🎶 | @asernolonger
✧*:･ﾟ| TWILIGHT has fallen, a spread of orange and red deepening into violet and blue. The blanket of darkness that follows is a comforting one, but eyes do not focus upon the deepening shades of sidewalk and grass, not when there's a sky stretching on into the beyond, filled with TWINKLING stars and the muffled boom boom of fireworks. He'd prefer it completely clear of obstruction, ideally, but the summer festivities pull him into a pleasant lull. With the sweltering heat finally cooling down, he's more content to BASK in whatever weather is given to him.
THAT is until he sees something strange streaking across the sky.
WHATEVER it happens to be, he's too preoccupied with curiosity and slight concern. Nothing at all quite like the fireworks on display, nor like the comets he'd eagerly watch streaking across the sky at every POSSIBLE opportunity. Another citizen of the island, perhaps, either directly or indirectly. He's uncertain about whatever the peculiars could even be as he floats his way through uncharted territory.
IN the overwhelming silence, he hears what could only sound like the snapping of twigs. In the very instant he begins to DOUBT his navigation skills ( he worries, when the stars seem so artificial and different to the ones he knows ) he hears it, LOUD AND CLEAR. Shield switches on, as he moves towards the sound.
❝WELL … do you have something to say about this?❞
✧*:･ﾟ| THE hum and make of her armour is a positively fascinating thing, a byproduct of his always present curiosity. Siebren does not always rein in his interest, but in regards to such a UNIQUE thing - and in the face of his own caged demeanor, he files it under ‘things to maybe discuss another day’. The mere suggestion of ruining this encounter, to make it go sour, is greatly unappealing.
HIS own armour seems to sing and shift, as if to RESPOND to hers.
BUT despite the cloaking of armour that seems to move with its own mind, he’s taken aback by just how ROTTEN the world she hails from is. His own attire cannot be considered the norm in his own homeworld by any stretch of the imagination, so he could never imagine a place where armour or coin would be needed to ensure survival. A multitude of responses swim to the forefront of his mind. Pitying and apologetic words BOTH come across as patronizing; she seems to have handled herself well so far.
HE settles upon a weak smile. ❝Well, you’re here and talking to me. I think that you’ve made it this far counts for quite a bit.❞
A simple statement of fact and not one he wishes to dwell upon. Pulling out threads and stitches from WOUNDED flesh, baring scars to the world. He has his own scars he wishes to keep covered. It would be a disservice above all else for anyone, let alone the Dragoon woman to see those scars face to face.
WILLING a smile to don his lips, Siebren continues, ❝I daresay, even if we were in the business to spill our secrets, a woodland filled with fae in the dead of night sounds like a rather POOR location to do so. If you wish to discover my secrets, a good cup of tea is a way to seduce them out of me.❞ He winks.
OH, the concern strikes him as a surprise, a splayed hand, padded palms resting against his cheek at the thought. ❝I suppose so. I know how to repair it reasonably enough and how it works with my abilities. I consider that a WIN personally.❞ He’d like to perform more research on his attire, but it is quite the task as it is trying to keep other aspects of himself threaded together. The more people find holes in his past, the more INTRIGUED – confused, even – he is. ❝Well, thank you kindly all the same.❞
EYES flutter back towards the wreckage. ❝Motherly or no … there’s still something you - we could do. Woodlands still need some manner of upkeep, even fae woodlands. Perhaps we could just file a report that we’ve seen suspicious activity and let them HANDLE it.❞ Listening to Selenie in silence, Siebren is certain that he is immediately better with children, even with his wondrous, POWERFUL abilities at his fingertips. He wheels back towards her. ❝I’m good with kids – but I prefer to teach and mentor, not to babysit naughty pranksters.❞ He’s uncertain if he would even have the heart to be the good cop to the Warrior of Light’s bad cop.
GAZE lowers to the armour that cradles his skin as though EXPECTING a little faerie to show up. The Warrior’s words do not come across as a surprise in the slightest, compared to what he’s heard of faeries back on Earth and in Radiale. Fae do not exist in his home, but the stories and fables remained. Enduring tales that may or may not have borne the sole purpose of scaring children away from strangers or foreboding forest. He can’t say that they NEVER worked.
A week smile touches his lips. ❝Well, troublesome or no, it is still quite … an interesting experience to meet something that I’ve always CONSIDERED a myth. I’m not afraid by any stretch of the imagination, but my curiosity is - well, quite abundant, really. I’m not foolish enough to actually approach one of the fae in the middle of the night -❞ Arms shift inwards to hug against his chest.
❝JUST Siebren — or Doctor, I suppose if you’re feeling formal — is fine. No need to remember it all, just as I’m certain there’s no NEED to remember all your titles.❞ He assumes that she’s not lying about her lax nature, to be able to joke so flippantly.
Selenie’s armor was indeed a unique case, though not because it was some futuristic thing like the man before her had on. No, rather, it was interesting due to the fact it was forged with the power of dragons. Scales and blood woven into the metal, and dragonfire used to power the forges. The latter was rather unique to her for years, until finally, peace was achieved between man and dragon. Nowadays, it was far more commonplace.
Of course, this meant maintaining it was no small feat. Thankfully, her own scales were more than sufficient for this purpose, and, given that she had to shed old ones anyways, it all worked out.
She’s keen to notice that he’s horrified at just how shite things can get back home. It’s a response she’s grown used to-it seems that it’s rarer in other worlds for there to be so much to have to contend with just to survive. She has heard of other worlds having some issues, but nothing quite like what she’d been made to endure for all these years. Still, with an armor like that, there must be something that threatens his realm. Something serious.
He chooses to play it safe, it seems. Smart man. “Aye, there’s something to be said for that. I may not be a scholar in the slightest, but I think my skills on the battlefield more than cover that. Besides, I have friends back home who are more the scholarly type. Alphy, for example. Clever and smart, but it took him a bit to realize that his wit and bragging about his bloodline could only get him so far in life.”
She could not speak to whatever the poor sod before her had suffered, but he clearly had suffered a fair bit. Perhaps more than his fair share. As long as he didn’t start shite, though, she wasn’t going to press him for it.
“Aye, you’ve got a point. If the fae here are anything like they are on the First, then the last thing we want to do is bear our souls to one another with those little shites around, listening in.” She agreed, and then, she chuckled. “Careful what you wish for! In my time adventuring all over the realm, I’ve come across and learned how to make a lot of things that could be called ‘tea’. Can use a lotta different leaves in boiling water to make something, and it can have all kinds of effects on the drinker. I wouldn’t try to kill you or anything like that-poisoning’s for cowards, if you ask me, and that’s just one of many reasons-but you might taste new flavors you’ve never even thought of before!” She gently teased.
“It always pays to keep your armor and weapons in tip-top shape, at least where I come from. Never know when Imperials or some voidsent will come around and decide to try to catch you unaware! And being able to take care of it yourself has a lot of bonuses. Namely, you can trust that it will work properly, and you won’t have to pay a single damned coin to someone else to do it for you, but that ain’t all there is to it.” Not as if she was going to trust anyone else with tending to her armor and spear in any way, shape, or form by this point. Not with what it took to pull it off, or the secrets about her it could unveil. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
She follows his gaze back to the wreckage, and shrugs. “I’m no forest maid or anything of that sort. And yet, at the same time, authorities tend to take a long time, and I’ve never been the greatest at playing by anyone’s rules but my own. Not to mention they probably don’t want to go pissin’ around here-fae folk tend to be devious little shites that don’t think things all the way through. Back on the First, they loved to turn trespassers into bushes. Hells, if we’re bein’ honest here, I’m sure the fae folk are already chasing down whoever’s to blame, if they didn’t do it themselves.” She tells him, both slightly confessing but not bearing her soul outright. And, in truth, she knew that fae tended to take care of their own lands, especially if mortals were wont to interfere with them uninvited.
She watches him, and it becomes rather plain to her that the only thing he’s likely known of faefolk was in stories. In truth, until she’d been violently yanked to the First, she’d known piss and all of the little shites, but to be fair, at least, to her, they weren’t malicious. Perhaps because she’d made a good friend in their current reigning king... and also solved the one problem they couldn’t solve themselves-dealing with the local Lightwarden and restoring balance to the area.
Selenie chuckled a bit. “Well, depends on the person. I suppose, given the shite I’ve dealt with, troublemaking pixies is child’s play. I don’t feel fear much anymore-don’t got time for it. Never really did, for reasons I’m sure you already understand.” Though she says it in a more casual manner, in truth, she hides the turmoil and years of suffering she has endured, leaving so much unsaid, hoping the armored man won’t pry.
“Oh, trust me, I’m far from formal. Siebran... kinda sounds vaguely Garlean, but not really. I’ve traveled all over the realm and then some, but your name is still something else. Just make sure if you ever meet a rat bastard named Nero tol Scaeva, you stay far away from him. Man goes absolutely mad when he sees fancy new advanced machines.... calls them his ‘pretties’! Absolute madman...” She mused, thinking back to the sadly useful but still very annoying and selfish bastard that is Nero. How Cid and the Ironworks put up with him, she’ll never know.
@sterrenlied
