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[private] rivers and roads - fireheart - Printable Version

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rivers and roads - fireheart - Claudia - 10-25-2025

…and when dawn came, the ooze was gone.

The thick, ominous sludge that had swallowed the crystalline river — that winding lifeline through Beqanna’s fields and forests, had vanished. The sea had devoured it, displaced it, or perhaps carried it away to some darker place along its course. Whatever force had overtaken the water and them both was now only memory. The other girl — the one who had stood beside her in eerie stillness, trapped in the same green horror as it consumed them — was gone as well. Only Claudia remained, dripping riverlight and silence. Tybalt emerges from the brush, unharmed but bristling, wings half-flared in alarm. His confusion stirs something protective in her; she lowers her head to him, voice soft and melodic.
 
“I am fine,” she purrs, pressing her muzzle to his cheek. 
“I do not know what that was, but… it may have tweaked something in my magic.” Her words are half to him, half to herself — a musing spoken into the morning air as the little dragon circles her, scales flashing blue beneath the newborn sun. 

"Well, you don’t look any different,” Tybalt remarks after a moment, his tone caught between teasing and unease. Claudia exhales slowly, her breath curling like smoke in the cool dawn. The light catches her mane, molten gold against the wet sheen of her coat, and glitters across the now-clear river. It is as if nothing had ever happened. Yet the world feels thicker, heavier. The silence hums with something unseen. She steps into the shallows, the water whispering around her ankles. The river hums softly, like a creature dreaming beneath its skin. Tybalt hovers close above her, the rhythm of his wings steady and low. 

“Let’s move,” she murmurs, glancing upstream — though her gaze drifts, half wary, half entranced, toward where the ooze had once crawled.  Together they slip into the fog-damp woods, the scent of moss and brine heavy in the air. Behind them, the river runs clear again…
 
@Fireheart 
<3

RE: rivers and roads - fireheart - Fireheart - 10-28-2025

i burn from the hell i've seen, but the devil can't hold me down


He tears through the sky like a comet. Beneath him the world blurs, lost in sparks and embers. The stars twinkle prettily against the black velvet of the night, but they cannot compete where they don't compare. He is more than they could ever hope to be, brighter and more everlasting. His flames are fed by an ancient and endless magic, while theirs are fed by a finite supply of gas. He doesn't even sing tonight; tonight, he gives into the fire that burns within his heart. Tonight, he is fueled by gasoline and need.

He spots the dragon before he spots the mare. For such a small thing it stands out within the darkness, though the first rays of the sun are rising against the horizon. The strange little creature intrigues him, and just as he banks across the sky to investigate his sharp avian eyes land on the mare. As his flight path changes the pair slip into the woods, but that doesn't deter him. His curiosity will not be satiated that easily.

There is a burst of fire in the sky, and an identical burst in the forest. It is through that second burst that he emerges in his equine form, though his newly acquired shadows wrap lovingly around his legs. "I wanted to say hello, to you and your friend." by way of greeting. His head tilts in that distinctly avian way of his as he takes her in. Something in her calls to something in him, though he cannot place the feeling. "I'm Fireheart. he offers, almost as an afterthought.



fireheart



RE: rivers and roads - fireheart - Claudia - 11-03-2025


Night comes fast these days. With it falls a sweep of sparkling frost — gentle breaths of frozen dew blanketing everything as the moon rises to peer down at the glittering land below. Claudia pads through the shadows, a prowling shadow-eater.

Tybalt moves like a weasel-cat over moss-rimed rocks and curling roots. He hunts as he goes, frogs, bugs, snails, the occasional mouse, or his most prized quarry: a rabbit. He can fly, but the air offers him fewer victories; ravens tease him, hawks attack him, and eagles appraise him like a convenient snack. The ground, or some half-height perch close to it, suits him better.

Claudia’s coin-gold hair, wet and molten even in the dark, makes her a dim lantern in a sea of shadows. Dawn has not yet touched the old forest guarding the river, but the far horizon begins to bruise peach-rose. The first hints of morning bleed upward, drowning the stars. As they fade, so does Claudia’s glow,  all but the sharp teeth lining her mouth, forever luminescent against her dark lips.

A burst of light catches her attention. Tybalt notices it too — they both turn as a flaming figure tears downward, striking the trees in a flare of unnatural fire. Tybalt squeaks, a startled peal — “What the hell is that?!” — before darting up Claudia’s shoulder to perch along her withers, peering around her neck like a nervous sentinel.

The phoenix-stallion’s approach is gentle but bold. Claudia gives him space, leveling her mismatched eyes with his as he steps from the treeline. Frost smokes faintly around her hooves; her scales ghost ripple-bright over her bay coat and dark cerulean points as she studies him. The bite of late-autumn morning settles over the world, it is cold, clean, edged like glass. Her golden eye catches the first rose-gold fingers of sunrise; her blue one glimmers like deep water disturbed by moonlight. She holds him in her twin gaze, curious. She smiles; a real smile, rare as warm tide in winter.


“Fireheart, ” she echoes, tasting the name. “Striking entrance. ” A soft nudge of her muzzle sends Tybalt scooting reluctantly down her shoulder. “This is Tybalt, ” she continues. The little blue dragon growls nervously at the stranger. “He bites a little. ” Her eyes linger on him and there’s warmth there, but the dangerous kind, the deliberate kind. “I am Claudia. I would be delighted to enjoy your company. You seem… ” her dark lashes lift, predatory-sweet, “…safe. ”

For a heartbeat, it is a compliment.
For another, a challenge.

“Don’t be shy, Tybalt, ” she murmurs without looking back, still watching the phoenix. “Our new friend won’t harm us. Will you, Fireheart?” ”


- - - - -
C L A U D I A
ivar x wrena


@Fireheart

RE: rivers and roads - fireheart - Fireheart - 11-16-2025

i burn from the hell i've seen, but the devil can't hold me down


He has always been a creature of habit, a slave to routine. Burn, live, die, burn. Always in that order, as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun. It is an easy pattern to fall into, and up until recently he's never felt like trying to change his path. But with the world awakening around him, he's felt the need to venture outside of his comfort zone. His life is too endless, too eternal, to only do the things he is used to. The world is his oyster, and its high time he start searching it for pearls.

The river seems like the best place to start.

"Claudia." he says, her name rolling easily off his tongue. Her dragon bares his wicked sharp fangs, but Fireheart only chuckles, his warm breath crystalizing as it meets the cold air. "And Tybalt. It's a pleasure." He watches curiously as the little dragon climbs over the mares slender neck, using her mane as other creatures might use prairie grass to hide amongst. At her next words he smirks, which is a foreign feeling on his mouth. "With a fearsome beast like Tybalt on guard, I wouldn't dream of being harmful." What he doesn't say is that he wouldn't dream of that anyways, but something tells him that isn't necessarily what she wants to hear.

Slight though she may be, something about her screams predator far more than it screams prey.

A part of him realizes he is out of his depth with this mare. The other part, the part looking for pearls within the oyster, doesn't care. "So tell me...what brings you out on such a cold night?" It is a stupid question, but he is venturing into uncharted waters without a compass. He has only his instincts to guide him, and that nagging ache for adventure prods him further from his familiar shores.




fireheart



@Claudia