12-29-2009, 05:30 PM
1. Character Name: Ásmundr
2. Character Birthdate (including year): March 17 2008
3. Whether s/he is a regular wolf or a Luperci: Regular wolf
4. Species: Black-phase tundra wolf
5. Gender: Male
6. A secondary form of contact: phasedshift @ AIM
7. How you found 'Souls: Returning
2. Character Birthdate (including year): March 17 2008
3. Whether s/he is a regular wolf or a Luperci: Regular wolf
4. Species: Black-phase tundra wolf
5. Gender: Male
6. A secondary form of contact: phasedshift @ AIM
7. How you found 'Souls: Returning
Quote:Po was pleased. High above the world, it gleamed like a golden coin stuck to the patient sky, lighting the world. The tropical atmosphere of the coast prospered especially from the bizarre power of its incandescence, for it worked unlike Earth's sun. To the east there was a barren, frozen wasteland, but across what could be considered an undeniably short distance, snow did not exist. The Shadow of Let was a gradient of climate that was almost nonsensically quixotic. She could derive no understanding from it.
Even so, she strolled with purpose in her step. Po was of no consequence — insignificant mortals need not consider the wonders of Elementum. Magick made as much sense there as physiology did, creating a complicated and nigh impossible situation to consider. The Psyaerkin was no scholar, so her mind often did not dabble in the realm of knowledge. She was a simple enough creature.
One slim paw fell upon the golden shore, bringing her dark-wrapped body to a standstill on the edge of the coastline. Falling away into turquoise water, the beach was more than simply picturesque — it was captivating. Along the cusp where she stood now gathered stone, moss, and sand together into a competing mixture, but eventually it was sand that won and got to spread further out from the pack territory. Palms swayed lazily in a quiet breeze, illuminated by Po far above, and let the wind carry their heady scent along.
Rae stood only to appreciate the beauty, hesitating not by any fear of what the water might be like. Often she passed by things in her restless walking and did not give them an ounce of attention. Now was a day to bring back observation, and she did just that.
Quote:Shadows danced like quiet sentries amongst skeletal branches, creeping and swinging from vines of imagination. As Po (the sun, in essence, from a culture where it was named thus) slung itself lower and lower in the sky, and Cairo's (as she often considered the moon, also, with a name) awakening became imminent, their wild games grew more and more reckless. Before long they had thrown themselves so far that they no longer existed, and were instead swallowed by darkness itself. The only reminder that there had ever been light to complement the shadows was a thin, flaking sliver of a platinum hanging balefully above, and tiny pricks in the dark canvas, stars to keep watch when Cairo could not.
Neither sun nor moon had a sex nor even an identifiable trait other than the names they were given. They chased each other recklessly, and the creatures below strode unwittingly beneath a game they did not consider important. Oh, but when the winds howled Po's scornful anger, when snow drifted as pearly tears from Cairo, when thunder forked below deep, concealing clouds resulting from their gentle and fleeting kiss, Rae noticed.
She wasn't anything of a weather guru, or anything notable at all when one really considered it. As she stepped easily across a mossy covering that hid sandy soil, her body making lithe, sweeping curves around the sparse trees with their luscious overhead umbrellas, she looked undeniably plain and ordinary. She blended in with the night nearly flawlessly, the sole indicator of her visit being only cautious prints below svelte paws and a glowing about her eyes when light hit it just right. But as her snout snaked upward and her vision raked across where Cairo ought to sit, she could only think on how little was present tonight. Her culture had never had an explanation for why the platinum orb made sudden and seemingly random disappearances such as it had now — the Psyaerkin clan had been content merely to absorb mindless information.
Unfortunately, Rae was not much better than them. There was no epic monologue to be had from her lips of defiance to that very way of life — none she would ever utter, anyway, and nobody knew any different. Sometimes she herself was uncertain of the true story, so often did she deceive those curious enough to draw near. No, for all the world knew she as an accepting and unquestioning wolf, a minion if nothing else with little concern but the present desire (for were not desires but the strongest of instincts at any current moment, and was not instinct to be heeded without thought?), and perhaps they were right. Her paw met with wetness as it plunged into a thin creek, but she did not stop her seemingly ceaseless motion forward. She reached from within her soul for the very shoreline she was presently meandering toward, and nothing so petty as a tiny creek would perturb her from that course.
Quote:An exhausting, dark night with the absence of Cairo's silver light had melted away into a hazy and joyless dawn, bringing with it stacks upon stacks of moody, brooding clouds. Even by mid-day they hung grey and drab in the sky, pulling in depression and raining it liberally upon the denizens of the new land. That was what it was called — New Land. That is what the prophets had predicted for her. Leader, no, they had said, their faces jeering and almost mocking. New Land. Go. And obediently she had gone.
And even from the one place she had eventually located in the New Land, Rae had found no comfort. Hers had been a sleepless night following a journey that was expected to be tireless but left her paws hurting for weariness, left her wings stiff and aching, left her eyes drooping over her eyes. It was negligence that led her from Clearleaf Glades in the broken gloom of the morning, allowed her to take to the skies with unblemished black wings despite their veritable creaking from the fatigue in them and the abuse they had endured, and caused her to travel east.
It was almost completely east, when she thought about it. Little deviation had occurred. Rae's intentions were unknown even as she streamed easily through the sky, dipping and curling in her agile dancer's manner, but her destination ended up being much closer to the new home than she had expected. It was a wide creek, cutting a docile path through a grassland that seemed to have had better days, and it was here she chose to draw down.
Her hind paws dipped close to the water as she zipped expertly over it, and those slender claws pulled through the undisturbed water like tiny ineffective angers. Her feet met with the shore and she pulled up short with a snap of membrane that folded swiftly into her sides, and she shook herself awake from the calming flight.
It was the following loud eruption from the creek that caused her to turn, eyes wide, and murmur a curse to herself when a huge beast with flattened orange scales saw fit to breach the surface, its yellowed gaze fixing her with a terrible, haunting threat.