[Tranal] Where It All Began

[Asher]

Ash 27, Year 124

It was difficult to see it all again. The more he ruminated on everything... the more it clung to him. Spiraling, spiraling... into his sight, into his mind. It worked its way through the channels of his thought, but it was like a stench that seeped into his skin. It lingered on his body. It was a disease... this memory. This longing. He'd always been so, so loyal and so peerless: he'd always believed the Imperium's dogma like nothing else was left, but once he'd had his first taste of meaning... that was all gone. Family, he learned, meant everything to him. He'd never really had one, but maybe that was why he craved one above all else. The little glimpse he was given... it was meant to be merely a duty, given that the Imperium knew Talon would become endeared to him; that he would desire him.

But it became so much more than that. A poison. The seedling of disloyalty—the beginning of the man questioning everything he had lived so far, and everything he could have been. Those days he spent alongside Talon, with wind drifting through his hair as they peered over the coast... or even merely in the shadowy foyer of their shared prison, he remembered those moments fonder than all the rest. He longed for him now: he still dreamed of him, of his shape, of the touch of his skin and the feel of his breath. He longed for him... and he mourned. He mourned every moment away from him, every opportunity lost to raise his son, a boy he heard was—in some ways—so much like him.

Seated on the edge of a cliff, something he did often while engaged in his solo patrols, he peered over the great vastness and into the endless array of pines below. "Talon," he whispered, beneath words. Quiet, yet his heart poured out into every escaped breath from his lips. His lungs tightened, and his eyes filled with the gloss of what would have become tears. "I know it's been too long. Too long of absence for you to forgive... but I really wish I could go back. Really wish I could return to that last moment I had with you... that last goodbye. Wish I could escape these chains. Wish I could see our son. Wish I could be a man, and not the statue of one."

His eyes glowered downwards, and he bit his lower lip, shaking his head bitterly. "How is it that this is all my life has come to be? Sequestered away from the world, lamenting promise I never had. I don't know what to do anymore—it's like there's a gaping anguish growing in me, spreading. It's become its own organ: a vessel of sorrow, and loss, and pain. A drought of the soul. Why is that? Why was experiencing love enough to do that to me? I don't understand."

Burying his face within his large hands, the Kathar whimpered. He begged for understanding, and for meaning... for purpose within the pain. Within the decades of futility he'd toiled through, all to achieve something that brought him no satisfaction: strength. He didn't care for power, for influence, for the Empire's might. He didn't long for any of those things. He longed for something else—for a man that wasn't there, for a family that never was, for a version of himself that wasn't aligned or suited for this world. For happiness. That mattered so much more to him than respect, or admiration. And yet he had none at all.

"Help me understand," he whispered, voice becoming quiet from futility. "Help me, Talon. Please."

[Talon]

T A L O N

The cold winds of an Astralar morning brushed through the feathers of Talon’s wings. As had become his habit, he was facing the east as the skies of the Northlands began to transition from midnight velvet to the pale grey of morning dawn. He could feel it. Across the city, across Karnor, and stretching even as far south as the continent of Ecith, devotees who could see the rising of the sun in this hour, awakening to go about their morning devotions. Devotions to him. Devotions to the King of the Dawn. Talon was still coming to terms with the greater role that divinity was playing in his life as he mentored the Dawnmartyrs. Stepping away from the role of Prince of Kalzasi to embrace the mantle of the Prince of Dragons was still not easy but he was learning. He was learning that often the most important thing he could do as a receiver of faith was not to be the ascendant warrior wielding sword of flame or spell of might, often it was simply the act of listening, of giving mortals the reassurance that someone was listening. For he was finding that the act of simply being a listener, gave mortals the hope they needed to make it through just one more day.

And as he listened, he heard a voice that he had not heard in going on two years.

But it was a voice that he would never forget.

There was such pain. There was such loss. It called to him in a way that he was all too familiar with. Had he not been as lost? Was he not still finding his own way? Talon was under no illusion that his time in the Imperium would ever be something he could shrug off. It had been harrowing and filled with pain on a level that had scarred him deeply. He was, however, healed enough from the traumas of that grueling endeavor to be able to look to the southeast and not feel only anger. For as much pain as had been inflicted, one of the greatest joys of his life had been a result of enduring that pain.

He hesitated. Should he go? Should he reach for that pain in an effort to soothe it?

Talon felt a stirring across his Bond. He felt his bondmate peer into his mind and his heart and after a moment, he felt Aoren wrap him in the warmth that could come only from a red dragon. It said go. It said bring comfort. But most of all? It said to bring hope.

It did not take him long. Only a breath. As the morning rays of sunlight touched upon a familiar face, one that he had seen often in his dreams as that of someone comforting during his imprisonment, all Talon had to do was step between the realms material, trek across His plane of Light, and to where the weary warrior sat wondering.

Help me, Talon. Please. Spoken in a whispered voice.

Talon arrived with the morning light that touched upon Asher’s hands. As the warmth of the dawn touched those hands, so too did Talon physically reach out and gently take Asher’s hands in his own. Silver eyes looked into hazel. A gentle smile spread across the Dawnking’s face.

“Always.”

[Asher]

Ash 27, Year 124

The last thing he would've thought to feel was the converging of that warmth—it dashed across time and space, and once it came nearer, he could feel it against him. It held a palpable shape: it meshed and melded within his own breadth, the warmth mingling with his body until he felt soothed. Hands were suddenly locked within his own, and silver eyes peered into his. Asher nearly gulped down a sob as he saw the man face-to-face: he almost doubted whether he could believe that he was really there. He had been conditioned for so long to imagine that he'd be alone, throughout the rest of his life. He'd lost the trust and respect once given to him; he'd been relegated from an Emperor's Guard to the overseer of a hilltop fort, denounced for the mental weakness that grew in him from the rift burdened by the loss of the man he knew.

And here he was. That man. Whether or not he fully believed he was there, and whether or not he resented him for what he'd done to instill doubt into his mind, he leaned into him and pressed his face into the crook of his neck. He collapsed into Talon's weight and his warmth, whimpering for a time, before breathing in his scent and going still.

"I missed you," Asher muttered, his voice muffled against Talon's skin. "If I knew you were only a whisper from me, I would have called for you long ago. I feel... lost, Talon. I don't understand my purpose any longer—I've lost my son. Our son. He was taken from me... taken to be a tool of this realm, which considers me a man without a face. A man worthy of nothing." Glaring down until he felt his stare searing into the stone, Asher shut his eyes, his temples throbbing as he tried to calm his nerves. To speak clearly, to say what he wanted to say. "I've been given nothing but privilege in my life since Calus was slain, but I don't want any of the gifts or luxuries they give to me. I want Taryn, and I want you. I want freedom." He was spewing bile and heresy; words that could have him killed. That would have him killed, if ever the wrong soul heard them. He was beginning not to care; this was the spiral he'd warned himself about. The one that took his father away, that led to his death. The one from which deserters were born.

"I've tried to be good. I've told myself—if I'm their servant, at least they'll let me see my son again. At least, perhaps, he'll know me. He'll know the man that I am. But no matter what I do to serve them, I am not given the most simple of things. I am constrained: from love, from family, from warmth. They think my attachments weaken me. And they're right. Since you've gone, I've become so weak." Those words were spoken with pure bitterness... and sorrow. Asher nearly spat them out. "I want my son. Don't you? Why don't you do anything to protect him—from them? From the things they would have him become?"

[Talon]

T A L O N

He did not shy away from the embrace. He wrapped his arms around Asher’s broad frame, hugging him tightly. He could feel it. As Hope was his to know and see, so too was its opposite; Despair. Asher was in the depths of it. A man reeling with the shock of having his worldview completely shattered and realigned. It was not dissimilar to the state that he had first encountered Aoren in. Aoren had been seeking purpose through death as a voluntary member of Kalzasi’s Dead Legion. He reached up, entwining his fingers into the curls of Asher’s hair and just listened. He listened to the dangerous things that were coming out of his mouth, words spoken from the depths of a soul that was searching for meaning beyond the regimented luxury of a golden cage gilded with a veneer of glory.

Asher’s words about his son--their son--stung him only in a small way. They were spoken from a place of pain and he did not expect, at least not in that moment, for Asher to truly grasp the enormity of what it meant to do the thing he was asking. Talon himself had been in a place not dissimilar not that long ago, driven to the pits of despair at the loss of perhaps what was one of the greatest points of joy in his life. He very nearly had gone on a crusade to storm the Imperium and wrest Taryn from them only to abscond with him to Kalzasi.

“More than anything.” Talon withdrew only slightly from Asher, folding his legs beneath him, suspended in mid-air over the cliffside with but a simple application of his kinetics.

“Which is precisely why I have kept my distance.” Talon brought his hands to his lap, folding them and looking down. His brow furrowed.

“Can you imagine what they would have done to him if I assailed the strongholds of the Imperium? The Emperor has been careful enough to allow me to see him, hale and strong but little else. I have not spoken to him and if I forced such an interaction, I shudder to think of the consequence of such an encounter.” Talon shook his head.

“I want our son. I want him healthy. I want him strong. I want him safe.” Talon looked up from his hands. “If I act with force, that force will be met in kind. You, far more than I, know that the Imperium does not hesitate to use every advantage in its arsenal, no matter how depraved.”

Talon turned his head. He cast his gaze in the direction where he could feel Taryn. He always had a general sense of what direction Taryn was in. He knew quite well that the Imperium went to great lengths to bar him from actively scrying on his son but there was at least one connection to his child that could not be completely blocked. He had no shadow of a doubt that the Imperium, as valuable as Taryn may have been to them, would not hesitate to harm his son if it served their interests. He had seen the crazed zeal that shone within the eyes of the Emperor himself. That was not a man one tested unless they were fully prepared to face the consequences of such a test and Talon was not in a position to risk Taryn’s safety in such a way. Not yet.

He looked at Asher.

“Is it weakness to realize that you have found a reason to live beyond merely the mantle of duty? Is it weakness to realize you want more than the cold steel of an Imperial sword?”

Avialae formed strong bonds. It did not surprise Talon that the revelation that he had a son, that he knew who his son was, had shaken Asher so strongly. Family moved all Avialae on some level, it was the loss of family that had pushed Talon to the very extreme that drove the Imperium and Zaichaer to view him as such a threat.

[Asher]

Ash 27, Year 124

His emotions were a confluence of things that made poor sense, all... mangled in his mind as an incoherent stream. Emotions were indeed complicated like that--they tended to bleed, into one another, from one another, and out through avenues in one seamless fashion. The truth was, Asher held some form of resentment, but it wasn't from a place of hatred or envy. It was because he longed for Talon, regularly. He longed to be family with him--to have a family like he had, where he had someone he could love and depend on. Who he felt safe with. In truth, he did not even know Talon very well, but he knew that the moments he had with him in the past were tranquil... and even beautiful. He'd never had moments like them, and it was from there that his resentment began. The absence of that meaning and warmth, it suspended him through the cold environment he felt locked in now.

Even so, everything that man said made sense. His reasons for not intervening... they were logical. They were fair-minded, and level. They weren't rash, driven by his delusions of power and primacy. No---Talon acted out of a will to protect his son, which Asher admired. Whatever he felt in him that wanted to antagonize the other, it faded. It was never there in earnest, to begin with.

"You aren't wrong," he admitted, a sharp sigh heaving from his large chest. The Avialae bit down on his lower lip, and he shook his head bitterly, his face lowering. He could barely make eye contact with the other; he felt shame, somehow. Talon had already grown and changed, while he had done little. He was stagnant, here. "I wish I could ask you to take me from here--to let me leave with you. But I worry for our son if I do. I can't help but think I might be able to do good for him here," he said. That was the one thing preventing him from conjuring his crystalline wings and flying free. He knew he could make it--he was faster than any other. He couldn't travel through light like Talon could, but among the Imperial Legion, there would be no man that could track him. Calus could, but he was dead.

Asher looked, finally, into Talon's warm gaze. He took him in, feeling a bright thrum emanating from him, and he placed a hand on his. "No," the Kathar whispered. "The men of this place would call it weakness, but I wouldn't. Not anymore. You're right--I am not weak. But I am lonely. The loneliness I felt before you... the void all men have... it has grown so much in your absence. I questioned why you hadn't come to me; whether your moment with me was a spot of shame. I've compared myself to Aoren, and have felt shame. I don't want to feel that way. But I want to be with you, Talon. With certainty, I do." His eyes seemed so filled with sorrow: like they were soon to shut, collapsed. His lips nearly trembled. It was too much for a man like him to confess, but confess he did. This had been brewing for a long, long time.

[Talon]

T A L O N

“What would you ask of me, Asher?” He posed the question plainly and without malice. He genuinely wanted to know. For two years, Asher had been silent and while Talon had never forgotten the warrior with whom the Countess had matched him, he had kept his distance. Much like with Taryn, he did not know what the Imperium would do to the man if they grew closer. Brief though their time had been together, it had been a single point of joy in what had otherwise been a brutal period.

“Could I take you from this place? Yes. I could. Few could stop me. With a breath, I could bridge the distance between here and anywhere across the infinite planes of all creation.” Even in that moment, Talon could see where the Light of all realms touched. For where the Light went, so too did he. With Traversion, he could open doorways to those places that allowed others to follow him and provided it was not a place warded from intrusion, they could go most anywhere.

“But, I worry what such an intervention would mean for our son. Were I to take you, what would that mean for Taryn? Would they see my taking of you as the first step in trying to take him? Perhaps. Would they lock him away as they did me? I do not know. My powers are many but they are not without limits.” That was what frightened him the most. His brow furrowed and he worried his lip. What did they do to Taryn in those places he could not see? What would they do to him if he were to move?

With stark clarity, he suddenly realized, perhaps ironically so, why his own divine father had stayed his hand. Paralyzed by the fear of not being able to act swiftly enough to save one he loved, he waited and hoped for the moment where either Taryn could free himself or was not in such a perilous position.

As Asher confessed the thoughts that clearly had been weighing heavy on his heart, Talon watched him steadily. He was again reminded of the plight of the Kathar, something that had always been on the peripheral of his mind but never quite so present. As real as it had been with Aoren, his husband had freed himself and had the chance to heal and grow beyond the constraints of the Imperium. Asher did not have such freedom. To have woken from the indoctrination of the Imperium and realize that all the Emperor professed was not what one wanted out of life was a stunning realization. It was heresy for any Imperial, death for a Kathar. His own feelings for the man were complicated.

“I could never feel shame for what we shared. The circumstances of our meeting were terrible but meeting you was--is--not a source of pain for me. I respect you, Asher. I admire you. If given the chance, I want to know what it is that I feel for you.” Talon reached out. He hesitated. His hand stopped just short of cupping Asher’s cheek.

“However, in this, you must be the one to choose. You have been robbed of the freedom of choice all your life. In hindsight, maybe that was a reason I stayed away. I will not ask you to make your choices today.” He smiled. “But if it is more of me that you desire...well...you need only ask.”