the Rift


[PRIVATE] one way, or another

Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#1
Яikyn
 
I left the Veins with much to think about, and am suitably quiet, and pensive.
 
Duir, on the other hoof, is enthusiasm incarnate; the excitement of having met his first God and receiving a quest in the same hour have left the young buck literally reeling with emotions.  Though, as we’d gone to meet the Spark, he’d been keener on asking after the Earth God, the lightning struck buck had evidently taken a great liking to the Lord of Time in what short moments we’d spent in his company.
 
It wasn’t surprising; the Spark was a God, after all, and Duir is embellished with lightning.  Still, new found love or no, I wished he would shut up about it already.
 
He yell at you! Duir is laughing, prancing alongside me with his glimmering tines aloft, the vines which grow from them as green as they’ve ever been, despite the onslaught of cold currently ransacking Helovia in the final throes of Autumn.  And he not give you the magic!
 
The fact that anyone had defied me without a single rebuke on my behalf is wonderful to the buck, who adds in: We should go more often.
 
So I snort, because I want to bite him, but there’s a blue stone in my mouth.  Ears flicking backwards atop my head, as we move across the red sea of sand and stone (the Heart), a barren veneer of snow torn wide to reveal the ruddy earth as we pass, I let my mind do the talking for me.
 
We will, but not because you wish it.  You heard him, anyway, he’ll give it to me when I have redeemed myself.  I messed up, after all.
 
Duir’s snort answers mine.
 
You mess up lots, he remarks, somehow lightheartedly, despite the rudeness of the statement, usually just fight to win.  Didn’t even shout at the God.
 
What does he know?  I think to myself, he’s only ever seen me truly fight with a few people (because light hearted banter doesn’t count, even if the opponent left weeping or furious).  Besides, I’ve never shouted at a God.  Who is stupid enough to do something like that?  That I also harbored a respect and reverence for the God of the Mountain further aided in this endeavor, for I certainly had never shouted at my parents, either, who I held in equal regard (though, sometimes, I admit, it was easier to hate mother than it was to care for her). 
 
Did my friend truly perceive me to be so unkind, and cruel?
 
Yes, is his blunt answer.
 
Well then.

 [ OOC: Merr typo of course so took the tag out for no doubles. <3 ]
there's no place to hide down here
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Albrecht

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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
#2
The Heart Caves are warm, heat from deep within the earth keeping the many caverns at a constant temperature and humidity while outside the horrors of Frostfall begin to leech the life out of anything uncovered and uninsulated. 'Cold.' A voice complains from the vicinity of the old stallions nonexistent crest. "Me too." The elder answers.

For the better part of the day the pair have languished in an isolated pocket of summer-like conditions, save for the absence of light, in a small pocket of air among the winding tunnels and solid rock walls of the underground labyrinth. Here they've avoided the bitter cold of dawn and the lingering chill of morning and only now that the sun has had several hours to thaw the world do they consider moving outdoors. 'Hungry.' The voice pipes in again, its limbless body wriggling over the blacks reclining head and neck to tease the fuzz of one hairy, black ear with its flicking tongue.

The stallion sighs a sound of annoyance, but stretches his lanky body in preparation for rising, his long legs curling and uncurling, neck arching so that the flesh on either side bulges out and fills in the usual hollows for just a moment. He even flicks his tail once, ensuring that the thing hasn't fallen dormant in its disuse, and then he fumbles his way to all fours in his usual absence of grace, joints popping and clicking in protest. Once upright, he shakes himself from nose to tail, rippling the auburn curtain of his beard.

"Mice or chicks?" He asks casually, now used to the pythons diet of small, vulnerable things. He's never had a problem with the workings of the circle of life, the food chain, whatever you'd like to call it, but knowing that something happens and taking an active role in completing the process are two very different things and had taken some getting used to initially. He grimaces, inner asshole asking why he should have a problem with sending baby rabbits and other fluffy things to their death when he's already sent his own children and plenty of grown men and women to theirs. He pushes the thought away.

The light from outside the main entrance of the caves is sudden and piercing as the old black rounds a corner and approaches the threshold. He squeezes his eyelids shut for a moment, letting the adjustment of his eyes be more gradual as he steps out into the gentle cool of afternoon, unaware that his intended path might not be clear of other travelers.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn Feel free to PP him walking into Rikyn or Duir if you so choose.


           
[Image: 56c616e54affc]Rated M, R, NC-17, AO, 18+, NSFW
Tag dat azz!  @Albrecht
Violence & Magic okay.
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Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#3
Яikyn
I’d told him to shut up some time after he’d accused me of being heartless, and he had sarcastically obliged. Though I’ve tried to bring the conversation back into fruition, the ivy bedecked buck seems to have had enough of my attitude for the day, and has quite easily maintained utter silence towards me (both verbal and emotional) for well over ten minutes now.

The cavern into the warmth of the caverns looms ahead, a dark hole that Duir scampers ahead of me to, glancing from the depths to my golden eyes with what, I assume, anyway, is a wonder as to whether or not we are rejoining Mordecai, below. Despite having not really cared for the grouchy pegasus mare at first (mostly because she had threatened to use her magic, which sounded largely unpleasant, on him), the buck has found that he holds a certain fondness for the grumpy, quick to anger young woman. For one, she has no qualms telling me to shut the fuck up, or otherwise, and, for another, she had never actually hurt him.

No, I tell him flatly, but his forest eyes grow wide, and his looks down into the cavern become more insistent. With strides all the longer (just to be an ass), I intend to blow by him, and subsequently the entrance itself, and distracted by both my intent to piss him off, and thoughts of the malevolent magpie below, I don’t pick up on what he’s actually warning me about.

Someone is coming! he finally blurts mentally (and physically, his heinous deer-guffaw barking through the still air), breaking his silence way too late to be of any use to me. With an oomph! and an immediately cast glare at whoever the fuck has just run into me, the blue stone that had been in my mouth skitters across the red earth.

"For fucks sake, it’s you," I snap, scampering after the rock, with my muzzle low; the stone makes a sudden and unrealistic arc several feet from where it initially struck the red ground, and back across the sand it rolls, horribly, right to the old fart’s hooves. Watching the path of the object and scurrying madly, it’s perhaps too obvious that, whatever this peculiar rock is, there is more to it than just looking unusual. Why else would a grown ass warrior like me be chasing it around creation?

There isn’t enough time to use the magic on him before he can touch it. As it stutters to a halt at the elder’s knobby, arthritic ankles and hooves, I make a silent prayer to the Time God (who likely made the rock roll there in the first damn place), and stare at the blue stone as if my mind might control it, as it does flesh and bone: please, not him. Anyone but him. Just let him leave it the fuck alone, and I’ll pick it up, and I promise, I promise I will do whatever you want of me, anything…

[ OOC: MUAHAHAHA. Albrecht may fondle the rock at his leisure. ;D ]
there's no place to hide down here
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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
#4
Air gusts harshly out of the old stallions lungs as his step is abruptly cut short. He grunts, rebounding off the solid, unseen obstacle, his muscles tensing and drawing him back in a mix of surprise and apprehension, instinctively turning his head to protect the soft sensory organs of eyes and mouth. "What – “ He starts, but the others voice is quicker. Instantly he recognizes the petulant tone, the self-important air. Both ears flick back against his maneless poll, disappearing behind the bulk of his horns and the startled companion clinging there.

"Fuck off.” He huffs in answer, lips curling to brandish uneven rows of age yellowed teeth. The black and gold asshole holds a special place of malice in his shriveled old heart, the circumstances of their first meeting etched into the skin of his left shoulder for forever more. It’s then, glaring into the idiots asshole face that he notices the look of genuine concern there, completely at odds with the earlier tone and assumed sentiments of shared hatred. The haughty, golden eyes aren’t even looking at him, instead pinned to the ground between his hooves.

Confused, he glances down, one ear peeling away from the back of his skull to keep tabs on the asshole while his attention shifts, but his confusion only grows as he peers down at what appears to be an ordinary pebble, though the way the asshole is staring at it like his life depends on the things very existence makes him suspicious of something more. Tentatively, eyes flicking between the stone, the deer, and the other stallion, he lowers his head to grasp the pebble between his lips.

It feels warm, its surface smooth, exactly how someone would expect a small, round pebble to feel, in fact. He waits, expectant, but there’s nothing about the stone that seems out of the ordinary - besides the obvious value the black and gold asshole has placed on it. He feels nothing unusual and begins to wonder what unknown magics might be hidden inside the stone to make the other stallion behave so strangely over it.

Maybe it’s the sudden, reactive feeling of vulnerability at standing face to face with the man that nearly killed him once already and knowing that there's not another soul alive that would come to his defense, maybe it’s an instinctive fear of the unknown, waiting here for something completely out of his control to happen, or maybe it’s whatever magic is actually in the pebble acting of its own accord, recognizing the foremost and most overwhelming sense of emotion in the old stallions consciousness; Whatever the catalyst, an odor of fear starts to drift from the old stallions pores, sweat dampening the base of his neck.

Impotence, helplessness, hopelessness, the feeling of vast emptiness in all directions, of absence in the world, a colorful illusion shattered, all the details only imaginary friends of a desperate mind. The Basins Thief had spoken to him once of two roads in life, how he had chosen the poorer of the two and must turn back to avoid his ruin, but the old stallion knows better. He has walked the higher road, for years and years he walked it, devoutly shouldered the weight of his kingdom and galloped until his very lungs burst from his chest, until at last he crawled its final slopes on bloodied knees to find, not heaven past its final tests, no idealistic pasture of pleasure and plenty, but a sudden drop off, the earth ending at an abrupt cliff face. Far below, gently winding around the base of the mountain in picturesque simplicity sat the low road, no middle ground in sight. What faultless soul could blame him then, for stumbling over the edge, for refusing the thankless, painful trial of starting again? Aimless, broken, and afraid, he haunts the easy trail with volatile bitterness only thinly veiling his pain, though there's no need to hide what no one is willing to see in the first place.

An unexpected flash of movement and sound from above shocks the stallion out of his stupor, the stone slipping from his mouth and bouncing once toward the black and gold. He shakes his head, both to clear it and as a reprimand to his young companion for scaring the absolute piss out of him by striking out like that. The snake is unremorseful, hissing low in his throat and mentally urging the old stallion to leave, acutely uncomfortable with the swelling negativity around him.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn I'm sorry for the wait. I was really at a loss for how to write this or exactly what to write, so I hope this okay. I figured you could interpret as you like, though I'm fine with Rikyn "seeing" the scene of his emotions as clearly as you want. Fear, hopelessness, disillusionment, take your pick. <3 Strom struck at him but he's too little to actually reach anything.

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


Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#5
Яikyn
"Gladly," is my quick retort from the ground, his threatening expression ignored for the desperation driving my actions, "I’ll just be taking that, and then I’ll be…"

I’m close enough to feel the blue stone against my lips already, close enough that maybe, just maybe, this won’t be my fate today. Unfortunately, I’m also just close enough to get full detail of each gray, wizened hair on his ancient head when he picks it up in his craggy lips, and an odd, magical pull begins to do flips all through me.

It’s almost hot, but not really, more like the memory of it, and it dances, and writhes; it never seems to stop moving through my veins. My companion, worried by the odd sensations reaching through our bond, tentatively approaches me, his eyes half widened by fear, for me, for us, and the rest by curiosity, captured from truly saving me by the lure of this rare chance to witness a God’s magic at play.

Suddenly the movement of the magic stops, but when it does, I’m not me. Not anymore, anyway, quite suddenly pressed far inside myself, in a prison of handsome flesh and strong bone. Perhaps the worry manages to burrow its way out of my golden eyes as my head shoots up, my gaze locking with this old man’s; the ache of age fills my joints, and a heady sigh at the sudden pain escapes my body. The sound of the wind muffles, the shape of his green eyes blurs, as does the rest of the world, and, for no reason I can imagine, I feel very, very tired. Accompanying this weariness is a newfound wariness of an opponent I might have mocked seconds before; an even match, now, if my entire body is as useless as it feels just standing here. Were I the truly thoughtful type, I might spiral off into a wonder as to how dangerous he might seem were he in my body, and I his…

However, that weariness is a small ember of the magic racing through me, which quickly blooms into a flame, before I am suddenly cast from that gloriously warm, inner light, to the shadows about it. Here, here is where the old man dwells, the fire always flickering near, where he might see it, and know it is warm, and might comfort him; here, where the light almost reaches, but dies, and leaves no warmth in its wake. I recognize the feeling which consumes me (not the elderliness, which is obvious, but the emotion), having felt something akin to this desperate darkness in the shortness of my life.

Grief, grief so deep and illogical that it is forced away, becoming loneliness, and the cold, an expanse which grows the longer one lives, and the more that they lose; he had walked out into the chill, wreathed about the comfort of closeness, afraid of the flame which had burned him, as I had only recently done, myself. Unlike this man, though, I had not lived here for long, or been scalded quite as badly by the light pulsing at its heart, because the ache in my breast which exists when I am Rikyn, young, free, and lost, is nothing compared to being this husk of a being.

The clamor of the stone against the ground begins to stir me from this feeling, the first thing to leave being the first to arrive; I now longer feel like my knees are dust and gravel mocking what used to be joints. The clarity of the vision of the real Albrecht returns, and the wind again whispers, and howls, in ways I might never have heard it, had I not temporarily been unable to.

The haunting song of the wind beguiles me as the spell concludes its binding; finally, I’m me, when my body answers my bidding, and my muzzle descends, and sweeps the stone away between my shoulder, and the bronze plating protecting it. When I look again at the old man, its not condemnation lining my face, as there might have been had it been anything other than a magical, God given rock.

It’s… something much warmer.

Duir’s mouth literally slips open, his steps stayed from where he’d been planning to hurl himself between me and the elder, if he had to; while he’d been too little to do much the last time I’d almost killed the geezer, he’d certainly not stand idly by, this time. That he might not have to, however, his mind gently probing my emotional status with even further disbelief ringing through our bond, softens his expression into one of pure wonder as to what had happened in the last forty-five seconds.

I guess I’d be an asshole too, if I lived like that all the time. Not that I’m telling him sorry, or anything.

I just won’t threaten him anymore.

Much.

"Watch where you are going, yeah?" I sarcastically jibe, an ear flicking back in feigned irritation, not quite sure what to do with this sudden understanding of a guy who, only ten minutes ago, I would likely have knocked out again without much prompting.

[ OOC: Lol and now he's all confused. Your post was awesome btw! <3 ]

there's no place to hide down here
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@Albrecht

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Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM 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
Only a minute passes, maybe two, maybe less. He’s unsure of the exact time, only that it’s an insignificant span, too little for much of import to happen and they simply stand silent and dumbfounded anyway. Nothing has changed, he tells himself, and yet it feels so very different. Three of the four stand staring at one another, mouths tightly closed or hanging open – in what? Confusion? Disbelief? Disorientation? Only the tiny snake holds his focus, still angrily curved into an S atop the old stallions head, his tiny, pupil-less eyes pinned to the other unicorn, a low shhhhsss of warning escaping his little throat.

The black shakes himself, glancing back and forth between fawn and stallion, trying to glean some fragment of understanding from their postures, but the two seem just as at odds with each other as he does with them. His mouth opens, questions crowding for space on his tongue, but he bites them back, thinking better of it.

He wants to ask about the stone, what it is, what it’s done, because normal stones don’t draw up such feelings from the corners they've been shoved in, don't cause such introspective thoughts, but asking feels too much like admitting that something had happened, that something has changed, that maybe the other stallion doesn't scowl quite so hatefully at him when he snaps for the old man to watch where he's going and he's not sure he'd like to know the reason why.

"Fuck off." He answers, forcing a semblance of normality between them and taking small comfort in that, as feeble and transparent as it might be. "You fucking ran into me, you prepubescent piece of shit." He's pretty sure that's not true on either count, but he's pretty sure he doesn't care either. Every insult and f-bomb starts to rebalance his world, bricks falling into place on a wall that normally spans in all directions as far as the eye can see, yet somehow crumbled beneath the strike of a single stone.

'Go.' His companion asserts, vehement enough about the demand to actually say so in plain English, or in as close an approximation as he's capable of. The stallion obeys, moving to skirt around the others flank, still careful to keep the young buck between them for as much of the maneuver as possible before turning away and lifting his chin up high to exalt the python for his actions.

A few moments ago he'd known that there was no one to call to his defense, no one who would even consider doing so having heard of his need, but he was wrong. His little snake had quite literally sprung to his defense and his actions have not gone unnoticed. Fuck mice and birds, the stallion boldly thinks, today we're hunting rabbit kits - a favorite of the young python - or frogs or lizards or dragon babies for all that he cares. His companion is a hero and he will eat a heros feast.

Slowly the snake relaxes from his offensive posture, thrilled, utterly overjoyed by the glowing approval of his bonded. He closes his needle lined jaws at last, working them into a comfortable position before flicking his tongue once, wondering just how happy the stallion might be if he'd actually bitten the golden streaked stranger.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn I'm dead, so much for making friends. xD

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


Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#7
Яikyn
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that only one of us has had an immediate change of heart. The magic, after all, really only effected me in a way that was obvious, and I was the only one of us who had a clue what to expect. Regardless, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Albrecht the Asshole always felt that horrible way, at least somewhere inside himself, and it helps me to not immediately react in ways he has probably come to expect me to.

It was no wonder all his wrinkled ass can manage are threats and insults, and though my ears fall back, and my head lifts indignantly, I don’t immediately lash out in return. Prepubescent, my massive dick! is the very first retort which springs to mind, quickly followed by I think I know what I saw, because my eyes aren’t a thousand years old, asshole. Both, thankfully, are restrained, perhaps proof that a boy can grow up a bit at a time, after all. My tail curls absently about my hocks, and my eyes follow him as he begins to walk away; though I try to come up with something not completely awful to say on my own, it winds up being Duir who has suitable phrasing, which I obviously modify to sound more like something I’d actually say.

"Hey, Albrecht," I call out after him, "fuck you too, old man. I might be younger than you, but even I know being a dick to me won’t make life give everything back."

Nothing gives anything back, really. Even if it does return, its different, changed by the time you’d spent apart from it. The only thing that stayed the same was the truth that it had been gone in the first place, and, if it never returned, the emptiness which it left behind. I guess you were supposed to fill those holes up, but with what? More memories of people who went away, of lives diverted from your own, of feelings rendered meaningless by the expanse of distance, of time, omitted by all those unrequited fucks-given? Were we supposed to patch it all up with hope, or love, or some other imaginary substance of the soul?

I don’t know what heals such a wound, but I know, for certain, that it is not running away, though it is certainly what I continue to do, vainly, without a better plan in sight. Having experienced his existence sparks a sudden desperation to learn a better way inside myself I didn’t know I had.

I don’t want to feel this way, not anymore, and certainly not for forever.

"Also, for the record, you ran into me, you sack of dust," I add, for good measure, earning a roll of Duir’s eyes. So much for me possibly coming off on the right hoof, right?


there's no place to hide down here
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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
#8
He expects a retort, some last parting shot from the accused. He’d be a little disappointed if the boy didn’t bite back, actually, but what he doesn’t expect is for the final blow to glance so close to center. His shoulders hunch together as if absorbing a physical force and then he stops, struggling momentarily with his wildly combustible temper, unused to containing its fire since entering Helovia. Heat rises beneath his skin, his ears pin, and despite his companions valiant efforts to distract him, he turns. “I don’t want it back you moron.” His voice rises with every syllable, eventually reaching a roar of indignity, outrage, an inarticulable hysteria. "That’s the whole goddamned point."

He stares at the younger stallion, glares down at the strength in his shoulders, the muscle filling his sides and haunches with life, the pride that holds his gold marked face so high, just so. What right does this child have to mock him? He seethes. This ignorant boy with skinned knees and a singed nose, come gawping and pointing and criticizing the crippled, the disfigured. His very mention of striving to get everything back is an affront. Of course he would think of starting again - still young, still strong, still whole - but what good would starting again do for a remnant like Albrecht? A new lie to live under, a new illusion to have ripped from his grasp the very moment he starts to believe it again? Just one more evisceration before he goes, the world begs - No.

"Do you think I couldn't pull this shit together if I wanted? Do you think I haven't done it before?" He asks, demands, hurling the words at his audience with no care for how much or how little they hear or even choose to acknowledge, the shouting more a cathartic release now than an argument, a bloodied heart hemorrhaging in the hopes of drowning an adversary, bitter to the very last drop, regardless of cost. "Old Albrecht, he's just an asshole, he's never tried." He mocks in a nasally tone, struggling to stop himself now that he's started. "You’d know, wouldn’t you?” And finally, because he's run out of coherent thoughts to snarl at the outcast, “Fuck you."

He’s too busy having a shit fit to think about anything else, but the python at his brow squirms in discomfort, vividly imagining the younger stallion launching himself in their direction at any moment, the sword on his head aimed to kill. He wishes he was big, like the deer, with legs and horns so that he might shove the old stallion away, poke and prod him into escaping instead of digging himself further into a hole of self destruction.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn


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


Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#9
Яikyn
So, while I hadn’t expected the most sunshine laden response ever spoken, I certainly hadn’t expected the verbal lash which seeks retribution for my impudent, vocal jab. The goat-like man pivots about, his eyes full of a deep set rage that his impotent body cannot give justice, lips curled into a sneering line of inner agony that I cannot truly comprehend. His gaze bores into me, a stark, heavy glare which I stubbornly return, the height of my crown lowered none by the things he shouts, spits, and howls back at me.

He didn’t want it back? The fuck? How could you keep going every day, empty and hollow, without aim? Where the flying monkey shit did you go, then? How did you know what step to take next? If this geezer was telling me he aimlessly followed one stupid hoof after the other, motivated only by the next breath, the next meaningless pace forward, I would feel no guilt for trying to kick his teeth in all those whiles ago. If you go around doing nothing, serving nothing, it was no wonder fate delivered such disasters to you! If for no reason than to force you onto some path other than the absence of one, to drive the unwilling to serve as a pawn in the great, incomprehensible game in which we all played. My struggle against those invisible forces is not comparable to his reprehensible forfeit of the struggle all together.

Climb, you old fuck, I think to tell him. No wonder you’re miserable, dwelling at the bottom of mountain, neck deep in the shit of the world. I’d only made it to my ankles, and already the stench was making me sick.

"Don’t seem to be trying to do much of anything at all, actually," I retort, refusing to give into his apathy, mostly because it distracts me from my own, "except maybe get your ass beat half to death again. Is that the point?"

I mirror his previous phrasing, lips curving impishly up into a mocking grin, tail swaying easily behind me. Assisted suicide shouldn't be an amusing topic, but, somehow, it is...

"An end, without the shame of having given up?" chuckling, a darkly humored thing (but I’m not particularly nice, either), "sorry. I’m not your ticket out of this deal. You caught me on a bad day last time, is all. Missed opportunities, and all that."




there's no place to hide down here
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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
#10
The assumption of his wanting to die momentarily stalls the old stallions raging temper. He blinks, ears swiveling out at opposite angles. “I’m not trying to die.” He blurts weakly, hurt and surprised into honesty. It's a disturbing thought, shocking even, and wholly at odds with what he truly wants, but he wonders; Is that what it looks like? Is the comment unique, or has he been coming off as suicidal all this time? How many others might think him resigned and just too cowardly to end it all? The bearded head shakes, refusing the notion, his peppered brows pinching together in thought.

So easily others opinions and personal versions of truth create misconception. He wants more than anything to live - to live his own life - ruled and contoured by nothing but himself and his feelings, not the rigid standards of morals and decorum and relationships, of duty. It's something he’s never been free to do before and sure, he might have swung from one extreme to the other, his emotions unusually volatile and abrasive, but that doesn’t mean he wants to die. How dare someone presume to make such a decision for him? And how dare these self-righteous imbeciles base something as serious as a death sentence on little more than sharp words and hurt feelings? How is he considered the crazy one between the two?

“I just think that if I should have to die now, after –“ He hesitates, falters, his companion coiling tighter around one backswept horn, the snakes immature psyche flinching where the older stallions stoically pushes on, “Everything. And without a proper chance to be myself, for better or worse, that everyone involved should at least have to watch. To acknowledge that they don't follow their own damn rules.” His legacy might never be rewritten in the blood and politics that it once was, but it can certainly still be a lasting - traumatizing, if need be - reminder that the universe pulls no punches and cares nothing for deserving or undeserving, right or wrong. Those are mortal concepts, as easily broken and disregarded and their battered bodies.



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn

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


Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#11
Яikyn
I’m not trying to die, he says, finally something other than just angry, or moodily guarded; looking at him with hard eyes, I snort, and scoff simultaneously, my head bobbing with the release of air.

"Could have fooled me," I mutter with disbelief, having felt enough annoyance at the continued jabs of his words (and felt, also, the agedness of his body, how time pulled and gnawed at him). It’s not like it would be that much a bitch move to want death, but its another thing to wallow about, weakly waiting for someone else to do it for you. It was easy to find a blaze to burn out in, and reprehensible to force another to ignite that fire for you.

So, as he gathers his thoughts, eventually putting words to them, I stare, occasionally blinking, and take in what he does say with that same, empty expression; slowly, my lips tilt up into a smile.

"The only rules that matter are your own," I almost chuckle, because it’s such a simple concept to me, one which has pretty much been a part of my philosophy all my life. Though others could tell me what to do, it was ultimately my fear or my weakness that had allowed their will to buckle my own; the only rules which had ever bound me were those I’d let take rule over me. I obeyed what I wanted, or what I forced to, through violence. "They, whoever that is, seem to know that. Do you?"


there's no place to hide down here
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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
#12
The conversation feels suddenly deflated, both stallions blinking in idle silence between noticeably shorter, less heated exchanges. A question hangs in the air, but instead of addressing it the elder lets his attention wander, glancing over to the young fawn still hovering nearby. He wonders at the companions motions, seemingly at odds with the gold marked stallion, at least from an outside perspective. The wizened, bearded head tilts, quizzical.

Despite already having one of his own, companions remain an unfamiliar and largely mysterious topic to the old black. He’s not sure how to define them in his mind, entities simultaneously conjoined and separated, forever attached to their chosen characters and yet still their own being with personality and opinions and therefore, choices. That a companion might choose to go against his own bonded has never occurred to the geezer, but the way the buck had lunged forward, not aimed to land beside the other stallion but in front of him, between the two of them, hadn’t escaped his notice and gives a new layer of depth to the concept.

Thus far Strom has always seemed perfectly content to live vicariously through him, rarely exhibiting a negative response to his ideas and antics, though he does manipulate and occasionally complain. It only now occurs to the black that perhaps the snake takes such a passive role because of his physical limitations, recalling the vague concept of longing that flickered across their shared consciousness when he’d been unable to force his bonded away from the other stallion and their building confrontation. He mulls the thought, making an effort toward softening and opening his emotional capacities, inviting the python in for commentary, but his companion gives little response to the subject, instead communicating a certain amount of happiness at being drawn in this way and then reiterating the merits of leaving.

The stallion sighs, dragging his gaze back to the others face at last. “Isn’t that exactly why you don’t like me? No comfortable patterns, no niceties-” A wan smile pulls at one corner of his mouth as he turns to leave, still keenly aware of their relative positions, but judging the aggression levels to have dropped below threshold. Probably best to get going while the going is good. "Not even goodbye.”



"Alby talks" 'Strom talks'
OOC // @Rikyn

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


Rikyn the Puppeteer Posts: 549
Aurora Basin Lord atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 4.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.3 :: 4 HP: 70 | Buff: SWIFT
Duir :: Royal Cerndyr :: Earth Spirit Bunnie
#13
Яikyn
"Oh for fucks sake," I half shout as Albrecht suddenly makes his exit, my tail swishing roughly at my hocks, and an irritated snort bolting from my nostrils. I don’t move to chase him, not giving enough of a damn at this point (and moderately glad to see him go, hopefully taking all these deep thoughts with him), but I do wonder why some people get off on being, well, uncivil.

It’s not to say that I’m not occasionally barbaric in my own right, but I do know how to say hello and goodbye in a proper fashion, and cannot recall a single time that I did so simply because, I don’t know, someone had said something true.

Rolling my eyes, I gesture towards Duir, and make my way down the treacherous, narrow slope into the caverns of the Heart, hopefully to find Mordecai, and few of her more pleasant distractions.


there's no place to hide down here
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Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).


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