the Rift


[OPEN] gospel for the fallen ones

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
#1

He couldn’t sleep – the void was too strong, swallowing him whole, and he saw too many facets, heard too many things, and dreamed too many ghastly contortions. His soldiers bled behind his eyes, his father lay dead along the valleys, the caverns, the mountains, and war bristled upon the borders, all fire and bloodshed, all mayhem and calamity. His enemies grew taller and broader while he grew smaller, weaker, plummeting his head down into the ground until his bones ached, then broke, until his skull shattered against the rocks, defeated, defined by the legions of promises left empty in the wake of his disastrous efforts. His friends disappeared, the boy with the blade and sutures, the girl with ash on her tongue, the youth twisted in ivory and gold, and finally Rikyn, drifting back into the woods, into the throng, into the heart of nothingness, and he was alone again, awaiting his desolate funeral. When he woke, limbs entangled restlessly, Enyo’s enigmatic, concerned gaze staring into his, he released a shudder, a breath, a coil of tired muscles awakened on the cold, cave floor. His sides heaved only once, a silent, primal scream, while Orsino looked on, those uncanny, wily golden slits narrowed to an imperceptible degree, because he’d seen everything between their bond, knew more than the newborn griffin, knew more than the boy and all his nightmares combined. Make it stop, the General wanted to say, but it was hushed before their connection could ensnare it completely, and he didn’t want to hear the I can’t, or I won’t.
 
So he waited a few more hours, tilting his frame so that when the first dawn’s light hovered over the horizon, he could make out the rolling hills of his home, the long, lingering valley, the untouched lake. The prince wanted to close his eyes at the promise of warmth, at the salutation of a new day, but the aches, the pains, the skirmishes brooding and brewing beyond his mind were too poignant, too brutal, and so they remained opened, staring down at the world beyond.
 
Erebos wandered out of its threshold as the shadows began to disappear, removing the stiffness from his shoulders, companions following suit, Enyo and her long legs bounding, Orsino slinking, walking, walking, walking to release the burden of his nocturnal trials, and only noting where he’d gone when the faint glow, when the dim shine of the charms stuck out from the corner of his eyes – into the middle of the summit trails and pathways, where the Reaper had been laid to rest. All at once his heart plummeted, disastrous and ruined, mired and torn, eyes lingering upon the ground to try and ward off the slide of tears, but then Enyo glided towards the tomb, gangly, ignorant, unsure, and pulled there all the same. He watched in silence as she flitted her way, toying with the gesture of her wings and the inky, Stygian length of her plumage, until she stood directly in front of the catacomb, clicking her beak towards the charms nestled together on the overhanging branches, at the bestial sire resting for eternity inside its confines. The prince swallowed down the tears again, and Orsino followed after her, while Erebos stood stock still, not daring to voice what they were doing or why, if it was all taunts and ruses and play, if they didn’t care about the beast stored within those walls and if they could just leave -
 
But he soon found himself there too, staring at the rock and rubble, kneeling down, praying, regarding, giving forth all his boldness, all his audacity, wishing and hoping and craving for something that couldn’t come true. “Father,” he whispered, proffering deliverance, oaths, love, and benediction all by the slide of his tongue, and he yearned to grant so much more to the shadows, to the fallen King, to the country, to the empire, but it remained there, sizzling along his lips, fighting over the unknown. “I miss you,” he said next, before his heart bled dry, and then all the other words came flying out, all the chronicles, all the stories. “This is Enyo,” he started, touching the griffon’s soft feathers, listening to her hearty chirps, glorifying in the entity of her existence, in the way they’d squandered the kitsunes, before another subject drowned him. “Kisamoa isn’t who we thought he was, and I don’t know how we’re going to defeat him…” (If we can), he shuddered again, knowing full well Deimos would’ve had a solution, would’ve understood how to engage another demon. More tales burned through him (“Rikyn has come home,”) and he smiled, not fake, not held in pretense, wishing for the sire to simply know about all the happenings, all the comings and goings, all the events. “Tiamat and Aisling have become our Queens,” and he thought the Reaper would’ve enjoyed the notion, even if they didn’t have a single, vile bone in their bodies. Eventually he grew silent again, grinning at the rock, before lowering his head on the dirt, on the ground before the chamber, eyes closing, listening to the wind, to the rapacious chill, to the earth moving beyond his means and measures.
 
Then, perhaps by grief, by assurance, or by mere fatigue, sleep overtook him again – and the companions, both young and wily, stood guard while their General remembered, just briefly, what it was like to be whole.

[Anyone can join. <3]
Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

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Cassius Posts: 46
Aurora Basin Haurspex atk: 3.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.0h :: 4 [Birdsong] HP: 64 | Buff: NOVICE
mar
#2

»› C A S S I U S ‹«


Misplaced was the gray, in the thick of bodies that surrounded him in the Basin. Mass specters that grew in the distance, so physically near – and consequently miles and years away from his wandering honeyed eyes. A slave has unraveled his shackles, and yet, still, the world overhangs above him and beyond him, preventing his spirit from tasting the tranquility of a land filled with milk and honey. A promised land only dreamt of, and barely believable. Out of reach and pleasant hopes awarded to those who only sought to drink in its kind mystery, escaping misery with foolish wanting.

But here he was, unbound by chains or the scrupulous eyes of the sentries set on guard. No wavering whip that cracks into the air, or the trembling bodies of friends – lives, brimming full of potential – slowly fall apart in every way imaginable. Heroes died unsung, and cowards – like he – lived to sing and breathe another day.

It always started by seizing his chest first. The toxic thoughts of mind and memory congeal, and spread their poison with a familiar taste. And the only thing that prevents him from loosing air, from loosing his mind are a few simple words; just keep breathing. Just keep breathing. Always breathing. From a crawl and push of air, to the rustle of leaves or the hollow, heavy droll of the mountains singing, remind Cassius he is quite alive. Pushing back their faces, their voices that haunt his dreams and the smells and the tears that drive the poison further into his veins.

Until he finds himself alone and purposeless in the valley of his new home, aimless amidst the fold just as the sun peaks the crests. With a startled awareness, one that brightens as the day progresses, he shakes off the memories that have led him to this foreign place. Not without the toll of a sleepless night, slowing the stallion’s steps and fog his tumbling mind. He has no use for it the further it swirls – so as it tumbles without any true direction he wanders just the same. Unsettled and hollowed out by gleaming, nightmarish eyes that wait for him in the forests– or the cracked and dried lips that anticipate every drip of water that pools from elevated slopes, and feed the verdant grasses below his hooves.

These apparitions have somehow led him closer to the warrior-prince. Hues of black ink, and cool indigo asunder on the floor. This place is holy, perhaps, and trespassers like himself – a vagrant, an ignorant child – finds himself misplaced and embarrassed to see the General just as so. Despite the nobility that imbeds itself within his dark crown, and inhabits the bone and sinew that provide rest, for one who has been relentless, foreboding, hard-working in their lands.

There are creatures ahead that block the path to the King’s tomb. And despite their presence, the gray tries to spy the swell of the warrior-prince’s chest for signs of air. As Cassius’ body, tensing, coiling for fear and reluctance, his mind is settled by the simple assessment of the stallion’s well being. He has no idea how his presence might effect the curious things that lurk the grounds. And saves him space between them and their monarch.

But before he can relinquish his gaze from their faces, as his tail twitches and sways, he notices the jostling charms that break between his thoughts of caution. Attached to a branch, an acorn – and there beside it – blue, blue as the rain or deep oceans, blue as the sky that lays bear today with the subtle stroke of sunshine.



@Erebos

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
#3

The dreams were vivid still, depictions of reality, forced behind the brilliance of his blue stare, so all he saw were transgressions brought to life again and again. The Sun God yelled and told him to look forward, fire and brimstone, flailing embers and coal, and the boy could only glance behind him, at his father, at his mother, at his sister, at the countless other souls left discarded, like rubble, like ruin. Perhaps he’d never been capable of pondering over the wiles of the future, too immersed in the slates of the past and the notions, sentiments, and events he could never change or alter (but wanted to – wanted to see them over and over; the blistering flares of hope, the stumbling bouts of triumph, the way youth sputtered and glimmered without remorse). Maybe he’d never make it beyond the threshold of yesterdays, stuck and mired and rooted in the sentiments of vengeance and annihilation, the moments he’d left scattered across the soil, the bloodshed he hoped to kindle, the action he longed to transpire. No matter how much he pleaded, begged, or yearned for, those instances, those occasions, were all gone – fleeting patchworks of a life unfulfilled, of destinies scorned and scorched, of potency left to wither and fade. He sobbed in his fantasies, wept upon the grounds of his father’s final breath, dove into the shadows where he’d last seen Huyana as she embarked on her journey into the abyss, screamed for his sister, covered in flowers. But then it everything seemed to twist back upon itself, and he saw bright, vivid colors, demons dressed in ivory and daggers, ancestors dancing across beaches and shoreline, his head resting on dunes and rocks, a moonlit tide beneath the gathering dusk, a world he’d never seen, a world he’d never been born into. He tried to reach for it, cranium rising from the sand, towards the wayfaring strangers sliding amidst the waves, crying out for them, waiting for their skulls to twist and turn towards him, the prince, the General, but then everything seemed to fade and the light from the morning stretched across his skin. The empire was just as cold, just as chilling, as when he’d last left it – but his eyelids stayed shut, tight, locked together so he didn’t have to face the day just yet.
 
He heard voices though, cluttered together, sounds and nuances and bolder sentiments collected amidst his mind – his companions, beaks clicking, tails puffing, someone coming floating in his skull, sharper, clearer, trying to alarm him before the beast made an appearance. For a few seconds though, he just didn’t care – let them find him, wilted before his sire’s grave and tomb, fading away like the rest of their world, he was allowed to grieve, he was allowed to mourn – but then the hoof beats ricocheted, reverberated along the stone, and Orsino bristled, sable hairs rising, and Enyo came to stand beside his crown.
 
Erebos whipped his head up as soon as the noises ceased, wondering who stood guard along the summit range now, who’d been witness to another beast falling apart, but as his sharpened stare took in the argent stag, he found he had no name to this particular face. He’d been here and there, a part of the background, a piece of the granite, and the youth should’ve been ashamed for not having the beast’s title, but he pretended, set up his pretenses like so many times before, serenaded in amiability: “Morning,” sliding a cheek down his foreleg to take away the remnants of tears, always in masquerade, tying the strings of his guise together because it was all he had left here, beneath the glowing and rain-borne charms, lost, lost, lost. He didn’t get up though, feigning a yawn, as if he’d just fallen there, taken a nap after a round of nocturnal patrols, instead of trying to ensure his soul didn’t splinter apart, irreverent gaze fixated back upon the stranger. “I’m Erebos,” he noted, and then all three (the fox, the griffin, and the General – melded and folded and sculpted together in accord and calamity) gazed at the Disciple, wondering when another blow was to come screeching at their heads, if he didn’t trust in the youth either, if the fortifications lodged across his heart had already been broken long ago. His voice didn’t quiver, didn’t shake; held all the boldness, all the audacity he’d once fostered between tides of glory and anguish. “What brings you up here?”


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

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@Cassius

Cassius Posts: 46
Aurora Basin Haurspex atk: 3.5 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 16.0h :: 4 [Birdsong] HP: 64 | Buff: NOVICE
mar
#4

»› C A S S I U S ‹«


The creatures that pull away from their posts make to barely shift the stallion’s head. He has found his eyes locked on the charms, wondering how long they will flounder along the branch’s limb. Who and how many of them would know their significance – if time would decay them, just as it did the bodies that they belonged to.

Cassius’ response is slowed, and his eyes don’t quite make it to Erebos’ heavy gaze. Found out, no longer the ghost that searches these lands for things he can’t find in his soul. And inevitably they have crashed, and splintered upon interaction. Who knows the array, or patterns of space dust and cosmic air might align during this time. In any case, he can’t avoid the conscious stallion, and turns his ivory blotted face to regard the General. Nodding to, with pressed lips that thin and battle over the words that should spring forwards. “Morning.” Is his airy tune, filled by a natural ease that sounds far too foreign in this exact moment. But the words and the voice projects far beyond him, no longer waved away into oblivion.

With a few blinks, the student, the Disciple without a master sets his gaze along the scenery. How far gone had he been, before realizing where he’d arrived? Enough to loose track of the stones and concrete face of the cave entrance, no longer open – breathing, and accessible. The stallion’s gaze follows the rock’s gnarled surfaces, down, and further along the mountain walls that bask these valley sides.

When the stallion speaks again, Cassius finally prompts his focus to reel in. And where one pair of eyes settle upon him, he finds three others – gleaming in the light. “I can’t say.” The pause was brief, but it served its purpose as he debated honesty over deceit. “I didn’t know him.”

In most cases, the stallion would have rarely interacted so closely to royalty. To even find one’s self so close in proximity with those of the higher powers, inured recklessness and instilled all cautions. One wrong twitch, or harried whispered proved fatal. It was hard for Cassius to discern the circumstances, which exempt him from these precautions. “I was hoping someone could enlighten me.”

And yet he pressed inwards, softly, gently, but as bright as candle light. Holding his breath, and preparing himself for what might appear as an intrusive presence. So that he may blow the light out, before it grew too strong and too painful to look at.

“Cassius, resident Disciple.”

He had the benefit of shielding his emotions. It came with the shackles. And yet he’d made the gamble of inviting the other stallion to share, to explore such deep and wounded parts. If the herd was to become his family, however, he would have to take these risks and chances regardless. To expand his limits and tackle his weaknesses, and sacrifice something worthwhile, whole, untainted and useful for the bodies that hummed and went about their day. When it all came down to it, as their lives trickled away with each passing day, every encounter mattered. Just a little, as time inevitably slipped by. Somewhere in this web that connected the Basin people, their history followed with them – shaped them who they were.

If not by blood, then perhaps by knowledge and understanding, Cassius might begin to cherish and nurture those things left unsaid.



@Erebos

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
#5

The heavy, heady silence tied him up in knots, strangled him, choked him, grated against his nerves, his senses, until he simply pulled away from the silver Disciple’s presence, shifting his skull to pierce the slate in front of him, to whittle down the tomb bearing the fallen King of the North. When none of the marble or stone flickered off, splintered, fractured, he was forced to listen to the renewed words of the stranger, paying no mind to Orsino’s ferocious, arched brow, or Enyo’s abundant curiosity (inching just a little closer to the other stag, pondering over his appearance, his strength, his fortitude), the subtle croon of morning, and then the gleam of the stranger’s true purpose - I didn’t know him.
 
If Erebos was to be blunt and honest, very few had actually known the Reaper. Deimos had been a multitude of things – flawed, acerbic, withdrawn, nonchalant, a living, wandering blade, meant to smother, meant to suffocate, meant to destroy the twisted legions in front of him. He’d been carnage and annihilation in breath, in blood, in muscle and sinew, he’d been bold and resolute, he’d been forbidding and menacing, but lord, he’d always been kind and compassionate, a column of eroding impassivity. The world had chosen to mock him for his lack of conversation, for his inability to carry on fragments of nonsense, but he’d been more, so much more, than the ignorant fools who could never see past the inscrutable gaze. The boy had only been born after his sire had been made sovereign, had fixed that tilting crown across his skull, but the beast had tried to be good to his comrades, to his allies, forced into diplomacy, into politics, instead of the fire, the fury, and the Tartarean guile he’d always held. He’d bled for them, stole for them, reaped for them, smiled when they weren’t looking, took to the shadows, stained carnivore resplendence across the pages of history – Huyana had always given him ample reverence, love, and comprehension through her stories, her tales, of the deadly, lethal monarch. Erebos had believed every one of them, had seen the forsaken man, had cherished and beloved him for each moment of each day, had wanted to be just like him (you will be better, Deimos had said, their last, spoken words to each other, and the prince knew he couldn’t be). So it was odd, peculiar, to the boy to think that one day no one would know of his exploits, of his deeds, of his conducts, that the Reaper would fall to the leagues of the past with not so much as a glance – one of the cretins, one of the fiends, who’d helped to shape this obstinate, tenacious land.
 
A part of him wanted to keep the knowledge for himself – mercenary and grasping, greedy and conniving, avaricious for the few glowing embers his sire had left behind – and he yearned for him to be back, to be living, to be there so he wouldn’t have to tell this stranger anything and everything. Erebos choked back a disgraceful, bestial reply, swallowing down the acerbic response because he understood curiosity and inquiry, he’d known what it was like to face the damned world and wonder about it – but the inquiry, the nuance, still scorched his flesh. He rose then, shook off the bits of dust and granule, still wishing to kneel, to pray, to offer reverence to a renounced rapier; steady, valorous stare plucking away the animosity, the anger, the rawness away from his eyes, focusing them back upon Cassius, the scholar. Had the argent beast pressed too firmly, had he been rapacious and acquisitive, daring, voracious, or self-indulgent, Erebos would have hissed, growled, and threatened him away, leaving his soul to rot in further sorrow, in more grief, tied together and gnarled by anguish. The softness of the statements curled and coiled into his entity, however, calmed the seams of sin and ferocity, and the youth could breathe into reality, into flames, without emblazoning both of them. The General didn’t possess the memory of Deimos then, extending it outwards, into the air, into the soil, for if the Reaper were ever forgotten, lost to time, to space, to seasons and cycles, the scion wouldn’t be able to forgive himself. Acceptance and compliance shifted, regarded in the coolness of his muscles, in the tangible claws of his melancholy. “What do you want to know?”

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

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@Cassius


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