⋅xGᴇɴᴅᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀ Bɪɴɢ: ﹁
xUsᴇʀɴᴀᴍᴇ: Sabatea
xNᴀᴍᴇ: Solstice
xGᴇɴᴅᴇʀ: Female
﹂xGᴇɴᴅᴇʀ ꜰᴏʀ Bɪɴɢ: ⋅
Pᴇʀsᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ:
~As of the beginning~
Though her usual nature is sweet and gentle, she can come off as harsh and unpredictable. She fights internally with herself over her own destiny and what her purpose in life is, and this causes a great amount of dissonance with herself. She struggles to find friends and to meet others. She's afraid of others knowing who and what she really is, and thus usually keeps to herself. However, she truly desires company and wants to find something constant and comforting in life. She wants a rock to hold on to. She feels that she has no control over her life and she struggles with the idea that she may never carve her own destiny. The force within her seems to beat back her own personality, to smother her.
Fear controls her life. She is constantly terrified of hurting the world around her. She feels as though her own thoughts and actions could lead to the death of the creatures and the foliage around her. Such thoughts cause her to wander, and to keep her eyes on the dirt to avoid looking at what might eventually be wiped out by a tornado or a fire or an earthquake.
~Learning to cope~
Solstice later learns to have confidence, and she is able to discover an "identity" of sorts. No longer is she equal to the force of nature, instead she begins to seek out her own destiny. She becomes headstrong, and curious to a fault. She wants to learn and to discover her meaning in life, and she seeks it out relentlessly. She stubbornly refuses to be told how the world works, instead she wants to find her own meaning.
She is overly sympathetic, seeking to help others as much as she can. She has developed an adoration for the creatures of the world, and an affinity for physical objects as well. When she witnesses sad events, she is liable to cry, and could easily be described as a "cry baby". She has a large amount of hope for the future, mostly due to her adventures with Matlal. She places a lot of faith in him, and most of her confidence and growing sense of self has been due to his help. As such, she has become very dependent on him, and when left alone she can begin to regress to her previous state of mind, and the barriers she has set in her mind begin to crumble.
Hᴏᴡ ᴅᴏ ᴛʜᴇʏ ꜰᴇᴇʟ ᴛᴏᴡᴀʀᴅs Nᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ?:
Solstice has a unique view of nature, due to her dual life.
Despite being the essence of nature itself, she doesn't fully understand it or herself. At times she may look at the world around her and wonder and gape at the beauty, and then later stare in absolute despair as a forest is wiped clean in a forest fire. It is wild, it is untamed, and she makes no attempts to control it. She feels the force of nature as much as the trees do in the wind, and she feels the pull and push of the moon on the tide. She knows all, but she has little understanding of it. Most of the time she actually ignores it and lives a life of observing. She watches what she herself has made or destroyed, and she wonders at the meaning of it all. Why does she exist? Why does this happen? Why do things die? She doesn't know, all she knows is what she sees.
Her connection to nature isn't exactly that she's the
force of nature though, and she feels as though they are separate. She embodies the spirit of nature, but it feels like a wild tornado inside of her, unbending to her whims or rules. It acts without her permission, or possibly even without her knowledge. She has no control over the forces within her, but she is instead a conduit for the force. The force acts through her, ripping the world asunder as often as it tickles it with a gentle breeze. She feels the immense power brewing inside of her, but it is as though it is a separate personality within her.
As such, she is actually frightened of nature, of herself. She doesn't know how much she is capable of, and she feels responsible for the actions of the force within her. She is afraid of hurting someone she is close to with the power, and she's afraid of being unable to control it in that instance. The nature she knows is an unstoppable force with wishes and desires beyond herself, and that frightens her. Her lack of control is a constant plague upon her, and she resents nature for using her, and she resents herself for being used.
Her desire to understand nature has altered her concept of their relationship, but she's seeking answers as to why she exists still. She can't seem to consciously control nature at this time, but she also doesn't necessarily seek to. She focuses on shirking the force more than allowing it to envelop her, and constantly battles to keep it caged within her.
Exᴛʀᴀs: (Maximum of 5; can be art or writing; writing is limited to 600 words each; art cannot be a comic)
~The Encounter~
I wandered slowly, my arms held limp by my side. A storm was brewing on the horizon. I could feel it, the electricity in my head and in the sky. The roar of the thunder burst seemed to burst from my own throat, and not the sky.
I could see it already, the destruction "nature" would leave behind. The old trees, just barely clinging on to life whispering their last goodbye as the weight of the rain sent them crashing down to the ground. The baby birds knocked from their nest by the winds. It was that season was it not? The season of new life? Yet here we were.
I laid down on the ground as the rain began to fall. I didn't bother with a shelter. I let the rain wash over me, drench me to the bone. It was cold.
I knew without looking that my tail was gently glowing behind me in the gray light. I wasn't sure why it did that, but it gave me comfort. I curled around myself, letting the soft glow lull me and calm me. This was mine, not nature's. This small gleam of beauty was mine, and nothing would take it from me.
I found myself waking up slowly, sodden and dripping, but the sun was shining now. For a moment I was not sure of what had woken me, but then I heard it again. The distinct soft squelch of a pawstep on wet leaves. I bolted upright, adrenaline rushing through me as fear overtook me. No, no, no were they injured? No I didn't want to see. Didn't want to know.
But nature had a funny way of surprising you. Of course the creature stepped into my view, a hulking, dark animal. A viscet.
He looked up at me, two leaf-green eyes embedded in his dark face. As he stepped towards me, the white and green marking became more apparent. He appraised me slowly, though his eyes showed no real interest. It seemed he was likely to pass me by without so much as a word.
I paniced, I can't truly say why, but I paniced. I didn't want to be alone in this world anymore, I didn't want him to leave me with nothing but a disinterested glance. I was tired of being ignored. "Don't leave." I murmured, my mouth moving without conscious thought.
He paused immediately, looking over at me with the light of curiosity in his eyes now. "Why?" He replied uncertainly, as though he was debating whether he should heed my words or not.
"I-I don't want to be alone anymore..."
And so began my epic journey, with my new, nameless friend.
-
He was still very wary of me to begin with. It seemed as though he was uncertain of what he should do. But it was more than that, he seemed to be debating within himself, as if he were questioning his own abilities. He lead and I followed, and words were barely spoken in the first day. He was silent as the woods around us, making barely a sound over the ground he walked on. He was mysterious, but I was desperate.
I was tired quickly. He set a relentless pace and I struggled to keep up. It was obvious he had been doing this for a very, very long time. When I began to trail behind, my legs aching from the constant brisk walk, he took a long time to stop. He seemed reluctant as he padded back to me.
"I'm sorry..." I murmured, unable to meet his eyes.
"We'll rest here." He replied, his voice gentle as a breeze.
I nodded, laying down, and before I knew it I was asleep.
~Can I be different?~
I woke as the sun began to shine through the trees. I squinted slightly, looking up. My companion was already awake, sitting up and observing the world around him with great interest.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" He asked, as though he knew I was awake.
"It's not..." I replied quietly, bitterness sweeping through me.
He paused briefly before he stood and looked down at me, "It is, and if you're going to travel with me, then I'll prove it to you." He had a small smirk on his face, as though the challenge intrigued him.
I blinked, a wave of... Something washing through me. It was warm, this feeling, but tears flooded my eyes anyway. "Okay" was the only word I could choke out.
"My name's Matlal."
"I don't have a name..." I replied.
"I'll call you Solstice then." He replied, barely skipping a beat.
We traveled again that day, and though I was tired I kept up. His words had given me strength. Could I truly come to think of this force as beautiful? I wasn't sure, but I wanted him to try.
He seemed content to walk without speaking, but I was bursting with curiosity about him.
"Where are you from?"
"I'm not sure anymore."
"How long have you been travelling?"
"I don't know that either. Many seasons."
"Why?" I asked, cocking my head slightly. This question seemed to stump him. He contemplated slowly, methodically. It seemed a long time before he replied, and when he did I wasn't certain of what he meant.
"There." He said suddenly.
"There what?" I replied.
"There." He repeated, gesturing with his muzzle.
I followed his gaze, though for a moment I still didn't see it. I started to ask again before a small gasp escaped me.
A very small stream was trickling slowly through the leaves, likely caused by the recent rainfall. It swirled through the leaves slowly, sometimes being buried entirely by them, but what was most fantastic was the amoubt of wildlife surrounding it. Small frogs and salamanders skittered through the leaves around it, bathing themselves and chasing each other.
I stared and stared, my gaze traveling to and fro as more and more caught my eye. The leaves glistening gently, the soft trickling sound that permeated the air, the magical allue or the place... This, this was beauty.
"I travel because I don't understand this world. I don't pretend to, but I love it none the less. I love the beauty and the dark times equally." Matlal said suddenly.
I turned to him, forcing myself to look away from the small ecosystem. "How can you?"
"It's not easy. As a viscling, it was very hard to watch nature. Nature is cruel, but nature is only cruel because it is fair. If the rain were to not fall, these animals would have no where to live, but when the rain does fall it can be as destructive as it is healing. If nature is cruel, it is also gentle, and that took a long time to learn."
I considered that, and I felt calm. I'd never thought of how it could be helpful, I only saw the destruction. Matlal's words struck me hard, and though I would still need to learn to see the beauty, I was finally free of the burden that nature- No, that I, was only a conduit of destruction.
~New Dawn~
I learned more and more about Matlal the longer I stayed with him. He'd run away from home when he was younger, blinded by the savagery of the world and unable to comprehend it. He'd wandered alone ever since, slowly learning to accept and understand what was around him.
He was teaching me, too. Though I had yet to tell him of my connection to nature, I felt as though he somehow knew. He was gruff at times, and didn't care to elaborate, but I liked him.
He helped me draw my own conclusions, find my own way to accept myself and the world around me. I was calmer now, and even though rain had fallen again and I had seen the force of nature again, I didn't view it the same way anymore. Once it was over the animals would be out, drinking the water and relishing in the cool air.
I found myself enjoying the exploring and enjoying the company. Though he was oddly weirded out by my tail. He considered it strange, and I often found him eyeing it curiously when the light began to fade.
"What? You don't like it?" I asked one time.
"That's not it. I've never seen anything like it, that's all." He responded, turning his gaze away from me.
I snorted, laughing slightly. "Something you don't understand?" I teased, smirking.
"I suppose not." He replied, flashing me a quick smile of his own.
I was content. We travelled by the light of my tail sometimes, the gentle glow guiding us along our path. I didn't feel as comforted by it anymore, but I didn't need to. The whole world was mine now.
"Why did you name me Solstice?" I asked him one day.
"A solstice is a time if change, and I wanted you to change." He replied, before he added, "And perhaps I wanted some change for myself too."
"There's... Something I'd like to tell you." I said suddenly, a slight bit of fear creeping into me.
He glanced at me, his steps slowing until he had stopped, his eyes alight with curiosity.
It took me a moment to find my voice again before I finally said it, "I'm- I have the force of nature within me. I can feel it, but I can't control it..."
He didn't respond to me, a blank look overshadowing his expression.
Nervous, I began rambling, explaining how it felt to be a conduit, how I could feel nature. I tried to explain who I was, how I was, but I wasn't sure how well I was able to explain it. I myself didn't entirely understand it.
By the time I was finished, he had started walking towards me slowly. I burst into tears, the anxiety overcoming me. He laid his head gently ontop of mine, a low rumble in his throat as he said, "So? You're still my Solstice."
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Please note that gender for breeding is also female, and was removed from above for the sake of coding