Post by Elphora on May 21, 2017 4:34:03 GMT -6
➳ Cardinal ➳
it will try to change; it will clamor for clarity
word count: 458 | thank you for letting me pinch your table code! pls let me know if anything is horribly wrong and needs changing because heck IDK what I'm doing Frank. thread backdated to the first rain for the season!
The dream was strange, especially to one whose habit of infrequent sleep lent him only an empty, fleeting unconsciousness.
It began with a sound. Within the catacombs of his own mind, Cardinal became aware of the hushed drumming, a susurrus that reminded him of childhood days spent basking in the sun-addled reflections of the Niurros River. These had been, for the most part, pleasant times - And so even with the oddness of the noise to lead him, the Councillor dozed on. As sleep unwound the rigidity of thought, the sound deepened until it seemed to him like many drums, a great orchestra of percussion the likes of which he'd never known; Even as a part of the Sultan's court there were splendors in the world uninvited, luxuries and taboos unfamiliar and foreign. Was this music?
The drums were pounding, their beat growing stronger. The dream shifted, someplace darker, a wisp of warning like tendrils of smoke; Beneath each staccato beat was a secondary pulsing, stomping, marching... Marching...
It was an army that moved within the strange parameters of his sleeping mind, not a river. It was an army that poured from beneath a proud draconic banner, and it was coming ever nearer towards his precious home.
A sudden pain pulled him from the unexpected horror of the nightmare, and Cardinal came awake with a gasp. The flurry of motion knocked over a small clay mug, which in turn sloshed tepid green tea over the parchment on which he'd been writing; He'd fallen asleep partways through the notation of a transcript for a meeting now passed. Tari, whose sharp beak held now a small tuft of curling white hair, managed to look somehow concerned and delighted all at the once. Cardinal felt distraught and cursed softly under his breath - The wrenching tear from the vivid horror of his dream left him reeling, and he swore he could still hear the drums, the marching hooves-
Bewildered, his bleary red eyes rose to one of the library's tall cathedral windows. Beneath the carved arch, the glass, a bottle-blue hue somewhat frosted by time, was streaked all over with... rain? The stallion blinked, rising slowly out of his seat as though in a trance, and went to the window. A familiar face out on its opposite side startled him, and he yelped in surprise, the last lingering dregs of slumber flying from him. "Oh! Just a minute - Come in through the front!" He called through the stained pane, and turned at once to hastily pick his way through piles of old tomes and out into the spacious foyer. The secretary bird followed with an indignant rattling cry and a flurry of grey feathers, the white lock still pinched tightly in her beak.