11-12-2019, 09:40 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative|Crimson+Text" rel="stylesheet"><div style="width:500px;margin:auto;background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(0,0,0,0) 400px,rgba(0,0,0,1) 500px), url('https://s26.postimg.cc/bad0ndmjt/ad145d9cc0926037cbfb9220cda348d3.jpg') top no-repeat;background-size:540px auto;padding:150px 20px 20px 20px;color:#eee;"><div style="margin:30px 0px 0px 315px;letter-spacing:25px;opacity:0.2;font:20px cinzel decorative;">cRess</div><div style="padding:30px 20px;text-align:justify;background:#431a00;border:1px solid #fddea7;border-top:3px double;border-bottom:3px double;border-radius:35%/35px;opacity:0.80;margin:200px 0px 0px 0px;color:#fddea7;font:14px crimson text;"><I><center>like a house on fire we're up in flames; i'd burn here if that's what it takes</i></center>
A loud roaring stirs her to consciousness, and Cress sits up with a groan. Blinking the heavy film of Death from her chocolate eyes, she climbs to her hooves, unnerved by the lack of fire in her lungs. Did dying strip her of all of her mortal abilities?
As her eyes adjust, she sees that she is on the bank of a great river, with a grulla mare standing midway between the banks. There are other horses scattered along both sides of the churning waters, but Cress can only see the woman who is standing against a current that should be pulling her towards the waterfall – the roaring, she realizes – that envelops the seeming edge of the world. Glancing down to the water, she watches as twig and trunk alike are pulled to the edge, by a current that seems impossibly strong. Are they meant to ford this? With a gulp she looks for the woman again, but she has vanished.
Instead there are identical copies of her standing upon both banks, watching the confused groups of horses who have gathered here. She speaks, and her words are senseless to Cress – her person? Cress has been alone for so long that she has zero sense of a so-called “person.” Even if there is someone on the other side for her, the waters are impossible to cross – the tide will carry them over the edge of the Afterlife, tumbling downwards to an inevitable destruction... surely that’s not what the grulla woman wants of them. Unless that <I>is</i> what she wants of them...
<I>Oh.</i>
It hits her like a thunderclap and she almost laughs as the tension in her shoulders releases – <I>they’re already dead.</i>
Several of them – a lot, actually – have already begun their crossings, and Cress gulps as her premonitions come true. A few of them are swept under the swirling waters and the golden dragoness forces herself to look away; she doesn’t want to see their fates. Pacing the bank restlessly, she wonders who has been pulled into death to be her “person.” Certainly not Flamevein or Ledger; as much as she adores those two men, she is not sure that they could convince her to fight for life after suicide. Leliana, her dearest friend? Probably not; the magician is too strong to possibly be dead. It definitely isn’t her mother or her half-sister, either – she despises the two. So, who could it be?
Then, suddenly – desperately: “Momma?”
<I>No.</i> Her eyes snap towards the opposite shore and fall upon her youngest (and frailest) child, Ravine. A panicked cry rips from her throat and she splashes into the swiftly moving shallows, gasping as she is nearly ripped off of her hooves. How – <I>why?</i> He had been safe in Loess with Oxy when she departed – he can’t possibly be <I>dead</i>. The grulla’s words echo in her head – <I>you can both go home</i> – and she knows that she has to at least <I>try</i>, for Ravine’s sake. Cress may not want to be alive any longer, but her son is barely three; he hasn’t even yet started to live.
“You stay right where you are!” she screeches, hoping t hat her words carry across to the red colt. “I’ll be there to get you before you know it!”
Without further ado, she plunges forward until all four hooves are in the ripping current, and she braces herself as hard as she possibly can. The water threatens to overwhelm her already – and she is barely in to her ankles! – but she plants her hooves and refuses to let it, sheer determination outweighing everything else in her mind. She <I>has</i> to save her son. Slowly, she moves one hoof forward, and then the next. The water shouldn’t grow too deep, she imagines; she recalls that the grulla mare had only been submerged to her knees at the midway point. If she can make it there, the rest should be easy... right?
The thought crosses her mind too soon – a sudden weight, perhaps a tree or a tumbling boulder, crashes into her hindquarters and she loses her balance, stumbling headfirst into the water as her limbs flail for purchase. Instinctively, she breathes in a lungful of water as the current sweeps her down the shoreline, only to realize that breathing in water doesn’t hurt the way that it is supposed to. She’s dead, after all! The panic begins to fade and she struggles to get her hooves under her, scrambling in the now murky river. With some effort she finds her hooves again and pulls herself out of the water, gasping as she rises and can see again.
Gaining her bearings, she glances around, realizing almost too late that the current has swept her within feet of the waterfall, and Ravine is nowhere to be seen. Swallowing hard, she looks upstream and sees a tree trunk bouncing in the current, bearing down on her and leaving her no means to escape – unless the only way to escape is over the falls. A sob tears from her throat as she screams, praying for someone to answer.
“Save my son!” she sobs above the roaring of the river, waiting for the moment that everything fades to black. “Please, please, save him.” </div></div>
A loud roaring stirs her to consciousness, and Cress sits up with a groan. Blinking the heavy film of Death from her chocolate eyes, she climbs to her hooves, unnerved by the lack of fire in her lungs. Did dying strip her of all of her mortal abilities?
As her eyes adjust, she sees that she is on the bank of a great river, with a grulla mare standing midway between the banks. There are other horses scattered along both sides of the churning waters, but Cress can only see the woman who is standing against a current that should be pulling her towards the waterfall – the roaring, she realizes – that envelops the seeming edge of the world. Glancing down to the water, she watches as twig and trunk alike are pulled to the edge, by a current that seems impossibly strong. Are they meant to ford this? With a gulp she looks for the woman again, but she has vanished.
Instead there are identical copies of her standing upon both banks, watching the confused groups of horses who have gathered here. She speaks, and her words are senseless to Cress – her person? Cress has been alone for so long that she has zero sense of a so-called “person.” Even if there is someone on the other side for her, the waters are impossible to cross – the tide will carry them over the edge of the Afterlife, tumbling downwards to an inevitable destruction... surely that’s not what the grulla woman wants of them. Unless that <I>is</i> what she wants of them...
<I>Oh.</i>
It hits her like a thunderclap and she almost laughs as the tension in her shoulders releases – <I>they’re already dead.</i>
Several of them – a lot, actually – have already begun their crossings, and Cress gulps as her premonitions come true. A few of them are swept under the swirling waters and the golden dragoness forces herself to look away; she doesn’t want to see their fates. Pacing the bank restlessly, she wonders who has been pulled into death to be her “person.” Certainly not Flamevein or Ledger; as much as she adores those two men, she is not sure that they could convince her to fight for life after suicide. Leliana, her dearest friend? Probably not; the magician is too strong to possibly be dead. It definitely isn’t her mother or her half-sister, either – she despises the two. So, who could it be?
Then, suddenly – desperately: “Momma?”
<I>No.</i> Her eyes snap towards the opposite shore and fall upon her youngest (and frailest) child, Ravine. A panicked cry rips from her throat and she splashes into the swiftly moving shallows, gasping as she is nearly ripped off of her hooves. How – <I>why?</i> He had been safe in Loess with Oxy when she departed – he can’t possibly be <I>dead</i>. The grulla’s words echo in her head – <I>you can both go home</i> – and she knows that she has to at least <I>try</i>, for Ravine’s sake. Cress may not want to be alive any longer, but her son is barely three; he hasn’t even yet started to live.
“You stay right where you are!” she screeches, hoping t hat her words carry across to the red colt. “I’ll be there to get you before you know it!”
Without further ado, she plunges forward until all four hooves are in the ripping current, and she braces herself as hard as she possibly can. The water threatens to overwhelm her already – and she is barely in to her ankles! – but she plants her hooves and refuses to let it, sheer determination outweighing everything else in her mind. She <I>has</i> to save her son. Slowly, she moves one hoof forward, and then the next. The water shouldn’t grow too deep, she imagines; she recalls that the grulla mare had only been submerged to her knees at the midway point. If she can make it there, the rest should be easy... right?
The thought crosses her mind too soon – a sudden weight, perhaps a tree or a tumbling boulder, crashes into her hindquarters and she loses her balance, stumbling headfirst into the water as her limbs flail for purchase. Instinctively, she breathes in a lungful of water as the current sweeps her down the shoreline, only to realize that breathing in water doesn’t hurt the way that it is supposed to. She’s dead, after all! The panic begins to fade and she struggles to get her hooves under her, scrambling in the now murky river. With some effort she finds her hooves again and pulls herself out of the water, gasping as she rises and can see again.
Gaining her bearings, she glances around, realizing almost too late that the current has swept her within feet of the waterfall, and Ravine is nowhere to be seen. Swallowing hard, she looks upstream and sees a tree trunk bouncing in the current, bearing down on her and leaving her no means to escape – unless the only way to escape is over the falls. A sob tears from her throat as she screams, praying for someone to answer.
“Save my son!” she sobs above the roaring of the river, waiting for the moment that everything fades to black. “Please, please, save him.” </div></div>