"Sunlight" [Urs]

[Destyn]

Sunlight

2 Glade, 122

Destyn grimaced slightly and a pang of guilt wracked the core of him.

"Sometimes saying what you think can get you into terrible trouble, though... And that can, sometimes, also hurt people you love." Destyn's light airy demeanour was natural, but there was also a crippling sadness and guilt that followed him like a dark cloud since the loss of his clan. It had been his fault, he knew, and yet he had lived and they had died for his folly. In his culture death was not a true ending, but it still felt that way to a boy orphaned in a world that felt increasingly alien the further he drew away from nature's light. The closing of Kalzasi's borders wasn't a mere inconvenience to him, it was an amputation.

"I do not mind wet, but dark is scary and cold is uncomfortable." He said of the Midden as Urs described it. "Are you a person who believes that hardship is necessary to become strong? I have read books with characters like that, but many times, I think, they are villains in the story." He blinked, considering how that may have come across.

"Not! ...not that I think you, Urs, are a villain, but that is, maybe, a sad way to look at things. Or maybe it is empowering?" He considered his own lot. "Maybe I will be stronger someday, now that I am an orphan." He wrinkled his nose and lowered his head, sadly.

"But I would rather be surrounded by the strength of my clan than be a stronger individual for losing them. I do not like this... Independence." He knitted his brow, "But that is why I have Torin and Sivan. They are not a clan, but I am not alone anymore."

[Urs Wardell]

“Honesty isn’t easy,” Urs said, “But I’d never prefer a lie to the truth.”

Destyn felt and he felt so readily. His aura screamed with a vibrancy. Light and dark swelled and played against each other. It felt unending, the break of him against himself. And this, Urs realized, was loss. The pull between memory and living.

Oh, he thought, finally understanding. Destyn carried it all - the past, his guilt, the fear that followed.

Oh, little bird, how can you fly holding so much?

“Maybe,” he shrugged, a few more eyes floating around. Imagines of the city flashed, like perfect windows to a place that wasn’t here. “I think having survived anything means you aren’t dead. I don’t know if it makes you strong.”

Pain, he knew, wasn’t a way to become more. But it was a part of living. “I had friends. I had someone who kept me safe. But I left, because it was better than staying. It wasn’t because it was bad, or worse,” Which, well. The Midden showed you everything Kalzasi tried to hide.

“It was different. Kalzasi is dark, too. It can be scary. I think having the sun doesn’t mean it’s warm.”

Toothless rolled in the air, eyes floating past - and then, suddenly, they disappeared.

“Contract’s up. They’re going around the city for me - or were. Now…things are harder,” he sighed, “I’m looking for my clan, I guess. I don’t think I’ll find them now.”

[Destyn]

Sunlight

2 Glade, 122

Destyn shook his head.

"No, you are right. Lying is bad... But sometimes silence is better than being honest. Not all honesty is helpful." He seemed to be deriving these notions just as he said them. He was surprising himself, it seemed. These notions felt important. Not the sort of things he thought about on his own, but sometimes with prompting he came to such discoveries.

"Well, we are both not dead." The Fae noted, "So that is something." There was a sing-song lilt to his voice, even when he sounded a bit grim there was whimsy within his tones.

"I agree." Destyn glanced up through the leafy branches that obscured the sun, squinting at its hot, white light. "I do not love Kalzasi... I do not love any city. There is something... unnatural in them. They are worse, I think, in the South where they make the clouds black and malodorous with their vile god. They call it 'Industry' and it seems very hungry in a terrible way. Industry is why I fear Sivan's metal man. He looks, you know, like a product of that unnatural craft." He lowered his eyes as Toothless returned to view and then vanished from it.

"Oh..." He pouted, wishing he could have gotten to know the entity a bit better before it left, but perhaps another time.

"You are looking for your clan?" Destyn tilted his head, and his disappointment gave way to a more hopeful demeanour. "Is it a clan you have lost or one you hope to form?" Either was a noble endeavour to Destyn's mind, but the latter was more difficult to achieve than the former. He hoped it was the former.

[Urs Wardell]

D A T E

“I think, there, we might disagree,” Urs said, “I would always prefer the truth.”

Even if it hurt. He wasn’t sure why Mother lied so much. He wasn’t sure why she’d invented everything - and why she hid the truth. Whatever the reason Urs doubted he’d learn it. Unless there was another book out there, waiting. Perhaps she’d always meant to tell him the truth. Perhaps she’d always meant to die with it.

“I don’t care for either place,” he said, referencing both Kalzasi and Zaichaer. “But here - I’ve made something like a home. And there, Zaichaer, I think I have a family. I doubt I’ll meet them now, with war brewing.”

And, all because of a prince he’d never met or seen. People would die.

“It’s one I lost,” he said, “Taken from, maybe. I don’t know. I only just discovered them. I’m not sure if they’d know me, or if I would know them.”

He shrugged because there wasn’t much else he could do. He could cry or scream or yell at everything but that wouldn’t - and hadn’t - accomplish anything. Urs was only left with sore eyes and a sore throat and wishing he’d slept instead.

“But I’ll keep looking. I need to know. I want to know why I wasn’t with them - why I was here when they were there.”

[Destyn]

Sunlight

2 Glade, 122

Destyn canted his head to one side, again.

"Really?" The Fae seemed more curious than critical of Urs' assertion. "What if it was a truth about the core of you? Something you could never change and perhaps would not even want to? Would you wish to hear someone speak ill of that, even though it would not be helpful to anyone?" If they disagreed, Destyn wanted to know in what way. He was perfectly convincible, really, and part of him wanted his mind to be changed. He didn't like to be at odds with anyone.

"You wish to go to the South?! But-...!" He paused, realising his argument was irrelevant. "Oh, of course. You are human... They like humans there." The reason Zaichaer was dangerous to Destyn precluded Urs. He had come to learn that non-humans were seen as lesser amongst the Zaichaeri people and, moreover, Fae'ethalan were regarded to be intrinsically magical beings. Their strangeness and their origins stemming from another world were enough to garner particular contempt beyond that which was accorded many of the other races. He wished he had known that before Grauschweig.

"Well... I hope you find your people and that they will be home to you. I know it is difficult not to have people, and if there is any chance of connecting with them, you should, I think, take it." He smiled softly, but a bit sadly. He'd thought Urs might be a new friend, but their concourse would not be long-term if the human planned to relocate to that dread place that took his own clan from him.

[Urs Wardell]

“Of course,” Urs said, “It’s why I practice the magic I have. I wouldn’t want to See if I couldn’t bear Truth.”

It’d hurt, he knew, especially if it was someone he cared for - he wondered if he could bare Sivan thinking poorly of him. Urs would, because he would push to know, he’d push to See, and even if he regretted knowing he’d do it the same again. He’d spent too long wound up in Mother’s stories and, now, he clung so desperately to reality.

He wondered if Destyn had ever been lied to, or if he’d only ever known honesty. Perhaps if Urs had been only fed Truth he’d have grown sick of it, too.

“I don’t care what they like or don’t,” he said, “But I won’t go now. Not when war’s brewing. One day, just to see what’s out there. See who’s out there.”

The attack on Kalzasi had ruined everything. Zaichaer was ready to risk war. Both cities seemed ready to risk the lives of their citizens. The Covens, Urs hoped, would be safe. Agatha had made it seem like they lived separate from the city.

“I hope I find them, too. It’s hard, not having anyone.”

And it was. But…perhaps now, Urs had Sivan. “...do you live here? In this garden?”

[Destyn]

Sunlight

2 Glade, 122

Destyn nodded, but his nose was wrinkled in slight disappointment. He'd hoped Urs would make a case for why Destyn should agree with him so they wouldn't be at odds anymore, but he just doubled down without further explanation as to why he felt as he did.

Destyn wasn't the sort who usually minded when people were dismissive of him, but on this subject he felt compelled to press his position. It was a mortal matter and one of which he could speak with grim and terrible authority, given what he'd lost at the hands of Southern humans.

"You should care." The Fae countered. "It is different down there from here. If you do things they dislike they will kill you without a second thought. You are human, yes, but still a foreigner... a mage. These things are, there, not favoured. They are despised. And the hate in their hearts is as black and as noxious as the smoke in their skies." He sighed.

"I am sorry to be forward, but I am glad to hear you will not go now." He would not say so, but he feared this man was unprepared for what awaited him in the South. The minions of the dark god Industry were strident in their hatred. He had little doubt it had been their actions that led to the recent turmoil here.

He offered a slight smile as his hackles lowered and his expression softened back to its usual childlike warmth.

"If you say I can, perhaps, get to know you better. If you would like." He glanced around the garden, blinking at the question.

"I do not live here, no, but I sometimes will sleep here. I live with Torin and sometimes with Sivan. Before that, I did not have a concept of, um... living in one place. If I spent more than one night in the same spot it was incidental. I did not, like people in cities, have one place I considered home... considered mine. We rambled and camped where we felt welcomed by the, um... surroundings?" He wasn't sure if that was the word he wanted, but he let it out and studied Urs' eyes to see whether he seemed to comprehend his meaning.

[Urs Wardell]

[

“A witch,” Urs snapped, “Not a mage. Not a wizard.”

His face flushed, quickly, like he’d eaten too much red pepper. “I - excuse me.” Urs breathed, he breathed out, a rosy pink coloring out the red. He hated that word, mage. Mother raised him to be a witch. And so, a witch he would be. Nothing else. Not mage. Not wizard. Not warlock.

“I’m a witch. That’s an important word to me,” he said, cooler than before.

He felt silly. He valued being a witch too much. It didn’t mean anything here, not in Kalzasi. It meant little more in the Towers. And, in the Midden, where things mattered, Urs no longer had a home. Zaichaer was dangerous for witches but at least there, too, the word had meaning.

A silence weighed between them. He’d embarrassed himself. “I’m sorry. Everything -,” and he paused, swallowing his words. He didn’t have to justify himself, that wouldn’t solve anything. He hadn’t lost anyone, or anyone he’d known, not like Destyn had lost the prince. A friend. He’d been selfish and mean, and to someone who deserved neither.

“I apologize. I didn’t mean to have snapped.”

He sighed. “You can, I think. It’d be nice to have another friend.” He thought of Sivan. Perhaps not a friendship like that, he supposed, but another person to trust would be nice. Someone to help, even, as he looked for the Covens.

“That’s nice. You have many places,” even if nothing was home, but perhaps to Destyn, all of nature was a home.

[Destyn]

Sunlight

2 Glade, 122

Destyn's eyes went saucer wide as Urs's tone sharpened. His posture seemed to physically crumple at what he perceived to be chastisement, and his eyes immediately stung with salt.

"I am... This is not, you know, my first language this Common. I was taught that these words you speak are all, um... cinnamons... That they all mean the same thing." He tried to be clear, but dismayed as he was, the language they shared seemed to falter in his mind. As if being reminded of his imperfect mastery of Common was enough to distract him from using it as well as he typically did. Now he was questioning every turn of phrase, lest it be something else to set Urs off.

"If you will tell me what is the difference, then I will know better so I do not make you angry again next time, please?" The Fae nodded at the apology.

"It is all right. I am told I can be, um... vexing. I talk a lot and quickly and sometimes it embarrasses people or, I guess, I say the wrong thing and make people angry as well." He shrugged sheepishly.

"I think I have a home now. When I stay with Torin he made me choose one room that is mine. I did not understand, but he has the big room and his apprentice Timon has, also, a room. So now I have a room. But my room is also the room of a ghost. But I do not mind. I do not like to sleep by myself when I can avoid it. It feels, to me, scary. I would rather there be ghosts or grass than stone and solitude."

[Urs Wardell]

“It isn’t -,” he hesitated, pausing. Urs wasn’t sure how to explain the difference between a witch and a mage and a wizard. He wasn’t sure there was one, for anyone else besides him. It was something Mother made up. A line between her and Urs and the rest of the magical world. It wasn’t why they were witches and the rest something else. It was that they were witches and no one else was.

“The woman who raised me was a witch,” Urs said, finally, “And that means I am one, too. I studied in the Tower, and there they are all wizards or mages or warlocks. I’m none of those things. I couldn’t be,” he shrugs because he wasn’t sure what else to do. As much as Agatha had welcomed him into that world, it wasn’t his. The other students had made sure of that. Urs was too different.

He shakes his head, “I haven’t thought you vexing. Or that strange. You seem young, but that’s it. And that you are in a new place.”

And Urs had been that once, too. He was still that, he supposed. “At least, though, you have a home.”

He hadn’t known much of Torin - but he had heard a bit. A Runemage of some sort. Sivan was friends with him and he’d made something for Sivan in the past. Destyn was in good hands, he assumed, if Torin was keeping track of the Faerie. “...I should be going. But perhaps, some time soon, we should meet again. It’s nice to have friends.”