05-15-2024, 01:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-15-2024, 01:16 PM by Frostreaver.)
Coming back to life after so many years moldering in the icy regions of my own personal purgatory is not so easy as some make it out to be. The magicians in particular, my father among them, make life after death look so simple.
When Niklas had first appeared on the horizon, I'd thought myself succumbing to the hallucinations again. That somehow I'd regressed in my mastery of the afterlife and would once again be hunted and harried by the intangible things of my worst fears. Stark black against an endless landscape of cold and white, plodding steadily toward me, at first I had fled. But he had just kept coming and when I realized no other nightmares pressed on my consciousness as they had before, attacking me in ravenous packs, I'd finally turned to face whatever was coming. And waited. And waited. Throughout our journey home I'd quickly come to know that within my brother is a bottomless well of patience and rarely is he in any hurry. It's the reason why I am alone now.
Home smells different, this kingdom I once ruled alongside my heart. But, it is still home. Familiar paths are long since grown over, or gone altogether as magic shaped and changed Beqanna, but soon I am racing along the unfamiliar ones, a stark white blur against the dark of the forest. When Niklas had first brought me back topside, the world had seemed too bright, too loud. For what seemed like eons I had plodded through my hell, a flat, unending, blank ... nothing. No one, no other. I'd learned to suppress my breathing because in there, even that was too loud. No longer. I now thrill in the small things in life with the exuberance that only someone who has experienced the loss of them can. A fallen tree lies across the path up ahead and I gather myself to jump it, snowflakes swirling in my wake as I momentarily leave the earth. A few errant branches grasp at my wings, catching harmlessly on their leathery surface before sliding off and I am over and past, skidding around a corner and straight into a forest mage, his eyes unnaturally white.
I back-beat my wings hard, hooves scrambling over the half-frozen ground to put distance in between us. I don't apologize, mainly because my lungs still heave with the efforts of my run and partially because I'm habitually defiant for no real reason except I can be, and instead take in the duo with a few calculating glances. Perhaps it is the measured way that he carries himself or perhaps it is my familiarity with magicians, most of them equal parts powerful and capricious, but I do not feel as if I'm in immediate danger and relax somewhat. I shake out my mane, the snowflakes gathered there falling to collect with the remnants of winter on the ground. It had been cold there - I hated the cold, you see - and the snowflakes are just one of of the things I'd brought back with me. "Apologies," I finally say, still breathing hard but only just, tilting my head in the crow's direction. I can't be sure, especially knowing Niklas can change his eyes at will and often carries around the same eerie, white orbs, but I think it's best to address them both. Shuffling my wings to a more comfortable position, I glance around as if he might be waiting just there in the shadows. "Any chance you've seen Set?"
Niklas had tried to explain to me how much time had passed but in there I'd had no concept of it and out here he had come and gone from Beqanna, never staying long. So, I know it's unlikely anyone knows of my reclusive father anymore but my legs are tired and my mind needs the pause to catch up.
@Abrus
When Niklas had first appeared on the horizon, I'd thought myself succumbing to the hallucinations again. That somehow I'd regressed in my mastery of the afterlife and would once again be hunted and harried by the intangible things of my worst fears. Stark black against an endless landscape of cold and white, plodding steadily toward me, at first I had fled. But he had just kept coming and when I realized no other nightmares pressed on my consciousness as they had before, attacking me in ravenous packs, I'd finally turned to face whatever was coming. And waited. And waited. Throughout our journey home I'd quickly come to know that within my brother is a bottomless well of patience and rarely is he in any hurry. It's the reason why I am alone now.
Home smells different, this kingdom I once ruled alongside my heart. But, it is still home. Familiar paths are long since grown over, or gone altogether as magic shaped and changed Beqanna, but soon I am racing along the unfamiliar ones, a stark white blur against the dark of the forest. When Niklas had first brought me back topside, the world had seemed too bright, too loud. For what seemed like eons I had plodded through my hell, a flat, unending, blank ... nothing. No one, no other. I'd learned to suppress my breathing because in there, even that was too loud. No longer. I now thrill in the small things in life with the exuberance that only someone who has experienced the loss of them can. A fallen tree lies across the path up ahead and I gather myself to jump it, snowflakes swirling in my wake as I momentarily leave the earth. A few errant branches grasp at my wings, catching harmlessly on their leathery surface before sliding off and I am over and past, skidding around a corner and straight into a forest mage, his eyes unnaturally white.
I back-beat my wings hard, hooves scrambling over the half-frozen ground to put distance in between us. I don't apologize, mainly because my lungs still heave with the efforts of my run and partially because I'm habitually defiant for no real reason except I can be, and instead take in the duo with a few calculating glances. Perhaps it is the measured way that he carries himself or perhaps it is my familiarity with magicians, most of them equal parts powerful and capricious, but I do not feel as if I'm in immediate danger and relax somewhat. I shake out my mane, the snowflakes gathered there falling to collect with the remnants of winter on the ground. It had been cold there - I hated the cold, you see - and the snowflakes are just one of of the things I'd brought back with me. "Apologies," I finally say, still breathing hard but only just, tilting my head in the crow's direction. I can't be sure, especially knowing Niklas can change his eyes at will and often carries around the same eerie, white orbs, but I think it's best to address them both. Shuffling my wings to a more comfortable position, I glance around as if he might be waiting just there in the shadows. "Any chance you've seen Set?"
Niklas had tried to explain to me how much time had passed but in there I'd had no concept of it and out here he had come and gone from Beqanna, never staying long. So, I know it's unlikely anyone knows of my reclusive father anymore but my legs are tired and my mind needs the pause to catch up.
@Abrus