[private] we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: Explore (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: The Common Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=72) +---- Forum: Meadow (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +---- Thread: [private] we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela (/showthread.php?tid=29946) |
we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Radiance - 07-31-2021 R A D I A N C E She should have reveled in the eclipse, but she had not. To see Beqanna plunged into the same darkness she was always reaching for should have been a delightful thing; she should have been thrilled at the chance for the world to witness how lovely the darkness could be. The way it pulsed and throbbed, like an entity with countless heartbeats, searching for those that knew how to bend and mold it. To show them how even though the dark was rightfully something to be afraid of it was also something to be admired and celebrated. She should have been pleased at this chance to show them all the things she could coax the shadows into doing; how she could be the moon and they the tide, a delicate balance of pushing and pulling. Instead, she had been jealous. To see the way the shadows crawled so intimately across the shoulders of everyone, twisting and coiling in a way she was all too familiar caused her skin to prick with irritation. Especially since so many of them didn’t even appreciate it. So many just kept complaining about the sun, lamenting its absence and begging for its return. It was irritating enough that soon she found herself also wishing that the sun would come back, since clearly the general population was too weak to handle it, and her patience was worn entirely too thin. She breathed a sigh of relief when the sun finally rose again, and once again, the shadows could belong to those that actually loved them. It is daylight now when she lingers at the edge of the meadow. An overcast day, with the air smelling of rain and only the faintest, watery streams of light managing to break beyond the cloud cover. Radiance has brought with her a thin veil of darkness from when she was in the forest, a smoky cloak of shadows that billow at her feet and up her sides as she walks through the lush grasses and blossoming flowers. She gives her surroundings a cursory glance, flitting over the various faces, but largely ignoring them. It is a golden figure in the distance that causes her to pause, coming to a standstill and tilting her delicate head. There is something about her that is familiar—the way that she carries herself when she walks, a magnetic pull that draws eyes to her without really having to try. Radiance closes the space between them, and it is once she finds the striking blue of her eyes that the name is there on her tongue, recalled as if they had just spoken days before rather than years: “Aela.” There is a smile curving across her mouth, though it is subtle and mostly guarded. “What a pleasant surprise.” and every day is like a battle but every night with us is like a dream @Aela RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Aela - 08-06-2021 YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS @Radiance RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Radiance - 08-26-2021 R A D I A N C E There is a flicker of surprise on her gold-shielded face when Aela actually speaks her response, having been mentally preparing for that unsettling intrusion into her mind, like the last time they encountered one another. It was one of those things Radiance couldn’t ever quite decide how she had felt about it. On the one hand, she was fascinated by it, and she couldn’t help but to wonder what it would be like to have such a gift herself. On the other hand, she did not like anything being used on her that made her feel invaded, which lent an overall feeling of dislike when she thought of it. “It seems some things have changed since I last saw you,” she offers, her direct way of speaking seeming to sharpen what was actually a curious observation. But there is a smile still on her lips, wispy as the tendril of shadows she controls. She doesn’t really like many others, often finding them tedious and boring, but she does find Aela appealing. She reaches for her with a single ribbon of shadow, as if her darkness might be able to see all the changes better than her own eyes. It hovers for a moment, suspended near the other mare’s face, before it withdraws and returns to the bed of roiling shadows at her feet. “The light, actually,” she says in response to Aela’s question. “Would you believe that I almost missed it during the eclipse?” She punctuates the question with a laugh and an almost incredulous shake of her head. “Everyone seems different, so I suppose I’m just taking the time to discover what those differences are.” hot and fast and angry as she can be i walk my days on a wire @Aela RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Aela - 08-29-2021 YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS @Radiance RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Radiance - 09-09-2021 R A D I A N C E “Fear has a way of waking you up,” she says, thinking back to the way everyone had reacted to the eclipse. There had been confusion at first, as everyone waited for the darkness to pass. The confusion had quickly given way to a wide-spread anxiety, followed by fear once the creatures that lurked in the dark were discovered. Radiance cannot say that she had been afraid, exactly. A part of her was still too arrogant to think anything could happen to her—that overconfidence and sense of immortality all youth seemed to possess. “And it seems like everyone is afraid of the dark.” She watches Aela watching her shadows, and she cannot deny the flicker of pride that warms in her chest. She liked when her shadows were appreciated, when they held someone’s attention even for a moment. And when Aela sparks a flame at her feet there is only a flicker of surprise, and then admiration in her own dark eyes. The way her shadows curls away from the light of the flame reminds her that she has her own light, that of which she rarely uses. Her beams of light that could cut through most anything, but Radiance so preferred the dark that she hardly ever called upon it. The shadows on the ground eventually settle, though, letting the light of the flame waver against it, and Radiance meets her companions gaze with a knowing smile, “You were not afraid in the dark, were you, Aela?” and every day is like a battle
but every night with us is like a dream RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Aela - 09-22-2021 YOU'RE ONLY AS SICK AS YOUR SECRETS @Radiance RE: we're so young but we're on the road to ruin, Aela - Radiance - 10-17-2021 R A D I A N C E Aela’s laugh inspires a smile of her own, something that is strangely open and almost inviting in comparison to the guarded way she often behaved around others. She would not go so far as to say she trusted Aela—she saw too many things in the other mare that mirrored herself, and she would never advise anyone to trust her, either. But she did enjoy her company, which was more than she could say for just about anyone else. “And I’m sure you can be terrifying,” she says, and though her tone is light-hearted, nearly teasing, she means every word of it. She knows Aela is someone she would rather have on her side than to go against, but she wonders if Aela knows that she should think the same of her. That there is more to her than her ability to weave and bend the shadows, though they are things that she still keeps close to her chest. She is sure no one would be surprised to know that someone with such an affinity for the dark would harbor their own internal darkness, but it still was not something she put on display, hiding it behind pretty smiles and magic tricks. But something about Aela made her want to show her more. Perhaps because she is a pretty girl and Radiance is not immune to pretty things, a weakness she did not like to admit that she has. “No, I am not afraid of the dark because I can control it,” she says calmly in response to her question, and those small tendrils of shadow winding their way upward in the space between them. She feeds them as they go, until they are no longer ribbons but rather a roiling cloud that hovers above their heads. She tilts her head, watching her creation as it shifts and churns with a thoughtful expression. Her eyes turn back to Aela, her own coy smile curving across her lips. She sends up a beam of light, the bright white of it piercing the shadows like a dagger, letting the dark bleed down around it until both the dark and the light disappear. “And because I can get rid of it just as quickly,” she adds with a satisfied smile and a slight shrug of her shoulders. and every day is like a battle but every night with us is like a dream @Aela |