the Rift


[PRIVATE] Should have brought flowers

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#1

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

She's just beginning to understand the history of this place. It's more than Beloved's cackles could really teach her, whispered warnings given in riddles. But she'd been given places now, places that like all the darkest secrets are paraded like a beacon of hope. Hide the dark parts and it seems alright. It makes her wonder how different those here are from her old home. They wore their darkness on their sleeve. They were proud of the heart that Atrox tore from his chest, that still beat in the dirt beneath their feet. They were proud of the forever burning tree, of the blood it required to tell the future. They were proud of every dark, twisted thing that came their way.

Act like you own the place.

The Chamber was feared. Feared enough to start a war over nothing. One that left both sides bloodied and battered, yes, but it left everyone afraid still. 5 nations could not defeat the two that had banded together. They were something to remember. Her mother's legacy would not be easily forgotten, her name still the stuff of nightmares. Weaver is not ashamed of the things her mother has done or of the monster stories painted her father to be. She never met him, but she imagines she would have liked him. Liked to watch the way disease took hold of the trees from the inside out, watched it all die in pain.

She starts at the tomb. The stories don't scare her away. The world has changed, and they can all be damned if they think they can take her wings. Little trick of dying, she comes back right as rain. They would have to take her wings again and again and again. But she doesn't fear that from Tia or even Rikyn, who still eyes her wings with suspicion. She doesn't seek knowledge because she's looking for a reason to leave. No, she seeks understanding. This is her home know, and she'd like to know the good bad and the ugly. There's usually a lot to be said for the bad and the ugly.

She wants to know what, and who, she fights for. Wants to know why she covers her hide in yet more scars for them. Her wounds from her recent battles have not yet healed. Most are small, though there's a few lovely gashes. Three run along her rump, jagged and raw, from Oizys' horns. She leaves them that way, letting the skin heal in an ugly mess, not minding the scars. Her hair would likely grow back gray in all those places, till one day she just stopped being black all together, instead a mass of scars. She wants to know the stories of those she stops being pretty for.

Hell, who's she kidding, she'll still be pretty even if she's gray and wrinkled.

She's not sure what she expects to find here. Answers written in the dirt, maybe. But no, not really. She simply wants to be at the place because it is important, for what she's beginning to understand is more than one reason. She just doesn't know all the reasons. Doesn't know every side. Maybe she could die briefly and find him, ask her questions, and then come back with the knowledge she needs. But instead she stands here, staring at the tomb of a man she didn't know, thinking probably she should have brought flowers.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos <3

Please tag in all posts
Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
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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 prince stirred amidst his restlessness, stared out against the backdrop of the summer sky, feeling mutinous, feeling barbaric, feeling irreverent and hollow. Bits and pieces of him had been chiseled away into corrupted shades of immorality, engulfed and swallowed by the splendor of decadence, matching tarnished, minatory efforts, until his dreams became nightmares, splashed against his valor, his reasoning, his once gallant heart with ominous intentions. He awakened from the roll of heinous ambitions with a gasp, with a soulless, incredulous beat of his soul, and set his predacious gaze on the horizon, down into the engulfing valley, determined to find something else to set his sights on (because in the corner of his eyes there was destruction and malevolence, a trial by fire, a treacherous, dangerous devilry, too much speciousness locked into the unrelenting force of his persistence, buried then alive again, whole, a contemplation of agony, strife, and potency – venom, venom, venom lodged in his core). There were beasts he wanted to watch crumble, and if he closed his gaze long enough, they burned there, feverish and dark, and he’d open them again to wonder just what he wanted in life now, besides all the things from the past he’d never be able to have again.
 
So he wandered to his father, another King of destruction, a Lord of extermination, once pressing his devouring essence into the earth and intimidating the whole of the empire with merely existing, and while the youth had once wondered what it was like, now he only yearned to see him one last time, alive, whole, breathing ferocity, sculpting barbarity. But like everything else, Erebos had allowed that time to waste away, believing he had all the hours in the world – could scorch when he felt like it, could wield a knife into an enemy when the moment came – and he’d never plunged quite far enough, had never driven straight into an opponent’s heart, had never tasted the demonic blend of vengeance he’d craved for so long. Everything fell apart in his grasp. Everyone faltered or flickered away. No matter what he managed to do, something severed, something snapped, something gave because his strength wasn’t enough.
 
Orsino growled something in his ear, and the General ignored it, pushing the foul message aside, for he’d already heard it all – lowering his head against the tainted threads of the shadows, blending into their haunted hallows until he found the trail he was looking for. He was minatory allure and maneuvering pieces of a potent shell, waiting for the right moment, the right day, the right occasion, to finally strike, uncertain how to get anywhere else – gathering his armies for patrols, narrowing his gaze to stare at the world, glancing past tree lines and needles for the enemies he’d sworn to destroy. He almost thought to ask his sire, brush all the inquiries against the stone, see what was conjured through silence and death, but the murmurs choked across his throat, spread through his tongue like a noose, and no noise came out of him – all predacious, wolfish silence, all brooding, brewing anguish as he came to the top of the rise –
 
And there was Weaver, standing before the tomb.
 
Enyo made some sort of hissing, chirping sound, amused by the familiar wings of the Corporal, but the youth simply stood there for a spell, frozen amidst indecision. A part of him merely wanted to be alone – his evenings and days spent by his father’s side had always been for him, because then he could cry, he could weep, he could sob, and the rest of the Basin couldn’t see what a mess he’d become (yet, then again, most had seen him utterly fall apart on Deimos’ cold, still frame, so perhaps they’d known all along that he was nothing). Weaver always seemed to throw her thorns his way too, maybe she saw how much he lacked, how pathetic he was despite every measure and attempt he made to be brazen, to be bold, to be better; and he simply didn’t want to have another barb harpooned into his side today. Politeness won over though, a simple, curt nod, a tightening of his jaw, as he looked past her and to the charms still remaining, tied and knotted over the heavy rocks, rain and death, glowing and radiant. “Weaver,” he proffered, and even just the form of her name was a struggle across his lips, and whatever thin, charismatic smile he’d tried to conjure fell flat, lifeless, forbidding. “What brings you here?” The prince (still just a dumb, stupid boy) managed to bring his stare back to her, arching a brow in curiosity – pondering what sort of rapier she’d launch at him next, and if he’d be able to catch it or just let it sink into his bones.

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#3

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

There is an unusual stillness about her as Erebos breaks the silence, an answer in the gaping void of those. It’s something that happens to her now and again, when she’s been beaten and bruised and let herself gets lost on the battlefield. Or, in this case, when the occasion calls for it. She is not entirely what Erebos thinks of her, all barbs with no flowers. She has her moments, has the ability to be respectful of the fact she’d crashed into someone else’s life. Family, even. Into something private and untouchable, though to the be fair, at least she’d been here first.

Not that she didn’t have barbs, even in her stillness. They weren’t designed to hurt, they were designed to open, to slice like the tip of a horn in that way that draws just enough blood to remind you you are alive. She speaks the truth, and the truth is often thorns. But it’s the truth. It’s better than pretty, silken lies. “Curiosity,” she says simply. Raven perks his head, looking in Enyo’s direction at the strange sound she makes. He replies with something of a quiet, hesitant call, not entirely sure if the griffon intended to be friendly.

“He was quite the legend, I gather. I suppose I hoped to find answers in stones,” she continues, not caring if that seemed odd. After all, as Beloved had noticed, she was the girl touched by Death, come to the Basin right after their Reaper died. Coincidence? Probably. But it sounds pretty good. But she is curious to know more of the famed Reaper, to know more of Erebos. To understand the General that she sees only in one light. To understand too more of the stories Rikyn had told her, the shadowed past of the Basin. Not that she would be mentioning that piece of Erebos.

Yes, she has her opinions as he surely has his, but she’s no fool. Everyone is more than meets the eye, so what can’t she see? Maybe The Reaper is the answer to that, or some clue to what makes her General tick. Because she’s not sure he will ever simply tell her everything that goes on in that thick skull of his. What reason does he have to tell her? It’s not like she’s proved herself worth of such information. And for now, she asks no questions, but there are flowers. Every rose has its thorns, right? Just with her, ever thorn has a few roses. “Do you want to be alone?”

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos

Please tag in all posts
Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
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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
#4

Erebos waited for the inevitable strike, the lunging harpoon, the dart, the scythe that would come swinging from her words; watched as she grew still, as he became just another taut figure in the melancholy, in the anguish pulsing through him. He seethed in the quiet, jaw tightening, teeth clenching, stare taken to rest on stones and rubble, remembering the moments he’d spent rolling the boulder in place, sealing his father behind the pieces of the mountain. He swallowed the bile clinging to his throat, the sorrow building behind his eyes, attempted to form a barrier, a wall, between his emotions and the outside world – untouchable, unreachable, one more intangible form amidst the pillars and the rocks. But his father had always been that way and his son had not; incapable of true nonchalance, of casual indifference, of a stoic disregard for emotions, for ties, for tethers, and he wanted to howl, bludgeon, snap, and snarl when Weaver only spoke of curiosity, as if the Reaper was now only the stuff of intrigue. The newcomers and strangers had never seen him patrol, had never seen him guard, had never seen him annihilate an enemy or chase down an opponent, run like a blade, like a sword, like a shield – to them, he was one more particle of dust, a name without a face, a ghost of the peaks, of the valleys, with naught to offer them but stories, legends, and chronicles of yesteryear. They’d never had to fight tooth and nail for the ice, for the snow, for the bits and pieces of rime; they’d never had to lead their empire to another world to remain safe, protected, beneath catacombs and sepulchers, they’d never had to watch this empire flicker apart again and again and again, try to breathe life from death, from desecration, and from ruin. They had arrived just as he’d ended; and the mere notion that Deimos the Reaper was nothing to them made his insides turn, made his soul ache, made his heart crack, spark; utterly incensed, enraged, twisted and turned from the bouts of contempt and the measures of agony. He had to look away from her, from the stones, from the tomb, and into the sky, off along the horizon, down the cliffs, because he was slowly flickering, chipping, apart, splintering into a thousand different directions, frenetic and irritated, exasperated, clinging to pretenses. “Stones won’t tell you anything,” he muttered, his lips muffled by their thin smile, by the weight of bitterness, of rancor, settling across his brow; and he tried, tried to find the goodness, the valor, in the harshness of his haze, and then he only hung his head and stared at the kingdom beyond – wondering when he’d be forgotten too, another token fragment of dust and ash.
 
Was this how it was always going to be? He’d wander along the trails, the path, beaten down by his constant maneuvering, hoping to pay his respects, and there’d be someone else in the wind, gazing at the ruin and wondering about the past? Would they shrug at the name of Deimos – entirely unconcerned by the legend behind the man? Would they fail to recognize a fallen beast that had helped to build this land? Would they understand naught at all, the bloody violence, the rampaging tomes, they’d stumbled upon, and give way to another interest, completely, utterly ignorant? And was it his job to ensure this didn’t happen, to tell them about the days of power, when he’d been young and stupid and ridiculous, staring at his father and never wondering when it’d all end? Do you want to be alone? She’d asked, he could hear it spiraling through his senses, along the ends of Enyo’s throaty call to Raven, blistering on Orsino’s vague, uncanny silence. Yes, he wanted to say, he wanted to clamor, he wanted to shout, he wanted to be left alone to cry, to weep, to sob at his father’s tomb because he didn’t know what else to do in his life.
 
“No,” he said instead, but it was quiet, hushed, cool, and only thereafter did he finally turn his head to look at her, all piercing shades, all glimpses of dissolution, rebellion, and revolution. It was a lie and it was a truth, and he had nothing else to add but acid, but savagery, but fiendish outlooks and a dim future: the youth, the little scion, who only wanted his father back. His voice regains its strength, its princely demeanor, but his eyes were hardened, his composure rattled. “What do you want to know?” (stuck on repeat; already chiseled once before to another intrigued Disciple, and it was as if she'd drawn a knife across his chest).

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#5

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

There is so much she hadn’t seen, so much she hadn’t heard, the wounds still too raw to rip the bandaid off and tell her more than a name. So yes, she speaks of curiosity because Deimos seems like someone worth knowing, and she cannot hope to meet him. Not unless she travels back to the underworld and tries to find him, but she’s not sure Death’s that kind. She doesn’t get to stay and hang around when she dies. She just pops on in, says hello, and is kicked back out to the land of the living. And she’s not arguing, because he lets her come and go, and that’s more than most.

But it’s something that even a newbie like her wants to know the man behind the stones, beneath the rubble. It’s something that his legend carries at all. Most are buried and forgotten, their names and faces and stories left to the moths and the dust bunnies. If he was nothing, she would not be here. If his memory was worthless, she would not be curious. Erebos finds rocks where there is gold, daggers where there are flowers.  

He mutters a response, and maybe she takes it the wrong way, but her eyes harden and she sighs. “Why do you hate me?” she spits in his direction, tired of whatever keeps his lips in a damn thin line, tired of his bristling at nothing. Because she has done nothing, because she walks on eggshells around him, because she cannot fathom what he’s feeling right now. For many reasons, but the foremost being she is simply not capable. Her mind and heart don’t work that way. One day, her mother will die. But she’s already left Straia behind anyway. Weaver won’t be there to mourn her mother. No one will.

Already, her mother’s name was probably just a tall tale. Atrox’s name was forgotten, though his heart quite literally beat in the ground beneath the feet of generations. Starlace and Infection were hazy memories at best, their whole blood alliance across four kingdoms erased by time. That is what happens. It’s not her fault she wasn’t here to meet The Reaper, but anyone called The Reaper was someone she wanted to meet.

It should be enough that she’s here. It should be enough that she’s trying.

She is never enough.

She softens only slightly when he offers to tell her, but she can’t let it go. Can’t let his tight lips and hard eyes follow her everywhere. But they do. The hurt behind them when she’d asked should I trust you in this moment? The ice behind them now. Why does she care? What does she care if this boy she hardly knows likes her? Since when does she care if anyone likes her? But she cares now. She cares about this place, about it’s residents, about being worth something to them and Helovia. Not just something to herself, which is new too for her.

“I want to know him, if you can believe that.” Her words are still encased in ice, but she tries her best to soften the edges so they don’t cut. She tries to be everything she is not. “But I was too late for that privilege. So instead, all I can ask to know if what made him so special? What made him so special to you?” Because she is tired of walking on eggshells. Because she’s never been good at it anyway.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos ....i don't know what happened

Please tag in all posts
Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
Image by AmoretteRose

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

The prince expected a lot of things to come from her mouth (the hard edges, the lines of distrust, the brewing of something they’d yet to share – anger? Wrath? Contempt?), but the notion she spewed and spit upon him was so perplexing to the boy that he raised his head from staring at the stone floor, eyes widened, bewildered. “What are you talking about?” It knocked him off his embittered pinnacle, his grieving, anguished state, so much so that he was less rock, rubble, and ruin now, a flicker of the being he was before, when the world hadn’t been so savage and vicious, when he hadn’t lost his sire, when he hadn’t lost his mother, when his dreams had been real, tangible things, not ghosts, not phantoms, not wraiths etched in vengeance. “I don’t hate you.” His brow arched, his mind whirled, desperate to seek and distort the inclinations of where she’d even begun to think in such a way, what actions he’d taken to incur her rancor – but anything he’d ever done had been in reaction to her remarks (to her should I trust you? like he wasn’t worth being in command of them, like he’d turn his back on their hides and flee the scene, like he was a piece and pile of mercenary flesh). He’d blanched and bristled, but never hated - such vile contortions were reserved for his enemies, for his opponents, for the disastrous beasts who’d scarred, blemished, and murdered his friends. It would take a lot more than her barbs to ensure he loathed and abhorred her presence – sometimes he dreaded it though, because he had more than enough wounds for one day, and she always managed to lance him, to harpoon him, where he least expected it. He’d always been a beast built on faith, on oaths, on promises, and maybe she couldn’t see it in his frame, in his essence, in his soul, but it still hurt when she didn’t believe in him. It still hurt when the rest of the realm followed. It still hurt when everywhere he looked, the Reaper was nowhere to be found, because he was gone, gone, gone and there was nothing he could do about it. He tilted his head then, lost in their strange, misaligning circumstances, where they’d turned away from one another and proceeded down such alternating routes. “I thought you hated me.”
 
Then she softened slightly, and he didn’t know what to do but listen. She picked her words carefully, perhaps understanding how wounded he was now, how ridiculously stupid he was, how he carried the shards of himself and his family wherever he went, how some of the only things he had left were contained and blocked by stone and tombs. “It depends on who you ask,” he stated at first, careful, because his father had been a mystifying character, hellbent on destruction and chaos, arching, annihilating, driven to demolition and abhorrence, always intending to mutilate those who dared to do the same to his herd. No matter the flaws, no matter the defects, no matter the nonchalant features or the inability to hold many conversations, Erebos had cherished each and every moment with his father – had loved, loved, and loved. “To some, he was cold and distant. To others, he was the definition of power and destruction. With one touch, he could kill. He protected and defended this herd until his dying day. He was never afraid. He didn’t know how to make friends.” On the last note, he gave a half-hearted laugh, remembering the days where the boy had asked his sire to try, but the Reaper had always been too immersed in the shadows, striving to find that intricate balance of indifference and compassion. He’d made an impact though, if his funeral had been any indication; but always too little, too late – the realm, the empire, never told him how much he’d been worth until he couldn’t hear them anymore. The prince blinked away the shards of tears threatening to drown him behind his eyes, lowered his head, and stared at the catacomb, the glowing charm, the raindrop sliding down the other, as she uttered her final question. “He was my father – he was everything to me.” The rancor washed away with the coming of grief, allowed, permitted to settle into the dark despair, the ghosts along the edges of his gaze, surrendering his convictions from the depths of his soul. The words were quiet, but there, resounding across the rocks and ruins. He didn’t know why he told her all of this – but it was a serene sort of release, lighter than cruelty, than ferocity, than the odd imbalances and misunderstandings between the two of them. “He taught me how to be brave. He scolded me for being idiotic. He showed me to never, ever, give in.” And somehow, that’d always been enough, until he was gone, and Erebos was naught without him.

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#7

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

She can’t help but laugh at his reply, the beautiful sound of icicles falling, shattering on the ground. Her eyes twinkle, her lips twisting into that Cheshire grin. Once her mother’s, now hers. And one Erebos often gives as well, when he wears his princely mask. He doesn’t know what she sees in him, but she sees her brother in so many ways. In looks, minus the horn. In name, just change the s to an r. In temperament and disciplines, both children of warrior Kings. “Why? Because I once asked if I should trust you, in that moment?” she asks, still laughing, letting the sound of the laugh fill the space between them, letting its echo quiet before she continues.

“Think about it, Erebos.” She picks his name over his title, trying to sound like a friend and not like she’s just chiding him. Though she is chiding him, in the way a little sister chides and goads her big brother. Because she cannot help but see Erebor. Cannot help but see before her a family she’d left behind, a chance to make something right where she’d left so many wrongs.

Leaving was what she needed to do, she knows. Erebor had gone back to fight alongside their old herd mates as their land was flipped on its head. Her twin little brothers had up and disappeared into new lives of their own. She was the last to leave, but she went the farthest, and she’d never go back. There’s a small part of her that still feels like it was wrong, but she’s always lived for herself. She would never stand over her mother’s grave and mourn her loss. Not just because she’d never see her mother’s grave (there would be no real grave), but because she just isn’t that type. And her mother never would have wanted that anyway.

Her mother would want the world for Weaver, and she was damn well working on that.

Her voice is softer now, trying to explain in a way that makes sense. “It’s what Kaos did to you all. Pretended to be something he was not, and tricked how many in Helovia? It would be a reminder lesson if you turned on your own army just long enough to prove a point. It doesn’t make you less trustworthy to teach us, you know.” But Erebos is honorable and dedicated and incapable of seeing the world as something likely to stab you in the back. He’s the fighter that won’t kill you without a weapon in your hand, who would give you the chance to stand before slitting your throat. Everyone else just sneaks up in the dark and doesn’t let you see them coming.

Weaver’s been to hell and back, literally and figuratively. She has wandered the world and seen the way so many live. And she knows they are not like him. Few are, anyway. Her brother had been like him, but even Erebor knew deceit. How could he not, with their mother? Erebos, she suspects, has lived his entire life within the walls of the Basin. It is a very safe, small place, all things considered. But her features remain soft and she keeps quiet and still as he talks, listening as a son rattles off what everyone else thought of his father, and then what he thought.

She remains silent for a moment, looking back to the stone and letting the silence stretch between them. She would have liked The Reaper. They would have been friends. “He should have met my mother. I think they might have torn the world apart together,” she says quietly, amber eyes turning back to his blue ones, a soft smile on her lips. Not happiness, not mischief, just her attempt at understanding. She would never mourn her mother, but on some level, perhaps she can understand. She’d never even met her father – the man couldn’t be bothered to come meet his daughter. She knew him only from the stories she was told. “And if he saw you now, do you think he’d see the man he raised you to be?” Again, her voice stays soft, though the question is a dagger without the sheath removed. She can be kinder, but she is never kind. There’s no room in the world for band aids. Rip them off and deal with the wounds underneath.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos

Please tag in all posts
Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
Image by AmoretteRose

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

He could be deceitful. He could be surreptitious. He’d lied to their faces more than once, sometimes about mundane things (he was fine, sketching a princely smile behind the cracked walls of his nefarious heart), sometimes about where he’d been, what he promised to do – but none of it had been malicious, brutal, or asinine. He’d played tricks as a child, wound mischief through his grins, through his eyes, laughed and chuckled and giggled with such tenacious exuberance, wild and carefree, a blip of savagery running along his courageous heart, a blend of his father and mother, an intertwining of innocence and devilry – and here, Weaver mocked him as if he’d been stuck amidst this world forever, as if he hadn’t seen the outer realms. The General felt like laughing at her then, all her chiding, all her lectures, wanted to spew out some vitriol, some venom, because he was frustrated, vexed, and irritated by the way they all seemed eager to paint him (foolish, naïve, stupid), when he’d watched his friends die, when he’d come upon them beaten and destroyed, when he’d floundered and stumbled and driven himself straight into catacombs and labyrinths – rose like a fervent flame. However, then he’d truly be a ignorant dunce for not listening, for shutting out the voices, the discourse, the layers so many etched him through – so his ears pricked, grew attentive, noted she never said she didn’t hate him, and that earned a momentary chuckle, a sardonic nuance of air blown through his nostrils. He didn’t understand what she wanted from him – who yearned to be rused and snared by their commander? – and he tilted his head a fraction, swallowing down the remnants of discontent, equable, the days when Kaos had twisted the foundation of their hearts. The youth had no desire to do that to any of his fellow comrades; he wanted them to be brave, to be bold, to be strong and enduring, but not at the cost of his manipulations and chicanery. He saved those motives, those ambitions, for the monsters he intended to destroy. So Erebos asked into the air, still mighty and stalwart, pressing his lips together in a line again, inquiring about the wasting of time, when everything had already been solidified in their heads. “Why repeat the same lesson, when there are so many more to give?” The prince had goals, had aspirations; why bother noting the same one over and over again when it had stuck, strangled, and severed once already?
 
He knew how the world could twist, could turn, could annihilate. He’d fought fallen Gods. He’d attacked monsters. He’d drowned in the wake of someone else’s strength and ire. One day, he’d make them do the same.
 
But she could believe he was a little fool and he’d prove her wrong one day, reach out and flick her right in between the eyes with a noble smile and a bloodied horn – when they were all brilliant, blazing, bestial, and barbaric, the shining, nefarious oeuvre of the North, shattering hopes, dreams, and souls.
 
The youth turned back to the stone with its silence and vigilance, the weathered particles of the charms glowing before his eyes (and he tried to imagine his mother, standing there, rain and showers, happiness and sadness intertwined, shaking her head at the way he made himself miserable) – ears twisting back and forth to catch Weaver’s words of comprehension. He nearly asked about her aforementioned dam, but fell back into silence instead, pondering if it was safe to cross that threshold, when she held the dagger up to his chest again and waited to see if he’d fall on it. Do you think he’d seen the man he raised you to be? His gaze, hardened, nearly feral, swung back to her in confusion, in torment, pondering why on earth she enjoyed pulling on his strings, why she orchestrated cruelty, why she’d even asked such a question. To harden you came Orsino’s reply, a soft hiss coiling through his mind, because you are weak.
 
Maybe he was – maybe he was absolutely nothing that his father yearned for him to be. But Deimos had never spoken of his plans for his son, and instead, allowed him to roam free and wild, to learn, to muse, to explore, and decide for himself. He’d been independent quickly, roaming the earth with his friends (until they disappeared too, and then he’d been alone with Orsino), grasping and greedy, mercenary and bright, hardly daunted by the shadows flickering over his membrane. His heart hurt, and he hated feeling like this, empty, incomplete, with all the capability in the world but so easily marred, easily wounded, by everyone around him. The Reaper had never given a damn about what people thought about him – just followed his machinations as intended, barely bristling at hurt feelings or blemished features – and there was Erebos, saddened because one of his Corporals had challenged him, and he’d played right into her hands, stupid and dumb. The scion ground his teeth, clenched them together again, and stared out into the abyss. “No.” His voice was numb, colder, exposed to the weathered elements of soullessness, the forced acceptance of his idiocy, at being the exact simpleton she took him for. That’s all he’d ever shown them – bright, candid smiles, encouraging words, and blinding fortitude. “He said I’d be better than him.” He shook his head, fought the tremble in his limbs, the melancholy, the anguish, coming back to weigh him down, Orsino’s growling, Enyo’s clicking beak (disturbed by his alteration). “Those were his last words to me.” He laughed again, but it was hollow, bleak, ruffled and tethered to the layers of ruthless lacquer behind his gaze – brutally severing his own notions and outlooks. “How am I supposed to do that?” The boy looked to her then, lines of ruin and desolation, a child born from ice and death, from water and merriment, flanked by too many wraiths, too many phantoms, and too many agonies blocking his path.

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#9

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

Telling somone you are fine when you aren’t doesn’t count as lying. Everyone does that. It’s a social custom to pretend you are perfectly a-okay even when you are dying from the inside out. So that’s a terrible example, try again. And then try to live like you’ve had all the experiences you’ve had. Prove you have been somewhere other than Helovia, and no, the Threshold doesn’t count as exploring, so don’t try that one either. Act like you own the place. Act like you are everything you want to be. That you’ve gone everywhere you’ve wanted to go. The results are amazing, because slowly, those things begin to be true. Be reckless, don’t just think of childhood memories where you played a trick (doesn’t count as reckless). Be savage, even if that savagery is only to push the Basin to be the very best (keeping that desire hidden will not make it come true). Or, if honor is the right thing, then be honorable, and own that too.

In the end, what you decide to be doesn’t matter. Weaver is who she is because she doesn’t bat an eye, because she doesn’t doubt herself or double back or apologize for speaking her mind. She owns every flawed trait, and she’s perfectly happy with who she is. Which is a little bit of everything, though in this moment, she has rolled entirely to a little sister talking to her big brother. Petulant, ridiculous, but caring. He gives a sarcastic huff, and she rolls her eyes in response. “I. Don’t. Hate. You.” she says, emphasizing every word. “Do I have to spell everything out for you?” But as she says this, she is all playful teasing, amber eyes gleaming, smirk wide.

“And that’s a fine approach to teaching, but not the point. It wasn’t personal, so don’t take it personally. That’s the point.” She is slightly more sober as she says this, still trying to find the words to make it okay, feeling like she can’t find the right ones. But then again, there’s a reason she’s not a diplomat. Words have never been her strongest suit. She leaves herself behind after ever spar, lays her heart bare in those moments for all to see. That is who she is. That is what she has to give. She cannot do that with words, and does not want to. Words are fickle, uncertain things. But pain and punches don’t lie.

She doesn’t think him a fool. She thinks he’s a very clever boy hiding behind a fool’s mask. A clever boy with big dreams that no one knows, because he does not voice them. She hopes one day he has cause to flick her between the eyes with that horn of his. Hopes one day his army is everything he dreams, because those are her dreams too. To be powerful, to be feared, to be everything. But she cannot help him, because she does not know it. Because he does not say. Words are, yes, fickle things. But still, they are necessary.

Because sometimes, they lead to conversations like this. Ones where they stand on the edge of a sword, where they both come out on the other side tattered and torn but hopefully, hopefully, stronger. Better. More than they were before. Normally words are things she throws about in the air, careless, to fill the space. But sometimes, like now, they are calculated and intentional, hoping to serve a purpose the way a spar serves a purpose. They fight and train and bleed to be stronger, better, more than they were before. She holds a dagger to his chest to ask him to do that, just in a different way.

“By being you, whatever that means” she says when he finishes, and her voice is soft, not unkind but like always, she doesn’t mask the truth. Life does not come in a candy wrapping, and she’s not going to sugar coat her words either. “You are not him, so don’t try to be. But you can be better. Whatever you define as better. Whatever you want that to mean. Better doesn’t mean you have to follow his legacy and be exactly like him. It means you can choose an entirely different path.”

Follow your dream, little prince. And scream it to the world, because so many would follow with you.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos

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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
#10

A portion of him wanted to be a child again – crawl right back into a ball of juvenile simplicity, where the world didn’t hurt, where pain was momentary, fleeting, where anguish hadn’t meant a damn thing. But then he knew there’d be no growth, and he’d merely be the same chunk of useless, ineffective muscle and bone he’d always been – naught would come to fruition, no dreams would take flight, no ominous beacons would pervade the realm. The Sun God had told him to stop looking back long ago, and the youth couldn’t help himself, because that’s where everything he missed seemed to be, incapable of holding on to anything but his greed, his avarice, his desires, and his foolishness. He listened to her spell everything out to him, write her proclamations across the air so his thick skull could understand, for he had to be told over and over again the measures of worth, the declarations of another, so utterly incapable of anything and everything. The youth couldn’t see the glimmer of accomplishments that had already lead him there – the unrelenting focus he’d had on acquiring a companion, the determination, the audacity, to kneel before King and Queen and proclaim his loyalty, to simmer and boil in the glories of warriors and irreverence, the drive he’d amassed through his flesh, through his coils, through his persistent, infernal regard. He only saw the failures, the ineptitude, the self-doubt warring across his mind, tempted and taken into the spellbinding venue of collapses and downfalls, wondering which path he’d putter upon that would end in one more layer of ruin. Too many things, too many moments, had obliterated those once idealistic qualities sparking against his youthful mind – as a boy he’d just chase the stars, the sun, the heavens, searching for answers, proclaiming declarations, offering a wealth of promises and oaths. Now, he just stood there, wanting all the exploits he couldn’t have, circling right back to where he’d begun. “Maybe,” he shrugged back at her, her responses earning a singular curl to his lips, half a smile sprouting between the layers of sorrow and ignorance, fighting for a threshold amidst the speculation and devastation.
 
He leaned into the rapier she held against his chest, bold but not fortunate or favored, chiseled stare firmly glancing into her own gaze, wondering just how far she’d push and how much he needed it. A small blow pervaded back into his soul as she spoke, as she told him to be who he was, and he laughed – hollowed and hellish – because he didn’t have a damn clue as to who he’d become anymore. Some days he was the little fiend, calling out to fellow heathens, conspiring with a revolution of demons, and other days he was just the sad prince, doomed, damned, and stupid, yearning for his mother to come home, for his father to live again. Other moments he promised his friends the world, tried to bring it back to them on his broad shoulders, on the edges of potent vengeance (where he’d bleed but so would his enemies, all slashed to ribbons, all consigned to oblivion, and he’d be burning, burning, burning from the inside out, a vicious, callous beacon on the horizon). Then there were hours spent only chiseling and refining his techniques, ready for a day when he’d be permitted to darken the sky and bludgeon each and every opponent, sharpen the Basin into its predacious state. He wanted to be the carnivore they craved, the power they looked towards, the beast, the wolf, the charming, bestial master of a bewitching, scorching army – a pernicious, intangible wake. But how? How was he supposed to be that, when all he did was roam, when all he did was hang his head, when all he did was fail?
 
Idiot, Orsino muttered, shaking his kitsune skull, flashing a brutal edge of disappointment.
 
So he gave finally gave it voice, because if she was going to maim him, it should’ve just been all the way – so that he be shred into ribbons and stitched, sewn, emblazoned back together again. “I want the Basin to be strong and mighty again. I want our army to be the best. I want the world to fear our power, our vigor, and our potency. I want empires to be afraid to cross us. I want demons to shake at the mention of our herd.” The aspirations ghosted and glimmered from his tongue, like gilded titans, like predacious, rapacious tenacity, much more than whims, much deeper than mercurial designs. His eyes narrowed, pinpointed back to her, focused and riveted on the weight of ambition, on the declaration of initiatives, raw, ardent hunger for them to be more than edges and fringes of yesteryears. Would that be better? Was that what his father intended? Would the new generation rise after their predecessors? Or was it a foolish hope, a silly drive, to crave that illustrious sedition, that bestial revolution, all over again?

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#11

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

Childhood hurt. At least, hers did, and she’d been far less invincible then. She’s working backward from most everyone else though. Children are supposed to be immortal, in their minds, unstoppable. And most are, protected by the sheer fact they are children. Weaver had thrown herself to the figurative wolves as a child, believing herself to be all the things children believe. She was a Princess, daughter of a monster and murderer. She was everything. Growing up has taught her otherwise, that she is nothing and no one until she proves it. But then, she could die. Then, she did die. Now, she truly is invincible (or close enough). Now, she can throw herself to the wolves and not bat an eye.

She has no desire to go back to being a child. Perhaps things didn’t hurt as much, perhaps the hurts rolled off and she bounced to her feet, but she is so much more now. More because she understands that she is less, that she must work for everything she wants to be. There’s nothing to look back on in the past but the lessons. There is nothing worth missing in the past so much that you cannot see what’s coming in front of you, because then you’d miss all the things you don’t even yet know. There’s too much in front of her to worry about the things she left behind.

She learned from that past, and she moved on. She’d keep learning, and she’d keep moving on.

Maybe, he says, and she laughs at that, swatting at him with her tail though entirely uncertain if it would actually reach him. ”That, I can do,” as if the truth of this statement isn’t already entirely obvious. Weaver isn’t afraid of the truth, doesn’t shy away from leaving literal and figurative blood in her wake. Those are the best moments, when you finally manage to cut out the bad parts and leave them rotting in the dust.

They are silent for a moment, and when he does speak again, she listens, lip curling into a sly grin as he speaks. “Now seems like a very good time for you dream. I haven’t lived here long, but I would second that hope. I will follow you wherever that dream leads. Into danger, to hell and back. It can be made real.” And her eyes mimic his, all hard ambition, all passion and desire to be powerful. Both herself and the Basin. They would be something, if she could help it. They would be everything. I think you might find that you are far from alone in your desires. Speak them loudly.” Scream them to the Heavens, because even the Heavens should be afraid.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos

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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
#12

Reality dealt him another laceration as he listened to her, as she swatted at him, as she added a chiming echo to the hissing, bestial sibilance of his declarations: he rarely relied on others. His castle walls and his mighty fortifications had all been a singular, independent construction; he was the son of the Reaper, an intangible force made by nefarious smiles and meticulous violence, prospering from determination and perseverance, but not asking anyone to do the same. He always noted what they desired, he always pondered how to help them, how to promise revenge, how to cut apart their enemies, how to slash, rip, and tear. He carried their burdens over his shoulders along with the cloak and mantle and marrow of a boy turned warrior, of a fool turned General, of a prince turned utterly incompetent. His honor, his valor, his gallantry carried him forward, his yearnings trapped and ensnared his deceitful, capricious, mercurial exploits, but any adventure was made solely by the skin of his own teeth, by the raw conviction of his own blade, by the salt and surf and bone, the mettle, the destruction carved from his ribs, from his heart, from his soul. It had cycled from the day of his birth until this finite moment, with friends disappearing, with family perishing, with roles reversed and fickle minds altering their courses – he’d traveled down his primrose path with Orsino, stark, desolate, and defiant, nestled, curled, and coiled in the wake of his potential, in the restless outline of all the things he wanted to accomplish, but couldn’t grasp, couldn’t reach, couldn’t tear away. Perhaps one of the few times he’d ever asked anyone for assistance was when his father had perished, for the scion had tried to carry the weight of the great Reaper himself, but had proved incapable – everything had been too much, too daunting, too overwhelming, and maybe that was happening now, deluded into dreams and ambitions, but incapable of seeing past the trees, the forests, the clouds. He’d have to depend on others, on his fellow soldiers, on those warriors he was raising, on the skills, on the might, on the potency and strength of his fellow compatriots, and perhaps that was the most daunting. Erebos could not be the entire army. One man could not take down a thousand opponents. One essence could not destroy a thousand enemies. He could try until he took his last breath – and then where would they be?  
 
The notion itself was daunting too – because each and every time he’d allowed himself to hope, something had been caught, snagged, knotted, and gnarled, and eventually he’d just walked amongst the shadows and the Stygian outcrops, fierce and proud, solitary and mutinous. He joked with friends. He became the faithful beast, the vengeful archetype, calling for the heavens to sizzle him on the spot – drowned by sorrow and neglect, pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. The fiend was apprehensive of allowing them all to see past the barriers and pretenses, because then they’d see more than just the weaknesses and the upheavals – they’d witness what he was made of, the inner sculpture, the Machiavellian schemes, the dreams he’d had since he was nothing more than a tiny boy racing across the void. “Really?” He asked, turned to her, trying not to doubt, trying not to see the visions of so many others who’d faltered by his side, who’d drifted and disappeared, who’d been consumed or succumbed. “And everyone else too? They’d want that?” His eyes were no longer narrowed, but wide, imagining a world where they were monsters and other empires shuddered, Kaos shivered, where they didn’t fall apart as the old legends did, where they didn’t crumble and falter, where they rose and reigned, where they dominated, supreme again. His voice, while questioning, was also a resonating slide of triumph and resolution, willpower seething upon his edges, a prince reborn from the frozen ashes; wondering what it would take for him to inspire them to that glory, that height, that dominance, and if they’d even be willing to follow him at all. 

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

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#13

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

Weaver is all for being her own entity, a woman unto herself. She can survive without help, can traverse worlds and stop the apocalypse without the aid of others. However, she’s no fool either. They are herd creatures by nature, and there’s some benefit to that. Together, they are stronger. Together, they can take down larger enemies or split and cover more territory. Together, they become an unstoppable force. Apart, they are merely impressive, merely a singular entity. They are each memorable and worthy in their own ways, of course, but there is only so far one individual can go, there is only so large a target one individual can take down.

Power comes from within, yes, but it also comes in numbers.

If she believed that she could be everything she wanted on her own, there would be no point in living in a herd. Weaver’s never been the girl who needs a community or friends or family. She can and has lived on her own, can entertain herself, can find her own adventures and could live the life of a vagabond. That life isn’t enough though. She would become a specter to those she met, or at best, perhaps a tall tale. The painted raven mare that could not die.

Alone, she could not be as large as she wanted. Alone, she could not accomplish her dreams. Like Erebos, she knew she needed others, knew she needed to belong to an army that would train her, knew that she needed to belong to something bigger than just herself. It was not knowledge she cared to admit. On her sleeve she wore only herself and her independence, her own confidence and capabilities. That was her mask, one that was certainly full of truths, but still only a mask. Deep down, she knew she needed the Basin to be truly great. Deep down, she hoped the Basin needed her as well.

“Really,” she says, confident in her assertion. Sure, there would be those that didn’t care for greatness. There would be some that just wanted the company or safety a herd provided, others still that simply longed for a quiet life. There would be more that wanted everything, that wanted to make the Basin everything it should be. They would have wolves and one day sentinels to guard them. Visitors wouldn’t flaunt themselves on the border but would come with respect, eyes glancing to those metal guards with apprehension instead of disgust. The Basin would be whispered through Helovia as a place to respect, perhaps to fear. Though respect was far better. Weaver has seen firsthand where fear leads. Her mother ruled by fear, but it had only ended in ashes and ruin.

All things ended, but they didn’t need to end as the Chamber had.

“There will be some who don’t care, but there will be more who do. You never know till you ask, and the worst thing that happens is someone says no. Which is about the exact same as now, when you haven’t asked at all.” But she thinks of Wessex and Beloved and Oizys, of the small but fiersome army they had. She thinks of Rikyn and imagines he’d be pleased to lead a herd that fit within Erebos’ dream. They would recruit those that knew how to dream as well, that longed for greatness. “You’ve got one more on your side already, far better than five minutes ago.”

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos - i'm sorry this took forever!

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Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
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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
#14

Her confidence drowned out the vicious noise of his doldrums; the assertions, the resolve, the notion that he wasn’t alone and that at least two of them could conquer the heavens, the stars, the void, the world, made him chuckle, made him laugh. It boomed and ricocheted, warm, bright, and jubilant, as if it hadn’t been heard in such a long, great while, between the measures of sadness and wicked departures, spiraling here and there against the rubble, echoing as he closed his eyes. He shook his head, and still the chuckling came, resounding in grand reverberations, a child again, lost to the wake of amusement and diversions, as if everything wondrous and triumphant had come together again (when it hadn’t, not by a long shot). When the youth opened his gaze again, he pretended the tears curled and collected along the corners of his eyes had been caused by the sheer, silly outbreak of mirth, and not the sudden outpouring of emotions, the way he’d wanted to fall apart but no one on this godforsaken, desolate plain allowed him. “What a thought,” he laughed again, quieter this time, bending his head so that the edge of his sword laid against his father’s stony tomb, and he could feel the cold, lifeless ambience sinking into him, tying him back to the chilling aperture, ensuring he stayed, resolute, adamant. The ambitions formed within his heart, mind, body, and soul then, nearly tangible, bursting from the seams with vivid colors of blood red fervor and blistering animosity, acrimony in the most illustrious of hazes, glory on their hooves, daggers in their speech, triumph in their hearts – they’d be the best, an echoing tale spun from legends, another generation renewing the crisp, frigid power of the Aurora Basin. His voice was warm, rekindled, and fervent, a zealous slide away those moments where he’d only sputtered and crumbled, pieced and hooked together by the sheer determination nestled in his refrains. “Perhaps, one day, I’ll be enough to convince them too,” and the General’s stare returned to her then, adamant and blistering, a scorching, piercing shade of blue – thrown from the ocean or the ice, one conviction after another held within their depths.
 
Erebos wanted the world to see them as more than a cycle of creatures, sprung from the loins of greater ancestors – and the longing fueled his motions, his movements, away from the shadows of their prior giants, shifting from the collected tales of the Dark Empress and her rancorous refugees, towards those beasts who carved their way into the mountain, into the throngs, into the rapture and reverie of condemnation, of perilous, wicked strife, of living beyond their losses and devastation. They’d learned how to thrive, how to reshape, how to outmaneuver, how to alter, morph, and transform – and now they’d do the same, uniting, conspiring, outlasting over and over again. The resolve, the perseverance, the persistence, bled its way through him, chiseled and adamant, mighty and staunch, proud and stalwart, a means of charisma and presence; an appeal, an allure, a vicious, tenacious hold on the realm bestowed to him by Reaper scythes and rainy endeavors. “What else should we do?” He asked her, then and there, of other things to be done – beyond patrols, beyond meetings, beyond clustering together and forging onward like tempestuous snakes – honored her insight, her abilities, her capability of harpooning his shell and plucking at the hollowed, worn out tides and veils until he could see again, until he could spot what was directly in front of him.
Erebos
i have nothing, but then the have is not as good as the want

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@Weaver

Weaver Posts: 149
Aurora Basin Corporal atk: 8.0 | def: 10.0 | dam: 3.0
Mare :: Hybrid :: 15.1 :: 3 years HP: 61 | Buff: Novice
Raven :: Australian Raven :: Terrorize Kyra
#15

i don't rise from the ashes, i make them.

Confidence is infectious, and so too, is laughter. She grins at his laugh, at the way for a moment he comes to life instead of withers beneath its’ weight. He keeps chuckling, a child again, and she can see the boy beneath the man, the colt he perhaps once used to be. What would it have been like to grow up with him instead of Erebor, her stoic, impossible, infallible brother? Had Erebos been more like Korbin, her trickster skeleton of a baby brother? Perhaps some combination of the two, a mix of solider and prankster, just enough of each.

When he opens his eyes, she doesn’t say anything about the tears that curl in the corners of his eyes, leaving the knive sheathed for a moment. She had said enough, done enough, seen a glimmer of what he could be beneath the pain that cloaked him. Perhaps some of it had torn away, perhaps her words had tore enough pieces that he might find that strength again. The world would always be made of rubble. Nothing came together again, nothing because wondrous and triumphant by sheer happenstance. The best they can do is make castles out of the rubble, hold them up as long as they can.

Nothing lasts, not even them. Not even her, really.

“You already are enough. Well, you can be, if you act like it,” she says, flicking her tail in his general direction though her eyes watch the tomb that still traps his heart, something she cannot quite understand. Perhaps her mother ripped away some of Weaver’s heart with the Chamber’s power over the heart, a power that was once her mothers to command as Queen. “No one else will believe it if you don’t believe it yourself first.” She tries to understand him, tries to sympathize, but she finds herself grateful for the fact things have never hurt her like that. It’s a weakness she can’t afford, when she is already physically weak enough by sheer fact of her heritage.

He looks back to her with those determined, blue eyes (and ah, why does she notice just how blue they are?). “We have to be noticed,” she says, not knowing Helovia well enough to know how to do that here. It had been easier before, with eight kingdoms around, to make enemies of a few (most). “My mother took a kingdom from literal ash and rebuilt it. She started small – stealing horses, allowing raids, leaving behind marks of who’d been responsible. She ended large – a war with no purpose and no real end except fear. Those things are the wrong path here, but that’s why we have you – you know Helovia. I'm just useful for poking a sleeping bear.”

Helovia was too small, too different, for the grand schemes of her mother. The magic here is nothing compared to the magic there, to the wars that could be waged, to the clever dealings to get around barriers and magicians. But there as Gods here, where there were none before, and there’s a rather uncertain God lingering at the moment. Perhaps, if they are lucky, there’s something there.

I'm the whole fucking fire.

- weaver -

image credit | quote by erin van vuren


@Erebos

Please tag in all posts
Magic use/power playing is okay, but check before serious injury/death
Image by AmoretteRose


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