Poetry of the earth.

<h4>Out of Character</h4>Who: <a href=http://shadowlack.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=373#stormwing>Okkie</a>, and whomever else joins in.
What: I was extremely inspired, so I decided to go for something a little different. Basically, poetic role playing. Something about stringing pretty words together to form an abstract image just gets me writing like there is no tomorrow. Anybody is welcome to join in, but I would like if the theme of (concise, understandable) “poetry” was sustained, thank’ee!
Where: Okkie is sitting atop a large house, high in the mountains of Watani, during a rain shower.
When: Late evening, Dyo, Day 32, Year 81378 (4).
Rated: PG-13, for NUDITY! (Yes, she’s bipedal, but naked.)
<h4>In Character</h4>Fog rolled in, vague whispers of silver miasma that curled like the thinnest of cotton-spools, roiled up, traced the slivers, the sandstrips, purred like a cat and rolled over the crags, breathed on past the peaks and niches, glided over the slopes like a mother eagle over her nest, vanished upwards into the damp air, and was naught but a spirit on the breeze. The waves crashed at the hem of the veils and sheets, lapped hungrily as the fog kissed the water farewell and thrusted upwards, away, away, away. The blue sea boiled with anger and sadness as the vapors and vespers betrayed it, and it sprayed foam and whiteness up onto the rocks, reeled with wrath against the jagged outcroppings of salt-slick stones. But, soon, when the fog had been pierced, the dawn wilting into afternoon, and the sun was a lemondrop in the heavens, the ocean could no longer view the treachery of the fog, and its anger calmed. Its clamor failed and all was soothed again. Sunshine spread like milk over the beaches and the rocks and the stretching, aqua sea. The morning had seen clouds clinging low, and a thrashing, crashing ocean. The noon saw a glamorous day, stretched like a meat-stuffed feline across the entire face of the planet. Then, evening thundered inwards, carrying with it thunderclaps and lightning bolts, furious, tapering off now to leave a night blessed, scarred with rain, showering downwards in tears, sloughs of wetness, they drip, drip, drip, a thunder shower that leaves the changing earth behind it, soaked with life.

She sat beneath this glistening waterfall, caramel nakedness under the flash of droplets, millions, like crushed diamonds pooling into the earth and the sea. She was perched atop a rather large structure in the mountains, sitting amongst blade and limestone, roosting on the house, inside which a noble famille gorged on repast after repast. She was cold, ice, so damned cold, but she remained there, nonetheless, muzzle tilted back to let the kisses of the rain seep into her oculars. She smelled of salt and sea and dirty water, and it slid off her pelt as if she were nothing but a rubber figurine, a statuette on top of a beautiful villa. But she was not, she was Okkie the pendragon, her milk wings open behind her, the feathers tousled and wrenched by the shading rain, her tail also at her rear, slick with moisture and dripping, dripping and rich with absorption. She was so wet, and a cold, cleaving gust of wind slapped her in the face, and stung her, made her long for a warm embrace, or at least a threadbare blanket in which to wrap herself. For a moment, she almost wanted to descend from her throne atop the building, the tallest in the residential area, wanted to forego this pain for spiced tea and the heat of a bed. But then the thirst of the earth was slaked, and the shower tapered off to a drizzle, and jewels clung to her eyelashes. She was no longer numb as nice, was instead moving her limbs methodically to allow warmth to flow there, was now looking over the darkened sea, which she knew was freezing with the newborn rain.

For the longest of times, the thill poised there, like a falcon on a rook, a bluff which it grasped tightly as it waited for prey to unwittingly tumble into its path of vision. But she was not on the hunt, and nary a sense was attuned. Okkie was simply feathering away the hours doing what she did best, lazing like a lioness of lore, full on a meal not of meat but of rain and peace. She lay back now, curling up into a core of herself, soaked wings enveloping her body, a momentary glacial chill. Furs sprang up as they dried, and she looked out on the conduit of the Samundra, serene as she reposed against her throne slick with the liquid crystal residue.

 

Her fur was slathered with glistening dewdrops, jewels of moisture that seeped from her flesh unto the tips, a wet halo for each sprig. Her skin began to dry out, the dampness evaporating from her iced bodice as she lay there, velvet downy, a ball of cinnamon cotton woven against the frigid rock base beneath her. Yet, even as she aired out upon a roost of limestone and shale, the shower thickened, strengthened, becaming a falling soup of liquid crystals. She was wet again, not just wet, soaked, splattered. But she never moved, never budged, she just kept still, a fetal entity withdrawn into her own heat as she attempted to salvage. Sheets sprayed across her, licked her damp fur, drenched it, Okkie was now wet through and through, even the bones inside dripped. Her eyes slowly slid upwards, as with an angular tilt of a muzzle she turned to peer at the sky. Raindrops decorated her fathomless oculars, and she blinked, blinked, thrice, four times, five. It impeded her vision and she starkly moved her cranium again, let fat droplets of water slip along her maw and plop onto the rock after gracing her jawline. Moving, interrupting the stillness, had been a mistake, her eyes stung as the salty rain still swam in them. But this was nothing a few bats of the eyelids could not cure, and before long, even these became motionless, and she was a phantasm, a wraith, again. Silent and paused against the grisly, thunderous sky.

Her obs never slipped, not even when she heard the brushing of wing tips against the firmament. She pricked her ears a bit, though, allowed her keen sense of hearing take over. Between the clamor of the rainfall and the distant grumbling of father storm, she could make out the slightest feathering of movement, a pendragon arching against the sky. She dared not shift, let him come, let him come. And it was not long before he did come, arriving in an enigmatic poise, a query soft as peaches on his lips, beast of lore.

Was she okay? How dare he voice a question to ruin the spirit, the mood, the atmosphere. She was still lying down, letting the poetry of the earth rise up from the soaked filth, and she bathed in it, letting herself steep like a tea bag in its wondrous grip. But then he came, descending like a knight in rusted armor, breaking her soul with his stark words, they cut like daggers through the ping-pang of the falling water. Okkie was briefly irritated, wanted to slash out at him, clout his ears, box his cheek, perhaps rupture his throat, let the sound of his blood spilling on her hands coax her back into better spirits. But that would bring murder, not more peace, and instead of reacting with lethal fangs and an angry temper, the banded one merely rolled over, her lashed painted with dew, sitting up like a sphynx, a queen, regal, large ears pinned upwards, erect, she was royalty.

“You interrupted.” Her voice came like silken vapor, and it weaved like silver. She blinked slowly, her tail stirring like a withering snakeskin behind her. “Let the rain fall down, in peace. I am coming clean, with the help of the poetic planet.”

 

It still fell, spears of liquid being cast from the heavens, as if the gods were weeping. It cut, sliced through the air, and landed like wool on her fur, glistening. It was a weapon of the firmament, but nothing but a cool sheet of faux-diamonds as it slipped off her pelage. One hand, her only, shot out to catch it, cupped the bullets of wetness in her molded palm. She knew that each needle of liquid could sting, scathe her flesh, but where she was relaxed, it was harmless. Innocuous moisture. It pooled now, filled up her hand, began to spill, and she watched it. Her own little waterfall. Just for a moment, she was whisked away to another planet, another time, a whole other plane. The waterfall crashed around her, booming with watery thunder, and the mist clung to the tips of her caramel coat. It fell into a tarn of silver, and she could see her reflection, and his. My! Memories floated, the mirror in the little water burned in her mind, and then it all faded into into the back of her mind, just an imprint of a silhouette, a whisper of a shadow. Not even a discernible trace. She was back to observance, watching the pond in the palm of her hand overflow and leak. But it made her angry now, and she closed her fist suddenly, digits digging into her palms. A small splash resulted, but its noise was lost because the air was already thick with the noise of sloshing water. What was a the small flutter of a minnow to the breach of a hundred-foot whale, after all?

She had not been meaning to ignore him, the other, and she looked at him now. Okkie sat across from him, her muscular legs curled beneath her and to the side, folded like paper. But never so frail. Her wings were slack against her back, like his were folded around him, and she suddenly thought — he was dark, too. Gods. Mismatched oculars fell away, traced the slick stones, and she rubbed a palm on them. Slime. Just like he had been, and all the others. Writhing, wriggling, pumping, bumping, cruel, worthless grime on the sole of her foot. Would her current be just another squashed insect to add to her tally marks? She bared her fangs as she thought of that possibility, and then her orbs darted back to her company, and she held out her mittens, palm-side up.

“You speak in riddles. You remind,” Pause. “Me of someone I once knew.”

Now she was standing, her hind feet grappling for purchase on the porcelain rooftop, smooth as marble because of the sheafs of rainfall. She was an entity, something to behold. Her bipedal structure was marvelous, smooth, clean, she was a beast and a creature, capable of killing with her bare hands, but at the same time able to make sweet, saccharine love, in time. Her figure was properly slimmed and trimmed, decorated with sinews, tight, wound, strong. Her small but supple breasts were uncovered, but were nothing to be shielded, but tasteful. Nonetheless, she folded her arms across them, lest this one stare, and all at once she was reminded of two more heart-thieves. One had made her feel like an angel, whereas she had once seen herself as scum, and the other she had passed this sentiment onto. A gift, sharing, light. But she loathed them both now, spat at the memories, saw the gliding rain as the world hissing and spraying at their trespasses of past. She hoped they were both dead, burning in hell, but she had no one to blame but herself.

“I hate him, both of them, all of them. Most of them broke me, but sometimes, I was the one who let everything shatter and fall. I hope I can stop.”

 

The realization came suddenly. Randomly. She had moved towards the lip of the roof, just inches away now, the crags jutting up from below like the snapping fangs from a demon’s lower jaw. She stared at these sharp rocks as she contemplated her abrupt knowledge — she was going to let go. Okkie was going to reach a hand deep into her soul, like a fisherman tossing his rod into the lake, and she was going to rip the pain from inside her, like a hulking, skeletal fish. She would tear it out like so much pulp, then grind it in her clenched fist. There would be no dissection, no observation. She would just take the entire mess and toss it off into the winds, onto the salt-lipped rocks. She was sick of the agony, it twisted her stomach and wrenched her heart, made her want to vomit her raging soul into the oblivion. It had been like this for years, she had lived under the hood of pain and regret, had always had these moments, for as long as she could remember. Moments of grief and memory. But, hélas! No more! No more! She stood there, once more like a raptor perched on the edge of devastation, and, with a proverbial claw, ruptured her innards and yanked all the black stuff from inside. Had it been tangible, corporeal, it would have bled black, stinking shit onto the wet, paved rooftop, but it was just painful poetry. Never again would she contemplate the past as a blackboard streaked with dust and errors. Nay, she cupped her hands under the drumming rain, standing there on the precipice, and threw her invisible junk heap off, watching as it sailed downwards and crumbled into a tiny million pieces on the mountainous areas below. And although it was nothing she could really see, satisfaction came from the motions, and Okkie stepped back, a colossal weight now lifted from her shoulders, her heart. Free and unchained.

For a moment, she peered over at the male, as if telling him she had, in her own way, heeded his advice. She had tackled her pain and sorrow, had eliminated it, and now she would reap the abundance of liberty. Minutes spent weeping over open, sore wounds would now be spent doing things more productive. She had taken the bitter memories, all of past lovers gone awry, and had thrusted them into hell, and now they would not bother her anymore. All this was said in a simple look towards him.

Then, once more, she was engulfed in her own world. Okkie moved closer towards the edge, keeping her firm grip upon the stone beneath her paws. Her tail stiffened to keep her steady, and she was soon on the very rim, peering over a gray world of splendor. Below her, there was jagged rocks and shale, which stretched down the mountain and out to the thunderous sea. The rain still fell, and everything was cloaked in a envelope of wet darkness, but she could still see, her vision like a piercing laser. The thill peered out over the world, her newborn triumph still fresh on her spirit, and then she did something that was as spontaneous as her realization and her dumping had been. Okkie raised her arms above her head, pumped her fists in the air, and leapt. Not into flight, just a simply bound of joy, which lasted only a popping second, and then she was back on firm ground. But not yet done with her show of glory. Her milky wings suddenly shot open, glistening wetly, and she leaned forward, throat rippling as the ridge of spiked fur on her neck stood completely erect. Around her, the thrumming of the sky falling was like music, and then a ripping, tearing, shredding roar pealed from her throat, boomed over the clamor of the shower, and spread itself out over the rocks and the sea. It was a deep, guttural sound, and when she was done, Okkie backed up and looked at her stranger-friend, triangles still pricked to listen to the echo, the echo, the echo of her bay.

 

The shackles had crumbled from her wrists, the plates melting under the glow of the powdered rain. Their glaze, metallic in sheen, painted the stone beneath, but it was soon washed away. No dragon’s chain was left to tease her about her past hurts, every link had been dissolved. Her collars and her chokers were gone, the links of the past had been eaten away and then cast to the side, rinds broken. There was no more silver bleeding on the rain-beaten rocks, and Okkie could look to the sky, her face not clouded with the pains of past, present, and future. She was liberated now, she would never have to suffer and grieve over the grains of salt in her wounds. Because they had healed, there were no injuries to torture. She was clean and pure-spirited, and she wanted to dance like an imp, her tail waving as her paws drummed a beat on the earth. Instead, she contented herself with lifting her arms to let the waters bathe her, and she sighed into the open gales of storm.

“I would ask you how you know my name, but it does not surprise me that you do. I have met so many that have an instant connection with me, it is no longer surprising.” Her voice was random, bursting through her silence and reverie, spreading from her maw even as she moved her arms, letting raindrops slide and slither there. “I do feel clean. You see, I have always been one to think back and mourn over past relationships that went wrong. I had no regrets besides those in love, and it was as if I could never get past them. They haunted me. But no more. They have painted the rocks with their splattered pieces, and the tides will lap them up. There is nothing left for me to worry about. I am free.” A deep sigh trailed through the pitter-patter of the rain, which abruptly drew back, no longer a curtain but a gossamer veil of liquid crystals. Even the sky was lightening, the thunder shower was passing. “And I have a notion that you had something to do with it, but I am not so sure. I came here for a reason, and that was it. Though your enigmatic presence is certainly as inspiring to me as mine is to you. Thank-you for standing by me and listening.”

A moment passed, her words clinging to the damp air. Okkie then let her arms fall to her sides, and she slunk to his side, poking him lightly in the arm, as if to prove that he was real.

“The truest friend is not the one you know longest, but the one whom has been steadfast by your side during the most intimate and significant moments of your life. Friend.”

 

It was not long before the flow was stemmed, the bleeding wound clotted, no more dripping. Okkie peered up at the sky as it closed its yawning mouth of thunder clouds, and her eyes were no longer pierced by stinging droplets. The rapid fall of rain was over, and the sky murmured, the hoary clouds rolling past, exposing a bruised sky of evening. The thill watched as the nearly imperceptible changes happened, her oculars sensed the clearing of the skies, and soon a star came out. And another. And yet another! Only five minutes had slowly passed by, sluggish like a cobra after a heavy feast, and already the sky was littered with little stars. Clear and purple and stabbed with pinpricks of illumination. She wanted to stare at it for ages — forever? But the male was talking, and it was only proper to pay attention, so Okkie brought herself back to earth, her façade turned towards him as he poured out his tale, a flood of words.

“You spin a confusing tale, friend,” She admonished when silence broke. She grabbed the chance to share her own dialogue. “But I understand the theme of pain. You know, pain is temporary, it will pass one day. In the end, we are all at peace, no matter what kind of life we have lead. Or at least that is what I have come to believe. I think that sins are not punished, as some ancient religions preach, but that we all turn to dust. Perhaps there is an after-life, but I believe what I see, and that is not something I can touch. What do you believe, Chaos? Do you think you will one day travel into the light?”

Soft sigh. Lies, lies. She was just saying what she thought she ought to say, something to comfort the agitated male. The truth was so much more stark, she feared that speaking of it would hurt him. Pondering about it herself made her incredibly weary, because she had been there, she had experienced that wincing agony, the pinch of finality. Of course, even though her throat had been laid wide open, shining wetly with carnage, and even though her soul had escaped, fluttering towards endless planes, she had come back. But she had been there, she had experienced the life after death. Knew it existed, knew, in fact, that it was far more real than any words could describe. But it was so much sweeter to think of a light, a tunnel, and then eternal peace. It beat screaming demons and fearsome wraiths any day.

“Because faith is what carries us. It is even more important than friendship, or peace.”

 

As Chaos tried to harvest the stars, dragging a proverbial net of silver fiber through the firmament, raking the pinpricks of light from the woolen blanket of bruises, Okkie watched him, watched his face. She could see that he wanted to steal the stars, clutch them all to his chest and press them inside himself, keep them in their cage, no sharing. She wondered why — why did he want to take them all, the little treasures, little bursts of light that offered hope to a dark world? Then he began to speak, and she knew why. His tales were dark and dreary, their grief equal to her own saga. His wounds were still raw, and he was still licking them, their infect, festering scars peeling and not healing. And she realized that the little sprites of the light, the stars, were his medicine, that if he gathered them in his arms and gobbled them up, one by one, he would experience relief. The pressures of a past gone awry would be released, and he could sigh, afloat now, his belly shimmering with yellow light. Then he would truly be free, liberated.

But be real. Okkie blinked when the male finished speaking, and looked at him, her two-toned oculars wet with the oil of the eyes. He had spoken of his deepest, angriest pains, and had then queried her on her faith. She had it, ounces, stored in a cup beneath her heart. It was invested in just a few things, those which she found important — love, loyalty, and justice for all.

“I hate to hear that your past was fraught with such horrors, my friend. But what does not kill us, only makes us stronger. Dead or alive, or in between, you are a strong beast, and just anything cannot bring you down. It would take a force to tear you from your pedestal. You have faith in you and yours. As for me, I — I have faith in the small things. They seem like little nothings to you, to many, but they mean the world to me. My pledge goes to love, loyalty, and justice. Without those three things, I would cease to exist. I would merely curl into myself and die. Again. And be gone, forever this time."

She paused, looking at her single arm, which was outstretched a bit, but crooked at the elbow. Her hand was open, palm up, and she curled it, making a loose fist. Okkie then turned her cranium upwards, angled so that her face was glaring at the sky. It was clearing now, the heavens were clearing their throats, perhaps the sun would sing through the clouds again? Murmuring, the pendragon pondered this, and then absently stalked along the edge of the rooftop, muzzle still pointed towards her partial zenith, the pendragons milling below going unnoticed. Then, tired of staring, and tired of thinking, the femme-pendragon flopped down, her tail curling around her haunches and her feet dangling over the precipice. Her eyes shut, and she stilled, listening now only to her blood.