A Soul at War

Adonis Carnelion - Fae (Seelie/Unseelie) - 30/700+ - Older Brother of Sebastian, Matilda, Lavinia, Cedric, Ophelia, Percy & Pippa - Owner of Carnelion Publishing House

[singingshadowshelenus]

A Light Through The Longest Night

The house smelled amazing, as it always did on the winter solstice. Spiced wine, fir trees, roasted chestnuts, oranges pierced with cloves. Their solstice's hadn't always smelled like this. Well maybe the spiced wine had always been there. The rest had been added in during their time in the north. Helenus couldn't imagine one without all this now.

It was also quiet in the house save for the crackling of the fire and the gentle sound of Cassie humming an old solstice hymn as she added the dead hydrangea heads to the garland above the door into the dinning room. "They'll be hear soon," he commented, loud enough that Hektor would hear him in the kitchen. They of course were the usual suspects, the ones that were family in every way except by blood. Plus a few extras this year. He smiled at that as he made sure the outside light was on. It was lightly snowing again now and the growing dark made it hard to tell if the sky looked like it would get heavier again. Hopefully everyone would arrive safely before it did.

[the-eldest-carnelion]

The Carnelion siblings, while chaotic as ever, were not the sort to be late unless it was absolutely unavoidable. So Adonis had held even Linnea and her housemates to the same standard, as they'd all gathered at the Carnelion house before making their way to Helenus and Cassie's. They were currently walking up the path to the front door in a large, jumbled mess.

Adonis was in somewhat of a mood, which wasn't entirely unusual, but Matilda and Cedric had practically made it so with their pranks and meddling from morning onwards. He currently had Nyla on his arm, though, which kept him from being too grumbly towards the lot of them.

Cedric and Matilda were, unsurprisingly, bickering with one another over some new publication or another. Lavinia could hardly make heads or tails of it, but then again her mind was drifting to Kyren. But she shook out of her thoughts to turn to Amaia who she was walking beside. "Do you suppose they even know what they're arguing about at this stage?"

Bash walked alongside Wren, Juniper, and Pippa and was listening to Juniper joke about the many personalities of their family cats to Pippa. Their similar magic bred that sort of conversation whenever they were around one another.

Linnea, Ophelia, and Percy brought up the rear, with Linnea inquiring after their respective creative pursuits of late. Percy rambled on about the Nutcracker performances he was in, and Ophelia chimed in that she'd been brought on as part of the live accompaniment for the ballet.

-

Yasemin tugged Tiggy up the steps to the house and knocked on the door. "I'm glad that it snowed a bit for the solstice this year. It makes it look much more picturesque," she mused. While they waited for the door to open, she caught sight of a nephilim walking up just beside them. Cassie's beau... Bo, ironically, she recalled. "You're Bo, aren't you? I'm Yas, and this is my sister Tiggy. We're Hektor's adopted nuisances--if we try to call ourselves his kids he'll get cross for us insinuating he's old," she joked.

Bo greeted the girls with a warm smile and a bit of a laugh as he gave their gloved hands a shake. "Lovely to meet the both of you. I'd like to think I'm not a nuisance towards Cassie, but perhaps she'll correct me."

[nylasheartandsoul]

As she drew nearer it became clear to her that Adonis was in destress. Though when she'd become so aware of his body language to know that even without seeing his face wasn't clear to her. It was almost as surprising, in fact, as the twinge she felt for him. The way she had the sudden urge to make sure he was ok, to comfort him. The man who she wasn't sure she'd ever had a civil conversation with. The man who seemed to have an unnatural ability to annoy her. To make her say things she didn't always mean.

Their last conversation had been just the same. Her hackles had gone up and she'd been far harsher than she ought to have been. The remorse had instantly started mixing with her annoyance. And the way he'd just stormed off.....There was that blankness again. Why couldn't she remember what had happened after that.

Nyla found herself slowing as his words reached her. He hadn't yet realised he wasn't alone and these things were not meant for her ears. The shame of intruding on something private made her cheeks heat. It was the thing about her power she grappled with the most. Feeling like she was prying, almost like she was reading someones diary. It was the reason that ordinarily she didn't enter another persons dreams without permission, expect in extreme circumstances.

She should go. Just turn around and try to leave his dream. And yet her heart had started aching for him with the things she was hearing. The grief in his voice, the pain in his words. The weight he had carried. She couldn't help but wear it on her face. At last she came to a stop a little way behind the bench he'd been sat on. His last words felt like being hit in the chest. They could be able anyone. Anyone in the world. Why did her mind jump to readily to the conclusion that maybe they were about her? It was preposterous.

Despite the fact half of her was still convinced she should leave, she found the question voiced before she could catch it. "What should have?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis jumped at the voice, jolting into a bolt upright position that nearly made him lose his footing entirely. But, really, who expected to hear someone speak in your dream when you were alone up until that point? Moreover, he couldn't quite believe who the voice belonged to. But he could see her now, just in front of him. Nyla. The subject of his anguish at present... or, at least, an aspect of it. Heaven's sake, now he was dreaming of her.

He was silent for a moment, blinking a bit too much and staring at her with his mouth agape. But then he repeated the question she'd asked over again in his mind and forcefully righted himself. He stood a bit taller, wiping away his tears with a free hand before allowing it to rake through his hair. "I should have been the one injured tonight instead of you," he replied after a moment, eyes averted at first. His words were quiet, but quickly followed by a budding sort of laughter. Because it felt ridiculous, really. He was explaining his thinking to a conjuration of Nyla, another part of his own mind. How bloody foolish. He spoke brokenly through his laughter. "This is such a bloody joke, isn't it? I'm trying to explain my feelings to my own mind. And it isn't as if I even have all of the answers on that score. Because you--" He gestured to Nyla, finally meeting her eye again. "--this... this breaks every rule I've ever governed myself with. I'm not allowed to be devoted to anyone aside from my family. Because that inevitably leads to tragedy. That leads to loss and torment for everyone involved. I've known it! I've felt it! For goodness sake, I see it now with my sister, ravaged with grief for lost love. And yet I've gone and bloody done it now, haven't I?"

His body was shaking, but he continued on in his ranting all the same. Each word had brought him a step closer to Nyla to where they were now standing just in front of one another. "You're my torment. My grief to know, my loss to suffer... Because I allowed myself to fall for you, fool that I am." Adonis grimaced a bit, remembering her frail and bloodied form as he'd unearthed her from the rubble. "It should have been me... Is that what you wanted to hear?"

[nylasheartandsoul]

Nyla frowned in confusion to find herself in a dream. She didn't recall falling asleep. But then it wasn't her dream. Though she didn't recall stepping into it either. In fact the last thing she remembered was being at the ball. Of getting into a heated discussion with Adonis. Him storming off. Then..... Her frown deepened because it all went blank after that.

This wasn't a dream she'd been in before. That much she did know. Even if something told her this was faerie. She started to look around, searching for clues as to who's dream this was. Or better yet the person themselves. Entering someone else's dreams, even for her, was not without it's risks. Really she should just leave but something was preventing her from waking. Next best thing would be to get back to her own. But she wanted answers.

Walking cautiously out into a grove she stopped still when she saw who sat on a bench within it. She was in Adonis's dream. Somehow that was even more confusing. After a moment she pressed on, slowly walking over to him.

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis didn’t dream often, and when he did he rarely found sense in them. But this one was different. He was back at the home of his youth, back in Faerie. And he didn’t need to question why he was there, for the reason was as plain as the text inscribed on the headstone before him. He was picturing loss, grappling with it even.

His father’s death was quite a deep wound for him, even now 6 centuries on. He was the first and only loved one that Adonis had ever lost… he would have liked to envision that to always be the case. He had distanced himself from romantic attachments and the like for that very reason, not that he’d ever told a soul as much.

And now? Now he’d been gripped with the same fear that he had that day his father fell beside him. Trembled in the same way, steeped in the same guilt.

He rested his head in his hands, leaning forward onto his knees as he did so. It all felt so achingly real, being here. He’d go there if he could, to speak to his father… if he could still hear him. And yet, if he could then, why not now?

“It should have been me,” Adonis said softly. And he laughed a bit then, in that dry and nearly angry way. “It should have been me, damn it!” He raked his hands across his face, cursing the fact that tears still seemed to fall even in dreams. But his focus turned to the headstone before him as he continued to yell. “You weren’t supposed to leave us then, you weren’t supposed to die in some bloody accident! You had everything to lose, and what did I have?!” He stood up, exasperated and advancing towards the stone. “I am left to the ravages of grief and meant to soldier on in your stead, be the man that our family needed, be the one that they lost in you… And I have, you know. I’ve done well by my siblings, by Mother, and I haven’t lost any of them.”

His throat clenched as a choked sob escaped him. “But now I could lose her, and I just—” Adonis shuddered, shaking the thought from his mind. “It should have been me.”

[the-eldest-carnelion]

@ Eld Cottage Hospital

Adonis has secured himself a seat at Nyla’s bedside, and even at Lavinia’s insistence that she could watch over Nyla and allow him to go home and have a rest, he’d refused to leave the spot. He felt achingly responsible, for one thing. But it also went far deeper than that, far deeper than perhaps he was quite yet willing to admit to himself. So instead he dwelled in guilt and worry, and perhaps a pinch of shame—all of which had mingled into the fruits of a fitful sleep he’d seemed to have fallen into in his chair as he waited for her to wake.

@nylasheartandsoul

[the-eldest-carnelion]

[pippasperspective]

"And is this a normal topic of conversation for you while dancing?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis sighed in that pinched sort of way he tended to, but he couldn't quite manage any heat in his expression. "You're still trying to change the topic back, aren't you?"

[nylasheartandsoul]

"I assume you know I don't care,"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"You in--" He cut himself off. He couldn't quite pick between insolent, insufferable, or infuriating to describe Nyla. She seemed hell bent on provoking his ire at every instance of their meeting, and with a masterful preciseness that he hoped beyond hope that his siblings never quite reached. But he choked down his insults in favor of a pinched sort of expression, near enough to when one held in a sneeze. "Be my guest. Levy your endless well of opinions about me to my face then, why don't you? Since that seems to be the next logical step up from doing so in earshot of me."

[max-likes-to-flirt]

"As you should. That was some of my best work, I'll have you know..." He said eyeing the crowd. He bumped against the other fae. "That little Bonita over there...." He pointed. "B-cup...A C? She wishes. Thrift store junkie. Clearly has no taste for fashion because that little monstrosity she is wearing is from five seasons ago."

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis sighed in that deeply exhausted sort of way that only his siblings seemed capable of inciting until now. "Does it look like I give a fig about what some stranger sees fit to wear to a foolish sex fest disguised as a party?"

[dimi-likes-pretty-things]

"Well I would assume so..." He mused, a slight curl to his lips. "I was speaking to you, afterall."

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis blinked for a moment, finding himself capable of little else as he stared at the vampire. "Boldness borderlines on foolhardiness in the eyes of many," he eventually posited, although not with venom as much as a matter-of-fact tone.

[xypher-goes-boom]

"I assume you know I don't care." He sighed, flopping down beside him. "The infuriating part is that we do this all the time and I still don't know who you are. Horrifying."

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"Evidently," he muttered, looking at the warlock with his token scowl. "And yet you care about knowing my name? Quite contradictory, don't you think?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"I assume you know I can hear you."

[nylasheartandsoul]

"Oh I've got a guess - you've come as a man who couldn't actually be bothered to dress up?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

Adonis looked a bit taken aback by her brazen comment before he leaned in to reply. "I resent that, you know." Not that he could deny it either.

[singingshadowshelenus]

"Masquerades really are the very best sort of party, don't you agree?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"Why, pray tell, are they especially better than any other type of party?"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"Do try again, I'm rather amused by this whole attempt."

[singingshadowshelenus]

Early Evening @ Priam Books

"I like to stay open late on Wednesdays. Give people a chance to drop by after work instead of having to wait till the weekend,"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"I would ask if that's a desire for most people, but Ophelia did send me here to pick up her latest choices... so point proven on that score."

[xypher-goes-boom]

At Silver Spoon

"There is nothing you can do that I cannot simply deny."

[the-eldest-carnelion]

"And two can play that game. Centuries of practice with my siblings."

[livvysdrawinguptheplans]

"Not at all, I was being entirely serious. Whether we like it or not people judge us on how we look. And I'm not talking skin colour or body shape right now, you don't even want to get we started on those. But the clothes you wear, how you wear them. If your shoes are polished. If your hair is well done. And yes, on your nails. So forgive me for being annoyed that one of the nails I carefully maintain broke,"

[the-eldest-carnelion]

At some point during the shifter's mild rant Adonis' mouth had fallen slightly agape. Because she not only had somewhat of an audacity about her to, in fact, bite back to a stranger, but the chosen topic was something he would have considered entirely trivial otherwise. He reigned back in his expression again. "You sound rather like my sisters. Although even with years of preparatory conversations like this, I'm afraid I'm not well versed on the subject."