[ prp ] voices just burn holes ( lurks & holly )

[The Semblance of Unity]

"The bad time?" She turned back to Lurks... Rather, she tried to turn. Suddenly, she was falling, rolling roughly down the side of the cliff. The irritating horseman had pushed her! A creaky wail rolled out of her mouth as her hands tried to find a hold in the cliffside. Some of her leaves tore off as she fell, leaving tears stinging her eyes and dirt filled her mouth as she gasped again. Abruptly, her hand caught on something - a small ledge, a tiny nook just big enough for Hollandaise to hook her fingers into.

She hung there for a moment, her arms creaking in protest. Wildly, Hollandaise peered back up the cliffside, eyes wide in shock. "Lurks!" She cursed, some colorful things she'd read in books at the library. Come and get me this instant!" She could drop, maybe, but it would hurt.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

Lurks cackled wildly as Holly tumbled, wheezing so hard his ribs rattled in place. "Holly!" he echoed, jumping down to slide down the rocks, comically becoming a bit of a skeletal tumbleweed. He landed on a ledge nearby-- to the left, and below Holly.

"Just let go some more," he advised, wisely. "Then you will fall and falll to the very very bottom, and we can go for a walk." The Famine beamed. "Into the sand!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Lurks," she said as sternly as she could manage. "If I fall, I will be hurt. I do not enjoy that type of pain, Lurks." Her left hand slipped and a creaking squeak popped out of her mouth.

"Lurks!" Hollandaise kicked her feet against the cliff. "Do something!"

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"So?" he asked with a shrug. "I do not care what you enjoy. If you fall apart, you will come back together somewhere else. It is not a big problem."

Lurks fluttered over to the ledge, balancing precariously on his tippytoes on it, wings beating behind him. "Okay, I will do something! You can let go, and fall and fall till the bottom. Or I can step!"

He beamed, pleased with himself. "It is an easy choice you know!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise muttered several very uncomplimentary things under her breath. Were all horsemen this crazed? Her fingers slipped a little. She did not relish the thought of his bony toes stepping on her anymore than she liked the idea of falling down, down, down.

"Lurks!" And then she fell.

cherno astra

up to you how she lands, etc

 

[its me debz]

Lurks watched with inordinate glee as Holly tumbled down the mountain. He skated along the rocky crags along the way, surfing the landslide that followed him. Reaching down to pluck at her arm, he used the momentum to carry them further and out of harm's way.

"I like the earth," he said, voice faraway, "and do not mind getting stuck in it, like a nice bath. But you would not like it very very much. So up, up!" They came to a stop shortly after that, where Lurks began to clap his hands in glee. "Sand, sand, sand. It is like home, you know. What is home to you?"

The Semblance of Unity

lol this is so old now i'm so sorry my timeline is 100% flexible so u put it where u need to bae

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I do like the earth," she said huffily. "But I do not like dying, or pain." At least her feet touched solid (mostly) ground, and she sighed, rubbing her aching arms. Hollandaise thoroughly disliked Lurks, but even she realized that without him, she might not get home properly.

She wriggled her toes into the sand, feeling it shift under her. "Is this... sand?" Bending, she grabbed a handful of it, feeling it drain out of her hands like water. She threw the next handful at Lurks, watching it fly through the air with an enraptured expression. "Home is... was forest with loam and red clay dirt and always shadowed by tall trees. I loved it." She still did, even if she was not allowed to return.

"What is that?" She gestured to the old, ruined base.

Cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

Lurks looked at Holly with a touch of confusion in his eyes. "You are not very good at being in Halloween," he said, "we do not die. We dissipate and come back, dissipate and come back, over and over and over!" He beamed. "Until, sometimes, you do it too much. Too, too much, and then it is grey and the skies are dark and the--"

The island falls, the phoenix flies, the cores of thousands of ancient souls fading into nothing, into a vast silence that was silent, even now. Lurks did not miss it, but he was aware of it.

"It is sand!" Lurks crowed triumphantly as she threw some his way, and began to scoop some up in his own hands. He inched closer, angling to try and get some down the front of her dress, because he was very mature and very grown up.

"Why do you say loved, like you cannot go back? Is it gone, like the island?"

He turned his hooded head towards the crumbling remains of what once was. "A place for hunters. But they are gone, many many years since they lived and thrived here." A wicked smile grew on his torn face. "Something consumed them. Poof!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I am not very good at anything at all," she muttered. Hollandaise crossed her arms under her chest. "Dissipate, yes. It is the one perk of being a pant-creature and not yet a plant." She did not say that she would not mind dying. But she would not mind it very much at all, if she were useful after death. Just like a tree remained useful.

She stared at the hunter complex and ignored Lurk's questions about her home for now. "I see." She did not see. "A game hunter? why would something eat them all..." They had gotten a few hunters to frighten, her elders had told her, when the men had gone into the forest to kill deer. She turned back to Lurks and eyed the sand warily.

"My h-home is not gone... I just - I may not return, not yet. Is yours dead? Gone? Where do you live now?"

Cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"You are very very little," Lurks corrected. "There is much much time."

A devious look crossed his skeletal face. "Do you want to go look at what was? In the base of many many ruins and dark?" He giggled. "Sometimes I find hunters! Wander and patrol and angry, at me. Not many want to play. It is disappointing."

In the meanwhile, Lurks continued to play with sand, pouring it over himself as if it were water. "Oh, I see. Why? Mine is gone. We are in a tower now. There were islands, and four clans, and we all lived apart in a not a very good balance. And then the hunters came, and it is all gone, into the sea. Gone, gone. But I do not mind. I have always been in the world of humans!"

He grinned. "Desert is more home than a place for stuffy elders."

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Sure. I enjoy seeing plants sneak into the corners of ruins. Although, I am not strong yet, so I cannot fight things," she said warily. Hollandaise could not understand the appeal of pouring sand over oneself in the least. Didn't it get stuck in strange places? To be helpful, she tossed some more sand at him.

"I am not allowed back right now. Not until I graduate, or become a better Warder." Her voice was carefully modulated, not quite monotone. "Do you all live together now? No separation? Is the tower terribly tall?" Hollandaise did not like Lurks, and he was kind of gross, but that did not dim her intense curiosity about his way of life.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

The ruins loomed closer, covered in a brambly sort of ivy, harsh and tan as the environment around it.

"That is the point of fighting," Lurks lectured, as if he knew everything, because in his mind he did, "to get stronger and stronger forever. Forever."

He stared at Holly for an abnormally long time without blinking, until a fluttering insect of his own design crossed his line of sight.

"That is dumb, you should go back anyway." Lurks kicked at the sand. "Like a surprise! And it is very tall. There are floors! A floor for death and Famine and war and conquest and crystals and more. Ours is very much sand but confined. My brother is there!"

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Well, yes," she said, a sort of weary exasperation creeping into her voice. "-but I do like to choose when and who I fight, after all." She met his gaze uncomfortably, trying desperately not to blink.

"I cannot return without permission. It is not a surprise that would be tolerated." In truth, she had no idea what would happen if she tried to go back. It was possible they would simply act as if she did not exist. That was not a comfortable thought. She strode up to a wall and ran her thin fingers over the ivy, eyes glowing. Still, she was not good enough to sense more than faint emotions - the hot sun, blowing sands.

She turned back to him, eyes still glowing. "You have a brother? What is it like?"

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"Oh," Lurks said, reflecting on this new information. "I guess that is okay. I do not always want to fight. But when I see the hunters, they do not want to play and call me mean things, and I have to prove how nice I am."

With his fists, obviously.

"Well, that depends. Do you want to know what he is like, because he is a he and is very smart and intelligent and picky and pick-apart-y. Or do you want to know what it is like to have another? We are kin! He listens to my stories and we are friends but closer. I bring him back things, when I wander, so that he has new things to see the insides of."

The Famine pony took a moment to look truly pleased at his role, especially the last part, before he began tearing down some vines and stuffing them into his pockets. Souvenirs, presumably.

"Do you have any siblings or a Mother or Elders or Sages?"

The Semblance of Unity

FINALLY I TAG U HI SORRY UNI I'M A SLOWPOKE

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Perhaps it is the character of your 'playing' they are concerned with," she muttered, hand reaching up to touch her aching shoulder. "I do not have a brother - Warders do not have families like that. Closer than friends.." She trailed off thoughtfully, hand still brushing along the thick, burly vines.

Then Lurks began pulling the plants off of the building. The vines were all inter-connected, so of course Hollandaise felt it as shock shivered through them. They did not mind pain or dying, of course, plants never did. The lingering emotion was a wish for usefulness - another step in their life. But she minded. Moving with a speed not typical of Warder, she darted over to Lurks, trying to knock his hands away from the vines.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "What do you plan on using these vines for? You are hurting it and there needs to be a reason." Her eyes glowed fiercely, the plants' vague feelings flittering through her. The vines did not quite understand why she was so upset for them.

cherno astra

whoops was gonna get an overview of warder life but PLANTS