the Rift


[PRIVATE] Seeing Red

Ki'irha Posts: 176
Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 6
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15hh :: 5 years old HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Noella
#1
Ki'irha
I have loved the stars too fondly || To be fearful of the night
____________________________________________________________________
The world had finally stopped spinning. It was dark and cold and endless, and she couldn’t tolerate another moment of it. The cobalt unicorn mare, star swept and starry eyed and carved from midnight, was ready to return to her place in the sky. She stood silhouetted by the murky red light that filled this place. She was once someone, she at one time belonged somewhere, at one point in her life she had been consumed by purpose. And now she was nothing. She didn’t know who she was, where she was from, other than bits and pieces and snippets provided by strangers that had once been friends, or lovers, or something or nothing. She didn’t know what to make of the mess that had settled upon her.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t bring herself to look at another vague face and tell them that she didn’t remember. She had been happier not knowing, but she couldn’t go back to that. She hated herself for, at one time, being content with existing as a nobody, and though it had been easier, it was a lie. All of this was a lie. She had abandoned her children. She had abandoned her herd. She had abandoned her post, and her family, and everything that had once been important to her. But that was all gone now. She couldn’t find an answer, couldn’t find forgiveness, couldn’t find redemption.

She felt lost, and the remainder of her glass house lay in ruins around her hooves, filling her with anger and resentment and the taste of bitter loss. Her head ached, and pounded, and screamed. She was consumed by it all, and as the fire burned what remained of her foundation, licked the pillars and columns that supported the glass roof that hung above her, tore through all of the threads that once belonged to elegant tapestries and now laid in ruin upon the floor, she knew there was only one way to stop it. There was only one way to preserve what was left, and to prevent experiencing the collapse of what she had been able to contain and hold together.

She looked over the edge, stared the inevitable straight in the eye. She needed to stop the seething agony that ripped through her. This was for Erebos and his gleaming empire up north. This was for Mesec, and the betrayal she had committed against him. This was for Vesper and Virga, the children who she had neglected and abandoned, and perhaps more specifically for Virga, her life for his, her sacrifice so he may return home and unscathed back to his father and sister. This was for all of those who she had forgotten, and who had forgotten her. She had allowed the demons to coral her to the very corner of oblivion, and there was only one way out.

Blood and greed and rubies painted this world red. She became lost within it, letting it taunt her, egg her on, encourage her to leap. It promised to catch her, give her the release she desired, swaddle her in a warm blanket of comfort.

She would never be more than this. She didn’t know how to fix it, and to become what she used to be. She dropped her head. Her long legs trembled. Her whole posture seemed to sag, weighed down by the cosmos that she carried upon her sloping curves. For the first time in her life, she had finally surrendered.

“Please, gods,” she murmured, voice broken, with no energy to plead or beg left in her, “I know you’re out there. I know you can hear me. Others have told me of your power. But I ask not of great treasure, nor gifts, nor magic. I simply ask for your final guidance. I ask for you to collect me, so I may find my place among the stars again.” She lifted her head then, turning it skyward, though the trees still managed to obscure the heavens. Would they capture her prayer, so not even the gods would know where to find her? Was she lost to them, too? “If that is too much, if I am too little in your eyes to deserve sanctuary or paradise, I simply ask that you watch over those who I neglected and have forgotten. I can do no more for them. I pray they forget my name. I just, I don’t know…” She trailed off then, the tears getting the best of her.

She staggered forward, coming precariously close to the edge. The old Ki’irha never would have considered this as an answer. She was always proud, headstrong, resilient. But this girl, she was not Ki’irha. She did not know who she was, or what she was meant for. She only knew the repeated sound of disappointment from those who knew her before. She could not bear to do it again.

This Ki’irha had reached her end. She was ready for it to be over. This was finite and wrong and everything she couldn’t handle, but she just couldn’t think of another way. She stood on the edge of forever, wanting to step forward. A bit of her still smoldered, a small piece that tried to gather all of the courage it could muster, the last bit of spirit left within her tried to stoke the flame. ’Don’t do this,’ it whispered.

Sometimes things were just too broken to fix. And as she hesitated, willing herself forward, feeling the mist of the falls spray against her coat, hearing her name whispered within the crashing of the falls, a single blue ear twisted, capturing the sound of the world calling out to her, asking her gently to stay.

______________
@Lena ~
Image Credit
[Image: 5581b91112f69]
Colored by Kels ♡
Lines by Bronzehalo

Please Tag Me ○ Permission for magic and injury is granted. Just no death or permanent harm.

Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#2


They’d all been broken before. It came about as the world turned and the leaves changed, as chaos reigned, as violence plunged, as revolutions took their tolls – and circumstances skewed, altered, and morphed their foundations. She’d been warped and damaged prior to wandering into Helovia’s vast territories, the hustling, blinding light of glory and triumph – and patched herself neatly together with smiles, with passion, with zest for life, clinging to remnants of virtues and intangible strength. The Songbird had once only warbled the softest of notes, praying no one would find her tucked between glens and moss, copses and darkness, whispered fondly to herself of adventures she’d never have, and when she’d finally arrived amongst the threshold and its wide-open gates, she’d never dreamed, never imagined, just how far her fortitude would carry her. It was molded to her now, in each and every movement, a curve, a stroke, a caress, of might and endurance, pieces of perseverance that never scattered, never faltered, never chiseled away; because even when she felt the slightest hint of a crumble, even when the realm grew dark, weary, chaotic and brooding, she hoped, she dared, and she emboldened. It was the sort of audacity she couldn’t have fathomed as a child, staring down at the earthen floor instead of at the bright, brilliant sky – but it bloomed, it blossomed, until she was one of the matching trills, one of the enduring entities still singing into the night.
 
She wished everyone could be the same; varnished and lacquered and coated with persistence and tenacity, the kind that ripened with age and experience, the kind of sagacity that grew towards the heavens instead of rooting itself into the ground, never shifting, never moving. But that wasn’t the way characters and figures worked – everyone had their personalities, their creeds, their oaths, their breaking points – she’d just seen enough in her brief lifetime to respond, to shape, to carve away at the apprehension coiled across her midst. She dreamed in silk and satin, in layers of longings and hopes, and then dove into the void to retrieve them, to watch them grow, to witness them sprout and flourish. Through failed wars and invasion, through strife and sickness, through abandonment and desolation, she’d sculpted a place for her quiet, keen determination and resolution – a trilling force to be reckoned with. Her watch had yet to end – eyes narrowed to stare at the bloodied horizon, recalling the last time she’d ventured into the crimson falls, with its siren beacons and its incredulous grasp. Lena wouldn’t falter here either: not if she had anything to say about it.
 
It’d been a whisper on the wind, a particle of matter, twisting and turning, grieving, mourning, a lost soul staring into the chasm one last time – like a ghost, like a phantom, like a wraith who could only yearn. Imogen had noticed first, keeping her ears attune, swiveling them right and left before chirping into the stillness, speculating with a nod of her head, and the Songbird followed, a combined force of intrigue and dedication.
 
A creature remained on the edge of the watery precipice, intentions clear, and the Mender sucked in a breath, inhaled a vibrant scent, shuffled down the barbs in her throat that told her to drag the figure away, away, away from the fringe, from the verge. But she knew better. In her youth she would have bounced and leaped and tried to halt the process as quickly as possible – but nowadays the earth had everyone into shadows and grief, anguish, melancholy, and defiance, and they would have likely just as quickly rebelled against her well-meaning shouts. Instead, she drew closer, but not without warning, offering a gentle hallelujah from the depths of her raptures, “Hello!,” proceeding with caution and experience, eyes shifting delicately to the surging waves below and the maiden – nearly choking on stars, on familiarity, on the criss cross of heavens and dotted lines (Ki’irha, Imogen chirruped from behind her forelegs, a melding of ivory and waving tails). Compassion and warmth pooled across her features, her vivid smile tucking into the corners of her lips, and while she wondered so many things in one instance, one moment, she only proffered her strong shoulder and rapturous melodies as she sidled closer to the galaxies, together at the limits of the world. “Ki’irha! How have you been?”


Lena
where there is love, there is life.

image by safetylast @ flickr.com

@Ki'irha

Ki'irha Posts: 176
Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 6
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15hh :: 5 years old HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Noella
#3
Ki'irha
I have loved the stars too fondly || To be fearful of the night
____________________________________________________________________
’Hello.’ The word filled the hollow of her ear, beating gently against the drum. The midnight mare turned, her head still lowered, unable to muster the strength to lift her crown high. Her sterling eyes, dull like stones, glanced over the unicorn mare, tracing over her beautiful browns, and landing upon the whitened kitsune. Slowly they rose back up to meet the woman’s gaze, but was unable to match the smile that had set upon the other’s lips.

“Hello,” she murmured back, slowly dragging her front half away from the edge, turning to rest perpendicular with the edge of her stage. Ears perked forward, however, when the woman said her name, and the knife in her stomach twisted, her emotions churned, and if she had tears left to cry, they would have sprang to her eyes. But instead she stared blankly, barely managing a shrug. A soft sigh escaped her. Speech“I am unwell,” she said, before looking back to the open expanse past the edge. She didn’t want to say it, couldn’t bring herself to repeat the words she had needed to explain again and again. “You know me, but I don’t know you. And please, spare me any opinions on the matter, I think if I have to have another discussion about how I abondoned something, or left someone behind..” She trailed off, not wanting to state how she would throw herself over the side of the falls right then and there if the mare told her about how she had vanished off the face of the planet and caused hurt or heartache or feelings of abandonment upon someone else. The orangemoon chill upon the water that glossened her coat caused a shudder across her.

The Songbird didn’t deserve her curt attitude, and above all, hadn’t forced Ki’irha’s hand. She bit the inside of her lip, looking back to the other mare, and shook her head. “I apologize, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s been a long month. Lots of headaches.” Her eyes absentmindedly rose, as if to look at her horn, cracked and brittle upon her brow. Sure, she had been experiencing some headaches, throbbing aching pains radiating across the inside of her skull, but most of them were emotional, headache-causing heartaches. Either way, it was a good enough excuse.

“How do I know you? Are you from the north? I met a stallion who stated he was from the mountains, Erebos was his name, and he told me I was, too. Or perhaps you are friends with Mesec, or know my children?” Her stomach flipped when she mentioned her children, a gut wrenching feeling. “If you’re from another time, or another place, you’ll have to tell me. I don’t remember much of my time spent in Helovia.” Again she shrugged, the slight movement easier than further explanation.  

Though the conversation was taking up the last of her time, she didn’t mind. Soon enough the mare would leave, and she could continue on her fatal business.
______________
@Lena ~
Image Credit
[Image: 5581b91112f69]
Colored by Kels ♡
Lines by Bronzehalo

Please Tag Me ○ Permission for magic and injury is granted. Just no death or permanent harm.

Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#4


 
The sylph had enough sense and composure to avoid flinching at the harsh tones, the rough decibels, the levels of rancor and bitterness flowing through the air – she just didn’t quite understand them. They seemed segmented, harpooned, lanced amidst frustration, ruin, and devastation, and it’d been so long since she’d seen Ki’irha, that she’d failed to note, failed to comprehend, the meanings and gestures behind the acerbic lacquer. Her smile faded, for a small moment, dashed away by the snaps and upheaval, drawn into a neutral line, ignoring Imogen’s confused, honest, forthright head tilt (Why…, she asked, and Lena had no answer), and she stared out into the crimson beyond, where the floating waves of red blended into sedition. The Mender didn’t ask why she’d been handed harsh, abrasive commentary, what she’d done to deserve the remarks, but she presumed the frustrations borne by Ki’irha had been many, had been the reason why she leaned over a bloodied precipice, had been the reason she appeared hollow, brittle, and vacant, a forlorn beast waiting for the tide to come take her away. The slight bounced off and away, ricocheting from ethereal armor and a forgiving heart. Lena swallowed something down, a nuance, a sentiment, a way to make things resolved or better, but the unknown was too broad, too uncertain, and the ground too perilous. The once General even claimed to not know her any more, to apologize and muffle, about young Erebos, about the celestial Mesec, her children…and how everything seemed to be gone, forsaken, snatched away. She took a deep breath, pondered over the ways of the earth, the types of perseverance and defiance it took to merely survive on these plains – what she would’ve done, how she would’ve acted, if everything she’d ever known was suddenly vacant, fruitless, deserted, inscrutable, intangible, little pieces of nothing stuck together in a foreign, jumbled mess.
 
So the Songbird gave only kindness, only compassion, only the deepest fathoms of her beneficence, embraced tenderness even when it hadn’t been given to her – because she could be the sun and the stars, the heavens and the earth, the spirit of sanctuary when others only frowned, sneered, or turned away. Her blessings yearned to croon from her throat, from her lungs, from her soul, but she waited, turned and shifted so her stare reflected back upon one of the lost – praying she would be found again. “I’m Lena, a Time Mender from the Basin.” It seemed simple, as if she were just another little speck roaming through the snow and ice, glancing off the mountainside, imploring the chilling wind to stir once more – but she was more than that, and she’d show her, she’d try to mend what’d been broken. “Perhaps I can help you with that.” Her grin enveloped over the length of her calm features, sculpted it into finery, into warmth, into delight, and thereafter she was aglow, varnished in song, parting her mouth so the enchantments wove their way into the air. They were fine, light, gilded things, soft, dulcet croons, symphonies and orchestras cast into the shadows, into the halls, into the vermillion tides, combating the forces plaguing Ki’irha’s cranium. Warbles lapsed into the span of time – a God’s gift – brushing in airy, perfected strokes across the lines of the star maiden’s surface, glossing over constellations, pulsing, pervading, until the atmosphere was alight with sound, with wonder, with bells, with benedictions, fervent, wild, and incandescent. She wasn’t sure it’d be enough, but it was more than doing nothing, than standing by and allowing the world to take one more bright, illustrious soul and snuff their flames.



Lena
where there is love, there is life.

image by safetylast @ flickr.com

@Ki'irha

Ki'irha Posts: 176
Outcast atk: 4.5 | def: 9.0 | dam: 6
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15hh :: 5 years old HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Noella
#5
Ki'irha
I have loved the stars too fondly || To be fearful of the night
____________________________________________________________________
“Ah,” the cobalt mare mused, “from the Aurora Basin. And Time Mender? I can’t say I remember what that is.” She nodded slowly, tucking it away, trying to file it with all the other facts and tidbits that fluttered around in the breeze within her skull. “But, I’d take any help I could get at this point.” Again her shoulders shrugged, and she resigned herself to the idea that maybe this woman had something to offer that others had not.

The look on the Time Mender’s face was delicate, warm, welcoming, and Ki’irha couldn’t help but be warmed by it. When she began to sing, however, the blue girl had to suppress the desire to raise an eyebrow and ask how a song was supposed to help her. But the tune was rhythmic, and she felt herself being rocked, as if a child held in the arms of a mother, being crooned into sleep by a soft lullaby. The sound was magnificent, and she allowed heavy lids to fall, urged her legs to hold her, and she simply listened. She listened to the melodies, the crescendos, and she felt her soul come to rest, felt the stormy waves calm, felt the pain melt away. It was a beautiful sound, nearly as beautiful as the distant profile of the horizon from the lip of her cave, with the colors of morning painting the sky, lining the outlines of the pines with liquid gold, casting the shadows of the trees and the stones long across her valley.

She remembered.

It came rushing and crashing and pouring in. It was the sprawling landscape of the great frozen north; the feeling of shale and ice and stone beneath her hooves as she stood upon towering precipices and under the shadows of the evergreens guarding their gate. It was the blood spilled when she sparred the ram-headed devil Mortuus Nox, when she danced a waltz with the great northern prince Erebos upon the sandy shores of the endless blue. It was the love that made her heart swell and shatter when she brushed against the painted Clovenheart, and the pain she felt when he had left. She felt her body fly over rolling hills, within the gullies of the valleys, passing over icy tundras. It was the musk and sweat and fluttering heart she felt when she had joined with Mesec, the longing she felt to present her children to him. It was Vesper and Virga, feeling them grow within her, the knowledge that she had created something perfect and whole and untouched by the vulgarities of humanity. She felt the thrill of war, the tenderness of a caress, the warmth of family and love and kinship.

Her silver eyes snapped forward as the woman sang. Her headache melted away, her broken psyche snapped together and the pieces clicked into place. She felt her brow ache and pull and grow tight, and the soft sound of crystallization interrupted the Songbird, and she knew the somehow, in some miraculous way, she was being healed. She was a wildfire burning with conviction and violence and natural force. Her heart raced and the heaviness that had plagued her bones turned into light, glowing, making her want to dance and sing along to the tune she didn’t know, but would never forget.

“Lena,” she whispered, “Lena, I remember. I don’t understand how, or why, or what I did to deserve you crossing my path. But I remember.” She tossed her head, dancing back and forth on her front hooves. She felt contained, captured, pulled in a thousand different directions. She needed to go home. She needed to find Mesec. She needed to scour the threshold and every inch of the world for her son. She needed to do so many things, and she felt overwhelmed, but she couldn’t help but smile.

“I apologize,” she laughed, finally settling down, trying to contain herself to stop from looking like a high-strung yearling. “I just can’t believe that everything came back so fervently. I’m not sure what to do next. I want to come home. I want to go feel the Aurora Basin around me, reclaim my place as a warrior, protect my family. But yet, I think I should go find Mesec first, go find my children.” She shook her head, casting her silver gaze upon the face of her heroine. “What would you do? Which family would you choose?”

She rocked back on her heels, glancing towards the sky, unable to shake the smile. The expression upon her face glowed, but not nearly as much as the newest addition to her appearance. There, where the crack had been, brilliant diamond had emerged, and behind the precious inlay ran a vein of glowing white, setting the facets alight.
______________
@Lena ~
Image Credit
[Image: 5581b91112f69]
Colored by Kels ♡
Lines by Bronzehalo

Please Tag Me ○ Permission for magic and injury is granted. Just no death or permanent harm.

Lena the Songbird Posts: 663
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 4 | def: 10.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Unicorn :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 69 | Buff: NOVICE
Imogen :: Common Kitsune :: Fire Heather
#6


 
Poetry in scales, in rhythm, in rime, in stanzas and collected, assuaging tones sprung over the well wishes and facades; reached forth, snared, grasped, and plucked away the harsh veils and the vindictive ramifications. There’d been more, so much more, underneath the layers and fissures of cracked horns and webbed monstrosities, but she’d pressed where she could, soothed where she’d dared, and smiled when it was over – mouth closed, songs sung, another moment in time segmented by the tell-tale switch of hours and minutes. The Songbird watched the transformation, opened her eyes to witness the splendor of memory cross back over the starry figments and the galaxy formations, rendered speechless for a matter of instances as Ki’irha seemed to flicker back to life, away from the cliff’s edge, away from the bloodied precipice, and back into the tangible world – no matter how brutal, how barbaric, how cryptic it was. She altered, transformed, from the weary, depressed traveler (with nothing, with no one) back into the strong, enduring figure Lena remembered, triumphing over the gallows - unrelenting, just as she should be. The grin wasn’t misplaced then, glorious and strung by silent hallelujahs, beautiful hymns and prayers that only crossed through her mind, sparking, sizzling, out of reach, destined for virtues and other sentiments. Then Ki’irha was all motion and conversation, no longer burrowed and hidden, but varnished, enameled, a beautiful, incandescent glow of the night sky and its illustrious court, and the sylph bowed to her, tucking her head to her chest in a sign of perseverance and determination, steeling her brow with those subtle lines and reverent exclamations (You can do this, she wanted to say to her - You’ve always been capable), but the inquiries blended themselves elsewhere. Why wouldn’t you deserve it? the nymph yearned to ask, but the delicacy of the moment was gone, overshadowed by further intrigues, where she should go, where she needed to be.
 
“I’m glad it was successful.” There came her smile again, etched with finery and fire, ears swiveling, catching every nuance, every sound, every syllable sketched with glory instead of brimstone, embers, and coals. Which family would you choose? had never echoed so prominently – because she truly only had one. It had always been those in the Basin, steel-forged and brazen, bold and audacious, nonchalant and guarded, who’d offered her any form of family at all. She’d been born elsewhere, but that hadn’t mattered in the slightest, because Helovia had been the world where she’d grown the most, where she’d extended her petals and let them turn into power and might, where Gods had seen which path she’d walked, where she’d churned loss into conquest, where she’d gritted her teeth and bore the weight of a thousand legions. Within the icy outcrops were her kin, her beloved, her devoted, her heart, her lungs, her soul, the very air she breathed, the very ground she waltzed upon. There’d never be a question where she’d go to next – but Ki’irha had more ties (to young Mesec, to her children), had more knots, had more tangles, had more brambles and nests, so the Songbird mulled it over carefully, pondered what her course of action would be if left in the same dilemma. “The Basin will always be there,” she beamed with such sincerity, with such veracity, that there was no doubt that the mountains would still be tall, would still be grand, would still be wonderful, no matter the day Ki’irha set her foot upon their boundaries. It’d welcome her as a warrior, as a guard, as an inhabitant, when she believed it was time. “You should find your children. I’m sure they’ve missed you.”



Lena
where there is love, there is life.

image by safetylast @ flickr.com

@Ki'irha


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