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 Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 7:33 pm
Weather was hardly a factor this deep in the ocean, but the coral beds seemed to sparkle especially bright beneath the moonlight that evening. Currents drifted lazily past the hive of Lorata Gorgos and between the statues that speckled the garden. Colorful fish would pick at the algae that clung to the stone corners, keeping them clean and white, only to dart off once approached. The occasional eel could be seen peering out from beneath the particularly worn sculptures. It was a peaceful night. Only KitsuneAura may post in this thread. Please quote the mule when the RP is finished.
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Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 1:26 am
There were no heroes in her studio, though the room was full of stone waiting to take form. It had been ages since Lorata had even taken the time to drift through the room, much less try her hand at sculpting, but somehow the fact still caught her by surprise. When she'd first decided to go out into the world in search of inspiration, she hadn't imagined it would take so long to find, but so much had happened since. All the fighting and chaos she'd seen, and there were still no statues here. It felt almost as if she had missed a step somewhere, flipped to the wrong chapter of a story she'd been reading.
Her fingers curled around the doorway, eyes gliding over the piles of empty stone, and then she pushed off to begin the short swim through the entryway of her home. A moment later the front door closed behind her and the ocean stretched out around her. It was a barrage of color, from the small darting fish to the coral beds that made up her gardens, but as always it was the heroes standing sentinel that drew her attention first and foremost. The lack of change in the studio had left her off-kilter, but here it was a warm, secure acknowledgement. These heroes would never leave her.
And maybe, just maybe, they could still help her understand, the way MeduMa had surely always intended them to. Because if she was really, truly, being honest with herself, and there had never been any real reason not to be, something about her mission wasn't going quite the way she'd expected it to. It wasn't that she'd gotten the idea of it wrong, because she truly was finding trolls with so much potential for greatness, it was just...Well, the trolls she was finding weren't exactly what she'd expected them to be, were they?
A shadow passed overhead and, though Lorata spared only a glance for her distant lusus, several fish scattered from the closest statue to seek refuge further into the coral. She watched them go, counted them up by color in her head as she drifted towards the statue herself, and frowned. That was it, wasn't it? Their colors. She'd known they wouldn't all be purpleblooded but she'd still thought the percentages wouldn't be so skewed towards the lower end. Everything she'd ever been taught had suggested that the higher the blood, the more likely the hero. Hadn't it?
"So," she began very seriously, floating in place at eye level with the statue. She was getting taller all the time, it seemed, but heroes still stood tall above her, the way it should be. "Why isn't it working out that way?" If anyone here would have been able to give her answers, it would be Vaimoi. There had always been a wise set to that carved face, and she remembered all too well the histories she'd weaved for him, the way he'd gathered information and put it to use in tactics that had felled great beasts and led so many trolls to victory during his time.
Heroes came in all shapes and specialties, she knew that just from the differences in the statues spread out around her, and Vaimoi had become one out of sheer brilliance. But...But all of them were still seadwellers, MeduMa had said. Time and the sea had taken some of their fins, maybe, but she couldn't forget that they'd been there, once. Even Vaimoi's were missing, and she had to tilt her head and squint, just a little, to imagine them into place. They suited him so well, but they also suited the Captain or Aerona or any of her new friends and charges when she fixed them into place in her mind.
The thing was, the Captain was the best hero she'd met so far, at least that didn't already have a statue, but as much as she admired him, he was still just a midblood, right? And on the lower end of it, even. Austri was too, and Aerona was red, Scorpa was yellow. Flydra was better at teal, but Lorata had a feeling she was more suited to helping figure out how to make a hero than to straight forwardly become one. Which just left...Which really just left the bluebloods she'd met, she guessed.
All the feelings she had about Sarcel and her promise were tied up in a knot so complicated that not even Vaimoi could have easily sorted them out. Generally they skewed towards the positive though, when she didn't dwell too much on everything that had happened that night and didn't remember the doubt. But when she compared that to the other blues she'd met, there was an obvious difference. Lorata had no doubt that Sarce could improve to meet her expectations with time and opportunity, but the others...
Vaimoi hadn't given her any of the answers she'd wanted, so she left him to his thoughts, an easy kick propelling back into her journey through the garden. Little fish darted away as she passed, the movement of her skirt casting a shadow not unlike her lusus', but this time she paid them no mind. Muirea waited ahead, stance confident and face framed by the tell-tale spikes of her fins, and she remembered the pure respect this seadweller had always commanded of her soldiers on the frontlines of battlefields. Muirea, she thought with a sudden bitterness, had probably never had to deal with trolls like Leeroi or Chiara.
Even after everything had been said and done, after nearly drowning the blueblood for daring to act the way she had, Lorata still seethed at the memory of the words she'd spoken. She remembered every word, from 'I am so sorry that us land dwellers have standards' right down to 'I don't think you're up to snuff.' All of her disgusting displays and Chiara had thought Lorata was the one not up to standards? How full of themselves did a land dweller have to be to even think they had a right to judge a seadweller to begin with!?
And actually- Actually. Lorata blinked, anger subsiding in the face of a new thought. Was that the problem? Had most of the land-dwelling highbloods just gotten so full of themselves that they'd decided they didn't need to improve at all? Did they really think they couldn't be better? Now that she'd reached the conclusion, she knew it had to be right. Lowbloods already knew they had to climb to reach their potential, or they could be made to know it easily enough, but maybe the highbloods had forgotten the need to somewhere along the way.
Pleased, the seadweller gave Muirea a smile and drifted along, forgoing the next couple of sculptures in favor of her final destination. Her first statue, the best of all her heroes, stood taller than them all. Moonlight gleamed on the white marble, still caught in perfect pose with spear at hand even though it was also without a doubt the oldest of her collection. Stheno was missing her fins, just like Vaimoi, but otherwise she was the perfect image of a hero. A troll who would never leave her behind, or lose the fight when it got hard, one who'd never need to demand respect because everyone just knew to give it. She'd always been the best of all her stories.
Now that Lorata knew what the problem was, all she had to do was think of the solution. She didn't doubt that it would come easily, not with her oldest guardian looming over her, so she set to thinking as she floated into place near Stheno's eye level. Obviously just telling the land-dwellers they needed to be better wasn't quite enough; they were really just too horribly stubborn to listen. So what she needed to do was...was show them how! She just had to guide them to the same answer, the way Stheno or Pythea would have. She'd lead the way by example, let them think she still needed improving as well so they could watch her work towards it and be inspired!
Lorata threw her hands up in a delighted cheer, giggling through bubbles as her eyes returned to the hero so close at hand. Out of habit, they narrowed into a squint, but then she shook her head and opened them wide again. Instead she crossed the space, reached out to cup the the statue's face between her hands. Carefully, she splayed her fingers out to the sides and then giggled again, quieter, as she lingered there. For a moment, as her hair drifted around them like so many snakes in the current, the colorful coral of her garden disappeared. It was just her and her hero, the stone rough but even against her palms.
There was that twinge again, of a page turned too soon, but then the moment passed. Lorata let it go, worries sated, and turned to begin the swim back to her hive. She had work to do!
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