"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
05-15-2019, 04:18 PM (This post was last modified: 05-15-2019, 04:59 PM by Sinner.)
there is but one rule hunt or be hunted
Chaos.
Destruction.
He was created for all of this. To be the bringer of hell itself, an omen of death. But he would be the one rising up against it. It was not for the serenity of Beqanna and the greater good that called him to come beckoning and aligning himself to defending Tephra. It was for his own selfish needs. Taking what he wanted most. What he could no longer wait patiently for.
War was a dangerous game. The hound knew within time, sooner rather than later, that it would come soon enough. The age of serenity was not a time for peace. It would require bloodshed before it could fully see a day of peace. The plague was gone, and with it came opportunity and vengeance.
Mary calls out to him. Hearing her words. War had finally come.
The hound welcomes it warmly. He quickly follows behind the path that leads to Tephra from the autumn kingdom. He can smell the strong scent of Mary. She was quick to make her way there. But he smells more of that. The smell of smoke and fire bring his gaze upwards as the scene unfolds on the horizon of Tephra.
It is time finally.
He smirks proudly. Quickly kicking up his heels and making his way towards the hell that burns brightly in the distance. There was no time to waste.
Tephra was set on fire. But it was just more than that. It was hell itself. There is chaos and destruction raining in every direction of the volcanic land. Fire, lightening, shadows, and more. It was all here—the day of reckoning. He basks in the glory it all brings. The very image of hell on earth itself.
But he does not dance among the smoke and flames. Sinner watches carefully as the world burns and chaos breaks over him in every direction. He jumps over small flames, crossing over the crisscrossing streams of lava that intertwine with the fire itself. Tephra was hardly recognizable, but he follows to where the heart of Tephra has become broken, where Leliana holds the land of Tephra on her shoulders.
Over the chaos he hears the words of Mary. The diplomatic heart of Mary calls for peace, but he does not want peace just yet. He wants Loess to feel powerless and dishonor. He wants them to burn and to bring them all down. But perhaps there would be more as now Mary declares Sylva an ally of Tephra.
Suddenly, a familiar face rushes in, attacking Mary after her declaration. Sinner increases his pace, pushing all of his strength to gain speed. He pushes his weight into his hind legs and leaps forward at Ophanim. "Come and make us, coward!" His jaws open wide, snapping with sharp canine teeth at him. He doesn't care where he finds flesh or scales. It would be all the same to him.
The distasteful stench of smoke entangled with the scent of scorched earth and burning tissue fills the air as Aziz walks forward. He had heard rumours that a war was coming, but he did not think the rumours were true, or at least that the war was far away. Unfortunately, like with many things, he was wrong.
Both Tephra and Loess had been kind to the stallion previously, Tephra giving him shelter and food in his time of need and Loess promising him whatever he needed in return for his building ability. Aziz felt like he could return the favour for both, the bay male could hopefully prevent the forthcoming bloodshed, or at least try.
Aziz pushes his body into a gallop, as he approaches the war-torn landscape, the heat hits him full force, the previous cold temperatures brought around by winter disappearing within seconds, his skin begins to ache as he slows to a trot, his eyes lit up by the bright flame as he begins to survey the brightly lit land, he had never seen such devastation before, a land shrouded in darkness as if in a perpetual state of night, creatures scampering over the scorched earth as seemingly everything is set alight.
The bay male slows to a halt, a sudden storm accompanying the racket created below. The rain quickly answers the landscape's desperate call for help, putting out the fire and slowly turning the tables.
Aziz is able to move again, making sure he was close enough to use his magic but far enough not to get caught up in the fight.
The male heaves loudly as his lungs fill with dark smoke, the deafening crash of thunder and beating wings creating an airshow above as he comes to a halt.
Aziz closes his eyes and his legs instantaneously sink into the earth below, small patterns of cracked earth appearing in spirals along his legs. The earth is rather silent now despite everything going on above, still, he converses with the scorched land as it begins to gently rumble, large pillars sprouting from the ground inside the war zone, compiled of molten rock, soil and minerals.
The male opens his eyes for a moment as he looks toward his creation, he must take it slow this time, he has never done anything on this scale before.
Aziz begins to breathe heavily as he closes his eyes again, now the spirals along his legs thicken, expanding until his legs are completely covered in soil. The pillars that stand quietly above the war zone now begin to move again, the ground below shaking gently as three more appear on each side, the pillars sprout into small domes, with one large dome at the front of the battlefield, the domes are infused with molten rock, minerals, and soil, shaped from the earth and standing sturdy among the chaos.
Each dome has a small archway, supported by pillars outside so that the hole in the dome does not collapse. As long as Aziz remains in his position, he will be able to fix any damage caused to the domes.
Hopefully, now both sides that are no longer wanting to fight or horses initially caught up in the fight will be able to retreat into the domes, for now, he is unwilling to pick a side, but for his own benefit picking the winning side might work best.
i just killed off what was left of the optimist in me
Her ascension was just days ago, and already there is war looming on the horizon. Not that the golden queen is surprised – Loess has been stirring up trouble since the day Vulgaris took over, and then handed the reins over to the dragon, Castile. She has maintained a semblance of calm since they stole away her mother, and then her daughter, but now that the throne has been passed on to her, she isn’t so sure she can keep up with the flagging façade of belonging to a sanctuary any longer. It is long past time for the East to pick a side, and though she knows Ilma and her successors would not approve, she has to do what is best for her allies.
She heads towards Tephra today with no more thought than to make sure their alliance with Leliana is secure, leaving her children safely within the foothills of the Cove. Isilme and Austra want to come, of course, but a hard glance from their mother and they quell in their tracks, their companion animals ushering them back to the safety of the inner Cove. Ilma had warned her of the things to come and of the betrayals ahead of her as the newly crowned Queen, and she doesn’t want her girls to see this. She doesn’t want them to experience any of this.
Her gait falters as she sees the flames beginning to flicker on the horizon; even from so far away, the heat of them caress her face and her ears flatten as she picks up the pace, rushing to reach the Tephran border. Is she too late; has the war already begun? As soon as the flames appear they die again, and Dawn realizes that an eerie darkness has fallen over the volcanic kingdom. Gritting her teeth, she searches for the magician who must have conjured this darkness – certainly he is on no side other than Loess’s - and her gut tightens as a familiar cremello form takes shape on the Tephran and Sylvan border. Litotes.
Without thinking, she leaps into action towards him, shifting mid-stride into an enormous bear. She lets the polar bear take over her thoughts, and a rage she hadn’t thought possible flows through her, strengthening her resolve as a roar breaks from her lips. “Litotes!” she screams, sense fleeing her and instinct taking over. “Traitor!” With that she launches herself at him, claws flying and teeth snapping at any part of him she can find, hoping to distract him long enough to break his hold on his darkness.
SO GIVE ME HOPE IN THE DARKNESS THAT I WILL SEE THE LIGHT 'CAUSE OH THAT GAVE ME SUCH A FRIGHT
He has no stake in this fight, except for that every magician in Beqanna must be aware now of what is happening, because the reverberations of magic across the land is jarring. He’s – asleep? No. That’s not right. He’s drifting, his mind somewhere out in the ocean, waiting. Waiting for the birth of this season’s children. Half of his attention on Galilee, with the dragon-girl growing inside her; and half on Adria, with the twins. It is with reluctance that he drags his attention back to the present, his hooves anchored on Nerine’s rocky shores, to the worried chirp of the parrot on his shoulder and the feel of a beak in his mane.
But the disturbance isn’t here, and neither is the fragile and wild magic. Most of what is going on is just angry, words and powers thrown around, but the one strand is new, and he’s curious as well as concerned. In the blink of an eye, Brennen, too, is in Tephra, apprising himself of the situation. It’s dark, not that that matters to Brennen, smoke rising into the dark, rain pouring around them. Tephra itself is relatively unimportant to the bay magician; but he knows his children use it as a nesting ground in the warmth around the volcano and he casts a stray thought towards the incline – there is an egg there but it is currently safe, with Grye standing nervous watch over it. As long as the volcano itself stays dormant, they’re safe.
He recognizes Castile in the sky, casts a curious thought around the dragon-man’s violence and wonders how it came to this. But he is not the source of the magic either. He heads in Leliana’s direction but the ground moves beneath his hooves and he whirls around, turning his furious amber eyes on the bay and moving to stand before him, several steps crossing a vast distance with a thought. “You’re either very brave or very arrogant, move earth around this close to a dormant volcano,” he doesn’t raise his voice – he doesn’t have to. The ice creeps around the edges and gets his feelings across just fine. Another heartbeat, another blink, and he is forced to acknowledge that the boy was just trying to help – to shelter some of them from the violence. Sometimes, he wishes he didn’t have a conscience. When he speaks again, his voice has softened just the tiniest sliver, the first sign of spring after a long cold winter. “Make sure you keep an eye on that volcano, after you shook the earth around the way you did.”
Brennen doesn’t stick around to see if Aziz listens to him. He sets his own sliver of attention on the volcano, ready to snatch his grandchildren off of it if necessary, and strides again across the earth, as if the rest of the chaos isn’t happening, to the magician. He’s never met her, this great-great-granddaughter of his, but he recognizes her. That had been the first thing he’d mastered with magic – he’d traced his family, touching them, learning them. He’s not sure how he feels that the first thing this descendent of his is being forced to master is protecting an entire Kingdom. And in that moment he doesn’t care that he might be stepping outside of his bounds, taken as a representative of a Kingdom he doubts even remembers he exists. This will not be all Leliana learns of magic. She will have a chance to learn the beauty of it.
If they make it to her, he will subconsciously fight them off. He has more practice, more control, and he’s plenty close to the water for all the power he needs to do it. In the meantime, Brennen steps into her line of sight slowly, not to startle, and reaches out without words. Words here would be a waste of breath. I can help you, he sends the words out mentally, feeling her bright gold power and her exhaustion. He offers her his own strength, opens his reservoir to her, and waits.
BUT I WILL HOLD AS LONG AS YOU LIKE JUST PROMISE ME WE'LL BE ALRIGHT
Brennen
I mentioned @[Aziz] and @[leliana] specifically but whoever wants to interact go for it
Her mind nearly splinters trying to keep hold of everything that happens within the confines of Tephra—with the beasts that roar in the sky, with the unnatural darkness that blankets them all, with the fire that rages and burns their home. But she is not just here—not confined to these walls. She feels a dangerous twist of her power and a fraction of herself breaks off, focusing far away on the maze of her own creation back in Loess. What she finds is jarring enough to nearly break her hold on the shield in Tephra.
Rogue magic. The maze, meant as a warning shot and nothing more, growing beyond her control and into something dangerous—something deadly. She tastes bile on the back of her tongue and the disgust, the fear, the loathing is nearly enough to snap the old Leliana back into place. Almost.
Instead, she roars in Tephra. Furious that she had made such a misstep. Furious that Loess hadn’t accepted her terms and released the captives when they could. Furious about what led them here.
She doesn’t have the power to destroy what she’s made—not with it tangling so wildly now—but she does her best to fracture off pieces of her magic to soften the maze, to recoil the branches and the vines, to dissolve the rocks. And, she follows the golden threads connecting her to all of her family to one of her daughters; to the one with fire and healing in her blood. “Linnea,” she whispers into the precious girl’s mind. “Linnea, I need you to go take care of those children. Hurry. They need you.”
Leliana presses speed into her daughter before her mind snaps back to Tephra.
Even with just the minor magic lost, her attention split, her shield has wavered. Primarily around herself. She can feel the flames rising up her throat, the skin scorched. She doesn’t burn—not exactly—but the flames wrap around her regardless. Her body remains mostly untouched but the pain is very real.
She grits her teeth and tastes blood on her tongue.
The world continues to fall apart around her.
Wolfbane goes after an innocent child. The young dragon comes and shoots into the sky, taking on the King of Loess. The witch shows up and rains down on the flames, turning the currents dangerously in the air. Mary and Sinner arrive, squaring off against the first fire breather to touch her home. A man arrives to create shelter. Dawn, the young Queen of the East, shifts into a bear and rages at the darkness bringer.
Her golden eyes grow wide and she digs further into her new powers, grabbing for anything that she can. First, her attention goes to the female dragon in the sky, to Casimira. Leliana pulls from deep within the earth. As quickly as she can, she channels her magic into a single arc of glittering light that wraps around the fighting dragon. She does her best to cover her scales with a layer of diamond armor. It is beautiful when the stray piece of light catches it, but it should help protect it. It has to help protect her.
As she focuses on that task, doing her best to keep the shields up around the parts of Tephra that she can reach, she feels the jaws of a shadow creature dig into her legs and the claws of another rip at her burning chest. She roars in surprise but before she can retaliate, her shields flickering, she sees a flash of gold. Magnus, glowing like sunlight, rushes to her side and grabs the animal with his teeth and pull it off.
He says nothing but she can see the look in his eye. There is something like horror and fury and, if she had the time to truly analyze it, joy. He is in his element and he immediately gets to work attacking the shadow creatures that approach. She can’t focus on him, but she feels his blood as it splashes on the ground. She hears his husky voice curse and the sound of his hooves as the thunder around her.
It’s too much.
All of it.
She can feel her magic waning, a very mortal exhaustion setting in her bones when Brennen arrives. She swings her bloodied head to him, the rain falling in torrents and the immediate fire finally having snuffed out. Her legs are streaked with mud and a flap of skin hangs loosely from her chest from where the shadow creature managed to swipe at her before Magnus fought them off. Her shield remains lit, but it flickers on the edges, growing thin. But then she sees him and hears him and the tides turn once more.
The magic that had previously felt hollow and brittle experiences a flood of renewed strength and she closes her eyes against the force of it. She steadies herself and pulls hard; her shields respond in kind, a sonic boom sounding as they expand. Pivoting, she tries to channel the magic, using the momentum to drive it at the intruders and push them back. But her attention is caught all too quickly by the bodies that tangle around them, the blood that seeps into the soil. “Protect them,” her voice gets carried back to him, whispering into his mind as he had to hers. “Please. Do what you can to protect them.”
TL;DR:
* Leliana sends some of her magic to Loess to undo parts of the maze. She also sends Linnea to heal the kids.
* She attempts to cover Casimira with diamond armor.
* Shadow creatures attack her and rip apart her chest and wound her leg.
* Magnus shows up and starts fighting off the shadow creatures around her.
* She uses Brennen's magic to expand her shields and try to push back the Loess fighters.
you could break my heart in two, but when it heals, it beats for you
High in the mountains the world shakes. The rock falls are small but concern that they could worsen inspires the Primarch to command her children and the other members of Hyaline down to the central part of the valley, away from the dangers of falling rocks and trees. She cannot see what has become of Loess or she might have hurried there, it is familiar and her firstborn lives there. It is the smoke rising from distant Tephra that captures her attention, and though she has never set foot in that place and knows that she may go astray Kensa touches the clear lake and sends herself.
The gold veined woman has the luck of arriving at her destination but the misfortune of rematerializing in the stream right beside a roaring wall of flame. Kensa shies away from it, avoiding being burned only narrowly as she stumbles up the opposite bank. A black stallion stands on this side, smoke curling up from his muzzle. His gaze lands on her and she is too shocked to read anything in it or recognize the angel boy, but she wheels away before he can decide to turn her into a pillar of flame as well.
When she has put some distance between herself and the flames a heavy rain breaks over head, adding to the din. Tephra is alive with the hum of magic, the ground shaking unexpectedly, and the air full of screams and battlecries. Darkness rolls around her as she paces in place, strafing as swift dark somethings race through the high grass all around her until she rises up on her hind legs to avoid the cold and creeping touch of shadow creatures. She has transported herself into a battleground. It is impossible to get her bearings in the blackness, and she regrets having never set foot here until now. Kensa drops to the earth and heads for the border, though not to flee, but to avoid the dragon fire and magic that she is poorly equipped to counter. If she can find a stream again she may be able to remove others, either in rescue or by force. She’ll decide what suits her when she gets to that point.
As she searches through the darkness and acrid smoke for water the terrifying roar of a bear stops her dead. Dawn. She does not waste a thought on the absence of a council decision in regarding the war so suddenly raging (she is here too) but hurries toward her friend and the fury in her voice. The white bear becomes visible, her bright fur muted. Traitor! she roars and Kensa stumbles as her dearest friend charges Litotes, his shadows winding around him like and orgy of spectral lovers. There is not time even to scream, Kensa throws herself towards the bear whose teeth and claws do their best to tear her husband to ribbons. Small and stocky, Kensa is little match of the massive beast but throws her weight into it all the same, heedless of the sharp weapons it may easily turn on her. “Stop!” It terrifies her on some level, to put herself between Dawn’s bear and her Lion man but she does her best to impede the attack. The taste of betrayal clings to the back of her throat and she snaps viciously at bear, or lion, horse, or shadow that tries to draw near her or keep her away. “I will not permit this!”
Kensa
TLDR: Kensa comes to Tephra to see WTF is happening. She sees Ophie but doesn't know its him, separates herself from the confusion to see what she can do and ends up coming across her best friend Dawn attacking her husband who is obviously attacking Tephra. Kensa attacks Dawn/Litotes (mainly Dawn at this point but just trying to get between them). Sorry this is terrible it is past my bedtime.
darling, you're wild-eyed, empty, and tongue-tied maybe you need me or maybe you don't
Sochi had not been involved in the call to arms of fire breathers, but she was hardly the type to just stay at home and wait. From the moment that the ground shook, the magician pulling the maze out of the earth, Sochi had felt that familiar war drum in her chest. She hadn’t needed to look for Castile to know exactly what he would be doing—where he would be going. She hadn’t needed to look for her children to know that they would be safe. Instead, she had shifted, feeling the tiger take over and hit the ground running.
It took her longer to get from Loess to Tephra than the pegasus and by the time she arrives, the fight is already well underway. She can see the flames raging throughout the land and the darkness that quickly settles in like something material. There is a growl low and deep in her throat as she begins to make her way in just as the rain begins to pour down on them. Her lips pull back in hatred, but she doesn’t stop.
Instead, she fixates her gaze on the woman at the center of it all.
Without hesitating, Sochi pushes off, paws digging into the soft mud and launches forward. She cuts through the darkness toward the glowing golden epicenter that is Leliana but just as she nears her—just as she can practically taste the magician’s coppery blood on her tongue, she feels another collide with her.
Her breath comes out in a grunt as she hits the ground hard and rolls. When she finds her feet again, she swings her feline head to find the black panther, yellow eyes hard and his lips stretched into a wide grin.
“Were you going somewhere?” he laughs and Sochi responds with merely a growl. Pushing herself up, she rushes toward him. The rest of the war—the fire, the roar of dragons, the lightning that streaks and cracks across the sky—falls away as the two of them begin to rip into each other.
Teeth and claw and blood and grit.
But mostly blood. Always blood.
playing the slow rooms, howling at half moons if you are a Queen then, honey, I am a wolf
Sochi and Atrox are fighting. I am playing chess against myself and they both lose. Good day.
I was less than graceful, I was not kind
be out watching other lovers lose their spine
" i could be ugly in loving you. filthy and soft-mouthed. wolf-tongued and terrible.
i could carry my heart in my mouth like a bird dog to you, so gently i wouldn’t leave a mark. "
He’s been watching from the underbrush, sage green eyes gleaming in the lightning and the fires of his home and his heart. Vulgaris thought he could stand against her and protect all of Loess if he just tried not to focus on her during the fight. But how could he ignore her burning? How could he not watch as the monsters tore her chest? A streak of blood smears across his mouth and his hoof still presses some unknown fighter into the mud but he can’t take his eyes off of her. Despair and delight coil around one another in his chest when Brennen lends her his strength.
His gaze turns as he watches Wolfbane clash with a young boy, hardly old enough to know the price of war and bloodshed. In the distance, a wife cries as she throws herself between a massive white bear and the shadow-cloaked Litotes. He watches the diamond crusted dragon tear into their king as their talons lock and he wonders if their pride is really worth so much. Aziz and Maleficar stand silent as they try to even the odds for each side and he wonders how they remain so passive during times like these.
Vulgaris is dragged from his thoughts as the warrior beneath his hoof wheezes for breath at last, startling him backward. Lightning cracks across the sky and he sees their jaw flapping dumbly in an attempt to gather another breath. For once, he is tired of the hunt and the pain. There is no thrill when the stranger’s eyes go dim and he feels only the cold of the rain across his back. Even if they managed to combat the golden shield pushing their forces back, they would earn a hollow victory at best.
He turns and quietly makes his way up the volcano, past the trees and the fighting and the ash. His own blood is washed from his shoulders in the rain as his healing seals the wound shut with delicate thread. The serpent does not look back as he climbs ever higher, stumbling only once before he regains his footing in the mud and rocks. As he approaches the lip of the formation, he finally turns and watches them from his new viewpoint.
“Only blood can pay for blood. And it is never enough” he mumbles sadly into the wind that whips his forelock from his pale face. If he hadn’t commanded them to take prisoners, none of this would have ever happened. They wouldn’t die in the aftershock of his crimes nor would they suffer from his existence. He forces himself not to look at her now as he takes a step back, closer to the pit of lava behind him. Vulgaris already knows that she is red like life, like a sun born from its own cosmic ashes. Maybe in another life he can be more like her.
The thought brings a smile across his face as he takes another step back. His hoof finds no footing, though, and he gasps softly when he tumbles backward. Still, he smiles as he falls and closes his eyes. The lava devours him whole and chews through him in seconds, keeps every molecule of the serpent for itself. Only his hoofprints in the mud prove he ever existed here moments ago.
one day it's here and then it's gone,
how are you still holding on?
The world is set on fire, chaos and destruction raining and clashing in every direction. Battle cries echoing across the volcanic territory that is set ablaze. Hearts are hurting for each other, looking for peace, seeking their own vengeance.
Titus has seen nothing like this before. It is beyond words for what it truly is. Not even disastrous could give credit to what was happening here now—the war that finally happened between Loess and Tephra. He cannot help but wonder what went wrong. What could have prevented this all? He can only feel anger for the way Loess has created their chaos and forgetting him. Now, they come to destroy his new home.
He inhales the air around him. The smoke ignites his lungs. The muddy stallion snorts as the smoke burns his throat. He pushes off his hind legs and flaps his wings a couple of times before taking off. Every instinct within the muddy stallion knows its not right to have this war, but he knows he can only do so much to help prevent further magic. So, he looks for where he can help the most.
There are many battles raging on. Some of them are personal and others are new. There is passion and madness in each one of them. But Titus knows he cannot have his own battle. He looks for where Tephra would need him most. Eyes searching far and wide across the land as the storm brews below and above him. Quickly, Titus catches sight of where the shield creator stands. She watches as she struggles to hold the shields, keeping the chaos at bay from hurting anymore of what damage can be stopped from Loess. She is only one person. One that could not do it alone.
Titus swoops down quickly. His nutmeg gaze watches as Leliana struggles and shadows creatures come to attack her. Suddenly there is a bright light, and Magnus is there fighting off the shadow creatures. With a quick flap of his wings, Titus dives quickly down towards Leliana and Magnus. More shadow creatures were coming, he could see from above.
Swooping down at a quick speed, Titus folds the wings at his side and aims at one of the approaching shadow creatures closing in near Magnus and Leliana. Closing in towards the shadow creature, Titus quickly shifts to his ocelot form and leaps onto the shadow creature. He swipes his sharp claws at the shadow creature and bites here and there until the shadow creature is no more.
The ocelot quickly looks around. Nutmeg eyes burning brightly as he catches sight of more of the shadow creatures coming. He can hear the clashing and crashing from Magnus nearby him as thunder is heard with every step Magnus takes. There is cursing whispered in the distance as Magnus fights.
He focuses now on the shadow creatures that come closer. Titus lunges forward to prevent them from coming any further. He uses every ounce of his strength to fend off the shadow creatures from coming closer to Leliana. Sweat quickly forms and drenches his coat. Blood splatters from his coat as he is attacked. But Titus does not squirm or back off. He pushes forward, lashing out; putting every drop of his anger within each attack he does to fend off the shadow creatures.
son of rome and porcia male, classic champagne appaloosa ocelot-shifting, wings, immortality
He hasn’t been back to Tephra in some time, but he also could not be found in Loess or Pangea. His attachment to Wonder had grown exponentially, and the moment he had felt that link forming, he had left. He had severed all contact so swiftly and so suddenly that the guilt nearly ate him alive. It gnawed at him during the day, and even during the night – when he usually felt almost nothing, when the curse took more than just his flesh. But there was a part of him that knew, that was completely convinced, that Wonder deserved better than what he could offer her. Which was, honestly, absolutely nothing.
For once, he was grounded, walking through the forests of Taiga, and lost in his own sober thoughts. He almost ignores the smell of smoke when it first reaches him. So focused on his own mind, it hadn’t occurred to him that the smell of grass and trees burning was different than the sulfur-like scent that the volcano in Tephra often emitted. But the further he walked, the stronger the scent became, until it was nearly overpowering. Slowly rousing himself back to reality, it is like the curtain is suddenly pulled aside. His pace quickens, as he smothers the panic that rises in his throat. In a matter of strides, he is running, and when he finds a break in the treetops, he spreads his wings and emerges in the sky.
From this vantage point, he can see the shadow that has fully engulfed Tephra. Thicker, more ominous than a mere cloud, and yet it still doesn’t explain the sharp smell of smoke.
He doesn’t hesitate to fly directly through it, but not even he was prepared for the wall of heat and smoke that he was assaulted with. Fire glows from several points in the kingdom, dwarfing the illumination from the volcano. There is one place that seems to be the focal point, where dragons fight and fire spits from their mouths, where two magicians struggle to maintain the shields they have erected; and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Sochi, in her tigress form, brawling with a black panther.
It was complete and utter chaos, and he has to fight every thread of him to not join. He didn’t even have a side to be on, but the smell of blood and the cries of rage and pain cause his pulse to quicken and his mind to steadily begin to escape him. Flashes of the bloodshed in Pangea intrude his memories, and he almost makes a move to land closest to the nucleus of the anarchy.
But then he sees her.
She is so close to the fray, and this is both surprising, and somehow completely not.
There is nothing graceful in the way that he lands. It is rushed, his hooves clattering loudly against the war-torn ground, mud splashing up his legs. Saturated with rain, he doesn’t even flinch as thunder rolls loudly again, but the flash of lightning is enough to alight both of their faces. “Wonder,” Even in the middle of war, his voice is quiet, but with such a force behind it that not even the storm could drown it out. He presses close to her, as though he hadn’t been absent, as though he had ever given her a reason to even trust him. His lips brush near her ear, and even though his voice is soft, the way that he begins to try and push her towards safety leaves no secret to his intention. “You have no business being out here.” He looks to the complete disorder in the distance, and then back to her – back to that beautiful face that has haunted him since the day he had met her. With his shoulder still aligned with hers, as though his larger body could somehow shield her from the fire and destruction, there is finally a crack in his voice; the first sign of any sort of emotion creeping through as he rests his lips against her neck and whispers, “Come with me. Please.”
— and I'll make you remember my face —
Nightlock
@[wonder]
This is only for Wonder, but since it's technically part of this nonsense, I didn't want to make a separate thread. But Jenny if you want me to I will move this, you just weren't awake to make this decision for me and I can't be left to my own devices.
![[Image: N3F7IUd.png]](https://i.imgur.com/N3F7IUd.png)
![[Image: avatar-1975.gif]](https://i.postimg.cc/8PxJp5dv/avatar-1975.gif){kind=avatar}
![[Image: sochi.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/rs3xFJR0/sochi.png)
