the Rift


[PRIVATE] know that i'm breaking to pieces

Sikeax the Sea Soul Posts: 355
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16 hh :: 5 years HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Hobgoblin :: Common Rougarou :: Water & Seoul :: Plain White Dragon :: Toxic Breath Zuno
#1
into the sea, you and me
all these years, and no one heard
i love you, let's go


Names on a list, each one worse than the next. Expectations fill up the spaces in her head, check off the boxes in what she must prepare herself for in what is coming.
They dwindle as the filled spaces alert her in what is to come. Fewer and fewer names make up the list til it becomes barely anything.
Valdis.
Volterra.
Cera.
Tyrath.
Bellanaris?

She questions if her daughter is young enough to feel shame in her mother’s failure, or if she’ll understand that her mother is leaving like a coward, tired, broken, realizing that no matter how facades are made to look, someone born hated is always hated.
Because that’s what members of outcast bands are, right? Hated?
Funny, how she had the strength and cowardice to hate herself for being her, for doing exactly what she had done in the past.
She wonders if he’ll even want to see her face again after this. The idea of his burns a hole in her heart, urges her to pull her cloak of shame further around herself until she can burrow into it so deep that nothing will pull her free.
She does it because she has to make herself strong again, prove to him that she is not going to be weak when he had given her something to build herself with(and failed with), to see if he’ll ever want to look at her again.
But what importance does his existence have to her other than a once giver of seed? A man who didn’t want the child she forced upon him?
Nonetheless, she can always hide behind the excuse that Hobgoblin wanted to see Vérzés.
Distaste hums in his throat from his perch, nestled in the branches of the Dragon’s Blood tree where she, the failed Sultana, paces relentlessly. Yellow eyes pass judgement without a care of how much of it she can hear.
“Weakling. Skullface no want. You fail Skullface. Skullface hate. You leave, no take.”
“I know.”
“We leave now?”
A shrug of the shoulders answer him with mute words.
“Best.”
She can’t deny herself the truth when it is all that surrounds her at this point, but at the same time, she can’t leave herself without the feeling of his hatred, the acknowledgement that he hates her, the end to something that barely even held a beginning.

OOC: screaming
hobgoblin is in his serval form and chilling out in the branches of the Dragon's Blood tree because that's totally something servals do.
but don't ask me i'm not an expert

lunarblues!


@Volterra


you were angels,
so much more than everything

:: please tag me
:: minor force and power play allowed


Volterra the Indomitable Posts: 785
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow
#2


V O L T E R R A
ARE WE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SAVE US FROM BURNING TO DUST?
SHOULD YOU BUILD ALL YOU HAVE OUT OF NOTHING BUT ANGER AND LUST?

Volterra is not a creature accustomed to feeling many things. Whether it is because he is a man or because he's too primitive to understand more complex emotions, the Indomitable isn't used to the sheer volume of feels that have assaulted him recently.

There's his familiar friend anger at what occurred in the herd in recent days, the coup that ousted Sikeax from her throne and placed Aithniel in her stead. There's relief that at least Volterra held up his part of the bargain by defeating Tae, albeit in a far shorter fight than he'd expected. There's an undertone of curiosity about what the future may hold under the reign of the Inquisitor, and there's a distinct thrumming of guilt at the idea he might want to stick around and find out when he'd always planned to leave should Sikeax ever step down from leadership.

But, just to complicate things further, he's got a confusing cacophony of emotions about the Sea Soul's unwillingness to fight to keep her throne. Volterra values battle prowess more than anything, and he is guilty of judging people based on how they fight. Had Sikeax fought and lost then the leviathan would have understood, because at least she'd have tried. Except she didn't. One hit by the Inquisitor and she was down, and that makes Volterra ache with the knowledge that he's disappointed in her for her failure. She is his friend, a good mother to his children, but she did not fight to keep her herd. That's something the behemoth simply cannot compute.

In truth, he'd placed the champagne mare upon a pedestal, and had assumed that she could do anything she set her mind to. She mothered a child that was essentially forced upon her and she did it with aplomb - just for good measure, she mothered the other children whose own dams failed to do so. She became Sultana despite a lack of experience, and she'd shown all the signs of being damned good at it.

Until it all went tits up.

The goliath sighs sadly. He doesn't know what to think, what to do, except to lurk around the herd and try and get his head together. It isn't until Vérzés gives a euphoric screech at the sight of Hobgoblin that Volterra realises he may have to decide sooner rather than later. Perhaps speaking to Sikeax in person will help him get his head around what happened. Perhaps it will help him make sense of the whirling soup of Confusing Feels that currently live inside his mind.

He approaches at a fluid trot, but his neck is held awkwardly as a memento of the fight with Tae. The filly's hooves had clattered right into the top of his neck near his head, and the whole area is still seized up. Moving is hard, and the stallion finds himself struggling to shift his head enough to graze. Still, he attempts to hide the pulsating pain as he slows to a halt just in front of the champagne mare, trying to keep his expression guarded and neutral as he looks at her. "Sikeax." His voice is stiffer than usual, almost offhand. He doesn't mean to be short with her, but he's so damn confused. "How are you?"

The red dragon, as though oblivious to his bonded's flight, soars towards the tree that Hobgoblin sits in, landing his scaled body next to the serval and chirping happily in his direction. Vadir is nowhere to be seen; she holds a grudge with the best of them, and her last meeting with Sikeax is still fresh in her mind.

image credits


@Sikeax

[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far  ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]




Sikeax the Sea Soul Posts: 355
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16 hh :: 5 years HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Hobgoblin :: Common Rougarou :: Water & Seoul :: Plain White Dragon :: Toxic Breath Zuno
#3
into the sea, you and me
all these years, and no one heard
i love you, let's go


He comes to her, or more correctly appears in her life like he has since the beginning of all of this, wearing the burdens of her failed leadership, his loyalty that she probably doesn’t deserve but in the end, cherishes. She can’t lie that she’s surprised to see him despite the plans brewing within the confines of her skull to visit him, to pick up the pieces in what is left of what she now sees as Hell before finally breaking her chains to the desert.
Hobgoblin flutters only internally at the sight of his only true friend, rising up in his shoulders and spine with the curling of his tail as a soft chirp chitters out of his lips, one far different in comparison to the one that he had made in the past to the dragon. Happiness warms him like the fire in a lighter in a snowstorm.
He cannot overpower Sikeax’s sorrows, but he can escape, even if it’s for a short amount of time.
Shame begs her to retreat at his company, but she’s succumbed enough times within the recent moons, and Volterra is not one that can easily take advantage of her again.
But at the same time, she can’t bring herself to lie to him. She can’t bring herself to lie to anyone, because when has she in the past hidden the truth for the sake of pride? Hobgoblin would shun her if not for the circumstances and the presence of the crimson dragon. He cannot even spare her his attention, closing her out in the dark for whatever pleasures he gets out of the company of something that he once sought control over.
Ghosts cloud her blue skies, dimmed by bitterness. Discomfort ridicules her brain in ways that it hasn’t in years, taking her back to when her father had sworn himself to her only for a short amount of time, to his abandonment, of the fear of her home.
This isn’t home.
She feels like a child beneath his exterior, heart aching from shame because how could she bring him into this mess, asking him to discard his hopes and dreams, his future for her failure? He had been kind and warm to her in his own unique way in their last private meeting, and now she feels he’s become nothing more than a statue, built of obsidian and marble with rubies for eyes. All stone and far too cold.
The spaces above her eyes are desecrated by wrinkles. Every portion of her body whispers out the silent pain of her mistakes, the slouch in her posture, the stillness in her bones, the fading stench of sea salt and the thinness of her winter coat. For good measure, sadness attaches weights to her ears so that they hang like the branches of weeping willows.
"Volterra.”
His name rolls off her lips like the wind in the vastness of the ocean: empty.
His kindness, or whatever it is residing in that question, tempts her to turn and yell because is it not obvious how she is exactly? Is the despair in her not written on her pale, sea-torn coat with black ink, the pain swallowing up the life in her eyes?
Out of her and into him, Hobgoblin pours a spitting hiss in Volterra’s direction, not out of his personal need(he has little care, if not any, for the Indomitable’s existence), but for Sikeax’s hard-needed release.
Bitterness never gets the better of her.
“Terrible, if you haven’t noticed.”
Can’t you see that? Didn’t you before?
“Large body, small brain.”

She almost wants to smile at the thought.

lunarblues!


@Volterra


you were angels,
so much more than everything

:: please tag me
:: minor force and power play allowed


Volterra the Indomitable Posts: 785
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow
#4


V O L T E R R A
ARE WE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SAVE US FROM BURNING TO DUST?
SHOULD YOU BUILD ALL YOU HAVE OUT OF NOTHING BUT ANGER AND LUST?

He takes a moment to scrutinise her, searching her body for possible explanations for what happened in the fight. An injury, perhaps; a tendon hanging by a thread, a fractured bone, a lingering illness. Anything that could possibly explain why she took one blow from Aithniel then crumpled, anything that he could use as an excuse.

He finds nothing. She does not look her usual radiant self, but she is certainly fit enough to fight. The assessment causes a sad sigh to drift from his mouth, and his ears flop downwards slightly.

Volterra. She says his name, and his ears prick again. They jerk towards Hobgoblin as he issues a loud hiss in his general direction, and his eyes crease into a confused frown. Vérzés ceases his excited chirps towards the rougarou and instead erects his spines like heckles, eyeballing his friend in confusion. "Why hiss at my bonded?" his body language clearly says. He edges a few steps down the branch, an expression of abject betrayal ghosting across his draconic features.

After sparing Hobgoblin a lingering glance, Volterra's gaze travels back to Sikeax. Terrible, she says. "Of course I've noticed," he rumbles, another sorrowful sigh escaping the confines of his jaws as he looks at her. This isn't how he thought it would end. He'd thought her reign would be glorious, and that he would rise up to rule by her side one day; alas, that is nothing more than the shattered remnants of a dream now.

Finally, he can stem the burning question no longer. "What happened, Sikeax?" he asks, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Why didn't you fight?"

image credits


@Sikeax

[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far  ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]




Sikeax the Sea Soul Posts: 355
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16 hh :: 5 years HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Hobgoblin :: Common Rougarou :: Water & Seoul :: Plain White Dragon :: Toxic Breath Zuno
#5
into the sea, you and me
all these years, and no one heard
i love you, let's go

She feels like the north when winter is there, reminded of the freezing sensation of ice sinking into her somewhere deep, aching, burdened by something that she cannot completely put her finger on.
But she’s never known the fleeing of summer from winter up there, so Sikeax cannot say this how she feels. Volterra brings her a lukewarm cup of comfort that tastes like black coffee, bitter, melting ice cubes in it so that it will be useless soon enough by the use of his expression.
Hobgoblin is steadily losing his patience with the situation.
“Leave. No worth. No important.”
I promise you it’s important.
“Why?

Harsh words shaping demands and accusations are becoming her downfall, the panic switch in the dark that just happens to be flipped when she needs it not to be. Hobgoblin knows her like he knows himself, possibly more than she knows herself.
The throat within her head that leads to a mouth that voices her thoughts closes up with a knot. Internally, nestled into their bond and the closeness they share, Hobgoblin’s weight moves into his shoulder blades as he leans forward, waiting for a response that she can’t dare to fathom.
And to his surprise, to anyone’s surprise, she is the one to cut him away from her.
The impact from him sends him spiraling, caught off guard and frantically looking for a grip on control as the darkness of the quiet from Sikeax settles in. It is not as if they have given up everything they have at the push of a button, the choice of a thought; Hobgoblin can still feel her: the shame of her actions, the submission she fears and the dominance she desires but fears leaping for, the worry of losing something that he can’t understand the importance in because what importance does Volterra have anymore? His resources have been used and wasted, and Sikeax no longer has a throne that requires a knight to guard(to which he notes that the stallion failed in, furthering the thought), and the fear of the future, but that is no stranger to either. It is more of that she feels dull when she is typically as vibrant as the Tallsun heat, that her thoughts sound blurred and feel as if their rhythm as changed.
Externally, he can only process it in a visible recoil, drawing his mass into itself as the suns in his eyes dulled in the wake of the storm.
When he collects enough of himself to pay any attention to his friend, the full weight of her shame becomes his own. It etches its way over him in the sinking of his body, pulling into himself as his head hangs low. A sudden shake of the head.
‘Not meant like that.’ He wishes to say, but has no way to get it out there.
Meanwhile, Sikeax cannot pull herself away from Volterra. He fills up in the vastness in her eyesight, takes away the pain of the desert, even if just for a short amount of time.
She almost feels like he’s in there when he sighs, softening, warming her up but nonetheless making her feel worse when she remembers that her intentions to him were to be hateful when possibly Volterra’s true intentions for her was to be her friend.
“Of course I’ve noticed.”
I wish we could stop this. The words stop at her lips.
All of her pain pours into her facial features like she’s held them for a thousand years, letting it go in a soft, summer rainfall that has no thunder or lightning, just the quiet, calming sound of rain touching everything that it can manage to find.
Nothing will keep her safe from reality. Hobgoblin rolls back into himself further, so far from Sikeax that all of this is like a movie that he can't do anything to stop from continuing, but can add his two pieces to the actors.
"Sorry," he offers, with no way to tell whether or not it is genuine or out of his own discomfort of having to witness this.
She swallows her emotions because for the time being, they don't mean anything.
"I gave up." The truth is harder to admit than it is to accept. It drains the life out of her in knowing that Volterra was willing to give up his freedom to help her, to be her friend, to be there for her when she needed someone most regardless of his own ambitions. Accepting that she did that to him nearly puts her heart in the grave, probably right beside their friendship.
"I couldn't do it. I couldn't be the queen you said you were there for, that you pledged your freedom for. People I considered my family for my entire life turned on me because I can't stop death, and then their God" Nothing is felt in how at any other time she might have claimed the Sun God as her God, but the Lord of Light has fallen from her graces, just as she imagines she has him. "made me take the place of the man they thought I killed. I can't change that. I don't think anyone can."
One long, desperate gasp for air as her chest heaves forward and she clutches her sadness in her tired, dirty hands.
"Volterra, they hated me. Right now I'm sure everyone here does, and I can't blame them."
Any eye contact held between the two of them is broken as she turns her head away from him, staring off into the distance so she won't have to see how his view of her changes. There's a lot of things that she can live with, but the idea of him hating her is the one that destroys her the most.
As far as she can see, he's the last one here worth trusting.
"The chance came to get out of there, and I took it, and I think I'm going to take it as far as it will let me take it. I don't feel like I failed them." But that doesn't stop me from feeling like I failed you. "I did what I thought was best for me, and for once, I feel like that was the right thing to do."

And there shouldn't be a thing wrong with that, shouldn't there?
Hobgoblin shuffles in her thoughts, unable to add his opinion in because Sikeax and him are such different beings that he can't begin to tell her that selfishness is the only true way to live, that she'd live better off if she just thought of herself, but that would also mean the risk of her sacrificing her cares for him, and well, he cannot simply begin to risk that.

OOC: i literally wrote this over two very different sessions so if it doesn't flow perfectly THAT'S WHY.

lunarblues!


@Volterra


you were angels,
so much more than everything

:: please tag me
:: minor force and power play allowed


Volterra the Indomitable Posts: 785
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow
#6


V O L T E R R A
ARE WE WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO SAVE US FROM BURNING TO DUST?
SHOULD YOU BUILD ALL YOU HAVE OUT OF NOTHING BUT ANGER AND LUST?

I gave up. The words are a metal fist to his gut, because Volterra does not understand giving up. He is the sort of man who would fight even if his heart oozed blood out of a gaping hole in his chest, if his legs were hanging by a tendon and his entrails leaked through his stomach. He wouldn't give up even if his opponent outweighed him, outfought him, outthought him; bending the knee is simply not in his nature. He knows that not everybody is the same, yet to hear Sikeax's confession makes him ache in more ways than he cares to imagine.

She elaborates, explains, and he listens with eager ears. He needs to know, needs to digest the information and understand it, which will help him make up his own mind about what to do next. He listens well, and he nods in all the right places, but one sentence in particular makes him pause and interject. "They thought you killed Gaucho?" The idea is simply so preposterous that it jars him; how could anybody think that? Of course, the herd had been looking for any excuse to condemn Sikeax, and perhaps the fact she'd not been able to save Gaucho had provided them with a useful stick to beat her with, but the sheer lack of logic makes him gawp.

She makes some good points. The herd had been determined to hate her, attacking her decisions even when they truly didn't require that much vitriol. Could he really blame her for not wanting to fight for a herd like that? For all their talk of being a family, the Throat is extremely unwelcoming to those it decides it doesn't like. Volterra feels himself softening, his steel exterior crumbling slightly, as does any displeasure he holds towards her. How can he hate her for following her heart? "I can't say I understand, Sikeax, because the idea of forfeiting such an important fight is utterly foreign to me." His stern gazes flakes away to be replaced with something akin to warmth as he looks at her. "But you did what you thought was right by yourself, and you followed your heart. That should be admired." Somehow he doesn't think it will be by anyone but him, but he prays Sikeax does not take the insults that will undoubtedly be thrown at her to heart.

The leviathan sighs, breaking eye contact at the same time that she does. "What now, then? Where will you go?" That crimson gaze of his returns to her, scrutinising her.

image credits


@Sikeax

[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far  ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]





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