the Rift


[OPEN] some die young
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#1
Art by Neverr ♥
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
He was thin. The white of his coat was matted, dull, and where it fell into the hollows of his hips and ribs, dark shadows. He moved with the slow caution of someone in pain, or simply tired beyond all measure; putting one hoof in front of the other, shifting his weight and grunting when it braced against his aching joints and thin muscle.

It should've been a miracle that he walked at all—truly, a miracle that he simply lived, but he was cheating. He was cheating pretty badly, actually, because each time he slammed headfirst into the doors of death, it was like the Moon had either told them to not let him in, or had put a safeguard in place that started to haul him back up to the surface and patch him back together each time he came too close. He didn't know which. Both, maybe.

He fell into the category of those who slit their throat while yelling for help.

Only for him, it would never be too late, because he couldn't die and it was both relieving and kind of embarrassing and really, really inconvenient.

Not to mention it made him perfectly able to pull the kind of stunts he'd been pulling since it happened. Not fighting hard enough. He gritted his teeth, as much against the thoughts as against the pain lancing through him. What would he have done, if he'd washed up on the shore decades later? When everyone he had known and loved had been gone?

He would've hated himself (old news, because he's already doing that), but what was worse, he would regret it, for forever. It'd haunt him at night, the knowledge that if he'd just fought a little harder, he could've come back, and it wouldn't have been too late. (If he hadn't been so selfish.)

Mauja sighed. The white mist curled out from his nose. He was hugging the treeline by the sheer drop from the cliff, because so close to the wetness of the sea, the fog still hung here.

Things were changing, and it sent the wrong kind of shivers up his spine.

He'd been there when the Moon Goddess pulled back, her presence like a brief, searing burn across his heart, but he hadn't made himself known. Had simply faded back into the mist, after seeing one of his unlikely saviors, some strangers, and Mirage's dragon-kid. He couldn't remember name anymore, but her father was Vikram, the bastard who had tried to burn him in an invasion a long, long time ago. He'd broken the kid's spirit during the leader auditions he'd accidentally won. He'd only been there because Kahlua was.

He really needed to stop losing the people he cared about, but if he started blaming himself for their deaths and departures, he was pretty sure not even immortality could save him.

So someone, a he, had been lying. From what Mauja had gathered, it was that weird creature who had made them clean up a beach—the weird someone who had rubbed him the wrong way. He'd felt all wrong and it turned out that maybe, he was.

Mauja limped slowly among the hardy, wind-whipped trees. Their bark was encrusted with salt spray from the storm waves and constant wind. It was the closest thing to home he had, because he'd chosen to forsake his land of birth. He could go there. He knew that he could.

He also knew that going there meant becoming someone else. The Mauja they knew wasn't the Mauja he was.

He gritted his teeth. Limped on. On his back, the pitiful owls shifted in their healing sleep. He had a feeling things were changing, that it would come soon, and that it wasn't good at all.

Well, fuck. It wasn't like he had any choice but to live through it.

He limped on.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Amaris Posts: 299
World's Edge Philosopher atk: 5.5 | def: 8 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16h :: 4 years HP: 70 | Buff: NOVICE
Dramyrth :: Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Frost Breath Whit
#2
Amaris didn't know where she was.

The mists of the Edge had always been a comfort, a solace. But the mists, though still present, had lost their potency, their ability to give her comfort.

The chilling words of the Goddess, and the instant that followed where everything changed in a subtle, unseeable yet subtly tangible way had affected Amaris. Finally, she was able to act without emotion, for she barely felt emotions anymore.

She walked, blind to her destination, her purpose. She walked, letting go of the nostalgia at last, moving past the figures of her history whose presence was so strong here even though they were long since passed.

She could go to her father's land. To live with the dragons, forevermore.

But Dramyrth couldn't.

The last time they had, he had almost died.

And Amaris could not lose her soul, could not lose him, for he was the king of her heart, the golden, glimmering soul who gave her a reason to live, even now, when she felt so empty, so numb inside.

Amaris was in shock, if anything.

They wandered, two figures blended into one, as the golden dragon clung to his bondmate's mane, his form perched atop her withers. They would stay close forevermore, lest they risk the chance of their descending into separate graves with the coming end of times nearing.

That was what it felt like, if she were to feel anything. That the end of everything was nearing, and that there was nothing any of them could do about it.

When the Gods and Goddesses left the realm, the lowly mortals who remained were often harshly reminded of their mortality.

Amaris did not know Kaos, not as well as the others, who had interacted more with him before he had revealed himself a true threat. She did not know what he was capable of, though she had used to hope, to cling to an idea that maybe whatever he was bringing would be good for Helovia - maybe Helovia was due for all of this.

But now? Now she just felt like a ruined ghost, wandering the mists of the world, standing on a precipice, looking out over the expanse of the world beyond, and feeling a whole lot of nothing about it all.

The dragonmare stood on the edge of the world, wings splayed slightly, feeling the breeze (at least she could still feel the wind), smelling the salt, watching the foamy waves break upon the jagged rocks below. When a mental tug from her companion alerted her to another's presence, she turned her tiara, and beheld the legend of her childhood.

FrostHeart, he had been called then, but he was the Frozen Light now. Blessed by the Goddess, though with what she didn't know, probably would never know.

He looked like a ghost, a memory, a figure in the mists, wandering on the edge just as she had, though with far more grace and sense of belonging to the land than she would ever hold.

She didn't know how she came to stand here, she realised belatedly, how fast she had travelled, though there was the hint of sweat upon her body, and her sides expanded and collapsed with the motion of one catching their breath.

She didn't notice his limp, his condition, though she got the impression that he was some kind of wraith, some spectre from beyond this realm, here to shepherd her onwards to the next. Amaris watched him, soundless, unfeelingly.

And silent tears rolled down her face.

Amaris
drákos istoría
Dagwanoenyent Stock | whimzi
on deviantart
No need to mirror my post length - I have a horrible case of the rambly writer syndrome!
I like being tagged!
You are always welcome to 'try' and use force/magic on Amaris, but similar to spar posts, leave it to me to decide how the damage is taken please~
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#3
Art by Neverr ♥
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
Someone else had once made the mistake of believing that a child was the sum of their parents, nothing more, nothing less. Their voice grated in his memory still, the words lost to the ages, but it had been something about birthright or blood right, that age-old sentiment that just because your mother and/or father had been good enough for something, you, too, were. By right of blood. By right of having had no say whatsoever in whose vagina you emerged from.

Ironically, the argument had begun in the other end. Mauja had been a creature of darkness and anger, cold death and regret. He'd been looking for things to hate beside himself, and somebody had offered him a blindfold.

Well, actually, he'd been looking for justice but it had turned to massacre, and he'd had the good sense to get out of there before the bloodied scythes came for him, too.

He'd taken the blindfold with him, though. Why or how, he couldn't say, but he supposed it had been a soothing balm for the festering scab in his soul. He'd found something, cool as ice when he plunged his mind into it. Soothing, indeed. It had given him grace from his thoughts.

But only fools stayed blind, and no matter how hard he tried, Mauja was no fool.

The scent of mixed blood had been affront to him, though he was pretty sure you couldn't smell mixed blood that properly, but maybe you could. It wasn't unusual to be surprised, like how Ophelia suddenly waltzed around with a dragon.

Ah, fuck—after all these years...

The point he was trying to get to, as he ambled among the trees towards the dragonmare who had crossed his mind earlier, was that Mauja, who had dreamed of a world filled only with unicorns, hadn't found it in himself to hate those of mixed blood. He'd looked within himself, for the supply of seemingly endless contempt and ambition, and found that his rationality had defied the hating of them. They might be abominations, but through no fault of their own; they were as much responsible for their tainted blood as a child was equal to its parent.

Which is to say, not at all.

And that was why Mauja had found himself in love with a hybrid, even before he'd—sort of—come clean for the world. Which he hadn't. Because he was a coward. Because, some part of him still lived in a world eight years gone, and thought everyone remembered him as that smiling King who kept a suspiciously clean herd. And since he didn't do that anymore, he had the bad habit of assuming they guessed he'd changed.

Helovia had attributed dreams of conquest to him before he'd had them himself. He'd been too cautious, and he'd had his ass kicked over it.

Did he regret it? No, not really. He wanted to say he'd just been stalling for time, to get over himself, but that was lying. At the time, he had genuinely believed his race superior, or at the very least, not so disgusting.

He was closer now. He could make out the sheen of sweat, the dull look of the scales, like unpolished gold—not sickly, just dusty. It was the lack of light, he figured. The dragon on her withers looked much the same, fine metal left in the dark.

His mind looped back to the beginning. She was the daughter of the usurper, the selfish queen, the one Mauja had wasted years on hating because, again, it was easier than hating himself, but he was short on options these days. Aside from her moment of youthful arrogance and pride—which, in truth, had mostly been fueled by that other nameless voice in his memory—it was not her fault that she was the progeny of a mare Mauja disliked and a dragon-creature who had done his best to make him even more intimate with fire.

He limped closer. Irma didn't want him to. Probably the dragon. Neither of them liked dragons. Least of all since Torasin died for it.

Her name still escaped him, and he did not want to greet her as the child of one dead and one lost, because she was more than that. Just like everyone else was more than the sum of their parents.

And besides, he still had a hard time saying Mirage's name and not having it go sour upon his tongue.

And, a second besides, she was crying. She didn't look sad, so much as she looked lost and exhausted, but the crystalline tears poured from her golden eyes. It looked like she wasn't aware of it. It looked like she wasn't aware of much, not even his slow, pained approach—she might've been seeing through him, or something else entirely. Ghosts. Different worlds. Past times. He sighed. Part of him wanted to skirt around her and keep his silent vigil in solitude, but if she suddenly snapped to, it would seem terribly rude if he was avoiding her.

Hah. Since when had he cared, honestly? (He's been asking himself that for years, and the truth is, he always did.) And why should he care about her, in particular? He'd already established that she was not her mother, nor her father, which left her only a stranger—and he didn't have the energy to care for strangers, because they were usually rude, stupid, dumb, obnoxious, annoying, or all of it.

In the end, he figured it was that look on her face—like a lost and kicked puppy abandoned in a box by the highway, feeling the rain coming but not sure what it'd be like.

Godawful.

He felt it too, the way the world had been profoundly altered, and yet it looked practically the same. He heaved another mist-ridden sigh, and his slow, halting approach had reached its end. He swayed to a grateful stop next to her, body burning, legs trembling; it took all he had not to fold in on himself and collapse.

"Storm's coming," he said quietly; the gentle hush of waves and the gray clouds told it was not a physical one.

The whole world was holding its breath, waiting.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Amaris Posts: 299
World's Edge Philosopher atk: 5.5 | def: 8 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16h :: 4 years HP: 70 | Buff: NOVICE
Dramyrth :: Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Frost Breath Whit
#4
What did the dragonmare see?

She looked upon him, his thin, ruined frame, the awkward way in which he walked, without truly registering, truly recognising the existence of such afflictions. No, she saw only the stallion as her mind had built him up to be, as the legends wrote him, as the stories and histories and lores whispered.

He was Mauja, the FrostHeart Frozen Light, the redeemer, the ascended, the… the…

He was Mauja.

Thoughts trickled by, both too fast to make note of them all but some also sluggishly slow, as if the simplest of observations (a stallion walking towards you) took all her brainpower to process. Wasn't it meant to be easier to process thoughts, to think rationally, when one's emotions were dead and gone?

But Amaris wasn't thinking without emotion, not truly. She had a thought, but then something seemed to swallow that thought up, to wash it clean of all emotion, and feeling, and empathy and then spew it back out again, for her 'rational' mind to try and discern.

And she couldn't.

It created a backlog, a fog, a traffic jam in her mind, as the thoughts queued up, waiting to be processed, unable to be, because the world was ending and Mauja was here and apparently that was enough to break her, to destroy her.

Maybe the world ending was enough to do all that, and Mauja just so happened to be here to see it unravel.

Dramyrth tried, but his bondmate's mind was closed to him, a wall of thoughts, jumbled and confused, lost and found, warring for attention all at once but also disappearing the moment she tried to choose just one to focus on. He couldn't make sense of it, couldn't help, so he simply stayed perched, bent over her, hoping, clinging, praying she would come through this whole, his Amaris.

All the while, she looked at the spotted stallion, the Frozen Light, blinking robotically, observing him yet not really seeing him at the same time.

Her eyes closed a heartbeat longer than a normal wink would warrant, and upon opening, he was seemingly suddenly closer to her, almost by her side. Her tiara turned, pointing her nose back out over the edge of the world, over the ocean, the waves, the rocks.

He was the embodiment of her mental state: fragile, wasted, burning from the inside out, shuddering against the effort to stay upright, to stay conscious.

The world is ending…

'Storm's coming,' the words demanded her attention, though they were delivered on quiet, gentle tones. They acted as something of a focal point, an anchor, a trail of crumbs to follow back to home, for the dragonmare.

Her nearest ear flicked, her eyes pulled away from their unfocused view of the world beyond, though only for a moment - the allure of the waves beneath was too much. She found a strange solace there, watching the waves rise, watching them fill with strength, peak and reach their prime, before they crumbled, shattered, and spread their pale, foamy fingers out across the rocks below.

It was easy to watch the waves. They were both unpredictable and predictable, from this height, from this vantage point. Very occasionally, the spray would rise higher than normal against the rocky coast of their home, and the wind would deliver a light spattering of miniscule salty droplets upon her nose.

She could almost convince herself that the Goddess was still present, when that happened.

But she wasn't.

The world is ending…

"Yes." Abruptly, the word sprang to life, a response to those spoken however long ago it was now - she could no longer count time, no longer cared to, currently she simply didn't had the mental capacity to. It was delivered in dry, broken tones, and as she said it, she tasted the tears as they dripped over her nose and upon her lips.

She was crying.

Why am I crying?

The world is ending…

Oh.

Her brow furrowed, a frown creasing her forehead, as she blinked against the her brain-fog, as she fought to stay focussed, to stay here, with Mauja, (why is Mauja here?), asking too many questions and yet none at all, knowing only one thing.

"The world is ending…" a wisp, a murmur, a barely breathed thought, the one that was echoing about her mind finally came to air.

Everything else in her mind went eerily silent after that, as she stood, watching the waves crash on the rocks below, over and over again.
Amaris
drákos istoría
Dagwanoenyent Stock | whimzi
on deviantart
No need to mirror my post length - I have a horrible case of the rambly writer syndrome!
I like being tagged!
You are always welcome to 'try' and use force/magic on Amaris, but similar to spar posts, leave it to me to decide how the damage is taken please~

Yael Posts: 186
World's Edge Seer atk: 7.5 | def: 11 | dam: 2.5
Mare :: Pegasus :: 14.2 :: 39 - appears 8 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Zani :: Serval :: None Astor
#5

yael

For all intents and purposes, the spotted stallion ought to be Dead; one does not naturally linger long enough in water to become slimy, to become a floating corpse which still breathes. She does not know what saved him (aside from the three at the Marsh’s edge), but the once-immortal Seer has a hunch that needs to be followed up on.

Distress lingers everywhere. Some panic, some steel themselves with resolve, others turn to vices, actions they may not otherwise engage in, just to feel like their lives are worth something. Yael finds it puzzling. While she may have unwittingly helped usher in the apocalypse, she finds the rage and anger and despair all funnelled into a very unuseful place. But perhaps you have to have gone through an ‘end of the world’ type of event before one can look at the next with more objective eyes. And these eyes are worried; Amaris’s reaction (she cares about the dragon-woman very much) makes her try to keep an eye on the mare, a silent sort of golden shadow, saying nothing and watching all.

The pair stand on the edge of the cliffs, in a place most familiar to the Seer - she, too, had once contemplated throwing herself off the rocks and curling her wings tightly around her body until it crashed into the rocky surf below. Reksana had been her guardian angel, then, and perhaps someday she might return the favor. Maybe not here, maybe not in the near future - but one day. Zani dozes, a familiar weight between her shoulder blades, while she walks towards the pair on slender legs and dainty hooves. Surely the sound of them on the rocks will herald her approach, but if not, she greets the two with a low whicker.

Large ears pick out the faintest whisper of Amaris’s response, and she sighs. “Perxaps.”  If so, is it the worst thing that can happen? They’ll join their dear ones - somewhere - if there is an afterlife. If not, life will go on, and it may change for better or worse, but why shed tears while you still draw breath? Her gaze turns to the spotted stallion, noting his pale form in the mist, and how it seems better than before, but not quite up to par. “Eet ees good to see you up and about, Mauja.” Her gaze then flickers between the two, murmuring to no one in particular, and both, at the same time. “I xope you xaven’t geeven up already.”

That would be suicide.

trust your heart if the seas catch fire

live by love, though the stars walk backwards

@Amaris
@Mauja


Please only tag in starter posts, or if the thread is getting dusty
Force and magic allowed, no death please
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#6
Art by Neverr ♥
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
He wasn't sure she even knew he was there.

Or that she even wanted him there; her golden gaze turned out towards the endless sea, and Mauja found himself studying her. The plane of her nose—straight, ridged in a most unfamiliar way. The draconic broadness of her shoulders, but the elegant body of her mother. The way the golden scales nestled in the pale fur, somehow both perfect and absurd, like something that shouldn't be yet was, right there, in front of his face.

It wasn't that he found it disgusting, as he once might've. It wasn't frightening either, even though she was so very obviously part dragon.

It was just unusual. Something he had never ever seen up close before. Something he found he could stare at for a long, long time, and be neither wiser nor sated.

He wondered if he ever would've stood this close to her, had she not been sad and adrift, a sparrow drifting in a storm and too confused to fight for home. Maybe she didn't even know what home was anymore, with the tether undone—he could feel that she was missing, in his bones.

Maybe it was because he'd been here so long, or she had done something to his soul.

After what seemed like an eternity, she answered. He couldn't even call it clipped, because it seemed to lack even that; it just floated between them, a thought that somehow made it out of her skull and came to life and no one really knew how or why.

But there it was and someone else was coming and the dragonmare found another thought flitting off her tongue—"the world is ending…" and he found himself frowning.

He wanted to say no, it's merely changing. He wanted to rest his broad head against hers, or maybe over the folds of her wings, to see if she was warm as a furnace—to give her comfort, for the sole reason that she was so lost.

But with someone there, he dared not touch her, and he had no words to offer. No real time to speak, as Yael—her name was Yael, right? He was sure somebody had told him a Yael had helped drag him from the murky sea—let her strangely accented words fall. It took him a moment to parse, and by then, her attention was on him. He ran the words through his mind, then inclined his head with a nod. Yes, he was up and about, because he had no reason to lie around. It wouldn't help anything and he had nothing to risk, either.

"A long time ago," he said quietly, "all the gods abandoned Helovia, and left it in utter darkness. No sun, no moon. They took even magic with them, and jumped into a black storm." He blinked, and shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. He still remembered that day, or whatever it had been, on the Thistle Meadow. He still remembered Ophelia seeking him, for comfort and answers, neither which he could give.

He didn't even know what he wanted to say, if it was some comfort he had wanted them to find—that they had fought once, and prevailed. That the world might not end, merely change. That the Moon would return, and take even more from him.

His tongue didn't know how to form the words, and neither did his heart.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Amaris Posts: 299
World's Edge Philosopher atk: 5.5 | def: 8 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16h :: 4 years HP: 70 | Buff: NOVICE
Dramyrth :: Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Frost Breath Whit
#7
She doesn't know how long she watched the waves break against the rocks. The salty peaks kept coming, endless, rhythmic, predictable, their sound soothing on her eardrums, the motion of them below something her eyes found they could focus on, while her brain worked through the tsunami of thoughts roaming through her mind.

Amaris couldn't think, she couldn't pinpoint a thought and dissect it, understand it, evolve it. Her thoughts were all like slippery bars of soap in the hot shower, unable to be held tightly, and once they did slip loose of one's grasp, they shot away and bounced around before settling uselessly in the steaming, burning shower of scalding water, irretrievable until the flood ended.

But this flood wasn't ending.

The frown lingered upon her brow, for she was trying, as useless as her efforts seemed to be. She was trying to come back, to work through this, get past this shock, this numbing, all-consuming event that seemed to have triggered a reaction she could not control or predict within her.

Dramyrth crooned ever so softly upon her back, greeting the arrival of the pegasus lady who usually stirred such things as affection and warmth within his bondmate. He purred in his draconic way, though the soft sounds faded as his bonded did not respond, as she remained vacant, staring, unseeing, lost.

Perxaps, the lilting, accented word triggered another flick of the dragnmare's ear, for she missed the whicker of greeting and even the mental nudges of her companion - she only just now realised they were joined by another.

And she expected to feel something, she wanted to experience the predictable affection, the warmth and tenderness that she always did to Yael. She wanted to remember what it was to have a friend, a confidant, a mentor to look up to - and the echoes of those feelings rebounded around her for a time, but they couldn't settle, couldn't gain traction within her, and she was left feeling more empty, more drained of everything than before Yael arrived.

Her posture tremored slightly, her wings sagged as her tiara bowed lower over the edge, not necessarily to better view the waves this time, but simply because she was fighting a losing battle against keeping her own body upright.

More words were spoken, more thoughts exchanged, and Amaris barely heard them, barely registered their existence.

For soon, none of them would exist anymore…

The world is ending…

Claws dug into her back. She had just shut her eyes, as if to listen to an important internal thought (of which there were none), and suddenly pain lanced across her spine.

It wasn't serious, or deep, just a pinch, a spike of sharp talons into scaled flesh, enough to draw droplets of silver blood where they poked. His mental prods weren't working, though the bond still allowed him to gauge where his beloved was at - and it wasn't good.

So he resorted to this, first. His next step would be employing his breath, but he didn't want to do that - and he didn't need to. He felt the muscles along her spine tense, felt her posture rearrange itself to look much more conscious, much more here, back in the present rather than in the dangerous nothing her mind had been just moments ago.

The pain stung, though not physically harsh, mentally it was a whiplash, a lance, a hot poker plunged into her heart. It was just what she needed.

She was by no means cured, or recovered. But she was 'back' enough to allow Dramyrth back in, to feel his comforting embrace, the intimate way he was right there, cocooning her own damaged, broken, empty self with his magnificence, his gleaming and powerful and strong soul and mind. It wasn't a permanent fix, but maybe, maybe it would be enough to patch her up until she could heal on her own.

Because she would heal. She would endure. She would survive, somehow, she realised.

They had spoken. Somewhere, she knew she had heard their words, though she could not recall them verbatim. Something about not giving up and disasters have happened before.

Amaris looked at the unicorn stallion and pegasus mare, and had a trivial thought (because she could think again, though all her thoughts seemed trivial and inappropriate) that if she had been a pure equine they would be representative of the species that made up the Gods. But no, here she was, ruining it all with her dragonsblood, her silver, tainted dragonsblo-

STOP, came the thundering thought from Dramyrth, as he was right there now, intervening with his deep mental voice and his powerful grip upon her mind, heart and soul.

She breathed, almost a sigh, mostly a deep breath, as if catching it again. Was she supposed to say something? To react?

What did they say again?

"I remember that," she said suddenly, her voice different from before, slightly more animated, though nothing compared to normal Amaris' warm, lilting tones. "I remember my magic leaving me. I remember the darkness... I remember thinking everyone had died."

She didn't know why she was telling them, why it was important to say all these words. The words didn't change what was happening now, couldn't they see, couldn’t they understand?

Was Mauja trying to comfort her? The idea rose randomly in her mind, as her golden eyes, finally focussing on something other than the waves below, focussed upon him. She remembered her mother's declaration that he was a wanted fiend, a murderer. She remembered him being present when she laid her mother to rest, she remembered their conversation, how she had been the one comforting him on that day, that day where surely it should have been her receiving the comfort and he should have been celebrating, if the stories were anything to go by.

Clearly, stories were just that.

And stories wouldn't save them now.

Was she meant to hate him? Meant to feel anything towards him? Meant to be comforted by his presence, his words, here and now?

She still couldn't bring herself to feel anything.

"I don't think they are coming back this time." She murmured, her voice hushed, as if afraid to say the words - her eyes were unfocussed, she was looking out over the ocean again, her gaze scrutinising the horizon. At least, she was not completely vacant anymore, but she was still not completely Amaris yet either.

The tears still dribbled out over her eyelids, and down her hard cheekbones, carving a wet path upon the fine fur that lined her angled façade.
Amaris
drákos istoría
Dagwanoenyent Stock | whimzi
on deviantart
No need to mirror my post length - I have a horrible case of the rambly writer syndrome!
I like being tagged!
You are always welcome to 'try' and use force/magic on Amaris, but similar to spar posts, leave it to me to decide how the damage is taken please~

Yael Posts: 186
World's Edge Seer atk: 7.5 | def: 11 | dam: 2.5
Mare :: Pegasus :: 14.2 :: 39 - appears 8 HP: 63.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Zani :: Serval :: None Astor
#8

yael

In a flash of light and unraveling magic, her world came to a shattering, sudden stop; her heart, his eyes, a backlash that sent her mind and body reeling through either time and space or just a couple of dimensions or maybe she’s just too dumb and old to figure it out now. The stars… the stars… Weaver walked… and it’s all just beyond her grasp.

And what did Kaos say? Whether or not he was intentionally misleading isn’t the point anymore, the point is that his points had grains of truth to them. Yael held the world in her mind before Helovia. Here, the Gods took and gave according to their fancies, be they whimsical or cruel. They took the Rift lands, they took lives (yes, she remembers hearing about the Moon Goddess and how she killed and killed and killed), and still they love them. Worse than her vengeful god, sometimes, and worse still, are her inconsistent, fluttering opinions on the matter. Why had the Goddess seen her as an appropriate replacement for Isopia, why had Kaos written in Hebrew? All the whys echo and none can offer any answer.

It’s a cacophony inside her head. But at least she isn’t numb and trembling, at least she isn’t paralyzed in fear. Some sort of pity wells up in her for Amaris, for the pain she so clearly feels and the dependency she seems to have on ones who would so willingly leave (call her a scorned woman, perhaps, but anger comes far more easily than depression now) their charges to whatever fresh hell might come their way, knowing that they are looked to for guidance. She wants to shake the other mare, to turn dragon and find the fire that burns within the champagne’s breast – it’s in there, somewhere, Yael’s seen it. She wants the gold King to sear the sorrow out of his bonded, but even she knows that’s not how the link works.

Instead, she makes a scornful little sound in the back of her throat, glancing down at the dark ground and exhaling heavily.Tch! You are more zan ze Gods. You are part dragon, she says pointedly to Amaris, and then to Mauja, “and you are eemortal, yes? Resilee-ent. Part of a beeger xole. And t’ere are ozers xoo vill need you.” When all is said and done, what will they say about the Frozen Light? About the daughter of Mirage? The little golden Seer feels anger welling in her chest and tries to squash it, trying to find that that light and line between encouraging and being a tough mother. Will they say that they let Edgers suffer and die? That they wallowed in their own sorrow and fear? Or will they say that they stood together and faced down whatever Fate threw at them?

“I am sorree,” she murmurs after a moment, “Eef I seem xarsh.” They could ignore her if they wished, and she would leave. Sometimes it is better to let mourners come to their own senses, in their own time. But she does not think that they have much time left.  

trust your heart if the seas catch fire

live by love, though the stars walk backwards

Image © littlewillow-art



Sorry this took awhile!
@Amaris  
@Mauja

Please only tag in starter posts, or if the thread is getting dusty
Force and magic allowed, no death please
Ascended Helovian

Mauja the Frozen Light Posts: 1,392
Outcast atk: 6.5 | def: 10.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.2 :: 14 HP: 79.5 | Buff: HUNTER
Irma :: Snowy Owl :: Terrorize & Diego :: Eurasian Eagle-Owl :: Rage Neo
#9
Art by Neverr ♥
but somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
It was disturbing to watch Amaris. It came both slowly and suddenly, creeping up, bit by bit, until it became so obvious it startled him.

Like a cold autumn wind suddenly becoming a blizzard, snow teeth and all; if you had paid attention, you would've felt it coming, and not been caught out in the open. The theoretical cold buzzed in his ears.

He was tired of watching others peer over the Edge.

She didn't look like she even knew she was doing it, but she was doing it; her eyes slipped close and she almost seemed to sway in the breeze.

It made him angry. Deeply, irrationally angry; it seared his heart and made him want to flatten his ears, bare his teeth, shove her sorry ass off just because she could fly, yell at her and ask if it was so fucking fun to be smashed against the rocks!!

But he didn't. Of course he didn't. He—

Well, fuck, that thought had been about to be a big, fat lie, so he shoved it back where it came from. Put it under lock and key. Watched Amaris intently. If she decided to bend, if her knees gave in and she crashed down, he couldn't save her. Not even if he threw himself in between her and the edge—he was took weak. He wouldn't even be able to drag spikes out of the cliff face and lodge her against them.

He was spent. A husk; a ghost.

Concern churned in his blue eyes, and he wanted to hate himself for it. Mauja, the pallid, glacial warlord of an era so far gone only a few would remember—feeling concerned for the daughter of an enemy, and to top it all off, displaying it. Where was the icy smooth facade? Where was his self-control? And where was the god-damned future, the inevitable change, because these thought patterns were all so worn down he wondered if he was physically incapable of thinking anything else these days.

It was hard to accept what he had become, harder still to take it and own it and turn it into something useful. He swallowed. The dragon dug a claw in the dragonmare, who snapped to, and straightened up. Mauja felt something in his shoulders unclench. It embarrassed him.

And as Amaris went on, he wanted to bite her on the poll, and shake her. Maybe now was a better time to push her off, because she seemed like she might unfurl her wings and save her sorry golden self.

She wasn't your mother he wanted to say. She's a two-faced bitch. She's not worthy of your concern. She's not worthy of giving two fucks about. She had chosen him as her champion, but by the stars, why? Because he proved over and over he was too stupid to die?

Yael beat him to it, though. He found no words to politely tell someone to snap out of it, get a grip, stop moping about something that isn't worth moping about—his sluggish body ached. He winced. "If the ray of sunshine here is correct, I'm not sure I'll remain immortal." He wasn't sure it mattered—he was still immortal then and there, a mixture of flesh and slow, seeping magic.

His gaze softened slightly as it landed on the dragonmare again. "She's not deserving of such devotion," he said, gently.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Amaris Posts: 299
World's Edge Philosopher atk: 5.5 | def: 8 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16h :: 4 years HP: 70 | Buff: NOVICE
Dramyrth :: Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Frost Breath Whit
#10
Why couldn't they see? Why couldn't they understand?

If the Gods of Helovia left forever, if they became no more, then Helovia itself was no more, and that meant -

that meant she would be no more.

Helovia was all she had left. She had left Helovia before, numerous times now, and every time something had gone wrong, and the only way to fix it she had had to return.

Idly, she wondered if Helovia's ceasing-to-exist would mean something different, if it wouldn't ruin her, destroy her and her companion, her beloved king, her Dramyrth. The last time she had taken him away from here, they had both been affected - he could not live without Helovia, and she could not live without him.

We will endure, came the reassuring tones in her mind, seeking to dispel the paranoia that was replacing the vacant numbness within her. Together, we will endure what is to come, his voice, so strangely musical within her own mind forced her to pay attention to it, to believe it, and she wanted to, she wanted to believe all of them, to understand what they were saying, but how could she when they couldn't see -

We will endure.

How can you be so sure?

We will.

Okay.


The tears finally seemed to stop, though their dampness still lingered about her cheekbones and face, as she blinked her puffy eyes dry and refocussed (for the umpteenth time) on the two who stood with her.

Mauja looked at her with something she couldn't define, something that was both weary and concerned, like he wanted to do more but he could only offer that look, that stare with his icy gaze and stoic visage. And she clung to it, as long as she could, matching it with her golden eyes, and tried to discern what it all meant (and failed hopelessly at that too).

And then Yael, beautiful, wise, stoic little Yael, who reminded her so of her mother, if not only for the dragon within the lady, but also the passion, the determined way in which she lived, as she spoke her pointed words and declared her thoughts with as much sharpness as words alone could. And Amaris heard the words, and wanted to feel what it was she meant to - a sense of waking up, of coming out of a great numbing slumber, a tidal wave of realisation, but she couldn't, she didn't know what she felt, and it frustrated her to the point of anger.

Of rage.

Something hot lit itself within her, something bright and scorching, something that wasn't normally there but very occasionally rose. Yael had called to the dragon within the mare, and that dragon had risen. Mauja spoke his words, and when the moment passed Amaris would surely understand the significance of them (immortality blessed upon one by the Moon Goddess herself was something worth mulling over, she knew on some subconscious level), but it was those he directed at the dragonmare herself that truly accomplished that which Yael's words had begun to do but didn't quite complete.

It wasn't a tidal wave that washed through her, but a wildfire, an inferno of white-hot anger, of rage, at herself for being so pathetic, Kaos for existing, at the Gods for creating Helovia the way they had, at the Gods again for abandoning them all and leaving them in ruin, at Dramyrth for not being able to exist beyond Helovia (to the best of her knowledge), at the two who stood beside her simply for being there.

Ears slicked back in one smooth motion, and the dragonmare immediately appeared more dragon than mare. Eyes flashed at them both, as she took deep, steadying breaths, willing herself not to accidentally summon a spirit and instruct said spirit to turn them into ashes while she watched without feeling.

Amaris was returning to herself, which also meant she was starting to deal with the flood of thoughts that were crippling her before.

But the inferno scorched through the floodwaters, evaporating them with a single thought: We will endure.

A defiant, almost challenging stare glanced at the others, as some semblance of normalcy returned to the posture of the dragonmare. She shuffled and shook herself, as if ridding her body of long-settled dust and dirt, and stomped a hindleg almost with what could be called impatience.

"Do not apologise," she spoke, her tones still quiet, but much more Amaris than before - steadier, with her gentle lilt colouring them. And she peered at Yael, remembering things her fogged brain could not recall sooner, finally sorting through the mess that was her thought patterns - she wasn't all the way herself again (she didn't know if that was even possible), but as she stared at the little golden mare, she remembered the way she had read the words given to them by Kaos, the way the Moon Goddess had promoted her for holding such a skill. She wondered at how the little pegasus felt, at whether she carried any emotional baggage over it, and just handled it all better than Amaris.

"You're right," she admitted then, lifting her ears from her neck as she then responded to Mauja's words, nodding almost sheepishly, feeling a sense of foolishness replace the flashfire of anger that had filled her mere moments ago, as her thoughts churned and shifted through all that had happened and tried to make sense of any of it. The Gods and Goddess of Helovia were no longer worthy of devotion or admiration, of worship and love, for how many times had they made mistakes which had resulted in the death and destruction of Helovians and the mortals they loved? How many times had their actions lead to disaster, to drought, or eternal midnight, or wraiths trying to consume them all?

And yet, without the Gods, none of them would be here.

"Helovia will fall, I think," she said, still soft, for there was no need to shout that which did terrify her. She swallowed, as if to prepare herself for her next words, which were delivered with slightly stronger tones, as she attempted to sound determined, reassured, but undoubtedly they would be able to tell she only just barely believed it, clung to it - she was almost there, so close, she just needed them to hear her say it:

"We can survive that."
Amaris
drákos istoría
Dagwanoenyent Stock | whimzi
on deviantart
No need to mirror my post length - I have a horrible case of the rambly writer syndrome!
I like being tagged!
You are always welcome to 'try' and use force/magic on Amaris, but similar to spar posts, leave it to me to decide how the damage is taken please~


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