01-20-2020, 04:59 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Alex+Brush|Poiret+One" rel="stylesheet"><style type="text/css">.oriash_loweredhorns_background{position:relative;z-index:1;width:550px;background:#112331;padding: 15px;border-radius: 50px;box-shadow: 0 0 10px #000;border:1px solid #000;}.oriash_loweredhorns_container{position:relative;z-index:2;width:550px;background:#040309;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;border-radius: 50px;box-shadow: 0 0 10px #000;border:1px solid #000;}.oriash_loweredhorns_container p{margin:0;}.oriash_loweredhorns_gradient {position: absolute;z-index: 5;top: 270px;width: 550px;height: 100px;background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(11,27,27,0) 0%, rgba(4,3,9,1) 100%);background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(11,27,27,0) 0%,rgba(4,3,9,1) 100%);background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(11,27,27,0) 0%,rgba(4,3,9,1) 100%);filter: progid
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#000b1b1b', endColorstr='#040309',GradientType=0 );}.oriash_loweredhorns_message {position: relative;z-index: 10;width: 450px;top: 10px;text-align: justify;padding: 20;color: #415971;border-top: 2px solid #112331;}.oriash_loweredhorns_quote {position: relative;z-index: 10;color: rgba(217, 231, 242, 0.6);font: 12px 'Poiret One', sans-serif;letter-spacing: 2px;text-align: center;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.oriash_loweredhorns_name {position: absolute;top: 325px;z-index: 15;right: 175px;bottom: 60px;color: #112331;text-shadow: 0 0 5px #C1C2C4;font: 70px 'Alex Brush', cursive;letter-spacing: 2px;}</style><center><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_background"><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_container"><img style="width:550px;border-radius: 50px 50px 0 0;" src="https://k.nickpic.host/bztFVD.jpg"><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_gradient"></div><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_name">Oriash</p><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_message"><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_quote" style="margin-top:-10px;">they promised that dreams can come true</p><p>There is a moment of peace. It lasts for a time that Ori can’t quite discern, but still, it is not long enough. She enjoys the peace, the weightless floating, the blackness around her, the senseless nothing of this inbetween place. Yet it comes to an end and leaves her back on the blood-stained Plains. Her injuries feel healed, at least, but she does not want to be here. Ori is no fighter, though maybe in some other life with some other set of choices she could have been. Ori is a dreamer, a painter, a creator. Though the body is no longer there, Ori still sees the image of Kagerus, neck broken, near the edge of the red dome that surrounds her. If she had her powers, she is sure the illusion would paint itself there, unwilling to go away.
Ori watches the pillars until she sees...herself? No, that can’t be, can it? Ori tugs for the familiar threads of magic, trying to stop what must be an illusion. If it is though, it is not of her making. Her powers are gone, and she is left with only the wings on her back. The other her though has her horns and, if Kagerus had her traits, Ori assumes that the other Ori must have her illusionism.
How can she defeat a more powerful version of herself?
She doesn’t have time to ponder this though, for not-her is already charging, antlers lowered. Ori rushes forward a few steps, using the momentum to launch herself into the air but not-her does the same, aiming to crash into her with a recklessness that the real Ori does not know. This not-Ori is fierce, wild, and Ori is forced to veer off course and nearly slams into the dome that surrounds them. She rights herself, landing as not-Ori does the same, charging again without hesitation. Ori runs, moving to the right and trying to circle toward not-Ori’s side, but not-her anticipates, moves with her, knows exactly what she intends to do before she can even do it.
Ori loves her wings, but in this moment she realizes they were the wrong choice. They were her choice, of course, because she values life and freedom and beauty far more than the weapon of war that once sat upon her head, though in this moment she misses those antlers. They are no longer just the reminder of her mother but something of value. This not-Ori is everything the real one will never be, everything that some part of her longs to be and she wonders, briefly, if this not-Ori is just plucked from her mind or from some alternate universe.
Ori launches herself into the air again, but so does her counterpart, and this time Ori is too late to move out of the way. Not-Ori crashes into her, and she goes careening into the red dome with a scream and the sound of searing flesh before crashing to the dirt.. She can’t figure out how to get a hit in, can’t figure out what she can possibly do with just hooves and teeth to illusions and horns. She scrambles to her feet unsteadily as the dome seems to close in on them, forcing her closer and closer. She is nothing compared to this other Ori, this not-Ori, this better Ori.
Then it hits her, the illusion of pain, the thing she has not mastered in real life. She knows it is an illusion, for not-Ori stands at one side of the much smaller dome (an illusion, probably, she thinks) and Ori at the other. It doesn’t matter that she knows it is an illusion, the pain rips through her, tears into her chest and begins to pick her apart piece by piece from the inside out. Her knees buckle, because even the illusion of pain is enough to kill. Not-Ori tightens her hold on the illusion, <i>pulling</i> until Ori cries out in agony, the scream unearthly, impossible. Blood bubbles to her mouth, her body giving in to the illusion and reacting as it thinks it should, her insides shredding beneath some unreality.
It is fitting, to die this way, to lose the fight between reality and unreality. It is fitting, she thinks, that the other Ori lives, this better Ori. She is fierce and strong and everything Ori could never be. She is powerful.
When death finds her and the world goes black, it simply feels right.
</p></div><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_quote">but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.</p></div></div></center>
XImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#000b1b1b', endColorstr='#040309',GradientType=0 );}.oriash_loweredhorns_message {position: relative;z-index: 10;width: 450px;top: 10px;text-align: justify;padding: 20;color: #415971;border-top: 2px solid #112331;}.oriash_loweredhorns_quote {position: relative;z-index: 10;color: rgba(217, 231, 242, 0.6);font: 12px 'Poiret One', sans-serif;letter-spacing: 2px;text-align: center;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.oriash_loweredhorns_name {position: absolute;top: 325px;z-index: 15;right: 175px;bottom: 60px;color: #112331;text-shadow: 0 0 5px #C1C2C4;font: 70px 'Alex Brush', cursive;letter-spacing: 2px;}</style><center><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_background"><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_container"><img style="width:550px;border-radius: 50px 50px 0 0;" src="https://k.nickpic.host/bztFVD.jpg"><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_gradient"></div><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_name">Oriash</p><div class="oriash_loweredhorns_message"><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_quote" style="margin-top:-10px;">they promised that dreams can come true</p><p>There is a moment of peace. It lasts for a time that Ori can’t quite discern, but still, it is not long enough. She enjoys the peace, the weightless floating, the blackness around her, the senseless nothing of this inbetween place. Yet it comes to an end and leaves her back on the blood-stained Plains. Her injuries feel healed, at least, but she does not want to be here. Ori is no fighter, though maybe in some other life with some other set of choices she could have been. Ori is a dreamer, a painter, a creator. Though the body is no longer there, Ori still sees the image of Kagerus, neck broken, near the edge of the red dome that surrounds her. If she had her powers, she is sure the illusion would paint itself there, unwilling to go away. Ori watches the pillars until she sees...herself? No, that can’t be, can it? Ori tugs for the familiar threads of magic, trying to stop what must be an illusion. If it is though, it is not of her making. Her powers are gone, and she is left with only the wings on her back. The other her though has her horns and, if Kagerus had her traits, Ori assumes that the other Ori must have her illusionism.
How can she defeat a more powerful version of herself?
She doesn’t have time to ponder this though, for not-her is already charging, antlers lowered. Ori rushes forward a few steps, using the momentum to launch herself into the air but not-her does the same, aiming to crash into her with a recklessness that the real Ori does not know. This not-Ori is fierce, wild, and Ori is forced to veer off course and nearly slams into the dome that surrounds them. She rights herself, landing as not-Ori does the same, charging again without hesitation. Ori runs, moving to the right and trying to circle toward not-Ori’s side, but not-her anticipates, moves with her, knows exactly what she intends to do before she can even do it.
Ori loves her wings, but in this moment she realizes they were the wrong choice. They were her choice, of course, because she values life and freedom and beauty far more than the weapon of war that once sat upon her head, though in this moment she misses those antlers. They are no longer just the reminder of her mother but something of value. This not-Ori is everything the real one will never be, everything that some part of her longs to be and she wonders, briefly, if this not-Ori is just plucked from her mind or from some alternate universe.
Ori launches herself into the air again, but so does her counterpart, and this time Ori is too late to move out of the way. Not-Ori crashes into her, and she goes careening into the red dome with a scream and the sound of searing flesh before crashing to the dirt.. She can’t figure out how to get a hit in, can’t figure out what she can possibly do with just hooves and teeth to illusions and horns. She scrambles to her feet unsteadily as the dome seems to close in on them, forcing her closer and closer. She is nothing compared to this other Ori, this not-Ori, this better Ori.
Then it hits her, the illusion of pain, the thing she has not mastered in real life. She knows it is an illusion, for not-Ori stands at one side of the much smaller dome (an illusion, probably, she thinks) and Ori at the other. It doesn’t matter that she knows it is an illusion, the pain rips through her, tears into her chest and begins to pick her apart piece by piece from the inside out. Her knees buckle, because even the illusion of pain is enough to kill. Not-Ori tightens her hold on the illusion, <i>pulling</i> until Ori cries out in agony, the scream unearthly, impossible. Blood bubbles to her mouth, her body giving in to the illusion and reacting as it thinks it should, her insides shredding beneath some unreality.
It is fitting, to die this way, to lose the fight between reality and unreality. It is fitting, she thinks, that the other Ori lives, this better Ori. She is fierce and strong and everything Ori could never be. She is powerful.
When death finds her and the world goes black, it simply feels right.
</p></div><p class="oriash_loweredhorns_quote">but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too.</p></div></div></center>
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission