[private] it's like a witch's house in here

[Sabal]

s a b a l .  She wasn’t really sure why she hadn’t immediately returned to the relative safety of Hyaline after leaving Maze, but she knew better than to delve into the recesses of her own mind. Scary place, that was. And it was true that she really hadn’t accomplished her original intention of actually leaving in the first place before she’d run into Maze too but. It all seemed less important now, all things considered. She hadn’t returned to the river, but she didn’t go so deep into the trees that she couldn’t hear the water. Sabal didn’t like to venture far from the water, less so now that Mazikeen had delivered the wonderful news that there were monsters lurking in the dark. She’d yet to run across anything suspicious, but she was smart enough to know that she was a hundred times more vulnerable on land than she was in the water.  And even though she might look like a pretty thing dressed up in scales, Sabal had a mouth full of kelpie teeth. And even though she walked the land as an equine, she wasn’t giving up her teeth when there were monsters in the dark. The bioluminescent markings on her skin glowed softly, though the light never traveled quiet as far on land as it did beneath the surface.  Still, she hadn’t realized just how lucky she’d been to inherit this particular ability until recently. The glowing was a trait seen more in her nereid bloodline than the kelpie, since kelpies were supposed to be ferocious or whatever. She felt paranoid standing here at the dark, ready to jump out of her skin at the first sign of movement.  She forced herself to pull in a deep breath in an attempt to relax.  Which was saying a lot given that she was generally a sort of anxious creature but, here we are.  Needless to say, the movement she catches out of the corner of her eye has her whirling – with her ears pinned flat against her head and her teeth bared. “Show yourself!” she demands, hoping that whatever it is lurking in the trees doesn’t hear the tiny waver in her voice. See? Kelpies were so fierce. Umm. can’t stop staring at those ocean eyes.

manip by squirt

@[Colby]

[Astin]

stars hide your fires
for these here are my desires--

He was too young to really think much of the dark.

He had his infrared vision that made it easy to see, and the arrogance of youth that lent him that feeling of being invincible. There were monsters that lurked in the dark, he knew that. He knew that they maimed and injured, hunted and killed. But he did not believe they would come for him.

It’s why he did not think twice about leaving the general safety of Tephra. The monsters were everywhere, but there seemed to be a false sense of security about staying in the land you were familiar with. But the way he saw it was, the monsters were everywhere. Dying in Tephra or Hyaline or the meadow wasn’t going to make much difference, and near as he could tell the sun was never coming back, so he might as well explore while he’s alive.

He walks along the river, more or less blending with the darkness around him. A black coat pulls tight over his adolescent frame, still lanky with his youth, much to his dismay. He liked to think that maybe his horns—curved and sharp enough to gouge with enough force—made him look older, despite being barely a young adult. Had there been any light at all it would have caught the gold that lined his white markings, but in this dark he may as well be a moving shadow.

He doesn’t really notice her at first with his vision the way that it is. He sees her, warm and glowing against the cool colors of the backdrop, but of course he cannot make out her face, or anything particular about her. He just sees a flash of color spinning toward him, and then a voice demanding something of him.

“I can’t, I’m naked,” he tells her with a low, humored laugh, finding his own joke rather hilarious. It was the kind of joke that Maea would have rolled her eyes at and not even spared him a forced laugh, which is how he knows it was funny.

He steps further into view anyway, his vision shifting from infrared back to normal, noticing her glowing markings for the first time. He doesn’t let the pleasant surprise register across his face—the fact that he is lured in by the enchanting beauty of it—but instead  keeps it carefully guarded behind golden eyes and a crooked smile. “I’m Astin. And not a monster.”

-- astin.

@[The Monsters] can you mess with his infrared vision please <3

@[Sabal]

[Random Event]

@[Astin] nothing happens to your infrared vision. sorry bout it.