the Rift


Supernova [Sohalia Challenge]

Cera the Golden Prince Posts: 419
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Pegasus :: 16.3hh :: 6 Years HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Ilaria :: Red Panda :: Heal Brit
#1



Hector had run, hiding from the pulsing flames of Cera’s anger like the coward he was. And with no viable target to place the fire of his fury upon, the Prince was left with no outlet. A swelling, burning galaxy of anger and hurt that battered the boundaries of his mortal flesh, threatening to tear him apart if he did not set it free upon those who had taken their talons to his heart. Once upon a time, the Golden would never have dreamed of hunting down those who had wronged him – wronged those he loved – and forcing them to pay for their crimes in flesh and blood. Gaucho’s death had driven the child momentarily from his heart, and in its place stood Cera as he was now – a supernova with no end on the horizon, consuming everything around him in a blaze of light and righteousness. The boy had shed his cloak to reveal a world-weary and furious creature of pestilence and promised vengeance. And so he screams through gnashing teeth and spittle as he wheels away from the ghost of Hector’s cowardice, sand flying everywhere as he sweeps his monstrous wings in a powerful swoop and he takes to the skies like an archangel in pursuit of a demon.
 
Hector had refused to answer to his crimes, and so Cera turns his righteous gaze upon the next who had abandoned the Throat - abandoned him - without penance.
 
He will not stop, will not rest, until the entire herd knows that such behavior is unacceptable. That Cera would place himself in the position of judge, jury, and executioner in the wake of Gaucho’s death if they did not cease. It was the only thing that would even begin to temper the burning edges of his torn heart and cavernous soul. And so he hunts her down, the pale dove that had come and gone so many times over the years, the one he’d trusted and looked up to for so many years. He’s a stellar explosion that will make its mark on this herd, on this era, even if it means burning himself out in a glorious display of light that would stretch across the skies for years to come. One way or another, he will bring about change.
 
Even if he must play the role of the villain.
 
As her pale form flickers across his line of sight, Cera is reminded of a crying, hitch-breathed voice that declared abandonment that had resonated in the Prince’s childlike breast. A lightning-marked girl searching the wilds for an absent mother. Hatred that can grow only on the fury-soaked soils of the present claws its way through his throat and across his teeth as he screams down at her, descending from the skies in a flurry of white and gold.
 

“FACE ME, SOHALIA! FOR YOUR ABANDONMENT OF THIS FAMILY, OF YOUR DAUGHTER ALETA! PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES, AND DARE TO FACE THE ONE YOU LEFT BEHIND!”
 

It screams out like a storm, a hurricane, ripping apart the silence as his wings fold and he hits the sand running on aching, protesting limbs. Armor unfolds from his bracelet as he sprints towards her, refusing to stop, refusing to heed whatever she cries to him in this moment of challenge. It settles heavy on his skin, but does little to dissuade the burning, destructive comet he has become. 

The Prince lunges for the sinner, the betrayer, the blasphemer. White teeth flash as he aims for any pound of flesh he can anchor himself to, uncaring of which way she has turned or where she currently faces but hoping for the thin flesh of her left flank if she has turned to face him instead of running as Hector did. However she responds, Cera throws himself recklessly to the right, intending to slam his sprinting body into her alongside his gaping maw. Shove her to the earth where she belongs, where she can properly grovel on her knees. Where she can stare up at his flaming silhouette and recognize her faults and flaws.
 
She does not even deserve the sand he hopes she falls upon, doesn’t deserve the title she carries, the scent and alliance of the Throat. If she wants to fight for it she may, but Cera will not go easy on her. If she wants to be part of the Throat then she would have to go through him, because her abandonment would not be tolerated ever again. He would ensure it, no matter the cost. 

- - -

Attack: {1/4}
Words: {755/800}
Setting: {Dragon's Throat, mid-afternoon, clear skies and low to mild wind, no extreme conditions. Set soon after Hector challenge}

Cera is challenging Sohalia for honor!

I give it all for you
I am Ceraaaa
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!

Sohalia the Transcended Posts: 477
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Pegasus :: 14.3 hh :: 10 (ages in Orangemoon) HP: 67 | Buff: NOVICE
Astraeus :: Common Zephyr :: Wakiya ChaoticMelodies
#2
Sohalia
Of all the things the Transcended might have expected - an invasion by forces who had heard of Gaucho’s demise, perhaps, or another unknowing god from a faraway land, come to smite them all - an angry Cera was not one of them.

She had been minding her own business, as was her usual way.  The morning had dawned bright and cool (an oddity in the desert, even in Orangemoon), and the Artisan had gone about her daily routine in relatively good spirits.  As usual, she woke to feed her daughter and eat her own morning meal before meandering to the church to see how she could assist in its construction.  The work was demanding, but it succeeded in taking her mind off the lingering pain of her mate’s death like nothing else could.  And so her morning passed, like every other morning since her return to work as a crafter.

It was mid-afternoon.  The Sun shone brightly overhead, the faintest of breezes stirring from the seas beyond the Throat.  All was calm and peaceful - until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

“FACE ME, SOHALIA!”

What?  The mare’s eyes whipped skyward only to be blinded by the Sun.  If she didn’t know better, she’d have sworn that was -

Cera?

Nearby, Astraeus whirled from a previously lazy flight over the oasis to streak toward her, panicked.  - MOVE! - he screamed in her mind, shoving the idea of movement into her mind more so than actual words.  Her reaction was quick but unwieldy as she stumbled backward in an attempt to avoid the furious comet that was falling out of the sky on a direct path toward her.  Her wings flared out and up as she tried to keep her balance, and the motion exposed her tender sides.  Teeth latched onto the left side of her barrel and she squealed, as surprised and hurt by her former pupil’s words as she was by the physical pain that sprouted from the skin above her ribcage.  Somehow, through pure dumb luck, the dove managed to avoid the worst of the golden boy’s shove; even so, side smarting terribly, she was jostled to her right as Cera came roaring by.

Astraeus screamed in fury, his own rage fed by the bewilderment that accented Sohalia's pain.  How dare this idiot brute come near his former teacher with anything but the purest of intentions?

“Cera?” the mare gasped as she twirled to face him, her legs shuffling awkwardly to attempt to keep him directly in front of her.  “Stop!”  Again she attempted to back away, her ears pinning to her skull and her eyes wide with fright.  Through Astraeus, she knew that the bite on her ribcage was bleeding, red streaks beginning to trickle down her side.  What was Cera doing?  He’d mentioned Aleta, mentioned her abandoning her family - but she’d apologized, hadn’t she?  What was to be gained from attacking her, from attacking anyone in their herd?  They were weak enough already without infighting!

“I’m not going to fight you!” she yelled at him, her wings pulled tightly in to her sides.  This was Cera - her pupil, her friend... once, he might have even been called her adopted son.  Was that why he was so angry with her?  That she'd abandoned not only Gaucho and their children, not only Aleta (how did he even know about her?), but that she'd left Cera behind as well?  And even if that was his reason, why attack now?  He'd had plenty of opportunity in the weeks since her return.

She couldn't make it make any sense.

Astraeus, however, had no qualms about attacking the stallion.  As far as the zephyr was concerned, the Golden Prince had chosen to assault a defenseless herd mate - a female, no less!  And so the lightning-bird dove from above, silent even in his fury, gathering a storm to him as he flew.  He attempted to angle his descent so that he came in behind the pegasus, trying to sink his now-sparking talons into the stallion.  If his aim was true, he would gauge Cera’s rump, shocking the pegasus with the electricity he had gathered as he did so.

"Talk talk talk."

@Cera

697 words
1/4

Sohalia
Don't wanna leave this life knowing I barely tried...
Please tag Sohalia in all replies.
Use of force and/or magic (with the exception of death) is allowed at all times.

Want to place an order?  Visit Crystalline Creations here!
Want to plot with Sohalia?  Visit her plot page here!

Cera the Golden Prince Posts: 419
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Pegasus :: 16.3hh :: 6 Years HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Ilaria :: Red Panda :: Heal Brit
#3



Where Astraeus is there to direct and encourage his bonded, Ilaria is not there to reel in the flames and smother the coals of Cera’s fire. She can’t remind him of the good things, the beauty and friendship that his anger clouds over like smoke. And it must be smoke, it has to be, why else are his eyes so wet? Why, why is he crying as his name falls from her lips in shock, as her blood explodes across his tongue like an iron brand of sin and mistake, when she deserves every bit of pain he offers her? Yet as he stumbles from her retreat, his own anger smudging and erasing logic from the thrust of his body towards her own, he can’t deny the hot trail of tears on his cheeks. Even her plea for him to stop cannot reach him now, as every structure of patience and forgiveness he’d created around himself crumbles inward and he lashes out at everyone and everything around him. A wounded animal, a violent thing of fury and grief born in the wake of the last lash of Gaucho’s death. Snapping like a taut string, fraying at last. There is no more patience to offer, no more forgiveness left, and he screams at her in his fury.
 
“NO! You left us! You left all of us! You never even apologized you just came back like you had any right to return here! You left, you left us, YOU LEFT ME! And the reminder has him baring his bloodied muzzle at her, trying to display his rage but betrayed by the hot tears blurring his vision, turning her into a vague sunlit shape of white as he goes to pursue her once more. The Prince is so used to Ilaria accompanying him on the battlefield, a sentinel he never allowed near the fighting bodies but still an ever-present warning system, that Astraeus slips his mind. He’d been with Ilaria so long, ever since he could walk, that he can’t imagine that particular defense being rendered nonexistent. The storm that gathers doesn’t matter, not behind the cloud of his tears, and the attack comes to him wholly unexpected. Cera doesn’t care about Astraeus, after all – Sohalia is his target, the reason behind his grief, his anger.
 
Pain explodes across his skin and he shrieks like a wild thing beneath the electric current that burns across his skin as surely as a fire would. The skin all across his hindquarters singes and burns, the hair melting to his skin as he kicks and bucks mindlessly, sickly hoping that the talons remain imbedded in the fire-pockets where they’d landed so that the bird is thrashed about like a bronc rider. 

Even in his haze of agony, Cera is as fierce a defender of companions as Ampere, and cannot bring himself to attack the bird in return. He had not been the one to abandon the Prince, and so the Golden retreats from the reach of the hateful defender, swaying drunkenly towards Sohalia once more. Even as every step and shift of his body brings a fresh wave of pain, it’s all he has to rely on now. He’s faster than her, he has to use it before her superior agility kicks in, before she fights back and evades him. Before his own guilt-laden conscious reminds him of better things, the friend she had been for him. The mother she could have been, and isn’t that why he’s so devastated now? That he’d been one of the ones she’d left behind?
 
His throat is tight with pain, any words he reserves for her strangled by the acrid smell of burnt hair as he charges, regaining his wits from the grasp of pain to pursue her. Cera tries to approach at an angle, hoping her attempts to speak to him have left her facing him, keeping his focus on her left side. Tries to use his superior height to leap high, teeth snapping for her ears and forelegs aiming for the thick meat of her shoulder rather than the delicate bones of her legs. Even now he can’t bear to cripple her, to attack her in any truly devastating way. He loves her, even now he still loves her, but he can’t bottle this pain any longer. “I LOVED YOU!” Cera screamed at her as his hooves touched earth once more, teeth snapping as if to herd her away from him, protect himself from the pain of the memories of her retreating form – a physical contradiction against the battle he has caused. “I loved you and you left me, just like Aleta!” Perhaps he can fool himself into thinking he’s doing this for Aleta, not for the motherless boy he still remains inside.

- - -

Attack: {2/4}
Words: {796/800}

I give it all for you
I am Ceraaaa

@Sohalia
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!

Sohalia the Transcended Posts: 477
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Pegasus :: 14.3 hh :: 10 (ages in Orangemoon) HP: 67 | Buff: NOVICE
Astraeus :: Common Zephyr :: Wakiya ChaoticMelodies
#4
Sohalia
The look in his eyes was mutinous, his aggressive stance terrifying.  As the pale mare backed away, she was suddenly stricken by the realization that he actually wanted to hurt her.  Never in Helovia had she been set upon with such righteous anger, and suddenly she felt as though she were only a few months old again, faced with the horrifying realization that someone was there to kill her and if she stayed, she would die.  But the wound pounding with her heartbeat upon her ribs chased away the memories, and the feel of the sand grounded her in the present.

This was Cera, after all.  He couldn't really want to hurt her.  Right?

The stallion's screams were ice, piercing her skin and worming their way to her heart.  Despite the truth of his accusations (and gods, she knew their truth), she shook her head, still trying to widen the distance between them.  "I never meant to leave, Cera!" she pleaded, her head lowered in an open display of submission before his fury.  "I would never have gone by choice, I would never have left my family -"  Her heart broke as he bared his teeth at her, shattered at the shimmer of tears in his eyes.  This fight was about more than just his anger; there was a vulnerability in his misty gaze that bespoke the depth of the pain he had borne.  The fact that she had contributed to that, that she had broken him, was more than she could bear.  "- I would never have left you."

But the words were too little, too late, and they both knew it.

There was a sudden flash, and the companion that Sohalia had ignored in her efforts to reach Cera's clouded mind appeared in a storm of rage; electricity sparked angrily from his body, carried most strongly in his outstretched talons.  And before the mare could react, the lightning-bird had reached the Golden Prince, and his shrieks of pain were rending the air.  Before her eyes, she watched as his coat melted to his skin, as he began to buck and kick wildly around, and she was terrified that the electricity that Astraeus had brought would kill him.

"ASTRAEUS, STOP!" she yelled, desperation pervading every word.  "LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Astraeus bobbed up and down upon Cera's haunches, his talons caught momentarily in the flesh that he had torn.  The movement was jarring, and when he dislodged himself, his head was spinning and his neck was hurting from the constant back-and-forth.  The zephyr flopped unceremoniously into the air, rising to circle painfully above the pair.  And Sohalia, relieved that the wakiya had left Cera alone for now, didn't realize that the stallion was attacking again until it was too late.

Cera's shadow loomed and she screeched her surprise; there was no time to move out of the warpath.  Suddenly his teeth were sinking into her left ear and yanking, and his forelegs were pounding into her left shoulder, and everything was white-hot pain and anguish until he was touching down, snapping at her heels.  She staggered away from him, whimpering.

Sohalia had never known physical pain until today.

Her left ear was a tattered mess; a clear bite mark circled the rim, bleeding profusely down the side of her face.  The bite on her ribcage paled in comparison.  Her left shoulder smarted from the impact of his forelegs, sure to bruise in the days to come.

Sohalia tried to circle away from the stallion's snapping teeth, hiding her left side from him and trying to keep him to her right.  "Cera, please," she begged, tears coursing down her cheeks from pain and shock.  "Please, don't do this.  I'm so sorry, Cera -"  But he was still advancing, still screaming - I LOVED YOU! - and there was nothing to do but fight or flee.  And she had almost convinced herself to flee... but then he mentioned Aleta.

He had no right to bring Aleta into this.  She carried her own sins; she did not need him to do it for her.

He was not her judge.  He was not her jury.

He would not be her executioner.

So she did the only thing that she could think to do:  she attacked.  Hoping that he was located to her right, the mare turned sharply towards him in a sudden lunge meant to take him by surprise.  Her ears pinned instinctively, a wince appearing on her face as pain-induced stars exploded across her vision, stars that left her grasping for his shape as she snaked her head forward in an attempt to bite some part of him.  She hoped to keep him on her right, and if he had been facing her still, then her bite would be aimed somewhere along his right shoulder or barrel.

"Talk talk talk."

@Cera

799 words - THAT WAS SO HARD.
2/4

Sohalia
Don't wanna leave this life knowing I barely tried...
Please tag Sohalia in all replies.
Use of force and/or magic (with the exception of death) is allowed at all times.

Want to place an order?  Visit Crystalline Creations here!
Want to plot with Sohalia?  Visit her plot page here!

Cera the Golden Prince Posts: 419
Outcast atk: 5.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Pegasus :: 16.3hh :: 6 Years HP: 65 | Buff: NOVICE
Ilaria :: Red Panda :: Heal Brit
#5



Her voice reaches out to him like a hook in his belly, and the warble of emotion is like she's yanking the rope and dragging his pierced heart out through his chest. He hates her and he loves her, and he can't get over the fact that she'd never even bothered to ask for his forgiveness. Sohalia hadn't even explained, and until she shouts that she hadn't left willingly, Cera hadn't even known. This is all her fault. That he had forgiven her so quietly, so easily and without question when she had just appeared on the clay beside him. That she didn't even respect him enough to explain her absence to him.

Yet again, he was not a son to her. Just as he had never truly been a son to Gaucho. So close, but never where he yearned to truly be. It was just proof that she would never love him the way he loved her, and that hurt worse than any burn Astraeus could inflict upon him. Even as he scrapes his voice raw with the scream of pain that tears across his vocals, his heart screams ever louder. Any reply or denial that may have crossed his lips is cut to ribbons by this new agony. It doesn't matter. None of it matters. He has lost her anyways by doing this, by hurting her in a way a son should never hurt his mother. Who cares if she'll hate him anymore? Who cares? Not him.

He has lost everything, now.

The yank of talons from his skin clears his head, a new sharp pain different from the burning of his own flesh. It doesn't stop him, not even Sohalia's screaming and whimpering can stop him. Even as tears collect in instinctive reaction to her pain, the part of him that cannot bear to harm his family jerking wildly like a Pavlovian response even as Cera overrides it willfully. Even as her blood laces his tongue for the second time, feeling like a dead weight in his mouth, like fire as it slides down his throat.

Even her tears could not quench that fire. Even her forgiveness would not be enough to divest him of this particular sin.

Her apologies further blur his tearful vision, and he spins to meet her, sand kicking against his birdlike limbs as he goes to hurl further accusations against her. Hindquarters cramping with the motion, stilted and far slower than his faster frame would normally be able to manage. And in this impeded speed his words are killed in his throat as she tears after him, vengeful fire finally blazing up to meet his own, and all he sees is the white of her teeth before instinct takes over. Head rears back, eyes clenching shut against the impact as pain tears across his face.

Sensitive tissue sends its cry up into his nerves and his forelegs kick out wildly at the shorter mare's chest, hindquarters nearly toppling him as he rears up to try and escape the onslaught of pain. Trying to get her away, away, away. Catches himself with a hard painful twist of his body, forelegs stinging as they slam forward to keep him from falling sideways as his burned muscles refuse to cooperate. When he goes to tentatively open his eyes, still backpedaling jerkily away from Sohalia, his right eyes is nothing but a haze of red. His gut clenches fearfully, terror at the thought gripping him and twist hard. A choked, warbling cry of disbelief echoes across his tongue as his right eye and cheek bleed heavily, dripping hit across his chest and splashing the sand macabre red. In a panic of preservation and horror he charges blindly to where she had been, no horn to aid him as he goes to shove into her bodily with his knees and chest and right shoulder. Terrified of blindness, of betrayal, of the blood he can feel cascading down his crest from his wildly thrown head. This is too much. She can't take this from him too. He won't let her, even if he started this, even if it kills him.

Attack 3/4

I give it all for you
I am Ceraaaa
Please only tag starting posts, spars, and threads collecting dust!

Blu the Bootyful Posts: 443
Administrator atk: 99 | def: 99 | dam: 99
Mare :: Other :: 5'7" :: 25 HP: 99999 | Buff: TWERK
Blu
#6
Sohalia has exceeded the time limit. Sohalia defaults to Cera. Cera earns 0.5 VP and his honor.
 HP: 1100

Helovia Hard Mode


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