the Rift


[PRIVATE] one more time [mauja]

Själ Posts: 112
Outcast atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.0
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 hh :: 4 (ages in Orangemoon) HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE
Ansgar :: Plain Griffin :: Draining Clutch ChaoticMelodies
#1
Själ
Winter was coming, and with it a feeling of darkness that the princess couldn't quite shake.  She'd spent the better part of the last year and a half in the north, reveling in the solitude that the cold, open, snowy spaces gave her.  There, she'd come to terms with the world as she knew it.  She'd no father, a dead mother, and friends as fleeting as the wind.  It seemed that everyone she had once sworn to protect had simply disappeared, off chasing their own destinies and leaving her to watch, stagnant, no longer sure of having a place where she fit.

But Själ had not wasted away in the northern reaches of the realm; no, she had come past the days of pouting over her misfortunes, plotting for her (sure-to-be-great) future.  Now, as a certain evil took hold in the snowy mountains of her hideaway, she emerged as a new mare.  Cool and distant, perhaps, but not wrapped up in her mother's fantasies any longer.  Psyche had been... not a great mother, but at least loving in her own way.  Whatever grandeur the DarkEmpress had once had, whatever royalty she had imagined impressed upon her daughter - it was the ravings of a dying queen, dethroned and removed from her home.  Själ had finally made her piece with that.

At some point in her wanderings, the princess mare had come across a few prizes.  Wrapped around her chest was a chest piece made of black leather, a breastplate meant to protect her heart from spearing.  It likely wouldn't deflect a strong, direct hit, but as long as she moved quickly enough, most physical attacks with slide right off.  On her right shoulder was a sheath holding a large dagger, a sharp, jagged thing that had looked oddly familiar to the unicorn when she'd found it.  Perhaps one day, she would connect the object to Psyche, for it was made of the deceased mare's missing horn; but for now, she merely named it Kejsardöme and spent her days learning its secrets.  The left shoulder of her armor held three small sheaths to hold a set of throwing knives.  She had practiced with the knives for the past six months since she found them, until she could strike a target the size of her hoof with ease.

Ansgar, never far from the mare, swooped from above, shrieking her falcon's call.  With surprising gentleness, the griffin settled on her master's haunches and set about preening her feathers.  Neither of the pair were used to southern temperatures, warmer than they had expected even in Orangemoon.  It was how they had come to rest in the Heart Caves, knowing that the darkness underground would be several degrees cooler than the air up above.  "Good hunting?" Själ murmured to the returning companion, who responded with a silent affirmative.  Satisfied, the mare set to grazing, the griffin curling up for a nap upon her back.

"Speak."
--Ansgar.--
Själ


@Mauja

Pixel by Reli <3

Please tag Själ in all replies.
Use of force and/or magic (with the exception of death) is allowed at all times.

Want to plot with Själ?  Visit her plot page here!
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
#2
och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen
då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,
He wasn't sure what he was doing there.

It was far from home. It had taken days. He had trekked across the face of the earth, felt the early mornings' cold kisses, the silent promises of a winter to come—and for the first time in his life, Mauja dreaded it. His thin body shivered already with the dropping temperatures, insulated by nothing more than his skin and some flimsy, ropy muscles very, very slowly growing thicker. He looked less like death, and more like something that might be death.

But there was another reason he dreaded the coming winter: he didn't know if it would end.

He had heard stories, about gods falling, empires being cursed, overrun, anything, solar eclipses and flares—some of the stories had ended in a scorched and ravaged wasteland, some had ended in a world snowed over, buried beneath hundreds of feet of ice and snow. A cold, dead world, where not even a unicorn bred for cold would survive.

Where nothing could survive.

With each passing day of the Gods' absence, he began to lose faith—not in them, but in the world. He had never put much stock in the divine, but this was, after all, their world.. and if Kaos somehow trapped them, or beat them, what would happen to Helovia? Would it come apart in a thousand tiny pieces, each individual torn asunder, and the land left like a shadowy veil on the face of the earth—as dead as the Marsh? Or would it simply die?

Or would nothing happen? Were they so firmly rooted in the land, that it could live without the Gods? It had been around a long, long time. Mauja had seen it, when forests had grown in the Dragon's Throat, and the steppe had not been a barren bit of permafrost tundra. He had seen the world as it had been, as it might've been, as it could've been.

He thought, idly, that the reason he sought the churning heart was to find some sort of comfort in the constant flames. They roared on the horizon, spat sparks.

As long as it burned, the Gods lived, or at least, that was what he thought. It was the heart after all, the soul of the land. How could it burn if they died? Or would it keep burning, and the lands would live?

It wasn't intentionally that he entered the Caves; he wasn't looking where he was going, though he knew he was skirting close to the entrance. Years of use had worn the sloping path, and the edge he passed by was loose. It shifted underneath his slow, cautious gait, and he stumbled.

And he was too weak to catch himself.

His knee folded and he pitched forward, striking the path with his shoulder and a scream. It had been softer once, he thought, but countless hooves had worn the soft dirt and gravel from the rock face, leaving nothing but a punishingly hard surface to break his fall. He slid a little ways down the slope before stopping. He was lightweight these days, after all.

He was only about halfway down, but his back lay in the direction of descent, and his heart was hammering uselessly. He was winded and in pain, weak from too long in a bloody ocean, malnourished despite eating all he came across—and so feeble. His body trembled. He thought he might be able to kick off and roll over, get his legs facing down so he had a shot at getting up, but not now. Not right now. He needed a couple of minutes, at least.

Up on the rim to the Heart Caves, the two owls sat next to each other. Their gazes went from each other to Mauja and back again. He wasn't sure if they were concerned, or just exasperated.

He rolled his eyes and waited for his body to recover.
du lät exakt som ismael.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Själ Posts: 112
Outcast atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.0
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 hh :: 4 (ages in Orangemoon) HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE
Ansgar :: Plain Griffin :: Draining Clutch ChaoticMelodies
#3
Själ
Ansgar was just telling the princess of her meager hunt when a rattle of gravel and a soft thwump interrupted their silent conversation. The pair looked at one another with raised brows, contemplating whether or not they cared enough to investigate. After a momentary pause, the mare shrugged. Let's see what Kaos has wrought.

A furry lump had (presumably) fallen to the floor of the caves. It was a rather large lump, but something about it made it seem fragile, broken, even. Perhaps it was that the lump, whoever it was, had simply decided to lay there and enjoy the cool floor of the cavern, rather than get up and move on. If it had been her, she might have leaped up, scanning the room to see if anyone else was around, her cheeks burning with embarrassment - but this creature seemed perfectly content to stay put.

Cocking her head to the side, Själ moved closer. She could see now that the lump was pale, speckled all over with black spots - almost the reverse of her own coloring, in fact. It was also bony, sickly looking - not at all healthy. She immediately assumed that it was old and rolled her eyes. She got along with neither children nor elderly folk, never knowing how to approach them. In fact, she would almost prefer an obnoxious foal to whatever grumpy old hermit had plopped into her lap.

In any case, some semblance of morality urged her forward further still, until she stood beside the unicorn stallion. She frowned down at him. "If you've managed to injure yourself getting down here, you're being awfully quiet about it," she informed him gruffly. "And if you've come down here to die, would you mind at least moving further back into the caves? It'd be a bit of a challenge to get out, what with your body laying here and all."

"Speak."
--Ansgar.--
Själ


@Mauja - wow, she got a little rude there. xD

Pixel by Reli <3

Please tag Själ in all replies.
Use of force and/or magic (with the exception of death) is allowed at all times.

Want to plot with Själ?  Visit her plot page here!
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
#4
och jag växte upp snabbt, från min barndom var det allt—jag föddes redan slagen
då tänker du tyst och skriker högt, memorerar hela jävla monologen som skrevs för din inre röst,
[ "I'll wait for you there like a stone" IN YOUR WAY ]

His body did not approve of the slight decline of the path. Not only did it put all his meager weight onto a rock and the point of his shoulder—his skin tore just you looked at it, so he was sure he was leaving a nice smear of blood on the floor—but it seemed to pool most of his blood into his head. His body just wasn't equipped to handle it.

He managed to inch his head up a little, so it was more level with his heart. There. Good enough. Now, if he could just catch a few—a lot, like, thirty—minutes alone, he'd be able to get out of there. No big deal. He just had to pretend to be dead for a while. His breath didn't come as a white cloud. It was too warm by the Heart.

The owls looked from him and then away. They disappeared from sight, informing him curtly that they'd go hunt mice until he got back up again, and if he ate mice, they'd totally give him some, but he'd spent some seven years politely declining Irma's offers, so she didn't have very high hopes.

Thistles? he asked them hopefully, but owls were not a catering service, so they politely told him to eat mice or go home.

Steps began to ring in the cavern.

Fuck.

There was something low-key terrifying about lying on a sloping path with a stranger present. He was too tired to lift his head. Too tired to dig his shoulder in and roll over and get his legs facing down, so he could scramble up. Whoever they were, they could just take a quick, nice stab, or a couple of slow ones, and he'd be as dead as he could be for a while longer.

Please don't he thought. He waited. Nothing happened, but the presence loomed closer and closer. After a moment, a head hovered in the corner of his eye, and he convinced his body to crane his neck a little. A white, well-shaped head, with a long horn jutting from the forehead, and a shorter one below. The rest of her seemed black.

And she was not pleased with his attempts at re-decorating the Heart Caves with a new doormat. "Oh, shove it," he muttered, and tested flexing his legs. Not much happened. He'd only had about five of his thirty minutes, so he was still fucked. "I'm an unintentional roadblock. Have you ever tried to stand up when your legs are higher up than the rest of you? If you haven't, go on. Hop on over me and try on the path above me and see how fun it is," he finished acerbically. "And then when we're both stuck here like beetles and turtles, I'm sure we'll become best friends. And I'm the turtle. You'll be the beetle." He glared at her.

He glared at her, and then he felt bad, because she'd actually been polite.

"Sorry," he muttered.
du lät exakt som ismael.
angels, they fell first, but I'm still here

Själ Posts: 112
Outcast atk: 5.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 5.0
Mare :: Unicorn :: 16.0 hh :: 4 (ages in Orangemoon) HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE
Ansgar :: Plain Griffin :: Draining Clutch ChaoticMelodies
#5
Själ
The princess mare wasn't sure what she had expected of the furry white lump. Having seen the way his ribs rose too high above his skin, the lackluster dullness of his coat, the way he just seemed content to lay there - well. She certainly hadn't expected him to have a backbone, that's for damn sure. And yet, to her gruff greeting, the saucy stallion snapped a startling reply. The woman's eyebrows rose almost imperceptibly as Ansgar cackled on her haunches.

And then, in spite of herself, she laughed, a surprisingly pleasant sound. "Well, Master Snapping Turtle," she began after a moment, her voice a tad bit warmer than before and her eyes sparkling with something akin to merriment. "I'd rather stick to the body I know, if it's all the same to you." The mare cocked her head to the side, her horns glinting in the scant light from above. She wondered if he had realized what an easy target he'd made himself. Even if she hadn't any horns, her daggers could have killed him in half a heartbeat.

But she wasn't really the kills-for-fun sort, so she left her head raised and her daggers sheathed.

"To be honest," she continued, taking a few steps to the side to peer at the stallions hooves, "you make a dreadful turtle. Now, let's see if we can't - oh!" Själ had discovered the bloody trail left by the stallion's tearing skin. There was a momentary flash of guilt that lit her amber eyes. They were so like her mother's, but Psyche the DarkEmpress had never felt bad about any of her transgressions (or so Själ assumed). And, polite as she had been, Själ's words to the stallion moments before had technically been true. She should not have been so quick to judge. It wasn't like she had been on her way out, anyway.

"You're hurt," she stated, flicking her gaze to his face, where she might meet his eyes. Her voice, carefully trained since her time in Helovia to betray very little emotion, was not as neutral as it could have been. Concern lingered there, and a determination to be of help if she could. Whatever outer facade she might show the world (and she had to show them something other than all the broken parts inside), she would not turn away from someone in need.

Själ looked around helplessly. Even if she could jump him and stay standing, what would she do? Attempts to shove him would merely pierce his skin with horn or hoof. "Can I help, or...?"

"Speak."
--Ansgar.--
Själ


@Mauja

Pixel by Reli <3

Please tag Själ in all replies.
Use of force and/or magic (with the exception of death) is allowed at all times.

Want to plot with Själ?  Visit her plot page here!


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