the Rift


[OPEN] all instinct [joining]

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
Erebos had settled the idea into my mind like a seed.  Over weeks, it had grown roots, but hadn’t managed to truly make itself known, hiding somewhere in my subconscious, waiting in the dark.
 
Then the rain had begun to fall.  Well, not literal rain, per say, but it was rain, well enough, cold and blinding, an endless drizzle that had relentlessly fallen for days, and weeks.  It still fell now, even though there had been brief moments that the clouds had parted away, and the sun had slanted in with an incandescence that never exists in an open sky; times like picking flowers with Tiamat, or laughing with Glacia, and what had come at that laughter’s end… 
 
Through the dreary drizzle of melancholy, those golden moments shone; though there was little else but the scant hours in the company of cheerful women, or caught in comforting conversation with my companion, which peered through the blurry haze that had been the rest of my days since my father’s passing, they were there, regardless. 
 
Between they, and the rain, that seed my blade brother had planted in my mind all those days ago had grown into an undeniable notion, a beguiling light shining in this abysmal gray world of mourning.  Even though thoughts of the mountain, of coming home, hurt, steeped with memories, and loss, as much as they are joy, and fond remembrance…
 
One hoof follows the other, mostly numb, a lack of sleep leaving my mind trailing between the vivid, real realms of my trailing thoughts, for the really real world, and the northern path I follow.  It’s a road I know by heart, one I could walk asleep, and it’s no wonder I can walk it like this, a shell which looks like someone who used to walk this road much more often than he has as of late, his own impishly glimmering golden eyes lack luster and empty.
 
The parted path into the hidden valley sticks out like a sore thumb to me, only because I’d had it pointed out to me at least a thousand times.  There is something so obvious about the secret way once you know of it that makes it laughable anyone misses it, unless you really remember the first time you met it from the outside, looking in, and as I pause and look at it, a vaguely mad smirk tilts my lips, before I shuffle onward.
 
Duir’s ears flick back, his mind searching mind with loud, mental rustles for glimpses of my plot, or course.  That I mean to walk into a stone wall is blasphemous, but my sleepless mind is also essentially an empty void, as well, and so he follows with hope that I’m not simply asleep, and still on my hooves.
 
This is all instinct, baby.
 
Through the crevice I slip, my buck curiously following behind me, his woodland eyes tilting up and back to admire its most clandestine guise even after we’ve passed through it.  Though I surely meant to pause within the threshold, and let everyone know I’m here, my gaze into the valley unavoidably brushes across the decaying bronze sentinels.
 
That empty void of my head fills up with hurt, suddenly.  Duir has enough time to look around at me with worry before I’m moving towards them, ambling, eyes wide, heart thudding.  They look like shit, but then again so do I, and for a moment, I ponder knocking them down, finishing the job the snow and wind have started, but hesitate.  Instead, I keep staring, and staring, waiting for the sorrow to ease, or the silence to end, but not doing much else, either.
 
Duir’s haunting, deer song rises, rather than my proud call, the clever buck discerning that I’m not likely to bring notice to us any time soon.

[ OOC:  Emo-loser would like to come home, if no one objects? :D ] 
 

@Erebos mehbeh?

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Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#2

The unrelenting snow, wind, and rain feel like his heart – frozen at times, perilous, treacherous, snaking through the wisps of the slivered portions remaining, and he glared at the tempestuous weather lingering outside his cavern walls, wishing the world didn’t have to change.
 
But the Sun God’s words had always been a part of him too, crushing, lingering, steadfast and strong, telling him not to glance backwards, because that was no place to go, nowhere for him to roam, to settle, and to merely yearn for those moments would leave him nothing for the future. But that was all he wanted: the past, where he and his companions ran and ran across valleys without no cares, where his dad told him he was proud of his efforts, where his mother’s showery smile peaked over the edges of her regal features, where the empire hadn’t fallen into this listless, languid fringe. What was out there for him now, besides the blood-curling vengeance stoking his blood? Besides the incensed mutiny of a seditious boy, who only desired to crush those who dared to malign his own? What existed after that?
 
The prince used to dream and dream and dream, of power, of glory, of domination over everyone and everything alongside his brethren. He just didn’t know if it was possible any more.
 
A haunting cry pervaded along the inner valley, reverberating across his cavern walls, and the General’s head tilted, ears sweeping in various directions, attempting to pinpoint the location. His head jutted out of the aperture, allowing the drops to batter his skull, paying no mind to its cool, chilling touch (because this was normal, how he’d grown, how he'd become stronger), eyes narrowing and glancing towards the outer limits of their summits. Was someone hurt, ailing, or requiring aid? Orsino snickered something particularly nasty (no healing powers here), and the youth flinched. Then, out of pure stubbornness, left the warm, dry confines for the wild, savage wind and siren song.
 
The kitsune didn’t follow, hissing and spouting conniving remarks, and the boy kept shuffling forward, head down, blinded by the petulant weather, clenching his jaw in an age of persistence, tenacity, and outright defiance, failing to yield to the harshest of elements telling him to stay away. He followed the lengths and waves of the sound, pondering over what poor fool would be out in this ridiculous air, when his eyes caught over the sanctions of towering, decaying sentinels, still standing despite the wretchedness surrounding them, and then below, two figures carved out of the glaciers.
 
“Rikyn,” Erebos called, the name across his lips before he could even think to pause and announce himself, eyes widened in shock, in surprise, because the last time he’d bestowed the notion of returning, the other boy hadn’t seemed keen. Then they’d separated again, only to meet at the roads of the Veins, digging away for a fallen God who would seek to destroy them all (tricked, deceived, ruined once more). He didn’t expect him here, but through all the misfortunes, all the chaos, all the bedlam and sorrow, his heart lifted a little - glad to see his best friend.


Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

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@Rikyn

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
Duir’s song seems to mimic the way it feels in my chest; slow, haunting, the sound pulls hard and deep, just like the invisible thread being woven violently in and out of my heart. The wind blusters viciously, almost swallowing his crooning summons, and the rush of the rain against the earth and metal, upon the backward tilted slope of my ears, hides the approach of hooves.

The only hint I have that someone is coming is that my buck falls silent, pacing alongside me, his eyes watching the distant, familiar figure approach. Glad for the familiarity of the face, he glances back to me, waiting for my usual swift discovery that I am not alone, and finding that I stare, instead, at the sentinels, still.

It is my name that draws my eyes away, through the rain, to the one who still binds me here, by more than heritage alone. Our roots are entwined, and always will be. I know this now, though I’d foolishly denied it before. I’d sought, instead, the wild winds of freedom, only to find I hadn’t any wings to fly, and that some landings were far more brutal than others.

"Erebos," I softly say, a murmur, my gaze lackluster as it had been the last we met, without the distraction of Thranduil’s irritating antics to detract from how frayed the both of us must seem to the other, standing steeped hurt, in the rain. Swallowing the wad of emotion that threatens to spew from within me back down, I look to the sentinels, then back to, perhaps, the only family I have left. A flickering glimmer of fear, and the painful, cold ache of the hurt consuming me flashes through my eyes, perforates the usual strength of my rich tenor so that it trembles, and flakes. "He…my father… he’s dead."

[ OOC: Okay I swear I will let other people post now. -coughs- IJUSTLOVETHEMSOMUCHHEATHER ]


@Erebos

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#4

They’d been born from the mountains, where the summits rose into high, rising peaks – mutinous, seditious, spun and spawned from the gathering of refugees struggling to become their own nation, an empire of strength, of durability, of endurance and fortitude. The boy felt less and less like a mighty piece of the snowy towers, flickering apart piece by piece, sliver by sliver, fragment by fragment, because he was without someone he’d always known, always cherished, always beloved – and perhaps things were just too different now. Maybe they’d been crumbling the entire time, driven from great heights and shoved down into the murky undertones without their knowledge until it pierced their gut or slammed into their chest – raw, reel, keen, forceful, and savage. He didn’t know what had truly happened to all of them, whether it was his father’s last breath, the weight of the earth, or just a natural cycle of dying perseverance, when the old flickered into dust and the new merely stood there, stupid and inept, ignorant and bereft. But as his eyes traveled to Rikyn’s, as he glimpsed at the hurt, at the despair, at the agony mired not by rain, but by grief, he understood they were one and the same again, chronicled by passing stars and oeuvre scribes, dictating the melancholy void the princes were to share. “I’m so sorry,” he mustered into the storm, struggling not to stare at the rusted sentinels, one last piece the Engineer had left behind. He’d rarely met Ulrik, but had heard so many stories (the time he wagged his tongue to topple a throne, cast a DarkEmpress into shadows, the moments where he’d twisted the knife back upon the Reaper too, and they’d never forged a friendship again – heartbreaking in a way, and Erebos didn’t want that to happen to them, not ever, brothers by bond and rime). Now both had been thrust into a disintegrating dynasty, the former generation built by power, by prestige, by maliciousness and fervor – and now the latter, stumbling around, incapable of finding their own footing, not quite ready for the hardships, the titles, the mantles, dragged and drawn across their shoulders.
 
The prince lowered his head, an offering of further apologies, for vows and oaths and assurances to a cretin who’d crafted the most intricate and dangerous of machines, whose legacy lived on through Rikyn’s fortified, bold stances and ambitions. He stared at the puddles, at the drops, at the snowflakes hastening their way through the mercurial layers, held his breath for what came next. The scion, blended and blurred by the lines of strength and torment, coiled his crown towards his brethren, turned his gaze solely to the other boy, mustering the last granules of fragility; why he’d been so gloomy, so intertwined between sorrow and madness. “So is mine.” His voice came like a hollowed sound, soulless, like if he uttered it one more time it would just make it all the more true and consuming – the worst sort of condemnation for children who couldn’t follow their sires, left to the hushed depths of foreboding and corruption.


Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

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@Rikyn

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
My blade brother’s sincerity bleeds through the emotional tomb’s thin walls in which I have entrenched myself, the shuddering of my heart gaining speed, so that I’m worried all the tiny fractures both inside, and outside myself, will begin to flake and fall away. What will be left of me then? I can’t help but wonder, holding my brother’s face with my eyes, because it’s all I can do, other than stand here, numb and aching, all in waves. Will there be anything left of the Rikyn he wants and remembers, then, or will all that remains be the cold, calloused, wicked things that he condemns?

I am no longer the boy, laughing in the wake of summer’s reach, gallivanting across a wide world with his friends to a sea of sand, and a wealth of adventure; even if I’m still caught up in the allure of the promise that had carried us out into the world then, behind all these dark clouds, and the heavy feeling of just giving up, sinking down, I can never be that child again.

Does he know that? Or does he expect me to be my old self, the child with a family, a place, and a future, though I have almost none of those things left?

I want to open the door, and walk into the warm room he’s offered me, but, like Albrecht feels, when he’d touched the Time God’s quest stone, I am afraid of the flames, as much as I wantonly desire their comfort. I see in my brother home, a light to follow out of the shadow in which I find myself devoured, but I also see embers, bright, and smoldering, hungry to sever the few tethers binding me to any sort of belonging at all. It’s…

Frightening, Duir understands, finding his place alongside me, his shoulder a warm touch to my own. That word sinks into me like a hot stone, shame bubbling up about it, and, in the plumes of that blow’s wake, Erebos delivers another shard of ice.

"Shit," I glumly remark to his revelation, without thinking.

My eyes widen, and my knees feel weak. My kind buck glances to me and back to the prince, uncertain what to make of this rather unfortunate turn of events. The Reaper, too? The tears I’d managed so far to hold in place well up, and I look down to hide them, ashamed they have arrived at all, as much as I am at myself for all my inactions (and actions, lets be real) up until this point. With my jaw clenched, I wonder if maybe it is a game, if Orsino will bound to his side, and my General brother’s mouth will part into a grin, his laughter mocking my sadness – “of course he’s not!” he’ll laugh, and maybe I might too, and there won’t be anything more for me to regret the rest of my fucking life. But, I think of his eyes, the last I’d seen them, and how he, too, had not joined in the taunting and fun as he might have, another day, and I can’t pretend like he would dare jest about death anymore.

Had his father… had he ever forgiven me, for what I had done? I certainly wouldn’t ever know, not now.

Shuddering my eyes, I will the sorrow back into its proper place, returning my eyes to Erebos only when I’m sure that no trace of their existence lingers on my face, but for, perhaps, the aching emptiness of my gaze.

"What… what happened?" I ask, worried that, maybe, something (or someone) had attacked the Aurora Basin. Though I hadn’t lived here in a while, I did know and care about a good few people here… Enna, Erebos, miss Lena, Ming Yue, Tangere, Tiamat. Hell, even Albrecht probably counted among those I gave a damn about, even if most of those cares were about how many more times I’d get to hit him before Time cashed in on all those extra years the old geezer had borrowed. The thought of anything trying to hurt any of them made me feel uncharacteristically defensive, even in my somewhat emotionless state, an emotional response which draws my buck’s eyes to me with a healthy amount of surprise.




@Erebos

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#6

“I don’t know,” he answered, staring off into the void, not lingering on Rikyn’s fallen face, on the tears welling up, allowing him to be alone in those few moments of peril where everything simply seemed to pile up and devour someone. His heart was heavy, dampened, soused, drenched and drowned, barely scratching over the surface of what they used to be (could never be again), incapable of returning to the good, old days where they’d been naught more than an untouched canvas, capable of so many things. The General had never asked the hows and the whys over his father’s demise – had barely accepted it had happened, let alone embark on the justification, the reasoning behind it all. Perhaps, in the darker murmurings of his thoughts and ruminations, he could have employed a whole menagerie of circumstances: the Reaper’s magic had finally caught up with him, tied his essence back into the arts of demise, the eldritch, mercurial whims of the underworld and its caustic, devilish imbalances. Or maybe, just maybe, the god damn empire itself had pilfered him away, exhausted, forlorn, and desolate, enshrouding his every movement and motion until he’d been splintered and severed, driven to his last breath, his final heartbeat. Erebos wanted someone or something to blame, but it never came, never had a rhyme or reason, just ended in the ways things were; and that too stirred, incensed, and kindled his vengeance, but he had no where to pinpoint such an illustrious, tangible rage. “He was just gone,” the boy whispered again, harsh and unrelenting, gaze settling on the outcrops, beyond the rain and the wind, towards the unfreezing lake where Deimos had laid himself to rest. When he swung his stare back to Rikyn, he remained still, a vast ocean of emotions and recoil, curling back into his defensive means, his Machiavellian measures, begging for something other than this retrieval of wrongs, melees, and the unjustified taking of lives.
 
The boy couldn’t even bring himself to ask how the Engineer had passed, didn’t query Rikyn on the particulars, had no intention of pulling him back into the horrors, the terrors, the quiet, unholy insurrection of bestial sires ruined and discarded. It’d been enough to simply experience it – the abysmal hours spent reliving the disastrous events weren’t necessary, didn’t need to be another burden on already sunken edges, fringes, and maelstroms. It was the remaining valorous contortion of his avaricious entity that proffered Rikyn the gift of avoidance, a blistering remnant of courtesy and chivalry granted to a blood brother  – if he wanted to delve any further, it was his choice, and not the blue prince’s. He slipped into a greater diversion, lending his abilities, his power, his layers of armor and devastation into the rime and rubble, casting out the discord, the betrayals, the treachery stored between the bay youth and the summits. If his voice quaked and shuddered, he paid no mind to it, focusing his interest on Rikyn’s pursuits, on his ambitions, on the aspirations Erebos had once bestowed. “Are you here to stay?”


Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

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@Rikyn

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
He was just gone.

There is a moment of relief that it was just death, the inevitable end looming for us all, but the very few who learned to grapple and scale the height of such a barrier; glad that no one but my brother’s father is dead, or maimed, anymore than such a loss hurts anyone to suffer it. It’s only a temporary respite, however, the dark waters again rushing in to replace what had been pushed back, the slow spiral of guilt, and sorrow ebbing within me.

It does not sound painful, at least, like the end of my father surely must have been; one does not usually “just go” in a pool of their own blood. No, Deimos had been worthy of an honorable death, noble, his being whole, and perfect, to be remembered forever as he had always been in life, merely still, a statue of himself. Erebos’ good heart had earned him no such troublesome memories as the gaping flesh of a loved one’s throat, or the precise smell of their blood, feeding the earth. He did not have to carry the burden of the Reaper’s cold, condemning stare into the ever more… because he had not earned the punishment.

I don’t bother to hold my head up anymore, the weight of everything physically pulling me down, gravity a nuisance that pleads with me to lie down, and not get back up. I go back to staring at the sentinels; I forget to answer Erebos. I forget, really, that I am real at all, anything more than these regrets and inner hollows, until he speaks again.

I feel so empty when I meet his eyes, though I want to feel something, anything.

"I never know," I say, because I don’t, not about where I am going, where I want to be, who I am, what the fuck I’m going to make of myself; though I mean more that I can’t promise that I’m staying"but… I would like to."

I think. I mean, how should I know? I can barely keep my thoughts straight, and Duir and I’s daily necessities cared for.





@Erebos

Wishlist - Plots

Force/violence is allowed to be used on Rikyn permitted it does not permanently maim or kill him (PM me!).

Erebos Posts: 474
Aurora Basin General atk: 7.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 6.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.1hh :: Four HP: 75.5 | Buff: DANCE
Orsino :: Plain Kitsune :: Dark Illusions & Enyo :: Common Griffon :: Draining Clutch Heather
#8

The question felt stupid, empty, forlorn, the moment it left his mouth, too specious, too whimsical, too buried in the rubble and ruin of their childhood, wishing for things that could never be again. He’d asked out of hope, out of valor, out of the pieces of himself not already chained and shackled to broken barbs of severity and immorality; because he craved for Rikyn’s presence, for his blood brother to take up arms at his side, to gather munitions and herald the coming of the next war beside him, to drum and beckon anarchy, sedition, and abhorrence, to drain and deprive the world of their forgotten legacies with serpentine smiles and illustrious grins. They’d been torn apart by too many other things, by the etchings of time, by the whittlings of circumstances, by greed and stupidity, and in the stretches of silence, the General knew he didn’t crave that disastrous wake again. Rikyn should’ve been here, where he’d been born, where he’d been scolded, where he’d come alive, where they’d all become bent and broken and silly, foolish, intrepid, but so brave, gallant and tarnished beneath the shields and swords of the mountain peaks. Perhaps they’d be mere whispers of their former selves, too broken, too misshapen, too clawed and bombarded against to be anything other than shells. Maybe they’d be merciless heathens, rasping their way to the top, to the glory they’d always been promised, tearing off the shackles, the tethers, and the lines binding them to the ground. They could be so much more than the splintered, fractured boys of the Basin – and together, they had a chance. The summits could still have their renewed genesis, another promised beginning that had come at the time of their births, that had been squandered and fractured when too many demons had come to bombard, when lines had been crossed, when circumstances had altered their pace, their minds, their schemes. Change was inevitable; but they were more than just dreamers and fiends, mercurial and fervent – eager, so eager, for the tastes, the glories, the legends the world had waiting for them. “That’ll be enough,” he said with a soft, sad smile, bending his neck, obliging the beacon of home again, inviting him back into the walls that he’d always known. They would rise, step up from their wounded, battered knees, and topple the heavens, one by one by one, until their names were chiseled into the ground, into the skies, into the stars. 

Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

image || table


@Rikyn

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
How does he never fail me?

Part of me expects him to be somehow ashamed that I am still lost, that, through all my wandering, and leaving him to himself, and the whims of time, I have not found a path worthy of following, and that he isn’t means more to me than I think I can find words for. Like all those soft, emotional things, however, I am unused to sharing them, and so they remain tucked within, revealed only in the faintest glimmer of thanks which flickers across by abysmal features.

That’ll be enough, he says, as if I myself were enough. Though, in my youth, I had been certain of my authority in this world, the way of life has dwindled that bravado into a brittle veneer of arrogance, swathed thickly over a broiling sea of self doubt, rage, and loss. Very little of the boy I was remains inside this shell that looks and walks like the lost Prince of this land, but what remnants there are will hopefully be enough, as Erebos says.

I cast a last, long look to the bronze sentinels, before I follow the gesture of his crown into the valley with my body, my nervous (but excited) companion following along with me. Hoping he can spare time from his duties for the evening, eager to share stories and tales; of Mordecai, and how she had taught me words of Dothraki, though I would certainly avoid talking about what else she had given me first knowledge of, and of the dragon woman who’d attacked me, only to apologize some weeks later.

Regardless, I walk into the valley hoping some part of this horrible, depressing sadness behind me.





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