Roam With You [Torin]

[Destyn]

Roam With You

21 Frost, 121

Ere Destyn alighted on Torin's doorstep, the Fae hovered above the modest home. His arms were a bit sore from toting what few belongings he'd accrued during his time in Kalzasi, but he was inclined to regard his new home (or at least half of his circuit of new homes) with fresh eyes. He took note of the magnetic currents and how they responded to the dwelling and the magic housed therein. Places where magic was practised tended to draw or repel the fields his eyes were attuned to registering- Often both. The patterns created by Torin's home were quite beautiful to his cryptochrome vision- If he were a sculptor he might have attempted to recreate it so Torin could see some semblance of what Destyn could when taking in his home. Their home.

He landed and set his bags down on either side of himself, then wrapped his knuckles against the door. He couldn't temper the broad grin of excitement that accompanied him for the whole of the journey from his former dwelling place. The seconds it took for Torin to answer the door might have been an hour for Destyn's eager impatience.

Once the door opened, Destyn realised he didn't really know exactly what he was looking so forward to. He hadn't much to unpack, and he'd visited the house before, so it wasn't as though he needed a grand tour. Honestly, the day would probably be much like any given hangout with Torin... It just wouldn't be as quick to end. He supposed that was what he looked forward to- Chatting late into the evening. Drinking mead or mulled wine at fireside. Perhaps snuggling up against the large, warm human when he grew weary and falling asleep on him.

But that would be many hours away if it were to happen at all. For now, he would settle for an embrace, which he claimed as soon as the door was open wide enough for him to slip through.

"Hiyee! I am now home, yes?" He said into Torin's broad shoulder.

Roam With You

[Torin Kilvin]

Torin knew Destyn was supposed to arrive soon, so he'd finished up with his morning's work and even managed a bit of a wash to get the iron and fire smells off him before his friend was to arrive. Timon was equally interested, but had been told to mind the shop. The smith was aware of the fact that the command would only keep his apprentice out from underfoot for a limited amount of time. Enough, Torin hoped, to allow the Fae' time to at least decide which room he wanted and arrange his things.

As soon as he heard the knock he hurried out from the kitchen where he had been waiting by the warmth of the fire. Pulling open the door he grinned at his friend, feeling quite like he was fourteen again and they were playing house; pretending to be adults.

"Hello." He said, trying to sound normal and almost managing it. "Yes, you are. Let me get your bags?" They weren't large, but, of course, they wouldn't be. Taking both the little burdens he led the way up the stairs.

"Have you decided which bedroom you want yet?"

They were both basically the same, though one had a west-facing window and one an east, they both had a south-facing one. For Frost at least he intended to have one of the Illumite lamps with their sunny light available for his friend once they were no longer needed as advertisements for the shop every evening. The smith had harvested the shards in the light of dawn himself and thought they might encourage his friend through the cold months.

The work to restore the two bedrooms was done, though he hadn't put in furniture into either one except a basic bed. He figured Destyn could decorate as he chose and the bed could go into the empty room if he wanted a new one. Having a guest room with two beds seemed wise anyway.

"Just remember the ghost is in the room with the west-facing window. It has been sleeping quietly since Lady Kala put it to sleep but who knows when it might wake again."

[Destyn]

Roam With You

21 Frost, 121

Destyn got on his tiptoes and swayed a bit in the embrace, before releasing Torin who immediately went for his bags.

"Oh, thank you!" He exclaimed, following him inside. "I have not." Destyn confessed with a sigh.

"I do not, I think, understand this concept. I never had my own room before Kalzasi, and it always felt like..." He frowned, "...like what is the word for when people who are sick are separated from the healthy? Kwaramtime?" That sounded right, "I felt like I was living in Kwaramtimes. I do not like that. I want to be free!"

But the mention of a ghost drew his attention to the room in question.

"Ooh, put my things in there, then! I will make friends with the ghost and then I will never be lonely, even when you are too busy melting metals and that." The aroma from the forge was quite potent to Destyn's sensitive nose and, unfortunately, reminded him quite a bit of the scent in the South that had heralded the doom of his tribe. It smelled of industry, here. Still, though his conscious mind recognised that it was incidental and unrelated, there was a primal part of him that felt on edge in the presence of the ashen odour.

"I hope that you are not too busy today." He said, stepping into the ghost's room and looking all around in search of said spectre. "It will not take me long to unpack." He said, taking one back and unceremoniously overturning it- sending the contents clattering onto the floor. "See?" He did the same thing with the other bag which, being full of clothes, did not make as much noise as the first.

"Done. Now let us do something fun!"

Roam With You

[Torin Kilvin]

Torin attempted to keep the surprised and vaguely horrified look from his face as the Fae emptied his bags onto the floor in the least ceremonial way the smith had ever seen. The human wasn't critically clean himself, sometimes leaving dishes till the morning or forgetting his own clothes on the floor when they were dirty but a part of his mind always craved the neatness of his forge and...

"Perhaps we can get you a chest and other furniture, if you'd like." If he didn't like, that would be fine. Torin didn't have to be in his room so, it would be fine.

It was easy to see why Destyn wouldn't understand why people in settled areas wanted their own rooms, so he tried to explain.

"I think having your own room is important when you live in a city because you can't just wander off any time you want to be alone. In a village or with a caravan when you want to be by yourself, or alone with just one other person, you can get that privacy easily. Here you can't, so we set aside areas for personal privacy. You don't have to stay or even sleep in here if you don't want to. While it's Frost out I thought you might like to use one of the Illumite lamps I made, they simulate sunlight because they absorb it in the high mountains. But you can sleep downstairs by the hearth or even outside if you don't think you'll be cold."

The excitement about the ghost worried Torin a little, he wasn't sure what sort of connection Fae’ethalan had with human spirits, living or dead.

"My patron, Lady Kala, she is a Necromancer and put the ghost to sleep and mostly contained it. Try not to upset it, it seemed very upset before she came to settle it down." The ghost hadn't harmed anyone, or even anything, before it had been quieted but that did not mean it couldn't.

"I had thought I might go back and do some Runeforging after lunch but I can do it later." A thought occurred to him,

"What do you usually do all day?"

[Destyn]

Roam With You

21 Frost, 121

Destyn didn't seem to notice Torin's dismay at what he considered an exceedingly efficient unpacking session.

"Do not spend money on me. I will tend to these things myself." He objected, shaking his head emphatically.

As Torin explained the concept of room assignments, Destyn shifted- Bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet from one to the next and back. His shirt, too, seemed to be in flux pulling taught to his form and then loosening out into a billowing puff, which Torin might realise was being caused by the motion of his wings under the garment. He was ostensibly a bundle of nervous energy and it expressed itself in a childlike overabundance of energy that defied stillness.

"Ooh, can I have a lamp? If you give me sunlight for inside I can grow more plants in the-... in my room. With time I can, maybe, coax them into furniture so you do not have to spend money on me. I do not like money. It causes problems, so I prefer to do things for myself when I can. Or at least with help from my friends." Although in this instance he meant his floral friends, rather than the sapien.

"Perhaps the ghost had good reason to be upset. It is a very distressing thing, I think, to die, though I have never done it myself. I came very close and that was the most upsetting thing that ever happened to me. I think, if I had died and become a ghost, I would have been very upset and hard to calm, too." He tilted his head, pausing his restless bouncing as he considered Torin's query.

"Well... You know, I have wings, so I can still wander off to be alone sometimes even in the city. Sometimes the Avialae interrupt me, because they are very pushy and not as good at flying as me, but during the day I go out to explore a lot. I have started leaving the city and visiting places where my clan used to go. Not very far, but..." He sighed,

"I do not know what to do with myself, in truth. My life..." His shoulders slumped, "...lacks purpose. Mostly I wait around until you or Sivan wants to see me so I can be happy again." A smile lit up his eyes once more,

"That is why I am happy to live with you now! I will not have to wait so long."

Roam With You

[Torin Kilvin]

Torin watched the excess of energy showing itself in Destyn and realized, belatedly, that the way his friend acted hadn't changed since they had met as young teenagers. He wasn't sure how long Fae’ethalan were considered children for. Perhaps, though his body had certainly grown taller, the person inside it was still trying to grow into it. The concept was one Torin was achingly familiar with himself and he couldn't judge it. It did make him wonder if he should offer some of the care types he gave to Timon. Asking might not be polite, and beyond that, it might cause the Fae to feel judged.

"You can have the lamps as soon as they aren't needed to light the shop. I close around sunset in Frost, so you will have daylight in the day and lamplight at night, if you want it. I haven't tested to see if the light can grow plants." The smith hadn't even considered if it might, but there was no reason it wouldn't work.

"Grow as much as you like, perhaps, if you cover the walls it will feel less like isolation and more like the forest?" The topic of conversation changed rapidly, but, so far, he was able to keep up.

"I hadn't even thought that the ghost might not be justified." He blinked, considered what he thought he knew about it. "I found a diary of a young serving woman, hidden in the wall in here before it was repaired. I thought that, perhaps, it was her ghost, but I can't be sure. It used to throw things, lamps, dishes, silverware, things a serving woman might grow to hate. It is just a theory, but I don't wish it ill, whatever reason it stayed." His eyes couldn't help but drift to the corner where Kala had described sewing the ghost into its nest of darkness.

The confession, though it did not seem like a confession, of loneliness and purposelessness tugged hard at the human's heart. Torin had been lonely a lot, and got through it mostly by embracing his purpose.

"Well," He began as they exited the bedroom back into the hall. "There is a washroom on this floor, but the plumbing doesn't work. I haven't had someone come out to look at it yet but, if you wanted to, you could summon a sprite to take a look at it. I know Sivan uses his sprites to keep his home comfortable and running well. If you wanted to do anything like that to make the house more comfortable for you, I would be happy to have whatever spirits you summoned join our little family."

[Destyn]

Roam With You

21 Frost, 121

"Some plants will grow bigger and faster with more consistent light." Destyn explained, "It is thus in parts of the world where Summer's light is nearly constant. Or so I am told. I have never been quite so far to the North." He looked around the room,

"I bet I can make it very different. Very... verdant in here. Maybe, even, the ghost will like it? If she was a servant and hates things that she had to do in toil, perhaps she would like to have a place that feels like it is not of this house. If she is trapped here, maybe she also would like to feel like she can be amongst vibrant things rather than just glass and dead wood." The idea of redecorating in this way seemed to excite the Fae. "I cannot tell you what it will look like, because I will let the plants decide for themselves how they wish to grow." He stepped over to a window to look out and consider the possibility of ivy. He glanced over his shoulder with a bit of a frown.

"I... do not know if I can summon sprites." He confessed reluctantly. "The magic of Sivan works differently from mine and he is more potent. I can see his Sprites, but I cannot invoke my own. Even the sorts of spirits I one could Summon, I no longer can. I am, I think, broken?" He turned back toward the window and placed a palm against the cool glass.

"It is weird how glass feels. It is like if water was hard, but not as cold as ice." He leaned forward and mushed his cheek against the glass to see what the sensation would be. "That feels good." He decided, though his words were muffled by the way his face was contorted against the pane.

Roam With You

[Torin Kilvin]

The smith listened to his new housemate speak of plants in a much more intimate and knowledgable way than he would have been able to himself. For all Torin had grown up in a farming community, he hadn't been trained in anything beyond the growing of a kitchen garden, and even that had been more by proxy of watching it done so many times then having had anyone actually instruct him.

"Plants might help insulate the room too. I have been meaning to make some braziers for the other bedrooms. Timon doesn't spend might time in his, except when he is sleeping and he has thick blankets, and mine has a fireplace."

The last part of the sentence was said quietly, as though Torin was a bit ashamed of himself for not offering what most would consider the best room to his friend. He knew that the man of the house, or the main working adult, was expected to have the largest or otherwise most comfortable room, but he still felt a little bad.

As for the ghost, Torin had no the slightest clue what any ghost might want, except maybe peace, and even that was a big maybe. If the spirit did turn out to be that of a serving girl it would surely depend on how she had lived her life. If she had been raised in a village surrounded by farms and forests, perhaps the greenery would soothe her. If she had lived her whole life in the city, it might upset her further.

"Oh." Was all he said at first when Destyn answered his inquiry about summoning sprites. Torin didn't have much experience with cardinal runes but he had been taught to think that while each person might think about, interpret, their use differently, the abilities that came with each were the same. Maybe that was true for humans; all humans getting the same abilities from the same runes, but different for other races?

"I didn't know you couldn't. I'm sorry. Have you..." He hesitated, considering possible options to help, "Spoken to Sivan about it? I don't know if he could help but he does know some medicine and healing alchemy. Or there are the Tranquil Gardens, you could speak to a trained healer, they even have some Fae’ethalan healers, though I don't know any myself."

The thought made him wonder something else, causing him to ask, gently,

"Have you spoken to any other Fae’ethalan since... coming to Kalzasi?"

[Destyn]

Roam With You

21 Frost, 121

Destyn nodded.

"This is likely so." The notion of insulation hadn't even come into the equation for the Fae. The limitations of the room were news to him as Torin posed his observations, but he wasn't overly concerned. He'd spent many winters with no walls at all, let alone insulated ones.

"Of course!" Destyn knitted his brow, "Why would you know this? I have never told you." He knew that it was probably all in his head. Summoning was the discipline his mother had wanted him to master. He'd wanted Masquerade, but she encouraged him to learn Summoning first, so it felt inextricably bound to his past in a troubling way. In truth, he hadn't attempted to Summon often since arriving in Kalzasi and he got so shaky and nervous that he fumbled and failed.

"I do not wish to trouble anyone... Least of all the spirits." He shook his head, suddenly serious. Sullen. "The Tranquil Gardens were where I began my recovery. I still will, sometimes, go there. It is the happiest place in all the city for plants, I think. They are tended with great care and I find it calming to be in their presence." The Tranquil Gardens were, to Destyn's mind, aptly named.

"Nae..." He glanced from the window to Torin, "I have not spoken to others of my kind. Unless you count the tree in Sivan's back yard? I have spoken to that tree, but it was a one-sided conversation because it is a living grave." He wrinkled his nose and shrugged. "But... Why do you ask?"

Roam With You

[Torin Kilvin]

While Destyn's physical body seemed to have mended itself over the two seasons he had spent in Kalzasi, it seemed there were wounds that went deeper. It made sense, Torin knew that his emotional injuries still lurked in him, waiting for moments of weakness.

Running a hand over the back of his neck the large human shrugged one shoulder.

"I don't know. I thought that they might know more about what you're going through than a human would?"

Whether the knowledge would be of any use, the connection with other Fae might help heal something less tangible than the loss of magical ability. Torin did not say this though, it felt wrong, like suggesting someone talk to a random parent after losing their own parents; as though relationships were interchangeable.

Ready to be done with the subject before his often intuitive friend figured out what he had accidentally thought he said,

"If you're ready to come back downstairs, my apprentice has been practically bouncing all morning wanting to meet you."

Leading the way down and then out into the yard briefly before entering the shop, which was currently shining brightly with the Illumite lamps and heated by a large brazier. Timon stood at the counter, looking an odd combination between bored and excited with anticipation. As soon as the other two entered he perked up from where he'd been leaning on the counter and said,

"Hello! I'm Timon." Pushing his slim arm out, offering to shake Destyn's hand.

Torin just hung back, interested in how the meeting would go and realizing in that moment that Timon and Destyn were similar in many ways. They wouldn't be mistaken for relations, unless observed from a ways away, and their manner of speaking wasn't the same, but there was some essential energy between them that felt kin in the smith's head.