[RE] over and over again

spark bird It has no want to be here. It wants to be home, and yet as the barrier was lifted...it stayed. A year, it stayed. It could have gone but...the centuries have not been kind and the world seems to have moved on without the creature. Is it the last of its kind? Will it remain in the Grounds, trapped not with a magical barrier, but because of its own fear? It doesn't know...It doesn't know, it doesn't know, it doesn't know. But for the kindness of the ones who have sung to it, who have called its name and left gifts and offerings, it will come. It will shine this one more year. The Spark Bird has arrived in the HG! It sits just outside of the Temple. You cannot venture farther than that board or you will still be susceptible to monster attacks. Posting here counts as a rare animal sighting.

OIA'I'O

Finally you are freed from your cage. This week has been an incredible drain on all of your mental faculties and likely just as many of Kai's, as he's tried to keep you occupied and grounded. But with all the carpets and doorknobs and unnatural quiet, you felt as close to madness as you'd ever come.

So when the doors were finally opened with the return of the Spark Bird, your rush towards the perch was as much to simply be outside as it was to investigate the rare creature.

"How many are there in existence, do you think?" You wonder to Kai, notebook in hand. "I wonder what it's traditional diet is and how it has fared all these years here. If we study it now, we can compare mutations it has developed if we ever find another." You point out, before glancing towards the darkness where the bird's light is swallowed by the night.

Coding base by Sky!

It's taken a lifetime to lose my way

All the wasted time on my hands turns to sand

Distractions amidst their gathered crowd within the Temple drew him away from the guarded room briefly. A muttering of words, of segments, of syllables and phrases with excited acclaim, sudden alarm, or surprise curbed his self-loathing for a moment, and his gaze flickered from window to window, from beyond blacked out contortions, where the light, where the fire, managed to shine through. Recognition of previous years coiled along his skull, and only the slightest sentiment of relief splintered its way along sternum, chest, ribs, and heart.

The Spark Bird had come.

They’d managed to do something successfully.

But he knew it meant other ruminations beyond sanctity, a respite from the monsters. For now though, he’d take what little they’d been allotted, and motioned towards the damned door, no need for it any longer. It’d done enough damage and protected all at once, and to gaze upon it was a neutral designation, uncertain about how far his fury or his numbness would stretch. Regardless, everyone, Ascended and all of them alike, deserved the liberation, the deliverance, of the outside world once more.

His hands went to its hinges, the earthen magic distorting the metal features, unraveling them with ease, and he pulled away the wooden structure, setting it outside, in a cart he’d left from previous preparations. He’d deal with it later – uncertain whether to destroy, whether to bring it to Safrin and conjure some sort of explanation.

His gaze went to the Spark Bird in the distance again, the marvel of flames, cinders, and embers, and half-wished they wouldn’t need it ever again.

Instead of advancing any further, he created once more – a replacement, another aperture, without the essence of damnation embedded into its wooden enamel. The door was detailed simplistically, he had no heart for design at the moment, before setting it in where the old had once been, hinges returned.

I'm fine in the fire

I feed on the friction

MABEL

Mabel hadn’t seen the Spark Bird but once or twice; from the distance, ambient and glowing, as her parents recalled the stories and tales around it. They’d all been little, clustered in their farmhouse hold, listening as the beams of light seemed to radiate from beneath doors, surrounding snow moss.

And now, there it was, before them all.

She couldn’t create quite the same joy or elation others had, not when the fire, the embers, would’ve singed and eaten away at her in this new form – but she could open the door now, no longer accursed, and stare in wonder from a distance away. A Natural’s appreciation, the slightest of smiles, for the coming of Flowerbirth, the end of LongNight’s reign, and everything else nestled, thorned, in between. For something else, something Brighter, something greater, something better.

I bare my teeth
and stretch my claws out

because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing

As soon as you're allowed out the door you heckin' go, because if this hasn't been the worst week of your life you don't know what has. Granted, nobody you knew or care about died or was hurt, but between the humans and their steadily deteriorating mental states and Oia and her rapidly deteriorating mental state...

...let's just say your mental state is not at its best.

So when the Spark Bird shows up and the doors finally open you book it, grabbing your sister by the wrist and rushing right on out.

"I'm surprised the ecosystem here can support even one!" you reply enthusiastically, already scribbling down a likeness of the fiery bird. "More'd hafta be somewhere hot, or else real cold. How far d'ya think the light reaches?" you ask, following her attention eagerly toward away from the growing crowd.

kaimana

OIA'I'O

"Or wet." You point out, though you don't know what sort of ecosystem would be necessary to support such an electric type of lifeform.

Walking towards where the light is starting to ebb from the creature, you tilt your head. "An interesting problem. Is it the case that once the light ends, the monsters can get through? But...if it is a matter of degrees, how are we to know where the cut off is actually 0? Do the creatures have some honed sense for that?"

It reminds you of the paradox of the heap, where removing one grain of sand presumably makes a huge pile, still a heap. Though by that logic, eventually 1 grain is still a heap. The problem is in defining a cut off point for something that varies by degrees.

"One small step, and it's still light. How about here?" You take another, still clearly in the light. "And here?" So you go a few steps until it isn't entirely clear anymore if you're in complete darkness yet, or not.

Coding base by Sky!

Evie

The call goes up, and there's no point trying to stop those who go running from the Temple, embracing the safety of the SparkBird with open arms. Some weep, others merely stand and stare, faces turned upwards as if the bird is their own personal sun. Evie stands there among them, glancing briefly at Deimos and wishing she knew the right words to comfort him. They don't exist, she knows that after so many years experiencing this wretched sunless time. It doesn't erase the desire.

Standing beneath the Perch, Evie doesn't feel much like a queen. It's the equivalent of someone asking a child how different they feel being a year older on their birthday. A vague, meaningless thing for now, something that will only solidify with time. But for now, she closes her eyes and is grateful for the miracle of light.

be the love you never received

the love you've always wanted

until i'm ready, let me be

From the outskirts of the firelight comes a hoarse, tearful laugh.

Amalia staggers out of the darkness, bloody and disheveled but still up on her feet. "Deimos" she calls, clutching her bleeding and shrapnel-filled stomach with a bruised and trembling hand. Ronin and Remi are left to be tended to, the Shield too tired to carry them further; her eyes and attention search the crowd now for her own family, her own safe place to land.

Evie and Deimos. Sister and husband. Shelter from the storm.

She makes it to a nearby stoop on trembling legs, her face and body still covered in blood and viscera that is not hers. The only clean part of her are her cheeks: tear-stained, though the girl has long since run out of tears to shed. From somewhere Jyoti rockets through the crowd, calling urgently and leaving starlight as she rushes to her soulmate's side, but the Shield barely registers. "Evie," Amalia croaks out quietly, blinking in the blinding light. "Deimos? I need... I need help. Please."

i have to heal myself

AmaLiA

It's taken a lifetime to lose my way

All the wasted time on my hands turns to sand

No repose even in those stark columns of light, a call of his name faltering out of darkness, recognition not of monsters, but of his wife, and his heart tore apart again. When does this end? his mind wandered, somewhere in the back of his skull as instincts drove him onward. When does it cease? Because it never seemed to – always something blinding and binding them down, always something battering against their senses, always something draining every essence of their souls. His eyes took in the blood and he moved quicker, faster, long limbs carrying him across the effervescent-laden terrain – the panic, apprehension, and consternation settling into the fortifications of his wake.

Hadn’t it just been this past spring, when she’d been broken?

The agony clenched over him once more and he was tired, so damned tired, but the weight of it all peeled off his shoulders to attend to her. The beast hadn’t summoned Zuriel, but she knew, she knew, and his appreciation for the unicorn would sharpen, hone, later, when the world wasn’t so twisted, fragmented, and devastating. “I am here,” he whispered, hands going towards her, afraid to grab and hold, lift or carry, depending on the extent of her injuries. So they went to her palms instead, while Zuriel, quiet, stoic, and not shaking like him, bending her head down. Healing, ambient glows from her horn were cast, intending to soothe the aches, mend the gnarled pieces of her flesh. It wouldn’t be able to reach her soul – that would take far more than what the unicorn could provide.

I'm fine in the fire

I feed on the friction

because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing

"Maybe th'intensity'a light. 'Cus they don' seem too bothered by torches, an' even Luxere's aren't perfect 'gainst them."

Following Oia you make it a point to write down a tally for each step you take. How many steps away from the bird will be unsafe? Using that, can you accurately measure distance, and then the degree to which the light subsides based on those distance. There's a lot of confounding variables, of course, like the shadows cast by businesses and the presence of said luxere and so on, but you try to choose a path that is as unaffacted by those as possible.

Step, step, step, step, until your shadow grows almost imperceptible because the area around you is so dark.

Step, step, step, until you stand outside the halo, the bird still visible in the distance but barely enough to illuminate your twin as you turn to her. "I think this is prolly th' edge- maybe if we wait we'll see a monster outside'a it."

kaimana

random event Was it the edge, or were the monsters simply biding their time? It was hard to know, and sadly for the twins, they wouldn't find out. Or if in death they did, they'd only be able to communicate it back to Rae. Which in the end, was all they were really good for anyways. With a slorp and a CROMCH, the twins were swallowed up by darkness and fangs. Oia and Kai are killed by the monsters.