the Rift


[OPEN] Stranger and stranger things

Wessex Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Haruspex atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 3 HP: 68 | Buff: NOVICE
Astor
#1

I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

Pain, the sort of pain that cannot be ignored, even in the depths of sleep and warmth and the siren’s call of dreamland, viciously yanks her awake. A deep-seated growl of frustration rumbles from her chest as Wessex protests through the quickly clearing fog - both to the intrusion and the source of the sharp, throbbing pain. A quick glance through half-lidded eyes shows that her scars are doing their glow-in-the-dark thing, and she groans, though this time, it is in pure annoyance. Every. Single. Time she seems them (lucky for her, they run along her ass, which means she doesn’t have to see them constantly), she is illogically annoyed.

Those goddamn scars are the only thing that keeps her from sneaking around in the night. It’s like whatever those reptilian monster things were that killed her kingdom and nearly got her also wanted to leave the then-filly with a lifelong reminder of that loss. Really, super nice of them, right? But the radiating pain calls her attention further back along her body, to her tailbone. Now, it’s been about a week, and in that time frame, her tail has almost completely fallen out. She looks like half a cancer patient (cancer isn’t funny - but a tailless horse is), and if she could only see…

Ugh. Nope. Big doesn’t necessarily mean flexible. Wessex hauls herself to her hooves and seeks the open air; the residual warmth from the springs and spruce branches are enough to keep the night chill away right now, but there isn’t much light beneath the overarching green boughs. By the light of the stars and a full moon, her large, horned figure stalks out into the center of the valley, and in full view of any who might wish to spy upon the newcomer, discovers something… disconcerting. A loud hiss of breath slides past her teeth as lizard eyes narrow and her heart begins to pound. A muffled shout of something, be it rage or confusion or fear, she does not know, cannot be restrained.

Where once she had a perfectly swishable tail, adept at flicking flies from her sides and hocks, or lashing against her body in contained anger, there now lies… an awkward stub. Right now, it looks like a stiff deer’s tail when at rest, lying flat against the curve of her rump, and down a couple of inches. Its end is rounded, though there is no hair or other sort of growth to be seen (yet).

“Not again,” she mutters through clenched jaws and grinding teeth. “Not fucking again.

W E S S E X

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Wessex is going through her first mutation! Open to any.
-- please tag in all posts! --
-- magic and force allowed, no death or permanent damage --

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
#2
Яikyn
Whoa, comes Duir’s thought, a mental rope attached that easily pulls my eyes towards what he’s looking at in the distance. Curious as to what could possibly be so interesting out and about in the middle of the night, I look up from my lackluster, thought heavy, grazing to discover that, surprisingly, I’m also quite intrigued by the scene playing out before us.

A very strange looking mare indeed, I vaguely remember her from the meeting, where she’d been not very far from me at all, talking to Tiamat. She is covered with sharp things, lending me to believe she is either a mutated unicorn, or a hybrid of some porcupine cousin. Regardless, it’s not every night you see someone covered in barbs literally glowing across their whole ass, with a tail-less stub.

Approaching with long, swift steps, I catch her curse towards her dock, and barely manage not to laugh. Again? How often does this happen to her? I think, with a pompous grin, Duir stopping (per usual) a safe distance behind me, just in case she winds up being unkind, or hostile.

Well, more than she obviously already is, of course.

"I’m guessing you usually have a tail, then?" I inquire, my jest lacking the usual jaunty bounce of my tenor voice, replaced, instead, with a dry, darker thing, that barely suggests I’m joking at all. Though I’m doing a bit better since I’ve come home, having new motivations, and all that jazz, I’m still not myself, by any means, and, maybe I won’t ever be again.

Loss has a way of changing people, you know?


in every heart a hole
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@Wessex

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

Wessex Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Haruspex atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 3 HP: 68 | Buff: NOVICE
Astor
#3

I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

Ok look, the silly little miniature deer has nothing to worry about. Just because Wessex is in the middle of a very confusing body change, doesn’t mean she’s going to attack someone’s companion like an enraged rhinoceros. Or a herd mate. Her hormones may be running haywire - especially when she’s just having all these conflicting emotions about the past the future. The horned soldier has a little more control over herself than the average hormonal teenager. Confused? Ok, let me clarify a couple of things.

This has happened to the young soldier several times now. And yes, every single time, it’s painfully unexpected The horns on her head all came in pairs (can you say week-long headaches?), aside from the spike on her nose, which hurt from her teeth to her eyes. Perhaps the most disconcerting change was to her eyes, when she happened to glance in a pond and find (much to shock and dismay) that blue-gray pupils changed to orange-yellow. Lizard eyes. Monster eyes.

Already graying from foalhood’s black base, she was merely a year old when those things almost killed her. Clearly, she survived, but whatever they were, they left her a little gift - much like zombies do to humans. A painful, odd, unusual gift; one that keeps her on her proverbial toes by lulling her into complacency by going months in between breakouts -- err, activations. It’s not contagious, as far as she knows, but the alterations themselves were enough to make some wary, and so she found herself regarded with distrust and suspicion from those who were supposed to safeguard her life - as sisters and brothers in arms.

A stallion’s voice quickly follows her curses, and Wessex’s gaze leaps to find an unknown unicorn standing before her. His words seem to imply that he may be joking, but his tone is flat and… almost hard. Her eyes narrow, trying to discern which way she should answer. It is an inconvenience and annoying to find this happening now, but nothing she is ashamed of. “Yes, and a lovely one at that,” she retorts. “But apparently I am meant more for the sword than beauty contests,” comes somewhat dryly, devoid of any bitterness one might expect her to have.

She’s always known her path was laid out in blood; markers coiled into her mother’s DNA and transferred to her, they made her heart sing in the midst of battle and find more satisfaction in an aching body than a long night’s tryst. Her legs were meant to be splattered in crimson, her horns sharpened to give or take life on a whim. Formidable. Feared. Like mother, like daughter.

“Who are you?” she asks calmly. Might as well meet someone new, for sleep would not come for the rest of the night.

W E S S E X

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@Rikyn
-- please tag in all posts! --
-- magic and force allowed, no death or permanent damage --

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
#4
Яikyn
I’m not really surprised to hear sarcasm dripping from each syllable; she is, after all, undergoing a seemingly painful something or another, which gives anyone the right to be a bit bitchy, even without someone like me showing up. That she doesn’t just stalk off or retort with violence is a good sign that, on any other day, she might just be naturally wry, anyway.

Translation: my sort of girl.

Of course, as Duir says in immediately reply: they’re all your sort of girl.

"There is beauty in the sword," I say, for there is; when I was very young, my mother had hosted the very first festival in honor of the Auroras, and the unicorn bloodline which, then, had been the only allowed in the shadow of the mountain; we had opened the event together, dancing, as she told me, in the ancient ways of people, utilizing fluid battle movements to create a graceful visual of physical prowess in which no blood was spilt. For that reason alone I know that the act of violence can be elegant, certainly not because I have ever witnessed a brawl and thought it to be anything less than what it was: carnal, savage, and stained with the stench of blood and sweat.

But if you removed that fervent violence, and the entangling of the warrior’s bodies, so that each fluid motion might be viewed from a distance?

There were no finer dancers in all the world, than those who knew how to draw blood with the weapons given to them by fate, and figure.

"Rikyn, the Puppeteer," I tell her, choosing not to lie, because she walks beneath the shadow of my home; I have taken to the surname most recently, especially now that true ambition has begun to fill the void that mourning has left behind, and my studies of magic at the behest of the Time God had filled me with a resolute pride in the terrifying power I had been blessed to wield. Besides, I am son to no one now, and thereby cannot tell her of my heritage, as I had to those I’d met here, the last time I’d come home. My kin are all dead, or gone; I am left with only myself, Erebos, and Duir (who still looks at the strange mare with great wariness, despite her tolerant disposition). "Who are you?"


in every heart a hole
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@Wessex

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

Wessex Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Haruspex atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 3 HP: 68 | Buff: NOVICE
Astor
#5

I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

There is beauty in the sword, he says, and Wessex must nod in agreement. She’s seen it too; the fluid form of her mother’s body as she moved seamlessly through offensive and defensive moves, instructing her women in the fine art of warfare. There is also something majestic about forty mares moving in sync, learning how to hone fat into muscle and reflexes into skill.

“True,” she says, needing no superfluous words to either elaborate or disagree. Brevity is the soul of wit, and the sarcasm is strong in this one.

She finds herself snorting, however, as he titles himself. The Puppeteer? Almost as soon as her mind processes the moniker, she begins to wonder if it’s hubris or hidden power he possesses. And if it the latter, then exactly who does he wish to manipulate? And why? “Wessex,” she chooses to say first, followed by an ever-so-slight pause and a very dry-sounding “- the Mutant.” Because who the fuck knows if this changing thing will ever stop. But back to keeping the attention off of herself.

Looking him up and down with an examining eye, she keeps her thoughts to herself for now. But oh, she would love to hear more about this puppeteering business - either that, or watch him flounder. “Do explain,” she requests bluntly, for her own surname need no further explanation. Both their chosen titles had negative connotations, which is a sure sign of kindred spirits, if there ever was one. And if Wessex knew what whiskey and cigars were, she might offer them to Rikyn as a friendly bribe to keep his tongue a-wagging.  

W E S S E X

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@Rikyn
-- please tag in all posts! --
-- magic and force allowed, no death or permanent damage --

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
#6
Яikyn
She reminds me of Mordecai, and with a flicker of guilt, I wonder about the young mare, who I hadn’t seen in quite a while. Refocusing my attention on the steel-cast mare, I wonder if she, too, is as prone to quick anger as my winter comrade, respecting the crown on her head much more than I had the desert girl’s wings and basic hooves. Sure, they could fly, but what pain could feathers bring, in comparison the glistening points of cranial daggers?

Like she snorts at my name, I do hers, too, but with more humor, finding the casual use of what, to me, anyway, is essentially a curse word, in reference to herself, amusing. That sort of wryness makes Duir all the more wary of her, however, disliking my proximity to someone with such a dark heart; he thought mine was steeped enough in shadow, without anyone’s help.

Do explain, she asks, and it takes me a moment to figure out what she means. Explain what? What is happening to her ass? Do I look like a doctor or something?

She mean Puppeteer, stupid, smarts my buck from my flank, where he has quietly approached. My eyes narrow contemptuously, but I otherwise offer him no retort, doing my best to restrain my impulses to kick at him in the presence of a herd mate. Besides, it’s done no good to curb his calling me stupid or foolish, so far.

Maybe it's that she tells me what to do, or just my general mood, but I don't immediately feel obligated to do anything she asks of me. Though Duir usually disapproves of my use of magic, especially before the Time God had sent me out to learn about how horrible it was to have it used on you, he urges me with mental signals and sensations that, perhaps, the best way to explain would be to show her. She’s a herd mate, part of me disapproves, while another takes that as a reason; she should know, it purrs, they should all know just how far they stand beneath you. A dark, fleeting smile races across my lips, my golden eyes hardening.

"Observe," I state, will collected, focus placed upon the Mutant, before it is unfurled with crackling speed. Upon the bullet of electrical force, my spirit seems to speed forth, rushing to the dark gray woman until we might collide, seeking to writhe through her being until I can grab hold of that which controls her.

Should the magic succeed in gaining control of her mind, I’ll ask her forelegs to bend, forcing her into a bow. What better way to display the truthfulness of my chosen title?


in every heart a hole
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@Wessex

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

Wessex Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Haruspex atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 3 HP: 68 | Buff: NOVICE
Astor
#7

I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

If she’d known that he took her request as a demand, and furthermore, immediately balked at it, she might come to the conclusion that Rikyn has a problem with authority. But she need not know the inner workings of his mind to do that; his powers reveal that for him.

As part of a well-trained team, it is necessary to learn your partners’ strengths and weaknesses. What she doesn’t expect is for him to use his power on a herdmate without informing them. Whatever his purpose for doing so, it probably will not accomplish what he hopes. Fear is a construct of the mind. Fear is distress about experiencing the unknown. Fear is being unprepared for death. All his actions encourage is distrust, and distrust in Wessex does not breed respect. If Rikyn cannot be relied upon, he is beneath her.

Observe, he states, but in the dark she cannot see his hardened eyes and twisted smile, and so is caught unawares. Something invisible seems to worm its way through her body - no more than a tickling sensation that crawls from her nose to her eyes to somewhere between her ears. Strong and sturdy legs begin to feel uneasy and weak, as if the muscle fibers there are exhausted and cannot support the weight of her body. That’s odd… she locks her knees in place and tries to place more of her weight on her hind legs, taking away the inclination to collapse forward. It is to no avail.

Bend, her legs scream.
Why? she questions.
Bend, they insist.
No, she retorts.
BEND

Sweat breaks out upon her mottled coat, as her teeth clench together and her muscles contract to the point of pain, in order to avoid the alien direction. In the end, without something to brace herself against or distract his power from its goal, one leg gives way, and as it does she manages to grunt out a harsh “Fuck you,” to the stallion.

Her stupid, stubborn pride will not allow the soldier to show weakness. If she is to be defeated, she will take the pain that goes with it as a lesson well-learned.


W E S S E X

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@Rikyn
-- please tag in all posts! --
-- magic and force allowed, no death or permanent damage --

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
#8
Яikyn
Duir regrets his decision to provoke the use of the magic once he watches it in use, in the shape I have bid it to take. Looking away with discomfort, his lips are a line, straight line, while mine curve upwards more and more, the more she struggles, and the further the angle in her knees bends regardless. Volterra had hidden the pain of fighting against it much better than she does, I note, likely due to the number of scars that had, even back then, smattered his black hide, and it’s strangely thrilling to know that it hurts, as much as it frightens.

Most had fallen victim to the magic’s whims easily, but for my strongest opponents, and that the self dubbed Mutant withstands it for as long as she does is impressive. I will have to try her on the field sometime! I think, while Duir rolls his eyes.

Fuck you, she says, from where she’s been forced to one, quivering post, and I laugh, despite the cruelty of my magical imposition, and the obvious anger it rouses in Wessex. Relinquishing the pressure of my will, feeling my being wind back towards my own body, becoming, once more, me, not the changeling unicorn before me. Prepared to dance away if she rebukes with violence (I would), my body seems otherwise relaxed – hopefully disguising how very mentally taxing it is to use my magic in the first place.

"Is that an offer?" I impishly goad, brows waggling over amusedly glimmering gold eyes.


in every heart a hole
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@Wessex

Wishlist - Plots

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

Wessex Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Haruspex atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.3 hh :: 3 HP: 68 | Buff: NOVICE
Astor
#9

I AM IRON AND I FORGE MYSELF

Oh sweet, sweet,relief! Her legs feel boneless, wobbly, like they are made of jellyfish tentacles, and not something made to support over several hundred pounds. Whoever this Volterra is, he is either a mighty titan indeed exemplifying everything admirable about the way of a warrior, or he has something to combat Rikyn’s powers. Perhaps both. But the lad should not be surprised that a three year old without any semblance of advantage cannot withstand an unfamiliar, surprise attack the same way an older, stronger male can.  

Wessex takes a slow circle to make sure everything works correctly, knowing full that in the morning (or post next sleep), they will be aching as if she’d run until she could go no further. He taunts her - no, teases - having no idea how grave an error he’s just made. More than angering, it is troubling. She’d met multiple herd members, and though some may not like her for refusing to touch someone she is unfamiliar with, and some are straight up kooky, none of them have ever struck her as the type to be needlessly cruel, as one not to be trusted. Not the way Rikyn does - has. Just now. She comes back around, and instead of attacking him, she continues her steady, slow pace until she is close enough as he will allow, and then stops and simply looks at him with a level, measuring, orange gaze.

When she finally does speak, it is with a flat tone, all emotion purposefully removed to the best of her ability. “Everything in my body tells me to try and beat the shit out of you. But you are a herdmate, so I shall give you the benefit of the doubt. Just. This. Once. I don’t know you - maybe you had a shitty foalhood or are simply the type who enjoys cruelty. Maybe you’ve never had to put your life in the hands of others and trust that they will save your ass. Maybe you’ve never had to work as a team - I don’t know. What I do know is that this herd is my team, and if you use your power on me, or another member, ever again, and I will not hesitate to do all that I can to either kill you, have you cast out, or both.”

She flashes a tight-lipped smile at him, though who knows if he can see it with only moonlight as his guide. Her word is her bond - he may not know it, but she is one hundred percent serious. “I also don’t believe in grudges. Useless waste of energy. So good night, Rikyn. I’ll see you around.” The next time they meet, he will have a clean slate. Her eight-horned, heavy head dips ever so slightly, and then the mottled gray mare turns and heads back into the trees from whence she came, slash marks still glowing a pale, pale green in the darkness.

W E S S E X

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@Rikyn
-- please tag in all posts! --
-- magic and force allowed, no death or permanent damage --

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
#10
Яikyn
Some people, I think to myself, watching her come up from the undertow of magical possession with a glare lacquering her face, her steps filled with the same imposition I’d just pressed upon her without having to move. Duir’s mind links with mine with a similar statement, but entirely unrelated to Wessex at all. You don’t need to talk to people.

The result, of course, is that my head only lifts and pulls back ever so slightly, to avoid my eye being gouged on one of her many horns, as she draws up to me. Slightly taller than I am, I notice only after she stalks away, not really the sort to give a shit how big or small you are, especially when it comes to kicking ass and taking names. The impulse to bite her is sudden, and swift, instead placed behind an ever growing smirk and devilishly glimmering gold eyes, the longer she meanders on (women, I tell you).

"Cast out?" I chuckle, wondering just who she thinks she is. For the simple reason of my absolute shit parents, I’m probably going to be harder to uproot than she thinks. Besides, if she’s a soldier, as her I’ll just punch you buddy attitude seems to suggest, the man who will come for me is none other than my blade brother; he’d asked me here, knowing who I am, and what I am. Even if he did chase me out, his heart breaking into shards which trailed through the snow behind him for the actions he was forced to take, where could he chase me? To the wild, from which I just come? "Kill me? I didn’t even hurt you."

Her swift farewell and departure from the conversation does little to diminish the horribly dark, cruel smile which marks my face, or the fact that I do not care if I have frightened her, or wounded her soul.

There comes a point when one goes swimming through the dark sea that their extremities become numb to the cold, and eventually, their core does too. I am wavering in the half way point, the place where, even though I knew exactly what it felt like to be powerless, as she just had been, I did not care for her suffering, believing that sensation to be a truth of existence, one that was exercised with or without my help. The world would march onward, stamping down hope and crushing the pillars which I had striven to raise, and I could keep raising more, in faith that at least one would remain standing, or I could lie down, becoming the river bed always swept beneath the flow of everything, always expecting the world to break around me, as it never would.

It is easier to wallow.

"Bye then," I tell her with a roll of my eyes, moving back into the valley as she does, in the opposite direction.

[ OOC: ;_; this is why you have no friends Rikyn
Rikyn: Jealous hoes ]
in every heart a hole
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@Wessex

Wishlist - Plots

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


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