a challenge answered

[Talon]

a challenge answered

75 Frost 121

Talon stared at the peaks of the Astralar Mountains. The Ebony Sky Mountains seemed more menacing than comforting. The catastrophe that had been unleashed by the environment was largely being passed as an unfortunate natural disaster but Talon knew the truth. His hands rest lightly at his lower back, a stern expression on his face as he looked at the Horned Beak mountain. His mind was racing through all of the events playing out across the city and what would follow in the days to come. With a heavy sigh, he took a step forward and spread his wings preparing himself to face whatever awaited him at the mountain. He flapped his wings once, twice and was airborne. He no further than the balcony when he suddenly felt a hand wrap around his ankle. Talon snapped his attention to the hand grasping his foot. As soon as his gaze met the eyes of the hand’s owner, he was yanked back down. Before he could protest, his face was being firmly but gently grasped. The warmth of an insistent mouth covering his own taking away his ability to speak.

Talon’s wings settled on his back as he let Aoren kiss him. He felt the Kathar’s hands slide up into his hair, fingers curling into the strands. Across the Bond, he felt Aoren draw impossibly close until there were no distinction between where Talon’s soul began and Aoren’s ended. He felt the hardness around his heart ease. He felt the mental wall that he had been building around himself be ripped down as his bondmate poured his love, care, and support for him into the kiss they shared. When it finally ended, both of them were breathing more heavily. Aoren pressed their brows together.

“Don’t.” His fiery eyes met Talon’s silver ones and the young demigod worried his lower lip. That only made Aoren shake his head. “No. None of that. I won’t have it.”

“Aoren.” The Kathar silenced him with another kiss. Aoren’s hands slid down from the nape of his neck to squeeze his shoulders. The raven winged man tugged him closer, fanning out his wings to encircle them both as much as he could.

“Don’t pull away from me. Don’t hide from Rickter. You’re doing it again, Talon. You always do this. You see a challenge and you try to face it alone.” Aoren cupped his face. Talon bowed his head. He had been about to leave. He had sent Rickter to find Kisorika. He prayed that his beloved wolf would be safe. He prayed that Kisorika would be safe. He prayed Kalzasi would survive the coming storm that he could feel brewing on the edges of every horizon.

“I am afraid, my heart.” Talon turned watery eyes up to Aoren. In the warmth and fire of his bondmate’s eyes, he saw the only hope for a way forward that he had in that moment. He turned his face so that he could nuzzle into his partner’s hand. Aoren wiped a thumb over his cheek.

“I know.” With those simple words, Talon just rest his brow against Aoren’s and breathed. He felt one of the loves of his life wrap his arms around him and squeeze him tightly. For the first time since he had received the letter, Talon let out a breath and felt the tension bleed out of him. He sagged against Aoren which only prompted the Kathar to hug him more securely. After that moment of quiet tenderness, Talon looked up to see his family standing there, watching. As soon as Aoren stepped aside, his younger brother was striding forward. Rien threw his arms around him and squeezed as though his life depended on it. Talon hugged his brother. He gathered all of his siblings to him and hugged each of them. He hugged his Second and Third mothers tightly.

“My Son.” His mother’s voice was steady. She wore the black and silver robes of her station as a Sage of the Circle of Spells. A sapphire diadem rest upon her brow as a call to her station as a daughter of House Briathos. Talon realized then that his mother was likely setting out to a task of her own. She stepped forward, cupping his face. He felt her enter his mind. Talon hugged his mother’s mental presence close as she found the melodies of his worries and fears. He showed them to her. He shared them with her. She looked into his eyes with a fierceness that only a Kalzasern Queen could possess.

“I will not ask for vengeance.” She smiled. “Vengeance will be mine to visit upon any who wrong our family. But I will say this…”

Talon dipped low so that his mother could press a gentle kiss upon his brow. In that, he felt both her and his younger brother Rien press into him a cascade of conviction in his beliefs. They did not take away his fears. They did not lessen his doubts. They merely made his focus shift to what he could do, to what power and skills were within his ability to perform. That helped to take some of the edge away from his fear.

“Justice is yours, my Talon. In all the world, in all the Aetherium, you and you alone decide what it means.” She looked into his eyes and while Talon could feel his mother’s thoughts, he did not, in that moment, grasp their full depth. “You are a god, my Talon. Live as one.”

Talon bowed his head to his mother. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. She embraced him then stepped back to allow his father to step forward. Talon met his father’s gaze steadily. The muscles of Savien’s jaw were tight. More emotions than Talon could make out were in his father’s eyes before the man reached out and pulled him into one of the tightest hugs that he could recall in recent memory. Talon was momentarily surprised before he returned the fierce hug. His father was dressed not in his ceremonial garb but in the war vestments of the Supreme Commander of all Kalzasi.

“Remind them that the House of Synnar does not leave a challenge unanswered.” Savien met his gaze and Talon saw the anger and pain in his father’s eyes.

Talon looked over his family once more time. He let out a breath then turned to see Aoren waiting for him. With a nod, he took off at a run alongside his bondmate taking to the skies toward the Astralar Mountains. Together.

"I am Justice."

[Aegis]

Talon and Aoren flew together toward the Astralar, one of the largest, wildest, and most perilous mountain ranges in all of Ransera. They were a treacherous place, largely unknown, much not explored. Those who knew it best tended to be the Avialae of Kalzasi, however. And while there was a blizzard ravaging central Karnor, the same blizzard that Kisorika and the others upon that airship were trapped in, Kalzasi itself had only a light, cleansing snow, with mild, gentle winds.

An Avialae in military garb adorned in the colors of a Sorakabe flew up from his post at Horned Beak mountain to meet the pair. But his face would be known to Talon, for while this man wore the rank of a low level soldier, he, and all of the others guarding Horned Beak, were anything but that. He was a member of the far lesser known Silent Wings Corp.

The Silent Wings are a small company who all answer directly to a council consisting of the Shokaze and the Shonane together. Nothing they do, nothing they've ever done, was done without the blessing of those five people. The members of the Silent Wings were all black ops specialists, soldiers of pronounced areas of expertise, filling lesser roles both within the military and in Kalzasi society. They were typically only utilized in the most grave of situations, brought in when the crown needed to have a problem solved, even if taking a public stance allying themselves with the problem. And typically the problems were people that needed to be spied upon, disappeared, or killed.

The Silent Wings did that which the rest of Kalzasi had not the stomach for, and Talon as the crown prince, would have been made aware of each and every member of the Silent Wings, introduced to each of them personally in quite hushed meetings. And after this travesty was revealed to not be an accident but rather the results of the machinations of an enemy of Talon's, the Silent Wings were dispatched to secure Horned Beak mountain.

The Sorakabe waited to be acknowledged by the crown prince. With the presence of Aoren, the Silent Wing would not reveal himself, and could only speak in a manner that would be consistent with the station he was pretending to hold. Once given leave to speak, "Sir, one of our best tracker mages has... well, he had trouble describing it to us. He's still at his post. He's been ordered to keep visuals on anything he discovered without fail. He's exhausted, but he describes multiple magical trails, but ones that do not make sense. But he said that your eyes are stronger than his. He's not once let up his post. You can find him on that cliff down there on the western face." The Silent Wing pointed down to where the exhausted mage was posted.

And there he waited, the other Silent Wings floating back behind him, waiting to be given leave or to receive orders.

[Talon]

T A L O N

The gentle breezes that ghosted their way through the ebony Astralar mountains called to Talon. Just as they always did. The Synnekar Avialae were a people of air and winter. It was one of the reasons the cold north agreed with them so much. Talon had spent much of his childhood in the mountains. He had spent years at the Temple of Fallen Skies training with the monks. He knew the mountains as well as any could know them, which was to say that he was mindful of their dangers.

A mental brush of thoughts from Aoren drew his attention. He turned his eyes to the newcomer and others. Immediately he recognized them. The sight of them came as something of a surprise but he should not have been. A dire threat had presented itself to Kalzasi and to him specifically, that his father and the Shohane would dispatch them spoke to just how seriously they viewed current events. He did not know whether he should be comforted or alarmed. As he slowed himself in the air, he felt Aoren tense. Across the bond he gave his bondmate a note of calm. He listened to the soldier, brow furrowed as he did so. When the man finished, he gestured to his partner beside him.

"This is Aoren. He is my Core Bondmate. What you speak of with me, you may speak of with him as well. There are no walls between us." Speaking before other Avialae, Talon knew they would understand. While Talon and Aoren had their moments of privacy, secrets were impossible to consciously keep from one another. The Core Bonds made it so that the flow of emotion and thought between them were as second nature as breathing. Most of it happened subconsciously.

“Come.” Talon gave each Silent Wing a nod before angling his wings to descend to where the exhausted mage was perched. He landed nimbly coming up to the man. As soon as he did, Talon opened up his senses to the flow of aether around them. He observed where the man’s focus was directed and in seeing it, he turned his attention to the subject of the soldier’s scrutiny.

“Rest your eyes, soldier. Tell me, what have you found?” If the manipulation of the snow upon the Horned Beak was the intentional act of a terrorist, then Talon had a suspicion that magic had been involved somehow. Seeing the flow of aether before him, that suspicion was confirmed though he waited for the tracker to explain what he had found thus far.

[Aegis]

The unnamed soldier nodded at the permission given, and accompanied the pair as they flew down to the tired tracker. This Avialae man was one of a checkered past and history, but his skills as a tracker were well known to the crown. If anyone or anything needed to be found in Karnor, he was called. He relaxed as Talon and Aoren approached, not yet extinguishing his magic as he prepared to give details to the prince.

"Sir, before we look to the trails, you must look at the mountain itself." The smaller, roguish Avialae turned, gesturing upward, "It is covered in snow now, but you can see the unnatural slanted angle there where the peak sheered off. This is what caused the stone and snow to form the avalanche. In all the history of our people, we've never seen a mountain break in such a clean fashion. It is akin to an executioner's stroke." The man took a breath. The Silent Wings were kept well aware of Talon's capabilities, "I can detect faint readings along the face where the peak sheered off. This is not an energy known to me, and I know many, within and without Kalzasi. But a faint energy is more tan enough for me to track."

The Silent Wing tracker then turned, allowing Talon, "With your eyes, Sir, you can confirm if what I'm seeing is accurate. With notes of the same energy as the sheered off face, there are three trails, North by Northeast, Northeast, and due East. Three trails with the same energy signature is not an unusual phenomenon. They can just as easily be an approach, a decoy, and an actual. However, all things die, all things fade, and magical trails are no exceptions. They have a half life. And these three trails were all formed at exactly the same time, together. That is something new to me, and new in my line of work is incredibly dangerous."

The man paused before continuing, "The North by Northeast trail, see how stretched and thin it is? The target was traveling incredibly fast, faster than all but our fastest wings. But that Northeast trail, that one gives pause. You can see large breaks in it. One might suspect Traversion, but that usually leaves an upwelling, a surge, at each of the breaks. No such surging here. But the eastern trail, that one is..." His hands and wings spread in a broad unknown, "Notice how you can see it? But you can't really... feel it? Its there and not there... which I do not understand. I know not this enemy of yours, Sir, beyond what the briefing held, but this is high magic. This pushes the boundaries of the possible and known."

Only now did the man deactivate his Semblance, "We are at your orders, sir."

[Talon]

T A L O N

Talon listened as the tracker explained what he had found and observed. Opening himself up to the flow of the aether in the world around him, Talon extended his arcane senses far and wide. He brushed past the surface information available to him and extracted from the residual aetheric activity the most excruciating detail that he could find. He examined the three trails pointed out by the tracker. He wrapped his senses around them and pulled them into the forefront of his magical scope of observation. When the borders of his Semblance awareness had been reached, Talon harnessed something different. He blinked and his eyes shone with the silver light of his divinity. It was not a gentle light.

The world in his vision became a plane that was a stark black and white. All things in his gaze were painted in their barest colors of varying shades of purity and darkness. The harshness of his gaze was that of an avenger seeking out that which had inflicted a terrible injustice upon his people. Talon could have accepted an attack on him. He could have understood facing him directly. He was a warrior who had spent his whole life fighting terrible monsters. Whoever or whatever had done this had not attacked him. They had attacked his people, his family. Those were the actions of a coward and it filled him with a cold anger. So he focused that anger. He reached out into the Aetherium and took a hold of the fullness of his domain as was his divine right. He grabbed the threads of Justice and cast a web across the full expanse of his divine awareness.

He heard every bitter cry of people who had suffered at the hands of this event. He felt the weight of their anguish. He felt their despair. In others he felt and saw their bravery. He saw their perseverance. He beheld their strength. The rippling effect of this event has sparked so much in his eyes that it only hardened his resolve. What he was searching for, however, was the origin of those ripples. The single thread that tied the fullness of this tragedy together.

“I suspect it is a diversionary tactic.” Talon narrowed his eyes. “It will fail.”

Talon could think of any number of reasons for the unusual disturbances that the tracker had sensed. He had seen Lyra perform interesting things with the work of Scrivening that he had never envisioned possible. The same could be said for some of the things that his own mother had achieved with her magic. When one was dealing with aethereal powers, the inventive ways that mages deigned to blend the various disciplines and schools at their disposal together were infinite. There would be some signs however and so Talon searched for them.

“Let me get a picture for myself. I will direct us from there.”

!

Message from: Aegis

Here is what Talon sees. Do another post continuing please. North by Northeast Trail - The line was no longer simply a stretched, thin trail of decaying Aether to Talon's divinely enhanced Semblance empowered eyes. It was now revealed to be incredibly jagged and erratic around the centralized aetheric line that the Silent Wing officer had seen. It shimmered and crackled with active aetheric lightning that would crack and be momentarily, mildly blinding to Talon every few moments. Northeast Trail - The breaks between this trail were revealed. The breaks each ventured far off the revealed path, carving around peaks and through valleys before connecting with the visible portions of the path. The breaks were incredibly faint and difficult to see, even with Talon's enhancements. East Trail - The trail did not change visually when scrutinized under Talon's divine gaze. However, tied to it was the familiar feeling of the Aethereum. It did not follow any strict sense of that feeling being present or not present as it did under the lesser gaze, but this trail felt specifically like that singular instance when Talon would reach into the Aethereum. It was not the feeling of attempting to enter or having the aether from it, no. It was that split moment, that instant of an instant, of being within the Aethereum.

[Talon]

T A L O N

The north by northeast trail was, to Talon’s senses, the most obvious. It crackled with a blinding intensity that bespoke of magic wielded by a master. That in and of itself was concerning. No matter their disciplines, a master of any form of magic was dangerous when put to wrathful acts. The northeast trail was curious to him as it seemed to form a pattern around the expanse of the mountain that had been sheared off. It was baffling in a way. It was as if a great blade had been swung and simply cut a piece of the mountain away, creating devastation in its wake. Observing the east trail and Talon was momentarily put off by it. He had to blink at it as he was utterly confused by the feeling that flooded into his mind. For a moment, he felt as though he were standing on the edges of a vast horizon. It was not an unfamiliar one as it was the same feeling he experienced whenever he opened himself up to the flow of the vast Aetherium that was always on the furthest edges of his awareness. Always nearby and yet always just out of reach. The paradoxical experience momentarily had Talon’s head spinning before he shook it and brought himself back into focus.

Beholding all of them, the two trails that stood out to him the most were the ones that emanated that inexplicable feeling of weightlessness. He drew back his power enough to concentrate on the threads of the eastern trail that he could follow. He did not know what to make of it. He did not even know what it meant but it was that feeling that lay just beneath everything he could sense. So he would follow it.

“We go East.” Talon looked to the soldiers. “I do not know what waits for us there. Something powerful enough to cut a mountain in half. Fly with me to face it or return to Kalzasi and aid in the recovery of our people. I have no doubt that this devastation has awoken things in the Warrens. Things that will take advantage of the distraction it has caused.”

He already knew what Aoren’s choice would be. Talon turned to the eastern trail. He stepped forward, spread his wings, and then took to the skies. Talon kept the eastern trail within his awareness, following what had revealed itself to the best of his ability. If the soldiers decided to join him, he would lead them in bringing down this foe. If they returned to assist in the recovery efforts or to deal with other threats from the Warrens, he would see that as an act just as honorable. The reality of it was, and he had no doubt that they knew this, anything that was powerful enough to do this to a mountain was a foe that would be terrifying in its capabilities. This enemy was intelligent enough to make a coordinated delivery of a message, to accomplish the devastation to the mountain and countryside, and to obscure themselves. It was no mindless beast they would be facing.

And that, more than anything, worried him.

[Aegis]

As Prince Talon made his decision and gave the orders, looks were passed around the Silent Wings. Together, they all nodded, and half took off, flying back toward Kalzasi, the other half remaining with the prince.

"We will fly with you, sir."

That left four highly skilled, highly trained, and extremely competent special operations fighters in Talon's command. They took up a diamond formation around the prince, offsetting their altitudes so as to better protect and also not obscure his vision. After all, they were following him, not leading. They all came prepared with their own weapons and tools, armor and gear, enough to travel swiftly. If they needed to stay in a place longer, they were skilled enough to make a camp from the surrounding wilds.

The East Trail, under Talon's divinely enhanced gaze, continued to throb and emit that feeling of the Aethereum. This trail was direct, unlike the others, hovering over a small river that wound through the valley, fed by multiple peaks, and ultimately ending up back in Lake Udori. Upon closer inspection, Talon would be able to see a slight seam in the central portion of the trail, as well as would be able to see that the trail was moving. Similar to the river itself below, it actively flowed, however acutely, but movement was there.

Talon would know that between the four Silent Wings at his disposal, they covered six personal magics and two world magics at Expert levels. Each had a mastery in one style of combat, between weapons and unarmed, and all were intimately familiar with the tactics, commands, and styles used in the Kalzasern military.

Those that flew toward Kalzasi did so with great haste. They would return to their hidden roles within Kalzasi, and look to help with the recovery efforts as able. As they flew, one of them smirked just a hair, and one of the others saw it, a flat scowl adorning their face. It wouldn't be long at all until they disappeared from Talon's sight.

[Aegis]

REVIEW TIME

An enemy with a personal grudge against Talon, a willingness to harm the people of Kalzasi, and powerful resources or abilities has escaped Justice.

Lores:
6 Skill Lores

Loot: A mysterious nemesis and more guilt, probably.
Injuries: likely more emotional damage.

Points: 10, may be used for Semblance

Comments: A plot to save for another day perhaps. Also, check the first letter in each line of the Letter Talon received to start this plot.