the Rift


[PRIVATE] PIECES OF PAST

Rohan Posts: 132
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.0 :: 8 years HP: 66 | Buff: NOVICE
Éomer :: White-tailed Eagle :: Scream Reli
#1
So don’t leave me here on my own
A dark-rimmed ear is trained through the trees, towards the horizon, where the frosty shores give way to  deep waters and continue on into oblivion. The briny breeze of the ocean causes his nostrils to curl, provoking memories; before long the man finds the taste of bittersweet nostalgia on his tongue, while images flash through his mind’s eye—both reminding him of things he’d rather forget, and reminiscing on treasures he holds dear to his heart. It seems like a lifetime ago since he had left the shores of Helovia behind him. It had been a noble quest (he had told himself then), but as the weeks quickly bled into months, he found his stony heart crumbling.

More than a few times he had dreamed of his return.
He dreamed of swirling, thick mists, of the familiar scent of the sea-forest that permeated through the Edge, and of second chances—of a time when he would not be a failure and a coward for the people that he had (for once in his life) tried to serve and protect. And love. Perhaps most of all, he had dreamed of silky curls (whiter than lilies) and of sparkling eyes (more beautiful than the moon)—of a dainty woman unbroken by the poisonous touch of his pride and madness.

He had dreamed.

Sadly, reality is not so kind. (A lesson he has learned a thousand times over, and likely will a thousand times again). Here, the world is dying.

With a frown curling the corners of his lips, the stallion lifts his eyes, peering through the thin, skeletal boughs of the pines and towards the heavens (or what is left of them). Even for Orangemoon, the skies are far too dim, far too starved of the light of the sun, and it leaves little more than a snowy wasteland of bleakness and solitude. What happened while he was gone? (He’s afraid to know the answer). Instead he steels himself, gritting his teeth and turning away, sweeping his gaze towards the haphazard nest at his feet. An egg rests inside, pale cream and speckled with brown—a recent find in his travels just outside Helovia’s borders. He had taken it as a blessing, then; but as the dreary world withers around him, he can’t help but lose hope.

notes; I'm rusty but omg so happy to have Rohenna again <33
“Speech.”

without you I’m so lost
without you I’m so cold
rohan & enna

@Enna | image credits
[Image: 57c5195f31f1b_by_relibelli-db9li1z.png]
please tag Rohan in all replies!
magic & force is permitted, excluding death or permanent injury.

Enna Posts: 172
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4
Mare :: Unicorn :: 14.1 :: 5 ( TALLSUN ) HP: 61 | Buff: NOVICE
Mehr :: Arctic Wolf :: None kels
#2
So don’t leave me here on my own
He is a familiar shape pressed against the barren shore.

There is a fraction of a second of hesitance from you as your movements pause, as something swells in your chest, angry and hurt and yet saccharine, coveted, all the same, as you only breathe against the ice and snow. A moment in which you are surprised at how close you have kept him, the shards of memories, of dreams and sweet words that meant nothing (to him), of how much only seeing him wakes within you. A moment in which you think to only turn from him, to be the one that breaks this habit of finding him just long enough to believe that maybe, just maybe, seeing you shifts something in him, too.

Long enough to remember (as if you have ever forgotten, as if it meant so little that only the passage of time could erase what it felt like to be held by him, when you had been fool enough, in love enough, to believe that it had been something to him, too)  the sand as it bent beneath you, his heat and the taste of sweat, of promises (I think that is time I’m willing to give—). all the too-tender things in between. Long enough to remember the words that shattered you as he turned away, that he chose to let all of it go the moment he was given the chance.

But you are too stubborn; too annoyed by the hold he still has over you despite everything he has done—too angry and hurt (never will you admit to the parts of you that long to see him, if only to know that he is safe, if only to satisfy for an instant the emptiness all your dreams left in his wake) to simply give in, as he had done when you were no longer convenient enough.

It is this that you break your stillness against, finally falling into the same languid motions of mistakes you’ve made too, too many times and yet not enough to learn. This time, you think, it will be different; you will be stronger, not made to crumble beneath summer eyes. Not made to crumble beneath the wants, the wishes, that live somewhere in the shadow of your heart.  

“I’m not sure of how well the North suits you afterall.”

You smile as you stop near him, too far to touch, too far to recall the scent of pine needles and sea and mist, even as it lingers thickly in your mouth. At your chest there is a whisper of movement from within the slate-colored fabric draping from your shoulders, and that smile turns genuine as you look down, caressing the soft fur between the pup’s just-visible ears.

Only as you begin to look up does the egg pressed against his feet catch your eye, and for seconds you stare, unsure of just where the emotions of uncertainty within you are borne from. Perhaps it is knowing of the commitment, whether voluntary or not, the love that such a thing, dependent on you for its very life, forces from its keeper. Your brows furrow as you swallow, gaze lifting to the chiseled lines of his face.

“Congratulations,” you breathe, the word as hollow as you suddenly feel.

without you I’m so lost
without you I’m so cold
rohan & enna

@Rohan | image credits


please tag enna in every post
violence permitted barring permanent injury / death

Rohan Posts: 132
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.0 :: 8 years HP: 66 | Buff: NOVICE
Éomer :: White-tailed Eagle :: Scream Reli
#3
So don’t leave me here on my own
“I’m not sure of how well the North suits you after all.”

Countless times he had told himself that he didn’t expect to find anyone here, on the frozen shores of this miserable wasteland—that he hadn’t been looking for anyone or hoping to see a familiar glimpse of those bright, bright eyes. He might have convinced himself, too, if her voice hadn’t suddenly cut through the frosty air. The sting of her words is locked away and saved for another time of lonely brooding (in the deepest parts of his mind, hadn’t he always imagined that he would end up in the North, with her?) but for now, it is only her presence that is enough to grasp the stallion’s mind and demand every ounce of his attention.

He turns, slowly, afraid that she will disappear into the nothingness of daydreams if he were to move too fast. Dark lashes flutter, his hooded eyes betraying him as they shimmer with a sense of desperation and earnesty, brimming with unspoken questions of Are you really here? and Could you ever forgive me?

“Enna,” he breathes, his voice nearly breaking, releasing a breath he doesn’t realize he’d been holding. Her name is honey on his tongue, sweet and deliciously familiar—his eyes take her in (because he hasn’t seen anything as beautiful in so, so long) and the images in his dreams could never compare to the poignancy of her standing before him now. (Is she real?) Dusty nostrils curl, inhaling her scent. It is all he can do to keep himself from rushing forward, from embracing her again, from wrapping his neck around hers and pulling her into him, if only to ensure that she is here, and she is safe.

(But he’s hurt her before, why would she be safe now?)
The thought nearly makes his heart bleed, his brow furrowing in sorrow while he aches inside.

“What? Oh—” green eyes sweep down to the speckled egg nestled at his hooves, bundled in a casual nest of stray leaves and pines. The stallion briefly lowers his head, brushing his lips against the smooth surface, before he looks up again, trying to meet her eyes. “Thank you, I found it just outside of Helovia’s borders.” He attempts a smile, a crooked twist of his lips that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

The movement within the fabric cradled against her chest hadn’t gone unnoticed; his gaze falls to the white fluff that is visible (ears, perhaps?) while his head tilts gently. “Congratulations to you as well,” the smile on his lips is more genuine now—wanting her to be happy, more than anything, and reminded that more than a short time has passed since they have seen each other.

(Too long).

“It’s so good to see you again,” Rohan starts while he is still looking at her companion, daring to lean forward a step as he raises his eyes, telling himself that his gaze doesn’t cry desperation (and knowing that he’s wrong). “I’ve...” missed you. The words hang on the tip of his tongue, a plea for forgiveness, for her to take him back, but the poison of his pride restrains him, because what if she doesn’t care? What if she has forgotten him? Forgotten them and all they have shared? He takes a shuddering breath, willing his wild heart to still. “It’s been awhile; how have you been?” The man says instead, quietly, and hates himself for it.

“Speech.”
without you I’m so lost
without you I’m so cold
rohan & enna

  @Enna | image credits
[Image: 57c5195f31f1b_by_relibelli-db9li1z.png]
please tag Rohan in all replies!
magic & force is permitted, excluding death or permanent injury.

Enna Posts: 172
Aurora Basin Time Mender atk: 6 | def: 9.5 | dam: 4
Mare :: Unicorn :: 14.1 :: 5 ( TALLSUN ) HP: 61 | Buff: NOVICE
Mehr :: Arctic Wolf :: None kels
#4
So don’t leave me here on my own
Enna,

Your lips purse as he says your name, head shaking gently as a tremor erupts across your heart, across the aching of your soul, as your eyes rise to meet his and find there the reflection of something tender, something sincere. It moves something within you, crushes to pieces the rebellion that you had mounted minutes ago—and those shards turn in on you, cut the parts of your heart you have tried so long to bury, the parts that still yearn for promises that were never meant to be kept in the first place.

But he speaks—alluding to time spent outside of Helovia, outside of the place of sea and pine, and you crawl back into yourself, stifling a snort, fighting back the anger that scorches through you. You had stayed, stayed in your mountains and your snows, where he could find you if he ever wanted. Stayed when restlessness soaked into your bones and sorrow into your heart and all you wanted was something that would make you forget, if only for an instant. He had left—left without a word, without a thought to what it would be if you had come. And maybe he hadn’t even cared, then, if the same wanderlust that found you sought him as well, his heart too wild to be burdened by a girl who would never be anything more than a memory, her heart never enough to satisfy him.  

He had left again.

You look away from the man, his image suddenly enough to make your stomach churn, over the chill of the sea, the rivers of ice, the dimness of sky reflected there.

“Mehr,” you breathe, pushing from within you the rage that had slowly burnt to nothing, leaving you empty. He stirs further at his name, yawning as he sits balanced in the folds, golden eyes lifting to examine the man with mild interest, and you wonder if it will always be only names that you bring him, names and newness that chase him away. “He was beneath Quinn’s tree.” It is different, saying it now than it had been with your lionheart, the words more poignant, heavier, as they leave you and your gaze flickers to him before settling back over the dead of the icy sea. Perhaps it is because he had been there, helped bury her beneath sheltering boughs, and had been the one to hold the pieces of you when you had come undone.

The touch of a cold nose pressed to your neck pulls you from your waking dreams, and his voice brings your attention back to him, kaleidoscope eyes tracing the lines that you (once) cherish(ed).

“Is it?” There is the ghost of a laugh on your lips then, teasing because it is less real than the discord coiling in your chest, because it offers a distraction from the taste in the back of your mouth as you remind yourself he had made a choice a lifetime ago, that he had been the one to break from you. His movements are matched as you take a hesitant step backwards, breathing against the way that it burns to your very marrow to deny him, to deny yourself. You do not look for his face then, as afraid as you've always been of what you will not find, and more of what you will in the midst of your denial, your refusal, to fall back into him.

It’s been awhile; how have you been?

For too long a moment you are quiet, still against the colorless world that engulfs the four of you, against the drumming in your chest, the pulse in your head.  For too long a moment you want only to lie, to pretend in the face of a stranger you once knew (and is he so different than you once thought after all?) that your world had not begun to truly fall apart the second he had taken himself from it. As if your son had not disappeared and you had not almost found death in your refusal to succumb to a beast’s carnal whims.

But you have never been a good liar.

“Etziel is gone, Rohan. He didn’t even say goodbye, he just…” You smile to hide the way that your heart contorts then, the way your stomach drops and the heat that rises familiarly to your cheeks. You hadn’t had the intention to tell him, to bring light to your failures in the last thing he believed of you, of your inadequacies as a mother, but a part of you hopes it sparks some recollection of the boy built of sand—a part of you that still clings to the want of him to care for the child he tossed away, of the little family he once abandoned.

You shift against the weight of it, swallowing against the lump in your throat, blinking away the layer of salted water in your eyes. The wolf presses closer to you as your chest swells with fresh sorrow, fresh anger with yourself, perhaps knowing enough to understand that it is not his usual bouts of indifference or annoyance with your tidal emotions, but quiet comfort that you need.

“I guess I kept him too close, too.”

without you I’m so lost
without you I’m so cold
rohan & enna

@Rohan | image credits


please tag enna in every post
violence permitted barring permanent injury / death

Rohan Posts: 132
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 8.5 | dam: 7.5
Stallion :: Unicorn :: 17.0 :: 8 years HP: 66 | Buff: NOVICE
Éomer :: White-tailed Eagle :: Scream Reli
#5
So don’t leave me here on my own
Much to the man’s agitation, he finds it difficult to read her reactions—how much does he want to see? How much is he looking for? And how much is he hiding from? In dreams it was never this complicated; in dreams there was never a silence thicker than sand, continuously falling into the space between them as the seconds bleed on (space that he longs to see vanished, if only to hold her again).

When she does speak, he hangs on her every word (no matter how small), ears tipping forward in order to hold the sound of her voice, to keep it for when the silence begins to push them apart once again. His eyes watch her closely (desperately, even, as much as he would wish it otherwise). At one time, he might have tried to convince himself that the pain in her face (hardening every beautiful line, darkening that bright, bright gaze) was not of his doing, was not because of his pride and folly, and he would cling to any small excuse to bleach his conscience clean.

Now, however, he doesn’t try to fight the guilt-ridden grief (wild and burning) that floods into every facet of his chest.
It would be a futile effort to do so.

“Mehr,” he repeats, the pup’s name hardly more than a breath across his dry tongue. The stallion swallows, his gaze falling to those large, golden eyes as he tries to piece together something of a smile on his lips. “How fitting. It must have been destiny,” a haunt of a laugh whispers into the frigid air, his thoughts turning briefly to that fateful day (a lifetime ago, it seems) and the metal band wrapped around his foreleg, and how it would have been inappropriate for Enna to find her companion any other way. “Meant to be,” he murmurs then, mostly to himself while his eyes dart to hers, knowing that his wild thoughts have led him much farther than the wolf pup cuddled against her breast.

She questions him, and his weight leans involuntarily forward, trying to ignore just how much it hurts when she rejects his advances. Suddenly the space between them seems so vast and so cold. “It is,” he vows, despite knowing that his promises mean less than nothing to her now—as they rightly should. Who is he, a bastard and a coward, to expect her forgiveness?

Slowly, piece by sharpened piece, he can feel himself crumbling from the inside out.

He isn’t even looking at her when she speaks again.
In the long moments that had passed, his head had fallen, casting a shadow over his eyes as he had tucked his chin in towards his chest, trying (unsuccessfully) to hide the pain and despair from his expression.

The information that his son, his only child—their child—is missing is a (cursed) blessing enough to ignite a different fire within the stallion’s heart—a more familiar fire, one that gives him a shallow, momentary breath of life and stability. “No—” He searches to meet her gaze, his voice closer to the rough velvet of his usual tones. He’s stopped only when he notices a jagged crack along the speckled surface of his egg. Quickly he decides that it is a shallow fracture, a hairline chip, and returns his attention to the mare after his cursory inspection.

“No, Enna,” he continues, almost crooning her name, nearly lost in her presence as he steps steadily closer, choosing to overlook the fact that she had rejected him only moments prior. He would like to think that she needs his comfort now, whether she realizes it or not—but that is the wishful thinking of dreams and fantasies. Of pride. Fighting every muscle, he stops just short of an embrace, looking down at her with a messy collage of emotions. He takes a trembling breath to try and steady himself. “You loved him. He will come back; young boys are simply...too full with wanderlust and an insatiable sense of adventure. I should know,” again, he attempts a laugh, but it is dry and half-hearted.

Is Etziel too much like his father?
His ashen son hadn’t been the only one to leave a broken-hearted mother behind.

Fighting the frown that suddenly wilts the line of his lips, the stallion is far too distracted to notice how the little crack widens, or how the speckled egg begins to move. His attention is only for the dainty woman standing in front of him. “Enna...” he breathes, slowly lowering his head, unable to look away from her shimmering eyes. The urge to touch her, to hold her, is itching through every vein in his body. If she allows it, he reaches close enough for their hot breaths to mingle, for his husky voice to wash over the bridge of her nose. “How long has he—?”

Cheep! Cheep!

The sudden high-pitched noise startles him. Initially frustrated that he had been interrupted (he could almost feel her) his ears slant back into his mane, and his eyes narrow as he glances over his shoulder in the direction from which it had come. However, once he is enlightened by the realization of what has happened, his agitation quickly withers, giving way for a flame of excitement.

Cheep! Cheep! Cheep!

“I will help you—I will help you find him,” he promises both Enna and himself, making sure to meet her eye, making sure that she knows he will, before he turns his attention to his newly-hatched companion. It is some sort of bird—small, with feet and a beak that are much too large for it now, and covered in an ashen-brown fuzz that hardly resembles feathers. The man’s first thought is how ugly the little thing is, but as he feels the fledgling bond (it is not his soul growing bigger, but rather becoming whole, when he had never noticed a part of him was missing), there is a wash of adoration that is uncharacteristic of his rugged character. Slowly, gently, he presses his whiskery muzzle against that precious little head, and breathes in what he hopes will be a fresh start in this dying world.

“Speech.”
without you I’m so lost
without you I’m so cold
rohan & enna

  @Enna | image credits
[Image: 57c5195f31f1b_by_relibelli-db9li1z.png]
please tag Rohan in all replies!
magic & force is permitted, excluding death or permanent injury.


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