She folded the paper carefully, intent on the straight lines and getting the proportions correct. The corners of her lips curled up in satisfaction. A tiny pressure applied and the new-made frog hopped once--quite gracelessly--landing on his side with a papery thud.
Tinnaire laughed out loud; she could relate.
She righted him and got to work on the next critter. A small parade of animals marched at her feet outside her tent in the mercenary camp.
It was soothing. Art was always soothing for her.
She tossed the rabbit she’d just made into the campfire. It went up in a burst of glowing embers and ash. Perhaps helped along by a little flash of anger-fueled arcane. She loved fire.
The wind picked up and danced away several of the colorful paper animals, along with a scattering of flowers and paper stars. Tinnaire watched them fly into the sky above the Isle of Dorn, grinning at her newborn constellations disappearing up into the clouds. It was a beautiful night.
@daily-writing-challenge
(( Enjoy this pumpkin toadlet. He is so bad at jumping. Which is how I imagine the origami frog to have jumped.))
Content Warnings: Alcohol, Smoking, Violence, a wee bit of an uncomfortable confrontation!
Armored fists clutch against each other over a wooden table, both straining to push the other down. One side begins to cave to the other, but resists the power and overcomes it. Metal clunks against the table as the gauntlets settle on the two arms. Drunken shouts roared above it all, cheers and curses alike.
A young female tauren with braided hair sits back in her chair, a pint at her other hand as she smirks playfully at her green opponent who was too far gone to attempt to stand. Two men, a tauren and another orc, retrieved the loser from the table, ankles dragging as the plastered orc slurred insults.
She lifts her drink to the man before taking a swig of it and slamming it back down. Not too sober herself, she stands and raises her arms in challenge.
“Who’s next?!” She shouts in a booming voice, the crowd around the table erupting with noise.
Another orc pushes his way past the crowd, armored in thick plate with furs tucked beneath for padding. His red eyes glared into hers, taking the stool and swinging it into position to sit. Immediately, his elbow was planted on the table as a response to her challenge. The crowd clamored, the orc raising a brow to the tauren.
Teeth flashing in a cocky grin, she settled down in her seat again and put her elbow on the table, a determined snort flaring from her nostrils. Hands made contact, gripping. Then, the onlookers began to chant a countdown. It was clear both sides were drunk beyond words, but something in the orc’s eye caused the tauren to focus up.
As soon as the unanimous count reached to zero, it was a battlefield on the table. Both sides began struggling against the other, leather and plate armor shifting in their grasp. The two seemed to be of equal force, the shouting becoming louder around them.
Sweat rolled down the tauren’s forehead, her orange eyes set on the orc’s as they wrestled. The cheers around them began to fade as blood rushed through her ears, her arm beginning to falter. The orc smirked, tusks shifting with his lip.
“Looks like you’ve met your match. Might as well let go while you can before you get hurt, little lady.” He taunted, arm pushing hers closer and closer to the table.
Teeth gritting, a surge of adrenaline pumped through the tauren’s body and began to fight back as hard as it could. The roaring drowned out everything around her— her only primal goal was to kick this dude’s ass.
Hands shaking, she brought the two of them back to a standing position before, without warning, her hand came down onto his and slammed it into the table, wood splintering from the impact. Even the orc look surprised.
She released him and settled back, panting as she took a cleansing chug of beer and stared down the orc with bleary eyes. He still looked stunned, but eventually brought his fist down on the table angrily and walked away.
She almost looked relieved as the orc disappeared from sight, and with a small huff, she got up and raised her pint in celebration. Various drinks followed, sloshing about and spilling over tankards as cheers erupted once more.
It was a cold night in the Barrens as the tauren stepped out of the pub, leaning against the wooden wall as she pulled out a cigar and lit it with the torches outside. She puffed on it, swaying with the wind as the alcohol began to wind her down.
Then, a figure moved in the corner of her eye and made its way towards her. Red eyes flickered in the light of the fire, a stagger to his step. The orc from earlier.
He stopped in front of the tauren, rearing up to stand tall and intimidating. Silence dragged between the two, the tauren’s amber gaze fixated on him as she kept working her cigar. She was too tired to care, it seemed.
The orc finally spoke, words slurred with an air of threat.
“You stupid heifer. Do you think it’s funny embarrassing me in front of my friends like that?”
She quirked a brow at that remark, tail whipping against the dirt as she took the cigar out of her mouth, responding cheekily,
“I ain’t do shit. You did that yourself, man.”
Her glazed eyes turned to her cigar again as she tried to keep it burning with another puff. But as soon as it made contact with her lips, a brutal force came across her face and sent her reeling to the ground, armor clattering as she laid sideways, dizzy.
She sat up and reached for her cigar, which was now covered in dust. Getting to her hooves, she simply brushed it off and relit it, using her hand to shift her jaw back into place as she puffed on it again.
The orc stood there, squared up, expecting her to throw a punch back. However, the tauren just leaned against the wood and stared at him.
“What, you want me to fucking do it again?” He slurred, stepping forward.
Another figure hung out the door, tusks and face illuminated by the torches.
“Ay mon, what you be smok-” He started, then looked at the situation between the two of them. The tauren’s nose was bleeding at this point as she looked over to the troll soldier.
The troll cursed in Zandali before stepping out into the open, throwing his arms up in disbelief. “What de hell, mon?! Ya beating down a woman for kickin’ ya ass? At arm-wrestling?”
The orc snorted angrily and backed down, staggering off into the night.
“Ya dats right, keep movin’, ya slimy vulture!” He shouted after him, stepping closer to the tauren. “Ya alright there Bev?”
She nods, blowing a puff of smoke from her mouth as she offered the cigar to the troll, wiping her nose of her own blood. “Yeah, ahm fine. Sobered me up right quick.” She smiled, her eyes watering from the radiating pain on the side of her face.
The troll took a puff himself, offering the smoke back to her. Bev put her hand up and shook her head. “You can keep it. I got to sleep.” She insisted.
“Ya sure mon? Ya look in pain.”
“Nothing I ain’t used to.” The tauren replied. “See ya in the morn’.”
With that, Bev walked off towards her set of tents, waving an arm in dismissal. The troll hesitated to wave back, but did so, and eventually adopted her spot against the wall to puff on the cigar in relative silence as the pub began to die down.
Pyraelia frowned at the crates of books and scrolls that had piled up in one of the Magistry archive's storage rooms. She'd tried to lift one — an effort that previously had not been an impediment — but now, the amount that her prosthetic right arm could lift was certainly out of sync with what her flesh and bone arm could. Perhaps being tortured by the Puppetmaster in their particular way had more of a physical effect on her than she'd anticipated.
Not that she'd ever been particularly strong to begin with. Growing up as ill as she had ruled out most sports, not that she liked doing sports herself anyway. It was more fun to stay inside and read, or go outside and read, or be anywhere and read, really.
Still, this presented somewhat of a problem.
Her rank was technically high enough that she could make some of her subordinate Magisters do the work for her, but that didn't feel quite right. She could also simply leave it for another day if needs must, there were, after all, dozens of other projects lingering around the archive. There was certainly something tempting about being the Magistrix able to finally unravel the layers of curses that had a stranglehold on the upper floor of the closed stacks that had been designated forbidden to anyone below her classification.
It was going to bother her if she walked away, she knew that, and she cursed her completionist nature.
Surely there wasn't any immediate harm in doing magic about it.
She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, mentally running through the spell matrices and theoretical structures she would need to adapt and layer to achieve the outcome she wanted. As she traced the necessary runes in the air, arcane energy coalesced around her in glittering cyan and violet. Conjuration wasn't complicated in essence, but shaping form could be tricky. It was important to be intentional about exactly what you wanted to create as you were creating it, after all.
Her arcane mirrors came to being in a fraction of a second and the three spectral versions of herself waited patiently for her command.
She clapped her hands together and looked at the mess before them, "Alright ladies, let's get to work!"
Fire and smoke were becoming all he knew as the tunnel vision continued to set in, so the idea of something coming out of the flames was both a surprise and terrifying concept. As far as the orc had been aware, he was all that was left to die on the sinking ship. Maybe luck was a lady tonight?
A tall figure passed through fire with ease, his robes not even singed in the least from the flames. As he drew closer the tunnel began to focus more on the person, especially as the shoulders widened and the face narrowed with a clean white beard.
Not a lady.
Skin of dark purple and ears far to large for the normal human's also stood out with soft glowing golden eyes. An elf. Not at all what he had hoped or expected. The thought of sighing in frustration could only be that as the sucking stab wound in his abdomen continued to bleed. Belly wounds truly were the worst.
Blinking once, the figure was 10 feet. Blinking twice, now what he assumed was five. Blinking again, but a few inches from him as he leaned down to regard him with a surprisingly calm and welcoming face. To further his lack of surprise, the voice carried the same gentle cadence expected of their face. But from the set of his jaw and intensity of his gaze there would be no lack of strength.
"Ishnu-alah, Sevlaz."
@daily-writing-challenge
The vulpera leaned over the counter of his cart to his most frequent customer, what he figured a welcoming smile reminded Sev too much of mischief yet to come. Stereotypes weren't applauded but couldn't be ignored.
"Biggrin," Sev replied finally as he eased himself onto a low stool to sit more eye level with Erik who raised his oversized hands in mock forgiveness.
"Sorry?" The fox replied with that same half open mouth that was supposed to be a smile.
The orc would adjust himself a bit on the stool as he answer. "It was Biggrin, that's what they used to call me."
"Oh well, that makes some kind of ironic sense as far as I've known you, the idea of you being happy seems kind of farfetched," came the chipper if not blunt reply as the vulpera busied himself with dicing some vegetables.
"As if you could tell, Erik."
Erik'red gave a guffaw of a laugh as he swept up the onion and tossed it into a bowl before grabbing another to chop. "I got a nose for these kind of things."
"You got a nose for sure."
The knife in the cook's hand tapped his cutting board as he let his toothy grin shut just as much as his eyes narrowed at Sev. "This how we're gonna be today? Cause if it is, you can just mosey on back the way you came."
Sev raised his hands in surrender to placate the shorter creature. "Alright alright, I'm sorry."
"No you're not."
"No, I am not," Sev replied quickly before resting his hands on the wood counter. "But I am the customer, and as they say I'm right."
"No, the customer is always an asshole, which we both know you are," Erik returned to his chopping with a heavy clops of his knife. Despite the antagonistic nature of the conversation, the vulpera's tone never jumped or followed the direction of the banter. People would joke about the optimistic views and attitude of the fox-folk, but in world of demons and giant swords the world could use a bit of optimism.
The thief would snort before reaching up to scratch at his whiskers and eye the steaming work behind Erik. "What's good today?"
"Well," Erik stopped chopping to look up in thought as he listed off his menu today. "Got eggs, an omelet, and a mystery dish."
"Mystery dish?"
"Coming right up!" Erik replied cheerfully as he turned to start into his makeshift kitchen and stove top.
"Wait! What I didn't order that!"
"Yes, you just did."
"It was question."
Erik would tilt his head slightly as he stared at the orc. "No that was a choice, so now you get it."
"But I don't even know what it is!"
The vulpera rolled his eyes and spoke over his shoulder as he went back to his cooking. "That's why it's a mystery. Some times, Sev. Some times."
The orc thief glowered before rubbing at his face as he did his best to guess what was coming and decided it best not to. His thick hand would reach into belt to pull out a faded blue wallet, unfolding it to reveal a cushioned clay pipe. Stem and bowl screwed gently together before digging into a side flap for some of the dried silverleaf he had been smoking since he came to that wretched swamp. He'd pinched some from a couple of footman that had been left into the muck after the Blackrocks had wasted them. An ugly mess with a supremely wonderful result.
"What you got to drink Erik?" Sev called over the flames and sizzle of what he assumed was meat, the stench of fish overpowering much else. The pipe put between his teeth before peeling a bit of wood from the counter to use as light from a hanging lantern, the silver smoke flowing up around his mangled green face as he watched the vulpera's back.
"Uh, I got water, the grog, and some troll sweat," Erik called over his shoulder again as he grabbed a couple of skewers and began to slide on the meat before tossing it back on the flames.
"Troll sweat?"
"It's not actual troll sweat," Erik replied as he wipes his oversized hands on his apron. "Least I'm pretty sure it's not."
The red eyes narrowed in a concern and confusion at the lack of assurance he felt from the fox's reply. "Give me the grog."
"You got it," came the quick reply as he reached under the counter for his pony keg. A click and heavy rush of liquid from below before the clay cup nestled gently on the top. "There ya go, the 'bobs' will be ready in a jiffy."
Sevlaz tried not to show his contempt of the phrase 'jiffy' before hanging his pipe a moment for a full pull of the warm amber drink, feeling the clay scrape his upper teeth and clicking his tongue a moment. "Not bad this time."
"I try only my best," Erik wiped his hands again in to his apron before eyeballing the frying supposed meat behind him, tail switching back and forth as he watched the fires lick it. "How ya want it?"
The beat of her heart brought soothing comfort to Kai while the sounds of white-capped waves crashed into the rocks below. The steady beat of her feet upon the earth, their fast tempo matching the rush of emotions flowing through her.
The night darkness was peaceful here, the crackling of the fire close by illuminated her slim frame as she moves with grace, arms swiping down.
She was never good at expressing her emotions to others. With her back arching she raises her arms to the sky, before nearly touching the darkness behind her. The movements seem to come from her soul.
There was something about the sea, the sand that called to her. Wild, free, full of strength. Coming to a sudden stop, Kai looks down below. It would not be long before she needed to return to camp. After last night, she needed to be alone, to clear her thoughts.
One, two, three breath. Deep steady breaths. Lately it has been clear that personal strengths often come with weaknesses too. As she stepped closer to the edge of the clift, she could still feel the bonfire warmth behind her. The wind lifted the bottom of her summer dress, exposing her long lean legs. Strands of her hair brushes softly against her cheeks.
Being self-empowered requires a great deal of courage and self-trust. Even when it doesn't seem easy. Being brave can be scary. She knew this. Despite the questions and the looks of confusion from others.
Even if what she said never makes sense. She was discovering her own strengths, her weaknesses. Her own truths, passions.
But sometimes it feels like she was "fighting" to get through each day. Sometimes the hardest thing is believing in herself, knowing she is strong enough. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face the fire again. She still had a lot of fight left in her. It will not be easy to walk the path ahead. But she knew she could do it. Knew what she had to do. Trust in herself, believe.
Wispy blonde and silver hair shifted as she turned onto her side in the relative darkness. Laeynna faced the wall just as she always had. Or at least, for as long as she could remember. Had she done that even in her youngest years? When she was just learning how to run on her own without the assistance of her parents? No. Perhaps not. That felt like a completely different person. Lifting a hand, she slipped it beneath her pillow, cool to the touch, a soft blend of cotton and whatever else had been used in her bedding. With her eyes shut tight, she thought she could, perhaps, ignore the conversation that she suspected was right around the metaphorical corner.
“Zi?”
Huffing out a sigh, the voice addressing her a mirror of her own, Laeynna shifted onto her back, cornflower blue eyes staring up at the ceiling that greeted her. “I would be sleeping, if you would stop speaking.”
She heard the shuffling. It wasn’t exactly nightly. Not the way it had been when they were children. Yet it still happened every so often. The movement of her sister leaving her bed on the opposite side of their shared room, crossing over to hers, lifting the covers and joining her. When they were kids, it was usually nightmares that caused that. One or the other, incapable of sleeping, and the opposing sister serving as a tower of strength and resilience. Old habits died hard and sometimes they still shared a bed. Sometimes there still were nightmares. And sometimes there weren’t.
Laeynna loosed a breath that sounded awfully similar to resignation, wearing an unimpressed expression that her sister could likely only catch a glimpse of. “Do you not think we are getting a little old for this… childish behaviour?”
Met with blue eyes that reflected so much her own, the same silvery-blonde hair that made her think nearly of the moon, and a voice that mirrored hers, Laeynna’s reflection could only smile. “I think you are growing up too quickly.”
“It must be nice to think that way,” Laeynna replied, her tone somewhat hushed to not draw the attention of parentals who would come in haste and scold them for late hour chatter. “Ankalei, you… do not understand. Not that I would expect you to. We are too different.”
Her sister laughed, baring her teeth. “What are you talking about? We’re identical twins.”
Shaking her head, even as Ankalei took her hand and held it gently, Laeynna didn’t know where to begin. It was a conversation with a dead end, honestly. Ankalei was the glistening gem of their house. It certainly seemed like she could do no wrong. Everyone adored her. How could she understand? “Only in appearance,” she finally managed to say. “In the heart, in the mind, we could not be more different. Different friends. Different tastes in food. Different tastes in… partners.”
Still grinning, Ankalei remained on her side, an adoration present in the way she peered at Laeynna. “We don’t have to be so different.” Then after a moment, though her smile lessened, the warmth remained, replaced by something serious. “I understand why you want to be, though. Having the same face. The same voice. We are as looking glass, aren’t we. I know it makes things difficult. People expect us to be the same and… you want to stand apart. You want to be yourself. Not Sister Two of House Luridveil.”
“More that I do not want others looking at me and seeing your face and assuming that I am just the second Ankalei and then being tremendously disappointed when they come to find that I am, in fact, not the second Ankalei,” Laeynna countered.
Not quite begrudging, but still minutely apprehensive, she turned to face her sister, eyeing the way their hands were so gently clasped together. Even their hands were identical. Looking at Ankalei was like looking at a mirror. Except the person on the other side was so much… more. In every way. More beautiful. More intelligent. More personable. More impressive. Anything Laeynna was, Ankalei was more of. If it was a competition, a race, it was over before it ever began because Laeynna… simply couldn’t compete.
“You aren’t a second Ankalei,” her sister reassured her. “You’re Zi. Lover of flowers and girls with sun-kissed skin and hair of holy light.” Met with the pull of Laeynna’s face, Ankalei couldn’t resist laughing. “I’m teasing you. I’m sorry. Is it too soon? I’m not trying to upset you. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but I thought the two of you were very sweet together. You looked happy when you were with her. Happier than I see you nowadays.”
Laeynna couldn’t claim she was exactly… crestfallen. Ankalei’s observations weren’t entirely off the mark either. Alcilia had been… something. An object of affection? She didn’t even know herself. Someone ‘important’ to her was how she’d often described it. A primary catalyst for her interest in flowers, studying them, and something that just so happened to coincide with her father’s research. An infatuation, perhaps? Gods knew Laeynna had spent plenty of sleepless nights trying to figure it out to no avail. Not that it made a difference. That ship had sailed and those decisions already made.
“Yes, well.” Shaking her head, she lifted a shoulder, dismissive and more nonchalant in appearance than she truly was. “It hardly matters now. I would rather not speak of it.”
Her sister’s expression was sympathetic and she squeezed Laeynna’s hand. “You should smile more often. You know that saying. Bugs and honey, and all of that. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little honey on your side. Could probably have a few more of those family dinners be a little less chaotic.”
With a scowl, the younger twin took a moment to bury her face right against her pillow. It was a rather gentle term for what actually happened. Their parents met with prospective other families and, in Laeynna’s opinion, tried to sell her future and Ankalei’s to whomever was either the most wealthy in influence or whomever was willing to endure the inevitable summer storm that she was quickly becoming on a regular basis. Either way, terrible occasions in dresses that were laced too tightly, uncomfortable heeled shoes, and tight, diplomatic smiles pulled across the face. ‘Social politicking,’ their father had called it with his most charming smile. Laeynna hated it. It didn’t help that it sure seemed like Ankalei was always first pick.
“Perhaps if you actually weighed in sometime instead of saying nothing,” Laeynna finally replied as she frowned heavily, well-used muscles tightening in the features of her face. “It only gets chaotic because I am the only one who thinks it is ridiculous that we get paraded around like pieces of decor. You do realise that we are just… trinkets to bargain with, right? You have all of these great aspirations to be a knight. A beautiful dream, Ankalei, really, but will your future husband even allow that?” Shaking her head, she huffed, the blood in her veins warming with a frustration that never seemed to completely ebb.
“...Plenty of women are knights,” Ankalei replied with the cocking of a thin, well-maintained eyebrow. “You’re being too hard on them. They only want to make sure we’re well-cared for. They want to know that we’ll have someone to provide for us. Annnnd, you never know. You may end up falling madly in love with whoever you get paired up with. If you stop putting frogs in teacups and making people scream.”
“Whomever.”
Ankalei’s pause was heavy with weight and undeniable. “...What?”
Laeynna sighed and she rolled her eyes as she squeezed her sister’s hand. “You said ‘whoever you get paired up with.’ You meant ‘whomever.’”
She was greeted with a sharp laughter that was only shortly after muffled by the hand. “Whatever, Zi. My point remains the same. Just picture it. You meet the guy of your dreams—or girl—and at first, yes, it seems all very formal and official. But then maybe you’re… I don’t know. Reading one of those magistry books you like and drinking rose tea and then you find out they really like the same book. Or maybe they’ll really like music. Or maybe they’ll really like flowers. Or history, or religion, or… or… whatever it is that brings the two of you together. It can happen. Our parents were arranged, remember.”
As if there wasn’t, in Laeynna’s opinion, a worse example to use. “Oh, yes,” she replied, sarcasm dripping from her tone like a quill that had been unceremoniously dipped into an ink pot with no regard. “And look how overjoyed they are to just be in the same room together.” Shaking her head, she felt like every breath was nearly a surrender. “Love like that? Falling ‘madly in love’? That. Does not exist. It is a little story that parents tell their children before they are old enough to know better. Even if it did happen, it will not be to anyone you or I are promised to. For all of the luxuries that we can afford, real love like that? Is not one of them.”
Well. Maybe Ankalei was different. She seemed to get everything else she wanted. Why not the ridiculous notion of falling madly in love? It would just be Laeynna’s luck, that. Watching her twin sister not only receive piles of validation and adoration, but then to also have the very best of fortune on top of it. A storybook romance blossoming from an outdated, archaic tradition that should have been removed in its entirety.
Before either could say anything more, there came the familiar sound of knuckles atop their closed bedroom door. The voice on the other side, a woman’s, thin and strained, betraying her age. A voice that always sounded so… tired. “You two had best quiet down. Your father is working and both of you have an early morning.” As Laeynna and Ankalei exchanged looks, but offered nothing in reply, the voice continued. “Ladies, am I making myself clear?”
“...Yes, Mother,” the twins replied in unison.
It was only as Laeynna sat up, listening for the footsteps on wooden floor that gradually faded that she found her voice again. Looking to her twin, someone who, in many ways, seemed wiser, she freed her hand and lifted it with a shooing gesture. “Get out of my bed,” she finally continued.
Ankalei’s response had been short-lived but dramatic as she removed herself, yet in the breaths that followed, she moved as quietly as she could back across the floor to the other side of the room. Pulling back her bedding, she slid right back in, nestled on her side to watch her twin. “...I was serious, you know,” she said, her voice staining what Laeynna would have preferred to be kept in silence. “I wish you would smile more. I love you, Zi. I want to see you be happy. Not... not whatever this is.”
Laeynna fought the temptation to roll her eyes again. Instead, she turned back towards the wall, despite still feeling her sister’s gaze on her. Cloaked in the darkness of the night, she was left with her thoughts. Stupid unrealistic thoughts of falling in love, croaking frogs on saucers, and how a set of twins could be so significantly different people. The heaviness of sleep rested atop her shoulders, pulling her into a dreamscape as she thought and contemplated, knowing that any dreams she had that night she would not come to remember.
But Ankalei probably would remember hers. Because Ankalei could do anything.
When you’re younger, your idea of strength was often a grandiose display of raw physical power. Who was the fastest? Who could lift more and push more? Who consistently succeeded in the hunts and trials that the vast world laid at their feet? To be in peak physical condition and unafraid to stand up for your truths and your convictions without backing down. No matter how big the fight was.
But.
As you got older, you learned that strength was a fine and complicated meshwork of delicately balanced physical attributes and mental and emotional fortitudes. A keen wit. Knowing when kindness and temperance would yield the superior outcome and how to nurture others in their time of need. To be something stalwart when they stumbled.
It was knowing when to lead and when to follow.
And never forsaking your home and hearth for the folly of riches and fame.
My eldest brother Ezra walked the path of a broken circle. He left one day when I was younger, striking out on his pilgrimage away from the commune and the sanctity of our wooded home. He tasted greatness on his tongue and it made him drunk and lustful with ambitions that endangered our family. But bigger than that… he endangered everything our father had created to protect us.
When he finally came home, with his ideas and his ambitions. He was rejected and it served to enrage him. He had always had an ego. He had always had hubris. And my father knew all too well how dangerous he had become in his forays into the greater world. It was ambition that was driven by palpable greed. He would fracture everything to further his personal status and gain.
When he was turned away from the commune, it was the first time I had ever seen my mother cry.
I’ll never forget the guilt and anguish in her eyes as she turned away from Ezra in solidarity with our father’s strict edict. She had been complicit in nurturing this monster that he had become. As the first born, he had basked in our mother’s affections and she had shielded him and his behaviors. But it ended that day. And Ezra became the black mark in the woods. No longer permitted into our domain and punishable by the fae’s laws should he come back.
My father personally saw to his eviction… and suffered physical damages as a consequence. He still wears the scars of his eldest son’s rage. But he never addresses it. My mother and father never talk about Ezra anymore. His name is a whisper in the back of our minds and his pictures have been removed from the walls and altars in our home.
His place at the table is empty with no place settings and the chair leaned in against the table. They sealed his room and left his belongings inside to gather dust over time. It took a different kind of strength to watch as my family systematically chose to forget about Ezra and to simply erase his presence from our home. To see my other brothers stop talking about him, to hear my mother crying at night in the kitchen alone while our father was out on his patrols in the woods that encircled our township at the center. It was a brand new kind of strength to try to pretend to be unaffected and to keep a straight face for my mother’s sake.
But it felt… unnatural and discordant.
I could not shake the looming and oppressive dread that came with the thought of Ezra coming back to this place.
It had been a long… Well, Everything. A long week, a long month…. a long year. The anxieties and fears, the trepidation and the heartache, over and again, had piled up add-nauseum over, and over again, and it had weighed the dragon down. Heavy was the mix of emotion that burdened the poor dear, from the past, so much history, lost in one fell swoop, one of their last safe places to venture, gone. They, like many, were still processing the loss, both of life, and that rich history, not just their own, but all.
And worst of all? Yet again, They would have to be strong.. They had no time to mourn. They had no time to wallow in the sorrow that threatened to envelope a shadow-addled mind. Just like every other loss suffered in the past fifteen years, they had to push through. Through the healing and recouperation of their consort, who had nearly been paralyzed by the fall, through the fighting and diplomatic dealings of getting accustomed to the Earthen, and aiding their plight here in Dornogol... to their own loss.. They must become blind to it all. Again.
Mingling that with the explosion, the blast wave of void charged arcana that had knocked them for a loop and free of the sky, and Rythyren was having a hell of a time coping alone. But they weren't alone in this moment, were they? No. She was here. Their greatest torment and deepest release. Their longest standing partner and confidant, who they had wrestled heartache and pain alongside, who had been there for them as they for her. Who understood it took more than intimacy for love, more than promises for eternity.
The bath had helped. When their teleport had been so strongly off kilter than they wound up in her bathing chambers aboard her ship, it had helped to just.. fall in.. To be taken into those arms and simply let themself fall apart. There was a time they were afraid to do so. That they felt they were forced to be strong for her, to protect her, when they had lost their mutual mate, years ago... and since. Every time she had a pitfall Ryth felt they needed to be strong for her, Their beautiful Irridessa.
Once more, sorrow hit, as they curled up into bed, after she had so graciously taken care of them, even carrying them to the bed. The strong, capable Commodore was anything but weak, and she proved it with her tender care of the crumbling dragon, so lost in the twists and turns of their own mind.
Settling in next to her as she covered them with the covers felt like the weight was lifted, despite the whispering ramblings in their mind of not being good enough, not being what she wanted, never being able to provide what their beloved pirate craved. The whispers slowly silenced themselves at her reassurances, and they let their senses be robbed by the gentle embrace of one who had loved, but let them roam, knowing, eventually, every time... They would come home.
In this moment, they could let go of the world. In this moment, they could simply be.. and they closed their eyes, nuzzling up and under her chin as their arms wrapped around her, finally, after a year of keeping it together, they let themself simply.. be.
