09-27-2015, 05:50 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-27-2015, 05:53 PM by Tarnished.)
I watch you fast asleep,
All I fear means nothing.
They hunger for chaos, they claim, but when a wolf is hungry he hunts; he does not wait for someone else to do it for him, he does not let his hunt be dictated by relationships and politics, he sets his sights on a target and then he and his brethren go in for the kill. It’s how the sick and the weak get singled out and obliterated, making the herd stronger as a whole—if they all preyed on the weaker kingdoms, Beqanna itself would be stronger as a whole. But Beqanna isn’t ruled by wolves. It’s ruled by ravens and dragons and fire.
Collectors, who coddle even the weakest like treasured silk while the fire tries to burn through them all.
He has observed enough to know that his cousin, the raven, is the only real threat that exists right now. The dragons of the west sleep; their wrath, too, finally at rest—but Tarnished is wise enough to know that the dragons are merely waiting. Waiting for someone foolish enough to wake them. Demian has lit a slow-burning fire in The Valley and its people have responded in kind. It means something to them. It means nothing to him, but he does what he is told; he watches, he waits, he guards, he patrols, he protects and it’s all for nothing.
There is no place for The Valley in his heart.
Demian isn’t stupid, he can sense it. See it. They have discussed it several times. It’s why he asks nothing of Tarnished. The king keeps him around simply because he enjoys his company, his counsel—they’re friends. So imagine the shape-shifter’s surprise when the King of the Valley comes to him one day and asks him to visit The Tundra. He doesn’t object, but warns that his ‘diplomatic’ skills aren’t the best—Demian waves off his concerns, sends him anyway.
“It’ll be good practice.”
Tarnished agrees.
But everyone is much more agreeable when they aren’t knee-deep in snow and wandering blindly through a blizzard.
Gritting his teeth, Tarnished puts his head down and presses on; the hair of his body has grown in response to the weather, thickening until the cold isn’t quite as unbearable and the sting of the wind doesn’t feel like the crack of a whip. He is used to the jungles and deserts of Beqanna, the source of all their heat, their fire—this place is something else entirely, and as much as he’d like to take a bite out of Demian right now, he starts to enjoy the struggle. It’s new. It reminds him that he isn’t invincible. And he likes that.
“How’re you holding up back there?” He smirks, but doesn’t bother to look back. The ‘crunch, crunch’ behind him is sufficient enough to let him know that Dominion is keeping up quite well.
“Enjoying the cold and the view… I’ve never seen this kind of landscape before, it’s lovely.”
He snorts, either ignoring the slight pause or thinking nothing of it. “Right, of course you’d say that.”
Vanquish x Nocturnal
equus mutatio, immortality, disease manipulation, trait immunity
and death shall have no DOMINION The dead of winter seemed like rather a questionable time to be making a visit to the frozen north. This time of year made for pleasant weather in more temperate areas, but the farther north they traveled the harsher the cold became. However. Dominion was not unfamiliar with harsh climates. It had, admittedly, been a while since the wasteland of a dying world was the only life she’d known. Still, the cold sinking into her bones was a welcome reminder after years spent in luxury. Paradise, she’d called it when she’d first arrived. It still felt that way most of the time. The blizzard? It brought her back to her roots, calling forth memories of a world where survival was anything but guaranteed and death was a friend much more intimately familiar. Another reminder that even here, death wasn’t so far away, wasn’t so far out of reach that one could take life for granted.
Even if one had only recently become immortal.
The stars sparkling against her spotted coat were hidden beneath thickly falling snow, much like the clouds obscured the still-unfamiliar stars in the sky. She was learning the new constellations, the way they moved through the sky with the turning of the seasons and the whirling of the planet. But there was still a lonely ache to staring at the sky, now that the stars of the old world had faded from its inky expanse forever. All of her ancestors, devoured to save her, and nothing left but their twinkling memorial on her skin.
Still. Now was hardly the time to dwell on what was dead and gone. Dom grinned as her comment about enjoying the view went unremarked upon. Her cover was sub-par, given the blinding white that drowned out most of the scenery. About the only thing she could see aside from the shadow of mountains was Nish walking in front of her, snow clinging to his skin as he trudged through snow up to his knees. Paving the way for her like a gentleman. Oh, she’d offered to take a turn in front, breaking ground, doing the hard work. And she might have insisted more despite his “No, I’m fine,” if she weren’t so, as she’d said, enjoying the view. Next time.
Dom lost track of time, until all that existed was the cold creeping into her body, the flex and stretch and working of muscles propelling her forward and combatting the cold, the snow falling around them, and her awareness of Nish ahead of her. Eventually, though they came to a towering wall of ice that stretched on for what seemed like forever. “I’m guessing we made it, then,” she said, forcing her legs to keep moving despite the urge to pause and admire the ice wall. Stopping was not a good choice mid-blizzard. Well. Worst case scenario, Nish could find a way to keep her warm. He was creative like that. Still, better to be smart than to need saving.
Even if the saving would be fun.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Winter is a terrible time to be travelling in the Tundra. Those of the brotherhood have long since learned how to survive the harsh climate of the north, but those from the southern kingdoms are ill equipped for any sort of extended stay in their frigid home. And that they would come calling in the winter months, when blizzards are nearly a daily occurrence – madness.
Even Hurricane does not try to fly during a blizzard. It often means that he is grounded during the winter. But he much prefers to be grounded than to die a horrific death (could he die? He’s not entirely certain, but he’s also not willing to find out). Even so, he makes a point of patrolling the borders on a daily basis, despite the likelihood that anyone trying to enter the kingdom would be turned into a popsicle before they could even cross the wall. It is a habit, one he is unwilling to break. Besides, the exertion keeps him warm. When you make your home in a land that is frozen more often than it is not, you must be creative in finding ways to keep warm.
For the most part, however, he tends to linger near the single opening in the ice wall. If anyone were to try to enter the kingdom, it would likely be through that location. And though plenty of horses have wings, on a day like today, they would have to be feeling suicidal to attempt to fly in. He expects today to be as boring as any other day (given the weather), but he is quite soon proven wrong.
Surprisingly, a pair of horses emerge from the swirling snow, both trudging duly forward, their coats coated in ice. Hurricane himself blends almost perfectly with the achromatic landscape. His own pelt is as white as the snow crusting the uppermost layer of his thick winter hair, save for a few dark dapples on his leg joints and along his flanks. His pale wings are tucked easily against his side, the thick, downy feathers providing an additional barrier against the cold.
As they continue to slog forward, he steps from the blizzard, putting himself directly into their path. His dark, steely gaze flips from stallion to mare and back again, quietly assessing them. His features are still, as unassuming as the surrounding landscape.
It’s the wrong time of year to be travelling to the Tundra.
He pauses a brief moment before continuing.
I am Hurricane. What is your purpose here? There is never a day that goes by that is a good day to die. Hurricane
The blistering storm that whirled around him in a white frenzy seemed fitting at the moment, his chest throbbing from what he can only assume is anger – something he had never truly felt before.
Though the young stallion was only rounding his fourth year of life, his face personified a completely different age. His face was solid like a marble sculpture, worn away by sharp erosion of wind and rain. It’s almost a pained expression that he wore across his auburn face, sharp and glass-like snowflakes clinging to his eyelashes and whiskers. He blinked blindly, his indigo legs moving methodically through the crunching and unwavering snow – his mind was obviously elsewhere.
In his mind, Warrick is on a mountain. The night sky opens up above him like a hungry mouth while thousands of stars twinkle above him. And there, in the gaping chasm of black, is his sister and his mother – drawn to their stars as they always have been. They’ve left him behind to soar the galaxies together.
He trudges through the snow with an unusual sense of purpose for such a young age. The snow and frigid cold had not yet begun to bother him as he made his way through what would become a furious storm. A silver-scarred black stallion with wings that reminded him of an abyss had drawn him here, though Warrick wasn’t exactly in search of that stallion. Warrick wasn’t exactly sure of what he was in search of, but the betrayal of his mother and sister had left him with no where else to go and with a fury that was churning in his chest like thunder.
Warrick was not one to keep his head in the clouds and count the stars. His life was to have purpose and he was to make a name for himself.
In the hours and hours that had taken him to arrive here in the unmerciful tundra, there was finally something that had taken his mind off of his thoughts. Storm-grey eyes flashed toward the sounds of voices being carried on the icy wind. His head jerked upwards, black tendrils covered in ice scraping against his neck aggressively as navy nostrils flare pink. Hot breath left him as his sights become set on a small group that had formed in the distance.
He would call it intuition if he had been asked, but the young stallion had merely been dealt a good stroke of luck. He had happened to set out in the direction towards the wall, and by fate would have it, found himself here at the same time as two others were venturing towards the entrance.
It’s here, where his gaze meets the group and a subconscious decision is made to move forward, where a shudder shakes him to his core. He’s not sure, but he tells himself it’s the unforgiving temperatures that caused it, and begins to move towards them. Suddenly, the world went grey around him as the blizzard settled in and Warrick lost sight of the horses that were once before him. He was now walking blind.
Warrick’s luck soon runs out when he bumps lightly into the one he would soon learn to call Dominion. He snorts sharply, startled, and takes a couple steps backwards to regain his surroundings. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles, not realizing that his voice would sound so unfamiliar in the howling wind. His eyes trace each of the horses that stand around him, not a familiar face in his sight. He had just caught the tail-end of what the white stallion had asked, and his ears flip backwards in nervousness.
“His name was Errant – he invited me here.”
WARRICK we are infinite as the universe we hold inside
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