Knowledge was pivotal. He had learned that quickly as a foal, tossed into the unknown and surviving only on scraps: hints at what was edible; semi-under-educated guesses as to where was safe; gut feelings about who to trust, and the careening panic in those failures.
Noir did not believe in luck, and were it not for the innate knowledge all noulicorn had, and of course their very nature, he would not have believed in magic either. He believed in the concrete, the palpable and evidenced and tested things of this world. The brain existed not because he could think but because he had seen it dashed across the landscape once. (A detail that had been part of many as he made a list of the corpse, broke it down, understood its final moments and what led to it.) The spirit and soul...he was not so sure for now.
Which was why Noir felt both unsure and curious when he was Called.
The Grandfather Tree was understood to be the oldest, most powerful thing on Vykeli - how was that? What made it operate? Did it need sustenance? Was it actually gendered or part of a pair, and did they need to search for a Grandmother Tree? He was told the Tree would give him a vision, a purpose, if it thought him worthy, but what was the measurement used to determine that? Was it scientific? Personal whim? His body told him to trust as did his peers, but Noir was by nature a suspicious noulicorn. Perhaps that alone might see him cast out.
There he was, nonetheless, standing before the great Grandfather after days of travel, purple eyes keen. For if there was one thing that could drive Noir, it was the seeking of further knowledge.
Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:50 pm
Though no breeze passes through, Grandfather Tree's leaves rustle as Noir approaches.
Choose one of the following prompts for Noir's dream vision.
Quote:
A group of noulicorns is trying to spread Homewood's greenery further into the barrens, but any seeds they plant quickly wither from heat and lack of water. They come to you for help. What do you do?
Quote:
You awaken in an area of complete darkness. The smells are strange and unfamiliar and the only sound is softly dripping water. As you stand, you realize there are stones closing in all around you. You’re in a maze and you need to find your way free while effectively blind. What do you do?
Quote:
You find yourself in the ruins, standing over a deep well built into the Other’s sewage system. A cry for help echoes out of the darkness, but there’s no means to get down into the hole to help. What do you do?
ll Grandfather Tree ll Vice Captain
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:14 pm
Nobody would tell him what to expect. Or rather, no answer he had ever gotten, half-measured or otherwise, had satisfied him. Noir should have known that it would have been like waking or falling asleep: a blink and a miss moment, only he didn't remember so much as doing even that. It seemed the world itself had blinked around him instead, enshrouding him in darkness deeper than any cave he had ever explored.
...Curious. Very curious, indeed.
As with every investigation, Noir began by opening his senses and began to file every detail he could take in. Sight was out, obviously, but his nose and ears gave him at least something to work with. He detected the sound of water dripping from somewhere, but the smells weren't like anything he had ever been visited with before. Had Grandfather made it just for him, or had he simply been dumped into a yet unexplored area of Vykeli?
"Dream vision," Noir reminded himself with a soft snort. "Most likely made up. Doesn't matter."
The noulicorn had something of a tic, formed either from being a solitary creature or an analytical one (and most likely because of both): he talked to himself, especially when it came to parsing through his search on the job. Noir did it sometimes even with company, ignoring any strange looks thrown his way. Who better to consult than the detective, after all?
"Let's see..."
He felt to his left the cold press of stone, followed it cautiously, and found himself drawing a circle back to where he -
"No. No hoof prints. So..."
Noir gingerly pat the wet earth to the sides and felt a small jolt as, when he swung left, his hoof hit the stone again sooner than expected.
"Damn it," he muttered.
So the stones were closing in, eh? Or he was simply blind as a bat and lost, but that wasn't as interesting to entertain. Was the Grandfather Tree testing his grace under pressure? His resourcefulness in the face of the unknown? Fair enough. He hadn't expected a gift to come without a price of some sort.
This was not Noir's first spelunking attempt, not even of the unintentional kind. As a foal, he and his close friend Memoir had sought their own adventures outside of Homewood, away from the fussing nannies and sharp-eyed guards and scouts. Most of the time they had been caught, but he still vividly remembered the day they had stumbled (literally) into a hidden cave via a grass-hidden hole in the top. The ground had been tilted in such a way that the two of them had tumbled in deeper before they had a chance to gather their senses. Without much light to work with, it had been a confusing, underground maze. But Memoir had been unfazed throughout, leading them as if they had the right of it.
"We're not the only lost ones. Everything's looking for a way out, right? I'm just keeping an eye out for the signs."
"Don't be cryptic," Noir had groused. It was something someone had called him earlier that he didn't know, so naturally he had to learn what it meant and then force it into his vocabulary.
Memoir, who didn't even know what that word meant, laughed. "The wind, silly! Look at how those vines are pointing the way out for us. There's holes at the top like we fell through, right? Following the breeze will get us out of here."
Standing on his hind legs and bracing against the encroaching stones, Noir became acutely aware of his main and fur. If he was lucky then...He shifted several times before he felt it: the hint of flowing air between a crack in the rock. "Weak spot," he said as he dropped down. "Time to break it. Hooves, don't fail me now..."
That's how it often went: brute force, coupled with his own knowledge or intuition, saw him through many obstacles. A dream vision, however strange, shouldn't be any different.
( total wc w/intro: 964 )
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2020 8:33 pm
Grandfather tree's leaves settle and a deep blue light swirls around Noir, refreshing and carrying the scent of ocean salt.
Noir has been bestowed with the Aqua gift.
His initial ability is Douse.
The user can find sources of water, even if they are deep underground. +1 aqua healing to an area
