+- Wolf RPG (https://wolf-rpg.com)
+-- Forum: In Character: Roleplaying (https://wolf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Forum: Archives (https://wolf-rpg.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11)
+--- Thread: Haunted Wood to fear death is a choice (/showthread.php?tid=21080)
to fear death is a choice - Thrax - March 19, 2017
[table width=85%][tr][td]
The gladiator moves through the darkest parts of the forest, blending easily with the shadows that the twisted, gnarled oak trees provide, using the thick, dense fog as camouflage. He knows the morning sun should be up by now but the thick canopy blocks out it’s light, giving the impress of permanent night. This does not bother him. He was kept in dark, dank caverns with the other Gladiators, taking to the grotto of the Edge to spar, to prepare. When they were brought into the light of day to fight the light was blinding. The tough, the warmth of the sun was a treat …and one that he had become more familiar with the more fights he won. The higher up the hierarchy he climbed, the more he was given. Breeding rights that he had turned down. Not because he did not want them but because Saturnina was off limits — even to the Edge’s reigning Champion. Daughter of the Dominuss, a Domina in training was not supposed to procreate with her Gladiators. As the Dominus had told him when he had inquired: her womb is for a King’s seed, not a Slave’s. Thrax was meant to breed with the female gladiators who had won the right, to create more fodder for their entertainment but of course, like any masochist, he wants what is not meant for him.
Thrax does not expect Saturnina to follow him. Though his love for her has gone no where, if only increased in his absence of her, his forbidden lover was duty bound and the gladiator does not blame her. He did not ask her to give up her entitlement. She is a queen in the making and his princess does not need to choose her pauper… her champion over what she has been raised for. Thrax seeks to put her out of his mind, to detach himself from the memory of her. He has too much time to think, wandering lone like this. He has no purpose. A gladiator’s purpose is the fight, the victory. Thrax is not lost, his direction is …tentative at best. He has known no other life but he thinks that his skills might be beneficial to someone. He keeps going, focusing on making his way through the fog, ears alert atop his skull, his shoulders steeled and his eyes scanning what little he could see as if he expects danger.
[/td][/tr][/table]Thrax does not expect Saturnina to follow him. Though his love for her has gone no where, if only increased in his absence of her, his forbidden lover was duty bound and the gladiator does not blame her. He did not ask her to give up her entitlement. She is a queen in the making and his princess does not need to choose her pauper… her champion over what she has been raised for. Thrax seeks to put her out of his mind, to detach himself from the memory of her. He has too much time to think, wandering lone like this. He has no purpose. A gladiator’s purpose is the fight, the victory. Thrax is not lost, his direction is …tentative at best. He has known no other life but he thinks that his skills might be beneficial to someone. He keeps going, focusing on making his way through the fog, ears alert atop his skull, his shoulders steeled and his eyes scanning what little he could see as if he expects danger.
edit. @Saturnina , maybe? we can play with the timelines a bit to make this after his thread with aria. :p
RE: to fear death is a choice - Saturnina - March 22, 2017
The days after Thrax left Thracian Edge were some of the worst in her life. She loved her father, he had always provided for her and made sure she was comfortable even when the drought had dried up all the water for several miles around. Only the best for my Stellina! He would say. Little star, his affectionate name for her. Though she loved him, she was angry that he denied her her lover. Thrax, though he was a slave (Saturnina wasn't fond of the word, especially when applied to her lover), was noble, kind, and intelligent and protective of her of course.
After Thrax challenged her betrothed, it had come out that perhaps Saturnina was no longer pure and could possibly have another's seed already in her belly. Titas, her father, was so furious that he threw her to the ground, jaws snapping around her throat...more in dominance and threat than in an actual attempt to injure her, but hat was enough for Saturnina. She left that night, two days after Thrax had.
Tracking him was difficult. His scent was already two days old and any prints he may have left had been trampled over or washed away by the recent rain. She spoke to many others along the way and eventually aquired a direction of his travel. A week later found her semi lost in a thick, dark forest that she felt strangely comforted by. She was laying at the base of a wide, very old tree watching the fog thread it's way between the tree trunks. Then suddenly...She caught a wiff of a familiar scent. Thrax. Could it really be, or was this some cruel trick of her hopeful heart?
RE: to fear death is a choice - Thrax - March 23, 2017
[table width=85%][tr][td]
The fog is disorienting. It throws off his senses. It creates illusions: dances of shadows that the gladiator is unsure of. Were they real? Or just the fog as it clung heavily to the coniferous forest, writhing as if it were alive? He does not know. The gnarled oaks offer little in the way of direction or familiarity. They are neither guide nor familiar. He looks at the nearest tree, brushing his body against it in a last ditch effort to create a temporary marker so that he knows he has already been here. Why he did not think to do it before escapes him. Perhaps it is the heady suspicion that he has merely been going in circles. That he has seen that particular tree numerous times now. If they ever had fog in Thracians Edge he does not remember it. Thracians Edge — the edge of the world. Where Gladiators spar and spill blood, where they fight to the death to appease gods, visiting diplomats, their superiors. An oasis in the middle of sands and rocks: with lush green forests, a waterfall even. A lie. It’s beauty is deceptive. He finds more honesty in this gnarled and disorienting forest.
A familiar scent teases him and though it is brief, it is enough to halt the gladiator in his tracks, abruptly, as if he is a roman soldier called to halt by his leader. A trick of the wood. It has to be, doesn’t it? It is only a memory, he tells himself, despite the shot of adrenaline to his heart. No matter how hard Thrax tries he cannot help but hope that blooms in his chest unbidden. He knows that with time he will forget how she smells, how she looks, how she sounds. He knows he will forget all the small reasons he loves her, remembering only that he does because that was how time was. It was not kind to memories. It eroded. It corrupted.
He smells it again and tries to find a location, this time. The gladiator may be able to navigate by stars but the fog is not something he can navigate and is easily disoriented once more. Is she south of him? Is she north? Is she somewhere east or west? Or is she just an illusion? “Saturnina?” He calls out, like a drowning man desperate for air as his normally deep albeit soft voice rises in volume in the hopes that if she is out there she will hear him. “Saturnina!” He calls again, disrupting two crows that let out unhappy squawks at him for disrupting them as they take flight.
[/td][/tr][/table]
A familiar scent teases him and though it is brief, it is enough to halt the gladiator in his tracks, abruptly, as if he is a roman soldier called to halt by his leader. A trick of the wood. It has to be, doesn’t it? It is only a memory, he tells himself, despite the shot of adrenaline to his heart. No matter how hard Thrax tries he cannot help but hope that blooms in his chest unbidden. He knows that with time he will forget how she smells, how she looks, how she sounds. He knows he will forget all the small reasons he loves her, remembering only that he does because that was how time was. It was not kind to memories. It eroded. It corrupted.
He smells it again and tries to find a location, this time. The gladiator may be able to navigate by stars but the fog is not something he can navigate and is easily disoriented once more. Is she south of him? Is she north? Is she somewhere east or west? Or is she just an illusion? “Saturnina?” He calls out, like a drowning man desperate for air as his normally deep albeit soft voice rises in volume in the hopes that if she is out there she will hear him. “Saturnina!” He calls again, disrupting two crows that let out unhappy squawks at him for disrupting them as they take flight.
RE: to fear death is a choice - Saturnina - March 29, 2017
Once she caught what she thought was Thrax's scent, she was immediately upon her paws, silvery blue eyes trying to penetrate the fog, straining for his silhouette. Her heart beat in her chest like bird's wings against the bars of a steel cage. She did not want to trust to hope...but she couldn't help it. She had left everything she had ever known, in pursuit of him, in pursuit of love.
She raised a shadowy paw and stepped forward, ears cupped forward and eyes staring ahead. Her black nose twitched furiously, trying to catch that scent again, praying to the gods that it wasn't her imagination. This forest was so strange, so dense...everything was muted. Sound didn't seem to travel far and scents were confusing due to the damp and the fog.
Saturnina...
She thought she heard her name, but it was muffled...seemingly far away. Was this a trick of Mendacius, one of the minor gods? She supposed she deserved it, if it was. She did abandon her father and her home afterall.
Saturnina!
There it was again, only clearer this time, closer. "Thrax!?" She howled, running through the underbrush. It had to be Thrax. First his scent, now his voice. He seemed fairly close from what she could tell, but it was difficult in these woods. "Thrax, I'm here!"
RE: to fear death is a choice - Thrax - April 05, 2017
[table width=85%][tr][td]
Thrax! He hears his name upon a voice that is unmistakably that of his lover — lest of course her father had an uncanny ability to replicate it (which he very much doubts) and he moves towards the sound of her voice as she calls out to him again, charging like a bull. The fog may disorient him and this gnarled forest may be foreign but it will not keep him from her. The woods tries. It’s effort is honest and he almost misses her — his Domina draped in a pelage of spilled ink with eyes as ethereal as the moon’s reflection upon the writhing sea. He stops as the thick fog writhes between them, toying. He doubts for only a second that she is nothing more than an illusion. A creation of the fog to vex and torture him. Yet, she cannot be. Fog cannot mimic smell and if there is one thing that it does not touch it is his sense of smell. While the other senses might have dulled his ability to detect scents is sharper in comparison to compensate.
“Saturnia,” Her name forces from betwixt his lips in a strangled rumble — a conception of relief, surprise and unbidden emotions that cause his deep timbre: like whisky steeped in smoke to form the words rawly. He draws towards her as boldly as he had the first day upon the sands: enchanted by her. “Domina,” He forgets himself. Too easily the lines between lover and leader blur though he knows which he is expected and condition to adhere to. Somehow, impossibly, she has always been both. “You’re here.” He states the obvious, a bit dumbly if only because he is surprised.
[/td][/tr][/table]
“Saturnia,” Her name forces from betwixt his lips in a strangled rumble — a conception of relief, surprise and unbidden emotions that cause his deep timbre: like whisky steeped in smoke to form the words rawly. He draws towards her as boldly as he had the first day upon the sands: enchanted by her. “Domina,” He forgets himself. Too easily the lines between lover and leader blur though he knows which he is expected and condition to adhere to. Somehow, impossibly, she has always been both. “You’re here.” He states the obvious, a bit dumbly if only because he is surprised.