04-25-2024, 07:28 PM
The tides of time have been surprisingly kind to Sapere. Truly, it can only be explained by the magic of Beqanna for he is now a man out of place, secreted away from the decades that have passed and now introduced anew.
The world he emerges into is oddly familiar and wholly different, as if his former experience had been nothing but a dream and he is now faced with the hard reality of waking from it. Seafoam edges around his hooves and ocean spray tickles along the copper-gold coat he bears as he wanders the edges of a foreign beach. This one is not white, not blinding and beautiful with tragic morose like the coast where death resides. These sands are dark, muddied somehow by wars long past. Wars he had thankfully been removed from, kept safe and silent far from the disasters and conflicts that plagued the world while his consciousness slept.
Now, he breathes deeply of the salty air. It is thick and feels heavy in his lungs as if attempting to burden him with some kind of guilt or remorse. Opposite the waves (whose crashing seems almost muted somehow, gentle shushes against plugged ears) stand strange twists of near-unnatural stone formations. During his meandering walk, torpid and nearly solemn with the weight of the gray sky overhead, Sapere observes them with muffled curiosity.
They would make interesting companions on this languid stroll.
He steps near to one, nostrils flared with a soft exhale as he reaches his nose toward it. A tickle of magic stirs like static at the back of his throat, mingling with his next sigh as a breath of life. The blocky column at his shoulder stirs, trembling and twisting for a moment before tilting slightly and sliding gently forward. As Sapere moves, more columns join him, marching with a muted rumble through earth and sand as he wanders the ruins.
A voiceless army for a nearly voiceless king.
Except, of course, he is not a king anymore. It’s what he’d been born to be, all he’d ever been taught, but he had quietly abdicated that throne many years ago.
And now it no longer exists.
He is not aware of that yet, though, just as he is not aware of a great many things. For now he feels almost boyish again, playing with his toy soldiers.
This march is soon interrupted though. Before him, beneath the broken arms of a crumbling arch, a shimmer of nearly corporeal magic glimmers and swirls. It is not obvious outright; it looks more like a heatwave from the deserts he had once called home, had called his own.
There is no warmth here, though. The chill is resolute and stationary – only he and the ocean and his medley of stone sentinels move in this disquieting place.
Pausing, Sapere studies the rippling portal, offering it little more than an emotionless appraisal before he moves toward it. Ears perked, head slightly lowered, he steps through the arch with barely a second thought.
Behind him, on the beach, the columns all cease their motion as his magic abruptly leaves them.
Only one had followed closely enough to tumble through the portal with him.
It collapses unceremoniously behind him, bereft of the animation he’d provided it.
The world he emerges into is oddly familiar and wholly different, as if his former experience had been nothing but a dream and he is now faced with the hard reality of waking from it. Seafoam edges around his hooves and ocean spray tickles along the copper-gold coat he bears as he wanders the edges of a foreign beach. This one is not white, not blinding and beautiful with tragic morose like the coast where death resides. These sands are dark, muddied somehow by wars long past. Wars he had thankfully been removed from, kept safe and silent far from the disasters and conflicts that plagued the world while his consciousness slept.
Now, he breathes deeply of the salty air. It is thick and feels heavy in his lungs as if attempting to burden him with some kind of guilt or remorse. Opposite the waves (whose crashing seems almost muted somehow, gentle shushes against plugged ears) stand strange twists of near-unnatural stone formations. During his meandering walk, torpid and nearly solemn with the weight of the gray sky overhead, Sapere observes them with muffled curiosity.
They would make interesting companions on this languid stroll.
He steps near to one, nostrils flared with a soft exhale as he reaches his nose toward it. A tickle of magic stirs like static at the back of his throat, mingling with his next sigh as a breath of life. The blocky column at his shoulder stirs, trembling and twisting for a moment before tilting slightly and sliding gently forward. As Sapere moves, more columns join him, marching with a muted rumble through earth and sand as he wanders the ruins.
A voiceless army for a nearly voiceless king.
Except, of course, he is not a king anymore. It’s what he’d been born to be, all he’d ever been taught, but he had quietly abdicated that throne many years ago.
And now it no longer exists.
He is not aware of that yet, though, just as he is not aware of a great many things. For now he feels almost boyish again, playing with his toy soldiers.
This march is soon interrupted though. Before him, beneath the broken arms of a crumbling arch, a shimmer of nearly corporeal magic glimmers and swirls. It is not obvious outright; it looks more like a heatwave from the deserts he had once called home, had called his own.
There is no warmth here, though. The chill is resolute and stationary – only he and the ocean and his medley of stone sentinels move in this disquieting place.
Pausing, Sapere studies the rippling portal, offering it little more than an emotionless appraisal before he moves toward it. Ears perked, head slightly lowered, he steps through the arch with barely a second thought.
Behind him, on the beach, the columns all cease their motion as his magic abruptly leaves them.
Only one had followed closely enough to tumble through the portal with him.
It collapses unceremoniously behind him, bereft of the animation he’d provided it.
Sapere
the good and the wise
lead quiet lives