Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Cezanne Abella]

---

Nightsong.

Cezanne stood on her toes, stretching upward into the branches of the tree to check the young fruit. The peaches were small - still as unyielding as the stones at their center - and their green hue was cast turquoise in the bluish light of the night’s first moon. Like aquamarine marbles with the first hint of summer’s blush.

By the moon’s pale glow, her shadow reached skyward like the tree, and their shadows embraced as would lovers in a moonlit waltz. Cezanne looked to the sky and carefully withdrew from the embrace, cupping and gingerly rubbing the scar that encircled her left wrist. The withered tendons burned beneath the scar’s sheen of skin, unaccustomed to such extension, but she kept her eyes turned skyward as she took one step backward, and then another.

No stars. Her spirit wilted, bereft of the stellar sentinels that had always given her hope as a child. As beautiful as the garden was by moonlight, Umbra’s haze always obscured the stars. No matter how far her father took her to sea, the stars were always the same. The constellations looked down on her, wherever she was. And since the day the winds billowed her father’s sails as he departed her shore, she knew always that those same devout guardians she gazed upon, watched over him too. The queen, the bear, the hunter and serpent - they whispered stories of his adventures to her on the night breeze.

But here, their whispers were silenced. Here, he did not exist any more than they. She withdrew a silver flask from her pocket and took a mouthful of bitter elixir, then capped and pocketed it again. Careful. Just one.

Suddenly overwhelmed by an emotion larger than she was, Cezanne pulled a rune from her pocket and whispered the words that would carry her heavy heart for her.

Kal Ort Por.

When the cold rush of ethereal energy subsided, she stood on the deck of the Gypsy Rose. It rocked soothingly, and the sound of the waves lapping gently against the sides could scarcely hide the whispers on the night sea air. Tales of golden adventure painted her mind. She lit a lantern and leaned over to hang it from the prow to light her way. Above her head, and all around, the sentries smiled and welcomed her return.