Forgotten (open)

[Rista]

Time: 2nd of Fall, 511 AV She had been there before. The shadows tossed from high walls seemed familiar as they danced over cobbled pathways, dotted and graying under a light drizzle. There was a biting chill in the air that brought her mind to fall, but no matter where she looked there wasn't a yellowing tree in sight. In fact, she couldn't see any trees at all. The sound of footsteps echoed and multiplied as she walked along empty streets. Hollow windows gaped in the facade of buildings, well known and unfamiliar all the same. The plaster cracked and fell from dry walls as her fingers brushed over it, raining like dry snow onto the street. This place was empty. The road she walked along ended in a wide, round square, guarded by tall houses and centered by a sculpture. It looked like a man and a woman caught in dance, hair and clothing whipping in a silent wind. Her eyes were empty, moss covering her pale marble face until it looked as though she was weeping. The man had lost an arm, forever unable to touch her cold stone face. At some point, water had gushed from their joint hands and played into the basin at their feet, but now the well was dry and no one was there to enjoy it, no children to play splashing games and no men or women to collect the precious liquid. The wind swept in from the south, hot and dry like the sun that beat over those lands. It made the curtains of rain shift and move, whipping the labyrinth of streets that winded through the large city. Rista stopped and looked around, arms moving to rub over her bare arms. It was cold, the damp weather enough to make her shiver and long for warmer lands, or a fire that could warm her skin. She felt lost as she let her black eyes wander over the abandoned houses, questions running through her mind. Where was she, why was this location so familiar? She had never been there before, all her mind and body screamed the knowledge at her. This wasn't Wind Reach, so why did she know every street, every alley and square like the back of her hand? In this empty place filled with nothing but dust and memories, why did her chest tear with longing and grief, as if she had lost something important? Shivering she picked up her pace, stretching her short legs out as much as she could and picked a new path, determination leading her into a narrow labyrinth of streets, where the houses grew smaller and poorer. Dust from ages before gathered in cracks and crevices of the facades, once flowering trees petrified and barren where they once had grown, pressed into narrow gardens and planted in withering pots. She didn't know where she was going, but she couldn't stop. It was bad to stand still, bad to remain in one place for too long. The silence around her seemed to hold meaning, as if the walls and doorways suddenly could start to speak at any minute and tell her why she was there. Rista didn't want to know. She just had to walk, keep walking until she found some way to get warm, find a place to rest. It was all she needed, all she asked for. Not that there was anyone to ask about anything. The city was empty. Dead.

[Bolden Denusk]

'Why is it so hot and dry here? Where did all the water go?' Bolden wondered, dragging a tongue over his cracked dry lips. The familiar plains scape of Endrykas was nowhere to be found. The harsh and barren surroundings forcefully reminded him of the family he thought he once knew, now dried up and scattered to the winds. The man he knew as his brother, was not. The woman he knew as his sister was a slave to the blue savages of Riverfall. The people he thought he knew as his parents, were not.

He felt the heat bearing down on his dark hair and damp curls clung to his neck in the oppressive temperature. He kept walking, trudging forward in his quest for some kind of oasis in the smothering atmosphere. A broken down statue by a fountain caught his eye.

'Maybe there's water around here somewhere!' he thought desperately. A very short, stocky girl with reddish hair stood nearby. Bolden opened his mouth to ask if she had any water but stopped and shuddered at her demonic looking, black eyed gaze. The tall Drykas stared at the dark eye little devil with an almost superstitious horror.

[Rista]

oocso sorry for the wait, didn't notice that anyone had replied

When had he appeared? She couldn't say for certain that he hadn't been standing there since the founding of the now abandoned city, she just knew that the weight of his eyes felt like it could bring her down on her knees at any moment. The square was similar to the one she had passed before, as it was similar to a hundred other squares with a hundred different statues and a hundred similar fountains. It could be the same, or it might just be very similar to one she had passed before. Rista couldn't remember how long she had been walking, she just knew that the man that stood on the square sided by the crumbling statue was looking at her and forced her in place with his eyes. Normal eyes, dark pupils surrounded by a bright amber color that stirred a feeling of recognition within her, golden eyes surrounded by the pale gleam of white that betrayed emotions reminding of fear as they stared at her. Normal eyes, that cut through the silence and nailed her feet to the ground with their judging stare. "You need to keep moving" she said, the young girl staring back with a dark gaze that seemed to swallow whatever light that fell upon them, devouring her thoughts and guiding the way to the deep bottomless places of her soul. "If you stand still in one place the world will crumble and nothing of the things you know will remain. You need to move forward, there is no turning back. Look." She reached out a hand and pointed to a place somewhere behind the back of the man. Upon turning a darkness began to spread behind him, reaching out from the shadows between buildings, from the cracks between the cobbled stones of the road and from the deepness of the empty windows. It spread and deepened, thickened and conquered the earth as it moved, devouring the foundation until buildings began to crumble like bricks. One by one they lost their foundation and toppled, and slowly it came closer, ever closer to the place where they were standing. "It's time to go" Rista said and smiled briefly towards the stranger, and with a wave of her hand she began to walk, steering her steps towards a narrow path that led down between tall buildings. Assuming that he would follow the girl picked up the pace, short legs carrying her forth with surprising speed and a determination that came from knowing where she was going. The where was always easy, it was the why that was difficult to understand. With the darkness behind her and the maze of pathways ahead, it was a relief to find herself with company as she led the way through the deserted city. Turning her head slightly to glance at the tall man, she pondered quietly over what was happening. The chilly bite in the air contradicted the perspiration on his face and his cracking lips, she had too much water drizzling over her head and he seemed to be lacking it entirely. "Did you loose something recently?" she asked thoughtfully, unable to completely recall where the question had come from. There was so much she didn't know, and lately the world had begun to shake under her feet. Maybe it was the same for him.

[Bolden Denusk]

The ebony eyed little female was dripping in rain! Why was it he felt no rain, no life giving moisture at all? Her dark hair dripped rain yet his skin, his entire self was parched dry as old bones in the desert. When he finally tore his gaze from Rista's and followed her point, panic curled up inside him like rising acid in his stomach.

Destruction had followed him! Everywhere he'd gone, death, curses, depression and injuries had followed him until everyone he loved had succumbed. Was there no escape? Tamar and Ay'vata, dead. Eachann and Vanator, the distant men who lied to him his entire life and shut him out. Kavala, a fading memory, Laria vanished.

Sudden movement from the short little demon broke his reverie and when she gestured, he followed her hesitantly. Her tiny legs ran swiftly and he lengthened his stride to a rapid walk to catch up with her. At least he thought it was a her. Did demons have gender? He eyed her trim figure as she ran ahead of him, deciding this was definitely a female devil.

The young Drykas couldn't fathom why she was dripping wet. The baking hot sun had him dripping in sweat...and the perspiration soaked him to the bone. The closer he got to the dark eyed demon, the more it actually rained on him!

"Did you loose something recently?" She asked in a strange language.

How could he understand her if she spoke in another language? It sounded more like the angry twittering of a bird with a mouthful of food. He'd never heard anything so bizarre in his life! He could only answer in Pavi, assuming she'd understand him in the same way he comprehended her.

"Did I lose something? Yea. Nearly my entire petchin' family! Everything I've ever known is destroyed. What about you?"

He didn't feel any better answering her question and he risked a look over his shoulder. Buildings and pillars crashed and rumbled behind them, moving faster than a loyal strider! Torrents of rain were flung hard by the wind, slapping them in the face. The deluge plastered his dark curls to his neck and forehead, a steady stream of water pouring down between his eyes.

"Where the petch are we?!" Bolden asked above the rising maelstrom as he slowed his stride to match hers.

[Rista]

Without slowing down she turned to look at the man as he spoke, with black eyes that revealed nothing of what she might be thinking. The lines of her face expressed nothing but faint interest, her movements as she walked held no hesitation as she led them along the winding streets, around corners and across squares that could have been twins to the one where they met - at times it even looked like they passed places that already had been left behind, but that couldn't be possible. The destruction of the deserted city continuously followed behind them after all, with no sign of re-creation beyond the suffocating darkness. "Me?" she said slowly when the question was passed back, and gave the vivid gesturing a curious look - it was as if he was speaking with his hands as much as the strangely flat words that fell from his mouth, and she found it intriguing how the words he spoke clearly weren't Nari or common, but still understandable. "I don't have much to loose in the first place, and I can't say that anything as overwhelming has happened to me. More like.. my own confidence has been shaken?" The flexible muscles of her face contracted into a grim frown and as she turned around yet another corner, where the plaster slowly withered from sturdy brick walls she turned to look forward again, only leaving the copper-skinned profile to be studied. "I thought I knew where I was standing in life, I thought my inner strength would allow me to pull through. As it turns out though, I've only been building illusions around myself, to a point where I can't hide anything to anyone... Sorry. That must sound rather vague, no doubt." The black-eyed little girl gave her companion a faint smile and threw a glance over the shoulder towards the hungry void that followed at their heels like a loyal dog. It seemed to pick up the pace slightly, the buildings and the pavement caved more rapidly now, and with a worried frown Rista looked away, her short legs stretching out to carry her along a wee bit faster, without for that matter resorting to running. Something told her that running would only make things worse, somehow... "I don't know where this place is" she replied after a while, almost having forgotten about the mans question. "I've been walking here for a long time, but I can't find an end to the city, nor does that black thing stop following me. How did you get here? If we can go to where that was, then maybe we can get out." The tall young man was given another look by the darkness of her eyes, whilst an expression of quiet hope spread over her face. He was a strange person, decidedly not Inarta and hardly Svefra or Vantha either, but his humanity was undoubted and the heat within his voice as he spoke was familiar. Much like the red-haired eagle riders of the west, this person didn't appear as one to hide his feelings or put a lid on the temper that he undoubtedly had. Rista were the same, even though the blackness of her eyes and the coppery tone of her skin revealed a heritage from other, warmer places.