ORIGIN

Full Version: Be at Peace

You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.

Pages: 1 2

She had walked away from Vazi and collected Beast who had waited patiently in his garden just like she had asked, and she led the way towards Eridanus, trying to conquer her warring heart. The shadow in her, the venomous snake within her, wanted out, always wanted out, to bite and spread her poison and watch others suffer, and it was just so hard to control her.

But with Beast there near her, and with her light, she could try. Beast was there when she stumbled, when her light flickered, with a patient, pained smile, ready to catch her if she fell, and her heart went out to him. He was so patient and kind.

She was glad he was alive.

They exited the tunnel that led them to her leafy green home, and she saw her home covered in a glittering, perfect blanket of snow. It reminded her of when she had seen snow for the first time....with Vazi. Her eyelashes flickered, and she faltered, but shook off the memory, refusing to let it spoil this.

"Here is my home, my friend," She said, smiling at Beast, glowing with a soft light that danced on the snow.

"This is how I speak."

@Beast

Beast padded along quietly behind Clover, the ragged beginnings of his mane shifting around him as he widened his eyes to look around.

The entire place was filled with life. He had never seen so much life, outside of his own little garden--and briefly, the pang of loss struck him. Would his sanctuary in Orion survive, without him...?

But this was quickly washed away by the flood of wonder that took him. There were ferns, and there was ivy; there were trees, and moss, and with a delighted laugh the lion suddenly dropped, rolling in it. He wanted to cover himself in it, in the scent of green, in the feel of life that filled this place. Sheer joy filled him, and it radiated from his face in a broad, open, childlike smile.

He gazed up at Clover, stopping, after a moment, still on his back.

"It's... beautiful," he said softly. He pulled himself back upright--his white pelt stained green, now, here and there, but it was better than the bruising--and gazed around once more with a twitching tailtip.

"Is it always so green?"

___________

Once upon a time, a lion cub had stumbled forth from an egg. In his wide eyes, wonder and joy shimmered. Peace and innocence filled him. Everything had held the capacity for amazement: everything was a new adventure, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Everything was wonderful.

And then a dark and terrible force had found that lion, and he had changed. Cowered. Hidden. Now--suddenly--the lion newborn reemerged, as if he had never gone.

___________

Delighted, Beast danced along the mosses. He lifted his nose gently to touch a drop of crystalline dew that hung from a leaf, and he sneezed when it touched his nose.

As if he were a cub again, he danced away, spinning and laughing and batting at the ferns, his claws carefully sheathed even now.

A dragonfly took his eye and he followed it, for a moment, gazing at it in utter wonder.

Even his own tail became a source of joy, as he spun, chasing it, leaping down and gently pinning it. This he carried to Clover, awkwardly half-curved around himself, apparently trying to present her with his own tail--firmly clamped in his jaws.

Playful mischief danced in his shimmering silver eyes, and alongside it, and behind it, was a joyous gratitude that might perhaps never be matched.

He dropped his tail, then, and tried to touch his nose to hers, still smiling almost shyly as he spoke again.

"...Thank you," he said, and his voice was nearly a whisper.

______________

@Belladonna

Her heart fluttered when she watched Beast at play in her leafy green home. The both of them could let down their guards here, as Vazi was safely tucked away back at Orion, ordered to not stray, and she knew he wouldn't come here. Vazi wouldn't ruin this, and if he dared come...her thoughts went dark for just one second. She would take care of him. She would protect Beast where she had failed to protect her Pounce and her Ambrus.

And as Beast played, this child in a young adult's body, she could see the strong resemblance to her cub. Pounce had that same youthful exuberance, that same love for anything new, that same appreciation for everything he was given, and she loved him with all her heart. Seeing this again warmed her soul; Beast's light and optimism did that for her, like no one else could, except for Bartos.

She wanted to see Bartos again so much, the need for it burning in her.

We're coming, my love, she whispered through the bond, fierce determination set in her bones.

Beast came up to her, smiling such a beautiful smile, and she wanted to give him something in return. She felt like....herself here. She felt safe and warm, like she was always meant to feel. So she used the light that filtered off of her and manipulated the strands of light to turn into lovely little butterflies and dragonflies that lazily flew towards Beast, little fireflies surrounding the both of them. She poured her love into the spell, into the little tiny creatures.

"This is how I speak."

@Beast

Beast raised his head to sniff wide-eyed at the warm, glowing butterflies and dragonflies that had shimmered into being around his head. He stared at them, awed, for a moment. Then he raised his mitt-like paw, hesitant.

"You--... Did you make these?" His voice came soft.

At first he merely batted at them--ever so gently--but then he danced at them, spinning and twisting in the air, as if he, too, could fly--and his paw landed in something cold.

He'd thought the white to be just sand, dirt, rock--like Orion--but... But it wasn't. He'd been so distracted by the ferns and the moss that he'd missed the significance of the vast patches of white.

He lowered his nose, eyes widening, his mane shifting to fall about in his face. He shook it away a little and planted his paw in the snow again, then quickly retracted it.

He peered up at Clover through the little glowing cloud of insect images, blinking.

"Why is this white sand cold?" he asked.

He looked from it, to the patch of soft moss he had rolled in. It didn't feel all that different from the strange, cold sand, he thought. Maybe not as springy, but...

The white lion leapt from one bit to the next, lightly pouncing in the moss, then the snow--and sneezing when a little bit sprayed up into his face. He began to bat at it, too, pawing, eyeing his pawprints through the glowing bugs.

Then the bugs took his attention again, and he spun after a glittering dragonfly, wide-eyed all over again.

Eventually, finally, he paused.

He looked over his shoulder at Clover, blinking, and asked yet another question.

"Which part do you live in? This place looks--... Big." He looked around behind him, uncertain. Somehow he'd expected Clover's home to be a small offshoot of Orion--like the tunnel he'd come from. He didn't realize just how big the other caves were, and now that he'd seen Eridanus, he was rather amazed.

Did Clover just live here, right in the moss beds? Or deeper in the trees? Did she live up on those hills, maybe, or in a shelter, somewhere? Maybe there were little buildings, like Orion's--and did this place have a throne...?

______________

@Belladonna

She smiled at him, her eye misting up with happiness. Beast made her heart so glad, and she just settled herself down on a patch of clear, cold, wet moss, watching him jump from the snow to play with her little illusion spell to the moss, asking questions at her, so bright and childlike. She missed this so much in the past few cycles, like being underneath a frozen lake and finding a pocket of air to breathe.

She had yet to pull herself out of that lake...she was too weak to do so. But she could always try. Always. To let herself fall, to give up, was to forgo the right to breathe.

"I did," She replied softly, tilting her head a little, smiling sweetly. "Just for you."
Her heart twinged at the thought of Pounce.
And she pushed the thought away, compressing it inside herself. She would be happy now.

"It's not sand," She paused, grinning now. "It's called snow. It's frozen water that falls from the sky so that we can play in it. Perhaps it is the spell of some powerful gem, far away, telling us to enjoy what they can give us."

From that, she felt the pull to tell a story about it, about some old, old gem that made snow for young ones to play in, but for the first time in her life, she felt too tired to tell one. Even when she was falling asleep with Bartos, she never passed up the opportunity, but this one time, she allowed herself to just sit and enjoy herself and let herself relax.

"And this place is big. It took me so long to explore it when I woke up here," She explained. "But I didn't really make a home here. I've never had one. I know this place from top to bottom, but I never stayed in one place for longer than a night." She grew wistful. "I wandered for so long...searching for something. I don't know what, now. I woke up near a lake, when it was still dark....my first memory was falling into the pitch black water, seeing my own reflection there."

She chuckled at herself. "I called it 'ink' because I had no names for things, and for the longest time Eridanus was just 'the green place'. I didn't even have a name for myself until after I had become the protector of two little ones, isn't that silly?" She let out a soft sigh. "And the day I found it, finally, so too did Vazi."

She was quiet for a little while. "The stories that we are all in....the fates we all have...they all converge. We are meant to play a part in someone else's tale, whether it be a romance, or a horror story. No matter what we do....we have an impact on everyone we meet. We can be a mentor, a protector, a lover, a sibling, a friend, or we could be the villain to someone else. We can be all of these things, and to every gem, we are the hero in our own story."

"But that's just me rambling on and on." She smiled at Beast again. "Do ignore me."

"This is how I speak."

Beast listened intently, coming upright and shaking away some of the snow as he heard Clover's words.

It sounded beautiful, to him.

"So everyone is connected. Like all the plant-roots," he said thoughtfully. "What sort of impact do you think we'll have? I don't want to be a villain. I don't want there to be horror stories. That sounds scary."

The white lion came upright, then flopped back down again, rolling nearer to Clover. He felt relaxed, playful, friendly. The fear of Hasira was almost forgotten; the looming leer of Belladonna pushed away.

"I want... happy stories. For everyone. I've never heard a story, though. Will you tell me one, some day?"

Somehow, Beast knew what a story was. He knew that good things were good; that scary things were bad. But the idea of a story? His mind whirled with the possibilities.

"Or I could try to tell one."

It was a hesitant suggestion, unsure; he wasn't even sure Clover would want to hear.

He also wasn't sure why she said to ignore her. He'd never do that. Everything she had said fascinated him, and he wasn't liable to forget it any time soon.

______________

@Belladonna

"Like plant roots," She softly agreed, nodding her head with pride in her eye.

You don't get to choose if you're a villain to someone else though - that's for them to decide. She thought wistfully. Vazi, in all his delusion...thought he was still doing the right thing. And to him, we are all the villains.

She paused for a second, looking at him with a musing smile. "What if...we make a story together. We can both decide what happens and where the story will go. What do you think? Here, I will help you start."

She took in a breath and looked around, using her surroundings as a starting point.

"Once upon a time...it was snowing. And it wasn't tiny little patches of snowfall that led to tiny little mounds of ice, no, this was a blizzard. Have you ever seen a blizzard? It's cold, so cold it reaches to the very core of you, till you're surrounded with nothing but white that leaches the very warmth from your bones and all you see is blinding white. The main character of our story was huddling to themselves for warmth, their limbs tucked in as much as they could to protect themselves from the raging winds that teased and spoke to them, telling them to just - give up and lay there in the snow forever more, but the hero didn't want to sleep. They wouldn't let the snow become their grave, their guillotine. They were going somewhere, they had a goal, someone they needed to reach in this barren wasteland of snow."

She looked at Beast, moving encouragingly. "Now, you continue. Where is the hero going? Who are they meeting? Who are they? You can make it to be anything."

"This is how I speak."

@Beast

Beast lay stock-still, staring in wondrous awe as Clover told her tale. He listened intently to each word, forgetting the moss and ferns and patches of snow, forgetting even the dragonflies that had danced about his head.

He imagined the creature lying there--what was it? This was important, to him--who was the hero? Was it someone big, or small? Someone strong, or weak? Did they have big teeth, and fangs, like him, and a mane? Or a soft glow and hooves, like Clover? First he imagined something white, something that blended right into this white world Clover had woven in his imagination.

Beast then imagined a smaller Hasira in the snow, curled there, pure of heart and determined to get to his goal. But he didn't want to upset Clover. Maybe he should do what she said, first? Maybe he should think of what the creature wanted, what their goal was, and everything would follow.

A dozen ideas ran through his mind in a stream of color, as Beast sat staring with wide and absent eyes. A magical stone? Some medicine, to save a friend, or maybe their mother? Or maybe someone was in danger? Or maybe the hero just wanted to go home.

As he thought this over, he asked a brief question.

"What's a... guillotine?"

Beast then thought it over some more, and decided that their hero was after knowledge.

"The hero wanted to go to... a big broken tower," he began, hesitant. He was drawing on what he knew, thinking of the stone tower in Orion, where Vazi and the demon-bear had fought. "And inside this tower there's carvings all over the walls, like the ones in these caves but--... They tell secrets. The hero knew that... That if you listened very close," Beast continued, and now his eyes began to light up with ideas, "the pictures would whisper all sorts of secret things, things that would help everyone else. The hero just wanted to help. But the way there was very long and cold and if they stopped now the secrets would never get found."

Beast hesitated, again, thinking, his paws kneading the ground before him without him even realizing it. His mind was lost in the tale he was weaving with Clover's help, and at length he tried to continue, a little, to give her something to work off of. He was new to this, so it was a clumsy attempt--but he was thoroughly enjoying himself nonetheless.

No one had ever been this kind to him, before.

"And they were shivering from the cold, but they'd learned everything they could so they had some tricks. They grew a thick long... um, coat, of white fur, so they wouldn't freeze to death! ...So they stood up, because you can't just give up, or there's no story," the lion continued. This seemed reasonable to him. "And finally they could see something ahead through the... um, blizzard? But you decide--what was it?"

Beast settled down, one paw crossing over the other, watching Clover with a gentle, intense excitement.

He couldn't wait to hear what happened next--and he was glad to see that she was gently glowing. He, too, began to shine, the softest of light emanating from him, though he didn't really realize it, and it wasn't strong.

He was just so happy.

______________

@Belladonna

She sat, enraptured, listening. A tower that told secrets! Oh, but she'd never thought of that before! She wanted this story to continue, listening with a soft enthusiasm that gripped her. No one had ever told her a story before!

"There was a stranger in the blizzard, and through the howling wind and the snowfall, the form was blurry to the hero. They peered through the snow and hurried over to them, calling out to the stranger, their voice lost to the wind that took his voice and snatched it up greedily for itself, and they shivered, glad of their new fur coat. It wasn't until the hero was almost upon the stranger that the form was made clear to them, and oddly enough to the hero...they looked just like him.

The stranger turned with the same clear blue eyes as the hero and spoke, "I can't allow you to go to the tower."

The hero backed away, frowning, shaking his head. "Why?" They replied loudly over the wind. "There are people I could save with the tower's secrets!"

The stranger just sighed, inaudible in the storm. "There are too many secrets there, secrets that could help...or harm. And I won't let those harmful secrets come alive and hurt those I care about. I won't let you go near the tower.""

She wanted to explain what a guillotine was...but she let it drop in favor of the story. This was too exciting to stain with explaining an instrument of death.

"This is how I speak."

@Beast

Beast peered at Clover, as enraptured by her words as she seemed by his. He did not even notice how she reacted to his words, how lost was he in hers, his wide starshimmer eyes gazing at her. Yet they were empty--his mind was elsewhere, lost in a world of snow, and towers, and secrets.

And strangers.

Beast gathered himself, blinking as he came back to reality, remembering that it was his turn to carry onward with the tale. He thought about it.

"...The hero shook his shaggy white fur, to get some more snow off him, because it was cold, and heavy," he began--mostly because the young lion had just had to do this himself, and it seemed likely.

"And--he looked at the stranger, and he said, 'Well, I don't want to hurt any of my friends, but is it good to live and die without learning any secrets? It seems like a waste of a life.'"

Beast thought about this, for a moment, then added to it, unconsciously projecting himself into the role of the hero--he was young, yet, and the idea of thinking through the mind of another, of reacting as another might, was foreign to him. So he carried on the tale, changing his voice just a little--indecisively, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, as a novice storyteller might tend to do--when speaking for the Hero.

"Then the hero thought about this for awhile. He realized that maybe the 'him' in front of him had a point. He wouldn't want to hurt any of his friends, either. And maybe he could learn some secrets from this 'him,' and find out what was so dangerous. 'What should I do, then? Can we go someplace warm, and talk? Can you teach me what is dangerous? I want to learn, but I don't want to hurt anyone.'"

The white lion nodded, thoughtful, and opened his jaws to continue--then realized he should probably leave the other character, the other-Hero, to Clover. She'd created it, after all; and anyway, it was probably her turn.

"Your turn," he said at last, softly, lifting his pale gaze to the doe.

______________

@Belladonna ((ooc - I keep not getting these tags, can you poke if I don't respond in a day or two? Thanks! ))

Pages: 1 2

ORIGIN

Belladonna

Mercy

Belladonna

Mercy

Belladonna

Mercy

Belladonna

Mercy

Belladonna

Mercy