes for an interesting pattern, one that he hasn't seen before. The mare pauses, loose leaf litter still skittering in a wake behind her, and the stallion raises his voice to draw her near.

"Helovia welcomes you. Or that's what they'll say at least, when the missionaries come to recruit you to their herd." Eyes expectant, he swings his head in a wide arc, sure that representatives of each group are materializing from between the trees even as he speaks before landing on the crimson splashed boy to his side. He ignores him for now, since he's not stated anything pertinent or made any advances thus far. "There are four." He continues. "Aurora Basin to the north, World's Edge and Hidden Falls to the east, and Dragon's Throat the south. My Lord," He draws out the word, bleeding it dry of any awe or respect such a title might normally hold. "Would be amiss with me if I didn't insist that you see the Aurora Basin for its merits, but really it's a long walk and I don't plan to make it for nothing."

Brows rising in question, he peers down at the mare. "Two words. Hot springs. And if you need more than that there's scenery and sentinels and shit like that. Ten outta ten, top pick, would definitely join again." There's life in his voice, but it's more akin to thoroughly enjoyed sarcasm than genuine enthusiasm. 'Very professional.' His companion mentally teases, watching the scene from his usual resting spot at the base of the old stallions right horn. He flicks his tongue idly, tasting the scents of the two strangers around them. 'Won't the Reaper be pleased.'



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Talbot @Sacre

image by mar!
           
[Image: 56c616e54affc]Rated M, R, NC-17, AO, 18+, NSFW
Tag dat azz!  @Albrecht
Violence & Magic okay.
Wish - Away - OOC


Talbot Posts: 2
Unclaimed
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 4
Tay
#4

TALBOT



Or just maybe it is that I was once an ember – a child – the struck match that dances wildly in its birth but shrivels when air dies and the wood cremates. I knew beauty. There was a time when I remember breeze painting blue over the stars, or was it that the stars dropped to grass every sunrise for collecting rays? I can’t remember the way it all happened, but I remember how it always did. I could always see it. But now, I feel that light and warmth around me temper. I am the reaper, draining every leaf vein of its autumn blood just with the slice of my iris. The world strips me as I seek to exude it. Bleed it. I crave a voice, even if it is just the wind to carry off more of my smoke, or even blow me out for good.

But soon, my eyes have drawn confession of the forest in their torture, that voice poured from the densely lined trunks. A gift, a blessing from the moribund season. Silver eyes sleuth off in the shadows, consume every shade to find a deep figure emerge, considerably akin to my own reflection. The instinctual drag of mottled air revealed to me that there have been many tucked in the wood, preying. I took the voice, his scent deep into my body and rooted cloven hooves firmly in the autumn parchment. There was nothing dangerous about this boy besides his colors. The gore rounded menacingly across his flank, glazed his horn, and splattered his face; but those blue eyes spoke loudly of friendly naïveté: intentions that meant mostly nothing to me. I only raised my head, placed sharp eyes against him like weaponry.  

“Can you tell me where I am?” I best be getting on my way… It would’ve been true damnation had the whole slew of jurors made council here coincidentally at the death of season and light, all in one particular moment. I might have just tucked my silver crested tail for previously conquered mountains. However, something of the boy shifted as the light moved around him and those knife-like eyes peeled at twin creatures nesting at the curve of his back. My expression changed entirely – I’m sure my chin gaped wide open with query.

They were… foxes.

As if the scents here weren’t bizarre enough.

Even worse now, another voice followed the bloodmarked steed and the body I beheld glaringly was something of a hairy mountain goat, feathered excessively with winter plumage. The beast was wordy enough to buy time for taking in every fascinating feature. I found myself tangled in the drapes that hung like mane from chin to chest to groin, and the horns on this thing. It really wasn’t like me to stare. I traced the ties between these two stallions and their pets while they rambled on about recruitment. Something about this land was very dead in terms of nature, and this time it wasn’t just the season.

“Thank you for this welcome,” I said as the prevailing silence beckoned me, keeping my silver gaze attentive. My voice sounded inexperienced as my stance, and I recognized the domineering characteristic of the mountain goat immediately of men similar to my father – I could assume here that’d he’d be just as pleased. “Dusk is collapsing upon us, however. We can discuss the whereabouts of travel as we do so. I can tell this is a trade post of rouges, and no matter how friendly your welcome, I am not comfortable making waste of time.” With that I started toward the two, nodding to both of them as I entered their route.

"I am Talbot." I would embark as soon as I knew them in name.

live or die, but don't poison everything


Sacre Posts: 274
World's Edge Emissary atk: 5.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16hh :: 5 Years HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Inari :: Red Fox :: Heal & Ríona :: Common Kitsune :: Electric imi
#5
I’m standing in front of destiny
That has passed me by again.

---x---

Between one breath and another the word Helovia stuck in his throat as he went to answer the kind mare, but was beaten to it by another, more sharper tongued, red haired old man. He stands to the fox boy’s side, much taller and leaner, with two horns that curved backwards. His mane, however, did not simply grow where manes usually grew… If you could call it a mane? Or was it more chin hair gone wild? Untrimmed chest hair? Sacre’s gaze lingered on his face however, curious as well as a little pained, that he had been so brutally brushed aside in preference for the grey unicorn. He continues on with his opening speech about lands and the apparent appeal of hot springs… Ol’ chest hair was of the Basin? Perhaps he shouldn’t judge by appearance alone, but Sacre couldn’t help but think the guy suited the image of the brooding north that he still had from his childhood. Maybe that was the growth ignorance was reason enough to go visit again… Yet, would anyone there even know who he was now? 

“How is Lord Deimos?” Sacre asked the northerner directly, spotting the snake wrapped around his horn for the first time as his foxes now began to rise, intrigued by the growing participants.

The mare, on the other hand, didn’t seem like one to wait around whilst they traded words over which herd was the best as the growing nightfall made for poor light. Sacre, though rather hurt by the presumptions of missionaries and rouges, opened up his body posture and invited the mare forwards to wherever it was they were going. Where did she go normally at dusk? His sudden movement earned a few disgruntled cries from his back and Ríona made her way up onto his sooty poll to get a better look at their two new acquaintances.

“The Aurora Basin is definitely ten out of ten the fox boy concurred with a laugh before his face twisted into thought “those sentinels are really something to see” he paused to cast a glance at the mare, Talbot. What had brought her here?

“Talbot” he smiled in greeting “I’m Sacre, a healer from the Worlds Edge. I was going to ask if you would like to stay in our lands” the fox boy looked around to see where the Basin’s representative was before continuing “but we don’t have a hot spring I’m afraid” he boyishly laughed. “Though my offer still stands if you would like to see the edge of the world… We have a glass dragon” he added on at the end with a wink.

Was she just a wanderer? Seeking adventure? A runaway? A long lost relative? The stories that came through the Threshold could be both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

“May I ask, why are you here?” he questioned her curiously.

art credit


@Albrecht


There's something wretched about this
Something so precious about this

❚ Force permitted!
❚ Please tag me!

Albrecht Posts: 249
Aurora Basin Impersonator atk: 6 | def: 8.5 | dam: 2.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.1hh :: 19 (Orangemoon) HP: 60 | Buff: NOVICE
Strom :: Suma Ball Python :: None Townsen
#6
Albrecht

He answers the stallion flippantly. "Dark. Brooding. Unfairly critical of his non-warrior subjects. You know, the usual." Ears used to constant pinning flicker forward for a moment, the old stallions head held just a little bit higher at the black and reds praise of the Basins sentinels, as if he has anything to do with their make or placement, as if their merits have any bearing on his value. "Very true." He answers. "Magic and metal you see, much sturdier than glass." He gives a conspiratorial wink to the mare at the heart of their banter, but his expression wilts slightly in the beat of silence following, the space where he should be joining back into the conversation to volunteer his name sitting glaring and awkwardly empty. He ears tip back uncertainly, but after a moment he yields. "I'm... Albrecht."

Eyes hard, he watches the mares expression for any glimmer of recognition, any shift in her tone or stance that might indicate outside knowledge of such a name. Conflicted, he wonders if they speak of him anymore, still curse him in angry, broken whispers, or if the time apart has done any good in softening their hatred. He considered using an alias at one point, but with such notable features - and he certainly hasn't seen anyone else with backward, auburn mane - what good would a false name actually do? None, he assumes, so instead he's opted to simply omit formalities altogether and avoid the bottleneck of Helovia's threshold for fear of coming across newcomers from within earshot of his fallen nation - until today that is. Stupid, he chides himself and rushes to change the subject.

"Listen though, the World's Edge and Aurora Basin are two different directions and I've no interest in visiting the first, dragon or no."



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Talbot @Sacre

image by mar!
           
[Image: 56c616e54affc]Rated M, R, NC-17, AO, 18+, NSFW
Tag dat azz!  @Albrecht
Violence & Magic okay.
Wish - Away - OOC



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